After having been served a cup of honey citron tea at a local Chinese restaurant (for $2 with no refills, seriously) I Googled around to see what it’s about before buying an enormous jar of the stuff that is ubiquitous at the Asian market. I came across an entry on Sinosplice discussing it, and scrolling down the comments I saw the following:

Russians really mangle tea, too… They get an itty bitty teapot, what we would consider a “one cup” teapot, and fill it halfway up with loose tea. Then they add water. They let this sit and become “tea concentrate” (and VERY BITTER). They then poor a little concentrate into a teacup and add hot water and kompot. The worst part is that they leave the tea leaves in the teapot for days and days and days, sometimes adding a fresh spoonful of loose tea to make it last longer.

And Starbucks thinks we’re having it so bad that we need their instant coffee. Nyuk nyuk.

Of late, I’ve avoided national chain restaurants due to their massive portions, so-so service in general, and the selections. Besides, I’ve been cooking a lot of my food, and with the help of a slow cooker, cooking has become much easier for me. Trying out a new restaurant, though, is the general exception to this trend. It also helps when it is recommended by a friend I trust on things beyond gastronomy. So, with another friend in tow, I checked out Houlihan’s in Elkridge, MD.

From the outside, the restaurant looks very modern and trendy. The inside is far, far warmer. Lots of wood, and soft lighting due to massive circular shades. The interiors are still bright; this isn’t like P.F. Chang’s where you can barely see your food.

We started off with calamari and buffalo chicken tenders. Pricing is similar to comparable places but the appetizer servings live up to the name. While not as small as, say, the single (or double, if you’re dainty) bite of an amuse bouche, they are smaller than your typical chain restaurant portions.

Appetizers: Calamari and Buffalo Chicken Tenders

(Read more…)

When I call myself a beer drinker, I mean to say that I drink beer if I want to get some drink in me. I will not claim to be a connoisseur of anything alcohol, as my taste buds are quite desensitized. That said, I still can not drink a stout in order to get drunk. That shit is like coffee. If I want coffee to get drunk, I’d have an Irish, thanks much.

So I stick to American lagers. Beer snobs all over don’t have much to say about this variant. Too light, too watered down, tasteless, whatever. I like it. I like it better when I mix it with something. I’ve written before of an apple shandy (Although I don’t think any self-respecting human being would be caught dead mumbling that word. Like “mauve” or “ecru” or “taupe” or “panache” or “violet.”) that I would have now and again. Venomous Kate responded to that post with a suggestion for tomatoe juice and beer.

So tonight I finally tried it out. Now take note that I’ve always held tomatoe juice with some kind of suspicion, particularly with regards to its very nature. Neither sauce nor the water from canned tomatoes, not is it merely a puree or syrup of tomatoe. I just don’t know what it is. To be honest this is my first date not just with a V8 mix of beer, but with V8 itself. I mixed equal parts and took a swig.

The taste was not bad. I like my beers tart, which explains the apple juice or the squeeze of lime. The texture was, to use the most double-edged adjective in the English language, interesting. It was like a stout: thick but not sticky, robust but not excessively so. It felt a lot like drinking a Naked fruit smoothie. All together, it felt like one of those things worth doing once, with the calculated risk that it might turn into something more.

Like any polite date, I drank all eight ounces of this foreign concoction. Then, I quietly led it to its front door, gave it a kiss on its cheek, and walked away. I did not give my number.

Dinner at home with the family isn’t so bad, and it’s not often that we do, but when we do, it’s fun. The only problem is that I’m not a Bud beer drinker. Not that I’m a beer snob, no way. I drink Coors Light, thankyouverymuch.

But when I do want to get my drink on with the no-longer-so-American beer brand that is at hand and readily available, it gets better when mixed with some really cold apple juice. That’s right. Apple juice and beer.

Give it a try. Get a beer you wouldn’t disgrace yourself with drinking, pour it into a glass halfway and fill the rest with apple juice.

Oh to be burdened with naming a dish so simple from its very execution! The time I would have spent thinking up a name would have been more than writing the recap of this simple dish.

Many are aware of the value that store-bought, bottled tomato-based pasta sauce may have towards reaching your desired pasta experience sooner. I have, however, never really gotten into the habit of simply heating the goop and serving it over a bowl of noodles as a side to something. Always, there is the need to make something more of these sauces.

Take, for example, what I did today: Having heated a wide but shallow saucepan, I placed five slices of bacon which I have cut into inch-long segments. There I browned them until most of their fat has been rendered, with a nice fond sticking on the bottom of the pan, waiting to impart the best of flavors to the sauce. A pound of crimini mushrooms—”baby bellas,” as some packages call them—sliced rather thick goes into the pan next. They have enough water to sweat out and deglaze the pan, especially with the help of a few pinches of salt. Once the mushrooms have cooked down, your jar of store-bought tomato sauce comes in next. Once mixed completely and all that, allow the whole mess—and I don’t lie, it looks like a mess—to simmer, uncovered, for at least fifteen minutes. Through this step the sauce will thicken and the flavors will all meld.

Serve the sauce with some wider noodles, like fettucine or linguini, as this sauce can be hearty. Enjoy while watching Doctor Who, preferably David Tennant, although Tom Baker will do, if you’re in a histrionic kind of mood.

Has anyone else noticed that mahi-mahi, one of the best tasting fish out there, doesn’t seem to lend itself to anything more than grilling with some sort of sauce on top or on the side, under or over, wherever? A search for mahi-mahi on FoodTV’s site brings up not much more than grilled mahi-mahi, with something.

I have almost always been a purist with fish: I like most of my fish cleaned well and deep fried, head-on, in deep oil. And no batter. It’s fun to pick at bones and just relish every moment of actually eating a fish. That doesn’t mean, however, that I have fully ruled out fish fillets from my diet—heck, here I am talking about mahi-mahi tonight—but most of the time, a fillet just doesn’t have the same experiential value to the meal.

Grilling may be the best thing mahi-mahi may be for, but sometimes it’s best so simply salt the fish and grill it and enjoy it for what it’s worth: without the unnecessary help from fruit or spices that simply kill its essence in the first place.

I’ve had a love-hate relationship with brie for a while now, vacillating between brands that make me go “yum,” to the ones that induce a gag reflex. In my general obsessive-compulsive fashion, I have spent so many midnight snacks trying to find a brie that evokes the words that I have read about it.

I may have met the brie I want from President, which they sell at Costco (in Costco-size portions, natch!). It’s a very mild cheese without the reek of ammonia that I got from the first few little samples of brie that I got from both the local supermarket and whole foods.

This is really good cheese. Nor do I find myself adulterating it in any way, with brown sugar or fruit or jam or whatever. However, my midnight snack involves brie, dark chocolate, and some white wine. What a way to end a night.

“Hints of citrus, nutmeg, cinnamon, and black pepper…” In a chocolate bar.

I was at Wal-Mart last night satisfying a candy craving when I found the Dove Organic Citrus Spice Dark Chocolate bar. My curiosity got me this time and for three bucks I had in my hands a chocolate bar with very small segments—and for good reason.

Every bit has the strong persuasion of cinnamon and a hint of black pepper as I swallowed, followed by a lingering heat that is hard to describe. Quite good, but very foreign on the first pass.

Luna di Luna 60/40 Chardonnay and Pinot Grigio Venetian table wine.

I have always been suspicious of blended wines. I know of two types: those made separately and bottled together, and those made of a blend of two (or more) varietals fermented together. I know the latter is more commonplace and the former I have only heard of as an Australian thing (with horrendous results).

It was with this pensiveness that I approached the bottle of 2003 Luna Di Luna 60/40 Chardonnay and Pinot Grigio: a wine picked out in a rush at the store by a lady friend of mine, primarily because of the cool looking cobalt blue bottle and the garishly dressed woman on the label.

It has nary a bouquet to speak of, just an overwhelming sense of cleanness and sharpness without dryness, like a swimming pool in the morning before the chlorine gets thrown in. Searching for some sort of substance (dammit, the Pinot Grigio should at least have given it something) I took my first sip.

Like most white wines, alas, it was predictably… white. It was quite dry; lovers of even the drier Rieslings may not like this. Still, the experience of it in my mouth was just strange. I thought to myself, too clean; there has got to be a catch.

The swallow came with the biggest surprise. As it left my mouth, there was a flourish—a flourish—of salty saliva building in my mouth. It was weird, mainly because I’ve always associated salty spit buildup with impending vomiting. After a few hurried and curious gulps, and after passing it on to a few other friends of mine, the feedback has been consistent: it comes in clean and almost innocuous, and has a salty finish.

In a more cynical period in my life I would have recommended the 2003 Luna Di Luna 60/40 Chardonnay and Pinot Grigio Venetian table wine to anyone curious about the experience of drinking urine. Instead I’ll just say that it is quite reminiscent of seawater, like a morning on a windswept beach. This wine is, ultimately, a mystery I might never understand; I have no intention of shelling out nine dollars for it again.

Am empty bottle of wine and a glass. Remnants of a great night of drinking.

“…Hints of green peppercorns, black coffee and the mild aroma of geriatric sweat.” I just hate describing wines that way; and the wines descibed that way, I tend to hate too.

I am not, and I don’t intend to be, a wine connoisseur. If you asked me today what the differences between the different grape varieties used in wine, I can tell you that I don’t know the difference between a Chardonnay and a Pinot Grigio from a technical standpoint, but I can tell you that I like my Pinot Grigio more than most Chardonnays I’ve had.

After deciding to quit drinking hard liquor and beer except for when I’m out to the bar, I find that wine provides me with a great drinking experience, a decent buzz and no awful aftereffects the morning after. I can’t say the same of vodka, for example, which I can’t have more than a few shots without feeling a generalized weakness in my extremities. Neither can I speak that way of beer, despite having almost every major macrobrew shoved down my throat like American heartland camel piss. Not even the deliciously complex microbrews from stouts to ales can deny the simply fact that because of the hops used in brewing beer, beer is basically bitter.

(And before I leave the topic of beer altogether, I will still have a bottle or two of Magic Hat #9, whose hints of apricots make for a lovely summer afternoon drink on the outside porch of a great friend, while smoking a cigarette—Marlboro mediums, yo—and simply bullshitting about life. It’s certainly a great beer for friendship’s sake.)

Given that my knowledge of wine is next to nothing, I think I can actually write about wine with a different perspective from other erudite writers and drinkers. I’d like to describe more about how I plan to do it, but most of my reviews will focus on the experience of the wine itself, of what went well with it, of the sensations I experience from it.

I’ll be back soon with the first of my reviews.

A modern poem of sorts. Dedicated to Dean.

~o~

You assault my senses with your very betrayal
Of the French’s lack of good taste
You who have been called
The King of Cheeses.
What paltry kingdom it is you hold?
Bold perhaps
If but for the sake of being bold.

I have known many in your kingdom:
From serfs to queens
And stableboys and courtesans.
You are no King, rather
An emperor, and your rind are your new clothes.

For cheese, great among most food
Is best known alone.
That you can not stand
Without the crutches of fruit or sweets
Betrays your very weakness.

Thus, flee from me!
You salty, crusty messenger
Of memories of unspeakable bodily fluids
(Even by the standards
of today’s civil discourse.)
And peddle your pretense elsewhere!
The money is well spent on the lesson
To never welcome you into my home again.

~o~

Go to an Asian supermarket and you can find the best deals on good, fresh food anywhere aside from a warehouse club, with the added plus that warehouse clubs usually don’t sell whole salmon for 2.99 a pound, or flahs-frozen fresh tilapia for 1.99 a pound. Warehouse clubs also don’t have people who would clean up and cut a fish according to what you want—as long as it falls under the 5 to 7 or even 10 different ways of doing it illustrated on a HUD above the fishmonger area.

Aside from cheap deals on fresh mainstays, you can also find the kind of ingredients you first hear of in shows like Iron Chef, although I have never seen those sticky soybeans (which look positively gross) or Tokyo X pork. And while we’re on the subject of fatty meat, I would like to introduce you, dear friends, to a staple that we tend to get everytime we visit the Asian grocer: “short ribs,” cut “Korean style,” which basically means thinly sliced.

There are plenty ways of preparing this most sinful of cut of beef, but my favorite is toi simply marinate it for half an hour in my favorite grilling or barbecueing marinade and just cooking them in the oven for about 30 to 45 minutes.

Let’s just say the ones that we tend to get are so fatty that, despite the fat being rendered as the ribs get cooked, I could almost imagine my heart begging for mercy with every bite I bring down my gullet. Live, love and urk, people. Give it a try even once, ’cause life’s too short to miss this.

Despite the name, there are no eyeballs in this pasta dish. And it’s not full of junk (and the kitchen sink gets to stay in place). Everyone has a “one size fits all,” low-maintenance pasta dish for those days when white rice gets to be just so darn boring, ey?

This dish starts off with rotini pasta cooked according to package directions. While waiting for the water to boil—watching it makes it shy—finely chop cloves of garlic. Slice into eighths: Roma tomatoes.

Heat equal parts olive oil and real butter in a wide skillet. When the grease is hot, lower the heat way down and slowly cook garlic in the fat until it cooks down (Make sure it doesn’t brown or else it’s going to be “toasted garlic” and that kind of taste is not easy to acquire. Thanks, Stephen for reminding me about this reminder.) . During this phase, you can throw in your spices. In this case I added red pepper flakes, dried basil, dried oregano. I wish I had an anchovy fillet, but oh well. Once the oil has been infused with the spices, crank the heat up to cook your tomatoes. If you use sun-dried tomatoes you don’t have to raise the heat much. The fresh tomatoes need to be cooked until their pulp is hot, which is usually when they start to peel and sweat. Just toss them around once or twice and don’t shake them up too much, so that the tomatoes don’t turn into mush.

Around the time you first toss your tomatoes into the oil, your pasta should be ready. Drain it and once the “sauce” is ready, place the pasta into the saucepan and toss until well-coated. Add parmiggiano reggiano if you want, or if you’re a cheap bastard like me, “parmesan” that comes in a plastic can works fine.

Take note I didn’t involve proportions and measurements, hence the name, “eyeball.” Gotta eyeball everything. It will make each iteration of this dish different everytime (until you find one you like). Want something more garlicky? Tomato-ey? Spicy? Hot? Want black olives or maybe drained artichoke hearts? The kitchen sink? You can go wild if you want. Just remember that you gotta know your ingredients or else you might end up with something unpalatable.

Test in moderation first, and have some adventures later. Have fun, and live, love and… urk!

For dinner: two slices of coconut custard pie (Mrs. Smith’s, to boot) and and two glasses of Franzia white zin. Not exactly going the way of Toby (yet) but hey, I may drink wine in a box but at least I don’t have it on the rocks, ja?

After doing much reading I finally had a successful “London broil” today. Last night I marinated the slab of almost lean beef with a mixture of soy sauce, grated fresh ginger and garlic, and Worcestershire sauce, and a splash of water to take the edge off.

Taking it to the grill today, I cooked it on eight minutes each side at high heat. Could be that the propane is running a tad low, but the flames were quite uncooperative and I had to finish it by searing it on a flat-bottommed wok. As expected from my research, “rare” would be a kind term to describe the insides of the inch-thick steak. Sliced thinly, it wasn’t as disgusting as first perceived; however, the maternal unit wouldn’t have any of it, especially since the meat was rare enough to actually hold its juices.

I conceded to cutting a good portion off and further sandwiching it in the brutal grips of the George Forman grill, and gave it a good three minute swipe. The result was a medium rare piece that was pink in the middle, not like a slice of medium-done roast beef, but already the chewy grainy consistency was starting to show.

I’ve arrived at the conclusion that only a London broil—top round or flank steak—cooks in absolutes. I’m looking now at my mom’s leftover beef with a shade of disdain. I don’t think I have the guts to finish that portion off, and I’m glad with my almost-raw half of the equation.

Now all I need is a few hours to empty my stomach and get back to chow.