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22Feb

The Lion in the Hotel

A couple of days before Valentine’s Day, I took a date to Coeur De Lion in the Henley Park Hotel. It is a pretty little restaurant off to the side of the main bar. Yes, yes, I usually write about ethnic restaurants and dives – but not this time.

It was a cold, rainy night, and we were running early, so we hung out with some guests in the room to the right side of the front desk. That fireplace felt good. Then, off to the restaurant.
The service was very good, with Jamal (our waiter) spending some time with us without overdoing it. He did help us select the food and wine.

I ordered the jumbo shrimp as an appetizer. The chili flavored prawns were sitting on a pile of hummus. The lemon oil gave the dish a nice flavor. The strip steak with Yukon gold mashed potatoes, Vidalia onions, and baby spinach was cooked correctly (medium) and had a flavorful red wine sauce. The steak was actually huge; I only got through half of it.

My date was happy with the grouper with mushroom risotto and a salad. Ok…we did pick the wine to go with her dish. I drank Riesling with steak, so I’ll never get my food snob license now. 😉
We shared the seasonal fruit (which happened to be mixed berries with mint leaves) and the cheesecake with mango sauce. The berries were sweet and refreshing, and the cheesecake was fluffy, like a mousse.

Appetizers are $8-13, entrees are mostly in the $30’s, and desserts are $8. We drank a bottle of Dr. Loosen 2006 Germany Riesling ($9 a glass and $28 a bottle).

With wine, the dinner was about $120 for two. Ok, I’ll admit it; I won the dinner at an event a few months ago. So, I cashed in my gift certificate and we had a great dinner in a fancy restaurant. You can’t go wrong with that. But, yes I recommend the restaurant even if you are paying for your meal.
Coeur De Lion, in the Henley Park Hotel.

926 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington D.C. 20001
202-638-5200

-JAY

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17Feb

Quick Lemongrass Chicken

Lemongrass is a great spice. It can be used in warm, soothing dishes as well as it can be in cold refreshing and hot jarring ones. I love to use it as a way of brightening up a recipe, much as I’d use lemon juice, although without the acidity or extra liquid. This dish is one I’ve been making, in one form or another, for many years – it’s fast, easy, and pretty healthy.
Because this is a dish that’s best made a bit thrown-together, everything here is approximate, and everyone should adjust to their own tastes and moods.
What you need:

1 3/4 chicken breast, cut into strips
1 tbs. garlic (minced)
1 tbs lemongrass, diced small
1 tbs light soy sauce
1 tbs oyster sauce
1 tbs rice wine (or cheap red, if that’s what you’ve got)
2 serrano peppers, diced
Fresh basil

What you do:
Heat some oil to medium-high in a wok, and add the garlic and lemongrass, stirring until very fragrant. Then, add the chicken and let cook until it’s about 3/4 done, about 3 minutes. Now, raise the heat to high and add your sauces and peppers, stir-frying for about a minute. Lower heat back to medium, and cook until the sauce is reduced about 80%.
Serve hot over rice, and garnish with basil leaves.
(Image from wiki-images)

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11Feb

Kung-Pao Style Chicken for One

The one downside to living alone is that cooking for one can be a real challenge. Most recipes serve more than one, and ingredients don’t always come in easily-subdivided groupings. Here’s a recipe I quite like that makes one serving, for which I use chicken breasts which I keep in single freezer bags.
It’s based off of what a friend of mine does for her family, but scaled down and modified to suit my tastes.
This is what you need:
1 chicken breast cut in 1-inch bits
2 baby bok choys, chopped up
1/3 of a yellow onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp ginger
2 Serrano peppers, diced
A handful of roasted peanuts
Another handful of peanuts, ground up
2 tbs rice wine (or marsala)
1.5 tbs soy sauce
1 tsp tapioca starch (or corn if you prefer)
Mirin
Sugar
Sesame oil.
Cut everything up, and make your sauce: mix the wine, soy sauce, half the peppers and garlic, and a splash of mirin in a glass, and set it aside.
Now, get your wok going over medium-high heat, and add a couple tablespoons of oil. Add the ginger and the peppers and garlic not in your sauce, and stir for 30 seconds. Add the chicken, stir around, and let cook for a couple of minutes, until it’s about half done. Now add your onions, and when they begin to get translucent, your bok choy and whole peanuts.
Dump in your sauce, adding a bit more oil if you need it. Add the ground nuts and toss that all together, and let cook about a minute. Meanwhile, dissolve your starch in warm water. Now reduce the heat to medium and stir in the starch-water slurry. This will thicken the sauce. Adjust your seasonings to taste (I usually add a bit of Sriracha, because I love it), and serve hot over rice.

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01Feb

Raising Arizona (and then eating it)

My mother moved to Phoenix this past October, lured by the dramatically cheaper real estate, warmer climate and chance for a natural tan in January. I finally got a chance to visit The Five Paragraph Bitter Food Mom this past week, and lived out the Paul Simon classic, Mother and Child Reunion, just without the Chinese food. I was hoping to get some quality Southwestern or even Native American food; Mom figured she’d use me as excuse to try places in her new area. With the Super Bowl being held this weekend in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale, and one of our local sportswriters recovering from a heart attack (get well soon!), Arizona is in the press. Here’s my recent four-day eating guide to the newest of the Lower 48 states.
Our first meal was at Black Angus Steakhouse, a place she’d heard good reviews from her coworkers, but had yet to try herself. Black Angus is a regional chain that (thankfully) has not migrated further east than Colorado and New Mexico. The food was mediocre and the portions were massive – the culinary equivalent of speaking louder to a foreigner who doesn’t speak English. Given the praise at Mom’s work, I’d be willing to grant that maybe we caught it on a bad night, but the prime rib was more like a sub-prime mortgage – I’d need the Government’s help to get out from under that thing. Mom’s steak was tougher than a Navy SEAL. Arizona cuisine was not starting off well.
We swung by a couple of grocery stores near her house. The first was Fry’s Marketplace. Tech geeks who’ve been out West know of the legendary Fry’s Electronics stores – many of them are the size of shopping malls and are loaded with all sorts obscure computer parts. While the two Fry’s are run by entirely different companies, the Marketplace version of their food stores mirror the spirit of their electronics’ namesakes by stocking a ridiculously varied amount of products. Fresh produce, locally-supplied beef and a well-stocked deli may not be anything special, but any grocery store with a full Tully’s Coffeeshop, patio furniture section and several rows of vacuum cleaners is kind of unique. The prices were about 5 to 10% less than what we pay out here at a Safeway or Wegman’s, but the noticeable exception was the seafood – about 25% more. If you want fresh seafood in Arizona, you’re gonna pay.
The next grocery store we went to was A.J.’s, a Phoenix-centric chain similar to a Dean and Deluca or Sutton Place Gourmet/Balducci’s. The place drips with a mix of Napa Valley class and Southwestern cool. Rows and rows of wine, spirits and microbrews are placed next to a large high-end cafeteria section. AJ’s prime rib looked a lot better than the refried Barbaro I had the night before. A small outdoor dining area offers gourmet burgers and Mexican snacks next to a bakery that looks like a diabetic’s nightmare – freshly made donuts, cheesecakes, petit-fours, butter cakes. Mom’s sweet tooth took over, and we bought a sampling of their wares, while I enjoyed a prickly pear juice ice tea. The desserts were definitely on the too-sweet side, but they sure did look nice. I’m curious if they tailor their recipes to the influx of snowbirds coming down from Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa this time of year with their love of overly-sweet foods.

Read the rest of this entry »

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01Feb

Eastern Ingenuity Meets Western Laziness

I bought one of those pre-prepped bags of broccoli and cauliflower and carrots at the grocery store the other day, because it was on sale and because I love veggies and because I am lazy. At home, I noticed that on the back of the bag there was a recipe for a vegetable curry, using the contents of the bag, and other similarly-branded ingredients. I didn’t have most of those other things handy, and also the recipe didn’t look very good. But the idea’s seeds were sewn.
Days later, at the Asian market, I came upon the aisle of canned curry mixes and powders. When an older lady speaking what sounded like Thai to her cell phone grabbed about four cans of Bright brand (Thai) Green Curry, I decided to try it. I’ve been steered horribly wrong before, but more often than not this is a good way of picking between brands you don’t know. I also picked up a few other ingredients and, for reasons not entirely clear even to me, later (at the farmers market) decided to buy buffalo instead of beef or chicken meat.
I ended up with the following:

– 2 cans green curry ( FYI: it has coconut milk and bamboo shoots and kefir leaves already in it, if you’re making your own)
– 1 large fresh Serrano pepper (about 1.5 tbs chopped)
– 1 stalk fresh lemongrass
– 1 lb. of mixed broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots
– 1 medium yellow onion
– 1.5 pounds buffalo top round
– Fish sauce
– Dry roasted peanuts

Back home, I got to work: I diced the onion and Serrano, chopped about 2 tbs of the lemongrass (slice into thin circles, then quarter), rinsed the veggies, trimmed the meat, and cut it into 3/4 – inch cubes. I got out my biggest pot, and first browned the meat a little bit. Then, I lowered the heat to medium and added olive oil, followed by about half of the chilies and lemongrass. After this was all nice and warm and fragrant, I stirred in the onions. I let them cook about 5 minutes, till a bit translucent but not all the way.
At that point, I added the veggies, and both cans of curry, about 3 tbs of fish sauce, and the remaining spices. I also added sriracha, but then again I like things hot. I upped the temperature as well, to medium-high, and let the curry simmer and reduce, stirring only once in a while, until everything was the right texture. It was, at this point, still a little watery for me, so I mixed a big teaspoon of tapioca starch in a quarter-cup of water, and stirred that into the curry to thicken it.
I am, it should be known, a bit lax in my advanced planning and very prone to forgetting to do things. Like, say, to buy rice at the store. Or to think about boiling pasta before the rest of my meal is nearly ready. Luckily, I am aware of my own, err, idiosyncrasies, and stock my shelves accordingly. It turns out that canned white hominy is easy and fast to warm, and actually makes a nice substitute for rice.
I garnished the dish with the peanuts, which I ground with mortar and pestle, which I think was a key factor in making this dish delicious. Without it, the buffalo was too much of a random flavor – the peanuts helped to integrate it all together. Plus, I love peanuts.

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30Jan

Move Over Five Guys. There’s a New Burger Around

From the fun gadget and technology website Gizmag.com, here’s an invention that may permanently leave a greasy stain the fabric of the Universe: The Cheeseburger in a Can
The Europeans are once again taking the lead in burger technology. How can we as Americans stand by and remain idle while our counterparts across the Pond continue to push the boundaries of the modern meat patty? What was our last major breakthrough, the McDLT? We can’t let the Germans show us how to perfect our national food that we so blatantly stole from them!
Somebody should do something about that.

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26Jan

Tonight is Dr. Demo’s closing party!

Tonight will be the final night (party!) for the Arlington institution, Dr. Dremos. There will not be a cover. They had a nice crowd last night (and a $10 cover), but expect tonight to be insane.
Dremos: Thanks for many years of good beer, good times, live music and comedy – and Elvises, many many Elvises. 🙂
This is from Dr. Dremo’s Website:

Dremo’s closing end of January 2008
Dr Dremo’s will close the doors at the current location on Sunday, Jan 27th, 2 AM.
Dremo’s huge ass farewell party: It starts Jan 2nd and goes full bore until Jan 26th. Be there!!!
Auction: Monday Jan 28th 7:00PM @ Dremo’s
PRE-AUCTION BIDS ACCEPTED: Stop by Dremo’s and give your bid to the manager. Almost everything must go: totem pole, pool tables, 200 gallon stainless steel beer tanks (perfect for homebrewing or a small brewery), kitchen equipment, general restaurant stuff and various odds and ends. Questions?
Dr Dremo’s new location: Stay tuned to this website, or the Dremo email list, for info about a new location. Investment opportunities may be available. We are actively scouting for a new location. If you know of any spaces for sale or lease in the Clarendon/Courthouse area, please contact us.
The Dr Dremo and Taco Bell property has been sold to Elm St Development. Plans call for 141 residential units and 34,685 sf of ground floor retail.
“Thanks to all who have helped make Dr Dremo’s a success. From the patrons to the staff. Hope to see you soon.” -the Doctor

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21Jan

Della Notte’s Playground . . . Good food, Great Local, Intimate Setting . . .

Della Notte Ristorante nestled in the center of downtown Baltimore is a charming restaurant offering good service, a romantic atmosphere, and delicious Italian cuisine.
Its dim lighting and understated elegance set the perfect tone for a quiet intimate evening in a public place. The lighting is soft and the linen is real, so your date will be impressed with your choice and clearly receive the message that they are someone you want to get to know up close and personal. 😉
Unlike most Italian restaurants offering American favorites (lasagna, spaghetti, garlic bread with cheese) Della Notte boasts more authentic cuisine for your pallet. Dishes such as Merluzzo, pan-seared Atlantic Cod over braised lentils and topped with tomato-caper sauce or Pollo Arrosto, a half roasted chicken, with fresh herbs, lemon zest and white bean ragu. This creates the perfect opportunity to “share” one another’s dishes in a variety of ways encouraging play and intimacy all under the guise of ‘tasting’ new foods. Guys, try feeding her, better yet kiss her after she’s taken a bite, you be able to taste the lingering flavors on her lips. Gals, try feeding him — use your fingers (as food and manners permit). It’s very sensual for both of you!
Just in case your date’s not the adventurous type or you haven’t been able to escalate things to a playful intimate level (and this would be the perfect opportunity if you have not), the menu includes a few favorites we can all recognize like Fettuccini and Ravioli with a variety of toppings including the usual marina or white sauce with a bit of a twist. They also had some classics as well, NY Strip Steak and MD Crab Cakes capturing the essence of the Chesapeake.
I enjoyed the herb rubbed Salmone Filet, served with braised leeks and fennel and a very rich sauce with butter as a base. It was divine! The salmon was perfectly prepared, light flakey, and melted on your pallet. The sauce was quite rich and enhanced the flavor of the seared herbs on the salmon. I also enjoyed Broccoli di Rabe with sliced garlic and olive oil. This not your typical broccoli florets; it was the leaves of the broccoli and their stalks that were prepared and seasoned. Quite delicious! And no meal would be complete without a sample of the restaurant’s chocolate. I choose Al Cioccolato a deeply chocolate cake, enrobed in chocolate, and filled with – you guessed it – more chocolate! And it a warm molten chocolate . . .mmmm deliciously sexy . . . with all the licking . . . of the silverware . . ., and I digress . . . . Where was I . . .yes Al Ciccolato . . . which also has a bit of warm chocolate drizzled on top and is ornamented with fresh raspberries for color, texture and tartness, enhancing the flavor of the chocolate perfectly! I guess you can tell I am a dessert lover.
Della Notte’s also has an impressive wine list with dessert wines, totties, brandies, and cognacs. If you know wine you’ll certainly be able to make an impression.
You don’t have to have a reservation, but on the weekends, I recommend getting one. Or you can enjoy the wait at their piano bar; an intimate area with music and warm people to chat with while you wait. It is a smoking bar, which can ruin your ‘smell-good’ status after prolonged visitation, but I recommend checking it out anyway!
Minutes from Baltimore’s Inner harbor, on the edge of Little Italy, Fells Point and around the corner from Canton, Della Notte is also a prime locale for after diner dancing or clubbing. The harbor is in walking distance as is ESPN Sports Zone, Baja Beach Club, and The Latin Palace to name a few. Want to check out a concert, Peer Six and Rams Head Live are also close by and on the way.
Della Notte’s also offers a jazz brunch on Sundays and Wine Nite on Mondays as well. I haven’t personally checked it out, but anything with live music and wine as a backdrop is usually is worth it!
Della Notte is a great spot for a romantic intimate evening. It has great ambiance for soft words, sweet gestures, and sexy dining, and it’s in the perfect locale to continue the date with a variety of venues available for your dating pleasure. This dating coach gives its three stars for ambiance/dining experience, workability (you can play here), location (you can move the date to other venues easily).
The only reason it didn’t earn the fourth star is pricing. Della Notte’s is moderate to expensive depending on your wine selection. Diner could easily run you $50+ per person, not including alcohol, that’s appropriately priced for the experience you get. Since money is relative, I don’t give this star unless you can do if for free or under $25 bucks, which makes it available to everyone.
-By Guest Blogger…Coach Ivy of One Life Coaching.

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18Jan

Traveling Chef: Food Studio Restaurant in Atlanta

NOTE: Due to my busy catering schedule during the holiday season, I haven’t had a whole lot of time for blogging. Now that it’s January, things are slowing down, so I’m going to post some articles that I’ve wanted to post for a while. The first in this series regards a restaurant I discovered in Atlanta during a recent trip. The restaurant’s menu has since changed, but many of the items are similar with some seasonal differences. If you’re in the Atlanta area at any point soon, give this place a try! -YB
The restaurant business isn’t exactly known for its flexibility in scheduling, so it’s not often that I find myself with an entire weekend off. Recently, however, I managed to find myself in Atlanta, attending the wedding of a couple good friends. Whenever I go somewhere, I like to try and see what kind of culinary scene the place has. Since I found myself with lots of time on my hands, I had a few places in and around the Atlanta metro area that I wanted to check out. Previously, I had spent some time in Atlanta’s airport, and used a few restrooms, but other than that, I had no clue. I only know that MAW has often complained vociferously about, well, everything. I was certainly not expecting anything all that Earth-shattering. Boy was I wrong.
The first day there, the wife and I went to the Centre of Puppetry Arts, which has a whole wing (soon to be a whole building) dedicated to the Muppets. There’s something pretty cool about seeing the actual Swedish Chef chilling with Dr. Teeth and Ernie. During the afternoon, we tooled around Decatur, and realised just how expensive it is to live in the D.C. area, spent some time in Buckhead, and killed a good amount of time during the day, but what I was really looking forward to was the place where we had dinner reservations. Initially, we made reservations at The Watershed Restaurant, as I’ve always heard good things about it, and it’s owned by Emily Saliers, of Indigo Girls fame (yes, I know, what can I say? I’m a straight guy that likes the Indigo Girls). I was ok with going there, but I ultimately wound up canceling my reservations when I found The Food Studio in the King Plow Arts Centre. In the world of culinary jargon, a lot of people are ceasing to call the room in the back of the restaurant a kitchen, and instead call it a food studio, with the implication that they are creating some sort of art back there. Sometimes that’s true, and sometimes, well it isn’t. Luckily, this was a clear case of the former (which is good, since they named the restaurant in such a manner).
The first thing I noticed about this place was how bloody difficult it was to find. Even with GPS, I drove right past it about three times (why is it that everywhere in Atlanta is only four or five miles away from you, yet it takes at least a good half hour to get there?). Once we finally found the place and got seated, I was really amazed at the décor of the place. This place used to be a plow factory, and unlike other factories or warehouses that are converted to restaurants, they left the original fixtures intact as décor. As a result, the place has an authentic feel, and doesn’t look like they designed it to look like a factory. Despite the spacious dining room, everything seemed very intimate, yet very dark. Dark enough that my waiter carried a pocket flashlight to help us read the menus. That was perhaps the only negative I found with this restaurant.
The menu was incredible. Being a chef, I tend to like to sample things, if possible, and the Food Studio’s menu had small plate sizes for items. During the course of the dinner we had there, executive chef Mark Alba came by to our table and chatted me up about their restaurant (apparently, he and I share the same way of eating when we go out somewhere, and he
says he always likes meeting other chefs), and gave me a tour of their kitchen operation, which was quite impressive. Our chosen menu included:
Heirloom tomato salad with grilled peaches, prosciutto, red onion, and basil
Seared white shrimp with sunchoke purée, chanterelle mushrooms, and lemon vinegar
Seared lump crab meat with watermelon-cucumber salad and curry aioli
Veal sweetbreads with figs, arugula, and gremolata crème fraîche
Duck confit agnolotti with porcini mushrooms and truffle oil
Fettucini with braised lamb, English peas, and mint
The tomato salad easily ranks as one of the best salads I’ve ever had. The sweetness of the peaches acted as a nice counterweight to the acidity of the tomatoes, with the prosciutto bringing everything together (I swear, porcine love makes the world go round). The shrimp and the crab cake were done exactly the way I like them: with very little filler, and paired with items that showcase the seafood well. The sweetbreads were very succulent, and I usually don’t order offal meats, as they’re very rarely cooked well. The pastas were perfectly done. The agnolotti was rich and tasty, and the fettucini was light and tender. Our waiter made a very good
wine recommendation to go with all these dishes, and the lemon-basil bombe (their signature dessert) was the perfect way to wrap up an exceptional dinner.
The Food Studio at King Plow
887 West Marietta Street NW
Atlanta, GA 30318
404.815.6677
The Rotten Rabbi’s Rating:

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11Jan

Breadfruit Sautée

A funny thing about my West-Indian tinged upbringing is that I’ve been exposed to so many amazing foods and cuisines, but not often directly enough to learn to execute them properly. So many of the dishes I grew up loving and still think of as supreme comfort food, I have no idea how to deal with preparing. Breadfruit is a prime example: the sweet, starchy fruit’s luscious perfume transports me instantly to warmer climes and friendlier faces, but once home with one, I’ve always been a bit perplexed. A wonderful substitute for potatoes or yams, the stuff is a royal pain to cook.
Despite this knowledge, the gorgeous aroma as I walked by the breadfruit bin at the farmers market overpowered my better judgment: if at first you don’t succeed, et cetera. Picking a medium-sized, about 1/3 green one (meaning that it was close to ripe, but not all the way), I headed home. First things first, I preheated my oven to 300, washed the fruit and skewered some holes in it, and wrapped it in foil. I roasted it for an hour total, quarter-turning every 15 minutes.
During the last 15 minutes, I diced a small white onion. Out of the oven, I let the fruit cool enough to cut it, remove the center bits, peel it, and dice it, while warming my skillet to medium-high. To the pan I added some butter and the breadfruit, and tossed it with some Vegeta. After 5 minutes or so, I added the onions. When the onions were a bit caramelized, but not charred, I removed everything to a bowl, and deglazed the pan with a cup of dark rum (Gosling, in this case), letting that reduce about 75%. I tossed the sauce into the bowl with everything else, and had a lovely accompaniment to the grilled chicken and spinach salad I’d also made.
Be aware: breadfruit has a very strange texture, if you’re not expecting it. It is a bit spongy, and can be chewy, but don’t let that deter you from this wonderful, and healthy ingredient!

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