Frita Batidos

It's been a good long while since I blogged about a restaurant. I haven't been eating out much and when I do its usually just a rushed post-gym dinner at our favorite Korean local, Maru, or for a beer and sandwich at a brew pub. But yesterday I joined some friends for a holiday lunch. Since only one of us works in a traditional office where holiday parties are the norm, we made our own little celebration and decided to try Eve Arranoff's new place Frita Batidos.

I got there before the lunch rush began and it was quiet and very, very white. It's a casual place with (white) picnic tables and all hard surfaces so while it was quiet when we arrived, once the traffic picked up, the noise level was approaching uncomfortable. I'm not sure my sensitive ears could handle a boisterous late night crowd.

But the food! Oh my the food! I ordered a black bean frita with tropical coleslaw on top and a side of the twice fried plantains. The black bean patties I've had in the past have been leaden and heavy and feel a bit like a punishment for choosing them over meat. But these are creamy and flavorful and really rewarding. I didn't wish I was eating another friends big Cuban sandwich, delicious though it looked.

This may not look like a huge amount of food for $14, which is more than I usually spend on lunch, but it is all so rich that it was amazingly filling; I wasn't hungry when dinner time rolled around and since I'm one of those people with a hobbit-like tendency to eat every three hours or so, that's saying something.  If I worked downtown I could see getting just the black bean frita with a side of tropical slaw (it was good on top, but I think I'd like it even better on the side); that would set me back $8 and mean that I wouldn't be feeling stuffed. But those plantains were amazing and amazingly rich. They are drenched in a garlic-cilantro butter and accompanied by a sweet chili mayo for dipping. They melt on your tongue and the combination of the sweet plantain and the rich butter, combined with the bright flavors of the garlic and cilantro is just magical. This place is open late and I could see coming here after a show for an alcohol-soaking up plantain gorging.

If you have a sweet tooth, as one of my friends most decidedly does, then you should try the churros with chocolate Espanol.  It was a huge portion which meant we each got to sample them without depriving her of the blood sugar spike she so desired.

They were the best churros I've ever tasted--the dough is flecked with orange peel and nutmeg, they are rolled in cinnamon sugar, and the chocolate is like warm, cinnamon-spiked ganache. I'd say one order could easily satisfy two sweet-tooths or four normal-tooths.

None of us tried the batidos--I was chilled from walking downtown on a windy cold day so I'm going to wait until the weather is more conducive to the consumption of ice to give those a try. 

Beer-y pleasures

As I mentioned in my Montreal food post, we did some pleasant sampling of various beers while we were on our trip.

On our one evening in Toronto, we visited the Beer Bistro. It's a really lovely spot with a terrific range of beers on tap (click here to see a mostly-legible photo of the beer menu):

Papa beer and the three baby beers.

My samples were of three excellent Canadian beers: St. Ambroise Oatmeal Stout, Durham Hop Addict and Ephemere Cassis. If we hadn't been going to a play afterward I would have followed these with a full size of the St. Ambroise. Brian's was a Leffe Brune.

They also make some terrific fries served with mayo and seriously addictive smokey ketchup.
I wasn't as impressed with the sandwich I ordered which was a shaved lamb and blue cheese panini--it was just kinda greasy.

Montreal has a number of good places to try local and non-local beers. I loved the bar decor at Le Cigare du Pharon where we had these lambic beers. It's a Belgian place and is covered in Tintin memorabilia. Brian and I had fun identifying different scenes and witnessing someone else's obsessive trinket-collecting habits. Unfortunately it was too dark to get photos of all the quirky stuff without bugging the crap out of the other patrons by using the flash, but here are the beers:
Brian's Mort Subite kriek (cherry) and my Floris fraise (strawberry). Mine had 25% strawberry juice and was less dry than I expected though it still managed a nice crisp finish.

Conveniently located right around the corner from our hotel was a branch of Les Trois Brasseurs. I tried their Brun and Amber and thought they were both pretty tasty, though not super memorable.
Brian is drinking the White in this picture which I did not care for--I thought it had way too much coriander in it so I couldn't taste anything else. But tear your eyes away from the beer and focus on what he is eating: a banana chocolate tarte flambee. We've had the classic tarte flambee when we were in Strasbourg: creme fraiche, onions, and bacon on a thin crust that is a cross between a pizza and a cracker. But I've never had a desert flam and this one was fantastic. I thought Brian was crazy when he ordered it, but I was won over with my first bite and am now a determined to make it at home. It seems pretty simple: crust, bananas, cinnamon, some sugar and a dark chocolate sauce drizzled on after it comes out of the oven. If I figure out a recipe, I'll be sure to post it here. And if I can locate the St. Ambroise Oatmeal Stout around here, I'll serve it with this.

Sadly we did not get to sample the wares at Dieu du Ciel or Reservoir. We got to Dieu du Ciel an hour before they opened and were too tired to wait around. Ah well, next time. We loved Montreal so much that there definitely will be a next time.

Munch your way through Montreal

Let's start with a dramatic shot:
That's a huge pile of smoked meat, the Montreal version of Pastrami, at Schwartz's. All the guide books warned us that there would be lines down the block--they clearly weren't in Montreal in November! We waltzed right in and found a seat and moments later were looking at this spread:
Classic smoked meat sandwich on rye with mustard, half-sour pickle, coleslaw and diet coke (I know, it should have been a black cherry soda to be authentic, but I needed some caffeine.)

And then we dug in:

Thanks to Brian's photographic efforts, I have discovered that I often eat tasty things with my eye brows way the hell up:
Fairmount Bagels: I'm cuddling the other 11 which are still warm and are like carrying a bagful of kittens (except you can eat them!) Montreal bagels are boiled in a water and honey bath and the sweetness on the outer crust is very nice.

We indulged in a little French bistro food at L'Express:
The bass and green beans were delicious but that is probably because they were sauteed in about a pint of clarified butter and cardboard would taste good with that treatment. I had a glass of Pouilly Fumé and a tasty octopus and lentil vinaigrette appetizer but the photo didn't come out because for about 15 minutes the restaurant lost all power. They seemed to expect it (and we saw a big Hydro-Québec truck parked on the block) and had candles ready but it made for lousy picture taking.

There is a big Vietnamese population in Montreal which led us grab the occasional Bánh mì sandwich for a snack and to indulge in big bowls of Pho,
with copious quantities of basil and bean sprouts to stir in.

There is also a food phenomenon that I ardently wish we could persuade to come to Ann Arbor: Portuguese Chicken.
Here it is, with a couple of really delicious loin lamb chops. Doesn't look like much: grilled meat with fries, right? But oh, how wonderful the seasoning is. The mug in the background contains extra marinade so you can really douse your food in it--tangy, spicy, umami. Yummy. (The fries, which were super fresh and crisp and hot, responded particularly well to a dousing in the marinade followed by a little dip in mayonnaise. Mmmm: fat with salt and then a little more fat!) Oh, and it's pretty cheap too. There are a whole bunch of Portuguese chicken places in Montreal and, were we lucky enough to live in this city, I can imagine it being our take-out stand by for those crazy days when no one has time to cook.

The only food area that I wasn't thrilled with was the lack of patisserie on every corner. Actually, the lack of patisserie on any corner. There were a few bakeries that we saw, but they were really more bread oriented, not the individual elaborate pastries that are everywhere in France. So, other than a strange and delicious creation that I will cover in my next post about Montreal beer, we hardly had anything sweet.

Then again, with my salt tooth, I'd go for a smoked meat sandwich over a mille-feuilles any day.

Bonne Anniversaire a moi!

So yesterday I turned 39 and celebrated by (finally) getting myself this:
a computer that, god willing, won't crash two times a day.

In the evening, Brian and I walked down to Eve and had a lovely dinner. Brian started with a bowl of curried mussels and I ate a lot of the fantastic sauce (no mussels for me since my body now violently sends shellfish back up the pipe...). We both had salads and split their beef tenderloin entree (which is way too big for me to eat on my own) and drank a nice bottle of Australian Shiraz from their Excursions selection (wines under $30 a bottle.) I really appreciate this part of their wine list--it is actually what made me decide on Eve over Pacific Rim when I was musing over where to go for dinner. I think there is something so decent about having a reasonably priced selection of wines on the menu.

When desert rolled around, I knew I wanted their triple chocolate pots de creme with the accompanying quantity of whipped cream, but I couldn't decide what to drink with it. I couldn't stomach the sweetness of desert wines which I usually only like when paired with a cheese plate, so I asked the waitress if they had any Eau de Vie and unfortunately they didn't. I love a good Eau de Vie that burns as you breathe in and when you exhale you get a blast of fruit essence. So Brian and I went a different route and each got a Guinness to go with the pot de creme and it turned out to be a really nice combination.
The only thing that would have made it better was if it had been draft Guinness with a creamier head. But the bitter nutty darkness of the beer really went well with the richness of the dessert.

My favorite thing about the restaurant came at the end when I went to the bathroom -- I guess I've never used the bathroom at Eve because otherwise I would have remembered the mirror:
All over the face of the mirror are lovely French phrases complementing the person being reflected which meant that instead of looking at myself while washing my hands, I read "Oh, que tu es jolie. Que tu es belle..." etc. I have no idea what I actually looked like when I went back to our table (I suspect a little flushed from wine and stout) but I know I had a big grin on my face after reading that I was "la quintessance de la beaute." (Brian tells me that in the Men's room is a similar mirror but with all the phrases printed in English which I think is too bad; the French definitely adds romance.)

I would LOVE to have a mirror like this in my bathroom--talk about a daily reminder that beauty isn't really about how you look but how you feel.

Well, the food and company were good...

I haven't finished the last two books that my book group selected. Naughty naughty Kate. But seriously the last two books have bored me to tears. The first no-finish was Kiran Desai's novel, The Inheritance of Loss, which has very pretty writing but nothing happens and the latest was William Poy Lee's memoir, The Eighth Promise, which is so unfocused that I'm still not sure whose memoir it was supposed to be (Lee's? His Mother's? His younger brother Richard's? Unfortunately, I think it was supposed to be his and his was the least interesting of the three possible stories).

But hey, the food and company were good! For the Desai book we gathered at Meg's and ate some lovely Indian food. To start were some addictive Sev Puri that Ami brought. Ami's co-worker, Sangeeta, coached her in the assemblage of these flavorful mounds of potato, chili's, onion and various chutneys (assembly instructions/recipe below).


Then we moved on to plates loaded with stewed chickpeas, turmeric spiked cauliflower, raita and biryani rice.



And we finished our meal with cardamom creme brulee. I'm pretty happy whenever I get creme brulee, but the cardamom imparted an even lovelier finish to the richness.

For The Eighth Promise we indulged in a massive quantity of Chinese takeout from Tk Wu, because none of us has a big enough wok supply or stove space to do the cuisine justice (ok, it was also March and we were sick of Winter and just needed a damn break.) I know, the picture to the right looks like a mess, but it was a tasty mess, particularly the tofu with black mushrooms. I also love their dumplings which are served with a vinegary, non-soy based dipping sauce.

And then for dessert, I made something that had nothing at all to do with the book: puff pastry with almond cream and winter fruit compote. The picture in the NY Times magazine was so appealing that I was willing to simmer, steep, whip and bake up the various components. The most limiting factor for most people to make this recipe is the requirement that the winter fruits (kumquats, dried figs and dried apricots) be simmered in verjus, which is sour juice from unripe wine grapes, which retails for about $18 for 25 oz. Tightwad that I am, I don't often spend that much on a bottle of wine, much less on the juice from un-ripe, un-fermented grapes. But then I hit Wikipedia and found out that verjus is also called husroum in Arabic and is used in place of vinegar or lemon juice in Middle Eastern cuisine.
So I trotted off to one of the many Middle Eastern grocery stores in our area and poked around until I found, for $4 for 32 oz, Momtaz Sour Grape Juice!

It did impart a nice level of acidity to the compote, though I still don't think I'd spring for $18 bottle. I'd probably eliminate the sugar in the recipe and substitute white grape juice and a good squeeze of lemon juice. I still have a significant amount of verjus left in the bottle so I think I'll freeze it and when summer comes around, I may use it in this recipe for verjus mint sorbet.

The next book we will gather around is one I've already read and which I know is good, Peter Ho Davies' The Welsh Girl (my review from last year here). I'm hosting the meeting so I need to try and figure out what to cook for the main course. Welsh cuisine? Is there such a thing? Suggestions welcome!

Sev Puri

Flat Puris (thin crackers) – 1 bag
Fine Sev (thin lentil crunchy stuff) – 1 bag
Small chili peppers – a handful
Sweet chutney (made of dates and imli) – 1 jar – preferable Swad brand
Cilantro and chili chutney – 1 jar – preferable Swad brand
Cilantro chopped fine
Chaat masala
Garam masala
Roasted cumin powder (optional)
Red chilly pepper (optional)
Yogurt (optional)
Potatoes (boiled)
Onion chopped fine

1. Boil potatoes until soft, cool, remove skins and mash.
2. Add to potatoes a teaspoon or so of chaat masala and garam masala and pinch of salt. Set aside.
3. Chop all cilantro, peppers and onion. Set aside.
4. Mix up cup or so of yogurt with chaat masala and garam masala and salt (season to taste)

To assemble:

1. Spread crackers on a platter.
2. Add tablespoon or so of potato (as Sangeeta told me, don't skimp on the potato) on top of each cracker
3. prinkle chopped onions and peppers on top of potato mound (careful with those peppers!)
4. Spoon generous teaspoon of sweet chutney and cilantro chutney on top of potato mound
5. Spoon generous tablespoon of yogurt/masala mixture onto potato mound
6. Sprinkle lots of Fine Sev on top of everything
7. Sprinkle cilantro on top of everything
8. Enjoy

Moderation in winter

I had a little reminder of what it is like to be a normal grown up rather than a slave to kid-sized creatures this week. I also discovered that it isn't as hard to be social during my normally reclusive month of February as I had been making it out to be. I met friends for drinks twice in one week.

The first event took place after a parent's meeting at my kid's preschool (Open house March 7! Ms. Juli is GOD!). Lea and I headed down to a newish Cuban restaurant called Cafe Habana and sat at the bar and tried their Mojitos. Sarah and Brian met us after they had an elementary school parent's meeting ('tis the season) and we all reveled in the opportunity to a)be in a bar on a week night! b)talk to grown ups! c)stay up past 9:30 pm (the time at which I usually have wrestled my resistant sleepers into submission and promptly collapsed myself). The drinks were good but the noise and smoke level made me prefer the also-good Mojitos at Zanzibar.

When we left the bar and were walking back to the car, Lea and I noticed the moon looking a little funny. As the driver, I had only consumed one Mojito, so I didn't think it was alcohol to blame for my perception--the moon looked weirdly red and round. When we got home and I checked with my resident astronomer, I found out that we had been seeing the lunar eclipse! It was really beautiful (if you missed it, check out all these images on Flickr) and I think I enjoyed it even more because of the chance factor--no planning, just the luck of being out at night with a friend and looking up into a clear night sky.

Then last night I skipped out at 8:30 and met my friend Emily at The Earle. I discovered that it wasn't that hard to leave the house (even for the second time in a week) and meet up with a friend after the kids were (mostly) ready for bed. It was really, really good to reconnect with an old friend from my UMS days who I have not seen in way too long. I also discovered that The Earle has one of my favorite wines on their wine-by-the-glass menu at the moment--Woop Woop Australian Shiraz 2006.

The key these grown up evenings being workable is moderation--I didn't stay out really late either time and I didn't have more than one alcoholic drink, so getting up the next morning and dealing with the responsibilities of the day weren't difficult at all. I think in the past I've been so relieved to get a break that I have perhaps indulged too much and for too long and then regretted it the next day. Fatigue and dehydration made me think that meeting up with friends in winter was just too hard to do regularly, but now I think I can make the rest of this grim season a little more tolerable by scheduling more evenings of moderation.

And with that realization, I ask for recommendations so I can diversify my locations beyond Zanzibar and The Earle. I'm ok with being a frequent patron of these two places, but I'd bet there are other places I don't know about that I'd enjoy too. Send me your suggestions of other bars/restaurants that fulfill the following conditions:
1) a non-smoking section
2) not too loud to have a conversation
3) they are ok with you ordering one drink and hanging out for a while on a weeknight when no-one else is waiting for your table or seat (I love the wait staff at the Earle--they totally get it that grown ups need a place to talk over a glass of wine and I've never felt rushed there; yes, I tip accordingly, as though my table was a cab with a meter running, not just a percentage of the cost of my one glass of wine).
4) While there may be nicely attired patrons, you don't feel like you have to get gussied up to go there--I'm just too damn tired for gussying on a weeknight.

Maru

I have a new favorite place for Bi Bim Bop: Maru. The restaurant is located where Seoul Korner used to be, at William and Thompson streets. I liked Seoul Korner--it was what I think of as decent "campus" Korean. But I really like Maru. The menu is much more varied and broad--you can get all kinds of bi bim bop, including Haecho Bibimbap (Seaweed Bibimbap) and Hoedeopbap (Raw Fish Bibimbap).

So far I have had the Dolsot Bi Bim Bop twice, once with beef and once with tofu. I don't usually order the same thing twice, but it has been wicked cold here and the weather has made me crave toasty rice.
The second time (pictured above with tofu) the stone bowl was hotter than the first and the rice on the bottom developed the perfect crunchy-chewy toastyness:

Mmm...rice therapy for winter

Brian ordered the spicy squid which was really good--it looked like it would burn a hole in his stomach, but really was more flavorful than just hot.

And I loved the banchan--those little free tasty bits that they bring to the table. Both times there was some standarad napa cabbage kimchi, a peppery bean sprout dish, and a sweet seaweed and daikon salad. The first time I went there was also a lovely turnip kimchi and a dish of chewy gluten strips. The second time I went there was one weird banchan that I left alone (pictured in the upper right corner of the first photo), bits of pickled cabbage mixed with...sliced hot dogs. It's probably some sort of family comfort food because this is a place that also has Spam in a few of the dishes on its menu.

Next time I go I plan to branch out a bit. If it is cold out, I want to try their Kimchi jjigae, which is a big bowl of kimchi, tofu and pork soup. If it is warmish (and by that I mean that my face doesn't feel like it'll fall off from the cold--I've lowered my standards for what counts as warm by this time in February) I want to order the Raw Fish Bi Bim Bop.

What is up

What I'm reading:

I just finished Flight which was fantastic, but I will save my comments until after my book group meets in late July to talk about the book here. I started Michael Chabon's latest, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, and it is terrific, too. The alternate reality of a temporary Jewish homeland on an island off the coast of Alaska where the primary language is Yiddish takes some mental adjustment; the prominent humor is very, very ironic and Jewish. I was snorting with laughter when I read this passage in which a gentile reporter who learned Yiddish from "some pompous old German" and whose Yiddish is described as "like a sausage recipe with footnotes" tries to talk to two hardened (Yiddish) homicide detectives:

"A need to repeat the rash threats of yore does not, I assure you, exist, Detective Shemets....Evergreen and ripe with the sap of their original violence they remain."

Which later gets him the response:
"Brennan, please, I beg you to speak American....What the fuck do you want?"

How can you not love dialog like that?

But the book isn't just funny. Though I'm only on page 99, it already has moments of beauty that are sad, in a wasted, persecuted Jewish sort of way. To say this book gives me great insight into my father and his predecessors is a bit of an understatement.

What I'm knitting:

I finished the Branching Out scarf and it looks like it will be the perfect length--not too long for a partly decorative, partly warming piece of neck wear. Here it is being blocked:
The Artfibers Ming yarn was luscious to work with--Thanks again to Deb for the treat! I actually had someone in a doctor's waiting room ask if they could touch the yarn because it gives off that kind of glow.

I sticking with sturdier stuff for the Pea Pod Baby Set I just started knitting for my kid's pre-school auction this fall. I have no patience with the yarn called for in the pattern: a Debbie Bliss yarn with cashmere that is supposed to be dry cleaned. That strikes me as a recipe for a baby sweater that never gets used; I don't know about the babies the designer has met, but my kids copiously urped breast milk all over their clothes (and mine) pretty much every ten minutes and cashmere was not a part of our wardrobe.

What I'm tasting:

I tried the Cold-brewed iced coffee method from the NY Times and thought it was ok. The way the writer, Cindy Price, described the resulting beverage in the article made it sound dramatically different from the "normal" iced coffee I usually make (that is, chuck the leftover coffee from hubby's morning brew in a jar and shove it in the fridge until mid-afternoon when the caffeine is absolutely necessary to keep the kids from making mincemeat out of me before Brian gets home. If I'm desperate I swill it straight from the jar; if I have a little more prep-time I actually pour it in a glass with ice cubes! and maybe a little splash of milk!) Price describes "hints of chocolate, even caramel" coming out of the cold-brewed version. Well, I made a batch of the cold-brewed stuff (1/3 C ground coffee mixed up with 1 and 1/2 C cold water and left overnight to steep, then strained through a coffee filter). It was fine, but the angels neglected to play their trumpets over my head. I couldn't tell the difference between that and the stuff I usually drink. It was kind of nice not to have to heat up water for coffee that you want to drink cold, but as I am one of the few, the proud, the non-garbage disposal owners, cleaning the coffee grounds out of the jar was a messy chore. If you do have a disposal and can just swish it around and dump it down the drain, then this method might be good for you.

However, the angels were in attendance on my birthday when I tasted best red wine I've ever had the privilege of drinking. Brian and I went up to the Five Lakes Grill for their monthly theme dinner; this month was "A Taste of Spain". The food was good, but not mind blowing--there were some tapas, a nice gazpacho, some garlicy big shrimp, a fancified paella and an orange creme brulee. Everything was very nicely prepared, but none of it rocked my world. What did set me spinning was the red wine that was paired with the "Modern Style Paella": 2001 Remelluri Rioja. It was so ripe and rich and smoky and fruity I just about ran out of wine adjectives to describe it. It was this wine, and not the food, that Brian and I talked about on the way home. I've found it listed on-line on sale for $22.99/bottle, but I'd rather find a local source for it.

I have a new favorite platform for summer berries--the basic French yogurt cake, Gateau au Yaourt.
The cake is very springy and moist and the small amount of vanilla and rum in the batter give it a big boost of flavor. The strawberries pictured above were the very end of the Michigan crop (at least around here). Fiona and my mom and I went out and picked berries at Rowes earlier this week. The berries required sunstantial work--there weren't many per plant and they were small. But the small size was due to the stressed-out nature of the plants at the end of their fruit producing season and stressed-out, tired plants produce incredibly sweet and perfumed berries (if only all stressed-out, tired entities had such lovely results...). These berries are about as close in flavor to a wild strawberry as I've ever tasted coming from a cultivated plant. And they pair wonderfully with the yogurt cake and a big dollop of whipped cream.

What I'm writing:

I have an idea that I don't want to curse by talking about it. Sorry.

Just what I needed

My book group met yesterday evening and it was just what I needed.

I'd been having one of "those" days. The three year old kept shouting at me "I'm taking you to jail, but you have to drive!" every time I asked her to do something (it's cute the first time or two that you hear you have to drive yourself to your own incarceration; it gets less funny the 30th time...). The six year old has been obsessed with the computer lately and cares more about it than any humans; yesterday was no exception and included some epic battles of wills with his teachers. He followed that up on the way home from school with one of those confusing/disturbing declarations: "I was too sad to go to my focus study so I got to go spend time with Kit (the librarian) who is always really kind to me." I tried to dig and find out what the hell that sentence meant--why was he sad? had someone been unkind to him? Kit is a lovely person and I can understand why he'd want to spend time with her, but what was the problem with his focus study (which is this really cool two week long mini course that the kids get to do three times a year at his school)? But it was like talking to a wall: I couldn't get any information out of him.

By 4:30 I felt like I had been banging my head into a post for a few hours--dazed, confused and with my confidence in my mommy-skills totally shot. There were moments yesterday when I thought about handing the kids off to Brian and just going upstairs and crawling into bed, but somehow I got myself into the kitchen to make my contribution to the book group feast and Sarah and Lea picked up my sorry ass and drove me out to Ami's house.

It took 3 large glasses of wine and some pretty potent chocolate, but after an evening with these culinary therapies, and the best therapy of all, the company of some wonderful women, I felt a whole lot better.

We talked about Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? (which I raved about here) and as the narrator reflects back on her upstate New York adolescence from her present location of Paris, we had French food. Well, sort of French...Everyone else made French food and I brought an Italian antipasti that I'd been wanting to make since I was given this book for Christmas.

We started by sipping (or in my case, swilling) a really nice wine that Marilyn brought which, despite its rude name, Fat Bastard, is from Languedoc grapes (look at the cute hippo on the label!) With it we had my antipasti:

warm Gorgonzola custards with an arugula, pear, and walnut salad

The custards didn't come out of their ramekins as nicely as I'd have liked and so looked a little like a pile of scrambled eggs, but they tasted fine. The combination of the cream and eggs mellowed the bite of the Gorgonzola and the pear, arugula, walnut salad was the perfect bit of sweetness and freshness to keep the custards from being overwhelming. The dressing couldn't have been simpler, a little walnut oil and some balsamic, but I used really good balsamic, an 18 year old one from Morgan and York ($18 for 18 years, seems like a good deal to me!) and it really made a difference.

Then Ami served a gorgeous, huge, juicy, roasted chicken and made some smashed-then-roasted potatoes that were fantastic (must get the January 2007 copy of Fine Cooking for the recipes).
Sarah brought a classic salade crudite with matchstick beets, celery root and carrots in a shallot vinaigrette:
The sharpness of the vegetables cut through the richness of the chicken and potatoes--really a lovely pairing.

And then it was on to chocolate therapy provided by our favorite sweet-tooth of the group, Lea:

pots de creme with an ample dollop of whipped cream

John came in an pulled an expert intense espresso to go with the dessert. I decided to also have a little more wine...

my kind of triumvirate: red wine, chocolate and espresso

I got myself into a blissful groove of alternating a sip of espresso--a bite of pot de creme--a sip of wine--a bite of pot de creme--a sip of espresso--a bite of pot de creme, etc.

And by the time Sarah delivered me back to my door, with a full belly and a buzzy brain from the wine/espresso combo, I felt like I could face another day, no matter how flawed it may be.

If it keeps mice away, I don't want it on my cloth napkins...

Brian and I rarely get to eat out sans kiddlets; usually we have to strategize so that a restaurant has something bland and colorless on its menu to satisfy the little people. But one evening we found ourselves liberated from this restriction (kiddos at Granny's house) so we decided to try a new place that would have some spicy food: Banh Na Laos and Thai Cuisine out on Washtenaw.

The meal we had was of a mixed quality: the Tom Kah Kai soup was one of the best I've ever tasted--rich and thick with coconut milk, perfect balance of galangal and and lemon grass and spicy without searing your throat shut. It really nailed the hot/sour/salty/sweet balance. I'd be tempted to drive across town for a quart of this stuff alone. We also had some decent drunken noodles with chicken, basil and red and green peppers. I'm a sucker for big wide rice noodles and they were generous with the basil.

The other two dishes were not of the same quality: the green papaya salad was actually inedible due to someone's extreme enthusiasm for the dried shrimp. Way, way too many. Dried shrimp, like fish sauce, is not something to be enjoyed on its own, but mixed in the proper proportion with other seasonings like lime juice, it can transform a dish. But overload it and you are left with a fishy mess. Brian took one taste and wouldn't eat any more. I tried to extract some threads of green papaya, but gave up after realizing the taste approximated licking the floor of a fish market.

The other dish was just sorta so so--a Musselman curry. It didn't taste bad--maybe a little too much cinnamon in the sauce and not enough ginger or fish sauce to cut through the richness of the coconut milk, but my big gripe was that it was just butt-ugly. Looking at the ingredients (pork, potatoes, onion, red and yellow apples, peanuts, coconut milk) didn't make me expect a beautiful dish, but unfortunately the kitchen decided to use purple onions which did no favor to the appearance--the purple bled into the light brown sauce to make it Puce colored. (Go on, click that link to see puce and also discover that puce is the official color of the Christian Heritage Party of Canada. Those wacky Canadians!)

Would you want to eat something that color?

The atmosphere of the place is sadly lacking--this was heightened by the fact that we were the only customers in the restaurant and Brian pointed out the fish tank behind my head that was empty of fish and had about 2 inches of stagnant algae clogged water sitting in it.

And the final nail in my decision to keep this restaurant (for its soup and noodles) in my take-out menu file but not on my visit-in-person list were the napkins.

I LOATHE fabric softener and the cloth napkins at the table were soaked in the stuff. They left their stinky fumes on my hands and overpowered the pleasant scent of the dishes we had ordered. Believe me, "Mountain Fresh" scent does nothing for Thai food.

I was just doing a little catch-up blog reading and it turns out that a while ago Kitchen Chick reported that Bounce fabric softener sheets have worked well as a mouse repellent in her kitchen! They also work well as a Kate repellent in a restaurant.

Three or four customers came in while we were there to pick up groaning bags of take out. Whether it was the sight of pond scum or the fragrance of the napkins that turned them off to the in-person dining experience, I don't know. But I do want some more of that soup and I think I'll follow suit and pick some up and flee the premises next time.

Restaurant Review: MisSaigon

I haven't had the opportunity to do a review of someone else's cooking in a while. Hmmmm--why would that be? I suppose I could post my feelings about the various pizzas in town since that has been the only restaurant scene to which I've been exposed of late.

But last night, on a whim (had food in the house to cook, had a good day with the kids so cooking didn't seem like a nail in my coffin, etc.) we trucked across town and went to the new Vietnamese restaurant MisSiagon. (I committed the blogging crime of leaving home without my camera. So sorry.)

I'm a big fan of Vietnamese food--brighter, sharper flavors than the Thai food that can be found around here (the Thai offerings in the area, which have improved of late, rely heavily on coconut milk but ignore the sour end of the Thai food spectrum). Thus far the only place to get Vietnamese food has been the frustratingly inconsistent and distant (from my house) restaurant Dalat, located on Michigan Ave right in downtown Ypsilanti. I've had good bowls of Pho (sorry, can't get the accents to work in Blogger) and Bun there (soup and composed vermicelli rice bowls respectively) but I've also had really sad ones that were not worth the drive.

MisSaigon is located out on Stone School Road just past Ellsworth in the new little strip mall that is (I assume) filling the take-out needs of the South East part of town (there is also a branch of Tio's for Mexican and a branch of Ahmo's and a Mediterranean market for Middle Eastern.) MisSaigon's Vietnamese menu is not as extensive as Dalat's--about half of MisSaigon's menu is standard Chinese fare. But the Vietnamese food that is on the menu and that we tried last night was a step up from Dalat's.

We sampled three Vietnamese classics: a big bowl of Pho, a bowl of Bun (we chose the one with marinated char-grilled pork) and a Vietnamese Crepe with shrimp.

The Pho (noodle soup with thin slices of beef) had an intensely flavorful broth with very prominent star anise flavor. It came with the standard plate of bean sprouts and lime wedge, and a bottle of hoisin sauce to add as you like (I've never had it with the hoisin sauce and didn't think it brought much to the soup). I wish that, like some of the Vietnamese places that I've frequented out on the West coast, it had also come with sliced chilies, fresh cilantro and fresh basil to add, but the flavor of the broth was so good that I didn't miss the additions as much as usual. I foresee sending Brian across town this winter to bring me some of this Pho when I've got a horrible cold.

The Bun was good, but not stellar; on a good day at Dalat I'd say the Bun at each place is equal. Bun should be a deep bowl of goodness--layered cold vermicelli noodles, shredded lettuce, carrot, bean sprouts, cucumber and peanuts with some sort of grilled meat on top. It comes with the standard and addictive Vietnamese dipping sauce, nuoc cham which is lime juice, sugar, garlic, chilies and fish sauce. At MisSaigon the grilled pork was nicely charred yet still juicy and the vegetables were crisp and fresh. The size of the bowl was moderate--I'm used to more gluttonous servings and while I appreciate that the obesity problem in America (and particularly in my state) should make me pleased that there is a place that doesn't cater to our outsized appetites, I thought this was on the skimpy side. The other big critique is that the nuoc cham was really, how shall I say, Midwestern. I couldn't taste any garlic or chilies in it so it lacked the punch that a good nuoc cham should have. They served it with a bottle of hot sauce so you could boost up the heat, but it didn't have the same effect as fresh chilies.

The Vietnamese Crepe was well executed. If you haven't had one of these, allow me to describe it: the crepe is BIG--not a weenie little appetizer but a plate full of food. A very eggy batter (almost a cross between an omelet and a crepe) is stuffed with sauteed bean sprouts and onions and your choice of protein, then served with leaves of lettuce, fresh herbs and that same lime-fish sauce for dipping. To eat it, you tear off a piece of crepe, fill it with the fresh herbs and wrap it in a lettuce leaf before dipping it in the sauce.

The crepe batter at MisSaigon was nicely spiked with curry powder and the shrimp in the crepe were big, plump and juicy. I had expected tiny (cheaper) salad shrimp and was pleasantly surprised by the appearance of their bigger brethren. The charcoal grilling did not dry out the flesh, something that has happened on occasion at Dalat. (The cook at MisSaigon has a deft touch at the charcoal grill). MisSaigon provided cilantro with the lettuce, though I wish there had also been fresh mint and/or basil and, again, I thought the dipping sauce needed garlic and chilies to brighten up the flavor.

The restaurant is very clean (Dalat is on the dingy side) and the owner/waiter was really friendly and helpful. There was no stress about eating with kids and the waiter brought extra bowls and spoons to dish up food for the kids without our having to ask. Getting the bill took a while but my guess is they didn't expect so many people on a Wednesday evening--I was pleased that there were a decent number of other diners.
I wish the place had a bigger Vietnamese menu--there are a few other Vietnamese dishes on the menu (a few rice plates, chef specials and appetizers) that we didn't try, but clearly they are sticking with conservative fare and relying more heavily on the back-up of Chinese food to pay the rent. I'm hoping that if they stay in business and the Vietnamese food proves popular, maybe they'll diversify the menu a bit more. Until then, I will definitely be back when the urge hits for a big bowl of noodle soup with that heavenly star anise broth.

Snaussages

On Friday evening we had some folks over to sample chef Brian Polcyn's sausage making skill. (Polcyn is the chef and owner of the restaurant that I went to on my birthday in June--The Five Lakes Grill. If you missed my blow by blow recounting of that fabulous meal, you can look here.)

The restaurant's web site reports that they sell their house made sausages every Thursday for $7/lb. So on Thursday evening we went up to make our purchase. One word of advice--make sure you call ahead and ask to talk to someone in the kitchen about the sausages they have for retail. We did and even then it wasn't the smoothest transaction--I don't think very many people take them up on this sausage purchase idea because much of the staff seemed completely clueless when I showed up (I went in the back entrance--there is lots of parking behind the restaurant and I was looking pretty crappy and sweaty after a day with the entropy kids, so I didn't want to ruin any patron's dinner who might be unlucky enough to find themselves down wind from me...). It took at least 20 minutes to find the guy I had talked to on the phone, tell him what I wanted and receive the nicely wrapped meaty treasure. And then they had to find someone else for me to pay. Anyway, point being, bring your patience to the restaurant when you go to make your purchase.

Thankfully, the wait is well worth it.

There were three varieties available on Thursday and they were $6.25/lb rather than the $7 listed on the web site (no complaint there!). I bought about 2 lbs of Chicken Sundried Tomato sausages and 1 lb each of a Veal Hunters Sausage and a Veal Tuscan Sausage. The chicken sausages were raw, the veal sausages were fully cooked (though they did need some time on the grill to make them ready for eating).

Here are the chicken sausages posing on the grill (with a few Koegel's hot dogs for the kids):
And here is a little lump of chicken sausage ready for its close up:
Here are the veal offerings (Hunters on top, Tuscan on bottom):
And this is what my greedy-guts plate looked like:

The snaussages with their side dishes: Sarah's home grown tomatoes, basic red skin potato salad, and MJ's corn and barley salad.

And the tasting report? My favorite were the Chicken Sundried Tomato--a wonderful spice balance and nice and juicy. Second favorite was the Veal Tuscan--it was drier than the chicken (probably due to being precooked and just finished on the grill) and much richer, almost too rich for my taste. Again, a nice spice balance. Third place was the Veal Hunters--this is a smoked sausage and it was just too intense for me. I like smoked food a lot, but I had a hard time tasting any other flavor the smoke was so intense. And again, too rich for me. I think it would probably make a great ingredient when combined with other foods, but I probably wouldn't make it on its own again.

For desert we dished up a bit of the chocolate orange sorbet and made it a complete Bittman desert by serving it with his basic brownie recipe which is super fudgy and rich (and not for folks who want their brownies big and cakey). I promise a full brownie blog with the recipe soon.
Brian is still in Lebowski fest mode and mixed up White Russians (aka Caucasians) for anyone who wanted one as a dessert beverage.

Now I need to get my butt in gear and drive out to Saline for an Indian cooking class my friend John helped organize. Not to worry, a report will be coming soon.

Happy to be home

Sometimes I think the main reason I travel is so that I'm happy to come back home. Sure, seeing new things and breaking the old routine is great, but coming home is a big pleasure too. After the CA stint I had about 24 hours before heading out the door again, this time to drive to Wisconsin with Fiona for my friend Sue's wedding. I left Brian and Ian at home and took the kid who is a reasonably good traveler.

Allow me to introduce you to Sue:

I like to think of her as Sue-with-the-10,000 Watt smile.
And that's her lucky man, Jim, who has the smile directed right at him.

It was a beautiful ceremony, all the things that a wedding should be--a big warm embrace of community. Sue's brother-in-law, Dan, married them and he gave a terrific commentary on marriage--funny, touching, and amazingly without cliches--that made me get on my cell phone as soon as the ceremony was over and leave a mushy message for Brian.

And on the literary front, Sue's friend Aaron gave a reading from one of my favorite children's books, The Velveteen Rabbit. It was the part about becoming real and how love makes you shabby around the edges with floppy worn-out bits. I can't wait to read this book to my critters when they will sit still long enough to listen to it. I bet I could get Ian to listen if I added a character with gears to the story...

Fiona was greatly amused by the ring bearer--Sue and Jim's huge dog, Brutus. Here you see Brutus having a lean against Jim while Aaron is doing his reading:

The culinary highlight was the dessert--Sue had told me that she was ordering her wedding cake from my absolute favorite Chicago bakery, the Swedish Bakery (located in the Andersonville neighborhood). It was a lovely carrot cake, moist and with lots of walnuts, very minimally decorated and elegant. But the surprise came in the form of the 5 groaning trays of other Swedish Bakery treats--butter cookies, petit fours, little marzipan cakes, chocolate truffles, etc.

The trays of sweet bounty

Here is what I snagged to take back to my seat:

Surrounding the carrot cake from the top are: a chocolate truffle, an almond/chocolate/marzipan cake, and a raspberry petit four.

There are times when I don't think I'm cut out to be a mom because I distinctly remember my mom never turning me down when I asked for some of her food. Such selfless impulses when it comes to food are not natural to me and I often hide what I'm eating so I don't have to share it with Fiona (Ian isn't a problem since he only eats about 10 foods). So I think it shows clear progress in the mom-suitability test that I'm constantly administering myself that I didn't get the slightest bit pissy with Fiona when she grabbed the chocolate truffle and stuffed the whole damn thing in her mouth. Instead, I grabbed the almond chocolate marzipan thingy and stuffed it in my mouth. We shared the carrot cake and the raspberry petit four.

We drove back this morning, left early and got to Evanston in time to eat breakfast at my favorite restaurant, The Lucky Platter. The Lucky Platter isn't a restaurant that I can sum up in a few words, mostly because if you look at their menu, nothing really jumps out at you--it just looks like a slightly quirky, American-style restaurant. But for some reason they make even the most mundane sounding dish taste great--I'm not a big fan of barbecued chicken sandwiches (I'm not talking about real barbecue, rather a grilled boneless skinless breast with some bbq sauce slopped on), but I'd eat the Lucky Platter one if there weren't so many other things that I really like that they make.

I spent many an evening at Lucky Platter recovering with my fellow sufferers from the heinousness of our days in Northwestern's Theater PhD program (note: I bailed out with an MA and a propensity to overuse the words hegemony, discourse, paradigm and methodology to the point of meaninglessness--if you want to read a sample of the intellectual wankage that we were all turning out left, right and center, take a peek at the excruciating two paragraphs here. Also note the incongruous and deceptive photo of a smiling woman placed above the text).

But I do have fond memories of my peers and our times at Lucky Platter: sitting under a big picture of Lobster Boy (a carnival side-show print) I vented my frustration and assuaged my ravaged intellect with Caribbean Pumpkin soup, the best sweet potato fries I've ever tasted (no sogginess at all) and a basic salad with terrific mustard soy vinaigrette. And it was cheap enough for my pathetic grad student income.

Today for brunch, Fiona had one huge whole wheat pancake and I ordered the vegetarian eggs benedict which looked like this:

It consisted of two slabs of grilled polenta, roasted vegetables (mushrooms, tomatoes, peppers and onions), two poached eggs, hollandaise sauce and a sprinkling of cilantro. And it was wonderful. Fiona loved it too and I found myself not doing quite so well on the self-lessness portion of the mom-suitability test...so I ate a big chunk of her pancake, took a deep breath, and shared my eggs.

Another gluttony belt needed...

Saturday was my birthday and in celebration Brian took me out to a restaurant that I've been wanting to try for ages: the Five Lakes Grill in Milford. I'd heard it was one of the best restaurants between Toronto and Chicago. The owner and chef, Brian Polcyn, was featured in Michael Ruhlman's book, The Soul of a Chef: The Journey Toward Perfection.

I'll cut to the chase--we had a fantastic dinner. If you want to look at the current menu, it is posted on their site. I took photos, of course (without flash, forgive the grainy quality).

We started with the Farmer's charcuterie plate--Polcyn is known for his house-cured charcuterie and for a good reason.

Clockwise from top: a soppresatta-style salami, liver pate with pickled ramps and a ham-studded potato salad, crouton with lardo, a smoked dry salami, and Westphalian ham with baby basil leaves.

A more affordable way to sample his sausage making talent (which I plan to avail myself of) is the purchase of his wonderful fresh sausages to take home--they have two varieties available every Thursday at $7 per pound. Brian works in Milford so some Thursday this summer he will be sent with a sausage request and we'll have a big barbecue with friends.

After the charcuterie, Brian had a potato soup with carmelized onions and frizzled leeks. It sounded basic on the menu but what was delivered to our table was the silky smoothest potato soup I've ever tasted. Not a hint of the grainy quality that can sometimes afflict potato soup.

I call it, Bliss in a Bowl

Then we had our salad courses. Brian had a traditional caprese salad of tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and basil. It was pretty and tasted fine, but was the only thing we had that didn't blow me away.

I had the utterly retro wedge of lettuce with house-made Roquefort dressing, cherry tomatoes and hard boiled egg. I know, it doesn't sound like gourmet fare, but it was fabulous. And anyone who has been back-country camping with me knows that one of my favorite "junk foods" to eat when I get back to civilization is a large quantity of iceberg lettuce with blue cheese dressing. This convinced me that I need to make my own blue-cheese dressing more often--it's ridiculously easy, just requires making the effort.

Then came the entrees. Here is what I had:

Pan Roasted Breast of Indiana Duck

with duck confit, wilted frisse, caramelized onions, bacon and roasted yellow beets

And here is Brian's entree:

Caramelized Scallops

with a saute of Chanterelle mushrooms, corn, and spinach with a roasted red pepper sauce

Both entrees were fabulous. My duck was rare and sweet and the smoky confit and bitter frisse set it off well. It was insanely rich, which I suppose is to be expected with duck since it is so fatty (and fatty in a good way). Brian's scallops were a special of the evening, our server said they have a scallop special most weekends. The scallops were huge (Brian described them as burger-sized to give you a better idea). I got a bite of scallop with a piece of chanterelle and it was such a fabulous combination--the musty richness of the fungus set off scallops sweet, pure flavor. The only thing we thought was superfluous was the roasted red pepper puree--it looked pretty, but didn't add much or meld with the other flavors.

I know some people will be shocked, but we didn't have dessert. None of the desserts sounded particularly interesting to me--just sort of standard (a molten chocolate cake, a lemon tart with raspberries, homemade vanilla ice cream, a creme brulee and a cheesecake to choose from) and by then we were so stuffed with richness that putting any more butter-fat in our mouths sounded kind of nauseating. So we each had a glass of desert wine (mine a black Muscat, Brian a framboise).

With dinner we polished off a nice pinot noir and the wine list was good and the prices were not outrageous. I had steeled myself to be paying through the nose and was relieved to find a few acceptable offerings in the $27-35 range.

We won't be able to afford to go back whenever we have a whim for a good meal, but we do now have a favorite special occasion restaurant. Also, on Tuesdays, the chef leads a special 5 wines with 5 appetizers tasting for $20 which could be a good way to have a little week-night treat. It would be a lot of fun to meet up there with some friends for the tasting and afterwards go for a walk or canoe paddle at the nearby Kensington Metro Park.

How to Relax on a Friday night with the Family

1. Get a friend who is a wonderful cook to invite your clan over for dinner.
2. Let the Dad's take charge of feeding the sprogs.
3. Take your lovely plate of food and glass of wine onto a nice deck with a view.
4. Purchase, rather than make, your contribution to the meal.

All four of the above took place yesterday evening and what a nice evening it was for me! Sarah made Beer-Can Chicken, Deviled Potatoes, and a lovely Arugula salad (picked moments before from her copious garden). There was a good bottle of Sangiovese that I seemed to be the only one consuming (everyone else was in a Bell's Oberon mood).

This was my dinner and my view.

And just inside the sliding glass doors there was this dining chaos that I didn't have to deal with:

The kid's table (from left going clockwise): Fiona, Ian, Brian, Kevin, Mike, Maeve, Nicholaus

And hovering just out of photo range were (the other) Brian and Sarah. Eventually, I lured Sarah out to the peace of the deck and we let the Dad's do things like chicken-containment, hotdog holding, and fork-technique lessons, though I did miss seeing Maeve prove her adventurous 3-year-old palate when she ate her arugula salad.

After dinner we went down to the backyard for dessert and kid playtime and we managed to demolish the box of cakes I bought at Shatila bakery.

Ian gave the double chocolate cake his full-face-stamp of approval.

Thanks to a sharp knife and a little sneaky slicing, I managed to taste quite a few of the variety of cakes. My favorite was the least visually impressive: the coconut cake. Just plain moist cake, white not-too-sweet frosting and loads of unsweetened coconut.

Some weekend soon, I'll need to reciprocate and do the hosting so Sarah can enjoy the experience of ending a Friday relaxed well-fed, and with a tired kid who is more than willing to go to bed.