The Cow is a cute little stand on 140 Boulevard that sells frozen custard and soft serve-type ice cream. Noah and I have been meaning to go there for awhile now, but we never seemed to be available when it was open. After a trip to Hanover, PA for sushi (look for a review in an upcoming blog post!), we decided now was finally the time to stop by The Cow.
We ordered a regular chocolate frozen custard, and it was great! It's a little difficult to write about soft-serve ice cream, because it either tastes like it should or it doesn't--not too much nuance out there unless you're going for some kind of gourmet soft serve (which we weren't). The atmosphere is also just right; a small stand with people milling around outside in the parking lot, with only a couple picnic tables to sit on.
The Cow also serves various ice cream-based desserts, and claims to have gelato, which I definitely will have to taste to believe--not a lot of gelato around here. We'll definitely be back!
The Cow
473 Baltimore Boulevard
Westminster, MD 21157
410-751-6269
Showing posts with label reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reviews. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Saturday, July 5, 2014
Hickory Bridge Farm is a restaurant and B&B tucked way back in Adams County, Pennsylvania. Florence and I are staying for July 4 weekend near Gettysburg, so we thought it would be great to try Hickory Bridge for dinner. Getting there was an adventure - it's only 25 minutes away, but it's deep in the country and many of the roads are unsigned. We found it without having to call, but it was pretty close.
The place itself is a classic country restaurant - the menu is fixed and the price is by the person. The food is served family-style, and there are a lot of options. When we were there, they had crab imperial, oven-fried chicken, and pit beef for main dishes; scalloped potatoes, glazed carrots, broccoli with cheese sauce, corn fritters, and baked apples for side dishes; and bread, spiced peaches, and salad to start.
The quality of the food varies - the crab and chicken in particular were excellent. The corn fritters, potatoes, peaches, and apples were very good, and the pit beef was good but for an unusual glaze - I think raspberry, but I'm not sure. The other food was okay, but I just had a taste and focused on the better items. They'll happily bring you more of anything if you want, so I didn't waste space eating food I didn't love.
We also had a delicious bread pudding for dessert. Typical bread pudding in every way, but very well-made - and I think that describes the rest of Hickory Bridge as well. It isn't adventurous, but it is quite tasty.
Hickory Bridge Farm
96 Hickory Bridge Road*
Orrtanna, PA 17353
Dinner price as of 7/4/2014: $25.50/person + tax/tip
*Google dropped us off at the corner of Hickory Bridge Road and Jack Road. The restaurant is actually about 1/4 - 1/2 mile south of there.
The place itself is a classic country restaurant - the menu is fixed and the price is by the person. The food is served family-style, and there are a lot of options. When we were there, they had crab imperial, oven-fried chicken, and pit beef for main dishes; scalloped potatoes, glazed carrots, broccoli with cheese sauce, corn fritters, and baked apples for side dishes; and bread, spiced peaches, and salad to start.
The quality of the food varies - the crab and chicken in particular were excellent. The corn fritters, potatoes, peaches, and apples were very good, and the pit beef was good but for an unusual glaze - I think raspberry, but I'm not sure. The other food was okay, but I just had a taste and focused on the better items. They'll happily bring you more of anything if you want, so I didn't waste space eating food I didn't love.
We also had a delicious bread pudding for dessert. Typical bread pudding in every way, but very well-made - and I think that describes the rest of Hickory Bridge as well. It isn't adventurous, but it is quite tasty.
Hickory Bridge Farm
96 Hickory Bridge Road*
Orrtanna, PA 17353
Dinner price as of 7/4/2014: $25.50/person + tax/tip
*Google dropped us off at the corner of Hickory Bridge Road and Jack Road. The restaurant is actually about 1/4 - 1/2 mile south of there.
Friday, June 13, 2014
Bamboo Garden (Brooklyn, NY)
Flushing, Queens, used to be the undisputed home of dim sum in New York. Dim sum is a style of Chinese food that involves eating small portions of many dishes. It differs from tapas and other styles of small-plate dining in that you don't order food - there are several carts wheeling around the restaurant, and they stop by your table and you pick what you want to eat.
Most of Queens' dim sum restaurants have either closed or gone significantly downhill in the last few years. My parents and I used to frequent Dong Yi Feng on 37th Avenue, but that too has declined recently. So it's been awhile since I've eaten dim sum. This brings us to last weekend, when Florence and I were staying with friends in Brooklyn. Sunset Park in Brooklyn is rumored to be the new home of dim sum in NY, so we looked up the best places on Serious Eats and decided on Bamboo Garden. Inside, it has the classic look - a huge and chaotic dining hall with many carts, and a stand at the front where you check in and get a number. We only waited about five minutes, which is impressive for a Sunday morning.
As soon as we sat down we were accosted by several carts. In fact, Bamboo Garden had more carts than I've ever seen at a dim sum restaurant - at least five stopped by our table within a few minutes of us sitting down. The weakness of dim sum is often that the food is not too fresh by the time the cart gets to your table, but Bamboo Garden was crowded and the food was flying out the kitchen. Everything was fresh, hot, and very, very good.
The standouts were the tripe and the water chestnut cake cake, both of which were easily the best I've ever had. The tripe was perfectly cooked, not rubbery as tripe can sometimes be, and not funky at all. It was the "white" style (I don't know what it's called in Cantonese) with ginger, garlic, and scallions. The water chestnut cake was the star of the morning - it was piping hot and perfectly cooked. The bottom was pan-fried, which I'd been hoping for, but you don't always see that in dim sum restaurants as it takes extra work from the kitchen. The combination of the crunchy bottom with the jellylike texture of the cake was fantastic.
The only thing that wasn't great was the chili sauce - it was a slightly-alarming bright red and tasted vaguely of chemicals. However, the food was so good that I didn't even miss it.
Bamboo Garden
6409 8th Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11220
Expect to pay around $10/person, which is pretty typical for dim sum in NY
Most of Queens' dim sum restaurants have either closed or gone significantly downhill in the last few years. My parents and I used to frequent Dong Yi Feng on 37th Avenue, but that too has declined recently. So it's been awhile since I've eaten dim sum. This brings us to last weekend, when Florence and I were staying with friends in Brooklyn. Sunset Park in Brooklyn is rumored to be the new home of dim sum in NY, so we looked up the best places on Serious Eats and decided on Bamboo Garden. Inside, it has the classic look - a huge and chaotic dining hall with many carts, and a stand at the front where you check in and get a number. We only waited about five minutes, which is impressive for a Sunday morning.
As soon as we sat down we were accosted by several carts. In fact, Bamboo Garden had more carts than I've ever seen at a dim sum restaurant - at least five stopped by our table within a few minutes of us sitting down. The weakness of dim sum is often that the food is not too fresh by the time the cart gets to your table, but Bamboo Garden was crowded and the food was flying out the kitchen. Everything was fresh, hot, and very, very good.
The standouts were the tripe and the water chestnut cake cake, both of which were easily the best I've ever had. The tripe was perfectly cooked, not rubbery as tripe can sometimes be, and not funky at all. It was the "white" style (I don't know what it's called in Cantonese) with ginger, garlic, and scallions. The water chestnut cake was the star of the morning - it was piping hot and perfectly cooked. The bottom was pan-fried, which I'd been hoping for, but you don't always see that in dim sum restaurants as it takes extra work from the kitchen. The combination of the crunchy bottom with the jellylike texture of the cake was fantastic.
The only thing that wasn't great was the chili sauce - it was a slightly-alarming bright red and tasted vaguely of chemicals. However, the food was so good that I didn't even miss it.
Bamboo Garden
6409 8th Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11220
Expect to pay around $10/person, which is pretty typical for dim sum in NY
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Cafe Kiev (Brooklyn, NY)
Despite how far food in Westminster has come (a tea bar! a place where most of the food is vegetarian! entire restaurants that don't even serve crab dip! real, honest-to-goodness Malaysian food!!!), when Noah and I visit New York we are itching for food that rural Maryland just can't provide. A few weeks ago, we spent the weekend in New York visiting friends and family and experiencing food from cultures we don't come into contact with at home. One of the standout restaurants we visited was Cafe Kiev, in Brooklyn.
Cafe Kiev is a small Ukranian/Russian cafe just outside of Midwood, where we were staying with friends. It's clean and attractive inside--a step up from the slightly dingy holes in the wall that Noah and I enjoy so much. The menu looked great, so we (four people, including our friends) decided to order as many things as possible. At this point, considering how many of them were in the dishes we ordered, it was clear that this meal was brought to us by potatoes.
We started off with a pitcher of Cafe Kiev's homemade fruit punch, which we all diluted with our waters because it was a bit too sweet for our tastes. Honestly, my sweet tooth is not what it used to be, so I laid low on the fruit punch altogether.
The first dish that came out was the herring appetizer, which was served with some lovely creamy mashed potatoes. I love fish, and this was excellent--very delicately flavored despite it being fish and there being chopped onions dispersed around it. I wouldn't have thought to put the buttery, creamy mashed potatoes alongside it, but they went quite well together.
Continuing on the potato theme, next we got their home fries with mushrooms. Now, as an across-the-board lover of potatoes in all their forms, I have to commend these potatoes for their excellence. These little guys were gorgeously friend and intensely addictive, a "burden" I took for everyone since the plate was right next to me. Even when I was full, I just could not stop popping those potatoes into my mouth!
We knew we had to get the vareniki with potato and mushrooms, since it's a very traditional dish and because we just can't resist dumplings in any form. These were very good, but not the star of the meal; as I described it, "they're not bad, it's just that everything else is SO EXCELLENT that they don't stand out as much".
We finished up with two different kinds of blintzes, one with red caviar and one with one with egg, onion, and mushrooms. The egg blintz was very different than the normal crepe-like texture of blintzes: a little sturdier, a little more textured. It was overshadowed, however, by the fact that the red caviar blintzes were the best thing on the menu. The caviar gave this dish a great fishy bite, and we were trying to spread it over every inch of the blintz to make sure that each person who took a piece got some. It was light and savory and delicious, and we left very happy.
The bonus draw to Cafe Kiev is the bizarre Russian pop music videos on a large screen that just happened to be right across from where I was sitting. I think the best thing we saw during this meal was this gem of a video. Enjoy.
Cafe Kiev is a small Ukranian/Russian cafe just outside of Midwood, where we were staying with friends. It's clean and attractive inside--a step up from the slightly dingy holes in the wall that Noah and I enjoy so much. The menu looked great, so we (four people, including our friends) decided to order as many things as possible. At this point, considering how many of them were in the dishes we ordered, it was clear that this meal was brought to us by potatoes.
We started off with a pitcher of Cafe Kiev's homemade fruit punch, which we all diluted with our waters because it was a bit too sweet for our tastes. Honestly, my sweet tooth is not what it used to be, so I laid low on the fruit punch altogether.
The first dish that came out was the herring appetizer, which was served with some lovely creamy mashed potatoes. I love fish, and this was excellent--very delicately flavored despite it being fish and there being chopped onions dispersed around it. I wouldn't have thought to put the buttery, creamy mashed potatoes alongside it, but they went quite well together.
Continuing on the potato theme, next we got their home fries with mushrooms. Now, as an across-the-board lover of potatoes in all their forms, I have to commend these potatoes for their excellence. These little guys were gorgeously friend and intensely addictive, a "burden" I took for everyone since the plate was right next to me. Even when I was full, I just could not stop popping those potatoes into my mouth!
We knew we had to get the vareniki with potato and mushrooms, since it's a very traditional dish and because we just can't resist dumplings in any form. These were very good, but not the star of the meal; as I described it, "they're not bad, it's just that everything else is SO EXCELLENT that they don't stand out as much".
We finished up with two different kinds of blintzes, one with red caviar and one with one with egg, onion, and mushrooms. The egg blintz was very different than the normal crepe-like texture of blintzes: a little sturdier, a little more textured. It was overshadowed, however, by the fact that the red caviar blintzes were the best thing on the menu. The caviar gave this dish a great fishy bite, and we were trying to spread it over every inch of the blintz to make sure that each person who took a piece got some. It was light and savory and delicious, and we left very happy.
The bonus draw to Cafe Kiev is the bizarre Russian pop music videos on a large screen that just happened to be right across from where I was sitting. I think the best thing we saw during this meal was this gem of a video. Enjoy.
Saturday, June 7, 2014
Lone Star BBQ (New Windsor, MD)
I love barbecue. Real smoked not-made-in-the-oven barbecue. This presents a problem in Maryland, where 95% or more of "barbecue" has never seen or touched a lick of smoke. One of the few good options, the aptly-named Smokers' BBQ in Finksburg, closed a few months ago, leaving me with nothing short of heading to Virginia.
Enter Lone Star BBQ in New Windsor. It's been open for a year, but Florence and I saw it for the first time passing through town last month. We needed an easy lunch today and decided to check it out. The first thing we saw as we drove up was a smoker out front: a very good sign. Inside it smelled like smoke and meat: another good sign. I was very encouraged at this point, and given the name I went for the most Texas of barbecue I could find: the brisket.
The platter arrived with sliced brisket, French fries, coleslaw, and cornbread. We dismissed the cornbread out of hand as it was wrapped in plastic. I did try it and determined that it was Northern-style sweet cornbread, which was too bad. The brisket was lightly smoky, juicy, and very flavorful. While I like my brisket to be more smoky and somewhat more fatty, this was excellent barbecue for anywhere in the North. It did not need sauce, which is another point in its favor. The fries were thick, hand-made, and very good. The coleslaw was particularly good - extremely fresh, not too much mayonnaise, and not sweet at all.
Would I eat at Lone Star if it were in Kansas City? Probably not. But in Maryland, or anywhere in the Northeast for that matter, it is excellent and deserves to be tried. I'll be going back with friends pretty soon.
Enter Lone Star BBQ in New Windsor. It's been open for a year, but Florence and I saw it for the first time passing through town last month. We needed an easy lunch today and decided to check it out. The first thing we saw as we drove up was a smoker out front: a very good sign. Inside it smelled like smoke and meat: another good sign. I was very encouraged at this point, and given the name I went for the most Texas of barbecue I could find: the brisket.
The platter arrived with sliced brisket, French fries, coleslaw, and cornbread. We dismissed the cornbread out of hand as it was wrapped in plastic. I did try it and determined that it was Northern-style sweet cornbread, which was too bad. The brisket was lightly smoky, juicy, and very flavorful. While I like my brisket to be more smoky and somewhat more fatty, this was excellent barbecue for anywhere in the North. It did not need sauce, which is another point in its favor. The fries were thick, hand-made, and very good. The coleslaw was particularly good - extremely fresh, not too much mayonnaise, and not sweet at all.
Would I eat at Lone Star if it were in Kansas City? Probably not. But in Maryland, or anywhere in the Northeast for that matter, it is excellent and deserves to be tried. I'll be going back with friends pretty soon.
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Buttersburg Inn (Union Bridge, MD)
The Buttersburg Inn is one of those places that every town seems to have tucked away somewhere. A simple, family-style American restaurant that does the classics and does them well. Usually, it's a pretty straightforward menu: fried chicken, roast beef, crab cakes, all the standards. Buttersburg Inn has those, and does an astoundingly good job with them. But the menu also has some food you don't see as much on your typical family-style restaurant menu--at least, not nowadays. Fried rabbit and Pennsylvania Dutch Hog Maw have been known to grace their menu on occasion, and some nights you can get liver and onions. (The menu also has an option to order this with "extra liver", which proves that someone at the restaurant has their priorities straight.)
Honestly, while everything we've tried at Buttersburg Inn has been great, you'd be wise to go with anything fried. Whoever mans the fryer at this restaurant knows what they are doing, and everything from fried chicken to fried oysters to french fries to corn fritters comes out fried to golden perfection. My favorite thing to get is definitely fried chicken--I don't know their secret ingredient, but I told them I'm pretty sure it's magic.
Buttersburg Inn is open all day most days (Tuesday-Saturday from 7am to 8 or 8:30pm depending on the day), but they are not open for dinner on Sundays. Like most restaurants around here, they are closed on Mondays.
The Buttersburg Inn
9 N. Main St.
Union Bridge, MD 21791
Phone: 410-775-9939
Honestly, while everything we've tried at Buttersburg Inn has been great, you'd be wise to go with anything fried. Whoever mans the fryer at this restaurant knows what they are doing, and everything from fried chicken to fried oysters to french fries to corn fritters comes out fried to golden perfection. My favorite thing to get is definitely fried chicken--I don't know their secret ingredient, but I told them I'm pretty sure it's magic.
Buttersburg Inn is open all day most days (Tuesday-Saturday from 7am to 8 or 8:30pm depending on the day), but they are not open for dinner on Sundays. Like most restaurants around here, they are closed on Mondays.
The Buttersburg Inn
9 N. Main St.
Union Bridge, MD 21791
Phone: 410-775-9939
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Woodberry Kitchen (Baltimore, MD)
I've lived in Maryland for almost my whole life, and I've now lived in the Baltimore area for about 3 years. While I spend plenty of time discovering new restaurants in the counties adjoining Baltimore, I hadn't spent a lot of time looking at restaurants in Baltimore itself--it just never seemed worth it to venture out to the city, and even though Baltimore is rejuvenating itself over the years, it's a hard place to go on a casual visit. The neighborhoods with great restaurants are spread out just enough that in order to get between them you sometimes have to go through places you really, really don't want to go through. For awhile, I only had one restaurant I really liked to go to in Baltimore, and I didn't have much desire to branch out.
Last year, Noah suggested that we try someplace new for our anniversary. He'd heard a lot of great things about Woodberry Kitchen, and it was certainly in demand--the wait time for a reservation was more than we were used to. We managed to get a late-night reservation, which we still had to secure several months ahead of time. I don't have a record of that visit for you, but suffice it to say that we loved our experience at Woodberry Kitchen and decided to go back for our 1-year wedding anniversary this January. This time we were able to get a slightly earlier reservation, but at the cost of coming in at a much busier time. We also sat in an area with heavy traffic, which didn't have anything to do with our reservation but certainly made me miss the more secluded room we had been placed in last time. Because there was a wait, we sat at the bar and enjoyed some snacks and cocktails. I'm incredibly partial to the Gov't Mule cocktail, a ginger-based vodka drink. From what I gathered by looking at our neighbors at the bar, this is one of Woodberry Kitchen's most popular cocktails. Noah drank a Snake Charmer, a spiced rum drink with lots of delicious apple flavors.
Our snacks at the bar included popcorn (not only my favorite snack, but a Woodberry Kitchen mainstay that should not be missed), smoked rockfish fritters, and house made chips and sour cream and onion dip. There was not a misstep in anything we had, and the snacks paired perfectly with our cocktails. We were seated a bit after our reservation time due to a busy night (we were stunned to look up at one point and see Bill Cosby exit the restaurant with a group of his friends; at that point, you don't begrudge the staff for being a bit swamped), where we were given more chips as a consolation. Woodberry Kitchen's menu has changed as of this writing, so I don't have as many details on our dinner, but we had some boudin sausage, an incredibly smooth and delicious beef tartare, barbecued oysters, and a pasta with egg sauce.
Woodberry Kitchen is often crowded, loud and busy, but it's easy to see why. The restaurant specializes in making the most of local food and does it spectacularly well. The attention to detail in each area of the food and drinks is excellent, and the staff is busy but attentive and pleasant. There are a couple of spin-off restaurants associated with Woodberry Kitchen that are at the top of our list when we are in town again.
Woodberry Kitchen
2010 Clipper Park Rd. #126
Baltimore, MD
410-464-8000
http://www.woodberrykitchen.com/
Last year, Noah suggested that we try someplace new for our anniversary. He'd heard a lot of great things about Woodberry Kitchen, and it was certainly in demand--the wait time for a reservation was more than we were used to. We managed to get a late-night reservation, which we still had to secure several months ahead of time. I don't have a record of that visit for you, but suffice it to say that we loved our experience at Woodberry Kitchen and decided to go back for our 1-year wedding anniversary this January. This time we were able to get a slightly earlier reservation, but at the cost of coming in at a much busier time. We also sat in an area with heavy traffic, which didn't have anything to do with our reservation but certainly made me miss the more secluded room we had been placed in last time. Because there was a wait, we sat at the bar and enjoyed some snacks and cocktails. I'm incredibly partial to the Gov't Mule cocktail, a ginger-based vodka drink. From what I gathered by looking at our neighbors at the bar, this is one of Woodberry Kitchen's most popular cocktails. Noah drank a Snake Charmer, a spiced rum drink with lots of delicious apple flavors.
Our snacks at the bar included popcorn (not only my favorite snack, but a Woodberry Kitchen mainstay that should not be missed), smoked rockfish fritters, and house made chips and sour cream and onion dip. There was not a misstep in anything we had, and the snacks paired perfectly with our cocktails. We were seated a bit after our reservation time due to a busy night (we were stunned to look up at one point and see Bill Cosby exit the restaurant with a group of his friends; at that point, you don't begrudge the staff for being a bit swamped), where we were given more chips as a consolation. Woodberry Kitchen's menu has changed as of this writing, so I don't have as many details on our dinner, but we had some boudin sausage, an incredibly smooth and delicious beef tartare, barbecued oysters, and a pasta with egg sauce.
Woodberry Kitchen is often crowded, loud and busy, but it's easy to see why. The restaurant specializes in making the most of local food and does it spectacularly well. The attention to detail in each area of the food and drinks is excellent, and the staff is busy but attentive and pleasant. There are a couple of spin-off restaurants associated with Woodberry Kitchen that are at the top of our list when we are in town again.
Woodberry Kitchen
2010 Clipper Park Rd. #126
Baltimore, MD
410-464-8000
http://www.woodberrykitchen.com/
Friday, February 14, 2014
What I've Been Reading: Endless Feasts and Secret Ingredients
Lately, I've been very interested in compilations of food writing from magazines. Food writing collections always seem like a fantastic around-the-world journey comprising of everything from travel to restaurants to home cooking, and I love being able to open up the book and get a snippet of a new experience. In that vein, I've read two food writing compilations recently that are both well worth exploring for yourself.
Endless Feasts is a collection of food writing from Gourmet magazine, edited by the inimitable Ruth Reichl. While I never had the pleasure of actually reading the print version of Gourmet, I can't seem to get enough of its writing, even in book form. Everyone from M.F.K. Fisher and James Beard to E. Annie Proulx and Ray Bradbury has contributed to the magazine, and therefore the book, in some way or another, and every story is a delight--even the early travel stories that shine a rather embarrassing light on America's cultural ignorance and insensitivity. Though I love all the stories, there is one I keep coming back to: "Down East Breakfast", by Robert P. Coffin, is a funny portrait of the hearty breakfast required to keep Maine lobstermen and outdoorsmen going all day. I read it again and again. Also keep an eye out for Jane and Michael Stern's piece on road food, "Two for the Road: Havana, North Dakota", which portrays small-town America as only these two travelers can.
I grew up reading The New Yorker, and so did Noah (probably more so, considering he actually grew up in New York; my dad is a native New Yorker, but our family never lived there). One of my favorite things to do was always to flip to the back of the magazine, where the restaurant reviews were located, and imagine the wealth of different foods available in the city. The restaurant blurbs were like personal ads for restaurants, which was apt because at that time I was also strangely fascinated by newspaper personal ads. I also enjoyed reading the full-length food articles, so when I started dating Noah I gave him Secret Ingredients: The New Yorker Book of Food and Drink as a birthday present. In the same vein as Endless Feasts, this book is a compilation of articles from The New Yorker's history and includes plenty of big names, including A.J. Liebling, Bill Buford, Calvin Trillin, and (you guessed it) M.F.K. Fisher. It also contains Anthony Bourdain's infamous story, "Don't Eat Before Reading This", which inspired his book Kitchen Confidential (also known as the book that launched a thousand thoroughly grossed-out diners). Secret Ingredients also includes a very impressive fiction lineup with pieces from the likes of Roald Dahl, Italo Calvino, and Alice McDermott. If you're interested in some great writing about home cooks, M.F.K. Fisher's "The Secret Ingredient" profiles Fisher's vain attempts to decode the secret ingredient in a friend's cooking. One of my favorite pieces for humor value was Woody Allen's "Notes from the Overfed", a funny Dostoyevsky-esque parody on a "Weight Watchers" magazine he read on a plane.
Have you read either of these collections? What was your favorite story?
Endless Feasts is a collection of food writing from Gourmet magazine, edited by the inimitable Ruth Reichl. While I never had the pleasure of actually reading the print version of Gourmet, I can't seem to get enough of its writing, even in book form. Everyone from M.F.K. Fisher and James Beard to E. Annie Proulx and Ray Bradbury has contributed to the magazine, and therefore the book, in some way or another, and every story is a delight--even the early travel stories that shine a rather embarrassing light on America's cultural ignorance and insensitivity. Though I love all the stories, there is one I keep coming back to: "Down East Breakfast", by Robert P. Coffin, is a funny portrait of the hearty breakfast required to keep Maine lobstermen and outdoorsmen going all day. I read it again and again. Also keep an eye out for Jane and Michael Stern's piece on road food, "Two for the Road: Havana, North Dakota", which portrays small-town America as only these two travelers can.
I grew up reading The New Yorker, and so did Noah (probably more so, considering he actually grew up in New York; my dad is a native New Yorker, but our family never lived there). One of my favorite things to do was always to flip to the back of the magazine, where the restaurant reviews were located, and imagine the wealth of different foods available in the city. The restaurant blurbs were like personal ads for restaurants, which was apt because at that time I was also strangely fascinated by newspaper personal ads. I also enjoyed reading the full-length food articles, so when I started dating Noah I gave him Secret Ingredients: The New Yorker Book of Food and Drink as a birthday present. In the same vein as Endless Feasts, this book is a compilation of articles from The New Yorker's history and includes plenty of big names, including A.J. Liebling, Bill Buford, Calvin Trillin, and (you guessed it) M.F.K. Fisher. It also contains Anthony Bourdain's infamous story, "Don't Eat Before Reading This", which inspired his book Kitchen Confidential (also known as the book that launched a thousand thoroughly grossed-out diners). Secret Ingredients also includes a very impressive fiction lineup with pieces from the likes of Roald Dahl, Italo Calvino, and Alice McDermott. If you're interested in some great writing about home cooks, M.F.K. Fisher's "The Secret Ingredient" profiles Fisher's vain attempts to decode the secret ingredient in a friend's cooking. One of my favorite pieces for humor value was Woody Allen's "Notes from the Overfed", a funny Dostoyevsky-esque parody on a "Weight Watchers" magazine he read on a plane.
Have you read either of these collections? What was your favorite story?
Monday, August 27, 2012
Taco Bar (Gaithersburg, MD)
I'm a sucker for good, authentic Mexican food--the more hole-in-the-wall the location, the better. The only exception is for someplace like Papa Joe's, which I wrote about in a previous post (though it's still acceptably out-of-the-way, hidden facing the back parking lot). So when I got a Mexican food craving while visiting my family in Gaithersburg, I figured I'd give a new place a try.
Taco Bar definitely has the atmosphere down, which I could tell before even going there because of its appropriately no-frills name. But when I got there, I realized it was an authentic Mexican taco bar, inside a liquor store. Which was attached to a gas station. Facing out onto the highway. If that's not hole-in-the-wall atmosphere, I don't know what is.
I ordered 3 tacos: 1 pastor, 1 suadero, and 1 lengua. I honestly couldn't tell which is which in the picture, since they all looked uniformly like meat on top of more meat. The tacos came out with just the meat in the tortillas, and there was a toppings bar inside where you could dress your taco up with 4 different sauces (2 mild and 2 hot, a red and green version of each), tomatoes, onions, and a mixture of the two. There may have been other toppings there as well, but those were the ones I used. These tacos were very good, but quite greasy and very filling. I still prefer Papa Joe's for overall quality, though I'd visit it again in a heartbeat when I'm in Gaithersburg.
My sister got a veggie burrito, which I think was a more American-style preparation. I only had one bite of it, but it was very good. She definitely enjoyed it a lot and is eager to go back here and eat more burritos.
Tacos here are $2.69 each, which is a pretty good price for Montgomery County. Of course, I'm used to $1 taco Tuesdays when Noah and I lived in Kansas City, but I recognize that's hard to find most places. They also have a selection of tortas I'm eager to try, as well as sopes, pozole, and empanadas. For such a small, slightly unsavory location, it's usually doing great business. I'll have to go back again and try more things!
Taco Bar Washingtonian
10003 Fields Road
Gaithersburg, MD 20878
(301)-987-0376
http://www.tacobarwashingtonian.com/index.html
Mon.-Thurs. 9-9
Friday 9-10
Saturday-Sunday 10-9
Taco Bar definitely has the atmosphere down, which I could tell before even going there because of its appropriately no-frills name. But when I got there, I realized it was an authentic Mexican taco bar, inside a liquor store. Which was attached to a gas station. Facing out onto the highway. If that's not hole-in-the-wall atmosphere, I don't know what is.
I ordered 3 tacos: 1 pastor, 1 suadero, and 1 lengua. I honestly couldn't tell which is which in the picture, since they all looked uniformly like meat on top of more meat. The tacos came out with just the meat in the tortillas, and there was a toppings bar inside where you could dress your taco up with 4 different sauces (2 mild and 2 hot, a red and green version of each), tomatoes, onions, and a mixture of the two. There may have been other toppings there as well, but those were the ones I used. These tacos were very good, but quite greasy and very filling. I still prefer Papa Joe's for overall quality, though I'd visit it again in a heartbeat when I'm in Gaithersburg.
Tacos here are $2.69 each, which is a pretty good price for Montgomery County. Of course, I'm used to $1 taco Tuesdays when Noah and I lived in Kansas City, but I recognize that's hard to find most places. They also have a selection of tortas I'm eager to try, as well as sopes, pozole, and empanadas. For such a small, slightly unsavory location, it's usually doing great business. I'll have to go back again and try more things!
Taco Bar Washingtonian
10003 Fields Road
Gaithersburg, MD 20878
(301)-987-0376
http://www.tacobarwashingtonian.com/index.html
Mon.-Thurs. 9-9
Friday 9-10
Saturday-Sunday 10-9
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Birdie's Cafe (Westminster, MD)
I don't drink coffee. I have an immunity to caffeine, and the taste of coffee is not enough for me to justify drinking it on a regular basis. But no matter where I live, I have to find the perfect coffee house, one of those places where I can feel right at home even when I'm not at home. My ideal coffee house has the following qualities:
-excellent food
-great hot chocolate (gotta drink something instead of coffee!)
-quirky atmosphere (I like coffee houses with lots of art on the walls, or books lying around, or even just a slightly eccentric clientele)
-friendly staff
When Noah and I lived in Kansas City, my coffee house was called Broadway Cafe, and I spent many lunch hours drinking hot chocolate and reading there. The baristas knew my name, and it was a great place to sit and watch the world go by. Of course, when I moved to Westminster, I had to find a new coffee house. I tried a couple, but they didn't really wow me. I eventually found my way to Heinz Bakery, which was great on the "excellent food" and "friendly staff" front but not the exact place I was looking for. And then I found Birdie's.
When I ran into Birdie's, it hadn't even had its grand opening yet (and yes, it was open before its grand opening. I don't even know). I was walking back from the farmer's market with a friend and I saw it from across the street. The logo, with its name inside a stylized drawing of a bird's nest, and its friendly-looking, colorfully-painted building caught my eye and I insisted that we go in. Walking in showed me a narrow hallway that led onto chalkboards with a variety of delicious-looking food specials, and the walls were covered with art. (Birdie's now posts a flag outside their door alerting people to the fact that they are officially an art-friendly business.) There were flowers and decorative birds on the tables, colorful couches to sit on, vibrant painted walls, a small magazine rack, and the tables had a checkerboard pattern so you could play checkers or chess with a friend while eating your salads and sandwiches. It immediately became my go-to coffee house.
My favorite things to have at Birdie's:
1. Avocado salad. Avocados are one of my favorite foods, and this salad features a mound of salad greens topped with avocado slices, peppers, onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, and a variety of other things you can ask to have included. Their homemade vinaigrette is my favorite dressing for this salad.
2. Veggie sandwich. Much like the avocado salad but on a sandwich, this includes avocados and hummus (!), plus all the above vegetables. I like to have it on their sourdough, but it's probably excellent with any bread.
3. Lox sandwich. I have them go light on the cream cheese, because I don't like a lot of cream cheese on a sandwich. Go for onions, capers, or both on this sandwich--you won't regret it.
4. BLT. Need I explain! I like them to put pesto on the BLT (along with the mayo they include--you would think this would taste bad, but the flavors actually meld together rather well), though sometimes I have them put avocados on instead. They have no problem customizing sandwiches.
To drink I love their hot chocolate, which is nice and rich with a strong dash of vanilla, or their raspberry ice tea, which is unsweetened and delicious. Over 4th of July weekend they had blueberry lemonade, but regrettably I didn't have an opportunity to go over there and try it. :-(
Well, I'm off to the library. And Birdie's is just a 5-minute walk from my house...maybe I'll stop by for an avocado salad on my way home? ;-)
-excellent food
-great hot chocolate (gotta drink something instead of coffee!)
-quirky atmosphere (I like coffee houses with lots of art on the walls, or books lying around, or even just a slightly eccentric clientele)
-friendly staff
When Noah and I lived in Kansas City, my coffee house was called Broadway Cafe, and I spent many lunch hours drinking hot chocolate and reading there. The baristas knew my name, and it was a great place to sit and watch the world go by. Of course, when I moved to Westminster, I had to find a new coffee house. I tried a couple, but they didn't really wow me. I eventually found my way to Heinz Bakery, which was great on the "excellent food" and "friendly staff" front but not the exact place I was looking for. And then I found Birdie's.
When I ran into Birdie's, it hadn't even had its grand opening yet (and yes, it was open before its grand opening. I don't even know). I was walking back from the farmer's market with a friend and I saw it from across the street. The logo, with its name inside a stylized drawing of a bird's nest, and its friendly-looking, colorfully-painted building caught my eye and I insisted that we go in. Walking in showed me a narrow hallway that led onto chalkboards with a variety of delicious-looking food specials, and the walls were covered with art. (Birdie's now posts a flag outside their door alerting people to the fact that they are officially an art-friendly business.) There were flowers and decorative birds on the tables, colorful couches to sit on, vibrant painted walls, a small magazine rack, and the tables had a checkerboard pattern so you could play checkers or chess with a friend while eating your salads and sandwiches. It immediately became my go-to coffee house.
My favorite things to have at Birdie's:
1. Avocado salad. Avocados are one of my favorite foods, and this salad features a mound of salad greens topped with avocado slices, peppers, onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, and a variety of other things you can ask to have included. Their homemade vinaigrette is my favorite dressing for this salad.
2. Veggie sandwich. Much like the avocado salad but on a sandwich, this includes avocados and hummus (!), plus all the above vegetables. I like to have it on their sourdough, but it's probably excellent with any bread.
3. Lox sandwich. I have them go light on the cream cheese, because I don't like a lot of cream cheese on a sandwich. Go for onions, capers, or both on this sandwich--you won't regret it.
4. BLT. Need I explain! I like them to put pesto on the BLT (along with the mayo they include--you would think this would taste bad, but the flavors actually meld together rather well), though sometimes I have them put avocados on instead. They have no problem customizing sandwiches.
To drink I love their hot chocolate, which is nice and rich with a strong dash of vanilla, or their raspberry ice tea, which is unsweetened and delicious. Over 4th of July weekend they had blueberry lemonade, but regrettably I didn't have an opportunity to go over there and try it. :-(
Well, I'm off to the library. And Birdie's is just a 5-minute walk from my house...maybe I'll stop by for an avocado salad on my way home? ;-)
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Athens Grill (Gaithersburg, MD)
Well, everyone, the time has finally come. It is time for me to tell you about my favorite restaurant in the entire world.
When I was growing up, it was always a special treat when we could go out and bring home food from Athens Grill for dinner. This tiny little Greek restaurant in the middle of a shopping center in Gaithersburg turns out generous portions of delicious food, and the owner is a gregarious man who always recognizes us when we come in. There are only about ten tables in the entire place, and while it's not usually packed, it's pretty much never empty--the stream of people coming in and out is almost constant. It's simple in decor, and there's no waitstaff, so you order at the counter and pick it up when you're called. It is definitely one of those hole-in-the-wall places where you come for the food.
And oh, the food. I usually get one of the souvlaki platters, which has a gigantic amount of food and is one of the best things you can get. It includes kebab-type skewers with shrimp, chicken, or lamb, and a large amount of Greek salad on the side, plus pita and your choice of fries or rice. I thought I had a picture of it on my computer, but apparently I don't (either that, or I missed it looking through the zillions of unorganized photos on my laptop). I've tried every one of their souvlaki platters, and they're all so amazing that I actually haven't gotten around to ordering anything else. However, I do have some experience with other things on their menu, since my family depends on Athens Grill for my mom's side of the family's holiday party every year. We order a whole rotisserie chicken from them, along with sides of things like rice and salad. It's always a hit at my house once the holiday season kicks in.
To sum up:
Amazing food? Check.
Hole-in-the-wall ambiance? Check.
Friendly staff? Check.
Even more amazing food? Check.
Looks like it has all the makings of a restaurant I love.
Athens Grill
9124 Rothbury Drive
Gaithersburg, MD 20879
(301)-975-0757
When I was growing up, it was always a special treat when we could go out and bring home food from Athens Grill for dinner. This tiny little Greek restaurant in the middle of a shopping center in Gaithersburg turns out generous portions of delicious food, and the owner is a gregarious man who always recognizes us when we come in. There are only about ten tables in the entire place, and while it's not usually packed, it's pretty much never empty--the stream of people coming in and out is almost constant. It's simple in decor, and there's no waitstaff, so you order at the counter and pick it up when you're called. It is definitely one of those hole-in-the-wall places where you come for the food.
And oh, the food. I usually get one of the souvlaki platters, which has a gigantic amount of food and is one of the best things you can get. It includes kebab-type skewers with shrimp, chicken, or lamb, and a large amount of Greek salad on the side, plus pita and your choice of fries or rice. I thought I had a picture of it on my computer, but apparently I don't (either that, or I missed it looking through the zillions of unorganized photos on my laptop). I've tried every one of their souvlaki platters, and they're all so amazing that I actually haven't gotten around to ordering anything else. However, I do have some experience with other things on their menu, since my family depends on Athens Grill for my mom's side of the family's holiday party every year. We order a whole rotisserie chicken from them, along with sides of things like rice and salad. It's always a hit at my house once the holiday season kicks in.
To sum up:
Amazing food? Check.
Hole-in-the-wall ambiance? Check.
Friendly staff? Check.
Even more amazing food? Check.
Looks like it has all the makings of a restaurant I love.
Athens Grill
9124 Rothbury Drive
Gaithersburg, MD 20879
(301)-975-0757
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Taco Truck Thursday: Better Start with the Best
Of course, the "Thursday" up there is misleading; just about any day could be a taco truck day around here. The stretch of Roosevelt Avenue in Queens between 75th and 83rd Streets houses at least seven taco carts trucks, along with several other carts purveying various other (mostly) Mexican delicacies. They're all worth at least one try, but the best of the taco vendors is Tacos Mi Mexico Lindo, located at the SE corner of Roosevelt and Baxter in front of a bank. There's usually a crowd, although if you go on a cool night (or in the winter, but eating at a cart is really not fun in the winter) it is generally quieter. This is not fast food, but it is very, very good food.
What's to like? Start with the vendors themselves: three Mexican ladies, possibly sisters or possibly not, who will assume that you speak Spanish until proven otherwise. They do speak a bit of English, but make the effort - it's fun ordering in the appropriate language, and your vocabulary really won't be tested much. As a crash course, "para llavar" means "to go", "para ca" means "to stay", and "con todo" means "with everything" (usually referring to cilantro, onions, and guacamole on your taco). Tacos can be had with several meats: steak, chicken, chorizo, carnitas, and al pastor are all options, as well as a few more interesting and better ones I'll get to shortly. The tortillas are briefly heated on the griddle, which really brings out their flavor, and they meld with the tacos much better than a regular corn tortilla right out of the bag. They're also double-wrapped, which I've always been a fan of - especially when you're dealing with the kind of somewhat-overstuffed tacos to be found here.
Back to the meat: we'll start with the losers. The pollo, bistec, and cecina are probably not worth your time, unless you like your meat dry and chewy. I know cecina is supposed to be dry and chewy, so maybe it's just not for me. The other two? Just skip them. The carnitas was not crispy enough the first time I had it, but I had another one a few days ago and it was absolutely perfect: crisp on the outside, the larger pieces softer on the inside, and smoky from the initial frying and the reheating on the griddle. For me, the top choices are the chorizo, lengua (beef tongue), and oreja (pig ear) - all are superlative, really the best I've ever had anywhere. The chorizo is rich but not too rich, generally crispy from the griddle, not too salty, and has great pork and chili flavor. The lengua is very fatty but incredibly flavorful - like the carnitas, it's crispy outside and softer inside, but the pieces are bigger to give you a better contrast. The oreja is somehow the richest of the bunch, although I suspect it's rich in the way that tendon is, since I didn't think there was a whole lot of fat in a pig's ear. They cook it so long that the cartilage almost melts away - if you've had pig ear as an appetizer in a Chinese restaurant, this is nothing like that. It's not crunchy at all, more silky like tendon is when it's cooked well. The standard toppings are cilantro, onion, and very good guacamole - on the bar, there are also two chili sauces (the red is garlicky and particularly good), lime wedges, onion and jalapeño relishes, dried red chilies (sensing a theme here?), and radish slices - these seem to be typical accompaniments at all the carts and trucks in this neighborhood.
If you don't want tacos for some reason, the quesadillas are equally good - this is a Mexican-style quesadilla rather than an American or Tex-Mex one, so it is one larger tortilla crisped up on the griddle and folded in half over a filling of meat, cheese (I think it's Oaxaca cheese), and crema (basically Mexican creme fraiche, as far as I can tell). Other toppings are up to you from the same list as the tacos'.
If you're feeling vegetarian, the sopes are great as well. They used to use regular corn tortillas, but they switched a few months ago to thicker masa "cakes" that are ridged at the edges to avoid the filling falling out. The price went up too, but it's worth it. You can get these with meat, but I like them "regular" - with beans, creme, and a grated hard cheese of some sort.
As I noted earlier, this food is not fast even though it's from a cart - 15 minutes was a routine wait when it was warm last fall, and for all I know it could be even longer in the summer. You can get your food in 5 minutes in the winter, but it's best to eat at the cart, and food gets cold really fast in the winter. It's more than worth the wait, though.
Tacos Mi Mexico Lindo
Southeast corner of Roosevelt Ave and Baxter Ave (in-between 83rd and 84th Sts)
Open every day of the week, from midmorning to at least 11pm
Current prices
Tacos: $2 each
Quesadillas: $3 each
Sopes: 3 regulares for $5
What's to like? Start with the vendors themselves: three Mexican ladies, possibly sisters or possibly not, who will assume that you speak Spanish until proven otherwise. They do speak a bit of English, but make the effort - it's fun ordering in the appropriate language, and your vocabulary really won't be tested much. As a crash course, "para llavar" means "to go", "para ca" means "to stay", and "con todo" means "with everything" (usually referring to cilantro, onions, and guacamole on your taco). Tacos can be had with several meats: steak, chicken, chorizo, carnitas, and al pastor are all options, as well as a few more interesting and better ones I'll get to shortly. The tortillas are briefly heated on the griddle, which really brings out their flavor, and they meld with the tacos much better than a regular corn tortilla right out of the bag. They're also double-wrapped, which I've always been a fan of - especially when you're dealing with the kind of somewhat-overstuffed tacos to be found here.
Back to the meat: we'll start with the losers. The pollo, bistec, and cecina are probably not worth your time, unless you like your meat dry and chewy. I know cecina is supposed to be dry and chewy, so maybe it's just not for me. The other two? Just skip them. The carnitas was not crispy enough the first time I had it, but I had another one a few days ago and it was absolutely perfect: crisp on the outside, the larger pieces softer on the inside, and smoky from the initial frying and the reheating on the griddle. For me, the top choices are the chorizo, lengua (beef tongue), and oreja (pig ear) - all are superlative, really the best I've ever had anywhere. The chorizo is rich but not too rich, generally crispy from the griddle, not too salty, and has great pork and chili flavor. The lengua is very fatty but incredibly flavorful - like the carnitas, it's crispy outside and softer inside, but the pieces are bigger to give you a better contrast. The oreja is somehow the richest of the bunch, although I suspect it's rich in the way that tendon is, since I didn't think there was a whole lot of fat in a pig's ear. They cook it so long that the cartilage almost melts away - if you've had pig ear as an appetizer in a Chinese restaurant, this is nothing like that. It's not crunchy at all, more silky like tendon is when it's cooked well. The standard toppings are cilantro, onion, and very good guacamole - on the bar, there are also two chili sauces (the red is garlicky and particularly good), lime wedges, onion and jalapeño relishes, dried red chilies (sensing a theme here?), and radish slices - these seem to be typical accompaniments at all the carts and trucks in this neighborhood.
If you don't want tacos for some reason, the quesadillas are equally good - this is a Mexican-style quesadilla rather than an American or Tex-Mex one, so it is one larger tortilla crisped up on the griddle and folded in half over a filling of meat, cheese (I think it's Oaxaca cheese), and crema (basically Mexican creme fraiche, as far as I can tell). Other toppings are up to you from the same list as the tacos'.
If you're feeling vegetarian, the sopes are great as well. They used to use regular corn tortillas, but they switched a few months ago to thicker masa "cakes" that are ridged at the edges to avoid the filling falling out. The price went up too, but it's worth it. You can get these with meat, but I like them "regular" - with beans, creme, and a grated hard cheese of some sort.
As I noted earlier, this food is not fast even though it's from a cart - 15 minutes was a routine wait when it was warm last fall, and for all I know it could be even longer in the summer. You can get your food in 5 minutes in the winter, but it's best to eat at the cart, and food gets cold really fast in the winter. It's more than worth the wait, though.
Tacos Mi Mexico Lindo
Southeast corner of Roosevelt Ave and Baxter Ave (in-between 83rd and 84th Sts)
Open every day of the week, from midmorning to at least 11pm
Current prices
Tacos: $2 each
Quesadillas: $3 each
Sopes: 3 regulares for $5
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Papa Joe's (Westminster, MD)
It has come to my attention that, despite having lived in Westminster for almost a year and a half, I have yet to review my favorite restaurant here! This must be remedied, especially since I'm home from work today with some yucky feverish achy illness and have nothing to do but write restaurant reviews, catch up on lesson planning, and watch back episodes of "Glee".
In a town where almost every restaurant features an practically-interchangeable menu of traditional American fare that one would expect from a small rural area, Papa Joe's is an anomaly. This little Mexican restaurant faces the back entrance of Westminster's historic Main Street, fairly well-hidden unless you're coming through the back parking lot. Noah and I happened upon it last year when we were looking at Westminster apartments, and though we didn't expect it to be any good, we were tired and hungry and decided to take our chances.
Luckily, Papa Joe's is a pleasant surprise! Apart from lettuce and sour cream-laden American tacos and the like, Papa Joe's does a nice variety of traditional Mexican standards. Their Mexican-style tacos, with just meat, cilantro, and onion, are a standby order for me. I also tend to order their tortas, particularly the egg and chorizo laden down with jalapenos and avocado and all manner of other goodies. It's hard to even eat the thing without bits of everything falling down on the table (and, in the winter, down your sleeves--my least favorite thing about long-sleeved shirts).
The real time to go to Papa Joe's, however, is on the weekend when they have off-menu weekend specials. Here's where the real traditional food comes out, like pozole and menudo and more authentic tostadas than the ones featured on their regular menu. Here's an example of some tostadas we had over the summer:
Although I don't see nearly enough people ordering the more authentic dishes, the restaurant is extremely popular and frequently has a wait, especially on weekends. The real test of its excellence? Noah currently lives in Jackson Heights, the hotbed of traditional Latin American food in Queens, and he still looks forward to going to Papa Joe's when he comes here. What higher praise could you ask for?
Papa Joe's
27 E. Main St. (in rear municipal parking lot)
Westminster, MD 21157
(410)-871-2505
Mon.-Thurs. 11am-10pm
Fri. and Sat. 11am-11pm
In a town where almost every restaurant features an practically-interchangeable menu of traditional American fare that one would expect from a small rural area, Papa Joe's is an anomaly. This little Mexican restaurant faces the back entrance of Westminster's historic Main Street, fairly well-hidden unless you're coming through the back parking lot. Noah and I happened upon it last year when we were looking at Westminster apartments, and though we didn't expect it to be any good, we were tired and hungry and decided to take our chances.
Luckily, Papa Joe's is a pleasant surprise! Apart from lettuce and sour cream-laden American tacos and the like, Papa Joe's does a nice variety of traditional Mexican standards. Their Mexican-style tacos, with just meat, cilantro, and onion, are a standby order for me. I also tend to order their tortas, particularly the egg and chorizo laden down with jalapenos and avocado and all manner of other goodies. It's hard to even eat the thing without bits of everything falling down on the table (and, in the winter, down your sleeves--my least favorite thing about long-sleeved shirts).
The real time to go to Papa Joe's, however, is on the weekend when they have off-menu weekend specials. Here's where the real traditional food comes out, like pozole and menudo and more authentic tostadas than the ones featured on their regular menu. Here's an example of some tostadas we had over the summer:
Although I don't see nearly enough people ordering the more authentic dishes, the restaurant is extremely popular and frequently has a wait, especially on weekends. The real test of its excellence? Noah currently lives in Jackson Heights, the hotbed of traditional Latin American food in Queens, and he still looks forward to going to Papa Joe's when he comes here. What higher praise could you ask for?
Papa Joe's
27 E. Main St. (in rear municipal parking lot)
Westminster, MD 21157
(410)-871-2505
Mon.-Thurs. 11am-10pm
Fri. and Sat. 11am-11pm
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Local Sprouts (Portland, ME)
We're back, with news from Portland, ME!
"Wait," you say. "Maine?? Isn't this a Maryland/New York food blog?"
Well, it is. But it just so happens that earlier this year Noah and I went on a fantastic vacation, exploring New England. And by "exploring New England", I actually mean "eating our way through New England", because that's what we do. We even planned our trip primarily around a book, Jane and Michael Stern's 500 Things to Eat Before It's Too Late. This wonderful little book was our primary source of good eats around the country (we're hoping to eat our way through as many of these as possible one day), but once we got to Portland, there wasn't much in the book to guide us. Luckily, as we soon realized, Portlanders are rather fanatical about their food. Every single place we went clearly put extensive time and energy into putting forth fantastic food--even the smallest of restaurants are run with great care, and everywhere from bars to cafes serves locally brewed beer. Even The New York Times praises its food (though we didn't actually go to any of the restaurants featured in that article).
We were in Portland for several days, and we would frequently pass by a small cafe near our B&B called Local Sprouts that looked extremely interesting. On one of our last nights in Portland, we finally had a chance to stop in and eat, and we're very glad we did. When you first enter the cafe, you notice the kind of artistic, slightly all-over-the-place atmosphere that a good cafe does so well. The walls were covered in art from local artists, every table and chair in the building was a unique piece, there were shelves of things to read, and children ran around and even played with us at our table. Everything was very laid-back and friendly, and that demeanor extended to the staff. We ordered a jerk chicken plate and a roasted vegetable soup, and while we were ordering we chatted with the person taking our order, and I told him I was getting the vegetable soup specifically because there was eggplant in it (eggplant, for those of you who aren't aware, is my favorite food). When he told him that he said, "wait here. I can't promise anything, but I might have something for you." To my incredible surprise, a minute later he came back with a huge eggplant sandwich, and proceeded to give it to me--for free. He said they sometimes have food leftover at the end of the day, and if the opportunity arises they give it away to a good home. It made a spectacular lunch in the car the next day.
Now, onto the food. The jerk chicken plate that we shared was excellent--well-spiced, and plenty of food. It was served with a cabbage salad that I honestly don't remember much (I ate most of the soup, and was in a soup-related trance for much of the meal, so I don't remember much about the jerk chicken other than that I liked it), and rice. One thing you definitely notice when you eat at Local Sprouts is that you're getting plenty of food for your money, as the bowl of soup I ordered was probably enough for at least two people, not the small perfunctory bowls you get at most places. The vegetable soup was tomato-based, and had eggplant and zucchini and all manner of other vegetables. Big, huge chunks of vegetables. The kind of vegetable soup that makes me wish it were winter all the time so it would be seasonally appropriate to sit around and eat this stuff all day. By the end of the meal, with the combo of jerk chicken and vegetable soup and the promise of an eggplant sandwich later, I was in a happiness coma.
The one complaint I notice from online reviews is that you wait a very long time for your food, even for food you wouldn't expect to take a long time. It is true that the service is one of the most relaxed parts of the place, but it's easy to deal with if you don't expect to rush in and out. Sit down, look at the art, read a book. Listen to the live music, if they have it, which they sometimes do. Chat up your 7-year-old seat neighbor. Local Sprouts will make it worth your while.
Local Sprouts Cooperative
649 Congress St., Portland, ME
(207)-899-3529
http://www.localsproutscooperative.com/
Mon.-Sat. 8am-10pm
Sun. 9am-3pm
Local Sprouts is a Community Supported Cafe, which means that you can pay to become a member and get discounts on food and things like that. All their food is produced locally--if you want, you can even look on their wall, where they have a map of every farm and local producer where they got every ingredient they use. It is also worth noting, particularly if you are into making life happier and more enriching for individuals with disabilities (as I am; it's only my career), that the Bomb Diggity Bakery also runs out of this place. They provide a baking and arts program for individuals with intellectual disabilities. Pretty cool stuff.
"Wait," you say. "Maine?? Isn't this a Maryland/New York food blog?"
Well, it is. But it just so happens that earlier this year Noah and I went on a fantastic vacation, exploring New England. And by "exploring New England", I actually mean "eating our way through New England", because that's what we do. We even planned our trip primarily around a book, Jane and Michael Stern's 500 Things to Eat Before It's Too Late. This wonderful little book was our primary source of good eats around the country (we're hoping to eat our way through as many of these as possible one day), but once we got to Portland, there wasn't much in the book to guide us. Luckily, as we soon realized, Portlanders are rather fanatical about their food. Every single place we went clearly put extensive time and energy into putting forth fantastic food--even the smallest of restaurants are run with great care, and everywhere from bars to cafes serves locally brewed beer. Even The New York Times praises its food (though we didn't actually go to any of the restaurants featured in that article).
We were in Portland for several days, and we would frequently pass by a small cafe near our B&B called Local Sprouts that looked extremely interesting. On one of our last nights in Portland, we finally had a chance to stop in and eat, and we're very glad we did. When you first enter the cafe, you notice the kind of artistic, slightly all-over-the-place atmosphere that a good cafe does so well. The walls were covered in art from local artists, every table and chair in the building was a unique piece, there were shelves of things to read, and children ran around and even played with us at our table. Everything was very laid-back and friendly, and that demeanor extended to the staff. We ordered a jerk chicken plate and a roasted vegetable soup, and while we were ordering we chatted with the person taking our order, and I told him I was getting the vegetable soup specifically because there was eggplant in it (eggplant, for those of you who aren't aware, is my favorite food). When he told him that he said, "wait here. I can't promise anything, but I might have something for you." To my incredible surprise, a minute later he came back with a huge eggplant sandwich, and proceeded to give it to me--for free. He said they sometimes have food leftover at the end of the day, and if the opportunity arises they give it away to a good home. It made a spectacular lunch in the car the next day.
Now, onto the food. The jerk chicken plate that we shared was excellent--well-spiced, and plenty of food. It was served with a cabbage salad that I honestly don't remember much (I ate most of the soup, and was in a soup-related trance for much of the meal, so I don't remember much about the jerk chicken other than that I liked it), and rice. One thing you definitely notice when you eat at Local Sprouts is that you're getting plenty of food for your money, as the bowl of soup I ordered was probably enough for at least two people, not the small perfunctory bowls you get at most places. The vegetable soup was tomato-based, and had eggplant and zucchini and all manner of other vegetables. Big, huge chunks of vegetables. The kind of vegetable soup that makes me wish it were winter all the time so it would be seasonally appropriate to sit around and eat this stuff all day. By the end of the meal, with the combo of jerk chicken and vegetable soup and the promise of an eggplant sandwich later, I was in a happiness coma.
The one complaint I notice from online reviews is that you wait a very long time for your food, even for food you wouldn't expect to take a long time. It is true that the service is one of the most relaxed parts of the place, but it's easy to deal with if you don't expect to rush in and out. Sit down, look at the art, read a book. Listen to the live music, if they have it, which they sometimes do. Chat up your 7-year-old seat neighbor. Local Sprouts will make it worth your while.
Local Sprouts Cooperative
649 Congress St., Portland, ME
(207)-899-3529
http://www.localsproutscooperative.com/
Mon.-Sat. 8am-10pm
Sun. 9am-3pm
Local Sprouts is a Community Supported Cafe, which means that you can pay to become a member and get discounts on food and things like that. All their food is produced locally--if you want, you can even look on their wall, where they have a map of every farm and local producer where they got every ingredient they use. It is also worth noting, particularly if you are into making life happier and more enriching for individuals with disabilities (as I am; it's only my career), that the Bomb Diggity Bakery also runs out of this place. They provide a baking and arts program for individuals with intellectual disabilities. Pretty cool stuff.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Revisiting a Dumpling House in the Heart of Queens
Since I moved to Queens eight months ago, one of my and Florence's favorite places to eat is a dumpling house on Broadway called Lao Bei Fang. I've written on it before, but never in any great detail. It's one of those places that seemingly reveals more everytime I go - I first went for the obvious dumplings, but quickly realized that they do a lot more. Next up was the la mian noodle soups - for an average of about $5, you can get a big bowl of soup and hand-pulled noodles, filled with anything from shredded pork to seafood to tripe and tendon.
Getting more adventurous, Florence and I decided to try out the restaurant's cold case. When you walk in, you are immediately confronted with what looks like a steam table - six or eight metal trays of food behind glass - but on ordering, you quickly realize that the trays are over ice instead of burners. Here the multiregionalism of the restaurant starts to show itself - although ostensibly a northern Chinese dumpling house, the cold case boasts such Sichuan classics as fuqi feipian (literal translation is "sliced lung by the married couple"). Here it is thinly-sliced beef tripe and tendon, dressed mostly with chili oil and Sichuan peppercorn. I already enjoyed tripe, but this dish has converted me to tendon. It straddles that line between chewy, gelatinous, and tender, and the flavor imparted by the chili oil gives it an addictive kick. In the non-Sichuan portion of the cold case, we've had liangban huanggua (cucumber with raw garlic and sesame oil), and several other combinations dressed the same way (another notable one is celery with slices of smoked pressed tofu).
Frequently at the end of last year's winter, I saw people getting bowls of soup covered with curls of sliced beef, was never able to find it on the menu. Last week we finally saw it being eaten by an English speaker and asked, and today for lunch I ordered "hot and spicy beef soup". Only appropriate, given that it's snowing outside(!). From leaning over the steaming bowl as I picked it up, I discerned that it was made ma la style, with chili oil and plenty of Sichuan peppercorn. Don't get this soup alone - even more so than the other dishes here, it is a gargantuan amount of food. The bowl is absolutely stuffed with ingredients: beyond the sliced beef, there is tofu, tofu skin, fried tofu (are we in Malaysia now?), zucchini, round bean thread noodles, bean sprouts, unidentified crunchy vegetable, lotus root, thick round coins of rice flour dough (like big round noodles), and plenty of cabbage ribbons and spoonlike leaves of bok choy. Lao Bei Fang also adorns the soup (as if it needs it) with two semicircular slices of soft, fatty, and very flavorful pork sausage.
I was going to say that the only thing I haven't had here is the hot pot, but just today I saw somebody eating what may have been a shaobing of some sort. It was a thin, crescent-shaped flatbread filled with what looked like Chinese chives. I'll have to find out what it is next time - this place always has something new for me.
Lao Bei Fang Dumpling House
83-05 Broadway, Elmhurst, NY
M/R to Elmhurst Ave. - Lao Bei Fang is located directly on the other side of the overhead LIRR tracks
Highlights: Fried dumplings, 4 for $1.50; La mian, $4.50-$6; Hot and spicy beef soup, $5.75; Scallion pancake (take it home and re-fry it for even better results), whole round for $2.50; Plates from the cold case, $2.75 for veggie only and around $3.50 for meat (plus you can get multiple items on one plate!)
Getting more adventurous, Florence and I decided to try out the restaurant's cold case. When you walk in, you are immediately confronted with what looks like a steam table - six or eight metal trays of food behind glass - but on ordering, you quickly realize that the trays are over ice instead of burners. Here the multiregionalism of the restaurant starts to show itself - although ostensibly a northern Chinese dumpling house, the cold case boasts such Sichuan classics as fuqi feipian (literal translation is "sliced lung by the married couple"). Here it is thinly-sliced beef tripe and tendon, dressed mostly with chili oil and Sichuan peppercorn. I already enjoyed tripe, but this dish has converted me to tendon. It straddles that line between chewy, gelatinous, and tender, and the flavor imparted by the chili oil gives it an addictive kick. In the non-Sichuan portion of the cold case, we've had liangban huanggua (cucumber with raw garlic and sesame oil), and several other combinations dressed the same way (another notable one is celery with slices of smoked pressed tofu).
Frequently at the end of last year's winter, I saw people getting bowls of soup covered with curls of sliced beef, was never able to find it on the menu. Last week we finally saw it being eaten by an English speaker and asked, and today for lunch I ordered "hot and spicy beef soup". Only appropriate, given that it's snowing outside(!). From leaning over the steaming bowl as I picked it up, I discerned that it was made ma la style, with chili oil and plenty of Sichuan peppercorn. Don't get this soup alone - even more so than the other dishes here, it is a gargantuan amount of food. The bowl is absolutely stuffed with ingredients: beyond the sliced beef, there is tofu, tofu skin, fried tofu (are we in Malaysia now?), zucchini, round bean thread noodles, bean sprouts, unidentified crunchy vegetable, lotus root, thick round coins of rice flour dough (like big round noodles), and plenty of cabbage ribbons and spoonlike leaves of bok choy. Lao Bei Fang also adorns the soup (as if it needs it) with two semicircular slices of soft, fatty, and very flavorful pork sausage.
I was going to say that the only thing I haven't had here is the hot pot, but just today I saw somebody eating what may have been a shaobing of some sort. It was a thin, crescent-shaped flatbread filled with what looked like Chinese chives. I'll have to find out what it is next time - this place always has something new for me.
Lao Bei Fang Dumpling House
83-05 Broadway, Elmhurst, NY
M/R to Elmhurst Ave. - Lao Bei Fang is located directly on the other side of the overhead LIRR tracks
Highlights: Fried dumplings, 4 for $1.50; La mian, $4.50-$6; Hot and spicy beef soup, $5.75; Scallion pancake (take it home and re-fry it for even better results), whole round for $2.50; Plates from the cold case, $2.75 for veggie only and around $3.50 for meat (plus you can get multiple items on one plate!)
Sunday, April 17, 2011
But Where Did the Chometz Come From? (Rego Park's Tandoori Bakery)
After reading this post from Taxi Gourmet, Tandoori Bakery in Rego Park, Queens, immediately went on my "to go" list. Today Florence and I decided to try it out - remembering only on the way that Pesach starts tomorrow evening and that Tandoori very well might not be making anything involving chometz. (The restaurant is kosher and is closed on Shabbos.) This feeling was compounded on the twenty-minute walk there first by the multiple closed kosher shops we passed and then by at least five signs on Tandoori's window proclaiming that it is kosher, kosher for Pesach, and closed for the entire week of the holiday. Oh, and that all of the its chometz has been sold.
So, happily and confusingly, the first thing we saw when we walked in was bread everywhere! Lots of what we later learned was lepeshka - Bukharan bread - and a few samsas, or the Central Asian baked version of samosas. It took a few minutes to get anybody's attention as the counter was quite crowded, but we managed to secure ourselves a table. This in itself was unexpected, as given the name (Tandoori Bakery) we were expecting some sort of counter-only place. But no, there were plenty of tables, and in fact one group of men by the window looked as if they had been there since about 9am and planned to stay all through the afternoon and well into the night. (We got there around 12:30pm.) It really was like walking into a different world in a lot of ways: one where everything was written in Cyriliic, about half the men were wearing yarmulkes, and vodka was not only accepted but standard for lunchtime. I later mentioned to Florence that it seemed like the Uzbek version of Vin Cafe, the restaurant in Alba, Italy, where we whiled away far too many nights with dinner and wine. Not usually the mornings, though.
We pored over the menu for awhile - I tried to figure out what the Cyrillic side said but am not very good at that alphabet yet - and settled on a few items. A pot of tea (mandatory, I think), lepeshka, two samsas, and marinated cabbage salad. I took the waitress' industriously scribbling silence as a good thing, but what arrived - tea, bread, one samsa, and carrot salad - proved me otherwise. No matter - it was all fantastic. We requested another samsa, but when I picked mine up it soon became apparent that we had a small mountain of food on our hands. As we saw the other tables lingering over their meals, we relaxed - this was not a place to tear through and leave in a half hour. Spending a few hours here listening to the chatter and people-watching would be just fine, thank you. Especially when we could watch the corner table repeatedly get up and stumble out the door (did I mention they had Absolut AND Grey Goose?) to say goodbye to one of their number.
A bit of research tells me that lepeshka (think nine-inch-diameter bialy) is baked in a tandoor, as are the samsas. Both have the combination of crispy bottom and chewy top that clay ovens do so well. The samsa filling was beef, onions, and cumin - kind of an Uzbek empanada, as I've seen some other places call it. The carrot salad is called morkovcha and is, according to this Times article, "a legacy of Stalin's mass deportations of ethnic Koreans from the far eastern Soviet Union to its western frontiers." It consists of shredded raw carrots in a dressing that is mostly vinegar, green onions, and raw garlic. In that it is surprisingly similar to liangban huanggua, the Chinese salad of sliced cucumbers dressed with sesame oil and raw garlic that we'd had the night before at Lao Bei Fang. The morkovcha was delicious, although there was a ton of it. But we did pretty well with our small mountain of edibles, and when we left, the last guy at the corner table had just gotten another pot of tea to work though. I have a feeling there was more vodka coming as well.
Tandoori Bakery
99-04 63rd Road
Rego Park, Queens
closed on Shabbos - sundown Friday to at least one hour after sundown Saturday
So, happily and confusingly, the first thing we saw when we walked in was bread everywhere! Lots of what we later learned was lepeshka - Bukharan bread - and a few samsas, or the Central Asian baked version of samosas. It took a few minutes to get anybody's attention as the counter was quite crowded, but we managed to secure ourselves a table. This in itself was unexpected, as given the name (Tandoori Bakery) we were expecting some sort of counter-only place. But no, there were plenty of tables, and in fact one group of men by the window looked as if they had been there since about 9am and planned to stay all through the afternoon and well into the night. (We got there around 12:30pm.) It really was like walking into a different world in a lot of ways: one where everything was written in Cyriliic, about half the men were wearing yarmulkes, and vodka was not only accepted but standard for lunchtime. I later mentioned to Florence that it seemed like the Uzbek version of Vin Cafe, the restaurant in Alba, Italy, where we whiled away far too many nights with dinner and wine. Not usually the mornings, though.
We pored over the menu for awhile - I tried to figure out what the Cyrillic side said but am not very good at that alphabet yet - and settled on a few items. A pot of tea (mandatory, I think), lepeshka, two samsas, and marinated cabbage salad. I took the waitress' industriously scribbling silence as a good thing, but what arrived - tea, bread, one samsa, and carrot salad - proved me otherwise. No matter - it was all fantastic. We requested another samsa, but when I picked mine up it soon became apparent that we had a small mountain of food on our hands. As we saw the other tables lingering over their meals, we relaxed - this was not a place to tear through and leave in a half hour. Spending a few hours here listening to the chatter and people-watching would be just fine, thank you. Especially when we could watch the corner table repeatedly get up and stumble out the door (did I mention they had Absolut AND Grey Goose?) to say goodbye to one of their number.
A bit of research tells me that lepeshka (think nine-inch-diameter bialy) is baked in a tandoor, as are the samsas. Both have the combination of crispy bottom and chewy top that clay ovens do so well. The samsa filling was beef, onions, and cumin - kind of an Uzbek empanada, as I've seen some other places call it. The carrot salad is called morkovcha and is, according to this Times article, "a legacy of Stalin's mass deportations of ethnic Koreans from the far eastern Soviet Union to its western frontiers." It consists of shredded raw carrots in a dressing that is mostly vinegar, green onions, and raw garlic. In that it is surprisingly similar to liangban huanggua, the Chinese salad of sliced cucumbers dressed with sesame oil and raw garlic that we'd had the night before at Lao Bei Fang. The morkovcha was delicious, although there was a ton of it. But we did pretty well with our small mountain of edibles, and when we left, the last guy at the corner table had just gotten another pot of tea to work though. I have a feeling there was more vodka coming as well.
Tandoori Bakery
99-04 63rd Road
Rego Park, Queens
closed on Shabbos - sundown Friday to at least one hour after sundown Saturday
Saturday, April 9, 2011
An Ode to Dumpling Soup
I did promise to talk about som tam, but I haven't been able to find myself at many of the neighborhood's Thai places in the past week or two. Instead I've been eating a lot of dumplings and soup. I think that's what happens when "spring" turns out to be day after day of 45 degrees and grey drizzle. I thought I wasn't in Michigan any more, but maybe the greyness follows you after you leave.
So: dumplings. Yesterday I got off work and I really wasn't in the mood for cooking anything. I was, in fact, in the mood for curling up at a bookstore for a couple hours (which I did!) and then for going to my favorite Elmhurst dumpling house, Lao Bei Fang. I walked in fully intending to order boiled dumplings and eat them with plenty of chilies in oil - and then I smelled the soup. As far as I could tell, every single person in that place was either having soup or hot pot. Given that it was just over 40 degrees with that sort of chill damp outside, I couldn't blame them. But I wasn't hungry enough for noodle soup, so I went with dumpling soup.
For $3.50 there, you can get eight dumplings in a bowl of pork broth, with scallions, cilantro, and bok choy - Shanghai choy, I think - to add some green to your meal. The leeks and chives in the dumplings also help, but the dumplings have a slightly higher pork-to-green ratio than I would like. Nevertheless they are excellent - the wrappers are thick as I like them (I think they're wheat, but I'm not sure), and there is enough deliciously porky juice inside to make you think that Lao Bei Fang could turn out some fantastic soup dumplings if they had the inclination to do so (and any Shanghainese on staff, which I'm sure they don't). The meat is good quality and is just barely cooked, not rubbery or compressed.
The soup itself is a clean and clear pork broth, slightly salty but not too much so. Last night I had half the soup unadorned and then added a spoonful of chilies for the extra smoky and spicy notes in the second half - I like it both ways and didn't want to choose. The cilantro is an unusual flavor for me to associate with Chinese food and helps to cut the richness of the dumplings, and the few stems of bok choy make it feel like you're eating some semblance of a balanced meal. This is definitely winter food, but appropriate as it may as well still be winter here in New York.
So: dumplings. Yesterday I got off work and I really wasn't in the mood for cooking anything. I was, in fact, in the mood for curling up at a bookstore for a couple hours (which I did!) and then for going to my favorite Elmhurst dumpling house, Lao Bei Fang. I walked in fully intending to order boiled dumplings and eat them with plenty of chilies in oil - and then I smelled the soup. As far as I could tell, every single person in that place was either having soup or hot pot. Given that it was just over 40 degrees with that sort of chill damp outside, I couldn't blame them. But I wasn't hungry enough for noodle soup, so I went with dumpling soup.
For $3.50 there, you can get eight dumplings in a bowl of pork broth, with scallions, cilantro, and bok choy - Shanghai choy, I think - to add some green to your meal. The leeks and chives in the dumplings also help, but the dumplings have a slightly higher pork-to-green ratio than I would like. Nevertheless they are excellent - the wrappers are thick as I like them (I think they're wheat, but I'm not sure), and there is enough deliciously porky juice inside to make you think that Lao Bei Fang could turn out some fantastic soup dumplings if they had the inclination to do so (and any Shanghainese on staff, which I'm sure they don't). The meat is good quality and is just barely cooked, not rubbery or compressed.
The soup itself is a clean and clear pork broth, slightly salty but not too much so. Last night I had half the soup unadorned and then added a spoonful of chilies for the extra smoky and spicy notes in the second half - I like it both ways and didn't want to choose. The cilantro is an unusual flavor for me to associate with Chinese food and helps to cut the richness of the dumplings, and the few stems of bok choy make it feel like you're eating some semblance of a balanced meal. This is definitely winter food, but appropriate as it may as well still be winter here in New York.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
It's hard to say how long Chinatown's dumpling houses have been around, but as I remember they really started becoming well-known five to ten years ago. Of course, this coincided quite well with the time I spent mostly outside NYC (six years before this past August), so I never really had the chance to try any of them. Not that I didn't make an effort. Several of my holidays from school involved long meandering trips around Chinatown, in vain search of a dumpling. I'm sure I passed a few places, but for one thing I don't think I was in the right part of the neighborhood, and for another all the places I passed had Chinese-only signs. I wasn't quite ready for that (I'm still not really ready for that, actually - does anybody around here read/speak Chinese and want to go on a food adventure with me?).
Now I love Ann Arbor and its food scene, but one thing it does not have in abundance is good Chinese food. Korean, yes - there are several excellent Korean restaurants around the campus area. But most of the Chinese is the greasy American variety - good sometimes, and especially for college students, but not for dumplings. Kansas City is similar if you replace "Korean" with "Vietnamese". Certainly no great Chinese there that I ever located. And rural Maryland...not so hot in general on the ethnic food (except for one excellent and surprising Mexican restaurant).
But back in New York since late summer 2010, I had plenty of chances to do my research properly and go find some dumplings. The first thing I learned is that Eldridge Street seems to be the dumpling locus for Manhattan's Chinatown. You have Vanessa's Dumplings, which is a wee bit touristy but still cheap and good; Prosperity Dumpling, which is a tiny shack of a storefront and probably the cheapest of the lot; and Shu Jiao Fu Zhou Cuisine (or just Fu Zhou), which, per its name serves shuijiao (boiled dumplings) rather than guotie (potstickers). Sadly I have not had a chance to try Prosperity's dumplings yet, although I will probably be doing so this Friday evening. Their pork buns (seasoned differently and round instead elongated, and I think pork buns are from Beijing as opposed to other parts of northern China) are excellent, though: crisp, juicy, and 4 for a dollar.
Fu Zhou merits special mention because of their menu and mode of dumpling-making. For one thing, you have two choices as far the dumplings go: "small" (7 for $2) and "large" (11 fo $3). None of this weird filling or fried/boiled stuff. The filling is standard (pork and chives), and the the wrappers are much more delicate than most, almost translucent. I normally like thick-skinned heartier dumplings, but these were an excellent change of pace.
After my few weeks of adventures in Manhattan's Chinatown, I moved to Elmhurst, Queens, and promptly found myself smack in the middle of another Chinatown. This one is a little more varied - so far I've seen Chinese, Thai, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Japanese, and Malaysian. I'm not sure it's possible to get a bad meal here, actually (with the possible exception of the pizzeria, but I haven't tried it so I can't say for sure). My first night here I went to a Vietnamese place for pho with my roommate, and we took a walking tour of the neighborhood on the way back to the apartment. He pointed out a dumpling house down one of the streets (Whitney St., I now know) and I made a mental note to try it. A few days later I got off at Elmhurst Avenue and tried to find the shop. I succeeded and was rewarded with four large and well-fried dumplings, along with a fantastic house-made chili sauce. I think the sauce is a variant on la jiao - it seems to be roasted or slow-fried dried chili bits in oil along with sesame seeds. It gives this amazing smoky spicy flavor to whatever it touches. Naming this dumpling house is a little more complicated - I think it's an outpost of Lao Bei Fang, which is down the street and is the subject of my next paragraph. However, at my last visit they had taken down the Lao Bei Fang sign, so it's hard to say for sure.
Lao Bei Fang (this time on Broadway) seems to be where the locals go - they have dumplings, noodle soups, hot pot, and various prepared dishes that are definitely not on the menu. The dumplings are very good - typically fried to a crisp, very large, slightly greasy - although that same house chili sauce cuts through that quite well - and slightly more expensive at $1.50 for four, but that's still quite a good deal. But for me the star is the la mian (hand-pulled noodles typically served in soup, becoming well-known from Xi'an Famous Foods and its ilk), the presence of which is announced by the noodle maker thwack-ing his dough on the metal counter near the back of the restaurant. Watching him is a lot of fun - if you really enjoy watching noodle making then the place to go is the Whitney St. outpost, as the la mian chef there is right up front next to the ordering window. The noodles end up chewy, springy, very wheaty, and with that slight variation in thickness that lets you know that they're really handmade. And for the kicker, giant bowls of soup - deceptively large, as you don't realize when you get the bowl that it's 2/3 full of noodles - cost between $4.50 and $6.25. It's certainly worth a stop if you find yourself in Elmhurst.
Vanessa's Dumpling House
118 Eldridge St., Manhattan
Highlights: potstickers, 4 for $1.25
Fu Zhou Cuisine
118 Eldridge St., Manhattan (this doesn't make any sense, but it's one storefront north of Vanessa's)
Highlights: boiled dumplings, 7 for $2 or 11 for $3
Prosperity Dumpling
46 Eldridge St. #1, Manhattan
Highlights: potstickers, 5 for $1; fried pork buns, 4 for $1
Lao Bei Fang (Whitney outpost)
86-08(?) Whitney St., Elmhurst, Queens (address is not exact but should be close)
Lao Bei Fang (main restaurant)
83-05 Broadway, Elmhurst, Queens
Highlights: potstickers, 4 for $1.50; 8 dumplings in soup for $3.25; la mian soups starting at $4.50
Up next: eating my way through the neighborhood, and a possible som tam comparison if I can get myself to enough Thai and Malaysian restaurants.
Now I love Ann Arbor and its food scene, but one thing it does not have in abundance is good Chinese food. Korean, yes - there are several excellent Korean restaurants around the campus area. But most of the Chinese is the greasy American variety - good sometimes, and especially for college students, but not for dumplings. Kansas City is similar if you replace "Korean" with "Vietnamese". Certainly no great Chinese there that I ever located. And rural Maryland...not so hot in general on the ethnic food (except for one excellent and surprising Mexican restaurant).
But back in New York since late summer 2010, I had plenty of chances to do my research properly and go find some dumplings. The first thing I learned is that Eldridge Street seems to be the dumpling locus for Manhattan's Chinatown. You have Vanessa's Dumplings, which is a wee bit touristy but still cheap and good; Prosperity Dumpling, which is a tiny shack of a storefront and probably the cheapest of the lot; and Shu Jiao Fu Zhou Cuisine (or just Fu Zhou), which, per its name serves shuijiao (boiled dumplings) rather than guotie (potstickers). Sadly I have not had a chance to try Prosperity's dumplings yet, although I will probably be doing so this Friday evening. Their pork buns (seasoned differently and round instead elongated, and I think pork buns are from Beijing as opposed to other parts of northern China) are excellent, though: crisp, juicy, and 4 for a dollar.
Fu Zhou merits special mention because of their menu and mode of dumpling-making. For one thing, you have two choices as far the dumplings go: "small" (7 for $2) and "large" (11 fo $3). None of this weird filling or fried/boiled stuff. The filling is standard (pork and chives), and the the wrappers are much more delicate than most, almost translucent. I normally like thick-skinned heartier dumplings, but these were an excellent change of pace.
After my few weeks of adventures in Manhattan's Chinatown, I moved to Elmhurst, Queens, and promptly found myself smack in the middle of another Chinatown. This one is a little more varied - so far I've seen Chinese, Thai, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Japanese, and Malaysian. I'm not sure it's possible to get a bad meal here, actually (with the possible exception of the pizzeria, but I haven't tried it so I can't say for sure). My first night here I went to a Vietnamese place for pho with my roommate, and we took a walking tour of the neighborhood on the way back to the apartment. He pointed out a dumpling house down one of the streets (Whitney St., I now know) and I made a mental note to try it. A few days later I got off at Elmhurst Avenue and tried to find the shop. I succeeded and was rewarded with four large and well-fried dumplings, along with a fantastic house-made chili sauce. I think the sauce is a variant on la jiao - it seems to be roasted or slow-fried dried chili bits in oil along with sesame seeds. It gives this amazing smoky spicy flavor to whatever it touches. Naming this dumpling house is a little more complicated - I think it's an outpost of Lao Bei Fang, which is down the street and is the subject of my next paragraph. However, at my last visit they had taken down the Lao Bei Fang sign, so it's hard to say for sure.
Lao Bei Fang (this time on Broadway) seems to be where the locals go - they have dumplings, noodle soups, hot pot, and various prepared dishes that are definitely not on the menu. The dumplings are very good - typically fried to a crisp, very large, slightly greasy - although that same house chili sauce cuts through that quite well - and slightly more expensive at $1.50 for four, but that's still quite a good deal. But for me the star is the la mian (hand-pulled noodles typically served in soup, becoming well-known from Xi'an Famous Foods and its ilk), the presence of which is announced by the noodle maker thwack-ing his dough on the metal counter near the back of the restaurant. Watching him is a lot of fun - if you really enjoy watching noodle making then the place to go is the Whitney St. outpost, as the la mian chef there is right up front next to the ordering window. The noodles end up chewy, springy, very wheaty, and with that slight variation in thickness that lets you know that they're really handmade. And for the kicker, giant bowls of soup - deceptively large, as you don't realize when you get the bowl that it's 2/3 full of noodles - cost between $4.50 and $6.25. It's certainly worth a stop if you find yourself in Elmhurst.
Vanessa's Dumpling House
118 Eldridge St., Manhattan
Highlights: potstickers, 4 for $1.25
Fu Zhou Cuisine
118 Eldridge St., Manhattan (this doesn't make any sense, but it's one storefront north of Vanessa's)
Highlights: boiled dumplings, 7 for $2 or 11 for $3
Prosperity Dumpling
46 Eldridge St. #1, Manhattan
Highlights: potstickers, 5 for $1; fried pork buns, 4 for $1
Lao Bei Fang (Whitney outpost)
86-08(?) Whitney St., Elmhurst, Queens (address is not exact but should be close)
Lao Bei Fang (main restaurant)
83-05 Broadway, Elmhurst, Queens
Highlights: potstickers, 4 for $1.50; 8 dumplings in soup for $3.25; la mian soups starting at $4.50
Up next: eating my way through the neighborhood, and a possible som tam comparison if I can get myself to enough Thai and Malaysian restaurants.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Minar in NYC
Last week, I went to visit Noah in New York, and when I got off the bus I needed somewhere to eat. Simple, right? Well, not so much. See, the trouble is that it's Lent and so until Pesach (it was going to be "until Easter", but I'm visiting Noah for Pesach and plan to go back to eating meat then instead, plus it's the week before Easter anyway so really I'll just be celebrating religion in two different ways) I'm not eating any meat.
Okay, we're in New York, the center of food life, so this still wasn't really that hard. It's just a little trickier if you're not already aware of where the good vegetarian food is in the city. I don't think I've ever consciously eaten vegetarian in NYC, so I had no idea. So I called Noah at work when I got off the bus and asked him to suggest something. I believe I used the approximate words, "anything between Times Square and your work [on the Upper East Side] is fair game". Noah pointed me to a little Indian restaurant near Times Square called Minar, and I set off to find it.
First things first: this place is small. And unassuming. How do I know? I went to the street it was on, and walked right by it because I was on the wrong side of the street. So I crossed the street and accidentally walked right by it again. Then I almost walked by it a third time before catching myself and going in. It's a small storefront on a street packed with small storefronts. The inside is pretty small, too--a couple rows of little tables, the front counter, a fridge with drinks (and pitchers inside; if you order water to drink you go and get it from the pitcher chilling in the fridge).
I ordered the saag paneer, because it's something I've gotten before at my favorite Indian place (Bollywood Masala in St. Mary's City, MD; I have eaten a ton of Indian food in my time and never will there be a better Indian restaurant) and I wanted to compare, and also because I believe that, unless you're someplace that has a very specific specialty that is highly publicized as The Thing To Get, you should start with something basic when you're trying a new place. If they care enough to do that well, they care enough to do everything well. It's why I always order fries with my meal when I go to a new BBQ place--if they put in the effort to do good fries as well as good meat, I respect them just a little more. The saag paneer was great, and fascinating because it was so different from the saag paneer at Bollywood. They're both spicy, but Minar's is differently so--a little smokier, deeper in different places. Very very interesting. I also had a samosa, which was good too. It had a nice dipping sauce, though at the moment I don't really remember anything about it except that it was delicious. The samosa was a little spicy as well, which was nice because some restaurants can make samosas kind of bland (it's the same "do the small things well and you can do the big things well" principle).
I would definitely recommend Minar to anyone in the city for a meal. I will, in fact, probably go there again if I'm back visiting Noah in the city and need lunch. The food is great, prices are good, atmosphere is good, people at the counter are friendly (I think it helped that I apologized profusely when I had to take a very important call while I was paying at the register).
Minar
138 West 46th Street
New York, NY 10036-8506
Okay, we're in New York, the center of food life, so this still wasn't really that hard. It's just a little trickier if you're not already aware of where the good vegetarian food is in the city. I don't think I've ever consciously eaten vegetarian in NYC, so I had no idea. So I called Noah at work when I got off the bus and asked him to suggest something. I believe I used the approximate words, "anything between Times Square and your work [on the Upper East Side] is fair game". Noah pointed me to a little Indian restaurant near Times Square called Minar, and I set off to find it.
First things first: this place is small. And unassuming. How do I know? I went to the street it was on, and walked right by it because I was on the wrong side of the street. So I crossed the street and accidentally walked right by it again. Then I almost walked by it a third time before catching myself and going in. It's a small storefront on a street packed with small storefronts. The inside is pretty small, too--a couple rows of little tables, the front counter, a fridge with drinks (and pitchers inside; if you order water to drink you go and get it from the pitcher chilling in the fridge).
I ordered the saag paneer, because it's something I've gotten before at my favorite Indian place (Bollywood Masala in St. Mary's City, MD; I have eaten a ton of Indian food in my time and never will there be a better Indian restaurant) and I wanted to compare, and also because I believe that, unless you're someplace that has a very specific specialty that is highly publicized as The Thing To Get, you should start with something basic when you're trying a new place. If they care enough to do that well, they care enough to do everything well. It's why I always order fries with my meal when I go to a new BBQ place--if they put in the effort to do good fries as well as good meat, I respect them just a little more. The saag paneer was great, and fascinating because it was so different from the saag paneer at Bollywood. They're both spicy, but Minar's is differently so--a little smokier, deeper in different places. Very very interesting. I also had a samosa, which was good too. It had a nice dipping sauce, though at the moment I don't really remember anything about it except that it was delicious. The samosa was a little spicy as well, which was nice because some restaurants can make samosas kind of bland (it's the same "do the small things well and you can do the big things well" principle).
I would definitely recommend Minar to anyone in the city for a meal. I will, in fact, probably go there again if I'm back visiting Noah in the city and need lunch. The food is great, prices are good, atmosphere is good, people at the counter are friendly (I think it helped that I apologized profusely when I had to take a very important call while I was paying at the register).
Minar
138 West 46th Street
New York, NY 10036-8506
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
NYC food adventures, and the best mussels we've ever had
One of the best things about getting to visit Noah in New York (besides, of course, the "getting to see Noah" part) is being able to have days when we just go to the city and try to experience as much of the food atmosphere as possible. The small town where I live is almost stiflingly homogeneous food-wise, so the wealth of options available in New York is intensely refreshing. In early January, I took the bus to New York to surprise Noah with a visit (I had planned it in advance with his parents, and miraculously none of us managed to give away the surprise!), which was a huge surprise for him (he had no idea!) and was a lot of fun. Since he wasn't dong anything in particular that weekend, we decided to take a day and have adventures--or "foodventures", as we like to call them.
Our first stop was Doughnut Plant, where we started our day right with delicious fresh doughnuts. I had a hazelnut doughnut, because I am helpless to the power of hazelnuts, and Noah's was Meyer lemon. Then we went to Kossar's and had bialys. At least, I think we did. My memory is hazy after so many weeks, so I don't remember exactly where we went or what kind of bialys we had, just that we had bialys somewhere and they were really good and there wasn't a lot of seating so we pretty much had to squeeze onto one chair. From there we stopped briefly at an amazing pickle place where pretty much anything you can think of existed in its pickle form. We gaped at the selection of pickled things (I love pickles, so it was like the mothership calling me home), but decided we were going to come back to it. We never did, because we got distracted., Maybe next time! My google searches do not come up conclusive on what the place was called. This concluded Leg One of our food tour: the Lower East Side.
Our next leg was the Chinatown leg. We were only in Chinatown for one thing, and that was super-cheap dumplings. After some preliminary research, we finally decided on a dumpling house called, well...Dumpling House. (I believe my Google search also comes up with Vanessa's Dumpling House, but I can't remember if they're the same place.) We started our time there with 2 orders of dumplings. The dumplings are all crammed together in one small container, and 1 order (containing 4 dumplings) is $1. Can't get much better than that! We followed it up with a sesame pancake (Dumpling House has several varieties, and I can't remember which one we had...this'll teach me to wait so long to write my food blog entries) and some kind of soup--I think it was the pork wonton soup, but again, not sure. Dumpling House is definitely the kind of place I'd be at all the time if I lived in NY--it's super crowded, everybody's pressed together like sardines jostling each other as they eat their delicious (and budget-friendly) dumplings. I'm looking forward to visiting there more times during my regular visits to the city.
We then abandoned Chinatown for a very cold and windy walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, which made me wish I'd brought a hat, but was still exciting because I'd never walked across the Brooklyn Bridge before. We were in Brooklyn for the Mile End deli, where we'd heard there were amazing smoked meats being made. And the smoked meats were really good! After a wait, we ordered the smoked meats and also a house-ground salami sandwich (I tried to get the menu on my computer, but for some reason my computer loaded it really tiny and I couldn't make the window any bigger, so I can't actually read the menu to tell you what the sandwich was called). The smoked meat sandwich was good, but we actually liked the salami sandwich better. If I remember correctly, we also had pickles. And I had a cup of tea, because I was really cold. Mile End is a great place if you enjoy people who put a lot of care into their meat, and if you've got some time on your hands (there is always always always a wait, from what I've heard, so don't expect to just waltz right in). I would definitely go back to try more of their menu, or just eat more delicious salami sandwiches.
3 days after I went back to MD from that trip, Noah came to visit me for MLK Day weekend! We had 3 days to spend together, which coincided with an early celebration of our 2.5-year anniversary. (Since we had had feelings for each other for a while before we got together, and because we were a bit hazy on when we actually became an official couple, we chose July 26, 2008 as our anniversary because that's when we believe everything really started.) Because we had an anniversary to celebrate, we decided to go someplace nice for dinner, and after some deliberation we chose a little Bistro in Baltimore called b. It was a great choice for a nice dinner--it was intimate and friendly, and pretty much everything on the menu was strong. We got a selection of appetizers, tapas-style, and then shared an order of moules-frites. The appetizers included: olives (Noah's email reminding me of where we went and what we ate describes this as "roasted olives with lemon peel and some other stuff"), a charcuterie plate with amazingly delicious duck prosciutto as well as really good bresaola and serrano ham, served with fried bread, and a potato appetizer that was reminiscent of the patatas bravas that you get at tapas places everywhere. The potatoes were SO good--the waitress had placed them by me, and I definitely had a hard time sharing! ;-)
The star of the show, however, was without a doubt the moules-frites. The mussels were the best mussels either of us had ever had. They tasted like they had never known the inside of a freezer, and were incredibly fresh and well-prepared. They were served with frites, which were also excellently done. The meal was so good that I wrote a thank-you note to the staff on the back of my receipt and left it for them. There couldn't have been a better way to celebrate 2.5 years together then with good food and wine and the company of your partner. :-)
Coming attractions:
Check back in the next couple of days for my (slightly unusual) entry in this year's Novel Food, a celebration of literature and food organized by a food blog I've been reading for a while now. I'm not sure my entry will be accepted, since I didn't base it on a novel (more of a nonfiction book), but you'll get to see it regardless! I also may talk about an excellent stir-fry I made the other day from an even more awesome cookbook that you should all go out and buy. But that's later.
ADDRESSES:
Doughnut Plant
379 Grand St.
New York, NY 10002
Kossar's Bialys
367 Grand St.
New York, NY 10002
Dumpling House (this address is for Vanessa's Dumpling House, because I think it's the same thing)
118 Eldridge St.
New York, NY 10002
Mile End Delicatessen
97a Hoyt St.
Brooklyn, NY
b
1501 Bolton St.
Baltimore, MD 21217
Our first stop was Doughnut Plant, where we started our day right with delicious fresh doughnuts. I had a hazelnut doughnut, because I am helpless to the power of hazelnuts, and Noah's was Meyer lemon. Then we went to Kossar's and had bialys. At least, I think we did. My memory is hazy after so many weeks, so I don't remember exactly where we went or what kind of bialys we had, just that we had bialys somewhere and they were really good and there wasn't a lot of seating so we pretty much had to squeeze onto one chair. From there we stopped briefly at an amazing pickle place where pretty much anything you can think of existed in its pickle form. We gaped at the selection of pickled things (I love pickles, so it was like the mothership calling me home), but decided we were going to come back to it. We never did, because we got distracted., Maybe next time! My google searches do not come up conclusive on what the place was called. This concluded Leg One of our food tour: the Lower East Side.
Our next leg was the Chinatown leg. We were only in Chinatown for one thing, and that was super-cheap dumplings. After some preliminary research, we finally decided on a dumpling house called, well...Dumpling House. (I believe my Google search also comes up with Vanessa's Dumpling House, but I can't remember if they're the same place.) We started our time there with 2 orders of dumplings. The dumplings are all crammed together in one small container, and 1 order (containing 4 dumplings) is $1. Can't get much better than that! We followed it up with a sesame pancake (Dumpling House has several varieties, and I can't remember which one we had...this'll teach me to wait so long to write my food blog entries) and some kind of soup--I think it was the pork wonton soup, but again, not sure. Dumpling House is definitely the kind of place I'd be at all the time if I lived in NY--it's super crowded, everybody's pressed together like sardines jostling each other as they eat their delicious (and budget-friendly) dumplings. I'm looking forward to visiting there more times during my regular visits to the city.
We then abandoned Chinatown for a very cold and windy walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, which made me wish I'd brought a hat, but was still exciting because I'd never walked across the Brooklyn Bridge before. We were in Brooklyn for the Mile End deli, where we'd heard there were amazing smoked meats being made. And the smoked meats were really good! After a wait, we ordered the smoked meats and also a house-ground salami sandwich (I tried to get the menu on my computer, but for some reason my computer loaded it really tiny and I couldn't make the window any bigger, so I can't actually read the menu to tell you what the sandwich was called). The smoked meat sandwich was good, but we actually liked the salami sandwich better. If I remember correctly, we also had pickles. And I had a cup of tea, because I was really cold. Mile End is a great place if you enjoy people who put a lot of care into their meat, and if you've got some time on your hands (there is always always always a wait, from what I've heard, so don't expect to just waltz right in). I would definitely go back to try more of their menu, or just eat more delicious salami sandwiches.
3 days after I went back to MD from that trip, Noah came to visit me for MLK Day weekend! We had 3 days to spend together, which coincided with an early celebration of our 2.5-year anniversary. (Since we had had feelings for each other for a while before we got together, and because we were a bit hazy on when we actually became an official couple, we chose July 26, 2008 as our anniversary because that's when we believe everything really started.) Because we had an anniversary to celebrate, we decided to go someplace nice for dinner, and after some deliberation we chose a little Bistro in Baltimore called b. It was a great choice for a nice dinner--it was intimate and friendly, and pretty much everything on the menu was strong. We got a selection of appetizers, tapas-style, and then shared an order of moules-frites. The appetizers included: olives (Noah's email reminding me of where we went and what we ate describes this as "roasted olives with lemon peel and some other stuff"), a charcuterie plate with amazingly delicious duck prosciutto as well as really good bresaola and serrano ham, served with fried bread, and a potato appetizer that was reminiscent of the patatas bravas that you get at tapas places everywhere. The potatoes were SO good--the waitress had placed them by me, and I definitely had a hard time sharing! ;-)
The star of the show, however, was without a doubt the moules-frites. The mussels were the best mussels either of us had ever had. They tasted like they had never known the inside of a freezer, and were incredibly fresh and well-prepared. They were served with frites, which were also excellently done. The meal was so good that I wrote a thank-you note to the staff on the back of my receipt and left it for them. There couldn't have been a better way to celebrate 2.5 years together then with good food and wine and the company of your partner. :-)
Coming attractions:
Check back in the next couple of days for my (slightly unusual) entry in this year's Novel Food, a celebration of literature and food organized by a food blog I've been reading for a while now. I'm not sure my entry will be accepted, since I didn't base it on a novel (more of a nonfiction book), but you'll get to see it regardless! I also may talk about an excellent stir-fry I made the other day from an even more awesome cookbook that you should all go out and buy. But that's later.
ADDRESSES:
Doughnut Plant
379 Grand St.
New York, NY 10002
Kossar's Bialys
367 Grand St.
New York, NY 10002
Dumpling House (this address is for Vanessa's Dumpling House, because I think it's the same thing)
118 Eldridge St.
New York, NY 10002
Mile End Delicatessen
97a Hoyt St.
Brooklyn, NY
b
1501 Bolton St.
Baltimore, MD 21217
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)