October 2011 – Page 2

Chicago: Kurumaya Japanese Restaurant (Elk Grove Village)

October 16, 2011 mmm-yoso Chicago, Japanese Restaurants

Not being familiar with the area on my last trip to Chicago, I was surprised at finding a Mitsuwa Marketplace almost across the street from my hotel. On that trip, I managed to ask a couple of people for a Japanese restaurant recommendation. Kurumaya, in nearby Elk Grove was the unanimous choice. Thus I made Kurumaya my choice for dinner during my overnight stay in Arlington Heights.

The restaurant is located in a rather unassuming location fairly close to O'Hare.

The interior is also pretty humble looking….in fact the checkerboard tablecloth made the place look like a family Italian restaurant!

There was a sushi bar area upfront and the dining area was pretty large. All the customers when I arrived seemed to be Japanese nationals. And the arrival of the oshibori signaled a good start.

The Servers were all very nice; almost motherly, and the menu was quite extensive. With what seemed to be a little bit of everything from sushi and sashimi to robata type dishes.

What I found really charming were the little black book on top of each table……

Each book was filled with illustrations of the dishes on the menu, combined with ingredients and some little slogan like "good taste!"

An item on the menu grabbed my attention, the Hirame Carpaccio…..it seems that these type of Pan-Asian-European dishes are appearing on menu everywhere. In fact, I make a pseudo version myself at home. I'd recently had the salmon belly carpaccio at Okan, which I thought was really a miss, so I thought I'd check this out. It turned out that I should've passed on this as well.

At almost fourteen bucks, this was a disappointing dish. First off, the presentation left much to be desired as it looked like something you'd find washed up on the shore after a storm. Secondly, there were four slices of hirame cut so thin you could almost see through it. From the wakame to the very salty ikura to the couple of pieces of iceberg lettuce and the ponzu dressing this was very underwhelming…..

I'd also ordered the maguro yamakake, which I later ofund out cost me nine bucks and looked like this….

The maguro had the mushy texture of "saku" (cut and refrozen) fish.

Thinking that I needed a change of plans, I went with the no-fail option, Chicken Karaage….which turned out to be another disappointment.

The portion size was generous, but I was not fond of the batter which was gummy and too thick. I prefer light and crisp. The flavor was very mild and this was all white meat which made the chicken pretty dry.

Usually, at this point I'd be stuffed silly, but for some reason I still had a bit of room. The first three dishes had been pretty disappointing and it was over ninety degrees and humid outside so you could cross off the udon. One of the neighboring tables ordered the gyutan and some other grilled dishes which looked quite pale and I could not make out the scent of binchotan, so no-go there either.

Of course, if my Japanese was worth a damn or if I could read kanji, I might be able to decifer the greaseboard that was presented to nihon customers. Another couple, either sansei or yonsei came in during my meal and didn't get the specials menu either. Though I'm guessing that the women here were so nice that they'd go over the menu with me if I'd ask, but I didn't want to bother them.

There was one thing I could look at….the handy-dandy little black book:

And so I ordered the Butakakuni, which turned out to be the best item of the evening.

Not the most photogenic butakakuni and it certainly didn't melt in my mouth, but the flavor composition was quite good; savory soy sauce with a touch of sweetness. So at least my meal ended on a high note.

As a whole, I really can't recommend Kurumaya and strangely enough, Tajima kept coming to mind while I was having my meal here. I thought the women working here to be nice enough and the menu is vast…..that black book is charming, but I don't think I'll be returning, unless someone can give me a compelling reason to.

Kurumaya Japanese Kitchen
1201 E Higgins Rd
Elk Grove Village, IL 60007

Playing Chicken at Noble Chef

October 14, 2011 mmm-yoso Chinese Restaurants

My good buddy "JohnL" has been taking some good natured ribbing from me ever since he recommended the Pho at the now defunct Seafood Island. But being the great guy that he is, he still hasn't stopped giving me recommendations. His latest recommendation was from a familiar place; Noble Chef, which I must have posted on a good half dozen times. And still, I hadn't noticed Hainan Chicken Rice on the menu, which John said was really hood. Goes to show, you never know……

I'd been here numerous times and I don't even recall seeing that on the menu. In fact, the first time I went looking for it, I missed it completely and ordered the Chicken in Ginger-Scallion Sauce ($7.75), which was a pretty good sized dish.

This texture of the chicken wasn't to my liking. The Missus calls this "dead" texture, rubbery and over cooked. In fact, this was par cooked ahead of time and then instead of a gently heating, just cooked to death. The sauce was a simple sweet soy that they have in squeeze bottles on the table, somewhat like ketsap manis. Overall, not a great dish, heck not a good dish….

On my out I took a closer look at the menu and….slap to the head, there it was Com Ga Hai Nam, just a couple of lines down the menu! More than a bit angry at myself, I returned at the first possible chance, a couple of days later and ordered the Hai Nam Chicken Rice ($6.55):

I gotta say, this was a good maount of food for the price. But alas, the chicken was pretty much the same as the previous dish I had. It was just too rubbery and dry for my taste. The rice was terribly dry, I believe it to was sitting in the fridge for a bit too long. Not enough chicken flavor to keep my interest either.

Even the ginger-scallion sauce was off, being way too salty. This isn't a very difficult sauce to make, but in this case it seemed like the person making this didn't even taste it.

Overall, these two meals were a bit of a bummer. And my thought that you'd pretty much have to go to a place that specializes in Hainan Chicken Rice in order to get the turnover and quality control right still holds true. A couple of days later I saw JohnL and gave him a bit of a hard time. "Ahem, Johnny….man, i can't believe you actually recommended that to me!"

"Oh-uh….. I guess that's strike two!"

The Noble Chef
6159 Balboa Avenue
San Diego, CA 92111
(858)278-8688

What we’ve been eating……. Oyster Sauce Based Stir-Fry, Asian Stir Fried Rapini, Dill-Caper Celeriac Salad, and one you already know.

October 13, 2011 mmm-yoso Cooking, Loco Mocos, Recipes

Whew, it's been a pretty busy week for me. Mucho thanks to Cathy for making sure both the blog and myself survive to eat yet another day! Since I'm pretty bushed….I thought I'd just go over a coupe of things I've made over the last couple of weeks, starting with one, very familiar dish:

Thanks to my shaky photo taking skills, the Missus actually thought this was an ice cream sundae when She first viewed the photos.

I actually made this the night before the Amazing Graze. I figured I'd need something extra to take me through the day. Actually, I was at Seisel's picking up some calves liver for Da Boyz, when I decided to pick up some ground beef. The bad thing was, Da Boyz's liver was nine bucks…my ground beef two-fifty……yes folks, our household has truly "gone to the dogs"…..

A couple of weeks back I came across some decent looking baby bamboo shoot at 99 Ranch Market, which I ended up purchasing. After arriving home I realized that I had no plan……..

So I ended up lightly blanching the bamboo shoots and doing a pseudo-braise stir-fry with shiitake mushrooms them……

The sauce was an interesting combo, one that I used to make when I still lived in Hawaii…man we're talking fourteen years already!

The Sauce:

4 Tb oyster sauce
2 Tb soy sauce
2 Tb mirin
1 Tb sesame oil

It is a little bit (con) fusion-ny, but works rather well.

Last week the Missus was working pretty hard, so I decided to make something She'd been requesting for a while, a celeriac (celery root) salad.

Since I was also smoking some salmon, I thought I'd tie this into the main course. I added some carrots for sweetness and mixed the following dressing:

1 Tb Dijon Mustard
Juice from 1/2 Lemon
zest of 1 lemon
3 Tb capers drained and chopped (I don't rinse, the Missus loves the briney flavor)
3-4 Tb Mayonnaise
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil (this does add flavor, so if you're not a fan canola oil will do)
minced fresh dill to taste
salt and fresh cracked pepper to taste
1 tsp sugar (optional)
a dash of truffle oil

I used a base of baby arugula and topped with bacon. The Missus really enjoyed this. The next day She ate the rest of the salmon with the salad in a sandwich!

Another day, the Missus had to head off to work so I made Her a small bento of sorts:

Yes, that's some roast duck over some sliced cucumbers to help cut the richness…..

But what the Missus really loved was the Asian stir-fried Rapini, also known as broccoli rabe.

The sauce is just a combination of good soy sauce, sugar, and cornstarch. First three dried chilis are scalded in peanut oil, the rapini is added along with a dash of Xiaosing. Three cloves of finely grated (you can't see, but you can taste) garlic is added later. The sauce is added at the end….. Man, this can out really good. And as you can tell, the Missus is getting into different vegetables…….or at least convincing me to cook them!

So what have you made this very hot week!

Saigon- a great meal

October 11, 2011 Cathy Vietnamese Restaurants, What Cathy Eats!

mmm-yoso!!! is a food blog. Kirk is working a lot lately and so is ed (from Yuma). Neither of them has had time to write, much less read about food. Today, Cathy is filing a post so you'll have something to read.

Hi again. The other day, once again, I started driving with no purpose other than to find lunch. The Mister was along for the ride, not knowing where to go nor giving me suggestions except an occasional "well, you found more road construction" and- "turn here, I haven't been in this neighborhood for a while". Soon we were on El Cajon Boulevard and

the parking lot at Saigon was not crowded, so we stopped. We have been here many times and always have enjoyed it, but it stopped being a deliberate destination for one reason or another.

People were occupying the smaller tables, and we sat at one of the 7 chair tables with the Lazy Susan in the center. That century-old kitchen gadget would prove to be quite helpful with our three item order which we intended to share. Whenever we sit at a table with more than two chairs, I tend to move around and eat from a plate at every chair.

The item which we ordered before even looking at the menu- Banh xeo– usually takes a while to prepare. ($6.50) The delicate turmeric flavored fried crepe/pancake is cooked fresh and filled with
sprouts, green onion, pork and shrimp. It is served with lettuce leaves and fresh mint for wrapping the pieces you break off and whatever you stuff inside..and the usual dipping sauce, nuoc mam (fish sauce).

Yes. I took three photos. We should have just ordered two bahn xeo and been done with it.It was so good and filling.
The Mister ordered a small bowl of pho with thin sliced rare beef and flank ($5.25). The aromatics from the broth were wafting toward me -the anise stood out and the flavor was deep and rich. This pho would be great on a chilly day. Very tasty and filling. You can see the plate of add-ins behind the bowl- basil, sprouts and the unseen jalapeños and a lime wedge. The noodles were not clumpy and this also was an excellent meal by itself.
However, I wanted fish. The menu description "Catfish and rice $7.95" seemed to be what I wanted (no mention of hotpot). This came to the table sizzling and bubbling over the cast iron pot.

After a long while, the pot settled down. It was filled with catfish in a sweet-garlic-black pepper sauce. (A good sweet that a brown sauce has, not overly crazy yukky sweet.) Just catfish, sauce and those green onion fronds. It was exquisite and wonderful with tender, flaky, not muddy but very fresh tasting fish (some bones and some really good skin) that stayed hot the whole meal.

Glad we stopped here and refreshed our memory of why we used to return here over and over. We need to go through the menu… there are over 100 items.

Saigon 4455 El Cajon Boulevard (across from Hoover High School) San Diego 92115 (619) 284-4215

Sammoon-Mediterranean Cuisine (El Cajon)

October 10, 2011 Cathy Mediterranean Restaurants, What Cathy Eats!

Sammoon is closed

mmm-yoso!!! is a food blog. Kirk, ed(from Yuma) and Cathy mostly contribute and post/blog about places and foods they have had as a meal. Cathy is posting/blogging today.

Hi. If you've ever had Jury Duty in El Cajon (there are four court houses where Jurors perform their Civic Duty in this large County), you may have wandered out looking for a snack or lunch on one of your breaks. Or you will. Just across Magnolia is the Panda Express and the newly opened Sammoon. This is a view from the parking lot and not from the courthouse…it is close to where Magnolia intersects with Broadway, where the Starbucks and soon to be El Cajon Brewing Company (which would be a far more interesting lunch during a court case) is located…just a bit more North in that same block/parking lot.

There is a menu posted outside…

As well as above the cash register where you order. You can see the spits of chicken and beef schawarma.

The inside is neat and clean and quite large(this location used to be a Red Brick Pizza franchise-see the oven all the way against the wall to the center/left?) (there is an area selling frozen foods(kubbas, potato chop, borak, cheese and beef pies) and bakery items (baklava-pistachio and walnut, and klecha-pistachio, walnut and date) as well as the sandwich rolls (Sammoons, 3 for$1)at the front, next to the cash register and also where this photo doesn't take you.

The Mister ordered the $4.99 special- a beef schawarma sandwich with a salad (cabbage with some fennel 'feathers' and parsley and a light dressing), pickles and a beverage (the sandwich alone is $4.49). The bread, baked here, is excellent-soft thin crusted, a nice chewy interior. Kind of a big pita. The schawarma is completely wonderful- tender, flavorful beef, cut thin. The sandwich was filled with fresh vegetables (tomato, cucumber, onion, parsley, a fresh yogurt based sauce and a sprinkle of some sumac). This was a substantial sandwich.

I ordered the chicken schawarma salad ($6.99). There is even *more* meat on the salad than in the sandwich. Plus cucumbers, tomatoes, onions and olives. The plate is pretty deep and there was also a lot of lettuce. The $2 extra was well worth it. The chicken schawarma was also very flavorful, moist, tender. Seriously good. (It was served with a very tasty house made dressing, olive oil based and very herb-y).

The Mister also decided to order some falafel (49¢ each) and they were fresh made with the chickpea mix having the texture of a really good hushpuppy-airy and fluffy- and served with fresh tahini (sesame seed sauce (on the right)) and a tart-sweet mango pickle sauce (on the left). Light, fluffy, perfectly crisp and not oily. I've gotten pretty picky- and have cravings for good falafel and these are in my top five.

We decided to wait for next time to try a dessert.

Sammoon Bakery & Restaurant Mediterranean Cuisine 190 N. Magnolia El Cajon 92020 (619)441-2823

Sun-Thurs, 10am-10pm, Fri-Sat, 10am-midnight

Sisig Sunday: Porky’s Lechon

October 9, 2011 mmm-yoso Filipino Restaurants

I was quite surprised to hear that Asian Noodles had closed, though on my last couple of visits there last year the food seemed to be a bit tired. Still, I had thought of this as an institution of sorts in National City. In fact, my first post on the place was way back in October of 2005! Even though I was sad to see Asian Noodles go, the name of the new place got me a bit excited……

I mean really….when you have both "Porky" and "Lechon" in your name…..

And when this fellow greets you at the door…..

The interior hasn't changed much since it was Asian Noodles, with just a steam table added…..

And while your porko-phile senses are usually pleasantly assaulted in many of these "turo-turo" shops, here it was basically….well, nada.

Still, noticing that they sold lechon by the pound ($10/lb), courtesy of our friend pictured above and had two types of sisig in trays…actually there's mention of a third, bangus (milkfish) sisig, but I didn't see it on my visit. Well, I thought I'd hit the promised land and ended up buying a pretty good amount of food starting with a half pound of the lechon.

Sadly, the lechon was suffering from steam table fatigue. Poor mister/Ms piggy above had given his very fleshly life for a sadly dry and bland dish. The skin was hard, though the lechon sauce was fairly decent.

Seeing that I was already ordering pork, I went with the Chicken Sisig and Pancit – a single item combo here is $6. And while it's not quite "Tita's sized" it was a good amount of food.

On the good side, this was nice and moist. Chicken Sisig can end up being quite dry. However, there just wasn't enough of a sour component nor heat and pungency(i.e. onions, which also adds a bit of a textural counter-point) for my taste. Even though I knew it wasn't short on salt, based on my thirst afterwards, I found this strangely bland. I mean really…where's the siling labuyo (bird chili)?

And while the pancit was perfectly cooked it also suffered from lack of flavor.

Still, I had the thought that perhaps this was just an off day and returned for more. This time I simply got a two item combo, passing on the pancit and a ghostly pale palabok, and going with just steamed rice with sisig and chicken adobo. The results were basically the same.

This was a tweener sisig, it didn't go far enough to be sisig Pampanga with the gamey pig head flavors and the chewy and gelatinous textures of ear and tongue. There was basically not enough crunch or porky goodness for this to be standard steam table lechon kawale sisig. Not enough onions, vinegar, and spice. Other than the Chinese sausage, you were pretty much left in a vast greasy wasteland.

The chicken adobo was better, but not by much.

It was on the bland side for my taste with not enough black pepper….

Maybe it's my fauly for expecting too much from a place with both "Porky" and "lechon" in its name. Too bad, because the woman working here is very nice and I so wanted that perfect sisig-a-licious meal. I try them out again in a couple of months, maybe things will be better then.

Porky's Lechon
1430 E Plaza Blvd
National City, CA 91950

The Amazing Graze 2011 Part 2

October 7, 2011 mmm-yoso Exploring San Diego, Jamaican Restaurants, yoso-silly

In part 1, I went over some background info and the rules for "The Graze". Things started heating up pretty quickly. Team 'Q' and Ange went straight for the Blue line along with team XiangJiao and Trang. John decided to go along with XJ and T while I waited with YY and Peter for the Orange line. By this time Peter and Kim had made out their first stop, item # 3 Spam Musubi. The hint for this one was, "who is the father of Geometry?" Well, it's Euclid. And there happens to be an L&L right on Euclid. I was surprised to see XJ and T jump on the trolley after two stops….it turned out that they didn't read the instructions completely and went to Pho Xpress downtown for the Pho. Unfortunately the rules stated that "all of the places listed have to be on either the Orange line East of 25 & Commercial or South of the Barrio Logan stop on the Blue line." so they had wasted a bit of time. As everyone got off at Euclid, I stayed on….well….because I was getting hungry. The clue for item #5 –Braised Oxtails, Beef Pattie, Jerk was a song by the Nguyen Le Trio called "Encanto". Guess what the next stop was?

While I was waiting for my Oxtails from Caribbean Taste, I decided to send a clue out and took this photo and sent it……

About that time, I received a text from Q and Ange, attached was a photo of them eating a fish taco from place #4. The hint for that stop was the song by the GooGoo Dolls…..titled "Iris". It was a hint for the Tacos El Paisa Y Mariscos truck. Which happens to be located right across…ready now, the Iris avenue trolley stop.

Meanwhile I notice two individuals running up the parking lot…it's Peter and XiangJiao! They are actually racing to Caribbean Taste. They come running in to take a look at the menu and take a photo, without noticing that I'm sitting at one of the tables! Finally XJ sees me and starts laughing and since Peter is blocking her access to the menus she takes a photo of me as "evidence". Crazy, huh?

It seemed like the teams had a good handle on the location based on the various hints…except for #1, the Pho. The clue I sent out was a sample of Hungry Heart and I was getting worried when I started hearing "Spring Street" and "Spring Valley" mentioned. The objective was a fun and stimulating time and I didn't want to be sending out search parties. Most folks knew that #2 – the Sesos, Buche, Suadero Tacos was Tacos el Gordo, even though my hint, a sample of the 1978 hit "Bluer than Blue" (yes, I actually have that song on my iPod…laugh away my friends, I even have Don't Give up on Us Baby, ok!!!) by Michael Johnson was pretty weak.

So I jumped on the trolley, with take-out orders of food from Caribbean taste (I knew folks would be pretty hungry when they finished) and headed down to the Imperial Transit Center to get on the Blue Line. I was a couple of minutes too late for one of the funniest moments of the graze, when all three teams ran into each other at that very stop!

I headed down to Iris avenue then got back on the Blue line North to where the Pho shop I had in mind was located……..

The song Hungry Heart is by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band! and the place I had in mind was this…..

I'm thinking the grazers were pretty thankful they didn't have to eat here!

I then headed back up the line and went to Crab Hut to get us a table. It was 1325, I had estimated a 4 hour "graze". At 1341 I saw Peter run into the door of Crab Hut….I never knew Pete was so competetive! So the team of Peter/YY/Tammy C took the title, and 90 bucks! At 1357 Xianjiang walked into the restaurant……their downfall was hunger. By the time they hit Tacos el Gordo team XJ and T were so hungry they decided to stop and eat! Right at 1401 Q and Ange came strolling in…..and they had skipped two stops, a penalty of two hours. The reason? Well, they decided it would be fun to eat at each stop and after three stops was too full! They paid for the the mega-beer on the right. It's called a "shipwreck" and at Crab Hut you can request any draft beer to be part of your "wreck", so we had 96 ounces of Ballast Point Yellowtail ale. Man were we good or what? All the teams finished right around the estimated time of 1400, great job!

What I found interesting was that every team went for the extra points at the Lemon Grove stop. Though the photos were kinda interesting, like this one of Peter….that little thing that looks like a peanut in back of his giant cabeza is indeed the Lemon Grove lemon! It was a nice little study in human nature….and I think we got to know each other a little better!

In the end it was a fun time for all…with more stories than there is time, to tell. Now the question is….what's next?

I'm not quite sure, but I'm getting a bit of inspiration from this rendition (of a part of) one of my favorite Jeff Beck songs done by Lee Ritenour and Mike Stern:

Did you guess right? Thanks for coming along!

The Amazing Graze 2011 Part 1

October 6, 2011 mmm-yoso Exploring San Diego, yoso-silly

I've got a great bunch of friends, every once in a while we'd plan some outing or fun event…..always with food in mind. Earlier in the year, PeterL and I started talking about doing something with the trolley. Some in our group had never ridden the trolley and we thought it would be great fun and folks would get to parts of San Diego they usually wouldn't. Still, I couldn't quite figure out how to tie in the food thing. One one weekend, JohnL and I spent a good part of our Saturday riding the trolley and an idea started to form. Why not do something along the lines of a scavenger hunt? Instead of gathering items, folks could gather food? And so the Amazing Graze 2011 was conceptualized and the call went out:

Still, how would we involve food in this? Then it came to me, there are places we've been to, and a few I know of close to trolley stops. We decided that about 2 blocks would be tha max for places. I took John to a few locations, dealt with the "how the heck did you know about this place?" And came up with five sets of food items.

1. Pho

2. Sesos, Buche, Suadero Tacos

3. Spam Musubi

4. Fish & Camaron Tacos

5. Braised Oxtails, Beef Pattie, Jerk

We decided to remove the known and determined that as part of the rules all stops were to be found on either the Orange line East of 25 & Commercial or South of the Barrio Logan stop on the Blue line. Aaah, we had a plan! A week later, I spent an afternoon on the torlley determining a timeframe. We didn't want anyone to die of exhaustion, this had to be fun. And then I came across this as well.

Lemon is food, right? I really wanted to integrate this in the whole thing and our bonus round was born!

We started sending out clues; I sent out 4 music samples, of course no one knew what we had planned so the "grazers" just had to know the songs. Each had something to do with a stop, location, or line. But none of them knew that at the time. I had to think of a location to start and one to end…..I thought America Plaza would be great since it is one of the areas where the Orange and Blue lines cross.

A few folks in the group just aren't human without their Starbucks and there's one of those at that stop.

On the day of the "graze" everyone (minus one, more on that later) met at Starbucks and JohnL handed out his masterpiece:

Boy was I impressed at his work. Within this pamphlet was all the rules and clues of the Amazing Graze. John had integrated the MTS trolley map as well.

The buy in was $10, with the winner getting everything. Loser bought the first round of beer at our final destination. John and I would referee. Using a deck of cards, teams of two were selected. Because there was an odd number, the person who drew the joker could pick which team they wanted to be on. YY picked the joker and selected her team. TammyC was stuck in traffic, there was a terrible accident on the I-15 on that day so she was assigned the last card and ended up with PeterL. YY decided to join PeterL and the absent Tammy's team.

All else can be read…….

We'd even found out how to put the "lemon into play".

Take a photo in front of the lemon and you'd get an hour taken off your total time.

The divisions were interesting, sister against sister, husband against wives, cat-lovers against dog-lovers, peanut butter versus chocolate…… We were good friends all, but as soon as the clock got ticking it was every team for themselves as you can see by the spacing at the trolley stop!

The first problem was buying trolley tickets since a few of these folks had never ridden the trolley before! And then there was TammyC who eventually caught up with her team on the Orange line….once she had gotten off the trolley at a stop, only to see YY and Peter get on the trolley and leave! Actually, I had my money on the team of XiangJiao and Trang……

So using the list of food items above, can you figure out what the places were?

Remember:

All of the places listed can be found on either the Orange line East of 25 & Commercial or South of the Barrio Logan stop on the Blue line.

The list is not in any specific order.

All the places indicated are within 0.2 miles of a MTS trolley stop.

No Rubio's allowed

More to come………

Update: You can read part 2 here.

Xi’an: Our last evening

October 4, 2011 mmm-yoso China, Chinese Restaurants, Travel, Xi'an

It hit me as I was finishing up my Rou Jia Mo. This was our last evening in Xi'an. Our three days here had been packed with activity and it's easy to get into that "ok, what's next, let's get going" mode, but everything must come to an end and we were ready to move on…almost.

The Missus really wanted another (our third) shot at the Guan Tang Baozi from Jia San and knowing we'd probably not be back this way again, who was I to deny Her the pleasure of those wonderful, steaming, soup filled, baozi?

As we headed back to our hotel it started raining pretty hard, like cats and dogs hard. We looked for a place to take a break and noticed this little shop.

So we paused and had a snack….a really cheap snack….a well, not so great version Rou Jia Mo, which was only 1.5 RMB, think 20 cents.

And it tasted every bit like a 20 cent sandwich……..

We managed to make it back to the hotel, dodging raindrops, had a nice shower followed by a short nap. It was still raining pretty hard when we awoke, so we decided to head across the street to this restaurant for a light dinner.

This was a typical hotel restaurant, huge, with few customers. The sign said this place served Hunan food, but we really couldn't find anything that looked promising. The couple of folks in the place were all drinking, so we decided that perhaps a couple of beers would make for a nice getaway night treat. So we ordered some peanuts…..out came a humongous bowl of peanuts, enough to feed five or six people!

Since we needed some beer to go with our peanuts we tried the Hans Red Wolf lager…..I found out it's made by Tsingtao. Just your usual Chinese lager, no big deal.

To go with our mega peanuts we ordered a couple of vegetable dishes, starting with Baihe (lily bulb) and Black Fungus.

This was probably the worst Baihe dish we had on the entire trip, there were a lot of brown spots on the lily bulb and the flavor was a bit off.

The Missus also ordered a mushroom dish…which was also unremarkable…..

So we didn't quite go out with a bang…..

That's ok. There are memories of Xi'an that remain firmly embedded in our minds from the vibrant Muslim Quarter…..

To the amazing Army of Terracotta Warriors.

Which is good for any number of lifetimes in my book…..

Thanks for reading!

Meals by Friends….Gia Cay, Pho Xao Don, Xoi Ga, Thit Bo Ham Kieu Hanoi, and Bun Rieu

October 3, 2011 mmm-yoso Blog

Yes, I know, it's usually "eating with friends" or something close to that. But man, I've had some great meals, fun times, and have gotten to know some really great people. A couple of months back, i had the opportunity to be a guest at another of those amazing meals, and guess what? Lucky me, my friend's mom invited me over again! The Missus had to work, and Peter's brother John couldn't make it….but I sure as heck wasn't going to miss a chance like this one! This time it was more intimate, Peter and his lovely wife Angela, Van, and the wonderful cook that is their mom!

She had mentioning having me sample a few special dishes from her upbringing in Northern Vietnam and I was honored to have been able to…well eat more than my fair share of these wonderful dishes.

The first dish featured pig's feet one of my favorite's and you can follow along as it was put together before my eyes:

Man, don't you just want to jump in? Well, not so soon……

You have to wait for the shredded banana blossom….ok, ready now? Nope, they'll be no jumping the gun on this one.

I've had Gia Cay (Fake Dogmeat Stew) before, but it was never quite as rich and delicious…..the term "stick to your ribs" was made for this dish.

Next up was the flavorful Pho Xao Don or Pan Fried Pho, the rice noodles are combination of crisp and yet chewy…..that wonderful textural contrast that I love. Never had this one before.

The Xoi Ga was wonderful, Sweet-Sticky rice with chicken!

I loved the Thit Bo Ham Kieu Hanoi – Spicy Beef Stew-Hanoi style…..though Peter did catch a bit of heat for purchasing the wrong kind of baguette for dipping, I wasn't complaining.

And while we were working on the two growlers of beer from Ballast Point, even more food started coming out. She even recalled how I enjoyed the silkworms so she made sure to have some on hand….you know, I have the feeling that if it wasn't a weeknight, I'd still be there now! Peter later told me that he didn't ever recall having those dishes before. All I can say is that it was a fantastic and memorable meal and the company made it unforgettable.

Thanks again for an amazing meal!

I know this is rather late, but I also need to mention that our very good FOY (friend of yoso) "Chef" Yummy Yummy invited us over for Bun Rieu night back in July. Unfortunately, while all the other "Grazers" (more on this later) could make it, the Missus and I couldn't. The ever so thoughtful "YY" sent me a text telling me she had saved some Bun rieu for us and the next day I picked up a very neatly packed package with two containers of Bun Rieu and all the fixins'.

She had packed everything down to the limes! It ended up being two meals for us!

The Missus loved it…..which says a lot! And life is so much better with friends who love to eat as much as you do. Right?

Sorry I took so long to post this YY…..thanks again for being so thoughtful!