King's Contrivance

Today was lunch with AJ, after almost 2 months since the last time. (I don't care that we've seen each other at least 4-5 times in between, it doesn't count unless it's lunch, right, haha).

I had pitched Applebee's since TKN sent me the link to the 2 for 20 deal (E did too earlier that same day but via IM). Anyhow, AJ always has other plan on her mind. She calls at 12:15 as she's leaving campus to tell me it's Howard County's R-wk. Of course. LOL. So I'm googling as she drives. Apparently I mumble (what a surprise). I chose King's Contrivance because I recognized it from a list of 20-30 restaurants that were participating in R-wk. It's located close to her house so I figured it should work for both of us. The address is: 10150 Shaker Drive, Columbia, MD 21046.

Well, as it turns out, they only serve R-wk items for dinner. Fun. AJ said I'm putting a hole in her wallet...yes, I know. You're telling the person who ate out several times over the course of a few days...ha.

Anyways, on to the food. We both got Maryland Crab Soup. I was halfway through mine before I remembered to take pictures. So this is my half-eaten Maryland Crab Soup. I never had it before (yes, I was born in MD...your point?) and it tasted pretty good. It actually reminds of me of Vegetable Soup with pieces of crab thrown in them. Yes, that's what it looked like too since the crabs were on the bottom and pearly white, not like it had been cooked with in the soup. It was good though. I bit salty, but I think I like my soups light, not American style salty... It has assorted veggies: carrots, corn, beans, tomatoes, onions, cabbage (I think, I forget)...and whatever you can decipher from the picture. =)


Then I ordered a Jumbo Lump Crabcake with remoulade sauce, coleslaw and roasted Yukon gold potatoes. Let's start one by one. The crabcake was excellent. Actually it's about as good as G&M's crabcake, a bit smaller, but they have bigger chunks and not as many shells. The downside is this didn't taste as fresh, like it had been frozen for awhile, unlike G&M's who make them fresh. The remoulade sauce tasted like tartar sauce to me...It goes with seafood so it wasn't bad. The potatoes could've used some seasoning or ketchup, but the "tartar sauce" worked for me. And finally the "coleslaw." I forgot that was part of the entree and I told AJ it was a mix between salsa and coleslaw. It had a strange taste that I couldn't figure out. I kep picking at it and trying it various times. I couldn't get over the strange taste. The fact that coleslaw has tomatoes, spring onions and white onions baffle me... Overall I enjoyed it alot.


This was AJ's entree: Chesapeake Caesar Salad with shrimp, scallops and crab meat sauteed with Old Bay over a layer of romaine lettuce and tomatoes. The two things sticking out on the sides are napa (my guess)...AJ didn't like those. I've never had them raw like that so I wouldn't know. It looked pretty good, a very good assortment of seafood and on romaine vs some other strange veggie. I can't remember the last time I had caesar sauce, I just remember it's made from anchovies or something random like that. I'd say it was a good entree, AJ cleared her plate. (Sidenote: She will clean her plate regardless, but I trust her opinion since we seem to try/eat similar things - except the cheese thing).


Total Price: Soup $6 + Entree $17 + tax + tip = $29
AJ's salad and soup came to be the same price as well.

CHIPOTLE!

And we have a winner!!! LOL! I can't believe I never took pictures of my Chipotle. Well, here it is, my creation. hehe. You really can't tell from this picture, but my Chicken Burrito Bol has lots of rice with black beans, chicken, hot salsa, tomato salsa, corn salsa and lettuce. I get the same thing every time, without fail. Sometimes I'll get steak, but rarely now since they've upped their prices.

So the official ingredients from the website:
Rice: White rice with freshly chopped cilantro, a dash of citrus juice (I think that means lemon juice) and salt
Black Beans: Black beans are seasoned with cumin, garlic and special spices (that will not be revealed). Slow cooked until tender.
Chicken: Marinated overnight in smoky, spicy chipotle pepper adobo, then grilled. The char marks impart a subtle caramelized flavor.
Tomato Salsa: Chopped red, ripe tomatoes, mixed with red onions, jalapeno peppers and freshly chopped cilantro for a mildly tangy, refreshing taste.
Hot Salsa: This salsa of pureed chiles de arbol, tomatillos and fresh spices is smooth, fill-bodied and a rich, rusty, red color. Very hot. (Sort of, I’ve gotten 3 spoofuls of that stuff before..)
Corn Salsa: Sweet, succulent corn, blended with roasted poblano peppers, jalapeno peppers, red onions, and freshly chopped cilantro. This unique, robust salsa is both sweet and mildly hot.
Lettuce: (Just plain old lettuce in shreds...gee what else did you expect?!?) Except, Chipotle manages to write a few lines about this…Crisp, fresh leaves of crunchy romaine lettuce, cust just right to accompany your tacos. Omit rice and add lettuce to your burrito bowl for a Chipotle salad.

One day, I WILL attempt to make this, but let's start with either working there or buying that house to make it in. ^_^


Total price for a happy stomach: $6.14 + tax = $6.25 (this being the price at the one in Chinatown, I know for a fact the prices are different if you go to the CP, Greenbelt or Columbia one...yes I've been to them all! AND we found one in Dupont Circle when we left from Vidalia's!)

Vidalia - DC Restaurant Week

So, another Restaurant week excursion, this time with E for lunch. Vidalia's is an American cuisine concentrate on Southern foods, in the up-scale version. It's located at 1990 M St, NW, Washington DC, just past the McD's is you're walking from the Dupont Circle stop. The service was excellent, no complaints there. The gentleman we had was very polite and was great! The food...well a bit od a different story...

I took pictures of E's 3-course as well, so I'll explain a bit of both...

We started with a "pre-appetizer" - Corn Bread and Onion Bread. It was strange to eat the onion bread after the corn bread, but it probably would've tasted better in a sandwich or something anyway. E ate her onion bread before I took a picture, that's why you see 2 corn breads and an onion bread...


On to my appetizer: Sunny Side Up Path Valley Hen Egg which composed of chicken liver fondue, yellow corn grits and julienne black truffle. Now that I think about is there even such a thing as a Rooster Egg? Well that explains the picture below... I think I should've chosen something else... I didn't like the sauce or grits...it had a strange flavor I couldn't swallow. And I really didn't eat much of it either, just some of the egg whites. The truffles didn't taste like anything, just texture...


E ordered Crispy Pig Tails which had pickled turnips, quail egg, pink lady apple sauce and rye jus. I guess that explains the white and red thing on the side, quail egg and pickled turnips. I don't see how this is "pig tails" plural... I didn't taste it, so no comment from me, but E ate the whole thing so I guess it was acceptable to some respect.


For my entree I got the thing I wrote about in my status all week: Southern Fried Frog Legs which had blue cornmeal polenta, cinnamon cap mushrooms and garlic emulsion. Well, it was rather interesting. I never had frog legs before, and they really do taste like chicken, just without the big bones in them. It only had a tiny toothpick like thing and the joints. The sauce, again was strange to me. I don't know why the mushroomc were called "cinnamon cap" since it didn't have anything cinnamon to it. It was like the oriental white mushroom I had before, only bigger.


E got the Shrimp and Grits which had yellow grits, andouille sausage, pearl onions and spicy shellfish cream. It's rather bubbly. Ther table next to us got this and it wasn't bubbly at all, how strange. I had a shrimp and it tasted like shrimp. I didn't try the rest of it, the bubbliness was a tad strange to me.


On to dessert! I got Vidalia's Lemon Chess Square which was a buttery crust layered with rich lemon custard, garnished with berry compote and sweet cream. I really though the 'sweet cream' was just a thick whip cream. Ha. And it has a tree, which I'm attempting to write a story about later... It was pretty good and I was looking forward to it since the pre-course was just ok... It's as it describes and was pretty tasty.


E got the Banana Napoleon which had caramelized bananas with salted caramel mousse, bitter sweet chocolate layers and salted caramel sauce. I had a piece of it, the choclate wasn't exactly 'bittersweet' but it tasted pretty good. I didn't try the caramel sauce, now that I know it was 'salted' that was probably a good idea not to try it! Though the salted caramel mousse didn't taste bad so the sauce probably wasn't too bad either.


It's a good thing the dessert was good otherwise I would've been rather disappointed. I still think I ordered the wrong appetizer which just kind of set me off a bit..

Total price: r-wk price $20.09 + tax + tip = $26/person

So here's my tree! Isn't it pretty?


And it got de-rooted...


And in an attempt to plant it back into the "Earth" (caramel sauce)...


The End. *applause*

Cuisine of China

So, I cook at a restaurant occasionally. Today being one of the days. I took some pictures of the foods I cooked, none of your boring fried rice and lo mein, but other stuff you may not normally see or eat.

I just like how well my camera takes pictures. This is just the onions and frozen peas and carrots before it became the Curry Chicken it was below.


Spicy Curry Chicken. A bit of garlic, salt, curry powder, sugar, hot peppers, and soy sauce. Some corn starch mixture to make the sauce thick, and voila!


Beef and Broccoli with napa in a brown sauce.


Yu-Shaing Pork with water chestnuts in a sweet, sour and spicy garlicky sauce. Not exactly my favorite dish to eat, but I like making it.



Orange Chicken. I think this was the 3rd or 4th one I made today...I decided I should take a picture since I was making so many. Ha.

Homecooked Lunch & Dinner (2009.02.21)

So, since I was 'home' all day today, I did some cooking. This first dish was lunch (part of it) and is just sauteed napa. The red stuff was peppers to make it spicy. Good stuff, I like my veggies. ^_^


This was dinner, Sauteed ham with leek and bean curd skin. Also a bit spicy. I like my foods spicy. This goes really well with white rice of course, and for some strange reason can always make you go for that 2nd or 3rd bowl of rice. =)


This is Egg Drop Tomato Soup with Snow Peas. It's a light soup that tastes really good and is a piece of cake to make! I personally don't like cooked tomatoes or cooked fruits of any kind, but the soup is good. It's not quite like tomato soup that American's eat and not the Egg Drop Soup you get at carryout. This is more Authentic Asian soup, not the goopy stuff you get at chinese restaurants. (The goopy stuff was made so Americans would eat it, since practically all the soups Americans eat are goopy...) This is good stuff. I could eat this for breakfast with rice. Well, I can eat any soup with rice for breakfast, practically any soup.

Marrakesh - DC Restuarant Week

DC's restaurant week was this week (ends on Sunday the 22nd). I've never been to r-wk before, I actually only heard about it for the FIRST time last year (or the year before) from AJ when she raved about Baltimore's r-wk. I was very surprised to learn about this event and have wanted to participate since I heard about it. I'm glad to finally get a chance to be a part of it and try out some really fancy restaurants.

Marrakesh is a Moroccan restaurant at 2147 P St. NW, Washington DC. Just 2 blocks from the Dupont Circle metro stop (walk diagonal to the left towards the circle).

This was a group from work. Not really co-workers since I don't/won't work with them (they're on the Federal side), but I know a Fed guy (went to school with him) and he invited me. (But then he ended up not going, long story, not appropriate for this blog). We ordered our 3 courses all at once...when everyone arrived finally at 8pm or so...

So on to the 3 courses! I have my handy dandy menu as reference! Appetizer was a Seafood Bastilla, which was "Filo dough stuffed with mushrooms, scallops, shrimps and vermicelli." It was rather interesting...it was SOOOO dark there, I couldn't see that the top was a lemon rind, I thought they were onions....although you can see clearly from this picture, they're not! Ha. The Bastilla was crunchy, the dough wasn't as I imagined it to be filling, but rather thin, in layers. The insides were as mentioned above. A bit of salt and some boring spices...not a very thrilling appetizer...



The entree was Lamb Tagine, Braised lamb with prunes, sesame seeds and almonds. The dark stuff surrounding the middle are the prunes...I forgot the ingredients and really thought they were shitake mushrooms until I took a bite of it...I don't like prunes. The almonds were good. The lamb was interesting, very soft but not much flavor to it. There was a bit of drizzle, but it didn't have a strong taste.



And finally the dessert. A boring old cheesecake with strawberry drizzle on it. I originally ordered a creme Caramel a la Marocaine, but after we finished our entrees our server informed us they were out of that....very very disappointed, I was really looking forward to some good dessert!



Total Price: r-wk price $35.09 + tax + tip = $45

Red Lobster (2008.08.19)

I went to Red Lobster during the week I was off (or in limbo from school to work, otherwise known as free time transition). I ordered an appetizer since I didn't want anything huge for lunch. Of course Red Lobster doesn't have this on their menu, so here's to guessing...

This has to be some kind of Triple Seafood Sampler.


Fried Calamari Strips. Too much batter, not enough calamari. It tastes good with the tartar sauce since it tasted like fried fish...


Stuffed mushrooms with crab, layered with melted cheese...needless to say I wasn't enthused about the cheese. It was easy to pick off though.


Bacon wrapped scallops. Good stuff. ^_^


Total Price: $9.95 (est.) + tax + tip = $13

Miami Grille (2008.08.11)

I had this in San Diego the 2nd night I was there. I went to a place called Miami Grille (go figure, it IS San Diego...). I wasn't really hungry so I figured I'd just order 2 appetizers. The first was Camarones a la Eddie with Tostones which was shrimp sauteed with a spicy Brazilian sauce. I don't remember it being spicy, but it wasn't too bad. It was in a buttery sauce with spices. The tostones it came with were really good too. I never had them before.

The other appetizer was Stuffed Crabs with rice and Miami's famous Joe's Stone Crab mustard sauce. The sauce was really good. It evened out the spices in the stuffed crab. The rice was good too, hehe, the good sticky kind!


Here's looking at you!


I have no clue how much each actually cost, but according to their website...

Total Price: 10.50 + 10.95 + tax + tip = $28 (how much I actually paid...CC receipts are great)

Olive Garden

I had two $25 gift cards my lead engineer gave me. Did I tell you she loves me? LOL. Anyways, she gave it to me in October (22nd I think) when we were editing our 600-page proposal. She gave me a thank you card and put the gift cards in it. It was very nice of her to do that, considering I was just doing my job and it was only my 2nd month working there. She loves me, period.

Anyhow, mom and I was near an Olive Garden last weekend but I didn't have it with me so I said I'd take her the next time I had it since I keep forgetting to use it. So we went today! We got there around 3:30 after shopping in the area for a bit. She was starving, I was all right. We got there and the lines were long! We got our blinker and was going to go to Safeway since they told us it would be a 35 minute wait. When we got to Safeway the thing started singing...we ran back and found out it does that when it's too far away. Ugh...we stuck around afraid to go back and miss the blinker blink. Anyway, waiting is boring so I'll spare you...we got seated around 4:15 or so.

I ordered hot water for the both of us. The appetizer was the Sicilian Scampi. Eight large shrimp sauteed in extra virgin olive oil with white wine, garlic and lemon over bruschetta-like bread. Spring onions, olives and tomatoes were sprinkled for color and texture. It was pretty good.


Mom wanted something seafood so I ordered Herb Grilled Salmon which came with steamed broccoli and red peppers. (A rather strange combination but I decided it was for color). The salmon was rather light, grilled in Italian herbs and extra virgin olive oil and topped with more herbs on the top. Pretty decent, a bit different from how we cook fish at home, but acceptable.


The last dish is the Mixed Grill. This had 2 skewers of grilled marinated steak and chicken with rosemary demi-glace, served with grilled zucchini and Tuscan potatoes. This didn't have a very strong flavor and was pretty good also.


Of course, being Olive Garden the entrees came with endless salad and breadsticks which Mom really loved. Mom and I both don't eat much cheese (though she'll eat it before I do) so we didn't put any extra on any of our food.

Total: 9.95 + 15.75 + 15.75 + tax = 43.94 + 8.06 tip = $52.00

/*FYI: I stole alot of the ingredient wording from Olive Garden's menu.*/

雞酒湯 or 燒酒湯 - Drunk Chicken Soup

This is what mom cooked for dinner. Well one of three dishes, but I only ate this one. This is a great soup to have in the winter to keep warm. (I just noticed I had soup three meals a day today...hmm...I LOVE soup, hehe) The ingredients, very simple! Ginger, chicken (with bones), sesame oil, vodka, water, and this orange thing. The yellow on the top comes from the chicken fat. When the soup becomes cold this oil can be taken out and the soup is less greasy. However, you can easily move the soup around so you don't drink the grease. The soup is cooked with vodka, but the alcohol content is very low. If the taste isn't strong enough you can add vodka to the soup in your bowl. This soup is best served piping hot! This soup can be eaten with rice or thin rice noodles, great on a cold morning for breakfast!

富記 (Full Kee)

At 富記 (Full Kee) in DC (H St, I think) we grabbed our dinner. We both ordered a type of noodle soup. The first picture shows 燒鴨混沌河粉湯 (Roasted duck, wontons and he fun soup). The duck was good. The wontons were a mix of shrimp and pork and were additions to the soup. That was good too. He fun is a thick rice noodle. Also very good.


E ordered a 叉燒混沌蛋麵湯 (BBQ pork, wontons and egg noodle soup). The BBQ pork was pretty good, very standard BBQ pork. The egg noodles, all right. I may have to try it again, but I like he fun alot, so maybe not...hehe


Total price: $16.50 ($7.50 for each bowl + tax + tip)

大家樂 (Szechuan House)

At 大家樂 (Szechuan House) at 748 6th Street NW in DC, E and I had brunch before heading to the Auto Show a few blocks away. E ordered the Congee for both of us as well as the 油條.

This first picture shows the congee, the pork is the pinkish stuff and the preserved egg is the black stuff. Congee is basically rice cooked in alot of water. The soup is thick due to the rice being almost gone (not in it's original rice shape). Here you can't see the shape of the rice at all. The spring onions give the light breakfast a kick and come color to the dish.


This picture is part of a 油條. (I wasn't quick enough to take a picture before someone devoured half of it =P) I'm not a big fan of this since I know some of the ingredients in it. It tastes crispy and is only good when it's crispy. It's poofy (alot of air) and is made of dough and was fried (to it's golden brown color). In Taiwan this is eaten with soy bean milk (as the table next to us had this) but E (and HK people) eat this with their congee, as seen in the last picture.


The 油條 is placed into the congee to compliment the lightness of the congee with the fried 油條. This is kind of like putting crispy noodles (or saltine crackers) into soup. It adds a bit of substance to it as well. This is E's bowl of congee with 油條 mixed in it. I ate mine separately. ^_^


Total Price: $12.75 ($5 per congee, $2 for you tiao, plus ridiculous DC tax)

Food Blog

This food blog's inspiration came from looking at pictures of food and having taken pictures of food in the past. I have always enjoyed looking at pictures of food, not so much from the cook book, but the ones people eat. It's interesting to see the food and enjoy the way it looks.

So this blog has a few motives:
1. To share the foods I eat as well as the foods my friends eat
2. To create a 'cookbook' of food ideas to use when ideas are running low
3. To introduce a diverse selection of authentic and imitation ethnic foods
4. To recommend dishes, provide cooking instructions, (upon request for dishes that I know how to prepare) and a budget for eating out. (That does not mean everything is cheap eats, prices are there for guidelines)
5. To make your mouth water! YUM!