as i am still somewhat recovering from the food exploits of the week after finals, i have not really done anything culinarily interesting lately; i suppose there are only a few interesting points. i also have just settled into my apartment and internship in chicago.
the second night diana (my roommate) was here, we went out to dinner at a local place about a block away. i forget what it's called, but i think the name has "noodle" in it. basically, it's a mix of chinese and thai food. i had the pad thai (someone keep reminding me that i don't like fried wontons, so i stop ordering them because they're cheaper than the dumplings), and it was really fantastic. the noodles were sauced more heavily than i'm used to, but it didn't detract from them, and of course the magic ingredient (as thai basil is with drunken noodles) was the lime wedge squeezed over the noodles. pad thai is not pad thai without the lime wedge. anyway, the chicken was perfectly cooked, and now i'm hungry just thinking about it... i adore thai food, cold, for breakfast the next day.
last wednesday we went to the press preview of taste of chicago. i must say, i'm not particularly impressed with the food. it's a little like the new york times article on restaurant week, where chefs use lower-grade ingredients. i mean, at the taste of chicago you're not getting really high-end cuisine, but i was hoping it would be a bit more varied than it was. i don't really see pizza as a food i want to have that often, but it seems to be popular here. the cheesecake was frozen, which is always a bad sign, and even the cheesecake factory makes better cheesecake. in other cost-cutting measures, the people who had the chocolate-covered strawberries used milk chocolate, not dark chocolate, which is just an insult to the strawberry. i'm not even arguing really about the quality, which isn't something you're expecting from the taste of chicago. what i was hoping for was more variety - more ethnic foods, more things i'd never tried. very few people have never had pizza.
this past week i discovered (a) tokyo lunch box and (b) jamba juice. we don't have jamba juice in cambridge, though i believe BU has one. well, diana and i walked around a block just to take a walk, and discovered the "hidden" lunch corridor, with jamba juice at the closer corner. "lunch corridor" even seems like it's slightly hidden because it's on a street (wells, i believe) with el tracks in the middle of it, so the space to walk in seems really narrow - el tracks on one side of the sidewalk, buildings on the other. there are a bunch of places, from falafel to a regular deli, to tokyo lunch box. tokyo lunch box is basically fast food, but japanese. it's a little expensive - my teriyaki chicken bowl was $6 (hey, when you can get a six-inch sub at subway for $2.49, life is good) - but it was really, really, really good. i'm not sure how it hit the spot so well. but the chicken was perfectly cooked, the teriyaki sauce was phenomenal, and the rice was wonderful - i really like japanese rice. maybe i was just really hungry. ok, the vegetables that came with it were a little crunchy and there weren't enough of them (though i wasn't expecting them anyway). but the two large pieces of fried tofu that came with them were a pleasant surprise. i think it was also a vague memory of bento boxes - ie, lunch for anal people.
as for jamba juice, the first day i went in, i encountered the most perky person i have ever met in my life. this guy could have been a cartoon character, that was how over-the-top perky he was. it was a little frightening. i'm not a fan of the smell in jamba juice - the combination of the smells of all of the smoothies is a little off-kilter - but the peach pleasure i got was great. and, it had nothing in it that i'm allergic to, so no itchy throat for me! i am also jealous of the industrial blenders they have. diana and i had a bit of a grass drink (wheatgrass and orange juice, i think) and it was the consistency of water. that is a darn good blender they've got there.
at the beginning of the past week (or actually, it was the saturday before this past saturday), diana and i went grocery shopping. i had bought some chicken, and seeing as the chicken at the co-op generally looks really scary, and oddly dark/bright, i wanted to cook it as soon as possible. this wasn't even the supermarket brand - it was bell and evans. i didn't get around to cooking it until wednesday night, and even then the chicken smelled just a tad off. i cooked it anyway - for over an hour. i started by browning the chicken, then taking it out (it was drumsticks) and cooking some onions. i added some tomatoes, then added broth and the chicken back in. the liquid, 45 minutes later, still wasn't quite cooking off enough, so i added some japanese rice. it promptly turned into risotto, and i added the mushrooms and asparagus that i had as well. i'm happy to say that this combination is a great one. and the chicken is fantastic - just the way bell and evans should be. ha! this proves i'm slowly getting back into my cooking groove. cooking is always slow to start up in a new place, especially when you're living in someone else's furnishings. you're never quite sure what they have, and what they don't have. oh, also, i made pancakes on saturday morning. nothing better than pancakes with your cold maple syrup.
and finally, last night we went to the signature lounge. we didn't get anything to eat there - we had a quick bite at navy pier, which was quite satisfying (chicken burger with onions, pickles, and lots of mustard and ketchup). i did, however, have an outstanding martini - the michigan avenue: belvedere vodka, vermouth, and olives. mmmm...that was really, really good. unsurprisingly, much better than the one i had at crossroads on betsy's birthday. the signature lounge is basically top of the hub, but higher - they're even similar in decor. there is a dining room downstairs on the 95th floor, which jan (another intern) tells me has a fantastic buffet.
oh, and yesterday afternoon diana and i stopped by the puerto rican festival. for the food, naturally. it was really good - i wouldn't have thought before the past couple of years that rice and beans could be so wonderful. our next question (maybe for this week) is to find really good indian food.
20 juin 2005
06 juin 2005
review : stelllaaah (stella)
i wonder how many people get the urge to say "stelllllaaaaaaaaaah!" when they come to this restaurant. of course when they do get this urge, they squash it because they're young and hip, and besides, stella, in the south end on washington street, hasn't been open for that long. stella is a scant five minutes from my sister's apartment, and despite the service missteps and a few food mishaps, it's still a place i'd go back to (when they're a little older and have ironed out all their little problems. overall, it's a great place that's not too expensive (a little expensive for college students - entrees are 16-22).
entering the restaurant makes me feel like i should be on cape cod or martha's vineyard. the restaurant is white inside, and the waiters are all wearing white - i felt like there should be sand on the floor. the restaurant has a slightly odd layout because it spans doorways on a corner, so we walked through a passageway, past the kitchen, to get to our table.
one of the things that my sister remarked later in the meal was that she didn't know how the restaurant was going to be able to maintain its prices. i have no idea either. the tables are granite-topped, the silverware is villeroy and boch...let's not even ask where the plates are from (not quite tactless enough to pick up the plate and peer at the label on the underside). even our seating arrangement was awkward - far too much space for a party of five.
we started with the mussels and the caesar salad. the mussels were pretty good - i'm starting to actually like them again - but there was no serving spoon. every time someone took a mussel, they would look longingly at the rich, delicious-looking broth at the bottom of the bowl, and wish they had a spoon. but we didn't have one, and the waitstaff didn't notice, either. on the bright side, the caesar salad is probably the best one i've ever had in my life; the dressing was fantastic, the greens were crunchy and tasted clean, and they were perfectly dressed. my one beef - who serves croutons as a huge thing? the thing i like about salads is the bite-sized aspect of them - for me, a salad includes only pieces that can be stabbed by a fork and easily deposited in my mouth. i have no desire to look like the clumsy oaf who can't help but get salad dressing everywhere. so the crouton was in one piece - how does one cut a crouton that's one piece? how can anyone think that's convenient? food that is beautiful but illogical really bothers me; perhaps it's the engineer in me. the quality of the rest of the salad, though, definitely made up for the crouton blunder. and the crouton, while difficult to eat (and a bit too toasted for my taste), tasted fantastic.
i had a similar mixed reaction to the main course. i had the truffled fettuccine, which had an asparagus cream sauce and a poached egg. i realize now that i should have sent the thing back. i loved the fettuccine, the truffled aspect of it, and the asparagus cream sauce - these were all absolutely outstanding, bold, heady, and perfectly balanced. but the egg was not poached. i don't know who ok'ed sending that thing out with an egregiously over-poached egg on it, but i hope they either fixed their problems or got fired. my mother's pork chop milanese, however, was fantastic, although i don't think it was what she was expecting (it's basically like wienerspaetzle) - the pork chop was great with the tomato sauce, which tasted really fresh. likewise, my sister's mushroom pizza was really good - crust crispier and thinner than an emma's pizza, but not too trendily thin, and the mushrooms were great. it was oversalted - as food often is nowadays, oddly enough - but the mushrooms were very adequately earthy.
for dessert, we split a couple of cannoli and a piece of tiramisu. the tiramisu, i'm happy to note, was real tiramisu, down to the mascarpone cream. it was also pretty well balanced in terms of coffee and rum. the cannoli were a letdown; the cannoli cream was a little runny and too vanilla-y - they just didn't taste italian (whatever that means).
i don't know how this happened - the service was adequate, if spotty, until we wanted the check. all of us were falling asleep and my parents were heading home that night, so we asked for the check. we got it the second time we asked, and we got our server to pick up the check when we finally asked. and then, finally, we left.
all in all, i would go back to stella - the memory of the fettuccine is that good - but by the time i go back, i hope that all of their service problems will have been resolved.
entering the restaurant makes me feel like i should be on cape cod or martha's vineyard. the restaurant is white inside, and the waiters are all wearing white - i felt like there should be sand on the floor. the restaurant has a slightly odd layout because it spans doorways on a corner, so we walked through a passageway, past the kitchen, to get to our table.
one of the things that my sister remarked later in the meal was that she didn't know how the restaurant was going to be able to maintain its prices. i have no idea either. the tables are granite-topped, the silverware is villeroy and boch...let's not even ask where the plates are from (not quite tactless enough to pick up the plate and peer at the label on the underside). even our seating arrangement was awkward - far too much space for a party of five.
we started with the mussels and the caesar salad. the mussels were pretty good - i'm starting to actually like them again - but there was no serving spoon. every time someone took a mussel, they would look longingly at the rich, delicious-looking broth at the bottom of the bowl, and wish they had a spoon. but we didn't have one, and the waitstaff didn't notice, either. on the bright side, the caesar salad is probably the best one i've ever had in my life; the dressing was fantastic, the greens were crunchy and tasted clean, and they were perfectly dressed. my one beef - who serves croutons as a huge thing? the thing i like about salads is the bite-sized aspect of them - for me, a salad includes only pieces that can be stabbed by a fork and easily deposited in my mouth. i have no desire to look like the clumsy oaf who can't help but get salad dressing everywhere. so the crouton was in one piece - how does one cut a crouton that's one piece? how can anyone think that's convenient? food that is beautiful but illogical really bothers me; perhaps it's the engineer in me. the quality of the rest of the salad, though, definitely made up for the crouton blunder. and the crouton, while difficult to eat (and a bit too toasted for my taste), tasted fantastic.
i had a similar mixed reaction to the main course. i had the truffled fettuccine, which had an asparagus cream sauce and a poached egg. i realize now that i should have sent the thing back. i loved the fettuccine, the truffled aspect of it, and the asparagus cream sauce - these were all absolutely outstanding, bold, heady, and perfectly balanced. but the egg was not poached. i don't know who ok'ed sending that thing out with an egregiously over-poached egg on it, but i hope they either fixed their problems or got fired. my mother's pork chop milanese, however, was fantastic, although i don't think it was what she was expecting (it's basically like wienerspaetzle) - the pork chop was great with the tomato sauce, which tasted really fresh. likewise, my sister's mushroom pizza was really good - crust crispier and thinner than an emma's pizza, but not too trendily thin, and the mushrooms were great. it was oversalted - as food often is nowadays, oddly enough - but the mushrooms were very adequately earthy.
for dessert, we split a couple of cannoli and a piece of tiramisu. the tiramisu, i'm happy to note, was real tiramisu, down to the mascarpone cream. it was also pretty well balanced in terms of coffee and rum. the cannoli were a letdown; the cannoli cream was a little runny and too vanilla-y - they just didn't taste italian (whatever that means).
i don't know how this happened - the service was adequate, if spotty, until we wanted the check. all of us were falling asleep and my parents were heading home that night, so we asked for the check. we got it the second time we asked, and we got our server to pick up the check when we finally asked. and then, finally, we left.
all in all, i would go back to stella - the memory of the fettuccine is that good - but by the time i go back, i hope that all of their service problems will have been resolved.
review: meet and greet at the green street grill
not really a meet and greet, but more of a we-love-you-please-mingle party of those of us who are graduating and our families - miriam, shaunna, austin, carrie, jessica, and me, joined by keith and v. we settled on the green street grill as it was one of the few places with enough space left to accommodate us. it's caribbean/soul food type stuff, and i'd heard of it and never been there before. sadly, josh couldn't come because it wasn't the type of food his grandparents would stand for.
it was a bit difficult to make our parents mingle; i think the parents most willing to move were miriam's parents, unsurprisingly. mine did too - my mom sat with me, carrie, keith, jessica and shaunna, while my father sat with carrie's parents.
green street grill is probably the type of place i'd come back to with my friends, rather than my parents - it's definitely more of a younger crowd place, though i saw a few people i knew with their parents. i had a maple-brined pork chop with collard greens, some sort of bean-and-salt-pork thing, and corn grits, as well as a side of fried yucca. the pork chop was enormous, but i was really hungry and ate the whole thing. the fried yucca was fantastic - just the way i had remembered yucca from luciano's restaurant (which is now closed). it was crispy on the outside, with a perfect amount of deep-fried-crust, and came with a "mojito" dipping sauce, which was slightly sour, slightly spicy, and quite good with it. the grits were great with the pork chop and the bean thing, but i think i'm not a fan of collard greens, sadly.
and that's where the story ends, because we didn't do dessert (too full!). ok, more about the pork chop. i'm not so sure about that maple-brined business, but it was perfectly done inside, nice and thick, and wonderfully crusty on the outside. mmm...i would go there again, though i think it was a bit too exotic for my mother.
it was a bit difficult to make our parents mingle; i think the parents most willing to move were miriam's parents, unsurprisingly. mine did too - my mom sat with me, carrie, keith, jessica and shaunna, while my father sat with carrie's parents.
green street grill is probably the type of place i'd come back to with my friends, rather than my parents - it's definitely more of a younger crowd place, though i saw a few people i knew with their parents. i had a maple-brined pork chop with collard greens, some sort of bean-and-salt-pork thing, and corn grits, as well as a side of fried yucca. the pork chop was enormous, but i was really hungry and ate the whole thing. the fried yucca was fantastic - just the way i had remembered yucca from luciano's restaurant (which is now closed). it was crispy on the outside, with a perfect amount of deep-fried-crust, and came with a "mojito" dipping sauce, which was slightly sour, slightly spicy, and quite good with it. the grits were great with the pork chop and the bean thing, but i think i'm not a fan of collard greens, sadly.
and that's where the story ends, because we didn't do dessert (too full!). ok, more about the pork chop. i'm not so sure about that maple-brined business, but it was perfectly done inside, nice and thick, and wonderfully crusty on the outside. mmm...i would go there again, though i think it was a bit too exotic for my mother.
05 juin 2005
review: moving day dinner (central kitchen)
central kitchen / 567 massachusetts avenue / cambridge ma / 617-491-5599 / sun-wed 5:30-1am, thu-sat 5:30-2am / reservations accepted for parties of 6+ (recommended) / entrees moderately expensive ($18-25)
celina and i have been trying to make indian food together for approximately four months now. as we'll be in different cities for the summer, we'll have to postpone that dinner for a few more months. on the bright side, we did manage to make it out to dinner on moving day. having spent the entire day moving stuff from lmf and my sister's apartment, i was absolutely gross and sweaty. despite this fact, we wandered into central kitchen, which i've always wanted to try, and which i never had until now.
the interior of the restaurant is much nicer than the outside, which is a bit drab and looks very much like a slightly rundown, community-type neighborhood place. or rather, not rundown, but well worn from a lot of use. the interior is mod in a welcoming kind of way, with a bar surrounded by tables. the tables are chrome with dents in them - you have to see them to like them as much as i do, probably. the lighting is fairly dim, but since the walls are in warm dark colors, it's somehow just right to be completely flattering. we were sitting between the bar and the street entrance, but there's also a back area next to the back of the bar that has these fantastic lighting fixtures that are part lightbulbs, part lit-up old wine bottles.
the tables were set with regular silverware, then tiny, tiny water glasses - basically juice glasses. i got the chopped salad - arugula, a lemon dressing, bits of lemon, some sort of pancetta-like bacon-y thing, pea tendrils, and asparagus. every single restaurant i've been to recently has asparagus on its menu. as i love asparagus, this is a good thing (also, i very much appreciate that morels have been in season while i'm here). it was pretty good, though the greens were a bit tough. the lemon was quite nice, and the entire thing was on the large side.
our entrees were absolutely enormous. the prices are in the high teens and low twenties, but the portions are enormous (ie, large enough to feed one rower who's just had practice, or one short asian girl twice). i had roast chicken (seeing a trend here? it's the at-an-expensive-restaurant-but-not-wealthy-enough-to-afford-the-steak syndrome), which came with mashed potatoes, green beans, and caramelized vidalia onions. mmm....i do love caramelized onions. oh! and it had morels...not as good as the ones at craigie street, but they were morels, and that's all that mattered. not the most earth-shattering entree ever, but it was good stuff. oh, about enormous - so i got not one chicken quarter, but two. it wasn't even just the quarter - it was a leg attached to a breast, actually. consequently i had snack food for the next three days as i finished moving.
i was so full by the time i finished half of my entree that celina and i split dessert - blueberry bread pudding with a white chocolate sauce. it was an outstanding combination, and probably the most sophisticated part if you care about that kind of thing. overall, central kitchen is a great neighborhood place - the type of place where you could go frequently, which isn't too expensive (for the amount of food and the quality). it would be a normal neighborhood place without the decor, which definitely makes it a better place to hang out in.
celina and i have been trying to make indian food together for approximately four months now. as we'll be in different cities for the summer, we'll have to postpone that dinner for a few more months. on the bright side, we did manage to make it out to dinner on moving day. having spent the entire day moving stuff from lmf and my sister's apartment, i was absolutely gross and sweaty. despite this fact, we wandered into central kitchen, which i've always wanted to try, and which i never had until now.
the interior of the restaurant is much nicer than the outside, which is a bit drab and looks very much like a slightly rundown, community-type neighborhood place. or rather, not rundown, but well worn from a lot of use. the interior is mod in a welcoming kind of way, with a bar surrounded by tables. the tables are chrome with dents in them - you have to see them to like them as much as i do, probably. the lighting is fairly dim, but since the walls are in warm dark colors, it's somehow just right to be completely flattering. we were sitting between the bar and the street entrance, but there's also a back area next to the back of the bar that has these fantastic lighting fixtures that are part lightbulbs, part lit-up old wine bottles.
the tables were set with regular silverware, then tiny, tiny water glasses - basically juice glasses. i got the chopped salad - arugula, a lemon dressing, bits of lemon, some sort of pancetta-like bacon-y thing, pea tendrils, and asparagus. every single restaurant i've been to recently has asparagus on its menu. as i love asparagus, this is a good thing (also, i very much appreciate that morels have been in season while i'm here). it was pretty good, though the greens were a bit tough. the lemon was quite nice, and the entire thing was on the large side.
our entrees were absolutely enormous. the prices are in the high teens and low twenties, but the portions are enormous (ie, large enough to feed one rower who's just had practice, or one short asian girl twice). i had roast chicken (seeing a trend here? it's the at-an-expensive-restaurant-but-not-wealthy-enough-to-afford-the-steak syndrome), which came with mashed potatoes, green beans, and caramelized vidalia onions. mmm....i do love caramelized onions. oh! and it had morels...not as good as the ones at craigie street, but they were morels, and that's all that mattered. not the most earth-shattering entree ever, but it was good stuff. oh, about enormous - so i got not one chicken quarter, but two. it wasn't even just the quarter - it was a leg attached to a breast, actually. consequently i had snack food for the next three days as i finished moving.
i was so full by the time i finished half of my entree that celina and i split dessert - blueberry bread pudding with a white chocolate sauce. it was an outstanding combination, and probably the most sophisticated part if you care about that kind of thing. overall, central kitchen is a great neighborhood place - the type of place where you could go frequently, which isn't too expensive (for the amount of food and the quality). it would be a normal neighborhood place without the decor, which definitely makes it a better place to hang out in.
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