the best and worst of 09

so sorry i haven't been bloging in along time. 09 was not the best year and i have been busy with my daughter. she takes up a lot of my time but twenty ten well be much better. now with that aside, on to the food.

well seance April (the last time i wrote) i have eaten a lot of good and bad food. lets start with the bad. Jose's in old down town littleton is about the worst Mexican food i have had in a wile. The place caters to old people and the menu reflects that. Its bland and cheep but not in a good way you can just taste that everything is caned.

Landery's fish house, is next on the bad list. Its over priced and the food came out to us just warmed up. we went there for lunch, the first people in the door and the food was still cold. you could tell that it was just frozen and warmed up.

The old Blinking light, maybe its just wasn't want we were expecting but it wasn't vary good. its a tex-mex odd fusion place. i had a posole soup and it just wasnt good and sorta over priced.

The Boat House in central park in NYC. it was just ok and over priced.

not that my cooking has been great this year. i have had some missteps. like the the famed "spite" potatoes. well i dont know why but i was making mashed potatoes. i asked my wife to taste them and see what they needed. she said more milk ( after i had already put in a bunch). well in my (stupid) head i thought "i'll show you more milk" and accidentally put in WAY too much. well then i couldn't fix them. So she tried too fix them with salt. well they turned in to a mess and it was bad. there were some other failures in the kitchen this year. like the brazed pork belly, i couldn't get it to work.

The thing that's getting me is Fast Food. I'm having a love hate relationship with it. I have been eating more fast food because my daughter is eating it. now i could not give it to her but its just the easiest thing sometimes. but that means I'm eating more. like McDonald's nuggets, there is a part of my brain that loves them. Popeyes chicken it tastes so good but makes my stomach feel bad. Arby's is the best when its just a regular boast beef but you get a side of french dip sauce. I use the word "sauce" and not ai joue because they put this wired thicker in it. Jimmy Johns isn't bad or good but i don't get why they don't have a hot sandwich?

now on to the good stuff form the last 6 months. Beatrice and Woodsley, we went there 2 or 3 times i think and every time it was amazing. the one thing that stood out for me was the BBQ pork belly with smoked oysters.

Black Pearl lunch, is great. we hadn't been over the for lunch before but it is worth it if your looking for a nice up scale lunch.

Now it NYC we did have some good food like soup dumplings at Joe's shanghai. if you get a chance check out your local dumpling house for soup dumplings they are great. Duck taco things in flushing meadows Chinatown. they are pillow sweet bread folded around duck, duck skin, and veg with a sauce. they are a great little 2 bites.

There are the regular places that we eat that are always good. Raman House, Little Inda, Toast, John Hollies, The Empress, Lansdowne Arms,

I cooked some good stuff this year as well. the hollie days have been full of good food. Thanks giving was on of the best we have had. we have the full spread with Turkey, roasted brussel sprouts, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes (a ricer solved the potato cooking problem), stuffing muffins.

we had a Holiday dinner party, and made chicken and duck pot pies. i roasted a duck and that worked out great, for the first duck i ever cooked. the pot pies turned out good. Rachel made a challah bead and cupcakes that turned out good.

I made a fresh ham for Christmas day that turned out good, i was the first time that i had done a fresh ham.

well i'm looking forwarded to twenty ten and the food that it will bring.

well

L.A. Eats

Recently I went to Los Angeles and i didn't really see that much of it I was there for work. I was however able to find some good places to eat. The only places I found were between the the convention center and my hotel. I wanted to go eat sushi and some fine dining. but once I was done for the day I was SO tired. Going out wasn't going to happen. One night I was so tied I had a sandwich form the hotel bar. it was not not good ( to say the least), but it was all the energy I could muster. Now with that out of the way I did find some good food out there.


first place that I found was Pizza next door we just got some pizza by the slice but it was the best pizza ever. I got the Meat Deluxe - Pepperoni, Sausage, Canadian Ham, & Bacon... BACON! It was great, not just bacon bits but a whole strip of bacon. Toppings aside, the sauce as fresh and not too sweet and a real tomato taste.

It was hard to get away form the convention so I decided to get snacks for the next day. I found Famima it is a Japanese style convince store. Having every thing for soda to sushi, some of the best things are Spicy Char Siew Pork Steamy Bun, spam roll, salmon onigiri and drinks like Bubble up and Ramune.

After look for a good breakfast place I found The Pantry Cafe It has been in L.A. seance 1924 and is a cultural monument. The food it reasonably priced, I spent twice as much for the same breakfast down the street the morning before I found The pantry. I sat at the small counter, and had the Bacon and eggs, french toast and hash browns. The food, service and fell of the place was good and real. The eggs came on a plate with 6 pieces of bacon on top which was great. the ham stake ( which the guy next to me had) was huge and came the same way, on top of the eggs. the french toast was on a plate of its own and there was a separate plate for the hash browns as well.

so if your in down town L.A. there are some good places to eat and not expensive.

land of sushi

well we went to the "land of sushi" of lunch. we got there and we were the only ones there at first. witch was a little scary. we found this place on line looking for close sushi places to the house.

we started with the Gyoza it was really good. it reminded us of the Gyoza we had in Tokyo at this ilttle Gyoza place. well with that our faith was lifted. then the rest to the food came. I had the pork donbori, it was a breaded fired pork cutlet with onions, egg, and a light soy sauce. Rachel had the Maki lunch had California roll and a spicy tuna roll.

well the Japanese food was why better then the sushi. I also had a 2 Inari and Tamago (egg) and they were put together oddly and the fish wasn't the best. with the Gyoza the stand out part of the meal. land of sushi is not a good name for the restaurant

land of sushi

Toast... Gravy Cakes

Well I love Toast they have changed there menu just a bit. When I saw they had added Gravy Cakes I was all in. What are the Gravy Cakes you ask? They are Buttermilk biscuit griddle cakes filled with breakfast sausage. Topped with 3 eggs and scratch made sausage gravy covering the whole thing.

It is a Very Large (a slight under statement) plate of food. It was the best thing I have eaten in awhile. The
Gravy Cakes are so good, no GREAT. The cooked in sausage in not warped up the in pancake but it is cut up and put in to the batter. Then you add the the sausage gravy... it is a sausage over load. Top with 3 eggs, and for less then $10 its one of the best things ever.

Once again Toast has done it, a great breakfast

Toast

chicken noodle soup

Chicken noodle soup is easy i did it on Sunday and it took me about hour. In a stock pot cook off onions, garlic, celery. Once they are softened add chariots and chicken stock.

Now if you want to make it really good, use home made stock. Witch is really easy to. When you roast a chicken save the drippings and skim off the fat and there is its. But if you have boxed that will do, use the box stuff not the caned, the caned has a lot more salt in it. I used box and some home made this time.

You should be seasoning as you are going adding salt and pepper to the onion mix and then again when you add in the stock.

This time I'm using just cut up chicken breast. But the best thing is leftover roast chicken. But with the regular prepackaged, just cut up chicken (any parts that you like). And cook the chicken in a pan first just to cook it part of the way. Once the "pinkness" is mostly gone add to the pot and de-glaze the pan with some chicken broth. Then add that broth form the pan back in to the pot.

Now I like to cook my noodles separate because they don't get mushy. So just cook you noodles in some water and once soft add to a bowl and pore soup over them and it ready to go

Kokoro

I like Kokoro for fast Japanese food. Its good, there is better out there but its fast and cheep. The food is good for the price, $6-7 a bowl. They have a good Unagi and Curry bowl. The best part is that they are a local Denver chain, any chance I get to eat local.

So if your looking for something fast good and local, hit up Kokoro

Now Tokyo Joe's is local to, but they are just ok. for some reason I like Kokoro much better. I dont know if it is just because Kokoro seams more authentically Japanese, or that they have a curry sauce not just traiki or that it has Udon (it good to) on the menu or what. but Kokoro is just better. The ONLY thing that Tokyo Joe's has thats Kokoro donest is a bowl with eggs in its the "Okako bowl". I love eggs in my Japanese food specially bowls.


Kokoro

braised beef

Last weekend was the first time that i have braised something. I got a bottom round roast and seared it off in a stock pot ( i don't have a dutch oven). Then took it out and added chopped onion, garlic, celery, and carrot. I used a wooden spoon to get all the good bits off the bottom of the pan, and added some chicken stock ( I didn't have beef stock). On a side note there is only one organic beef broth that is BEEF BROTH not beef FLAVORED broth. Once that was done I put the roast back in and added enough red wine to go up 3/4 of the way up the side of the roast. stured it up so all the Veg was mixed in and the roast wasn't sitting on all if them. I added saffron and salt and pepper. and in to the oven it went for about 2 hours.

So it turned out good it was a little tough it could have been that it wasn't that great of a cut of meat or that i cooked it too long. I think using the stock pot instead of a dutch oven cut down the cooking time, or that it was only a 3lb roast. But the flavors were good the only thing is that next time less saffron it was a little strong. I really liked cooking it and would make it agian and I'm going to be Braising lost of other stuff.

Well he had about 1/2 if the roast left so i turned it in to beef stroganoff, that was really good to. I made a rue out of chalots, garlic, and olive oil. Then added beef broth, beef, cream of mushroom soup, sour cream and mushrooms. season with salt and pepper and simmer till the mushrooms are warm. Serve over egg noodles, it was good.