Sweet and Sour in Boston

I’ve been slacking for a while now so I figured it’s time to update. My last blog post was about our trip to LA for Suzy and Co’s wedding. The weekend after was the bye week for Oklahoma football. The Sooners got a break, so John Paul let me pick what we wanted to do for the day. I thought about it for a little while and decide to be nostalgic and head to the Cape Ann area which my family visited a few times when I was a kid. Once JP said it was cool with him (rising gas costs and all), I thought of different places we could go. Immediately I wanted to go to Hammond Castle and Woodman’s of Essex. Hammond Castle is this awesome castle John Hammond built. It’s $10 per person to get in and has a lot of cool artifacts to look at. Not to mention JH was a crazy bastard and had a few tricks up his sleeve when designing this cool place. I won’t give anything away though; you have to go see it for yourself. Before we left in the morning we made a game plan. We decided to hit Woodman’s first. The last time I went here I was 11 and didn’t eat seafood. I remembered the onion rings were yummy…and boy where they! We decided to split a shrimp plate so we would have more room for yummy seafood later on in the day. The plate came with a side of fries and onion rings (!). We order, grab some h2o, and find some seats. After a little bit our food comes and it’s just as glorious as I could have hoped. The onion rings were very tasty and the shrimp was delectable. Deep fried and scrumptious. The tartar sauce was fantastic. Normally the tartar sauce I have is made with sweet relish, but this was with made with dill. Again, so good!! After eating we head over to Hammond Castle. After we walked around there for a few hours, we decided to head to downtown Rockport. We walked around for some time and decided to get lobster. I’m not a huge fan, but John Paul really wanted it, so we decided to split one. Holy f*ck! Seriously. The only way I can explain it. It was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. (Roy Moore's...go eat there!) I swear tears were brought to my eyes. After that we walked around some more. John Paul proposed and we went home and celebrated!
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I recently found a recipe from the nutritionist at my gym. It was for a maple glazed salmon. I love salmon and I love maple so I figured the combo would be tasty. Went to Foodies and bought salmon and the maple. Note: if you decide to make this, hit the local Stop and Shop or Shaws. I love Foodies, but their maple syrup will run you at least $10; it’s very tasty, but not entirely budget friendly. Here is the recipe:

Serves 4 People … Prep time: 5 mins...Cooking time: 20 mins
Ingredients:
Maple Glaze:
2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar or balsamic
2 T. organic sugar (I used regular sugar)
1/2 cup maple syrup (I ended up using more because it didn’t taste mapley enough)
1 T. hot sauce
1 T. finely diced onion
1 tsp sea salt
White pepper to taste

Grilled Salmon:
4 salmon fillets
1 t. olive oil
Salt & pepper

Cooking Instructions:
**Glaze: Heat vinegar and sugar over medium heat until mixture boils. Add maple syrup, hot sauce, and onion and bring to boil. Lower heat, simmer one minute and remove from heat. Add salt and pepper to taste.
***Salmon: Preheat grill. Sprinkle salmon with oil, salt, & pepper. Grill salmon for 5 minutes preside (don’t char). Place salmon on platter. Brush with maple glaze.
Calories: 326
Fat: 8 grams total
Salt: Optional
These numbers might change since I added more maple syrup…

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Wedding #5 this year…Oklahoma City! Jason + Sigy = TL4E! (true love 4 ever!)

Not many people I know (save for those from OKC) can say they’ve ever been to Oklahoma once, let alone 3 times. While it might not be a likely tourist destination, it is definitely starting to grow on me (but not so much that I’d move there…ever). Things I love about Oklahoma…the people are very nice. It’s strange to go into a place of business and have the staff actually be genuine and friendly. It’s a nice change from being here. Last year John Paul showed me an article from the New York Times about Oklahoma having the best Viet food in the USA. JP took me took me to Pho Hoa. It was great! We were seated immediately. Our pho came out fast and our café sua dat was very tasty. In all reality (save for JP’s mom and di loan’s) this was the best pho I’ve ever had. I swear they put nutmeg in there. There was that something extra that made me go hmmm … In a good way. Amazing. I wanted to go back before we left but there wasn’t any time. Maybe next year.
Another amazing aspect of OK is the fast food. Braum’s and Sonic are two places I wish were up north…especially Braum’s. They serve amazing chocolate shakes, yummy burgers, and DIET DR PEPPER on draft!
To finish my mini ode to OKC, I will also give two other reasons I love it there…1 you can shoot people who are on your property! No joke. And when they try to sue you, the judge laughs at them and throws their claim out of court! And 2.Oklahomans hate Texass. I thoroughly enjoy when people are passionate about their favorite team. After 3 years of dating, I’ve learned to hate burnt orange and longhorns.

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Not like I post as often as JP, but I’ll probably be posting less since we’re in the beginning stages of wedding planning. I will, however, try to update whenever we have a menu tasting. Wedding food is notoriously bad and I’d love to let you know how truly bad it really is.

Sorry for the lack of updates. Last week Abby cooked a great salmon dinner, but she never got around to blog about it. Maybe sometime this week.

We also had to take off last weekend and head to my old hunting grounds: Oklahoma City. My good buddy Jason was getting married and I had to go get in a tux and stand next to him while he did it. There's not much to get excited for in OKC, but there are some things that are well worth the trip: Vietnamese food, Oklahoma Sooners, cheap steaks, and fast food joints not found in Boston.

Before I get into the food, here's a rundown of what happened in OKC:

- Hertz you suck majorly, then again, you might be ok. First we get in line to get our rental car from Hertz and when a sales rep gets free I immedieately went to her. She tells me she can't help me because I'm not a gold club member. She points me over to the next sales rep who was working with a customer. OK, fine, I could understand if there were others behind me in line, but no there wasn't. So I go to the next sales rep and wait while the "gold club" sales rep sits and stares at nothing. Finally it's our turn with the "common people"'s sales rep and she tells me they are currently out of cars and will need to run out and get some keys. No biggie...except it's Thursday morning in OKC!!! Who would expect there to not be cars available in OK-freaking-C? Anyway, while we wait, we see some business people get in line for the gold club sales rep and sure enough she turns a couple of them over to wait in our line. Man, Hertz...you guys suck! Finally, our sales rep returns and tells us that there are no more economy cars available and that we'll have to settle for a Mustang. (Side note: I hate mustangs...always been a corvette guy myself.) This excites Abby and it's not a bad little car. Has a very good first step and handles nicely.

- OU was one of the few top 10 teams to survive and are now #1. I was hoping that an SEC team would be #1, but oh well. I'll be happy on Jan 9th if we are still #1.

- Jason's wedding was a blast. It was good to catch up with all my boys that still live in the area. But damn, weddings are mad expensive and way over blown! It's just one day!!!! Right now we are in the process of planning our wedding and it's going to be a long bumpy ride. Oh well, thank god for credit cards, right? (Side note: While me and some of the other groomsmen were goofing around at the rehearsal, two of the married men mentioned that this is the greatest day in Jason's life. To this I had a reply that probably wasn't appropriate for being in a church. But seriously, "greatest day of your life"? No f-ing way will I believe that. Every wedding I've gone to in the last 5 years the bride and groom have told me that they wish they could have done it differently, simpler, and cheaper...how is that a testimony that it's the greatest day of your life? You are dropping mad cash on a party to please your parents and random relatives you have never met. You are dropping mad cash to impress others and trying to out-do their weddings. Greatest day of your life? Not in my book. Is it a great day...possibly. It's definitely a good day. But it doesn't even crack my top 10 of great days in your life. It's well below becoming a father. Definitely below scoring the game winning point in the NCAA championships. For me personally, it'd fall well behind winning the lottery and buying Hertz out and firing the gold club sales bitch. God I wish I had F-U money...)

Pho Hoa

OKC is known for Vietnamese food. It really is. I took Abby to the one my folks and I would go to after mass every Sunday: Pho Hoa. Now Pho Hoa is a very common pho restaurant name. In fact, Boston has one. So is Pho Pasteur, Pho 87, Pho Vietnam, etc. Just like the food they serve, the names of these restaurants are simple and to the point.

Pho Hoa was better than any pho I've had in Boston. It's simply the best pho I've had in the States that was not made by my mom or aunts. It did not disappoint. The broth is extra special. When you order cafe sua da, they actually bring it out with the french press and glass of ice, not like in Boston where it's premade for you. The service is crazy quick and the place was clean...well clean enough for a pho place. I mean, you'll get the stray bean sprout on the floor and also some random flies. (Speaking of flies, I must have forgotten how many bugs there are in OKC. Seriously! There doesn't seem to be any in Boston. I mean, sure we get the occasional spider in the condo, or the cockroaches in the old brownstones, but we don't have wasps and bees and mosquitos and gnats flying around biting and stinging you. It was gross! I got sick during the trip and I'm worried it might be West Nile.)





Anyway, I give Pho Hoa a very, very strong 4 our of 5. (Also, I'm not sure if this is the right urbanspoon link or not, but whatever.) We took some pics, but it was after the fact. Also, you gotta love the OU pride in a Vietnamese pho place in OKC.



Cattlemen's Steakhouse

When we were in Vegas for the bachelor party, we told Jason's future in-law (who also is named Jason) that when he goes to OKC he should get some good, cheap steak at either Cattlemen's or Cimmaron. Well, all that talking we did really got his juices flowing to try some good, cheap OKC steak. However, the timing was hard. Being part of a wedding makes it tough to sneak away for a couple of hours and eat steak...especially when you are part of the family (or considered part of the family) and have to be at every function.

Late Thursday night, Jobby got the idea for steak and eggs, and after a quick phone call it was confirmed that Cattlemen's does indeed serve breakfast. Done and done!





We arrive and were promptly seated in the back room. Now Abby was the only non-minority in the group, and this being OKC, we assumed it was because we weren't white. (OK, we didn't assume that, we were just joking around about it and it was really the only place to accommodate 13 of us...but still, the jokes were flying.) The menu was incredible. Every steak comes with two eggs, biscuits, and hashbrowns. Jobby got it all started by ordering a starter of lamb fries. The Floridians we were with were scared by this. (They were also scared by the calf brains on the menu...I nearly ordered this just because I've never had sweetbreads in OKC.) The lamb fries came out and it seemed nearly everyone enjoyed having lamb testicles in their mouth. Taste like chicken!



Abby and I both ordered the breakfast steak, which came out to be a 5oz steak...I would guess a shell steak, but not sure. Mine came out a little cold, probably because it was the first one done and had to sit while the other orders came up. That's fine...it was still tasty. Not the greatest steak in the world, but for $8.50 and it comes with eggs and hashbrowns and biscuits and gravy, well damn, that a fine bargain any day. Other people got real steaks, like the ribeye and the NY strip and those looked great. As you can see, Abby was real excited for her breakfast.




To my amazement, I learned something new about Cattlemen's that morning. Apparently they serve beer all day long. And not just any regular beer, but their own microbrew. I said god-damn!!!! You better bet your sweet ass I got myself a 22oz beer at 10:30 AM in OKC. It's a good beer too. Much better than bud, bud light, miller lite, etc. Two major thumbs up for that!



Cattlemen's get an OKC 4 out of 5!



Braums, Sonic and Taco Bell

Braums is a regional fast food joint that is also a major dairy provider. Basically, they serve the best milk shakes in town (and so far in my eyes in the entire US.) They make some of the best fast food burgers around also. Sadly, they aren't the best bargain, but it's so worth it. Here's the wiki on Braums:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braum%27s

Sonic...well you all know about Sonic. You see their commercials and wonder where the hell is the nearest Sonic. Sure enough its hundreds if not thousands of miles away. If you ever have the chance to go, make sure you get the route 44 cherry limeade.

What makes Taco Bell so special in OKC? Surely you can get better authentic Mexican food in OKC, right? Yup, you can. Surely you can get Taco Bell in Boston, right? Yup, you can. So why is it special in OKC? Three words: Chili Cheese Burrito. For some reason I've never, ever seen this on any Taco Bell menu outside of OKC. Maybe in Dallas I've seen it, but definitely not in Boston. Hell, we even drove to one in OKC that didn't have it, only to drive to another one at 2AM and sure enough they had it. It's an incredible thing: chili cheese burrito from Taco Bell at 2AM.





Anyway, OKC was a blast. Now time to focus on our own wedding. (And this blog of course.)