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!
***
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…

***
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.

***
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.

I walk by Metropolis Café every night on my way home from work. More often than not, I see this adorable old man sitting in a seat in the corner with an M on his hat (for Metropolis, duh), watching people pass by and waiting for the dinner service to begin. I’ve wanted to try this place for a while now; assuming it was a café filled with yummy Greek and Mediterranean food (surprisingly, there’s more of an American influence). Last night when we were trying to figure out where to eat, I brought it up. JP seemed interested so we did what we always do: we “yelped” the restaurant. I’m always curious about what others think of restaurants; trying to make sure I’m not eating at the latest health code violation (cough, Yum Mee …which is not, in fact, yummy, at all). Anyway, the reviews were all very positive (I didn’t read them, I just looked at the star ratings) and we decided to check it out.
We leave the house early for a few reasons, we’re starving already, I have cute shoes on so it will take me a little longer to walk, and it’s pouring out. Note to self, buy a second umbrella-ella-ella-eh-eh when we’re at the mall today-ay-ay.
We arrive and get to our table quickly. I had already looked at the menu so I knew immediately I wanted the “Horseradish Crusted Salmon with warm cucumber crème fraiche and salmon roe”. We decide on the app (“Gnocchi with duck confit, Vermont brussels sprouts, rosemary jus and parmigiano reggiano”) and it comes out almost immediately (but not so fast that you’re wondering if it’s been sitting in the kitchen for a while). It’s heaven. Amazing. Warm. It’s how I wish chicken noodle soup always tasted. The brussel sprouts weren’t very flavorful (thank god), but they provided great texture. The duck was very tasty; I just wish (like I always do with duck) that there was more…like an entire duck more. Good God I love duck. I’m not a huge fan of rosemary, but it wasn’t too bad in the dish.
Now it’s time for dinner. Oh.my.God. I ordered the most amazing dish. My salmon came out and, I’m not gonna lie, it was probably the best salmon dish I’ve ever had. The salmon was perfectly cooked, and the skin was crispy (which is just the way I like it). The “horseradish crust” was something I’ve never seen before. It was a horseradish cake. Picture a crab cake. It’s seared on both sides, with the consistency of a crab cake. It wasn’t overpowering at all, and tasted amazing with the salmon, salmon roe, cucumber and the crème fraiche. I never would have thought crème fraiche and cucumbers go with salmon, but man, now I can’t imagine them not being there. I now consider it one of the great pairings in the food world, peanut butter and jelly, lamb and tuna fish, and now, salmon with crème fraiche and cucumber. I gave JP a bite and he loved it too. I tried his hangar steak and it was okay, the mashed potatoes were awesome, but I was definitely glad I ordered the salmon. I have a feeling every time we return to Metropolis Café I will be ordering the salmon.


At the end of the night we received one of those “how did we do” cards. I filled it out and told them, feel free to send me to send me the recipe for the duck gnocchi. I doubt they will, but a girl can dream.

I give Metropolis Café 4.5 out of 5 (which will be bumped to 4.75 out of 5 if they send me that recipe!).

Eric Ripert has a blog where he has video recipes using a toaster oven. It's quite a blog. www.aveceric.com

I saw this recipe this morning and thought it'd be worth giving a try. On a trip to Foodies in search of some deli meats to make sandwiches for dinner, I told Abby about this recipe and we decided it to give it a try. Turned out really great. Salmon was super flaky and moist, and even though we didn't make the creme fraiche dressing, the salmon had enough flavor on it's own.

Check out his website and try out some of the recipes. We'll likely try the red snapper one eventually.

(Yes we know it's not classy to be trying to show off fancy food on paper plates, but whatever. All our dishes were in the dish washer, and this makes cleanup a hell of a lot easier.)