Sweet and Sour in Boston

http://consumerist.com/2010/03/check-out-the-secret-mcmenu-item-thats-sweeping-sf-the-mc1035.html?

I am not sure if I want one or if I want one....

Rewind a few weeks ago to San Francisco. Since I'm lazy and I don't update as much as JP, or ever really, I didn't write about my love for The Alembic. I found it on Yelp and Suzy and Co both said it was a great bar. Suzy's friend dropped us off so JP and I could put in our name. Now here's the best part...the hostess said "What's your phone number? We'll text you when your table is ready". What? Seriously? We don't have to wait around and try to stay out of the way? This bar is too cool for the buzzers, and plus you can't go very far. So, to me, this is the greatest idea ever. I can wander around Haight as far as I want because you'll text me when you're ready. Awesome. We ended up going back and finding 5 seats at the bar, but the texting is still a great idea. I highly recommend this bar. I had two of the best drinks I've ever consumed. See JP's review for pictures and descriptions.

OK back to the present. Yesterday was the first nice day of the year. JP and I were trying to figure out where to go to enjoy the weather so we settled on Freeport, Maine. They have outlets, it would be a nice drive, and JP had never been. Before we went we did what we always do, we looked up the area restaurants. One, Buck's Naked BBQ, came highly rated; it received 4 stars on Yelp. Never one to turn down barbecue, we decided this would be our lunch destination. 2 hours later we arrive at Buck's. I'm excited. I love pulled pork. JP tells me it's naked because it comes out bare, no sauce whatsoever. We walk in and they ask us if we want to sit at the table right by the door. We pass and decide we'd like to sit in the bar area. We're seated and I order a diet Coke. They only have Pepsi. Strike one.
We look over our menu and I decide on the pulled pork. I then get to choose two sides. Since I've given up fried food for Lent, I decided on the potato salad. I couldn't decide if I wanted the coleslaw or the corn bread. BTW, what BBQ place doesn't automatically provide corn bread? I thought it normally came with every order. It came with JP's meal, but I thought most joints will serve it with every order. I also decide to order a cup of the gumbo. It has pulled chicken, sausage, & crayfish. The waiter comes back and I order, but ask him what's better, the coleslaw or the cornbread. He looks at me like I have two heads and then makes a motion like flipping a coin and shrugs his shoulders. OK? So you, who works here, and, presumably, eats the food, can't tell me what is better? Maybe I was wrong to assume he eats the food. I can't say I would eat it if I worked there.
Gumbo comes. I remove the crayfish and give it to JP. He's been craving it for a while so I figured I'd share. My first bite is good. I tell JP if this is any indication we're in for some good food. Then I continue to eat. The pulled chicken is very tasty, but that's it. I keep eating and it's actually becoming more bland. How is that even possible?? I actually have to add salt and pepper, which is very rare for me.
Ding! Food is done. I can see them put up two dishes. And I can see them sit there. And sit there. Oh and sit there some more. The dishes were up there for about 3-4 minutes while numerous employees walked past. Strike two.
Food is eventually brought over. We test out the different sauces. JP likes the skinny sauce and I like mustard/vinegar based sauce.
So here's the thing, their whole restaurant is based off of being naked. So when your BBQ is naked, the bare meat should speak for itself. Buck's doesn't. Some bites of the pork were dry, others were juicy, but there was no flavor. It was bland. I found myself looking for flavor and having to add copious amounts of the provided sauce. I tried the potato salad. It too was bland, yet covered in mayonnaise. So I guess even the mayo was bland. OK so what's left? The corn bread. More like corn dead? Seriously. It wasn't good. It was dry. Again, I found myself wanting to add something. Everything they served made me want to add something. Their naked just wasn't good enough.
Eventually we paid and left. On our way out, the hostess didn't thank us for coming. Strike three.

The one plus was they give you huge portions at a good price. But do you really want a huge portion of not really great food? Yeah that's what I thought.

I give Buck's Naked BBQ, 1 out of 5.

We decided to take a quick road trip to Freeport, ME to walk around their outlet shops and enjoy the nice weather. Searching for places to eat lunch online before heading out, I saw Buck's Naked BBQ and after looking at the website and menu, I knew that was where we were going to have lunch. Needless to say, we had very high expectations for Buck's. Sadly, those expectations weren't met.



Buck's Naked BBQ is aptly named because the BBQ comes out naked. Meaning with no sauce. Basically, the slow cooked meat should speak for itself. This, in theory, is usually the best practice for any type of cooking. However, Buck's does provide 4 types of BBQ sauces for you to add as much or as little as you like. The sauces are all at the table, which is nice. The last place we had BBQ only gave us a small portion of sauce on the side of our BBQ and charged us if we wanted extra. So that was a definitely a plus at Buck's.



Abby started with the gumbo. I enjoyed the crawfish that came with the soup, but the one spoonful I had was somewhat bland. Abby enjoyed the pulled chicken that was in the gumbo and even remarked that this was a good sign that the rest of the BBQ that we ordered would be really good.




As we were waiting for our main entree (I went with the smokehouse sampler, which consisted of babyback ribs, beef ribs, and chicken wings, and Abby went with the pulled pork sandwich) we heard the ding from the kitchen bell that indicates to waiters and servers that food was ready to pickup. Abby noticed that the food sitting under the heatlamps appeared to be our lunch. It sat there. Servers walked past the kitchen not even caring. It continued to sit there. One of the managers, or maybe the owners' son, was sitting at the bar with legs up over multiple seats not really caring about anything other than his laptop. Our food continued to "die" under the heat lamps. Finally, after several minutes someone noticed our food and brought it over to our table.




My ribs were big and covered in the dry rub that was used over the meat. Neither babyback ribs or beef ribs were "fall off the bone" tender, but weren't completely dry either. Each bite though was so overpowered by the dry rub, it was hard to really get the flavor of the ribs. I thought that was the whole point of the naked BBQ. I did add some sauce though, choosing the WNC Skinny Dip. This was my favorite sauce of the 4 and I thought was a pretty solid BBQ sauce. The babybacks were the better of the ribs, as it should since they are listed as "award-winning". While the ribs were naked, the chicken wings most definitely weren't. I had the wings in Jerk sauce, and they came slathered. I had to scrape the sauce off the wings before I ate them. That being said, the wings were cooked perfectly and were very juicy. The jerk sauce, once I took the majority off, was better than average, but still nothing to write home about. Abby's pulled pork was like my BBQ, slightly dry and needing sauce. The sides weren't bad, but weren't great either. I didn't like the cornbread much, but did like the baked beans.

Bottom line: Buck's Naked BBQ isn't the greatest BBQ I've ever had. It's not even on the list of best BBQ in New England. Not sure if we went on a bad day or not (the couple sitting behind us didn't seem to be enjoying their lunch either) but there wasn't anything worth coming back to. I give Buck's Naked BBQ a 1 and 1/2 out of 5. (Probably closer to a 2 than a 1 since the portions were pretty big and the sauces weren't bad either.)

Can't believe he put it on the menu. (inhabitots)

A while ago we showed you how to take good, yet boring, Ramen and turn it into something fancy. In the same way, you can take mac and cheese from the box and turn it into something more. For example you can brown some ground beef and make your own cheesy, beefy, macaroni. Or do like what Abby came up with: chicken and tomato mac and cheese. Here's how we made it.

Ingredients:



Chicken breast. We've been getting these freezer packs from Costco. Not only are they priced very well, they come in pairs in sealed freezer packs. Take out the night before and place in the fridge and you are ready to cook by the time you get home from work.



Canned Diced Tomatoes with Green Chilies. These are fantastic to have in the pantry. Can be added to just about anything. The generic brand from our local grocery store is cheaper and tastes just as good.



Instant Mac and Cheese. Kraft of course. There is no other brand to choose from.



How you do it:

First cut the chicken breasts into bite sized portions. Season with salt, pepper and chili powder. Saute in a hot pan with some butter. While the chicken is cooking, bring some water to boil in a pot.



After the chicken is done cooking (I slightly over did the chicken tonight but it wasn't as dry as it looks) drain the tomatoes and add to the chicken. Heat the it all together over medium heat while you finish the mac and cheese following the directions on the box.



Add everything together and mix it up.



Put in a bowl and eat.



This is a great "clean out the pantry" dinner. It's also a simple easy meal to make to help you become more confident in cooking. Just be creative and don't be afraid to give different combinations a try.

It's a lazy Sunday. We got pulled pork going in the slow cooker which is almost done. I got a big pot of Chao Ga (chicken congee) cooking as well. That should make about 3-4 bowls of it so I can have breakfast this week at work.

Here are some links I've found in the past couple of days I'd thought I'd pass along:

*A list of kitchen essentials. (latimes, courtesy of Dine or Death)

We have the dutch oven and creme brule torch as wedding gifts and while we love and use the former quite a bit, we haven't busted out the torch just yet. We also have a rather boring (but effective) thermometer, but I really want one of these. At nearly $100, I haven't yet justified the costs. We have a few of the other items as well, like the microplane and the nice knives, but our roasting pan was really cheap and is very useful and our nonstick pans were expensive (more wedding gifts) and I'm very, very careful with how we use them. The mortar and pestle is something we've been wanting for a while too to make guacamole with.

*In case you love burritos and never saw the calorie counts. (divinecaroline)

*Some really cool food art. (noupe)

*This brought back some memories. I might have to ebay the Star Wars tumblers as an early b-day gift to myself. (miami new times)

*For those of you who hate Wal-Mart (which I personally love), the produce apparently can compete with Whole Foods. (lifehacker)

*Food from Hong Kong. (cnngo)

*Again, more proof America is behind in Vending Machine technology. (phoenix new times)

*McDonalds from around the world. (like me)

*Bourdain on Yo Gabba Gabba (EW)

Gary Danko

I was a little nervous about our reservations for Gary Danko, a Michelin rated restaurant and listed on countless top 50 restaurants in the USA lists. I didn't pack any really nice clothes or any other shoes than my dirty Pumas. Then as we were driving to the restaurant, I remembered that I was in California and that the locales consider putting on an Ed Hardy shirt with plaid shorts as dressing up and I'd be fine in my button up shirt and jeans and sneakers. (After we were sat a customer was seated near us wearing a hoodie and hat, so I really had nothing to worry about.)

We ordered a few drinks and while we were looking over the very extensive menu, our amuse came. It was a fried piece of hen over potato salad. Now the potato salad was actually very good but the fried meat on top, which I would not be able to pick out of a meat line up, had a batter that reminded me of Van De Kamps Fish Sticks. Needless to say, this was not a good start.



As I said before, the menu is quite extensive. Probably the neatest part about Gary Danko is that the 3, 4, or 5 tasting menus are really up to the customer to create. Even though the selections are separated into starters, fish, meat, cheese and dessert, you can choose any combination you liked. If you want only fish, you can pick 5 fish dishes. Likewise if you only want dessert, then you can get 5 desserts.




After we all ordered, some very boring bread came to our plates. This didn't matter as I wasn't going to be dining on bread alone.



Abby started with the "Dungeness Crab Salad with Grapefruit, Asian Pears, Mint and Yuzu Rémoulade" and I went for the "Pancetta Wrapped Frog Legs with Garlic Purée, Potato, Lentils and Parsley". Both were great starters. Abby's had huge pieces of crabmeat and the Asian Pear was a nice touch. My frog legs were tiny, but was enough for a nice starter. The pancetta gave the frogs a nice salty bite and I had to try the hardest not to pick up the little legs and eat with my hands. I was given a small plate for my "refuse". (The waitress could have just said "bones" but she didn't. I don't know why I found this so funny, but I did.)





My brother-in-law's starter was the "Seared Ahi Tuna with Avocado, Nori, Enoki Mushrooms and Lemon Soy Dressing" and definitely had the best presentation of the night. The seared tuna was laid out like wings of a butterfly.



Next Abby got the "Horseradish Crusted Salmon Medallion with Dilled Cucumbers and Mustard Sauce" and I went for the "Roasted Pork Belly and Tenderloin with Brussels Sprouts, Bacon, Parsnip Purée and Maple Cider Glaze". The tenderloin was cooked perfectly and had great flavor, but the pork belly was the star of this plate. It had a nice seared crust and melted in my mouth. The only problem with my plate was the brussel sprouts and jalapenos that the pork was placed on. It just didn't make sense to me. The sprouts were cooked well and I can kinda get the fact that BBQ sometimes has hot sauce but the plate just seemed halfway there. Abby thought her salmon was "very good".




For our third course, Abby got the "Lemon Pepper Duck Breast with Duck Hash, Celery Root-Garlic Purée and Cardamom Poached Pears" and I got the "Seared Filet of Beef with Spaetzle, Butternut Squash, Crimini Mushrooms, Bone Marrow Butter and Shallot Marmalade". Abby's duck was fantastic, with the duck hash being the best part. My steak was cooked perfectly and the Spaetzle (a very fun word to say) was a nice side. I just couldn't taste the Bone Marrow Butter that I assume was melted over my steak. I think when I saw the menu, I just assumed a shank of roasted bone marrow was going to accompany the filet. Oh well, it was still a great dish and I was definitely getting full.




Our final course was next and Abby got the "Trio of Crme Brlée with Assorted Cookies" and I went for the "A Selection of Farmhouse and Artisanal Cheeses Presented Tableside". Abby's dessert portion was huge. I was expecting three shot glass sized creme brulee, but three full size desserts came out. They all had a great crispy top and Abby had no complaints. My brother-in-law got the same dessert and likewise was pleased with his choice. My sister went with the "French Macaron Ice Cream Sandwiches with Three Sauces" which looked really cute on their plates. I would have just eaten them with my hands, but she tried to use the knife and fork and they just broke apart when she tried to cut them neatly. I had to go with the cheese though, because I saw the Gary Danko cheese cart earlier in the night and I really wanted a runny, stinky cheese to finish my meal. I forget the names of the cheeses I got, but I don't think I could have gone wrong with the selection.






Finally we were presented with a small plate of sweet treats and the ladies were given some sort of cheesecake treat to take home. While I was stuffed, I still ate most of the little desserts that varied from chocolate peanut butter to lemon squares.




I could easily see myself coming back to Gary Danko. There are endless combinations one can have while choosing their tasting menu. I'd love to taste the venison plate I saw or the red pumpkin soup. Overall, a very good dinner with great company. I give Gary Danko a 4 out of 5.



Turtle Tower

(Doesn't the name just make you want to scream, "Turtle Power!" No? Must just be me.) Anyway, Turtle Tower has the best Pho Ga I've ever had in the states. They specialize in Hanoi-style Pho, which means no bean sprouts and no hoisen sauce apparently. (This didn't surprise me after reading it on the menu because the best Pho Ga I've ever had was in Hanoi.) My sister and brother-in-law were raving about this place since we arrived and it was only after my mom gave it her seal of approval that I really wanted to try this place out. (My mom of course said that while the noodles were good, she believes she can get the same noodles in San Jose.) Anyway, the noodles were as good as advertised, though maybe a little softer than I would like. The broth though was incredible. So chicken-y (only way I can describe it) and so fresh. I only squeezed some lemon and added a small squirt of siracha. I love me some pho and this was one of the best bowls I've ever had. Immediately I was jealous that Turtle Tower was only a couple of blocks away from my sister's condo.



I give Turtle Tower a 4 out of 5.