Saturday, July 23, 2011

Schmap London Restaurant Guide

Tricia and I are happy to announce that one of our many food pictures has been included in the newest Schmap London Restaurant Guide. Schmap is an online map and guide for eating in London, and is a very cool site for anyone who may be taking a trip there. We posted our trip to London a while back, and one of our favorite restaurants was Dehesa, a Spanish Tapas restaurant in the Carnaby area. We took pictures of their beautiful charcuterie selection (delicious!), and one of our photos has been selected to highlight the restaurant's latest entry in Schmap (check it out).

Thanks to Schmap for our inclusion!

Friday, July 22, 2011

Crispy Fried Pork Bites

This is a very simple dish that serves as great party food. It also has the ability to satisfy many of those cravings (for something crispy, for something salty, for something a little spicy, and of course for meat)! I used pork tenderloin here because of its great flavor and texture - it's a very lean cut of meat, but it is not tough at all (if cooked properly). The special touch that I added was a marination step. The result was a super crispy and flavorful bite-sized creation that quickly disappeared from the serving platters!




Sorry for our absence!

The past month has been a little chaotic for Tricia and I, so we have not posted any updates to our blog. The main thing that took up our time involved Tricia getting a new job just in Radnor, Pennsylvania (a little bit outside of Philadelphia). So, we were busy moving her out of Ithaca and into her new place. And of course, she has been taking a good amount of time to get acclimated to her new settings and job. Unfortunately, this left us a bit too distracted to post recipes!

However, we are eager to share new food experiences with everyone, and we plan on putting some stuff up very soon (today or tomorrow)! Tricia has a beautiful kitchen in her new apartment in Pennsylvania, and a wonderfully new oven that she has already started baking up some delicious eats in. Meanwhile, I have continued to put together some great dinner items that I'd like to share. Sadly, because of Tricia's move, we will no longer be able to frequent the Ithaca dining seen on a regular basis, so the restaurant reviews may not be as consistent (though we do promise to share details from when she visits me). On the flipside though, when I go to visit her, we'll be sharing many of the great foods that we are now able to try in the Philadelphia area.

Thanks to those who continue to check out our site! Look for updates soon!

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Cowboy Beans and Texas Chipotle Slaw

As many of you know, the NBA Finals concluded two nights ago with the Dallas Mavericks beating the Miami Heat 4-2. As someone who spent their formative years in Ohio, I grew a fan of all things Cleveland (Cavs, Browns, Indians), and with the LeBron saga ending with him losing, I couldn't be more thrilled (unless the Cavs themselves had won a title). For those of you looking for a food blog, I promise, this back-story has a point. About a week ago, while the series was still going on, Tricia and I hosted a party to watch the game and root for Dallas. We tried to throw in some Texas flavor to some of the food items as a sign of our support! As a disclaimer, we're not from Texas, and we have never been to Texas, so this is not necessarily "authentic." (in case anyone from Texas is reading this blog!) However, we were inspired by Texas to create some the dishes, and here are two of the recipes we used. Both are great side items for any get-together.

First, we made "Cowboy Beans." My recipe here is slightly modified from other versions that I have seen in the past. Basically, for those not familiar, cowboy beans are really smoky, stewed beans. Almost like a cross between a good bean chili and baked beans. This is actually very easy to make. Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

½ cup Diced Bacon
½ onion diced (any color is fine, to your taste)
5 cloves garlic minced
1.5 cups stock (chicken or beef)
2 cups black beans (divide into 2 batches of 1 cup each)
2 cups red kidney beans
1 cup white beans
1 cup fresh diced tomatoes
½ cup Spanish cured chorizo, sliced
2 sliced jalapenos
1 whole jalapeno, chunked for pureeing
2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp paprika
Cilantro
Thyme and oregano

Cured chorizo is increasingly available at most grocery stores. Make sure to get the cured Spanish kind, not the fresh Mexican kind. The Spanish chorizo is actually ready to eat without cooking, but cooking actually does wonders for it. Spanish chorizo often comes as a u-shaped sausage (see left), and I cut mine into small discs. Have the onions, garlic, and jalapeno chopped and ready also when you start cooking.


 



First, render bacon and chorizo. The rendered fat from the chorizo is a beautiful red color, and it makes the final dish look great.


Once the fat is rendered, add onion/garlic and the sliced jalapenos. Allow these to become fragrant, and let the onions sweat but not caramelize. You can see how the beautiful colors of this dish begin to develop in this step.

 
While the onions are sweating, puree 1 cup of black beans with the chunked jalapeno plus the chili powder, paprika, and chipotle peppers. Depending on what your using for pureeing (blender vs. food processor), you may need to add some stock to get this mixture to be smooth. Use stock out of the 1.5 cups that you've set aside - all of that liquid is going into the dish, so as long as you use 1.5 cups total, it doesn't matter which step it is added in. Set the puree aside. Now that the onions/garlic are fragrant, it is time to add the thyme, the stock, and the rest of the beans. Just estimate how much thyme to put in - the leaves from a few sprigs really enlivens the dish.


Let the beans cook a little bit (2-4 minutes) to absorb the flavors already in the dish. Then, add the puree back to the dish. Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer and cover. The dish is ready to serve at this point, but as with any stewed dish, the longer it simmers, the more the flavors meld. When you are ready to eat, uncover, add some chopped cilantro and oregano as well as salt and pepper to taste.


This is an attractive and delicious dish. It's substantive enough to eat as a stew, but it's also bright and colorful and serves as a great side dish to a steak or some other meat.  

In addition to the Cowboy Beans, I also made a Texas Chipotle Slaw. This is a vinegar-based cole slaw with a bit of a kick. It's incredibly easy to make, and the only key is to allow enough time for the flavors to develop (a simple matter of leaving it in the fridge for ~4 hours).  Here are the ingredients:

1 medium head of green cabbage, shredded
¼ medium head of red cabbage, shredded
2 jalapenos, finely diced
4 shredded carrots
½ cup sugar
½ cup white vinegar
¼ cup oil (canola is good)
2 chipotles chopped with adobo sauce
Salt and pepper to taste

The amount of cabbage is obviously sort of approximate, but is roughly 10 cups all together. Simply combine everything and mix really well. Then give it 4 hours in the fridge. The result is a bright, sweet and spicy slaw that we all really enjoyed. The freshness and coolness of the slaw play really well with the heartiness of the beans for the record.




Monday, June 6, 2011

La Luce, By Donna Scala, Orlando, Florida

Restaurant Info:
La Luce by Donna Scala
14100 Bonnet Creek Resort Lane
Orlando, FL 32821
407-597-3600

What surprised us the most about Orlando was how early a lot restaurants closed especially for the young crowd (young as in 18-32!) in Orlando. We returned to our hotel around 8pm after a whole day at Sea World and found ourselves very hungry, but very dirty as well. After showering and dolling up for dinner, we came across a dilemma, where can we go and enjoy a nice dinner at 9:30pm? Better yet, what is still open? Despite the fact that we were in Orlando, a drive to any of the Disney resorts would have taken 15-20 minutes and a drive to the other parts of the city would take even longer. As we flipped through a coupon book and called several restaurants to see if they were still open, most of them said they were closing in 30 minutes for last seating. For such a tourist city, we were disappointed that Orlando didn't accommodate late night dining (like Las Vegas, NYC, Miami).

After calling about 5 restaurants and learning everything was closing in 30 minutes, we resorted to eating in the hotel we were staying at, the Hilton at Bonnet Creek. We had reservations about eating in our hotel because we knew it would be expensive and maybe too pretentious. However, we were down to our last resort (pun?) Our hotel had 2 very upscale restaurants that were opened until 11pm; one was Bull and Bear, a steakhouse, the other was La Luce, an Italian restaurant by Donna Scala featuring traditional Italian food with Napa influences. Donna Scala has several restaurants in northern California and Florida, both featuring local and fresh ingredients and grass-fed beef. She and her family also own an olive farm to make their own olive oil in Napa Valley. We chose La Luce after seeing their delicious appetizer menu.

The restaurant decor is beautiful and comfortable. La Luce was going for traditional Italian food with a familial atmosphere with long dinner tables, leather chairs and benches with large pillows. And for those who are going for an intimate setting, there are also booths. No matter where you sit, you will have a view of the pool, the wine bar, the in-house pizza oven or one of the many modern Italian artwork.

We were starving when we got to La Luce, so the fresh bread the brought out was especially enticing to us at first sight.  Upon tasting the bread offerings (fresh focaccia, peasant bread, and a crispy Italian flatbread), we were wowed and pretty sure that we were in the right place. We ordered a bottle of chianti to go with this delicious bread as you can see below (in stylish black and white!).


Our waiter was very knowledgeable about the restaurant/menu and recommended several of his favorite appetizers. For starters, we ordered their fried Spanish olives with almonds, an appetizer we wished that we had come up with ourselves. They were absolutely excellent. The salty Spanish olives were lightly coated with a flakey batter and deep fried, giving them some softness in the middle but a crunchiness from the batter. An interesting addition to this appetizer were the pan-fried Marcona almonds (sauteed in rosemary and garlic) that helped cut the saltiness of the olives.


For our entrees, we ordered the duck confit with Andouille sausage and white beans. We love duck and you can never go wrong with confit. The meat was tender and fell off the bone. The sausage was crispy on the outside and made from scratch packed with a delicious smokey paprika. The white beans were incredible and had a very balanced make-up: they were smokey and sweet and didn't have that starchiness that you would normally get with improperly cooked beans.


 In addition to our duck confit, we ordered agnolotti pasta, resembling of little pillows stuffed with a creamy cheese. Agnolotti is a really rustic and simple ravioli that really evokes images of Tuscany and hearty Italian cooking. The pasta was elegantly served with a simple white truffle and cheese sauce that stuck to the pasta beautifully, really imparting the dish with strong and beautiful flavor.


With all the entrees, appetizer and the rustic bread, we were looking at an Italian feast for 2. Everything had fresh flavors and kept the simple spirit of Italian cuisine, while still giving off a distinctive modern and creative flare. To end our special feast, we tried some of their desserts (all fresh made in-house, except for gelato which is from a local creamery). Tricia had two flavors of gelato: pistachio and hazelnut. The ice cream came accompanied with freshly made biscotti and a pine nut cookie. The gelato was phenomenal- smooth and very flavorful. The biscotti was good too, but the showstopper was the pine nut cookie. It must have been loaded with butter, because it literally melted upon first bite. The cookie was so good that there has been a serious push to get Tricia to make something comparable since the return to Ithaca!


Siddharth had butterscotch pudding. Sounds tame, right? Definitely wrong. Firstly, the "scotch" aspect of the butterscotch was real - an 18-year old Macallan, to be exact, was used to put this pudding together. The pudding was served with shaved chocolate and fresh cream on top, along with homemade English Toffee (covered in sea salt) on the side. Everything in this dish was perfect. This is flat out one of the best desserts we've had in a restaurant. We're not the only ones that think so either!


La Luce was a ritzy place, but one that we found was well worth it. From beginning (bread) to end (gelato and the best butterscotch pudding in America), the meal was outstanding. Though, we were only in Orland for one week and have not sampled all of the cuisine that is present in central Florida, we feel safe in saying that La Luce offers one of the best dining experiences in the area (in expounding on all the great food, we feel almost remiss to have not mentioned until now that the service was excellent - our server was friendly, knowledgeable, and he even gave us recommendations about the other great places to eat in town!).

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Conshohocken, PA - El Limon (Mexican Food!)

Restaurant Info:
103 Fayette St
Conshohocken, PA 19428
(610) 567-0120



Siddharth and I were in Pennsylvania for a night and found this restaurant on urbanspoon rated quite highly. Situated along a main road in Conshohocken, this tiny restaurant is hidden in between a BYOB restaurant and a Jimmy John's. Although the restaurant seemed small and crowded on the outside, El Limon was capable of seating all of their customers with little wait.


What I liked most about this restaurant was the open kitchen. Siddharth and I had the pleasure of eating at the counter right behind the cooking grill (pictured above to the right) so we could watch the two cooks. The menu selection is a bit limited compared to Garcia's where you can have any combination of dishes you want. They served traditional Mexican restaurant offerings like enchiladas, tacos and burritos (all a la carte, with the tacos and small ones at about $3 each!) with your choice of their mole sauce or tomatillo sauce. Everything was made fresh in house, including their tortillas, absolutely delicious.

I had a steak enchilada with the tomatillo sauce. The steak was tender and perfectly seasoned with the typical Mexican spices. I loved the tomatillo sauce as well. It was a bit tangy and a little bit spicy. It contrasted well with the spices from the beef. And I could taste that the tortilla was freshly made because of its softness and corn flavor. On the side were refried beans which were incredible, a lot better than Garcia's. I think it's because they fry them in lard which adds a whole lot of flavor. Unlike Garcia's, these beans were seasoned and served with a bit of cheese. The Mexican rice was also excellent. It doesn't look like they give you a lot of rice, but that mound of rice ended up being very filling.


Siddharth ordered sopes: one with chorizo and one with beef. Sopes are made with super-thick, deep-fried corn tortillas. The sopes come served like an open-faced sandwich, as you can see to the right. Neither of us had ever had sopes, and suffice to say we were very impressed. Texture-wise they are soft on the inside and crisp on the outside, almost like a corn-flour based hash brown. The chorizo and beef were both fresh cooked and delicious. The sopes were served with two sauces, a green tomatillo based sauce and a red chipotle sauce. Neither was overly spicy, but both were very flavorful. 


Another great quality of this restaurant was the unbelievable fast service. Even though there were no tables available for us to be immediately seated, the host allowed us to sit at the bar behind the kitchen. Our waitress took our order and immediately gave it to the cooks. We watched them both prepare our two entrees with great speed; one of them was cooking at least 3 pounds of chorizo on the grill while the other prepared the corn tortillas for the sopes and the enchilladas. Probably about 7-8 minutes after we ordered our entrees, our dinner was right in front of us, piping hot! 

The cooks (and waitress) were quite social and checked on us many times while we enjoyed our meal, asking how things were and whether we wanted to try anything else on the menu. Their persistence might be a bit annoying to some patrons, but Siddharth and I appreciate when the waitstaff or the cooks themselves interact with their customers and talking about their food with us, especially when we are trying something new.

Overall, El Limon was maybe surprisingly some of the best Mexican food we've had in the Northeastern US. The restaurant distinguishes itself by making great food in a hurry at dirt cheap prices. If you are ever in the area of Conshohocken, give it a try!


Monday, May 23, 2011

Blue Frog Coffee House, Ithaca, NY

Restaurant Info:
Blue Frog Coffee House
Pyramid Mall, next to Best Buy, Ithaca NY

Although new to the Ithaca area, Blue Frog Coffee House has already established itself in Cortland as a cafe serving local coffees and pastries, sandwiches, paninis, and even quesadillas. We had heard about this cafe from our friendly neighbor, Angelique, who requested that we write a review on it.



Thursday, May 19, 2011

Cowboy Beans

This recipe here is slightly modified from other versions that I have seen in the past. Basically, for those not familiar, cowboy beans are really smoky, stewed beans. Almost like a cross between a good bean chili and baked beans. This is actually very easy to make. Here is the recipe:










Ingredients:

½ cup Diced Bacon
½ onion diced (any color is fine, to your taste)
5 cloves garlic minced
1.5 cups stock (chicken or beef)
2 cups black beans (divide into 2 batches of 1 cup each)
2 cups red kidney beans
1 cup white beans
1 cup fresh diced tomatoes
½ cup Spanish cured chorizo, sliced
2 sliced jalapenos
1 whole jalapeno, chunked for pureeing
2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp paprika
Cilantro
Thyme and oregano


Thani Thai

Thani Thai
11025 International Dr Ste F, Orlando, FL 32821
(407) 239-9733

Siddharth and I have a love-hate relationship with Thai food. There are times we really enjoy Thai food and its flavors but we've had our fair share of unimpressive offerings.

On our third day in Orland, we had planned to venture to Sea World. Instead of eating theme park food, we decided to look for a restaurant in walking distance to the park. Sea World is located on International Drive, along with several chain restaurants catered to the tourists. Siddharth and I are not fans of chain restaurants and their marked up prices on bad food. A hotel employee suggested Thani Thai as an alternative.

Indochinese Fried Rice

Rice. Now there's something that billions of people around the world can agree on. And it also turns out to be something that Tricia and I both enjoy! There's so many things to do with rice, but one of my favorite ways to prepare it is fried. Fried rice is a highly variable dish- it originated as a way to take care of leftovers. Basically, you take last night's dried out rice and combine with other leftovers and maybe some fresh vegetables/sauces to create a new dish. Both Tricia and I have our own trademark versions of fried rice, differing in the sauces, vegetables, and seasoning we prefer to use. I like to experiment a lot though, so I recently decided to combine some Indian elements into fried rice to create something more distinctive. So here, I present the results for my "Indochinese fried rice"!