Roasted market asparagus with grilled spring onions, morels and parmigiano at Anteprima. Spring on a plate.

How recent? Im eating some apple slices and cottage cheese at my desk right now. Its okay, i guess.

My gift to my wife on Mother's Day turned out incredible:

Soft shell crabs at Myron & Phil's, about two and a half hours ago. A whole mess of crabs on a plate, each one tasting like it had absorbed a half stick of butter (as if that were a bad thing), yet with plenty of crab flavor coming through so that they weren't just butter delivery systems (as if that were a bad thing).

pollo vagabundo whole flame grilled chicken with fresh tortillas, homemade salsas and mexican rice.

Very pedestrian, but an all time favorite of mine, burgers and tots at Art's Tavern in Glen Arbor, Michigan. They taste like summer.


Mushroom Swiss burger & tots


Morel & Havarti burger

Drum Piquant with Hot & Hot Shrimp, at Upperline, New Orleans.

riddlemay wrote:Drum Piquant with Hot & Hot Shrimp, at Upperline, New Orleans.

Funny - I had to cancel my reservations there tonight (Sunday) after food overload at Commander's Palace and snacking all day. Having eaten there on a couple of other occasions, I know it was a tough choice . . . but Commander's was so good.

The burger my husband just grilled!! Loaded with grilled oninons and mushrooms, with a slice of very sharp cheddar. It was excellent!!!

The marzipan cake I made today.



The frosting was slightly too sweet, and not quite enough (it was my first time making the recipe, and naturally it needs some tinkering) but still. Next time I will add a layer of raspberry jam to create a sort of postmodernist inverted Princess cake.

Soon do bu at Seoul Garden on 32nd Street in Manhattan's Koreatown. Home-made tofu, spicy as hell, with chewy bits of seafood here and there. Reminded my of ma po tofu but was leagues beyond even the best rendition I've had of that dish. The neng myun was badass as well. I love my girlfriend for taking me to Seoul Garden.

Seoul Garden
34 W 32nd St (2nd floor)
New York, NY 10001
(212) 736-9002

Crispy Pork Belly and Seared Scallop with a Steen's Cane Syrup and Spicy Mustard Sauce appetizer at Patois, New Orleans. The rest of the meal, fine, nothing spectacular, but that appetizer was a culinary highlight of our trip.

Sunday brunch at Publican blew my mind: red wine-poached egg with La Quercia prosciutto, grilled bread and béarnaise and the wood-fired egg with harissa, Gouda and grilled bread. The Publican bacon was quite possibly the best bacon I've ever eaten. And the bill was so cheap!

I'm no major afficionado of bakeries, but I've found an absolute work of art involving butter, sugar and flour. This round form of ambrosia hails from The Continental Bakery in Mount Prospect. Coworker brought two of these things in today. It was supposed to be a dessert option for a potluck lunch, but as soon as word got out that the coworker brought them in around 10 am, and then announced that they were still warm, all bets were off. I led the charge. Resistance was futile. If you ever get a chance to try one, you'll understand every word written in this post.

It's called "The Edelweis."

Since I was the guest of honor for the luncheon, I was able to score the remains of the second one. What's really funny about this thing is that everyone thinks they can eat the whole thing because it is so f'ng luscious. What happens when reality sets in is that after one decent piece, you're done. For a WHILE. It's like eating a piece of sweet butter that somehow has the texture of a bakery product. This is probably what my father is talking about when he waxes about how food used to be made with butter and sugar. One coworker who I trust for food recs said that Dinkels Bakery makes a product that can compare to Continental's, but Continental's would be the clear cut winner of the two.

This coffee cake is stunning. Just stunning. There's nothing light, airy, or flaky about this. This is about butter. And not a pat of butter, either. We're talking about quantity here. Abundance. This is not something you share with your kids. One coworker claimed they needed a cigarette after having a slice. Nobody blinked an eye. Ok, I'll stop yammerin, and hopefully the ol Fuji captured what I'm trying to say here:



Just pure lusciousness:


Closeup. It's dense, moist, and simply a vehicle for butter.


I don't know how any of their other stuff is. Don't care. The Edelweis coffee cake gets my title of best thing I've eaten lately. BUtter laden coffee cake base with cinnamon swirl, topped with custard, then with pecans, and buttercrumbs, and lastly drizzled with icing. Continental might have sad renditions of other things, but believe me when I tell you this Edelweis coffee cake is a thing of beauty.

seebee wrote:Closeup. It's dense, moist, and simply a vehicle for butter.

Oh yeah, check out that last picture - none of the pastry-like porous "crumb-iness" one would expect to see in a coffee cake...that just looks like extra-buttery, cinnamon-tinged pound cake with, like, 4 different variations of sugar on top.

For lack of a better word,

The best storebought poundcake I've ever had was from Costco. Mama seebee is quite famous for poundcake, so I don't have to "stray" for it. Anyway, if you've ever had Costco poundcake, you're about a stick of butter shy of what this Edelweis thing is all about. I've seen other versions of The Edelweis coffee cake and bought them at two other bakeries trying to capture the quality of Continental's. The most recent trial was from a joint called Sauer's bake shop. It was a pale, pale, sad little comparison of what Continental has going on. Like I said, I have no idea if this Continental place makes anything else worth a hoot, but this Edelweis thing is exceptional. No dry, airy spots, it is pure, dense, buttery goodness. It's not trying to be dainty and flaky. It's all about the butter.

Everything I've eaten from the Continental Bakery is amazing. Their paczkis are absolutely incredible, but you can only get them around Mardi Gras. Never have tried their Edelweis but I sure will now.

An amuse of a yummy little coffee cake, I don't know what it was it had vanished inside of my stomach and then I forgot to ask. Giant Croissant stuffed with an organic scrambled egg, vegetarian sausage patty, swiss. A side of organic black beans, huge mixed green salad, fresh OJ, fruit cup, & half of a slab of Red Velvet Cake.

Tweet Let's Eat
5020 N. Sheridan Road
773.728.5576
Open 6 days a week (Closed Tuesday's) from 9am-3 pm
Dinner on Friday's from 5:30 pm- 9:30 pm
http://www.tweet.biz/index.html

Nhua Lan #5 Bahn Mi

Juicy pork belly. funky pate, bite of jalapenos, crisp french roll.


Delectable.

kafein wrote:Nhua Lan #5 Bahn Mi

Juicy pork belly. funky pate, bite of jalapenos, crisp french roll.


Delectable.

That's my favorite banh mi in the city.

Jackie's Chocolate Bag at Red Light.

I just got the meat grinder attachment for my kitchenaid and I made sausage for the first time this weekend, I think I may be giving Hot Doug's some competition in the near future. I made my version of an uber garlic dog: chianti and garlic pork sausage topped with garlic aioli and some Wisconsin garlic cheddar cheese that I picked up from Green City on Saturday.

The sweatbreads at El Nandu. This is one of the finest grilled meats I've encountered, anywhere (and that includes Buenos Aires and Montevideo). Bonus, the "appetizer" portion plus two empanadas is "dinner" by any other definition.

Oh, and another interesting data point: El Nandu has started labeling the empanadas. Moto-style, they are using edible ink to stencil the contents of the individual empanadas right there on the wrapper in clear, block lettering. A great idea, expecially when you've ordered a basketful of them.

I teach an eastern nutrition class at Pacific College of Oriental Medicine. Each student must bring in a dish and give a break down of it in terms of eastern nutritional theory. One student is married to a Japanese woman and they brought in many dishes, my favorite being burdock root sauteed in sugar and soy sauce. Smokey, sweet and salty. I loved it.

Had dinner with a few people at Glenn's Diner last night. My order of the arctic char diablo was okay, but a bite of the Kijiki "Bob" Marlin, panfried with jerk seasonings and served with a coconut/pineapple/rum sauce was just awesome. The sauce was just a bit oversweet, but what a really, really good piece of fish. Crabcakes were pretty good as well, but I'm considering going back just to get another full crack at that marlin.

Soft Boiled wrote:I teach an eastern nutrition class at Pacific College of Oriental Medicine. Each student must bring in a dish and give a break down of it in terms of eastern nutritional theory. One student is married to a Japanese woman and they brought in many dishes, my favorite being burdock root sauteed in sugar and soy sauce. Smokey, sweet and salty. I loved it.

We ate the shit out of the burdock root in our Fresh Picks box last winter. Mostly we cut it into paper-thin strips with a potato peeler, then sauteeing with a little olive oil and a dash of salt. Delicious.

A riff on this Epicurious recipe: Bacon and shallot Yaki Onigiri topped with a poached egg, scallion, and chive blossom - with a side of fruit and very nice from-frozen mini Channa Dal samosas (from Fresh Farms.)

Mhays,

Did you yaki the onigiri in butter (as called for)? I tend to like the traditional version.

If I had run across that recipe, I woulda kept on walking, but now I'm curious about your implementation and what made it so good.

For your listening pleasure, an onigiri song:

[quote=justbento.com]Sung to the tune of My Darling Clementine:

O-nigiri, o-nigiri o-nigiri kudasai
Cho oishii, asa gohan o-nigiri tabetai[/quote]

link

gastro gnome wrote:Did you yaki the onigiri in butter (as called for)?

Come on, there's kids reading this.