Are you envious of our Lamb Awesomeness? Was your New Year’s Resolution to get more Lean Protein in your diet? Or do you just like looking at nice food photos?

Well, you are in luck! The nice people at the Tri-Lamb Group who have been hooking us up with lamb, sent a bunch of extra copies of their Lamb Cookbook. If you would like a copy, and you live in the US, send me an email at: luke@cookography.com with your address. (Well those went quick! Thanks for all the interest. Apparently there are a lot of you out there even though you don’t leave comments :)

Live outside the US or are in too much suspense to wait? You are in luck! They have a PDF copy online you can download.

One dish which I really enjoyed in Taipei was xiaolongbao. They dumplings, but very much unlike dumplings you would usually find in the States. The filling in the dumpling is made with an aspic, gelatinous soup, that turn into liquid when cooked. The end results is a dumpling that is magically filled with soup.

Din Tai Fong is most the most well know place to get them in Taipei. It is also very popular and has turned into an international chain that even has locations in the US. I ended up going 3 times and managed to eat at a different location each time.

The dumplings are served in a bamboo steamer and come out piping hot. To eat a dumpling, you first dip it in a combo of black vinegar and ginger, then poke holes in it to vent the steam and finally slurp up the yummy soup before eating the dumpling.

If anyone knows a place to get xiaolongbao in the DC area, let me know!

While I was out in San Francisco last month, I was able to get brunch at Blue Bottle Coffee. They are very persnickety about brewing coffee and make a pretty mean brunch too. Since I was luckily on East Standard Baby time, I got there right as the started serving food and right before the lines started forming.

While they can do extra fancy espresso drinks from their human powered, lever driven machine, the true jewels are there cold brew and vacuum pot machines. Both of these beauties were imported from Japan and are a marvel of persnicketiness.

The cold brew machine is similar to method we use to make iced coffee. However, instead of letting the grounds and coffee to sit, they slowly let the water drip through the grounds. Very slowly. And precisely I should add, roughly 88 drops per minute. The result is a very strong cup of coffee that is full of flavor without much acidity. It doesn’t have the cardboard taste that the coffee we cold brew sometimes does, but I am sure they are using better coffee than Folger’s.

Their other amazing machine is a set of halogen powered vacuum pots. Vacuum pots are nothing new, but they are sort of finicky and not very common. The pot has two bulbs, connected in the middle with a valve. There is water in the bottom bulb and coffee in the top. When you heat the water filled bulb, it boils and expands up to the top bulb mixing with the grounds. You then take it off the heat; the lower bulb begins to cool creating a vacuum and sucking the coffee back through a filter. The standard pot goes for about $40 or so, and gets heated on the stove. The Blue Bottle folks use the same style pot, except they heat theirs with a $20,000 computer controlled, halogen heat lamp. I didn’t get a cup of this style because: I already had a cup and become twitchy with two and the price wasn’t listed, which scared me.

One of the advantages of going on the weekend is that they serve breakfast. They only have 6 or so dishes, but they all sounded great. I went with the poached eggs, served over braised greens and a catalan style tomato sauce. I like my eggs a little runnier than they made them, but they were awesome mixed with greens and sauce. By the time I was heading out, the caffeine was just kicking into high gear and the line was out the door.

Last week I was fortunate enough to attend a reception for the Fort Barnard Community Garden in Arlington Virginia. The garden works to contribute fresh produce to the Arlington Food Assistance Center, which helps needy families in the county. They have dedicate a plot to growing produce specifically for the center. Gardeners are also participating in the Plant a Row program, where they set aside a portion of there plot and grow seeds provided by the center. In total, the Fort Barnard garden donated over 700 pounds of fresh produce. This is a very important contribution because the Assistance Center mostly receives canned and packaged food and the fresh vegetables help provide a more balanced diet. Even cooler still, they have 3 beehives in their garden. I am jealous!

Allison Kindler discussing the garden

The Fort Barnard Garden was being recognized through the Giving Through Growing program from Woodbridge wines by Robert Mondavi. The program is run in partnership with the American Community Gardening Association and looks raise awareness and interest in gardening. As part of the program they are highlighting Community Garden Hereos and Allison Kindler, the chief gardener at Fort Barnard, was chosen as one of four being recognized across the country. As part of the recognition, Woodbridge is providing funding to improve the garden. It is being used to create raised beds, which make it easier to practice “square foot” gardening, and also purchase compost tumblers, making it a little easier to compost gardening waste. While Allison was identified as the spokesperson, it was clear that there was a real community around their garden and many people had contributed to make it the amazing place it was.

Quite the spread!

Build your own Crepe

The reception featured vegetables from served up as crudite along with a nice selection cheese and delicious cured meats. It was held at the Zola Wine Kitchen, which if you haven’t been is a great place to grab lunch. They have a rotating lunch special and a variety of sandwiches. For the reception they also have a “Build Your Own Crepe” station where you got to choose various savory items to add to your crepe. I had flashbacks to the make your own omelet bar they had in college… ahh the memories! This was all accompanied by wine of course.

Candice explaining the Giving Through Growing program

Candice Kumai is the “Ambassador” for the Giving Through Growing program. She was on the first season of Top Chef and currently has own show and just released her own cookbook. In addition to learning more about the Fort Barnard garden and the Program, I also learned that I probably don’t have what it takes to be on TV. Candice was amazing personable, relatable and fun, and made it seem like she had known everyone forever. She was also amazingly good at remembering names, something I am incapable of. I think I will stick with the blogging since it requires little social interaction. There are a number of her recipes up on the Giving Through Growing website, along with write-ups of the other Garden Heroes.

Yea Wine!

The crew from Fort Barnard

In the days of yore, back when we were living in the Cleveland Park neighborhood of DC, one of the weekend highlights was getting a freshly made donut from Amernick bakery. The bakery was run by Ann Amernick, the pastry chef at Palena and a former White House pastry chef. Every Saturday around 11am, someone would carry over a tray of donuts. They were fresh out of the fryers at Palena and still hot. In that 3 block jounry, these lemony scented morsels would attract a literal following. Unfortunately, Amernicks closed in 2004 and Ann moved back to Baltimore.

Luckily however, Palena recently expanded, taking over the store front next door and turning into a market and expanding their cafe. The Market portion just opened and they are serving donuts again. I was in the neighborhood after a visit to the zoo with Elena and perhaps got a donut from what may have been one of the first batches to be sold, right as they were bringing it out.

Now it may seem obsessive that I have spent two paragraphs talking about donuts, but they are really good. They are yeast donuts, so they are nice and fluffy, coated with a lemony glaze. Although it has been 7 years, I can definitely say they are competitive with the ones that they used to serve at Amernicks and well worth the trip. I originally only got one, but finished before going only half a block, so I had to go back for a second.

The Market also sells baked goods and treats, all favorites of Frank Ruta.

Palena | 3529 Connecticut Avenue NW Washington, D.C. 20008 | P 202 537 9250

Eating lunch from a food truck in DC can be a little bit of an opportunistic venture. Unlike other cities like Portland where the carts pick a spot and stay, the food trucks in DC roam around the city, popping up at a new spot every day. While this can make it a little challenging to make future plans it does lead to a lot of fun surprises. You can track where the truck are using twitter. PORCs hashtag is: @porcmobile

I had one of these fun surprises when I spotted the PORC truck parked near my work. PORC stands for purveyors of rolling cuisine. They serve up some tasty BBQ. When I stopped by they had two great sounding meat mains, a pulled pork sandwich and a beef brisket sloppy Joe. While both sounded great, I went with the pork, simply because it was the most popular… The masses cant be wrong. I also went with the PORC sauce on the sandwich, which is made with the extra yummy, but perhaps not so healthy, drippings from the roast pork.

Since this was a chance encounter I had to get some sides… Who knows when this would be in my hood again?!? I went with the beans, made with a bit of sausage and a peanut butter truffle on a stick. Both were great. I could have had a whole cup of beans as a meal. If you see them around, give them a try. If you don’t, then track them down!

Coke is just starting to roll out the machine across the country. I came across this one at the BGR Burger place in Dupont. I tried out three different concoctions before crying mercy: Diet Orange Fanta, Diet Pibbs Extra and Rasberry Minute Maid Light. I am a fan of diet, caffeine-free sodas, which are sometimes hard to come by in restaurants. Thanks to this machine, there are tons of choices… probably 20 or more.

I haven’t been able to find any detailed information on what exactly gets mixed together to make the drinks. I did find that the different concentrates are stored in 48oz containers. the machine is about the size of a large fridge, so there clearly isn’t enough room for a different container for each flavor. My guess is that they have base flavors: sprite, barqs, coke, pibbs… etc. To that they mix a sweetening syrup, either Diet or Corn Syrup. Next, I think they add in flavorings, like raspberry, cherry or vanilla.  Of course, this is just my humble guessing. If you know more, please enlighten us in the comments!

The Coke Freestyle reminds me a lot of the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta. We visited it a couple of years. We are not rabid Coke fans, but it was right across from the aquarium, which is awesome.  A the end of the tour they have 100s of different soda taps where you can try different varieties from around the world.

Unlike the Coke Freestyle, these are not simply weird combos of flavors (ie Orange Lemonade), but a whole ton of unique flavors. I remember there was a carrot flavored soda from Japan that was actually pretty good. As you can see, I was very enthusiastic about it. However there were a bunch of flavors that were pretty bad and promptly dumped. That was actually one of the things which caused Coke to redesign the beta Freestyle machines… people were doing a lot of tasting and dumping and the overflow container keep getting full.

Let us know if you find a Freestyle machine and what you favorite flavor is!

When we visit Massachusetts, we always try to stop by some of the great bakeries there. For some reason there aren’t that many places to get great bread in DC. I am sure some people are going to chime in about Marvelous Market, Firehook, or Le Pain Quandant, and they do turn out decent breads. However, both the bread and stores lack character, and end up being facsimiles of something genuine.

The bakeries we visit in MA are the real deal though, unique establishments turning out some signature bread. The two bakeries we usually go to are on opposite ends of the state, and two very different businesses.

Hi-Rise Bread Company is located in Cambridge, MA and serves fresh bread, sandwiches and treats from the bakery cafe. The seating area is near the ovens, so you can see the bakers at work. The have a wide range of breads, from boules, to baguettes, and loaves; in all kinds of varieties. They have number of creative and delicious sandwiches served on freshly baked bread. I got a Cubano sandwich, last time we visited and it was one of the best I have had. Hi-Rise is basically what Panera wishes it could be. Don’t forget to try some of their baked goods, their whoopie pies are extra tasty.

Hi-Rise is plenty popular, but I ended up finding out about them after baking their recipe for corn bread from the Artisan Baking book, by Maggie Glezer. Instead of being a flat, cake like cornbread, their recipe results in a light and fluffy loaf, perfect for sandwiches. It also has you add in corn kernels, for extra corny goodness.

Hungry Ghost Bread in Northampton, MA is a very different place. They are focused solely on bread. Inside their bakery there is no cute artwork, dainty cafe tables or any sort of cafe setting. Instead, their space is filled with a large, wood fired oven, a walk-in for retarding the dough overnight, and a cooling rack for the bread. Everything else is secondary to the baking of bread… and the bread they create is worth this devotion. All of the bread is baked free form without pans, and is usually shaped into boules. They bake a number of varieties which rotate during the week. We were lucky enough to get a loaf of wild rice, cranberry bread, which they only bake during the holidays.

In the past the have tried sourcing local wheat for their breads and some of my parents’ friends grew a patch of wheat for them. Their Twitter and Facebook pages are worth checking out, especially during the holidays when they post on what bread is available.

Both of these places are miles better than what we have in DC and it is really a treat to stop by when we visit. It would be awesome if bread with this much character became the next trend after burger joints, FroYo and cupcakes. One can only hope!

I just checked out their Twitter feed and it looks like our local PBS station was also filming:

eatwonky EatWonky, Poutine

Wow, big news day! CBC and WETA in tha house with us and @dcpietruck at Farragut Square!

posted 12:08 p.m. December 30, 2010

Quick quality of life test for the city you live in: “How different mobile French Fry Trucks do you have?”

If your answer is less than 2… think about moving to Washington, DC. We have two different options for getting french fries on the go, and more are coming soon I am sure. I know I promised to pick the best, but that is tough to do and I am lazy. Instead I will give you different scenarios and let you know which truck would be most appropriate.

First, a brief overview of the two different options. Fry Captain is an artisnal fry producer. You can have you choice of fancy salt, such as garlic salt, and sauces like truffled mayo. Something to truly differentiates them is that you can opt to have your fries, fried in duck fat!

Eat Wonky doesn’t bother with any of these pretenses, they get right to the point… and that point is Poutine, the best thing to come out of Canada, except for that robotic arm they have on the shuttle. Poutine is a serving of fries, covered in cheese curds and smothered in gravy. Cheese curds, for the uninitiated, is really young cheese that isn’t formed into a block. When it is fresh, it squeaks, and Wonky’s squeaks like no ones business. The fries they serve aren’t as sophisticated as Fry Captain’s, but are still crunchy and packed with lots of potato flavor.

So now that you know the players, lets get down to the ideal scenarios:

Snack prior to drinking copious amounts of alcohol: Fry Captian

Snack after drinking copious amounts of alcohol: Eat Wonky

Use of French Fries to impress a girl: Fry Captain

Use of French Fries to impress a Canadian girl: Eat Wonky

Most expensive food truck: Red Hook Lobster Truck

Funnest food truck because of the high mustache ratio: Fojol Bros

You can’t plan an adventure… however, sometimes a half-baked idea and a lack of planning can lead to adventure. Take, for example, the idea of having a pastrami crawl across New York city, with a goal of trying to sample as many unique preparations as possible. This is clearly not the most refined concept… and if it was thrown together a couple of days beforehand, based upon a page torn from a magazine, it would have to lead to some sort of adventure, right?

I grew up with Nick and Ethan. Nick lives in New York city, I live down in DC and Ethan lives in Seattle. However Ethan is in NYC doing an internship, meaning that if I shipped up we could have a little reunion. While it would be great to simply hang out, Nick happened to come across an article New York Magazine listing 3 different, innovative versions of the pastrami sandwich. Nick had a minor obsession with pastrami in high school, that was only briefly interrupted while he dabbled in vegetarianism.

So with a goal in mind, all we had to do was to completely avoid any advance planning. Luckily this comes natrually to all of us and it present no challenge. I was able to take a bus from U Street , a few blocks from out place in DC, directly to Brooklyn, where I met up with Nick. Know It Express is a great bus line, anyone heading between DC and New York should give them a try. Going straight to Brooklyn made things quick and painless. The Wi-Fi didn’t hurt either.

Nick is a most awesome photographer and we swung by his studio in Brooklyn, where I helped him setup for a shoot. If anyone out there is looking for some great food or product photography, give him a shout; especially all you high end-magazines… I am sure you are reading Cookography. If anyone does, I will post the photos here on Cookography, I am sure that is enticing!

In order to make sure we had enough energy for the cross-city tour, we stopped for tacos at Loading Dock Tacos on the way to his studio. I went for the carnitas tacos and was not disappointed. Once we got to his studio, we got to work setting up a set. He was trying to capture cool splashes. My “job” was to drop coins into a glass while standing above it on a ladder. I think it could serve as the basis for a fun drinking game.

Once we got the shot all setup we headed out for the first stop on the tour, Momofuku Milk Bar. Ethan was busy toiling away and missed out on this stop. Milk Bar is the latest in David Chang’s New York empire. All of his place are rather hot. We were reminded of this by a rather douchie guy in front of us who directly asked for an order of all of the trendy items.

Milk Bar has a random smattering of desserts, shakes, rolls and buns; all uniquely themed. Perhaps the most unique is Cereal Milk. It is essentially cereal blended with milk and sugar. Clearly a sound foundation for night of constant eating, or at least that is what Nick thought when he ordered a large bottle of Corn Flake Cereal Milk. It isn’t. My poorly considered decision was ordering a slice of Crack Pie, which is essentially butter and sugar.

The reason we went to Milk Bar was to get their Pastrami & Rye Croissant. It is a flakey croissant, made with a rye dough, stuff with pastrami, sauerkraut and a thousand island dressing. Everything there seems to be prepackaged, but made rather recently. The sandwich is definitely a success. It has all the flavor of a classic rueben, but it packaged up in hot pocket style convenience. All of the greasy yumminess of the pastrami and croissant combine to make a rather heavy meal though. Add in a little Corn Flake Milk and some Crack Pie and began seeing a potential flaw in our grand plan. We full bellies, we left Milk Bar and vowed to be much more sensible at out next stop and split a sandwich.

Before heading on to our next destination, Food Parc’s RedFarm Stand, we had to meet-up with Ethan. After a bit of prodding we were able convert him from his state of usefullness to our cause. RedFarm Stand is part of a modern food court inside a Kimpton hotel. It opens onto a courtyard with a really large TV. The night we were there they had a film showing. Anyhow, the reason we went to RedFarm Stand is becuase they have a pastrami eggroll. Intreguing, isn’t it? We wiser and just got a single roll to split. After we figured out their futurisitic ordering system we were sitting in front of some deep fried pastrami goodness. Instead of following the rueben flavor profile, they added in asparagus, which ended up being a great addition. The asparagus, in addition to lightening out the flavor, makes you feel a little healthier because you see it bit of green in the middle of a deep fried meat treat.

So far the crawl had been a stunning success. We managed to grab two of the last three croissants at Milk Bar, and figured out the ordering system at RedFarm Stand. However our luck was about to take a turn for the worse… and send us in some unplanned directions.

The next stop in our tour was No. 7 Sub for their smoked-meat sub. This sub is piled with meat from Mile End Deli (more on this later), Chinese mustard, ruffles potato chips and litchis seasoned with ginger and chili peppers. It is just around the corner from RedFarm Stand, and supposedly open til 6, however when we got there the lights were out and no one was home. After asking around we found out that they had run out of bread. Ugh!

With things spiraling out of control, we clearly needed to take a break. We headed over to the Astor Center for some cocktail and food sampling. More on that in another post, but suffice to say we left recharged and reenergized, and really full.

Our next stop was away from reinvented fare and back to the basics… Katz’s Delicatessens. Katz’s is a traditional Jewish New York deli. Whether it is the best or not, is for the New Yorkers to argue, all I know is that it is pretty damn good. I am going to guess that there are and were better than Katz’s, but it has survived and transitioned from traditional to a tradition. They smoke their own pastrami and hand carve it. The slices are just the right thickness and it is nice and lean. Katz’s customers are a lively mix of tourists and regulars, all of them salty.

When you walk in everyone has to get a ticket. When you order, they mark down what you got and you pay when you leave. Having just gorged ourselves during intermission, we walked in planning on just splitting a single pastrami sandwich. Ethan secured us a table and Nick and I waited in line, marveling at the countermen’s surgical slicing precision. We will never know if it was the intoxicating smell of smoked meat or spirit of the crawl taking over, but we ended up with 3 sandwiches instead of one; 2 pastrami and a hard salami. The pastrami was spectacular, meaty, yet tender, with no gnarly, fatty bits. The pickles it comes with, a mix of half and full sours, were pretty good in their own right.

We amazingly finished everything except half a salami sandwich. It would later turn out that this half of sandwich was the Sandwich Half of Destiny. It was about 5 blocks after leaving Katz’s that the Half’s destiny called. It was there that we realized we had left it on the table. The trot back to retrieve it set in motion a series of events that would forever change The Crawl.

After retrieving the Half (of Destiny) we returned to our plan of walking across the Williamsburg bridge towards Ethan’s house and a bar called Dram that he wanted to check out. Just before we started across the bridge Ethan checked his phone and saw a text from Nick’s wife saying he had left his phone at Katz’s. We were too far and too lazy to walk all the way back so we got a cab. While we waited in the cab, Nick jumped out and got his phone. Due to some one-way streets the cab was only able to get us 2 blocks from the entrance to the bridge.

As we walked the 2 blocks to rejoin our original course we came across our destiny, the acclaimed restaurant WD-50. As further proof of this being our destiny, we were quickly seated at a table in the bar area on a busy Friday night… and they had corned duck, on a rye crisp, with purple mustard, and horseradish cream on the menu. As everyone knows, corned meat is pastrami’s best friend. It was quite splendorous. Of course not wanting to shirk our destiny, we also order the veal brisket, which comes with fried ricotta, honey dew, and black olive .

Had we not left the Half of Destiny we would have been half way across the bridge before we found out we had also forgotten Nick’s phone. Without our complete forgetfulness and utter lack of planning we would have never wandered into WD-50. Destiny, I say! Further proof of this is that the bar had Glen Breton Rare… a Single Malt Whiskey from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. The very same distillery Carolyn and I visited and stayed when we toured Cape Breton.

Remember, about 1000 words ago, when I used some foreshadowing around Mile End deli, well that is because they end up being the final stop of the night. They are a Montreal Style Jewish Deli, serving their taking on smoked meats. What that actually means? I have no clue. That is because even though the Google auto-restuarant summary assured us that it was open til 11, it in fact closed at 10. Montreal Meat will forever remain a mystery.

Despite this anti-clamatic ending, The Great NYC Pastrami Crawl was a huge success. A couple of old friends got to tromp around New York, sampling a variety of meat, leaving no sandwich half or cell-phone behind. To toast our success we finished up at Dram. The wood-paneling makes the place look sort of like a sauna, they serve delicious cocktails and they have a kayak hanging over the bar. Hurrah!

One of the challenges with having a condo in the city is finding a way to grill. This becomes very apparent on grill centric holidays like Memorial & Labor Day. Luckily for DCiates like us, Cafe Saint Ex come to the rescue. On Memorial day they have a Chili Cook-off and on Labor day they had a pig roast. Both of these are a great way to get outside, eat some good food and drink a little beer… or lemonade, they make a mean lemonade.

For the Chili Cook-off the staff at Saint Ex and Bar Pilar whip up batches of chili, ranging from classic to the more exotic including Kobe Beef. You can opt for 5 samples or one large bowl. Don’t forget the lemonade! We have made it the last 2 years and it has been a great way to spend the holiday.

We went to the Pig Roast for the first time yesterday. They shut down the block and roasted up a 400lb pig right there. They had pulled pork sandwiches, slaw, a great potato salad and a number of different sauces to try… and of course that great lemonade! I even got a piece of the skin to try… it was not to edible, hard as rock.

All of these events are very kid friendly and while we felt a little bit like asses for pushing our stroller around, we blended right in with everyone else doing the same thing.

If anyone from Saint Ex reads, thanks hosting, we had an awesome time! Also… I have “acquired” a Saint Ex pint glass. It was my favorite glass, but somehow broke in the dishwasher. Any chance you have them for sale?

You’ll notice that we haven’t said anything about dessert. That is because we always head over to Pitango Gelato afterwards. While the cookies did look tempting, they are no competition for gelato. Elena liked the Coconut much more than the Spicy Chocolate.

Considering I went to college in Hartford, CT it is crazy that it took 10 years and a wedding on the CT coast to get me to try some real New Haven pizza. I wish I had tried to sooner, when it would have been a short road trip away.

New Haven style pizza, refereed to as apizza (pronounced /əˈbiːts/ ah-Beetz) if you actually from there, is similar to Neapolitan style pizza and reflects the areas Italian heritage. The pizza is baked in brick, coal fired oven resulting in crisp crust and slightly charred on top.

While there are lots good places to get pizza… sorry, apizza, there are two places that are considered to be the originals, atleast by tourists: Pepe’s and Sally’s. We gave Pepe’s a try and ended up getting two pies. One was a pepperoni and the other is a style popular up there, a white pizza with clams and lots of garlic. Clams on a pizza may sound a little crazy, but they were nice and fresh, and cooked perfectly so they were tender. There is no tomatoes or mozzarella cheese, instead just a grating of cheese. The story behind the pizza is that it came to be because Frank Pepe was allergic to both cheese and tomatoes… that story comes from Wikipedia, so take it with a grain of salt.

Needless to say, the pizza was amazingly good. The pies were not perfect circles, but instead nice, bubbly ovals, with a random protuberance or two. As you can tell, we did a good job of eating and earned desert privileges… cannolis from the Italian pastry shop down the street.

Another great place we tried while up there was The Place in Guilford, CT. It is an open-air clambake. You can sit on tree stump or picnic tables under a tent. We tried BBQ Chicken, corn on the cob, and shrimp… all of it cooked over a large grill a couple feet away.

Luckily for us there is a great “New Haven Style” apizza place around the corner, Pete’s Apizza. They turn out a great pie, not quite as good as the originals, but some of the best in DC. I think the originals use a lot more olive oil, either in the dough or drizzled on top. As you can see from the photos way up above, they are pretty greasy, in a good way of course! Another part of the charm of the originals is that they have been doing this for such a long time. The history is literally baked into the walls. Pete’s is in a condo building, and is clean. Cleanliness is a good thing in a restaurant, but a gently worn restaurant has character.

Pete’s has a great tip for reheating pizza right on the box. Heat the pizza in a pan over medium heat, with a lid on. I used my cast iron pan and a random lid and it worked great. The crust stayed crisp and the cheese got melty. My tip is to make sure you keep an eye on it or else the crust with get really charred. Trust me.

So Saturday night, I was ideally staring out the window, ponder what to make for dinner… when I spotted the Red Hook Lobster truck! They are the latest Truck in the DC food cart scene, serving up delicious Lobster & Shrimp rolls. I rushed over to Twitter to find their destination (hashtag = @redhooklobster ) and learned that they were going to be landing in Adams Morgan in 10 minutes. After a bit of frantic page refreshes, I got their final location and ran over, camera in hand… only to find myself at the back of a very long line.

Somehow in the time it took me to get around the corner, a line about 50 people deep had formed. Luckily it was moving, and a very motivational Wendy from the Truck kept things light hearted. We learned that they have two styles of lobster rolls. The first is a traditional Maine style roll, with chunks of lobster lightly dressed in a house-made lemon mayo and served cold. The other is a Connecticut style roll, where the lobster quickly sautéed and dished up warm with a butter sauce. Most importantly, both are served in a authentic, New England style, top-split bun from JJ Nissen, which is lightly buttered and toasted. I also unfortunately learned that they were all out of whoopie pies, which in my opinion justifies a trip back sometime.

It took about 30 minutes of waiting to get to the front of the line. I got a pair of traditional lobster rolls, for Carolyn and myself, and a bag of Cape Cod chips. We ate out on a stoop, which is just in range of the baby monitor, and had some watermelon. Take it from a couple of New Englanders, that is some lobster and a great way to spend a Saturday night. My photo even made it up on to their Facebook page!

We live in Adams Morgan in Washington, DC. It is a neighborhood better known for its bars than its restaurants. It does have one culinary distinction, the jumbo slice; which is a really large slice of pizza. Right now you are probably saying, “Hah, I have had a large slice of pizza”. Truth is though, you haven’t… these are really big slices, big enough to satisfy any drunk hunger. The pan they use to bake these monster pies is 3 feet wide.

Drunkenness generally goes hand in hand with a jumbo slice. However it is not something Carolyn and I have been doing much since Elena. Eating pizza on the other is something we are doing almost weekly. After a bit though you can hit a bit of a pizza rut though. In an attempt to spice things up we thought we would give jumbo slice a try… sober!

There is some debate on who on 18th Street has the best jumbo slice. The City Paper and the Travel Channel have both looked into it. While it was cool to see Adams Morgan on TV, the Travel Channel show Food Wars seems to have the most annoying format possible. It is a 30 minute show that looks to settle an outstanding debate in the food world; for instance, which Jumbo Slice is better. The show seems to think it is necessary to recap what happened before the commercial break, and there were a lot of commercial breaks. I guess this is what you are forced to do when you have try and stretch a single taste test into a half-hour show. So, instead of trusting main stream media we decided to find out for ourselves.

There are two main purveyors of jumbo slice on 18th Street: Pizza Mart and the aptly named Jumbo Slice. We got a slice from each and split them. I setup a blind test so we could sample the pizza without being influenced by either of their glitzy ad campaigns.

Slice 1:

• Sweet Tomatoey sauce
• Thicker cheese
• Extra cheesy flavor in the cheese

Slice 2:

• A little tangy
• A more pleasing pizza taste

Both slice started out pretty good, but by the time I got towards the end of the slice #2 remained enjoyable while the other got a little boring. That said, it is nothing a little inebriation won’t solve.

Slice #2 was from Pizza Mart, which gets the win for Flavor. However Jumbo Slice’s slice was also good, so it all depends where on 18th Street you are. The crowd outside Jumbo Slice is always a little rowdier which makes for great people watching. Factor that in and I think Jumbo Slice might win for Flava’.

(This either makes Elena look small or the Jumbo slice look huge)

For us, the best part of traveling is checking out local restaurants. On a recent work trip to Portland, OR, which Luke tagged along on for fun, we found some great restaurants and ate some really good food!

Let’s start with breakfast. Obviously, there is Voodoo Doughnuts. Of the 20 or so different crazy flavors, we tried several: Bubble Gum (REALLY tasted like bubble gum!), Bacon (with maple glaze…tasted like pancakes with syrup and bacon), Capt’n Crunch (ultra sugary), and Old Fashion with maple glaze. It was quite an experience! On the less sugary side, Pazzo Bakery made a delicious brioche roll. Order two because one won’t be enough!

Of course you will need something to wash down that doughnut. One block from Voodoo is Stumptown Coffee Roasters. It is great place to grab a seat and a cup and watch a mix of office workers, tourists and Portland-ites stream through. Most importantly they make a great cup of coffee.

Saint Honore Boulangerie has delicious food for breakfast, lunch or snack. We stopped in for lunch and had a prosciutto sandwich. I wish there had been time to try all their breads and pastries…they looked amazing! One afternoon we went to Southpark for lunch. They had a great lunch deal of 1/2 sandwich, soup or salad, and a cookie for under $10! Won’t find that in DC! I tried the smoked pork loin sandwich and it was delicious!

We were fortunate to have two amazing dinners at two of Portland’s top restaurants, both of which specialized in local, organic food and were beautiful settings. The first, Veritable Quandry Restaurant was right on the water and close to City Hall. Apparently it’s one of Portland’s “power” restaurants. The roasted wild mushroom and baby spinach salad was amazing, as was the NY strip steak with grilled Abalone mushrooms and black truffle butter. Definitely one of my favorite meals of 2009.

The last night we dined at Urban Farmer in the “pickle room,” surrounded by jars of pickled everything. It was pretty cool. Again, the food was amazing. I have never had oysters as good as they were here. Main course was Sweet Briar Farms pig with blue cheese, arugula and figs. Another favorite meal!

Portland has tons of food carts! We didn’t have time to do any sampling, but there are tons of options. In DC carts mostly sell either hot dogs or…hot dogs. In Portland they seem to have every cuisine available.

With all this food we needed to do something to exercise. Luckily Luke found Ground Kontrol, an arcade filled with vintage arcade games and pinball machines. After 5 pm they even serve beer. Best workout ever!

Pasta Puttanesca is one of our favorite pasta dishes. It’s basically our “go-to” pasta recipe. The other day we were getting ready to make it and went to cookography to look up the recipe, only to discover that we’ve never posted it! A serious oversight on our part!

Recently, the Washington Post did a great article on pastas and sauces and put together a handy chart for pairing different pasta shapes with the appropriate sauces.

Normally we buy Barilla Plus multi-grain pasta, but decided to spice it up a bit and went for a fun shape. We bought Campanelle, which means “bellflowers” in Italian and has fluted edges and a hollow center–perfect for capturing the puttanesca sauce. In general, short sturdy shapes with hollows and ridges, such as rigatoni, penne and tortiglioni, work well with robust, chunky sauces and rich cream sauces.

“Ga-wow, this is the most amazing dinner ever!” – Luke, pretending to be Jose Andres

I was in LA for work this weekend and I got to check out Jose Andres’s newest restaurant, The Bazaar, which is in a brand new hotel called SLS. It was truly an amazing and entertaining experience. I wasn’t the only one having fun, everyone there seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Dinning these days seems to be an exercise in formality, a show that goes through the motions without anyone enjoying it. Amuse bouches are no longer fun surprises, but are expected if you go someplace “new and innovative.” Dining is not normally a shared experience, one that transcends the divide of tables. Each table ends up being an island of isolation.

None of this is the case at The Bazaar. Eating there ends up being an experience shared by all diners. I sat at the tapas bar for dinner, and the people sitting next to me started telling me how much amazed they were with the whole experience. Carolyn and I first got to experience something similar when we ate the Jose’s MiniBar, which is a six-seat bar with a fixed menu and all the food prepared right before you. Everyone at the bar eats the same food at the same time–some of it interesting and unusual and all of it delicious. The whole group of strangers are all trying something new for the first time, together. The Bazaar manages to capture this experience and expand it to the whole restaurant.

The food is complemented by a whimsical interior design that looks trendy without being at all pretentious. I ate in the bar area of Rojo, which has dark wood, chalkboards with Picasso-like drawings, and low hanging lights. I had dessert in the Patisserie area, which resembles something out of Marie Antoinette or a scene from Alice in Wonderland. Everything seems enthusiastic and over sized, much like Jose’s hand gestures and way of speaking. It all works, and none of it seems out of place.

The tapas served in the Rojo y Blanco section pull from Jose Andres other restaurants. A large number of the traditional tapas come from the menu at Jaleo. A tzatziki and flatbread tapa would fit right in at Zatinya and a number of ceviche and latin dishes seem to be influenced by Cafe Alantico and Oyamel.

Ok, enough rambling…on to the food!

• The Best Gin and Tonic – Mine was made with Hendrick’s gin and Fever Tree Tonic. What made this fun is that they added aromatics, some sort of blossom, juniper berries and a cool round, extra large ice cube. “Best” is a strong statement, but this was a strong drink and I think it stands up to the claim.
• Olives Two Ways – This was a two part dish. The first part was a traditional serving of olives, each stuffed with roasted pepper, a fillet of anchovy and topped with orange zest and micro basil. All of this is drizzled with olive oil. The combination is sweet, salty and savory, all at the same time.
  The second part are bubbles of olively goodness, with a liquid center. The center is some sort of olive and olive oil puree. It is surprising at first, but yummy. They are served out of a glass “olive” jar on to a spoon.
• “Miso” Linguini – This is a fun dish. Miso soup has some sort of gelatin added to it, then it is ladled out into a thin layer to harden. The “soup” is then cut into thin noodles and topped with fish eggs. The flavor doesn’t pop, but it is a lot of fun.

• Philly Cheese steak – This was a very fun dish. It is pretty much an inside out cheese steak. The first layer is very thinly sliced and very rare wagyu beef. The beef is wrapped around “air bread” which seems to be a hollow cracker, bread-like thing. The air bread is filled with a warm and gooey cheese that puts cheese wiz to shame. This dish walks the fine line between meathead and art house sophistic, and does it amazing well.
• Tortilla Reinvented – This was one of my favorite dishes, it is simply amazing. It is a traditional tortilla, reimagined. The base is a soft boiled quail egg yolk. It is topped with a foam made from potatoes, all of which is topped with little potato crunchies. It may sound a little weird, but it all worked together so well. This dish is both savory and delicate at the same time. It was also only $3, I wish I could get one every morning instead of a cup of coffee.
• Tuna Roll – Ceviched tuna, wrapped with thinly sliced avocado. This may not have been my favorite dish, but it still was very good.
• Caprese Salad – This is another great dish and so much more fun than a traditional Caprese salad. It has all the makings of a regular one, but all the flavors are amped. The tomatoes are blanched and peeled and are either very flavorful or juiced with some tomato puree. They are extra tomatoey. Instead of balls of mozzarella, there were bubbles of mozzarella, little globules filled with liquid mozzarella. There were basil leaves, but they were micro basil leaves and there was pesto to really bring home the basil flavor. All of this was topped with small air bread croutons.

Some how after all of that, I was still hungry. For my final dish I ordered the Sausage with White Beans. This is one of my favorite dishes at Jaleo. At Jaleo, the dish is small sausages served on a bed of white beans. At The Bazaar it is one large, homemade white sausage served over roasted white beans. I am not sure what they do to those beans, but they are amazing. I am guessing they are cooked cassoulet style, with lots of fat, and some mushrooms thrown in for good effect. The sausage was perfectly cooked, browned on the outside, but still moist in the center.

My journey at The Bazaar was not over yet. I was escorted to the Patisserie section which looks like some weird fantasy land, but has a very cool vibe. For dessert I had the Chocolate Stick, which is chocolate mousse on top of a bed of crunchies, dipped in chocolate or something fun like that. I accompanied this with a North Coast Imperial Stout, which worked perfectly with the chocolate and the bubbles helped break up the heaviness of the desert.

We have to thank our friends at Foodbuzz for tickets to the Washington, DC International Wine and Food Festival. It was the 10th annual and, while we’ve each lived in DC for close to 10 years, neither of us had been before. The wine festival was a two day event (we went the second day) with lots of booths pouring lots of different wines. And lots of people. LOTS of people.

The sheer mass of people was the main drawback to the event. There were times you could barely walk down an isle or get close to a booth to sample the wine. There was also a rediculously long line to sample small cubes Cabot cheese. Cabot cheese is good and all, but not worth standing in a 50-person line.

Despite the excessive crowds, we were able to sample some really good wine. (Note: There are no bottles for sale at this event.) The Argentinian wines were a stand out, including the malbecs from Luigi Bosca and Don Miguel Gascon. We’ve also been into zinfandels recently and sampled two delicious ones at the festival – Alexander Valley Vineyards Redemption Zin and Klinker Brink Old Ghost Old Vine Zinfandel. The latter is from 90 year old vines.We also liked the wines from Evergreen Vineyards from Oregon; we’ll be visiting Oregon in April and hope to do a little wine tour.

To cleanse our palete, we headed over to the Dogfish Head booth and sample some Midus Touch and 60 Minute IPA. The Dogfish Head booth was right near McDonalds, which was giving out samples of the new McCafe drinks…hot chocolate, lattes etc. (DCer’s – supposedly the McDonalds on New York Ave is already serving up these cafe drinks and the one at 18th and Columbia will be soon.)

We found a few delicious bites of food to sustain us throughout the afternoon. Samples from Biscotti Goddess were yummy…and with 12 different biscotti flavors, there is something for everyone. Tillen Farms had several different samples of pickled vegetables, including green beans, asparagus and peppers. While the Pear Bureau Northwest wasn’t giving out pear samples, we did pick up a handy pear, cheese and wine selector that lets you know what kind of pear, cheese and wine go together.

The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute had salmon pasta salad to sample and recipe cards for different Alaskan seafood…can’t wait to try some of the recipes. Todd’s Dirt Seasoning Company had tasty seasons that can be used as a dry rub or to make dips. Finally, the Embassy of Chile was offering samples of an exotic Chilean fruit…Carica, which grows in the semi-desert valleys in the northern part of the country. According to the little pamphlet, Carica goes well with prosciutto and cheese. They also had some canned razor clams (in the photo above), which were really good drizzled in olive oil.

Bottom line: Some very good wine and tasty food to sample. Too many people. Probably not worth the $85 ticket price.

Salads need not be limited to just lunch or an appetizer, they can be a meal! I threw this salad together one day after work when I was feeling too lazy to make anything. It was simply some of that lettuce that comes in those plastic boxes, an avocado and a can smoked tuna in oil. As I said, this was a salad that was a meal. The best part was that it didn’t take any special planning.