DInner at Masa 14, DC

This post is a bit of a food porn post. Last Saturday night, I was invited to go to a dinner at DC's Masa 14 specially put together by their chef de cuisine, Antonio Burrell. It was amazing, specializing in pig and incorporating seasonal ingredients.

We started with 4 appetizers. First up was a plate of flash grilled shishito peppers with bonito, goat cheese, and sherry vinegar.

Next was a bowl of warm spicy chicharrones.

Third was some grilled pig's kidneys. These were fantastic. The texture of the kidney was more akin to rare beef than the usual firmness of offal. I would say this ranks as one of the best iterations of kidney I've ever had.

The final app was housemade sausage with wasabi mustard.
The first course was spectacular: a piece of deep fried housemade scrapple, softshell crab, ramps prepared three ways, and mustard. Chef said he has some leftover pig heads around, so he decided to make scrapple.

The second course was a hash made of BBQ pork cheek, a fried egg yolk on toast, and spring garlic.

The third course was ramen in pork broth topped with pork belly, ribs, cracklings and morel mushrooms. The broth was really rich with piggy flavors. Fortunately, this was not a deep bowl of "ramen" as I was already getting stuffed.






Certainly, I had room for the fourth course, a crispy pave of pork saddle with baby vegetables, carrots & corn, and peppercress. The pork skin was wonderful, but I was happy to have some veggies at this point in the meal.

Dessert was a dulce de leche ice cream with candied bacon, two ways. There was a piece of candied bacon on top and under the ice cream were bacon bits and peanuts.

1825 14th Street NW
Washington D.C.
(202)328-1414

Toki Underground, DC

Since I happened to be going to a show in DC Friday night, I decided to drop in to new ramen place, Toki Underground, which was having it's grand opening on H Street in the Atlas District.
They describe themselves as a Taiwanese ramen restaurant, but when you walk in, they greet you with "irasshaimase", the Japanese greeting. Ramen is originally a Chinese dish, and I do understand the distinction between native Taiwanese and Chinese, but a Japanese greeting in a Taiwanese place is a bit odd.
So I started with a cocktail from their fun sounding drink menu. I got the Toki Monster, made with Bulliet bourbon, pepper honey liqueur, Peat Monster scotch, and topped with a skewer of pork belly. It was a good mix pairing the warm salty fatty pork with the bourbon. They also serve Mr. Brown, a Taiwanese ice coffee, Ramune, Calpico, and Apple Sidra.
I started with an order of Taiwanese style cold tofu. It's covered with shaved bonito and a thick soy sauce. It was good. I wonder if the chef considered adding thousand year egg to the dish.
I tried a small side of their kimchee, which was actually pretty fresh. Not too bad either.
I knew I wanted to try some of their dumplings as they make them from scratch. You can order various fillings and there is the option of having them steamed, pan fried, or deep fried. I decided for the staple- steamed pork dumplings. You get 6 dumplings in a small bamboo steamer. The skins were good. I think I tasted ginger in the pork, and the whole group is covered with a tare sauce, which is a like a thick soy sauce. In a lot of Chinese places they have cabbage on the bottom of the steamer, but in this case, it was cheesecloth. Because they kept the place pretty dark, I almost ate this.
I would say my favorite dish was their ramen. I ordered their Toki Hakata classic ramen, which came with nori, sesame seeds, pickled ginger, char siu pork, and a sousvide egg. The broth, made with pork bones, was flavorful, and the noodles they use are quite good as well. The sousvide egg was pretty awesome, but I do like my pork a little more fatty.
For dessert, I had the milk & cookies. The chocolate chip cookies were baked fresh and were still warm. It was served with some ice cold milk.
I would say Toki is good, but I'm not sure if it's worth a long wait. With ramen & dumplings, I expect a quick turnaround for seating, but I heard wait times were up to 3 hours. Hopefully, over time, they will get into a groove.

Revisit to Cochon, Philadelphia

Redneckhunter and I had to be in South Philly for an event last Friday night, so we took the opportunity of being in that neighborhood (where we rarely find ourselves) to eat at Cochon with some friends, throwing Lenten tradition out the window by choosing a restaurant that worships the pig...

It was a cold night - perfect for pork and other hearty fare. For starters Redneckhunter got his beloved fried chicken livers - a very generous bowl of them (not too photogenic, though). One friend got frog legs served over a fennel salad, and I got a pan-fried gnocchi with pork ragout (or maybe it was wild boar, I can't quite remember...)

For main courses, we tried a variety of that night's specials. The had just ran out of a pork belly dish from the specials - served over lentils and brussels sprouts, but they adapted the dish with a pair of quails.
I got pork tenderloin served with gratin potatoes, swiss chard, and 2 sauces - a balsamic reduction and a roasted red pepper emulsion. The pork had a nice smokiness to it.

They also had cassoulet as a special, so as soon as it was mentioned, I knew Redneckhunter would order it. As he noted, everyone makes cassoulet in vastly different ways. This one had a rich flavorful sausage in it, but I prefer my beans a little softer and wetter.

Since we'd already sinned by eating meat, why not indulge in dessert, we thought. The one that caught our attention was "Poor Man's Pudding" - which indeed was a pudding chomeur.

The biscuit was deliciously crumbly, floating in warm maple syrup - yum!

Cochon
801 East Passyunk Avenue
Philadelphia - (215) 923-7675

Mailano in the Gramercy Park Hotel, NYC

It was a great spring day, and petiteseour and I had stopped in to Mailano, at the Gramercy Park Hotel, for coffee and dessert.

It's a great space right by Gramercy Park with big windows letting in lots of light, a nice casual yet upscale atmosphere. Excellent service as well - the same sort of attentive but unsnooty feel.

We got a small French press pot (a very generous small for $6 - at least 3 cups out of one pot). I got affogato with chocolate gelato and petiteseour got a ricotta pannacotta with blood orange.

The adjacent hotel is a sight to behold - it's definitely worth wandering around the lobby bars and lounges. (Check out the slideshow on their website).

Mailano at Gramercy Park
2 Lexington Avenue
New York, NY 10010-5405
(212) 777-2410

Tom Colicchio's Game of Thrones food truck

This week only, as a promotion for their upcoming show Game of Thrones, HBO and Tom Colicchio teamed up to serve food inspired by the medieval fantasy show. Petiteseour waited in line for an hour, but got the scoop for us!

Petitesoeur reports:

I hit Tom Colicchio/HBO Game of Thrones food truck @ Lincoln Center on Wed, Mar 30. The "dragon fire " seafood stew was tasty. It had an array of seafood swimming in the blackest black cuttlefish sauce & a slight kick of heat from the "dragon" pepper.

Go if you've got time to kill [I waited almost an hour on line] & have a dinner destination in mind for afterward cause the food is free so the portions are just tasting-size.

The fire was easily put out by a lovely tart & creamy lemon cake. I didn't get to taste the pickled egg (you had to pick one of the two dishes being served) but it looked fab: deep red with a bright yellow yolk.


Tomorrow's the last day you'll be able to catch the truck in NYC - first 300 lucky people get served. Next week they'll be doing it in LA.

For more info, menus, etc. visit:
http://www.makinggameofthrones.com/

They will be tweeting (@GameofThrones) food truck locations and posting on Facebook.

Kin Shop, NYC

For our last girls day, petiteseour had made reservations to eat at Kin Shop, Top Chef winner Harold Dieterle's new Thai restaurant. Then she unfortunately didn't feel well when dinnertime rolled around...

So it was up to me to try as much as I could without overdoing it. I started with the fried oyster and crispy pork salad. The oysters were huge, fat, and juicy, the pork indeed crispy, and the sauce was bright, acidic, just perfect with the fatty meats. Instead of greens for the salad, it was celery, which I usually don't like raw, but it worked in this dish.

The most that petiteseour could stomach was sauteed aquatic greens and jasmine rice. Excellent rice - which is not an easy feat.

Then my main course was off the list of specials -- Chiang Mai sausage and duck egg over congee with shallots and basil. The sausage was fragrant - a very different flavor than I was expecting - not quite Asian, not quite European... My main problem with this dish was that the egg was almost raw. I like my yolks runny, but my whites - not so much... I'm not sure if it was meant to be this way, but more than just being put off a little by the sliminess, I also think it made the congee cool down faster.

Still, I think it's worth a return trip with more people to try some of the housemade curries, noodles, etc. Oh, and we did see Harold there...

Kin Shop
469 6th Avenue
New York, NY 10011
(212) 675-4295

Eataly, NYC

Some photos from a recent trip to Eataly. Word to the wise - go on a weekday... It gets super-packed on weekends.

We loved the olive oil bread we brought home - a nice sourdough flavor, great toasted with butter.
Seafood looked amazing... they've got shad roe! And sea urchin!

We got a simple sandwich of spicy coppa from Salumeria Rossi - the bread was satisfyingly chewy and delicious. Next time, though, we're going to save room for a roasted meat sandwich from the Rosticceria. That day's special was roasted lamb...



Petiteseour got a strong macchiato from the espresso bar, but we weren't feeling quite up to having dessert just yet. Again, next time...

Eataly
23th Street and 5th Avenue
New York
http://eatalyny.com

Silk Road Bistro, Choyhona, Pikesville, MD

I had a great dinner at an Uzbek restaurant located in Pikesville, MD called Silk Road Bistro, Choyhona. I tried Uzbek food several years ago in New York City, and I was pretty excited to learn of this place much closer to home. Being in central Asia, it's a unique blend of cuisines from the region, taking influence from areas both east and west and making it their own.
We started with a pitcher their "homemade fruit drink" which was a lot like fruit punch. The pitcher had several half pears floating in it. Personally, I found it light and refreshing, but some fellow diners thought it too sweet.





An important part of Uzbek cuisine is the wide variety of "salads". I tried four kinds.
My favorite was suzma with radish, a sour yogurt with lots of dill, cucumbers and sliced radishes.
Second was the Smak, which was chunks of tomato, a firm cheese, crunchy croutons, and garlic tossed in mayonnaise.



In my previous experience with Uzbek cuisine, I had tried the Markovcha, a carrot salad that was influenced by ethnic Koreans who came to central Asia. The salad is made of shredded cabbage, garlic, & onion, and then is slightly pickled with vinegar. It reminds me of the bon chon dishes you get at Korean BBQ.
The last veggie we tried was the eggplant, which was sliced, deep fried, then served cold with garlic and tomato folded inside. This had a lot of garlic in it and was really good.



We ordered a few Tandoori nan, hot out of the oven. Unlike Indian naan, this bread was not flat. The crust was crisp and the inside was dense and filling.

Manti, also well known in Uzbek cuisine, are basically dumplings. We tried a couple kinds on the menu. Silk Road offers the dumplings filled with meat, potato, or pumpkin.
We got a sampling, first, of the crispy manti. We chose to get it with pumpkin. The filling was a little sweet, and these fried manti were served with shredded pickled onions.

I liked the steamed dumplings better. We were recommended to try them with the potato filling. I expected it to be filled with mashed potato like a pierogi, but instead the potato inside was chunked and from the steaming process became very soft. It was served with a side of sour cream.






Following the dumplings, we ordered another well know Uzbek dish, the Pilav, made with rice, carrots and lamb. It also had a bulb of roasted garlic on the side.
We then ordered a wide variety of shish kebabs, primarily the classic lamb, and the beef lulya, which is ground beef with spices. My favorite kabob was the lamb rib, which was on the skewer, but the meat was still attached to the rib bone. These seemed to be more rich in flavor and were very juicy. I also could not resist ordered at least one kebob with veal liver. The kebabs were served with a spicy sauce, pomegranate juice, and pickled onions which all enhanced the meat flavors.
On the menu, they had a "delicatessen kebab" (pic at top). At first I thought it might be a sausage, but they told us it was lamb testicles. We had to try it. It's texture reminded me of a Chinese fish ball or a lighter chicken gizzard. Not bad.

Afterwards, we shared cups of tea, both green and black, and ordered some dessert.
I tried of bite of their baklava, which is not the same as the Mediterranean counterpart. It's not syrupy. Instead it was more of a dry flaky pastry.
We were also told to get their "chocolate ball" which was not on the menu. It reminded me of a large very dense cake doughnut hole drizzled with chocolate sauce.









607 Reisterstown Road
Baltimore, MD
(410)878-2929