It's been such a long time since I ate dinner at Sekai (it was long before the dinners at Toh Zan Nagasaki Grill) that I probably shouldn't write about it, but I do remember a few things distinctly about the dinner. Sekai had croquettes on their menu (this was the first Japanese restaurant I'd seen at the time that offered them), and tried to order them only to find out they were out. We managed to order unagi (my favorite), a spicy tuna roll (for me and Steve), hamachi sashimi (Lynn's favorite sashimi), and a Philly roll (Lynn's favorite sushi roll). I don't remember a thing about the Philly roll since I hate Philly rolls, and usually only eat one or two pieces in an attempt to keep an open mind. The unagi was very good, and I'd order it again. The spicy tuna roll was unusual in that the spicy tuna wasn't chopped up, but more like minced and whipped up into a spicy tuna mousse. It was odd getting used to the fine texture, but it wasn't bad. I don't think I'd order it again though because I prefer my tuna in discernible chunks. Lynn raved about the hamachi, and forced me to eat a slice. I don't like hamachi because it has the fishiest flavor out of any of the raw fish I've tried, but this one wasn't bad. It didn't taste overly fishy, and the piece was fatty so it had a certain richness to it. I wouldn't order it because hamachi still isn't my thing, but I'm surprised that Lynn hasn't bothered me about returning to Sekai since that seemed to be the best hamachi we've had in Phoenix.
The only entree I can remember from our meal was Lynn's curry donburi. The Japanese curry from Curry House Coco Ichibanya from my Japan trip was so damn good that I'm pretty picky about Japanese curry these days. Me and Steve agreed that Sekai's curry sucked. It had a sweet flavor to it that was just wrong. Naturally Lynn liked it.
Sekai wasn't bad so I don't know why I haven't been back in a while, but I'll have correct that mistake some time in the next couple of months.
I finally got to see "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King", and it reminded me of everything I hated about reading the books. Like most epics, I couldn't wait for the damn thing to be finished and I started checking the time 40 minutes before the movie ended. Reading about Frodo's journey into Mordor was tedious, and watching it was tedious too. The ending felt flat and was really sappy like the book too. One thing that was distinctly different from the book was that while I was watching the movie I got the impression that the hobbits were gay, and I never got that impression from the books. I actually found myself thinking about gender roles and sexuality in hobbit culture during the movie. How bad is that?
There were some good aspects to the movie too. The big battle was fun to watch, even if the ghosts at the end appeared to sweep over the field like ethereal scrubbing bubbles. The movie had a few other moments too, but not enough for me to ever want to watch it again. I do at least have to give them credit for creating a third movie in a trilogy better than "The Matrix Revolutions".
On the nights I went to French class at Mesa Community College I noticed the sign for Toh Zan Nagasaki Grill. I kept thinking that me and Lynn should eat there, but I never got around to it. At least not until I dropped the class. As soon as I looked at the menu I knew it was the Japanese restaurant I was looking for since my trip to Japan; a Japanese restaurant that actually seemed to offer the type of Japanese food you don't normally see in Phoenix, but is pretty common in Japan. I got an order of gyoza and croquettes (one of my favorite dishes in Japan). The gyoza were ok, but I liked the gyoza sauce (which was unexpectedly spicy). I totally loved the croquettes, and I was really happy about finding a source of them.
Lynn's dinner came with a salad, miso soup, and a yakitori. Lynn liked the salad, but I thought the dressing tasted like beer (in a bad way). The miso soup was pretty tasty, and the yakitori was crispy, but didn't have much flavor. I had ordered ramen in tonkotsu [pork] broth. Lynn was immediately grossed out by the scent. The ramen had a wide assortment of things in it, like pork, octopus, corn, and other stuff I don't remember anymore, but the flavor was lacking. Lynn had the chicken curry, which I was hoping would be somewhat similar to Curry House Coco Ichibanya, but I found it disappointing. The chicken was in the curry instead of being chicken katsu, and it had a decent curry flavor, but it didn't have any spice to it.
I was disappointed with the meal at Toh Zan Nagasaki Grill, but I was willing to give it another chance since something had to be good there. The next time we tried the place Steve was with us.
I had the chicken sukiyaki, which was a dish I was entirely unfamiliar with, and Lynn had the chicken katsu. Steve ordered a variety of small dishes which included vegetable tempura and udon. The chicken sukiyaki had a slightly sweet flavor, and it was alright, but nothing I would make a habit of ordering. Lynn's chicken katsu was thin, and not nearly as good as the chicken katsu we've made at home. Steve's vegetable tempura was pretty good, but not as good as the vegetable tempura at the Ichi Ban on Rural and Southern (although I don't really remember why now). The udon was a surprise, it had a slight spiciness in a predominately seaweed flavored broth. I don't know if I'd enjoy it as much if it was my meal, but it was highly enjoyable in the few bites that I was able to take.
Other than the croquettes (which Steve enjoyed even if Lynn didn't) I haven't found anything else at Toh Zan Nagasaki Grill to be crazy about. I'll probably give them one more try, so I can order the udon and maybe a couple of new things, but I'm not in a hurry. There are probably a couple of other Japanese restaurants I'll try first.
Thanks to Ken and his management of my bachelor party I went to Santisi Brothers for the first time and discovered they had excellent pizza and cheap beer. I told Ken that me and Lynn would have to go there with him someday. Well we met him there last weekend.
Ken was already there when we arrived and he had an order of calamari with spicy tomato sauce at the table. I didn't care for the calamari much, but Lynn and Ken both dug it, and the tomato sauce really was spicy. I ordered the grilled chicken with fettucini alfredo (recommended by Ken), while Lynn had the stromboli, and Ken had a rack of baby back ribs with spicy barbecue sauce. The grilled chicken was well seasoned, and had a tasty grilled flavor. The fettucini alfredo was great, with the alfredo sauce tasting almost as good as our homemade alfredo sauce. I'm a big fan of the pizza at Santisi Brothers so I wasn't surprised that their stromboli was even better. (Stromboli is dependent on the crust, and the crust at Santisi Brothers is excellent.) [Addendum: Lynn got around to telling me that she likes the stromboli at La Famiglia better than the stromboli at Santisi Brothers, and she didn't really like the crust at Santisi Brothers. She likes the Santisi Brothers pizza crust a lot so I don't know what her deal is.] Ken's ribs were tender, but they had that "puffy" texture that tells me they were boiled. Boiled ribs are just wrong, but it didn't really matter though because the barbecue sauce was amazing. It wasn't the first barbecue sauce I've ever had that's sweet and hot, but it may have been the best one I ever had. Everything tasted great with the barbecue sauce, including my grilled chicken.
Santisi Brothers is a little loud for my tastes, but it is a bar. The amazing thing about Santisi Brothers is that their food is damn good for restaurant food, much less bar food. They're well worth the trip to north Phoenix.
"Die Another Day" was probably the cheesiest James Bond movie I've ever seen. A lot of the lines seemed like they were written by high school kids, and the actors seemed uncomfortable saying them too. I think they were aiming for campy, but hit bad instead. The action was alright, but the movie lacked the usual fun of a James Bond movie. I think a more appropriate title for the movie would have been "See Another Movie".
After being too bored to finish a couple of books I picked up Haruki Murakami's "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of The World", and actually finished it. Haruki Murakami seems to be a master of stories based in odd realities, but that're actually about people and their feelings. It was entertaining and introspective, but explaining anything about the plot would do the book a disservice since the originality of the plot has at least a small part to do with the enjoyment of the book. Needless to say I thought the book was pretty good.
The last time Lynn and I were at Cafe ah PWAH Mark (the chef de cuisine) talked up the fact that they were going to have a institute a new menu that was going to be completely different. I couldn't wait to see what was going to be on the new menu, but between the wedding, the New Orleans trip, and the San Francisco/Napa trip we didn't have any time to go there to try the new menu out. Besides, I was still pissed at Heather (the waitress) for how cryptic she was when our last reservation was canceled. Well, curiosity won out. Easily.
I had a glass of Consilience "Syrah", while Lynn had a glass of Rosenblum "Vintners Cuvee" Zinfandel. The Zinfandel was so light red that I thought that Mike (the waiter) might have mixed up the two glass and gave Lynn the Syrah (because I was unfamiliar with Syrahs and thought it might be the lighter of the two). When we both tasted our wines, mine was fruity and peppery while Lynn's was milder and fruity so I still wasn't convinced I didn't get the Zinfandel (since mine had more of a Zinfandel flavor profile to me). I asked Mike about it, and he confirmed that the Rosenblum was a most unusual Zinfandel.
I asked Mike if there were any specials, and he said there weren't. Lynn told him how she told me that it was Wednesday so Mark would be at whatever appointment he had every Wednesday so there wouldn't be any specials, but that I don't listen to her. That's when Mike dropped the bomb. He said Mark was no longer there. I was stunned. I wondered what Cafe ah PWAH would be like without Mark. I knew the food would still be well prepared, because Mark was gone often enough that Karen (the owner and also a chef) knew how to cook everything, but I had the feeling that Mark was the creative powerhouse. Mike also told me that Mark left the day before we were supposed to have our tasting menu. That would explain why our last reservation was canceled, and why Heather tried so hard to avoid telling me the reason why. I'm obviously not pissed at her anymore.
When I looked at the menu it was almost the exact same menu it always was, which would seem to validate that Mark may have been the creative mind behind the menu. Since I've had all the appetizers before I went with the best one, the leek and tomato strudel. The combination of sauteed leeks, sun dried tomatoes, blue cheese, and puff pastry is excellent, but this strudel was a little salty to me. Mike had told me that Karen had hired a new chef so I was trying to figure out if the saltiness was due to the usual slight inconsistency or the new chef. I'll never know, but I would order the strudel again.
I had been missing the lamb chops at ah PWAH (even though I had excellent lamb chops at Irene's Cuisine in New Orleans) so I had to go with the lamb chops with full grain mustard sauce and cheesy mashed potatoes. Lynn had the pork tenderloin with berry sauce and mashed sweet potatoes, even though she doesn't really like sweet potatoes. As soon as I laid eyes on the lamb chops I knew something was different. The chops were small and scrawny looking instead of full and plump. The flavor of the meat was different too; there was a slight funkiness to it that I wouldn't describe as gamey, but I don't know any other word for it. I didn't really care for it. Mike asked how everything was and I said the lamb was different. He asked Karen if they changed the lamb and she said she switched from Colorado lamb to New Zealand lamb. I told her my preference was the Colorado lamb, but she was worried that it would be too expensive for most people. The funny thing is that the next day I saw this in item Tom Fitzmorris' newsletter. "We don't get rack of lamb as often as we once did in restaurants. When we do, it's typically the small Australian lamb, which is good, but not as good as the bigger and milder American lamb." I agree. I was disappointed in the sauce too; it was billed as a full grain mustard sauce, but the only flavor I got from it was salt. I at least expected mustard. After this experience I can say that so long as they serve New Zealand lamb I'm not ordering it again.
Lynn's entree was better. The pork tenderloin was moist, tender, and had a good flavor. The berry sauce was good, but it was different than the berry sauce the dish came with the last time Lynn ordered it. I didn't like it as much, but Lynn did. The mashed sweet potatoes only had a hint of sweet potato flavor with an unexpected spininess to them that made them great.
The desserts were also all the same desserts we were familiar with so we went with the creme brulee, which is the best basic (unflavored, e.g., not ginger creme brulee or hazelnut creme brulee) creme brulee I've had. The new chef was the one preparing it, and the sugar was uniformly and perfectly caramelized. Lynn told Mike that they could keep the new chef.
The food is still really good (and sometimes really great) at Cafe ah PWAH, but only time will tell what will become of the restaurant. I still have faith though. I asked Mike if they were doing anything special on New Year's Eve, and he replied that they were, but he didn't know what. We made a reservation, and this last Saturday we just found out that New Year's Eve dinner is going to be a seven course meal. Me and Lynn are both excited.
The last time Lynn and I went to Copper Kettle the chicken boti sultani tasted like tandori chicken, which was a great disappointment because tandori chicken doesn't have a tenth of the flavor of chicken boti sultani. The waiter said the normal chef was away, but we had to return to see if the chicken boti sultani returned back to normal.
I ordered the chai because one of Lynn's friends said it was good, but all it tasted like was tea with milk, nothing special. We had the hummus, and Copper Kettle really is the only place I like the hummus because of its thick consistency combined with the black pepper, olive oil, and Copper Kettle's excellent naan [flat bread]. Lynn ordered the chicken tikka marsala (her favorite Indian dish) and I had the chicken boti sultani. The chicken in the chicken tikka marsala was ok, but the tikka marsala was pretty complex without being too spicy. It was good, but I don't think I'd order it because there are other items on the Copper Kettle menu that I like more. I could tell by looking at the chicken boti sultani that it had returned back to normal; it was its usual orange color instead of the red of tandori chicken. The only difference I could tell was that it wasn't as spicy as normal. It's only a tiny detail so it didn't really matter.
I was happy to verify that Copper Kettle never really changed anything the second to the last time we were there, except add a couple of menu items.
"Roger Dodger" wasn't what I expected. I thought it might be some sort of sexy film instead it was about some cynical guy named Roger. Oddly enough Roger is interesting even if he isn't particularly likeable, and this movie was more interesting than a character study about a middle aged cynic should be.
I'd heard that "Pirates of the Caribbean" was a good movie, but I didn't believe it. I did check it out anyway, and it was very entertaining. Johnny Depp did a great job playing the foppish Captain Jack Sparrow, and there was plenty of humor in the movie. My only complaint was that it seemed to be a little too long. I'm not sure what they could have cut to make it a little shorter, but about 20 minutes before the end I was ready for the movie to be over. Other than that it was an excellent movie.
When I saw the box for "L'Auberge Espagnole" I was hoping for some nudity and some fun. There wasn't any nudity, but it was a lot of fun. The movie is about a French guy who goes to Spain to attend graduate school for a year. During his time he learns a few things about himself, and the world around him. It's nothing mind blowing or unexpected, but it is a fun movie.
While Lynn and I were in the gift shop at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco I saw a selection of expensive teas. A while ago I had researched teas, but decided that they were too expensive and not rewarding enough to get into. I mean I enjoy tea, but I don't enjoy it enough to go out of my way for it. One of the teas in the gift shop was a high quality Jasmine pearl tea (scented with Jasmine, not mixed with Jasmine flowers, and rolled into round "pearl" shapes), and it piqued my curiosity, but I didn't want to pay over $30 to see how it tasted though. I browsed through the rest of their selection and noticed a white tea. I remembered reading about white teas, which are made from the young tea leaves, and remembered I would one day like to try one, but the white tea they were selling was the most expensive tea they had. At least the experience brought white tea back into my general awareness.
Well the other day Lynn and I were at Cost Plus buying Christmas presents for people, and I ran across a tin of white tea. While it was relatively expensive for tea, it wasn't nearly as bad as some of the prices I'd seen white teas for so I bought it. I wasn't paying too much attention to the tin I got and found myself with a tin of tea bags, which was a mistake because real tea connoisseurs (which I'm not) prefer loose leaf tea. Oh well. My throat had been killing me recently, and warm tea sounded like just the thing to sooth it. I wasn't sure what kind of flavor to expect from the white tea, but I thought it might be an even milder version of green tea (which could get very boring). Instead what I got was a light, sweet, somewhat green flavor. I actually found it pretty impressive. Now that I've made myself a few cups of the stuff I can say it reminds me of mint tea without the actual mint flavor. It seems more like a mild herbal tea than a green tea. Anyway, I'm becoming addicted to the stuff, and can't wait to try other varieties of white tea.
Tao Garden gets a lot of attention, but I was never really impressed. Not that long ago I read a restaurant review which said Tao Garden's speciality is seafood so I thought I'd give their seafood a try. We started dinner with their honey barbecue pork (Lynn's choice), and it wasn't bad. The thin slices of pork were cooked hard with a sauce that tasted like soy sauce with honey in it. I would order it again if I was in the mood for it, but I wouldn't say it was great. I had the seafood in XO sauce (which I got so I could eventually compare it to the scallops in XO sauce at Silver Dragon because Long mentioned how great they were) while Lynn got the spicy prawns. The XO sauce was a salty disappointment, and the seafood amounted to one and a half scallops, some shrimp, the worst fake crab I've ever tasted (it was made out of some sort of dough), and some squid. The best things in the dish were the bok choy and the squid (which I'm not normally a fan of). The sauce for Lynn's spicy prawns was pretty good, and actually a bit spicy, but I didn't care for the actual flavor of the prawns themselves; they tasted undercooked to me, and shrimp is the only seafood I don't like undercooked (it's a texture thing). Lynn loved the spicy prawns.
Other than the green beans I can't think of any real reason to return to Tao Garden. It's not like I haven't given them more chances to show me something than any other restaurant I don't really care for.
Red Dragon just opened up in the location that used to be Papa Jay's, and they've been covering the neighborhood with menus. The restaurant specializes in delivery and take out, but we decided to eat at the restaurant the other day anyway. Good thing we were there before other customers because they only had two tables. We got the Szechuan dumplings in hot sesame sauce, and two combination plates, to sample as much of the food as possible, which had General Tso's chicken, broccoli beef, pork lo mein, chicken sticks, spicy shrimp, pepper steak, and pork fried rice. The dumplings weren't bad, and with the sesame sauce (which tasted like peanut sauce) , some chile, and green onion they were actually pretty tasty. The other food was ok, not especially good or especially bad. The chicken sticks had an odd sort of sweetness that reminded me of the Vietnamese version of Chinese barbecue, and it was a little too odd for me and Lynn. The General Tso's chicken was the typical battered and deep fried chicken in overly sweet sauce. The beef in the broccoli beef and pepper steak was cut thicker than your average Chinese restaurant so I actually kind of liked the flavor of the beef. The sauces were both pretty terrible, with the only discernible flavor in both of them being salt. At least the broccoli wasn't overcooked. The spicy shrimp reminded me of the spicy prawns from Tao Garden; decent sauce with undercooked shrimp. The pork fried rice wasn't bad, but it was too dry for my tastes. The item I liked the most from combination plates was the pork lo mein, which had a good flavor even though the pork was cut up far too small.
Lynn wasn't impressed with the food, but she liked it for delivery. I prefer to pick up my food if it results in better quality food, but I have a feeling Red Dragon might have a dish or two I'll really like. I'm going to have to try their scallops in the near future.
The last restaurant Lynn and I ate at before we left for San Francisco/Napa was Iguana Mack's. Their new chef had moved in and changed the menu around a bit (including getting rid of their excellent "Chick in a Blanket"). There were a decent number of items that looked good on the menu, but since we knew there wasn't any chance of us eating leftovers we kept our ordering to a minimum. Lynn had the split pea soup and queso dip with tortilla chips. I ordered the chorizo and cornbread stuffed chicken breast with cilantro cream sauce. Lynn's soup had a curry flavor, but it needed some spice or bacon or something to wake it up. The queso dip had a nasty flavor, and the fried strips of flour tortilla they gave us to go with it weren't any better. The chicken didn't taste good either; separately everything tasted ok, but combined the flavors clashed and insulted each other. Overall the flavors of everything were muddy, unfocused, and sloppy. The only part of dinner we were happy with was the house salad, but the house salad was the same tasty, well thought out salad it always was. Maybe it was because it was towards the end of the night, or maybe it was because we got our food to go, but I'm only going to give the new chef one more chance to show me something that doesn't relegate Iguana Mack's to a niche restaurant for hotwings.
I was hoping to get a little writing done in my travel journal last night, but I forgot that I was supposed to go to the last Phoenix Coyotes game at America West Arena last night with Steve. We had a good time, but I only had a snack before the game so I was hungry when the game let out. I knew Steve was trying to avoid eating at Fate so we went to The George and Dragon instead. We didn't know Monday was karaoke night. We lived through the terrible singing, and even ate somewhat decently. The hot wings and the friend zucchini were very good (but I already knew that), the chicken fingers were ok, and the potato skins were less than ok. All in all we still liked the food better than Fate.
Me and Lynn got back from San Francisco/Napa Valley last night. Some initial impressions are San Francisco is a nice place to dine, but I'm not sure I want to visit there. I loved the diverse ethnic food scene, but there's something about SF I don't quite like. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that almost the entire time we were in SF we were with Lynn's friends (I didn't go there to visit them), and Lynn's been to SF about as many times as I'd been to New Orleans, and she didn't give any thought as to what we'd do while we were in the city.
Napa Valley was very nice, and I'd go back there given an opportunity. Napa is kind of like the country, only with good restaurants (and probably far too many tourists during the high season). We didn't get to taste at very many wineries, mainly due to my lack of tolerance for wine, but we had a good time. We also did find a couple of impressive wines, the most impressive being the St. Barthelemy Cellars "Petite Sirah Port 2001", which just made me think "Wow." every time I sipped it. I tried to track down a bottle or two of it, but Napa Valley has surprisingly few wine shops. We still ended up purchasing about eight bottles of wine, and I'm actually looking forward to drinking them all.
Not that it's a surprise to anyone, but there's a lot of good food to had around that area of California, and we ate quite well. I was surprised to discover that the women in SF and Napa are pretty cute, and I think Steve would be happy in San Francisco because there were a few women wearing his favorite skirt and boots combination. I already finished writing out a best and worst list for this trip so it's only a matter of getting it on computer (like the New Orleans list which is on my computer at home, but for several reasons isn't on the site yet). Something strange, even though my travel journal was up to date in New Orleans I never even finished writing about the first day in SF. Hopefully I'll get that taken care of in the next couple of days.
Finally back to food...
One of the most interesting things I find about trips is the food that's eaten immediately after returning home. This stuff tends to be the food most missed, and not available (or just not eaten) on the trip. Past after trip meals for me include a bacon cheese burger (in the Houston airport after returning from Europe), Chinese and Mexican (both after different trips to New Orleans), and Cafe ah PWAH (the only food that satisfied me after returning from Japan). This last trip I didn't have a choice about where to eat because Lynn had a very definite idea where she wanted to eat. To my surprise that place was El Torito. We used to eat pretty often at El Torito because they serve some really good food, and they changed their menu often enough to be interesting, but for some mysterious reason we hadn't eaten there in a while. I was looking forward to returning there.
Lynn loves their guacamole, and had to have an order. Since Steve was eating dinner with us that allowed me to get a second appetizer, and the empanaditas sounded good to me. The guacamole was good, but their guacamole is always good. There were three empanaditas: one steak, one chicken, and one vegetable. The chicken one had a decent flavor, but I wasn't impressed. The steak was excellent (which isn't a surprise because they're pretty good with beef fajitas), and I could have eaten four of them. The vegetable one was pretty good, but the real standout was the steak. The nice thing about the empanaditas was that they were served with the excellent sauces that come with the flautas so everything tasted great with some the spicy and creamy serrano-pepita adobo.
I'm not a big fan of carnitas [roasted pork], but lately I've been getting excellent carnitas from a variety of restaurants so I decided to give the carnitas at El Torito a try. The carnitas came with sauteed red onions, and the usual El Torito assortment of Spanish rice, beans, and sweet corn cake. The carnitas had a mild, but really good flavor, and the onions made the dish. Past experience has taught me that the rice and beans are best ignored, and that was easily confirmed with one bite of each. The first time I had the sweet corn cake (I was probably 12 at the time) it kind of freaked me out. Luckily I became more experienced, my tastes expanded, and I learned to appreciate the little lump of sweetened corn. While I was in New Orleans one of best desserts I had was the apple-rosemary corn cake with sour cream sorbet. I was amazed by it's originality, but it wasn't until I ate the sweet corn cake at El Torito that I remembered that I had been eating a rudimentary version of the Bayona dessert for some time. (Of course that dessert at Bayona isn't any less amazing or original for the previous experience.)
Lynn ordered the enchiladas de Oaxaca, which were made with mole chicken, and covered with mole. It sounded very similar to the amazingly bad mole chicken enchiladas that marked our last visit to Barrio Cafe, but we were both interested in how these mole enchiladas would compare. This version was much better; the mole was sweet, spicy, and quite delicious with the chicken enchiladas. The rice and roasted vegetables were also worth eating. The rice tasted like it was made with garlic butter, and the vegetables had a sharp herby flavor and a heat kick.
The food was very good, and it a good meal to welcome us back to Phoenix. Now I want to eat at Cafe ah PWAH.
Personally, I want a religion that says it's okay for me to RECEIVE gifts, while warning that I'll burn in hell forever if I try to GIVE any. Furthermore, if I open a gift that seems poorly thought-out, it would be my religious obligation to smash it against a wall while the giver watches in horror. Some people might say to me, "Hey, where did you get that religion? Did you pull it out of your @$$?" But people are polite and rarely ask that sort of question even when you think they should.
Me: Heh, I just realized I don't have my wedding ring on today. Opps.
Noah: u should come home smelling of cheap perfume and liquor
My dialup internet access still wasn't working last night, but I was unlikely to get any writing done because we picked up the proofs of our wedding photos from Scott. We spent a couple of hours last night looking through the almost 400 photos Scott took. I have to admit that Scott took some really good pictures. It'll be fun picking which photos we want in our album.
Atlantic.net are still a bunch of slack bastards. I asked them in August (and again in October) to forward iamjacksbrain.com to my new host, and they still haven't done it. This is the problem with having your domain owned by someone else (which I originally owned, but was highjacked by Featureprice). Assume iamjacksbrain.com isn't going to work for the next year and use iamjacksbrain.net instead.
I really love my cheap Polaroid I-Zone camera, even though the quality of the film is pretty poor. On our honeymoon I had fun alternating between taking pictures with the digital camera and the Polaroid.
Hopefully I'll get to see "The Last Samurai" someday soon. I wanted to see the movie when I saw the previews (the ones that actually explained how Tom Cruise ended up being a samurai), and after Steve (who's super picky about movies) told me it was good I want to see it even more.
Last night I tried to log onto the internet, but my ISP's modems weren't answering. I wrote some stuff anyway and saved it to floppy disk, and today my computer at work refuses to copy the file because it says it can't read it. Some days I hate technology.
After seven straight nights of rich, multi-coursed dinners (usually including desserts), and more multi-coursed lunches than I care to admit to my official weight today (once again fully clothed) is 193 pounds! Apparently the massive amount of walking we did in New Orleans more than offset our massive amount of eating. I'm glad I didn't come away from the honeymoon any fatter than I already am.
I'd like to move to a town that doesn't require owning a car to get around; I'm sure I'd be healthier for it. Of course every time I consider of reality of moving to someplace other than Phoenix I quickly abandon the idea.
Lynn and I got back from New Orleans on Saturday. Hopefully today I'll get to write about my weigh in, and the first restaurant we ate at when we got back. Soon I'll also have a list of the best and the worst of the trip.
A week out of town was certainly long enough, but Thursday Lynn and I leave for San Francisco and Napa for part two of our honeymoon. It should be a good time.
I took my weight at work Wednesday and it was 193.5 pounds (that was fully clothed, but I am getting fat). I'll take my weight when I get back to work and see if the trip to New Orleans caused me to gain any weight. I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving.
This Friday Lynn and I go on our week long honeymoon in New Orleans. I've been looking forward to this for about six months, researching restaurants all the while. A month or two ago I bought a journal from Borders so that my travel writing will be centrally located instead of being written on random sheets of paper. I've still got leftover sticky Polaroid film from the wedding so I'm going to take it with me so my handwritten travel journal will have some pictures too. I can't wait.
One of Lynn's friends wanted to have Buca di Beppo for dinner, and since neither me or Lynn had ever been there before, it sounded like a good idea. Little did I know that it was a restaurant from the same chain that Steve went to in North Phoenix that he thought totally sucked. Well one of the people had been before and told us about the immense size of the portions; not a good sign.
We started the meal with a caprese salad that was big enough to feed all four of us. It was pretty good too (except the roasted peppers, which were nasty); usually there isn't enough basil to last through the tomatoes or mozzarella, but they were equally as generous with the basil as they were with everything else.
Our entree was a combination of two entrees, chicken in lemon sauce and ravioli. The chicken in lemon sauce didn't really taste like anything. The ravioli was a little better, but not something I would order again. The people we were with ordered a combination of eggplant parmesan and manicotti. The manicotti was alright, and the eggplant parmesan was the best entree of the night, but it wasn't as good as the eggplant parmesan at Raimondo's.
As soon I heard about the portions at Buca di Beppo I had a feeling their business centered around serving massive quantities of mediocre food, and it was true. I didn't think the place was as horrible as Steve did, but I'm not going to be headed back there.
The night after we ate dinner at Buca di Beppo we went to Tomaso's with Steve (whose favorite restaurant happens to be Tomaso's). We started dinner with carpaccio [thinly sliced raw beef, arugula, parmesan, and olive oil], which I've actually never had before. Steve and Lynn were a little reluctant to try it (even though they've both eaten their fair share of sashimi), but they enjoyed it. I noticed that the parmesan dominated the flavor of the dish so it seemed like an excuse just to eat parmesan. Not bad, but I wouldn't order it again. I also had a dinner salad, which was the typical mixed green salad, but these days the typical mixed green salad is pretty good.
I had trouble making up my mind about which entree to get. The prawns in butter sauce with mushroom and truffle risotto sounded good, and so did the shrimp, lobster, and crab stuffed eggplant so I asked the waiter if I could have a little taste of the risotto to help me take up my mind. He obliged me with a bowl of the risotto with pancetta, spinach, and fava beans big enough for everyone at the table to try. (It was the wrong risotto, but I still thought it was cool that he brought it out.) The risotto was pretty tasty so it was enough to convince me to go with the prawns. The prawns were simple, but there was a richness to the sauce that I loved, and that complimented the prawns perfectly. The mushroom and truffle risotto had a completely different flavor from the risotto we tried, but it was great. I couldn't have been happier with the dish. Lynn's dish was similar, prawns in a butter sauce with butternut squash ravioli, but there was a slight difference in the preparation of the prawns and the butter sauce, and I thought the version they served me was better. The butternut squash ravioli was great though. It had a flavor similar to pumpkin pie, and I thought it would have made an excellent dessert if the ravioli was fried, but it was great as a side dish too.
For dessert we had an order of creme brulee and chocolate souffle with vanilla ice cream and raspberry sauce. The custard for the creme brulee wasn't sweet enough, and didn't have enough vanilla flavor for my tastes. The chocolate souffle was pretty good, and the combination with the vanilla ice cream and raspberry sauce was pretty tasty. I had two problems with the dessert though: one, the souffle was covered with chocolate sauce, which was completely extraneous, and two, the souffle was premade so it wasn't hot. Souffles are best almost straight out of the oven which is why this one was good, but not nearly as good as the perfect one we had at Pinot Brasserie in Las Vegas.
I'm not very fond of the appetizers or desserts at Tomaso's, but I can see why it's Steve's favorite Italian restaurant; they make excellent food that you're not very likely to find at another restaurant. I know I'll have go back there to try and keep up with ever changing menu of entrees.
The other night Lynn and I had a very good dinner at Iguana Mack's. While we were there our waitress told us their menu was changing next week. It'll be a little while before we make it back, but I can't wait to see the new menu.
Just in case you were wondering how I thought our vendors did, here's a list from the most expensive to the cheapest.
This article seems to answer the question, "What am I missing at Tao Garden?" The place was named Best of Phoenix, but the food I've had there hasn't convinced me. Perhaps if I order the seafood I'll be impressed.
Now if I could just find out what I'm missing at Silver Dragon. A couple of my friends swear by the place, but nothing there has made enough of an impression that I'd remember to go back. In fact last night four of us ate there, and it had its moments, but it still wasn't impressive.
Saturday night I had a really great bachelor party, and on Sunday me and Lynn had a beautiful wedding (hopefully I'll get a couple of pictures up in a couple of weeks). Today we opened up a joint savings account with the money we received from the generous wedding gifts. I'm glad it's all over with (except the honeymoon, which we'll go on in about two weeks).
Lynn's family has been in town since Saturday so my life has been entertaining them and trying to tie up all the loose ends with the wedding. Hopefully in the next couple of days I'll get some time to write about the dinner Lynn and I had at Kai last week.
Up until yesterday I didn't have any real problems with planning the wedding. The invitations took longer and cost more money than I expected, but ultimately I was very happy with the end result. Yesterday the caterer (who will now remain nameless until I'm either not pissed off at him, or until I completely hate him) told us how much things are going to cost. It was significantly more than we told him we wanted to spend. I'm trying to get him to cut some things out to bring it within our budget, but he seems reluctant. I swear I feel like I'm dealing with a used car salesman right now. I can't wait for this to get resolved.
I was so wrapped up in wedding stuff I didn't even pay attention to the fact that "The Matrix Revolutions" opened today. Luckily there are people around who mention things like that to me. Too bad they didn't know the movie was going to suck. Ok, it didn't suck, but it was pretty bad. The story wasn't that interesting, the characters were props instead of people, and some of the lines were so cliche that I was thinking them in my head before the characters could recite them on screen. It felt like a bad b movie. The only thing I really found impressive was some of the computer generated animations of the sentinels. That's it. I'd highly recommend not watching this movie, but if you have to see it you might want to wait until it comes out on video or at least pay matinee price.
Today I noticed for the first time that it's less than two weeks until I get married. There's still some things to be done too: get fitted for my tuxedo, get a marriage license, create a playlist for the dj, pay the caterer, buy disposable cameras so the guests can take some pictures for us (hopefully they'll be some good ones), buy a polaroid camera that uses sticky film so we can stick pictures of the guests in our guestbook, get presents for the guys in my wedding party, and probably the most important, have my bachelor party. Hopefully I haven't forgotten anything.
The last thing I need are new toys, but these Stikfas toys are great. There's something to be said about fully posable, cheesy plastic action figures.
Hunan Express is the only Chinese fast food place I'll eat at because they have two good dishes. Now one of my two dishes has become uneatable. Last week I had the Hunan special chicken for lunch, and it was disgusting; there was a thick layer of fat on the chicken that kept me from wanting to eat it. I mentioned to Long that it was the first time the Hunan special chicken had sucked in at least six months (there used to be 50-50 chance of it being really good or disgusting). He said that he had eaten there the week before and noticed the food was terrible, and that he was never going back again. I thought that was a little rash so I went there for lunch Tuesday to see if last week's Hunan special chicken was an aberration or if was now the norm. Two words to describe it: chicken fat. I think I'm going to have to agree with Long and avoid Hunan Express for the foreseeable future, or at least until I forgot why I started avoiding the place. (There's also the possibility that a strong urge for pork fried rice will overcome my reluctance to eat at Hunan Express, but I don't like fried rice that much.)
For some strange reason I feel the need to follow up bad Chinese food with good Chinese food. Tuesday night Lynn and I were in the 32nd Street and Shea area, a neighborhood I'm thoroughly unfamiliar with, looking for someplace to eat dinner. The only place I saw that wasn't a fast food chain or a bar was Little Peking. I wasn't very confident about their Chinese food, but I didn't really have any other choices. When I walked into the restaurant and saw the 1970's steakhouse decor I was even less confident about the food, but you never know. The menu was pretty standard for any Chinese restaurant, and I ended up ordering pot stickers, something called sun devil pork, and Lynn had walnut shrimp (which seems to have become a staple of her's these days). Pot stickers have to be the worst prepared dish on any Chinese menu. There were only four restaurants (Yang Dynasty and P.F. Chang's [believe it or not] for great pot stickers, Diamond's for a unique pot sticker sauce, and Fate for deep fried pot stickers) who even had half a clue how to make them correctly. Well I can now increase that count to five. The pot stickers at Little Peking were absolutely delicious: they had a thin won ton wrapper; tasty, but balanced seasoned pork filling; and a spicy, vinegary pot sticker sauce that I thought would be overpowering, but was quite subtle on the pot stickers. I'd order them again. The sun devil pork was spicy, and uncharacteristic for Chinese food, without sauce. I enjoyed the flavor of the pork even though I could taste some white pepper, but I would have actually enjoyed some sauce with it. The walnut shrimp at Lin is my favorite version of the dish, but after trying the walnut shrimp at Little Peking, Lin's now ranks second. The version at Little Peking also featured lightly battered shrimp, but their sauce was thinner than Lin's making the dish lighter, and more enjoyable, to me.
32nd Street and Shea is not someplace I find myself very often, but now that I know about Little Peking I'll be there a little more often. As an aside, I told Gordon about Little Peking today, and he told me Silver Dragon was better (even though the he said the last time he ate there was quite a few years ago). I told him I used to live by Silver Dragon, eaten there a few times, and I was never impressed with the place. Gordon insists I didn't order the correct dishes (which is always a possibility when there are over 50 menu items), and said he'll take me there for dinner one night for what he guarantees will be one of the best dinners I've ever had or he'll take care of my lunch the next four or five times we go to lunch together. We'll see, but I am curious to see if there is something about Silver Dragon I was missing. I mean, Ken loves Silver Dragon too so there has to be something to the place right? (Of course Ken has dragged me Todai, any number of buffets in Las Vegas [including the one in Circus Circus], and to a Chinese buffet which led to my first case of heartburn so maybe I'm not missing anything.)
Viva Maria, my favorite restaurant for hard tacos and tostadas, has changed its name to Via Marie. I have no idea why. The food is still the same though.
Last week Heather called to say that they (Cafe ah PWAH) couldn't "accommodate" the tasting menu we had a reservation for yesterday. Heather can really irritate me, and by withholding the reason they were canceling my reservation she started to. At least when Karen called to cancel the reservation we had on my birthday she told us that it was because they were renting the place out that night. I wasn't happy about it, but I understand the realities of owning the only fine dining establishment in Gilbert so I wasn't mad about it. Heather is especially effective at irritating me though. When I asked her if I could reschedule the tasting menu she answered cryptically, "You should come in and talk to them about it." That really pissed me off. Why should I have to go in to talk to them about it? What would have been so difficult about taking care of it over the phone? Anyway, I try not to hold how I feel about Heather against the restaurant, but I'm not exactly motivated to eat there anytime soon either. On the brighter side, it does give me a convenient excuse to try Kai sometime soon.
When I saw that The New Times had awarded Fate the "Best Place to Take a Foodie" I had to wonder what they were smoking. Granted I had only eaten there once, but I didn't think my selections were so off that I was missing something special. One night Steve and I were out late in downtown Phoenix so I decided to give Fate another try. I enjoyed the pot stickers (which seemed like gyoza) the first time so I ordered them again. They were still delicious. I wasn't planning on ordering an entree, but the spicy Saigon with chicken piqued my curiosity. The sauce was actually a little spicy, and the Thai basil added a really nice touch, but the flavorful sauce couldn't hide the fact that the chicken was unsalted. I'm not a big fan of unsalted meat. Steve had the special of the night, beef with asparagus and other vegetables in some sort of sauce. It smelled great when it was cooking, but the sauce was a disappointment; it tasted like generic Chinese brown sauce. Overall the food was only ok, and I don't see what business a foodie would have at Fate other than avoiding Denny's or 5 & Diner late at night.
(If I only had one place I could take a foodie it would have to be Cafe ah PWAH; the things Mark does with flavors are impressive. You don't have to be a foodie to enjoy the food, but you might appreciate it a little more.)
Last night's game was the most fun I've ever had at a professional football game. I was surprised how often they had the cameras on the San Diego cheerleaders (that's not a complaint). How come the Cardinal games aren't that fun? The only disappointment was that Ricky Williams didn't do anything that would save my fantasy football team from defeat.
Looks like I'm going to tonight's NFL game. It would be great if I could witness Ricky Williams go over 300 yards, and get 4 touchdowns tonight so my fantasy football team could win. It's unlikely, but I can always hope. I mean, it didn't seem like I'd have a chance of getting a ticket to tonight's game either, but it happened so who knows?
I've gone 29 years without having eaten a real Caesar salad (that I know of). Not by choice, but probably due to the fact that by the time I started eating at the type of restaurants that would actually go to the trouble of making their own Caesar dressing, they probably stopped because of the unpopularity of anchovies or worrying over raw eggs. The closest thing I've come to a real Caesar salad was watching a waitress make one at The Cottage Place restaurant in Flagstaff. The ingredients weren't impressive, but I was intrigued by the possible flavor of the unlikely combination of ingredients.
This weekend Lynn made a real Caesar salad using a recipe from some TV show on the Food Network. It wasn't exactly how I planned my first Caesar experience; I thought it would be in December at Delmonico in New Orleans. The salad was good, but not something I'd go out of my way for. Lynn thought there were too many anchovies in the dressing. I guess we'll still try a Caesar salad at Delmonico and see how it is.
Yesterday was the first time I noticed it was actually cool outside. We left the windows to the apartment open last night, and when I checked the temperature this morning it was 72 degrees. I'm glad that it's actually starting to feel like fall. Our wedding ceremony (in less than a month) is going to be held outdoors so Lynn and I want it cool so that the people in our wedding party (and ourselves too) don't have to sweat through the entire ceremony.
It doesn't seem like that long ago I was in Japan freezing my butt off, watching the cherry blossoms fall in such abundance that they formed banks at the sides of the street like snow. I can't wait until I start traveling again.
Some days I feel as motivated to get married as I do to swallow ground glass; they'd both seem to result in a painful, lingering death. Other days I'm not nearly as cynical.
Every time Lynn and I used to travel down Arizona Avenue I would notice Soul in the Hole and remark that we'd have to eat there some day. We never did; I kept forgetting the place existed. The other day I was flipping through Phoenix magazine to look at their 26 best new restaurants. To my surprise Soul in the Hole was one of the restaurants listed. (Patsy Grimaldi's Pizzeria in Scottsdale was also listed, and when you read my review you'll understand why I disagree with the listing.) I didn't even read what was written about Soul in the Hole, but it did remind me to check the place out. Later Saturday night me, Lynn, and DJ went to eat there.
I had a two meat combo with barbecue ribs, barbecue chicken, coleslaw, and potato salad. The barbecue ribs were a little smokey, but their flavor was also a little thin. The barbecue sauce, which was sweet and tasted like it had a healthy amount of honey in it, didn't round out the flavor of the ribs. I found that a couple of passes from the salt shaker did wonders for the flavor, but I also noticed that the ribs tasted like the ribs were boiled. Boiled ribs have a certain flavor and texture I don't care for, but these weren't terrible. Needless to say I wouldn't order them again. The barbecue chicken was alright so I wouldn't order that again either. The coleslaw had a little pineapple flavor to it that was a little too weird for me. The potato salad had a little bit of mustard (I would say the perfect amount), and a lot of pickles in it. I hate pickles in my potato salad, but I really liked the overall flavor of this potato salad so I could overlook it.
Lynn has been looking for a fried chicken replacement for It's About Time so she went for the fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, and chili beans. All I heard coming from her was, "Mmmm." Yeah, she liked the fried chicken. I tried it and the chicken was crispy, a little salty, and very tasty. I'd order it, and I know Lynn will be back for it. Lynn also "Mmmm"ed over the chili beans. I gave those a try, and they were a little hot, a little sweet (from honey), and the ground beef in the beans was actually pretty tasty. I also tried the macaroni and cheese, and I thought it could use some salt and black pepper. I didn't get a chance to doctor the mac and cheese so I don't know how could it could be.
Dj got a two meat combo with fried catfish, barbecue ribs, macaroni and cheese, and cornbread. I tried some cornbread and some of the fried catfish on DJ's plate. The catfish was moist, crispy, and also a little salty. I liked it. The cornbread didn't have the most corn flavor I've ever tasted, but it was good enough that I'd actually eat it (which I wouldn't do at my two previous soul food restaurants, It's About Time and Down Home Soul Food, because their cornbread was terrible).
I was stuffed, but I wanted a dessert to go. They had peach cobbler on the menu, but I heard someone else ask for it and they said they didn't have any. I thought I saw something in a cake server, and I found out it was caramel cake. Now that sounded good so I got a slice. Delicious. It was very sweet (as you should expect from a dessert named caramel cake), but there were some nice flavors accompanying the sweetness. I loved it, but Lynn thought it was only good.
I definitely liked the fried food at Soul in the Hole better than their barbecue. That's not unusual because good barbecue usually only comes from restaurants that are completely committed to barbecue. I'd go back for something fried, but even if I didn't Lynn would go back for the fried chicken.
As an aside, since there are a few restaurants I really want to eat at that I always seem to forget about I've created a restaurant "to do" list to remind myself.
Tonight I noticed that Atlantic.net finally got around to closing my web hosting account, but they haven't got around to forwarding my domain yet. Well if you were still reading this site after the last round of domain problems I'm sure you're undaunted by this one.
I found out why I didn't buy the wide angle lens for my digital camera; the lens retails for about $150, not including the $20 lens adapter. Actually I wouldn't mind that price so much now, but the Powershot G2 uses a different adapter/wide angle lens than the Powershot G5. I really would like a wide angle lens to take some funky pictures. Maybe I should just get a G5?
I've been reading "Tropic of Cancer", and I haven't been enjoying it one bit. The writing is all over the place so much that I have a hard time concentrating on reading it. Hell, I can hardly even tell what the book's about right now except that it seems to be a novel about writing a novel. The only part I've enjoyed in the 40 or so pages I've read (but not remembered) is in the excerpt below. I think it's because I know what's it's like to try and write something without that necessary bit of privacy. I find it difficult to write at home because there are too many distractions for me to concentrate. And I could sleep anywhere.
In a few minutes I'll be able to sit down again and type. Somehow I don't feel like it any more today. My spirit is dribbling away. She may come back in an hour or so and take the chair from under my ass. How the hell can a man write when he doesn't know where he's going to sit the next half-hour? If this rich bastard takes the place I won't even have a place to sleep. It's hard to know, when you're in such a jam which is worse—not having a place to sleep or not having a place to work. One can sleep almost anywhere, but one must have a place to work. Even if it's not a masterpiece you're doing. Even a bad novel requires a chair to sit on and a bit of privacy.
I used to eat at Urban Cafe quite often because their lemon garlic chicken was one of the better things I could eat for lunch. I stopped going there when I went there to find them unexpectedly closed three or four times in a row. A couple of weeks ago Long wanted to eat somewhere he hadn't eaten before. The only place I could think of was Urban Cafe. We went there and I was a little surprised that they were actually open. I had never tried the baba ghannouj in all my previous visits so I thought I'd give it a shot. It was nasty in appearance, flavor, and texture. I had a lemon garlic chicken wrap, and it was as excellent as it's always been. It was enough to fill me up too.
The owner was really attentive while we were there, and he kept giving us free refills on their homemade lemonade. I'm guessing that the owner must have seen a drop in customers so decided to do something about it. I know the place used to be close to full (which wasn't difficult with only about eight tables) every time I used to eat there, but when me and Long were there we were the only ones eating. I hope Urban Cafe stays open since they're the only restaurant I know that makes that quality of chicken, and hopefully the owner has decided to open when he's supposed to be. (Viva Maria also has the same problem, but they don't do it often enough to really piss me off.)
If you've been keeping up with the site I'm sure you've noticed that I'm writing more than I have in months. Yesterday I also picked up my camera for the first since I was probably in Japan. I'm even considering getting the wide angle attachment for my Powershot G2 (it depends on how wide the lens is, and if it will also fit the Powershot G5 in case I buy a G5) because I think I can do some fun things with it. I don't know what was sapping my motivation, but I'm glad it's gone.
Last week I checked the French Laundry web site and found out they only accept reservations two months in advance. I didn't think much about it until I read some horror stories (1, 2, 3) about trying to get a reservation. I realized I wasn't just going to call at 10am and settle for a reservation time other than what I wanted, but I'd be lucky to even get anything other than a busy signal.
Today I tried my luck in securing a reservation for 12/13. Anyone who knows me knows I'm not lucky and after an hour's worth of redialing I only got through once, heard a message about the food they'd be serving in December, and then heard the line go dead. I missed my window for even a spot on the waiting list when I decided to stop redialing and go to work. I may try my luck on the day we're in Napa, but it doesn't look like I'll ever eat at The French Laundry. I'm a little more bummed about it than I expected to be.
The last time Lynn and I were in Flagstaff we drove by Cottage Place Restaurant to see if they were open for lunch (even though I was pretty sure they were a dinner only establishment). They were closed for lunch, but while driving from Cottage Place Restaurant to downtown I saw a Thai restaurant I never knew existed, My Thai Kitchen (not to be confused with Little Thai Kitchen). (That weekend I was surprised to learn there are actually four Thai restaurants in Flagstaff.) Well we were hungry and we were there so we decided to try My Thai Kitchen. When we walked in I saw one of my signs of a good restaurant; there was a little white board next to the cash register with a list of the day's specials. One of them was sui mai [steamed pork dumplings you usually see at dim sum], and it sounded appetizing. These sui mai were dense with meat, but there was also a lot of carrot in them, too much carrot. The sauce they were served with reminded me of post sticker sauce with fried garlic in it instead of green onion; it was pretty tasty, but it wasn't tasty enough to make me want to order the sui mai again.
All of the entrees also came with a Thai spring roll, wonton, and a cup of soup. I'm not a fan of Thai spring rolls since they're more about cellophane noodles and carrots instead of meat or anything else that's actually tasty, but these weren't bad. I happen to like Thai wontons, but have yet to find really great ones. These were decent, but they had too much carrot in them. The soup was the best of the freebie appetizers with some spinach and a light broth with a delicious flavor. I wasn't crazy about the freebie appetizers, but they were better than the wonton, egg roll, and egg drop/hot and sour soup combination you get at Chinese fast food places.
The dish Lynn loves, and her yardstick for any Thai restaurant is gaeng kari [yellow curry with coconut milk, chicken, and potatoes] so it was the first thing on her mind. She really liked the gaeng kari at My Thai Kitchen almost as much as her favorite gaeng kari at Pink Pepper. I enjoyed the gaeng kari, but I'm not the gaeng kari connoisseur Lynn is. I did notice that the potatoes weren't cooked in the curry long enough to get the creamy flavor they get when they're perfect, but that's been happening a lot lately. Oddly enough there seemed to be a lot of carrots in the gaeng kari too. (I bet I can guess what their favorite vegetable is.) I had some Filipino dish of halibut in onion and chile sauce. It was terrific with its pungent and spicy flavor, and exactly what I wanted since earlier that day I was telling Lynn about a Belizean onion sauce.
I'm a huge fan of Thai coconut ice cream so even though we were both full I had try the coconut ice cream at My Thai Kitchen. The serving was about two scoops more than I was expecting, but it was just as good as any Thai coconut ice cream I've ever had. Since the peanuts they used to garnish it weren't burnt or powdered it made theirs better than most.
Considering the disappointing experience I had at Little Thai Kitchen the last time I was there, and the strong showing from My Thai Kitchen, My Thai Kitchen may turn into one of my "go to" restaurants in Flagstaff.
Copper Kettle is one of Lynn and my favorite restaurants, but we haven't been there in a couple of months because we just haven't been in the mood for the two or three dishes we love there. We returned recently returned Lynn was in the mood for their chicken boti sultani (a dish I've never seen anywhere else). ynn was in the mood for the hummus appetizer, and I wasn't, so we ended up trying the lentil soup. The soup was quite delicious with a thick split pea soup consistency with spicy-earthy flavors. I'd definitely order it again.
I noticed that the lemonade was different (not different in a bad way, just different) while Lynn noticed that the menu had at least one new addition. Lynn loves chicken tikka marsala, and she was always heartbroken that Copper Kettle never offered it so she was excited when she saw it on the menu. We got that in addition to the chicken boti sultani. The chicken boti sultani was different than normal; the chicken was the bright red color of tandori chicken instead of the brilliant yellow-orange color that it used to be. It also had the typical bland flavor of tandori chicken instead of its usually spicy goodness. We mentioned it to one of the waiters who'd been working there for awhile, and he seemed to be surprised that we thought it changed. (I guess when you serve food you don't look at it too closely because there's no mistaking red for orange.) He did mention that the normal chef was off, which might account for the difference. It sounded odd, but it wouldn't be the first time there was only one cook/chef working in a restaurant who knew how to make a particular dish properly. The chicken tikka marsala also had the tandori chicken in it, but it benefited from the marsala sauce (which reminded me of the sauce in Spaghetti-O's). I wasn't impressed with the chicken tikka marsala, but Lynn liked it.
All the changes seemed to point to a change in ownership to me although the waitress I asked said it was the same owner. I guess we'll see if the boti sultani returns back to its former greatness or if it's permanently a dish I'll avoid.
What else could be ultra violent, have genius moments of hilarity, and be smart and campy all at the same time besides a Quentin Tarantino movie. "Kill Bill: Volume One" was almost a great movie, but it seemed to take too much time away from the action for parts of the story that didn't really add a whole lot to the overall movie. There were a lot of cool things done in this movie, one of which was showing the consequences of all that violence (I believe this is the first movie I've ever seen where 30 minions are all lying around hurt and moaning after they all got their asses beat). I'll definitely check out Volume Two when it comes out.
A long time ago Lynn and I went to Mika to try them a second time. It was not that long after the first time since I was totally impressed by the honey sambal wings. This time we started with edamame [boiled soy bean pods] with togarashi [a Japanese seasoning mix with lemon rind, salt, chile, and other stuff], and hoisin short ribs with Thai basil. Edamame doesn't need anything other than lightly salted boiling water to make it good, but the togarashi was quite delicious on it (and spicier than you'd expect). The short ribs were very tender, juicy, and the best short ribs I've ever had. I could have eaten about five or seven orders of the ribs, but they were a little expensive for the quantity of meat you got.
I was in the mood for a soup so I got udon in dashi with braised duck, and Lynn got the Singapore chicken. The soup stunk, literally. It had a pretty gamey scent that I think was due to the duck, but I couldn't be sure. The scent was bad enough that it was putting Lynn off of her food. The soup didn't really have much flavor either, and the duck didn't really help things. Lynn enjoyed her chicken dish, but she didn't like how the chicken was chopped up while still on the bone. It may sound picky, but I know that I don't like eating chicken chopped while it's still on the bone because it's a lot more difficult to eat than if they left everything whole. I tried the chicken, and it reminded me of the lemon grass chicken at Khai Hoan. I didn't like the lemon grass chicken at Khai Hoan, and I didn't like this chicken either. Most of the flavor came from coconut milk and it just wasn't dynamic enough for me.
The banana-brownie spring rolls with caramel dipping sauce sounded intriguing to both of us so we got an order for dessert. I also got a glass of EXP "1998 Viognier" to go with it. I would have never guessed that the EXP would smell like bananas Foster, but it did, and it was a perfect match for the dessert. The spring rolls were tasty, and the combinations seemed well thought out. Lynn wanted there to be a little more brownie and a little less banana in the spring rolls, but I would have liked it either way. The spring rolls really brought out a banana flavor in the EXP too. My only complaint was I thought there should have been more dessert for the price.
Mika has a lot of potential, and the honey sambal wings and the hoisin short ribs show how good they can be. The only thing I don't like about Mika (besides being located in Scottsdale) is the feeling that I'm being overcharged for the food. Despite that feeling I'd go back there again, but it does keep me from eating there as often as I'd like.
Long and I went to Viva Maria for lunch one Monday, and they were closed (even though they were supposed to be open). We moved on to Barrio Cafe (which I haven't been to since that one bad experience) to find that they're closed on Mondays. The only place left that we knew in that neighborhood was San Carlos Bay, but we weren't in the mood for seafood so we stopped at one of the many local Mexican restaurants, Hacienda Restaurant. There were a lot of things that looked good on the menu, but I narrowed it down to beef stew and tacos (carne asada, al pastor, and carnitas). The beef stew was terrible; a thin broth with some sort of herb(s) in it that seemed like they were an acquired taste. The tacos were much better. The al pastor was good, but the carnitas and carne asada was better. I especially liked how crispy the carnitas were. Long had a carne asada torta and tried his best to convince me to order one the next time I was there. I'll think about it, but I'm sure I'll be back there to try a couple of things.
A while ago I finished Peter Mayle's "A Year in Provence". I was surprised how much more I enjoyed that book than his other book "French Lessons: Adventures with Knife, Fork, and Corkscrew", especially considering "French Lessons"' focus on food. "French Lessons" lacked the continuity that was present in the month to month account of "A Year in Provence". I didn't think continuity would make that much difference in a book about food festivals and adventures, but I never fell asleep reading "A Year in Provence". In fact "A Year in Provence" kept my attention so well, and did such a great job describing Provence as a quaint, laid back place that the Provence Bureau of Tourism should give his book away to attract increase tourism.
Murray lent me "Dreamer", a science fiction novel by Steven Harper. It wasn't your typical science fiction, but it did include a plot to destroy the universe. Despite that little bit of triteness I enjoyed the book.
One of the reasons bookstores are superior to book web sites is serendipity; while I was at Border's looking for Haruki Murakami's "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" I spotted a familiar name in the fiction section, Henry Miller. The only thing I knew about Henry Miller was that his work was banned because of sexual content, but that's all I really needed to know to pique my curiosity. I also knew that "Tropic of Cancer" was supposed to be his seminal novel. The copy at Border's looked like it had seen better days so I decided to get one of his other books. "Under the Roofs of Paris" sounded like there might be something about Paris (thereby making it somehow relevant to our upcoming trip to Europe) in it so it made my decision easy. "Under the Roofs of Paris" is the filthiest book I have ever read. I should have known since the story behind the book is that Henry Miller was comissioned to write porn at the rate of $1 a page, and this was the book he came up with. The parallels between this book and modern video porn are pretty striking too; moving from one sex scene to another with just enough story to cover where the sex scene is taking place. The big difference between the two is that this book is actually interesting. Henry Miller covers a lot of different fetishes and perversions, a lot of which are uncomfortable at the least and repulsive at the most. The writing is good enough that your attention is held so you want to see what happens from one scene to the next. Almost three hundred pages of it can be a bit much, but in the end the main character seemed to have learned something from all of his sordid experiences. If this was Henry Miller just paying the bills I have to read the Henry Miller the serious writer.
Just to give you a little flavor "Under the Roofs of Paris" here is an excerpt from the book. Do I even need to warn you about content given how I've described the book?
He doesn't remember exactly how long he's been drunk, Ernest tells me, but he'll know as soon as he goes back to work. They're very good at keeping track of those things at the office. He does remember, however, why he's drunk... a neat triumph for Ernest. He got drunk out of sympathy for a friend, and then the friend made up with his wife and left him to carry on alone."He took me home to dinner," Ernest tells me, "and guess what we walked in on? That cunt of his was there being laid, and not only that, but right on the table that we were supposed to eat dinner on! Did you ever hear of anything like that? Right on the very table with her ass bare and this guy whamming it into her..." Thinking about the guy whamming it into her agitates Ernest so that he has to have another drink. This time he remembers to offer me one, and he also offers to braid me a wreath if I'd like it.
"Let us dispute," says Ernest. "You will contend, if you please, that marriage is a noble and holy institution, while I will hold the opposite view." He props himself up on one elbow and drags the sheets around him like a toga, but before the argument can begin Ernest has forgotten what it was to be about. "What do you think about a cunt like that?" he demands. "Wouldn't you think she'd have the decency to do it so that her husband could at least bring someone home without being embarrassed? But no... there she was, wiggling and squealing like a pig on butchering day and this cocky frog ramming his dong right up to her ears. And me, Alf, just like always, I walked into the room first. So what was there to do? How did I know that it wasn't the regular thing: that maybe we weren't supposed to line up behind this guy, and get a turn, too? How about that, Alf? All I could do was wait to see what happened; if her husband took off his pants, too, then everything was right and maybe later we'd have dinner, after we laid her. Listen! Did you ever have a bozo showing off a new radio, or a car maybe, and right in the middle it wouldn't work? What does he say? He always says, 'that's funny, it never did that before.' And that's what this guy kept saying only he said 'she' all the while we were drinking our dinner of rye whiskey..."
I read Haruki Murakami's "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" after I had finished "Under the Roofs of Paris". It was a much needed change of pace. This book was slow, introspective, and probably deep in ways I couldn't conceive (meaning I probably didn't get everything). I think the book was about loneliness on many different levels, but I couldn't say for sure. I did enjoy the book though.
I once again followed that up with something completely different, Peter Mayle's "Toujours Provence". I found "Toujours Provence" highly enjoyable despite it's lack of continuity (the book was a collection of anecdotes about life in Provence, with Peter Mayle describing how weird he thinks the French language is at the end [proving I'm not the only one]) so I think "French Lessons" was probably just his worst book. Anyway, Peter Mayle was successful in still milking the "life in Provence" cow for an interesting read.
This week I've just started "Tropic of Cancer", and I don't have anything good to say about it yet.
When I saw the preview for "The Princess Blade" I thought it would be a cheesy Japanese action movie. I was into it. What the movie turned out to be was a cheesy Japanese movie with only about 10 minutes of action. The other 80 minutes was all bad dialogue that felt like three hours of bad dialogue. It was so terrible it doesn't even have camp appeal.
At least it'll make "Kill Bill" (which I'll hopefully see this weekend) look great by comparison.
Today I dropped French class. The teacher was good, and the class was even fun, but I hate French; there are too many strange pronunciation rules for me to remember. To celebrate my new found free time I'm actually working on the site. This means I may actually finish up the images for my last New Orleans trip page.
[Addendum]
Make that I just finished the photos for my last New Orleans trip page! This is the first thing I've completed in a long time. Maybe there's still hope for some of the other stuff I want to do?
Atlantic.net still hasn't forwarded my domain to my new web host. Of course they haven't disabled my account either so it's not too bad, but I would perfer they forward my domain so I can view my access logs again. I like being able to tell if anyone is actually reading this site or not.
I hate paying for hotel rooms since most hotel rooms look alike, and they don't seem worth the X amount of dollars they want to charge me for it. I have a particular aversion to chain hotels which probably stems back to my first hotels stays in San Francisco and New Orleans which were pretty sterile. Both San Francisco and New Orleans have a lot of personality, but it felt liked I was being sheltered from that personality because the hotels didn't feel local. Since then I've made a point of looking for smaller local hotels to stay at, but I still hate paying for hotel rooms.
Gordon is always telling me about the cheap hotel rooms he gets through Priceline.com, and I get jealous because $40 for a hotel room in any major city at a nice hotel is pretty damn good. Every time I go on a trip I think I should go cheap on the room, but I'm so concerned with character and local flavor that I'd rather pay more than stay at a chain. Last week I made reservations at a hotel in San Francisco, and while I was highly tempted to priceline it I thought getting a hotel with a streetcar line right in front of it and a somewhat funky feel to it was more important. I can't say I'm not happy with my choice.
I've been seriously slacking so one unwritten visit to Cafe ah PWAH (my favorite restaurant in Phoenix), turned into two unwritten visits, and yesterday turned into three unwritten visits. Well Cafe ah PWAH is too good not to write about so now you get to read about all three visits at the same time.
July was the least recent of the last three visits. I had a glass of Hedges Cellers "Fum?Chardonnay". I couldn't distinguish individual flavors, but I liked the flavor of the wine, and I also enjoyed the sweet apple scent. Lynn could at least taste cream and vanilla, and she enjoyed the wine too. I wasn't interested in experimenting with the appetizer so I went with what I knew was great, the roasted tomato, sauteed leek, and cheese strudel. I can't explain how a group of simple ingredients turns into something so delicious, but it's one of the best dishes without meat I can recall eating.
Lynn was so impressed with her first experience with escolar that she ordered it again, while I tried the rack of lamb for the first time. The escolar had a sweet glaze on it and was served on a corn cake with some sort of chutney. Lynn liked the savory flavor the fish she had last time better than the sweet flavor it had this time, but I thought it was great either way. We both agreed on the fact that the chutney overpowered the fish, and the corn cake tasted like a very good guacamole. Lynn liked the Israeli cous cous that came with the escolar the first time better, but I thought the guacamole flavor of the corn cake was a better match. My rack of lamb came with a port reduction sauce and cheesy-herb mashed potatoes. The rack of lamb had an amazing char crust even though they were a perfect medium rare, and had a great flavor. They were easily the best lamb I've ever had from a restaurant. The port reduction was a nice compliment to the lamb, and the potatoes (while extremely delicious on their own) also went nicely with the lamb. I don't think there was any way I could have been happier with the dish.
For dessert we had a raspberry cheesecake with basil-rosemary-vanilla wafer crust. The raspberry flavor wasn't very apparent, but this cheesecake was all about the crust. I didn't think rosemary was a flavor you would want in a dessert, but it worked with the basil to give the crust a crisp, perfumy flavor. Lynn and I both thought the dessert was a success.
That night we finally learned our waiter's name, Mike, which was good because there's only one waiter and one waitress, Heather, who work at Cafe ah PWAH.
August was our second to the last visit to Cafe ah PWAH. I tried a glass of Duck Pond "Chardonnay" which was very dry, and while it had a very strong oak flavor I didn't like it also had a custard flavor underneath the oak that I found interesting. In the end the oak was too much for me though. It had been a while since the last time we had a crab cake appetizer so I was feeling nostalgic for it. This crab cake was served with a white corn goulash, and was a total disappointment; even though the crab cake was primarily crab it really didn't taste like anything, and the white corn goulash wasn't helping it.
Lynn had the sake seared shrimp with Isaerli cous cous and red curry. She absolutely loved the dish and thought everything went together perfectly. I thought the shrimp had a good flavor, and I thought the cous cous went well with the red curry, but I thought the red curry was too much for the shrimp (much like the red curry was too much for the seared tuna at House of Tricks). I did something highly unusual and ordered the same thing twice in a row, so I had the rack of lamb. They still came with a port reduction sauce, but this time the mashed potatoes had smoked cheese and leeks in it. I can't say enough good things about the rack of lamb; they were great. I didn't think they could improve on the mashed potatoes I had last time, but the leeks added a little something extra to them. Naturally everything went together perfectly.
For dessert we had something completely new, a strawberry semifreddo. It was like a cross between ice cream and cheesecake, and was a perfect dessert for a Phoenix summer. It tasted like fresh strawberries and cream, and it was a great finish to a meal that was almost perfect.
The last time we were at Cafe ah PWAH was this weekend, and it had been too long since the time before that (but you probably know the reason why). Lynn and I were in Flagstaff earlier in the day, and had wine at the Wine Loft so neither one of us was in the mood for wine at dinner. The very first appetizer we ever had at Cafe ah PWAH was the pumpkin seed crusted shrimp, and it was what made me think they might actually be a great restaurant. Since we had eaten through all of the appetizers on the menu I wanted to try the shrimp again. This time the shrimp came with some sort of roasted red pepper something or other instead of a corn cake, and the pumpkin seed goodness was in a sauce instead of actually crusted on the shrimp. Lynn liked the roasted red pepper thing, and liked it with the shrimp while I didn't like it, much less with the shrimp. The appetizer was good, but not as good as the version we had on our first visit.
Lynn ordered the pork tenderloin with berry sauce, yams, and braised onions. The pork tenderloin was pretty tasty by itself, and on the sweet side with the sauce. The yams were also a little sweet, but there was a kind of meatiness to them that helped balance things out, and the onions added the finishing touch. I'm sure you've heard me say something similar to this many times; I don't like yams, but I loved those yams! The flavor was so good and had so many layers that I could have been happy just eating it with the onions. I was conflicted between ordering the rack of lamb (for the unheard of third time in a row), and the rock cornish game hen. I tried to order the rack of lamb, but they were all out so I settled on the roasted rock cornish game hen topped with chipotle barbecue sauce. It was supposed to come with potato salad, but I had tried the potato salad before and didn't like it so I asked for the smoked cheese mashed potatoes instead. The barbecue sauce had a great flavor, and was even spicy, but the quality of the roasted game hen couldn't compare to the quality of the game hen with herbes de Provence that I had at Cafe ah PWAH some previous dinner. It really didn't matter since I really enjoyed my dish, and the barbecue sauce, pistachios, and cilantro on the game hen went really well with the mashed potatoes.
They didn't have anything new for dessert (or the semifreddo which I would have ordered again) so we had their creme brulee. The custard for their creme brulee is really great, but the guy who used to prepare the caramelized sugar for the creme brulee used to burn it. That guy went to work at a different restaurant two weeks earlier, so the creme brulee was perfectly prepared. Our waiter was going to pick it up when Mark (the chef) stopped him. Mark had also prepared an order of the fallen chocolate souffle for us. We didn't like the fallen chocolate souffle the last time we had it (it didn't taste like a souffle at all), but it did taste a lot better this time (it had a much better chocolate flavor and it wasn't just because it was free). Lynn said she would probably order the fallen chocolate souffle again, but it was too much chocolate for me. The creme brulee was as good as creme brulee can hope to be, and I'd definitely order that again if they didn't have something else that caught my attention.
The restaurant was closing when we were finished with our meal so Mark decided to talk to us. We had a fun time talking about food, and the new menu he's creating. It's obvious that Mark loves to create and cook, and he's a bit of a nut (like our other favorite chef, chef Neal at NOLA in New Orleans). We ended the night by making a new reservation for the 28th so we can have a tasting menu. Hopefully we'll actually make it this time.
"Underworld" was very superficial so I'll try to keep my review limited to mostly adjectives. It was sleek, stylish, dark, and not very engaging; I couldn't bring myself to care about any of the characters. The least it could have down was wow me with its special effects, and it didn't even accomplish that.
Movies: "Lost in Translation" and "Une Femme de Ménage" ["A Housekeeper"]
I saw both "Lost in Translation" and "A Housekeeper" recently, and they did share a common theme of interpersonal relationships between an older man and a younger woman, so I thought I'd write about both of them at the same time. "Lost in Translation" had two Americans feeling lonely in Japan, who find each other and develop a relationship. The movie isn't about the ending, but what happens to these two people over the course of their three or four days in each other's company in Japan. The movie was slow, but the pace seemed to fit. I enjoyed the movie, but maybe it had something to do with the fact that I could relate with how alien it's possible to feel in Japan if you let yourself.
"A Housekeeper" was set in France, following a lonely middle aged guy whose wife left him a few months earlier. He hires a young woman to clean his house, and things move from there. The ending of the movie was very abrupt, but I think it was because the last scene wasn't what it appeared to be about. This is the kind of thing I like about French movies; sometimes they really make you think to try and glean what the director was trying to accomplish. Between me and Lynn I think we came to a pretty good understanding of the significance of the last scene, and what it represented. I enjoyed this film too, but I wouldn't consider either of the films great.
Some days I feel like writing, and don't have a problem getting into it, and other days (like today) I want to write, but I have trouble just putting two coherent sentences together. It's a good thing I don't get paid to write.
