aurelgrooves

Haha helloo! I am here. Well, alive but not in dc anymore. I live in berlin, germany. Lots of culinary adventures too, the cheaper weirder variety (except for paleo cooking, which is all the rage and not cheap. Seriously, who pays 40€ for a chef hunter/gatherer fare?). Anyway, I also often make the rounds in kinshasa, democratic republic of congo. I can recommend the few restaurants (and what to order) that have the best chances of not giving you the squirts. If you are interested. Cheerio!

watch this space people...i've been eating my way through berlin, germany, and devouring their genre of affordable, tasty, creative, non-pretentious restaurants. Little Otik. http://littleotik.de/ interview with little otik so the great thing about hanging out with colleagues, is that unlink most berliners they have jobs, and so they don't mind dropping (gasp!) 30€ on a dinner once in a while. so we went to little otik. on a friday. tiny restaurant in a fashionable part of east Kreuzberg. no seats available at the 2 big picnic tables, 2 2/4 tops and a 2 top in the window. no parties of more than 6 people allowed. a big long beautiful recycled wooden bar that always seems to have room if you like sitting at a bar. i like sitting at a bar. it's run by 2 american dudes from michigan and new york, who don't speak much german. they told me what little otik stands for, but i forgot. i think it's related to the creepy movie of the same title (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0228687/) . creeeeepeeeee. anyway, the cook guy used to work at Diner in Williamsburg. he came to visit his friend in berlin and they started a supper club. and then they were like duh, we should do this in a restaurant. they found a portuguese cafe at a nice address that was closing down and haggled with the owner to rent it cheap (well, rent is already stupid cheap in berlin) - and with everything in it. most of the kitchen was already there. they sold all the chairs, tables, bar stuff and a collection of mini fridges, then gutted and painted the dining room to convert it to an extremely simple, kinda echoey space with not much on the walls besides a few mirrors. (a stark contrast to the baubble you might find adorning every vertical surface of a buca di beppo's). they are closed sunday, monday, (ah, european rest) and on tuesday they go to the farmer's market down the street and buy all the organic, local items from farmers. stuff like wild boar bacon and heirloom tomatoes, duck. then they plan the menu, and open wednesday-saturday. packed every night, call weeks ahead for a reservation. pretty cheap eats, a little pricey on the wines. we told them you can't get away with charging minimum 6€ for a glass of wine, berliners usually don't go for that. but it looks like they can. i recommended a wine shop they should talk to. so we had the last of heirloom tomatoes (a freeze this weekend), perfect, simple, coarse salt. ate the super delish no salt needed chicken n dumplings, and an amazing turnip soup with smoked wild boar bacon that was just awesome. they were stingy on the bread (and yeah, we recommended a better bakery and they should probably switch from baguette to ciabatta or something. germans know their bread!!). they make coffee themselves on the bar in these plastic filter things from taiwan and a plug in water boiler, and cross their fingers in the hope that no one ever orders more than 4 at a time. (drank it without milk and i was up ALL night. good stuff, though i would recommend a french press. afterall, i am franzosich!). all the plates, mugs are from ikea. cash only. 4 employees total (someone in the kitchen and a german girl for front of the house). every order written on notebook paper, no computers. so that's pretty much your typical, ok let's open a restaurant and do this right and low key and not bother with liquor licenses kinda place. in the back of my mind i was thinking about wrestling the property away from the owners (perhaps a duel or betting it in poker?) and instilling my brother as chef, but then, i think my brother can do even better...

i'd like to buy a very late gift certificate for a restaurant as a wedding gift for a couple that live in the South Loop, Chicago. Someone recommended Gioco. Any comments, suggestions? Looking for something romantic, small, sortof high end that perhaps they wouldn't go to everyday... thanks!

so maybe you would like to know what's cooking in nortern Sumatra? chances are, unless you work for a disaster relief or humanitarian NGO (or maybe you're an armed rebel) you haven't been to Aceh. people in indonesia eat with spoon and forks, no chopsticks, no knives. and the odd thing i found is that people use the spoon to eat, and the fork as the separator implement. i'm lefty so it throws the whole thing off. i can't recommend a place in particular, because i've only really eaten from mobile carts and places with no signs. to see what's cooking anywhere you only have to roll down the street, very slow and look in the windows. everyone puts their kitchen out front (shouldn't we all) and you can see exactly what they have. they'll pile up noodles, soya beans, eggs or line up the fresh fruit they use for juices. once i took a hard boiled egg and everyone was all, no, you don't want to eat that. why not? "because it's a duck egg, over there are the chicken eggs." but no, i went with the duck egg, and as expected, tasty, rich, just a little salty. yum. even though these ducks do NOT look healthy. they'll also have the fried fish heads, whole shrimps with their skin fried into a blob, goat with bones and other stuff in the window that usually sits around all day with a little candle nearby, so i might not recommend it unless your stomach is prepared. if you order noodles, they cook it up in a big wok. you can try asking for "not spicy" but so far, it hasn't worked. they add little round peanuts with the skin on to most dishes, and shallots, or crispy thingies called "beef floss" as adornment. then there's the cart guys, who are just everywhere. in jakarta, i would recommend gado gado. it's a whole mess of veggies and fried rice, and since they cook it there it takes a while, but guaranteed fresh. and you can take away pretty much anything in a banana leaf inside brown paper folded up similar to a chinese take-out containter. so if you don't want to eat with skinny cats nibbling at your toes... my best meal so far in Aceh was the Soto Ayam, or chicken in coconut/lemongrass broth. i don't know how else to describe it but simple, delicious. not many vegetables around here, just the fried potato balls and the occsasional green. there was a little lime and hot sauce on the side. the more common acinese meal involves a miriad of little places of fish, meat, potatoes and greens in a variety of coconut, peanut, or just plain spicy sauces. you eat with your hands, so you get a bowl of water to wash up. pictured here is the grilled chicken, little skinny pieces of chicken buried under full chiles, friend shallots and these mysterious fried leaves (anyone know what these are?). they are supposedly meant to "counteract the fat of the chicken" though i've seen these chickens running around, they are definitely not fat. so you dig in the leaves and it makes a rustling sound, like you hear walking through the woods in autumn. On my last day we went to a soup, or Sop place. i noticed on the way in, these huge beef bones, with knuckles, must be the knee or something. if you order the beef knuckle soup you get the whole shabang, with a straw into the marrow. you cut off any meat left on the bone with a knife (first time i've seen a knife served at a table), dip it in the soup. here's the picture from the menu. totally weird. i tried to take real pictures, but it's hard to ask someone, "may i document you eating this weird shit?"

I don't think a guide of "good" or "bad" restaurants is needed - more importantly, what are good or worse dishes to order at local restaurants. just like people who need help choosing healthy options for their diets, i would greatly appreciate someone recommending a certain dish for its sustainable contribution to the food market. you can't blanket restaurants and witch hunt, but if people are steered away frrom chilean sea bass, it won't keep finding its way onto the menus...also educating the waitstaff. i've been at a restaurant before and overheard someone specifically asking for chilean sea bass. it would be great if the server knew how to recommend something similar and better...

given the political nature of our city, and in my opinion relatively educated and enlightened residents, i remain shocked that the food industry can't be better about offering sustainable and healthy fish on our menus. it's not up to residents alone, but a great responsibility lies on the foodies, purveyors and others of the industry to stick to green options for seafood, because i'm sorry, there is just NO excuse for serving chilean seabass or wild sturgeon. if you don't serve it, people won't order it, and we won't continue to devastate vulnerable fisheries and ecosystems - some of them on the brink of extinction - to eat what is often illegally harvested and likely the weaker, unhealthy remaining individuals anyway (when a fishery is on its way to collapsing, the healthy ones are all gone, it's the small runts that are left!). we're all about organic vegetables, free-range meats, so why does a place like Hook get all the glory for serving decent fish? it should be the standard. i'd be interested in knowing why a restaurant would serve a fish that will only be rarer in years to come. it can't be that good so as to eliminate it permanently from the earth. often, it merely requires giving a fishery a break, laying off for a few years so that it can recover. but continuous pressure will only shorten the time a species has. i recently forwarded some fish anatomy questions from a chef aquaintance to a marine biology listserv and they were nothing short of appalled that DC area restaurants serve IUCN redlist species. there is a lot of material that can educate you to good choices, and perhaps when the next International Marine Conservation Congress comes to DC this May (consider it the olympics of marine biology, every four years the leaders in the science and policy arena descend on a city for a week of dialog) we could have some better options available. and if not, there are likely several attendees that will be telling their 600+ colleagues where to eat when they are here. here's what a scientist from the Ocean Research and Conservation Organization had to say: Chefs and restaurants are an important ingredient in the melting pot of marine conservation, because they can influence what seafood products people will ultimately consume. The Seafood watch program at the Monterey Bay Aquarium is a great initiative in this new path of collaboration between science and the public, and contains very useful pocket guides (even iPhone guides) on what to eat or not, based on extinction level (of the seafood species) or possible human health risks. Check http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.aspx Of the species listed in your message, two are of particular concern. But it helps to remind the information, for the sake of all seafood consumers (and chefs) on the list. Sturgeons (many times labelled as "wild sturgeon" when sold to restaurants), are in their path to extinction. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the world’s oldest and largest global environmental network, classifies species by extinction threats, at their IUCN red list, based on extensive studies and research. All sturgeon species on the red list (27 in total) are threatened in some way, either critically endangered to endangered (most of them), or vulnerable getting close to becoming endangered. These species have genus names such as Acipenser, Huso, Macrhybopsis, Psephurus, Pseudoscaphirhynchus and Scpaphirhynchus. You can find the red list at http://www.iucnredlist.org, and IUCN at http://www.iucn.org The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), has its own classification. Two sturgeons, Shortnose Sturgeon (Acipenser brevirostrum) and Common Sturgeon (Acipenser sturio) are listed under CITES Appendix I, which means, they are threatened with extinction and CITES prohibits international trade in specimens of these species. The rest of the sturgeon species are in Appendix II, which means they are not necessarily NOW (emphasis in the "now") threatened with extinction but that may become so unless trade is closely controlled and will not be detrimental to the survival of the species in the wild See the CITES species list at http://www.cites.org/eng/app/appendices.shtml And CITES appendix explanations at http://www.cites.org/eng/app/index.shtml Following on the same lists, the Pacific stock of big eye tuna (Tunnus obesus), is listed as vulnerable at the IUCN red list, although the assessment was done in 1996, and most likely, it is in worse shape right now (See http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/21859). CITES has no listing for this species. In summary, assuming your friend was actually cooking what the invoice said, he and other chefs like him (and clients) could greatly help consume ocean-friendly seafood, by choosing to give some time off to those species that need it the most.

i have an aquaintance coming to town from London. someone i don't know really well, much older than me. they are being nominated for a Grammy (?), so let's say they might have good taste, some money. I would like to show off some good DC food. however, it just so happens that saturday is valentine's day and so everywhere is all special menu with red roses and kisses and hearts. puke. so, can someone recommend somewhere nice, but not too expensive (so in the case we split the bill, i'm not broke) and won't have us interlock arms while we drink champagne? something that is DC (does that even exist?), a little unique? anywhere in NW that might have a table free next saturday? thank you!

the gin joint? yess! i went to the new heights gin joint last weekend for several reasons. 1, because a year ago when waiting for a table upstairs i had a most tasty gin and tonic i had never heard of and thought, well, i should definitely come back here. 2, since my pal Logan Cox started working the kitchen, but really, it's 3, i met a guy in a bar when i was really drunk over inauguration weekend and he asked me out for drinks and i needed a small place where i would be sure to recognize him among other patrons, oh, and it had to be quiet because for some reason i imagined that he might have a stutter or a lisp, and finally, why not impress someone with a tiny hidden spot in woodley park on a friday? so, the gin joint. he was already there when i arrived and thank goodness spotted me when i came in, otherwise, i would have likely sat two chairs down and ordered on my own. he had already gotten the jist of the menu and explained to someone who never even imagined there were more kinds of gin than the ones that come in the plastic bottle and bombay sapphire (which i only started drinking in college in honor of my indian friends). i was intrigued and eager to sample, almost overwhelmed, but they are sorted in a specific order on the menu so you can figure out what's going on (do they ever do that with wines? because i always just sort by price...second from the cheapest!). i started with a rather safe choice, right in the middle, a hendrick's that i knew was guaranteed tasty, but the next round (or two?) were complicated, delicate mixes of something truly unique in DC. then came the food...the charcuterie plate had a bunch of items to offer...some chicken liver, which i just jumped on (sorry buddy, you wouldn't like it anyway), some real tasty jerky, but i really, i was all about the mackerel dish that followed. i would never order mackerel (it's always the last rubbery waxy piece of fish on the sushi combo platter) much less even order fish (i used to work at NOAA...there are no more fish, people!!) however, as i know the list by heart... mackerel is totally in the green column! there was a crisp skin, a bright refreshing flavor, and the mustardy fingerling potatoes with capers. yum. i just might have fallen in love with mackerel! my date, however is a whole different story. but, as they say, there are always more fish in the sea, and i will most definitely be bringing them into the new heights gin joint!

beet salad update! so....i went back to vinoteca! the city paper has these $50 coupons you buy for $25. (go to city paper click on Eats) highly recommend these! have some for commonwealth too. anyway, turns out vinoteca has eyes on the internets and had seen my picture and post and knew all me, and the whole beet fiasco. so, they offered me a complimentary salad. i requested it "especially huge" and apparently, they had made a 3 plate wide dish, but then recanted and sent me this. Is this the chef making eyes at me? reminds me of the famous carvel cookie puss! cute. tasty.

i'm certainly not bashful (my ex-boyfriend returned a box of clothing containing a pair of fruity colored panty floss not belonging to me and I hardly batted a lash) but I did blush upon being served the beet and goat cheese salad at Vinoteca a recent friday night. "Beet" just happens to be a French homonym for the slang for wang, a minor detail that was wasted on my anglophone dining companion. I don't how the chef could actually arrange this plate without a giggle - my barbera went through my nose. I do know that penis props are a source of humor in the kitchen. but I never expected it to seep into the dining room! no, I don't think I know anyone who works there, but are they trying to tell me something? yes, i'm recently single, thanks for reminding me what i'm missing! now, I just have to fix this TMJ disorder...

found the tinyest coolest italian place near metro saint paul. some famous italian actress was there (can't remember her name). reservations are a must, there are only 10 tables. there's no sign, it's just a door and windows at 10 rue sevigne. the chef is a hot young italian who announces when he's firing the risotto if you want some. comes out and helps out, very friendly. service is...Typical paris. food unbelieveable. menu handwritten. recommendations: tagliatelle with calamar, papardelle with unbelievably fresh crab. and on top of it all, pretty cheap! entrees and mains for 4 people, with 2 bottles of wine and dessert (we were comped for an amawing tiramisu when the waiter fell in the weeds) came to 150 euros. oh, if you order anything with truffle ( there's a lot on the menu) it'll cost triple, but likely worth it!!

burgers in the back room? dear friends, as a repeat back-room diner i like the contrast between the cafe which also has its benefits, a louder more festive ambiance outdoor seating etc... i reckon chef ruta divided the restaurant for a purpose. and i see the sober dining area is for serious dining and eaters who have mastered the fine art of utensils. no finger foods here, my friends. the quiet conservative atmosphere and its associated menu lifts standards not seen anywhere else in this city. if you start mixing burgers with my risibisi i would be just as irked as if my companion had ordered a corn dog or any variant of a meat on a stick.