deangold

In case of a bad outbreak, there might be a shortage of delivery service drivers.

Wow that really looks great! Too bad it is so out of my orbit.

Sashimi plate from H Mart w/salmon, tuna, marinated baby octopus, fluke and the engawa {the fin flap} from the fluke served with cherry blossom shoyu, and sashimi grade tamari {I don't know what makes it sashimi grade but it is yummy} and wasabi from powder. Really good, the salmon fat, and the fluke & octopus quite wonderful. Tuna eh. Cincoteague little neck clams soup. Guanciale fat, king mushrooms, green onions, hon dashi powder, white wine, butter. I saute the garlic, green onion and king mushroom stems in the guanciale fat, then added butter, the mushroom tops, the onion greens. Everything went into a pot of boiling white wine with lots of thyme branches. Next I added the clams and boiled for 5 minutes, added more butter and let it simmer 2 more minutes. Champion Missile IPA which is truly outstanding. Champion along with Solace are really standout beers for the local scene. Draft Makkoli After dinner ti punch w/rhum agricole Neisson white, lime end, sugar just like Ed Hamilton showed us on his visit to the Grotto. Cheese: pecorino with black peppercorn {fresco not stagionate}

I only saw him once live, but his intensity and the piano was amazing.

Have you tried LaoMa Spicy in 99 ranch market?

Second lunch. I had the eponymous dish. It was huge and the first couple of bites were pretty darned good. But in the end it is a breaded piece of not particularly good beef with nithing more than chopped bell pepper, onion and tomato. It was a hard slog to finish it as the breading became increasingly soggy and heavy. The green salsa and vinegar helped. The whole plate was underseasoned. This is now my second not so great meal. I will try it again as there were things that sounded good and might not play to the problems of my dish yesterday. They are nice people and that counts for a bit. So far, I prefer La Cochabambina Restaurant which seems to have a lighter touch. Also, the former Lima has already turned over to a Bolivian restaurant: Csa di Campo

The leftover fish from last night went into a salad with greens from Spring Valley, with red onion slivers, avocado, jarred artichoke hearts {Wegman's private label and I am surprised Wegman's would put their name on such crappy artichokes, every heart had inedible bits}, horseradish sprouts, with a dressing of ume shisho vinegar, olive oil, house made mustard, white shoyu and fish sauce. Cocktail: Kay: Boulevardier made with Old Grandad, Don Ciccio Rabarbaro, Capotoline white vermouth, Bitterman's orange citrate bitters, Bitter Truth peach bitters. Me: 3 to 2 gibson w/Brokers London dry gin, Dolin dry vermouth, Peychaud's bitters, Bitter Truth olive bitters. Bracing, balance martini w/the olive bitters adding a spice rather than any discernible olive flavor. Wine: The David Bruce chardonnay we enjoyed so much the previous night had the slightest bit of cork taint that blew off the first night. Tonight, despite being under coravin, was undrinkably tainted. Nightcap: Borough High Rye Mashbill Bourbon. Mine with Bitter Truth chocolate bitters which made for a broad rich feel in the mouth and a much better balanced dram. Kay's had Bitter Truth peach and either I did not use enough pach or it wasn't the best choice of bitters, but while it mellowed the bourbon a tad, it left little flavor or aroma change. Not a bad choice of bitter, but one that did far less than the chocolate bitters. A note: the Borough is locally made and is $38 wholesale {suggested retail is $50}. I had this bottle from the closing. In my opinion, while this is a fun product, its pricing is very high! I can but some pretty great ryes from the VABC for what a bottle of the Bourough would cost. I can get Four Roses single barrel, Wild Turkey Kentucky SPirit} which are far better sips. The Bourough has a great story, but unfortunately the quality/price ratio is well below that of other brands. I might buy it again, but certainly my next few bottles on my Bourbon wish list won't be this.

My goddaughter's rescue puppy Sally Doggo. She was found on the side of the road left for dead, lost her left foreleg, just had the first of two surgeries to fix her 'good' shoulder and today ate everything in sight! Last surgery for now is next Wednesday. Sally for Sally Bowles. My god daughter is into musical theater. Her other rescue pup is Funny Girl.

By the way, Google evels thee distinct websites for different Kpot groups: East Coast https://www.kpotbbq.com/locations Los Angeles vicinity https://www.kpotusa.com/menu Northern California https://www.kpotgrill.com/ This is called K-POT & GRILL and has a different menu concept. May be different entirely but I am surprised that they have not been it with trademark action.

Was in MoCo today so I went to PescaDeli in Bethesda before coming home. Theya re the poeple behind A and H seafood who we bought from. They have great stuff. I picked out a whole flounder, about 2.2#. They gutted and trimmed the fins.I told him I wanted him to leave the meaty part of the fins because they were good eating and he like that I knoew my stuff. Took a sheet pan with a rack and lay the fish on it, coated with olive oil, salt, pepper. Made a bef of rosemary and thyme leaves and 4 slices of lemon and lay the fish on it. Then I coated to top side with thyme, rosemary and 4 very thin slices of lemon, then sprinkled everything with spice rub. Baked at 425 for 20 minutes but it should have been 25. The lemon slices on top got crispy and were delicious. Fileted the fish and served it with walnut, sage, thyme & rosemary pesto. I had a mandarin and zested and juiced it into the pesto. A touch of sherry wine vinegar and a goodly bit of sriracha. We have about 1/3 to 1/2 the fish left over. It was really too rare so I popped it back in the oven when we were done and it will be part of an avocado, fish, cuke salad for tomorrow. Wine: David Bruce Santa Cruz Mountain Chardonnay 2000 which was in outstanding shape once the funk blew off. It stood up to our eating the lemon slices. Better with the fish than on its own. This dinner was a home run!

I was here on the first day they were open to the public and it was a mixed bag. A couple of other trips yielded some consistent pleasures: good broths; and consistent problems: service, out of stock items, lack of their promised "good beer program." With legend being so close, I took my hot pot jones there and only thought about K-Pot on days I wanted both BBQ and Hot pot. {an interesting aside, my first hot pot experience was in Berkley in the 70s. The place had pans with both a dome for grilling and an outer ring for the broth with the happy result being that the juices from the BBQ flavored your broth. But I digress} Once it became a long drive, Legend got my business most of the time. I realized today while running an errand in Rockville that I had not been in perhaps a year and a pot of Tom Yum broth felt like a great idea. They now offer split broth pots for $1 extra but they only offer two fixed combos rather than let you pick 2: Thai Tom Yum/Miso and Spicy/Herbal. I chose the former. They do give you a menu but they also leave you an i-Pad for do it yourself ordering which I liked a lot. You start with an array of banchan {after all the K stands for Korean} and today I got cucumber, sprouts, potato salad, kimchi, and one more, all tsty {better than Iron age, more varies than Honey Pig, on a par with my distant last meal at YeChon,not up to Oegadjib quality/selection}. On the starters for the hot pot, they offered tripe and tongue slices sichuan style and was rewarded with a nice version of the dish with a lot of veggies {slivered green onion, bell pepper, carrot shreds}in a decently spicy sauce. Not Sichuan Jin River good but very nice as a change with hot pot. The sauce bar remains their weak point: nothing bad but too many pre-made sauces {which lean sweet} and not enough separate ingredients for make you own. The broths were quite nice if a touch sweet. They were better for hot potting than sipping as soups. Sliced black pork & beef brisket found their way into both hot pot and onto the grill. Both were quite good, especially for an all you can eat. Pork Cheek and spicy pork shoulder met their ends on the grill and were particularly good. Lot of veggies and sides: spam {really good brand, definitely not spam brand, cocktail sausage, quail egg, tofu stick, king mushroom, crown daisy, bean curd roll, and pork gyoza. I could have picked an equal number of different veggies and side, the offering is quite wide. The beer list has some locals and typical big brands, but I had a pint of Sierra Nevada Hazy IPA which is quite a favorite. Nice to know that what is probably one of the original craft breweries {along with Anchor Steam} still puts out good stuff. The IPA was $3 which makes it a screaming value! What set the meal off was the service. Liquan {I am butchering his name} was to the table often checking in and making sure I had what is needed and his service made a good meal better. I stopped to rave to the manager what a pleasure he was/ Since the manager was eating his lunch, I felt bad I went on so long about how good everything but especially the service was. With the beer, both hot pot and BBQ and the $1 upcharge, the bill was $27.00 I think I will return to Legend more than K-Pot but K-pot will have a more prominent place in my rotation. Urban has been shut out by how good these two are.

This is the website that unconstitutional cooch could not figure out.

I ordered the burnt ends. Usually they should be almost crispy with bark, these were not. I have now had ribs, pork belly, pulled pork and the burn ends and am not really inclined to go back given the pleasure/$ ratio. I am quite curious about the places doing BBQ on Georgia Avenue: Cinder BBQ and Backyard Smokespot. I have never been to Federalist Pig. I am not sure of how many trips to DC my Virginia residency allows. I ate in. BBQ Bus was left off and I find if you eat there, it is reasonably good but again, not worth the going out of the way.

I need to go out and get some ironic tats right away! Don't you just hate forgetting you had beets last night and going to the bathroom in the morning? But the purple yams don't seem to have similar powers. By the way, I think that purple yams might be better steamed. I just really discovered them as a stand-alone veg sampling at H-Mart Fairfax {or is that being too cheap to go buy lunch Saturday at K-Mart!}

Late lunch today at the Duke Street location. I had pork belly bites and burnt ends. My reaction is that compared to the other BBQs I have been to lately {DC City Smokehouse, Texas Jacks, Sloppy Mama's, probably others whose memories has thankfully faded} this is at least competent, tasty BBQ. But this is not great BBQ. Both beats were greasy/fatty in a way that BBQ is supposed to avoid. The low and slow cooking is supposed to render out the fat and leave behind juice. The pork belly was pretty much rendered but that left the meats dry. The brisket was lacking in bark and several pieces unpleasantly fatty. The not too fatty pieces were good. The sauces are good as well. The mac n cheese was saucy and flavorless, the beans were sweet and not very saucy. I would have preferred a richer sauciness to them. $19.98 for the platter, left overs taken home. I had not realized that I have been to their other location until I saw the sauces. So my reaction to them in two visits is good, some of the best in DC but nothing to write home about.

Cukes from Twin Springs w/Ume Paste Purple Yams baked, butter salt & pepper Champion Missile IPA

HMart Fairfax 11200 Fairfax Blvd., Fairfax, VA 22030 😏

Unfortunately, our profit driven insurance industry will not let you have a stockpile for emergencies.

Rice Japanese eggplant pickles; home pickled beets; marinated Chinese mustard green. Kay had leftover lamb hot pot from Sichuan Jin River and I had snacked all day on left overs. Solace Hops Out Sun's Out. We have a new Solace for our next beer.

I have lots of noodle cups: seafood noodle, kimchi rames, udon, somen. Canned beans. Lots of tuna, smoked fish, crackers. We have soda siphons to make beverages and we have Korean drinking vinegar which can go in soda water for a soft drink. We mostly drink coffee & water. We still have loads of booze from the Grotto augmented with more than a few gins. Lot of cocktail onions & stuffed olives.

What is this "eat too much" you speak of? I am not familiar with this concept unless 911 needs to be called. I had some leftovers for breakfast.

Yes a mortar and pestle is fine but they are hard to get uniformity on a hard spice like a mustard seed. You might need to crush a little more. Right now the hot is so hot I can barely taste it. Excuse me I need a glass of woder.

Saturday night" a spin on Mul Naeng Myun that fell short on several levels: I don't have any water kimchi so I tried to substitute brine from my lactofermented giardinera. Not a great idea. I forgot to make the mustard sauce until I had completed the dish so I made a quick version and used it without letting it set up and meld, resulting in a pretty harsh flavor. I grabbed the wrong noodles and we had somen and not buckwheat noodles. Our banchan were food: Pickled beets w/yuzu; marinated chinese mustard, homemade kimchi. Makkoli made verything better.

Lat night at 5pm when we arrives, they had several tables. The lower portion of the restaurant, filled with booths for 2 and 4, seemed to be doing good business but only a few of the large tables wire occupied. We stayed until almost 8.30 so we say their entire night basically. Can't compare it to pre-virus levels as I have not been there in so long but I would say that their business was at most, fair. We are doing aother dinner March 19 at Panda Gourmet and Kay and I still plan on our trip to flushing in early April. We will follow all reccomendations from the authority but for now we are really trying to support Chinese businesses we love.

We were 9 for a stunning dinner at Sichuan Jin River. We ordered 6 small plates and 6 large. I am in pretty much of a food coma so I might not remember all 12, but here goes: Husband & Wife slices: here the infamous husband and wife were actually a throuple. Beef, beef tendon and tripe in a rich, spicy sauce with a dose of Sichuan peppercorn for a great balance of ma and la. Really stunning version, probably as good as I have ever had, reminded me of the one at Grace Garden but a unique twist on a Sichuan classic. Our waiter described it as the most popular cold dish and it is easy to see why. Fungus Salad: wood ear, pickled peppers, some shreds of garlic in a sprightly, vinegar dominated sauce. Really good. Spicy Bean Jelly Noodle {not sure of it is the Northern style or the one just listed as chilled.} Just a top notch version with a big dollop of mala sauce: chile oil, crispy chiles, sichuan peppercorn, garlic, ginger, green onion. You need to be sure and stir this well to coat the jelly with the sauce as the jelly is purely a texture element. Absolutely top notch. Anchovies w. Roasted Peanuts & Hot Peppers: a big plate of peanuts with a few chiles and a tangle of tiny white salted and fried fish. The fish were the length of a basmati rice grain but 1/4 or less in diameter. They were strewn in abundance over the peanuts. Again, one of the best takes I have ever had and a unique twist on a ubiquitous dish. Sichuan Beef Jerky: traditional recipes I have seen for this dish involve stewing a tough cut of beef in a sauce until absorbed, then leaving at the edge of the stove to cook slowly from residual heat until the meat is chewy but not the chewiness of American, Thai or Indonesian styles. I think I have only had this at Joe's Noodle House and this version really blew me away. Sweet, salty, beefy, dense and chewy but not tough. Again, a unique twist on a traditional dish. Smoked Duck: fine but standard version. Probably would have been really good anywhere else but it got lost in the brilliance of the other dishes. Mains: Beef Belly: brilliant dish of thin slices of beef belly in a brown gravy with some veggies. It was spectacularly good but some of the details got lost in the abundance.} The dish comes on a surprise bed of thin noodle. Once the meat and veg is gone, the noodle and the sauce make fine slurping. This is not on the English menu but is the dish on the specials board listed only in Chinese. Unlike my visits under the old ownership where getting recommendations was difficult and finding out what was on the menu from the white board is hard, Jimmy Lee our waiter was a gem at helping out. They also make a cold dish with beef belly so be sure to distinguish. Lamb Hot Pot: Another brilliant dish. This was lamb meat with veggies like carrots, peppers in a spicy but not mala sauce. It was soupy, the sauce came up to the height of the ingredients. So good. Dry Pot: lotus root, flounder chunks, shrimp, greens, carrots, other stuff in a well spiced dry fry showing off mala spicing as well. Several people at the table ate at the old Wang's up Rockville Pike and we all agreed that this was as good or better than Wang's. We need a meal at Wang's to compare. Superb. Flounder with vegetables in Fiery Soup: This is usually referred to as Boiled {main protein} in Fiery Sauce or Water Braised {Main protein} and the main protein is typically beef or flounder. The protein is marinated in egg white, cornstarch and flavorings. The proteins usually gets a quick fry to set the marinade into a coating but not cooking the ingredient fully, and set aside. Then a sauce is built with green onion, ginger, garlic, Sichuan hot bean paste, soy, and after these ingredients are cooked into a mass with a slick of oil on it, broth is added, then glass noodle, cabbage and bean sprouts, and finally the protein. This example with flounder was again superb. The flounder pieces were plump and juicy and the coating gave an interesting texture: nowt soggy but wet. The sauce was super with a high quality broth used I suspect it was a chicken/pork broth so pescatarians beware. The pork version I had at lunch last Friday and this version were both fantastic and worthy of slurping up the soup. Joe's is justly famous for this dish and Panda Gourmet makes a killer version. This version is equal to the other and is more refined, not better, just more refined. Eggplant Yu Hsiang style {listed on the menu as Eggplant w/Ground Pork in Spicy Garlic Sauce} Several people said this was the dish of the night and I would not argue. This dish is ubiquitous on modern Chinese menus and tonight's version was as good as any other I have ever had. If I need to quibble, the sauce was the slightest touch too strong with vinegar but this sauce is known as fish fragrant and was originally designed to go with an oily fish, so the vinegar is there to cut the oiliness. The eggplant is fried in oil first so this dish can become an oil bomb or the eggplant can get creamy but heavy with absorbed oil. Not here. This was perfectly cooked eggplant. The dish was a standout and Kay thinks I am crazy to quibble it and she is probably right. But Kay thinks I am crazy without any restrictions on the crazy so I leave it to you to decide. But I usually agree with her wisdom {or say I do to her face, I sleep more than she does!} Pea Shoot Leaves Amazingly good. Much better than standard versions. Whole Tilapia with Pickled Peppers: this dish suffered as being merely good in a sea of incredible. I didn't have much so I can't comment more than to note the ratio of sauce to pickled pepper seemed to favor the sauce. Next time I get a group together, I will see in advance of they can get a more interesting whole fish like snapper or fluke, and as well a larger one. A large bucket of rice was served and it again was outstanding. If it seems like I said unique or best a lot, I did. Not since the infamous meal at China Boy where Claudia and Scott met have I had a Sichuan style meal so good. It ranks as one of the great Sichuan meals of my life. the word refined comes to mind a lot. Not fancy or gussied up but just incredibly balanced. This was the outstanding meal I htink we all were hoping for when we had a plain old good meal at Mama Chang's. This meal was the same price and much much much MUCH better. The flavors jumped yet balance was the overriding feature. Next I need to shout out at the outstanding service. Jimmy Lee seems to be the head waiter and he is generous with his recommendations. He not only pointed out dishes but helped us assemble a meal with no repeating flavors. He made a great meal even better. Often getting a wiater in a Chinese restaurant {really any restaurant these days} to give recommendations is difficult. But Jimmy kept saying "we do different Sichuan dishes and nothing Americanized. He was truly a prod ambassador of a really outstanding restaurant. I did not get their name but the runner and the busser were hard working and always jumping in to make the meal extra special. The warmth of our reception was on par with the outstanding food. I must admit I was skeptical when MartyL brought up Sichuan Jin River but I usually agree with his on Chinese food so I decided to put this outing together. He is right and my life is better from his recommendation! If you love spicy foods in general and Sichuan food in particular, you need to go here.