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ol_ironstomach

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Everything posted by ol_ironstomach

  1. ol_ironstomach
    Apparently they felt the need for a milder sauce with a jalapeí±o profile. I tried the range at the gift shop, but didn't care for anything but the familiar red original.
  2. ol_ironstomach
    IIRC, McIlhenny now has their particular strain of peppers grown-to-order elsewhere, but they control and directly supervise the harvesting, which is done by hand with each picker carrying a color reference stick. There's actually something a bit creepy and antebellum about the way the tour keeps mentioning that each harvest is still supervised in person by a member of the McIlhenny family, as if you'd expect them to be astride a horse carrying a whip. All processing is still done at Avery Island, I believe using local salt to form the "cap" around the airlocks on each wooden barrel. The aroma is phenomenal from the moment you pull into their parking lot. The normal product is just okay in my book, but the extra-aged "reserve" Tabasco, originally produced for the family's own use but now bottled as a limited edition, is quite a bit better. The true reserve, based on the one time I was able to taste a somewhat mishandled jug of it, is phenomenal.
  3. ol_ironstomach
    Chef Will sent us this excellent beet salad recently, which was really over the top since we had already ordered a considerable number of dishes for two. That's not news. What it represents is significant, though. If the man had a weakness in his repertoire before, it had been the apparent dearth of non-rich items; you could count on almost everything being anchored by a rich base, an intense sauce, the generous application of pork. I loved it, when moderation allowed, but quietly wondered if perhaps he just didn't do "light". Forget about that now. You may have to look up at the specials board, or ask him to "cook healthy" for you, but I think the influence of reinventing himself through last summer's weight loss challenge (and the new Mrs. Artley) have filled in a sizeable missing piece in his ongoing reinvention of Orso and its menu. I'm not a big fan of kale, but his preparation of baby kale - bruised with a peppery sauce and served with a wedge of pizza dough bread - was both reminiscent of and even better than the very Neapolitan habit of finishing a pie with a heap of arugula.
  4. ol_ironstomach
    Jaleo? Really? Also, interesting to see that Sushi Nakazawa (NYC) didn't make the New Restaurant cut. I'm a bit disappointed that no area chefs made the Outstanding Chef candidates this time around, although several are in the running for Best Chef Mid-Atlantic. Maybe 2013 really was that un-buzzy a year, other than Rose's Luxury...
  5. ol_ironstomach
    Thanks for the memory jog. Back around high school, I had read a few articles about the mystery and eventual identification of the origins of the bog people, but nothing about their stomach contents. As someone who has hosted a gently humorous tuber-themed dinner party for most of the past 17 years, I can't tell you how pleased I am to learn this! Nor do I recall ever being so intrigued by starch grains in a non-photographic context...the sleuthing that you do is really, really cool.
  6. ol_ironstomach
    This is absolutely fascinating, and thanks to jayandstacey for asking a number of questions I was curious about, and a bunch of even better ones. Apologies for the open-ended question, but in broad strokes, how much can currently be determined about the early history of food preparation methods from the evidence? Beyond raw ingredients, do recognizable details suggest how raw materials were processed? Mechanically altered? Heated? Cooked in complex ways? Similarly, besides assumptions about available Calories from changes like the lactose tolerance mutation, or the introduction of potatoes, what sorts of ancient dietary shifts (if any) should be of blockbuster interest, beyond the customary grade school handwaving of "hunter-gatherers settled down"? Also, other than Otzi the Iceman and I imagine some Siberian mammoths, are there any other stomach contents of interest from *really* ancient remains? And finally, tossing in a Weekly World News question: what do you make of the recent attempt to identify the flora depicted in the controversial Voynich manuscript?
  7. ol_ironstomach
    Frederick has some great old spaces: I've always enjoyed the pressed tin ceiling in this building. But to tell the truth, foodwise I preferred the previous incarnation, when it was still Donnelly's. The food was better (the chowder was a must-have) and the bar less hip than those first few years after the changeover. Guess I should give them another spin since it's been a while.
  8. ol_ironstomach
    That oceanic richness to the celery root soup, I am told, is from lobster stock. I'd bet it's just as good outside of the winter months, but on a chilly day it's liquid gold. We weren't quite as impressed with the faux ribeye steak. Well turned-out, yes. Attractive, yes. Marbled, yes. But short on flavor, even after factoring out the fact that it doesn't have an equivalent to the "calette" ribeye cap. But then there was the cassoulet, with the duck leg on top...crispy, tender, and oh so rich to fortify you against the night air. It was a Friday night around 7PM when we departed, and Tom Power was there in his kitchen, working on a piece of fish. I would have expected he'd be next door instead, working the fires at Corduroy at the height of dinner service, but it's one sign that Baby Wale is no mere afterthought.
  9. ol_ironstomach
    What a pleasant little gem of a place to just go and take a meal. Especially the sashimi. I don't know where the shellfish came from, but the cuttlefish was almost obscenely creamy, and you needed to make yourself slow down to enjoy the tender slices of octopus - it was full of flavor that just kept giving and giving. Bonus points for the background music, an eclectic mix of mostly '70s and '80s that included Beatles, Zep, Talking Heads.
  10. ol_ironstomach
    I'd have to characterize our recent meal here as "the whole was not greater than the sum of its parts". There's potential here, but I don't really understand what they're trying to be. The ingredients seems to be very good, the kitchen seems to be able to execute technique, but the dishes themselves... First, the good news. The table snack is pieces of lavash crisps, served with with an olive tapenade and a sundried tomato dip, all excellent. As one might expect, the crabcakes are the same excellent items that River Falls has long been known for. Various vegetable accompaniments were made with well-prepped baby vegetables, cooked just through. But then. The potential of their half-chicken, further divided into a decently roasted breast and a wonderful buttermilk-fried deboned thigh, is entirely undermined by the sea of cloyingly sweet bourbon-honey sauce poured over the top. I can't even begin to understand the conceptualization of this dish. Two techniques, totally different, each producing a crisp exterior texture, and ideally a moist and savory interior. (The thigh was excellent; the breast was a bit lacking in moisture.) And then you turn those hard-earned textures to mush and drown the chicken flavors in a brown sauce that would make Ruby Tuesday's proud, killing the dish. Killing. The. Dish. Portions of the sides were blue-haired-people-in-Florida huge, and generally fired in individual skillets. The ones we tried were good, not exemplary, and tending slightly towards what Porcupine refers to as "gray food". Maybe it was just the subdued lighting in the place. The crab and artichoke dip was an odd version, very liquid at first, with not that much crabmeat in it, but plated with a reef of artichoke hearts down the center. The confused textures made it hard to dip the soda bread into, as the cream would immediately run off and it would trail cheesy stringers from any attempts to use the spoon. It was also quite large. By the end of our meal, it had firmed up considerably, but we were to stuffed to attempt any more of it. I just don't know. Potomac Village has long suffered from restaurants that only aspired to be "good enough", despite the high rents, and I can't say that this one breaks the mold. On this visit, the Tavern certainly wasn't as satisfying, nor as revelatory, as the lately revived Old Angler's has been.
  11. ol_ironstomach
    I don't recall how many dishes the four of us split today...five? Six? But I can tell you this: every plate left the table clean. We didn't leave a drop of sauce nor a smudge of aioli behind. No whelks in the Grand Chesapeake Boil today, but no matter...it's still a sumptuous plate for two or more. Other than the absent whelks, our presentation was maybe even better than the depiction above; each of the coddled eggs was set atop an Olde Salt clam, instantly solving the question of how to pick them up, and the scallops were plated after the sauce, keeping the gorgeous seared crust intact. And somehow this was all integrated without overcooking anything, particularly the squid. I haven't been feeling very eloquent lately, so I'll just point out a couple of things about three of our dishes. First, the herring rollmops were fantastic, if you like rollmops. No apparent shortcuts anywhere. The pickled vegetables maintained that balance of sweet and biting that is often out-of-whack, and the herrings themselves were large, meaty, and maintained a texture worthy of a sushi restaurant. My father-in-law would have been over the moon. Second, the Waterman's Remedy had a strong Asian vibe, underscored by the umami bomb "seafood dumplings" bobbing in the bowl...a refined riff on the "fish balls" found in Asian soups, only these were nothing at all like the rubbery shortcut items one commonly encounters. It's not as overtly rich as the other dishes, but would not be at all out-of-place in a grand Hong Kong restaurant. Third, $19 gets you three large scallops, perfectly seared and identical to those on the Chesapeake Boil, served on a bed of rutabaga puree, garnished with cipollini, baby carrots, and a bit of greens. Get it.
  12. ol_ironstomach
    St Petersburg; Redington Shores I sensed a theme among most of the places we peeked into in the area: cheap bulk. After a few encounters with intolerably mediocre food, Gubeen and I started hunting down ethnic restaurants in hopes of respite. And while we didn't find much worth writing home about, at least the cheap bulk ethnic places weren't quite as bad. But hey, here are a couple of observations anyway. In downtown St Petersburg, Engine No 9 cranks out some pretty decent and interesting burger combinations. Their "Chubby Duck" burger might sport less foie gras than one would get at Ray's (much less the jaw-dropping slabs that Wabeck used to ply us with) but it was still a worthy combination. G had their "Shrimp Burger", built around a patty consisting of shrimp arranged in a circle. They use larger, less tender shrimp than Michel Richard's version, and it lacks a contrasting crunch element, but it was still interesting. Over by the beaches, the prevailing theme was "tourist trap". Nothing exemplified this more than Conch Republic Grill, an attractive enough spot where the dishes *could* be good but generally ended up taking a wrong turn somewhere. Their take on fish tacos had the right components, but assembled into an unmanageably large and wet burrito-sized soft taco that would have worked much better had it been two smaller items. A perfectly good (if absurdly generous) slice of Key Lime Pie was undermined by being plated on a heavy drizzle of a clear, dark green sauce best described as liquified Jolly Rancher. One spot that we liked was the Seabreeze Island Grill. One of the larger and more obviously prosperous spots along the main drag, the usual cartoony menu featured mostly locally- and Florida-caught fish, and while the descriptions were thoroughly mainstream, what arrived on the plate revealed a kitchen that actually knew what to do with seafood. The fried hogfish platter sounded like any other, but the fillets were uniformly lightly breaded in panko and perfectly fried, with nary a hint of overcooking. Ditto the broiled Royal Red Shrimp, one of the specials that night. They did admit, however, that their blackened preparations were strongly toned down in deference to the bland tastes of most of their clientele. The kitchen would happily add sriracha if extra heat was requested.
  13. ol_ironstomach
    Beats me; I don't know his work well enough, although I've enjoyed it from time to time. He's almost certainly examined a wider variety and much greater number of cars than I have, but our tastes and priorities are different. Of the local reviewers, WJLA's John Harter has probably been my favorite over the years, and he's one of the more technically capable drivers, but his format allows precious little time for details. The automotive reviewer who resonates best with me is Chris Harris, but he only reviews sportscars.
  14. ol_ironstomach
    Would Depaz cane syrup work? It's a dark bar syrup made in Martinique from blue sugarcane, and widely used in rhum agricole cocktails; you should be able to find it readily from Joe Riley or any of the better liquor stores.
  15. ol_ironstomach
    It's a pity that people would rather buy new than quality. Lodge was always pretty crude stuff, even when only Wagner was left to compete with them. My medium Wagner skillet was bought new, but my little pan was a no-name yard sale rescue that had obviously seen decades of breakfast fry-ups in somebody's home in rural Frederick County, and will hopefully see decades more. I do love the look of the hammered exteriors on old Chicago Hardware pans.
  16. ol_ironstomach
    I was genuinely surprised that it wasn't even remotely full last night. ETR is a fantastic small-to-medium-plates destination, so long as you like seafood, and deserves to be packed. There are a couple of non-seafood options, of course, but generally you'll need to like fish or shellfish to roam the menu freely. On a food quality level, I'd put it right up there with Rose's Luxury even though the atmosphere is very different, with the dining room evoking more of a "seafood shack" theme with communal benches and the tabletops awkwardly divided lengthwise by a high elevated shelf in the center. Seafood leaves no room for error, which made last night's consistent excellence all the more impressive. Besides an excellent fish pie - Julien's pastry coffin beautifully golden with just the right flakiness for a savory pie - I was longing for some Carolina shrimp earlier in the week (while I was making a paella with Gulf shrimp) so the Swordfish-To-Your-Face was a done deal, with a beautifully seared piece of swordfish, (andouille?) sausage slices, and three head-on shrimp served over a nicely muted sauerkraut. The fish chowder was also superb. With Rappahannock Oysters a partner in the operation, it was no surprise that oysters featured prominently in many dishes, but you couldn't go wrong with a plate of these on the half-shell. Gubeen and I split an assortment of their three varieties (original, Stingray, Olde Salt) and the oysters were top-notch: correctly presented right-side-up, all deeply cupped, shells extremely clean, and perfectly shucked with all of the liquor intact. Presented with a cocktail sauce, some julienned fresh horseradish, and a minimally-oniony mignonette. Obligatory disclosure: Derek was in the house and having seen that we hadn't chosen the Angels-On-Horseback, he sent some over. It didn't influence my opinion of the other items; but I have to say that these were exceptional. Even our non-oyster-eater loved them; the oysters themselves were small and delicate, yet not overcooked thanks to the use of thin slices of Julien's coppa instead of bacon. Head and shoulders above the usual version. Coffee by Vigilante. Don't expect fancy brewing techniques, just a damn good cup of coffee. Service was friendly and mostly attentive; value was really strong IMHO. We ate really well for about $40 a head, although we chose soda and beer instead of exploring the cocktails. Fifty yards north of the Shaw Metro station (green/yellow lines) on the same side of 7th St NW. Go give Julien a chance to impress you.
  17. ol_ironstomach
    It was surprisingly difficult in this day and age to find their website, or a credible list of their open hours. I'm not a fan of the SEM game, but they might want to work on that a little. For the record: http://etrbar.com
  18. ol_ironstomach
    A soak in regular white vinegar (full strength at 5%, or diluted with water anywhere down to 0.5%) seems to be widely suggested. Here's one person's illustrated blog. (BTW, I'd encourage the moderators to consider merging this thread with this one and this one) If Kickstarter is any indication, we're on the verge of some kind of cast iron revival period. First Borough Furnace successfully launched two years ago, then Alisa Toninato funded her art piece "Made In America" (50 state-shaped skillets), and now this fall in quick succession: Toninato's project to productionize states beyond her initial run of Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota (stalled at New York; eventually Maryland would have been a pretty useless shape), Finex's octagonal-sided skillet (succeeded at 800% target), and Nest Homeware's attempt to fund the casting of their line (launched today and already 1/3 funded; open thru Dec 18). Interesting times. Too bad the market for a ventworm cornbread pan is probably really small.
  19. ol_ironstomach
    Put us down for two six please. In addition to gubeen and myself: turbogrrl and spouse, and both porcupines.
  20. ol_ironstomach
    I am not alone in disliking qualitative stack ranking based on spot data, especially when there are other worthy contenders, but this new Old Angler's, the one yesterday and not the one of my youth, was a pleasant surprise and these few dishes were superb. Picking two difficult and very different meats was not an intentional challenge, but one of those opportunity moments when you see a really promising description on a menu and know that it should not be attempted by someone who doesn't know what they're doing. And even so, they knocked both of these out of the ballpark. Don's chicken, in particular, was as close to perfect as I've seen - moist throughout without being underdone, flavorful, and without greasiness in the crisp skin. I'm used to well-regarded chicken scoring on two counts, but very rarely three. Maybe we just lucked out yesterday. I have little else to add to Don's commentary, other than I understand his reaction to the similarity between the rosemary shortbread and the focaccia; they are not the same, but the shape of the pieces, their crusts, and the savory rosemary do echo each other too strongly. Service was attentive and "old school", as befitting a cozy country inn. I didn't try any alcoholic beverages, and the bar appeared to be stocked with a non-craft selection of standard items. Like others, I skipped over this place for years as "that great location with the meh food" - apparently completely missing the Tom Power era They've got their work cut out for them to overcome that reputation, but right now I'd be excited to go back and try the rest of the menu.
  21. ol_ironstomach
    My understanding is that the family split the business years ago, with one cousin operating the restaurant, and another cousin pursuing the franchise path. Having said that, while location-to-location variation (and a different menu) made the franchises generally inferior to the original Adelphi location, unfortunately I'm no longer convinced that this is true in comparison to the "new" original location in College Park. See other thread for an explanation.
  22. ol_ironstomach
    They are currently easily the best of the ones I've had in this area, yes. They are the only ones whose wrappers, level of fill, and level of soup are close to correct, but not good enough to compare with any of a handful of XLB shops in NYC, much less make the top tier of XLB worldwide. In particular, I thought the original flavor was just okay - a bit weak. The crab variant was really not to my taste either, dominated by a flavor I associate with mediocre dried crabmeat, and nothing at all like a good crab XLB. I wish they had the more intensely porky flavor of the ones from Hunan Garden (Rockville) thirty years ago, but that chef is long, long gone (and his wrappers could have been better). My current #2 local pick is actually Sichuan Jin River, but their overall form is clearly inferior to Bob's.
  23. ol_ironstomach
    The king is dead, long live the king. I made a couple of pilgrimages earlier this year, and I'm afraid that lion's report is still accurate: the "new" College Park Ledo's is not nearly as good as the original Adelphi location. There were a number of indicators, the most noticeable of which was that my most recent "small" pizza, instead of being a half-tray rectangle, was round. Round. The crust recipe seems to be similar enough, but my examples were consistently underbaked, with the crust not as crisp as it should be, and the grease cups curled but uncharred, and not having formed their characteristic puddle. The parmesan bread also didn't develop that browned top crust. If you need a sports bar-ish hangout in College Park, it's a lot more convenient than Adelphi ever was. The windows let in a lot more light, which again makes it very unlike the Ledo of yore. It's over. I spent the first N years of my life in College Park, and then another ten at UMd. This isn't the pizza that I grew up with.
  24. ol_ironstomach
    You didn't mention the parts about Jiro's misogynism and how he serves smaller/less sushi to women.
  25. ol_ironstomach
    "Do something with leftovers" night: Bolognese base recast as taco meat. Orange-braised fennel. My last, lovely, formerly misplaced bottle of '06 Texier "Opále".
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