Highlight 144: girl trip - restaurant: the National (Athens, GA)

One thing that really surprised me when I started working for our firm office in Atlanta was how many attorneys had once walked the halls of either UGA or Georgia Tech. Before this, I had never knew that people stayed in the town where they went to school. Of all my friends and acquaintances that went to Carnegie Mellon, I know only of a single person who now lives in Pittsburgh and he doesn't even work there (job in Chicago and flies back every weekend. I know, crazy! But he loves his wife :) A good man is what he is.) I suppose this staying around says something about this town. I suppose it says that this is a place where people feel that their dreams of adulthood can be realized. And that is a good thing. But that's not the point of this post. The point of talking about this is that I work with many who know and love Athens, Georgia, the home of UGA, and they highly recommend that I check it out. So this weekend I finally did.

As with all my trips, this one started with food. My first choice was Five and Ten, but it was not open for lunch on Saturday, so we ended up at the National, Five and Ten's little brother. At 11:30am on a Saturday, the National was quiet and extruded a sort of quaint small town charm. Naturally arranged branches and flowers adorned the tables. Yet there was a certain unforced refinement to it all. Just look at that kumquat in the vase on our table. I dare you to name another restaurant in Atlanta that has these arranged so beautifully yet casually on its lunch tables.

The lunch menu is fairly simple with mostly salads and sandwiches, but each sounded just a little bit special. An open face lamb sandwich caught my eye and I placed my bet. And a good pay off was my reward. For $11, I received an artfully arranged meal. Set on top a bed of dressed baby arugula was a crispy hunk of grilled bread generously slathered with soft goat cheese. On top of that was a soft mound of very thinly shaved roasted lamb leg. Perfectly pink, the lamb was very tender, but unmistakably lamby, the way I prefer. The whole thing was really quite simple, yet very elegant and well done, just like the the kumquat arrangement on the table.

Lunch or dinner, I am incapable of finishing a meal without dessert, so we got two. Somehow, when I eat out with people, we always end up with a chocolate thing, even though I never order it. I guess chocolate is the ultimate dessert. The funny thing is I am the one that is known to eat big chunks of chocolate for what I call breakfast dessert at 9am... Go figure.

The dulce de leche, in this case, outshone the chocolate tart, which was too hard from hanging out in the fridge. The dulce de leche was just soaked enough to be milky all through, but still structurally sound to hold its shape against our repeated assault.

After lunch, my girlfriend and I worked in a good afternoon of vintage shopping. While we didn't end up buying much, it was the hunt that was fun. After working off the calories we made it home just in time for her big homemade V-day dinner with the bf. With the husband out of town, I expected to come home to a quiet glass of wine, which is really the way I prefer. Not one to be forgotten completely (him not me), the husband managed to have two dozen bright orange roses waiting for me by the door. As much as I never cared about V-day as it's mostly a horrible day where all the restaurants are full and less than stellar food is served, it's always nice to feel loved especially by one who is freezing his butt off half a world a way. :)

The National
232 W. Hancock Ave.
Athens, GA 30601
706-549-3450

Highlight #143: Another good deal - Restaurant: Dogwood

Last week's NYT's dining section featured an interesting article on restaurants "hugging the customers." Until last night, I really haven't felt this hugging, at least not such intense hugging. I am not saying that we got kiss-up service, we just got really attentive, warm, and personal service, the kind you get at a place where everyone knows your name, except they only learned ours last night.

The place was Dogwood downtown, more specifically the bar area of Dogwood downtown. I had only previously been here for lunch, so this was the first time I really took in the bar setup. I must say, it's a nice setup with cushioned leather bar stools both against a long counter and around four-top tables. There is also a small sofa lounge area against the sidewall, where a group was having a round of martinis.

I took a seat at a table and waited for my girlfriends. While waiting, the barmen warmly introduced themselves. And once they learned my intention to dine on the all you can eat mussels special that also comes with a glass of wine, got me started on the wine. I was additionally offered warm bread, but decided to wait for the good stuff.

This is a lot of food for $20. Besides the glass of Kim Crawford sauvignon blanc, one gets all the mussels one can eat. The mussels didn't come out in a massive pile, but rather in a large morning cereal sized bowl. You may think that this is Dogwood's way of deterring overeating, but I see it as a way of preventing waste. Because right before we were about to finish our first bowl, our server appeared to assess our interest in the next bowl in the nicest manner. And we were interested. These were good mussels. Plump and fresh, the mussels held their own, but it was the broth that made the real difference. Everyone of us took note of a distinct, but not overpowering smokiness, which we found out came from the hickory smoked tomatoes. That's a great idea this time of year, when the tomatoes are less than superb. The warm bread soaked up the broth beautifully, but it's best not to overdo it as the mussels are great.

For $20, this is a wonderful deal that you should check out Tuesday to Friday when it's available in the bar area. This type of offerings make it easy for us to support competent restaurants in during this difficult time.

If you are feeling indulgent and we were, you can also supplement the savory with a round of sweets. Every dessert come with a different homemade ice cream flavor and you know how I feel about ice cream. We had the blackberry shortcake with sour cream ice cream and the chocolate thing with dulce de leche ice cream. Both were very good, but the shortcake won overall with a less sweet composition of slightly salted biscuit and distinctly sour cream flavored ice cream. The dulce de lech ice cream accompanying the chocolate cake was just a little over the sweetness line in comparison.

Dogwood
565 Peachtree Street
Atlanta, GA 30308
Tel. (404) 835-1410

Highlight #142: What we are missing - Restaurant: Yoshi's (San Fran)

Someone said that Atlanta is a town with very few quality dining options in the middle price range. I am not sure if I complete agree with that. In the last four years, we have found more than a handful of places that provide just that. But if this someone had rephrased that statement to say that we don't have many quality Japanese options intown, I'd readily agree.

Of course I am not saying that we don't have reasonably priced Japanese places that I can go to any night of the week. But these places I can go, especially if I don't feel like going far from my intown neighborhood, don't have pristine uni or glistening fresh scallop, such as above, lying around for whenever I feel like it. In my part of town, the only place that I can think of that regularly serves both is MF Sushi.

Yoshi's in San Fran's Japantown is a regular stop for J and I when we visit. Without a reservation, we can just pop by and get a table on a Friday night when Yoshi's turns into a busy Jazz Lounge. We can start with some fresh sushi and then move into hot food like these sake steamed mushrooms and eggplants.

Then fill up on some grilled hamachi collar that showcases the fattiest part of the oil rich yellowtail.

If we have the parents in town, we'd also get some miso-glazed black cod, a favorite we had once gotten sick of eating in Hawaii.

And even score some perfectly cooked lamb to up our iron intake.

Best Japanese food in San Fran this is not. There are too many quality Japanese places in San Fran. But it has everything I desire. And for not having to plan ahead, it's a sweet spot. Let's hope we get more places like this in our town soon.

Yoshi's
1330 Fillmore St
(between Eddy St & Ellis St)
San Francisco, CA 94115
(415) 655-5600

Highlight #141: Mochie eating day

In China, the lunar new year holiday lasts a whole month. It starts about fifteen days before new year's day and lasts fifteen days after, until today, the day of the first lunar full moon in the new year. Peak outside and you'll see that thousands of years of wisdom is not wrong, the moon is indeed round and bright. On this day, we perform the last ritual of the new year period (a different ritual takes place every day of the new year period and mostly revolves around food), we make and eat mochies as round as the moon.

In my childhood, my mom would start soaking some glutinous rice harvested the previous year shortly after new year's day. A couple of days later, we'd all participate in making the rice paste that'd go into our mochies on the day of the full moon. To do so, we'd grind the soaked rice into a liquid paste using a large round millstone. My duty was always to feed the rice and water into the hole cut into the top grinding part and it never ceased to amaze me how two simple pieces of stones were able to rubbed together and turn the translucent rice grains into a milky liquid. A sloped stone channel that wraps around the millstone catches all the dripping and feeds it into a cloth sack.

Mom would hang the sack to drain over a bucket for a few days until the paste inside reached the consistency of play dough. If mom timed it just right, the paste would be ready on the full moon day and we'd all gather again to make mochies.

As a little girl, I favored the mini mochies that are unfilled and boiled in broth made of fermented rice and sweetened with cane sugar. It always made me incredibly happy. Now I know why - fermented rice equals unfiltered sake!!! :) Mochies boiled in sake, now that's a beautiful thing. The adults always preferred the filled mochies, and my mom made the most wonderful roasted black sesame ones that filled the mouth with rich liquidy sesame goodness made sticky with rendered lard. Think hot butter and sesame paste and you get the gist of this combination. Now image that unleashed with abandon in every bite of the smooth mochie skin. That's wonderful stuff.

My husband also grew up with the mochie eating tradition, but in Singapore, his mochies floated in a sugared hot ginger broth. Now, we make both the sake and ginger versions to make everyone happy. The above photo shows a mochie filling my mom concocted this year that included freshly ground roasted and salted peanuts. It was a textural surprise and quite well received.

Can I say again how nice it is to have family around again after twelve years of being away? It's mighty nice.

Highlight #140: Eat steak for free - Restaurant: Morton's

(photo from www.mortons.com)

I met more people who have recently lost their jobs in the last week than the last five years combined. But I met them all at food and drink places, so I guess, employed or not, people are still drinking and eating. This got me thinking about places where one is able to eat and drink well for very little or even free, and then, one place came to mind. Okay, maybe it didn't just come to mind, it almost knocked me over in the head.

The place is Morton's, more specifically the bar at Morton's in my work building downtown. It is definitely old school, awash in dark mahogany. But thanks to the steady tourist traffic, it is far from stuffy. The space is not big, but sizable enough to create a convivial environment right before dinner time. Order a drink, a cheap beer if you are short on cash, and hang out for a bit. Before you know it, someone from the kitchen will come out with a very large tray of hot sirloin sandwiches, which, today, almost knocked me off my bar stool. When I say sirloin sandwiches, I don't mean stale things made of odds and ends. I am talking about slices of medium rare sirloin in fluffy and buttery buns. Take as many as you'd like, they are FREE. Enjoy and laugh inside as you caress the cash still in your pocket.

Morton's Downtown
SunTrust Plaza Bldg.
303 Peachtree Center Avenue
Atlanta, GA 30308

Highlight #139: Nominate Dirty South Wine

Locally grown and totally cool, Dirty South Wine deserves your vote for the best wine blog nomination because wine reading has not been this fun since . . . well, ever.

To put in a nomination for Dirty, simply click on the icon above and follow the instructions. The process is super simple and should only take a minute. It's always nice to support someone local.

Highlight #138: better as a pub - pub: the Porter

Someone told me that the only economy-proof business is a pub at a foot traffic heavy intersection. And this has proven to be true at the Portor. On a Friday evening, this place was packed to the hilt with all walks of life. Apparently a beer was a great idea whether one is celebrating a birthday or getting over the shock of being fired. And believe me, I met both kinds that night.

Unfortunately, with the crowd did not come a culinary revolution. Instead, it appears that the Portor has take a step backwards, but none of those elbowing their way up to the bar for a drink seemed to care. Besides the still lovely sinuous clearing salt and vinegar popcorn, my group, after an hour and half of fun conversation and good drinks, received the pictured forgettable food.

The fried goat cheese fritters had a very crispy outer layer, but were just a little too mushy and bland in the middle to deserve total adoration.

I got the mussels and was happy to receive none fishy ones. It was, however, somewhat bland...

My J had previously gotten their burger when they first opened and liked it's juicy medium interior. You can see for yourself the doneness here, so I won't say more.

The redeeming Irish car boom, however, was awesome. Simple yet sublime, it had ice cream that was creamy, caramel sauce that was sticky and slightly salty, and Guinness that was well just classic Guinness. It all worked so well together. It put smiles on all our faces.

In comparison, the chocolate thing was just fine. Really not bad at all, but not the bomb.

If the Porter is a restaurant, I would have been a very unhappy camper that night, but the Porter is not a restaurant. It's a pub, a place where you catch up with friends you like, find kindred spirits in misery, or just enjoy safety and body heat in a crowd. The Porter is all that. The food is what you get to keep the drinks flowing and, for that, it is adequate, as long as they stop touting about that Seeger's pedigree. :) Truth be told, I am so happy that we all have a place to go where we can forget the depressing state of the economy for awhile. So, I'll toast to a long and prosperous life for the Porter.

The Porter
1156 Euclid Avenue
Atlanta GA 30307
404.223.0393

Highlight #137: Sweet spot - Bakery: Sweet Pockets

While we've gained a number of new comers like Serpa in the Irwin st. area, we've also lost a few. One of them is Sweet Pockets, a cupcake only bakery in the Irwin Street market. Incidentally, a new cupcake place had taken its space, so I suppose cupcakes live on in our neighborhood.

My first taste of Sweet Pocket's cupcake was over a year ago, when I happen to stroll into the market one day and found the minis adorable. This week I got to taste it again at my friend's pre-book launch workshop hosted at Sweet Pocket's new location near the Old Vining Inn. Three types of minis were offered (red velvet, happy monkey, and a third that I didn't try and can't remember the name) to help absorb the ample bubbly we were given. I went straight for the happy monkey, which was proven a most wise move. Peanut butter flavored buttercream (I am brave and trusted that Lenora, the talented baker/owner, had sourced the good stuff) brought to the cupcake a welcomed saltiness. And the cake itself was very very moist with loose crumbs. Considering that the mini is about the size of a large man's thumb, the moistness of the cake showed much care on the part of the baker. These were clearly created for folks with a lighter taste in sweets. If dense center and cream cheese frosting is your thing, you'd be better off trying the minis at the Highland Bakery, which are much heavier, but not really fresher or moister in my opinion. However, if you like something airy yet satisfying, Sweet Pockets will hit your sweet spot.

Sweet Pockets
4338 Paces Ferry Road
Atlanta, GA 30339

Highlight #136: Passing on the message

I received the following message from Lindsay at Melissa Libby & Associates about a fundraiser at Pizza Fusion. It sounds like a good cause, if you are up for some za.

"I wanted to fill you in a fundraiser that all Pizza Fusion locations are participating in, including our local Pizza Fusion restaurant. The newest location in Mesa, Arizona had their grand opening party this past weekend, where they were able to raise $8,000 in support of the Smiths, who are still hospitalized for injuries due to a drunk driving accident in which they tragically lost their two sons earlier this month. Sadly, the restaurant was broken into and the newly-raised the funds were stolen. You can read more about this story, here. Now, in an effort to re-raise the money, Pizza Fusion locations everywhere have banded together and are accepting donations for the Smith family at their restaurants or on the website. Through a partnership with Wells Fargo, donations made out to the Tracy and Frank Smith family fund can be dropped off at any Pizza Fusion location or a local Wells Fargo. To show thanks for donations, the Pizza Fusion in Buckhead is offering a free personal cheese pizza to generous donations of $50 or more. The free pizza will be given during the following visit to the restaurant with a purchase of $25 or more. Pizza Fusion in Buckhead is located at the Astoria in the Aramore building at 2233 Peachtree Road; 404-351-9334."

Highlight #135: Dumpling party and other food for Chinese New Year

I threw a dumpling party this past weekend in celebration of the Chinese New Year. In the spirit of doing everything the old fashioned way, we started with nothing more than flour and rolling pins, including my mom's 20 year old one, which we brought to the states when we moved from China all those years ago. It's a good thing that we did too as I wasn't able to find another one like it here in Atlanta, neither could J in Singapore. Apparently, dumpling wrapper rolling is out of style outside of the mainland. What's the difference you ask? Well, look closely and you will see that the darker colored one, the proper tool, is tapered at both ends like a large French rolling pin, but only much smaller. This is especially useful for rolling perfectly round individual dumpling skins. It allows one to turn the half formed skin with one hand while rolling the dough easily with the other hand. What it achieves is a perfect wrapper that is thicker in the middle and thinner on the edges. So when the dumplings are formed, the closed edges, where two layers meet together will approximate the thickness of the center. Quite genius, don't you think?

Before we started with the dumpling work, I fed our visitors some classic dishes both from my hometown and from the less spicy northern parts where dumpling making originated. Here is a cold glass noodle dish heavy on the red hot chili oil that is the trademark of my hometown Chongqing, boasting the spiciest food in Sichuan. Naturally, I did not give it the dose that would kill the guests. But it was still representative of the flavor. Chongqing is now no longer officially governed by the Sichuan provincial government as it has been declared a self-governing city like Shanghai, which is a way the Chinese government controls wealth distribution to ensure that industrial cities like Chongqing and Shanghai are able to flourish without being dragged down by the surrounding much poorer regions. Regardless, the cooking is still Sichuan all the way through.

From the northern party of China hails this this Bang Bang chicken heavy on the sesame paste. It may look like a satay peanut sauce type of dish, but it really isn't. Instead of sweetness, it's fragrant from sesame and savory from soy.

A bit of watercress served a lighter accompaniment to the heavier meat dishes.

One of my favorite things to cook this time of year is this stir-fried roast pork with garlic chives. The garlic chives's raw pungency turns into a sort of garlicky sweetness when cooked and cuts through the richness of the meat very well.

Here are some snack type stuff in the tradition of my mom, who considers snacking absolutely necessary before the New Year feast. From the bottom, we have glazed soy beans, spicy fish cakes, and stewed peanuts.

I love making this five spice ribs at home. The mix of spices perfumes the entire house as the meat slowly tenderizes in the pot. For my spice challenged husband, this is one of those Sichuan dishes he absolutely adores without suffering.

After some food, we got the dumpling making under way and everyone had much fun getting dressed in flour.

Of course, there were some that skipped the hard work and joined my husband for beer instead. :)

Not all our dumplings came out looking pretty (see foreground vs. background), but we had lots and lots of them and they all tasted awesome.

Here they are all lined up and ready for cooking. Thanks to everyone who contributed and made this evening memorable.

The next day it was off to mom's for more food. Like I mentioned earlier, we couldn't start the eating without some traditional snacks. While head to tail eating has recently became the trendy thing here, we have always eaten all parts of animals in China. In fact, my mom's favorite cold dishes are all some sort of parts. :) Here are stewed pig ears. One of the best things for the complexion according to mom, the doctor.

Also up were slow braised tripe. My favorite for its super tenderness (after long cooking) and it's ability to hold on to the sauce like a sponge.

Mom also made a glass noodle dish (I guess great minds think alike). But she enriched hers with an extra dose of kelp to help us all detox from too much drinking. :)

Also available were these new year sausages that really made me miss my grandma, who always made them when I was growing up. She'd start the process a month before and smoke them in a make shift smoker constructed out of large refrigerator boxes. It was all so fun for us kids.

Dad made his famous dish of four happiness meatballs and fried pork nuggets. My mom always sent him to fry outside in the cold so as to avoid creating too much smoke in the house. He was so glad that this year he gets to do it in Atlanta as oppose to in the frigged air of Cleveland or Baltimore like the past years. :)

Here are about half of the things that we got to cook in the dual hot pot. The other half that couldn't fit on the table were laid out all over the kitchen counter...

Here is a close up of the hot pot. The light colored side contains a seafood based broth punched up with dried scallop essence. The other side is pure Chongqing ma la. Bright red from tons of fried sichuan chilies, spicy soy bean paste, sichuan peppercorn and about ten other spices and larded up with beef tallow, it pretty much numbifies everything it touches and coats one's mouth with a nice layer of pure fatty goodness. Even the husband got really into it despite the pain, which dad was kind enough to help him calm with extra beer.

We finished things off with a plate of my mom's homemade fried pumpkin mochies. Can I just say awesome! Nothing beats having the family together and eating homemade food. Happy year of the ox to all.

Highlight #134: Transformation of a pot roast

I am never one of those overachieving home cooks who make their own duck confit for cassoulet. When I am in the kitchen, I want to do minimal work for maximum enjoyment. On a winter night, when I want to cook and enjoy myself, few things can contend with a simple pot roast for its return on investment.

Step 1: pour self a glass of wine, turn on the travel channel, and let the pot warm up on the stove. When the pot is hot, sear a 3lb chuck roast (salted and peppered) on both sides. In the mean time, soak some dried porcini mushrooms in warm water.

Step 2: remove meat from pot, add roughly chunked onions and celery to soften, and turn oven to 300F.

Step 3: add a few crushed cloves of garlic and some spices that would compliment red wine. Add the softened mushrooms, crashed tomatoes from a 28oz can along with about a cup of wine from the opened bottle (fill a bit more for self) and about a cup of mushroom soaking water. Let it boil for about 5 minutes, then put the meat back in the pot, and insert into oven covered.

Step 4: watch some TV, surf some web, take a bath. One and half hours later, give the meat a turn.

Step 5: Write a blog, read other people blogs, and another one and half hours later, take the meat out to rest. Remove some of the fat from the top (this is a lot easier the next day before I want to eat the roast. The fat simply peels off the top when chilled overnight in the fridge). Reduce the liquid to a consistency I like and season. Slice or pull apart the roast when I am lazy, which is always, and serve with pan sauce. More wine of course.

Highlight #133: Softest tongue - food counter: Chicago Supermercado

Be prepared for some staring and be ready to answer questions about any camera activity if you plan to eat and photograph here and have little Spanish language skills. Being one who cares little about such things when food is involved, I felt just fine. I pointed my way to a stuffed gordita and a tongue taco.

Not able to understand what the lady was saying about the gordita with a concerned look on her face, I ordered it based on appearance. After one bite I got what she was concerned about.

The gordita was stuffed with a softened version of these, fried skin. :) If you are like me and love your gelatinous substance full of collagen (awesome anti aging stuff), then order on! Topped with cheese, the skin was soft and gooey enough to cut with a plastic spoon when the bottom fell out of my gordita. If you are not a fan of slippery filling, then try the plain cheese kind. It's highly recommended by the Blissful Glutton, who obviously knows her south of the border food much better than me.

Out of the meat choices for taco, I chose my favorite, tongue. And boy, was this one done well. Lady J, who I dragged along on this adventure, made the observation that there must have been about 8 oz of meat in this taco. I am no good with measurements, but I agree with her that it's not puny. Instead of one salsa, I loaded on all three available and liked the avocado infused one the best. That aside, the undisputed star of this taco was the tongue. The texture is what's best about well-prepared tongue. Incredibly soft and just very slightly spongy, it is actually quite mild yet beefy and is great for soaking up the salsa. If you are not offended by the idea of eating tongue or weren't told that you were eating tongue, you'd more than likely like this. The handmade tortilla sold at the market held up just beautifully under the weight of all that meat.

Overall, this was a great spot for a quick bite, but not a place to linger for long, especially when one's camera activity arouse much suspicion all around from the workers as well as the customers.

Chicago Supermercado
5263 Buford Hwy NE
Doraville, GA 30340
(770) 452-1361

Highlight #132: RSS finally up and cooking for one

If you have ever looked for an RSS feed or tried to follow this blog, but couldn't, you may be pleased to know that I have finally fixed the problem that was preventing it. You may now sign up for the feed at the bottom of this blog or subscribe as a follower on the right hand side. Thank you for your support despite the lack of this feature in the past three years!

Now onto the food stuff. Today, I'd like to talk about cooking for one, something I do often with the husband out of the country half of the month. Sometimes I do something simple and easy to consume like seared scallops. Other times, I simply feel like cooking what I want Yesterday, I wanted to roast a chicken.

Instead of buying the larger roaster, my preference is for the smaller and younger broiler. In order to get an all around browning effect, I decided to roast it on my poultry roasting stand rather than lying down. The simple stand comes with two locking n shaped wires that go inside the bird and a pan underneath for holding flavoring liquids such as beer and stock and for catching drippings.

Knowing that I'd take some of the leftover to the parents the day after and their generally non-preference for lemony type of seasoning, I opted to make a Chinese five spice coating for the chicken. About a 1/4 cup of seasoning, a good dose of salt and a few good gulps of olive oil make a perfect paste for both generous insertion under the breast and thigh skin and for slathering all over the outside and inside the cavity. I rinsed the remaining seasoning in the paste mixing bowl with some white wine and stock and poured that into the drip pan. The oven was set at 400 to encourage browning.

Fifty five minutes later, my oven thermometer registered 160F at the thickest part of the chicken. With the residue cooking, this was enough to put the chicken in the safe range. Check out that well browned backside on the chicken! You just can't get that roasting it lying down.

Some quick dissecting generated a good pan of juicy meat. I put the drippings in the fridge to solidity and then scrapped off the fat layer. Mixing the remaining chicken essence with a bit of salt and pepper, it became the perfect sauce for pouring over.

But my favorite part about roasting chicken is the carcass after the carving. This is when I put on a favorite movie, pour myself a glass of wine, and go at it with all ten digits. Perfect nibbler food, just perfect.