Kitchen Chick

Afghan Kabab, Chicago

We've had these photos around for some time in draft post form, and wanted to get them out there.  This little place, which is well out of the way for most visitors to Chicago, is incredible -- and cheap, too.  Afghan food, as you might expect geographically, has influences from Indian, Asian, and Middle Eastern cuisines, but it is uniquely its own thing.  If you're in Chicago, this place is well worth the detour!

(Remember, you can click on the photos to see larger versions.  Well worth doing with some of these.)

Bulanee: deep-fried turnovers.  One is the Kachaloo variety (potatoes and herbs), the other two are Gandana (chopped leek, cilantro, and herbs)

Mantu (steamed dumplings filled with beef, topped with yogurt and a meat sauce)

Sabzi (pureed spinach)

Side order of Chicken Shish Kabob

The star of the show: Kabuli Pulaw, with an amazingly tender lamb shank under brown Basmati rice with sauteed shredded carrots and raisins

Afghan Kabob

4040 W Montrose Ave
Chicago, IL 60641

(773) 427-5041

www.afghan-kabob.com

Shout Out from Cincinnati, OH

Hello dear readers:

I've been out of town on family business for almost two weeks now, leaving Joe alone to fend for himself in the kitchen (which he is perfectly capable of doing when necessary). But don't cry too hard for him; I'm given to understand that he enjoyed Korean BBQ this past night. I'm also given to understand that leaving Joe alone in the house can result in new kitchen gadgets, such as a new Belgian waffle iron to go with our "regular" square thin waffle iron, and a new hood installed over our stove...

Anyway, I've been able to get out to a few restaurants while in Cincinnati, and here are two that I've enjoyed quite a bit. No photos, sadly, as the computer I'm using doesn't have any photo processing software.

Song Long Vietnamese Restaurant
Tasty and authentic Vietnamese cuisine. Their Banh Xeo appetizer is both large and delicious and works as a meal for one person, or add another appetizer and you have lunch for two. I really enjoyed the Mi Kho soup: ramen-style egg noodles with chicken BBQ pork and a shrimp wonton. They use a heat scale of 1 - 10, and their 4-6 level is quite respectable and would qualify as "hot" at many other places. I have no idea what a 10 would be like, and I don't think I want to know.  Shrimp and pork in a traditional black pepper saute comes in a beautiful bright turmeric-yellow sauce with lots of black pepper. At a "4" it was as hot if not hotter than the lemongrass-marinated chicken served over cold vinegared vegetables ordered at a "6". I think the sweetness of the vinegared vegetables cut the heat.

Song Long Vietnamese Restaurant
1737 Section Rd.
Cincinnati, OH 45237
(513) 351-7631

Lemon Grass
The first restaurant I ate at in Cincinnati. Lemon Grass serves up consistently good, solid Thai dishes. Service is great, prices reasonable. Pad Thai noodles are flavorful, and check out their lemongrass soups and panang curry. They use a scale of 1-10 (is this a Cincinnati thing? I'm used to the 1-5 scale), but if you really like it hot then 10 will probably not be enough. Fortunately, according to a reviewer at yelp, you can go up to 100. Based on another review, I get the impression that 50 is pretty darn spicy.

Lemon Grass
2666 Madison Rd
Cincinnati, OH 45208
(513) 321-2882

Alinea, Chicago, August 2008

 Rouget with artichoke, garlic, and bottarga

I've been meaning to write this up for a long time. We were in Chicago, me for vacation and Joe for work. By chance it coincided with Joe's birthday, and as a special birthday dinner he tried to set up a reservation at Alinea, but alas! they were fully booked. They put us on the cancellation list, but we didn't raise our hopes. So I cruised around Chicago while Joe went to his meetings. On Sunday the 24th, I dragged him off to the Shedd Aquarium (which I knew he'd love). We tossed some nicer clothes in the trunk "just in case" we ended up somewhere more upscale for dinner.

Cut to 4:45pm at the Shedd Aquarium. We're sitting in the Oceanarium. The dolphin show is just about the start when Joe's cell rings. It's Alinea. They have an opening for 5:30. Do we want it? Can we be there?

I think it is a rule of the universe that if you need to change clothes in your car in a parking garage that was full of cars but empty of people, suddenly your area will not only be filled with people, but the owners of the cars parked on either side of you will also return when you are squirming and contorting yourself trying to pull up panty hose while sitting in a car.

We made it, and the dinner was fabulous. The staff, well-informed of our mad-dash from the Shedd to Alinea, were amused and treated us really well. We even got to visit the kitchen and meet Chef Grant Achatz.

Watch a slideshow of our meal, or click to go directly to the photographs and their text descriptions on flickr.

Our custom menu, presented to us at the end of our meal.

Taking in the Scene at Yang Chow, L.A.

During our L.A. trip we squeezed in a few restaurants between all the wedding activities. One was the wonderful and very authentic Chung King. Less authentic but equally wonderful is the probably the best known Chinese restaurant in L.A. — Yang Chow in downtown L.A.'s Chinatown. Yang Chow is justifiably famous for their delectable Slippery Shrimp (pictured above), and while you're there you might also get to do a bit of celebrity-spotting: governmental (it's close to city hall) and Hollywood celebrities have been known to show up. (We didn't see any, but we're not the most talented celebrity-spotters around.) They serve up some very tasty Americanized Szechuan dishes. They also serve alcohol (beer, wine, etc.), but they also allow you to bring your own wine with a $3.50 corking fee.

We showed up without reservations (not generally recommended) and had to wait for about 30 minutes, so we strolled up and down Chinatown. It was night and most of the stores were closed, but with good company the time passed quickly enough. The restaurant was full and everyone looked to be having a good time. We threaded our way to our table. It was a bit of a squeeze, but not too bad.

I had to order the Dry Sautéed String Beans with Minced Pork just to see the contrast with Chung King. Yang Chow's string beans didn't have the more exotic ingredients like pickled leaf, but it was a well-executed Americanized version. Chung King's version was more intense and complex, but I would order this again happily.

A taste of Szechuan at Chung King, San Gabriel, CA

Several years back Joe and I went to China with our Tai Chi school. We ate ourselves silly. One of the most memorable meals was a Szechuan dinner we had in Beijing. (Yes, I know. Beijing isn't in Szechuan province, but you find just about anything in Beijing.) The food was unlike anything I had had in the States, and it left us with cravings for dishes that we did not know how to find back in Michigan. One dish in particular stayed with us: filets of fish served in a pot, covered with oil flavored with chilies and szechuan peppercorns. You lift the fish pieces out of the oily broth and then savor the tongue-numbing zing. So... earlier in November when we flew to L.A. to attend a wedding, finding an authentic Szechuan restaurant was at the top of our list (apart from the wedding, that is). We figured that LA, with its large Chinese immigrant population, would harbor at least one unaldulterated Szechuan restaurant.

Joe did some research on eGullet, and on the night we flew into LAX, before driving to our hotel, we headed out to San Gabriel to visit the Chung King Restaurant. When I called the restaurant to confirm their hours, the woman answered the phone in Mandarin Chinese and English, both greetings fired off at a rapid pace. A good sign.

There is free parking at Chung King, and if the small lot is full you can park on the nearby residential streets. We walked in the door and were immediately taken back to China. You know that saying in the States, "If you're the only non-Asians in an Asian restaurant..." It wasn't just the all-Chinese clientele, it was the smells and the dishes we saw people enjoying. It had that promising feeling.

Geoduck Clam at Wei Wei Noodles(Toledo, OH)

Slice of Geoduck Clam Sashimi
Years and years ago, I'm told, Ann Arborites had to go to Toledo, Ohio to find a good dinner.  Now, Ann Arbor is a restaurant mecca, but there's still occasionally a reason to head to Toledo for a meal.  Wei Wei Noodles is one of those reasons.  Plan to go hungry so you have plenty of room for a feast.

The menu is mainly Chinese dishes with a few others, such as Vietnamese summer rolls and miso soup.  Many of the standards we've come to expect at Chinese restaurants in the States are there, but the stars of the menu are the noodle dishes and the special seafood dishes.

Joe's parents adore clams, mussels, oysters -- any seafood in a shell -- and they were particularly delighted to discover the geoduck and razor clams and knew they had to share their discovery.  A date was set and we all went to Wei Wei to experience the marvel that is... the Geoduck Clam.

Geoduck is actually pronounced "gooey-duck".  In Chinese, the clams are called "elephant trunk clams".  If you click on the photo, you'll see why.  They are a native American salt-water clam species that buries themselves up to a meter deep within the sediment in the Puget sound between Washington state and British Columbia.  They are sometimes sold as "king clam" in the States, and they are considered a delicacy in Asia.  In the US, they're just considered the best clams for clam chowder.  While that may be true, I'd say that there are better ways to enjoy them.  Read on...

Hong Kong Street Food Pictures

We sampled some street food while in Hong Kong.  Most of the "stalls" we saw are actually store fronts that are completely open to the street.  Since we spoke only a little Mandarin and most of the food stall vendors spoke only Cantonese, point and gesture was the language of choice.  On our first night in Hong Kong we tried beef satay skewers and deep fried squid and shrimp balls.  Later, our local host had us try enoki mushrooms wrapped in very thin slices of fatty beef and grilled — utterly decadent — and dried chewy squid with a sweet and spicy coating. Click on the photos to view a larger version in a pop-up window. The beef-wrapped enoki skewers are the second item in the upper left corner of this food display.  They look like fatty bacon strips coiled around the skewer.   No, we are not standing in the kitchen behind the cook — half of this food vendor's cooking area was right on the sidewalk. 

Asian Legend, North York/Toronto

Wontons with Chili Peanut Sauce

I was back in Toronto this past weekend to compete in a martial arts tournament. (For the curious, no, I did not medal in my event.) But back to Toronto...

We made a navigational error on our way up there.  We meant to get off the 401 and on the QEW, which would take us straight downtown and only a mile or two from our hotel. We missed the QEW exit because the navigator, yours truly, was asleep and ended getting off the 401 on Yonge Street, but this part of Yonge was in the city of North York, which is quite some distance from downtown Toronto. A wrong turn took us past a restaurant with a sign reading "Northern Gourmet Cuisine". We had dinner plans with friends at a Persian restaurant masquerading as a Greek restaurant called "Souvlaki House" (you have to know to ask for the Persian menu), so Northern Gourmet Cuisine would have to wait. (Souvlaki House is also on Yonge, but it's actually in Toronto, a few blocks south of Bloor street.)

On our way home from the tournament, we found ourselves on westbound 401, hungry, and heading toward Yonge St. once again.

"Northern Gourmet Cuisine's" real restaurant name is "Asian Legend."  There are four Asian Legend restaurants in the Toronto area, including one downtown on Dundas St.  The North York one is beautifully decorated in contemporary designs featuring smooth dark wood and renderings of Chinese ink drawings. We were served fresh jasamin tea immediately, and the table was set with chopsticks — no forks or knives in sight. Good signs!

Asian Legend's menu features a large menu with dishes not found on the average U.S./Canadian-Chinese restaurant (plus the usual ones too). We quickly focused our attention on the appetizers and selection of "Northern Chinese Dim Sum".

House Special Crispy Chive Pancake

We tried:
Hot Soy Bean Milk, sweetened
Crabmeat and Corn Soup
Wontons with Chili Peanut Sauce
Sweet Sesame Biscuits
Onion Pancake Roll filled with sliced Beef
House Special Crispy Chive Pan Cake

The House Special Crispy Chive pancake was a wonderful "rice flour omelet" filled with chives and bean threat vermicelli shrimp and egg. The smaller image shows the insides. Click on it to enlarge the image.

The wontons were very nice with thin dumplin skins around pork in a not-very-spicy but tasty chili peanut sauce.

The sweet sesame biscuits were flaky pastry sweetened and covered in sesame seeds.  They'd make a great treat for an afternoon tea.

Joe found the hot soy bean milk too bland, but I really loved it.  Smooth and calming, it was perfect after a tough day with very little to eat.  I expected a glass, but I got a sizeable bowl that could easily serve four. I drank it all.

The small portion of crabmeat and corn soup was sized to serve 2 people easily, and 4 if small portions are served.

Onion pancake with sliced beef — looking very much like a gourmet sandwich. It's served wrapped in tin foil, which is easily peeled away. Click on the picture for a larger image, but please forgive me the camera shake.

Thai Shan Restaurant, Toronto (Canada part 9)

I've been taking my own sweet time with our Canadian Weekend, but the end is near.  We met up with some friends who live in Toronto and went off, in the middle of a downpour, to the Thai Shan restaurant, where we feasted and feasted. I was going to include a variety of photos of the dishes, but that would be a ton photos.  I decided to stick with just two.  There were five in our group, and we ordered a large selection of appetizers/salads and main courses.  The papaya salad was quite tasty, and so were the shrimp and pork satays.  One of the most spectacular dishes we ordered was the whole fried fish served with a sweet chili sauce.  We also ordered the MeeCorb (I'm used to seeing this as MeeGrob.  Are they two different dishes?).  This version was a shrimp stir fry using the same heavy sweet chili sauce served on top of deep fried rise noodles. And this is a small selection of the other dishes we ordered:  chicken with basil, pork with ginger, and pad thai. It was an enjoyable dinner, though I must say that Thai Food I've had in Ann Arbor is, on the whole, better.   Almost all of the dishes were on the sweet side.  I don't know if it's an accident of the dishes we chose, or if it's the restaurant style, but it got to be a bit overwhelming after a while.

The Rest in Niagara-on-the-Lake (Canada part 5)

This unassuming store front is home to the Stone Road Grill, or "The Rest" as it's known locally.

[Image temporarily removed because it was doing funny things to the webpage formatting.]

The owners had removed most of the previous occupants sign, leaving only "The Rest" while they worked on a logo and design for a new sign. But they didn't like any of their design ideas, and meanwhile Stone Road Grill grew in reputation as "The Rest" so "The Rest" it has remained.  Many locals find the sign and nickname a bit too "odd" for their conservative tastes, yet at the same time they pack the restaurant every day.  Reservations are recommended for dinner, but we were able to walk in and get a table right before the lunch rush.

But walk inside and enter an entirely different world...

Their dinner menu is much more creative than the lunch menu, which has a very good-looking but not especially inventive selection of pasta, fish and pork courses, and sandwiches. However, these scallops with buckwheat pancakes, pickled shaved melon, bitter greens, and tomato compote graced the lunch menu appetizer section. 

Grilled chicken on focaccia with the most amazing sweet potato fries I've ever tasted.  Crisp on the outside and soft full sweet potato flavor on the inside.  Perhaps a touch too much sea salt for my taste, but still very very good.

Joe was able to satisfy a fish and chip craving.  Behind the fish is a delightful red cabbage slaw flavored with green peppercorns.

And don't forget to look up as you leave...  The golden goose is a prop from a Shaw Festival play.  Neither The Rest nor the Shaw knows what play or when.