Tidbits: Boys of Summer Edition

Ah, summer.  Filthy, shameful summer.  Seriously though, whether you work in some sort of educational profession or not, you usually feel down about it coming to an end.  And while this one was probably one of the hottest I can recall, fraught with more Grand Prix construction, it was not without its high points food wise.

Chiapparelli's, Little Italy, Baltimore

I headed here for Restaurant Week (yes, I really am taking that long to write this), and Chiapparelli's, a place my family had gone several times before, was one of the few places that did a prix fixe dinner for only $20 instead of $30.  True, with beer, tax and tip (yes I drank beer with Italian food, okay?  Sue me.  And it wasn't even Peroni) it came closer to $35 but imagine what it would have been otherwise.  I had a lovely salad and a minestrone soup that made me love minestrone again.  I had grown tired of it, but Chiapparelli's was a nice change.  The main course was the hearty, luscious shrimp nicola that I could just sit there and eat again and again if I had no bottom to my stomach.  A cannolo for dessert topped off a fine, relatively iinexpensive (before drinks, tax and tip) gut-busting Italian meal.

Toss, North Baltimore

I went with friends Eric & Alan for pizza at Toss, a newly opened upscale BYOB pizza place on York Road.  Long story short: cheap but good pizza and salad.  Each of us spent about $10 - 15.  The Greek salad is more than enough to fill you up before you get the pizza, which had a nice crispy crust underneath all that melted cheese.  We got the Toss Special, covered in mozzarella, ham, Italian sausage, caramelized onions, roasted red peppers - hoo, Lawdy, is it hot in here?

Sláinte Pub, Fells Point, Baltimore

I've written about Sláinte a few times, and visited many, but I do have to give a shout out about the Irish bibimbap.  You read that right.  It's a Celtic take on the Korean classic, swapping out Korean style beef for Irish corned beef.  Try it.  It's good.

Aladdin Kabob, Mt. Vernon, Baltimore

This is one of those places you constantly pass by and never bother to go into because it's neatly tucked away where you cannot find it.  Next to Mari Luna and across from the Meyerhoff, Aladdin Kabob (their sign is "Aladdin Kabob" but their website is spelled "Alladin Kabob", so please note) is a quite unassuming and, unfortunately, pretty sparsely populated Pakistani restaurant.  At least it was when I went in on the Friday night of Artscape weekend.  I didn't really see much of Artscape myself, but I did feel this place pulling men, and I left absolutely stuffed and with leftovers!  Better yet, I was stuffed with food that was delicious: samosas, their wonderful chapli kabob for only $7, not to mention the free bread (the biggest naan I have ever seen) and a chickpea side dish.  Your dollar will go a long way here.

Mission Inn, Riverside, CA

I didn't write anything about my recent trip to SoCal, but I have to note the beautiful, historic Mission Inn in Riverside.  I note it for a few reasons: it is on the California Register of Historic Places, it's absolutely gorgeous both inside and out - done in an eye-popping Mission style (hence the name), and in all the years I've lived in and (since moving back home) re-visited the Inland Empire - 15 years I've known about this place - I've never been in.  All that changed this month, as I decided to treat myself to a lunch that I knew was going to be a little pricier than I'm used to spending.

If you go to the Mission Inn to eat, note that there are several restaurants inside, including: Las Campanas (a Mexican restaurant), Bella Trattoria (an Italian restaurant), 54° at Duane's (a super upscale wine bar), the Presidential Lounge (ten US presidents have passed through the Mission Inn, including Ronald Reagan who honeymooned here with Nancy; this cocktail bar and lounge gives a nod to all of them), Duane's Prime Steaks & Seafood (steak, seafood, pricey), and Casey's Cupcakes, featured on that cupcake challenge TV show (Casey was a winner!)

I went for the Mission Inn Restaurant itself, and was pleasantly surprised when the waitress told me about their lunch buffet.  Surprised not only that such a nice place would have a buffet in the first place, but that it was all of $18 (less than I would have otherwise spent), with a nice selection (quality wise, and to some extent quantity, too).  When I was there, they served up (among other things) Korean short ribs, chicken, fish, and everything was delicious.  Usually chicken and fish can and should be avoided with aplomb at these buffets, but the Mission Inn knows better than that.  You get your money's worth.  And please get some of the dessert as well.  Their bread pudding is was the single best thing I ate the whole time I was out there.

Un día de comida mexicana

I fulfilled one of my specific goals for this trip: finding and eating actual Mexican food - you know, the edible stuff, which is difficult to found "Back East." I got to do this twice today, eating at two restaurants I have never been to before. Now don't get me wrong: I've eaten a lot of Mexican food out here in Cali. I just haven't eaten at these places.

Síquio's is in the smallish city of Colton, next to a water park. I had passed by it many, many times but had never gone in. Jim and I headed in today and got hit in the face with the possibility of a Mexican buffet. It did not look impressive, so we ordered the lunch combos. Like many Mexican restaurants in SoCal, you can choose items to form a two- or three-item combo, which typically comes with beans and rice. My two items were the chile relleno and meat enchilada. Both were good, but I preferred the enchilada. The chile relleno was a little slippery under my knife and fork, but that's to be expected. The coating was the perfect level of light and eggy, and didn't have the strange egg-ish aftertaste that many chiles rellenos I've eaten have had. The enchilada seemed more like a small burrito. Most enchiladas I have had are thinner and wetter. This was a substantial enchilada! Along with that were house made tortilla chips with homemade salsa and homemade guacamole. The total for each two-item combo: about $10, plus an extra $3 for the guac.

I later met a former professor of mine and his wife for dinner. We met at Pepito's in Riverside, near the corner of Central and Magnolia. It was a cozy, colorful and lushly decorated restaurant and cantina. They go there all the time, and I can see why. After ordering a Dos Equis lager at the bar, I met them in the restaurant for our meal. This time, we all ordered off the a la carte menu. My professor suggested the ground beef tacos. The thing I hadn't expected was the mixture of potato in the taco (apparently, this is how they do it in Michoacán). The shell was hard, but this was no pre-fab Ortega taco shell. Instead, it was a normal corn tortilla that was folded over and fried (Síquio's were the same, except at the cheaper buffet). I ordered two ground beef and potato tacos and a tamale. The tacos were flavorful, especially with the side order of guacamole. As an aside, I have no idea what they put in their guac at Pepito's, but they need to keep putting it in because this is better than most guacamoles I have had. The tamale was massive, bigger than any I had ever eaten. It was a nice big layer of corn dough wrapped around lots of shredded pork, and smothered in a delicous red sauce. The waitress came by to ask specifically about the tamale. I told her I was pleased. These three things each cost around $2.50 (the Dos Equis? Four bucks).

Calfiornia 2009: Notes from the Road, Part 2

It dawned on me today that it has been a full five years since I moved back to Baltimore from the Inland Empire. This made my travels today a bit more melancholy than I had expected. But as we say on the East Coast, I had an overall good day yesterday.

• My tour of my favorite fast food joints kicked off in San Bernardino, outside of the local Cal State campus, with Del Taco, which is much much better than Taco Hell Bell (I'm not alone in that opinion). I got a very simple, not as cheap as I remembered Del Carbón taco for $1.49. It is just about the least fast-foodie thing I have ever gotten at a fast food restaurant (yes, including the crap that McDonald's passes off as "healthy").

Mmmm. Taco.

• After my aforementioned experience with Fresh and Easy, I had a filling lunch and then headed towards Riverside. After visiting some professors at UCR I headed over to one of my earliest haunts, the lush Canyon Crest Town Center. I was surprised to see many of the same businesses there that had been there when I left in '04. Most were then when I moved out in '97, including old faves like Papi's Tacos al Carbón and Miyako, which gave me some of of my first tastes of Japanese food. Ooh, and Miyako is back to its 2004 prices, apparently.

See?

• Jammin' Bread, located in Canyon Crest Town Center, holds a special significance for me. At one point, I went after a Ph.D. at UCR (yes, more grad school). It was here, after much hemming, hawing and soul searching, that I decided I needed to stop with my MA. Beyond that, Jammin' Bread makes a mean loaf of bread, and they make their own bread, cookies, brownies, cakes, croissants, even English muffins. I ordered the softest, spongiest walnut brownie (I usually hate walnuts in brownies but I hardly tasted it in this one) for $2.50. I also got a cup of iced tea. They asked if I wanted it regular or in several other varieties. I said "regular," and then asked if it was sweetened. She said no - it was regular. D'oh!

Picturesque, innit?

• I remember when they zhuzh'd up the Ralph's (California's version of Giant). Basically, they Whole Foods-ified it and sold slightly fancier things. One less fancy thing was a bag of Beer Chips. These chips are a little sweet and actually taste a little like beer. I am intrigued.
  

Beer and Chips...

• I got a chance to go back to UCR and watch their Javanese gamelan orchestra practice for their big concert on the 5th of June (of course, after I leave). Before that, I drove around to see what haunts were still around. I saw Indian and Mexican markets, Arabic, Italian and Vietnamese restaurants, and several Starbucks that were there when I last left. Another familiar place was the sort-of UCR-affiliated Getaway Café, where many grads, undergrads and even the occasional prof or two go for some wings or beer. I got a (somewhat overpriced) $4.25 pint of Inland Empire Brewing Company's somewhat hoppy, somewhat peppery India Pale Ale. It was pretty tasty, but not for $4.25.
• After passing by the "East Coast Bagel" restaurant, I realized something that I had forgotten after leaving SoCal: to many in California, everything on the Atlantic Coast is just "The East." There is no elusive "New England" or exotic "South," no "Upstate," "Mid-Atlantic" or "Low Country." Nope. It's all just one big lump of East Coast-iness. Funny. Too funny.
  
• Did I mention the delicious dinner I had at Thai Place with my hosts? Best tom kha kai I've had in ages.
  

Bengie's in Time Magazine

Bengie's Drive-In in Middle River is in an article about the resurgence of the drive-in theatre, in this week's Time Magazine. No I haven't been before, but I do remember my parents smuggling me and my sisters into the drive-in that existed on Washington Blvd thirty years ago in Elkridge - which is now, I think, a half-finished high-priced housing development. Mom would boil a package of Esskay hot dogs and put them in a large metal thermos with some hot water, then bring it along with us. The most exciting part was Dad telling us to BE QUIET! as he made us cover up and hide while they paid for the two of them, then we popped up after we were parked safely away from the ticket booth, and fell asleep somewhere between The Black Hole and Sleeping Beauty. I don't think I ever saw the inside of their snack bar. Well, maybe.

I know I did twenty-five years later when I went on a date to the Van Buren Drive-In in Riverside, California. Freddy vs Jason and Jeepers Creepers 2 were on the bill, but I was more interested in the conversation, and the two of us riffing on those horrible, horrible movies MST3K-style. I think I bought a tamale or an enchilada - much Mexican food at this drive-in. Not sure whatever happened to him. We kept in touch for a few years but he just stopped getting back to me.

Notes from the Inlandbelly

Friends of mine have been cooking for me and taking me to lovely holes-in-the-wall for some good food over the last day or two. One restaurant I went to with some friends was in Riverside - the Jumbo Bowl. If you're in the Inland Empire and you're reading this, you have to go there. It's a Thai place that has this great fried fish covered in a coconut curry sauce that I just went mad for.

Also good were some dishes that friends of mine made for me. One friend I stayed with in San Bernardino made Dutch pancakes for breakfast. These didn't seem like the same ones I ate in Amsterdam but perhaps they were a variation on the theme. It's a very eggy pancake. It tasted nothing like the humongous pancakes I had in the Netherlands but was still very rich. The corned beef hash and bacon also went nicely with it.

Then I stopped by another friend in Redlands for more food! I had no idea he would be making food. We looked at his recent photos from his vacation in Mexico and then he made some huevos motuleños, an egg dish from the very Mayan northern Yucatecan city of Motul. It is eggs with cheese, beans, ham - lunchmeat is actually normal to use - and peas. Canned peas, in fact, are preferred, but frozen or even fresh ones will probably work just fine. (That's the rare time you'll ever see that phrase.)

Vacation Over

Sadly, my vacation is done. **SIGH** The next time I post anything I'll be back in the comfort of my home in Bawlmer. But I have one or two things left to write about:

Papaya Bay of Yucaipa

Jim took me to this Thai restaurant, Papaya Bay, in this remote, dusty little Yucaipa strip mall. Note that this city isn't very big to begin with, but hey, it's the desert, so 40,000 people can live on a patch of land much bigger than they need anyway. My jaw dropped when I walked in; the place is gorgeous, with all this beautiful woodwork and even a fancy table and chairs when you walk in, all ornate Thai woodworking.

The food was just as good, and as usual we ordered too much of it. For starters we ordered some egg rolls - crispy and with a sweet and sour sauce - and some puff pastry sort of thing that looked like a tiny empanada, but with curry and potatoes in it - still done up in Thai style. This latter one came with a sweet vinegary sauce with little chopped-up red onions and cucumbers in it.

Then our soup came out - tom kha gai, which I have never received as a complimentary part of my meal before (and so good). Next was the mains course. Mine was panang curry chicken, which I've never had before. Smooth and coconutty (coconut milk, not coconut bits), a little hot. It looked more like a stew than anything else, and came with a large mound of white rice. It also came with a little salad that I didn't bother with.

Total price for two: about $38.

Café Sevilla of Riverside

It seems to have become a tradition, our going to Café Sevilla once during every trip out here. We went in April and we did it again. Just a note of advice (heads up, Danielle, if you make it out this far; you'll be in LA by the time you read this): if you are out in Riverside, go there on a Wednesday night. They have tapas platters, and they are all half price. We got $50 worth of tapas for $25 easily, not even that. Plus, try their sangarita. It's their claim of "Spain meets Mexico!" It's just a margarita mixed with sangría, and put in a standard short glass with sugar instead of salt around the rim. Tasty. Total was about $60.

And that's it. I'm off to the local Vons (a Safeway subsidiary - note how alike their websites look) or Stater Bros for something to eat on the plane. I could just get something between connections in Phoenix, but I won't have enough time and it probably won't be any good anyway.

Revisiting Old Haunts in Riverside: Miyako

Today found me in Riverside, running some errands (yes, errands on my vacation - does that not suck or what). After that, I took myself over to the Canyon Crest Town Center near the University of California, Riverside. The Town Center was just up the street from me when I lived in Riverside. It’s one of those places that always has lots of businesses opening and closing, including a budget cinema-cum-storefront church. I also remember a little Italian deli that, overnight, as if by magic, turned into a water and ice cream store (buying large jugs of water is popular out here – if you’ve ever tasted the tap water, you’d taste why).

A few businesses have lingered for a very long time. Four of my favorites have endured for at least a decade. One favorite Chinese-Thai place, the Little Emperor, is closed for remodeling, but I remember a good lunch buffet and a very hot squid dish that had me sweating one night. I took my parents to another fave one time they visited me, Romano’s Italian Restaurant. It’s a lovely place (it's not the Brass Elephant, but I still say it's charming) with decent Italian food. A third is a favorite local chain, Papi’s Tacos al Carbón. Their burritos and tacos are simple, flavorful and (if you want ‘em that way) hot. I never got to try their huevos rancheros, but I’m sure it’s good.

Little Emperor, Romano’s and Papi’s were all there when I first moved to SoCal, ten years ago next month (Damn, has it really been that long?). A fourth one popped up only a few years after that. Miyako’s Japanese Restaurant took over for a previous Japanese place that was there when I moved out West. They had a good teriyaki-tempura-cutlet combo that the new place carried over. They also had lots of sushi, but at the time I really hadn’t become a sushi convert like I am now. So I never ate it.

I found myself getting exactly that at Miyako today. Specifically, a dish I’ve never seen at any Japanese restaurant before. This dish, which they call roe-ju ($13), is a not-so-thick layer of rice with several kinds of raw fish eggs on top, along with sea urchin (yuck) and, perhaps, some kind of eel (yum). Four different kinds of fish eggs. I am going to show off my ignorance of different fish eggs by describing them by color and size! They gave me the large orange fish eggs, the small, caviar-size red eggs, a green wasabi version of those eggs, and an orange version of those same small eggs. I don’t know what they were flavored with, but I couldn’t get enough of it all – well, except for the sea urchin (again, yuck).

Add to that two pieces of mackerel sushi ($4) and a Diet coke ($1.50) ad the total after tax was about $19.50. Money well spent. Sadly, I was too full for the tempura ice cream that they only started serving after I moved back to Maryland 3 ½ years ago. Oh well. I know where else to get it.

Update on SoCal visit 2: Back to Bawlmer, hon, er, dude

Oh my God, did I hit the Publish button instead of the Draft button? Now I feel so embarrassed! Oopsie! My heartfelt apologies for the very embryonic post there (I was wondering how Fairfax could've known I was back in town already). My only excuse is that I had to act fast because we were boarding. Anyway...

Well I am sitting here at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport waiting to board my connection between Ontario and BWI (or at least I was when I started typing; I'll probably be back in Maryland by the time I publish this), and my meal here was a bit less appetizing, just a slightly tough little Nathan's hot dog (again, the Fresh Connections sandwiches I found at Las Vegas are here, but the hot dog was cheaper). This after I polished off a Del Taco bacon and egg breakfast quesadilla and three and a half hash brown sticks (hey, I won't be eating that for a while anyway, so why not). But I have had much better food over the last day or so. A recap (again, photos are forthcoming, because I am too tired to deal with them right now):

VISIT TO THE VILLAGE AT CLAREMONT

Think Mt. Washington Village, but with more smog and palm trees. And wind - man, those Santa Anas were kicking up yesterday! I almost got hit by a very heavy palm frond. But the Village at Claremont is in Claremont, CA. This city is on the westernmost cusp of the Inland Empire, and the easternmost part of LA County, and it's a very cool, happenin' place. The Village at Claremont has a Rhino Records, a music store where I bought this really cool device where you turn a knob on a string and it makes these wooden chickens "peck" the platform above the knob. And I almost bought a VHS tape on how to play the didgeridoo (yes, I have one, and yes, I know that is weird).

A. Kline Chocolatier - My friend Jim and I went to Claremont's A. Kline Chocolatier. Okay, I did, and dragged Jim in with me. They have some absolutely wonderful candies in there, and some Easter candies on sale for $3 for a small, Mary Sue-sized egg (the one that's about the size of a very large normal egg). It's as good as a non-Mary Sue can be (God, am I a typical Bawlamoron or what, comparing all such candy Easter eggs to Mary Sue). Bought some wonderful butter creams, too, about $18 a pound, but each was worth about 50 to 60¢, and I only got 10 of them.

Kinya Japanese Restaurant - Every hip, happenin', semi-pretentious place like the Village at Claremont (or Mt. Washington) almost always has a Japanese restaurant with sushi. So on a hunch I did a search of the restaurants there, and lo and behold, Kinya popped up. This place had some very good (though occasionally stringy) sushi and sashimi, at comparable prices (we ended up paying about $50 before taxes for drinks, appetizer, mains and dessert). I liked the presentation of the sashimi in a bowl of rice and radish shreds, their Chirashi Zushi. However, I was particularly bowled over by their deep-fried (though not tempura) soft-shell (Mmmmm. Soft shell). Even better, they had the first tempura ice cream I have ever had outside of Baltimore that actually tasted good at all. And unlike the ones here, which serve it in a dish, Kinya cut their tempura ice cream into quarters, making it ridiculously easy to eat. What a great idea! They even put a nice dollop of whipped cream and a cherry in the middle. Jim got the green tea flavor (which is odd, considering he's no great fan of green tea ice cream), and I got the vanilla, but we each tried the other's.

I hope I see tempura green tea ice cream in Baltimore soon.

BACK IN RIVERSIDE

Café Sevilla - We finished off the evening, and my trip, at a favorite tapas bar and dance place, the Café Sevilla. This place is in a fashionable part of downtown Riverside. And though we don't dance, we do like those tapas. We started with drinks - Jim got the sangría, which was so strong he almost asked me to drive home as soon as it first hit his lips! I had a Spanish beer, whose name I forget, but it was good enough for me!

For tapas, Jim got a good, hearty gazpacho and this quartet of marinated vegetables and seafood, including some "firm" octopus, very sharp and tangy artichokes, mellow red pepper (and garlic that actually took on the flavor of the pepper, not the other way around), and almost bland mushrooms (all for $11). I got a tangy ceviche for $9 and some very smooth meatballs (that is indeed the best way to describe them - smooth) al Jérez (in Sherry) for $6. Then we shared a crèpe filled with chocolate mousse and covered in white chocolate and Grand Marnier - which was better in theory than execution. Altogether, another $50 for the two of us, before tip.

And so that's it. After some more junk food on the plane and in Phoenix, here I am, ready to go to bed and off to work tomorrow morning, and ready to hunker down into this horribly cold weekend. Well, at least I can look forward to my next trip out there, whenever it is (I'm shooting for Christmas break - I plan these things well in advance).

Man I wish I was back in California!

Phở Vinam

I went to visit former colleagues and fellow students at UC Riverside today, and made a beeline for the nearby University Village. This is the stereotypical cookie cutter McMall that features several restaurants, a beauty salon or two, a bookstore, a textbook store, and two Starbucks (I thopught they would've gone to three by this time). I wanted Indian for lunch, so I headed for my favorite Indian restaurant in Riverside. I was expecting my reaction to be along the lines of:

"Aaaah, this buffet really takes me back."*

Instead, my reaction was more like:

"GASP. They CLOSED it!?

The generically named Taj Mahal restaurant is now known as Phở Vinam, a Vietnamese joint that sells phở - lots and lots of phở. Actually they sell lots of other dishes, too, but phở is their specialty.

There was such a bewildering assortment of goodies on the menu - and the waiter did offer to help explain it, but I declined - that I just got glassy-eyed. But I finally settled on an appetizer, an entrée and a drink. The drink was easy - just a Thai iced tea (trà thái). A delicious, smooth and SWEET Thai iced tea (though I did have a better one at Thai Landing on Baltimore's own Charles Street).

For my appetizer, I chose the Vietnamese egg rolls (chả giò), five very tightly wrapped and deep-fried with veggies and (I believe) pork inside. Next to them came a big supply of fresh lettuce leaves, shredded carrot slices and cilantro. I wasn't 100% sure, but I think I was supposed to wrap the egg rolls in the lettuce. So I did that. It tasted pretty good, especially with the thin and pungent sauce that came with it. It was too sweet to be fish sauce (nước mắm), I think, though fish sauce could definitely have been an ingredient.

The mains course was the super-hot phở tái nạm gầu, which is rare steak with well-done flank and brisket swimming in rice noodle soup (if it's still open we can apparently find this dish as close as Catonsville's Phở #1). The broth is so hot that the steak, much of which was blood-red and definitely undercooked, cooks in the soup. It was fine for me to wait and let it cook while I finished off the egg rolls, occasionally poking the beef with my chopsticks so I could submerge it under the hot broth. When I was done with the appetizer, I dove into the phở. The beef was very tender and flavorful in a way that I just don't find much beef to be when I eat out (which is why I often avoid it, it just does nothing for me). There were not as many noodles as I had wanted, but that's not so bad. I already had little enough room trying to fit even a fraction of the bean sprouts that they brought me, along with some jalapeño slices (one really did a number on my mouth) and lime wedges. It was quite tasty.

In the end, I expected to pay 11.65 before tax (phở for 4.75, egg rolls for 4.95, and Thai tea for 1.95), but the waiter brought out a slightly inflated bill for about $12.10. I figured it was tax, until I paid the total with tax, which came to about $13.50. This raised an eyebrow, but it wasn't that much and the food was good enough to be worth it, so I paid it anyway. But if you do find yourself at Phở Vinam, ask about the prices on the menu. They seem to have magically gone up since they printed it.

Oh, contrary to what some reviewers have said recently, they do take cards.