Text 5608, 120 rader
Skriven 2006-09-18 08:23:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: trip 3 265
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Next morning early we went to Cutter's on Pacific Avenue,
which is one of Hap's hangouts. He's a coffee aficionado;
I had a hot cider. There's free wireless there, so we
spent until noon. I suppose they're used to people
spending 3+ hours there, as they didn't bat an eyelash.

Hap gave me a few ideas for lunch. Spicy Mexican, spicy
Korean ... I chose the latter, and we ended up at Ho Soon
Yi #2, which served the best Korean food I've had in a
long time.

We started with the pig feet with salted shrimp sauce, which
was really boneless shank, stewed, chilled, and sliced thin,
served with a saucer of the salty pink shrimp goo, but more
importantly, slices of mildish Jalapeno and extremely strong
garlic. Also hot bean paste. A very excellent dish and more
than we could eat: we took the leftovers for tomorrow's
breakfast.

Seven savory condiments came out: daikon; spiced chives;
regular bok choy kimchi; a dark green leafy kimchi, possibly
some kind of mustard green; cuttlefish in spicy sweet sauce;
red-cooked potato with onions; and bean sprouts. All high
quality, and taken together, nearly enough for a meal. But
then we got our main courses.

Hap had spicy beef in seafood broth, very nice, a big bowl
of blazing red meat-and-seafood soup with vegetables plus
shreds of chuck stew meat, a few bits of seaweed, and some
egg. My grilled pork in spicy sauce was about 6 oz of mostly
lean leg meat (a few bits of fat) on a bed of raw cabbage.
Both were good, his maybe a touch less hot than the color
promised, mine a tiny bit sweet.

We had the very mild O.B. beer with.

Back home, then out to run errands; then to check eBay
auctions (not my thing, usually), including Clean Dave's
Scotch bottle adventure.

When Annie got home, we mulled over dinner options. Toscano,
run by Hap's old buddy Tom, was a possibility, except that
Italian food is starchy (not good for the South Beach diet)
and cheesy (not good for mine); likewise East-West Cafe,
where rice and noodles are king. We ended up at an upscale
Argentine steakhouse, Asada, which is right near the Engine
House #9 brewpub (we might have planned a visit there, but
we didn't, in protest of its having taken fried gizzards off
the menu) and across the street from a place at whose name
we chuckled, Il Fiasco; I know that just means the wine
flask, but it's still funny.

There was a bit of question about what we were going to
drink: Annie likes sweet wines and after red wine sometimes
gets a headache; Hap and I tend to prefer richer reds with
meat. We puzzled about this for a while, and the waiter
called the sommelier/manager over for a chat. He recommended
the Mapema Primera Zona 02 (a blend of Cabernet (50%),
Merlot (20%), and Malbec (30%), each supposedly sourced from
the best area for each particular grape in the Mendoza). The
manager said it was the best deal in the house - as all
restaurant-goers know, this generally means that it is
either the best deal in the house or the worst. It turned
out to be a good one. On opening it exhibited some of the
characteristics of an overripe Shiraz, with raisiny notes
on the nose and quite a bit of sweetness and stemminess on
the palate, with some hard tannin on the opening that
smoothed out nicely all the way to a rich fruity finish.

It went great with Annie's pork chop, which was stuffed
with chorizo, greens, and some other ingredients that made
the dish sort of Argentine; it was sauced with a demiglace
based sauce: a first-rate plate.

Hap's hanger steak medium-rare was good as well, tender
enough but with a nice chew.

Both of them had the mashed purple potatoes as a side; these
were pretty good, although Hap found them a bit on the sissy
side. I tasted them and thought they were fine, but whipped
(quite aerated) with milk (perhaps skim) and not quite
enough butter.

I had a flatiron steak rare: this was perfectly cooked, with
the edges medium-rare, quite tender, the center almost raw
and with a bit of resilience. I asked for the Atkinsy choice
of lentils with cumin - quite good, cooked through but still
with some texture. I couldn't see well in the diminishing
light, but I thought they were red lentils.

Both the steaks were served surrounded by chimichurri sauce
(mostly garlic, oil, parsley, and a touch of lemon) and a
Balsamic drool.

We had the will, if not the room, for dessert.

Annie had an assortment of mignardises, fruits, and nuts
with chocolate sauce - modest in size and fairly modest in
carbs; in keeping with my preferring savories to sweeteries
when both are available, I asked for an order of the
sweetbreads appetizer, which I'd been eyeing from the
very start of the meal - the sweetbreads were drizzled in
lemon and then breaded and fried; they were served with
a bacon-onion jam and the chimichurri-Balsamic treatment,
though the Balsamic was different and better. Quite good.
Hap was a good boy and had just a taste of both; we bullied
Annie into trying the sweetbreads (she didn't care for them)
in exchange for a taste of her chocolate sauce; this turned
out to be a very simple recipe - a good chocolate bar, maybe
a single chocolate-yard bittersweet, melted with a little
cream. My taste was enough to disrupt me; along with the
day's overeating it got me up at 3 am (6 am my time), and
that's when I wrote this part of the report.

A festive meal. I'd go back if I was flush and Hap and
Annie were still on South Beach.

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