Text 5610, 148 rader
Skriven 2006-09-18 10:25:10 av hap newsom (1:275/311)
     Kommentar till en text av MICHAEL LOO
Ärende: RE: trip 3 265
======================
Hulloooooooo Michael!

-> 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.
-> 
Nope, I'm a regular there (grin) and often spend most of a day there working 
on images or such. I use Cutters almost as an office sometimes and the 
owners are very good..seems like I tend to bring business in sometimes (grin).

-> 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.
-> 
Well I'm glad that worked out to your satisfaction! As I said, it's my favorite

Korean place...even though I can't read most of the menu!

-> 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.
-> 
Man that was the HOTTEST garlic I've EVER had! Made the jalapeno's seem 
like bell peppers!WHOOO!

-> 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.
-> 
And as usual, when I order the soup I manage to let the noodles splash bits 
of broth all over my shirt, so we had to go home and let me change! 

-> 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.
-> 
And actually it's a pretty upscale place, the owners go to Italy a few times a 
year to buy the wines themselves (nice way to write off the trip eh?) so it 
has a (reputed) pretty decent cellar. 

-> 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.
-> 
Ya, like you said, it was good! (G)

-> 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 was pretty sure mine had been "thinned" with water.

-> 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.
-> 
Yummmm those sweetbreads were GOOD! I may go back just for them!

-> A festive meal. I'd go back if I was flush and Hap and
-> Annie were still on South Beach.
-> 
Probably will be! *sigh*
chat with you soon
hap 
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