Text 15203, 166 rader
Skriven 2008-10-18 11:07:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: tastes and stuff 69
===========================
At my brother's house.
Advance Brands Fast Fixin' chicken breast nuggets (breaded
nugget shaped chicken breast patties with rib meat) - you
can guess why I found these. There is no attempt to make
them look like any kind of food - they're these off-round
disks, "golden brown" in color, about 1/2 oz each. Cooked
according to package instructions they become only a poor
facsimile of chicken nuggets: they are appropriately
crisp-tender on the outside, but the interior (chickeny)
part is spongy with hardly a hint of its poultry origin.
Taste: pretty neutral, the breading taste overpowering
whatever gallinaceousness there might be; much improved with
a sprinkle of Tabasco - probably would be improved with a
sprinkle of anything with a distinct flavor. On dissection:
the breading is not unpleasant, rather like fish stick
outside, down to the fishy oiliness; a distinct hit of black
pepper as well. Inside, the taste is pallid, about the only
real taste being that of soy protein, which I presume is
used to hold together the surimified chicken. I'd give these
a gentleman's C, but only because I couldn't rouse Jonathan
to take me to the grocery store. 

Eventually I got him to take me, and I got a 4 lb chub of
ground beef and made chili with it. I have had 2 servings.
There are 2 servings left (servings being 12 oz or so).
I made the chili 2 days ago. P.S. I used a new brand of
cumin, Laxmi, from the Indian store. It doesn't taste right. 

On the road.

I was at a hotel, which shall remain nameless, and the
desk clerk pushed the hotel restaurant on me, but I said I
had to meet people at the Ruth's Chris downtown, and it
would cost me three times what I'd spend there. She perked
up and replied, "at least that's a chain, SO YOU KNOW THE
FOOD WILL BE GOOD" (emphasis mine).

At Ruth's Chris in a downtown that shall remain nameless.

Van Winkle 12 is supposed to be one of the gems of the genre,
but I wasn't thrilled. I got impressions of bitter green wood
and acetone, with a very standard palate that could have just
as well been any other Bourbon. Finish sweetish, fruity,
quite long.

This was tasted against

Basil Hayden 8, which was a touch sweeter and with a quite
smooth attack. Good vanilla woodiness, a touch vegetal,
pleasant. The gloves come off later, and the finish is kind
of oomphy, with tobacco, leather, some fire. I liked it better.

I eventually found my party, and we were shown to a tolerable
table in the very wayback of the restaurant, far from the
Beautiful People in front, but (consequently?) a lot quieter.
Chad, our waiter, didn't arrive for a good while, and then
after our drink orders were put in, didn't return for
another good while - partially our fault, as we were having
trouble negotiating the large menu. He was also snooty as all
getout, impressed with his Beautiful People and wishing he
were waiting on them and with his status as a waiter in
probably the fifth best steakhouse in the city.

Here's what we ended up with.

Deloach Pinot Noir ?04 - a nice light compromise wine - some
of us get migraines from too much vin rouge, so I chose this
despite there being a couple wines on the grossly overpriced
list for $12 less that I might have liked better with steak.
It's a standard offering, cherries and berries, pleasantly
smooth, easy to quaff. More an aperitive wine than a dinner
one, but we made it serve as both. An annoyance that I find
at restaurants of this level of pretense - we all got poured
a glass, fine; but then at refill time, everyone else's
glass was topped up except mine, after which Chad gave this
shit-eating grin and asked me obnoxiously if I'd like to order
another bottle. No, I said, of course not. As soon as his
now extra-unwelcome presence was remedied, I remarked to the
table that he'd just lost $10 in tip.

I had the gumbo followed by a large strip steak extra rare.
The gumbo was poured into a cold plate, so the interior was
nice and hot but the edges were cold. It was a palatable
rendition especially after being doctored with a couple
shakes of Tabasco: but it was nowhere so nice as many I have
had in New Orleans for a third the price. I'd apparently put
the fear of God into the waiter, because the steak came
about at the right level of cookedness, but one surface
was cold. For the first time I thanked Ruth for heating the
plates to a gazillion degrees, so I flipped the thing
over and had an almost seared steak warm on both sides and
appropriately cool raw in the middle. Next time I'll take my
friend Hap's advice and order it cooked 1 minute per side.
The meat was good, not great, certainly not as prime as
prime used to be - very little intramuscular fat. Chad
tried to reingratiate himself by making a little joke about
whether the cow had stopped talking back to me. I said,
yeah, just barely, so he smiled, confident that he would
be getting at least half of his lost tip back. Oh, by the
way, I ordered my steak dry, as I find that a decent piece
of meat doesn't need butter. I want to say at this point
that the only Ruth's Chris I've been to that has gotten
everything absolutely right, both cooking and service, was
the one overlooking National Airport. Others have been
generally good but not top-rate; and one of the ones in
Vegas was positively horrid.

Sides.
Steamed asparagus - fine.

Spinach - but just to see what would come out different I
asked for it au gratin. What came was the usual creamed
stuff (which I enjoy) covered with a thick coating of cheap
yellow Cheddar. Folks, that is not what au gratin means.

Desserts: chocolate souffle was rich and dark and somewhat
undercooked; chocolate cheesecake was an obscene portion,
rich and much less chocolaty. Both of these came with a
big blob of Schlag. I had small tastes of these.

Surprisingly, I had enough in my pocket to pay for my
share. That's because I had recently raided an ATM.

=
In the outskirts of the same city
I went to Dick Clark's AB Grill, as it was the only place
around. It bills itself as "the great American food
experience." Whatever. It's remarkable in whatever way. I
asked for the pulled beef with the sauce on the side (I
abhor oversaucing with sweet sticky BBQ sauces as much as I
adore a surplus of savory gravy) and got the answer that
the stuff comes premixed (probably in huge boil-in-bags).
I asked for a burger rare, to which the reply was "they
will only make them well-done. Strike two." There wasn't
any meanness in this, it was just matter-of-fact. I
envisioned precooked frozen burgers. I said I'd huddle over
a Sam and think things over. Decided on the appetizer
sampler, which I knew would come out of a frozen box but
which I also knew would be deep fried.

Buffalo wings, four pieces, came crisp-fried and drowned in
your standard grease plus vinegar hot sauce; they were
fine. Almond-crusted chicken tenders (2 giants) tasted
as though they were crusted in old cornmeal (I did detect a
crumb of almond in one bite, though). These were cooked in
such a way as to be hard crusted on the outside and with raw
spots in the middle.

Onion rings were soggy but not bad.

The surprise winner was Southwestern egg rolls, somewhat
overfried and dryish tubes stuffed with a small amount of
cheese, some cubes of pressed and formed chicken, black
beans, corn, and salsa. Strangely, they tasted pretty
decent. Think Old El Paso taquitos only slightly bigger.

More Sam while I watched the Texans eke out a victory over
the Dolphins.

I saw a number of burgers go by in the time I sat there:
they all looked completely incinerated.


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