Text 35834, 102 rader
Skriven 2013-04-08 06:10:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: more trip 391
=====================
Another day off. Annie had bought me a pound chub of Hatfield
liverwurst, so I hacked off a chunk to accompany a beer for
breakfast, which happened sometime like 4 or 5 am, after which
I went to bed. She called me at 11 because No Reservations was
about Cambodia; this was a sequel episode to one that Bourdain
had done a decade before - the old one showed a country still,
30 years later, hurting from the Pol Pot regime, one of the
poorest and most downtrodden nations in the world; the new one
showcased a vibrant new country but still with that horrible
specter in the background. Interesting.

I had the last of the leftover chili and the first of the leftover
beef bones for lunch.

Dinner: Wegmans fresh pasta (decent) with white clam sauce
made with Bumble Bee brand canned baby clams (tolerable, made
decent with several minced garlic cloves and a fair amount of
Sauvignon Blanc that I had deemed unworthy of any use besides
cooking) - this for Annie; for me the following:

Pasta sauce with mushrooms
categories: unknown
servings: 1

3 Tb EVOO
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 lb firm mushrooms, sliced
4 Tb dry white wine
s, p

Wilt the garlic in the oil. Raise the heat to high and
saute the mushrooms in the same oil; when they are just
done, toss in the wine and let it cook off. Season.
Serve over al dente pasta.

Source: moi

Afterward, Annie told me that the white clam sauce was just as
good as at her favorite place, Franco's. And also that she was
mad at Franco's for serving canned clams, to which I said duh,
how could you have missed that, and did you imagine there had
been some poor soul out back shucking baby clams for your dinner.

==

I don't know why we are suddenly much more in favor with the
cousins across the river (Mike and Jill) than with the Dan and
Barbs and the Charlie and Mindys. Might have something to do
with the fact that Bob, Ingrid's husband, got tossed from
Charlie's medical practice, and there's bad blood. None of my
business of course. Anyhow, we went over in the morning and
had beers with Mike. We're talking 10 am to noon, when decent
people are doing other things. Still a load of fun. Annie
was talking a mile a minute when we left, speculating on DUI
penalties, and then she was swerving a little across the road,
and I think (or hope) that this was just for theatric effect.
Anyhow, we got home in one piece and without a costly police
stop on the way.

More leftover ribs to tide me over until dinner at Ichiban, the
premier Japanese restaurant in town, and it knows it, and it
charges it.

Present at Ichiban: Annie and me and Robbie. The place was very
busy, with the quiet date crowd and older folk in front and the
rowdy birthday parties in the hibachi area in back. Occasionally
there was a birthday song out there accompanied by a pot whacked
with a wooden spoon in a supposed authentic Japanese ceremony.
Let it be known that the ownership is Chinese, and aside from an
Indonesian waiter who quit brokenhearted when Annie didn't fall
for him after Billy died, the waitstaff is Anglo. I didn't check
the sushi maker to see if it was a Japanese person or not, not
that it makes a whole lot of difference.

Cindy the owner (well, member of the owning family) had given
Annie a giant waving cat, an advertisement for Kirin Ichiban, so
we were honor bound to buy the store.

Two appetizers, "coral shrimp," which were just like the amaebi
in real Japanese restaurants except that it cost $10 for two
medium shrimp (admittedly good ones) and two fried medium shrimp
heads (admittedly good ones); and fried calamari with peppers,
totally mediocre, the frying done at a too-low almost blanching
temperature, and the peppers being red and green bells, with
some dice of onion. Much sissier and of less appeal than the
Chinese salt-pepper squid that it obviously was emulating.

Annie got two rather expensive rolls for dinner; not my kind of
thing, and I'd just as soon not have eaten them (I did try one
bite of one of them, a peculiar conglomerate of ?shad, crab
stick, sriracha mayo, cucumber, and other oddities). Rob's
sushi dinner looked okay, and my sashimi dinner was decent:
some kind of fluke wrapped around wasabi; yellowtail; seared
albacore; seared big eye tuna; raw regular tuna; salmon; and
an ebi, which tasted like mold; the other fish seemed pretty
fresh and pretty good but not worth $1.15 per 1/2 oz of fish.

Most of our calories came from Sapporo beer in the oil can.

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