catching up on june eatings

Fort Lee, NJ: Somyun in homemade dashi, with zucchini and a semi-poached semi-scrambled egg. You add spoonfuls of a sauce of soy, sesame and chilies to taste. I can be heavy handed with this condiment.

Palisades Park, NJ: Pile of veggies and fishcakes ready to get Shabu Shabu'ed at Pho 32.

Hot tub time for a piece of napa cabbage, a clump of enoki mushrooms and a fishball.

Thinly sliced beef ready for dunking.

Park Slope, Brooklyn: The house omelet at Moim is filled with kimchi, steak, onions and mozzarella cheese and partially bathed in a sort of demi-glace sauce you'd find in a yoshoku style restaurant. The home fries were perfect - super crisp on the outside without a trace of wetness, soft and warm on the inside. And most importantly, they were well-seasoned.

Inside view of the omelet. I'd definitely get this again, but would probably ask for it without the cheese.

Fort Greene, Brooklyn: The fruits of a quick trip to the Brooklyn Flea. Even with the chili pepper on the label, these are a lot spicier than you'd think.

Cobble Hill, Brooklyn: A pre-bocce dinner at Hibino started off so positively, with this duo of obanzai. The chicken meatballs were moist and had a pleasing char. The eel croquettes were like arancini with a decidedly Japanese twist (panko breading, tonkatsu-style sauce drizzled over). Unfortunately, our main dishes took nearly an hour to arrive and one of our orders didn't even make it from notepad to kitchen. We had to rush and were late to the start of the game And we wound up losing.

Edgewater, NJ: Gyoza and congee combo from China Table Tokyo Hanten at Mitsuwa. I almost always opt for ramen here but was in the mood to expand my horizons. This was yummy, but not as satisfying as a bowl of noodles. I did really like the mug of consommé.

Fort Greene, Brooklyn: Pupusas (whoops, I've been spelling these with two As) from a Red Hook ball field vendor at today's Brooklyn Flea! Brought home a bean and cheese and zucchini and cheese a little before it started pouring. Only $4.50!

The bean and cheese pupusa was dry and seemed like it may have been sitting on the griddle for some time, but the zucchini was wonderful. Maybe the water content of the zucchinis helped to keep it moist? By the time I got home, some of the sour cream had melted and mixed in with the salsa to create a delicious cream sauce. Pickles make everything better, and in this case, it was pickled cabbage.

What we ate over President's Day Weekend

President's Day weekend of eating started in Fort Lee, where Dan and I picked up my mom's car to drive down to Silver Spring. There was fried chicken waiting for us. My parents are pretty damn awesome. They don't just love us, they love us TWO BOXES worth!



We had tastes of both the garlic soy and spicy, and the latter especially did not disappoint. The chicken had plenty of flavor as well as a penetrating heat that I've found lacking at other Korean Fried Chicken joints.



The leftovers were consolidated into one box and came along for the trip. Moments after arriving at Dan's parents house, Stone Groove attacked a drumstick in a way that reminded me of that famous scene from Nature or Wild Kingdom. You know, the one where the cheetah gets eaten by the hippo in the river, or something like that.

For dinner, we headed to Jackie's, located in a converted garage on Georgia Ave., in downtown Silver Spring. The space was....eclectic. There was mood lighting and clunky furniture like these oversized plastic chairs that reminded me of jelly beans. The rounded edges made it very difficult to drape your coat and hanging your bag was out of the question, too.

Dan and I split a beet, goat cheese and grapefruit salad to begin. I think beets belong on the list of delicious foods that Dan that did not realize he loved for no good reason before meeting me. There are a bunch, but Buffalo wings and bleu cheese are the only two I currently recall. Oh I nearly forget that despite having snacked on a chicken leg before dinner, Stone Groove attacked the bread with the same ferocity he had shown earlier! Someone get my father-in-law a pastrami on rye!



The evening's blue plate special was roast beef, which is what Stone Groove and I ordered. Meowrilyn, Amy and Dan went with the hanger steak. The beef was really peppery, which I liked a lot and I cleaned my plate, which was not difficult because there was not a lot of food on it. The trio of steaks caused some problems. No one was given the doneness that was requested and Dan unfortunately got stuck with a well-done steak even though he ordered it medium rare to medium. The servers took it away and promised a replacement but it didn't show up until after the rest of us were finished eating!



The cut of the second steak made it look even smaller than the original and the portions of sides had shrunk, too. I was annoyed. I'm not sure if the owner saw us talking to the server or if the server went to the owner afterwards, but within moments a lady was at our tableside. She turned out to be JACKIE! She explained that the kitchen was having issues and then offered to comp not just one of the hanger steak dinners, but two, a gesture we all thought was super cool. I was thinking best case scenario, they'll comp Dan's dinner and we just won't ever come back. Now, we'd consider eating here again for sure.

To cap off the evening, we ordered a trio of desserts: cheese, fruit-base, chocolate base. I was in charge of ordering the cheeses and chose the Oregonzola, a Maryland cheese and a third, possibly the Pleasant Ridge reserve.



The following day we went out for barbeque at Urban BBQ, suggested to us by Mooney. I had the pulled pork platter with macaroni and cheese and cornbread on the side. I didn't have high hopes when I saw the mac and cheese, but it turned out to be pretty good! The meat was a little on the wet side and the bread for those who ordered sandwiches did not hold up too well.



The space is a little cramped, but it's cute. There's a sauce bar in the back, baskets of atomic fireball candies and they use those little pats of butter sandwiched between a piece of cardboard and wax paper.



That evening we ate at a place called the Potomac Grill in Rockville. The food was whatever, but the service was truly bizarre. The waiter sort of looked like this Donald Lynch from that show Home Movies.


His shtick was to repeatedly ask us how everything was and while we were answering or in some cases before we could answer, he'd repeat himself or go onto a new question. Like while asking us if we wanted water. If you told him you didn't need more water (because say, your glass was already pretty full), he'd go ahead and pour out an eighth of inch of water anyway. Throughout the evening, his manner fluctuated from obsequious to standoffish without warning. It was difficult to tell if he was being an asshole or as DMR put it, acting in a one-man performance art piece.