Salt…What Salt?!

Pandesal literally means “salt bread”, but don’t let literal translations fool you: they aren’t even remotely salty. This yeast bread is often soft, slightly sweet, rolled in corn-flake crumbs and great for breakfast.

I featured some store-bought pandesal in an earlier post and naturally was waxing nostalgic about my mom’s version. While we were visiting my parents in May, mom and I actually made some:  mom mixed and proofed the dough, while we both formed and baked the rolls.

Below, some pandesal ready for the oven…

A closeup of one before going into the oven.

When baking, these rolls become a really pretty golden brown.

Once we get this off the pan, it’ll be ready to eat!

Again, no recipies on this one (at least until mom’s comfortable with me sharing her recipes online…). At least one has a glimpse of different versions of pandesal…

Hey… It’s How My Mom Rolls (Lumpia)…

I’m sure many people say this about their moms, but let me say it loud and proud:  my mom is an awesome cook…

While the Filipino and American culinary traditions are her base, she’s not afraid to tweak her tried-and-true recipes or experiment with new recipes… I’ll have more shots of some of her creations in future blog posts, but let me focus on one dish today.

Many Asian cuisines have their own variation of the Spring Roll. The Philippines is definitely no exception, making a version of the dish as Filipino as Adobo.  Lumpia can be prepared fried or fresh, and its thin wrapper is usually filled with meat (pork is most common) and/or vegetables (usually carrots, green beans, and/or cabbage….sometimes bean sprouts).  Sometimes seafood can make its appearance in the filling, and it even can be filled with banana and/or jackfruit (the latter version described is a snack/dessert called Turon).

While Dan, his parents, and I were visiting my parents at the end of May, mom made Lumpiang Gulay (Vegetable Lumpia).

The filling was a colorful array of carrots, cabbage, green beans and red peppers. Sometimes Mom puts jicama into her vegetable mixes for lumpia, but I forgot if it was in the mix or not since it’s been a couple of months.

Lumpia wrapper is ofter made out of cornstarch/flour, egg, and water.  If one doesn’t want to make it from scratch, pre-made wrappers can be found at many Asian stores (and even some supermarkets depending on where you live).

Filling… nice contrast to the wrapper…

In this picture, mom’s already folded opposing corners of wrapper (and I think the bottom as well) around the filling. She’ll put eggwash on the remaining part and roll the filled wrapper from bottom to top.

Rollin’… rollin’… rollin….

Below: fully rolled lumpia. A few more of these, and they’ll be ready to fry…

Some completely finished lumpia, piled high…

Nope… no burnt lumpia* here…

Dan’s playing with his food again? Ruh-roh…

Sorry… no recipe here this time. Mom tends to eyeball a lot of things nowadays, and…well… she was pretty surprised when I let the family banana bread recipe out of the bag (Not necessarily in a good way. Oops…).

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*A shout-out to fellow food blogger Burnt Lumpia, who’s celebrating the birth of a Baby Lumpia. He’s the one who wrote the lumpia guest-blog I linked to in this entry.

Heh…Heh…Heh…

Last Sunday, Dan and I went with a couple friends on a day trip to Ocean City, MD. Most of the morning and early afternoon was spent on the beach: soaking up rays, playing and swimming in the ocean, and just relaxing on the sand.

As with almost any beach town*, there’s bound to be a place with a suggestive name (or even several places). For example, while Ocean City, MD doesn’t have a Dirty Dick’s Crab House, there’s Booty’s:

Did they get crabs while making that Booty’s call?

Big Pecker’s was a restaurant that we passed by a lot on previous trips to Ocean City. It was just too hard to resist this go around, so we stopped by there for an early dinner.

Apparently, we came in early enough to take advantage of happy hour prices (and a less-crowded restaurant). One friend’s beer was only $2.50, while my Guinness was $3.50. Sweeeeeet!

You can’t say they discriminate…there’s a menu for Little Peckers, too!

…and a Little Pecker’s Porch!

A bit more seriously, this place is fairly family-friendly… suggestive name or no suggestive name. Even at a less-crowded time we saw several families seated inside, enjoying the food. Several others were enjoying the outdoor bench-swings on the porch.

As a first course, our group split an appetizer of batter-fried vegetables (zucchini, cauliflower, and mushrooms). We so did not expect this much food to come… more than enough for four.

JD: “Fried vegetables…doesn’t it kind of defeat the purpose of eating your veggies?”
Sabine: “Oh, but they’re ohhhhh so good…”

The only minus was that it was a little hard to distinguish between the cauliflower and mushrooms by just looking at them…

JD got a buffalo chicken salad (unfortunately, not pictured), while the rest of us got various burgers. Mine was a fine 1/2 pound specimen of moo-cow called the “OH my Bacon Back Burger”. It was cooked to perfection and topped with cheese, bacon, lettuce, tomato and mayo…so juicy that I had to perform a modified version of “the (Philly Cheese Steak) Hunch” (yep… also a Guy Fieri-ism) to make sure juices didn’t fall on my shirt.

OH, sweet indulgence…

All in all, our food came out quickly, and the service more than decent (a little slow after we paid… took us a while to get boxes). We were glad that we came in when we did, though…As soon as we headed out the door, the lines heading into the bar and grill looked much longer.

There was much more Ocean City to see after dinner… a park overlooking marshland close to the bay, and the OC Boardwalk. We had plenty of food to last us into the night and through the ride home…

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* OK, so maybe Virginia Beach might be an exception given that they have decency ordinances… like a no-swearing ordinance (these funny signs remind visitors of that).

DC Beer Week? Woohoo!

DC Beer Week? Starting Sunday? Brilliant!

(Why didn’t I notice this before?)

Quite a few events are planned for this upcoming week’s inaugural DC Beer Week, many of which are featuring local and regional breweries (national ones, too). A sample:

• Dogfish Head Happy Hour at Brasserie Beck (August 17).
• Victory Brewing Company (makers of Hop Devil and Storm King) will be hosting a party  at Commonwealth Gastropub on Wednesday, August 19. Shmaltz Brewery (Makers of He’brew and Coney Island) will be visiting the Palace of Wonders, as well…
• Brew at the Zoo after party at Asylum on Thursday,  Aug. 20.
• Friday, the 19th: DC Beer Week Happy Hour @ RFD and a Microbrew special at Nationals Park…

The rest of the weeks’ events can be found here…

Enjoy, fellow beer hounds, but make sure you’re home safely (and responsibly) before you do what Homer’s doing OK?

Update (8/15): DC Beer (a blog I’ve started following yesterday) posted a survival guide to DC Beer Week… Sweet!

Slayin’ Flay…

I know not too long ago, I told Dan that Bobby Flay was probably the only male Food Network star I didn’t like…

When I actually stop to think about it more, dislike is a little too strong regarding Bobby; ambivalence is more like it. It looked like for a while he was nothing more than a one-trick pony. During his “Boy Meets Grill” days, he came across as way too cocky and grating. Thinking back on him jumping on the cutting board/counter top at the end of his Iron Chef (Original Japanese) match with Masiharu Morimoto….well… it reminded me way too much of Tom Cruise jumping on the couch on Oprah (even though the Oprah incident happened waaaaay after that IC matchup). It’s also that degree of overexposure, I think (but to be fair, I think you can say that about most if not all Food Network stars).

I think he’s matured/mellowed a little on-screen since the beginning of the Food Network.; he also has demonstrated masterful cooking skill over the years. I have actually heard that he’s a total sweetheart in person; would definitely like to see if that’s true at some point… I actually enjoy his matches on Iron Chef America, and I actually like to see Throwdown when I can get it (I don’t have cable). It is fun on both counts to see if “Davids” can slay the proverbial Goliath.

Yes… this is getting somewhere…

Back in June, Dan and I visited our friend DanGo in Richmond. One of our stops was Buz and Neds, a little old place right by a car wash… When we arrived on a hot Saturday evening, the place was packed… so much so that we had to hover near tables to try to get seats. By the time we got our seats and got our orders, there were some empties, but there were also a long line of people getting ready to fill them again…

So it is on a Saturday Night at Buz and Ned’s.

…and why? For some off the hook barbecue! Yeah, yeah…I’m channeling Guy Fieri.

A closer look at these beauties…

The ribs? Deeee-lish! Complete with a tangy and sweet sauce, a nice crust, and tender meat… you can only get those shades of pink with just the right amount of smoke. Soooo worth the wait.

And the bonus? These racks beat Flay in a Throwdown.

Dim Sum (Nom, Nom, Nom…)

While my sister was living in Boston earlier in the decade, she took mom and me to a place in Chinatown…  my first experience having dim sum. We were surrounded by lots of families…some of them seated together while others’ little children ran around trying to avoid staff members pushing carts around (or vice versa). These carts had many small plates/dishes of food, and there was plenty to choose from. Since most of the staff didn’t speak much English and we didn’t speak Chinese, we would just point to whatever looked interesting to us.

For the uninitiated, it’s quite an experience to behold…Not what most in the US would expect of a Chinese restaurant .

Since I moved to this area in 2002, I’d been been searching for a place where I’d have a similar experience. Little did I know that a few years after moving to Takoma Park, I’d find such a place tucked in a shopping center with a Giant: Oriental East in nearby Silver Spring…

Oriental East serves Dim Sum daily, but only from a menu during the week; on the weekends, they serve Dim Sum…quite literally… a la carte.  The lines on the weekend are generally long. We typically arrive 30 minutes or more before the doors open (11 am) and still end up a few places back in line. I’ve heard on some days, the lines extend around the corner.

But once inside, it’s as if I’d never left Boston’s Chinatown…

As pictured above the leadin, my friends and I did more than our fair share of noshing when we visited at the end of July. As I took a lot of shots , they’ll be under the jump….

A Couple of PSAs…

Raspberry Sorbet at Sam & Harry’s…

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• I’m a little late on this one (sorry!), but here’s a reminder from me anyway: DC Restaurant Week will take place the week of August 24-30. Participants will be offering a prix fixe menu for lunch and/or dinner. For lunch, a three-course fixed-price meal will cost only $20.09 (Is this a change? I’ve always remembered lunch being two-course); dinner is $35.09 (also three-course fixed-price). Participating restaurants are listed via the link in this paragraph.
• DC Foodies is  keeping a list of restaurants who are extending specials past Restaurant week (as well as linking to restaurants who’ve provided their RW menus to them). Chowhound’s Best and Worst for DCRW may also be helpful, but it’s only as recent as January 2008’s version of RW.

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By no means a Cake Wreck (more of a “Sunday Sweet”)…

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• DC-Area Cake Wrecks fans, rejoice! Jen (the lady behind the wonderfully funny blog) will be visiting Bethesda’s Barnes and Noble on October 6th to promote the new Cake Wrecks book!  Festivities start at 7 PM, and while it’s a while away, it’s best to RSVP (with even a maybe) so the hosts know how many to plan for…

East and Southeast…

A while ago, my brother and sister in law sent me some wonderful shots taken while they were visiting in Asia in April. The first group of shots were from a cooking class that the two of them took in Bali, where they made a number of dishes: banana fritters, steamed chicken in banana leaves, gado-gado, tofu and miso, and corn fritters.

My sister in law notes that Balinese cooking generally has a bit of a kick to it. Their secret ingredient… little red chilies! (as you’ll see see in some of the dishes in this set).

Pictured below is the dish least likely to contain those little red chilies :  Banana Fritters.

They were very sweet and the batter tasted almost like pancake batter,  according to my sister in-law. My brother noted that the bananas tasted like small plantains.  Next pictured, steamed chicken in banana leaves. You can definitely see the flecks of red in the dish.

Next pictured: Gado-gado. For those of you unfamiliar with the dish, Gado-gado consists of blanched vegetables mixed in peanut sauce.

Next pictured: Tofu with miso. The chilies are a little harder to see, but they’re there…

And last but not least (of the Bali group), corn fritters.

The final two shots were taken while my brother and sister in law were visiting Japan. First up,  some *real* ramen:

Not that über-salty, fried-noodle, plastic-wrapped stuff you find at your local grocer, for sure! OK, to be fair, that stuff was fine while I was a poor college student, but my tastes have grown up just a little.

Finally, some colorful bowls full of sashimi and rice. Looks like we might have some maguro…or maybe toro (tuna) and sake (salmon… not to be confused with the drink) topped by tamago (sweet egg)…

All in all:  niiiiice presentation!

I’ll end this post with a little programming note:  Resolving to post at least once a week…more if I have time. Hoping I’m able to keep up with that once the semester starts. Sorry for taking such a long hiatus, all.