Tiny Urban Kitchen

Smith & Wollensky $50 Giveaway Winners

2010-07-28T23:45:00.010-05:00

View from the top of Smith & Wollensky

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Smith & Wollensky giveaway!

The first winner is Abbe who said, "my favorite steak place in Boston might be Grill 23. I'm all about the sides!"

Second winner is Cavitybuster who said, "my favorite steak place is Wolfgangs on Lexington Ave in NYC. The porterhouse for 2 is delicious! Very similar to Peter Lugar's in Brooklyn, but this restaurant is right in anhattan and easy to get to."

Please e-mail me your address at jen[a]tinyurbankitchen[dot]com. If I don't hear from you by this Friday, I will pick a new winner.

Have fun in Boston's castle and enjoy the summer grill menu!

For anyone who's interested in the tour: just make a note of it in your reservation and they will gladly take you on the same tour that I got.

Have fun!

Crenellations at the top of Smith & Wollensky

Tuna Tartare

2010-07-28T00:31:00.006-05:00

One of my favorite sauces is spicy mayo. You know which sauce I'm talking about - the one they use for spicy tuna rolls or spicy salmon rolls. It has an addictive flavor of its own and works really well with all sorts of raw fish.

Granted, please don't waste the sauce on really fresh fish that can stand on its own. But for your ordinary everyday roll? Why not?

Tartare typically costs less because it's made with inferior or uglier materials. The most beautiful pieces of fish are cut into sashimi or nigiri slices. The remaining bits, which still often have great flavor but possibly compromised texture, must be chopped up and served some other way.

The ones that don't have as good flavor can easily be enhanced with the addition of this magical spicy mayo. It's a great and simple way to dress up less expensive fish into something fancy and delicious.

I recently visited New Deal Fish Market to check out their fish selection. I asked if they had toro (tuna belly, one of my favorite foods in the world). Unfortunately, they had sold out of toro, but they did have this less expensive cut of fatty tuna (pictured above, bottom left piece with the stripes).

Carl Fantasia, the owner, told me that this cut was more flavorful than normal tuna (maguro) because it had more fat. You can tell too - it's got the classic pink color of toro and tons of marbling. However, this part of the fish has a lot of connective tissue (all those white stripes you see), and therefore the only way to really prepare this fish is to chop it up into small pieces or painstakingly remove the connective tissue.

I took his advice, sort of. I painstakingly removed the connective tissue AND chopped it all up into little pieces (once I realized that the tiny slivers of meat between the connective tissue were pretty much useless on their own).

I mixed it up with some spicy mayo and, viola! I had my own tuna tartare.

Spicy Tuna Tartare
1/2 tsp Sriracha Sauce (Asian chili sauce)
1/4 tsp Sesame Oil
2 T Mayonnaise

Raw fish, finely chopped

Combine Sriracha sauce, mayonnaise and sesame oil in a bowl and mix together well. Add more Sriracha sauce and/or sesame oil to taste. Combine with chopped up tuna and serve.

If you'd like, you can stuff the finished tartare into a small cup and invert it onto a plate for a more dramatic presentation. Top with something green, like scallions (as pictured), parsley, or chives.

Note: please make sure to purchase fish suitable for eating raw. This usually means it's really fresh (you can always ask the fishmonger) or it has been frozen for a specific amount of time according to FDA guidelines.

Enjoy!

Michelin Starred Tartare
Here are a few other tartares from some very nice Michelin-starred chefs. Can you guess where these are from? (click on the photo to find out).

Finally, A Note on Sustainability
Unfortunately, bluefin tuna is highly overfished and is not a sustainable choice. According to the Monteray Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch, all populations of bluefin tuna are currently being caught faster than they can reproduce. The better choice for tuna would be certain types of yellowfin tuna (also known as "ahi" sometimes), U.S. Atlantic bigeye tuna, or certain types of albacore tuna. You can see the entire list here.

I'm personally very guilty of being woefully unaware of whether the food I am eating is sustainable or not. The thought of bluefin tuna going extinct because of our current unsustainable practices makes me sad, and therefore I've decided to try harder to become better educated about the seafood I eat.

Related Posts
Spicy Chili Mayo
Homemade Chirashi (New Deal Fish Market)

Giveaway
Today is the last day to enter the Smith & Wollensky $50 gift certificate Giveaway. Just come here and tell me your favorite steak or burger place. Drawing occurs TONIGHT at midnight.

Homemade Chirashi (New Deal Fish Market)

2010-07-26T21:13:00.006-05:00

Have you ever purchased fish and eaten it raw at home?

I tried it once - ages ago. I bought a little pack of "sushi-grade" fish from a Japanese supermarket and tried to roll my own maki and shape my own nigiri.

It was such a pain! It took forever to shape each individual nigiri, and my rolls were so ugly. I had trouble making them as tight and beautiful as professional ones. Worst yet, the final product did not taste nearly as good, still cost quite a bit, and took way too much time.

So I didn't touch raw fish at home for ages.

More recently, one of my Japanese friends told me about New Deal Fish Market. Apparently, it's the best place to get fresh seafood, and all her Japanese friends got their fish there. In fact, the fishmongers are so accustomed to the Japanese customers that they'll use the Japanese terms for the fish. Maguro anyone? Or maybe some hamachi or toro?

So, the other day, when a friend of mine suggested the idea of chirashi (so much less work than rolling individual makis or shaping little nigiris), I was sold. I made a beeline for New Deal with visions of fresh chirashi dancing in my head.

New Deal Fish Market is a small, third-generation family-owned fish market located in East Cambridge. The owner, Carl Fantasia, left his engineering job to take over the family business, which has been around for over 80 years. Carl is a living encyclopedia jam packed with fish knowledge. He can tell you where the fish is from, when it was caught, and ways to prepare it.

Going to New Deal is like going back in time. Gone are the one-stop mega supermarkets with aisles and aisles of everything you can imagine. Instead, you have your local fishmonger who just sells seafood and related items. It's like the life of a generation past, where on a typical day you might visit the local fish monger, stop by a boulangerie, and pick up meat from the town butcher.

New Deal Fish Market is unique in that they carry quite a selection of whole fish, which is much less common these days. Better yet, they will clean it for you and pack it on ice so it'll stay cold during transport. People really swear by this place, and many have been known to drive long distances from the burbs just to buy fish here.

When I asked Carl which fish were suitable for eating raw, he pointed me to the left side of the counter, which had some lovely salmon, tuna, and hamachi (yellowtail). I probed a little more, asking exactly what made them safe for raw consumption.* Was it because they had been previously flash frozen? Or were they just really really fresh?

Carl told me that this salmon was not frozen. However, he continued by explaining that parasites were not a problem because the salmon was "ocean-farmed," meaning its diet was strictly controlled. As I discuss in more detail here, farm-raised salmon has a much lower incidence of parasites compared to wild-caught salmon. For wild-caught salmon, the FDA recommends freezing the salmon at -4 °F (-20 °C) for 7 days to kill potential parasites.

I typically prefer wild salmon to farm-raised salmon for a whole host of reasons. However, because I was preparing raw salmon at home for the first time, I was happy to reduce the risk of parasites by buying farm-raised salmon.

If you tell him you are making sushi, he will gladly remove the skin for you and even pack it up if you want to use the skin for something else (e.g, frying it up crispy to make salmon skin rolls! Yum!).

When I got home, I took out my trusty Shun Santoku knife (my all-time favorite knife at home right now - it is sooo sharp), and begin slicing up the hamachi and the salmon.

I'm no sushi chef (those guys train for years before becoming masters of their art). All I can say is to make sure to cut against the grain, not with the grain. For the salmon piece below, that meant cutting the piece in half first and then slicing the long way.

Once you've made the sushi rice, all you need to do is fill a bowl of rice with your favorite toppings. I personally love mixing in some flying fish roe with the rice to add just a bit of color and flavor. I didn't have any this time around, but you can definitely add a few slices of tamagoyaki, cooked shrimp, crab stick, or whatever suits your fancy. It's really up to you.

This is not really recipe, as the amounts are very very flexible, but I've tried writing it in recipe form for those of you who like having something to follow. Have fun with it, be creative, and use this more as a guide than an instruction manual. :)

Homemade Chirashi

"Ingredients"
A sharp knife
Assortment of fresh raw fish (about 1/2 lb per serving)
Sushi rice (about 1/2 cup uncooked rice per serving)
Wasabi (optional)
Soy Sauce (optional)
Picked Ginger (optional - can be purchased at Japanese specialty stores)
Flying fish roe (optional)
Tamagoyaki (Japanese omelet - optional)
Shiso leaf (optional)

Make sushi rice. Optionally mix the sushi rice with flying fish roe. Fill an Asian rice bowl with the sushi rice and top artfully with your favorite ingredients, finishing off with a small mound of wasabi. Use soy sauce on the side for dipping if necessary.

Enjoy!

Epilogue: how was the fish?
The salmon was good - soft, buttery, and reasonably flavorful. For some reason, the hamachi had an ever-so-slightly fishy smell to it. I'm not sure why this was the case. My friend and I did buy the last of the hamachi on a Saturday afternoon, so it's possible that it was just a bit less fresh. People in general still consistently rave about this place, so I'm guessing my experience was not at all representative of the market in general. I did lightly sear the leftover fish the next day and it tasted absolutely fantastic.

I plan on going back to try some other fish that they sell there. I'll keep you posted!

Meanwhile, does anyone else have experience at this place? Or do you have another favorite fish market? Please share!

New Deal Fish Market
622 Cambridge Street
Cambridge, MA

*As an aside, there is no federal regulation on what constitutes "sushi-grade" fish. It is merely a marketing term, although inspectors will check that food establishments have documentation of parasite destruction (e.g, frozen for a certain length of time) for certain types of fish intended to be consumed raw.

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GIVEAWAY!
It's still not too late to enter to win a $50 gift certificate to Smith & Wollensky! Just come here and tell me your favorite steak or burger place! Drawing occurs Wednesday night (July 28th, 2010), at midnight!

Smith and Wollensky + Giveaway!

2010-07-23T02:00:00.005-05:00

It's not everyday you get to dine inside of a castle.

It's even more rare to be able to dine inside of an armory, especially when that armory still maintains and preserves much of the history of the original armory.

And how often do you get to climb to the top of the armory and look down towards Boston?

And then finish off with some fantastic dry-aged prime steaks, fresh lobster, and truffled mac & cheese?

Guess what? This has got to be one of the best kept secrets for tourists in Boston. Come to Smith & Wollensky, enjoy a fascinating tour of the armory, and then sit down to a great meal in the beautiful dining room.

Let me take you on a sneak peek of this experience!

We met with Wayne, the general manager of Boston's Smith & Wollensky, who had kindly invited us to try out their new summer grill menu. Little did I expect such a neat tour of this fascinating building.

Some background first. This castle was home to the First Corps of Cadets, Massachusetts' volunteer militia. From 1891 to about the 1960's, the Cadets lived, studied, drilled, and worked in this building. After they left in the 1960's, the building sort of sat around, falling into disrepair. It wasn't until the early 2000's when Smith & Wollensky spent $12 million restoring and updating this building to its current state today.

Upstairs is a museum of sorts where they have a collection of various types of military uniforms throughout history. Wayne knows some pretty interesting facts about each uniform, and he tells great stories about each one.

There are also some beautiful beautiful dining rooms on the upper floors. These can be rented out for private events, or are sometimes open to guests depending on the season.

Much of the architecture has been restored back to its original form. Up here, you really feel like you have traveled back in time.

The further up you go, the more interesting it becomes! Here we are at the top. As you can see, they are still working on this space and trying to figure out what to do with it. Any ideas?

Can you guess what this table was used for? Cadets would lay out maps on the large table and strategize while higher level officials could looked down from the upper floor and keep an eye on what was going on.

And then all of a sudden we are on the 6th floor turret. A turret is a small tower that projects vertically from the wall of a building.

Here we are peeking through a "crenellation," a type of architecture where cutouts exist in the wall enabling fighters to discharge arrows or other weapons out towards the enemy.

At the top, signal flags could be used to communicate with the State House across Boston Common, whose flat open space afforded clear views across the top of the trees.

What a beautiful view of Boston!

After soaking in the view for a few minutes, we slowly stepped our way down to the kitchen.

First Stop: Steak Aging Room!

All steaks are butchered and dry-aged for 28 days on site. I was really impressed with the dedicated dry-aging cold room. It was immaculate, set at the perfect temperature, and seemed really well organized.

We briefly stopped by the huge wine cellar.

And then it was finally time for dinner.

And now it's finally time to look at the food! Here's a look at some of the offerings off of the Summer Grill Menu. Of course, the menu has a lot of their classics, such as their popular ribeye or filet mignon. However, it also has a lot of lighter summer fare, such as various flatbreads, sandwiches, and salads. There is a significant focus on lobster, such as surf & turf and lobster mac& cheese.

Spicy Lobster and Avocado Flatbread - $12
We both really enjoyed this dish. The flatbread was light and crispy, and the toppings were fresh and flavorful. I especially enjoyed the contrasting flavors and textures of the crispy flat bread, the creamy avocados, the juicy tomatoes, and the fragrant cilantro. Of course, Bryan loves avocados and cilantro. He basically remarked that "you can't go wrong" with this combination of toppings.

Lobster Salad - $20
arugula, butternut lettuce, hearts of palm, mango,red pepper, cucumber, tomatoes, scallions, mango-chili vinaigrette
Similarly, we both really liked the salad as well. I love palm hearts and corn in any salad, so I was quite pleased. This salad is chock full of lobster meat, so it's a bit pricier but worth the money.

Miso-glazed Chilean Sea Bass - $34
Asian slaw, lemon teriyaki
I told the waiter I wanted something lighter for my entrée, and he recommended this fish dish as his favorite. I thought the dish was well executed, with a nice crispy exterior and soft, melt-in-your-mouth interior. The miso-glaze, although not the most creative of flavors, is a solid stand-by that is reliably tasty.

20 oz bone-in Ribeye Steak - $33
Of course, this is a steak house, so we had to try their steak. Bryan always orders ribeye because he thinks it has the most flavor of any cut. The waiter took the time to caution us that the restaurant tends to cook meat on the rarer side (like in Europe), so we should take that into account when ordering.

Bryan's response?

"Great! I'll have it rare please."

They did a fantastic job.

Check out that perfect "crust" that forms a thin layer around the pink and still slightly cold inside. Bryan loved it.

Creamed Spinach, Rosemary Foccacia (complimentary), Sauteed Mushrooms, Hash Brown Potatoes
all sides are $10 except for the baked potato ($6) and are meant to be shared

We also ordered a bunch of sides to share. Their bread (upper right) is amazing and one of the best "sides" on the menu. Best yet, it's free! The rest of the sides were OK, although none blew me away. In my book, winner for "best mushrooms at a steakhouse" is still Craftsteak in Las Vegas. My favorite hash browns hands down go to The Oceanaire (just make sure you order it "a la Oceanaire" style).

Lobster Truffled Mac & Cheese ($16)
The lobster mac & cheese (summer special item) was pretty good. It's basically the truffle mac & cheese off of the regular menu but with lobster added.

Wollensky Butcher Burger - $13
One of our favorite items was actually the burger! At $13 we thought it was an incredible deal. Bryan even said that he liked it better than Tony Maws' famous bone-marrow infused grass-fed burger at Craigie on Main, which, by the way, costs almost 50% more than this one. This burger was incredibly juicy and just had a beautiful inherent beef flavor. Keep in mind these are burgers made with 28-day dry aged prime beef. It's not surprising that they are so good.

And for $13, it's a total steal. They did a great job of cooking it medium-rare just like we ordered. The fries were forgettable (I think we said we liked the ones at Five Guys a lot better), but we were so distracted by the juicy burger that we hardly noticed.

Coconut Cream Cake
By this time we were pretty stuffed, but for the sake of our readers we thought we should try a few desserts. I'm not a huge fan of coconut, but I still thought this cake was nice in that it was light, not too sweet, and overall had a good, fluffy texture. It sort of reminded me of Asian cakes.

Strawberry Short Cake
I love strawberry shortcake, especially one that's made with a biscuit like this one. I thought this dessert was very enjoyable, and if I were to come back, I would choose this one over the coconut cake. In general, their desserts are traditional and solid.

Any more thoughts?
Our general impression about this place was that these guys really know how to prepare and cook meat. We know that some people may not be used to the fact that they tend to undercook their meat compared to other steakhouses. However, after being used to having meat overcooked all the time, this was a welcomed relief. Plus, the steaks have really good flavor because they are prime and have been dry-aged for almost a month.

The summer grill menu items, such as the lobster avocado flatbread and the lobster salad, were surprisingly good. I especially loved the bright citrus-y flavors of the salad, which had corn, palm hearts, and lobster tossed together in a mango vinaigrette. The sides underwhelmed me, but then they are not the star of the meal anyway.

We both loved the burger and still think it's the best burger deal in town.

If you are interested in the tour, just make a note of it in your dinner reservation, which you can do through their website.

Giveaway!
Wayne was kind enough to offer me two $50 gift certificates to give away on this blog. Here are ways to enter. Please leave a comment for each entry.

1) What is your favorite steak or burger place, and why?
2) Tweet about this Givewaway. Please make sure to include a link to this post and also mention @tinyurbankitchn
3) Blog about this Givewaway and link to this post. Please provide a link to your post in the comments here.

I will draw TWO winners next week on Wednesday night at midnight.

Good luck!

Smith and Wollensky
101 Arlington St
Boston, MA 02116

Disclaimer: Time to time I receive products, meals, etc. for free as a food blogger. I do not receive any payment for these posts/reviews. The views expressed in the posts are completely my own. This meal (minus the alcohol) was paid for by Smith & Wollensky.

The Blue Room

2010-07-22T12:31:00.003-05:00

I get bored really easily. I hate doing the same thing over and over again and I've been known to say that "change alone is good for change's sake." As a kid I loved rearranging the furniture in my room so that I could wake up to a new environment. In general, I love diversity and I'm always looking to see, taste, and experience new things.

How does this translate to food? Well, for one, I love family-style dining because it allows you to try many more dishes at one meal. In fact, I really dislike the traditional Western way of dining which typically involves 1) a big chunk of meat 2) a side of vegetables, and 3) a side of carbs. I get so bored working my way through that hunk of meat.

This is exactly why I love the concept of buffets. At a buffet, not only can you choose from a huge variety of dishes, you also have absolute control over the portion sizes of each different dish.

Of course there are drawbacks. The food at a buffet usually cannot be nearly as refined. Furthermore, buffet food needs to taste good long after it's been cooked, since it sits under those heat lamps or warming stations for an indefinite amount of time.

In spite of all that, there are a few buffets around Boston that have nailed this challenge and are able to serve very good food in the buffet format. Join me as I take you down the fantastic Sunday Brunch buffet line at the Blue Room in One Kendall Square, Cambridge.

Mesclun Greens with Mango Vinaigrette

Beet and Cucumber Salad

Chinese Noodle Salad

Watermelon Soup
I loved this one - I think it was one of my favorite dishes!

Mahi Mahi Ceviche

Top Left: Scrambled Eggs; Top Right: Avocado Quesadillas; Bottom Left: Grilled Salmon with Chunky Fennel Vinaigrette; Bottom Right: Roasted Lamb

Buttermilk Pancakes

Enrique's Famous Home Fries

House made pork sausage

Sweet Plaintains with Chipotle Ketchup

Barbecued Ribs

Braise Beef Brisket

Awesome Dessert Table
Banana Walnut Bread Pudding, Dark Rum Orange Cheesecake, Hazelnut Biscotti, Raisin Scones, Lemon Buttermilk Pudding, Pineapple Upside Down Cake, Apple Tart Tatin, Chocolate Nut Brownies, Fresh fruit, bread

Here's the view from the other side.

My plate!

The Blue Room cooks manage to keep the buffet food fresh by preparing small batches and constantly refilling the dishes. Although you have a few standards such as buttermilk pancakes, most of the dishes have a creative twist to them, which makes it fun if you are an adventurous eater who doesn't mind veering from the norm.

For a buffet, this food is very very good. It still doesn't quite match the nicest sit-down meals I've had. Nevertheless, it's still a great bargain at $23, especially considering the quality and the diversity of food that you get. You couldn't pay me enough to cook all that!

This is so not your average brunch buffet!

$23 includes coffee, tea, and that crazy dessert spread you saw in the pictures earlier. They even had French macarons the last time I was there! You can check out the online menu here, although keep in mind they often add seasonal, off-menu items to the buffet. For example, summery items such as the beet & cucumber salad and the watermelon soup are not on the regular menu.

Seating is limited, as they only take two reservation times (11am or 1pm). Brunch ends at 2:30pm.

Definitely make a reservation if you don't want to wait for a seat!

The Blue Room
1 Kendall Sq
Cambridge, MA 02139

Radish Crostini with Herb Butter

2010-07-20T11:31:00.003-05:00

I have never been a radish person. In fact, when I was younger, they sort of made me gag almost. I'm not sure if it was the spiciness of it, or something else inherent in the flavor of the root. For whatever reason, I would pick them out of my salads and basically avoid them.

Oh the irony! I sign up for a CSA boxshare that seems to give me radishes week after week after week. First it was the French breakfast radishes, then these hot pink radishes. We even got purple radishes!

Finally, it was time for me to try and appreciate this vegetable that I had been avoiding for so long.

Having avoided them most of my life, I really had no idea how to prepare them. After talking to a few people and doing some hunting on the internet, I found out that a classic French way of eating radishes is just to enjoy them with some butter and salt. Raw. With some beautiful toasted baguettes.

Alas, I don't live in France, and although I do have access to some beautiful baguettes in Cambridge, I wasn't quite in the mood to step out so early in the morning just to buy some bread.

So I improvised and made my own version of the classic French breakfast. Instead of using plain butter, I decided to spread the bread with some herb butter I had made just a few days ago. Add a dash of sea salt and sliced radishes, and you have yourself a very healthy, fragrant, and enjoyable breakfast (or lunch, appetizer, whatever!). I used some toasted whole wheat Nature's Pride bread they had sent me to try out (which was delicious!), but I'm guessing this tastes even better with an authentic French baguette.

Radish Crostini with Herb Butter
French baguette, sliced and toasted (can use other bread too)
herb butter
fresh radishes, sliced
sea salt

Spread herb butter on toasted baguettes. Sprinkle with a little sea salt and top with a few slices of raw radishes.

Serve!
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Disclaimer: Time to time I receive free products from vendors to review. I do not receive any payment for these posts/reviews. The views expressed in the posts are completely my own. For this post, I received bread from Nature's Pride.

Herb Butter (Compound butter)

2010-07-20T08:16:00.002-05:00

Herbs herbs herbs.

I love herbs, and yet, if you are a city-dweller and don't have a garden (or even a small deck), herbs are a pain in the butt. They are pretty expensive, come packaged in not-so-small portions, and go bad quickly. I am always scrambling to find uses for them.

Having a CSA boxshare compounds the problem even more. All of a sudden you have no control over which herbs you get week to week (maybe a ton, maybe none!) and then you still have the same problem of having to use them up (or preserve them somehow) reasonably quickly.

This is why the Twitter community is so great. I tweeted my problem, and within minutes I had all sorts of suggestions. This one is from Jennie, who suggested that I make a compound butter, which I could then freeze!

Brilliant!

This is a great way to use up herbs because you can freeze the butter while the herbs are still fresh and full of flavor. The butter will last a long time in the freezer, and you can melt it on top of fish, spread it on toast, toss with roasted vegetables - the possibilities are endless!

And you aren't limited to these herbs, of course. Alton Brown has a great recipe that incorporates sage, rosemary, thyme, and chives.

Herb Butter Inspired by the Food Network

1 stick unsalted butter (8 Tb) at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons minced scallions
1 1/2 teaspoons minced fresh dill
1 1/2 teaspoons minced fresh parsley leaves
1/2 teaspoon freshly squeezed lime or lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Pinch freshly ground black pepper

Let butter warm up to room temperature. Combine butter with chopped up herbs, lime or lemon juice, salt and pepper.Once the butter is at room temperature, you should be able to mix everything pretty easily with a fork or spoon.

You can serve as is (over toast, fish, meat, etc.), or roll it into a log (using parchment, wax, or plastic wrap) and freeze for at least 2 hours. The Hungry Mouse has a great step-by-step visual tutorial on her blog.

And then you're set! You have these nice butter discs to last you for awhile as a topping on all sorts of food.

Enjoy. :)

Bergamot

2010-07-18T22:57:00.005-05:00

Please welcome my good friend Peter, who has generous offered to write this guest post about Bergamot here on Tiny Urban Kitchen. Some of you may remember Peter's very thorough review of Melisse (Santa Monica, California) about 6 months ago. I must give Peter 100% credit for finding and telling us about this place. I'll let him give you the gory details, but I just want to say that I highly highly recommend this place! Bryan and I have each been here twice, and we think the food is fantastic and the prices are quite reasonable. Please read on to learn much much more! - Jen

What follows is a tale of abandonment, redemption and enlightenment. This is an extensive review of four visits so please grab a cocktail before you indulge.

Abandonment

My wife abandoned me.

No, no, we are happily married, but when friends offered her an option to go on a weekend food binge in New York City, she jumped at the chance leaving me behind. Why didn't I go? Well, I was tired from a week long conference in Orlando. More importantly, these diners had budgetary limitations which significantly narrowed their dining choices. Because Jen and Bryan had raved so highly about Daniel, it had become a mandatory destination for my next trip to the Big Apple. No Daniel, no Peter.

Late that Friday night, I was home alone with nothing to eat and my stomach growling. So I decided to explore. What's open late in Boston that's new, exciting, and untried? As I looked on the OpenTable "Fit for Foodies" list, I saw a new entry, Bergamot. They have a slot for 10pm, they are located close to my home, and I consider myself a foodie. Bingo, booked!

I was pleasantly surprised by the location. Situated at the spot previously occupied by EVOO, this place had ample street parking, was within walking distance of the Porter T stop, and was situated in a quiet part of Cambridge away from the bustle and business of Union, Porter and Inman squares.

Upon entering, I was greeted by Servio Garcio, the General Manager. He escorted me to one of the two person tables that lined the bench seating against the wall. The decor of Bergamot is a mix between bistro and fine dining. There are a number of homey touches like the waiting area sofa, ample natural light from the wall-to-wall windows, and the open kitchen with an inviting staff. But the place is also impeccably dressed; a full complement of glasses and silverware adorn the tables, high ceilings that invokes a sense of grandeur and elegant touches like well-placed vases of flowers. It is one of those places perfect for either a special occasion or a casual dinner.

Golden Beets

Avocado, Pickled Red Onion, Feta Cheese, Hazelnuts, Perseline, Red Wine Vinaigrette

I was entrusted to Jason, my caretaker for the evening. In all my years of dining, I can count on one hand truly great service experiences (even at multi-Michelin star establishments). I have never had an experience where the service made me want to come back. Yet Bergamot did just that. The entire staff flowed and acted as one unit. I was serviced by no less than five people and at no point was there any redundancy. Utensils and plates were changed out after every course with efficiency. When Jason was busy with another table, one of the other waiters timed it so that the dessert menu arrived right when I needed it. Jason then came by a few minutes later to take my order. There was no hesitation, no surprise that I had already received the menu, not even eye contact between the two. It all flowed like a harmonious melody at an efficient but unhurried pace.

One of the most impressive elements of service at Bergamot is the treatment of wine and alcohol by the staff. I ordered a half bottle of Chateau Pibarnon Bandol 2005 ($44, WS 95), the most highly rated wine off of their eclectic and predominantly French wine list. When Jason returned with the bottle he assured me that he had a decanter waiting at the bar.

I have never seen a half bottle of wine treated with such dignity. Usually, I have to request for the wine to be decanted. Before dessert, noticing that I still had some wine left, Jason observed, “I would ask you if you would like coffee, but no coffee I offer could surpass the Chateau Pibarnon.” Whether Jason picked up on my fondness for this wine, or he tasted the Bandol himself as part of dinner preparation, or his comments were at the prompting of Wine Director Kai Gagnon, I will never know. Sidenote: I have since tried their coffee, and in my opinion the Pibarnon is better. I love this wine, try some if you can before I exhaust their supply.

The level of engagement of the service was also perfect. The dialog was intelligent, interesting, but never intrusive or pushy. I hate servers who come at you every few minutes to ask if everything is alright. Look at my face, read my body language. Am I fussing over the food, drinking a lot of water, making weird expressions after each bite, dry heaving, vomiting? Or am I savoring each bite, excitedly sharing with others, licking off every morsel from the plate, entranced in some orgasmic ecstasy?

Considering that the restaurant had been open for only four months, kudos to General Manager Garcia, Chef Pooler, and Wine Director Gagnon!

Chef Pooler's Kitchen

What about the food? The bread and spread are home made, and they are different every day. Also unique is the dual amuse: one before the meal and one before dessert. Pooler seems fond of rare or raw meats in his savory amuses, which is atypical. For my amuse, I had a morsel of lamb that was perfectly sized, nicely rare, and a bite of goodness to start.

Duck is my favorite poultry and my first measure of any establishment that carries it. Naturally, my first taste has to be Duck, Duck, Duck Salad Duck with Duck Confit, Cured Duck, Craclin, Frisee, Pepper Relish, Mil Ovejas Cheese and Smokey Sherry Vinegar Emulsion. The appetizer is a tribute to the location's predecessor, EVOO, and a interesting take on duck three ways. Chunks of cured duck and “croutons” of cracklins sit on top of a frisee salad that is dressed with pepper relish and a smokey sherry vinegar emulsion. Unfortunately, the cured duck and cracklins were salty and the combination with the sour emulsion and spicy relish made the dish very harsh. The Mil Ovejas cheese help cut the over-seasoned poultry, but there was not enough to balance. The duck confit hidden below the frisee was moist and tender and perfectly seasoned.

Pan-seared East Coast Halibut
Leeks, Baby Yukon Gold Potatoes, Baby Carrots, Sweet Cicely Sauce

For my entrée, I tried the Rainbow Trout with Garlic Scapes, Asparagus, Baby Shiitake Mushrooms and Bacon-Sherry Beurre Blanc. The fish was slightly overcooked and over-seasoned, but still flaky and tender. The skin was left on the fillet, which would have added a nice texture contrast had it been crispy. But it was not. The garlic scapes, asparagus and mushrooms were perfectly executed and added great flavor and texture. The bacon-sherry beurre blanc (a variation on the classic butter and wine sauce) provided just a little fatiness and naughtiness that is a characteristic of many of Pooler's creations.

Bergamot Flower

For my final course, I had the Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Bavarios, Pineapple, Walnuts and Candied Carrots. The cake is moist with a mild carrot flavor and the slices of pineapple that topped the cake gave it a nice hit of acid and fruit. The addition of the candied carrot in a chip is a stroke of genius. The crunch and slight carrot sweetness from the chip was a perfect marriage with the spongy texture of the cake and the fibrous, juicy nature of the pineapple. I had mistaken the cream cheese bavario for a scoop of ice cream, but it was much lighter and milder in flavor. You can tell a lot of thought was given to the harmony of each element and they worked perfectly.

Even though the appetizer was over-seasoned and the entrée was good but less than perfect, the service and the dessert left me happy and wanting more. I texted my wife sharing my experience and my menu hoping to make her jealous, but her response was “I am at Mario Batali’s Tarry Lodge and the pasta is amazing!” Foiled again! Ugh!

Redemption

Guajillo Chile Chocolate Pave
Taza Chocolate, Milk Stout Ice Cream, Apricot Caramel, Pretzel Sticks

How could a restaurant pay so much attention to every detail, have excellent service, amazing dessert and not be perfect on the food? Every fiber in my being said it was an anomaly and I had to give Bergamot another try (as they say in Top Chef Masters, even great chefs have bad days).

Naturally, the following Friday, my wife abandoned me again to eat at South End Buttery with co-workers. I made a 10:15 PM reservation hoping that my wife can join up with me for dessert. I walked in at 10:00 PM hoping to get seated early, but the place was packed. Servio greeted me and apologized. “I can’t seat you early, so you may have to wait until your reservation time.” No problem, that’s why I had my Wine Spectator magazine in tow. Remember that nice couch? I plopped myself on it and read my magazine for exactly…you guessed it…fifteen minutes. “Your table is ready!”

I was taken to one of the middle tables that sat four. I looked across to the table next to mine and there sat the governor, Deval Patrick. Wow, great service and A-list celebrities. What a gem I stumbled into!

This time I choose to forgo wine and just get a cocktail. Once again, the staff’s familiarity with drink astonished me. “Screwdriver with Chopin please.” I requested. “Sorry, we don’t carry Chopin, but if you are interested in potato vodka we have two other brands.” I was floored. Most people don’t know that Chopin is a vodka, let alone a potato vodka.

Following the drink was the usual pre-dinner goodies. The spread this time was a walnut butter that I couldn’t stop eating. It was sweet, nutty, and perfect for the bread that accompanied it.

Chive Butter and Homemade Bread

For my first course, I had the Baby Roasted Beets with Shy Brother’s Farm Cheese Curd, Shiso, Apricot-Ginger Puree and Spiced Walnuts. The presentation was reminiscent of the beautiful plating at Clio. The two types of beats (golden and red) were sliced into rounds and diced. Most preparation of beets tends to be overly sweet, but these beets had a subtle and natural sweetness that did not mask the beet taste. The cheese curds were mild and added a nice chewy texture to balance the crunch of the walnuts. The apricot-ginger puree and the fried shiso leaf gave the dish Asian notes. In fact, the shiso leaf was the element that put the dish over the top. Generally, shiso has a strong fennel or mint taste, but these leaves had just a hint of fennel flavor which paired well with and brought out a different character of the beets. This appetizer was one of the best beets salads I have ever had.

Scallops Photo courtesy of Bergamot
Pan-Seared Scallops

Pancetta, Peas, Cipppolini Onions, Cumin-Carrot Sauce

For my main course, I had the Pork Tenderloin with Glazed Eggplant, Red Bliss Potato and Chicharron. The pork was juicy and tender. The potato mash was nice and starchy but not heavy or overly buttery. The eggplant was glazed with mirin, a Japanese rice wine, that brought out the eggplant flavor and gave it a sweetness that complements the pork. And what pork dish would be complete without a nice piece of friend pork rind (Chicharron) to chew on. Yum! The dish was utterly enjoyable and soul satisfying. Chef Pooler knows his pork, and it is not surprising that he considered Little Piggy as a possible name for his first venture.

Pre-Dessert
White Chocolate Mousse, Gooseberries, Golden Raspberries, Fennel Fronds

My wife joined me for dessert. I had the Carrot Cake again (so that my wife could try) while she had the special dessert for the evening a Strawberry Ice Cream. The ice cream was refreshing, not too sweet and had a strong taste of strawberry (which is often missing from our genetically altered supermarket strawberries). It also had savory and floral elements that made it very unique. Each dessert at Bergamot is an adventure in new tastes, textures and flavors. Pastry chef Stacy Mirabellois is a master at her art and it is worth going to Bergamot just for the desserts.

First of Summer
Olive Oil Gelato, Black Pepper Financier, Slow-Roasted Local Strawberries, Basil Tapioca

I got my wife hooked, and we returned the next Friday so that she could try a full meal. She picked the blackboard menu which was consisted a Summer Herb Salad, White Sea Bass with Stewed Cousa Squash and Lardons, and Strawberry Sorbet with Elderberry and Kaffir Lime Broth. I had the Pea Green Salad, Grilled Flat Iron Steak, and the First of Summer which was an olive oil gelato. The Pea Green Salad was crisp and refreshing, exactly what you want on a summer evening, and the Berkshire ham and the Scotch egg made the dish unctuous and playful. The Flat Iron Steak was cooked to a perfect medium rare and the meat was tender, but had that chewy crunch that you expect from a more fleshy cut of meat. The olive oil gelato was a real surprise. It had a slight olive taste that did not overpower the gelato. The basil tapioca was a unique technique for delivering basil flavor. I dislike basil, but I liked the tapioca.

I was right! The first meal was a fluke. The food is as good as the service and everything is well executed, extremely thoughtful, and in perfect balance. For example, portion sizes are designed for you to have three courses without feeling stuffed. Some have complained that they are too small; I think they are just right.

Enlightenment

Braised Rabbit Leg
Eva's Arugula, Portabella Mushrooms, Shallots, Pecorino Cheese, Balsamic Vinaigrette

Having spent all my Fridays in June at Bergamot, I had to share it my best friends Jen and Bryan. I emailed Servio and let him know that Tiny Urban Kitchen was coming and asked if we could take some pictures of the kitchen and interview Chef Pooler and Wine Director Gagnon. Servio did one better and offered for us a nine course tasting with the best product from that day’s trip to the farmer’s market. The menu was a sampling of the dishes although portion size was generous for a tasting and Jen was full by the third course. The food pictures in this review (except for the first one which is from their bar menu) are from the tasting.

Spanish Mackerel

Oven Roasted Tomato, Yukon Gold Potato, Leeks, Broken Grabiche

Everything from the meal was fantastic and showed an extra level of refinement. The Spanish Mackerel with the Leeks and Broken Grabiche was simply divine. The shallots and picked vegetables paired well with the mackerel skin. The Pork Tenderloin was cooked to a medium doneness which made it even more tender and flavorful. More Chefs need to consider undercooking pork since they are now raised in much safer environments.

Pork Tenderloin
Glazed Eggplant, Shishito Pepper Puree, Tempura-Battered Squash Blossom, Chicharron

I also had a brief conversation with Wine Director Gagnon about his wine selection philosophy. He explained that where the Bergamot flower grows in France the soil is not well suited for white wines and even somewhat limited for red wines. So, he has to construct the wine list from the regions of France that he has most kinship with like the Loire valley and make selections that match with the character of the menu. The list has about 50 moderately priced wines and features particular regions like Bandol and his favorite grape the chenin blanc.

Chef Keith Pooler and Jen with Bergamot Flower and Herbs

Chef Pooler spent about twenty minutes after dinner to share his culinary viewpoint and give us a tour of the kitchen. He believes in sourcing the best seasonal ingredients. While he relies heavily on local farmer’s markets, he will import ingredients from all over the US if there is something worthwhile. He does not believe in signature dishes and expects the menu to change frequently with complete overhauls as the seasons change. I came away from the discussion with a distinct impression. Keith Pooler is a food nerd, and he likes working with people who are food nerds. This is a very good thing for those of us who like to eat.

118 Beacon St
Somerville, MA 02143

Tiny Urban Tidbits #12

2010-07-16T01:09:00.004-05:00

Tiny Urban Tidbits is where I share with you some insights, "tidbits", or just random encounters from the week. I carry my camera with me everywhere I go, and I love capturing photos of interesting things that I discover. These may include new dishes from a restaurant that I've already reviewed, updates on what's going on locally, or encounters I've had in the kitchen. It could even include a beautiful sunset, a funny sign, or just stuff I find amusing. Think of it as snapshots (literally!) of my weekly experiences with food - intertwined with stories, of course.
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It's been a sad sad week for two of our local food businesses. The intense flash flood last Saturday caused a ton of damage for newly opened Think Tank in Kendall Square and Taza Chocolate in Somerville.

Think Tank

Think Tank had just opened less than a month ago. A collaboration between Jay Leno, Vincent Conte, and Mitchell Muroff, this bar and restaurant with Asian-inspired food was planning on hosting other interesting activities, such as live comedy, dancing, and arcade games.

They are located in the lower level of One Kendall Square. Sadly, the flash flood brought 12 inches of water inside the restaurant causing lots and lots of damage. They are estimating that repairs might cost up to $200,000. They are currently closed and anticipate they need about 2 months before opening up again.

We visited last week and I had been planning to write a review about the place. I will wait until they reopen, for it makes no sense to write a review now when you can't visit.

Taza Chocolate

Taza Chocolate's woes are just as sad, if not even more sad. They had just upgraded their chocolate production facility with new equipment a few weeks ago. In fact, just last week they had churned out the first batch of chocolate on the new machines. Saturday's flood caused tons of damage and they had to shut down production. The facility will be closed for at least a week, if not longer.

Taza Chocolate is asking their fans for support during this difficult time. You can support Taza by buying their chocolates or other things on their online store. Thankfully, their stockpiles of chocolate were stored on the second floor and thus not damaged. (phew!)

Check out their blog post here, which gives details about the damage to the factory.

Below are pictures from a tour of the chocolate factory I took last December. I am guessing that a lot of these machines had already been replaced, but it's still cool to see what the inside of the chocolate factory used to look like!

I'm a big fan of their chocolate. I wrote my first post about them last summer when I tasted their chocolate at The Garden at the Cellar and also at the Farmers Market.

That's all for today. Look out next week for yet another exciting Giveaway plus some reviews of some really cool new restaurants!

Organic Cotton Produce Bags WINNER

2010-07-16T01:09:00.000-05:00

Thanks everyone for participating in this Giveaway. It was really interesting to read about all the various ways in which you thought you could do to help the environment.

The winner is lucky number 13!

Congratulations to Kristen!

Kristen said, "I should definitely be more aware of my water use, especially since we just moved to SoCal!"

Kristin, please e-mail me at jen[at]tinyurbankitchen[dot]com to claim your prize!

Thanks for playing all, and keep thinking of ways that you can reduce, reuse, and recycle!

Quinoa

2010-07-15T11:47:00.004-05:00

Native to South America, where it was one of the Incas' staples, quinoa has been around forever (some records go back eight to nine thousand years!). Sadly, when Spanish conquerers invaded South America, they killed the Incan emperor, destroyed all quinoa fields, and illegalized the farming of quinoa. Some natives would still secretly cultivate quinoa, but overall quinoa production fell to a minimum.

Interestingly, Quinoa finally made its way to the US in the early 1980's when Steve Gorad, now president of the Quinoa Corporation, discovered quinoa while on a trip to Bolivia in 1976. He totally fell in love with it and decided to cultivate and market the grain in the US.

Quinoa is actually a seed, not a grain. It's known as a pseudo-cereal because it's not a member of the grass family, but a member of the chenopod family (which also includes some of my other favorite vegetables, spinach and beets!).

The outer part of the "grain" contains bitter compounds called saponins, which are ideally removed by either washing or briefly soaking the grains. Don't soak for too long, otherwise the bitter compounds will enter the grains!

Nutritionally, what's so unique about quinoa?

Unlike other grains, such as rice and wheat, quinoa has a balanced amount of all the essential amino acids that humans need. In short, it is one of the few plant-based complete proteins out there. Furthermore, it's gluten-free, reasonably high in protein, and high in other vitamins, such as phosphorus, magnesium, manganese, riboflavin, and iron.

red quinoa and white quinoa

Quinoa is pretty easy to prepare and you can treat it like other grains. The biggest difference between quinoa and other grains is that you have to make sure to soak or rinse the grain before cooking to remove the bitter compounds. Many commercially available boxes already pre-rinse, so it's possible that you can skip this step.

Although many people say you can use a rice cooker to make this dish, I like to take the lazy way out. I don't bother measure cups of water, grains, or anything when I make quinoa. I just dump a portion of quinoa into a pot of boiling water and then I cook it on medium-low heat until they open up (they become much fluffier) and float to the top. This typically takes about 10-15 minutes. Then I drain, rinse, and eat.

You can toss it with your own homemade salad dressing, toss it with chopped vegetables, or use any cous-cous or wheatberry recipe that's out there. Really, the possibilities are endless.

I like to just toss it with extra virgin olive oil, a tiny bit of sea salt, and herbs. That alone is quite refreshing and healthy for a hot summer day.

GIVEWAY!

It's not too late to enter the Giveaway for the reusable produce bags! So far there aren't that many entries, so the odds are pretty good!

The Red House

2010-07-14T08:37:00.009-05:00

eggplant contadina 8.50
thick sliced roasted eggplant topped with parmesan, tomato, fresh mozzarella & basil oil

There's this super cute little red house situated in Harvard Square a little above the street. From the inside, the house seems to be so small that the beauiful outdoor patio appears to overpower the actual dining/bar area. Truth this, several hidden and private dining rooms actually make this place much bigger than it seems.

Originally built in 1802, this house was once a private residence before beginning its second life as a restaurant (with a short stint in between as a Harvard University office building). Do you wonder why it's built slightly higher up with a retaining wall on the outside? To protect against the waters of the free-flowing Charles River!

Things are really different today, more than 200 years later, but the little red house still looks pretty much the same. It's become a quaint Italian restaurant now, with a delightful outdoor patio that's worth trying to get if it's a beautiful summer day outside.
Here's a peek at the dishes we got during our last visit!

mixed greens salad with mussels, red beets, pickled onions

linguini con carciofi 13.95/22.50

artichoke hearts, arugula, plum tomatoes, garlic & crushed red pepper, tossed with linguini

add grilled chicken, $3 add grilled shrimp, $5

Special of the Day: linguini with chicken tossed in a pesto sauce 13.95/22.50

five spice roasted duck breast breast 14.95/23.50
with fennel, orange & ginger compote

Thoughts
We really enjoyed our meal here! It probably did not hurt that we managed to grab the last remaining outdoor seat on a gorgeous summer day, but that's a big part of the charm of dining here. Overall, we really enjoyed the food. I absolutely loved my liguini con carciofi - such a celebration of summer vegetables with deliciously al denta pasta. I thought the texture of the homemade pasta was excellent. Bryan's pasta dish had great texture too and rich flavors. I personally preferred my dish, but I tend to like lighter dishes in general. I thought my eggplant appetizers was pretty good, though it was a bit oilier than I would have liked. Bryan really enjoyed his mussels salad.

What I really like about this place is that the menu offers half portions for almost everything. For those with smaller appetites, it's a perfect opportunity to order a smaller amount of something and actually be able to finish everything on your plate. For someone with a bigger appetite, it allows you the opportunity to try several different things. Bryan got a salad and two half portions for his dinner (sort of like a true Italian experience with a primo and a secondi!).

The portions sizes are rather generous. All the dishes you see pictured above (except for the appetizers) are half portions! I thought the duck dish was big enough to be a main entrée!

All in all, even though the prices are slightly on the higher side, the portions are generous enough that you could really enjoy a great meal just getting a salad and a half portion of one of the entrée. We thought the service was excellent, and the bar made pretty good mixed drinks.

All in all, if you can get one of those outdoor seats, it's a fabulous way to experience Harvard Square outdoors on a beautiful summer evening.

GIVEWAY!

It's not too late to enter the Giveaway for the reusable produce bags! So far there aren't that many entries, so the odds are pretty good!

The Red House
98 Winthrop St
Cambridge, MA 02138

Reusable Produce Bags + Giveaway!

2010-07-13T08:34:00.008-05:00

Paper or Plastic?

Plastic bags have gotten a bad rap lately, with Whole Foods giving it up completely and San Francisco banning it outright. It's true, plastic bags take tons of petroleum per year to manufacture, plus they take a loooooong time to degrade and cause damage to marine life.

Yet an average paper grocery bag takes four times as much energy to produce (~2500 BTU vs. ~600 BTU per bag), and think of all those trees that are being cut down.

In the end, unfortunately, neither are really ideal. Many have argued that reusable bags are the way to go. They are . . . if you actually are diligent about reusing them. I've struggled with this issue a lot myself. I see a lot of these cheap, "reusable" bags that they sell in supermarkets these days, and I wonder whether they were ecologically made. I also wonder how often they are used versus how often they are thrown out, either due to their cheap quality or just because they are not being used. The solution doesn't seem nearly as simple as it might look.

And that's just the grocery bags. What about all those little plastic bags that you use to carry your vegetables, fruits, and nuts in the produce aisle?

I must confess, I love using those little plastic produce bags as liners in the little trash receptacle that sits on my kitchen counter. I can sort of see why plastic recycling is so low in this country. I think (or hope!) that part of the reason is that most people reuse these bags at least once, and more often than not as trash bags.

But if there were another alternative to these little plastic bags, would I consider it?

When Lacey from A Greener Kitchen contacted me about trying out their organic cotton produce bags, I was definitely intrigued. Even though I had always tried to use reusable shopping bags for my groceries, it never occurred to me to avoid plastic with my fruits & vegetables in the produce aisle. I agreed to try them out for a week.

I like the idea behind these bags. The company makes these bags using leftover scraps from organic cotton aprons that they also make. What a good use of extra material! They even make sure that their print fabric comes from an eco-friendly textile company.

I tried these out for a few days and overall I liked them. They are attractive and work pretty well for produce of various sizes. You can close the bag by cinching the top and sliding the attached elastic band around the cinched portion. Although I have yet to wash them, the company recommends hand washing and air drying them (for environmental reasons!). They look like they would dry pretty quickly, as they are very light.

There were a few negatives. I didn't like how I couldn't see what was inside the bags anymore. It made it a bit harder to figure out what produce I had. I found myself opening up the cinched bags in the fridge to see what was inside each one. Plus, they aren't really waterproof, so keep that in mind. The bags got slightly wet from the damp vegetables that I put inside. I probably wouldn't ever use these bags for raw meat.

I also instinctively wished for a draw string instead of the cinched elastic. I think it would be easier to open and close quickly. This is personal preference; the cinched elastic worked fine.

Giveaway!
Lacey has generous agreed to give away a set of reusable organic produce bags (pictured above - value $14.95). There are three different sizes. The large one works well for large vegetables (I put Swiss chard in that one). The medium one works great for a bag of fruit or potatoes. The smaller one is good for something like nuts.

For chances to win, you can do one or all of the following:

1. Comment below telling me one thing you think you could do (that you don't do now) to help the environment.

2. Tweet or blog about this giveaway (please link back to this post and leave a comment telling me where the post is!).

Thanks! Good luck and I will do the drawing on Thursday at MIDNIGHT!

Disclaimer: Time to time I receive free products from vendors to review. I do not receive any payment for these posts/reviews. The views expressed in the posts are completely my own. For this post, I was given a chance to review a free set of reusable produce bags (pictured in the post).

Fava Fennel Mint Salad

2010-07-12T08:27:00.001-05:00

This salad scream Spring! to me like no other, even though it's so perfect for those hot hot hot summer days when you don't feel like eating anything warm or heavy (for us Bostonians, that's like the last two weeks!). I love this salad because it has such a diverse yet rich mix of flavors. Fragrant fennel root slices, fresh mint, zingy scallions, and nutty fava beans come together beautifully when tossed with a bit of Parmesan, salt, and pepper.

This was my first time preparing fava beans, though, and it's surprisingly more tedious than you might think! I didn't have this luxury, but if you can get a bunch of friends to come over and help shell these beans (twice!), it'll make the experience a lot more fun.

Yes, you heard me right. These beans need to be de-shelled TWICE. First, you need to remove the outer pod. The easiest way to do this is to grab the pointy end of the bean (the part that used to be attached to the plant), and try to pull off the stringy bit that separates the two halves of the pod. Crack open the pod and remove the inner pods.

Blanch the pods in boiling water briefly (like 1 minute), and then shock them in ice cold water. This keeps them nice and bright green. Next, take each little pod and remove the outer covering to reveal the beautiful, bright green fava bean! The lower right picture shows the progressions of all three steps.

Chop up the rest of your ingredients. These are purplette onions (very similar to scallions but they are purple!) from my CSA boxshare.

Fava Fennel Mint Salad
Adapted from Simply Recipes

Ingredients
2-3 lbs fresh fava beans, (1 1/2 to 2 cups shelled)
Salt
1 small bulb fennel, thinly sliced
2 ounces Parmesan cheese, shaved
10 fresh mint leaves, thinly sliced
2 scallions, sliced (I used purplette onions)
Extra virgin olive oil
Lemon juice (I used lime juice)
Freshly ground black pepper

Prepare fava beans as described above. Toss together fava beans, fennel, and scallions. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, add salt and pepper, and mix. Squeeze in lemon juice to taste (I squeezed half a small lime). Mix in Parmesan cheese and mint leaves and toss to combine.

Serve and Enjoy!

This recipe is really really flexible. My farm share did not give me close to 2-3 pounds of fava beans, so I just improvised and sort of made up my own ratios. I think the ratio of ingredients is not super important, as long as you feature fava beans as one of the main components. I sort of wished I had a few more fava beans in my salad, but it still tasted delicious nonetheless. Again, very flexible. In fact, I bet you could save yourself a lot of manual labor by replacing the fava beans with edamame (fresh soy beans), and it would still be really really good.

Tiny Urban Tidbits #11 - Sweets, Sweets, and More Sweets!

2010-07-09T08:38:00.008-05:00

It's been a sweet, sweet week! I feel like it wasn't that long ago when my post started with the phrase "lot's of chocolates for me to eat . . ." referring to the crazy boatloads of Swiss chocolates that Bryan had brought back from Switzerland for me.

We're not even close to making a dent in those . . .

And then he went to New York. To Momofuku Ko, to be exact. Sorry, they don't let you take pictures, so he has none to share from that experience, except to say that the food was amazing and one of his favorite dishes (which he kept talking about) was this lychee jelly + frozen fois gras shaving combination that worked really really well.

First There Were Cookies
He was nice enough to stop by the Milk Bar and pick up a crazy box of cookies for me. What's with all the large quantities? This is why I do things like boot camp! How else can I keep up?

Top Row: Peanut Butter, Corn, Compost, Compost
Second Row: Chocolate, Confetti, Compost, Peanut Butter
Peanut Butter, Corn, Blueberry, Corn

I was surprised how much the corn cookie tasted like corn. I have no idea what he put in there, but it's a really strong flavor, and I love it! I love corn to begin with, so it's not hard to impress me with anything that really tastes like corn. Anyone who's willing to pay $50 for a meal called "Dinner Devoted to Our Established Colleague: Corn," will inevitably like this cookie. I also loved the chocolate cookie, which not only had deep deep dark chocolate flavor, but was also paired with some salt, which enhanced the flavor even more. Honestly, all of the cookies are pretty good and you can't go wrong there. I still remember the first cookie I ever had from Momofuku and I thought it was one of the best cookies I'd ever had.

And then there was Ice Cream . . .
I also found out from Twitter last week that Whole Foods River St. was hosting a free Ice Cream Palooza! Six local vendors, including one of my favorites, was going to be there handing out free ice cream. It's like the Scooper Bowl in Boston, but better because it's free and everything's local!

Vendors that were there: Sweet Scoops (frozen yogurt) from NH, Cold Fusion (gelato) from Sharon, MA, GaGa Sherbetter (Sherbet), Toscanini's (ice cream) from Cambridge, and Chilly Cow (frozen custard) from Arlington, MA.

When I found out Tosci's was going to be there (I first thought it meant they were opening a store at Whole Foods), I was soooo excited I was tweeting all about it. I was even more thrilled when Tosci's tweeted back at me and said:

@tinyurbankitchn It won't be a store but it will be free. What should we bring. Name your flavor.

If you've been reading this blog, you probably guessed that I requested the Olive Oil Ice cream. I also asked for Grape Nut (another one of my favorites), and Mango Sorbet.

I was even more tickled to find out he brought TWO out of the three that I requested! YUM! Now the whole world gets to try olive oil ice cream for free! Here I am with the first scoop (they didn't whip out the tub until I arrived). :) That's Gus Rancatore on the left, owner of Tosci's. Oh, by the way, you can usually buy the olive oil ice cream from Central Bottle and Wine in Cambridge. Gus uses one of their brands of olive oil, which explains why his ice cream had much better olive oil flavor than the one I made (using supermarket olive oil!).

Of course there were many flavors to try, such as this vanilla gelato from Cold Fusion. This is the same gelato that they sell at the Whole Foods on River Street. They don't use any eggs in their gelato, so the consistency is different. It's thicker, creamier, yet weirdly lighter at the same time. I have always liked ice cream better than gelato, so even though it was pretty good, it wasn't my favorite.

Tosci's ran out of ice cream pretty early. After that, by far the longest line was at Chilly Cow for their frozen custard. This was my first time having it, and I must say I am a HUGE FAN. I love this stuff! I can't wait to go out to their location in Arlington and try some more flavors.

I guess it makes sense that someone who doesn't like gelato as much (missing eggs) would love something like frozen custard that probably has TONS of eggs. Loved it. It's eggy, creamy, and just tasted absolutely delicious. If the line weren't so long, I would have gone back for a second helping. Can't wait to go back.

Needless to say, I was pretty full before dinner that night, even though we enjoyed yet another great meal at one of our favorite local restaurants.

Did I Mention the 12 boxes /5 bars of Chocolates I Ate?
More on that later, but needless to say, I'm just glad I had friends helping me. The things we do for this blog . . . .

Time for another detox?
Now that the Momofuku cookies are basically gone, the chocolates are eaten, and I'm slowing chipping away at the last of the avocado ice cream, I'm really thinking it's time to get healthy again! Stay tuned next week for more posts about my farm share vegetables and my takes on some really really great new restaurants in the Cambridge/Somerville area.

Have a great weekend!

Avocado Ice Cream

2010-07-07T23:58:00.001-05:00

I have recently rediscovered my love for avocados. This jewel of a fruit (yes, it's a fruit!) is loaded with vitamins, cancer-fighting compounds, and cholesterol-lowering fat. Most importantly, it tastes soooo goood and it's super versatile. Of course, it's all over South American cuisine, since it did originate from Mexico. But you can also enjoy it in sushi, with soy sauce, or even in a milkshake!

Did you know that an avocado has more potassium than a medium-sized banana? Or that in controlled experiments, people with high triglyceride or cholesterol levels put on an avocado-enriched diet saw a 22% reduction in their LDL-cholesterol (bad cholesterol), a 22% reduction in their triglyceride levels, and an 11% increase in their HDL-cholesterol (good cholesterol)?

Furthermore, studies seem to indicate that avocado extract, when put in the presence of prostate cancer cells, caused cell-cycle arrest in the cancer cells, essentially reducing their ability to proliferate.

Finally, avocados even help your body absorb other fat-soluble nutrients better. In fact, a study at the Ohio State University demonstrated that adding avocados to your salad greatly increased your absorption of caretenoids (linked to lower instances of cancer) from other vegetables in the salad.

If the fat in avocados are so good for you, why not replace bad fat in recipes with avocado fat?

That's exactly what this (relatively) healthy yet delectably rich ice cream recipe does.

About 75% of an avocado's calories come from fat, most of which is monounsaturated fat. As I mentioned earlier, this "good fat" lowers total cholesterol (17%) in people who have high cholesterol. The beauty of this recipe is that, it hardly uses any cream. A large chunk of the fat is good fat.

Maybe the idea of having avocados as a dessert sounds a bit strange to you. I would recommend giving it a try. It's surprisingly smooth, creamy, and really really good.

Avocado Ice Cream
adapted from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz

3 avocados (preferably Hass)
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 T freshly squeezed lime juice
Big pinch of salt

Cut open the avocados, remove the pits, and scoop out the flesh. Combine all ingredients in a food processor or blender and puree until smooth. Freeze in your favorite ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

If you like softer ice cream, you can serve this right away. Otherwise, I would recommend putting it in the freezer and letting it harden (for at least 2 hours) before serving.

Trattoria Pulcinella

2010-07-07T08:25:00.001-05:00

A small, neighborhood trattoria tucked away in north Cambridge just far enough away from any T stop to deter most people without cars, Trattoria Pulcinella lured us to their location with a 1000 point reservation on Opentable and the promise of fresh, homemade pasta in the tradition of Naples.

Intrigued yet slightly wary at the same time (we had seen slightly mixed yet mostly positively reviews), we thought it was worth trying. After all, this place was pretty close to our place. Furthermore, wouldn't it be great to have another "hidden" Italian trattoria that we could visit on a Friday night without a wait? It's always bittersweet when the rest of the world discovers our hidden finds, which inevitably happens far too often.

Hoping to find the next hidden gem, we drove out to North Cambridge to check out this little family-owned trattoria.

Hidden indeed. Granted, our reservation was slightly earlier in the evening (I want to say 6:30pm), but the place was virtually empty! We were actually quite pleased, as we had read from various other reviews that the place gets quite crowded and actually pretty noisy. the tables are squeezed close together because the restaurant itself is not very big.

Not only could we relax at our leisure in a quiet, relaxing environment, we had the waiter's full attention. Bryan decided to ask him for his recommendations.

Although the waiter cautioned that that homemade pork belly was "fatty," we decided that it sounded quite interesting and ordered it. He also recommended sharing a pasta and an entrée as a way of having more variety. I really appreciated how he actually suggested that we share, instead of making us feel pressured to each order our own appetizers and entrees. We went with his recommendation and ordered one appetizer, -one "primo" (a pasta dish), and one "secondi" (the fish special of the day, which was some sort of white fish (I think it was tilapia?) with a lemon caper sauce).

House cured pork belly. This pork belly was actually very very good, and seemed quite authentic. I had not tried anything quite like it before, but it definitely reminded me of prosciutto - smoky, salty, fatty, and thinly sliced. It paired nicely with the cheese and honey topped mini-toasts.

Il Pulcinella has A LOT of specials depending on what fresh ingredients they can find in the marketplace. On this day, we ordered one of the special pasta dishes: Papardelle with scallops and broccoli rabe. We really enjoyed the homemade pasta and the fresh ingredients. Overall, a solid and enjoyable dish.

The lemon-caper fish was good, although nothing particularly exciting. It was almost something I felt I could make at home, and thus not really worth ordering at a restaurant. I sometimes wonder whether restaurants tend to recommend safer dishes in case the diners are not adventurous eaters. I almost wished I had ordered something that was more unique, more interesting, that they make, such as the veal tripe, gnocchi with stuffed squid, or papardelle with rabbit confit).

We ordered one side dish, a roasted eggplant dish, which was soft, smoky, and overall pretty good, although slightly oily.

Overall Thoughts
This place is decidedly authentic, and the food is good. I like how they offer so many different types of specials based on what interesting ingredients they can get at the market. I also like how they are not afraid to try serving bold dishes that veer from the typical American Italian menu (veal tripe or pork belly anyone?). It's probably a great place to visit over and over again if you want to try some of their more interesting dishes.

Having said all that, what was our initial impression as we were walking out of the restaurant?

"I like Gran Gusto better."
"Me too."

I'm not sure why - maybe it's the fact that the waiter recommended such a ordinary dish (lemon-caper fish) as one of the best dishes to try. Maybe everything was good, but nothing truly wow'ed us. Admittedly, the comparison is slightly unfair - we have eaten at Gran Gusto probably a dozen times while this is our first visit. So, I think it's worth another visit -- that is, if we aren't tempted away with Gran Gusto every time we are in the neighborhood.

Trattoria Pulcinella
147 Huron Ave
Cambridge, MA 02138

Canteen

2010-07-05T23:07:00.003-05:00

Green Goddess: $10.50 Basil Walnut Pesto, fresh baby spinach & asparagus, zucchini & broccoli, avocado & fresh chopped herbs tossed in a creamy cilantro lime vinaigrette! Warmed on ciabatta.

Could it be? Finally, a reversal in the depressing trend of every other restaurant and store closing in the building across the street from me? First it was Roka, then it was Il Panino. A furniture store here and there, and then The Friendly Eating Place. This would not have been so bad had it not been for the fact that none of them were replaced. In the past ten years!

So slowly, the building across from me has become a sad, office-ghost town of sorts. It's one of several empty-ish buildings on this side of Mass Ave. The few lone remainders, Golden Touch Cleaners, University Wine Shop, and my beloved Garden At the Cellar, are among the few businesses left in that building. The trend is so sad, an entire blog has been dedicated to it.

So the other day, when I noticed that a new place had actually opened up in the old Friendly Eating Place location, I had to go check it out.

Their philosophy?

"Local, seasonal and sustainably sourced ingredients are intrinsically better for you"

This is quoted directly from Jimmy Murray, co-founder of Canteen. Jimmy Murray, who previously founded Arrow Street Crepes, has teamed up with business partner Aaron Siegal to start this new venture. Canteen appears to be an environmentally-conscious restaurant that seeks to serve delicious, healthy food that is sustainable, seasonal and local. Furthermore, it aims to achieve green certification, and has a lot of other environmentally-focused goals.

And the food? It's fantastic! I loved my Green Goddess sandwich (pictured above), which was stuffed full of crazy fresh vegetables. For once I actually like the vegetable to meat ratio. Not that the meat isn't great. In my sandwich I enjoyed high quality roasted turkey (no salty processed cold cuts here!)

Special of the Day" $7.50 Roast pork with basil walnut pesto, broccoli rabe, and white bean puree

The special of the day was also fantastic, filled with juicy roast pork, flavorful pesto, and that lovely slightly bitter broccoli rabe (one of my favorite vegetables). Out of the two sandwiches, I slightly preferred this one, but they were both really good.

All sandwiches are made to order with Iggy's bread. During busy lunch times on a weekday, the service can be unpredictable. Bryan has gone four times, with the waiting time varying anywhere from 5 minutes to 15 minutes. They take time & care in making their sandwiches, which inevitably leads to slower service at times. It's worth it, but if you're in a hurry, you might want to go elsewhere. I understand it's a relatively new place, so hopefully as time goes by they will get more efficient.

I tried these fruit drinks they were selling and I loved them! Finally, a fizzy fruit drink that's not too sweet! It's made with pure juice and sparkling water, and has just the perfect combination of juice and sparkling water that it suits my tastes perfectly. I want to say it tastes similar to a 1:1 mixture of the two, but don't quote me on that! A 20 oz bottle is only around 120 calories, which tells you that it doesn't have that much sugar.

The space is bright, clean, airy, and relaxing and I'm loving the food. The portion sizes are rather large, and I personally cannot finish an entire sandwich (although Bryan usually does). The prices are slightly on the higher side (expect to spend $7-$10 for a sandwich), but they do use high quality ingredients. Considering this place is less than a 2 minute walk from my home, I'm sure I'll be back.

Canteen
983 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02139

Leisure Station (Boba Tea) Sushi Naming Contest Winner!

2010-07-03T00:22:00.005-05:00

Guess what? The folks at Leisure Station were kind enough to offer TWO sets of gift certificates to TWO winners!

The first winner, chosen at random, was William, comment number 13!

William said, "I absolutely adore BBQ Eel Maki rolls"

Congratulations William!

mochi sushi from Tiny Urban Kitchen

I also asked the folks at Leisure Station to pick their favorite roll. Helen Chang, the store manager, wrote back and said,

"After careful review I thought joyosity's idea of a sweet fusion roll with unique sweet sticky rice and fresh fruit is something I'm eager to experiment with."

Congratulations joyosity! You have also won a $15 gift certificate to Leisure Station. Furthermore, maybe your roll will be featured at the store one of these days!

William and Joyosity, please e-mail me at jen[at]tinyurbankitchen[dot]com to claim your prizes.

Congratulations everyone, and thanks for all your amazing suggestions. I really thought several of them were very creative and seemed quite tasty.

Stay tuned - I have more Giveaways lined up!

8 Ways to Use Up Your Farm Share Vegetables (Tidbits #10)

2010-07-02T00:16:00.000-05:00

I'm stuck in a rut.

A cooking rut, that is. These farm share vegetables that keep coming back - I find that I am preparing them the same way, over and over again. I think this happens when I run out of time, and don't have time to be creative.

And maybe some of you are in the same boat too. So I thought I would share with you what I usually do with my farm share vegetables. Maybe it will inspire some of you to try something different. Likewise, I love reading food blogs because they give me ideas for different ways of cooking familiar ingredients.

1. Stir Fry Leafy Greens with Garlic
My default thing to do with leafy greens from my farmshare is to stir-fry them. You can stir-fry almost anything with garlic and it will taste good - beet greens, radish greens, Swiss chard, kale - you name it. Oh, I did learn the hard way the collard greens take forever to cook, and a simple stir fry will NOT be sufficient.

Stir Fried Baby Bok Choy
I've been getting a lot of baby bok choy through my farm share lately. Baby bok choy is one of the Chinese vegetables that I almost invariably pick up whenever I go to Chinatown. I love how quickly it cooks, how great it tastes in a simple Chinese stir-fry, and how versatile it is. Not only does it work in Chinese cuisine, it's a simple, great side vegetable for a piece of steak or fish.

2. Make Chips!
If you get a reasonably starchy root vegetable, chances are you can make chips out of them. I've made all sorts of oven-baked chips: taro root, sunchokes, sweet potato, even kale "chips".

Oven Roasted Kale "Chips"
I love using up kale this way. First of all, the roasting gives the kale an excellent, deep caramelized roasted flavor that I love. Secondly, it reduces a whole bunch of kale into a rather manageable amount. Finally, it tastes really good, more like a snack than something that's actually healthy and chock full of vitamins!

3. Blend It Up Into a Soup
Root vegetables are great for blended soups. You can mix and match them, making all sorts of interesting combinations. Here are two classics:

Carrot Ginger Soup
I have been getting quite a few lovely rainbow colored carrots lately. Although I have usually just been snacking on them raw, here's a lovely healthy and flavorful soup that you can make with any kind of carrot.

Celariac Apple Potato Soup

This recipe will probably become much more useful when fall rolls around. The great thing about fall root vegetables is that you can blend any combination of them together to make a lovely soup. The general rules are pretty simple: aromatic + root vegetables + broth + blender. Play around and see what you create!

4. Oven Roast Your Root Vegetables

My default way of preparing farm share root vegetables when I don't have much time to think is to roast them all together with some olive oil, salt, and pepper. It never fails, and you can refrigerate them for use later.

Roasted Fennel, Zucchini, Carrots, and Parsnips

I have been getting fennel bulbs in my farm share lately, and yet I have not done anything with them yet. Roasted fennel bulb is beautifully sweet, mild, and does not really taste like licorice. It pairs nicely with other root vegetables, such as carrots and parsnips (which have also been appearing in my farm share!).

Oven Roasted Beets and Sauteed Beet Greens
The moment I get beets from the farm share, I toss it together with some olive oil and salt, wrap it up in some foil, and roast it. It's so versatile afterwards. You can toss it with your favorite dressing (balsamic works great) and a strong cheese, such as feta, goat's cheese, or blue cheese. You can also reheat it and eat it as a side dish with meat. If you're hungry in the middle of the night, you can even just munch on it cold straight from the refrigerator!!

5. Make Spring Rolls!

Vietnamese Spring Rolls
Have an over-abundance of basil? Or mint? Or heck, even other herbs? Make Vietnamese spring rolls! This light, refreshing, cool appetizer is healthy and delicious. Works great as a light meal and is a crowd pleaser at potlucks and picnics.

6. Make a Chopped Salad

Tomato, Basil, Mozarella, and Corn Salad
Here's my twist on the traditional caprese salad. I love fresh corn and I really think it adds to most salads. By quickly making the corn in the microwave using this super easy method, you can whip this refreshing salad together in minutes. Again, a great way to use up that excess basil!

7. Make a Cold Marinated Salad (or make pickles!)

Spicy Asian Cucumber Salad
I love this dish in the summertime. It's so refreshing, cool, and healthy. It works great as a starter or also as a side dish to some grilled meat. I will often serve it with several other Chinese dishes to be eaten with rice.

8. Try Sauteing your Root Vegetables!

Sauteed Beets and Radishes
Last week, when I really was short of time, I decided to thinly slice my radishes and beets. I sauteed them in a small amount of butter with some herbs, and they tasted fantastic. They really hit the spot, and it only took a few minutes to prepare. That's my kind of recipe.

So there you have it. Just a few of the ways in which I have been using up my farm share vegetables. I'm curious to try pickling something, or even making ice cream out of something, like beets! Stay tuned!

What are some ways that you have been using up your CSA Boxshare vegetables?

Japanese Food Art

2010-07-01T13:25:00.003-05:00

I've been a bit busy this week, and thus haven't had as much time to write up extensive blog posts. I did want to share something with you today to make you smile.

I love Doraemon, the Japanese cat-robot. I once even made him into a Japanese rice ball. These are Doraemon cakes from 7-11 that my mom brought all the way back from Taiwan. Aren't they cute?

I also love Domokun, the little Japanese brown monster that's NHK's mascot. I even made him into hamburgers awhile back. I thought it was cute that he was eating a bowl of rice with chopsticks. Fitting for a food blog, right? According to the NHK official website, Domo's favorite food is actually a Japanese beef potato stew. I love this dish too, although I've only seen it and had it in Boston at one particular Japanese restaurant.

At one point, I was so obsessed with Domokun that I sewed a bunch of Domo-themed bags for myself!

If you go to NHK's official Domokun site, you can play these games and then download some really cute wallpapers and clocks.

Have a wonderful day!

Leisure Station (Boba Tea) + Giveaway!

2010-06-30T00:48:00.003-05:00

My friends and I were arguing the other day over what "Taiwanese" food really was. One person tried to suggest typical Taiwanese breakfast items such as sweet soybean milk with deep fried crullers, but then another person (who's from China) said that these types of dishes were all over China. Another tried suggesting shaved ice, but the Chinese friend again pointed out that you could find shaved ice all over China as well. Finally, there was only on thing that everyone unanimously agreed was totally Taiwanese.

Boba Tea. (also called bubble tea, tapioca milk tea, pearl milk tea)

Boba tea was invented in Taiwan in the 1980's and has since gained in popularity, first throughout Asia and now throughout the world. Boba tea is a tea drink that typically consists of sweetened tea, milk, and chewy tapioca balls. The balls come in different sizes, but the classic Pearl Milk Tea usually has the bigger balls (about the size of a large blueberry). The drink comes with its own special over-sized straw, through which you simultaneously slurp tea and tapioca balls.

Boba tea connoisseurs typically consider two things when judging tea: excellent tea flavor (brewed tea is typically better than reconstituted powdered tea); and good boba consistency (soft and chewy with a bit of resistance, otherwise known as "Q" in Taiwanese). The boba chewiness factor can make or break a tea drink.

Two months ago, Leisure Station, a franchise of Easy Way in Taiwan, opened its first tea shop on the East Coast. Lucky for me, it opened right in Kendall Square, a mere T-stop away from my workplace!

I had a chance to visit this place last Wednesday.

Ken Huang, MIT alum, is the entrepreneur behind this new franchise in Boston. He's thought up some pretty cool ideas that makes this place different from most places. The place has free Wi-Fi, the ability to take orders via the internet or text message, a karaoke machine, and delivery via a Smart Car.

Furthermore, the tea menu is HUGE! Of course they have the most popular drinks such as Pearl Milk Tea, Pearl Green Tea, Thai Iced Tea, and Coffee Milk Tea. However, they also have a bunch of more exotic flavors, such as Jasmine Milk Tea, Lavender Milk Tea, Honey Citron Tea, and Winter Gourd Milk Tea.

I attended an Open House of sorts and had a chance to try several different items from the menu. Their philosophy really is the concept of custom-made drinks. You can customize your drink whichever way you want. Once you choose a tea, you then choose a sweetness level, a "topping," and a creamer (e.g., soy milk, skim milk, whole milk, etc). Of course you can mix and match at your whim.

I decided to try both the honey green tea and a mango milkshake. I loved the mango milk shake. They use fresh fruits for most of their fruit shakes, so the flavors are really genuine. This shake was just the right level of sweetness (i.e. not to sweet!) and had a nice, fresh mango flavor. The honey green tea was pretty good, although a bit too sweet for me. Thankfully, all drinks are made to order, so I could always ask them to add less honey, or no sugar at all if that's what I wanted.

There are a myriad of toppings from which to choose. Of course, you can add boba, but you don't have to. You can also choose other toppings such as grass jelly, egg pudding, lychee jelly, wheat germ, and aloe vera (just to name a few!). I tried egg custard, lychee, and aloe vera, and I liked all three.

What would a Boba Connoisseur Say?
At a minimum, a picky boba drinker would evaluate the quality of tea and the texture of the pearls (i.e. the tapioca balls). All of the teas at Leisure Station are freshly brewed. No powdered teas here! Only a few drinks, such as the taro milk tea, are made from re-constituted powders. I thought the teas were quite good. I especially liked the honey citron tea, but even the green tea was pretty good, albeit a bit sweeter than I would have liked.

The pearls are made every two hours. They wouldn't tell us the exact secret recipe (something about lightly coating the pearls with brown sugar), but they assured us that the pearls were freshly made throughout the day. I personally thought the pearls could have had more "Q" or bite to them. They were a bit mushier than I would have liked. Nevertheless, they were tasty, slightly sweet, and still enjoyable to slurp through that over-sized straw!

Lunch
Leisure Station recently started selling a few food items. Ken Huang had this crazy creative idea of taking all sorts of non-traditional ingredients and sticking them into a Maki roll! He calls them "Fusion Rolls." They even have a "Hot Dog Maki" and a "Hamburger Maki"! Imagine, a maki roll filled with ground beef, ketchup, lettuce, and pickles. Bizarre?

We were able to try two different rolls. Pictured above is the Thai Roll, which has shrimp, carrots, corn, cucumber, and a sweet peanut sauce. Pictured below is the Tuna roll, which has much more traditional sushi ingredients such as cooked tuna, egg, avocado, and spicy mayo.

The rolls are huge. I had trouble fitting it in my mouth!

Flavor-wise, I thought they were fine, though nothing exciting. They taste like something I could easily whip up at home. They're fine for a healthy lunch, but at $10.99 (even if it includes a Boba drink and a side salad), it doesn't quite feel worth it. I would rather buy the tea here and get more traditional sushi elsewhere. Having said that, I did not get to try some of the weirder ones, (hot dog anyone?) and maybe those are actually really good.

Giveaway Details
So that's where this Giveaway comes in. Ken was kind enough to offer a $15 Gift Certificate to Leisure Station so that one of you can try it for yourself and decide. You can spend the $15 any way you want. Try a sandwich, or get a bunch of drinks for your friends.

To enter this Giveaway, please comment and tell me one of the following:

1. Your favorite sushi maki roll ingredients or
2. A wild and crazy roll you want to see Ken make at Leisure Station

You can answer both questions (as separate comments) for two chances to win.

Winner gets the $15 gift card to spend at Leisure Station. Good luck!

Leisure Station
Kendall Square
625 West Kendall Street
Cambridge, MA 02142

Disclaimer: Time to time I receive free products from vendors to review. I do not receive any payment for these posts/reviews. The views expressed in the posts are completely my own. For this post, I was given a chance to attend an Open House sponsored by Leisure Station, which included samples of all the food and drinks mentioned in today's post.

CNN Eatocracy: Featured Blogger

2010-06-28T23:15:00.001-05:00

Just wanted to let you know that I was featured in CNN's blogger spotlight yesterday. Click on the image below to see the full article.

All-Clad Pan Review

2010-06-28T08:25:00.001-05:00

I've never had a nice pan in my life. As a college graduate, I had a few of those cheap, $10 nonstick pans that gets flaky within a year or two. Even heating? I didn't even know what that meant. Furthermore, I abused my pans, sometimes heating up those nonstick pans to high heat in order to properly stir-fry Chinese food that I was making (note: not safe!).

You would have thought that when I got married, which, not coincidentally, was also when we bought our first property together, I would have finally decided to buy some nice pans for myself. After all, I finally had own kitchen! And I was going to be in a place for more than one year at a time.

Oddly enough, I told Bryan, "I already have pots and pans and most kitchen supplies. We don't need to register for any." Clearly, this sent some sort of unintended message.

I should not have been surprised when we started getting things like an XBOX as a wedding gift. Or when we returned the brand new toaster oven that we had received in exchange for a brand new Tivo.

So it wasn't until this year (yes, it's been how many years since we got married?), that I finally got my hands on my first nice pan ever. The kind folks at Cookware.com were kind enough to send me an All-Clad pan for review.

This particular pan has gotten some stellar reviews from various well known and respected sites. More recently, the pan has been offered all over the internet for a really attractive promotional price ($89.99 instead of the normal $180 retail price). It got to the point that some people got suspicious, alleging that these new "promotional pans" were made in China, not made in the USA like most All-Clad pans. After all, why is it that when you buy the 12-inch pan with lid, it only costs $89.99, whereas when you buy the pan and the lid separately, it costs over $160?

If you look at the specification of both sets of pans, they appear to be identical. Unfortunately, I do not have the same "purchased separately" set to conduct a full comparison.*

Is this pan made in China?
Mostly no. The pan itself is still made in the USA. The lid, which All-Clad says is not instrumental in the performance of the pan, is made in China.

Tri-ply construction seems crucial, and allows for even heating and excellent heat retention. This pan is particularly light, most likely due to the aluminum core. That makes it much easier to pick up with one hand, which is sometimes crucial when you are busy doing 3 things at once in the kitchen!

How does this baby perform?
The nice thing about pan (and probably the reason it's still All-Clad's most popular line), is that not only does it perform beautifully, it's dishwasher safe and oven-safe. Accordingly to Cookware.com's really nice All-Clad comparison chart, Most of All-Clad's lines are not dishwasher-safe or not induction compatible. This more affordable, less-high-maintenance pan is great for the typical home cook who does not really need super finicky temperature control. Best yet, it's got a lifetime warranty. It's built to last you a lifetime!

I've tried stir-frying vegetables, pan frying gnocchi, sautéing other farm share vegetables. So far, I have been very pleased with the pan. I love the flexibility of being able to heat it to high without concern and use metal utensils to my heart's content. Granted, newer nonstick pans can actually withstand metal utensils these days. Nevertheless, I really like the ruggedness, versatility, and quality of this pan. I've run it through the dishwasher multiple times and it's totally fine.

Thanks again to the folks at Cookware.com (CSN) for giving me the opportunity to finally have a high quality pan that will last me a lifetime.

----------------
*I did stop by a Williams Sonoma Outlet store the other day just to pick up the normal stainless steel pan to see what it felt like. Unfortunately, they did not have the 12-inch stainless, but they did have the 10-inch stainless. The 10-inch felt reasonably heavy, possibly heavier even than my 12-inch one I had been testing. Of course, I did not have my 12-inch one around to compare, so this is really just an initial impression.

Disclaimer: Time to time I receive free products from vendors to review. I do not receive any payment for these posts/reviews. The views expressed in the posts are completely my own. For this post, I received an All-Clad 12-inch plan with lid for reviewing.

Sauteed Beets and Radishes with Dill

2010-06-25T10:34:00.000-05:00

I have been receiving quite a bit of root vegetables in my farm share lately - multicolored beets, various types of radishes, turnips, and rainbow carrots. I have also been receiving some beautiful fresh herbs, such as cilantro and dill. Having had almost no experience using dill, and hardly any with radishes and turnips, I had been roasting everything in the oven.

There's nothing wrong with that. Root vegetables always taste delicious roasted, and you can throw any variety of combinations together and it will still taste pretty good.

But what if you don't want to wait 30-60 minutes for your vegetables to be ready? What if you need to get dinner on the table, fast, and all you have is root vegetables?

Applying Chinese Cooking Ideas
Of course! Chinese people stir fry everything. Why not my root vegetables?

I thinly sliced up my beets and my radishes and then I just simply stir-fried them in butter. I finished my tossing them with some fresh dill, salt and pepper. The results were fantastic! I have never loved the harsh spiciness of raw radishes. The stir frying seems to bring out the sweetness of the root vegetables and tame the harsh spiciness.

Sauteed Root Vegetables with Dill
Thinly slice beets, radishes, or whatever root vegetables you have on hand. Try to make them about equally sized so that they will finish cooking at around the same time. Heat up about 1 T of butter over medium heat until melted. Toss in the vegetables and let cook for about 1 minute. Add about 1 T of water and cover, letting it cook for another 3-4 minutes, or until soft.

Season with salt and pepper and toss with dill.

Serve!