I START A GREASE FIRE

We had our friends over last night for a Wii party and Tom and I decided to serve Korean food. We bought pre marinated bulgogi from Lotte Mart on Mass Ave. I'd driven by this place hundreds of times, but had never gone in, and was really surprised at how big it was. They have a ton of fresh veggies and they even have a fresh fish counter there. We bought 2 boxes of beef and 1 box of pork, which came out to nearly $30! But it ended up feeding like 10 people, so I guess it wasn't that much.

However, while starting to cook the meat, I ended up starting a grease fire. We have an electric stove (booo!) and lots of the fat and oils drip down, which we never clean up. Well, the reason why you have to clean it is cause the damn stuff will light on fire if heated too hot, which is exactly what happened yesterday. Hoping it would go out on it's own, I stupidly left it alone. After a minute, when it didn't go out, I dumped baking soda on it, which I gotta say, works splendidly. I did smoke up the apartment, and it was probably the worst kitchen fire I've ever had, but at least no one got hurt and I don't think I caused any permanent damage. Tom will be cleaning the stove later.

Meanwhile, back to the party, I used a bulgogi marinade recipe from FoodTV to marinate my chicken, and the marinade ended up being far too salty. But I did make some good banchan- a seasoned spinach and another seasoned mung bean dish. I think everyone enjoyed the bulgogi that we bought at Lotte Mart. The pork seems to have been a big winner, but we really finished everything. All in all, a fun party with yummy food.

OUR FIRST CSA

I was pretty excited yesterday to go pick up our first share in our Stillman's CSA. As I explained to all of you in an earlier post, with a CSA, you buy shares in a farm during the winter and spring to help them pay for supplies, seeds, etc. In return during the summer and fall, you receive veggies, fruits and plants. Our CSA pickup is at Clear Flour Bakery, which is great because we also enjoy going there to pick up bread.

When we arrived, there was a large white moving van parked across the street from Clear Flour and a table setup in back. There were already a few people there picking up there CSA, and only one guy manning the booth, so Tom and I sat back and waited for our turn. We only got a half share, since there are only two of us, and this week, we got a pint of strawberries (which were sweet and yummy), a head of lettuce, a bunch of swiss chard, a bunch of beets and this lovely little thyme plant that you see below. All the veggies looked fresh and wonderful. The guy manning the booth was pretty rushed. He quickly explained that with the first day, he still had to explain to people how it worked. Plus they had twice the number of members this year as the previous year, which was evident as we walked away and even more people showed up. He promised lots of stone fruit and more stuff next week.

I'm pretty happy so far and if you're interested, click on the link above for more information. I'm not sure if you can join a CSA after it's started, but if not, keep it in mind for next year.

MAINE, DAY 2

On Sunday morning we awoke to another beautiful and sunny day. I'd done some research online, and decided that we'd be having brunch at 2 Cats, a B&B and restaurant in Bar Harbor. Since we arrived early in the morning, reservations weren't necessary, but as we sat, I could see how they would be if you wanted to arrive later or were visiting when Acadia's in season. (Their season coincides with the start of summer).We took a seat in the outdoor seating area, with its mismatched chairs and tables

and what really made Tom happy, a kitty cat.

Ok, the kitty was pretty cute. And nice and well behaved. She approached us a few times and we got to pet her. The service at 2 Cats is very casual and pleasant. As we read our menus and decided on what we'd be ordering, we also watched as large parties of locals also arrived for brunch and sat at tables flanking us.

I put an order in for one of my favorite things...biscuits. And these came with a side of strawberry jam. After my experience in Hyannis, I was a little apprehensive about what'd show up, but I didn't need to be. These biscuits were delicious- flaky, buttery and wonderful with the strawberry butter. They were probably some of the best biscuits I'd ever had.

Unfortunately, I couldn't say the same thing for my breakfast plate. I had ordered the Mediterranean breakfast plate because it featured pan fried sun dried tomato polenta, topped with eggs, caponata and feta cheese. It was good in theory, but in reality, the polenta was pretty tasteless. I realize that they probably wanted it to be enhanced by the caponata, but I still think the polenta itself should've been more flavorful. I ended up just eating my side of spicy homefries (yum!) and biscuits instead.

Meanwhile, I had convinced Tom to order blueberry pancakes, cause aren't you supposed to eat blueberries in Maine? He also got a side of the spicy potatoes (which he liked a lot) and spicy sausage, which he said were pretty good. The pancakes were a bit too soggy for him, but he still enjoyed them.

Overall, our breakfast was very pleasant. Sitting outdoors on a deck in beautiful weather while petting a kitty can't be too terrible, after all.

Then we started on our drive back to Boston (we shared the driving duties on the way down), but we made a stop in Portland to visit my friend, Noel, and to get some lunch. After the previous evening's dinner of lobster, we were pretty much done with seafood, so when Noel suggested Flatbread for great pizza, it sounded like a great idea. I'd actually seen Flatbread before, on previous visits to Portland, but had never tried it. When we entered, we found a huge space, decorated in a sort of rustic/industrial style. The place must have been founded by a bunch of hippies, because it's all about organic, local, clean, etc. etc. food. (not that those are bad things).

The central focus of the restaurant in this gigantic stone oven.
Initially, we were actually seated directly in front of the oven, and from 10 feet away, you could feel the heat coming off of it. We asked to move and the server obliged. We listened to Noel for tips on ordering and decided to share a salad and two small pizzas. (The large pizzas are really quite large, enough for two adults to share).

Here's their house salad with dressing and goat cheese on the side. I really liked the salad. It was tasty with it's topping of sesame seeds and kombu. It had a very Asian style dressing, too. Tom wasn't such a huge fan because it had celery in it.

Next came the pizzas. I ordered one of the pizza specials, topped with a bunch of different types of veggies like portabello mushrooms, yellow peppers, red peppers, and I don't remember much else. It was pretty good and with its whole wheat crust, reminded me a lot of the pizzas I've been making at home (if we had an oven that could burn up to 800F)But the best pizza was this three cheese pizza. The flavors of the cheese and crust were just great, and I wish I could've had more. Overall, lunch was excellent. And the price tag was great, too. With tip, it cost just $30 for the three of us.

After lunch, we ran across the street to Standard Baking Company because Noel had never been there before. (I had on a previous trips, but I don't remember getting anything.) It was clear that they had already sold out of a lot of their normal pastries, so I just bought Tom a baguette for $2. He thought it was pretty decent, but still not as great as the ones at Clear Flour. My last stop of the day was the Harbor Fish Market, located on one of the piers. Of course, this place is famous for its lobster pound and its selection of fresh seafood. Here's a pic of the shellfish area (you can see they're almost sold out. We arrive a little after 2 and they close at 3 on Sundays)And here's the one of the two fish displays.I was in the market for some fresh lump crab. Mark Bittman made a lovely crab salad with fresh peas on the Minimalist last week, and I wanted to make it for dinner sometime this week. A pound of lump crab meat was $18, which seemed kinda pricey, but it does take a lot of labor and a whole lot of crabs. This is obviously not a dish that I'll be making often, but I'm looking foward to it tomorrow.

And that was it. Our weekend in Maine was over. We had a wonderful time walk, hiking, eating and sightseeing. For you Bostonians, we live less than a two hour drive from Portland, so there's no excuse for not visiting. (you can do it as a day trip, I have.) You'll have a great time.

A TALE OF LOBSTERS

Finally, a weekend off. I've been working a lot and though it may seem like we've been taking a lot of trips, really, it's been a tiring time with friends and family visiting (and more to come.) So I was really looking foward to a weekend away from the city, up in the mountains of Maine, breathing in fresh air and eating plenty of lobster. I'd been planning this trip for sometime (it gives me something to do when I'm bored at work), so I knew where we'd be eating and what we'd be doing.

Our trip started off with a long, nearly 6 hour drive up to Maine. I wasn't feeling well, but was still determined to go, and Tom was nice enough to drive the entire trip up. When we arrived, it was late and we were exhausted, so we went to bed early, with plans for a big day in Acadia National Park. So we got up early the following day, picked up some sandwiches at a local place in Bar Harbor and drove into the park.

They have a route in the park that you can drive around and you make various stops, for hiking and picture taking, whatever you want. It takes you through all the diverse habitats in Acadia, so we started off by the ocean, taking pics of the red limestone cliffs, going on short walks and having our sandwiches while sitting and overlooking the ocean.

A little after noon, we ended up at Jordan Pond, where we went on a 1.5 hour hike around the pond. (well, we didn't make in all the way around. The trail just ended abruptly at one point, and we were too tired to figure it up and turned back). By the time we made it back to the beginning, we were tired, hot and hungry; it was a perfect time to visit the Jordan Pond House for some of their famous popovers.

When we started on our walk around the pond, we could see that the picnic tables outside the Jordan Pond House were packed, so we were lucky that many of the diners had left by the time we arrived. Still, the facility is huge and much more modern than I expected (they give off this rustic vibe on their website). Here's Tom, thrilled that we're sitting and enjoying some a/c.

We got seated very quickly. Here's a view of the dining room that we were in. There were other dining rooms, and as I mentioned earlier, an outdoor seating area, too.

It's clear that this place caters solely to tourists. (It is the only restaurant inside Acadia after all). But they have pretty reasonable prices and decent service. The service wasn't fantastic, the girl serving us had a lot of tables to handle, and a pretty diverse clientele, but she managed well enough. So the thing to get at the Jordan Pond House is the popovers. They're served with better and strawberry jam. We also ordered lemonades. (I got strawberry, Tom got regular).

When they came out, they were steaming fresh and delicious. I wolfed mine down cause I was so hungry, enjoying them with both butter and jam. Tom just liked it with butter. We also ordered some chowders. I got what the called a lobster bisque.

As you can see, it's filled with delicious chunks of lobster. I wasn't expecting it to be so creamy, though. It would've been more correctly called a chowder, but I enjoyed it anyway. Meanwhile, Tom actually did order a chowder- the seafood chowder. It was filled with various types of seafood and chunks of potatoes, and I think he also enjoyed it. Here's a view of the outdoor seating area. I don't know how these people managed to sit outside in the full sunshine and still eat. It really was quite warm.And here's a look at the view from the restaurant. Pretty impressive on a clear, sunny day, huh? (The mountains in back are euphemistically called the Bubbles) Moving on, we headed to the top of the Cadillac Mountain, and then it was time for a break. We'd been walking around all day and we were exhausted. So we went back to the hotel and watched some TV before heading out for a Maine lobster dinner.

Personally, I think the best lobsters around are in Maine. And I've basically stopped having them anywhere else. There are many lobster pounds to choose from, and most people had suggested Thurston's Lobster Pound in the Southwest Harbor, but since we were staying near Bar Harbor, I had decided early on that I wasn't going to be driving an additional 40 minutes to dinner and opted for the Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound instead. It was just a 20 minute drive from our hotel .

So the Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound is actually quite awesome. And I say this for these five stacks that they have out front, billowing out steam that you can see a quarter mile away. Basically, in front of each stack is a tub, where the lobster goes in. And below that is an oven that uses fire wood. They pipe in sea water and cook the lobsters in that. When we arrived at 6pm, the parking lot was packed, so we had to be a little creative in finding parking. Also, when you enter the place, it's a little disorganized and confusing. You enter this small room and you see an enormous line before you- and it's not moving. Plus more people are entering behind you. Then, you see a sign to the right, that says "Order lobster here". Is that where we should order? If so, why are all these people standing in line? But don't worry people, the guy standing in front of the cooler will help you out (as will others in line) and you go over to first order your lobsters from this guy. The cooler that he's resting against are where all the lobsters are. We ordered 2- 2 pound lobsters which were picked out and weighed and went into these mesh bags. They were then carried outside and cooked. (you can see one of those bags in the guy's left hand). Meanwhile, we were given a number and told to get back in line. After ordering my lobster, all I could think of was, that lobster didn't look very big. I should get some extra stuff to fill my tummy. So I ordered an ear of corn and potato salad. Tom also got corn, coleslaw and slice of Maine blueberry pie. There is actually a system going on here, and we were able to get to the front, put in our extra orders (butter is an additional .75, but very necessary) and headed outside to wait for our food to arrive.Like the typical lobster pound, this place was no frills. Plastic and paper everything. Just the way I like it. I gave a small cheer when our number was called, and Tom came back with our order of lobsters. I wanted to give my lobster a chance to cool, so I started on my potato salad, which was ok. Not really amazing, but it filled my tummy a little. Here's Tom eating his corn. I didn't think the corn was that great. It was a bit too starchy. But it was time for the main event- the lobsters. Tom had already started on his. And he said that the ones we had last year at Two Lights were sweeter, but these were still good. I liked how the salt water caused the meat of the lobster to become salty. I ate the tail and claws, dipping them in butter, and then...I was full. I couldn't eat any more. Damnit, I never should've had that potato salad. Instead, I sat there disassembling my lobster and making a pile of meat for Tom, but even he hit a point where he couldn't eat any more. By the time we were done, we were covered in lobster juices, and our hands smelled of lobster. I would take a lot of washing and scrubbing before that smell was finally gone. The lobsters were great, but I've satisfied that lobster craving for quite some time. Perhaps we'll take another trip to Two Light later in the summer, but I'm good for now.

You'd think we'd call it a night, but it was still early and the sun was up. So we headed in to Bar Harbor to walk around a bit. We checked out some touristy shops. I really liked this place, adorned with gigantic lobster claws. That were holding food.
We ultimately found our way to Ben and Bill's Chocolate Emporium, which is half chocolate shop, half ice cream shop. The place was huge and clearly quite popular, but we were here for something special I'd read about- lobster ice cream. I had told Tom about this ice cream a while ago and dared him to eat it, so he ordered up a cone. Meanwhile, I ordered a mud pie ice cream. The cone sizes our huge, which I guess compensates for their high prices ($9 for 2 cones).

Here's Tom's cone. Can you see the chunk of lobster in it?
He initially described it as a very buttery ice cream, with frozen chunks of gummy worms in it. I took a bite, and it didn't taste like much, until I let the lobster chunk melt on my tongue. At which point, it actually tasted like lobster. EEEEEEEwwww. Tom ate it fast and finished it off. He was craving more of it on our drive down.

Meanwhile, I tried to finish off my mudpie
But it was just too much. Also, the coffee ice cream didn't taste like much, so it just wasn't worth the calories.

And here's the last picture of the night, me and their ice cream eating lobster mascot. (actually, it was a chair, you could sit on his tail if you were small enough). That's all the eating I'd be doing for the day. Meanwhile, Tom still had his slice of blueberry pie back at the hotel, and he devoured it as we watched the baseball game. He liked it a lot, especially the flaky crust. And he thinks I make him fat. Ah well, more eating the next day.

DON'T WAIT UNTIL RESTAURANT WEEK....

I was surfing around online and started thinking, I like taking advantage of prix fixe menus in NY, some of the best restaurants have them. (I'm a big advocate of Enoteca at Del Posto's prix fixe and I look foward to taking advantage of the Jean Georges one next month.) An even better time to do prix fixe is during lunch, when you still get three courses, but it's even cheaper than dinner. Same ambience, same service. So I started thinking, where can I get a great prix fixe in Boston. I've done some surfing around, so here's a listing of places I have tried or want to try, with links for your convenience. All these place offer 3 courses.

Ten Tables. Currently one of my favorite places to eat in Boston, I always forget that they have a prix fixe menu on Wednesday nights cause I've never taken advantage of it. On Wednesday nights, the deal is any three courses for $25. That is an amazing deal for a place of this quality. But any night of the week, they have the vegetarian tasting menu for $25, and I've been quite happy with that. Oh and on the first Tuesday of every month, the have a 4 course prix fixe with wine pairing for $45.

Sel de la Terre. I haven't been, but Leah really likes this place, so I was happy to see that they have a daily lunch prix fixe for $21. You get two different choices for each course and they only offer it Monday-Friday, 11:30-2:30, but I'm looking foward to trying it out soon.

Sandrine's Bistro. I ate here many many years ago, while still a high school student and visiting colleges. Little did I know that Raymond Ost is quite a famous chef. I haven't been back since, but I think I'll have to after taking a look at their prix fixe menu. Actually, I'm more interested in their dinner prix fixe for Restaurant Week in August (yes, they already have it online and it looks delicious) , but their lunch prix fixe seems to be the best deal of them all, coming in at just $19.

L'Espalier. One of the best restaurants in Boston and it has a prix fixe menu? Who would've thought. The chef, Frank McClelland just won a James Beard award this year, and amazingly enough, you can have a prix fixe lunch for $24. You'd better bet I'm gonna be taking advantage of this one shortly. The menu looks great, and a steal considering the prix fixe dinner is $75.

Craigie Street Bistro. Amazingly enough, I still haven't not made it to Craigie St. They're probably the most famous ones in the city for the myriad of prix fixe menus. And they do have them every night of the week. I'm not going to sit her and describe them, just click on the link and check it out for yourself.

I know I focused a lot on lunch(just trying to list the best deals), but many of these places also offer prix fixe dinners. If you wanna check out one helpful site, here's an article on it from the Globe. Otherwise, as I mentioned earlier, Boston's Restaurant Week will be taking place in August. They haven't published the list of participating restaurants, but as soon as they do, I'll let you know. Personally, though, I'd rather try one of the places listed above, it's probably a more pleasant experience than getting squeezed in with the herds during Restaurant Week.

PIMP THAT SNACK

Well it's Wednesday. My favorite day of the week web surfing-wise cause that's when all the major newspaper publish their food sections. (I always start off with the NYTimes, of course). But while surfing Serious Eats this morning, I learned about a website called "Pimp that Snack". Apparently pimping a snack means that you take a normal snack and reproduce it in a gigantic sizes. It's started (unsurprisingly) by a bunch of Brits. I've only viewed a few projects so far, but I'm surprised at the dedication to detail, down to reproducing all the packaging. My favorites so far have been the pimping of a McDonald's Apple Pie and a Giant Twix. How these people have so much time to do this, I'm not sure. But check it out, it's amusing.

BRIGHTON CAFE

Once again Tom and I were searching for a place to have breakfast more or less in our neighborhood. I don't know why it's so hard to find a decent breakfast place (meaning it's open before 11) that doesn't require a 45 minute wait (Zaftigs) in our neighborhood. So when Tom suggested the Brighton Cafe, I figured, why not, we'd been to almost everything else around. Plus, it's conveniently located blocks from the Whole Foods, where we were going for our weekly grocery shopping.

If you recognize the pic below, it's because the cafe is located diagonally across the street from Tasca. (the tapas place I reveiwed a little while ago). It's a fairly large space and we walked in, the tables were filled mainly the students and a few locals. What's also a little unusual is that the whole place is run by Asians. You don't normally see Asians running diners, but whatever.

So Brighton Cafe serves breakfast all day at dirt cheap prices. I don't think anything on the breakfast menu was over $8. And after checking out their lunch menu (made up mainly of burgers and sandwiches) nothing topped $7. So that helps to explain why this place is so popular with the student crowd. Service was pretty prompt, so we placed our orders.

Tom got a stack of pancakes with ham. He decided that they weren't very good, but edible. What you could you expect for these prices?

Meanwhile, I got one fried egg, which came with a side of homefries and toast. I liked the eggs and toast, but the homefries were pretty dreary. They were overcooked and crumbled the second you tried to poke them with a fork. I covered them with ketchup and ate about half of them before giving up. You could imagine just about everything the Brighton Cafe served coming premade by Sysco and just reheated.

So after trying out Brighton Cafe, I am once again on the hunt for a decent breakfast place in the Kenmore/Brookline/Brighton area. Brighton Cafe certainly served it's purpose of cheap meals for students, but it wasn't worth the drive and I could've made a better breakfast at home (which in retrospect, I should've. I don't know why Tom wanted to go out to eat). If you have any suggestions, please keep me posted. Otherwise, I guess I'll be waiting for Z Square to open in Kenmore.

UPCOMING BITES

We've been eating out so much lately. People have been visiting from out of town, we've taken a couple of trips and it seems like the rest of summer will be more of the same. However, this will be a quiet week and I plan on cooking dinner every single night. But I do have some upcoming meals to look foward to....

- We're off for a weekend trip to Acadia National Park this weekend. It's a long drive up (6 hours!) but I think it'll be worth it. The weather is supposed to be great and I can't wait to have some fresh lobsters. It's mid June, so I'm hoping they'll have some soft shell lobsters, which are my favorite.

- I was able to get lunch reservations for Jean Georges in July. It wasn't very hard either. No hoops to jump through. I'm seriously excited about this meal because the lunch menu is prix fixe. You can get 2 courses AND dessert for just $32. Now that's a deal. Lunch at one of the best restaurants in NY for $32?(and you get the amuse bouche and petit 4 plate, too). Can't wait.

- I was also able to get reservations at Maze in London for early September. It's a Gordon Ramsay restaurant, and the chef de cuisine used to work for Ferran Adria at El Bulli. That wasn't too difficult, either. I just filled out the reservation request online and they called me to set it up. I did have some difficulty understanding the reservationist. I realized she was speaking English, but it took me a few moments to comprehend what she was saying to me. I'm still not sure if we have a reservation for 1:15 or 1:50. Oh well. This will be our splurge meal of our trip, but you gotta have at least one splurge meal for every trip. We'll be living off of fish and chips and Chinese food the rest of the time.

-Lastly, I got an email from my CSA, Stillman Farms. Looks like we're gonna be able to start picking up our orders in two weeks. I can't wait for some farm fresh fruits and veggies. Plus, it's a great excuse to buy bread, since our pick up spot is at the Clear Flour Bakery.

GARI SUSHI, BROOKLINE

My little cousin called me up last week for dinner. He's a sophomore at B.U. and despite living a five minute drive away from me, we never seem to see each other. So I took this as a good opportunity to try out a different restaurant close to both of us, Gari Japanese Fusion , in Coolidge Corner. Normally any restaurant with "fusion" in its name would raise suspicions, but Gari had opened around the corner from Leah's old apartment several months ago, and she enjoyed eating there, so I took that as a good sign.

When we arrived at 7, the dining room was only half filled. It's a really chic space with a modern design, but it's tiny. Including the sushi bar (where I noticed no one was sitting) there were probably 30 seats in total. And the capacity would remain at about 50% throughout our whole meal. I didn't really mind this, because the tables are quite close together, so I could imagine the place getting very loud if it were packed. The menu is full of typical Japanese sushi, appetizers and entrees, but it was interesting that for certain rolls and large dishes, they noted on the menu that it'd take at least 25 minutes or more to prepare the dish. Initially, that would discourage me from ordering the dish, but in retrospect, as long as you order an appetizer of a roll of sushi first, that is the average wait for an entree.

At any rate, after perusing the menu for a bit, I decided I wasn't very hungry. So I just ordered two rolls. Here they are below. It's the AAC- avocado, asparagus and cucumber and the crazy roll with with shrimp, lettuce, tobiko, cucumber and a spicy sauce. I thought my sushi was pretty well made. It came garnished with these pretty flower drawings made out of mango sauce, which were nice, but didn't add anything to the actual flavor of the dish. Since I wasn't that hungry, I wasn't even able to finish the two rolls.

Tom and I also shared the tempura appetizer. We agreed that the tempura was well fried. It didn't have the heaviness or sogginess that tempura can have, and they were quite generous with the serving. My little cousin (ok, he's not so little, he's 6'1" and 20 years old) had the tempura dinner which was enormous, and he also enjoyed it.

Unlike me, Tom was pretty hungry. So he ordered an appetizer of grilled ika (aka squid). Again, lovely presentation.

And he had the sashimi dinner.

Tom liked both of his dishes. He thought the fish on the sashimi was pretty good, though he had some issues with the tuna, and he didn't like the pieces of egg. He also enjoyed the squid. Overall, we agreed that Gari sushi is better than all our local sushi joints. It's far better than Ginza (which I don't actually like, but eat at cause it's close by) and it's also cheaper than Ginza. It's on par cost wise with Umi, but for the quality of the food, selections and presentation, Gari definitely wins. I'm still not a huge Boston sushi fan, but if I ever have the craving, we'll be going to Gari. Thanks Leah, for the suggestion.

THE MOST AWESOMEST WEBSITE EVER??

Ok, you all know that I'm a big fan of toys and totally pointless crap, so how could I resist this Japanese website, that has mini reproductions of food to be used as cell phone charms? I don't even like cell phone charms, I make fun of the ones my mom uses, but really...I kinda want a mini hamburger, too.