San Diego

I'm so swamped at work I never was able to talk about my trip to San Diego at the end of April. It was a quick trip for a two day workshop (that was actually productive). A week before the meeting the hotel changed. This turned out to be a win for all because the new hotel was right across from the marina and right next to Little Italy.

I ate a lot of seafood because you know we just don't get good stuff in Oklahoma.

But the greatest part of the location was the fact that Top Chef winner Richard Blais' restaurant Juniper & Ivy was less than a mile from the hotel. I was a little geeked out at that tidbit and planned my eating accordingly.

I'm one of those people that really doesn't mind eating by myself. I travel enough that it has to happen. I made a reservation for one but when I got there they said they had seats at the chef table if I wanted one. I'm not a fool...I of course said yes. Basically I had a view of the seafood section of the kitchen.

Richard Blais is a user of molecular gastronomy. That turned out to be an adventure that I was happy to take. My server was great and she was able to get a lot of things halved so I could try a bunch.

First up was his take on deviled eggs. It was actually an egg meringue. So a little sweet.

Then I ventured into octopus. It was grilled and had an eel sauce glaze. It was cooked to perfection.

Then I moved on to yellowtail tostadas. These were probably the best thing I ate in a long time. In fact I had a half order and then had the other half order.

Then it was dessert time. He made a take on a yodel (you know that chocolate cake with white cream frosting rolled up). This one had liquid nitrogen ice cream in it and then the hard chocolate outside was covered in hot chocolate. Oh my. If I could have licked the plate I would have.

I also had a couple of their crafted cocktails and bought an autographed copy of his cookbook. So I blew my per diem plus more but it was so worth it. I'm happy I was able to go to this restaurant. I really understand how there is a difference in average and highly skilled chefs.

F is for Foodie Love

As I get older, I find myself more adventurous with food. Maybe it is because of all the cooking shows, but I'm more willing to try new things. So on my recent trip to Washington DC, I made it my mission to seek out good food.

My hotel was in Chinatown which has so many good restaurants. Two blocks of walking and there I was with unlimited choices.

First stop was Red Velvet Cupcakery. This was a spur of the moment decision as I was trying to get my bearings as to which was the correct entrance into the National Portrait Museum and it was just staring at me. I had a devil's food cupcake with a deep chocolate ganache frosting with gold flakes on it. I thought the cupcake was dry and the frosting was thick and chocolatey. I wouldn't get another cupcake here.

That night we went to dinner at Graffiato. I'm a huge Top Chef fan and this is owned by Mike Isabella, who came in 2nd place during the All Stars show season. I knew I had to try the flatbread with pepperoni sauce, since Gail Simmons raved about it on the show. Let me tell you, I was not disappointed. The flatbread was seasoned so well and the sauce, well let's just say there were three of us and we were fighting over the sauce. They had three specials that night so we got all of them. This is a tapas type restaurant which I had never eaten at before. I was a little worried about the specials, but I shouldn't have been. Goat was featured in two of them. First was mousaka with goat. Let me tell you, if goat tastes like this all the time, I need to buy me a farm. WOW!!! My two colleagues were gracious enough to let me finish this one. If it hadn't been served in a cast iron skillet that was blazing hot I may have licked the bowl. It was that good. We also had crispy goat which was good. The third special was pasta with calamari. It was well done but the mousaka just wowed me. We decided to just get a pizza after all the specials and it was very nice. I would highly recommend this restaurant. We started in the bar and then moved upstairs. They were having a wine dinner with a vintner from Italy. That would have been fun to go to too.

We stopped two nights at Zengo, which is located right off the metro stop's escalator in Chinatown. It was happy hour and we had a couple of rounds of drinks. I sticked with mojitos were satisfying after a long day of meetings. It was quite busy the night of the Capitals game but the next night was a Wizards game and it wasn't crowded at all.

Night two was dinner at Legal Seafoods. This is a chain on the East Coast and I know several people who eat here regularly while we are at our meetings. Well they had my favorite wine so I bought a bottle for the table (Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio). I decided to get a combination platter of crab cake, grilled shrimp skewer and grilled scallop skewer. The crab cake was delicious but the shrimp and scallops were a little too grilled for my liking. I probably should have sent them back but it was after 8 when we were eating and I didn't want the other people to have to wait. One of the women got a huge lobster and she demolished it.

Night three was dinner at Zaytinya, the number four restaurant in DC according to Trip Advisor. It is owned by award winning chef Jose Andres. Another tapas style restaurant featuring Greek, Turkish and Lebanese food. Not something we get a lot of in Oklahoma. We each picked out different things to order and share. I understand the concept of tapas as small plates but I thought these plates were ridiculously small. The food was extremely tasty there just wasn't much of it. The first dish was a butternut squash hummus with pumpkin seeds which I neglected to tell my colleagues I was allergic to until it arrived. So I didn't eat any of it. Next we had spanokopita which was the size of an eggroll and there was just one of them. For $9 I expected more. We also had seared halloumi cheese which I've often seen on cooking shows. It is grilled and doesn't melt. Delicious but ONE piece of cheese with some dates/figs around it. For meat/seafood we had a scallop dish and a pork sausage dish. You guessed it...one sausage link that was sliced up and two scallops. The scallops were cooked perfectly but once again so small you only got one bite. By the time I left the restaurant I was still hungry but it was 9pm and seemed silly to stop at McDonald's.

Last place I had to go was Good Stuff Eatery near the Capital. This is owned by another Top Chef alum Spike Mendolhson. It is a burger joint. I got lost getting there (having made one wrong turn) but arrived before the lunch rush. I ordered a cheeseburger, snack fries and drink for $11. In DC that is a good price. The cheeseburger was medium rare, cooked perfectly, juicy with a good bun. The fries had sea salt and fresh thyme on them. I thought they were a tad greasy and not crispy. But I was able to people watch and was very full (quite a difference from the night before). I would recommend this restaurant.

All in all a successful eating adventure (along with my work meetings...the true reason for going). I can't wait for my next trip to continue my quest to eat DC!

Friday Fragments

Another Friday, another Friday Fragments from Mrs. 4444.



Back after a week's hiatus is the stupid criminal of the week. Seems like a couple of teenagers broke into a Hooters and stole a jukebox. They thought it was an ATM. So they ended up with lots of quarters. My question is why was there a jukebox at Hooters? Not that the teenagers even knew what a jukebox was.

Sonic is bringing back sweet potato tots! Oh my, I cannot stop there too many times or else my pants won't fit for long.

Our door came in and the installers are so backed up it will be another week and a half before it can get put in. While I'm out of town so I won't even get to see it for a few extra days. I hope I'm not disappointed.

I'm really sick of the government not being able to a) pass a budget and b) figure out how to cut costs. Let me at them...I could do it in my sleep. And we would all be a much happier nation because of it.

Top Chef is over and my pick for winner won. I had said in week two that Kristen would win and she did. Even after getting eliminated too early she fought her way back through the online Last Chance Kitchen. Congratulations to her.

So now I have another free evening with that show over. I've taken to watching a few shows that I don't want to waste DVR space on by watching them online during lunch. Anyone else watching Zero Hour? I'm trying to make up my mind. I always did like Anthony Edwards on ER.

Friday Fragments - James Bond is BACK!!!

I'm joining up with Mrs. 4444 for Friday Fragments.

 

The new James Bond movie comes out today. It is getting great reviews. Whitney and I are going to go see it during Thanksgiving break. Yes I can last that long. After all I have a photo of Skyfall on my ipad as my backdrop. I even wrote about the movie in January 2011. That's how excited I was.

I had a blog post all typed up about walking around Embassy Row in Washington DC and then I lost it when I was at the airport. I'm going to recreate it and post over the weekend hopefully.

Top Chef started this week along with The Next Iron Chef. I do believe my cooking competition show fix will be taken care of. Add that to my daily watching of The Chew and I should be ok. I hope everyone got to read my post over the weekend about seeing Carla Hall and Michael Symon at the Metro DC Cooking Show. I'm still telling people about it here. People must think I'm a stalker.

I can't believe in two weeks it is Thanksgiving. I have no room in the freezer to buy any turkey yet and I saw that Target had Butterball's at a decent price. Guess I'll have to wait another week and hopefully be able to either clear it out or get it close enough so it can thaw in the fridge and then we will brine it.

I still have to buy a Christmas tree too. Last year we threw away our old one and I need to replace it. Nothing has looked good and we always put it up the day after Thanksgiving. Just another thing to get done quickly.

I also need to get my oil changed (I love that my car tells me it is time) and I need to pick a paint color and paint a room so I can blog about it in the next two weeks. I would like to get my carpets cleaned before I decorate too. 

My conference provided me with lots of good information (it is nice when that happens) and I also got a lot of good information to study for my certification test which is scheduled for December 4.

The October Version of TV Reviews

So most of the shows have started up (except for Nashville, that's tonight). Because I don't have anything else to talk about and I'm sure you are waiting for my opinions on the fall season, here you go.

Scripted Shows

Revenge - AWESOME! Only two episodes into the year and I am counting the days until the next one. That's always a good sign. If you haven't seen this, think GOOD night time soap opera. Because it really is one.

Person of Interest - I was worried second season wouldn't start off well but I was wrong. Another great show if you need something to watch. It makes you think and has just enough based on reality to make you wonder if there is something out there like the machine.

Glee - Worried about this one. Although the last episode was redeeming it is now off for a month because of baseball. If it continues like the last episode great. If not, I may have to pass.

Once Upon A Time - yes a new entry to my normal watching. Whitney got me watching it and it comes on right before Revenge. If I miss one, it would be ok, but they sure have some great costumes and scenery in Fairy Tale Land.


Unscripted Shows (In Other Words Reality TV)

Project Runway - season almost over. I'm on Team Christopher or Melissa for the win. After this is over they are having another All Stars which I won't watch. Although our local contestant (Kayne Gillespie) is on it.

Amazing Race - this one gets DVR'd and I watch it when I can. I hate the food roadblocks and please make them do something. While the bull racing was fun to watch this week all the racers had to do was ride on the back of a motorcycle that someone else was driving. BORING.

Dancing with the Stars - I tried to watch this since it was All-stars and I'm a sucker for that. But this week's results show that continues to have the crappy dancers staying on (yes I'm talking to you Kirstie and Bristol) have ruined the show. Bye Bye Bye.

Top Chef - about to start new season. Yes I'll be watching.


Daytime TV

The Chew - yes I DVR this every day so I can watch it when I get home. I skip a lot of it but there is great chemistry among the hosts (except for Mario who I'm not sure why he is there). I've never cooked any of their dishes but I enjoy them. Clinton Kelly, Carla Hall and Michael Symon can come visit me any day.

Reality TV - The Week in Review

OK I'm a reality tv junkie. I admit I have a problem. I am selective, but when I decide to watch something, I watch it from beginning to end.

The Voice

We had to watch this one online because of the storm Tuesday night. I admit the best part of a DVR is skipping commercials. We had the same stupid Latisse commercial 10 times online. OK for the show they announced the two "saves" for teams Blake and Christina. Christina did not suprise me at all. Blake...WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!?! The viewer one was fine, but Blake chose Xenia, who shouldn't have even made it to that round. Maybe he thinks this is "The Voice Who I Can Mold and Needs Me the Most". Terrible choice and there is no way anyone from his team will win.

We had performances from Teams Cee-Lo and Adam. Cee-Lo decided that his singers really needed some backup talent/fire twirlers/dancers. Very distracting there. Maybe that was to mask the bad song choices. Hopefully Cee-Lo won't make the same mistake Blake did and pick the sister group. Yikes.I'm sure the viewers will pick Nakia, who is pretty awesome.  Adam had a much better team to start with. He may have a tough decision ahead. It was unfortunate that Javier sang that song that plays during the dog/cat commercial about animal shelters. We couldn't even watch it it is so depressing.

Not sure what next week brings but I saw that there is two shows.

Top Chef Masters

It was the season finale of this show. Three very talented accomplished chefs cooking the best meal of their lives. Sometimes this seems like odd choices. The first season where Rick Bayless won has to be the best cohesive meal I think. Floyd won, a very nice man. Of course I was hoping Mary Sue would win because her food seems the most approachable to me. Plus I remember watching her on Two Hot Tamales years ago.

So You Think You Can Dance

Thank goodness that the best "talent" show is back on the air. I so love watching good dancing. And boy the talent just keeps getting better each year. The performers really got to stick with their normal genre except for a few. I think that helped because people could see how good they really are, instead of having to do something so outside what they normally do and screwing up. I was really wrong about who America would vote into the bottom three. None of the ones that I thought deserved to be there were in the bottom. And then they had these breathtaking solos to stay on the show. How could anyone choose to send someone home? The judges even had two of the boys do it again so they could pick.

And then the biggest cop out of the year when they decided not to send anyone home. Two couples will go home next week. Personally I think that they didn't want to send any of those dancers home because they didn't like how America voted. I think that there were weaker dancers safe and they wanted to give America another chance to get it right. I hope that next week they make people go outside their comfort zone and then we'll be able to see how they do.

The group dance was pretty awesome I have to say too.

Where was my tv show?

Wednesday night I have a date with my tv at 9pm to watch Top Chef. I faithfully watch this gem on Bravo. I've watched all the versions, even the sickly desserts one (well once the really weird guy was kicked off). So where was the new episode last night? It's not like there was some big event going up against it like the Super Bowl or the President's speech. I am so disappointed that I did not get my weekly fix. It better be on next week.