Posts from the ‘United States’ Category

Jul 11

Morning Call

Being my second New Orleans visit, I thought I'd branch out from Cafe du Monde and try the other 24-hour beignet place. It's smaller, indoors, and woody in an old-timey style. The beignets arrive naked, and you shake on the powdered sugar to your taste. It's a nice touch, considering how overboard they go with the confectioners sugar at Cafe du Monde, but to be perfectly honest the fried dough just didn't match up. It lacked the crispy, fried exterior and was merely a soft sweet chewy rectangle. As popular and tourist crazed as it is, Cafe du Monde makes a better beignet.

Morning Call * 3325 Severn Ave., Metairie, LA

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Jul 10

Liuzza’s

On this trip, Liuzza's was our first stop in town. Not because we were
familiar with it first hand, or that it was even at the top of our list, we
simply wanted gumbo and it's the way the itinerary fell. And the gumbo,
fried seafood platter and ice cold Abita were a perfect introductory meal.
(For some irritating reason I always get sick when I eat battered, fried
seafood, and yet I couldn't help myself this time.)

The menu is a mix of regional favorites and Italian-American staples. It
reminded me of Philadelphia (not that andouille and remoulade are rampant in
Philly, it's just the atmosphere). We did poor boys elsewhere during our
trip, but I was completely fascinated by some of their unique offerings. If
time had permitted, I definitely would've tried the fried chicken liver
rendition, as well as their french fry and gravy filled one. That's totally
a Cajun chip butty–who knew?

That they seemed to have a police officer permanently planted out front,
keeping guard, made me a little uneasy (we discovered during our stay that
the city only has 1600 police officers, which is so totally insane I can't
even believe it). New Orleans really has a sporadic, ominous feel to it,
much as I'd imagine NYC used to before my arrival in the late '90s. But all
in all, the cop only added to the ambience.

Liuzza's * 3636 Bienville
Ave., New Orleans, LA

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Jul 8

Belle Meade Cafeteria

Lime cream salad…need I say more? This cafeteria is a serious period piece, from the elderly clientele to the large smoking section to the nearly all black waitstaff. Initially, I was a little intimidated as I always am in a point and pick situation. Unless you're a regular, it's hard to know what's what, prices, how much to order, and the procedure in general.

For instance, here you choose your food, it gets handed to you, you put it on a tray, and then you end up where you'd think a cashier would be, but it's just a woman asking what you'd like to drink. You leave your tray, and one of those aforementioned black people carries it to your table. (The South is so weird that way. Sure, in NYC, service workers also tend to be minorities, but so is a bulk of the clientele. It's more mixed.) It flustered me a bit, do you tip then and there? I figured you'd just leave money on the table like in any restaurant, but later I noticed people handing the tray carriers money. Oh well. I also noticed women with four glasses of sweet tea in front of them. I guess this maneuver was to preempt the need for refills (which are nonexistent in NYC, but a given everywhere we visited in Tennessee and Louisiana).

I picked out fried chicken, fried okra, mashed potatoes, lime cream salad and coconut cream pie. It was probably a little much, but the green jello, cottage cheese delicacy had to be ordered simply for effect.

You pay upon leaving, and there's the other anomaly. Many of the food servers (not tray carriers), and the cashier were Vietnamese (and that's a whole other deal, 99% of the servers at Caf Du Monde in New Orleans were also Vietnamese. You'd think they'd have really good Vietnamese food in The South. Maybe they do, but I didn't seek it out) I don't think I'd ever heard broken English with a southern twang before, there's a first for everything.

Belle Meade Cafeteria * 4534 Harding Pike, Nashville, TN

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Jul 7

Hog Heaven

This was my first southern meal. Well, snack, really. Yes, in Tennessee, a pulled pork or bbq chicken sandwich feels like a mere tidbit (to be honest, the sandwiches werent all that huge. We both ordered larges and they were filling, but not the gut busting behemoths wed feared) . I had a chicken sandwich with white bbq sauce, an anomaly I'd never witnessed first hand. I'm not exactly sure what's in the concoction, but I'm guessing lots of black pepper. I was particularly enamored by the mural on the side of the take-out joint, of a corpulent pig with a halo. Cute, but disturbing if you think too hard about dead pigs. Apparently, he had gone to hog heaven. You might too, when you get a taste of the porky goodness (ribs are also a thing here).

Hog Heaven * 115 27th Ave N., Nashville, TN

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Apr 24

Delhi Gardens

*This is still an Indian restaurant, though I'm fairly certain that it's changed names (2007)

Though I don't do it all that frequently, I love the occasional trek out to New Jersey for a Trader Joes and kick-ass Hong Kong Supermarket run. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, every chain store known to man populates these parts. I shop, but I rarely eat. Not because I don't want to, I'm just not familiar with the terrain. So, I on my latest excursion we decided to rectify this by a pit stop at Delhi Gardens, a Hyderabadi restaurant I'd heard good things about.

I've been a little Indian shy since becoming crazy ill after eating at Mina a few months back. But there wasn't any trouble. With only two of us, we didn't really get to sample much of the menu, and maybe missed some hits. We started with vegetable samosas, a safe choice, but giant, flaky, very homemade and fresh. For mains we had chicken biryani since biryani is a Hyderabad thing. I'm not an expert on the rice dish, so I can't compare, but the layers of herbs and spices struck me. We also had lamb curry, rogan gosht, I think that was nicely hot. Indian cuisine is one that I honestly need to learn more about to speak knowledgeably. I'm like one of those annoying (to me) people who talks about Thai food and only ever eats pad thai and green curry. Or even worse, someone who raves about a restaurant, but is vegetarian. Nothing against vegetarians, but how can I trust the opinion of someone who hadn't even tried most of the things I would order?

Delhi Gardens * 691 Route 1, Edison, NJ

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Dec 29

Treasure Island

Treasure Island has become a new Portland tradition. It used to be Rheinlander, but now that my parents are based on the west side all-you-can-eat Chinese trumps German gluttony. I was a little sad to note their 8:30 pm closing (so Portland, jeez) upon our close to 8 pm arrival. But in reality, it saved a lot of calories and unnecessary stomach stretchage. I tried to stay low key on the fried saucy general Tso type items and went wild with pickled vegetables, crispy bean curd and crunchy tendons that sit on the lonely side table with the white rice that no one touches.(10/11/04)

Well, East Buffet, it is not. But you have to take what you can get sometimes. I guess on weekends the place is a madhouse. Luckily, we went on a Monday. They do adequate versions of Chinese American standards like sesame chicken, sweet and sour, egg rolls. You know the drill. They also have a Mongolian grill area where they'll cook up meat and vegetables for you. I was most interested in the lonely little fold-up table against the wall, separate from the main buffet rows. That's where things like tripe, tendons, chile oil, tea eggs, kim chee, pickled cucumbers and the white rice were housed. I found it odd that the white rice was not in with the more mainstream offerings, but after a quick survey it became clear that fried rice is the starch of choice for this particular clientele. I asked my mom and her husband, the step-dude why they didn't eat white rice with their food and their logic was that it fills you up too fast. True, I suppose. But that was always my beef with the whole low-carb thing, how it made eating Asian food impossible since rice seems to be a requisite accompaniment. My new theory, though, is that the Atkin's diet is perfect for middle America because all they really want is the meat anyway. Anyway, Treasure Island was fun for an intrepid buffet aficionado like myself. (12/29/03)

Treasure Island Chinese Buffet * 15930 SW Regatta Ln., Beaverton, Oregon

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Dec 28

Pho Van

1/2

Word to the wise: don't take your grandma out for Vietnamese food as a
Christmas present. I guess it was my own fault for basing my cuisine choice
on my own personal preferences, but I'd heard about this Pho Van in NW,
thought about paying a visit, then noticed they'd recently opened a
Beaverton location, which was ideal since that's where my mom lives. Instead
of buying presents I told my mom, step-dude and grandma I'd take them out to
eat. And why not take them someplace I'd wanted to go? I knew they weren't
anti-Vietnamese food because when my sister is in town they always go to
Saigon Kitchen.

I ordered both spring and summer rolls and a filled crepe for everyone
to share. The fresh rolls seemed to scare everyone and the crepe was met
with serious suspicion. My grandma informed us she didn't like cilantro. Let
me guess, you don't like mint or bean sprouts either? Thankfully, cilantro
appeared to be the only stumbling block.

For myself I ordered the 1. pho with everything in it and was informed
by the waiter that it had tendon and tripe in it. Duh, that's what it said
on the menu. That's the weird thing I noticed about Portland is that they
assume you either don't know what you're ordering or won't like it if you
do. At Thanh Thao I overheard the waitress informing a table that ordered
something with taro in it, what taro was like you wouldn't possibly want.

The food was very good, and everyone was pleasantly surprised after I
forced them to at least taste everything. I must admit I lost my patience
with my grandma numerous times, but only after she set the tone by making a
big fuss about water dripping from a pipe (it's understandable to not want
to be dripped on, but it's not your business to jump up and yell at new
customers coming in and being seated near the leak), then getting overly
steamed about not receiving our pot of tea. Recalling that she'd gone on
some senior tour of China a few years back, I couldn't help but ask what she
ate while there. "Planet Hollywood and McDonalds" she proudly declared. I
nearly lost my shit and told her that she'd better be joking. She wasn't.
The crowning glory was when she started making a stink about not getting
fortune cookies. I mean, there's no reason for them in a Vietnamese
restaurant, or a Chinese one for that matter. I suppose the holidays are all
about family, and that's why I've managed to avoid a Portland Christmas for
the past six years.

PhoVan * 11651 SW Beaverton Hillsdale Hwy.,
Beaverton,Oregon

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Dec 26

Than Thao

This is so not Thai food. I can't figure out how I ever thought it was. Not that it's false advertising, the marquee does say Thai-Vietnamese, or Viet-Thai, or something along those lines. I noticed this a lot on my recent Portland visit. I guess NYC has made me a food snob, but nothing was cutting the mustard with me. The menu is much more Vietnamese-Chinese. The only curry I saw, and subsequently ordered, was penang, which was tasty in its own way but not Thai-like. It was very peanutty, like they had used a peanut dipping sauce as a base and was filled with vegetables including broccoli and carrots, which just seemed wrong. If you order pad Thai they ask if you want coconut sauce or peanut-garlic sauce. Pad Thai doesn't contain coconut milk. It was really bizarre. And I used to go to this place all the time, never suspecting anything was amiss. The friends I was with thought it was fine. Another old favorite, which I didn't try this time around, Saigon Kitchen, is another Vietnamese restaurant (duh, Saigon) that also does Thai food and no one seems to notice the difference. I mean at a real, only Vietnamese food restaurant I tried later in the week, my grandma practically threw a hissy fit for not getting a fortune cookie. Oh, now that I think about we did get fortune cookies at Than Thao, so who can blame the locals for getting confused. Anyway, I just felt like something was lacking, it's tricky trying to please everyone by doing two cuisines in one establishment.

Thanh Thao * 4005 S.E. Hawthorne St., Portland, Oregon

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Nov 1

Rheinlander

The family favorite for winter holidays and once-in-a-lifetime events like
high school graduation and deflowerments (ha, joking). We'd order "The
Feast," a multi-course barrage of sauerbraten, schnitzel and strudel. I
couldn't tell you how authentic the food is, but I will say that it's not
terribly similar at all to the offerings at Zum Stammtisch and that none of
the Queens German
joints I recently checked out serve fondue. Fondue is Rheinlander's
raison d'etre. Or maybe it's just my raison d'etre.

Rheinlander* 5035 NE Sandy
Blvd., Portland, OR

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May 4

Minado

1/2

Minado is clearly the Japanese version of East
Buffet. And if you're familiar with East Buffet, I barely need
elaborate. It's an over-the-top, horn-of-plenty feeding frenzy. The dcor is
definitely more restrained than it's similar Chinese all-you-can-eat, but
being in a Long Island strip mall, you could hardly call it tasteful. It's
not someplace I'd normally frequent, but it's near the Hicksville Ikea and a
person can only take so much meatballs and lingonberry after a hard day's
shopping.

Of course, there's a sushi bar with all sorts of varieties including one
baffler with pink rice. There are also standards such as teriyaki, wakame,
and edamame. But like any good "ethnic" buffet, there must be American
banquet pleasers a la lobster thermador, and pasta. Being a lover of tiny
not-quite-sweet-enough Asian desserts, I was happy with the rows of light
layered sponge cakes flavored with mocha and green tea.

Load up, but don't waste (throwing out uneaten sushi will net you a 20%
surcharge) and don't overstay the 1.5 hour limit. Ha, we always end up past
the two-hour mark without even realizing it. It's not a matter of being
piggish, it's just that normal, i.e. myself, people eat at a reasonable pace
(you may be aware of my "shovel time" grade school lunch trauma). Everyone
around us came and went, new crops filled the tables while we held our slow
and steady ground. And slow and steady wins the race, right?

Minado* 219 Glen Cove Rd.,
Carle Place, NY

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Posts from the ‘United States’ Category

Morning Call

Liuzza’s

Belle Meade Cafeteria

Hog Heaven

Delhi Gardens

Treasure Island

Pho Van

Than Thao

Rheinlander

Minado

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