The Food Thread

F Me In The Brain said:

Ha.  I've driven past Jay's a bunch of times and always laughed when there were lots of cars out front at 10 or 11 AM.

I have a good friend that lives in Moorestown.  Jay's after a Philly show is tradition. A fine drinking establishment with colorful characters.

I didn't take any pictures, but we had a great meal at the Ramen joint!  
The gyoza was delicious, and it was lightly pan-fried to a nice bit of crisp that I don't think is typical.  It was great though because only the flat sides had the light crisp.
We had a TONKOTSU--Pork belly and a Miso SPICY--Pork and a chashu pork belly steam bun.
The tonkotsu was good, the noodles were great.  I suspected that it would be a little bland for my taste, I'm very much into bold and aggressive flavors, and I was correct.  It was a subtle dish that would be best eaten alone.  The gyoza and eel sauce on the steam bun were strongly flavored enough that it became difficult to appreciate the subtle flavors of the broth.

The MISO SPICY--Pork katsu, shiitake, nori, kombu, soft boiled egg, black sesame oil, rayu chili oil on the other hand, whooooo-weeee that was good!  Sweet and savory, nose-run spicy, perfectly balanced and I actually quite liked the breaded pork in the soup.  Very good.  I brought home enough broth to add some rice noodles and make another bowl each for tonight.  I'll braise some chops and sprouts in a nice little sugarsoy sauce and yum it up.

Final note: The difference between high quality and low quality mushrooms may be the greatest gap in the culinary arts.  Seriously, I can't stand most mushrooms, they taste the basement smells in winter and they are a chewy disaster. 
The mushrooms in our bowls were delicate but still firm and not basementy at all.  Probably the first time I've actuslly gotten good mushrooms in my life.

Well done. Most Japanese food is mild with subtle flavors. Korean is the way to go for heat and strong flavors. 

Dinner last night:

• Beets -- baked some beets yesterday and then peeled/cut up and topped with thyme & goat cheese, threw under the broiler.
• Beets part II - boiled the greens for 2 mins.  Ice bath.  Chopped up and put with sauteed onions, garlic, and pepper flakes. 
• Squash - baked 2 spaghetti squash and then pulled.  Made some scratch marinara and ate like pasta.
• Spinach, Garbanzo Beans, and Red Onion salad.

F Me In The Brain said:

Dinner last night:

• Beets -- baked some beets yesterday and then peeled/cut up and topped with thyme & goat cheese, threw under the broiler.
• Beets part II - boiled the greens for 2 mins.  Ice bath.  Chopped up and put with sauteed onions, garlic, and pepper flakes. 
• Squash - baked 2 spaghetti squash and then pulled.  Made some scratch marinara and ate like pasta.
• Spinach, Garbanzo Beans, and Red Onion salad.

Holy crap -- ate like a king and was all pretty healthy stuff.  Looking forward to leftovers?  Have we talked "Beets" here before?  Damn, I love them.

Unrelated -- got the HEATONIST email about a new Heartbeat hot sauce.  Ordered that (love their others) and added a 'Dirty Dicks' - I wonder how many fools they have trained to order when they send these emails.   

It looks/sounds like an incredible sauce but I haven't bit the bullet yet.  Haven't had any Heartbeat sauces but I know they're well received.  I kinda want to grab another Reaper Last Dab while it's available.

Wow.  Beets!

hedonist said:

dankind said:

The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious.

Slavic peoples get their physical characteristics from potatoes, their smoldering inquietude from radishes, their seriousness from beets.

The beet is the melancholy vegetable, the one most willing to suffer. You can't squeeze blood out of a turnip...

The beet is the murderer returned to the scene of the crime. The beet is what happens when the cherry finishes with the carrot. The beet is the ancient ancestor of the autumn moon, bearded, buried, all but fossilized; the dark green sails of the grounded moon-boat stitched with veins of primordial plasma; the kite string that once connected the moon to the Earth now a muddy whisker drilling desperately for rubies.

The beet was Rasputin's favorite vegetable. You could see it in his eyes.”

--Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume

This was quite beautiful.

My only beet experiences are nasty-looking chunks from childhood dinners - yuck - and the cold chopped ones in the salad whenever we went to Lawry's.

I'll have to check out this cooked beet business.

F Me In The Brain said:

Mushrooms are another of nature's misrepresented wonders.

Lots of people shit on them but they are amazing.  Texturally they can be challenging, which I get.  So many different varieties....

I think they used crimini along with the beets in that dish.  They were good.  Nice, thick chunks and beefy flavor.  My entire exposure to mushrooms has never been more than those slimy shits on pizza and in Chinese food.  Those things are fuckin disgusting, but I could certainly get into portabellos.  I'd be willing to give other types a try, I'm just never around them and wouldn't even know where to begin trying to prepare them for myself.