June 2007 Archives

I'm teaching in Berkeley Heights, NJ this week. The hotel where I'm staying is in Basking Ridge, NJ, and there's an interesting Italian place down the street called "Ciao." It's an upscale-but-casual place. I grabbed a seat at the bar rather than a table for one.

I started with a glass of Pinot Noir that was suggested by the bartender, Meredith. After I decided on tuna for dinner, she suggested a white made from Malbec. The Malbec grape usually makes a full-bodied red, but this was wine was made from "skinless" Malbec grapes (her description). I think what she meant was the wine is pressed and the skins are immediately discarded. With red grapes, the skins are usually left in contact with the juice, so the tannin in the skin enriches the wine. It was a good choice, full and fruity.

Apologies for the quality of these photos; they're from my phone and lighting was poor

My first course was cream of asparagus soup:

It was subtle, with thin slices of asparagus throughout.

Next was the main course, seared tuna with a ginger-soy sauce:

That's an arugla and onion salad on either side, grilled asparagus on top, and the tuna was sitting on top of a scoop of wasabi mashed potatoes. The tuna was perfect, the salad and asparagus wonderful. The wasabi mashed potatoes were just a bit odd to my taste. They weren't bad, I just didn't quite know how to process the taste at the same time as the tuna. I didn't eat all that much of the potatoes, which was my rationalization for dessert. I don't totally subscribe to Sajini's theory that dessert is most important, but I don't want to be a glutton, either.

I asked Meredith to pick between a brownie cheesecake, tiramisu, and orange mousse, and she suggested the Orange Mousse:

My guess is that the mousse was the only one of the three made in-house. It was a winner, a tasty combination of orange with blackberries.

I capped off dinner with a cappucino.

Overall, this was a good meal. Given the overall dearth of places to eat near here, I may go back and try Ciao's pizza later this week.

Since Justin had to work at our restaurant on his birthday Wednesday, we took him out to dinner last night. After we rejected his choices of Antoine's or Galatoire's, he countered with Luizza's on Bienville, and everyone was happy.

We ordered two appetizers, onion rings and fried calamari. Both were excellent, particularly the calamari. For entrees, Helen had the half po-boy (fried shrimp) and a cup of soup, which was their shrimp-and-artichoke:

Most places do oyster-artichoke soup, so Liuzza's use of shrimp is a bit different. The soup is a chicken stock and cream base, with shrimp and artichoke hearts, along with a bit of onion and garlic.

Kev had a cheeseburger--he wasn't all that motivated by the seafood and Italian dishes at the restaurant. I had a hot sausage po-boy, and Justin had Crawfish Telemachus:

Forgive the photo, he had started twirling his pasta before I snapped the pic. He was very defensive when it came to his crawfish, but he let me dip some french bread into the sauce. It wasn't as spicy as what I cook at home, but that's ok, it was much better than classic "Crawfish Monica."

No dessert tonight, everyone was stuffed from a most-excellent meal!

We celebrated two birthdays yesterday, my mother-in-law and brother-in-law. Yup, she gave birth to my wife's brother on her birthday. There were ten of us, my m-i-l, her husband, my b-i-l and his wife, my s-i-l and her husband, wife, and the boys. I originally had steaks in mind, but several of the group don't eat red meat, so barbecued chicken it was.

I made four sides to go with the chicken, potato salad, a simple rice pilaf, mac-n-cheese (from the box!), and eggplant au gratin.

I make potato salad using my momma's recipe. Take 5lb of red potatoes, boiled, peeled, and sliced, a dozen hard-boiled eggs, one onion, chopped, 4-5 tbps of pickle relish, mayonnaise, salt, pepper, and creole seasoning to taste. Combine the potatoes and eggs with enough mayo to make a thick consistency. Add the onion and pickle relish (the relish's liquid will thin out the salad overall). Add salt, pepper, then creole seasoning. Refrigerate for an hour or so.

The rice was very simple. Saute 1/2 cup of chopped onion (I picked up a huge vidalia onion at the grocery that I used for both the potato salad and the rice) in 2-3 tbps olive oil. Add 1 cup long grain rice to this, then 1 cup of beef stock and 2 cups of water. Simmer for 20-30 minutes to absorb the liquid, adding another cup of water to keep the rice fluffy.

Kraft mac-n-cheese, just like you made in your dorm room. :-)

For the eggplant au gratin, I grabbed a nice, medium-sized eggplant, sliced thin. Make an egg wash of three eggs and 1 cup milk. Dip the slices in the egg wash and then into a mixture of 1 cup italian-style bread crumbs and 1/2 cup white flour. Deep fry the breaded slices until light brown. In a 9x9 casserole, lay down a layer of the slices, then spread a couple of spoonfuls of tomato sauce (I used Emeril's "Sicilian Gravy" for this one), and sprinkle some parmesan cheese on top. Add another layer and repeat until you use up all the eggplant. To top it off, I tried something different. Kraft has these "crumble" packages now, and I picked up one that is provolone, parmesan, and feta. Sprinkle the cheese over the top and bake in a 350F oven for 30 minutes.

We had leftovers of the potato salad, but that's OK, because I love it, and the mac-n-cheese, but that was for the boys. The rice got gobbled up, and I swear, there wasn't even a forkful of that eggplant left. I've made eggplant au gratin for this group before, but not with this level of success. I think it's that cheese combination...

Max Lagers
320 Peachtree St. NW
Atlanta (Downtown)

Max Lagers is an interesting brewpub in Atlanta's downtown section. The menu is not as ambitious as some brewpubs, but what they do, they do well. I had dinner there last night with a friend. We started with a "Maxatizer" of Duck Spring Rolls. They were fried well and came on a bed of "Asian Slaw," along with some "sweet chili" dipping sauce. The slaw was very spicy, but the chili sauce was much milder, and had a touch of honey.

For entrees, my friend had the "Max Burger," which is a half-pound Angus hamburger. It came as ordered, well done, and was tasty by all reports.

I had a calzone, with sausage and tomato. Their Italian sausage contained a lot of fennel, was tasty, and not greasy at all. The dipping sauce was extremely thick, to the point where it was easier to scoop it onto the calzone with a fork rather than just dip.

For dessert, we split a piece of "mile-high chocolate cake." Wonderful!

My friend was quite disappointed that they were out of the root beer they claimed to brew on the premises, and drank water. I, on the other hand, was all about the beer. I sampled their IPA, Honey Lager, and Max Black, and opted for the Black. While this beer was as dark as a stout, it was more the thickness and taste of a dark ale or a light porter. It was very tasty and was a good complement to the calzone.

Good food, good beer, tasty dessert, and splendid conversation make for a wonderful evening on the road!