Kushi-Moto

I had forgotten, sadly, Japanese restaurant Kushi's plans to start a food truck, so I was pleasantly surprised when I saw them pop-up at Farragut Square on Washingtonian's food truck tracker. On such a dreary, nasty day, some miso soup sounded really good. I walked over to the square when lunch time came around, and I think I made the right choice. Every bit of the meal was very good.

I ordered the pork belly rice bowl and the miso soup. I know Kushi's sushi is very good, but I wanted to try something new. They do have several different varieties of sushi, including a California roll with real crab. I might try the spicy tuna next time. The rice bowl was great, with really sticky rice and tender pork belly. The ginger gave it a nice kick. The miso soup was excellent, with a good amount of miso in it and high quality kelp. Definitely worth checking out the next time it's in your neighborhood.

Ruhlman's Twenty

One of my favorite gifts from over the holidays was actually a massive cookbook, Ruhlman's Twenty. As the author puts it:

I continue to pare down and isolate the fundamentals so that we can be more free and efficient in the kitchen (important given the fact that cooking food is fundamental to our humanity). All you really need to know to cook basically everything is twenty fundamentals. This is a book for people who want to understand how cooking works, inside the hood as it were (recipes are the body and trim, techniques are the engine). It’s also a book for those who like or need to cook and want to cook better.

 And that's a very good description. I've made several of the recipes in the book already, ranging from macaroni and cheese to french onion soup and pan-fried pork chops, and they've all been very good. But what they haven't been is for beginners. This book will certainly refine your cooking skills, if you already have some idea what you're doing in the kitchen. And you don't have to be very good -- I'm under no illusions regarding my own skill! But if you're really just learning to cook, there are other cookbooks that are better for you. in any case, I hope you'll enjoy our trip through this book.

Union Market

Photo by sirmichael, on flickr

Union Market opened last year in the NE to great fanfare. It's a large hall filled with artisanal merchants and food vendors. I've been there a couple of times, but this was the first time I've been since it was kicking on all cylinders. It's a bit hard to get to if you don't drive; a couple buses pass nearby, and it's walking distance from the New York Avenue metro, but it's not actually close to the metro, and taking the bus home gets a bit complicated for us. But the shops there are all lovely.

Our first stop was Buffalo & Bergen, Gina Chersevani's new spot. It's a reasonable facsimile of a New York deli, with bagels (made with real New York water!), knishes, and sodas. Since it has two of the district's best bartenders, Gina and Rachel Sergi, it also has a number of very excellent cocktails. I haven't tried the bagels, but the knishes are very good. The Reuben knish I had could have been a bit tangier, but the short rib knish my wife had was right on.

Since I'm a bit of a cheese fiend, we had to stop by Righteous Cheese for a cheese plate. The plates are a bit expensive here, and I'm not sure what we got was quite a $24 plate. Not to mention that their insistence we both get something, and not just split a cheese plate, left a little bit of a bad taste in my mouth. That being said, though, the cheese plate was very good, and the beer pairings tasty and inventive.

Our third stop was Rappahannock Oyster Co. We went a little overboard here, but in our defense, mmm seafood. We got a dozen oyster, a crab cake, and a bit of salmon roe, and every bit of it was delicious. The crab cake was the best I've ever had, the salmon roe was like Gushers for adults, and impossible to do wrong. The oysters were great. They gave us three varieties, the middle of the road Rappahannocks, the briny Olde Salts, and the sweeter Stingrays. My wife had a glass of manzanilla sherry, and I had the Flying Dog Oyster Stout, both of which went great with the food.

Union Market was great fun to visit, even if logistics mean we're not going to be down here every week. If you've been to the butcher, let me know what you thought; I didn't get a chance to try any of their products.

Himalayan Heritage

 We're often torn about what to do for food after a workout. It's usually late, and we're usually tired, so we don't usually want to cook. But eating out two or three times a week would be a bit of a strain on our pocketbook. So, we're always looking for deals in Adams Morgan, especially for places that seem like they're not going to mind too much if we're a bit grubby. Himalayan Heritage fit this bill, so I got the deal, and we headed over.

 I wanted to try and order something that was more on the Nepali end of the spectrum, less on the Indian end, so I got the "Himalayan Karahi," a "Mixture of Barbeque chicken, and lamb cooked with tomatoes, capsicum and coriander leaves in medium spices with red wine tossed in an iron souk." My wife got the Muglin Thali, a combination of several different dishes featuring prominently a goat curry. The dominant theme of the meal was tough. My chicken was tough. Her goat was tough. It was tough to get service. We weren't very happy with the meal, but I was going to chalk part of it up to being crabby until I realized we were there for two hours. That's much too slow for service. Perhaps we caught them on a bad night, but I don't think we're going back.

Cheesequake

Cheesequake may be the most misnamed food truck I've been to. They serve Philly Cheesesteak sandwiches; when I went, they had three sorts. The Ali is a traditional cheesesteak, the Frazier is a chicken cheesesteak, and the Tyson is a pizza cheesesteak. They have a few topping options: lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise, grilled onions, grilled mushrooms, and grilled green peppers. It's not a bad cheesesteak, but it's basically inferior to Phillies Phamous DC Food Truck in every way. The bread is worse, there's less cheese, and the beef is not chopped as finely. There are also fewer topping options. I particularly missed the option of having banana peppers or jalapenos on the sandwich. It's a perfectly fine sandwich, but if you have the option, go to Phillies.

New Orleans: Oyster Crawl

Not sure where this is.

On our second to last day in New Orleans, we spent the afternoon on an oyster crawl. We had been to a couple places for oysters, but none that really wowed us, so we thought we'd try a bunch of places and figure out who had the best oysters in the French Quarter. Bourbon House's were surprisingly good, but Royal House won out.

Bourbon House

Royal House

Christmas Ales from a bad elf

One of my favorite things about the now-defunct gastropub Commonwealth was that, every December, they'd have the bad elf series of beers from Ridgeway brewing. There are five: Bad Elf, Very Bad Elf, Seriously Bad Elf, Criminally Bad Elf, and Insanely Bad Elf. I hadn't seen them anywhere else, until this year, when U St Beer & Wine had a four pack that included Bad Elf, and then I saw most of the rest at Cork & Fork. I had to do a vertical tasting.


It was interesting. I don't think any of these are beers you should take too seriously, but the price point reflects that. They vary in style -- Bad Elf is a golden ale, and Very Bad Elf is a more premium version of the same beer. Seriously Bad Elf is, despite the coloration, quite similar to a Belgian Dubbel, and Criminally Bad Elf is similar to a Barleywine. As an amateur beer connoisseur, I'm not going to comment on how authentic any of these beers were, but I'll just say that I don't like barleywines generally, but I like Criminally Bad Elf.

None of these are really exemplars of their style. But I think they're pretty great. They get a lot of points for the amusing packaging, and they're all decent beers. Even if it's not the best thing ever, there's nothing like drinking a criminally bad elf to get you in the holiday spirit.

New Orleans, Day 4

On our fourth day in New Orleans, we relaxed. We had massages scheduled at Pura Vida in the Garden District, and figured we'd spend the afternoon out there, checking out a different scene from the hectic French Quarter. We got lunch at the St. James Cheese Company. They had some fantastic looking sandwiches, but we went with a cheese board and a Ploughman's Lunch, the better to try their cheese. And their cheese was fantastic. We especially liked what I think was the Fleur de Maquis, on the left of the picture above. But they were all very good.

After my wife went to get her massage, I went to a nearby dive bar, Le Bon Temps Roule, to read and hopefully watch Mizzou beat  Florida. (They didn't). It looked like most dive bars, but it had a really enormous beer selection. How many dive bars have Chimay? Really chill, and a nice pool table.

After meeting up after my massage, we made our way back to the Central Business District. We hit up the W.I.N.O., the Wine Institute of New Orleans, one of our other favorites from our last trip. This one was actually improved from last time. WINO provides the option to taste 40ish different wines in either 1, 2, or 4 ounce pours. Many of these wines are really good, and now they also provide some spirits like armagnac to sample as well. However, it can get really expensive really quickly, so it's important to be careful.

After WINO, we went to dinner at Cafe Adelaide. This was our favorite restaurant. We started off with the foie gras and truffle flatbread, which was incredible. It was covered in large slices of foie gras, just really rich and creamy. For our entrees, we had the Shrimp Courtbouillon and the Duck Breast. The duck was dark and juicy, and really hit the spot. Fantastic dining here.

After dinner we went to Frenchmen street to listen to some jazz. We settled on dba, which in addition to good jazz has an extensive beer and spirits list. John Boutte was playing the night we went, and we thoroughly enjoyed his performance.

New Orleans, Day 3

On day 3, we drove east of New Orleans, first for a swamp tour (Cajun Encounters, they're great), and then to go to the Abita brewpub. Perhaps I'm spoiled by such great brewpubs as Founders' and Schlafly, but I didn't find this brewpub anything to write home about (and yet here I am...). The food was average, and they had a broad selection of Abita beers, but the special brews, like the pecan harvest my wife had and the Roggen I had didn't seem all that special.

The brewery tour, on the other hand, was great, and was everything the Tabasco tour was not. They were very generous with the free samples -- visitors formed a line, and could just go around and around collecting glasses of beer. The video they showed us was genuinely informative, and the tour was pretty interesting. Abita doesn't really wow me with any of their beers, but the beers are generally well made, and I'm always fine drinking an S.O.S. or a Restoration.

When we got back, we walked over to the French Quarter for dinner. The proprietor of the bed and breakfast we were staying at suggested we get oysters at Market Cafe. On our way, we thought we'd stop at Bar Tonique, which came very highly recommended. And for good reason! They have an extensive cocktail menu, with highlights up on a chalkboard, and a $5 happy hour for several of them. Every cocktail I had there was excellently made. It's odd, though, how used I've become to smoke-free bars.

We then took our innkeepers recommendation and went to Market Cafe for oysters. We should have listened when he said he doesn't eat oysters, but his friends all went there. Outside, it smelled like fish, and not in a fun way. The oysters themselves lacked flavor, and were poorly shucked. On the plus side, this inspired us to do an oyster crawl later in the trip, which was a lot of fun.

We went to dinner at Evangeline. We had gone here last year, and really enjoyed it, so we had high expectations. Sadly, our expectations let us down. My wife had the Shrimp and Grits, and I had the Pasta Evangeline. Both were good, and I was especially impressed by the size of the shrimp in my wife's grits. But they weren't great; my pasta in particular was bland, and the grits weren't very creamy.

New Orleans, Day 1

After the ups and downs of hurricane Sandy, we arrived in New Orleans a little less than 24 hours after we had originally intended. Nevermind that, it was Halloween, it was our anniversary, and we were ready to celebrate. We got our first Sazerac at Hermes Bar. Hermes, as far as I can tell, doesn't have much going for it. The drinks they have on their cocktail list are all cloyingly sweet, and I've not heard good things about their food. But they make a good Sazerac. We had dinner at Herbsaint, in the Central Business District. We were very impressed by the appearance. It was nice and formal, but didn't seem stuffy. I was glad I dressed in slacks and and long-sleeve shirt. At Herbsaint we ordered the lamb neck and the duck leg confit. Both were excellent. The duck leg confit had a nice crust and good tenderness. Their cocktails were good, and overall we had a great experience here. We went out for Halloween after that, and none of the places we went were very memorable.

Puerto Rico: Pt. II

After several days in Luquillo, we headed off to San Juan for our last night in Puerto Rico. We'd been to San Juan before, so weren't in a huge hurry. And we had heard that there was a highway in central Puerto Rico where you could get delicious pork, so we decided to take the scenic route, around the south-eastern end of the island, and then up the middle. After a few hair-raising turns, we found La Ruta de Lechon.

There are about a dozen lechonera in the main strip, with maybe five or six more scattered around. Since it was a Tuesday afternoon, there were very few if any people at any of them; however, in validation of our choice, Lechonera Los Pinos had a few customers. We both got a plate and dug into some of the best pork we've ever had. It was every bit as rich as the pig's head we had at Standard, but not nearly as greasy. The skin was beautiful, nice and crispy (though my wife disagreed, finding it a bit too hard). We ate every bite until we were stuffed.

That night, we went to Carli's, a jazz club in Old San Juan, and had a really good time. I had a half-rack of lamb, which was great. But what really made Carli's stand out was the ambiance. The jazz was great, and the waiter and bartender were as friendly as could be. Very great trip to Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico: Pt. I

You may have notice that I haven't updated this blog much over the past week. That's because I've been in Puerto Rico! There won't be detailed reviews of the places we went, since that's beyond the scope of this blog, but I figured you might be interested in a quick sketch of where all we went.

The first few days we spent in the small sea-side town of Luquillo, a surfing destination. We went to El Rincon Del Sabor on the recommendation of the hotel we stayed at. I ordered the red snapper filet, and my wife ordered the lobster mofongo, but also got the red snapper filet. The filet was doused in a heavy criollo sauce, but wasn't terrible, and my wife's mofongo side was the best mofongo we had on the trip. The shot of moonshine rum at the end was a nice touch, but in general, the service was overbearing.

The next night, we went to Sandy's Seafood, right up the street. This time, my wife actually received her lobster mofongo, and I got the whole red snapper in garlic sauce. The red snapper was great, and not at all overwhelmed by the sauce, and the lobster mofongo was very good. We loved the quiet ambience. The wine we got was quite good, though the sangria was a bit sweet for our tastes. Definitely better than El Rincon.

And if you're in Luquillo, you should stop by Boardriders, right on the beach. It's a great spot for a late afternoon beer; make sure you try Medalla, a Puerto Rican beer, and easily the best Caribbean lager I've ever had. The food is probably a bit more expensive than it needs to be, but the guava wings we had were delicious. After the wings, we didn't need much more food, so we went to a small cafe on the square for some delicious crepes. More on the Ruta de Lechon and San Juan tomorrow, once I have the pictures.

Top Food Truck

Tops is a food truck specializing in small batch sausages. They had some technical issues over the summer, but it appears that they're back. The picture is an older one; they've dropped some of the variety to focus on sausage, which is probably a good thing. Along with the sausages, they serve chili, and have the usual potato chips/soda options for a side.

The bratwurst is good, with the right blend of flavors. It's topped with chopped tomatoes, raw onions, and 'jojo sauce', a slightly sweet, slightly spicy yogurt based sauce. The topping are good and blend well with the sausage. The texture is a bit mushy however, with a limp casing, and a too-soft bun only compounding the problems here.

As far as the chili goes, it tastes pretty good. It's well balanced, with not to much tomato, not too much beef. The beef chunks might be a little bit larger than ideal though. It's very sweet, and not very spicy even after adding Frank's hot sauce. Not the sort of chili I'm really looking for, if I'm just wanting chili, but I can see how it might go well on a hot dog.

Uptown Tap Room Grand Opening

I was sad, a few months ago, when the venerable Irish pub the 4 Ps announced it was closing. It seemed like a decent sort of place, though I'm rarely enough in Cleveland Park that I was almost never there. But its replacement, Uptown Tap Room, had a grand opening last Friday, so it seemed worth checking out.

The interior is still pretty recognizable, everything's still in the same place, but it looked nicer. The furnishing weren't as worn as the 4 P's were. There was even an oyster bar, which is appreciated. 

We were served a sampling of appetizers, as well as an entree and a sampling of desserts. The appetizers -- pork wings, pork tacos, garlic hummus, and crab dib -- were all pretty good, and probably the highlight of the night. For the entrees, I had the mushroom risotto, and my wife had the crab cakes. Both were fine, if not exceptional. It seems like this is going to be a nice place for you if you live near Cleveland Park and want to grab something slightly better than typical bar food for dinner, but don't necessarily want to go to Dino or Ripple; or if you want to grab some appetizers and watch the game.

Wassub?

Wassub? is a relatively new food truck specializing in, you guessed it, subs. What I didn't expect was that it would generally be asian-themed subs, which had the potential to be disappointing since I had been hoping for a steak-and-cheese sandwich. Fortunately, that was their special for the day the first time I went. The sandwich was fine, but it needed something to kick it up a notch; either some spice, or a bit more flavor in the marinade, fancier cheese, better bread, or something sour. Any of these would have helped, especially the better bread. When I tried to pick up the sandwich, it nearly fell apart on me! There was a pretty decent amount of steak, and it combined well with the cheese and green peppers. The mushrooms, though, seemed like a bit too much umami without anything to balance it out. Some pickles, for example, would have helped tremendously.

The second time I went, I got the kimchi, a sub with thin-sliced, marinated ribeye and kimchi. It's advertised as a bulgogi sandwich, so I was expecting something similar to the bulgogi I know and love. It wasn't; not as spicy nor as rich. The sauce was really thin, the cheese, while appreciated, didn't mesh well with the egg. On the other hand, I'm not a huge fan of egg in my bulgogi in the first place. Combined with too much mayo (it's on the bread and in the sauce), it was just too rich. The bread held up much better than last time, and the flavors were fairly rich, so this is definitely an improvement over the steak and cheese. Overall, Wassub? is a decent choice for a sandwich based food truck, but it's not much better than average.

DC Greek Food

I enjoy gyros, but particularly for lunch. It's never seemed to me like a real dinner food. But, I haven't found a decent food truck with gyros, and I live near the Greek Spot, so I usually only end up getting them for dinner. But the other day I saw a new (at least to me) Greek food truck, and the Yelp! reviews weren't bad, so I figured I'd give them a shot. I'm glad I did.

The gyro used pretty typical ingredients -- meat, lettuce, tomato, onion, and feta, in a pita. There was about the right amount of each ingredient; perhaps too much lettuce, but there was enough meat that I didn't feel like they were stuffing it. There was definitely some seasoning on the meat, though probably not quite enough, and it was pretty cubed, not sliced off a rotisserie the way it should be. In addition, the feta was pretty bland. It's not too expensive, at $7, and definitely a cut above the typical food truck gyro. On the other hand, they're nowhere near as good as Greek Spot or the Greek Deli. They also have a vegetable platter, Greek salad, chicken over rice, and a combo platter.

Fojolmania

Photo by Ben Murray, on flickr.

Volothai, the Fojol Bros Thai truck, is good, but not great. The drunken noodles I found bland, and the beef was too chewy. The green curry is excellent. It's fairly spicy and made with Brussels sprouts, whose mustardy taste goes well with the curry. The chicken pad thai is, again, bland. There's not a lot of peanut flavor, no spicy, and the chicken is dry. The very large chunks of green onion didn't do it any favors.

The Indian truck is best known for its superb butter chicken. Just like any good butter chicken, it's quite creamy and moist, but theirs has a nice kick to it, a good complexity that a lot of butter chicken lacks. The cauliflower-potato dish is a bit less good. It has an odd bitterness and some of the potato chunks are a bit larger than they should be. It's not bad, though, and some of the problem might just be that it doesn't pair well with the butter chicken.

I've only been to the Ethiopian truck, Benethiopia once, and found it better than average, but because Ethiopian food doesn't get along well with office clothes, I haven't been back. Overall, Fojol Bros is a good choice for Indian food if you want something a bit different for lunch, but it's generally not exceptional.

Izakaya Seki

For quite some time, I've been looking forward to the opening of Izakaya Seki, a Japanese restaurant located near V St. and 12th NW. It finally opened a couple weeks ago, so my wife and I went down to check it out. It's definitely a cute little space; if they offered happy hour specials, I might swing by after work, and it look like it'd be nice for an early date. Downstairs, they have bar-style seating, and upstairs they have table seating.

The menu is small plates, and it's focused more on Japanese pub food rather than on sushi. In fact, there are only a few sushi dishes on their menu, and no rolls. On the other hand, they have a rather extensive list of sake and shochu, so there's that. We ordered the Sashimi Special, the Uni starter, the Kushikatsu (deep-fried pork belly), and the Kyona salad (arugula-based). We both agreed that the Kyona salad was the best of the dishes. It was fresh and bright, but the egg and tuna shavings gave it a nice savoriness as well. The pork belly, on the other hand, was the worst. Underneath all the breading, you could barely taste the pork belly, and it was seriously chewy. The sashimi and the uni were both above average, but somewhat expensive, even for the fairly large quantity you got. The selection was good, with tuna, octopus, squid, yellowtail, flounder, and shrimp. The octopus was a highlight, beautifully tender, and the shrimp melted in your mouth.

The service was attentive, if not especially knowledgeable. We both enjoyed it, and will probably go back since it's right in our neighborhood, but there are probably better places for izakaya-style eating in DC.

I found my Mojo!

As I've mentioned before, if you want a classic sandwich, the Rolling Ficelle is probably your best bet, at least among food trucks. But sometimes you want something with a bit more character, and that's where the Mojo sandwich truck comes in. They serve four types chivito sandwiches: pork, chicken, beef, or vegetarian. The classic comes with mojo sauce, tomatoes, cheese, lettuce, and an egg but you can also upgrade to the Canadian, which adds ham, or the Special, which adds avocado.

The first time I tried the truck, I got the special. That's a lot of sandwich, and to be honest, more sandwich than I need, so lately I've been getting just the classic, which is more than enough. The sandwiches come on a nice soft Italian loaf, toasted on the inside to give it just a bit of crispiness. What really makes the sandwiches shine is the quality of the ingredients. The bread is soft, but sturdy enough for even the special sandwiches. The pork is tender and juicy, with enough crispy bits to give the sandwich some texture. The tomatoes are meaty, and the egg and cheese give a good creaminess. The mojo sauce adds some tang, but there's not so much that it overwhelms the other ingredients (or gets all over your pants). In the middle of a long day, the Mojo sandwiches really hit the spot.

Fire and Rice

Fire and Rice is a relatively new food truck specializing in Korean meat bowls. They've been operating since June, 2012, but this was the first time I've seen them. It's actually been a while since I've had Bulgogi, and so I was excited to try theirs, and see how it compared to Yellow Vendor. In a nutshell, it compared well, but wasn't quite as heart-warming.

In addition to the beef, they have pork and chicken dishes, but I'm most familiar with bulgogi, so that's what I went with. There are all sorts of vegetables piled in the bowl as well as rice. The meat looked pale and gray at first, but this was just because there was no sauce on it; the sauces were next to the order window, perhaps inconveniently located in front of the menu. There were two sauces, one a slightly spicy peanut sauce, and the other a spicy tomato-based sauce. I applied the sauces liberally to my bowl before digging in.

The flavor was unsubtle and spicy, pretty much what I'm looking for in this sort of dish. The vegetables gave it a broader variety of flavors than Yellow Vendor's, without overwhelming the meat the way Japchae does. However, Yellow Vendor tastes richer and has more umami, which is probably the most important thing. But in any case, even if it's not my favorite, Fire and Rice is more than good enough for return visits.