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and if so or not and you d like to help donations to aid the estrella family can be made at pledgie com donations are not tax deductible for federal or state tax purposes if you d like more information about estrella and what has happened with them see this blog set up by a friend of theirs filed under event food politics politics philosophy of foods random rant tagged cheese estrella family creamery save our farms small farms support estrella leave a comment longans and cocktails posted on january 6 2011 by thegastrognome two separate thoughts drove tonight s cocktail creation session the first was damn these longans are delicious the other in a total non sequitur was i should have more cocktails on this blog the cocktail thought has been coming for a while drinking and eating go hand in hand and when i m doing one i m often doing the other so a blog about what i eat has seemed incomplete without also discussing what i drink as i ve thought more about what i m drinking i ve spent more time creating cocktails the longans a small southeast asian fruit somewhat similar to a lychee came to be because they are incredibly delicious so delicious that i had picked up a ten dollar net bag of them and am currently rushing to get through them for fear they will rot before i do nothing this delicious deserves to go bad that said there s a lot of them still to go through and they re somewhat time consuming to take apart in order to eat or drink to get to the sweet complicated flavor of the longan s meat one must first peel away the skin a thin but tough layer requiring piercing with something preferably better than your fingernail i broke a nail using my fingernail to do it the skin will peel away fairly easily after that as it is not really attached to fruit itself once you re done with that however you must remove the small smooth pit from the center which is partially attached to the fruit if you re popping them in your mouth it is easiest to just eat them whole and spit the pits out when using them in cocktails these too must be removed before starting the drink for each of our drinks we muddled a handful of longans with the alcohol usually about 5 of them the house favorite was actually the first drink we made the one pictured above though all three were fairly delicious and i would and will make them again longan ginger ale pictured longans novo fogo silver or other cachaca ginger ale muddle the longans with a 1 5 oz of cahcaca and strain into a glass over ice top it off with an equal amount of ginger ale garnish with another longan and you re all set whiskey longan longans jim beam or similar whiskey angostura or similar bitters grenadine muddle the longans with 2 ounces of the whiskey adding a splash of the grenadine and a dash of the bitters strain and serve up long gin and juice sorry i tried to resist making up stupid names for them for as long as possible i love stupid names though this cocktail was also the most surprising and complex so i m a little proud of it gin we used hendrick s vermouth we used dolin blanc longans bitters angostura in this drink we muddled the longans with the gin and vermouth poured it over crushed ice and then added a very heavy handed dash of bitters what other drinks would be good with longans what other strange fruits or other items would be good in drinks filed under cocktails 6 comments feasting like a princess in queens posted on january 4 2011 by thegastrognome but where in new york can one find a woman with grace elegance taste and culture a woman suitable for a king queens if anyone else grew up in a household with two brothers and only basic cable you too have probably seen coming to america over a thousand times and when the new york city borough of queens is mentioned this line is all that you can think of no just me again alright this is enough already seriously though we did a food excavation of queens on our most recent trip to new york we had overlooked the boroughs on our last trip and it was a hole in my eating repertoire that i was ready to fill fill i did with liberian stew egyptian offal and three separate trips to flushing chinatown for regular readers of my blog this will not be surprising i am a little late with this post but i wanted to report back the best of my findings kabab cafe astoria as has already been discussed in numerous places on this blog i m a bit of a sucker for anthony bourdain i am a wee bit embarrassed by it however it has also lead me to more than one good meal this is one of those good meals as has already been discussed in numerous places in the blogosphere there are downsides to kabab cafe it can be expensive there is no menu the dude is crazy it s small they serve weird food all of these are right if these are things that will turn you away from a restaurant i do not recommend kabab cafe if you re like me though and bit parts of big animals served by a mad scientist from a kitchen the size of a gas station bathroom turns you on this is the place for you a big portion of my enjoyment of the place was watching the owner chef ali work not the part when he laid into his poor assistant a thankless job it appeared rather his flicking of spices this way and that the clatter of pans and disorganized tossing of ingredients which all made their way to my plate turning out as great dishes i was taken aback upon walking in where i was gruffly asked nay barked at what i wanted to eat i didn t know so i was given the option of meat or veg i caught up to the moment and mentioned i was here for dead animal the good parts we were seated and given plates shown above of spice along with bread and hummus for dipping then the good stuff started coming out first was a rich sauce of braised cheeks and hearts over lightly scrambled eggs i use over loosely as it was sort of an un pretty pile of reddish lump on my plate that said it tasted great none of the dishes were overly photogenic and in fact the next three looked so alike it took in depth analysis to remember which was what second up though was sweetbreads this was the most traditional of the dishes followed by the brains which were a favorite of mine these pan fried ones were significantly better than the steamed version i d had in laos finally we had to cry uncle after a plate of kidneys we were too full to see what the mad scientist would bring us next the total for this 4 smallish plates with bread and snacks plus a few drinks was around 80 in the end not cheap be prepared for this if you go but do go if you love great meat in interesting preparations i thought the food was delicious and the setting unique and that it was worth every penny maima s liberian bistro when i first read about maima s it was about liberian food and that it seemed similar to ghanaian a favorite of mine i stored it in the back of my head then it popped up again winning an award for being one of the spiciest foods in nyc again a favorite food of mine anything spicy it had to be done had to despite being a little out of the way and in a neighborhood that us two were so out of place in that we got asked twice in the block between the car and the restaurant if we were lost by the cops we were impressed taking preventative measures or being helpful unclear once in the restaurant we would have been out of place had there been anyone else there we ordered seafood soup pictured and chicken stew aside from containing nearly an entire crab multiple prawns clams and a good chunk of fish the soup had tripe chicken feet and a pork knuckle i was impressed at the array of stuff in it as a sopped it up with fufu the thick starch it was served with it was spicy in the best kind of way a slow burn that works its way into every part of your mouth including the outside leaving you with fruit punch lips akin to that kid in elementary school the chicken was less spicy but possibly even more flavorful the underlying richness in these foods the warmth and flavor that is cooked into them really sets them apart a pair of gentleman in cable company uniforms sat at one of the other tables they held their giggles at our tears of pain and joy regarding the spice level and asked us if we were enjoying it we were they were from liberia they told us and loved the food at maima s it was just like what their mama would make in africa if that is not what an immigrant cuisine restaurant can strive for i m not sure what is all i know is that i d like to borrow a liberian mama maima to start a restaurant in seattle xi an fine foods xi an fine foods is no news to people in new york i d like to hope that anyone who truly loves great food wouldn t find it news either the shop we went to is in the basement of the flushing mall mall being a loosely used term zigging and zagging through a maze of deliciousness we got distracted by a dumpling here a soup there before we got to this stand lamb hand pulled noodles were the only thing on my mind until i looked at the menu then i wanted everything but i was there for the noodles and i d found to many distractions on my way in to afford more stomach room those noodles the most friendly little texture a noodle ever did have filling my mouth with big thick noodle then chewing apart with the lightest of toothy touches the flavor stood up to the texture spicy savory that combination of middle eastern cumin edge with bright popping chinese cooking techniques this is the noodle dish that my dreams are made of nan xiang xiao long bao we actually ended up going here twice by accident that was a very happy accident disappointed that new yeah shanghai house our favorite soup dumplings or xlb seemed to have closed we had researched what the next best might be and come up with nan xiang we went just the two of us and really enjoyed them i didn t think they were as good as new yeah but i did like it better than those from joe s shanghai and a number of others in new york a few days later we were headed back to flushing chinatown with my friend t a flushing native in fact her dad owns a restaurant in the area which has sadly been closed every time i ve been in town i ve had his food though me her fathers lobster sauce and a 5 hour drive it was not pretty right back to nan xiang t was excited to bring us to her favorite xlb spot in the hood which was of course nan xiang she felt bad that we had already been but us having been already were not complaining the food was again great this time we were able to branch out and try a few more things i wasn t a fan of their other dumplings but the noodles and the rice cake dishes were both excellent and then we found a giant pile of frozen awesome it was almost 100 degrees out and this was mango flavored frozen awesome from a basement of a mall behind nan xiang filed under african chinese new york offal seafood soup travel 1 comment aura at nita lake lodge in whistler posted on december 22 2010 by thegastrognome whistler is like a second home for me i grew up flying down its slopes and was raised on the what little great food was available there in 1989 not to sound too much like an old timer but when people ask me for a restaurant recommendation in whistler both the places i suggest have been open since the mid 80s sushi village and the rimrock now i have a third suggestion though i ve been there a tiny fraction okay the once of the times i ve been to the others i m inspired and hopeful about the ambitious innovative and yet totally fitting menu that aura at the new and already under new management restaurant at the nita lake lodge like so many restaurants aura had an off season prix fixe menu that was a great value we ended up there because my father had been previously for cocktails and snacks on the porch and was impressed meanwhile the rimrock was closed for a private party and the bearfoot bistro another place i d heard good things about and is not affordable in season couldn t be bothered to answer their phone i mentioned on twitter that we would be checking out aura and the restaurant wrote back excited i mention this only because some of the treatment we got is most likely not normal after talking with the manager i learned that he and the chef had previously worked together at the famed wickaninnish inn in tofino it made sense that the adventurous yet locally focused food had a history in tofino as between the wick inn and sooke harbour house that s what the town is building a name around you can see for yourself that the menu is ambitious and creative while i was sad that they didn t have the chicken oysters in savory oatmeal while i was there i enjoyed my appetizer which was the a duck confit agnolotti afloat in a mushroom broth so rich that robin hood would have been eying it the pasta on the agnolotti was rolled thicker than ideal but it held up to the broth because of this and once opened the soup was further enhanced by the meat my dad had a seafood ceviche trio that was fresh and bright accompanied by angostura bitters foam mandatory eye roll for foam compressed watermelon hitting food trend nail on head and my favorite part the granulated local honey the sweet of the honey and fruit matched up well with the seafood but it was the texture of the granulated honey that i thought made the dish that little bit of crunchy sweetness with the soft seafood after our appetizers and our ridiculously cheaply priced and good cocktails the chef came out to say hello he mentioned that he was doing all his charcuterie in house i know that my face lit up i love cured meat like a fat kid loves well cured meat he very kindly brought us a charcuterie sampler which was accompanied by a lovely fruit beer not my usual style but it paired perfectly my favorite from the platter was the veal cheek pastrami though the pickled tongue was also delicious as part of the off season prix fixe 41 3 course menu in season the chef told us there would be more options but it would be more expensive we got the previously mentioned appetizers as well as mains and a dessert the amuse bouche was a nice touch though not overly memorable for our mains my dad s tongue twister of a dish was charred arctic char with swiss chard hardy har har a perfectly cooked piece of fish with lovely accompaniments but my braised veal with buttermilk spaetzle was unbelievably good my dad refused to believe that such flavor came from simply grilled and braised meat could be so good and was asking for what spices were used i just continued to fork off pieces of meat did i mention the amount of meat on this dish could have fed a family of four we finished up with dessert or in my case a cheese plate of local varieties which was nice as i had never tried any of them before overall the meal was an incredible deal and while i will definitely be back for the prix fixe menu for as long as it remains such a good value three courses including an entree big enough for leftovers for 41 most of all though the 7 10 cocktails and the charcuterie plate really s...
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