Arlington Cinema and Drafthouse

This week I was fortunate enough to get to see a stand-up comedian at the Arlington Cinema and Drafthouse. Now although I found the act entertaining, I can't exactly speak highly of the establishment. Now I preface this by saying I really like the concept behind the place. Basically it looks to have been an old theater which they renovated for movies, live music and comedy along with a decent selection of beers on tap. The place definitely has a lot of character and not as cookie cutter some of comedy club franchises can be.

However, the organization behind the place is really terrible. I bought my tickets ahead of time online and then arrived almost an hour ahead of time to get some good seats and maybe a drink. The last time I did this for a show, the club was smart enough to start assigning people seats while they had a drink in the main lobby. Instead at the Arlington Cinema and Drafthouse they decided to make you wait in line outside in the cold to pick up your ticket. To make matters worse, plenty of people seemed resigned to this fate so the line was actually starting to build up. My friend and I decided that good vs. okay seats and a comedy show wasn't quite worth an hour in the cold--myself especially as I hadn't foreseen the necessity of a winter jacket. When we asked if we could just go inside for a drink at the DRAFTHOUSE before waiting in the line outside we were told this was impossible?!

After going for a drink elsewhere we got in line and to add insult to injury, the people behind us who hadn't bought tickets ahead of time actually moved through the queue faster than us as the person scrolled through the will call list looking for our names. When we got inside, I realized why so many had been willing to wait in line for so long--there were some pretty bad seats inside. The seating is a bit like stadium-style seating however some 'levels' are 10-15 feet deep with multiple rows of seats which can put people directly in your line of view which would be manageable if you weren't above the act which really messes up your view.

Well to take some solace from the experience, at least I learned a bit of a lesson about the Arlington Drafthouse if I am ever forced to go there again--bring warm clothes!

Bugsy's Pizza Restaurant

Saturday was further exploring of King's St along with some of the friends we've managed to make in the couple of months since moving here to DC. We started at around where King St intersects with Hwy 1 and wandered towards the river. As can be the case with a larger group of people, choices were whittled away until you came at the lowest common denominator where everyone is happy: pizza and beer. After we had a look at the Potomac (a lovely viewing location is just north of King st when you get to the end) we saw nearby Bugsy's Pizza Restaurant (and sports bar) and liked the prices enough to head in.

Although in a bustling part of King St, the bar was thankfully not too loud and talking was not a problem. We started off with some pitchers of beer. The selection on those was not great and the pitchers were that small size where you wonder what's even the point of the pitchers at all. The pizza selection was equally nothing out of the ordinary. Perhaps I'm a bit spoiled from recent feasts of zpizza, but I thought the choices were a bit lacking.

However, when all was said and done, the quality of the pizzas were superb. We opted for the Olympic pizza which came with garlic herb sauce, mozzarella cheese, artichokes, onions, mushrooms and feta cheese. I've found that white sauce on pizzas can often be overly rich but the sauce here had just the right balance. The artichokes were of very good quality which is often not the case at other places. Overall, it was a good meal, though exploration of other locations in Old Town will certainly continue.

(Almost) Perfect Roast Chicken

Last night we treated ourselves to the always-delicious Roast Dinner. Kym usually takes care of the roasted veggies, Yorkshire pudding and gravy while I, in true patriarchal-style take care of the meat. Probably a bit unbalanced since the meat is for me really, but at least it has given me a lot of practice roasting chickens:

The first step of course is buying the raw chicken itself. At my vegetarian wife's request, I always purchase a free range hen. I can see her point of course--I don't exactly like the thought or sight of battery-caged hens--but I'd be lying if I said all the chicken I eat is free range. As a bonus point, the free range chickens, like the eggs they lay, do seem to taste better than their counterparts and are usually a bit more manageable of a size (less worry of overcooking the breasts while cooking the legs all the way through). I have heard that Kosher chickens are the best choice, however I have yet to see a combination Kosher and free range chicken. Maybe some day? For now, Trader Joe's has a pretty decent price on their free range chickens, though there is certainly a sizable premium you pay for the guilt relief.

The second step is one that most people seem to go without but can drastically improve the taste and texture of the chicken: brining. Though it takes a bit of foresight and planning, the final product is rewarding. Simply dissolve 1/2 cup of salt into 1/2 gallon of water in a stock pot. Then place the chicken into the water and refrigerate for 1-2 hours. If you can squeeze the chicken into a gallon ziploc back and remove as much air as possible, even better.

After brining, remove the chicken from pot or bag and pat dry with paper towels. Place on a V-rack roasting pan (I strongly recommend lining the bottom with aluminum foil for easier clean-up) breast-side up and set aside. In a small bowl mix together 1/2 cup olive oil, 1/4 cup dijon mustard and 2 Tbl of fresh or dried mixed herbs. Then
using a pastry brush, brush the breast-side of the bird, sprinkle with kosher salt, flip over and repeat. For the final preparation of the bird, peel 5-6 cloves of garlic and toss in to the cavity of the bird.

Place into a pre-heated 375 degree oven and bake for 30 minutes, then flip over the bird and increase the temperature to 450 to finish off the breasts for approximately 20-25 minutes or until a thermometer in the thickest part of the breast reads 160 and the thigh reads 165. Now as a side note, in my experience I've had the best results going by the color of the skin (a dark golden brown) rather than the thermometer. Of course when using the latter method you need to slice open part part of the breast and legs to make sure its not dark pink on the inside and that the juices run clear. The down side of this of course is are allowing juice to escape from the chicken which brings me to the final part: let the chicken rest! This is an essential step to avoiding stringy dry meat. Allow at least 25-30 minutes for the bird to rest before carving it up. It will still be plenty warm, like a lot of cooking it just requires patience and planning.

When carving the chicken up, although the slices will look cleanest when done with a chef's knife, I love the convenience of an electric serrated knife. Start with the breasts, then cut off the drumsticks, flip over and slice off the thighs and wings. If that's enough meat for the meal, I prefer to let the rest of the chicken cool off and pick the meat off later to refrigerate. Bon appetit!

Prepared Whole Foods

One of the great things about our location our fortunate proximity to both Trader Joe's and Whole Foods--each under a mile from our apartment. I was afraid that moving to the East coast would make me lose these two mainstays of my grocery shopping, but fortunately their massive success on the West Coast has allowed them to start populating neighborhoods over here.

Currently, Whole Foods is a place I reserve chiefly as a supplementary store for products I simply can't find anywhere else. Favorites such as free range eggs, Quorn, Halloumi cheese and Paneer simply aren't available elsewhere from what I've found. Whenever I wander through the store full of fresh organic vegetables, mammoth-sized prawns and delicious cheeses from around the world, I dream of someday being well-off enough to shop here. Not that it stops everyone, I've heard some peers refer to the store as "Whole Paycheck" as they succumb to the sights and smells of the store even with their modest income.

One part of the store that I've never tried out too much is the prepared food area. I have heard good reviews about it from friends so I decided to give it a try. In classic Vegemeatarian fashion, Kym went straight for the enormous salad bar while I dived into the international cuisine section with an array of meat dishes. Since you pay by the weight, I decided to forgo most of the starch-based dishes and try small amounts of several of the different meats. Kym is often disappointed with salads she gets outside of the home, but the wide selection at Whole Foods allowed her to create a more than satisfying concoction. I was very happy with all the different tastes I was able to assemble as well and it was even pretty healthy in terms of high protein and low carb.

As always seems to be the case at Whole Foods, the one downside was when we came to the register. Both of ours were approximately $12 each which is quite a bit to pay considering you you are serving yourself buffet-style and the ambiance is a grocery store. Still, a very delicious meal which I hope to do again sometime soon!

zpizza Delivery

We've certainly found our new favorite delivery place in zpizza. With the exception of Red Mei, we haven't had much of any luck finding non-pizza delivery food. There are services like Dr. Delivery and Takeout Taxi which deliver on behalf of a variety of restaurants, however when ordering for just two people, the prices for delivery end up a bit extortionate. I'm not sure whether the high prices are due to lack of competition, lack of demand or simply a high cost of business, but as of now, its not a feasible alternative--at least for us.

Luckily we have found a delivery place that although is another in the long list of pizza joints, is anything but 'just pizza'. Unknown to me, zpizza is acutally a growing franchise but you wouldn't guess it from its atypical menu. From Crimini and Shitake mushrooms with Truffle oil to pesto-based sauce with soy cheese and veggie burger crumbles, it has everything under under the sun. Thankfully it doesn't have the ridiculous policy that Pizza Nova in San Diego (the main 'high quality' pizza place in the area) had which didn't allow half-and-half specialty pizzas.

It even has the option of whole-wheat pizza crusts which I don't understand why more pizza places don't offer. And no, I'm not deluding myself into thinking this option makes the pizza healthy, we both really much prefer the taste.

On top of the great food they offer, zpizza also has a really well-build website which lets you place orders online as well as see tantalizing photos of the specialty pizzas they offer. So far, the service has been both fast and accurate--the latter which can definitely be a problem when dealing with people over the phone in a loud and/or busy call center.

If you're in the area and haven't given zpizza a try yet, be sure to do so!

A Long-Expected Party

Well we've continued to try to explore King Street a bit further recently and last night came across a great spot off the main street a bit: Bilbo Baggins. Though some might find the name a bit odd for a cafe/restaurant with no affiliation to Tolkien's book, I love it (and I'm not even the big LOtR fan out of the two of us).

As you might expect from the name, the inside is a bit cozy with low ceilings, and small floor space, but I really liked the atmosphere (with the exception on one particular customer whose obnoxious shouting voice seemed to indicate that she wanted to be the attention of not just her own conversation, but the entire bar--but I can hardly fault Baggins for that).

The service was a bit ditsy (I had to repeat both drink orders to her), but definitely friendly. It had a nice hole-in-the-wall neighborhood feel to the place that I really enjoyed.

The best part of the place, however, was easily the beer selection which comprised a 3-page long list of beers from all around the world. I get the impression that an extensive international beer selection is much more commonplace on the East Coast than it was in California which is a bit ironic since most of the domestic beers the places list are in fact from California, even San Diego specifically. I'm a sucker for Belgian beers and I was certainly not disappointed by my selection, neither in flavor nor expense really. In fact, though many would probably view this as almost blasphemous, when I'm spending less than $10/glass on a drink, I realized that I much more appreciate truly high quality beer than a glass of wine for the same price.

The food looked very interesting as well. Certainly not the typical pub fare that I've been seeing prevalent around DC as you can see from their lunch specials. Although very original, I can't yet comment on the quality since the couple next to us left quite a bit of their appetizers uneaten. Who knows though, they might have just had boring palates.

Red Lobster

Yesterday Kym dragged me to IKEA to finally get some 'essentials' for the apartment like candles, couch cushions and more flower vases. On the way there we spotted a Red Lobster which has become something of a running joke between us. Last year I received a $25 gift card to Red Lobster and was looking forward to it (since I have only had a whole lobster one other time in my life) when I looked up the menu online to find out they didn't have a single menu item that was vegetarian. I know that some people say "well if you don't eat meat, don't go to a place that calls itself something like Red Lobster" but in reality people go out to eat in groups and sometimes people in these groups might have different eating habits. Anyway enough ranting, the bottomline is that I had had this Red Lobster card burning a hole in my wallet for over a year now. Due to my kindness in going out to IKEA with her, Kym reciprocated with agreeing to finally go to Red Lobster.

Thankfully, although a committed vegetarian, Kym is far from one of those "I can't eat this if the cooking utensil has touched a dish containing meat" so, trooper that she is, she ordered shrimp fettuccine alfredo and picked out the shrimp. Myself, I figured when in Rome, order a live Maine lobster for one.

This being the second lobster I had eaten in my life and first in almost 10 years, I looked quite the fool trying to crack the shell and eat the crustacean. The last time I had the benefit of a friend who was versed in the ways of lobster dissection, but this time my dining partner was unfortunately as clueless as I was.

Still, donning the bib and diving into fresh lobster was rather fun. Being honest, it wasn't quite as good as I remember it. I don't know if that's just a hazy memory or if the restaurant I ordered from before had better ingredients and/or cooking methods. Given that my first lobster was at a well-respected restaurant near Pike's Place Market in Seattle and this one was from a chain restaurant, I can easily see it being the latter reason. Still it was a lot of fun and I'm sure I'll do it again some time, though maybe not at Red Lobster (as if I could convince Kym to go there again any time in the foreseeable future without a gift card).

Las Tapas Birthday Night

For the night of Kym's birthday we invited some of the friends we've made in the short time we've been here and headed to Las Tapas on King street. Tapas has long been one of our favorite types of cuisine, but its never quite the same with only 2 people sharing the dishes (and it's not quite fair for me to order a meat dish in those situations). So with six other people joining us for the occasion we were very much looking forward to it.

An immediate nice touch was that even though I couldn't see many groups of our size in the restaurant, Las Tapas was well prepared for such groups with large round tables making for much easier sharing of the dishes (no pushing together rectangular tables!)

Dinner was great fun as tapas meals tend to lend themselves to a more interactive dinner in comparison to the ones where people get their individual dishes and puts their heads down until finished. The food was definitely good. They had classic Spanish tapas dishes like garlic shrimp and patatas bravas as well as main dishes like Paella that you could share as well. The decor and atmosphere were very pleasant and the service was good--although there was a strange situation with the check where they were unable to split the 'required gratuity' (is that an oxymoron?) that they put on parties of 6 or more which left me with a funny looking bill including a 150+% tip and an extra blank line for 'additional tip'!

The only detraction from this place was that I thought the dishes were a little expensive. The vegetable paella in particular was $17 while consisting mainly of rice in a modest-sized dish. Still, a great meal overall with some pretty good food and fun atmosphere.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

Yesterday was my lovely wife's birthday so I decided to bake her a cake. Remembering one of our favorite desserts that we've ever had at a restaurant (Roy's in San Diego), I looked up some recipes for Flourless Chocolate Cake.

Currently when it comes to finding new recipes, I go back and forth between Cook's Illustrated's New Best Recipe cookbook (my overall favorite cookbook) and AllRecipes.com. It can be difficult to choose which go to. In a way it is like deciding between a published encyclopedia and Wikipedia. One is almost always well-researched, proofread and accurate while the other is an consensus of a huge number of contributers which can also lead to some fantastic information. In the end I went with a commentator's modification of a highly-rated recipe on AllRecipes.com, but it's certainly possible that New Best Recipes' would have been better.

Regardless, the recipe turned out delicious:

Ingredients:

- 1/2 cup water
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup white sugar
- 18 oz bittersweet chocolate
- 1 cup unsalted butter
- 6 eggs (3 whole eggs, 3 whites)

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C).
2. In a small saucepan over medium heat combine the water, salt and sugar. Stir until completely dissolved and set aside.
3. Melt the bittersweet chocolate in the microwave in a bowl with a splash of water (mix together every 15-30 seconds until melted). Pour the chocolate into the bowl of an electric mixer.
4. Cut the butter into pieces and beat the butter into the chocolate, 1 piece at a time. Beat in the hot sugar-water. Slowly beat in the eggs, one at a time.
5. Amply grease a 10 inch round cake pan (preferably a springform pan, in which case you need to double-wrap the pan with aluminum foil to avoid water from the water bath seeping in). Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Put this pan into a larger pan (I used our large roasting pan for this) and fill this pan with boiling water halfway up the sides of the cake pan.
6. Bake cake in the water bath at 300 degrees F (150 degrees C) for 45 minutes. The center will still look wet. Chill cake overnight in the pan. To unmold, dip the bottom of the cake pan in hot water for 10 seconds and invert onto a serving plate.

My suggestion is to put pieces in the microwave for about 15 seconds so that its the consistency some refer to flourless chocolate cake as 'molten chocolate', before serving with a dollop of vanilla ice cream or whipped cream. Absolutely delicious, I think next time I might experiment with using milk chocolate, though the contrast in temperature and flavors of bitter hot chocolate and cold sweet ice cream was superb! It's times like this that I dream again of going to culinary school to be a pastry chef.

Rustico

Though our most proximate general locations to go out are Old Town and Del Ray, while searching Yelp I found a place very nearby to us, Rustico. I've always wanted to have a comfortable place to have regular stops with right around the corner, so I had high hopes for Rustico. Unfortunately, I doubt this is going to turn into that sort of place.

The first problem with Rustico is the name. Although it is a nice sounding name, unless the owners were going for irony, 'Rustico' seems a very strange name for the joint. In Italian, 'Rustico' means 'peasant' which is odd for a place with $6-10 beers and $15-25 entrées. "Goat Cheese & Duck Trap Smoked Salmon Terrine" isn't exactly what comes to mind when I think of 'peasant food'. The clientèle there was certainly anything but peasant-like but rather surprisingly upscale.

This is not to say that I didn't like Rustico. The beer list was more than extensive, the food looked very tasty and the mosaic-style decorations were very cool. However, it was not what I was hoping for from the local neighborhood bar/eatery named 'rustic'.

Bar Louie

Having been here in D.C a few weeks now, we finally made the trip into the heart of D.C. along with the swarms of tourists. By that I mean the zoo, White House, Washington Monument, and the National Mall (apparently a massive National park and not a building of Brookstone's and Discovery Channel stores as I had believed). After cruising the area for a while, the heat and amount walking we had done that day started to weigh on us so we headed back towards the Metro. Along the way however, the promise of appetizers, a cool drink and air conditioning beckoned us to give a place there a try, specifically Bar Louie.

Apparently Bar Louie is a fairly well-established chain of bars in the Chicago area, though I had never heard of them. Quickly I could see why it would be popular. Though some might see it as 'confused' I quite liked the meshing of different styles of bars. In one sense it was a lounge with comfortable booths an low-level lighting. In another sense it was a sports bar with screens playing the college games in most every direction. In a few hours, it looked like it could easily turn into a night club-type setting with good music playing, a long, well-stocked bar and standing tables.

The food was pretty standard bar fare but definitely some tasty looking options to decide between. The service was very friendly and accomodating, however I had one gripe which was that the tortilla chips we ordered were distinctly a bit...stale. And no, this is not coming from some spoiled San Diegan, as I confirmed at the next restaurant I had chips at. Based on everything else about this place however, I am almost certain this was an unfortunate one-off mistake and not an indication of the overall quality of the place given everything else.

Prices were about what you would expect at this sort of place, definitely not to crazy, but not exactly any Happy Hour steals on the menu. Overall though, somewhere I could see myself returning to next time I'm in the area!

Chadwick's Happy Hour

Right now we are unfortunately without that great coupon book we used to abuse in San Diego, so last night we decided to check out what local happy hours there are with a combination of Yelp and DC Happy Hour Guide.

Our first stop was Stella's which looked like a good happy hour, but after the half hour walk to get there we found it was closed! And not the 'closed-between-lunch-and-dinner' type of closed, I mean 'out of business' from what we could tell. This even more disappointing given the fact that our second choice was on the complete opposite side of Duke street.

Fortunately the quality of our second stop made up for this. Chadwick's happy hour menu is chock full of classic and yummy bar food for very cheap prices (around $3-4 per dish) and the drinks are nicely priced as well ($2-3 for bottle beer and well drinks).

The atmosphere was a refreshing mix of all sorts of different people. The first person we sat next to was wearing a tuxedo (which worried us a bit a first that we weren't properly dressed) followed by college age kids, followed by 40+ couples on a date and even an older gentleman in a fisherman's cap appearing to buy his dinner for the night with the low-priced happy hour appetizers. Although it was very busy, the ceiling was huge which prevented the sound from reverberating too much like it did in Murphy's, the bartender was extremely friendly and the food service was quick.

The dinner entrees looked delicious as well, but the happy hour will probably be what draws us back in the future!

Murphy's Trivia

Although we thought on principle we needed to do more exploring of our surrounding neighborhood eateries, the lure of Quiz Night at Murphy's Pub was too much and so we headed down there at 8:00 last night.

The special of half-price burgers was great for me, but I thought it was rather strange that the veggie burger was not included in this. I guess it was because the veggie burger is cheap in the first place, but still, a bit odd.

Going to trivia nights was something I did several times as a student in Hull and always enjoyed being humbled as we'd always get walloped, especially when I offered no help on the more Euro-centric questions.

In some ways this trivia night was even better than the ones I had been to in England. Specifically, it was six different sets of ten questions including two special picture rounds and a clever 'theme' round where all the answers had a double-entendre related to golf. The quizzes I went to in England tended to be around 30-40 questions, so the extra length was nice. Although my English wife might not agree, I also appreciated having a better chance at answering the more American questions.

I do have one gripe about the night. While we were a ways off from winning of course, the top two 'teams' were actually one rather large group of friends/trivia buffs who I'm sure were conferring with each other most of the night. While its fine for a bunch of people to work together, its a bit cheeky to call yourselves two teams and nab two of the prizes. I imagine the 4th place team who missed out was probably a bit more miffed than I was.

Still, all in all a very fun night (much less crowded than Saturday night as I expected) and a long one too what with 60 questions!

Red Mei Delivery

It's been a long week so far and while we didn't feel like cooking, we didn't quite feel like making the 2 miles there-and-back walk to King Street so we decided to check out a delivery place available in our area. A nice arrangement our apartment building has with local eateries is a wall where they can put brochures up which I much prefer to my previous situation of brochures hanging on my doorknob as I got home or slipped under the door.

As you'd expect the majority of the brochures consist of similar looking pizzas, and while I certainly am a fan of pizzas, I don't eat it in the frequency that the proportion of brochures would seem to indicate is the norm. Eventually we found Red Mei, a 'fresh Asian cafe' which looked promising and also importantly: cheap.

The menu selection for vegetarian was existant but not abundant. Usually Asian food is great for simply being able to substitute Tofu into most dishes, especially curries and noodle dishes, but here there seemed to only be two vegetarian dishes, not even spring roll appetizers. Fortunately for us those two dishes sounded tasty--Pad Thai and Coconut Curry.

While it was nice to have delivery available (a service not by any Asian food delivery I could find in San Diego), I can't exactly commend the service. While on the road, the driver had to call me to give him step-by-step directions to our place (a large apartment complex named after the neighboring Metro stop) and then forgot to bring a pen with him to sign the credit card slip in the lobby.

The food hit the spot, but admittedly it wasn't the greatest Pad Thai I've had, but it did at least taste a bit 'fresher' than some others I've had. The Coconut curry was good as well, but again nothing spectacular. It might be that Asian food simply isn't going to be as good on the East coast as it was on the West and maybe I should focus on the European and seaside food which the East coast should be superior at. Perhaps though, this was simply what you get for $6.99/entrée delivery food around here for which I shouldn't really complain. If I'm feeling both thrifty and lazy again here in the future (a distinct possibility) I might ring Red Mei up again.

Introduction to King Street

Last night was our first real exploration into King Street. After a small bite to eat at our place, we headed to King Street to look for a place for appetizers and drinks. Normally our favorite places to go out at night are pubs where there's usually less blaring music, more seats and it easier to chat. So when we came across Murphy's Irish pub, it looked like just our kind of place.

To begin with the atmosphere was great. There was an older British guy playing and acoustic guitar and singing old drinking songs. The service was friendly and relatively fast, the food prices were decent, and Sam Adams Oktoberfest was on tap. Kym had a Ploughman's sandwich giving her a taste of home and I had the staple burger. Both tasted pretty good; it was your standard pub fare.

As the night went on however, the fact that it was a Saturday night began to show. The place filled up to the point where it no longer resembled much the pub we had entered at the beginning of the night. And while I might personally disagree with the principles behind California's smoking ban, I was reminded of the benefits it gave me as the bar filled up with smoke. As we found it more and more difficult to hear what we shouting at each other, we decided to call it a night.

All in all, it was a fun night and I think we'll go to their Trivia night that they have there on Tuesday's, but I don't think I'll head there on a Friday or Saturday night again anytime too soon. Good thing we have an entire city left to explore!

Arrival in DC!

Well we made it! Quite a trip- with all the driving done in 3.5 days.
So Washington DC here we are- ready to eat! (among other things). Actually we have decided to live in Alexandria, Virginia. Just a short metro ride to downtown DC. We are completely loving Alexandria where we live close to Old Town and the wonderful King Street. As soon as we saw King Street we knew this was the place for us- it is lined with interesting looking eateries- tapas bars, Indian restaurants, Thai, fish and chips, Irish pubs- all within a few blocks walk from our place!
We are also happy to see that our fears about grocery shopping have been eased. We have Whole Foods, Trader Joes, Costco and 'Giant Foods' a short drive away. Most stores seem to stock our usual staples, with a few exceptions and the Whole Foods is an improvement on Hillcrest's.

Food cross country

Well there definitely is not a whole lot of options when it comes to vegetarians eating on the freeways of America. We have been following route 40 most of the way and Subway has been consistently our best bet. (A horrible never to be forgotten incident at Taco-Bell has scared Kym off roadside burritos for ever). One other reason initially for our choice of Subway was that we had been generously given a subway gift card- but after discovering that this card was not accepted in the majority of states this became less of an issue. (In fact this type of behavior on the part of subway would usually have led me to forgo eating there at all, but as I say, there was little option.)
Subway has been very varied. Gone is the fresh spinach, cucumbers and veggie patties of California, replaced instead by dodgy looking Subway pizzas in many of the Southern States we've passed through.
Other places we have visited have been Wendy's (jacket potatoe makes a nice change if a bit heavy on the carbs and low on, well, take your pick: vitamins, protein, minerals... The meat eater of the couple, I have enjoyed this small change from a sandwich to a burger. Variety can be everything at times!
One other surprise successful trip was actually to MacDonalds. Kym ordered the Southwestern Salad without the chicken and really enjoyed it! She even got the added benefit of some protein from the beans. And don't even let me get started about the fruit and yoghurt plate- I think she is in love. Maybe a return to reality and a wealth of culinary options will restore her to her senses. I must say though I was surprised at McDonalds myself- they really got hit by Supersize me, everything at least seems a lot healthier since the last time I ate there years ago- and no option of large fries anymore. The media is a powerful force!

Despite all this we are craving proper food- a thai curry sounds like the most wonderful thing ever right now!

Moving on....

It is with a great mix of sadness, anticipation, and excitement that I must move this blog to new pastures on the other side of the US. My wife has won a place at Georgetown Law school and we will be shortly heading over to Washington DC to spend three years over there. The blog will follow us, (inevitably under a new name!), and we will continue to explore and have culinary adventures on the East Coast!
We will definitely miss wonderful San Diego and all our favorite culinary hang outs- but we look forward to seeing what DC has to offer!

Electronic Cooking!

I was recently given a DS Lite for my birthday which was a fantastic gift! Not only do I get to have all sorts of tetris, animal crossings, and Mario fun with my friends around the world, but I also have a new way of cooking. (One that is a lot cheaper and a lot less likely to make one gain weight than the regular kind!). There are two great cooking programs on my DS: Cake Mania and Cooking Mama.

Cake Mania is basically a lot like purple place, if anyone has played that. The story is a young girl out of culinary school trying to make enough money to get her grandparents bakery up and running ( a worthy goal I think, I always appreciate the back-stories behind these little games!). In order to make the money you have to make cakes of different shapes, frost them with various colors and then add on different sprinkles and toppers. As time goes on you make double and even triple layer cakes. Along the way you need to please critics, brides, busy businessmen, and even vampires! It's a lot of fun, that bears something of a relation to real cooking in so far as time management and doing 20 things at once in a clear systematic order without forgetting anything. I have had a lot of fun with it!


Cooking Mama for me s a little less fun in the sense there is no clear aim/ and no back-story. However the game itself is much more varied. You are given a variety of recipes to follow and go through slicing grating, mixing, flipping, fanning and all sorts of other things with your stylus. You might even have to blow on the sauces, or the coals of the BBQ. At the end of each recipe you get a little medal based on how well you completed the recipe (bronze silver or gold). Success will also allow you to open up new recipes.
One aspect I found a little difficult s that most of the recipes are Chinese/ Japanese in origin (styles of cuisine I don't tend to cook with very often.) In some ways this was kind of fun- to learn new aspects of cooking in a roundabout way, unfamiliar ingredients and cooking methods. However it would have been fun to electronically cook some of the things I am more familiar with- Indian, Italian, Greek, American etc.


Both games have been incredibly fun- I hear they now have Cooking Mama for the Wii- it sounds really fun- maybe someone will invite me to play sometime!

Mama's Bakery & Lebanese Deli

We've lived on Alabama street for over a year now in San Diego. Whenever we mention this fact to anyone we are immediately asked if we have tried out Mama's Bakery & Lebanese Deli. Maybe it's because we never travel up that far north on our street, or maybe because generally when we eat out we tend to go somewhere more comfy to sit down, have a drink and be "out" whatever the reason it is only very recently that we have managed to end up eating the place.
As you drive down Alabama street, this place really does not too inviting and if it wasn't for the rave reviews I might have passed it by. Once you pull up and walk inside however you see a clean airy space full of wholesome people tucking into equally wholesome food.
The rave reviews were, as they often are, spot on. I was immediately impressed with the breadth of the menu- so many new (to me) and interesting options to choose between. We chose a couple of different wraps and a veggie combo type platter. The home made pitta/ flatbread that is used for the wraps is absolutely fantastic, fluffy and warm and quite unlike any other pitta I have had in San Diego. Sauces used to complement the wraps were also top notch, and the chicken in my wrap was so just fantastically tender- done to far greater perfection than many of the fancy eateries in town. We were also enamored with the veggie platter- I often end up being extremely disappointed with falafel at the fast food Mediterranean places, it tends to be dry, or greasy, whit very little remnant of it's chickpea past. This was quite different though- lemony, very moist and extremely moorish! The hummus was wonderful and the tabouli so chock full of parsley it was delicious.
What a wonderful place- and just down the street. If only the seating area was a little more comfortable I think we'd be here at least once a week!