EPTAlso, don't bother reading this if you're not a food lover. this first post with an extraordinary lack of pictures will be somewhat meh, but as I wait on a decent camera I wanted to start typing.
Yes, a properly prepared meal, drink, dessert, any edible can leave you with a feeling of just "ohhhh my gooood this should be ILLEGAL it's so good," and i'm here to write some possible reviews of restaurants that I go to and visit in a variety of different places (mostly around washington D.C. and new york, where I live and go to school) to maybe give anyone who wants to read this insight onto why some people become such foodies.
Well, tonight, my family drove up to baltimore because my aunt is going to a mathematician's conference. if you're curious, yes, she's a math teacher, teaching for a school called Brecks in Minnesota. While out, we went to three different restaurants, a japanese ikeyazaki (I think... I forget what the style is called exactly. T-T ) style restaurant, a tapas bar, and a place for dessert. So, without further ado, let's go into what made these things so great!
First, the japanese restaurant named Pabu (which is a corny joke on the way they think a japanese person would say the english word "Pub."). Japanese is actually the culinary style I wish to pursue (which is a bit odd for a white guy because we're pretty much coralled into western cooking styles), so I do know a little bit more about it then your average diner, but unfortunately not as much as i'd like to, and not enough about this kind of un-traditional place. We went here as a start to our journey, got some drinks and a few appetizers to include beef tendon and braised lotus root. The Beef tendon was done very well, but sadly, is simply not to my liking. For those who have not eaten tendon before, Once cooked it becomes a very gelatinous, odd substance, kinda like eating a bit of hardened fat with no meat on it. It can be seasoned perfectly, but you can't REALLY get rid of that texture that is just to me so offsetting, so despite having a good flavor on it (some nice spices and a tiny bit of sesame oil) it just wasn't truly appealing to me.
Next was the braised lotus root. Now, I Have never actually had lotus root until today, so it was a new experience to me. That being said, it was a PHENOMENAL dish and was far and away one of the simplest ones to make. It's simply a little bit of a lotus root braised in sesame oil and soy sauce with a little bit of toasted sesame seeds on top. The flavors came together perfectly, and the natural sweetness of the lotus root really meshed perfectly with the sesame and soy sauce. That and a special feature of lotus root, it's ability to stay crunchy and firm almost no matter how much you cook it (think watercress style texture but with much better flavor) led to it really being the star of the meal.
After a little bit of sake and a few other appetizers including a decent pork belly on a stick, we went to the next place, a tapas bar called Pazo. Pazo was also a very good restaurant, we sat in the lounge and enjoyed some interesting desserts. Here, two particularly stuck out to me among the wide variety of things. First would be peaches wrapped in a spanish cured ham (similar to prosciutto but a little less salty and chewy) and their take on pork belly.
Let's start with the peaches, shall we? there really wasn't much to it. they were sliced peaches wrapped in a spanish cured ham with a skewer stuck through it, designed to be eaten in one bite. unfortunately, they were a bit large for one bite but hey, I have a big mouth so I managed it. This was really an astounding thing for me. Peaches and ham? That so doesn't go together in my head, but when I tasted it, it was simply stunning. A true example of how two great ingredients when put together could be something fantastic. The salt level was perfect, just enough to give the peach a little extra flavor to it but not too much to overpower. The peach was perfect as well, perfectly ripe to give it that nice, soft flavor, and make it pour out with sweet juicyness when you sank your teeth into it. for a nice quick appetizer dish it was fantastic.
The tapas bar's pork belly was... simply a thing of beauty. I have NEVER had pork belly this good before. It was just a simple strip of pork belly atop some olive oil, seared for grill marks before being finished in a woodfire oven. When it came to the table, I immediately grabbed for a fork and knife and stuck my fork into it. and it came apart. To those of you that don't know, when done properly, this is like bacon so tender that you could cut it apart like fish. Put a simple bite into my mouth and just sat there, savoring it. It wasn't oversalted as most places tend to do (I'm looking at you, Pabu.) and as my teeth chewed through it, it was like molten gooey deliciousness covering my palate. The texture was light, almost liquidy, so melt-in-your-mouth (which is, by the way, one of the only things other than ice cream i will ever attribute that comment to) delicious that it just made me stop and order EVERYONE at the table to try a piece of it. My first bite was far and away the best, and this single piece of pork belly has set the bar now for every pork belly I try in the future.
Finally, we made our way to a third non-chain, fine dining place called Wit and Wisdom. If any of you know Michael Mina, you know he and all of his restaurants are seriously nice places, and this was no exception. After traversing through 3 and a half blocks of rain, we went in because my aunt had read a chowhound review saying that Wit and Wisdom's desserts were the real deal. and oh dear lord they were. Between the baltimore bar which was something like the fanciest most delicious reese's you'll ever eat, to a banana cream puff served with hazelnut ice cream and a side of tapioca on the plate, to a rhubarb dish involving a sorbet, cream and crumbled cake (Not a crumble, there is a difference), there was nothing second-rate about this place.
Unfortunately, while Wit and Wisdom had 3 amazing desserts, the fourth was a little different. The flavors were very good, don't get me wrong. it's still a dessert that shines through as an excellent finish to any meal, but while the other 3 were simply amazing, this was just... good. Why does it deserve it's own paragraph then, you may be thinking? Because it is the most technically advanced and complicated dessert recipe i've ever seen. Some people think souffle's are hard, but there are many tricks to make them work. the only thing about souffle's is you have maybe 5-10 minutes of that perfect consistency before it starts going bad, and about 30 minutes to an hour after making it the souffle will fall, and most think of that as a failure. This isn't about a souffle though. This is about a work of art known as a summer trifle, a seasonal dish around just for the summer season.
I gotta be honest, This had so many components to it I don't even remember them all. It was a cup, similar to ones many of us drink from, glass, about 2-3 inches in diameter and maybe 4-5 inches high (large dessert, yes.) Starting from the bottom up, we had a small layer of an elderberry cream. On top of that was a small layer of crumbled up basil pound cake (Basil still weirds me out in desserts). On top of that, there was a gelatinous kiwi bit of deliciousness that i'm not quite sure how to describe beyond that (I'm brand new to this type of thing you know!) Atop that, we're almost halfway up the cup, and come to a large layer of mixed fruit (to include blackberry's, strawberry, raspberry and blueberry) mixed with a variety of hibiscus petals and other floral notes. Atop that was another layer, but unfortunately, I don't remember what it was! T-T I'm such a terrible critic. atop THAT layer was a raspberry foam, and on the VERY top was sprinkled a little bit of strawberry lemonade sorbet. The number of techniques that have to be used to create this dish are astounding. and it's just a single dessert. The flavors were good but not particularly to the likings of anyone at our table, but I simply had to applaud Michael Mina's Pastry chef's for managing to get this all together and working well and creating a recipe that leaves it with the ability to be served no more than 10-15 minutes after being ordered.
All in all, I recommend all three of these places highly. We spent the majority of our time at Pazo, the tapas bar, simply for the variety of the food and our server, Jonathan, who really made our stay there enjoyable. Pabu was very interesting and holds a very large collection of sake's able to be ordered (Of which I have to be slightly skeptical, simply because unlike wine sake does not age well and is meant to be drunk within 6 months of it's creation.) However, as a place that does know good sake should be served cold (The only reason to warm sake is to mask the poorer notes in low-quality sake's) I assume they would know more about it as well. We didn't make it to wit and wisdom in time for anything but desserts, however judging from the quality of the dessert's I would recommend that as an ideal location as well.
Bah. that last paragraph was just a rambling pile of junk. oh well.
Let's finish with a little about me! I am 22 years old, gay, spent some of my time at a normal university (started at the request of parents, withdrew, and am now in pursuit of my own goals instead of theirs), and heading to Culinary institute of America, Hyde Park. I have spent a lot of time in the kitchen already, and luckily due to the upbringing of a fairly wealthy family have had my fair share of quality dinners and desserts. I have a decent palette for food and have always been interested in japanese foods and culture, and one day wish to actually move to japan to study under real, proper japanese chefs. Until then, I will be married to my work, improving knife skills, speed, heat control, plating techniques and everything else I can. Also, I really love soccer and am improving on my goalkeeping ability. Yay! Hopefully I can make the club team at CIA.
Well, I hope it was a decent read. I know my formatting is off but this was thrown together quickly and I didn't have the patience to go through and figure out exactly how to format it, where I want headers to go and everything. Also, without pictures of the food to help get that image of lusciousness (or, if I do something on poor food, image of misery) in your head, I felt as though i was missing too large a portion of things to really start refining this post.
I'd like to do one of these a week if i can find the time and material to do them. If you have any questions, requests for recipes or techniques, or recommendations for me, please leave them below! Just, try not to be TOO mean or trolly to me? My ego is small and easily destroyed right now.
Thanks! Love you all! <3
