Spring Potluck

Hello my amazingly good looking and well-fed readers,

I'm thinking a Spring Potluck of sorts is in order. Somewhere in a park. Or maybe just near a farmers market. Whatevs, it'll be a good time. If you're interested drop me an email (albanyjane @ yahoo.com) so I know to keep you in the loop. Or just leave it in the comments if you're not too worried about spam. I'll make it easy for you.

If I've emailed with you before, I prob still have your email, so I'mma be sending things your way any way (3rd Auntie, I'm lookin at you!).

Cheers,
Albany Jane

Dining Out for Life @ New World

Yesterday I joined the AOA Crew at Ric Orlando's New World Bistro Bar to support Dining Out for Life. Basically, 25% of the bill went to the AIDS Council of NENY. Sweet, eating out and helping out. I've been meaning to go here for ages, and Albany John wants to bring his brother (a big fan of the show Chopped, and the same show Ric won) here to try some of their inventive dishes.

We got the beef tongue and octopus toastada ($10) to share as an app. Get it. Ohhh, get it! So beefy and good. Albany John describes beef tongue when it's cooked this well as akin to a really hearty beef stew. Ric - can I call you Ric? I'm gonna call you Ric. Any way, Ric, this dish really showcased your skills.
There was a good amount of beef tongue, and little minced bits of octopus throughout. It added some umami goodness, so if you're squicky about seafood/octopus, this might be a good dish for you to try. Personally, I would be fine if this dish were just a hunk of cow tongue and an arm of uncut octopus (so good were the flavors), but bet that might put some people off.

Our waiter also mentioned this was one of his favorite dishes here, if not his favorite dish entirely. He was so freaking right. If you guys haven't gotten the hint, try this. SO good.

Albany John's a beer guy, so we got a flight of beers to sample. I just donated blood that day, so I figured I'd take it somewhat easy on the booze since one of the Red Cross guys told me if I went out for cocktails I'd be "One cheap date,". I'm a cheap date to being with, and while I was partially interested in testing out just how little liquor I'd need in me to catch a buzz, it seemed like it had the potential to go from funny to "We need an IV and some fluids" pretty quickly.

Right, so. We went with the flight of beer samples ($5.25). From left to right:
Brooklyn, New World Bistro Bar Double IPA made by Chatham Brewery, Ommegang Rare Vos, and Victory Stout.
Albany John thought this was a great value, and a fun way to compare some solid brews. He loves his Rare Vos, so that was the winner for him here, but the others were still fairly enjoyable.
We're not big IPA people, but it was cool to try their house beer. It turns out they want to get it labeled for them since it's made for them, but they have to go through federal licensing of some sort in order to get it, so for now they just call it their house beer. I thought it tasted a lot like the Rare Vos (which made Albany John gasp and be all like "What?! NO! They are not at all alike!") since it was on the bitter/floral spectrum. Whatevs. But I really liked that Victory stout. Really smooth, yet thin - easy to drink in warmer weather. Not dense and heavy like other stouts that drink like a meal. Plus lots of sweet caramel notes. More please.

Then on to entrees! Albany John got the Portuguese Tavern Style Pork and Clams ($24 for full portion), which seemed to be popular with our end of the table. What a full portion it was! It came in an impressively sized bowl and had a lot of clammy and porky goodness within. Albany John LOVED this dish. So good. I thought the fingerling fries were fried carrot rounds, heh. Kinda sweet.

Not spicy, either, although they dropped a bottle of Sriracha. Albany John thought about Napalming The Jungle, but it was so good that he didn't need any other seasonings.

Mid convo with the rest of our table, a bus boy ninja came by and took his dish. He still had some food left, and he was all... "Um. What? What just happened and where did my dish go?". We saw the bus boy and as we were going to be like "Dude! Hey! Can we get that back, please and thanks?" We saw him bussing the rest of the table and plop another dish on top of it. Ew. How do we know that wasn't dirty? It's a plate at the end of dinner. It's probably dirty. When you're bussing things, you don't pile other peoples dishes on top of other people's unfinished food. Well, you also should check with people when taking their food. Ironically, the bus boy asked me if I was done with my plate when it was basically just crumbs left.

Okay, so seems like not the best moment at our first time dining in this restaurant, right? Ric, you have some awesome staff, because our waiter was very attentive and handled things well. We found him and explained about the over eager bus boy. He said that he was wrapping it up, but after expressing some concern that we saw the busboy putting other people's dishes on it, he had them remake what was taken. Perfect response. We weren't looking for a remake on the entire meal, but we also didn't want to eat food that may have had dirty dishes on it either.

The remake! A few clams and some pork. Very well handled, NWBB. Service that will certainly guarantee my return and recommendation of your restaurant.

I've been dying to try their burger ($13). I love burgers. I think a good burger needs very little accoutrements, so I just ordered mine rare. Happy beef. Burger. Yay! I got the veggie of the day, some fairly well prepared summer squash. I could have done with a few more bits, but I've been on a real veggie kick this year, so maybe it's just me.

Sadly, the burger was the low note of the meal. The bun was pretty heavy (tasted like a potato roll) and over-buttered/oiled. Greasy. Can you see the crack on the northern part of the burger? There was also a crack on the other side of the burger too. What's up with that?

It was cooked rare in the center, but progressively more toward the edges, some parts being well done. Maybe I should start ordering burgers black and blue.

This wasn't a terrible burger. It just wasn't a $13 burger. My first impression after taking a bite was "Bready. All I taste is bread." The bun was somehow overwhelming.

I'm not too sure if the beef was even seasoned. It didn't have much flavor. I'm used to happier beef having this deep, rich, wonderful beefy flavor. This was pretty light - I had to really does it up with salt to bring out some beefiness. The texture wasn't my favorite either - a bit too small/fine of a grind, which made the more cooked edges of the burger taste kind of grainy/mealy. It was a fairly dry burger, but that greasy bun was distracting.

I found out the best way to eat it was to take a bite, but only eat the top bun (less greasy) and salt heavily. Fine, but I wouldn't order it again. Next time I'll get another tonge and octo tostada, or have a few other apps. Mmm.

Dessert was a shot of Nutella mousse ($4). It's in their dessert tapas section. Pretty good stuff. Nice way to end the meal. Creamy but not heavy. Kind of on the small side for $4, but still quite enjoyable.

One of my seat mates had a less-than-stellar lemon curd shot. The flavor was great, but it had this freaky grainy texture. I really couldn't figure out what it was. It was more chalky, so it wasn't like it was unincorporated sugar. Really odd. This person mentioned that perhaps attention to detail was a little off at this meal. Perhaps.

Overall though, great time dining out, an excellent service experience, and I look forward to returning and trying more of the menu.

DeFazio's to end Passover

Met up with Capitol to Capital and the FUSSYlittleFAMILY to celebrate(?)/break the end of Passover with some leavened wheat. DeFazio's Pizzeria (266 4th St, Troy, NY) for some sweet pizzas and BYOB (in this case, beer).

We started off with a large eggplant & spinach pizza and a small cheese. The eggplant was fried, but airy and not at all greasy. Good amount of cheese, but maybe it was just me, but I thought it could use a touch of salt. Easily remedied with a hearty shaking of cheese, though!

Somehow we ordered another small cheese pizza on their multigrain dough. It's still in the works, so it's not officially on the menu yet (and they only had small sizes available the night we were there). We just wanted one plain cheese on multigrain, but this worked out to our benefit since 2 small pies and two large pies (one more comin up) was just enough for 6 adults and two kids.

The regular white crust might be my fave, but the multigrain is a pretty close second. It's a totally different kind of crust beast than the original. It's flatter and a bit denser, with bits of nutty grains and such in the crust to add a crunchy little something every now and then.

Albany John loves DeFazio's whole wheat crust. I'm less of a fan of it since it's tougher than the standard (pillowy soft and delectable) white crust. But this multigrain could be a good midpoint for us.

Our final pizza de la resistance was a kalamata and hot sausage pie. The Profussor wanted something of a recreation of DeFazio's pie from the final leg of the Tournament of Pizza we judged last year. Mainly, those briny and delicious kalamatas. Pizza flashbacks in such a good way.

The kalamatas were okay, but not as briny as they were in the TOP pie. Daniel B. mentioned that these looked chopped and not hand pitted and plump like they were on the winning pie. Either way, still pretty good. But I think that TOP pie is going to be my white buffalo pizza for a while.

All of the dough was cooked well. No gumminess/undercooked dough. Although I might become one of those pizza obsessives who specifically asks for some burnished and blackened edges on my subsequent pies.

Good pizza, good people, good times! What more can you ask for?

The Easter of Two Hams, Except One that Wasn't

Easter is my favorite time of year to feed ham and pork products to the chosen peeps. Two years makes it a trend, right? Or do those years have to be in a row? Any way, years ago I was all "I'mma be adult and have Easter dinner!" which meant buying one of those big ass spiral cut Easter hams (b/c spiral cut = fancy) and then realizing that it was way too big for two people. And the only people free that night were my Jewish friends, so they came over for dinner and I fed them ham.
This year, The Profussor brought his family over to eat some pork products in the middle of Passover. Dude, that is some serious friendship. Or love of ham. Or friendship born of ham-love. Either way. Very stellar.

This year I decided to smoke a ham. That ham above. It was an uncured baby from 8 O'Clock Ranch, and I cured it while I was on vaycay in VA Beach with some of that magical pink curing salt from Jon in Albany.

I rubbed it with some brown sugar, maple syrup, mustard, and that was about it. Then hot-smoked it with maple chips for a few hours. Kinda dry, but in that cured meat way. The bone is going to make a pretty sweet pea soup. It was also PINK!

But that roast was only like 2.5 lbs, and it shrunk a lot in the smoker, so then I was all "I don't have enough food, I need to buy more or I'm a terrible hostess!" and I picked up a ham from Roma Foods. They called it a ham roast, but it was really just pork roast uncured. I wasn't really sure if it was ham or just pork, but hey, more meat, right?

I probably would have done a little more to it if I'd known it was an uncured "ham" roast from a pig, though. I think I overcooked it a touch. I don't know. I'm a ham gal, not a roast gal. It's a miracle I didn't turn it to leather.

We also had some mashed potatoes, beets, artichokes (got 'em from the co-op - the stems tasted so chemically and awful. totally inedible), and some awesome wine the Profussor brought over. Gewurztraminer, right? Just sweet enough. So yum!

I've been really into pavlovas lately. So easy to whip up (har har). Just add a cup or so of sugar to 4-6 egg whites. Plop on parchment paper and bake for 45 minutes - 1 hour in a 250 F oven.

You get a crackly exterior, and a soft and squishy interior. Plus the raw whipped egg batter tastes so good while you're licking the spatula cleaning the bowl.

Brandied pears in an apple cider reduction (toss in a wee sliver of lemon rind, and a few thick slices of ginger) for the adults. Naked slices for the kiddos.

I totally should have made some of these while the FUSSYlittleFAMILY was here, though. Cracklins! The skin didn't quite crisp up in the oven (more chewy, blah), but pop 'em in a low pan = heaven. Sorry guys, we'll have to do it again so I don't forget to make cracklins.

Oh and we also made some half-ass Hello Kitty latkes in a waffle maker.

The family was a blast to have over, and hopefully we can do it again some time soon.

Virginia Beach, VA

Hey hey guys! Albany John and I hopped a Chinatown bus down to Virginia Beach this week. It was pretty awesome - nice weather the whole time we were there.

We went with one of the busses from Allen Street in NYC. It was only $80 round trip for two people! Way cheaper than driving ourselves. Although service is generally something to be desired. It's usually a toss up between somewhat decent, and incredibly rude and hostile.

We hit up this shop in Manhattan Chinatown before getting on the bus. We so didn't prepare for a bus ride. But this place was pretty quick about getting us in and out, although we were so bad a time, we ran for the bus and just barely made it! Phew!

Albany John got some dumplings. Tasty, and cheap at $3 per dozen.

I got beef tendon soup with hand cut noodles. Eh, the noodles were kinda thick and gummy. And the soup was pretty bland.

So my big fear was that the bus was gonna crash, or something like that, and mid-nap I wake up to hearing people shouting about smoke and fire. Turns out it was nothing (maybe someone trying to smoke in the bus "toilet"?), but I was sooo jittery after that!

It was pretty rainy, and it took us about 9-10 hours to get there. Ugh. Sooo freaking long! But still safe, so okay.
We got in and checked in, then hit up this place (this is just a daytime pic) called The Boxx. They had the best music going when Albany John and I were walking around.
Cheap drinks, good music, happy people. I would so go back here again. I wish we had a place like this in Albany. There was also this dude kitted out in neon lights. Sweet.

St. Germain in the hotel room = vacation time!

The next day we walked over to Big Sam's (300 Winston Salem Rd, Virginia Beach, VA). We were in the center of the VA Beach strip, so this was about 1.5 miles south. A nice little jaunt.

It was a Sunday, so we had to wait a little bit. But nothing too shabby.

THEY HAVE SEAFOOD HAPPY HOUR!!! Which meant 1/2 lb of gulf shrimp for Albany John and me. So good. So big. So delicious. Only $5.99 per half lb!

The only "off" thing here was the "butter" it was melted margarine. Ew. Please don't call that butter. It's gross and oily. But also unnecessary with shrimp this good.

A Big Sam's limeade for $5.75 for me, and a $2.99 24-oz can of Modelo for Albany John. That cocktail had a kick to it!

Some more seafood. We got the she crab soup ($5.99) which was like creamy crab soup with lots of crab chunks in it. Not bad, but a little heavy. In the foreground are fried crab balls. Which I couldn't really eat b/c of the holistic diet and all, but Albany John soldiered through.
I made do with the 1/2 dozen raw oysters and dozen raw clams in the background. *sniffle* I love you seafood happy hour. So. Much.

The crab balls were very crabby - not a lot of filler, and good chunks of crab meat.
I managed about this much of the drink before getting a little too heady and bright red (the Asian alcohol flush). Awesome. Albany John helped me with it.

Then it was time to stroll up and down the beach!

It's not an Albany John family vacation without mini golf. This was 3-D and blacklight. $7 per person.
I tried to take a picture through the 3-D glasses. It was super cool and nerdy. Kind of a small space, but still - when do you get indoor 3-D blacklight mini golf?

Omg, epic Engrish sign. Susi & Wind? I think it was supposed to be sushi and wings.

There was also this thing called Crushfest going on at Waterman's. We waited in line to get in (really ineffective bouncer), and yeah. Too many people for me. Man, I don't even want to know how packed it gets during prime-time season.

(Another shitty day-time pic) Then we went to Abbey Road, possibly the worst dining experience we had in Virginia Beach. We had walked around a lot, and were in zombie mode. Food. Mouth. Whatevs.
Abbey Road is a Beetles-themed faux-English style pub with a huge selection of overpriced beers. There was live music when we sat down. Not that great.

I got a broiled crab cake. It was okay. Not too much filler. Side of broccoli instead of chips because I needed a veggie at that point. They were like mush. Oh well. Only $9.99. But not very filling for some reason.

Albany John got a roast beef sandwich ($8.99), and he asked the waitress for help deciding between this or another sandwich. WHAT THE HELL WAS WRONG WITH THE OTHER SANDWICH??? She was ALL about ordering the roast beef.

It was... hilarious in its poor execution. Thick nubbins of curled brown "roast beef". Arby's makes a better roast beef sandwich, and I'm not being sarcastic. It was still vaguely edible, and had we not been in zombie mode, or faced with loud not-very-good live music, it was a plate that would have gone back to the kitchen.

But hey, what's vacation without one bad meal?

We chilled back in the hotel that night. Albany John ran out and got these really tasty pulled pork sandwiches for only $3! They were way better than our earlier dinner at Abbey Road.

The next morning we got Mexican food at a place right across the street from Abbey Road on 22nd Street. Fresh chips (that I couldn't eat, boo!) with salsa, and very friendly service.

Some kind of a rum runner drink. Under $8.
I got chicken enchiladas with rice and beans. Not too bad, nothing spectacular, but fine overall and I'd get it again I spose.
Albany John's plate came with some greenery and avocadoery.

Carne asada, I think? It said it was roasted, but I'm pretty sure it was deep fried at the last minute to warm it up because the outside was super-oily. Don't get me wrong. It was gooood. But pretty sure it was fried at some point.

Then we walked some more, and I decided I needed ice cream. There are a few Kohr Brothers Frozen Custard stands along Atlantic Ave.

$3.75 for some custard. It was pretty creamy, but lacked the egginess of most custards I've had.

We beached ourselves for a while, and I got hit with 2 balls and had a kid trip over me 2-3 times in about 10 minutes while I was napping. The sun was great, but I swear I've got a magnet in me for sports balls to hit me in the face or chest, or for families to park by with their troop of hyperactive kids.

Then we walked back down Atlantic ave to check out a "park" that was basically a kids park. Yeah, not for us. But we did get a ton more walking in.

Then it seafood happy hour again, and we were right by Sam's, so....
More shrimp for me!
Walk along Pacific Ave. The southern end has this nice boardwalk over some water.

Then we tried to check out the public transit, and... I have a new respect for the CDTA. The bussing system in VA Beach sucks. Straight up sucks. One bus stopped running at 7 pm, then we had to walk back a mile or two to the right bus stop, which only ran hourly and was incredibly packed and the bus driver kept missing peoples stops because some dude was hitting on her.

During one of our walks to the right bus stop, Albany John goes "If we see a Chick-Fil-A, we are going in for a snack,", then lo and behold, there was a Chick-Fil-A right around the next corner!
Hoorah, Chick-Fil-A! Albany John got a spicy and a regular. The kid behind the counter asked if we were backpacking across the country. Heh, cute.

Grilled chicken sandwich. Yum! But pretty preservative-ified. It could have been like chicken-ham. So juicy.

And then we saw a Trader Joe's in the distance.
This one had wine. We picked up some snacks for the bus ride back.

Here's the VA Beach post of the Chinese bus. We got there way early and checked in. The driver was kind of a dick on this bus at first, but we got in pretty quickly, and the guy didn't take a break (which is also kind of worrisome re: the whole not crashing thing), but we arrived safe and sound. Also, what's up with almost all of the Chinese-speaking people getting primo seats up front, hunh? We were the first ones to check in, and somehow got middle/rear bus seats. I gotta learn Chinese.

Oh, there was also a 7-11 about a block and a half away from the bus stop, so I figured I'd give it a walk.

I'm not one of those chicks who's all "I need a guy/group of people to walk with me at night", but this area was pretty sketch after 10 pm. Some guy started shouting at me to come over to him in the parking lot of the bus stop (this might have been the same guy who was trying to sell Albany John drugs earlier), and... yeah. It was weird. Also, weirdos in 7-11, and it's probably not that great of a sign when a manager leaves for the night telling the staff to be safe. After that, there was some guy that jumped in front of me going "Hi! Hi there! Hi! How are you!?!". I just walked around him and stayed on the sidewalk (well lit area) to the bus place. After that I figured I should probably stay put and not go for any more late night walks in areas I'm not familiar with.

BTW, that Italian sub was pretty freaking good.