Month: August 2008

Often with the tallasiandude’s parents we go for dinner at the Mandarin Deli in Northridge. It’s pretty close to the house, it’s very mellow and low-key, and the food is really great.
Especially the cold cucumber pickle. Oh my god, it is so delicious: rough-chopped cucumber with some kind of intensely garlicky dressing and some cilantro. I can’t quite tell if there is any sugar or vinegar involved; it’s one of those pickles where it’s probably just salt but some crazy alchemy makes it into a super-savory complexity that makes me happy all the way to the end of the plate. Can’t get enough, especially in warm weather.
The shredded radish pickle is also excellent, we learned on this trip. It looks much like the daikon-thread pickle one gets as pan chan in Korean restaurants, but has a slightly different taste, almost as if it has just a whisper of fish sauce in it.
The spicy seafood chile noodle soup did turn out to be jambong, as we’d hoped. Hilariously, all the Chinese family at the table informed us that this soup is Korean, while every single Korean restaurant in Chicago that we asked for jambong told us, no, we don’t have that, it’s Chinese. This was a nice version, lots of heat in the buttery broth, but with a bit of a charred note that kept me from drinking down every drop.
The dry pork sauce noodle was delightful as always, a savory brown mess of pork and scallion and cabbage that makes those noodles into what lo mein desperately wants to be. There was also a lighter, brighter noodle with a serious chile kick and some shredded chicken, carrot and cucumber — i didn’t catch its name, but I will definitely try and find out next time so we can get some more.
The rice cakes were gummy, sadly, but came with a huge pile of perfectly crisp-cooked vegetables — cabbage, carrot, and lots of snow peas — in a stupendously savory but light sauce. There’s another savory brown dish that we always get, deliciously similar to the dry pork sauce noodle but involving more vegetables and instead of the noodles a bunch of shredded shao bing. The wonton soup is a classic of course, and I like this broth more than most. It’s darker and pepperier somehow, and gives a nice contrast to the bland dumplings.
But i think the very best thing that we ordered this trip was the tofu with thousand-year eggs. Sometimes the tofu can be bland in this dish, but this had absorbed just enough of a very flavorful soy dressing, and the edges of the cut eggs dissolved into a salty, creamy mess to add even more flavor. I love this dish anyway but this was for sure the best version I’ve ever had, and only a vague attempt at social grace kept me from licking the plate entirely clean.

On our way to the airport as we left Kansas City, we stopped for lunch at Stroud’s Fried Chicken. Just as a change of pace from all the barbecue meat, we figured we’d have a little fried meat. Heh heh heh.

Observe, please, this mess of chicken for 7, so bounteous in its largeness that it required an additional satellite plate just to contain it.

The chicken is delightful. Very crispy skin (be still my heart) and moist meat… my only complaint is that I had to salt it, but you know, that’s hardly a complaint.

Perhaps it’s done this way to balance the mashed potatoes, which were supersalty — I actually really enjoyed them, but pretty much everyone else thought they were too salty for comfort. The green beans are cooked to death, as you might expect, but they seem homemade, studded with bits of bacon, rather than canned, and they are delicious.

Every chicken meal comes with salad or soup, potatoes, beans, and cinnamon rolls. The cinnamon rolls are dessert: these things are insane, gooey warm cinnamon treats. We nibbled ’em, but were so full that we ate most of ours a few days later, warmed back up once we got to LA.

On the way to the stadium for the Red Sox/Royals game, we stopped for dinner at Arthur Bryant’s barbecue. I was very excited about this, having read Calvin Trillin’s rhapsodic odes to the joys of Mr. Bryant’s Kansas City meat cookery. Bryant’s is the ur-barbecue in Kansas City. When my brother found out I’d been to KC, his only concern was, “Please tell me you went to Arthur Bryant’s.”

This is a brick building across from a vacant lot, with cheap tile floors and formica tables, and a long line up to the counter of meat pilgrims from every walk of life. You order your meat from the first man, and your sides from the cashier; there is clearly a method to this, and we did our best to fake our way through. And brother, let me assure you that it is worth it.

These beef burnt ends are where it’s at, moist, tender, and sopped in a fantastic dark red, complex sauce that’s only just barely sweet. There is pillowy Wonder bread (the ordering window is lined with the brightly colored bags of it) underneath, turning into a savory muck as the sauce soaks in. The pulled pork is also exemplary, but I had to go for the ends.

The fries are nothing special, I wouldn’t bother on a return trip. But the slaw is excellent, chopped and well-seasoned, not sweet, and the beans are excellent as well. These beans are not as sophisticated and balanced as the ones at Jack Stack, but they are spicy-delicious and go well with the meat. The lemonade is too fake-sweet — if you want something other than beer or iced tea, I’d go instead for the sugary, bright-red cream soda, something I’ve never seen anywhere else.

We have acceptable barbecue here in Massachusetts, particularly at Blue Ribbon, which is quite near the house, but there is really nothing like eating barbecue in its native habitats, made by people who’ve been perfecting the art for generations. Yum.

This is the quintessential American summer experience: drive up to strip mall, park outside frozen-treat stand, loiter, select delicious treat, and sit crouched on the curb licking at the freezing sweet goodness, feeling the night breeze finally blow and cool you off, just a little tiny bit.

Sheridan’s version of this involves very rich softserve, ie, custard, either plain, in a smoothie or sundae, or (most popularly) turned into a concrete, which is to say mixed up with a bunch of random solid material, like say, pretzels. Or chocolate bits and peanut butter. Or berries and marshmallow cream. Sheridan’s does distinguish itself with a wide and very pleasing array of exotica that can be mushed into your vanilla or chocolate custard, and you could come up with something exciting for just about every taste.

Mine was vanilla with pretzels, so i could taste the creamy custard and get a little hit of salt while I was at it. Tallasiandude got vanilla with marshmallow cream and butterfingers, and our pal D got chocolate custard with something in that I forget, but it was really awfully good. I think next time I might do a chocolate custard with something mocha-ish involved, and possibly almonds. Nums.

Our second day in KC we intended to hit up some more barbecue for lunch, but Oklahoma Joe’s is closed on Sunday. Two cars full of hot, hungry people needed a quick plan. Sonic? YES PLEASE.
Even though my mother has a serious jones to find a Sonic (we have none in the Massachusetts area), somehow I’d missed the idea that it was a gen-u-ine drive in. No inside tables. Just a drive thru, and even better, a bunch of drive-up slots each with their own menu and ordering intercom, and a bunch of carhops to bring you your loot.

The burgers are excellent, quite fresh tasting and the bacon is very flavorful — usually you can’t even taste the bacon on a fast-food burger should you bother with it in the first place. You can have fries but no one does, because you can also have tater tots. Yahooo! And tots with melted smoked cheddar over the top, even fake-ass processed smoked cheddar, are fantastic. Onion rings, very crisp the way I likes ’em, and in a weird sweet batter that somehow totally works.

The beverage to get is the limeade — fresh limes squeezed into a cup of sugar syrup and topped off with fizzy soda water. You can get cherry or strawberry or what-have-you, but I like mine plain. It all comes with a cellophane-wrapped peppermint balanced on top of your drink, which is pretty much pointless, but completely adorable.
We didn’t brave any of the frosty ice cream treats because there was a rumor of heading to Sheridan’s Frozen Custard later in the day… more on that to come.