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veggies

The Flying Chicken

April 4, 2013
biscuits, Chicken, fried, frugal, local, restaurant, review, veggies
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I keep calling The Flying Chicken the Frying Chicken, mainly because that is the first thing I think of when I think of them. I got a massive biscuit with chicken fried steak, white gravy, and topped with a sunny side up egg. I had trouble finishing all of this, but it was so good!

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Albany John got two pieces of dark meat with a biscuit and some collards. Man, those were some good collards.

The fry job on the chicken fried steak and chicken were great – crisp exterior with lots of crunch, and moist meat underneath. Yes.  Albany John loves the Flying Chicken. He’s eaten there a whole bunch in the past month, and his only regret from his first meal there was that “All other lunches have not been at the Flying Chicken,”. It’s a casual place where you order and pay at the counter, then bus your own table.

Oh, and this is also the beginning of my camera dying – I thought the blurriness was just smudging I didn’t notice, but guess what? The pictures get blurrier/smudgier and it turns out my outer lens started dying, so now I need to find a new camera, yay.

Happy Happy, Sandor

March 21, 2013
beef, bloggers, buffet, Chinese, lamb, local, night life, recommendations, restaurant, review, seafood, Uncategorized, veggies
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DSCF5531Head to shining rainbow for their unlimited/all you can eat hot pot. $20 per person, and $10 per pot. Reason? :: celebrate Sandor’s birthday!

 

DSCF5532Shaved beef, lamb, shrimp on skewers (a bit mineral-y), endless plates of squid, fried tofu (freshly fried!), and fish cakes. Plus peanut, hoisin, and chili sauce in a container ta make your own sauces. It was a good night for gluttony. I think the last 30 minutes were just the rest of the a label watch Albany John and me stuff our faces with food. Squid squids ! So good!

 

And then finish the night off at Wolff’sDSCF5535

Taiwan Noodle – Winter Steamed Rice Dishes!

November 30, 2012
Chicken, Chinese, dumplings, frugal, local, recommendations, restaurant, review, soup, veggies
4 Comments

 

Met up with one of my good ol’ Albany friends, her son, and her beau, Farmer Jon, for dinner at Taiwan Noodle recently. ‘Scuse the yellow-y and/or out of focus pictures. My white balance was slacking during this meal, and I don’t get to see my girly all that often so I was more focused on her.

We chose Taiwan Noodle because it was a good middle meeting point for us, and because they have seriously cheap eats. And we like to eat. Scallion pancakes to start!

 

Ground pork noodle soup for my friend & her kiddo.

 

Stuffed pork steamed buns. I think we also got some Xiao Long Baos as well.

I can’t not order the pork foot noodle soup. Or some iteration of pork trotter when I’m at Taiwan Noodle. So tender! Farmer Jon said he’s seen where pigs walk, and he’d rather not nibble on that, tyvm. Lol, love that Farmer Jon.

 

Oh, more snacks! Spicy chicken wings. These had a good amount of kick but weren’t overwhelming. It was a dry-spice heat, not saucy. Reminded me of togarashi spice like you can put on Japanese ramen soups.

And some wood ear & celery in the background. Albany John can’t get enough of these. I think he orders these every time we go to Taiwan Noodle. He likes how soft and tender they make them.

 

I am bummed this came out so yellow & blurry! Okay, so Taiwan Noodle now has steamed rice in bamboo baskets for the winter months.  They’re all $7.95, and they are GIGANTIC! Albany John got a pork & black bean steamer above. I don’t know why I was surprised by the size, since at $7.95 they are the most expensive dish on the menu, but seriously… it’s enormous. It’s an entire large bamboo steamer – like 9-10″ in diameter, and filled with rice and pork. They come with a dark soy sauce on the side.

Farmer Jon got chicken & lop cheong (chinese sausage). He wasn’t too crazy about the chicken having bones in it (it’s rustically chopped and hacked pieces of chicken on the bone), but thought the flavors weren’t too shabby at all.

One of the best things is that an extra lop cheong is just $1, so  you can add it to any of the steamed rice dishes. Yeesssssss.

 

Amaranth

June 13, 2012
Chinese, veggies
8 Comments

“How did you like amaranth? I did not know that is what it was called.” said my Dad. 


Amaranth is the green & red leaf in the picture above. I still have no idea what it’s called in Chinese, but I do know that it’s a tasty green veggie. If you like spinach but are getting a bit sick of it, I totally recommend trying amaranth greens. They’re $2.29/lb at the Asian Food Market on Central Ave in Albany, so a big baggie will only run you about $5, and it stays fresh for over a week. The stems are a bit tougher than spinach, so a quick stirfry or boil/blanch will do them well. I personally find that spinach can go from raw to mushy & overcooked quite quickly. Amaranth has more texture, so it will still cook the leafy green part nicely without cooking the entire leaf into mush.

That said, they’re also just fine & dandy mixed in with some of the other green tastiness you see above (scallions, thai basil, & limes) for pho mixins if you don’t mind a little extra chew. 


Amaranth is a touch sweeter than spinach, and when cooked can give off a bit of a pink hue/liquid (a cute veggie? whoda thunk?). I like to cook it quickly in a pan, like a quick stirfry/sautee. I don’t like to use soy sauce with it so that the sweet vegetal flavor comes through & isn’t overwhelmed by salt (and I love salt). Normally I’ll just melt a bit of oil in a pan, toss the greens in, and either salt it and add a bit of water and cover, or add a bit of chicken broth & cover. Just a few minutes, no longer than 5 for sure. Then you get simple tasty greens. 

Ala Shanghai – Spring Love

April 15, 2012
local, recommendations, restaurant, review, seafood, soup, veggies
2 Comments

Spring dinner at Ala Shanghai – they have some new specials on the menu. Beef ribs on the left, and soy beans with pickle on the right. They are both served cold. Lanny brought these out for me to try, and explained that cold beef ribs are how it’s served up in Shanghai. The coldness helps enhance a chewy texture, but they aren’t tough. Mmm, I do like chewy textures.
Pork with Tofu & Capsella soup ($7) to start. Albany John was like “What’s capsella?” And I was like, “A veggie,”. Handily, many ingredients are explained and defined (with pictures, even!) in the menu. Love Ala Shanghai’s soups – so clean & light and well flavored. Tender pork, minced cubes of tofu, and the capsella adds some nice vegetal flavor, but it’s nothing overwhelming. Kind of like spinach, really.
For dinner we split the steamed whole fish with hot peppers ($16). The peppers come in fresh & are dried in the restaurant for a few days before being used in the dish. Loved this dish – perfectly steamed, and lightly flavored with soy sauce. The chili peppers add some definite heat – Lanny warned us a bunch before ordering it that it was one of the spiciest dishes they serve, and when he saw Albany John chomping on peppers (coughing & breaking a sweat) he also mentioned that it wasn’t mandatory to eat… uh… all of the peppers on the plate. Goodness, that man loves his spicy food.

I ate the tail, hehe.
I thought of my Yeh-Yeh when I saw the winter melon with dried shrimp ($11) on the menu. It was so good! The winter melons were the star of the show, and there were so many dried shrimp! Mmm, so good.
Tail, you are mine!
Here, fishy fishy fishy!
And some medlar jelly for dessert. This worked wonders to cool down our mouths after the spicy steamed fish!

Mississippi – Part 1

February 8, 2012
beef, fried, frugal, Mexican, seafood, travel, veggies
2 Comments

When in Rome… or Mississippi. Right?

I just got back from visiting Bro, my sis-in-law Margarita, and Baby Toddler boy.

After we got off of our flight (early, even. Whoop whoop, Southwest!) we stopped by a Sonic for a fast food fix. Crispy Chicken sammich for me, and some “Chicago” dogs for Albany John.

For dinner we went to Tequila’s, a Mexican restaurant on Old Canton Road. They said they like to come here for dinner. My brother got the camarones al mango con coco. Wow, these were sugar bombs – deep fried and battered shrimp sauced with a way-sweet mango sauce and topped with coconut. Side of rice and veggies. Reminded me of sweet-n-sour Chinese food more than Mexican.

You get free salsa and chips – the salsa is awesome. Freshly made, and full of fresh cilantro, onions, and tomatoes.

Albany John got Arrachera Los Altos – grilled flank steak with tortilla cups of refried beans, rice, guacamole, pico de gallo, and some grilled cactus leaves. Not bad for $13, but it came out more well done than medium-rare. There was a small pink strip somewhere in there at one point. It was still pretty tender (I’m guessing a bunch of meat tenderizer), so he didn’t send it back. But dudes, well done with a strip of medium is a little off from medium rare.

Drinks were two-for-one. Albany John ordered one and was surprised when our waitress brought over two and shrugged and said it was buy one get one. Okie dokie. They were really weak, so no biggie.

I got shrimp tacos. Their menu had a picture of shrimp that… did not look deep fried. Each taco contained a fried batter blog made of two shrimp. It was not bad, but again, reminded me more of takeout Chinese food than Mexican food. The pickled onions and refried beans were tasty, though.


And then the next day Albany John went for a walk and came back with CRAWFISH! A whole bag o’ mud bugs for us for only $7!! They were spicy, salty, and oh man, I ate them until my lips swelled.
And then Albany John and my Bro cheffed up some tasty steak, chimichuri sauce, and stir fried veggies for dinner. Nom!
Oh, and magic potatoes, too. Mmm. Hasselbeck-style!

End of the first few days. Up next: New Orleans! Nola!

Kim Chee

January 25, 2012
frugal, Korean, preserving, project, veggies
3 Comments

Oh David Chang, you are a genius. Project Kim Chee all started with this 2nd Edition of Lucky Peach magazine (brought to you by Chang & my other food crush, Anthony Bourdain).

Chang’s got a crazy-easy recipe for kim chee contained within this tome, and he made it seem so… accessible. Like even I couldn’t screw it up. It’s a two day process, but really not all that time-consuming.
Start out with a big ass head of napa cabbage. They’re $.50/lb or less at the asian grocery stores in Albany. This particular head was exactly four pounds. Yes, I tared the bowl.

The next step is quartering each head and removing the tough cores. But don’t throw them out! Just cut them into little slices. We waste nothing with this kim chee.

Chang’s recipe says to cut the quarters of napa into 2″ sections. That’s the size you get (or larger) in kim chee you can buy in stores. I don’t like those size leaves – too big and difficult to cram in my mouth (I know, hard to believe).

I sliced these into 1″ sections instead. I’m so badass!


Then you throw them in a bowl and dump a TON of kosher salt and granulated sugar on them. I’m serious. It’s a lot of both. Cover it with saran wrap and let it hang out in your fridge overnight.
Wow, that really shrunk overnight, hunh? There’s a lot of water at the bottom of that bowl, so you want to drain out as much as you can, but there’s no need to go crazy with it.

Then I busted out my handy dandy mandoline to matchstick-ify some carrots (please, like I have the dexterity to even think of trying that with a knife), and roughly sliced up some scallions. Just one bunch of scallions is fine.
Next, we prepare our chili paste in a blender. About a cup of chili flakes, 3/4 cup soy sauce. 5 T fish sauce. About a dozen dried shrimp (I think that dried scallops would also make a great dried fish ingredient). Close to a whole head of garlic, 2-3″ of ginger (peeled), some sugar syrup, and probably some other stuff I’m forgetting. Any who, whir that into a paste.

Plop the paste onto all of the other ingredients.
ATTACK! If you wear contacts, I highly recommend wearing a glove when touching spicy items. Otherwise you will scream later.

Mix, mix, mix. Work it girl – you really wanna work that hot & spicy paste into every bit of your veggies. I think that some daikon probably wouldn’t have been a bad addition to the napa cabbage with salt & sugar the night before now, come to think of it.

Then pack it in some jars. I had a few ball jars, and a few leftover other glass jars (miraculously with tops, even).

Let it sit in the back of your fridge for at least a week before you even think of trying it.

Then have your husbear make kim chee fried rice! Holy moly, I have no clue what kind of kitchen chicanery her worked on this, but this was good! And that’s coming from a rice-hater.

The kim chee wasn’t that fermented after a week, but had a good kick to it and was quite velvety. Sweeter than I’m used to, that’s for sure. I’ll give it another try in a week and see how it’s fermented, but it’s definitely tasty stuff.

Winter 2011 Seasonal Dinner at Ala Shanghai

November 18, 2011
bloggers, Chinese, dessert, dumplings, lamb, local, pork, recommendations, restaurant, review, seafood, soup, veggies
3 Comments

Daniel B. organized another lovely seasonal dinner at Ala Shanghai. Now that we are in the middle of November, and well into our way of the season of slight chilliness in the Northeast, it’s a great time to try out some warming dishes at Ala Shanghai.

About 16 of us gathered earlier this week to eat a bunch of courses for $20 per person, inclusive of tax and tip. You too can enjoy this menu if you so desire. And by the end of this post, you’re gonna desire.

Many thanks to the man who organized the lot of us rogue eaters. Cheers, Daniel! (I hope I didn’t make your face look too melty here).


Thanks also extend to Steve for bringing some wine. Yay! Great pairing with the food. Ala Shanghai is a BYOB place, so feel free to bring your own if you’d like.

Xiao long bao to start. They were all soooo full of soup! Yay! No sad deflated XLBs here :D

This time we made sure Celina had one, since I probably ate hers at the last dinner. That’s grounds for de-friending right there. I’m a terrible dining companion.Man, how have I not alienated myself from most of the fooding elite in Albany?

More apps – turnip pastries on the left, steamed glutinous rice dumplings in the center, and steamed and pan fried meat dumplings on the right. Love the turnip pastries when they’re nice and warm with crunchy sesame seeds on the bottom. And you can’t go wrong with meat filled carbs! I don’t really like rice that much, but boy does Albany John, so he ate my dumpling with gusto.
Soup course – chicken and wonton soup. It came out bubbling in the casserole dish. Now that’s fresh!

So chickeny! This was a great simple soup for a cold day – the chicken flavor shone, the soup was refreshing and light. I’ve mentioned before that Ala Shanghai is my favorite place for soup in the area because they don’t load their soups up with unnecessary sugar or fat.

Flounder filets with woodear. This is a simple fish dish. The fish are tender, and the woodear is a nice crunchy foil. I love, love, love woodear. It’s a mushroom/fungus that’s more texture than anything, but I think it goes really well in meat dishes.

Lanny and one of his staff assembling the sizzling lamb table-side.
Lamb slices with scallion and onion. I’ve had similar dishes Cantonese-style with beef, but the lamb flavor and tenderness blows it out of the water. It’s so meaty and good!
Note: This is not a dish for someone counting calories – there’s plenty of delicious fat and flavor in this dish.
Pork shoulder. Fatbomb on a plate! Unctuous skin, incredibly tender meat within, and a wedge of bok choy with some crunch. Mmmm. Meat coma. This is a little on the sweet side of flavor. This is a dish you absolutely must share with eight other people. You wouldn’t stand a chance of putting a dent into this rich dish on your own.

Ham with Chinese cabbages. I really liked this ham. I want to make some myself. It was rich and smoky, with a little bit of sweetness. And I usually don’t like sweet meat. It’s got a lot of flavor. The small slices are all you need. BIG FLAVORS here. Albany John wasn’t as big of a fan of the sweetness (just not his thing), but that just means he won’t be touching my ham this winter.

SALTED VEGGIE WITH SOY BEAN AND TOFU SHEET!!!

Lanny brought this out and told my table “This is favorite dish,”

He is so right. If there is a dish you MUST order at Ala Shanghai, it is this. It’s so good and fresh, and they make the salted veggies there (it’s salted mustard greens so they’re kind of like pickles), and the combination of flavors just makes it so that you can’t stop eating it, and I love it so much, and it’s perfect for winter.

It’s mega-salty and refreshing. And very low fat. It really wakes you up (and fills you up). And makes you a happy person. Like their soups, I think this dish really highlights Ala’s abilities to let ingredients shine on their own.
Noodles made in-house with some veggies and chicken. Tender noodles. They’re good. But you know what makes them even better? Having those salted veggies to toss on top! Great combo!

Red bean pancakes for dessert. I got at least two because Albany John doesn’t like red bean paste. Yesssss.

Go there. Bring your friends and get all of this delicious food. $160. 8 people (or dinner for a week). Do it.

Or just go there and get the salted veggies with soy beans and tofu sheets, because I said so, and because it will take the winter blues right out of you.

Halfmoon Salad & Sandwich Shop

October 27, 2011
gluten free, local, recommendations, restaurant, review, salad, veggies
2 Comments

Tasty salad, yay! I went a little extravagant on this one and ended up spending a little over $11 on it. Tee hee, whoops! It was so good, it was worth it, though.

Cucumbers, walnuts, avocado, beets (not from a can!), chickpeas, red onions, blue cheese, artichokes, mushrooms on top of some lettuce. Crunchy tastiness! Dressing on the side ‘coz I haven’t been into heavy salad dressing.

You can pay another $0.50 to get everything chopped, if you’d so like. Everything was fresh and tasty. Totally loved it.

Although, minor thing – I wish they had some salad combos listed, because I am terrible at coming up with my own combinations. This was a success, but I was wondering if the ingredients that sounded awesome in my head would actually be awesome on my tongue.

Oh, and BTW, this was a large salad. Who orders small salads for a meal? They’re salads. Go big or go home (hungry).

Cauliflower Scardey Cats & Bunny rabbits

October 23, 2011
gluten free, veggies
1 Comment

One night I decided to try taking a (rare) creative twist on cauliflower “pizza“/patties. Scaredy Cats & Bunny faces instead of circles!

I put some pureed and seasoned cauliflower in big cookie molds! Aren’t they cute? Bunny faces & scared kitties! Made of veggies!

First, you should start off with some boiled/steamed cauliflower. That’s it.

Then MASH IT! Mash it with a big ole’ masher! You can mash it for a while, but if you’re impatient like me…
You’ll enlist the help of your handy-dandy immersion stick blender to puree it into bits.
Tada! Then I added some cumin, romano cheese, garlic, and the teensiest pinch of salt. You can add whatever else you want. Egg is also a good binder, and I probably should have added some because I am terrible at eating enough protein.

Then take your pureed cauliflower and plop them into molds. Yaaay, cute veggies! I baked these so they were a little firmer, but you could also just put it on a plate warm as-is so it’s like mashed potatoes. Who can resist such cuteness?
I also made a few small circular “pizza” patties.

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