What's For Dinner?

Pics! Recipes!

Ate out tonight. PCA social at a great French restaurant in Dallas, Lavendou. I had the strip steak and mushrooms. Grilled artichoke hearts - pretty tasty. Never had that before. Finished it off with a raspberry souffle, exquisite...T

 

Deliciousness.

Who can tell me what this is?
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I can't decide what looks better...the steak or the souffle!

 

I can do steak at home. So, I'd vote souffle. I've tried and tried, I can't do a good souffle to save my soul...T

 

Hmm. I see chopstick, & what looks like a fin? Could be a wing though. Yoshimasa is a company that makes display cases. Hmm. I'm guessing deep fried whole fish!
T

 

21oz. aged prime bone in cowboy steak at a relatively new restaurant in my town....15 Church St. My new favorite in town.
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Looked like a pork chop at first but then it looks more like fish of some kind. Looks like lemons on the back of the plate too so I'm going to go with fish.

 

Pretty puny looking knife there. I hope they gave you a more imposing weapon to attack that steak with!
I gotta learn how to make a good au poivre sauce one of these days...T

 

Hamachi Kama - grilled yellowtail collar. It's basically the fish version of a pork chop. Bones and crispy skin and tons of super juicy meat. If it's not on your local sushi place's menu, ask for it.
You will not regret it.

 

Funny, I almost said Halibut cheek but it wasn't quite right. Looks tasty!!

 

I got really lazy. First I don't eat breakfast, get up around 7am, and around 11am I have lunch. I forgot my mayo supply was gone. Nothing to make a sandwich, didn't feel like just soup. O.k. I'll skip lunch. Hit Costco and on the way grab some fast food. Dang dog was an extra pain, took him forever to do his business. Leave house just after 3pm. Oh I did have a muffin at noon. Decide better do Costco before the afterschool rush and skip fast food. Get all my stuff and think I'll just get a cooked chicken. No chicken left, they are sold out. Check out and decide screw it I'll get a Costco pizza. Greedy me I call my brother and we'll share the large pepperoni for $9.99. Long story too long worst pizza ever!

 

It's funny because I've had Costco pizza and sometimes it's been good and other times it's not good at all. No idea if it's because of location or what. But I would much rather hit a little local place than Costco, Pizza Hut or Dominos. Although I do break down if I want it delivered, dominos is about 1/2 mile from my house.

I got busy today running around and didn't cook anything, pretty much same story yesterday. So tonight I had a Marie Callendar's chicken pot pie. They are pretty decent for a couple bucks. Toss in the microwave and somehow they actually brown and the crust is pretty good.

Still have my prime NY's sitting in the fridge so will grill them up tomorrow night. Going to be a stay at home and get stuff done weekend so I know I'll have time. Going to do a potato dish my Mom used to make. Melted butter and lot's of seasoning in a baking dish, cut potatoes in half, lay face down in the butter/spice mix and bake until tender. I'm using small Yukon golds. She used to use Johnny's seasoning salt but I might just come up with something on my own. We'll see.

 

In the case of that steak, a butter knife would have worked.

 

I had one after seeing Anthony Bourdain eat it. It's like the chicken back of the fish world, lots of bones, but some great meat in there if you poke about!
T

 

Huh. I too was on the starving Marvin plan yesterday! No breakfast as I had to be up early to fetch a visitor at lunch. No lunch as I had to do house reno stuff. Busy at work in between. Didn't eat anything until evening, when wife and I picked up some sushi at Kroger deli on the way to pick out appliances at Nebraska Furniture Mart. Sushi was reasonably good for the price, or I was unreasonably hungry!
T

 

Were driving from Boston to Brooklyn today. We have reservations at Peter Lugers to celebrate our youngest sons 18 Birthday. This was his idea, he has been wanting to go to Lugers for about as long as he has eaten solid food.
Hoping it's not a disappointment.

 

Brooklyn, my hometown! Hope it's awesome. Congrats to your son. Post some pics...T

 

In grocery store sushi/sashimi, Whole Foods is actually pretty good. Their sandwich stuff, salad bar and chicken, etc. is also pretty decent. I used to do Whole Foods a lot for lunch when in LA. Here we have a Whole Foods like chain, called Urban Fare. Besides organics, they also carry fancy imported stuff from all over the world. They have restaurants in their stores with espresso bars. I've done coffee dates at their stores. Both business and meet a female date for coffee deals.

My area, they combine the neighboring town in our population figures, is 150k people, basically the same size as a rural U.S. county. Well we have 23 Japanese restaurants in town. Richmond is around the same population wise, but 60% Asian in population, with quadruple the Japanese restaurants. In fact finding a non Asian restaurant in Richmond, well its difficult, they don't exist anymore, unless its fast food. To compete most Japanese restaurants have mixed menu's, regular meal and all you can eat. Now its not the greatest around, but its also surprisingly half decent to pretty good. Most is better then the best grocery stores. I'll do the best all you can eat place here or in Richmond at least once a month. $23 gets you as many rolls you can eat, 1lb or 2 of sashimi, and a platter amount of sushi. At my favorite non all you can eat place I'm almost at $40 for half the food.

 

^ Never tried Whole Foods sushi. I like Central Market's the few times I've had it.

After a week on the road, and running around, it's nice to get back in the kitchen, and a homemade meal. Tonight's concoction - pot roast soup. Kroger had a deal on boneless chuck roast - $3/lb. I wanted a diff twist, so I'm doing pot roast soup!

Riffing off this recipe. Am using a white potato instead of red. And, beef broth instead of chicken. Since I had those in fridge.

http://www.food.com/recipe/yankee-pot-roast-soup-144894

Hour or so more simmering to go!

T

 

Just thought of this. A grocery chain in WA called Hagen's has decent Chinese food, the trick is getting there when its fresh.

Bought a small turkey. Bought some soft Tortilla's. Going to make turkey enchilada's, instead of chicken.

 

Steaks and potatoes turned out well. Didnt get the grill marks perfect and almost overcooked the steaks. But very tasty. I got lazy for a veggie and heated up some frozen peas.
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That looks great. Peas are the one vegetable that I prefer frozen over canned and even fresh. Shelling peas is a royal pain...T

 

So Brooklyn is awesome!
I wouldn't go back for Lugers though. I think it's worth going if it's something you have always wanted to do but while the steak is amazing, everything else is lacking. Plus, if I'm going out to spend what ended up being $500.00 on dinner for three people, I would prefer white linen tablecloths, a high level of service and customers who dress in something other than ripped jeans and t shirts. We showed up in suits and my wife had a dress on and we were extremely overdressed. Bottom line here, old institution with great steak for sure, sides not great, service and ambiance not good at all.
The strange thing is the place is packed every night.
- Ron

 

That jibes with what I've heard from some folks, service can be brusque. After moving away from NYC, I can't put up with that B.S. if I'm paying a lot for a dinner.

Do you know if it's possible to get them to NOT cut up your steak before serving? That to me seems the oddest part of the joint. You'd think it dry out and cool off too quickly.

T

 

Had my all-time favorite dessert, Tiramisu, last night at Romano's Macaroni Grill.
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