Friday, December 30, 2005
Chinatown Express, Washington, D.C.
After seeing The Producers last night (great show, by the way!), we wandered through Chinatown and landed at Chinatown Express for a delicious dinner. Before going in, we stood outside on the sidewalk to watch through the front window one of the cooks stretching and making fresh noodles—it was quite a spectacle! After seeing them made, I had to order a bowl of beef noodle soup, which turned out to be huge! The noodles were so good, though. We also had some delicious fresh steamed pork dumplings, Eric had an egg drop soup, and we shared two entrees, a shrimp, walnut, and pineapple in cream sauce dish served with broccoli and a spicy kung-pow scallop dish with lots of scallops, vegetables, and peanuts. Steamed rice and hot tea were complimentary. Chinatown Express is off the beaten path a bit, but I always think it's one of the true gems of Chinatown with delicious food and particularly cheap prices!
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Tai Shan Chinese Restaurant, Washington, D.C.
Our celebration of Christmas continues, especially since St. Stephen's Day was a federal holiday. Last night after the movie, we had dinner at Tai Shan Chinese Restaurant, which is right by the Chinatown Metro stop on H Street. It looks very much like all the other low end Chinese restaurants in the area, although this one doesn't have a meat case or fish tank or anything fun like that out in the dining room area as do some of the others. Leo asked for the Chinese language menu and, as usual, did all the ordering.
Since I don't read Cantonese, I don't know the proper names of each of the dishes, so I'll just try to describe them and hope you get the drift. We started with a shared big bowl of seafood and tofu soup in a clear stock thickened with cornstarch. It was pretty standard. We had three entrees. One dish had strips of pork which had been dredged in flour and lots of salt and pepper and then deep fried, served on a bed of mixed sliced lettuce and chopped green onion. It was very tasty, which made up for the slight annoyance of the bone still being attached to each piece of pork. Our seafood dish was a melange of scored squid, two different kinds of mushroom, and assorted vegetables in a thin brown sauce. It was okay, but nothing really exciting. The third dish was a little odd. They took beef brisket, stewed (and hence gelatinous) bits of cartiledge, and big chunks of daikon and cooked them together in a brown sauce. The beef was flavorful, the cartiledge one of those acquired Chinese tastes, and the daikon odd. Daikon is a large, white radish which is probably most familar to those who frequent sushi bars and see shredded daikon on their plates as an edible garnish. They had somehow pickled the chunks of radish, leaving them with a bit of a sour-vinegar taste, and it wasn't really my favorite thing on the table.
Hot tea and steamed white rice were complimentary accompaniments.
I thought the food was ok here, but Leo didn't like it at all. He didn't think the beef and daikon dish was fresh and didn't think the seafood dish was exactly what he'd ordered. I don't know, since I don't speak any Cantonese. Service was okay, too, though I did notice that we got passed off to a different waiter twice, ending up with a Chinese person with heavily highlighted long hair and we couldn't decide if that person was male or female.
Since I don't read Cantonese, I don't know the proper names of each of the dishes, so I'll just try to describe them and hope you get the drift. We started with a shared big bowl of seafood and tofu soup in a clear stock thickened with cornstarch. It was pretty standard. We had three entrees. One dish had strips of pork which had been dredged in flour and lots of salt and pepper and then deep fried, served on a bed of mixed sliced lettuce and chopped green onion. It was very tasty, which made up for the slight annoyance of the bone still being attached to each piece of pork. Our seafood dish was a melange of scored squid, two different kinds of mushroom, and assorted vegetables in a thin brown sauce. It was okay, but nothing really exciting. The third dish was a little odd. They took beef brisket, stewed (and hence gelatinous) bits of cartiledge, and big chunks of daikon and cooked them together in a brown sauce. The beef was flavorful, the cartiledge one of those acquired Chinese tastes, and the daikon odd. Daikon is a large, white radish which is probably most familar to those who frequent sushi bars and see shredded daikon on their plates as an edible garnish. They had somehow pickled the chunks of radish, leaving them with a bit of a sour-vinegar taste, and it wasn't really my favorite thing on the table.
Hot tea and steamed white rice were complimentary accompaniments.
I thought the food was ok here, but Leo didn't like it at all. He didn't think the beef and daikon dish was fresh and didn't think the seafood dish was exactly what he'd ordered. I don't know, since I don't speak any Cantonese. Service was okay, too, though I did notice that we got passed off to a different waiter twice, ending up with a Chinese person with heavily highlighted long hair and we couldn't decide if that person was male or female.
Sunday, December 25, 2005
Cactus Cantina, Washington, D.C.
Merry Christmas!
We've just returned from the Cathedral Church of Saints Peter and Paul in the City of Washington (the National Cathedral), where my friend Joel and I went to Midnight Mass. Since the cathedral doors opened at 9 for the 10 p.m. service, we wanted to be nearby to be able to get a good seat, so we sought out a neighborhood restaurant for a leisurely pre-church dinner. The only thing we could find open was Cactus Cantina, but that worked out just fine, since Cactus Cantina gave us a chance to have tamales, a big Christmas Eve tradition in Mexico (not that either of us are Mexican, but you know how I like to have an excuse for eating something). The tamales were very interesting, as they had jalapeño peppers mixed in with the corn meal masa that surrounded the pork filling. In addition to our tamales, we had fresh guacamole, chips, and some interestingly smoky salsa. Joel had the camarones diablos (deviled shrimp), several Coronas, and a Grand Marnier, and I had a huge Brazilean salad with lots of different things including chunks of chicken breast and pieces of palm hearts washed down with sangria.
We've just returned from the Cathedral Church of Saints Peter and Paul in the City of Washington (the National Cathedral), where my friend Joel and I went to Midnight Mass. Since the cathedral doors opened at 9 for the 10 p.m. service, we wanted to be nearby to be able to get a good seat, so we sought out a neighborhood restaurant for a leisurely pre-church dinner. The only thing we could find open was Cactus Cantina, but that worked out just fine, since Cactus Cantina gave us a chance to have tamales, a big Christmas Eve tradition in Mexico (not that either of us are Mexican, but you know how I like to have an excuse for eating something). The tamales were very interesting, as they had jalapeño peppers mixed in with the corn meal masa that surrounded the pork filling. In addition to our tamales, we had fresh guacamole, chips, and some interestingly smoky salsa. Joel had the camarones diablos (deviled shrimp), several Coronas, and a Grand Marnier, and I had a huge Brazilean salad with lots of different things including chunks of chicken breast and pieces of palm hearts washed down with sangria.
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