Han Sung Oak

I've been meaning to get the review of Han Sung Oak up for a while, so here we go.

Our first shared Korean food experience was on our honeymoon in Toronto. I had never had it before and he hadn't had it in a long time. Turns out our B&B was right by Koreatown so one night we ventured out to a place called Joon's. Honestly it rocked. They bring many small dishes to eat with the meal called "panchan." I've since learned that Joon's was a bit more laid back on the panchan than other places but there was some delicious kim chee, some toasted seaweed, and a handful of other dishes. The star was their special take on Korean barbecue which we cooked at our table. Delicious. I'll spare you the details though so we can focus a bit more on Han Sung Oak.

Han Sung Oak is becoming one of our new favorites. We knew we wanted Korean one night and just picked it from a list. Set just a bit up the road from Bailey's Crossroads on Columbia Pike, Han Sung Oak is a sizable suburban restaurant at the end of yet another strip mall. We noticed upon walking in that we were among the very few non-Koreans in the place. A good sign!

We've been twice. The first time there was a brief wait and the second time we walked right in. Most recently, we were shown to our table by the host and were promptly greeted by a server. The servers all seem to be women, meaning I did not see men serving. They also wear very utilitarian blue outfits which I can't figure out if they feel Stepford Wivesy or not.

This time, we ordered the Korean barbecue with chicken (I say "Korean" barbecue like they would bring us "West Memphis" or something) and the bi bim bap. When we first went, we ordered an appetizer (a fabulous but LARGE) shrimp cake, and each had our own barbecue. That along with the piles o' panchan were way too much.

Of the various panchan there are a few standouts a slightly sweet and slightly vinegared dish of strips of tofu was a favorite. Generous portions of kimchee were appropriately cool and spicy and the other little salads were tasty as well.

So basically, they cook the barbecue order(s) on inset or tabletop grills while replenishing the little sides of panchan and keeping water glasses full. The service is attentive, but not chatty. Their not angling for a seat at your table or to sell you on the nightly special. It's all about getting the food on the table and making sure you have what you need. Nothing more, nothing less, and that works for me.

Our barbecued chicken was cooked until crisp and tender (although you can cook it more or less) and soaked in a savory beef broth (assuming it's beef). Placed on the servings of steamed white rice, it was comforting and warm.

I think what I like most is the intensity of the flavors. Sweet, salty, peppery, beefy, and yes, chickeny (shut up, it's my blog and I can make up words if I want).

The bibimbap we ordered was rice with beef, a fried egg, mushrooms, bean sprouts, spinach, and more. Again, comfort food. I'm honestly not sure I would order this again, but I think T would. As a Southern boy I tend to like my comfort food Paula Deen style so I would have liked more flavor, if not a pound or two of cheese. Of course, that'snot to say that I didn't eat quite a bit of it.

After finishing our food, we were brought a sweet cold sipping tea, I'm trying to figure out what it was and will know soon, but it was cleansing and tasty.

All in all, Han Sung Oak is tasty with attentive service. I look forward to our nextr visit!

Hell's Kitchen Indeed

This isn't just hate, it's hateration. I have hateration for the stupid Hell's Kitchen tv show. It ranks right up there with Britney 'n Kevin Chaotic for the worst reality show. I caught the first 40 minutes of it that J TiVoed. Goddamn if that wasn't painful to watch.

This show should be made for me. I love reality TV and I love food. I love watching the behind-the-scenes at restaurant reality shows. I loved The Restaurant because Rocco was a true asshole. His complete cluelessness about his assholery made his eventual smackdown so delicious. Since Gordon Ramsay seemed to be running the show, there will be no delicious Ramsay smackdown. And due to bad editing, you don't get a sense of who the asshole contestants are when Gordon gives his initial browbeating.

I think the thing with this Gordon Ramsay guy is that his asshole act is simply that, an act. I'm sure he's an asshole in real life but all of the stuff he does is so Rachael Ray affected. Instead of the perky "How GREAT is THAT," we get the "this bleeping sucks!" Either way, you know they spent hours in front of the mirror coming up with their stupid catchphrases and personas. It was painful to watch him spit out the food. What kind of shit is that? I spent the whole time feeling bad for the P.A.s who had to clean up the predigested food that Gordon spat on the ground.

The restaurant challenged sucked so hard. The contestants broke up into two teams and each team had to make dinner for half the restaurant. From what I saw, Gordon the Screamer would intercept the plates and criticize them before they reached the customer. Stupid stupid stupid. How much more fun would it be for the fame-whore customers to have to eat an ill-made dish and have to give an evaluation of it on camera? Instead we get more of the blowhard. And you know the customers could not have a good time with that since their food kept on getting sent back.

For a show like this to work, you've gotta have some respect for the person deciding who gets to stay and who gets to go. And people have to EARN their smackdown. They have to be assholes like Wendy Pepper and YaYa. Seeing of prick throw a tantrum at people isn't fun unless the peopel are also dickheads themselves. Otherwise, it's just an excercise in cruelty, which invariably makes me lose my lunch.

A Recipe that Takes Three Days to Make

Saturday - J makes guacamole and salsa for Craft Corner Deathmatch party. I chop three times as much garlic than he needs. Use that funky Saran Wrap stuff to store extra garlic.

Sunday - Feeling lazy after the party. Make a balsalmic vinaigrette for salad-in-a-bag. End up making three times more than you need. Store in a jam jar. Here's my recipe, I'm sure you have your own.

Balsalmic Vinaigrette:

3-4 cloves of garlic
Pinch of salt
1/4 cup of balsalmic vinegar
1 tablespoon maple syrup
A few shakes of red pepper flakes
Enough olive oil to make the mixture viscous (somehwere around 1/4 cup)

This is all about the whisking. First you macerate the garlic in the salt to release some more of the garlic flavor. Then you add the vinegar, maple syrup, and red pepper flakes and whisk. And then whisk in the oil slowly until the mixture becomes more viscous. I am somewhat sparing with my oil. I don't understand the 3 to 1 oil to vinegar ratios so many salad dressing recipes have.

Eat salad. Watch Desperate Housewives. Scream at Lynette to get a damn job already.

Before going to bed, have the urge for salmon. Take salmon out of the freezer to defrost in the fridge overnight.

Monday
Get home from work. Pour vinaigrette over salmon in a bowl. Toss and then cover with that funky Saran Wrap stuff. Go tell J that salmon is marinating and that if he wants some he can do my patented sear 'n bake method. I developed this method for entertaining so that you can sear if first and then bake if off when guests come. The result is a perfectly moist flavorful salmon.

Sear and bake method
Take marinated salmon. Heat nonstick pan on high heat. Sear salmon on both sides (1-2 minutes per side). Place in a 425 degree oven for ten to fiften minutes depedening on the thickness of the salmon.

Work out. Come home to seared salmon that partner was kind enough to make for you while you were working out. Dress salad greens with what's left of the vinaigrette. Serve with salmon.

DIm Sum, I Sum, You Sum, WE ALL SUM

So why do the best Chinese restaurants have the cheesiest names? Case in point, J and I went to dim sum Sunday at Hollywood East. How are we supposed to know that that is some of the best dim sum in the greater Washington, DC area? We normally go to China Garden in Rosslyn but Tom Sietsema and the Chowhound boards were aglow with the yumminess of the steamed buns at Hollywood East. And doesn't China Garden just sound like a divey take out place? Come on people, we need Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Names. How about Bamboo Phoenix Peony Jade Palace? Or Golden Dragon Orchid Lotus House?

Anyway, name aside, that's some good dim sum. And grew up eating dim sum every weekend of my youth. Located in Wheaton, it's a trek from the metro. While we were expecting a hellish China Garden wait, getting there at around 12:30 on Sunday, we were promptly seated. However, it took a little coaxing to get our water, tea and chili sauce (a must for my heat loving palette). We asked like THREE diferent people. The carts came before the water, tea and chili sauce. But the food rocks. We had the usual har gow and shu mai and they were excellent. The shrimp rice crepe and turnip cake were also wonderful although Holly East used oyster sauce as opposed to the usual hoisin as the dipping sauce. But then there were all of these other dumplings that had so much flavor in them without being just salty. It's hard for me to tell people what to get because I just look at what's there and point but needless to say it's all well made. I will opine a bit about th steam chicken buns which were divine. Flavorful and not greasy, it's everything I would want in a steamed bun. So much that I forgoed having my usual char sui bao.

But next time, I'd like to have good dim sum at the Golden Dragon Jade Phoenix House of Peony Blossoms.

My Grandmother

I'm working on putting my thoughts together for a memorial book about my grandmother who recently passed away. In the coming weeks, my family will be gathering to celebrate her life. A lot of my memories of my grandmother involve food. She was no stranger to restaurants, to cooking for days on end for an event, to mixing groceries together for an evening meal. It's clearly part of our family culture to cook and entertain.

Maybe someday this will be more eloquent, but for now, here are a few memories and my list of the places in the DC area she would have enjoyed.

Cajun Night

I must have been about 14 and she had come down with a mad PBS crush on Justin Wilson, the cajun cook. She decided we should do a big old meal for the family. Now, I don't recall anyone ever particularly liking cajun food at that point, but that was beside the point. We were, for the most part, adventurous eaters, so why not.

Now it's been many years at this point, but, if I remember correctly we made chicken in wine, a turnip souffle, and hand-cranked vanilla ice cream with a Benedictine and raisin sauce. There were definitely other dishes, but these were the most memorable. I remember thinking it was so subversive to make the sauce with Benedictine! It was delicious!

Something was wrong with the turnip souffle. It still tasted good, but we left something out. It was the eggs or the turnips. It ended up being more aptly called "side dish."

In DC, I have yet to have a wonderful cajun dining experience. We did have a few nice meals at the cajun place in Woodley Park. I think it's called Lex Cajun Grill. Definitely worth going to, but when I crave cajun, I think I'll stick to making my own. We are always hunting for the best etouffe and gumbo recipes. I think she would like the ones we've tried.

Irene's

She lived at Irene's. My god, did that place have another name? Peking Something? Irene's was the longtime Chinese place in the strip mall up the street from her house, and later her apartment a block away. Irene was a tough woman from Taiwan who did not take any guff, could match my grandmother's feistiness word for word and headline for headline, whose husband did the cooking and knew his way around a sweet potato and a pile of green beans.

We usually went for lunch. Nothing spectacular but usually good enough. Fried rice, green beans, a spiced chicken, and her favorite-- almond cookies (http://www.quickspice.com/scstore/images/cookies-almond-01_lg.jpg). I think it surprised her the day I brought her a box from the Asian Market. Sure, they weren't served warm off the hot bar, but there was a whole box of them!

Later in life, as my grandmother got slower, Irene would bring her food, or take her home. She loved Chinese food. If she had come to DC and wanted Chinese, I would have taken her to City Lights of China on Connecticut. She was amazed by tofu and they have some admirable tofu dishes. I think she would also have gotten a kick out of Rockville's Vegetable Garden-- the vegan Chinese place near White Flint Mall. The mock orange beef is yummy although no masterpiece. I think it would have suited her just fine.

Falafel House

I found this place through friends whose older brothers had started hanging out there years before. Falafel House was an amazing restaurant serving some of the best middle eastern food I have had to this day. Delicious falafel, garlicky hummus topped with a thin coat of olive oil and a few olives, deeply spiced shawarma and a lemon lentil soup you would dream about and taste for days after even a small bowl. The baklava was delicious but they also had this honey-soaked shredded wheat dessert that was amazing.

The most charming thing about Falafel House was that the owners took a particular shine to my grandmother, and she to them. She would stay for hours, talking to MAry, one of the owners, and reading the newspaper.

In DC, I would take her to Levante's. It's not as homey, but I've has some good meals there. I'd also serve up my own hummus which she really enjoyed when I would make it for her. I'm looking for another great middle eastern place. Any ideas?

As for places where the people recognize you and will chat a bit, I would have to suggest Aatish down on the hill. They have delicicious Pakistani food, but the manager Rafik knows his clientele quite well and has made several spot-on suggestions for me.


Dale's Snow-Cones

I think this is more a memory for my mother than for me, but I do remember going to Dale's and craving the delicious, and to me dangerous, FIREBALL flavor. It was green. It just made it that much cooler. I'm pretty sure my mom, aunt, and uncle grew up going there too. I was reminded of Dale's years later when my folks lived by a drive-around place that sat just off to the side of a 7-11 where you could get snow-cones and barbecue. From the same place. Damn Gina.

I think DC could use a snow-cone place. Maybe a cute little stand just off of Dupont Circle or Eastern Market. My favorite flavors, coconut (blue!), wedding cake, banana, cherry, and of course FIREBALL! Does anyoneknow of any places?


Fried Chicken and Chili Cream

She was really known for some signature dishes -- her vegetable soup, her chili cream, and her fried chicken. I'll see if I can find the chili cream recipe. It's a lot of chili, a lot of cream, and a lot of cheese. It's enough to destroy my lactose intolerant gut, but it is definitely one of my favorites from childhood.

This woman knew how to fry a chicken. Seriously y'all. I grew up not really liking any fried chicken but hers. Flaky crust, well seasoned, tender and delicious.

I hear good things about the Fried Chicken at Georgia Brown's. I haven't had it having only recently decided to eat more meat, but friends and family have and have said good things.


I suppose that's it for now. I'll be adding more to this as I think of things. WE have a couple of reviews to write to catch up with our adventures. Look for those tomorrow night.

Power to the people MAN!

As a follow up to the first crusade, the esteemed Ms. Kuller has offered to refund my friend's class and change the course description. WE WON!!!!! Therefore I am taking down the post since it would just be petty to keep that hanging out on the internet.

On an unrelated note, yesterday was my birthday. When J asked me where i wanted to go for our "just the two of us birthday," I promptly said "2 Amys!" Saturday, we will be hosting the DC Craft Corner Deathmatch, complete with boorish host and scowling assistant. An avid reader of both egullet and chowhound, I am somewhat perturbed by the stories of bad service at 2 Amys. We might be really lucky, but we've never had a problem both times we went. Even thought it was a zoo, we were seated in 15 minutes and had constant attention from our waitstaff. It was the same prompt, considerate, friendly service we had the first time.

Now onto the food. It being my birthday, I decided to be a little decadent and order a shot of limoncello to sip on. Good call, because it highlighted the summery meal we ordered. Of course we were going to order the foodgasmic Pipe Dreams goat cheese and fig jam and the suppli di telefono. The name of which doesn't describe the luscious balls of rich gooey cheeseness. As we had a tapas party earlier this month complete with serrano ham, we decided to forgo the cured meats and ggo with the roasted eggplant with buffalo mozarella balls. It was lovely and summery but I think mozarella is such a mello cheese hat you can't go gaga over it. But the pizza we did go gaga over. We got the norcia pizza which is the basic pizza with 2 Amys pepperoni and roasted peppers. I love this crust. It's solid and crunchy without turning into a cracker and still bready.

For dessert I went with the panna cotta and J had the lemon sorbet. As Ina Garten would say, "best of class." And then we amended it to be "best in show."

Don't Hate Us

Because we regularly go to mediocre restaurants with bad service. We did that last night. And we have done that many many nights. For some reason we keep on going back to Marty's on 8th Street. Over and over again. There's a lot of Marty's shame. Have you seen the decor? It has posters of fighter jets and battleships. I am so not kidding. While the servers aren't hostile, I think befuddlement is a regular state of being. They regularly get things wrong with our order. For example last night I asked for a box for my leftover quasi lasagna. The server took it away. Never to give it back. Not that I wanted it really but I hate wasting food. And beleive me, it's not like the food is anything to write home about. Unless the letter you are writing is an ode of mediocrity. It's your basic burger, big salad, and a few grilled chicked and pasta dishes place. Barely adequate is a fair assessment. So what is the siren song of this place? It's relatively quiet, you never have to wait and it's open until 2am ON WEEKNIGHTS.

Wedding Receptioning

No this is not a how-to to cater your own wedding. I may like to cook, but I am not a masochist. I thought it might be fun to relive the wonderful catering experience J and I had with our wedding. I'll tell you this much, DC can be a damn expensive place to get married. Because there seems to be a large population of rich folks, it's hard to find a space that seats over 80 for less than $5000 and a caterer that will feed and serve people for a reasonable price. On the first point, a really good resource is the book Unique Places to Have Your Wedding in DC. It breaks down the list of places by how many people will fit in them and lets you know things like, whether they have their own tables and chairs, will allow outside caterers and what the ambiance is like. We ended up having our reception at the Great Falls Grange, a former meeting space for farmers in Fairfax. It has a relatively big space for the dinner and dancing (45 feet by 35 feet), a good soundsystem, a stage for our swing band (who were a steal because I volunteered for them) and a downstairs area for food. They also had a few sets of tables and chairs, which meant we didn't have to spend as much money on rentals. While the space charged an initial $500 for four hours rental, we needed the space for a good 14 hours for set up and break down so we ended up spending $1200 altogether. We also rented place settings, tablecloths and napkins, glasses, and chafing dishes. That was a major part of our reception budget. Though the reception site people did proclaim our wedding to be the most beautiful event ever staged at their site, they were the stingiest, uptightiest people about their space. No candles, no free extra hours to set up (like anyone will use the space at 11:00 am on a Saturday) and nitpicky about our faboo decorations. They were faboo. We had a whole crew dedicated to the Christmas light swag. Our friends rock. Truly, truly rock.

Anyway, onto the food. J and I were fairly firm that we wanted to incorporate both of our cultures (Texas and Vietnam) into the menu. Most true blue caterers were totally out of our price range. And quite frankly, one of our criteria was to have the caterer cook the food better than we could. A fairly tall order considering our enthusiasm for cooking. We racked out brains for months to figure out this wedding reception Gordian knot. We wanted to have food brought in from Rocklands BBQ because not only is their meat delicious, the sides rock as well. Finally, we were hanging out with Tim and Rob and ordered food from Cafe Asia in Clarendon. It was good. REALLY GOOD. Better than we could have made. I called and talked with Joey the manager and she said doing half the food as well as providing staff to serve, bartend, and clean up was doable. So we picked a draft menu and noodled around with it for a while. And then, we went with Olivia to their Clarendon location to for a tasting. Never did I feel more like a bride than when Joey ushered us to a table and gave us free food. WHEW!!!!! We were originally going to have their curry as a dish but while delicious, it what spicy. Nicely spicy for my tongue of iron and fiery for the whitey palette. In the end the reception went amazingly well. The setup ended ON TIME. Noone had to stay late to clean and the staff rolled with all the punches. For the $2200 we spent on Cafe Asia we got food for 75, a staff of 2 servers and 1 bartender, and the true insurance of a good reception, two managers to supervise. It was great service and made it be exactly the reception we wanted. For those interested here's was our menu:

Southern BBQ:
Corn Pudding
Baked Beans
Caesar Salad
Sliced BBQ Pork
BBQed chicken
Rolls

Asian
Vietnamese Spring Rolls
Vegetable Pad Thai
Pangang Tofu (the sweet soy sauce that adorns this dish is to die for!)
Indonesian Fried Rice

Not Too Caulkamole Guacamole

My Favorite Guacamole

6 avocados (Haas, giving but not mushy)
1 clove of garlic, minced (roasted gives a nice flavor)
¼ cup of red salsa (Timpone's, is good also Joe T Garcia's or your own homemade)
cilantro to taste, NO STEMS
1 roma tomato, diced
1 medium yellow or white onion , diced
1 dash kosher salt
juice of 2 small juicy limes
½ of a jalapeno (diced, remove seeds and veins for less heat, can be roasted)

Grab a medium-large bowl.
Seed the avocados and put the avocado flesh in the bowl.
Mash the avocado into big chunks with a fork or the side of a wooden
Add the rest of the ingredients.

Gently fold the ingredients together with the occasional mashing. The goal is not to make avocado cream cheese like some stores will sell you. If you want this, go to Taco Bell where you can get the guacamole out of a caulk gun (caulkamole). I try for delicious chunks!


SOme might want to try: More lime juice, cilantro, roasted serrano chiles (instead of jalapenos), more fresh tomatoes, dashes of Tabasco or Arizona Gunslinger, a pinch of cumin, cayenne or sugar.

Where I get my recipes

I should actually say this is where where I get my inspiration for cooking because I invariably change recipes around. Case in point. This weekend I made the Nigella Aromatic Lamb Shank recipe. It called for ground ginger, cinnamon, tumeric, honey, and red pepper flakes with the shanks being served whole with couscous and lentils. I substituted fresh lemongrass for the ginger, garam masala for the tumeric, maple syrup for honey and Thai chili sauce for the red pepper flakes. I then substituted the lentils with yellow split peas and the couscous with brown rice. I also shredded the meat of the shanks instead of leaving them whole. So when I am looking for a recipe, it's always a starting off point for my own machinations. But I do look for recipes that have a degree of reliability to them. That the techniques make sense to me and I understand the outcomes. So where am I getting my recipes? Here's the list:

1. Nigella Lawson - in all forms. She is truly my role model in all ways. I love the way she writes, speaks and cooks. And while not all of her recipes work for me (don't make her pigs in blankets), when they hit the mark, it becomes of of my signature dishes. I take recipes from her tv shows, How to Eat, Nigella Bites, and Feasts cookbooks.

Recipes in my repetoire - Roast chicken, chicken stock, chocolate cake (ROCKIN!!!), Union Square roast nuts, Vietnamese chicken salad.

2. Bon Appetit and Epicurious - For the most part I love Bon Appetit. I regularly tear recipes out of that that magazine. However, it's usch a trendy magazine when it comes to food. It's all truffle oil, balsalmic vinegar blah de blah. Only a small number that make it into my regular repetoire. It's primarily occasion cooking. But it's such food porn.

Recipe in my repetoire - Pie crust, blueberry pie, molten chocolate cake

3. Paula Deen - Because she started off as a home cook and she so Southern, her recipes are amazingly accessible. I have yet to make something of hers that didn't rock. The one caveat is that you can't make it too often or you will die of a heart attack in three seconds.

Recipes in my repetoire - shrimp croquettes, homemade non-ice-cream-machine ice cream, spaghetti pie, vegetable pancakes, fried chicken

4. Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa - Another queen of the food porn. I want her house, kitchen and garden. Her recipes are very straightfoward but she does rely on the standing mixer a lot of if you don't have one in your kitchen, it makes it hard to do many recipes. The other challenging thing is that she often relies on expensive food for her recipes.

Recipes in my repetoire - Tequila lime chicken, chocolate white chocolate chunk cookies, pan fried onion dip, roasted vegetable dip

5. Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook - There is nothing like this. It has to be the spiral bound copy with the gingham cover. It has to have thos tabs for breas, soups etc. Ignore the desserts and candy section as well as the seafood section (because everything in that section is like tuna salad or trout almondine). But the cookies, bread and pie sections rock. This is THE cookbook for basics.

Recipes in my repetoire - cookies of all kind, pancakes, muffins, beer-cheese bread, chicken and dumplings.