Food

I had whole steamed red snapper on my birthday (yes, I've been slacking) from Carena's Jamaican Grille. It was delicious, but what was really cool was how the skeleton looked just like it was pulled out of a garbage can in an episode of  Tom and Jerry.

About Three Months Worth of Lunch Pictures

I am good at taking pictures, but bad at posting them.

Patrick Henry Pub - This isn't on the menu, it was a special that day, but its a pulled pork sandwich with brie, sauteed mushrooms and onions. It was awesome. Not quite a religious experience, but still a memorable meal.

Dora's Brazilian Grill - I'd love to go there for dinner sometime and try the rodizio. For 27 bucks you get all you can eat meat. Ten types of meat. Sausage, top sirloin, chicken drumstick, beef tri tip, bacon wrapped chicken, flank steak, roast pork loin, roasted lamb, beef tenderloin, and rib steak all cooked over a wood fired grill and served to you on a sword.

But, unfortunately, I was just there for lunch and I had Dora's special plate: 1 sausage, 2 flank steak rolls, 2 slices of alcatra steak (roast beef) with black beans, rice and salad. It is among the best meat I have ever eaten anywhere, I dreamt about it for days, but the portions were kinda small. Best beans I've ever had too, by the way, except for my grandmother's baked beans of course.

Oyster and shrimp po'boy from Bank. Pretty disappointing. The bread was as hard as a rock and what was inside was mushy and lacked any flavor.

Pulled pork French dip from Cafe Gutenberg. It was ok. I have no complaints. The pickled carrots were interesting.

Another "special" item, this from the previously mentioned Cafe Gutenberg, these Bison sliders were awesome. The meat had lots of flavor and the pickled green beans were interesting. It was considered an appetizer and I kind of got screwed because I didn't ask the price beforehand and then ordered a side order of fries. It was a tad more than my normal lunch. Worth it though, but next time I will hold the fries. They aren't the best anyway.

I saved the best for last. Tacos and spicy noodles from Boka Truck, a truck that arrives once a week and parks in the lot next to my building for about an hour and sells some of the tastiest food to be had in the northern hemisphere.

The tacos I had were the Mexican, (Chihuahua cheese, habanero-lime cabbage, cilantro and chipotle crema with Korean beef bulgogi) and the Asian (Sweet and spicy kimchi w/ sesame aioli and fresh herbs with the same beef as the Mexican). I was in heaven for 15 minutes. These were indescribably good. You know when Homer says, "Can't talk. Eating"? It was about like that.

The spicy noodle bowl was good as well, although not quite as mind blowing, and the frustration of eating it with chopsticks outweighed the goodness of the food a bit.

I'm glad this guy only comes once a week. Not only does it give me something to which I can look forward, but I would go broke eating tacos every day. Although, it is pretty cheap. That meal right there cost me 8 bucks. Don't have to give a tip either.

Muscles

I can never get my food to photograph well. Maybe its the camera. Or the food. Or I just don't know what I am doing. Anywho, after watching the Food Network on Sunday I got a New England sized hankerin' for some clam chowdah. I couldn't find clams, so I went with mussels. It was fantastic (although, I still would have preferred clams).

Ladies and gentleman, mussel chowdah!

I couldn't decided which picture I liked better.

Soup

I forgot to post a picture of the kale chorizo* soup I made a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, I was the only one in my house who would eat it, but luckily it was awesome enough that I ate it morning, noon and night for three days.

*I couldn't find linguica anywhere

So Hungry

I have had a tremendous craving for linguica today. I don't know why, I just do, but it is ruining my concentration. My stomach won't stop growling even though I've been stuffing it with other stuff all day. I don't think I can find linguica down here, but maybe one of my good buddies in New England could mail me some :) Pretty please.

Ooo. This kale soup looks delicious. Must...stop...torturing...myself.

OH! I can order it online! Five pounds. That's a lot.

Whats for dinner? Meat.

I bought 7 pounds of rib roast last night. Now, how do I cook it? Yoinks.

Motorcycles and Food

I saw this sweet bike on my way to lunch at Ipanema

where I had the smoked gouda sandwich and sweet potato fries, which was most excellent, but

what I really loved was this Vietnamese (I think) hot chili sauce, a bottle of which I now have at my house.

I'm Back

From the brink of death. I told you those pumpkin seeds would have serious repercussions. Three days of work and most of my weekend. Lost forever.

Note to Self

Eating too many pumpkin seeds has serious repercussions.

Bacon is Good Except When It's Bad

I found two packages of bacon in my fridge on Saturday (August 29). One was marked as "best used by" Sept 1 2009 and the other Aug 30. In my finite wisdom I decided to cook both of them, since they were both about to "expire", and planned on using the leftovers for BLTs or in a salad or something. Anything. I just didn't want the bacon to go to waste.

The Sept 1 package was cooked first and intended for immediate consumption for dinner (yes, all you redneckophobes we were having breakfast for dinner). And I should disclose that I did in fact smell the bacon before cooking to make sure it wasn't funky before I cooked it. After the first package was all cooked and the scrambled eggs were still simmering, I did steal a piece from the paper towel lined plate. It tasted disappointingly "not fresh". Not bad enough to prevent it being eaten at dinner though, but enough to know that this bacon was not smoked yesterday.

I opened up the second package, the Aug 30 one, and took a whiff. And tossed it into the trash. It had definitely taken a turn for the worse.

Whats the point of expiration dates? I drank some milk last week that was a good 3 or 4 days past its date and it was great, but I had to throw away some of God's bounty because it was rotten a full day before it was supposed to be.

I Hate Cupcakes

They're always dry, yet sticky. You can't ever take the right sized bite or avoid getting crumbs all over the place, and its impossible not to get frosting on your face.

I hate cupcakes.

Hi

A person has spoken and I shall start posting more often. To recap the past few weeks...

I cooked a duck on Christmas. It was excellent, but the dollar to meat ratio was very high. Here's a picture of it right before I tossed it into the oven:

And the giblets and neck simmering on the stove:

Duck is fattier than chicken. When handling the raw bird compared to a chicken the skin felt thick. Kinda like what I imagine Wil Ferrell would feel like if I were to poke him in the chest. My kids have never seen me eat a heart before. I've been remiss...

I rode to New Hampshire with my in-laws:

And New Hampshire didn't disappoint...All my youngest son could say was, "It's snowing. That's awesome."

Met my two new nephews, of which I won't post any pictures because I didn't seek the expressed written consent of their parents.

And in my spare time I've begun acquiring speakers for a killer surround system to go along with the receiver I got for Christmas:

Capri-sun added for scale. Front speakers and a subwoofer coming soon.

Food Poisoning

Alright, so we know all about the Chinese lack of quality control in regards to children's toys and food. Well, tonight I was shopping at the local Five Below for my kids for Christmas and not finding what I wanted for my oldest I went next door to Dollar Tree (I was looking for a paper airplane book, that I swear I had seen at Five Below, but maybe, just maybe was at Dollar Tree).

So, anyway, at Dollar Tree I spied a box of candy that looked funny, it was candy boogers. I thought, ok, thats funny, if I can find something else to buy I'll get that for him as a joke.

First of all let me declare that I never ever buy food at dollar stores or two dollar stores or even 5 dollar stores. Oh wait, thats a lie, I bought candy bars at Five Below on Sunday.

I walked around for a bit and as is usually the case, I found nothing, so I grabbed 4 rolls of Sponge Bob wrapping paper and headed back to the candy aisle to get the candy boogers.

When I reached the boogers, I picked up a box and shook them. There was no rattling inside like Milk Duds or Whoppers would do, so I picked up another box and another and another. All were the same.

Guessing that wasn't unusual for a box labeled as being "sticky and chewy", but remembering the box of Milk Duds (my personal favorite boxed candy in case you are wondering) I bought in August from CVS which had melted into a solid block of choco-caramel, I decided to check the box for some sort of expiration date to reassure me that this product was manufactured when Clinton was President.

What I found was something worse.

"Product of China"

I'm sorry but my shoes, ok, sure, tools, alright, but food? Even joke food. No.

Sorry China. You aren't getting my capitalist pig dollar this time.

Trying Something New

This weekend I spied an unusual product in my grocer's cooler. I love to try something new to drink, but this takes the cake.

Budweiser with Clamato.



I've tried Clamato before, and it made me nauseous. I love clams and I love tomato juice, it seems natural to combine the two. No.

I love clams and I love tomato juice and I love beer (not necessarily Bud), it seems natural to combine the three. No.

Vile.

I almost finished the 24 ounce can. I did a lot better with it than I did with straight Clamato, but it's still awful. Never again.

Crap with a Hint of Crap

A perfect spiraling mound of dog poo. That would be a good idea for a piece of novelty of candy.

Crap with a Hint of Marshmallow

I bought this confectionery creation because it looked cool and thought the kids would be impressed. It wasn't made out of a Circus Peanut type candy, however, it was marshmallow. And it was vile and disgusting. I should have just given my dollar to the homeless guy that I talked to that day while sitting in traffic.

What does the "S" stand for?

Quite frankly, the worst smelling and worst tasting hot dogs ever, bar none.