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Got my ticket this morning. It will be fun to compare these pig ears to those at Chen's. Bacon/goat cheese brownies sounds intriguing, too. Hope I can get me some cheek meat.
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Amen on that one. Supposed to be a nice day, too, although I hope those forcasted thunderstorms hold off.
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It is at Jones Valley downtown. I hope to be able to go. Price is pretty decent, and the combination of roast pig and Good People ale sounds like a perfect combination. You can't beat the combination of chefs, either. Cochon is a great restaurant.
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The last time I tried the tendon (or, as they call it, "beef tender") at Red Pearl, it was akin to the way they serve it at Chen's, rather than the more gelatinous style we had at the Red Pearl Chowdown. Which style was it this weekend?
And, from what I'm reading between the lines here, you hate the smell of beef napalm in the morning.
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I'm glad to hear the restaurant side is back open. I need to head out that way soon for lunch.
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You understand very well, then, about the Stitt influence in town.
All of those suggestions are good. Within your complex is a pretty good sushi/Japanese place called Jinsei http://www.birminghamrestaurants.com/...
and a well-regarded tapas/Mediterranean place called Do-di-yos. http://www.dodiyos.com/
For breakfast near your hotel, I've heard raves about the morning fare at a barbecue joint a block away, Demetri's http://www.demetrisbbq.com/BREAKFASTM...
But I'd go with the high-end places mentioned above, especially Highlands or Hot and Hot (whose chef, Chris Hastings, also is a James Beard nominee). Both specialize in haute Southern food. They'll give you a unique sense of place.
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How much do you want to spend, where are you coming from and where will you be staying? We've got some James Beard-quality restaurants, decent Mexican fare, Italian, Southern cooking from haute to just hot.
Relatively few barns with picnic tables.
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I keep hoping Kool Korner will expend its menu to include things like black beans and yellow rice, and empanadas. It's main competition in Atlanta, Havana Sandwich Shop, made some great ones.
We had a little Colombian/Mexican restaurant on 280 (now closed) that made good empanadas and arepas. I'd love to find a good hole-in-the wall for empanadas and other pan-Latino snacks.
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Thanks. I've heard of puffy tacos (on "Throwdown") but never had a chance to try them.
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Where's Dos Pesos? ANd with the choice of meat, is it the taqueria choices (carnitas, cebolla, leguan, etc) or the more standard choices (ground beef, chicken, fish/shrimp)?
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I've noticed a trend lately in which the dishes they advertise as spicy actually are spicy, which is great. I actually had to ask them to tone down the ma po I ordered for my 7YO.
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Congratulations to your daughter and I hope y'all have a great time.
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The atmosphere at Chez Fon Fon is far better than at Ruth's Chris' Steak's House's. More variety is steak is not everyone's cup of meat. Check out the charcuterie plate as an appetizer.
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If you've never been there, go to Highlands for your high-end meal. The restaurant was just named a semifinalist for James Beard Award for best restaurant. It sdeserves every accolade.
Hot and Hot's Chris Hastings also is a Beard semifinalist for best chef in the South, so you can't go wrong with that place, either.
An addition worth considering: Bright Star Restaurant in Bessemer, which just got an American Classics Beard award. Try the snapper throats.
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One of the great things about this Chowdown was the chance to get to know each other a little better. The food was uniformly good -- no wine chickens this time -- and again the food came out to under $15, after trying five appetizers, four entrees and three different breads.
Two appetizers in particular stood out: Bhel puri was puffed rice mixed with fresh onion, mint (I think) and some kind of fried rice stick, served an a papad bowl. Very refreshing. I expected crunch, but I think the sauce/dressing took care of that. One of the crowd favorites.
Also high on our list was the samosa chaat. We ordered both vegetable samosa and the chaat version, and I think everyone far preferred the chaat. The creamy sauce and chickpeas balanced out the spiciness of the samosa.
We also ordered paneer pakora, which at first glance resembles fried cheese sticks -- until you bite into it and hit the spicy sauce. Very good.
Masala dosa was a huge triangle of crunchy, slightly tart rice-and-lentil crepe, perfectly sized for sharing in a large group. My only complaint is there was insufficient filling of curried potatoes, especially at that price ($7.95), but the sauce that accompanied it was very good. You don't see this South Indian specialty at the other Indian restaurants in town.
For entrees, we went with a couple of standards and a couple of dishes unfamiliar to most at the table.
Standards were vegetable biryani and chicken tikka masala. Both were well above average. The biryani was a generous portion.
We also got bengan bharta, a smoky, flavorful eggplant puree. It ended up being one of the favorites among diners. Eggplant to me is an underappreciated vegetable, and a great transition for people wanting to eat meatless on occasion or regularly. The group termed this dish the big surprise of the night.
All the above dishes were ordered mild, since some had expressed an aversion to spicy food. But we ordered a goat curry made hot -- and it was another hit for us. My only complaint was I wound up with far more bone than meat; although the bones to add to the richness of the sauce a little more meat would be nice. What meat I got was very tender and the curry sauce for this dish is spectacular. Even the spicy-averse loved this one.
For breads we ordered onion kulcha, garlic naan and whole-wheat chapati. One thing about Silver Coin: They make first-rate breads.
Silver Coin remains my favorite Indian restaurant in Birmingham, especially for the breadth of their menu that includes dishes from several regions. Indian food is one of the grand cuisines of the world.
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The only China Doll 2 I'm familiar with is on Valleydale Road, in that plaza at the corner with Caldwell Mill Road where the Publix is. It's been years since I've been there, but remember it being one of the better places I'd tried at the time. Nice people, too. I just don't get down that way anymore, since I stopped working in Hoover.
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I was fortunate enough to start to get into cheese when I lived in Atlanta and the DeKalb Farmer's Market was aggressive about handing out samples to educate the public.
When I got serious about cheese, I bought Steve Jenkins' Cheese Primer. It may be a bit dated now, and he has some interesting biases on certain cheeses. But you learn alot about the classic cheeses and styles from around the world.
The above advice is right on: Take advantage of samples (WF is great about that). Ask questions of a knowlegable cheese counter staff (WF and V Richards here). Try cheese plates at good restaurants and ask questions about what you're getting (Hot and Hot, Satterfield's, Highland, Chez Fon Fon, etc.).
But most of all, just plunge in and try them. Get 2-3 cheeses in quantities of 1/3 to 1/2 pound -- either "flights" of similar cheeses like soft rind, washed rind, hard cheeses, goat or sheep milk or just one of each style. Keep track of the ones you like and try other variations of similar cheeses the next trip to the cheese counter.
Cook with some of these cheeses. You haven't lived until you make a macaroni and cheese with a good gruyere (especially if you make the sauce with Wright Dairy whole milk). Find an aggressive farmstead cheddar to put on a burger and see how it enhances the flavor. Put a little blue cheese in a cream sauce to top pasta.
Ban the can: use only freshly grated real parmigiano or other hard Italian cheese to top pasta.
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Delice de bourgogne -- it's butta. So creamy (it's a triple cream). One of my favorites.
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The UniKasse is very good. I like the 3-year aged gouda even more. Got some in our fridge right now.
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Cheesedown does sound good! I agree about WF; and I think they overcharge, too. Decent cheeses, but please cut to order.
That's why:
(1) I really, really miss Tria Market. I'venot been to do-di-yo's, so don't know if the cheese counter survived the cut during the conversion. But Tria's was the best place to buy and they both knew and knew how to take care of their cheese.
(2) It is worth a special trip to V Richard's. If you like things like Berkshire pork, or house-made sausages they do have some sales on those items fairly regularly that makes it more than worth the trip -- say on a Saturday, or during lunch on a weekday if you work intown.
I agree about Fresh Market -- although along with noting its decline I have to say the way they handled their cheese never was too great in the first place. Odd, considering I really like their butcher shop and seafood counter.
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They had a sign up saying they'd be open on Mondays in February. Don't know if that's an experiment to see if it's worthwhile doing that permanently. I'd be all for that, if it doesn't burn them out.
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I'm not sure if they carry them, but check Super Oriental Market on West Valley: 945-9558.
I see live mussels a lot in grocery stores, but don't trust too many of their fish stands aside from the Western in Mountain Brook.
I would imagine that Fresh Market on U.S. 280 and Sexton's Seafood in Cahaba Heights would be selling them in a similar price range as Whole Foods and Snapper Grabbers.
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Blue crab. Also put in oysters and shrimp. This recipe, from Brennan's called for both roux and okra. It's New Orleans creole style rather than classic Cajun.
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I was back at the Super Oriental Market on West Valley on Friday to buy live crab and shrimp for a Super Bowl gumbo. Looks like is may be awhile before Red Pearl restaurant reopens.
The girl at the counter said they need to knock out a wall and do something else fairly major that now escapes me. ANd once that's done they'll have to deal with city inspectors. Anyone who has dealt with the City of Birmingham knows that is an odyssey in itself.
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Here's something that might be of interest:
http://bhmchinesefestival-org.web14.w...
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Wow! Private chef! You really know how to do it up for V Day!!!
I haven't had the chance to check with Chen's on their plans, if any. My experience has been that few places do anything to note Lunar New Year. Don't know if Red Pearl will reopen in time.
A group in Hoover used to do a dragon dance, but don't know if they still do.
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A couple of discoveries on a cold, damp Saturday wandering around the Valley Avenue area:
Red Peal, the restaurant inside the Asian market on West Valley, has closed temporarily as part of amajor renovation in the store overall. The restaurant part will move across the building, on your right as you go in the door. Longtime Red Pearl fans will recall that's where they originally had seating.
They've turned the aisles around in the market itself, moved around the refrigerators and fish tanks (live choices included bull frog, dungeness and blue crab, lobster, carp, tilapia, catfish and eel in still-crowded, but much cleaner tanks.) You can see into the kitchen from behind the fish tanks.
They market still sells pork and other butchered meat, but I did not see the cooked ducks. The freezers have been reorganized. Vegetable area remains the same (with the best prices in town for packages of those tiny beech mushrooms.) The area where they sell gifts and kitchen items has exanded to where the restaurant once was.
They said the restaurant may reopen this week (it'll take a lot of work, from what I saw). We'll see if the menu remains the same; they change menus like Madonna changes costumes during a show.
Sadly, Taqueria La Reyna has closed, and apparently awhile back. The neon sign on the now-closed restaurant said Royal Taco, and a hand-lettered sign on a window said Taco Loco is to open there soon.
It's shame that La Reyna couldn't make it. It was always clean and the hand-made tortilla and other masa products rocked. They had nice people working there. The meat fillings weren't consistently the best, but it was still a good place, especially for those adverse to divey places.
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Taqueria Mi Casita in the Palaisades serves breakfast tacos/sopes/burritos. Basically it's the fillings that combine egg with cactus, chorizo, ham, etc. They're available all day.
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Thanks, CD. Figured sweetness had something to do with it. Got my lesson for the day.
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I've got an Emeril recipe that I think I'll try. Agree the king cakes here are wanting, but don't think I want to go through the expense of special ordering one.
I understand your point, DFK, about the professional bakers not knowing what a hummingbird cake is. But out of curiosity from this rank amateur, what is it?
