Ten Mercer

Two dinners out in a week!  Who are we?  The old us?  Too much fun!

Once again it is Seattle Restaurant Week.  I think they have these twice a year but sometimes it feels like the "One Day Only" sale at Macy's... you know, the one that is only Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday... at which point does that sale become the "every day sale"?  That's how I feel about restaurant week.

This time The Critic and I each picked 4 restaurants we were interested in.  From there, I copied their menu plan for the restaurant week website and removed the names (and any incriminating evidence like, oh, say, the Ten Mercer salad).  From there, we made our decision.  And Ten Mercer it was!

First up was the menu perusal.   As usual for me, I opted to NOT do the restaurant week menu choice and instead go my own route.  I do this nearly every restaurant week -- they lure me in with their $30 3-course (which used to be $24 as I recall) and then I realize that for about the same cost I can get two courses that I'd prefer to eat, usually scallops, and have a bite or two of The Critic's dessert since I rarely want a whole dessert and would rather have my "dessert" in the way of side dishes.  My Ten Mercer experience is the poster child for this particular scenario.

The wild boar ribs were one of the things that intrigued us most and they ended up not being listed on the Restaurant Week menu, so I ordered them as an appetizer anyway.  Pretty funny that what got us in the door was the only low-spot of the night.  They were really tough.  The dry rub was really sweet which was odd and most of them were lucky to deliver a sliver of meat.  Also they weren't cut individually, which made them nearly impossible to eat since they were nearly impossible to cut.  We, like McKayla, were not impressed.  They came on top of some form of starch that I didn't note so it must not have been that great either.  But something in my memory makes me think it was at least better than the ribs -- not hard to do that.  In retrospect, we should have gone with the pancetta wrapped prawn and asparagus we had been considering.  Even saw it on the table next to us and it looked delicious.

Next up... The Critic's Potato Leek Soup.  It was fine... nothing stands out.  It is about as memorable as a potato and leek soup ever is.

 

For my main dish, I had the scallops.  I know!  I'm as shocked as you are.  They were cooked perfectly and served on a parsnip puree that was quite tasty.  Had these tasty friccos that made The Critic say "Fa-REEK-o!" every few minutes that were fun as well.  It was a good dish.

The Critic ordered a steak.  No one ever asked how he wanted it cooked yet it was done perfectly -- fried onions on top, a red wine demi glace as well.   Even some blue cheese crumbles.  Very traditional steak house flavors with a bit of a modern twist.  It was also a good dish.

Also ordered were two side dishes.  This was a bit daunting for me because I have found my ideal recipes for these two dishes and have since found them done REALLY well and REALLY badly... Polenta and spatzle are like a box of chocolates.  So I asked and was assured they were done well.  So I ordered both simply because I couldn't decide which one to try.

The polenta was good, though it had some flaws.  It had too much rosemary for both of us and too much pepper for The Critic -- I found it was fine as long as I added salt, which it needed.  In the end it was finished, so it couldn't have been too bad.  The spatzle was the best thing on the table this night.  I'm sure a lot of that had to do it being fried in bacon fat.  Let's just say it hardly fits on the 1200 calorie eating plan but was worth it in droves.  Still, its one fault was again lack of salt.  It's okay -- lack of salt I can correct!  I would go back to this restaurant just for that side dish.

Finally, dessert.   It was chocolatey and caramely and good (though we think we might have been missing one or two elements based on other tables around us). 

The only other thing we remember about the restaurant was that it was COLD which is kind of unusual for the warmth that our fall has brought this year.

Ah, Ten Mercer.  I think we earned our snob status at this particular place.  The chances aren't great that we will return any time soon.  But I'm glad we got to see you strut your stuff!  Until (approximately) next week, Seattle Restaurant week. 

Din tai fung

It's been a while since The Critic and I have had a chance to go out just the two of us.  The occasion of "The Ball Gym" came up for The Guys to hang out for the evening and The Critic and I decided  to return to Din Tai Fung.

Here's the brief story of our first time to go.  We went soon after they opened with The Guys and, well, it was a disaster.  The wait was horrendous which we expected, but even after receiving our pager that our table was "ready" we probably waited 30 more minutes before being served.  Apparently this is common because the same thing happened tonight -- though it is truthfully just easier to deal with that delay without little kids in tow. 

Once we were finally seated (last time) it was one whiny whine after another... the food is too hot, too cold, too mixed together, I don't like [fill in the blank], that looks weird, that smells weird, I don't even know what that is... this might not seem unusual with little kids but ours aren't usually so vocal about their complaints and as far as asian food goes, DTF is really recognizable.  What kid doesn't like a potsticker?  Ours apparently.  Weirdos.

So basically based on that first experience we didn't understand the hype.  It was okay, but not outstanding.

Enter phase two:  Operation Don't-Bring-The-Kids-This-Time.  Guess what?  The food is WAY better without the whine!  The whole experience is more fun -- atmosphere, company, and even the waiting.  We had a great time.  The following notes and pictures will be used on our next phase:  Operation Return-To-Din-Thai-Fung... not sure if that will be with The Guys or not.

First up is the waiting game.  The fun part of this is watching the skilled chefs make the dumplings.  One of these was the famous juicy pork, the other was some kind of dessert with black bean curd I think.

After a lengthy wait, we finally sit down and from there on out, it's actually a pretty fast process to order and be served.  

We began with a plan.  Thankfully they have a HUGE picture menu and, as I might have already mentioned, we had a few minutes (or 30) to peruse it.  So the plan was as follows:  Famous juicy pork buns, shrimp and crab shi mao, and some chicken noodle dish.  We also went back and forth on trying to remember if the garlic green beans were worth it, or not.  I think we finally decided no, we'd pass.  Once our server arrived, he had other suggestions.  First thing he said... "Have you had our shrimp and pork wontons with spicy sauce?"  "No."  "You have to try them."  "We were going to get the pork buns instead."  "Yes, those are good.  But the wontons are amazing."  "We've had wontons tons of places.  They are really that special?"  "They are REALLY that special."  He went on to suggest we try a rice cake dish instead of the noodles -- he got The Critic's attention with the words "like the Asian version of gnocchi".  So, with suggestions in our head, plans changed.  Here's the final product we ended up with.

Crab and Juicy Pork Dumplings -- eat these in one bite or they drip all over.  We liked them dipped in soy sauce with ginger added to it.  In the future, skip the crab.  It wasn't bad, but it wasn't apparent either.  Save the few pennies extra and just go with the juicy pork.

Here they are!  Shrimp and Pork Wonton with Spicy Sauce.  The Critic didn't think the sauce was that spicy but I sure did.  We finally realized it was because I needed to eat one in about 3 bites where he could just inhale it.  The result was that my lips burned but his were fine.  So worth it though.  These are as delicious as our server implied!

Shang Hai Rice Cake with Chicken -- These were delicious as well.  The rice cakes looked very much like water chestnuts so the texture would throw me off every now and then but the flavor was really good.  Definitely need to get this again sometime!

Sautéed String Bean with Garlic -- Ultimately we decided we needed more vegetables.  Granted the amount of oil used to sautée them sort of negates the "healthiness" of them.  Like bacon wrapped asparagus or fried zucchini... anyway, these were DELICIOUS and we need to remember next time that YES they are worth it.  Not soggy, lots of garlic flavor.  Delicious.

Calico Cupboard

Over the weekend we had the opportunity to visit with my folks and some friends of theirs, visiting from out of town.  We learned that Skagit Valley has a "Farm Festival" which is sort of a combination between the tulip festival (only in the fall) and a bunch of pumpkin patches on steroids.  The neat thing is just how varied the idea of "farm" around here is... there was an apple orchard, a winery, a dairy farm, and a shellfish farm, just to name a few.  Our family had an incredible time at three farms and each founds something great to enjoy.

In the midst of it, we stopped for a break for lunch.  I think this speaks well to my interest in this blog because it never even occurred to me to take pictures.  In this case, it wasn't about the food -- it was about the people and the time with them.  It just so happens that the food is also amazingly out of this world and worth the trip!  I wasn't really looking forward to it.  It seems like the kind of place that would be a typical heavy bakery and, quite honestly, I was concerned about The Guys' tastes and that they wouldn't find anything they liked.  Well low-and-behold, they had a plain cheeseburger.  And it came with a gingerbread boy!  That made for one happy Big Guy dude... let me tell you!  FIT didn't fare to poorly either.  He enjoyed his first ever peanut butter and banana sandwich with a snickerdoodle the size of his cute adorable face.  Precious.  And delicious.

For me, I just decided on the garden salad.  Remember when I said that I wouldn't blog about it if it wasn't blog worthy?  Well, it was!  A simple garden salad was AMAZINGLY fresh and delicious. I had the oriental dressing with was low-fat on the side, but came with exactly the right amount.  I should have ordered it without the croutons but they were oh-so-tasty that I was okay that I forgot to ask those to be omitted.  And the bread on the side, OH THE BREAD ON THE SIDE.  That was so delicious.  I highly recommend a stop here if you're finding yourself on that long drive between Seattle and Bellingham.  Definitely tastier than I recalled. 

And check out the farm festival next fall.  With 16 blog followers, I'm allowed to let you in on that.  Too many more people who find out about it so that it becomes, oh, say, the tulip festival, and I'll have to put that on my "that was a nice thing to do before the crowds showed up" list.

Bunk Sandwiches

There's an app for that.

Food Network has a new app.  It's called "On the Road" and, among other things I have yet to research, it allows you to search by location for restaurants nearby that have been featured on Food Network shows.  I need to see if there is something similar with Top Chef, but until then, this has already proven to be a useful tool.

A while back I watched an episode of The Best Thing I Ever Ate that sang the praises of pork belly Cubano in Portland, OR.  I made a mental note that if we were ever in Portland, we would stop by.  One, it's pork belly.  And it is almost impossible to mess up pork belly (one unfortunate experience ruins the universal truth).  Two, well, it's a Cuban sandwich.  And that is probably the greatest love of the critic.

This weekend I found myself in Portland.  I was at a convention where I opted to NOT pay the additional $10 for a box lunch.  Oh what good planning on my part!  Thanks to my handy-dandy phone app, I learned that Bunk Sandwiches is a mere 1.1 miles from my exact location!  Guess what?  I can walk a mile for a sandwich (and I can walk a mile back too... which is good because, well, it's pork belly and swiss and ham and bread a bunch of other things on the not-approved eating list).  And that pork belly Cubano rings it at $8 or $9 and is more food than I could finish... so it just made good economic sense as well.

So I left the convention a teensy bit early for lunch, in case there was a line (there wasn't).  It's not in the "best" part of Portland but it was safe enough to walk alone and it was a GORGEOUS day so that really can't be beat.  And well, the sandwich, it was worth walking much further than 1 mile for.

I purchased two.  One for me, and one for The Critic to eat once I got home that night.  I remembered his without mayo.  It was a DELICIOUS sandwich.  I'll have to watch the show again to figure out what the smokey hit that came on occasion was.  And to see if Chris Cosentino ordered it with the housemade cherry peppers (I didn't... but really thought about it).  And there will be a repeat performance... only next time it will be on a Portland trip with The Critic.  He deserves to enjoy that sandwich the way it was intended and not reheated 9 hours later in the microwave.  Though he will be the first to tell you it was still delicious and well worth it.