Three Days in London

The flight over was more eventful than I would have liked - a guy in the row behind me drank three airplane bottles of wine and threw up all over himself, his seatmate, the seats, etc. - half an hour before landing. He was originally sitting next to me but traded to be across the aisle from his buddy, thank goodness.

I'd decided to eat in the Charlotte airport (barbecue, of course) and not to eat anything on the plane, so I just had some water and orange juice. This is the first time I've done this and it really is the way to go unless you're flying on an airline like Air France where the food is usually very good.

My eating record here in London has been incredibly boring. After rolling, bumping, and dragging myself and my luggage to the Tavistock Hotel in Bloomsbury I had to cool my heels for a few hours before getting into my room so I had strong English tea and a lunch of bacon (really ham) and onion quiche, salad, potato salad, and a mixture of rice and corn at Jacques wine bar on the ground floor of the building. Yes, that's potatoes and rice. The Tavistock's English breakfast buffet is been quite good, especially if you like artery-clogging stuff first thing in the morning.

On Wednesday night I got in late and exhausted so had the chicken paprika over rice (pretty flavorless). But last night's supper of lamb chops, roasted new potatoes and grilled vegetables was excellent.

(post photo here)

Today I have a late-afternoon flight to Brussels from Heathrow's notorious terminal 5. I'll have one more lunch at Jacques and head over there right after. Fortunately I can catch the Picadilly Line here at Russell Square and go directly there so there'll be a minimum of bruises.

On the way to Europe

I'm writing from the Charlotte airport, which has free wireless internet. Yay Charlotte!

Tomorrow morning I'll be in England. After that I go to Belgium, back to England, Germany, back to England, and home on June 18th. This is 3/4 work and 1/4 fun (the Belgium part is entirely fun). I'll be posting here as often as possible. Frites, mussels, belgian beer, here I come!

Get Yo' Man Chicken

I got this recipe from Down Home with the Neelys during my blissful-but-all-too-brief morning watching FoodTV in the hotel room. Even though the Neelys were perfectly nice and lovey dovey throughout the episode, I keep referring to it as "Slap Yo' Man Chicken" for some reason. It's not as though I actually have one to slap, now is it? Which is why I reduced the recipe to 4 chicken thighs and made a couple of meals out of it. As you can see from the photo, I also served it over couscous which soaked up the sauce perfectly. It was a fast and easy Friday night mean - this one's a keeper.

2 tablespoons olive oil
6 chicken thighs, skinless
1 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoons pepper
1 medium onion, sliced
1 cup chicken stock
1/2 cup white wine
1 (14.5-ounce) can crushed tomatoes in thick puree
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 tablespoon dried rosemary
1 tablespoon lemon-pepper
Hot buttered rice
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves

Heat the oil in a 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat.

Pat chicken dry with a paper towel and season with salt and pepper. Brown the chicken, meat-side down first, and turning once, about 4 minutes on each side. Transfer to a plate to reserve.

Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of oil from the pan.

Add onion to the pan and saute until tender, roughly 3 minutes. Add the stock and wine and stir, scrapping any brown bits off the bottom of the pan. Turn heat to high and reduce by half, about 3 minutes. Pour in the crushed tomatoes and add the dried herbs and lemon pepper. Add the chicken thighs back in. Cover and cook on medium low for 40 minutes.

Remove chicken from liquid and serve on hot buttered rice. Ladle the sauce on top and garnish with fresh chopped parsley.

(adapted from Down Home with the Neelys)

DC Food Trip, Finale

This lovely young woman is Stephanie. She is grinning at the camera not because she's getting ready to see Eddie Izzard but because she's poised over a tray of three gorgeous little dishes of crème brûlée. We're still at Belga Café, still full and happy from our meal and beer.

The brûlée on the right is either maple or molasses and it was delicious, the brown sugar was crackly perfectly on top and the creamy dense custard inside tasted like ginger snap cookie pudding. Thank god it was so good as it was the high point of the course. The one in the center was supposed to be vanilla cb with five peppers (?) and strawberry topping. The one to the left should have been pistachio cb with tapioca topping. Instead, the center was pistachio cb (clearly, as it was green) with strawberry topping and it was so-so. The strawberry topping was good but the pistachio was underwhelming. Plus, cb should be crackly on top or it's just custard.

The third dish contained what was to be the real problem of the night. As far as we could tell it was the vanilla with five peppers (never understood, never explained) with the misplaced tapioca topping (identified by the tapioca pearls). Steph, the cb afficianado, took one bite and the sides of her smile dropped. "Taste this." I did, and it was bad. Not as in "I don't like this," more like "this dessert is really old or has been left out of the fridge and has gone off." We both tried another small taste before suggesting to the waiter that something might be wrong. His response was "Oh, that one's my favorite. But lots of people don't like it." No "Let me take that back to the kitchen." No "customer is always right" attitude here! Maybe if we'd been obnoxious instead of excruciatingly polite he wouldn't have blown us off.

To further add insult to injury a manager came by and asked us how things were. We said the meal and beer were great but something wasn't right with this one cb. He also informed us that that was the least popular flavor and breezed off. Clearly our palates aren't sophisticated enough for Belga Café's rancid crème brûlée. Our powers of observation also don't allow us to remember which topping should be on which dessert. Hmm.

Love the mussels, love the beer, but the dessert experience left such a bad taste in my mouth it will be a while before I go back.

DC Food Trip, Part II

On Friday of Birthday Week, after Colleen had left for the train and I'd crawled back into bed, I had a long debate with myself about whether to stay in bed, read a little (maybe), and order a pizza. Maybe venture out to the nearby Starbucks at some point. But I mentally kicked myself in the ass with the "you have a chance to eat cool things and you're going to do something you can do at home?" argument and rallied.

Once I'd taken the metro in there were loads of choices. I went to the Navy Memorial metro stop, arriving just before noon, and there was some sort of ceremony going on with the US Navy Band. It was pretty awe inspiring, all those people in dress whites.

In the end I went up the street to Oyamel for a really lovely lunch. I had the special, a pepper stuffed with pork, pine nuts, and loads of great spices, the sopa de chileatole al lima y tequila con camarones (lime and corn masa soup with shrimp, marinated red onions, cilantro and reposado tequila), and a tamarind soda. The soup was brought out in a bowl brothless and the server poured the steaming stock over it at the table. Nice! I stupidly dumped in my entire tequila shot without tasting first. It was still delicious but I'd like to see what it's like with say a half or 3/4 shot. Another visit is in order! There were lots of tempting things on the menu, including the ceviche choices, so a return trip shouldn't be a burden.

Sadly, I didn't opt for one of Oyamel's beautiful margaritas. Instead I made my way back to the hotel for a nap then met Stephanie for dinner and the second Eddie Izzard show. We caught a cab and went to Belga Café for dinner. I'd been here a few weeks ago and had awesome mussels and, of course, amazing beer. We started with the kip & krab sigaar (spicy cigars of chicken and crabmeat with assorted sauces) which paired nicely with the beer we were drinking. Steph got one of the steak dishes & it look fantastic. I had the mussels "curry" (Asian style in a light curry-ginger-sesame-soya-oyster sauce) which were delicious. We were perfectly happy, sipping beer and catching up. Then we ordered dessert.

To be continued...

DC Food Trip, Part I

Last Thursday, as part of my birthday week celebrations, Colleen and I went to DC to see the Eddie Izzard show and EAT! The train got us in around 1:30, we dropped our stuff at the hotel and went back in to the city for a late lunch.

After calling first to find out that the dining room was closed but we could order off the bar menu, we made our way to TenPenh, an Asian Fusion place at the corner of Tenth and Pennsylvania.


We ordered wine and three dishes: pork empanadas with a spicy cilantro sauce, Indonesian chicken stuffed roti with a yellow curry apple dipping sauce, and Filipino lumpia style pork and shrimp spring rolls with a dark vinegar sauce, a sweet chili sauce, and a spicy aioli. The empanadas were outstanding, the spring rolls were a close second, and the roti came in a not too distant third. But the real winners were the sauces, which were fantastic!



For dinner we went to the Peruvian El Chalan on Eye Street for a delicious but slightly rushed meal (especially disappointing when the show started 45 minutes late). We had salads and shared a to-die-for ceviche mixto with squid, fish, shrimp and - my favorite - conch. It was light, citrusy, perfect for the evening.

The next post will cover lunch at Oyamel and dinner at Belga Café.