Food Journal Aug 31, 2009

breakfast

• cereal

lunch @ Han Woo Ri

• bibimbap
• kimchee & radishes
• tea

dinner @ Bajio w/ Tom, Lynnette & Sue (were going to Smashing Tomato but wanted to try something new. Ended up at this Moe's/Chipotles/Qdoba place, food decent but service sloppy)

• sweet pork taco (not bad)
• fish taco (fried fish that just tasted like batter)
• chips & salsa

snacks

• Lays sour cream & onion chips

Food Journal Aug 30, 2009

breakfast

• cereal

lunch

• grilled sausages & corn
• fried okra (mmm)
• tomato salad
• leftover soup

dinner

• leftover pasta & soup from Elisa's
• fried okra

snacks

• corn nuts

Food Journal Aug 29, 2009

breakfast

• cereal

lunch @ Masala (I am SO done w/ the N'ville rd location)

• buffet

dinner @ Elisa's w/ Seth, Soul, Pearl & Leon (Supper Club 1.3)

• endive cups w/ chevre/blue cheese, fig jam & toasted pecans
• cheese & crackers (needs a stronger cheese to conteract the jam but still tasty)
• New England clam chowder (very good)
• rigatoni w/ lobster, shrimp, cherry tomatoes & peppered mascarpone (nice)
• green beans
• blackberry pie & homemade ice cream

Food Journal Aug 28, 2009

breakfast

• cereal

lunch

• leftovers & soup

dinner @ Sue's Luau in Waco w/ Tom & Lynnette

• bacon-wrapped pineapple
• pulled pork
• chicken
• purple bread
• potato/pasta salad
• noodle salad w/eggs & seaweed
• homemade cake & ice cream

Food Journal Aug 27, 2009

breakfast

• cereal

lunch

• rice
• leftover soup
• leftovers from mom

dinner @ Petra w/ Ilona & Natalie

• fatoush salad
• spanakopita
• saganaki
• baba ganoush
• taboule
• falafel
• gyro plate (some of the best gyro chicken & lamb I've ever had)
• pita (fluffy fresh -baked)
• baklava (both Greek & Med)

snacks

• corn nuts

Local/Sustainable Food - A Resource Guide in Progress

Start with Kentucky Proud, the state's official guide to local/regional produce, meat & food products. The website's a bit old & hard to navigate but it's a good beginning.

Perhaps our favorite farm is Elmwood Stock Farm in Georgetown, where we get our weekly CSA basket. If you shop the Lexington farmer's market, you'll come to realize they have the greatest variety & quality of produce around.

Speaking of farmer's markets, here's the Lexington Farmer's Market's weekly schedule:

• Tuesdays & Thursdays @ S. Broadway & Maxwell Streets 7am - 4pm/sold out
• Wednesdays in front of Whole Foods in Lexington Green 4-7pm
• Saturdays @ Cheapside Park 7am-3pm
• Sundays in front of Slone's Market on Southland Dr 10am-2pm

I have two suggestions to improve the LFM:

• Sell their logo-emblazened canvas bags cheaper & have farmers charge for plastic bags. Many people bring reusable bags to shop but I think the practice needs a little carrot/stick motivation to keep the environmentally unfriendly bags out of the process.

• LFM needs to be a locally-grown only market. I can't stand seeing vendors selling Georgia peaches & Florida strawberries. It defeats the purpose of a farmer's market when you're selling the same stuff as Kroger (at higher prices I might add). Everything sold should be grown within a 150 mile radius.

Restaurants that get some of their ingredients locally:

Alfalfa
AP Roots
Azur
Billy's Bar-B-Q
Doodle's
Dudley's
Garden Cafe at Flag Fork Herb Farm
Holly Hill Inn
Portofino
Ramsey's
Sahara
Stella's


Other local producers of food goods:

Weisenberger Mill - I've gotten their cornmeal before @ a festival

Food Journal Aug 26, 2009

breakfast

• cereal

lunch

• rice
• oxtail & daikon soup w/ seaweed knots (savory enough & a little fatty but not quite Arirang-level)
• leftovers from mom

dinner @ Maria & Francesc's (very European-style nosh)

• crackers
• goat cheese
• ham & salami (the good stuff from Liquor Barn)
• Iberico ham (a whole leg ripe for the carving, very deep, robust flavor w/ fat just melting in your mouth)
• salad (arugula, endives, radicchio, tomatoes, parmesan & olive oil, needed a little acid)
• potato & onion omelette (a little sweet, almost Japanese)
• olives (my favorite kind)
• bread & olive tapenade
• cheesecake

Food Journal Aug 25, 2009

breakfast

• cereal

lunch

• fried eggs
• eggplant & pork stirfry (mom's)
• green beans & pork stir-fry (mom's - canned green beans?!)
• jellyfish salad

dinner w/ Melanie & Jason

• caprese salad (not a big fan of smoked mozzarella after all)
• roasted figs & proscuitto (Fresh Market imported proscuitto not as good as Liquor Barn's)
• fettuccini w/ rock shrimp & pancetta (an attempt at Babbo's squid-ink spaghetti, no squid ink of course)
• olives
• melanie's derby pie

Food Journal Aug 24, 2009

lunch

• 7-ingredient ramen (not the packaged kind, tryin go avoid the sodium overdose)
• fried eggs
• jellyfish salad

dinner @ Saul Good

• Texas burger (cooked well & nice bite of hot peppers
• shoe-string fries
• skilllet cookie & ice cream (better than Malone's)

Food Journal Aug 23, 2009

brunch @ Sal's w/ Tom, Lynnette & DJ

• steak & eggs (basically a benedict w/ petite filets under the eggs. 1st try came out overcooked but the excellent waiter quickly rectified the problem)
• home fries (a superior version)

dinner @ Pad Thai (still in search of good Thai in Lex, no dice)

• shrimp toast (greasy & french toast-like but flavorful, no need for the overwhelming soy sauce dip)
• pork noodles (can't remember the name of the dish, was on the specials menu. Great flavor but the pork was SO overcooked. Unlike the Chinese, the Thai do not know how to make tender stir-fried meat)

snacks

• corn nuts

Food Journal Aug 22, 2009

lunch @ Moe's w/ Leda

pork taco, steak taco (pretty decent for fast-ish food)
chips @ salsa

dinner @ Seki w/ Tom, Lynnette & DJ

• misc sushi (love the spider roll)
• dumplings (I kinda take them for granted but they are some of the best pan-seared dumplings I've had, thin skinned & flavorful)
• miso soup (ditto)
• edamame

dessert @ Sal's w/ Tom. Lynnette & DJ

• chocolate chip cookie (nice & huge)
• tiramisu (in a dessert glass, not the best)
• peanut butter pie (no Missy's)
• tea (hate it when the hot water tastes mildly of coffee)

Restaurant Roundup - Aug 09 Update

Another night, another round of "Where are we gonna eat tonight?" inspired me to compile a comprehensive list of all the restaurants we have tried, loved, liked, disliked and hated in Lexington.

The list begins w/ a few places we've yet to try and does not include any chains. There are a few select places outside Lexington (Midway, Versailles & N'ville).

haven't Tried

Ali Baba
the Dish
Frankie & Annette's
Izakaya Yamaguchi (bar)
Old KY BBQ
Rossi’s
Siam Thai
Yamamoto

Love

Arirang Garden (just discovered their lunch buffet & heavenly soup)
Belle’s Bakery
Fusion Café (the owner knows me well enough that I don't have to order when I go there)
Han Woo Ri
Holly Hill Inn
Jonathan’s (consistently great experience)
Masala - Beaumont
Panda Cuisine (buffet is hit & mostly miss but dinner/ala carte is still solid)
Seki (Still love this place & hope the old couple's health stays good)
Wallace Station

Mild Affection

Banana Leaf
Bangkok House
Bella Notte
Bellini’s
Drake's (solid bar food, bit of a scene on the weekends)
Giacomo's
Kobe
Malone’s (great salad but a little tired of it)
Masala - Fayette Mall (new mgmt & amateurish service)
Petra (the best Med in town)
Punjab II
Ramsey’s
Restaurante Aguas Calientes
Sav's Grill
Smashing Tomato
Stella’s Deli
Suggin’s
Tandor
W & M Wine Market
Winchell’s

Eh (subject to reassessment)

AP Roots (doesn't quite know what it wants to be)
Asian Wind
Atomic Café
Azur (tried once, subpar high-end experience)
Billy’s BBQ (consistently mediocre)
Bombay Brazier (overpriced)
Bourbon & Toulouse (too salty & a little boring)
Charlie Brown’s
Cheapside
Cleveland's
Dudley’s
El Toro
Gumbo Ya Ya
Heirloom
Hunan
India Garden (pricey)
Jean Farris
Marikka's
Mellow Mushroom
Merrick Inn
Mi Pequena Hacienda
Miyako
Mr. Kebab
Murray’s
Nagasaki Inn
Oasis
Olive Tree (food was good but menu too small & hours unreliable)
Orchid Flower
Planet Thai
The Pub
Puccini’s
Regatta
Sahara
Saul Good
School (great rolls, intriguing apps, small portions & EH service)
Sugano (super-slow service, so-so sushi, zero ambience)
Surf’s Up (RIP?)
Taste of Thai
Thai Orchid
Tokyo Sushi
Tomo
Tony Roma’s

Dead to Me
Ala Lucie
Alfalfa’s
Buddy's
DeSha’s
Euro Wine Bar (in N'ville, possibly the worst restaurant ever..,.)
Furlong’s (food & service both in the gutter)
Giuseppe’s
Joe Bologna’s
The Ketch
Koreana
Metropol
Natasha’s
Paisano’s
Portofino

RIP

Black Tulip (bank foreclosure)
Grotto
Joe’s OK Bayou
Kashmir
Nadine’s
Patchen Thai
Portabella’s

Food Journal Aug 21, 2009

lunch (all the veg were Elmwood)

• grilled spicy sausage (made in-house @ Whole Foods)
• fried okra
• tomato & basil salad
• sauteed onions & green peppers

dinner @ Carrabas (this is when the rushed Lex rest. service comes in handy - when you have a movie to catch in 45 minutes)

• spicy chicken soup (not too spicy but not bad)
• pasta Weesie (prefectly cooked shrimp, mushrooms & fettuccini alfredo)
• chocolate mousse (perfect in the tiny portion of Susannah's prix fixe menu)

snacks

• salted peanuts

Food Journal Aug 20, 2009

breakfast

• cereal

lunch @ Panda w/ Tanya

• dissappointing buffet (I gotta stop coming here, especially when Arirang's soup is calling me)

dinner @ Petra

• saganaki (opa!)
• fatoosh salad
• kibbeh balls (football-shaped fritters, warm, crunchy on the outside)
• baba ganoush

Food Journal Aug 19, 2009

breakfast

• cereal

lunch @ Fusion Cafe

• big combo bowl of pho
• chicken skewer
• tea

dinner w/ Ilona, Tom, Lynnette, Francesc & Maria

• fish & shrimp tacos
• lemonade

snacks

• homemade chips (gotta read up a bit, very hit & miss)

Food Journal Aug 18, 2009

breakfast

• cereal

lunch @ Arirang Garden w/ Tanya

• buffet
• soup (beef ribs simmered for 12 hours plus daikon, topped w/ a little scallion & dried seaweed - Best Soup Ever!)

dinner

• soba
• eggs & tomatoes
• pickles (Chinese & canned)

Food Journal Aug 17, 2009

breakfast

• croissant from Nutbox

lunch takeout from Kiku

• edamame
• spicy crunchy shrimp roll
• white tuna roll

dinner @ Masala (back to Beaumont location, giving up on Fayette Mall location)

• papadum (peppery & toasty)
• garlic naan, peshwari naan
• rice
• lamb karahi

snacks

• sunflower seeds

Food Journal Aug 16, 2009

breakfast

• croissant from Nutbox

lunch @ Vanessa's Dumpling House w/ AJ (super-cheap!)

• pork & cabbage dumplins (average)
• sesame pancake sandwich w/ duck (delicious & cheap @ $2.25)
• cucumber salad

dinner @ Bianca w/ Heather & Meredith (crowded & loud but great food)

• gnocco fritto w/ cold cuts (amazing little fried puffs of dough w/ mortadella, prosciutto & salami)
• caprese salad (fresh & simple)
• tagliatelle w/ sausage, radicchio & garlic
• bread & olive oil

snacks

• mocha cream puff @ Beard Papa

Food Journal Aug 15, 2009

breakfast

• croissant from Victory Cafe (a little dry)

lunch/dinner @ Eddie's

• ribs, sausage & beef kebabs (Eddie knows how to do meat!)
  
• salad, salsa
• chips
• Nestle Lemon Iced Tea

Food Journal Aug 14, 2009

breakfast

• croissant from Nutbox (flaky, buttery, perfect)

lunch takeout from Ghang Thai

• pad won sen w/ mock duck
• spring roll
• Thai iced coffee

dinner @ Grand Sichuan w/ John (dumplings & 3 cold appetizers were the way to go)

• Shanghai dumplings
• five-spiced beef
• garlic pork (fatty, spicy)
• cucumber salad

snacks

• pecans

Food Journal Aug 13, 2009

breakfast

• cereal

lunch @ Petra w/ Tanya (see review)
dinner (sort of)

• ham & cheese flatbread from Dunkin Donuts (barely any ham or cheese but recent for a late on-the-go meal)
• roast pork & rice (late meal @ Adolfo's poker game when a player's husband brought food from Chinatown)

snacks

• apple (big, red & a little mealy)
• pecans

Petra, A Notch Above the Med

After a day at the park with Tanya & her kids Mila & Copper (Sofia's "cuckoos"), we head out to check out the new Mediterranean place in town. Located next to Wal-Mart & Lowe's way out Nicholasville Rd & Man o War, Petra sits in a gigantic space, the former home of Macaroni Grill. I immediately wondered if they could handle the rent but Tanya reminds me the space was empty for a couple years. Hopefully they got a good deal.

Their menu was a cross-section of Med & Greek fare with a few unfortunate American concessions thrown in (club sandwich?!) The flaming cheese (saganaki) caught our eye & I'd remember seeing it afire tableside at a Greek place in NYC. We ordered shwerma & kefta sandwiches & I subbed fatoosh salad for the fries. The kids got cheese pizzas & hummus.

The restaurant was huge and the meager lunch crowd only made the cavernous space more pronounced. The wine racks were empty & the walls underadorned. The nearby bar reminded me of an Applebees (or, I presume, a Macaroni Grill).

The cheese arrived & was lit up to the delight of the kids. We could barely wait for it to cool before digging into its fried, salty goodness. I couldn't tell if this was goat's milk feta or something super-authentic like Kefalograviera, Kasseri, Kefalotyri (not that I know what those are). Stuffing the cheese into the soft pockets of the homemade pita made for nice tiny sandwiches.

My fattoush salad was also very savory, its romaine, tomatoes, cucumbers & large (pita?) croutons well dressed. The sandwich, unexpectedly & dissappointingly was wrapped in your garden-variety pita bread. Dry, thin and tasting like poster board. Decidely NOT homemade. We asked the waiter about that and he too agreed that they should make the sandwiches from their homemade bread. He was eager to relay the message to management. The hummus was good, though not memorable.

To make up for the delay on the kids' pizzas, the waiter offered up complimentary baklavas, 2 Greek, 2 Mediterranean. The former long batons, the latter open in the middle and stuffed with pistachios. The Med version was more unique & less cloyingly sweet.

Points deducted for the dry pita bread & far-flung location (made worse by not being to avoid N'ville Rd or Man o War, two of the most traffic-clogged streets in town) but overall a satisfying experience. We'll be back for dinner, for sure.

30 Minutes @ Saul Good & two hours w/ Julie & Julia

The answer is proximity. If you were to ask me why we ate dinner @ Saul Good. That and we'd never tried it before. We'd never tried it before because it looked eh. Not bad, just eh. Which could be worse. The late 80s/early 90s soundtrack inside was our first confirmation of said EH. The overenthusiastic manager/owner elicited a barely stifled grimace on Susannah's face. She's obviously not ready for poker.

We were seated and told about half-priced house wines & half-priced desserts. The waitress told us her name and that she'd be "helping us out tonight" which I supposed is better than the tried-true & trite "taking care of us tonight." She again mentioned the half-priced stuff. Got it.

The menu of pizzas, burgers, sandwiches et al looked so run of the mill, my eyes glazed over. That is, until I spied Chicken & Waffles. With dark meat. Sold. But I had order mine with the syrup on the side. I don't enjoy my fried chicken adulterated with syrup, gravy or anything else. Susannah ordered a chicken Caeser salad (which came w/ a poached chicken option though she opted for grilled).

We glanced around the space & sized up the decor and decided that they'd must've been going for "whimsical" & "eclectic" but couldn't quite go through with it. The variety of mirrors along the wall seemed a foray into something interesting but the rest of the place kinda petered out. Black, boring & blasting Poison.

My chicken & waffles looks great as fried chicken & waffles ought to. The sprinkling of scallions were the only veg on the plate, which I regretted briefly. The chicken was crisp & way underseasoned. Bites were inconsistent, a few moist and tender, most a little dry. Then I noticed that the "dark meat" consisted of unidentifiable chunks of thigh meat held together by their mutual batter. No bones. Susannah's Caeser was unremarkable though I did steal a few bites to balance out my protein/carb dinner. The waitress checks on us. Yes, everything's fine. Doesn't anyone answer otherwise? The owner checks on us, asks me if I've ever had chicken & waffles before. "Yes, but I was expecting a thigh & drumstick or something, not just random pieces of dark meat." He asks me where I've had it before & I tell him New York (though I'd be hard pressed to remember where exactly). He tells me THIS is how it's made authentically. I few minutes of post-meal googling was inconclusive. The waitress checks on us again.

As I'm finishing the last third of my plate (the waffles & syrup were also unremarkable but did hit the spot), the waitress scoops up Susannah's plate & asks us about dessert. I HATE THAT. Loathe it. I know she's not saying "get the fuck out so I can turn this table," it's just the way she and 98% of the servers in this town are trained. Ask about drinks & appetizers as soon as you sit down, pile the courses one on top of the next, clear while diners are still eating & push dessert. And bring the check (which she did when we turned down dessert). Sad thing is that she was not a bad server in this town. This level of hamfisted rush service is de rigueur in this 2-star town.

Ultimately, Saul Good is simply an unnecessary restaurant. It neither uplifts or degrades the level of cuisin in Lexington. It's simply another place to eat a club sandwich.

As for Julie & Julia, it was thoroughly better than the book (which I happened upon randomly looking for something to read in the library of the last cruiseship we took). There was much less of the author, whose experience I enjoyed reading but whose personality/character I wasn't too hot on, and much more on Julia's formative years as a budding foodie & cookbook author. Meryl Streep was effortlessly amazing, inhabiting the character of Julia Child but I have to agree with Susannah that Stanley Tucci's Paul Child was the understated backbone of the movie (and Julia's life).

And yes, this blog entry is inspired by the movie, the book and the nagging fear that I'll never amount to anything. More to come about food. I promise.

Food Journal Aug 12, 2009

breakfast

• cereal

lunch

• pan-grilled tilapia (defrosted from who know how long ago, held up ok)
• caprese
• salad w/ toasted pecans (though I ate them separately for some reason)
• prosciutto
• jarritos (thinking of even giving these up in the great food purge of 2009)
  

dinner @ Saul Good (see review)

• fried chicken & waffles

Food Journal Aug 11, 2009

breakfast

• cereal

lunch @ Arirang Garden w/ Ilona

• buffet goodness (and a terrific beef rib & daikon soup, worth the price of admission)

dinner w/ Ilona

• salad
• grilled sausage
• grilled pork chop (defrosted & rubbed w/ some corporate steak seasoning. Eh.)
• grilled squash & zucchini

snacks

• brownie

Food Journal Aug 10, 2009

breakfast

• cereal

lunch

• noodles w/ eggs & spicy sauce
• stir-fried cabbage
• pickled cucumbers

dinner @ Suggins w/ Tom

• fried catfish
• spinach (overcooked & overchopped)

Food Journal Aug 8, 2009

breakfast

• cereal

lunch

dinner w/ Tom & Ilona @ Queen of Sheba

• combo plate of Ethiopian eats (not Ghenet-level but worth going back to)

snacks

• corn nuts
• Tagalong Blizzard @ DQ (roadtrips count as extenuating circumstances)

Food Journal Aug 7, 2009

breakfast

• toast

lunch

• leftovers from Panda

dinner @ School w/ Steve, Natalie, Tom & Lynnette (service was mediocre, but some menu items looked intriguing)

• edamame
• ginger pork (little cutlets in a nice ginger sauce)
• variosu sushi (the best were the specialty rolls, worth going back for)

Food Journal Aug 6, 2009

breakfast

• cereal

lunch @ Han Woo Ri

• soup
• kimchee & seaweed pan chan
• jap chae

dinner @ Panda w/ Pearl, Leon, Soula & Ramsey

• drunken chicken
• mala tendon
• pork & bamboo shoots
• fish & tofu
• salt & pepper shrimp
• lotus roots (very potato-like, expected them to be crunchier)
• spicy chicken (covered in dried hot peppers, something delicious & off the menu, getting CLOSE to GS quality)

Food Journal Aug 1, 2009

lunch @ Drake's

• mushroom swiss burger
• fries

dinner @ Smashing Tomato

• calzone
• salad

snacks

• smoked almonds (from Nutbox)
• peanuts
• jerky

Food Journal Jul 31, 2009

breakfast

• cereal

lunch

• leftovers from last night

dinner @ Bonefish

• fried calamari
• bang bang shrimp
• house salad
• shrimp & scallops in pan Asian sauce (overcooked scallops as usual)
• grilled vegetables

snacks

• peanuts
• jerky (Mingua)
• corn nuts