Dave Page » Dining

Touch of Thai in Dixon

dave — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 21:23:58 +0000

Good food and inexpensive. Recommended.

221 W. First St.
Dixon, IL 61021

Dinner and Theater in St Charles

dave — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 15:45:10 +0000

Bette’s friend/colleague Shannon Mayhall was appearing in a small theater, Steel Beam Theater, in St Charles, IL. We invited Karen and Nick and headed down to St Charles to meet them.

The theater area is on a courtyard off of First Street off of North Ave., right along the Fox River, and was already jumping when we got there. We drove about a bit to find street parking, then found the conveniently located garage on the fourth floor. We walked down the steps, turned right, and there was Prasino. We entered, set up our reservation, and found a funky bar, laminate tables, glass on the walls, big windows overlooking the river, wine bottles everywhere, and interesting seats; I felt like one of those science museum exhibits where you sit in huge furniture to feel like a child again.

I had a Goose Island Matilda — bottled, not draft — and Bette had a nice Sauvignon Blanc while we waited for Nick and Karen. They soon walked up along the river and we went to our table in the dining room.

We ordered some drinks. Karen likes a sweeter wine and could not decide between some of the options, so the waitress server brought out small tasters of three different wines – she ended up with a Moscato. Nick got a Flat Tire. As time was fleeting, we soon ordered the meals, Bette and I split a roasted beet salad with walnuts and goat cheese. I ordered the braised beef short ribs, Bette the broiled Tasmanian salmon, Nick the ancho braised lamb shank, and Karen a salmon salad.

The short ribs were excellence, tender, and in a wonderful truffle mushroom cabernet sauce. It was served with a cauliflower cheddar gratin, and greens. Nick’s grass fed lamb shank was huge, with olive oil smashed potatoes, greens, feta, spiced olives, and lamb jus. He thought the greens were a bit spicy, but loved the lamb – I even got to taste it. Karen’s smoked sockeye salmon salad had a nice salmon hunk, with spinach, apples, pecans, red onions, bleu cheese, and a raspberry vinaigrette. Bette’s salmon was served with avocado, mango salsa, and crispy plantains.

All the dishes were well presented, and very tasty. The staff was informative, attentive, but left us alone. We thought the price was a bit high, but since a lot of the food items were grass fed and local sourced perhaps that makes up for the difference. All in all, a nice place.

Then it was off to the Steel Beam Theater, where Shannon was appearing in Edward Albee’s “At Home At The Zoo”. It is a beautiful space, with the typical exposed brick and a large steel beam over the stage.

Shannon loves to sing and perform in musicals, so this part was a bit of a stretch for her. The material is serious adult stuff, small girl in the front row notwithstanding — her father had the sense to realize this is not about zoos before the bad parts really hit. Shannon and her costar were great — we have seen her in her bicycle production in Elgin, but this was even more intense. For the second act, the actor walks out of the stage and heads to the park to read. The audience, gets up and follows him down North Ave. (past a very nice homebrewing store) to the park which is several blocks to the west. Outdoor seating was provided and small portable lights, and Peter started reading his book on the park bench, and the next second half of the play begins with the third actor playing Jerry the “street person” who had been to the zoo. The bugs weren’t too bad, but Shannon called us ahead of time to warn us that we should bring bug spray.

After the play ended, we headed back to the theater area, which was very crowded by now. We ended up in Pizzeria Neo, an Italian restaurant that had some seating room, for a glass of wine.

I recommend this production. It was intense, but the outdoor staging was fun, and this is a great area to hang out in. Very lively, interesting shops and restaurants and lots of parking for free. Too bad it’s so far from home. Unfortunately, its last show is tonite, so see it if you can.

Wasabi

dave — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 15:14:02 +0000

Got an email from Dr Weil re wasabi. I like it on sushi, but his article scoffs at US store-bought wasabi – as it is really wasabi, horseradish and coloring. The real stuff is the superfine ground root, like horseradish.

He tried growing it, and it looked cool. Maybe I can do this. Head over to the website. 1 lb of plants = $100. Yow. Looks like I won’t be growing this anytime soon. Sigh.

LA Burritos, circa 1985

dave — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 02:39:37 +0000

Back in the dark ages, circa 1985 or so, I worked for Richard Spielman Precision Electronics, on the north side of Chicago. The owner, Richard Spielman, was a great guy, an atheist, an entrepreneur, and a foodie before his time, as trips to restaurants were part of our all-night construction binges. (He has also disappeared from the face of the earth.) We made light-beam devices for counting linen, and one of our installations was at ALS ? (Associated Laundry Services? Systems?) in Los Angeles.

So when install time came, we shipped 30 boxes via UPS, checked a box of tools and an oscilloscope, and the 386 PC that ran the thing, 100 floppy disks (3 sets of backups because something always went wrong) and flew to Los Angeles.

Commercial laundries are generally very industrial, but this place was forbidding. Even the hotel parking lot was behind barbed wire, and you had to push a button to open the gate. Not a good neighborhood.

But that didn’t stop us from venturing out in search of food. Richie found this burrito place, and I was wondering about it the other day. I can’t remember what happened ten minutes ago, how will I remember this?

So google “Los Angeles Burritos”. They flip up. I find Rick’s, a longtime favorite of Steve Dahl. Ten pages later, click off to Yelp. Same search. On page 11, “El Rey Tacos“. I remember Tacos El Rey. Boy that whacks a brain cell. Read the 2nd review. “I wasn’t brave enough to try the GARBAGE BURRITO.” I think this is it…

King Blvd and Normandie (again with Normandie…) Bad neighborhood. So far everything fits. Check Google Street View. Could be. As the Magic 8-Ball says, “Answer Hazy”.

AFAIK, this is it. One piece of history, complete.

Bayless Chicken – sort of

dave — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 13:09:15 +0000

I bought a package of chicken at Jones’ Country Meats recently, on sale, and looked for a good recipe to make. I found an interesting one in Rick Bayless’ Mexican Everyday, called Chicken in Tangy Escabeche of Caramelized Onions, Carrots, and Jalapenos. It is basically a skillet dish with lots of good stuff, sounded good.

Reviewing the recipe, Rick suggests refried black beans, which we love, so I tried to find his recipe. It was not in the book, strangely, but I was able to find it online in two parts, first to cook the beans, then to make the refried beans. Kind of a pain, I will merge the recipes. I started cooking the dried beans in the afternoon, since they take two hours.

I opened up the chicken package and found connected thigh-leg parts. I thought they would be split. SO first, break out Aunt Lynn’s Cutco cleaver and hack off the back and try to find the joint in the still-frozen chicken. Complete with no lost fingers – success!

Then I started the spice rub, with pepper, allspice, oregano and salt. First a bit of olive oil, then added the rub. Smelled good. It was hot outside, and I did not want to heat the kitchen with cooking a skillet dish, so I decided to just grill it as is.

We grilled some corn on the cob from a local farmer, make a nice salad from our CSA spinach and the chicken slow grilled wonderfully. Skin not burnt, meat done well but not dry. Good Saturday project, and leftovers for lunch!

Twins vs Seattle

dave — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 22:13:51 +0000

On our trip to Minneapolis, Sam got some free (to us – $62 to the season ticket holder) tickets for the Twins vs Seattle at the new Target Field. We were to go Saturday night. Of course, his plant melted down the day before and he needed to go in Saturday to relieve the chief troubleshooter, and Bette bailed, so Lou and I went. Karin dropped us off on the triangle outside the park, and we mooshed in with the herd of humanity.

The park is nice, new. Crowded. We had seats in Section 111, Row 24, on the right side behind home plate up at the top of the lower section. I could sit on the top of the chair to change positions. Nice. 85 degrees, no wind. A bit warm. I got a Summit ale and peanuts – all the food counters were packed. Supposedly the food was good. Maybe later.

The first inning was the game – Twins scored three runs, and that was it. Some nice plays. We got up in the 3rd inning and walked around to see the park from the different vantage points. You could only see the Jumbotron from the side where our seats were. THey have the same electronic displays we saw at United Center displaying ads and scores the whole game. Lots of ads, everywhere. Ick. I took a picture for a guy and his dad. I bought a $1.50 peach from the lonely farm stand.

Twins win in just over 2 hours, coming to within 1/2 game of the White Sox, currently in first place. We pushed our way out, called for a pickup, and the girls were in the car already on the way back from Plymouth. In ten minutes we saw them at the light and hopped in.

A nice afternoon at the park.

Sourdough Waffles

dave — Fri, 21 May 2010 00:21:52 +0000

Today – nothing to do – time to cook a good breakfast. I had the starter out, let’s make Sourdough waffles! Start with Sourdough Waffle or Pancake Batter

If you think about it, feed your starter and set it out overnight. This is not critical though.
…

But that required overnight – kind of. Most recipes do including the classic King Arthur Flour recipe. I googled “quick sourdough waffles” and found Fantastic Sourdough Waffles! at WENDY USUALLY WANDERS.

I added only 2 T of oil and it was REALLY runny, so I added some flour from my other aborted attempt. Then I had severe problems with the waffle iron – was not hot enough (sourdough cooks hotter) and I took the waffles out too soon and lost 2 of the 4 cooking spaces and spent 10 mins scraping crud out of the waffle iron.

All in all, good, but way too much hassle, mostly because I don’t make them enough. And then the coffee grinder jammed, but that’s another post…

Thursday – Kuya’s, Google and Dessert

dave — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 02:31:51 +0000

Art came by after a meeting downtown. He is ethnic Chinese, but grew up in the Philippines, so he thinks of Filipino food as home cookin’. So we headed off to Kuya’s, a place he heard about, only a few blocks from the hotel, once we found it. Parking was a little challenging, found out later they have a lot in back.

It is a wonderful Mom and Pop place, but a very long room – hard to look around. Booths down one wall, and long tables down the other, and there were several larger parties using them.

The waitress came out and was very friendly. Art ordered Lumpiang Shanghai (Ground Pork Egg Rolls). They are about the diameter of a Chap-Stik, 2 inches long, fried, and filled with pork. You get a plate of about 20. Yum.

We tried to find something that this Haole could deal with. Art picked Pork Adobo (Marinated Pork chunks in soy sauce, vinegar, & garlic) which sounds a lot like something in Mexican places, and a vegetable plate (Pinakbet, Mixed Vegetables cooked w/ Shrimp paste, Pork, & Shrimp) with Okra and eggplant. This was served with garlic rice.

Art wanted to get the Halo-Halo Special dessert, but we were both full, and Art had some food left over to take home. Maybe next time.

Yes, they have wine – I had a house Cab. Ok. They don’t have beer. Strange. Art said a San Miguel would have been good, but they have it at Trader Joe’s.

As a Yelp reviewer said, interesting restrooms. I’ve seen much worse. Art said he would bring his brother back there, so I guess the food passed inspection, and you don’t eat in the restroom.

Then we drove off to Mountain View and other points to see the high tech sites, the Google campus, a Microsoft building, LinkedIn, and Yahoo.


Microsoft Office	Yahoo Office	LinkedIn Office

Cupertino for One Infinite Loop, the main Apple campus. I always liked that street name.

One Infinite Loop

Of course, the best were the Google buildings “pi” and “e”. Geeks.

Buildings Pi and e

Then it was off to Golden Island Cafe for dessert. I had a Red Bean & Sweet Tofu dessert. The waitress brought the cream on the side, but I used it. It was excellent. I think Art had a Sago of some sort, but I am not sure. Art?

Kuya’s Asian Cuisine
460 San Mateo Avenue, San Bruno, CA 94066
Golden Island Cafe
146 E 3rd Ave, San Mateo, CA 94401

Michael’s Uptown Cafe

dave — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 20:20:17 +0000

I just found notes on this – must be from 2003 – our Sarah’s friend was finishing college at IU in Bloomington IN, and we went to visit her. She was working on the Little 500 (think the movie) and we managed to drag her for dinner. So I found these notes in an old notebook:

I had salmon – OK, with pilaf. Excellent sweet corn salsa. Bette had pesto ravioli with goat cheese. I got to try one. Yum.
Salads are ala carte for $7.50. Wine was in small glasses for $6. For three people, $110. Nice place, but seems a little much $$$ for what you get. Maybe lunch is better.

Michael’s Uptown Cafe
102 E Kirkwood Ave, Bloomington, IN 47408

BJ’s Brewhouse

dave — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 04:42:06 +0000

For dinner, needed something light. Found BJ’s Brewery website, I had seen it in the Marriott list, and considered it. It is a chain, so I was not real hopeful. Tonite, it was raining, don’t want to go far. They have “PIRANHA® PALE ALE CHILI”. Sold.

So I drive the 0.1 mile, and go in. The parking lot is insane at 6PM. Don’t know why. Basic brewpub decor, ask at the desk – they have food at the bar. Pretty busy for a Monday night.

Finally muscle into the bar in front of the four TVs. Three basketball games and a “classic” NFL game from 1985 – Bears vs. Green Bay. Whoopee. Read my book a bit – “Digital Fortress” by Dan Brown.

Takes a while before the bartender notices me. The dude to my left comes in after, gets called first. Orders house vodka tonic. Likes it. I order a Russian stout. Also the Chili + house salad with balsamic.

Chili? Good, not great – a little too mushy. Not hot, but warm. Eh.

Stout? Good.

Then I asked for a half a HARVEST HEFEWEIZEN®. He said he didn’t have halfs – but brought me a “tasting” glass – 3/4 a pint. Boy, he got a good tip.

Oh, my. Exploded with flavor. Wonderful. Sweetish, but a hint of bitter. As they say, no lemon required. Tastes like it is already living in the glass. Gotta get Art here to try it.