Happy Anniversary to Minxeats!

It's hard to believe that Minxeats has been around for 15 years already! I actually started blogging in 2014; my first blog was knitting-related and segued into other subjects. I realized I enjoyed eating more than knitting, so a food blog was the next most sensible step. 

In the last 15 years, I've made 2,678 posts and had nearly 2 million visitors. The fist post was about dim sum. My most popular post was on French Fry Hash Browns, and the next most popular recipe post was Mr Minx's tofu stir-fry. 

Thanks to Minxeats readers over the years for hanging in with us. I don't know how much longer we'll be doing this, but it will be at least a few more years.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

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Appreciating What We Have

Today is Memorial Day, and I know many of you are griping that you cannot celebrate the holiday the way you would like. There will be no large family gatherings (at least, there shouldn't be) or neighborhood block parties (again, there shouldn't be), or gatherings of clustered maskless folks in enclosed spaces (once more--there shouldn't be). Honestly, I don't care what your state tells you is ok, it's most likely not. (I welcome you to come back in 6 weeks if there hasn't been a spike of cases and tell me I was wrong.)

This whole situation has been going on for ten weeks now, and honestly I have gotten pretty used to spending 80% of my time in my own dining room with no company other than my husband and our dog. Last week, however, we had the opportunity to get out of the house and socialize. It was Dara's birthday, and she invited friends to come over and sit on her lawn, 6'+ away from each other, to enjoy cake and company. We were to arrive in shifts, and fortunately our shift overlapped with that of other friends, the Keefers, whom we have not seen at all in 2020. We spent a good hour or more discussing life after Covid, the current season of Top Chef, and the local restaurant industry. I haven't had such a good time in, well, at least 10 weeks! And I realized that such simple pleasures--sitting in the sun, talking with friends--are among the most important things in life. Not haircuts and manicures or going to bars.

Stay well, readers. See you on Thursday for our next recap.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

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Flashback Friday - The Food Market

This post originally appeared on Minxeats.com on December 12, 2012.

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After being urged by several different people to try the Food Market, we did, with some delicious results.

The place is popular. Seriously. We eat dinner early, partly to miss the crowd, partly because we're old. By 6pm on a Saturday, the place was hopping, and getting louder by the minute. The music was loud, the people were louder, and the restaurant has no sound-absorbing materials at all, apart from the barely-padded banquette seats. So bring earplugs and a hearty appetite because there's lots to try.

The menu at the Food Market has categories like "little," "small," "big," and "in-between," which translates as "finger food appetizers (plus a soup)," "appetizers that require a fork," "entrees," and "sandwiches." (You're welcome.) Absolutely everything sounded like something we wanted to eat, so it was a bit hard to narrow down our choices. Eventually we settled on two littles, two smalls, and one in-between to share.

The Amish soft pretzels were less the stereotypical salty twists and more like buttery bread fingers (think Aunt Annie's). The generous portion of beer cheese fondue was spiked with jalapeno and had a nice kick. It was so good, we hated to waste it; even after the pretzels were gone, we kept the cheese sauce as a dip for french fries and the tasty foccacia that was brought to the table when we arrived.

Amish soft pretzels, beer cheese fondue

The meatloaf fries were fat little fingers of very good, very moist, homestyle meatloaf, dipped in tempura batter and deep fried. Complete overkill, but quite tasty. I think I might enjoy the meatloaf more if it were served in a more traditional manner.

Meatloaf fries crispy tempura
ketchup & black pepper beef gravy

At this point, after only two courses, I was getting full. The next two dishes that arrived were thankfully somewhat lighter. Yes, the pork belly seemed lighter than the meatloaf, probably because it hadn't been deep fried. Not that there's anything wrong with deep frying....

There was a nice ratio of fat to meat on the chubby chunk of belly, which can sometimes seem too fatty. (Not that there's anything wrong with fatty....) The brown sugar topping added a perfect amount of sweetness and married well with the toasted pecans. My favorite dish of the evening.

Brown sugar pork belly, petite greens, toasted pecans,
cherry tomatoes, bangin’ honey mustard vinaigrette

We also ordered the chopped salad, which the kitchen thoughtfully split for us. It wasn't quite a chopped salad, as the lettuce was whole and the sprouts were cut in half, but it was an interesting combination of flavors, and quite autumnal. I thought it was odd that the sprouts were warm, and everything else was at room temperature, and felt the macadamia nut crumble was merely a texture and not a flavor, but Mr Minx gobbled it up. And he's not a fan of either beets or cooked carrots.

Chopped salad lemon cream cheese, roasted brussels, beets, 
carrots, mac nut crumble, cranberry vinaigrette

Finally, we shared the Pat LaFrieda burger, which the kitchen again split for us. The saltiness of the bacon predominated, rendering even the pickles mute. But the meat was perfectly cooked, and the bun held up to the large amount of filling. The crinkle cut fries on the side were a touch of nostalgia.

Pat LaFrieda Burger diced bacon, lettuce, tomato, 
onion, sesame bun, cheese, pickles

And then we ordered dessert. I was tempted by the sound of pumpkin cannoli, but would have preferred a single large cannoli to the three small ones. I'm more about the filling than the shell, which was a bit dry and dense.

Pumpkin Cannoli

Mr Minx ordered the Heath bar bread pudding, which was lovely and moist, but far too sweet for my taste. The plain whipped cream was a welcome relief from the sugar overload, although it's probably odd to look to a pile of what is essentially whipped fat to lighten anything.

Heath bar bread pudding

I have mixed emotions about the Food Market. I love the concept, always love small plates, but think it really takes some advance knowledge of the dishes to put together a meal that feels like a meal, rather than a sundry combination of snack foods (granted, we did perhaps order oddly). Several of the diners around us were ordering big plates only, which might be the way to go. And speaking of other diners - the tables are fairly close together, so it's easy to overhear conversations. For instance, the table of annoyingly giggly female 20-somethings to our left threw out a few bons mots, my favorite being, "ooh...the Baltimore Club looks really good. Except for the shrimp salad." (A Baltimore club is generally a crabcake paired with shrimp salad. Without the shrimp salad, it's a crab cake sandwich.)

That said, I'd like to go back and try a few more things. The pork belly was seriously good (everything was, in its own way), and both the cracker fried oysters and lil' lamb porterhouses seem like items I'd really enjoy. And they have scallops, which almost always turns me on.

The Food Market
1017 West 36th Street
Baltimore, MD 21211
(410) 366-0606
thefoodmarketbaltimore.com

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Chocolate Strawberry Naked Cake

Sometimes I am too ambitious for my own good. I've never been much of a baker, excepting the occasional tray of brownies and cookies at Christmastime. There's also the annual cake for Mr Minx's birthday, but that's usually a simple chocolate bundt. This year, I wanted to do something fancier. I was desperate to make a "naked cake," a cake with exposed layers, popularized by Christina Tosi at NY's Milk Bar. I've seen a lot of them on Instagram, and they look so cool. Also, they didn't seem all that difficult to make. Frosting the sides of the cake always seemed like the most fidgety part, and making a cake naked eliminates that whole messy ordeal.

My idea was to use the same super moist recipe that I use for the bundt cake, with the addition of roasted strawberries, and a simple stabilized whipped cream frosting. It would be like a strawberry shortcake, only not short and with the added goodness of chocolate.

I didn't want to attempt to cut round cake layers in half horizontally, pretty sure that would be a disaster. Instead, I made several flat rectangular cakes in a jelly roll pan and cut them into rounds. That ended up looking a bit sloppy. Perhaps my knife wasn't sharp enough, or the cake recipe I used was too moist. In any case, the somewhat jagged layers got stacked between pieces of waxed paper and spent the night in a cake carrier until I was able to assemble it the next day. It would have been too much to try to get it all done on Saturday morning before our annual afternoon birthday crab feast guest arrived.

The roasted strawberry idea I got from a foodie newsletter. The recipe in the newsletter was actually for oven-dried berries, but I liked the idea of cooking strawberries in the oven until they got soft and gave up a lot of liquid. Some of that liquid became a subtle flavoring for the whipped cream frosting that I stabilized with gelatin so it would last longer and not weep all over the cake.

I had used up all the strawberries in the roasting process but wanted to top the cake with something besides whipped cream. Birthday candles were out of the question (as was singing "Happy Birthday"), but I remembered we had a bag of Crunchies freeze-dried strawberries that the company sent me to taste after the Fancy Food Show. I had been nibbling them on their own, but felt they would be the perfect garnish for this cake and a good counterpoint to the squishy roasted berries between the layers. They stood up like sweet stalagmites, adding height as well as color and flavor. They softened a bit as the cake stood, but they never sagged, and I kinda liked the third strawberry texture in the mix.

Crunchies are non-GMO, gluten-free, vegan, kosher, and halal and contain no added sugar or artificial flavors. They are just freeze-dried fruit, pure and simple. I also love the Crunchies mango snacks and am contemplating making a similar cake, with yellow cake and mango filling, so I can use them as a garnish, too. That is, if we don't just eat it all straight out of the bag. :)

For someone who didn't really know what she was doing, I did a pretty decent job. Though the cake isn't the most beautiful thing in the world, it tasted so so good. ::::patting self on back:::::

Chocolate Strawberry Layer Cake

For the roasted strawberries:
2 pounds strawberries, hulled and halved, quartered if large
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the chocolate cake:
1 cup unsalted butter
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons liqueur of your choice (I used Kahlua)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
2 large eggs
1 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons vanilla

For the frosting:
2 teaspoons unflavored gelatine
2 cups heavy cream
1/4 cup confectioner's sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Garnish:
Crunchies freeze-dried strawberries

To make the strawberries: Preheat the oven to 400°F.

Toss the strawberries with the sugar, then with the vanilla. (Don't put the vanilla on the sugar to cut corners; it will just make the sugar clump up and make it hard to toss with the strawberries. No, I did not learn that through experience.) Spread in one layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Roast for 25-30 minutes, until strawbs are soft and there's lots of yummy juice on the baking sheet. Allow to cool at room temperature before scraping into a covered container and refrigerating until completely cooled.

To make the cake: Preheat oven to 350°F. Place a layer of parchment in a jelly-roll pan and grease it lightly with butter.

Combine the butter, cocoa, salt, and 1 cup of tap water in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook only until butter is melted and mixture is completely combined. Stir in the liqueur.

Place the flour, sugar, and baking soda in a large bowl. Pour in the chocolate butter mixture in 2 or three batches, stirring between each to combine. Beat the eggs with the sour cream and vanilla and stir into the flour mixture. Whisk until fully incorporated.

Here's the tricky part. Depending on the size of your pan, ladle in enough batter to cover the parchment entirely and be no more than 1/2 inch deep. Bake for enough time that the cake springs back when you touch it. I used a 9" x 13" jelly roll pan, which made three cakes with the amount of batter specified, each baking from 13-15 minutes (the first cake took longer and the last cake took less time). An 12" x 17" pan or thereabouts would probably take 18-20 minutes, so start checking at the 16 or 17 minute mark. Just looking at it should tell you if the middle is wet or cooked through. Once your cake or cakes are baked, allow them to cool in the pan for a few minutes. Loosen the edge of the cake with a knife and turn out onto a rack to cool completely. You should peel off the parchment while the cake is still warm.

Once the cakes are cool you can cut them. If you want to make it really easy on yourself, cut each cake in half and make a square layer cake. (Next time, that's what I'm doing!) But if you want a round cake, use a 7" or 8" round template as a guide. Place each cooled cake on a cutting board large enough to hold them, or right on your counter or table if that's easiest. Using the template and a sharp knife, cut your circles. Lift them away with a large spatula and put them on parchment or waxed paper until you're finished cutting. The scraps can be eaten as a cook's treat, or put them in a plastic bag and freeze them for when you're having a cake craving.

To make the frosting: Remove 3-4 tablespoons of the strawberry roasting liquid to a bowl. Sprinkle the gelatin over the liquid and allow to rest for several minutes until set. If your strawberries didn't give off much liquid for some reason (perhaps because you ate it as you scraped it off the pan), use a few tablespoons of water instead.

Place the cream, sugar, and vanilla in the bowl of a stand mixer (or a regular bowl, if you're using a hand mixer) and beat for a minute or so. Put the gelatin in the microwave for about 10 seconds to liquify (it might take 15 seconds). Stir well so there are no clumps of gelatin, and with the mixer running on a fairly low speed, v e r y slowly drizzle it into the cream, beating all the time. Once incorporated, turn the mixer speed up and beat until medium peaks form. Don't overbeat, or you'll have butter. Scrape the cream into a piping bag fitted with a large star tip, or the tip of your choice.

To assemble the cake: Place a round of cake onto a cardboard cake round or on an aluminum-foil covered springform or tart pan bottom of appropriate size. Eyeball the strawberries. Do the pieces seem too big? Then chop them up a bit. Maybe you should just chop them up a bit anyway. Spread an even layer of strawberry pieces + some of the cooking liquid on the cake. Pipe on a layer of the cream, then top with another cake layer. Add another layer of cream, then another layer of cake. Top this third layer of cake with more strawberries and more cream. (You won't use all the strawberries. Eat them with ice cream or with a spoon.) Add the fourth layer of cake and pipe the frosting decoratively on top. Refrigerate cake until ready to serve.

Garnish with freeze dried strawberry pieces before serving.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!



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Tark's Grill

If you've never been to Tark's Grill before, let me warn you that it's not the easiest place to find. It's actually inside Greenspring Station, the little Cross Keys-like shopping area at Falls and Joppa Roads, not on the outside near Poulet. The signage is small, so keep your eyes peeled, especially at night!

We visited Tark's early on a Thursday evening, and it was already packed full of noisy people. I'm guessing many of them were regulars from before City Cafe owners Gino Cardinale and Bruce Bodie took over the restaurant. New ownership brought Tark's a new chef and new menus, all of which will be familiar to patrons of their Mount Vernon establishment. Chef James Jennings is doing double duty at both restaurants and is so far offering pretty much the same food at both, with a few exceptions. The menu will also seem familiar to patrons of The Food Market, as that restaurant's chef/owner Chad Gauss has run City Cafe's kitchen in the not so distant past and his influence is evident.

Seems complicated, but the food thankfully isn't. However, the menu is a bit puzzling. Similar to The Food Market's menu, there are multiple appetizer divisions like "Finger Food" and "First Bites," plus the less confusing "Principals." I'm not sure what the difference is between the first two categories, or why fried oysters and buffalo popcorn chicken are finger foods but warm brie flatbread and crispy calamari are "first bites." And why "first bites" is the second category on the menu. But maybe I'm the only one who notices these sorts of things.

There were four of us at this particular dinner. Two of us had already eaten two large restaurant meals that week and weren't necessarily in the mood for a third, but it was my birthday and neither of the other two people in our party was going to cook for me.... Rather than share apps and order entrees, as we normally do, we just ordered a mess of "finger foods" and "first bites" in two rounds. We started with the fried oysters, buffalo popcorn chicken, brussels sprouts, and Korean bbq wings.

The oysters were my favorite of the bunch. They were barely cooked on the inside and nicely crunchy on the outside. The bacon aioli was rich, and despite being under the oysters, didn't render them unreasonably soggy.

The brussels sprouts came in second. We are a family of brussels sprouts lovers and order them everywhere. We tend to enjoy deep fried ones best, because they are usually very crisp, but they're not particularly photogenic. The sprouts at Tark's were still very green, had a nice firm bite, and were well seasoned. They came with more of that nice bacon aioli.

The popcorn chicken, which was dusted with a powder made with Frank's hot sauce, wasn't particularly attractive, nor was it at all crisp, but the bits of chicken were nicely tender and the flavors were good.

The Korean bbq wings could have used a lot more heat (and sweetness, and garlic, and sesame oil, a trifecta of flavors that is fairly prominent in many Korean dishes) but they were well-cooked, with the meat coming easily off the bone.

We also had four "first bites." The warm brie flatbread with slivers of apple and a balsamic glaze was pretty good. The brie was melted but not messy, and the apple added a hint of sweetness and crunch.

The warm burrata and wild mushrooms was a miss, however. I love burrata, the oozier the better. Its rich cheesiness matches best with something bright and acidic, like tomatoes, for contrast. The mushrooms in this dish were surprisingly bland and under-seasoned, and the milky cheese simply added more blandness. Personally, I think something sharper, like manchego, would make a better foil for the mushrooms.

The Spanish shrimp--with mushrooms, garlic sauce, and smoked paprika--were tasty, if oddly-plated. Though the shrimp were large, the plate on which they were served was huge, and it took us a minute to realize the pile in the middle was comprised of chunks of bread and mushrooms. The bread was already saturated with sauce, and we had nothing with which to sop up the rest of it. (I know I'm not a professional chef, and you all probably hate when I do this, but I'm going to do it anyway. I'd 86 the mushrooms entirely, as they don't add anything to the dish, and put a smaller piece of bread under each shrimp. And use a smaller plate, and less sauce.)

It's hard to fault the calamari though. They were so very tender, with a light crisp coating. The Thai dipping sauce was a nice change from the usual marinara. An actual pleasure to eat.

Since it was my birthday, and the restaurant had been made aware of that fact, I got a free birthday dessert, which was a real treat. We were pretty full at this point so decided to do two desserts to share among the four of us. The vanilla creme brulée with fresh berries was fine and enjoyed very much by my father.

James' bread pudding with white, dark, and milk chocolate plus a caramel drizzle, whipped cream and berries, was indulgent. The pudding itself was tender and sweet and definitely large enough to share.

The original incarnation of Tark's Grill was a steakhouse--not our thing at all--so we're pretty pleased with the new version, at least concept-wise. I do think it deserves its own menu though, because I'm betting the Lutherville crowd is pretty different from the City Cafe's regular clientele (and The Food Market's). Perhaps it's not as necessary to offer 33 appetizers, 20 entrees, and 7 side dishes in the county? Or maybe it is. I'm sure Bruce and Gino will figure it out; they've been successful restaurateurs so far. I hope Tark's is a hit for them, as it's nice to have another locally owned, non-chain, restaurant in our neck of Baltimore County.

Tark's Grill
2360 W Joppa Rd #116
Lutherville-Timonium, MD 21093



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Birthday Cake

Mr Minx had a birthday recently, and I made him a chocolate cake. Chocolate cake is his favorite kind, preferably plain, un-iced, unadorned. I usually default to a bundt cake, since that looks the nicest when served naked, but I never use the same recipe from year to year. Why? Because I usually forget which one I've used. Certainly it's always one that requires cocoa powder and sour cream or yogurt because we always have those two ingredients in the house. If the recipe calls for buttermilk, forget it. Buttermilk almost always comes in quarts, if one can actually find it, and neither of us are going to consume 3 1/4 cups of buttermilk. Yes, I know I could make fried chicken, but as I've never made fried chicken in my life, I'm not about to start doing it now just to use up a quart of buttermilk.

Sour cream is always the best answer.

I used this recipe this time, and it turned out very well. The cake was moist and chocolate-y, took exactly 45 minutes to bake, and popped out of the pan easily. And so I don't forget which recipe I used, I'm documenting it right here, right now.

Happy Birthday, Mr Minx!



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The Food Market

After being urged by several different people to try the Food Market, we did, with some delicious results.

The place is popular. Seriously. We eat dinner early, partly to miss the crowd, partly because we're old. By 6pm on a Saturday, the place was hopping, and getting louder by the minute. The music was loud, the people were louder, and the restaurant has no sound-absorbing materials at all, apart from the barely-padded banquette seats. So bring earplugs and a hearty appetite because there's lots to try.

The menu at the Food Market has categories like "little," "small," "big," and "in-between," which translates as "finger food appetizers (plus a soup)," "appetizers that require a fork," "entrees," and "sandwiches." (You're welcome.) Absolutely everything sounded like something we wanted to eat, so it was a bit hard to narrow down our choices. Eventually we settled on two littles, two smalls, and one in-between to share.

The Amish soft pretzels were less the stereotypical salty twists and more like buttery bread fingers (think Aunt Annie's). The generous portion of beer cheese fondue was spiked with jalapeno and had a nice kick. It was so good, we hated to waste it; even after the pretzels were gone, we kept the cheese sauce as a dip for french fries and the tasty foccacia that was brought to the table when we arrived.

Amish soft pretzels, beer cheese fondue

The meatloaf fries were fat little fingers of very good, very moist, homestyle meatloaf, dipped in tempura batter and deep fried. Complete overkill, but quite tasty. I think I might enjoy the meatloaf more if it were served in a more traditional manner.

Meatloaf fries crispy tempura
ketchup & black pepper beef gravy

At this point, after only two courses, I was getting full. The next two dishes that arrived were thankfully somewhat lighter. Yes, the pork belly seemed lighter than the meatloaf, probably because it hadn't been deep fried. Not that there's anything wrong with deep frying....

There was a nice ratio of fat to meat on the chubby chunk of belly, which can sometimes seem too fatty. (Not that there's anything wrong with fatty....) The brown sugar topping added a perfect amount of sweetness and married well with the toasted pecans. My favorite dish of the evening.

Brown sugar pork belly, petite greens, toasted pecans,
cherry tomatoes, bangin’ honey mustard vinaigrette

We also ordered the chopped salad, which the kitchen thoughtfully split for us. It wasn't quite a chopped salad, as the lettuce was whole and the sprouts were cut in half, but it was an interesting combination of flavors, and quite autumnal. I thought it was odd that the sprouts were warm, and everything else was at room temperature, and felt the macadamia nut crumble was merely a texture and not a flavor, but Mr Minx gobbled it up. And he's not a fan of either beets or cooked carrots.

Chopped salad lemon cream cheese, roasted brussels, beets, 
carrots, mac nut crumble, cranberry vinaigrette

Finally, we shared the Pat LaFrieda burger, which the kitchen again split for us. The saltiness of the bacon predominated, rendering even the pickles mute. But the meat was perfectly cooked, and the bun held up to the large amount of filling. The crinkle cut fries on the side were a touch of nostalgia.

Pat LaFrieda Burger diced bacon, lettuce, tomato, 
onion, sesame bun, cheese, pickles

And then we ordered dessert. I was tempted by the sound of pumpkin cannoli, but would have preferred a single large cannoli to the three small ones. I'm more about the filling than the shell, which was a bit dry and dense.

Pumpkin Cannoli

Mr Minx ordered the Heath bar bread pudding, which was lovely and moist, but far too sweet for my taste. The plain whipped cream was a welcome relief from the sugar overload, although it's probably odd to look to a pile of what is essentially whipped fat to lighten anything.

Heath bar bread pudding

I have mixed emotions about the Food Market. I love the concept, always love small plates, but think it really takes some advance knowledge of the dishes to put together a meal that feels like a meal, rather than a sundry combination of snack foods (granted, we did perhaps order oddly). Several of the diners around us were ordering big plates only, which might be the way to go. And speaking of other diners - the tables are fairly close together, so it's easy to overhear conversations. For instance, the table of annoyingly giggly female 20-somethings to our left threw out a few bons mots, my favorite being, "ooh...the Baltimore Club looks really good. Except for the shrimp salad." (A Baltimore club is generally a crabcake paired with shrimp salad. Without the shrimp salad, it's a crab cake sandwich.)

That said, I'd like to go back and try a few more things. The pork belly was seriously good (everything was, in its own way), and both the cracker fried oysters and lil' lamb porterhouses seem like items I'd really enjoy. And they have scallops, which almost always turns me on.

The Food Market
1017 West 36th Street
Baltimore, MD 21211
(410) 366-0606
thefoodmarketbaltimore.com



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A Special Day

A very happy birthday to my partner in crime. Love you!

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Happy Birthday...

...to me!

Top Chef recap coming at some point...either later today or tomorrow, so please check back. :)


Posted by theminx on Minxeats.com.

Ma Peche

Because I had enjoyed Momofuku Ssam Bar last Spring and wanted to experience more of Chang's Asian-esque food, the first thing I did when I arrived in New York last Friday was to make a bee-line to Ma Peche, David Chang's first Midtown restaurant.

Ma Peche is a larger restaurant than Ssam Bar, but to maximize the space most of the seating is at communal tables. I'm not a big fan of eating with strangers, but this time I really lucked out. Across the table from me was a lovely couple, Blaine and Tim, who were celebrating Tim's birthday with a Changian feast. Like me, they were foodies, and did not object to my obnoxious photo-taking.

summer rolls – shrimp, lettuce, hoisin, peanut

I had a hard time deciding what I wanted to eat. The menu offers a three course prix fixe for $25, with a Milk Bar cookie serving as dessert. I find those to be a bit too sweet for my taste, so instead I opted to spend a few more dollars and order a la carte. I chose a fairly tame appetizer - the summer rolls stuffed with shrimp, pickled carrot and daikon, lettuce, and the unusual addition of long pieces of scallion and grissini (Italian bread stick) which stuck out of the back end. Also unusual was that instead of whole crustaceans, the shrimp appeared to be in the form of a mousse, cut into pieces.

While the flavors were fine and traditional, I think I would have preferred the natural crunch of a well-cooked shrimp over the artificial crunch of the bread stick.

pork ribs (newman’s farm, mo) – thai basil, lemongrass caramel

For my second course, I chose the pork ribs. The ribs themselves were toothsome, yet fall-off-the-bone tender at the same time. Unfortunately, the caramel sauce was so extremely sweet, I couldn't really taste the lemongrass or Thai basil at all.

While chatting with my tablemates about food and blogging and whatnot, they decided that I needed to taste more of the menu's offerings; to allow me to do this, they shared their food.

Clockwise, from top: fried shrimp po boy
pork loin chop
rice noodles with lamb ragout

I have to admit that I am spoiled by the po' boys at Cajun Kate's. While Chang's version was delicious, I felt it was a bit over-sauced. My favorite on the very generous sample plate was the loin chop, which was nearly fork-tender and had a very subtle flavor profile. The noodles, however, were not quite what I expected. I'm used to Chinese rice noodles, which are soft and slightly chewy; these Bún du riz had been crisped a bit, making them very chewy and rather crusty. While I know that's the texture that was intended, it reminded me too much of pasta that had been left out or uncovered for a long period of time and had air dried. The sauce itself was an interesting Bolognese-like concoction with a huge chile kick that I'd love to try on softer noodles.

Because it was Tim's birthday, they had ordered a small Milk Bar cake, which they also very kindly shared with me. The cake was pretty much straight-up banana bread, accented by the various textures of fudge and crunch. Mmm!

Banana Cake - banana cream, hazelnut crunch, gianduja fudge

While I wasn't as impressed by this meal as by the one at Ssam Bar, I did enjoy it, particularly the company. Thanks again, guys, for sharing! And once again, happy birthday Tim!

Ma Peche
15 W. 56th St.
New York, NY 10019
www.momofuku.com/ma-peche/
(212) 757-5878


Posted by theminx on Minxeats.com.

Birthday Cupcakes

I always take off work for my birthday because going in would be like adding insult to injury. This year, with my free day-time, I decided to try out yet another cupcake recipe with the Scharffen Berger Chocolate Adventure Contest in mind.

Because I like pumpkin, and we had a small amount of purée in the fridge, I thought to make pumpkin cupcakes. But of course Scharffen Berger is a chocolate company, so I had to find a way to work chocolate into the recipe. There are lots of recipes that combine those two flavors, but honestly, that's not a mix I particularly enjoy. So I challenged myself to come up with a combo that I did like.

I concocted a brownie batter (with the help of my new Fat Witch Brownie Cookbook, courtesy of my brother), put a tablespoon of it in the bottom of each cupcake liner and baked it for 7 minutes until it started to set. Then I topped it with the pumpkin batter and baked it an additional 25 minutes.

Leftover bacon grease ended up as a substitute for some of the butter in my new favorite frosting recipe. I also added some cocoa powder and spices, to pick up similar flavors in the cupcake. And I made a brittle with hazelnuts and bacon chunks, with the help of my new candy thermometer.

Cupcakes, unadorned.

Bacon hazelnut brittle. Oh yes, I said "bacon."

Cupcakes, frosted, garnished, and Photoshopped.

The verdict? The concoction needs a whole lot of tweaking. The brownie wasn't chocolate-y enough, and the texture was too similar to the pumpkin part. The bacon frosting also didn't deliver the chocolate flavor I needed, and I realized that the tips on my decorating set are just too damn small for cupcake icing (which I have remedied by ordering bigger tips) so the overall look was quite...sloppy. As for my first attempt at brittle? It was ok, maybe a little more burnt-tasting than I like my brittles but I think that was due to the base recipe I used. And it could have used a lot more nuts. The pumpkin part of the equation, however, was delicious - super rich and moist, nicely spicy and pumpkin-y, despite the relatively small amount of vegetable used. And the longer the cupcakes sat in the fridge (and I mean days) the better they got. Actually, the frosting got more flavorful, too.

I would make them again, with a simple cinnamon-flavored buttercream.

Pumpkin Cupcakes  

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup almond flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
2 large eggs
1/2 cup canned pumpkin purée
1/2 cup whole milk ricotta cheese
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
1/2 cup vegetable oil

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line cupcake tins with liners.

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cardamom.

Stir in the eggs, pumpkin, ricotta, sugars, and oils. Mix until well combined.

Divide batter among prepared tins and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in a cupcake comes out clean. Cool completely.

Makes 10

Langermann's

On my birthday, Mr Minx and I had a lovely dinner at Langermann's in Canton. We had a Groupon (damn those things are addictive) and it was half-price wine night - how could it get any better?

With nice ambiance, great service, and good solid food, all of which Langermann's had in spades.

We started out with warm-from-the-oven cornbread that was very tender and somewhat sweet. As we dug in, our appetizers arrived. Mr Minx went for the Carolina gumbo, which was quite spicy. It didn't have quite the depth of flavor that I like in my gumbos, but it was good and hearty, and somehow the brown rice served with it wasn't overtly crunchy (a big plus).

I was torn between the Low Country Louie, and the whole belly clams; my mind was made up for me when our waitress announced that they were out of clams.

The generous portion of chilled seafood salad contained pieces of lobster, crabmeat, crawfish, and chunks of crispy sweet yellow corn in a mayonnaise-based sauce flavored strongly with mustard and cilantro. An odd combination that somehow worked really well.

We were both feeling rather pedestrian as far as entrées were concerned. Mr Minx chose the NY Strip with sautéed spinach and potato croquettes. I thought the steak was nicely seasoned and had a nice beefy flavor, but the sides were on the bland side.

My crab cakes, billed as "jumbo lump" on the menu, may have contained a lump or two, but were otherwise full of much smaller pieces of crab and a bit of filler. I didn't find this objectionable, however, and thought they had a nice flavor, as did the corn and black-eyed pea succotash. The crispy shreds of potato atop the dish were delicious, but their size and shape made eating rather awkward.

Although we had pumpkin cupcakes waiting for us at home, we were tempted by a huge slice of pumpkin cheesecake with a thick and buttery graham cracker crust. It was a perfectly lovely example of the genre - neither heavy nor light, nicely spiced, and filled with autumnal flavors. I'm glad we indulged.

Overall, I enjoyed our meal. The service was prompt and extremely friendly, the ambiance - despite the large room with very high ceilings - was cozy (we sat near the fireplace), and the food was pretty solid. If I find myself in the Canton area with a hankering for a nice seafood cocktail, I'd definitely make a return visit. Maybe they'll have the clams next time....

Langermann's
2400 Boston Street
Baltimore, MD 21224
(410) 534-3287