Home Cookin' 2009

Looking back on MinxEats over the past year, it seems I did a lot of cooking, but that's not necessarily so - Mr Minx is still the primary chef in our house. What happened is that I bought some nice white plates and started to take more interest in how the food looked as much as how it tasted. I took more photos of the results and blogged about it.

That said, I think we ate better at home than in restaurants in 2009. Christmas dinner, for example.

The Black BBQ sauce from the penultimate issue of Gourmet was unbelievably good, and a recipe I will definitely consult in the future.

My sweet potato-and-bacon concoction for Thanksgiving might become a holiday tradition.

The tapas feast we prepared for my brother's birthday had some particularly tasty treats, especially the empanadas and the romesco sauce.

Mr Minx's linguini and white clam sauce is always delicious, as is his spaghetti and meatballs. Most of my attempts at ricotta gnocchi were damn fine as well.

Another dish of which I tried multiple successful variations was chiles rellenos. (The most recent version used Christmas leftovers - a stuffing of duck, duck guts, rice, leeks and wild mushrooms, and a drizzle of the lemon mayo from the sweetbreads, gussied up with a bit of cumin.)

A dish based on a challenge basket on Chopped yielded this shrimp, apple, and peanut butter combo. The flavors go remarkably well together.

And my first experience with cooking parsnips, in this variation on Top Cheftestant Stefan Richter's chicken pot pie, has made me a fan for life. Of parsnips, that is.

Here's hoping that 2010 brings many more occasions of deliciousness from the Minx kitchen!

For You Top Chef Fans....

Check out the new items at the Bravo store! (A Parody, by Minx)

The Best Restaurant Dishes of 2009

Although we probably ate out as much as in any other year, there were far fewer outstanding restaurant meals in 2009 than in the past. We dined most often at the Nautilus Diner (which can produce a pretty tasty meal if you know what to order) and Red Robin (a convenient place to grab a Tuesday-night burger before grocery shopping). Other than that, we did a lot of chowing down on Chinese food (particularly Grace Garden and dim sum at Asian Court) and lamented the lack of good non-Chinese ethnic food in our area.

Here are a few of the highlights of our other restaurant meals, in no particular order.

Oysters Rockefeller Bisque from Cajun Kate's. We ate this at home, but it wasn't home-made, so it counts.

Lemongrass-"crusted" filet mignon at Roy's. Cooked sous-vide, it was tender and moist and full of lemongrass-y flavor.

Basil Duck at Thai Luong. You've read my raves about it enough times already.

Just about everything we tried at Sake Bar Hagi in New York was terrific, but particularly the fried gobo chips and the stir fried noodles.

I loved the tuna tartare and Salmon Imperial at Kyodai in Towson.

The simply prepared halibut at Volt was one of the best pieces of cooked fish I've eaten in a while. I also enjoyed the sweetbreads, the Cherry Glen Farms goat cheese mousse in my salad, and the dessert quite a bit. Oh, the whole darn meal was delicious.

Overall, we weren't impressed by the overpriced offerings at RA Sushi, but there were two standouts during the happy hour we attended: 1) the crispy spicy tuna was a fabulous melange of textures; 2) the $4 Ketel One Saketini was pretty fab, too. But again, those were Happy Hour prices - not sure they would have made the list at full price.

And perhaps because it's clearest in my memory, but the New Year's Eve dinner we had at Crush was pretty wonderful. Mr Minx started out with the always-delicious "bacon and eggs" risotto which seemed to be extra-special bacon-y that evening. My short ribs with sautéed mixed cabbages and parsnip/celery root purée was outstanding (celery root - where have you been all my life?), as was Mr Minx's seared tuna with "everything bagel" crust.

For a walk down my own personal memory lane, here are my favorite dishes of 2008 and 2007.

The Return of Gino's

Who besides me has fond memories of going to Gino's? For those who don't remember, Gino's was a fast-food restaurant founded in Baltimore in 1957 by Colts players Gino Marchetti and Alan Ameche. Originally a drive-thru, Gino's introduced inside dining in 1969. Eventually the chain expanded to over 500 restaurants in the mid-Atlantic region. In the early 80s, the chain was purchased by Marriott, who transformed them into Roy Rogers restaurants. And now they're gone forever. Or are they?

I always preferred going to Gino's over McDonald's not only because I thought the burgers tasted better, but also Gino's was the home of Kentucky Fried Chicken. It was nice to have the option of burger or chicken when the family went out for a quick meal. And back then, KFC was pretty much the only game in town when it came to crispy poultry parts, other than grandma's cast iron skillet.

After nearly 30 years of life without Gino's, the restaurant is attempting to make a comeback. Burger joints are the new bagel shop or coffee bar; even celebrity chefs are getting into the act. Hubert Keller, Bobby Flay, Richard Blais, and Spike Mendelsohn all have specialty burger restaurants. So why not ride the wave and bring back an old regional favorite, this time as a fast-casual (e.g. Five Guys, Chipotle) sort of place rather than trying to compete with fast food juggernauts like McDonald's and Burger King.

While I think it's probably pretty easy to make a good burger, I wonder if they'll be able to produce chicken as good as KFC. I, for one, look forward to finding out.

The new endeavor hopes to open its first restaurant sometime in 2010. Read more about it at their Web site, http://ginosgiant.com.

And for nostalgia's sake, click here to listen to a jingle from 1969.