Elephant & Castle: A lackluster first impression

Entering a chain pub and hoping for authenticity seems a bit of a fool’s errand. That being said, Elephant & Castle, the new bar at Pennsylvania & 12th, did its best to make a fool of me and my group of friends Friday night.

The arrival of the chain had drummed up interest in some DC circles, and my friends and I were excited to try it for ourselves. Our party didn’t sample the place’s stabs at English fare, from Shepard’s Pie to lamb curry, so it’s possible Elephant & Castle works better as a restaurant than a happy hour location. But to put it plainly, the pub feels like a Friday’s. The atmosphere is clean, open and pretty, but hardly intimate or cozy. A friend jokingly glanced around for something distinctly or even stereotypically British—soccer on the television, perhaps—and came up with little.

The place just opened, so they’re still ironing out what their happy hour options will be, a waiter explained to us. It seems they have a bit more ironing to do. The lone drink special was Bud Lite, and cheaply-priced appetizers were only available until 6 p.m.

Even gestures of quirkiness have a commercial feel. During our stay, a caricature artist was offering free sketches. The catch? You had to be drinking Bass, and your sketch would feature a large Bass logo on it. The best part of the entire concept was the laughably enthusiastic way the waiter promoted our opportunity to earn a free sketch.

The appetizer platter provides plenty of snacks (at $18.99, one would hope), but no offering stands out as even above-average pub grub. Chicken fingers are limp, spinach-artichoke dip relies too heavily on sour cream, and other choices are forgettable. Worst of all were the drinks—the glasses, whether you were drinking a pint, a margarita or some wine, had a strange, almost soapy smell to them that worked its way into the taste of the beverages.

Our table left quickly, our impression of the place mediocre at best. But Elephant & Castle has just opened, and should be given a chance to work out its idiosyncrasies. And its dinner offerings very well may be the restaurant’s place to shine. Our first impression, though, has made us wary of returning. Give the place a chance, and judge for yourself—but give it some time to clean up its act first.

Elephant & Castle, DC
1201 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20004
(202) 347-7707

Its a long entry, but it was a long meal

‘The Chinese, they are like our brother,’ says N, a colleague and our impromptu guide for the evening. We have just finished a harrowing ride through Bangkok traffic in a tuk-tuk, an open air cart powered by what sounds and smells like a lawnmower, and against all odds arrived in the sprawling Chinatown south of the old city.

It’s the mosquito hour and the gold stores have closed with today’s final price per ounce still chalked in their windows. Men are rushing to set up plastic tables and stools, huge vats of water, and entire movable kitchens; each cart scrambles with umbrellas and frantic shouts to claim sidewalk space for the night. A tiny old lady scurries past, hunched under the weight of two buckets of soup on a yolk over her shoulders. Pickup trucks suddenly screech to a halt and pull back their tarps to reveal spontaneous fruit stalls. ‘Big Thai community in south of China too’ yells N over the furious sound of culinary genesis surrounding us.

N’s brother (of the non-metaphorical kind) and another man join us with the traditional nervous smile and head shake that means ‘no English’, and we attempt the near-impossible task of winding through the newly erected barricades to dinner. ‘Sharks fin soup,you like? You try?’ questions N. We demure- it’s a bitter coincidence that last night’s expat paper was full of dire warnings about mercury in shark fins. We continue on past racks of ducks- de-boned, smoked, and stretched into diamond shapes with shafts of bamboo, and truckloads of spiky Durians, a fruit that technically is illegal within city limits.

It’s a dim sum storefront that we end up at and the last seat fills even as N hands us special ‘English menu’, which we decline. We go through this ritual every meal; perhaps the elaborate show of deference is politer than him saying, ’alright you silly white tourists, I know you don’t know what any of this stuff is so here’s what you’re eating’. I chug my cup of waxy chrysanthemum iced tea like it was a Yuengling and gesture for some more, much to amg’s amusement. Even at night, it’s hot and dusty out there.

Ceramic dishes start arriving, each no bigger than a saucer: slim green vegetables with garlic and chilis, traditional spring rolls, some kind of deep fried mashed tubor. Then waves of steam baskets, each piled five high like an edible tower of Pisa. There are shrimp in cocoons of florescent green noodles and dumplings of six different meat types, beautiful buns filled with sweet yellow bean paste, and mini corns encased in shrimp, a dish I recognize from the heating tray of our local 7-11.

As we gorge on the bounty in front of us, N turns to us with a manic grin. ‘Is appetizer!’

I am faint from food, but he is completely serious. With a flourish of check and money, we are crowd surfing down the sidewalk again. This time we fetch up against a street restaurant, chairs spilling over the sidewalk and deep into traffic, huge boxes of wiggling prawns crowding the tables. ‘Oysters! You eat?’ N demands.

A few moments later a large plate of crushed ice arrives, presumably with some mollusks under it. I murmur the traditional travelers blessing under my breath: ‘Please let it be factory ice’ and load mine up with chili paste and lime juice. The ice seems to be good, but the oyster is not. Panicked, I try to detect if it’s ‘bad’ bad or ‘bacteria’ bad as the last of it slips down my throat. ‘Amg’, I hiss, ‘you may be taking care of me tonight’. The man across from me smiles down at his plate; apparently he knew more English than he’d let on.

If you’re gonna go, better go full, so I dig into a huge dish of baked glass noodles with prawns and pork skin. A giant fish wrapped in tin foil is set down. I eat that with less gusto; a week ago, nearby, I watched a family throw nets into the same brown river that much of city’s semi-processed sewage likely dumps into. They scooped out creatures that could probably only be described as ‘fish-esque’. Tiny children thread through the tables with huge straw plates of flowers balance on their heads. At one point the sky opens up for our nightly reminder that it’s still the wet season. A huge tarp is unrolled over our heads, weighted down with water bottles, and the eating continues.

I am catatonic and groaning from food and amg is polishing off the last of the fish cheeks, but there is one more ritual to partake in: The wallet dance. The highest status person at a table is traditionally supposed to pay, but close friends or family often split the bill. Both N and his brother gesture towards their pockets and lock gazes, their eyelids flickering madly as they mentally toss the facts back and forth. N has a more permanent job. But his brother is older. But N is with guests. But his guests look like little kids. Finally, his brother drops his gaze and N triumphantly hands the cash over to our server. 1010 Baht: 25 Bucks.

What to do in Pattaya

Here is the city of Pattaya, a small strip of sand and two thousand open air bars devoted to a single purpose: allowing morbidly obese American businessmen with comb-overs to penetrate the 12 year old of their choosing; Presumably having her refrain from laughter during the act is an additional fee. Amg and I are here for the Infamous drag shows, the kind of spectacle that reminds you that it takes a real man to be the perfect woman. But first... ‘Maybe we get some dinner first, yes?’ says our friend S, a line she has used before to magnificent results. We make her promise that this time we pay, and then allow ourselves to be steered into the huge storefront of Nang Nual on the water.

The entry area is made entirely out of what could only be bathtubs, each holding its own formidable school of fish and rubber air-feeds which dangle over the side like hospital IV tubes. The giant back patio is a mess of Thai families, European couples, and the ubiquitous American businessmen sweating in the sea breeze, their young acquisitions wordlessly tearing into plates of fish besides them. You can tell the Americans by the southern accent, ill-fitting khaki shorts and sacred Buddhist shrine offerings some are wearing around their necks like Hawaiian leis.

We know the ritual by now. S hands us the menus and chants, ‘What would you like to eat’. We intone back ‘What do you suggest?’ She retrieves the menus and has an in-depth chat with the waiter while we sit there trying to look like we understand a word they’re saying. As a result, we are soon presented with iced coffees (factory ice) and a plate of huge raw oysters each bigger than my hand. There are a number of small bowls filled with unknown powders and pastes. I wait till no one is looking and stick my spoon in a particularly scary one, only to find out that is in fact, fried garlic. The oysters are so meaty that each has to be cut in thirds, then covered with fish paste, chilies, lime juice, and garlic to make a perfect briny muskiness.

Next up, a rich cream soup filled with sushi-grade prawns, muscles, and a whole crab claw still in the shell. It’s superb, but soon eclipsed by some chicken satay (malaysian, actually, lectures S) served with a chunky peanut sauce and a salad of pickled cucumber chilies. Dishes then have to be reshuffled to make room for fresh scallops covered with a fragrant white cheese melt, and then reshuffled again for a huge cauldron of Tom Kha Gai- lemongrass and coconut soup filled with shrimp and lovin’.

By now amg and I grinning like idiots and having trouble speaking, but the waiter just keeps on bringing stuff. We are served two huge pre-cracked crabs, reminders of the little presents many a virile midwesterner will shortly be bringing home to his beloved along with the fake Japanese swords and kimonos sold along the boardwalk for the tourists who have their Asian countries confused. This would be like selling models of the Eiffel tower to appreciative tourists in Croatia. But back to the crabs. They’re sweet and fibrous, and good. Behind us, a couple tucks into a lobster that, if stood on its tail, would come up to my thigh.

Over crepes with ice cream we teach S how to tell Brits and Aussie’s apart (taller, better dressed). We ask for the check and she giggles, apparently she snuck away and paid it when she pretended to go to the restroom.

The Crabs Are Calling

Delaware isn’t necessarily the first place which comes to mind when you’re talking about taking a pilgrimage somewhere. After all, we all remember the "Wayne’s World" scene: Imagine being able to be magically whisked away to…Delaware. "Hi. I’m in…Delaware.".

But there is one Delaware destination which is not worthy of Wayne-style derision, and that’s the Old Mill Crab House, in Delmar.

Around two hours and twenty minutes away, the location is a bit of a hike, especially when post-Memorial Day beach traffic hits. But for the ambitious seafood lover, the trek is worth it, for an all-you-can-eat, veritable feast.

Make sure you start your adventure early—doors open at 4, tables fill up fast, and your party won’t be seated unless you’re all there. There are also some scenic stops along the way, most notably Wright’s Market, which features delicious homemade jam, cheese and pie (I highly recommend the blueberry lemon).

Once you’re there, soak up the busy, strictly-business atmosphere of the restaurant. The long tables are covered with brown paper towels, and large stacks of food are unceremoniously plopped down in front of you by harried waitresses. Squeeze-bottles of butter and fast-food style salt & pepper shakers are at the ready.

Though the restaurant serves entrees, it’s the all-you-can-eat specials which are worth the trip. The most popular choice is the Maryland Crab Special – for $26.99, you get all-you-can eat crab, hush puppies, fried clams, fried chicken, fried shrimp and corn on the cob.

The crab is decent-sized, piping-hot and caked with Old Bay. Crab is always a meal you have to work for, but these crabs aren't so small to prohibit the effort needed. The hushpuppies, golden-brown and dusted with powdered sugar, are another highlight, and the steaming corn is satisfying. I didn’t even have the room to stomache a taste of the fried chicken, but companions raved.

There are other variations on the special, including choices of steamed shrimp and snow crab for a bit more dough, but the classic crab choice gets my vote. Wash down large quantities of food with a pitcher of Miller Lite or Pink Lemonade – sometimes it’s hard to keep the beverages coming with the waitresses busy hurling more and more crab at eager customers, but let’s face it – you’d rather the servers be spotty with the drinks than the seafood service, right?

So round up a couple crustacean-loving companions, and make the trek to Old Mill Crab House. The price is minimal – $30 out of your pocket, and one “Wayne’s World” joke, forever tainted.

Old Mill Crab House
Rt. 54 East and Waller Rd.
Delmar, DE
302/846-2808

Polly's Cafe

Going to meet a friend for dinner one night some time ago, we had some trouble deciding where to go. As usual, it became a matter of geography over all else – we picked U Street. There have always been lots of places on U, but now there are more than ever, especially if you count the stuff on 14th. It’s so hard to pick – can’t we have samples of each? But choose we must, and tonight we were in sync: his regular spot, where I’d never been:

Polly’s Café

Time is incidental. We’re both working stiffs. We’re both free anytime after seven.

7:30 PM.

I’ve passed it a hundred times, this time I go in. First I notice the familiar scent - there’s a fireplace whose flue probably needs a cleaning - of smoke.

It’s a bit much.

We chat, say hello, order drinks at the bar but soon move to a table to look over the menu. My companion doesn’t even have to order; he just smiles at the waiter who knows his dish. I’m new, and had a big lunch, so I order the spinach salad, with a side of gin and tonic. Strong drinks, good salad. The turkey burger looks good too, but of course I can’t smell it over the aroma of smoke. The thing about a fireplace is that it smells good, but only to a point, and its perfume sticks to your clothes even better than cigarette smoke (I notice as I arrive home later).


The salad greens are fresh, tasty, and beneath the surface lurk pockets of crisp bacon (which comes to me highly recommended – "they may or may not cook it in crack," my companion confides) and walnuts, a quartered egg and two slices of orange top it off along with an orange balsamic vinaigrette. Tasty, and not a stingy portion, but pricey at $13. The burger, I noticed, was $9, not bad as it was fairly large – and I’m certainly not one to question $4.50 gin and (not much) tonics.



Polly's Cafe
1342 U Street
Washington, DC 20009
202-265-8385

Risotto Self Improvement

Patience is not one of my virtues. A good MJF-impression probably involves the person standing with their arms crossed and their foot tapping, glaring at a companion in the hopes they’ll "hurry up." So when I told my friends I’d be tackling risotto for a dinner gathering, they were more than a little skeptical. Was it masochism? Was it a self-improvement gesture designed to reform my impatient ways? Nah; I just had a craving for comfort food.

Risotto is an Italian dish where the rice is cooked slowly in stock until it achieves a creamy consistency. Mushrooms, peas and herbs are common accessories to the course. For those of us with a tendency to wander away from the stove to check our email, chat on our cell phones or find out what Rory’s babbling about on "Gilmore Girls," risotto is not necessarily our dish of expertise. It’s not a difficult thing to make, but it requires constant attention for about a half hour. Your focus will be rewarded – it’s an impressive, delicious and inexpensive dish which can be easily customized and works well as a side dish or an entrée. It’s great to cook for a group of friends, so you can bully them into the kitchen to entertain you as you make it, or force them to trade off on stirring duty.

Some general risotto tips:
1. Use Arborio rice (often labeled "risotto rice" if you buy it at the Giant) – it does the best job of maintaining its consistency and holding the flavor.
2. ADD LIQUID SLOWLY. As you’re adding stock to your risotto, do it a ladle-full as a time. Only when all the stock is absorbed do you add another ladleful. The whole process takes 15 minutes minimum. Also, make sure the stock is heated before you start adding.
3. Do NOT WALK AWAY. Really, you have to stir the thing at least every 30 seconds for it to come out correctly. But stir gently – you’re not making gruel.

Everything else is common sense. Fresh herbs over dried herbs, homemade stock over canned. Otherwise, for your ingredients, just use your imagination – from seafood to squash to saffron. It’s a dish that can be vegetarian friendly (for mine, just substitute in veggy broth), and also can make great use of refrigerator leftovers. The recipe I provide for you is for a mushroom and lemon risotto, inspired by a recipe in The Cook’s Encyclopedia of Vegetarian Cooking.

8 oz leeks or scallions, chopped
8 oz cremini mushrooms (though many other types will do), cleaned and chopped
some olive oil
handful of garlic cloves, crushed
about 6 tablespoons of butter
1 red onion, chopped
1 ¾ cup Arborio rice
5 cups chicken stock OR 4 cups stock, 1 cup white wine. If using canned stock, substitute one cup water for one of the cups of stock
zest and juice of one lemon
handful each of chopped chives, parsley and thyme
salt and pepper
2/3 cup Romano or Parmesan cheese

Heat oil in large saucepan. Sautee garlic, leeks, and mushrooms (season as needed) for about 10 minutes. Remove from pan and set aside.

Add some of the butter to the pan, and sauté your onion for around 5 minutes. Add rice and cook for a minute. Warm up your stock on the stove or microwave.

Now start adding your stock (heat should be on medium), ladle by ladle. As all the liquid is absorbed , add another ladle of liquid until you’re out of it. If using wine, make that your first ladle-full. Start tasting after 15 minutes, but the process should take around 20 minutes – the rice should have an al dente taste and a creamy texture.

Before serving, stir in your cooked vegetables, the rest of the butter, the herbs, and half the cheese. Season and serve, garnishing the top with the rest of the cheese.

How to embarass yourself in an Asian cafeteria

Thai is such a great language to be angry in. You might think that Russian is the language to pick if you’re gonna tell your boss to get her own damn coffee, but let me tell you, say it in Thai and you’ll never have to get coffee for her again.

So after a good fight, through which both of you manage to smile wider and wider, the best thing to do is round up a selection of your closest coworkers and stroll down to the local university cafeteria for a round of very polite complaining. You might as well bring along the strangely-dressed white lady who showed up in your department a week ago and doesn’t seem to want to go away.

This was the situation today as the smiles got bigger and bigger here in the (Unnamed Governmental Ministry) technology department (population: 7 secretaries, 15 personnel, 3 computers). The University is just next door and before I knew it we were walking through swarms of delicate, mayfly-like school girls giggling behind their hands and pulling at my odd light-colored hair.

To arrive at the cafeteria is like stepping into a vast flock of penguins. Everywhere- every bench, leaning against every wall, clustered on the floor, is the black and white linen of the student uniforms, carpeting an area the size of a football field. One wall is solid food stalls, a more permanent version of the street food carts outside. But woe to the enthusiastic- first you wait in like at a little window and buy 50 Baht worth of coupons (about $1.10).

‘Noodle or Rice!’ My guide demands.
‘You suggest!’ I say, pointing to his chest. He seems to think deeply, and then decides, ‘Ueeehhh…..you should have noodle or rice!’

I stand in front of the rice stall and he feeds me words that I have no possibility of ever pronouncing correctly. The woman behind the counter nodds encouragingly every time I say one, even tho she’s already completed my order. She holds my plate hostage until I’ve parroted and blushed my way through each inflection and tonality to my guide’s satisfaction. A small bowl of yellow liquid and a plate of, yes, chicken and rice, is mine, along with two small dishes that hint at chilies. At the lower table, he carefully dips a spoon and fork into the pot of boiling water before placing them on my tray.

Seated at the long benches is most of the department, self-righteous at each other over their noodles and fried fish. Each coffee, bottle of water, and can of soda has a thin straw carefully poking out. Except mine, I forgot. One girl cries, ‘Where you straw? She jumps up to ferry me one from all the way at the other side of the cavernous room. Thinking fast, I say, ‘Um, no, I do not like straws.’ Soon they’ve added ‘Crazy Americans’ to their list of gripes.

The mood mellows as the rice disappears. I’m even using my fork and spoon correctly (fork herds rice into spoon in right hand) At one point, the girl across from me starts to giggle. She points at my plate and nudges the person next to her. She explains that apparently the soup was meant to be eaten with the chicken. ‘For, to…” she pauses and strokes her throat theatrically and points down.

With a more buoyant tone in the air, we return to the office building. I ask my now-jovial guide, ‘So what were they arguing about?’

‘Ahh, is…” He makes nebulous hand-motions in the air. “Is budget.”

Seriously passionate

Passion fruit! Often imitated, rarely tasted! You can smell it across the room! Tongue may require intensive care afterwords! The oral equivalent of jumping into glacier water but without the detrimental size effects! Like biting into a sweet citrusy chili!

Yes, Passion fruit is bloody incredible. But here are a few other fruits I’ve just tried on my lunch break that I’d previously only had as Fruit Rollup flavors, or at best, a Snapple

Custard apple - Can’t use the local water to make your jello pudding? This, yes, custardy feeling fruit can easily fill in. Doesn’t taste like much, but acts like pudding.

Breadfruit – Be sure to wait until this fragrant fruit’s flesh is ripe and creamy, or face the horror of a starchy tongue

Lychees – Get ‘em fresh or packed in syrup! Soak in sweet white wine for a nifty desert! Eat em whole! Eat em jellied! Just eat some lychees, dammit.

Rambutan - Or, if you can’t eat a lychee, get their hairier neighbor. Sure to cause serious freaking out for all males who see you munching.

Papaya – This one is borderline known in the US. Scoop ‘em out with a spoon. Wusses sprinkle with brown sugar.

Langsat – Looks like a potato, feels like a tough grape, tastes like heaven.

Dragon fruit – Another custardy fruit, the outside is pretty, the inside is a homogeneous grainy white and black-flecked mush for your slurping pleasure.

Durian – This fruit smells so bad that its actually outlawed in public areas of Thailand. But on one follows that pesky ‘stop for red lights’ rule either. Tastes like a a buttery avocado peach. Don’t eat the outside.

Mangosteen – The inside of this pretty little thing looks like a hairless albino tarantula curled up and died in it. Luckily, it tastes a bit better. Kinda like a lychee.

Guava – Juicy, acid, and flavorful. Like yo’ mamma.

Whodunnit?

Everyone remembers their first experience of food poisoning- the nausea, the panicked race to the bathroom, the complete body fluid evacuation (preferably on someone else’s shoes). If it’s a really good one you can look forward to a lifetime of bad-culinary-experience dick-measuring.

If it’s not, you’ll be like me on Friday night, crying in the bathroom of an upscale yuppie fusion bar in the suburbs of an unnamed Asian city. It was uncomfortable, but I was back by the next course, drinking some woody tea, carefully picking at the fungi stew, and receiving formal congratulations from my colleagues in their best fractured English.

Which just leaves an important question: Whodunnit? I’ve been so good in the hand sanitizer department, and four Pepto Bismol are ritually swallowed before each meal. The floor of my hostel is littered with dozens of bottles, a testament to careful avoidance of tap water. So what evil bacteria could have infiltrated my carefully-guarded intestines? Here are the most likely suspects:

8:00 AM Honey Flavored Cereal Bar It was pre-wrapped, but automatically becomes suspect ‘cause I’ve never had one before. For all I know those kindly kernels could be baby brains.

12:10 PM A Row of Deep-Fried Dumplings The idea behind this typical street food is to cut up a hotdog or pork meatball, cover each section in a wanton style wrapper, thread them on pre-soaked skewers and deep-fry. Did the sweet chili sauce hide the taste of my future doom?

12:20 PM A Mayonnaise Sandwich The UK deserves to be kicked for many reasons- their ridiculous dress sense, their ridiculous metro, their ridiculous news outlets. But topping all of these are their ridiculous influence on sandwiches- flimsy white bread and mayo with wilted lettuce. I should have known that nothing good can be bought from a 7-11. Except Bugels chips.

12:45 PM Sticky Rice Topped With Semi-Raw Egg Pudding and Possibly Unpasteurized Cream, Oragamied Up in an Unwashed Banana Leaf by an Old Crone on the Sidewalk There’s no possible way that this could be the culprit.

3:30 PM My Pride A virulent thing to swallow, when I realized that the failure of my snazzy new heels meant I was gonna have to walk around the office barefoot.

8:00 PM A Giant Fried Fish Served with the required chilies and scallions, did this bit of crunchy love invade my immune system as well as my heart?

8:10 PM Squid, Peanuts, and Chili Stir-fry I have trouble with tentacles. Maybe my stomach agrees.

Anyway, I’m still unsure what caused my mid-meal unhappiness, but let me tell you, I’m never ever eating a sandwich from a 7-11 again. I celebrated my recovery by paying a tiny asian woman to climb all over me. I got parts of me prodded with her chin, elbows and feet that I didnt know I had.

Caution: Asian burger present

You might think that describing the concept of ‘website accessibility’ to a foreigner who doesn’t speak your language and believes that folks with disabilities are being punished for sins in a previous life is tough, but baby, you don’t know tough till you’ve tried to track down a half-decent burger in Asia.

It was our second day experiencing the phenomenon of an under-funded third world government: An IT department with no computers, giggling 12 year old secretaries in school uniforms, more noodles and cabbage, and the clumsy universal sign language of the misunderstood: 'Person see? (points to eye) Noooo (vigorously shakes head) tsunami database (points to previously written note) good (silly thumbs up sign)'. After 8 hours of this even the most hardcore of hippie-Jews desires a bacon cheeseburger.

On rumors of a Fridays somewhere in the East of the city zaf and amg flagged down a cab and started salivating. We inched in rush hour traffic through the district of corrugated iron lean-tos, naked babies, and abandoned railroad tracks that act as the welcome for the upscale tourist district…only to find that the Firdays was missing.

Oh sweet, sweet chicken wings, where had you gone? A concierge at the freakishly luxurius Marriott (their restaurant is called Tsunami, with a tastefully ‘curved’ logo) confirmed our fears- the Friday had gone out of business years ago. As we contemplated yet another noodle, cabbage, and bottled water dinner, a busboy took pity on us and pointed out a second-rate ribs chain across the street.

It was a Tony Roma’s- I’ve never been in one, but at that moment it looked like heaven. We sat down with a menu and ordered most of it. Two beers and a set of faux chicken wings later we were ready for the real deal. The burgers arrived. They looked correct- the right proportions, awesome fake yellow cheese, mock grill marks, salad carefully removed on in case of parasites (you’d be paranoid too). We took a bite.

Peanut butter is mostly unknown over here, although peanuts are used in pretty much everything, including shampoo. So as a metaphor I can only say that, while tasting lovely lovely lovely, the meat had a consistency of ‘something really squishy’. Sort of like a pad of meat butter spread thick on the sesame bun. I didn’t care. I ate the whole thing, used extra ketsup, licked my fork (real forks!), and asked for a desert menu.

Aloe vera: For external use only, maybe

I always feel like I should earn a badge for trying things I had previously believed to be unfit for human consumption. The Suriname cherries growing across the street from my apartment, alligator, salmon skin -- they all make me feel a little bit braver for having held my nose and swallowed. And so I feel that R.J. and I deserve awards for our foray into the world of health and beauty product consumption. To wit: the “Aloe Vera Dessert” we picked up at Rockville’s Oriental Market a few Sundays ago. Its snazzy packaging caught my eye with its shameless touting of various health benefits, and its squishy texture sealed the deal.

Later that night I broke out the bag, and, ignoring R.J.’s pleas not to be forced to eat it ('Would you make me eat Noxzema?' he pleaded), I divided the stuff into two bowls. I was expecting a jelly-like substance with the slices of aloe suspended wherein, so I was rather surprised when it turned out to be slices of aloe vera soaked in a liquid consisting mainly of water, sugar and Muscat flavoring. Upon trying it, we discovered that it really wasn’t that bad. The aloe itself was basically flavorless, but with a fibrous texture similar to that of bamboo shoots or yucca, only slimier. The Muscat flavoring was pleasant and not too sweet.

We breathed a sigh of relief, finished eating, and started to clean up, which is when the real fun began. R.J. asked me if my stomach felt ok, to which I responded that it felt fine, then looked over and noticed a very uncomfortable look on his face. I felt fine, but I think he would have been better off eating the Noxzema.

We spent some time disputing whether his cramps were a result of eating aloe but concluded nothing. Subsequent internet research confirmed that the aloe was the culprit -- apparently, though many claim that aloe vera consumption has myriad health benefits such as internal healing, suppressing asthma attacks, easing arthritis pain and inflammation, etc., its only clinically proven indication is as a laxative.

R.J. and I learned one important lesson that night: it is a good idea to do your research when about to eat something normally reserved for putting on burns and in hand lotion. That said, we also discovered that if one should need a little, erm, digestive assistance, aloe vera soaked in Muscat juice is quite a tasty alternative to Phillips (even the Chocolate Crème Soft Chews).

-- by E.B.D., guest blogger

Jellyfish: the cultural bridge

Jellyfish is best eaten under duress. Cultural duress. It should be eaten only in the firm knowledge that to say no might cause a war…or at least an uncomfortable silence.

It was amg and zaf’s first day working at the Department of (scary sounding official name) in the Ministry of the (something else scary) in the capitol of (an undisclosed Asian country). We wore the required business-formal attire, had the required slicked-back hair, and kept the required smile on despite the unbelievable mosquitoes. We’d shaken hands and semi-bowed to the required officials and sat at the required desk while excitable secretaries no older than twelve years old brought unopened bottles of water and a plate of fresh corn and giggled over our passports. We’d sat through the required scary-sounding departmental ‘military meeting’. Which just brought us to…the required lunch.

Yes lunch. As a bonus for getting through the ‘military meeting’, the entire department was being treated to the (undisclosed Asian country) equivalent of 6-foot subs and takeaway pizza. This was, in fact, a huge cauldron of boiled orange water set in the middle of the linoleum floor of an old conference room. Office workers in crisp white linen stood patiently with scoop spoon and chopsticks. Two large plastic shopping bags contained precooked noodles, and long green vegetables of dubious origin stood to one side. And on the other, the inevitable tentacles.

So far we had been so good. Four pepto bismol before each meal, no water in the mouth during showers, no street food, extra hosing down for the squat toilets, bottled and canned drinks only- and bottled outside of the country at that. There was brief, worried eye contact and a small nod as we decided to eat the stuff and die with cultural pride. A scoop of rice noodles, a scoop of fried tofu, thick liver pieces, tentacles, wrinkly gluten which actually turned out to be the jellyfish, green veg, topped liberally with red broth and brown sugar.

This is how you eat it: chopsticks in right hand but used only to scoop debris onto the spoon on the left, and then eaten from the front up. Little twelve year old secretaries across from you bring glasses of bottled water, tissues, and then more tissues when you accidentally use the first one for your nose. Complete silence at a long plastic table as government workers slurp their government supplied sea-stew. Occasional worrying comments from people passing through:

‘You bot look alike’

‘You have to understan that yoo are not in the United States now. This is (country X).’ This was said so fiercely that we readied ourselves for a cultural dressing-down, but instead, a shrug. ‘We are a little behind here’.

And the most worrying comment to hear from an extremely highly placed foreign government official (who insists that the two odd white foreigners call him ‘Jack’ after an old college nickname, a fact seems to be news to his politely tittering underlings): ‘I hope we are able to please you’

By a stroke of luck, I was able to hide my jellyfish in the leftover broth at the bottom of my plastic bowl. Amg wasn’t so lucky. He said it was oddly crunchy.

Taste Testing

For farmers, making sure that only the most marketable goods leave the farm is crucial to business, and agriculturalists have long sought better ways to test and examine their produce. Now, USDA researchers have developed a laser taste-testing system that measures the sweetness, acidity, and texture of apples and peaches quickly and non-invasively. It's the latter that's critical: traditionally testing is done on samples taken from each batch, which reduces yield and sale volume.

This new technique promises better and more efficient quality controls, but will the cost be over-homogenization? Customers want a consistent product - an apple should taste like an apple, etc. - but at some point we could lose all the variation that is so exciting about good fresh produce: sometimes you bite into an apple that's just amazing, and it's a great surprise. If they all tasted that way, where's the fun?

A Couple's Cookbook: The Solution To Your Wedding-gift Woes

Wedding season is here – I’ve already been to two, and it’s only early May. Bridal registries usually offer plenty of gift choices for foodie couples and the foodies who love them (though we may turn our noses up at their brand of knife set or their decision to put a George Foreman instead of a food processor on their wish list).

But sometimes a deep fat fryer or an overpriced blender strike you as too impersonal a gift for a close friend. That’s how I felt when I perused the registry of Rachel, my best friend from high school, who is getting married on Saturday. I racked my brains for an idea she would love, something I would enjoy giving her which would fall within my meager budget. The choice was clear: I would make her Cooking As A Couple, a homemade wedding cookbook for her and her husband.

This cookbook can take your friends through their first year as a couple, providing recipes for dinner parties, anniversary meals, holidays (their first Thanksgiving is an important one), and less momentous occasions like having-the-in-laws-over-for-the-first-time, or quick dinners for busy nights.

Every couple has to cook, and producing something homemade and personal will make this gift special. But it’s not the easiest project in the world, so here’s some advice from someone who’s been through the process.

1). Homemade doesn’t equal free: There are a lot of different styles you can use to create the hard copy of your cookbook. I did the recipes on the computer, but I designed the book as a scrapbook, gluing in pictures, stickers and other accents to give it a more colorful, homey presentation. But as someone who doesn’t normally spend her weekends scrap-booking, I had no idea how much those little scrapbook supplies cost at Michael’s—between albums, pages, and accessories, it cost me about $60. Plan to shop carefully or shell out some dough—or decide to go with a more bare bones presentation.

2) Make it personal. Try to make your cookbook as individualized as possible. For example, I know Rachel hates broccoli, so I’m not going to include a recipe for broccoli cheese soup in the book. She and her fiancé like hosting gatherings for their friends from their church, so I’ve got a section called "church gatherings". They love Indian food, so their anniversary dinner is an Indian feast. Rather than recipes for a Superbowl party, I have recipes for a Purdue Party, since that’s the team they root for. The more it seems specially designed for them, they more they’ll appreciate it.

3) Play to your strengths, and use your resources. I went through my recipes and figured out the best ones to share before I outlined the cookbook itself. I noticed I had a lot of chicken soup recipes, as well as many Mexican food options – those turned into sections for Cinco de Mayo parties, and tips for nursing your spouse back to health. If you’re a cook who loves making Italian sauces, have a section of weekend projects they can do together, and include the sauce recipes there.

Also, don’t be afraid to share recipes from other cooks you know (ZAF’s recipe for compound butter made an appearance in mine), from books you have, or even from the Food Network – this book isn’t being published, so plagiarism is more than acceptable. Plus, it’s a lot easier to cut-and-past Rachel Ray’s recipe for Curry Turkey Burgers than write out all the steps you take to make your grandmother’s puttanesca sauce. Provide a nice mix of personal and borrowed recipes, and just make sure these are all dishes you’ve cooked with success.

4) Leave yourself plenty of time: A homemade cookbook is not a project to embark upon a week before the rehearsal dinner. I gave myself about two months to complete mine, and I’m still finishing up. Allow yourself a day to choose your recipes, time to design your cookbook’s content and style, quite a few nights to type up all your recipes, a day to go shopping for supplies, and some final days to put everything together.

Sound like too much work? Here are some other food-related wedding gift ideas:

*Find out where they’re going on their honeymoon. Research the restaurants there, and treat them to a gift certificate to a fancy, expensive restaurant there – complete with reservations.

*Get them a make-your-own recipe file, and stick in a couple of your favorite recipes as a starting gift. Include a subscription to Gourmet or Cooking Light magazine.

*Sign them up for a cooking class they can take together, from sushi-making to pastry design.

*Pay for them to go on a wine-tasting excursion together.

*Food-of-the-month club memberships. I find these a little overpriced, but whether cheeses or chocolates are their favorite temptation, this is a gift that lasts all year. Or you can go regional and send them some crabs from Baltimore, or some lobsters from Maine.

*Hire them a personal chef for a day – a good option for couples who are homebodies and not as interested in going out to a restaurant.

DCFUD rates DC: The results are in

Best Place to Be a Local
Gold:
Bardia's New Orleans Café

Runners Up:
Murphy's of DC
Faidley’s
Pumpernickel's
amsterdam falafel
Florida Ave Grill

Honorable Mention:
New York City

Best Bakery to Break a Diet
Gold:
Cakelove

Runners up:
Firehook Bakery
Vaccaro’s
Marvelous Market
Patisserie Poupon

Honorable Mention:
Zaf’s awesome peanut butter cookies.

Best Coffee Shop to Tell Your Boss You’re “Telecommuting” From
Gold:
Soho tea and Coffee

Runners Up:
Tryst
Steam
One World Café

Honorable Mention:
Camelot

Click here to view all results

Best Place to Wear Silly Hipster Clothing
Gold:
Wonderland

Runners Up:
Soho Tea and Cofee
Mei n Yu
Sasha’s
Food For Thought

Honorable Mention:
Anywhere near the Black Cat

Prettiest Restaurant
Gold:
Any of the Downtown Fusion Trinity (Ceiba, DC Coast, Ten Penh)

Runners Up:
Palette
Zatinya
Paper Moon
Ortanique

Honorable Mention:
The Brickskellar

Best Reason to boast about of your Southern Heritage
Gold:
Lefties Barbeque

Runners Up:
Bardia's New Orleans Café
Georgia Brown's
Aunt Sarahs
Rockland's

Honorable Mention:
Maine Avenue

Best Reason to boast about your non-American Heritage
Gold:
Helmud’s

Runners Up:
Pho 75
Chipotle
Lebanese Taverna
Harambe
Heritage India

Honorable Mention:
You won't get drafted

Grooviest Waitstaff
Gold:
Brickskeller

Runners Up:
Murky Coffee
Cafe Luna
Zacks
Hamburger Marys

Honorable Mention:
Afterwords (Best service with a sneer)

Best Bathroom
Gold:
Forget it, no bathrooms can beat the ones in Tokyo. Warmed toilet seats, air jets, water spurts, and fluffy soap!

Runners Up:
Mie N Yu
Ceiba
Zola

Honorable Mention:
Books a Million (most of the homeless population of Dupont can’t be wrong)

Best Excuse to Go to the Suburbs
Gold:
New Fortune Dim Sum

Runners Up:
Broadway Diner
Grapeseed
Joe's Noodles
Addie's
Roys (Gaithersburg)
The Tasting Room

Honorable Mention:
Gunpoint

Best Corporate Lunch Break
Gold:
Bread Line
Runners Up:
Les Halles
Greek Deli
Five Guys
Chinatown Express
Joy America

Honorable Mention:
You take lunch?

Best Expense Account Dinner
Gold:
Obelisk

Runners Up:
Cashion's
C harlie Palmers
Tosca
DC Coast
Old Ebitt's
Bombay Club

Honorable Mention:
The snack car of the Acela. The cost will be about the same.

Best Morning-After Hangover Food
Gold:
Bardia's New Orleans Cafe
Runners Up:
Broadway Diner
American City Diner
Afterwords
Jimmy T's
Pete’s
The Diner

Honorable Mention:
Whoever’s bed you spent the night in

Best Pretentious Yuppie Fusion Food
Gold:
Ten Penh

Runners Up:
Ceiba
Thaiphoon
XS

Honorable Mention:
The sandwiches at Marvelous Market (Duck and plum on baguette. Hell yeah)

Best Small Meal for Less than the Cost of a Metro Check
Gold:
Tie: and Amsterdam Falafel and Five Guys

Runners Up:
Pizza Mart
Julia's Empanadas
Fado
Lexington Market
Bens Chili Bowl
York Castle

Honorable Mention:
Larry's. You can make a meal out of ice cream, easy

On the road: Nagoya

This isn’t actually a review- for that I‘d have to know the name of the place where I ate. Suffice to say, 8 PM in Nagoya found me and amg on a side street, contemplating two important truths. 1) We were faint with hunger, and 2) We were the only Westerners in the entire city.

Finding a snack bar would mean forging through the crowds of serious, black-suited businessmen and mayfly-like girls, stiletto’d and limping, that seem to be Nagoya’s chief export. Finding a decent restaurant meant being able to read any of the signs (or at least knowing what the mysterious lacquered ‘example food’ in each storefront was). So we found a place by stepping through the nearest doorway.

We found ourselves at the stone bar of a low ceilingd wooden izakaya. Wild gesticulations convinced the amused bartender that English menus were in order. I ordered ‘Ocha duke” (I think) which was, apparently, green tea over rice with seaweed and salmon. Amg ordered a bowl of rice with Nagoya Hochin and egg. This turned out to be a sweet curry and, indeed, raw egg. As I sat contemplating whether the wooden spoon was for eating with or stirring everything up, or perhaps serving, or just ornamentation, amg pointed repeatedly to his bowl and the similar second bowl that he’d been given, trying to figure out what exactly, to do with it.

The entire staff found excuses to watch us happily (tho clumsily) chewing away, giggling behind their hands at the strange people with big noses. At one point the manager walked over and carefully asked us a phrase. We got it on the third try.

‘Wheh ah yoo fom?’
‘Washington DC’
‘Wassinton DC!’ he yelled triumphantly to the girl in back. They probably had a bet going.