FoodieCuisine.com

By Todd Barron @ FoodieCuisine.com

Chicken Nachos

When in the French Quarter in New Orleans the first thing that comes to mind is not Mexican food.  In fact, the thought of it brings images of vats of grease to mind.  The French Quarter is “dirty” and most restaurants in the immediate area suffer as a result.  There are a few stand-outs but for the most part, Mexican food is something I would avoid.

My wife and I are leaving the Aquarium after  a pleasant visit there and my trusty Zagat application tells me there is a highly rated Mexican restaurant a block away.  Really?  Well, Zagat has been batting a thousand so far so why not?  We head down the street to Felipes Taqueria.

It’s clean on the inside.  That’s the first thing I notice.  I also notice the large sign on the wall telling me what I can pick from.  Felipe’s is not a fancy restaurant where you sit down and order.  Far from it.  You choose your items from the board, tacos, burritos, etc, and then choose your protein such as chicken, fish, or beef.  It reminds me of an upper scale Chipotles.

I order the fish tacos and my wife orders the chicken nachos.  We walk through the line picking out the toppings such as sour cream, cheese, tomatoes, etc. and pay for our food.  I find us a nice table in the corner, before the crowd shows up, and dig in.

The tacos are very fresh, with a lightly fried fish for the meat.  The lettuce is nicely shredded and everything has a great flavor to it, especially after I add the house-made chipotle salsa.  My wife’s nachos have heapings of shredded chicken on top and taste great.  One thing I notice while we are eating are the several locals who show up for lunch.  There are firemen, policemen, nurses, electricians, and various other workers from around the area eating at Felipes.  The food and the clientele all point to one thing: a great local restaurant with reasonable prices.  I will be back.

By Todd Barron @ FoodieCuisine.com

I bought four pork shoulders to smoke this weekend, each 8-11 pounds in weight.  I dry rubbed them all in a spice blend I make and injected them with malt soda (a trick I’ve used many times now.)  I put them in at 6pm on Saturday and here they are at 8am on Sunday.

Two of the pork shoulders were split to test versus cooking them whole.  Everyone like the “bark” on the meat and by splitting them, I hope to generate more barky goodness.

By Todd Barron @ FoodieCuisine.com

My wife and I had a wonderful week during Spring Break in New Orleans.  Here is some of the food I will be writing about in the coming weeks.  I hope you enjoy!

By Todd Barron @ FoodieCuisine.com

Sea Bass with Habanero Sauce

I wanted to make something healthy but tasty and filling the other night and settled on Sea Bass with Edamame.  Edamame is a “super” food in that it fills you up while giving you many required nutrients.  I really enjoy it with sushi and have had it paired with cooked fish as well.

For the dinner I pan fried (using a tiny amount of oil and butter,) the sea bass filets lightly salted and peppered.  I set the filets atop a vegetable mixture mixed in with a fish broth.

For the vegetables I started by boiling whole corn and cutting the kernels off once cooked.  I caramelized some diced onion and jalapeno by reducing the vegetables down and adding salt, pepper, and red wine vinegar.  I also boiled fresh spinach for a minute, drained it, and added salt, pepper, and red wine vinegar to the spinach.

For the fish broth I bought reduced fish stock, added water, and reduced it down over medium heat for 20 minutes.  Once the vegetables, sea bass, and broth were done I combined it all.  To do this I put a mound of spinach in each bowl, surrounded it with the vegetable mixture, topped it with a filet of sea bass, and poured the fish stock over the top.

For the sauce, which I drizzled over the top, I roasted habaneros, red bell peppers, and garlic in the oven for 45 minutes.  I blended the peppers when they were done in my Vitamix blender along with a tiny amount of olive oil, and salt and pepper for flavor.

The resulting dish was very light in calories and fat but had wonderful flavor to it.  The natural sweetness of the corn paired well with the onions and the tartness of the spinach helped offset the heat from the jalapenos.  I made sure to cook the sea bass long enough (many people under-cook it,) and the habanero sauce on top erased any fishy flavor.  The red bell peppers in the habanero sauce helped cut the heat to an acceptable level, while keeping the flavor.

Overall I was very happy with the dish and my wife liked it too.

By Todd Barron @ FoodieCuisine.com

Brisket Sandwich

Mo’s Restaurant in Burbank, California has been serving food since 1995.  Mo’s offers hamburgers (complete with a hamburger bar), sandwiches, and several other American style entrees.  During my visit for a quick business lunch, I order the special, a brisket Reuben.  The waiter tells me how the brisket is homemade.

Given how I am a BBQ cook myself, the thought of a homemade brisket has my mouth watering.  If you cook brisket properly, it has an amazing flavor and is quite tender.

My sandwich comes out after about 10 minutes and looks amazing.  The sauerkraut is not too tangy but adds a nice bite to the overall flavor.  The dressing on the sandwich is spot on with just enough sweetness.  The brisket, wow, the brisket is wonderful.  It is very tender, juicy, and is bursting with beef flavor.

I am very pleased with my sandwich and can’t wait to make it myself at home the next time I smoke a brisket.

By Todd Barron @ FoodieCuisine.com

Indian Pickle

Forget what you think about pickles, especially when it comes to “Indian Pickle.”  I visit Star of India, in the evening for dinner (not the buffet,) and have been doing so for the past 20 years.  Almost every time I ask for the food to be spicy.  Every time I ask, I receive food that may be spicy for my son, but is not close to being spicy enough for me.  A year ago this changed.

One night, my Chicken Tikka Masala arrives and is dark red.  Usually it is pink and the redness typically means one thing, it’s hot from the chili spices.  Sure enough, its spicy and tastes wonderful.  I am not crying from the spice but it gives me the sniffles.

As it turns out, I was given the wrong order.  The table next to me, full of natives from India, had ordered the same thing.  The server accidentally gave me the “Indian spice” food.  When I told Sammy (the manager,) he offered to replace my food.  No!  I did not want it replaced but wanted to know how to ask for it in the future, and even spicier next time.  After half an hour of discussion, Sammy was convinced I like spicy food and promised to make it hot in the future.  He told me to ask for it using a scale of 1-10.  The next time I at there, I ordered a 20.

After several weeks of wonderfully spicy dishes, Sammy tells me he has a special surprise for me.  He promises I will love it.  With my dinner he brings a small side dish of very dark, chopped vegetables.  They are covered in spice and oil and are pungent.  It reminds me of kimchi but with Indian spices.  Sammy explains to tear off a piece of naan (flatbread,) put some of my Chicken Tikka Masala on it, and then add some of the “pickle”.

Wow!  The flavor is amazing.  The naan smooths everything out while the chicken adds the needed texture and spice, offset by the tanginess of the pickled vegetables (which as spicy as well.)  Everything in the bite works perfectly together and I have found my new favorite food.  Frankly, I do not know how I enjoyed Indian food until this point.  It is a game changer for me and something I will use always going forward.

Sammy explains they make the pickle by chopping and covering vegetables in mustard oil, mixed in with many spices, and left to ferment for several weeks (and months.)    The result is a very intense chutney of sorts which enhances any savory Indian dish.  I’ve even tried it on frozen Indian meals (from Kroger) and it makes them edible.  They aren’t the greatest, but for lunch at work they are not too bad.

You can buy the pickle from Indian grocery stores.  Just be sure you get the actual pickle spice and not American style pickles.  I had to ask the lady at the Indian grocery store three times before she took me to the isle with Indian Pickle (she kept pointing me to the American style pickles!)  The funny part is they had about 200 jars of Indian Pickle.  I guess most Americans in my area do not ask for Indian Pickle!

By Todd Barron @ FoodieCuisine.com

Fettuccine with Seafood

It’s late and the Sushi Cafe has an hour wait.  We drive back towards I-430 and stop along the way at Graffitis Italian in Little Rock, Arkansas.  Graffitis Italian has been around for many years and it has been about 20 years since I visited.  We do not have reservations but are seated immediately upon arrival.  The place is decently busy given the time of night and has a dark, comforting feel to it.

My wife and I order the Escargot Appetizer and the Meatball Appetizer to get things started.  While we wait on appetizers we order the Pasta Special and the Fettuccine with Seafood for dinner.  We are sure to receive too much food but who says we have to eat it all.  That is what they have to-go boxes for right?

The escargot arrives and is based in a creamy red sauce.  I’m quite surprised as I expected escargot in a garlic-butter sauce but it looks good nonetheless.  Sure enough, it is tender, cooked well, and has a good flavor to it.  I prefer the garlic-butter variety of the dish but find this one interesting and worthwhile.

The meatballs arrive at the same time as the escargot and are tasty but very salty.  I enjoy the red sauce they are covered in but cannot get past the overbearing saltiness.  Although I enjoy them, the appetizer dooms my palette for my entree.

The Fettuccine with Seafood arrives, along with the pasta special, and is stacked with several large scallops.  I ordered extra scallops instead of shrimp and the kitchen delivered!  The fettuccine is cooked properly, with just enough bite to it and not mushy.  The scallops on the other hand are huge, but are not seared at all.  They also lack any flavor.  In fact, I can barely taste anything in the dish.  I am not sure if the salt from the meatballs overpowered my palette or what, but I end up adding copious amounts of salt and pepper to my food.  It is unfortunate, as there is a ton of seafood in the pasta, but it has no seasoning.  I wish I could pan-fry some scallops in the kitchen to show them what they are doing wrong, but that is not my job.  I eat a few bites and take the rest to-go.

Although the Fettuccine with Seafood was flavorless, I did enjoy the experience.  I just won’t order meatballs again, or the seafood fettuccine.  Next time I may try the lasagna.

By Todd Barron @ FoodieCuisine.com

Dry Aging Room

The Yachtsman Steakhouse is located in the Yacht Club Resort at Disney World, Florida.  They are an up-scale restaurant which require reservations (most of the time.)  I really enjoyed it as they dry-age their own steaks and offer several dishes I like such as escargot.

I had the Lobster Bisque ($11) with the Filet Mignon ($41) for dinner the other night.  I ordered the steak Medium Rare and it was cooked perfectly.  The bisque was a bit on the sweet side for my tastes but the steak had the right amount of seasoning on it with notes of pepper and heat.  I was too full to try dessert by may order it in the future.

Overall I enjoyed the experience.  It was not a unique one, but was good and is a restaurant I would visit again in the future.  I really look forward to trying the steak house in Epcot next.