Shrimp (For Murph)

A few weeks ago, when I was at Ix Tapa Cantina with my friend Murph, he fell in love with the shrimp we had. I admit they were pretty good - and certainly a nice deal at $3 - but they weren't anything that special. He has gone back several times and eaten them since then, and I have promised him that I would make him some shrimp one day that would eradicate those happy hour shrimp from his mind. 

Saturday night, Murph asked if we wanted to do something for dinner Sunday night and watch the Academy Awards. He offered to pick up some food and bring it over. Of course, we had no intention of watching the awards - we're not much for awards shows and, at any rate, Sleuth Channel was showing an all-day marathon of the final season of The Unit. (Remind me again why that show was cancelled and yet 24 marches on, despite not being exciting in four years.)

But I told Murph he was welcome to come over and hang out with us and I would make him shrimp. This made him happy. ("Fantastic!" was his response, which is quite possibly the first exclamation point I have seen him use in several years of friendship.) He picked up some Pacifico - this wasn't a meal that called for wine - and came over in the late afternoon. 

I had a bag of Argintinian red shrimp from Trader Joe's. I wrote about these back in 2008: they are the best frozen shrimp I have ever had. They taste very much like lobster and, at $8.99 for a bag, are a great deal. I marinated them for a couple hours in lime juice, olive oil, and chopped cilantro. I mixed together some additional cilantro in a bowl with roasted red pepper, jicama, pasilla pepper, mozarella and jarlsberg cheeses.

As an appetizer I put out some seared ahi tuna from Fish King. I had not had these in a long time; I'd forgotten how good they are. When the indoor grill was hot enough I threw the shrimp on. They cooked rapidly, no more than one minute on each side, and I took them off to cool down a little. I put the ingredients from the bowl into tortillas and grilled them, but I was excited for Murph to try the shrimp so before the quesadillas were ready I fixed him a small plate, topping some red pepper strips and grilled jicama with a handful of shrimp and cilantro. He said they were excellent, and definitely better than Ix Tapa. 

The quesadillas took a few minutes on the grill. When they came off I sliced them and served them with shrimp in the center of each plate. I added a few slugs of Louisiana hot sauce to mine for some extra kick. These were very good, however I should have added more pasilla pepper to the mix. I did not realize how mild pasilla is. Perhaps I should have used jalapeño instead. Next time, for sure. 

There was no episode of Huell Howser or new cartoons last night, so we actually ended up watching a fair amount of the Academy Awards. It was the first time I had watched them in eight years and they were every bit as boring as I remembered. 

Rubio's: Chili-Lime Salmon Taco

Although I've switched over my allegiance from Rubio's to Sharky's whenever I want fish tacos in that part of Pasadena - which is to say South Lake Ave. - I was interested in trying their chili-lime salmon. It was mid-afternoon when I walked in and there wasn't a single customer in the restaurant, but I still waited a couple minutes at the counter with no employee in sight. Eventually a woman in the back greeted me and came out to the counter.

I ordered a "World Famous Fish Taco" and a chili-lime salmon taco. My order was ready in a few minutes, although it became obvious that the fish in the former had been cooked long before I ordered it. Usually Rubio's fish is freshly fried, which means it's crispy and hot. This was lukewarm and best and had the texture of a dry sponge. Obviously it had been cooked a while earlier and was just waiting around for an idiot to order one. In this case, I was the idiot. 

Fortunately, the chili-lime salmon taco was the opposite: it tasted fresh and was delicious. The salmon was tender and although it was buried under a deluge of toppings - corn, chipotle sauce, and cabbage - they were all great. I certainly wished I'd ordered two of these instead of the regular fish taco. 

I will probably return to Rubio's the next time they have a promotion that catches my eye (although not this one), however I am definitely done with them for regular fish tacos when I'm in Pasadena. They may have thought they were saving money by serving me a piece of fish that had been cooked earlier and wasn't even warm, but in the end they lost money, because I won't be returning. 

Trader Joe's Fondue

I've always liked fondue. When I was a kid and an incredibly picky eater, I always was willing to eat a giant pot of cheese and wine. But I have not eaten it very much in the last few years. My friend Tracie and I had dinner at The Melting Pot three years ago, and it was a nice dinner, but it was almost two hundred dollars for the two of us. It wasn't that nice of a dinner. So I never really felt like going back there, and I never had the desire to go through the process of making it at home.

Not long ago, however, I discovered Trader Joe's Swiss Beer Fondue. It is delicious, and, like many things at TJ's, it's almost ridiculous how affordable it is. A one pound bag - which Elizabeth and I have never come close to finishing - is $4.99. The other night Tracie and our friend Murph were over, so I decided to make fondue. 

I'd had pancetta in the fridge for a few days; Elizabeth makes a great pasta with fried pancetta and spinach, but we just hadn't gotten around to having it. So I decided to cook it. There was also a red pepper, so I roasted that and chopped it up into small bits and cooked it along with the pancetta. After about ten minutes I added the package of cheese. It could not have been any easier. 

About a year ago there was a big sale at Bristol Farms and I bought a mini fondue pot for ten bucks. It's quite small and has to be refilled frequently, but it's cute. We decided to do this informally; I put a beach towel on the coffee table and we all gathered around, watching Anthony Bourdain and Family Guy and dipping sliced pieces of baguette into the cheese fondue. Was it the best fondue I have ever had? No, probably not. But it was still delicious and easy and this dinner for four people cost less than ten bucks.  

Bar Snacks @ 72 North

18 days short of a year ago - man, time is going by too quickly - I wrote about Dullahan's, a much improved incarnation of McMurphy's, a hellhole of a bar that I sometimes reluctantly visited in my early 20s, and which my female friends referred to as "McRoofie's" with an unsettlingly small amount of sarcasm. Dullahan's cleaned the place up, added the best selection of TVs in Old Town, and offered a great happy hour as well.

A few months ago the name changed to 72 North (their address on Fair Oaks), partly due to a change in ownership (and, although this is purely speculation on my part, perhaps to have a name much less similar to McMurphy's). But everything else is almost the same, the only difference being an improvement in some of the menu items. 

Saturday night, Elizabeth and I felt like having a couple drinks and just relaxing. We didn't need anything fancy like wine or gourmet food, just some cold beer and music. We met up with our friend Carla and had a few pints of Guinness (my drink of choice in most places, and always at 72 North; they have my favorite pint in OT) and Blue Moon. After an hour or so we needed some snacks. In January a few friends and I met up here to eat pizza, but we weren't in a pizza mood this evening. We decided to get a couple appetizers and if we were still hungry, order more. 

Elizabeth immediately suggested the fried cheese. I saw that coming. That girl loves fried cheese like a sailor loves his rum. I had never had the fried cheese here, but I was willing to give it a shot. We debated what else to get. My friend Dave once told me that the popcorn shrimp were very good, so in the end we decided to give that a try.

The food was ready in only a few minutes. The fried cheese was good, although it was the same fried cheese that almost all restaurants and bars use. There are only two ways to screw it up: not cook it long enough so that the middle is frozen hard, or cook it too long so that the insides have busted out on to the plate and you're left eating a hollow tube of greasy bread crumbs. This fried cheese was the ideal temperature.

The popcorn shrimp were excellent - crispy and a little bit greasy. We ate the entire basket, even the little fried bits that were left over. The star of the show was the spicy remoulade. They gave us a small container of it, which we devoured with about a half dozen shrimp, before we requested a larger amount of it. This sauce was comparable to the spicy chili mayo at Zeke's Smokehouse, and we considered ordering some more appetizers just so we could eat more of it. (I believe getting a couple spoons and eating the sauce by itself was suggested.)

I sent my friend Dave a text telling him that I'd finally tried the popcorn shrimp. It turned out he and two friends were having dinner right next door at Mezbaan, and not long after my text he showed up. Maybe he just wanted to have a beer and hang out, but it's possible he was hoping there were some shrimp left. I will definitely be trying these again.

The Slaw Dogs III

Saturday afternoon I headed up to The Slaw Dogs at the height of the pounding rain. There was no parking in front but the rain had abated slightly so I parked a couple blocks away. You can see the punchline coming: twenty steps from my car the rain started pouring again, the hardest yet of the day.  I did not care at that point, though. I was craving a wiener. 

Slaw Dogs was as crowded as I've ever seen it. (Take that with a grain of salt; this was only my fourth visit.) Several of the customers were sipping from beers. I don't know if this means they serve alcohol now - I didn't want any so I didn't inquire. The special dog was the Vancouver Dog: wasabi mayo, pickled carrot and daikon slaw, and nori and bonito flakes. That sounded interesting and excellent so I ordered one. Elizabeth opted to get the Green Monster that I ate last week.

Despite the crowd, it took less than five minutes for our dogs to be ready. The Green Monster was covered with toppings, just as mine had been, and Elizabeth loved it like I had. By contrast, the Vancouver Dog had a relatively sparse amount of toppings. And that's a shame, because the toppings were delicious. I could not taste any wasabi mayo; it wasn't until almost my last bite that I detected a tiny smear of it. It was tasty and I wish there had been more.

Still, I really liked the dog. I have yet to have a dog here that I did not enjoy.