The joy of tomato pie

Last night The Deacon and I had dinner at De Lorenzo's Tomato Pies. Although I've had tomato pie (Trenton's contribution to the pizzaverse) before, this was my first time at De Lorenzo's, which is universally agreed to be one of the exemplars of the genre.

We ordered a large pie with sausage and mushroom for the toppings. The crust was thin, almost cracker-like. The first layer was cheese, then came the tomato-based pizza sauce, then finally our chosen toppings. Some of the pie's slices were triangular, others rectangular.

As expected, it was an excellent tomato pie. The chunks of sausage, in particular, were wonderful; they were peppery and juicy with good char. Although I initially assumed that we would be taking some home (since it was a large pie and neither The Deacon nor I are blessed with huge appetites), we managed to polish the whole thing off while we were at the restaurant. I think that this was because the pie, with its thin crust and relatively light amount of toppings, wasn't as bulky as a standard New York-style pizza (never mind one totally overloaded with cheese and toppings).

I've been experimenting with making my own pizzas lately (more about that in a future post) so enjoying a real Trenton tomato pie gave me even more ideas for my own kitchen adventures (not that De Lorenzo's has anything to worry about on that front).

Five Guys

The Fourth of July found me (along with The Lurker and Perfect Tommy) wandering the wilds of Cape May County in search of rare birds. We didn't find any, but had a nice day out all the same, and didn't even hit an unreasonable amount of traffic (kind of astonishing, considering it was a holiday weekend).

We had lunch at the Five Guys in Rio Grande, NJ. As we were looking for a likely lunch pick, I at first didn't understand why my companions seemed so eager to stop at what sounded like an auto supply store. Once inside, Five Guys' true identity as a burger joint was revealed.

I had a regular burger, not realizing that meant I was getting two beef patties instead of one. My chosen toppings were just lettuce and tomato, and of course I got fries. It ended up costing a bit more than I had expected for "fast food," but at this point I was in "investigate new dining option mode," so it didn't matter. The potatoes that made our fries came from Driggs, Idaho, county seat for Teton County (thank Yog-Sothoth for the internet!).

It seemed odd that everything was served in a paper bag, even though we were eating in, but I just ripped open the bag and tucked in. Fries in a styrofoam cup: also odd. But after the first fry, I didn't care. The burger patties were clearly hand-shaped (rustically irregular) but very juicy. When I discovered Five Guys cooks all of its burgers well-done, I was shocked because I don't think I've ever met a juicy well-done burger before. The lettuce and  tomatoes were pretty standard-issue, but very crisp and fresh. And the fries, the fries...it was a good burger but the fries were phenomenal. Crisp, fresh, unskinned, salty but not too salty, piping hot...they were the best french fries I've had in a long time.

After the fact, I came home and searched for posts about Five Guys on the Chowhound boards. I didn't read them all, but there were a ton of them, divided between Five Guys lovers and haters. I should have guessed as much, I suppose; for every good review of a given restaurant, there's a bad one (or vice versa). At least, it seems that way when one trolls for restaurant reviews on the internet.

RIP Tom Yum Goong

Just a quick note to mark the passing of Princeton's Tom Yum Goong, which burned down the other day (NJ Spice post here). I ate at Tom Yum Goong earlier this year with Lala, Phil and The Sherpa, and we had a wonderful Thai meal. I didn't take notes on what we had, but all the food was top-notch, the atmosphere was good and the service was good as well (some posts on Chowhound had noted odd timing in the arrival of dishes). I was looking forward to going back, but now it remains to be seen if they will rebuild or not.

Bibimbap

Sometimes a good restaurant meal can send you off in a new culinary direction. It's one thing to sort through cookbooks in search of interesting things to try, but quite another to be confronted with the dish in question.

Saturday night I had dinner with The Deacon at one of our favorite hangouts, Soonja's in Princeton. Soonja's features cuisine from various Asian countries. The Deacon had one of the "create your own noodle dish" entrees, while I decided to visit new territory. I've been eyeing the "Bi Bim Bob" in the Korean section of the menu for a while now. The beef and rice sounded interesting, but the mixed vegetables summoned up images of a plate full of broccoli (a frequent component of "mixed vegetables," in my experience). I don't like broccoli and avoid it as much as possible, but I decided to take a gamble.

When the plate arrived (after the steamed pork dumpling appetizer and accompanying miso soup), I was pleasantly surprised: no broccoli. Mounds of different ingredients ringed the plate; in the center sat the mound of minced beef while the rice, hidden, supported everything else. The plate was a colorful assortment: yellow egg slivers, dark green spinach, variegated green lettuce, coffee-colored shiitake mushrooms, pale bean sprouts and slivered daikon, and orange threads of carrot. It was almost too pretty to eat. The veggies were fresh and just barely cooked; the sprouts and daikon were dressed with a tinge of vinegar. The bibimbap (every place I encounter the name of this dish seems to spell it differently) was served with koch'ujang (Korean hot chile paste); I added a few dollops of chile paste to the dish, mixed everything up and dug in.

All in all, it reminded me of a very substantial salad. The veggies were the real heart of the dish, in the vein of many Asian dishes which use meat as favoring rather than the core of the dish. The mix of textures and tastes had plenty of variety and was welcome on a hot day. As I ate, I knew I had to make this a part of my cooking repertoire.

When I got home, I pulled out Hi Soo Shin Hepinstall's Growing Up in a Korean Kitchen. There was indeed a recipe for "Pibimbap," but I quickly realized why I hadn't bookmarked the recipe: all those ingredients! All that chopping! Well, I didn't care now. I'd seen what bibimbap was like and that gave me more incentive. So did this recipe for bibimbap from evil jungle prince, who made the point that bibimbap is a great use for leftovers. Homemade bibimbap is sure to appear in my kitchen soon.

Twice-cooked pork

The classic dish of China's Sichuan province, according to Fuchsia Dunlop, is twice-cooked pork. Like any other widely-regarded and cooked meal, there are many different variations on the recipe. The basic plan is to parboil pork belly then stir-fry it with sauce and vegetables.

I tried Dunlop's version of this dish and have been eating leftovers from it since then. The final result was a little too oily for my taste (but when you're dealing with pork belly, maybe that's par for the course). No, wait, scratch that last parenthetical comment: braising pork belly for Japanese chashu does not lead to a greasy result. Hmm.

Boiling the pork, then stir-frying it, distills the essence of porkiness. It also leads to a rather chewy result. This is not normally a problem, but when one is trying to have a quick birding meal (and one's compatriot has already finished his sandwich), chewy is not a good thing. Duly noted.

On the other hand, the sauce was divine. Dunlop recommends 1 1/2 tablespoons of hot bean paste, 1 1/2 teaspoons of regular Sichuan bean paste (made with broad beans, aka fava beans, rather than soybeans) and 2 teaspoons of fermented black beans. I'll have more to say on the bean pastes in another post, but the result for this dish was deep and savory. I liked the sauce to the point that I would happily make it for some other application, but then it might be missing the extra dimension of rendered pork belly fat. C'est la vie.

Unrelated footnote: the leftovers made lunch while The Lurker and I were birding around Cape May County, but dinner led us to Applebee's, a chain we haven't visited in some time. We both had burgers and although the server told us that our burgers were going to be better done than not (i.e., no pink), the resulting burgers were very good (even for a medium rare fan like The Lurker). The char was terrific and the flavor equally so. My burger was a "Bruschetta Burger," and it turns out that putting some diced tomato, basil, garlic and mozzarella on a good burger makes a very nice entree. The rosemary-seasoned fries were just a plus.

Return to Clinton Diner

I guess my announcement that I was back and blogging was a bit premature. I didn't want it to go this long without updates, but life can sometimes interfere with one's best-laid plans. But then, sometimes a really fabulous meal can interfere with life (or what passes for it), which is why I started this blog in the first place. Saturday night's meal was one of those occasions when I was imbued with a desire to blog the food as I experienced it.

I was gadding about with The Lurker and Perfect Tommy this weekend (as is often the case). Dinnertime found us heading back across the Delaware River into Jersey, a perfect time to think back on the Clinton Station Diner. Even though I had breakfast in what seemed to be the middle of the night the last time we visited this diner, I perused the menu enough to know that I wanted to order "real food" from this place someday.

Someday turned out to be last Saturday. As we pondered our choices, I decided to go for something on the light side; some fish and chips seemed to be the ticket. A little less expensive than the other entrees (like chicken marsala) that I wasn't in the mood for anyway. No biggie.

Well, when the platter arrived, I realized my "mistake." Slabs of fried fish were piled on top of a bed of mixed greens, side by side with the "chips" or fries, heftier and darker than regular french fries. An enormous expanse of food stretched before me. Well, diner portions do tend to be big...then there were the obligatory sides!

When I bit into the fried fish, I almost attained nirvana. The batter was crisp and light, and had a flavor that immediately brought tempura to mind. Within the crisp coating, the fish was perfectly done, slipping out into perfect slabs of fork-tenderness. (Golly, did I just write that? That's food porn!)

A lot of leftovers came home with me that night (not that I'm complaining), but that's the first time fish and chips has ever reminded me of tempura. I may need to up the ante next time I go back and order a longtime favorite like chicken marsala or prime rib. This diner is that good.

Creaky chicken

Last night I had dinner with LaLa at Ya Ya Noodles. Perfect Tommy has been raving about Ya Ya's "creaky chicken" lately; it seems to have become one of his favorite treats for dinner. Thus it was that both LaLa and I were eager to try it. We decided to share two entrees between us; LaLa's choice was "soft tofu with winter mushrooms."

The creaky chicken has a hot and spicy asterisk next to it in the menu, but despite the occasional tinge of chili heat, it was not that spicy. LaLa was somewhat puzzled because she said it was the same as the chicken and ginger she'd ordered from Ya Ya the last time she'd eaten there. Despite those quibbles, we found that that it was, indeed, quite delicious. The thin slices of ginger added some bite to the rich savory sauce. The chicken morsels were perfectly done, moist and tender.

The soft tofu with winter mushrooms was also excellent. This dish had the classic "wok hay" smokiness; the tofu chunks were velvety soft and melted in one's mouth, while the mushrooms were juicy. They were dressed in a light brown sauce, thinner and milder than the creaky chicken sauce.

It was a great dinner out. It's probably just as well I don't live closer to Ya Ya Noodles, because then it would become a serious temptation.