Hit and miss: Martha makes good, then goes bad, Part I

First of all, I would like to preface the next two posts with a reminder that everything said on this blog are my own personal views and judgements. We all have them, they are called opinions, everyone's entitled to one. And in the free world that we live in I don't think anyone should get nasty comments or emails when you do not agree with the personal statements made by another person. I'm all up for healthy, civil discussions, but if you want to get all spiteful and bitchy then may I suggest you call Ricki Lake or Maury.

Now that's been said let's get back to our normal programming...

There it goes again, that precarious thing that teeters to and fro on a delicately balanced see-saw of emotions- that is my relationship with Martha's recipes. That see-saw teeters more so on the side of loathe rather than love but my disdain for Martha is not at all unfounded. For lack of a more gracious way of saying this, frankly some of her recipes suck.

Thankfully not all of them suck and thankfully for you, you won't have to be reading a tirade of Martha gibes today. No, I'm saving that for the next post, hoorah for free speech! Anyway, let's not get sidetracked. Here is another Martha recipe that has worked for me. Brilliantly in fact, it almost seemed unnatural to call it a Martha recipe. I must have a knack for picking all the dud recipes on her website and now am too paranoid to spend any money on of her cookbooks.

I would like to think that the recipes in her published books would be more fool-proof and complete, in comparison to the ones featured on her website. It seems that the uptake of recipes on the website is prodigious, although is a little light on the copy-editing and corrections. Most recipes are lacking important instructions and missing ingredients.

But, I did pledge an optimistic post on Martha today and here it is, her recipe for Molasses Sandwich cookies. They were a hit with everyone at a picnic we had earlier. The only thing I would fault is that the cookies are way too sweet. I mean wa-aaaay too sweet. The cookies are pretty sweet on their own but when sandwiched with a molasses filling in between, the sugar levels and diabetes inducing properties soar way beyond appropriate.

There's enough sweet in these babies to cause permanent tooth decay. So I would suggest reducing the sugar in the cookies by half and reducing the amount of actual filling by half also. That is what I did second time around and even then, the cookies aren't lacking in sugar. I think the presence of the molasses actually brings out the sweetness of the sugar even more, so I would err on the side of caution and ease up with the saccharine.

But with the right amount of sweetness, these sandwich cookies are the perfect thing to take with you to a picnic or a party. Your fellow pickinickers or party goers will thank you for bringing the party along with you. As these things have enough sugar to liven up any deadbeat gathering and will have guests potentially hanging off the chandeliers or perhaps doing a nudie run through the park. Now who wouldn't bake these just to see that?

So there you have it, another successful Martha recipe, this is the part in the title where Martha makes good. I've had a bigger share of misses than hits with her, although not documented on this blog, but this does take the hit tally up one.

Although coming up next: why there's more hate for Martha again than there is love. This is the part where she goes bad.

Molasses Sandwich Cookies
adapted from Martha.commakes 30 cookies

NOTE: this is the modified version using half the sugar from the original recipe. If you want to try the original, then just double to sugar for the cookies and double the ingredients for the filling.

1½ cups plain all-purpose flour
½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp salt
½ cup packed light-brown muscovado sugar
110g (½-cup) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 large egg
¼ cup unsulfured molasses

FOR THE CREAMY MOLASSES FILLING
75g softened unsalted butter
1½ tbsp unsulfured molasses
1 cup icing (confectioner’s) sugar

Preheat oven to 180ºC.
In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt; set aside.
In a large bowl, with an electric mixer, beat sugar and butter until combined.
Beat in egg, then molasses, until smooth.
On low speed, gradually add flour mixture until a dough forms.
Drop rounded measuring teaspoonfuls of dough onto two ungreased (or parchment-lined) baking sheets, about 4cm (1½-inch) apart.
Bake until centres are dry to the touch, 12 to 15 minutes; rotate pans from top to bottom and front to back halfway through.
Cool 1 minute on baking sheets; then transfer to a rack to cool completely.



MAKING CREAMY MOLASSES FILLING
Whisk butter with molasses until smooth.
Gradually whisk in icing sugar, until smooth and spreadable.
Makes about 1 cup.

Spread a rounded measuring teaspoonful of Creamy Molasses Filling on the flat side of a cookie; place another cookie on top, and gently press.
Repeat until all cookies are filled.
NOTE: Cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature up to 1 day, or refrigerate up to 3 days (cookies may soften during refrigeration).

Dumpling 10053

I present to you, Dear Reader, the best damn dumplings in Los Angeles County (if not the entire State of California). The pork, crab, and sea cucumber dumplings at Dumpling 10053:


Does the title refer to how many dumplings you can eat? Or, are the dumplings good to the 10053th degree? Neither, it’s simply the address of this fabulous restaurant (this is not such a bad thing because it makes for finding the restaurant so much easier.) Located on the very western edge of El Monte, Dumpling 10053 is perhaps one of the best dumpling houses in the region.

Although Luscious Dumpling is my personal favorite of the two, Dumpling 10053 has many things about that give it an edge over Luscious Dumpling. Besides being able to seat far more people, Dumpling 10053 has a much bigger, and more varied, menu.

Now, let’s move onto the foodie porn.

Yummy, and nice looking, sesame seaweed salad:


A glistening shrimp and tender leek dumpling:


Fantastic stewed beef and beef tendon soup noodles:


I liked the broth and the noodles better at Dumpling 10053 but the beef was more flavorful at Luscious Dumpling. (Needless to say, this is a great soup to eat when you have a cold. Not pictured are the pickled mustard greens that you sprinkle over the soup.)

This was insanely good! Baby bok choy with meat sauce:


Another great soup for colds, in two parts:




This was a great, and simple, chicken noodle soup. I was really surprised by how well the fried pork chop went with the soup. This is a must order!

My new favorite dessert. Fried “rolls” with condensed milk:


I was amazed by how good this was. Its simplicity was truly brilliant. The condensed milk balanced the yeasty bread really well.

I am obsessed with people tossing noodles:



Dumpling 10053
10053 Valley Blvd.
El Monte, CA 91731

Hae Jang Chon

Our table is loaded with food but we’ve only just begun…


Hae Jang Chon is my current favorite all-you-can-eat (“AYCE”) Korean bbq. It’s not my favorite Korean bbq place, that spot is reserved for Park’s and/or Sa Rit Gol, but for an AYCE place Hae Jang Chon is pretty good. For $16.99 per person you not only get all of the pork belly, sliced brisket, and marinated kalbi that you want but that price also includes, but is not limited to, the following:

Cold fermented radish soup (this is so refreshing when you are cooking and eating bbq):


Kimchee pancake:


Spicy soybean soup with tofu (complete with the de rigueur chipped vessel):


Kimchee fried rice:



Take a peek at our brisket and the marinated kalbi:






I liked both of these meats. Once most of the fat is rendered off the brisket you don’t feel so guilty eating it. I usually don’t like marinated meats since the marinade is often too sweet and you can end up with candied meat. But at Hae Jang Chang the marinade on the kalbi has a nice balance of sweet and savory.

Considering that this place specializes in pork (I assuming this because of the cartoon of the very happy pig on the sign) I was surprised that the pork belly lacked flavor. It looked good though:


To eat with your meat you receive both pickled daikon radish slices and rice noodle sheets. You also get a really nice salad that has a wasabi dressing on it that complements the meat very well.


Four yummy dipping sauces to choose from: fermented bean paste, sesame oil seasoned with salt and pepper, red chile sauce, and a very nice vinegar based marinated garlic and jalapeno sauce. Note the stone grill. A friend of mine, who is originally from Korea, told me that this is a particular type of grill used in a certain region in Korea. It has been placed on an angle and it has a hole in it at the low end. Every now and then the server comes over and pours marinated radish on the grill to clean it and scrapes all of the liquid waste out through the hole. Another reason why my preference is for charcoal bbq.

Hae Jang Chon
3821 W. 6th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90020
http://www.haejangchon.com/

El Atacor: Potato Taco Madness!

Pop Art Potato Tacos:


Two words: potato tacos. Who doesn’t like, every now and then, to indulge in this carboholics’ and fatlovers’ (yes, they are little fat bombs) dream? There is something about potato tacos that makes people crave them, they just taste so damn good.

I was able to lure several foodies to El Atacor #11 recently on a very cold and soon to be rainy Sat afternoon with the promise of the best, and perhaps the cheapest, potato tacos in town. Said foodies took the bait but surprisingly I was the only person who ordered potato tacos.

An uber-fussy potato taco fanatic eats one of my potato tacos:



Indeed. These potato tacos are fantastic. I just love the fabulous contrast of the crispy taco shell with the creamy, soft potato filling. The tacos are piping hot but are served with cooling avocado sauce, lettuce, and cheese – another great textural combination. Want to know the best part? You can get four potato tacos for $3.29.

Two words: porno burrito. In J. Gold’s review of El Atacor #11 he affectionately refers to the Super Burrito as the Porno Burrito and claims that if one does a Google search of “porno burrito” ten thousand hits for El Atacor will pop up. Surely this is hyperbole, when I followed Mr. Gold’s instructions I just got hits for porn sites.

See the four stages of the burrito’s undress:



Is the porno burrito so named due to its size and shape or because it is true foodie porn? Unfortunately, the former - this burrito is “Super” in size only. I ordered a carne asada porno burrito with rice, beans, cheese, guacamole, onion, cilantro, and salsa (sans lettuce and sour cream). The carne asada tasted more stewed than grilled and there were just mere vestiges of the guac, cheese, ect. The beans dominated, and although they were good, in this case less would have been more since more was no bueno. I would try the porn burrito again but I think that it might be better with carnitas.

Word association:

Chiles rellenos (and Mexican Coke)


Shrimp ceviche


Frickin’ great salsa

El Atacor #11

2622 N. Figeroa Street

Los Angeles, CA 90065

Lucky Devils: Devilishly Delicious!

A preview of coming attractions:


Out of the two, I have always preferred 25 Degrees over Lucky Devils. It’s not so much for the food but for purely emotional reasons: the first time that I went to 25 Degrees I was very sad because my beautiful Mr. Darcy had passed away that day from a heart attack at a very young age. The waiter knew that I was upset, he didn’t know exactly why, and he gave me a free milkshake. I have always remembered his act of kindness.

But nearly two years have past and I can now emotionally jump into the Hollywood Blvd. Burger Battle. I recently revisited Lucky Devils (which is owned by the extremely gorgeous Lucky Vanous from the Diet Coke commercials) with some serious foodies to see which burger place is indeed the best.

My chocolate cake shake:


I was originally going to order the roasted pecan shake (it has reached the notoriety of the date shake) but since I had a migraine that afternoon I thought it prudent to stay away from nuts. My shake was just ok; the whipped cream was certainly delicious but there was too much on it and I pretty much got filled up before I could seriously sip the shake.

We discuss burgers, weight, and chili cheese fries:



A close-up of my perfectly cooked Kobe Blue Bacon burger:


The foodies really liked the burgers but the only complaint was with the bun which most felt wasn’t hardy enough in texture and taste.

Who doesn’t love devilicious chili cheese fries? These are made with Kobe beef chili:


The foodies did not like the plain fries at Lucky Devils. I remember that the last time that I ordered them I didn’t particularly like them either. But with some good chili, cheese, and onions smothered on them how can you go wrong? It’s a definite improvement but it’s going to cost you $$.

So which is place is better? In my opinion the fries (with a zillion dipping sauces) and the shakes (oh, how I dream of the Valrhona Chocolate shake) are better at 25 Degrees but the burgers (and isn’t all about the burgers?) are better at Lucky Devils. You don’t get as much variety in toppings at Lucky Devils as you would at 25 Degrees but what you do get is plentiful, high quality, and very tasty. Also, I’ve always gotten my burgers perfectly cooked at Lucky D’s but the last couple of times that I went to 25 D’s my burgers have been overcooked and dry.

Lucky Devils

6618 Hollywood Blvd.

Hollywood, CA 90028

http://www.luckydevils-la.com/

Asanebo and Its One Michelin Star - Feh!

A preview of coming attractions – Salmon with Caviar with a little surprise in the middle:


A rare opportunity came my way: Stubborn Gourmet T invited me out to dinner and told me that I could pick the restaurant. Alas, said bequest had a contingency clause, i.e., it had “to be close.” I correctly took this to mean close to her, not me. Still, this worked in my favor, or so I thought, because I could finally go to Asanebo.

If you do nominal research on this most beloved Studio City sushi joint, you will discover that it has the top food rating in the city according to that certain “exceedingly” “annoying” restaurant guide. Also, many have claimed that Asanebo has the FRESHEST fish in town. And let us not forget about the shiny Michelin Star (which they did not have yet when I went there).

Question: Was I going to have the greatest sushi experience of my life or was I being set up to be very disappointed?

Answer: The latter. Overall the food was pretty good but it just wasn’t worth the $100 per person tab (I’ve had much FRESHER fish at Sushi Nishi-ya for less money.) I don’t know if the sushi chef thought that we were a bunch of rubes and gave us mostly crappy fish or if they knew Les Critiques Michelin were coming and went all out but my meal was not worthy of any type of award.

Our quasi-Omakase begins...

Spinach Salad:


Excellent! One of three best dishes that night.

Snapper with shaved yuzu skin:


This dish had a very nice flavor combination but the fish had a slightly watery texture.

Kampachi with a miso-sesame sauce:


Again, the fish had a slightly watery texture but I though that it the fish went well with the sliced jalapeno and the sauce.

Halibut with black truffle (note that it’s preserved truffle):


A totally pointless dish. The truffle completely overwhelmed the halibut and was very unpleasant to eat.

The aforementioned salmon:



This was actually pretty good even though it had competing components, the caviar and the ponzu sauce, but the radish salad encased in the salmon brought everything together. Only problem was that the salmon had a watery texture (are you starting to see a pattern here?)

Spanish mackerel two ways:





Fabulous! The raw mackerel was great with the minimalist ponzu sauce and a dash of ginger, horseradish, and green onion. We asked for the deep fried mackerel bones and they were the best thing that night.

Ankimo with sweet goop:


Worst ankimo that I’ve ever had (actually, I’ve never had bad ankimo before this!)

Ono with ponzu (again) and fried garlic chips:


The fish had such a watery texture it ruined the whole dish.

Toro with more sweet goop:


The toro was pretty good. And the sauce was pretty good. But the two just did not go together very well. The sauce was too rich for the fatty toro; the toro was drowned in it and I had to scrape it off but it was still a bit overpowering.

The steamed uni:

Now this was an interesting dish: the uni had been steamed over salt water for 15 minutes. Why they didn't give us raw uni I will never know. Fanatics of raw uni would have missed the buttery ocean flavor that completely disappeard with steaming (it just tasted really salty afterwards). The only thing that saved this uni was the great Korean seaweed served with it.

Don’t even get me started on the extremely gross (re-frozen, many times based on the texture, ice cream and sour fruit) dessert that they served us.

Les Critiques Michelin need to get their tongues over to Sushi Nishi-ya tres vites. But since it’s not a scene they probably never will.

Asanebo
11941 Ventura Blvd.
Studio City, CA 91604
(818) 760-3348

The Old School Korean Trio: Dong Il Jang, Ham Hung, and Jeonju

I walked into Dong Il Jang and thought to myself, “Holy crap! This looks like a place that my grandparents used to go to.” I looked around, and sure enough, other people’s grandparents were there. It was nice to see a retro place that hasn’t yet been colonized by trendoids.

Dong Il Jang has a fairly well rounded menu with all of the Korean classics, but the specialty of the house is the “Roast Gui”:

While many covet the Roast Gui, I felt that it was dullsville compared to what you can get at other Korean barbeque places. While the fatty pieces were just ok, the leaner pieces had a very dry and unpleasant texture to them. Instead of getting nice and brown most of the meat cooked up watery and grey.

But this insipid foreplay had to be endured before my happy ending: Kimchee Fried Rice. The fried rice was as great as the Roast Gui was bad. Kimchee, rib-eye trimmings, and whatever was leftover of our daikon radish panchan was cooked with rice in the Roast Gui scraps:

Ham Hung is another old school Korean with many classics on the menu but they specialize in Naeng Myun, or cold buckwheat noodles in very cold broth. This has been the only Korean restaurant in which I have felt like yanki-nom (the Korean version of gwailo) since we were heavily induced to order the noodle/kabli combo; yes, we probably could have ordered something else but I have a feeling that we would have ended up with the combo anyway, and I noticed that we hardly got any panchan compared to the other tables.

I ordered the Bibim Naeng Myun which is dry cold noodles in a sweet spicy chili sauce. It was good as was the Kalbi. Raven ordered the Mul Neng Myun, and though she says that it was very good, it looked very pallid: the noodles seemed to be more grey than the nice rich deep brown that I am used to.

Jeonju is one of the best mom ‘n’ pop dives in Koreatown. You’ll never find this place unless you already know where it is (or can read Korean); it’s located in the same mini-mall as Sokongdong.


Jeonju is known for their Dol Sot Bimbibap. You can get three kinds: beef, kimchee and beef, or seafood. It’s great when everyone at the table orders the bibimbap so that you can hear a chorus of the sizzling rice.

The Bibimbap is pretty good but I go crazy for their Jo Gee Gui (whole fried Yellow Corvina fish). The fish is simplicity at it’s best. While eating it, I was singing The Cat’s song from Red Dwarf:

I’m gonna eat you little fishie
I’m gonna eat you little fishie
I’m gonna eat you little fishie
‘Cause I like eating fish!

I got my comeuppance a few days later when a big mean raccoon ate my fish out of the pond in the backyard.

Although I haven’t had them, the jigae look really good. Next time it’s more Jo Gee Gui and some kimchee jigae for me.


Dong Il Jang
3455 W. 8th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90005

Ham Hung
809 S. Ardmore Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90005

Jeonju
2716 W. Olympic Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90006