Food Adventure Team

Here’s my quick & dirty “I wrote this after I forgot the details” review:

What we got, from what I can remember —

• fried platanos con crema (mmmmm…)
• empanadas (yum!)
• deep fried pork (belly?) (not my favorite. too fried.)
• fried bananas stuffed with beans (was that the empanadas?) – so good!
• pupusas! – pork & cheese, chicken & cheese, etc. (delicious of course, pork & cheese was best)
• beef soup, chicken soup (extremely tasty)
• many many fried things (I lost track)
• for dessert, atol de elote (ground corn, cinnamon, milk), with a dish of candied yam & another kind of candied fruit, covered in the sweetest syrup ever. PURE SUGAR. pretty good though.

Everything was deep fried! Least healthy meal ever. Tasty though.

(Written Feburary 11, 2009.)

Team members Ed, Laurie and I found ourselves in DC for Obama’s inauguration. Ed and I had just arrived from the airport and sought sustenance. Simply Home, an upscale Thai restaurant on U St., provided a welcome respite from the freezing cold and crowds from outside. Startlingly uncrowded, the restaurant was, oddly, connected to a home decor store. Its interior was trendy, yet welcoming and unpretentious. Everything was beautiful. Their light fixtures were formed from hundreds of (empty) silkworm cocoons! And the best part was that the food was GOOD. We get good Thai food in San Francisco, so this is saying something.

We started off with a few simple yet exquisite cocktails — a mango martini for myself, and a lychee martini for Lori. Delicious. We got two appetizers as well: wontons stuffed with feta and sundried tomatoes (ehh… fusion can be hit or miss and this one was a miss), and something else that I can’t remember except that I know it was quite tasty.

Entrees were delightful. I got the chicken stir fried with asian pumpkin (asian pumpkin is my new food crush). Beautifully presented, the stir fry was served with the perfect amount of rice. Its flavors were well balanced between sweet, spicy, and savory. The pumpkin was perfectly cooked (slightly to the teeth) and so was the chicken. I was very pleased. Ed, Laurie, and Lori all got the same thing, some sort of coconut-fried chicken. I had a bite and it too was quite tasty; I wish I could remember more about it. Kim (our lovely DC hostess) gave me a bite of her pad thai and it was the best I’ve ever had.

In all, I was very impressed with Simply Home. What a great introduction to a great city! I hope to go back soon and sample more of its cuisine.

(Written February 11, 2009.)

Photo by Laurie

Like many of the places we went, I failed to write a review for Baker Street Bistro. What a wonderful little restaurant this was! Cozy, friendly service, not too crowded, great French food. I heard that it has since changed ownership and its previous owner started a new restaurant called Bistro Central Parc.

(Written December 6, 2010.)