col klink

Woo hoo! We finally made it! Welcome tsquare! Think that's too many exclamation points for a Monday morning?

We can? Cool!

Good idea! At first, I understood where s/he was coming from. I completely understand not liking sushi and the expensive restaurants, especially the sushi parts. As a sushi fanatic I've seen plenty of people turn green as I explain certain exotic and dfiferent pieces. However, I lost a lot of respect for him/her when a disdain for blue cheese was uttered. How can you NOT like blue cheese!?! Ok, maybe if you're allergic I suppose you could get away with it. Is it possible to be allergic to blue cheese though? I agree with Mamster that eventually she will turn around on many of his/her previous dislikes, hopefully sushi.

Hah! Mmmmm, banh mi. It's been interesting, every since I found out about banh mi, I think about it almost every day. But tomorrow I don't think I'll have that problem.

Where? That looks good. I'll make it myself and see if I can count myself among the chileheads.

I'd be up for it. Maybe I can get my work to subsidize us! Oh who am I kidding, if they didn't splurge for my softball team, they won't splurge for high-end sandwiches. edit disclosure: multiple grammatical and spelling errors.

Yup, me too. This year I dropped a pretty dime on some really good sushi. Though in years past I've gone bowling (with plenty of booze to go around).

That's not necessarily true about the pork chops. I've had great success smoking the thick cut chops by first brining them for a day or two and also being vigilent about moping on a regular basis, about every 30 minutes or so. But I do agree that most places shouldn't smoke 'em because they rarely get it right. Funny that the chops at Smitty's were more expensive than the prime rib. Did you happen to check out Rudy's BBQ? It's a combination gas station/bbq joint that serves up decent 'que and serves up the best creamed corn on the planet. It has pretty good kitsch value and a decent peppery tomato based sauce.

I'm so glad you made it out to Lockhart! My favorite bbq (from a proprietor) is from Kreuz's market. Primarily because they don't use sauce, but also because they have prime rib. Never have I been so happy with beef as I was with their smoky prime rib that just melts in your mouth. The first thing that went through my mind when you mentioned Lockhart and not going to Kreuz's was "what about the prime rib!!!" So I'm very happy you found some. Kreuz's also serves up thick cut pork chops which can be tasty but tend to be dry. Their hot links were my favorite of all of the 'que joints as well. Texas bbq is near and dear to my heart and is the one thing I miss about Texas. But if you think Austin is humid, Houston is an armpit. Did you happen to get out of the car when driving through? I really wish eGullet was around when I was living in Austin because now I just dive into out of the way eateries and I'm jealous of all of the little taquerias you visited that I never saw. Guess I'll have to make a trip back!

Without another Mariners home game (for me) until May 12th, how am I going to get my banh mi fix? I'm going to have to mull this one over.

Sweet! Yet another place to go before Mariner games.

Saturday I made my baked baby red potatoes with onions. Tossed with parsley, garlic (last 15 minutes), asparagus spears (again, last 15 minutes, normally I roast them separately but I was lazy). Olive oil was drizzled over everything and there was plenty of coarse cracked pepper. Sunday my buddy smoked up a leg of lamb that I brought over after marinating overnight in mustard, hot sauce, lime juice, peppar and many cloves of garlic, served medium rare. Until this weekend, I had forgotten how much I missed lamb. It was so juicy and succulent! edit: oops, I forgot the brown sugar!

Yeah butter!

I saw that picture of geoduck. I've eaten geoduck before, with excitement no less but that was at a sushi restaurant where it was thinly sliced. But egads, seeing it whole like that, I don't know. Without the shell there it looks like it could be part of a horse's anatomy. :wow:

I tried the sardine banh mi at Buu Dien! I don't think I spelled it right, but it's across the street from the Pacific Rim Center. I'll admit I also love anchovies, but I liked it! I'm not sure what I liked more, eating the sandwich or the idea of eating a sardine sandwich. As you might imagine, it was a little salty and there wasn't quite as much sardines as I would have liked. Not only that, their sandwiches are 25 cents more than anywhere else! The bread was crunchier and flakier than other banh mi delis. There was the average amount and variety of veggies. Of course I can't go exploring new delis without having a direct comparison from banh mi 88 so I also picked up a bbq pork and it still is my favorite. This time there was plenty of fish sauce and there wasn't as much onions and there was more daikon. When you go to 88, don't forget to ask to make it spicy!

Tuesday I hit Saigon for the chicken and bbq pork. Though the chicken was a tad dry, it was very tasty. I didn't find either of the sandwiches sandwich to be dry and I enjoyed both of them. Both sandwiches have a good balance of daikon, carrot, cucumber and cilantro.The 88 bbq pork still is my favorite. I can't wait to try their combo and I'm even tempted by the tofu one too. I also tried a combo from Seattle Deli and thought it was a little boring, like Thanh Vi. I would've gone back to 88 but they were closed.

I've only known supermarket butter, but the West coast is pretty lucky to have Tillamook. The salted and unsalted are pretty good, however I swear that their Whey Cream butter is laced with narcotics. Rich and smooth, I regularly fight myself over eating it straight. I'm always embarassed in the morning when I find that the night before I fell prey to toast attacks for the rich creamy goodness of the Whey Cream. Butter paper and crumbs everywhere! Tillamook is a dairy town (and county) on the coast of Oregon: There are a number of diary farms in the county though that work for Tillamook. They are mostly known for their cheese but in the 90's they broke butter, yogurt, sour cream, milk and ice cream out into wide distribution.

Certainly not, therefore you have wonder at which price increment does it equal out? $4? $5? $9!?!? I don't know!

A belated welcome PerfectCircle! Went to Than Vi before last night's game. It might be Seattle Deli, I'm not sure. It's on the NW corner of 12th and Jackson, my new favorite food location. They only had prepared banh mi sandwiches and I ordered two. At the ballpark I found out they were pork! Yeah pork! The sandwiches were OK, not very inspiring as they were a little dry. I liked the addition of cucumber which Banh Mi 88 didn't have, but the veggies weren't marinated like Banh Mi 88 and they weren't as plentiful. Though they were better distributed throughout the sandwich. Those sandwiches also looked a little skimpy so I also picked up a bbq pork sandwich from Banh Mi 88. It is not fair to describe it without the use obscenities! The pork is juicy and the sauce is perfect, both in quality and quantity. I'm not sure what the sauce is, but it's not tomato based and doesn't detract but accentuates the juicy pork. Pork, is there anything you can't do? Tonight I'm going to try Saigon Deli's sandwiches on the opposite corner. I love living in this town! Great food and great baseball.

Tried the garlic fries on Friday night. Quite tasty, as matter of fact, damn tasty. They run about $4.95 and they're worth getting at least once. They taste as good as they smell. It looked like there was about 2 tablespoons of well-distributed minced garlic for a standard order of fries and they were well salted. However with $1.50 banh mi sandwiches outside the park, it's hard to justify the outlay.

If you're worried about wood chips, I would suggest you go with the standard, tried and true, charcoal kettle. I'm not trying to start a debate here, there are plusses with gas, charcoal and smokers. I used to grill with gas. The convenience is unmatched. I really liked being able to grill up a single chicken piece or two for myself in a couple of minutes! I never liked having to bother with waiting for a charcoal fire, let alone all of the lighter fluid. However, the flavor wasn't there. I tried using wood chips, but they never smoked up enough to count. Also I had problems with flare-ups with fatty pieces of chicken. This is the inherent nature with gas as you need a steady supple of fresh air to keep grilling. What sold me on the Weber kettle was the ability to control those flare-ups. I would only have problems when the lid was off, as soon as you put it back on, presto! fire's out and you can go back to cooking instead of charring. What put the nail in the coffin for gas grills was the chimney starter: I now get paper bags at the grocery store and use them to start the fires in the chimney. In 15 minutes I have coals that are ready for immediate use. Very clean and very easy. Another plus about the kettles is that you get much better results from using the wood chips for added smoke flavor. You can even do long smokings in a kettle that come pretty close to using an actual smoker. Yet another plus is that these kettles last for decades. I haven't used the porcelain-covered grates, but if they're anything like my Le Cruset, they're going to be terrific. I have cast-iron grates on my smoker and I love them. I don't have anyproblems with oxidation because they're almost always covered it pork fat. Regardless of whether you gas, charcoal or smoke, I would suggest you have a spray bottle with vegetable oil. After your gril is hot, spray on the oil and you won't have any problems with meat sticking to the grill surface. Enjoy your new grill!

When I lived in Austin, Texas, the water was just awful and I religiously used a Brita. When I moved back to Seattle I started drinking tap water half the time and seltzer the other half. Then after a trip back to see my folks in Upper Michigan and I couldn't find ANY seltzer (let alone any Canada Dry products) and had to drink the local water which was iron rich and almost undrinkable. I realized what a sissy I became. Now I drink Seattle tap, cholrine and all. When my folks lived in nearby Redmond, they had a local water supply which wasn't cholrinated or treated in any other way other than being pumped from the ground. I still consider it the best water I've ever had in my life (it also made for the best beer I ever brewed). That water jumped off your tongue and made you want to drink the tap dry. When I spoke of this water in Texas, they couldn't understand how you could use so many adjectives for water. Water is just water for them. I felt sorry for them. Jim, I recently made a pilgrimage to the Deschutes Brewery in Bend, and they said they use the public water from the Deschutes river. I assume their water is also good because they make the best beer on the planet.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the other reason I like FM deli bacon, it's only $3.50/lb! And sometimes you can get it on sale for even less. Next time I go into Pike's, I'm going to Bavarian Meats. Heron, where in the market is it generally located?

I *love* bacon and in the last year and a half, I've come to truly cherish good bacon. Now I love my bacon to have a 50/50 ratio of fat to meat and I cook it so it has crispy edges but is still semi-flaccid. I'd like to know where everyone else goes when they want the best bacon pigs can proffer. I'm not talking about the national brands that are really thin like Oscar Meyer. But as far as national brands go (it suppose it could be regional), Fletcher's is pretty damn good and it used to be my favorite. Another plus is that's available at most grocery stores. Now I've tried the primo deli bacon from A & J's on Queen Anne and I found it to have too much meat and not enough fat, resulting in tough and chewy bacon, more like a slice of ham instead of bacon. I've also had the deli bacon from Central Market in Shoreline and although beautiful was as dissapointing as A & J's. At the moment my favorite bacon is from the Fred Meyer deli. I've bought some from the Lake City Way store and the Ballard store and their bacon (in my humble opinion) is the standard by which all should be compared to. But it seems odd that such good bacon should come from such a lowend store. I'm not saying that FM is a dump, I love the Ballad FM, but I would imagine that specialty shops and high-end grocercies should in principle have better bacon. Where does everyone else go?

Last night I made Penne a la Vodka except that I used the rest of my deli bacon instead of pancetta and added carmelized onions and four large cloves of garlic. Next time I'll try it without the vodka to see the difference. Last Saturday I smoked up some short ribs (my first experience with 'em) and I was pretty surprised. They smoked for 3 1/2 hours but I they could've gone longer. Next time I won't use my Jamaican Jerk sauce marinade as it overpowered any smoke flavor. I think there's plenty of potential since the meat is pretty tender and there's plenty of fat to render.