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Day: May 25, 2009

Erawan

A friend of mine was in town this weekend, so we walked over to 40th & Chestnut for my favorite local Thai place, only it was closed. Luckily, there’s another Thai place less than a block away… also closed. Indian was out; we weren’t sure about Korean; and I didn’t do a good job selling the Mexican tapas place. So we kept walking on Chestnut until we hit 23rd, and then cut south for Erawan Thai.

Appetizer Sampler: fried pork dumplings were awesome; shrimp wrapped in spring roll wrapper & fried was tasty, but keep a hold of the tail; spring rolls were good; the fish cakes, however, tasted only vaguely fishy and mostly of lemon grass, all kind of spongy-textured and held together in a membrane.

Golden Eggplant (my dish): Excellent! Tofu and Eggplant in a mildly spicy sauce. The eggplant melted in your mouth and the whole dish was very satisfying and comforting.

Ultimate Pad Thai (friend’s dish): Chosen because it had clearly been a re-boot of the Pad Thai series, I got the impression that this dish did not disappoint.

The service was excellent, and there was abundant water and only a little mocking of how much I drank.

Salad time again!

I made a nifty salad this weekend.

I started with Dole’s Sassy Baby Blend (not from brand loyalty, but because that was the clamshell salad mix on sale that week. Aside from some (not too many) awkwardly non-baby radicchio bits clearly there to same money, it was a good blend).

Then I tossed in some curly parsley left over from making lasagne.

And I sliced in two round radishes.

Then I wen to work on the dressing –

I tossed in the lemon zest left over from making Smitten Kitchen’s Raspberry Buttermilk Cake (note: both the lasagne & the cake were creations of my friend, so I’m not taking credit for them – but they were both very tasty).

Then I added 2 teaspoons of ginger spread (which I loved so much that I will not have to seek it out and buy my own jar) and some apple cider vinegar. Popped that in the microwave for 30 seconds to liquefy it.

I tasted it, and it needed some sweetness and acidity – So I squeezed in a lemon, and it was just about perfect.

Only then, I thought that the dressing and the salad would go well with apples, so I quartered and cored and apple and then sliced it into some remaining lemon juice.

conclusion: I really liked it, but I probably could have added another apple or two (they were small). It had many sharp tastes of early green Spring, but it tied together well and was mellowed a bit by the ginger and sweet lemon juice.