antipaucity

How ironic. My favorite condiment at Vietnamese restaurants in the US is actually a Thai sauce. A sauce, may I add, that I have never seen in a Thai restaurant – anywhere.

Sriracha is awesome – heat but not an astounding amount. And it still carries a lot of flavor, so it’s not just heat.

I’ve been enjoying a small restaurant near my apartment in Singapore. It’s a cash-only operation called Little Vietnam. They’re located at 511 Guillemard Road S.

They open at 1700, and close at 0100 Tuesday through Sunday.

I’ve now been there several times, trying different pho options, the spring rolls, and some other specialties that jump off the menu at me.

But what’s kept me going back is not merely the low prices on food (you can get full for ~S$6), but how polite and friendly the staff is. I have trouble pronouncing their names, and so far have only gotten one down: Thanh.

The staff is from all over Vietnam, and has been interested in talking to me – partially because I’m an American, but also because I go in by myself, and am willing to chat with them. And I don’t treat them like they’re servants or slaves the way a lot of waitstaff are treated here in Singapore.

Another benefit of the restaurant is they do not have a built-in service charge – so I can leave a tip for what I think the meal and service is worth rather than being forced to leave 10-15%.

This has definitely become my favorite restaurant in Singapore to go to.

We’re driving down I-86. Where? Near the town of Cuba New York. Time? About 1945. Date? 25 July.

Due to some unavoidable delays earlier, we got a later start to our trip to Oshkosh for the EAA AirVenture week. As the sun is getting lower in the sky, we realize that we haven’t eaten in several hours, and this looks like a good area to take a stretch break anyway.

We’ve been looking for a place to stop for about 20 minutes when on the blue sign for the upcoming exit we see “Moonwinks”. That sounds different. I make the executive decision from the backseat that this is where we’re going to try for dinner. If it looks sketchy of uppity when we get there, there’s something random fast food joint a couple miles further we can go to instead.

As we head the mile or so north on Route 305, we see this rather normal-looking building at the crux of a Y intersection, with a large sign reading “Moonwinks” in the roof. This must be the place.

The parking “lot” (ie, the packed dirt and gravel around the building) is packed. This is a Good Sign™. It means either a) they’re really good, or b) there’s no place else to go. I’m choosing option ‘a’, because it’s more optimistic.

We park and look for a door. There’s some kind of party going on in the front of the place, so we go in the side. Turns out this is actually the front door. We’re seated almost immediately.

The dining area we’re ushered-to has seating for about 60 people. The wedding reception out front is in another dining area which could hold as many as 150, I think.

The menu is pretty simple – classic American choices: some pasta dishes, seafood, steak, chicken… they all look good. I opt for the lemon whitefish with capers. Mom got an industrial-sized salad with a grilled chicken breast on top to share with my sister. I don’t remember what dad ordered – I’m too fixated on the huge fish fillet that came out.

I barely got myself around the dinner I ordered. I would have been better-off leaving a little.. but it was addicting! Mom and Josie’s salad lasted past one meal, too. Dad didn’t make it all the way through his plate of food – but bringing that with us wasn’t a good idea – wouldn’t keep well, or reheat at all.

The only thing I have against Moonwinks is that it’s too far from where my parents live to go just for dinner. Anything up to maybe 2.5-3 hours may be worth the ride, but clear 4 hours, and it’s just a long ways to go for a meal

However, if I were going through anyways, or had a reason to be in the Finger Lakes region (airshows, vacation, whatever) – it’s definitely worth going to.

4.5 stars of 5.

I arrived in Singapore during the Great Singapore Sale, or GSS. It’s advertised everywhere. It’s the one time of year when [nearly] every store, restaurant, service provider, etc offers big discounts for shoppers.

In Plaza Singapura, the mall next to where I work, they’ve been having different vendors taking-over the concourse area on the first floor every week.

This week it’s one of their anchors, Carrefour (the French hypermart chain). They have all sorts of stuff – most of which you can also get inside the Carrefour store, but of course it’s more fun to browse out in the open.

In the refrigerated container area I saw something I never thought I’d see in my life. They had fruit for sale.

Specifically, they had fruit from Japan for sale. One of them was S$199. That’s about $125 US.

It’s a watermelon.

Yep.

That summer stand-by: the watermelon.

Course, these are square and grown in Japan, and stack nicely.

But really? Two hundred dollars for a watermelon?

Today for perhaps only the third time in my adult life, I had something that was too hot.

I love Thai food. Being in Singapore has showed me beyond a doubt that Thai food is one of the few ethnic foods that is done the same everywhere – it’s the same in Durham, Sunnyvale, London, Nutley, and Singapore.

That’s a plus, because it means that ordering the same food will give you the same outcome every time. I like that kind of consistency, especially in comparison to some other ethnic foods I’ve had where the implementation varies wildly place-to-place – even in the same town or strip plaza!

So today I ordered (insert Thai name here) ginger chicken. It’s was labeled three peppers. I like hot food, so I went with it.

Turns out that while the food descriptions are identical everywhere, the pepper ratings are not. In every place I’ve had Thai before, three peppers is very spicy but not tongue-numbing. Turns out that at Thai Express in Plaza Singapura, the three pepper rating really isn;t for the faint of heart – and I definitely needed the extra rice to help mollify the effects.

Did I make it through all the [extremely] spicy chicken? Yes. Would I do it again for anything less than vast piles of green paper? Not likely.

Next time I’m going for the old standy-by: yellow curry with chicken.. at the two pepper level.

As I write this post, I’m surrounded with the sounds of a live musician and dozens of patrons. The wooden floors, open-frame ceiling, bus lights, and comfortable chairs surrounding glass-topped tables adds to the ambiance. Chanda just refilled my dad’s iced tea. And my dessert (my favorite drink) is en route shortly.

Last night who would’ve guessed that clicking the “pubs” option on my GPS would put us at such a place. Usually the GPS options aren’t obviously good. (Certainly it can find places I already know of.)

After driving from Durham NC to Jacksonville FL Monday, and then to the Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday, my dad and I were looking for some place local. Some place with modest prices, and, hopefully, and interesting beer selection. So for kicks, while we were tolling across central Florida on I-4, I punched-up restaurants -> pubs -> Tanner’s on the GPS. It was simply the closest location to where we were when we decided we were hungry.

What a choice it has turned out to be. Tuesday night I ordered their chicken piccata. Let me warn you: they put crack in their sauce. They must. It’s the only reason I can come up with for wanting to finish what was obviously too much food!

My dad ordered pork chops. I don’t like chops at all, but I was tempted to steal a little off his plate. After dinner we split their chocolate lava cake – and should have passed. It is the richest dessert I’ve had in months!

While we sat letting dinner settle, I checked for where our hotel was, not knowing the town we were in (Winter Haven). Turns out that our reservations were just down the road – literally less than a mile from Tanner’s. How serendipitous.

After we started dinner, we independently decided we’d come back Wednesday after going to Sun ‘n Fun in Lakeland – the whole reason we’re in Florida to start with.

So tonight we came back. And we’ve migrated to other menu choices – since the first two were so good, why not try something new? Tonight I was in a seafood mood, and ordered their blackened mahi mahi, while my dad got the tornadous oscar – angus slices with asparagus, hollandaise, and crab meat.

Two dinners in a row we couldn’t finish fast enough. An impressive feat indeed for a place we found off the GPS’ restaurant list.

It’ll be a little saddening when we have to leave 325 W Central Avenue tonight, because we’ll be heading back north tomorrow, and probably won’t be able to come back till we’re next in Florida – whenever that may be. But I know the next time I’m anywhere close, I’ll be back.

I love good pubs. Recently I discovered yet another Irish pub in Waterford NY. Kielty’s sits on the north side of Broad St a couple blocks from the Hudson River – number 41. My sister and I had been planning to grab a light lunch at Don and Paul’s (a coffee/sandwich shop she likes), but when we got out and saw this, we both decided to check it out.

Seating is fairly limited – perhaps [legally] space for about 40 folks. Limited seating certainly doesn’t impact the quality of either the beverages (not a wide selection, but a few good ones to pick from), nor the excellence of the food. When we went for lunch, she got sweet potato fries (eww!) that she said were awesome (<shudder>) and a grilled cheese sandwich while I ordered a tuna melt with chips. Had I been more clever, I would’ve eaten the tuna melt first, then had some chips. But no, I wasn’t that clever, eating the small mountain of fried potatoy goodness then attacking the melt.

I couldn’t finish the sandwich – it was really good, but way more than I needed for lunch

The next evening my dad joined my sister and I in going back. He got a burger, and I tried their grilled cheese sandwich after ogling the one my sister had eaten the day before. By the time we left, some live music was getting ready to start, and the place was beginning to pack-in. It appeared that Kielty’s an active member of the local music scene in southern Saratoga and northwestern Rennselaer counties.

Having added yet another restaurant to my list of places to eat is great. Now the problem becomes which one to pick when I want to go out!

My family moved into Cohoes in 1993. Shortly after moving in, we noticed a small pub up the road and have threatened to go eat there ever since.

Monday night we finally did. Admittedly, it wasn’t our first choice – we had been planning to hit-up another local place in Cohoes recommended to us by the Sunday bar tender at Uno’s in Latham, but The Pub and Grille was open – and we were hungry.

It’s gone a by a few names in the past, perhaps most famously “Maggie’s”. One surprising thing my parents, sister, and I noticed on entry was how small it is inside. Officially it can hold 35 people.

After taking a moderately long walk in the very windy and chilly weather to find Joe’s closed, and then walking back towards the house we arrived at 201 Columbia St around 8 in the evening. There were maybe five customers other than us – but it being a Monday night, that wasn’t surprising. We found a table in the back, and Kim scurried out from behind the bar to hand us menus, silverware, and take our drink orders.

The menu is simple – I like that in a pub. While it does use both sides of the laminated sheet of paper, the font is large, easily readable, and offers about a dozen items.

My sister ordered their mild wings, which she was very happy with. My mom, dad, and I all ordered burgers. We also got their smothered cheese fries to share, and I got an order of chicken tenders in their atomic sauce to both have there and bring home for later. The only goof in the order was with my dad’s burger, which didn’t have the cheese or bacon he’d requested, but did have onions which he hadn’t. However, Kim got that fixed in just a couple minutes, and we were back to enjoying our respective meals.

Currently their beer selection is pretty limited – Sam Adams, Bud, and something else on tap, and a couple in bottles. However, as good fortune would have it, Monday also saw a local beer distributor showing up for a small staff tasting and discussion of craft beers.

We sat around visiting, eating, and just generally enjoying the evening for about an hour and a half before my parents and sister decided to head the 4 blocks back to their house.

Meanwhile, because I wanted to stay and have a couple more drinks,  I introduced myself to the group sampling the various craft beers that had been brought by the distributor, and was invited to take part – yahoo! free beer!

Available for tasting for a strawberry brew (way too sweet in my book, but similar to a Lindeman’s Cassis or Framboise for consistency), various hoppy ales, a couple browns, and a black – among others I don’t recall now. The best part of trying small samples of the different beers brought wasn’t, in fact, that they were free, but that most were made in the general vicinity – ie, the northeast and mid-Atlantic states. I’m a sucker for local brews when they’re available.

The Pub and Grille doesn’t have a set closing time, per se. It might be as early as 11p, or as late 3:30a – it depends on how many folks are there wanting to buy beverages. A little before 11 Monday night, Kim was about to make a last call to the bar when three new folks sauntered-in. Never one to pass-up a customer, the place ended being open till nearly 1:30.

For beer heads, the Pub and Grille isn’t yet a place to go for a good selection of brews, but it will be in a couple weeks as they add a whole series of craft brews to the menu.

If you’re looking for a nice, small, friendly place to hang out, has good food, and good atmosphere (literally – this is NY state were talking about), especially if you want to be able to walk home if you’ve maybe had one too many, this place should make the list of anybody in Cohoes.

This evening I moseyed to Apex NC with a coworker for dinner. We parked on N Salem St, and perused the available options, settling on Peak City Grille & Bar.

Peak City is a former general store converted to a restaurant just a few years ago. 126 N Salem St is an unassuming store front, but after walking inside, the open expanse, down to the original tin ceiling panels, greets you with a subdued, classy grandeur.

When we finally made our decision on dinner, our food was prepared very quickly. I ordered their prime rib special, a 10oz portion with a “colossal” baked potato and side salad. Mark requested their shrimp and grits, and both were out to us very quickly. While we waited, our salads and drinks came out, and my only complaint was on the Peak City ‘house’ brew – it’s supposed to be similar to a Bass, but it tasted bruised.

Their beer selection was somewhat lacking this evening, as they were out of several of their normal draughts, but their cocktail list and availability was quite extensive.

I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve had prime rib since I went to the Van Ness House of Prime Rib in San Francisco. I’ve held-off because of how good the prime rib was in California.

Tonight’s offering, though, was a very close second. The black pepper crust really helped to bring out the flavor of the beef. The baked potato came home because of its size – it was easily 7 inches long and 3.5 inches in diameter. And it was stuffed with cheese, chives, bacon, and butter. I’m looking forward to finishing dinner in the next couple days!

In recent years I’ve become a big fan of local restaurants, especially in small town centers like N Salem St is in Apex. Peak City has definitely made my list for favorite local spots.

After our mixed experience at Brown’s Monday evening, my buddy Chris and I headed over to Holmes and Watson a few blocks away on Broadway in Troy.

I wasn’t very hungry, but after walking inside, I could tell that the folks running Holmes and Watson were at least going to *act* more friendly than our waitress at Brown’s.

H&W has 20+ beers on tap from all over the country and world, in a great mix of styles. From this array of choices, I added two to my list of beers I’ve tried with the Rogue Mogul and Hophound.

Eventually we did decide to get some snack food, and their clam chowder was awesome – exceptionally thick and creamy. The hot wings looked good, but I’m not a fan of them because they have bones (yes, I’m that lazy).

Holmes and Watson is also setup on two levels, and their menu items are all named for characters/places/events in the Sherlock Holmes world. Since we were just having a couple drinks and some light fare, we stayed at the bar, but they can easily accomodate scores of customers. This spot has definitely been added to my list of regular stops when I’m home visiting.