Food Truck Friday - Tacos El Tajin

I'd always been intimidated by the long lines that grow at Tacos El Tajin starting very early. But what I never observed was just how quickly that line moves. As I learned on my first visit there this week, they are a well oiled machine!







One person takes orders and relays them to the people cooking from the first window at the back of the truck. Orders are called out as they are ready from a second window, midway down the truck. Then a third guy, standing curbside next to a condiment table, focuses only on payments. The whole thing went so smoothly that before I made it to pay, I had my tacos in hand. It looked like more complex orders might take a bit longer, but I didn't see anyone waiting long.







Their menu is also designed for speed, with their 10 menu items numbered and with clear pricing right where you need them and big enough (and not in someone's handwriting) so that it's easily read. There are five meat choices (Asada - Steak, Pollo - Chicken, Al Pastor - Spice Pork, Carnitas - Refried Pork, Lengua - Tongue), all with English translations. Sides are available to customize your choice, but also kept to a short list: rice, beans, avocado, cheese and extra meat. Only the drink menu is somewhat long. I figured I'd start at the top, and go for the #1: 4 tacos for $5 special.







I went with my taco truck standby, the lengua (tongue) as my first taco choice, on two tacos. I decided two meats would be the best option, so I'd be sure I knew which was which. 4 different meats can get a little confusing, I've learned. The lengua was tender and flavorful, and the start of the tacos, with just cilantro, onion and lime wedges to accompany them in the small double-corn tortillas. Of course, I couldn't resist the super-hot sauce (in the yellow bottle), plus some tomatillo salsa and crema. Even with a little crema, I was feeling the heat for awhile after eating.







I also went for Chicken tacos, which were on the dry side, so I'll probably stick with lengua or try the pork options in the future. I'll be heading back soon to try a torta, most likely... or maybe just more delicious and quick tacos.

Food Truck Friday - Santi's Kitchen

Food Truck Friday headed to Indonesia (in the culinary sense) this week, visiting Santi's Kitchen.







On my first visit, I couldn't help myself but to order the Spicy Chicken (aka Ayam Balado) ($8.50), a Sumateran dish of chicken thighs cooked in a chili sauce with onions, green beans and green peppers. It was served over rice in what I consider the classic Asian fast food style. It was awhile back that I tried it, but recall enjoying it. American dining has been so breast obsessed when it comes to chicken (with the exception of fried chicken), I was glad to see the flavorful, moist thighs being featured.





This week, I wanted to try something else and opted for the "Chicken Peanut Sauce" ($8.50), making the false assumption it would be a similar dish, but with a peanut sauce rather than the chili sauce. I was thinking maybe a Swimming Rama style dish. Boy, was I wrong.







Instead, it was a very thin soup (and a lot of it) served in a plastic tub, with a box of rice on the side. The soup was way too thin to pour over the rice without making a huge mess, so instead I added the rice to the soup. I found it pretty bland. It also had lots and lots of celery. I hate celery. Can't stand the smell or taste of it, raw or cooked, except when it's used as part of the classic mirepoix (carrot/onion/celery) that is cooked down completely for stocks, etc. This was not cooked down. I recognize I'm largely alone in my disdain for celery (except my husband, who shares it), and I had the completely wrong expectations about what the dish would be, which is on me - mostly.





My lack of familiarity with Indonesian cuisine led me to order a soup, but I do have to say that if the menu had said it was a chicken peanut soup rather than chicken peanut sauce, I would've ordered something else. Now that I'm reviewing the menu online (which I highly recommend if you aren't already familiar with this cuisine), I realize they have several dishes containing candle nut (known in Hawai`i as kukui nut), so may have to go back to try one of those out... but not before more research.

Getting Back Into It

I've been wanting to get back into blogging a bit.  Perhaps not every single day again, but hopefully I can pull off sharing something I've made or eaten at least weekly.  There's so much to share, it's hard to know where to begin...

In the time I've been focusing on other things, Dan has become increasingly adventurous in making use of more and more of our cookbook collection when meal planning, and taking a bigger role in preparation.  Not only has he made a goal to make every recipe in the Best of the Best from Hawaiicookbook, but he's been grabbing others more frequently - and I often come home to my mis en place (or at least all the ingredients) out on the counter waiting for me.

I've also been known to 'seed' the meal planning by pulling out a cookbook I've been meaning to try.  I think tonight's recipe might've been from one of them:  Lourdes Castro's Simply Mexican- which I pulled off the shelf when looking for inspiration for a Mexican brunch a few weeks back.

This dish came together quickly and had good heat from the chipotle, balanced with the cream.  I think I'd enjoy this as a taco, though the crunch was nice.  Rumor has it we'll be making another recipe from the cookbook soon - a tuna with a corn salsa, which should make use of the corn we've been growing behind the garage.

Smothered Shrimp Tostadas

2 large or 3 medium tomatoes (about 1 lb)
2 cloves garlic, unpeele
1 canned chipotle chile
1 tspn red wine vinegar
1/2 tspn salt
1 lb shrimp (butterflied, if large)
1 Tbspn olive oil
12 flat tostada shells
1 head lettuce, finely shredded
1 cup Mexican crema (or in our case, cream cheese)
1/4 cup chopped cilantro leaves

Roast the tomatoes and garlic (both whole) in a cast iron skillet over medium-high heat for a15 minutes, or until the tomatoes are soft.  Turn the tomatoes every 4 minutes to get an even charring.  (We cut ours in half to speed things up, cuz the dog was getting impatient for his dinner.)  Don't worry if they get black - that's what you want.  Remove the tomatoes from the heat and put in your blender.  Pull out the garlic and squeeze the softened garlic out of their peels into the blender.  Add the chipotle, vinegar, and salt and blend until smooth.  (Use caution if things are still hot, as it can splatter.)

Season the shrimp with salt and pepper.  Heat the olive oil in the skillet over medium-high heat.  Add the shrimp and saute "until they are golden brown" (which seemed like overdone to me, so I just cooked until they were close to cooked through.)  Add the chipotle sauce to the pan with the shrimp and allow to simmer for 5 minutes.  This is a good time to do a little taste test of the sauce, and add salt if needed.

(If using cream cheese instead of crema, because you didn't notice those ingredients over on the other part of the page of the cookbook, put it in a saucepan over low-medium heat and stir until it's the consistency of sour cream.  Or, just use sour cream.)

Place tostadas on a plate and top each with a handful of lettuce.  Add some shrimp, along with chipotle sauce (add a little extra, for good measure).  Drizzle with crema and garnish with fresh cilantro.

A Whole New Kinda Kebab @ The Berliner

After my first lunchtime run, I found myself wandering the streets of South Lake Union trying to decide what to grab for lunch. There are lots of options, but not all of them seem like the kinda place you can get something quick to go. Then I stumbled on The Berliner.



Apparently, at some point, there was some amazing cross-culture coordination between Turkey and Germany, resulting in the Döner Kebab: slow cooked meat on a big spit, that's then shaved off and put in a hollowed out fladenbrot (flatbread) and grilled in a panini press.

I went for The Fiery Kreuzberg Döner with Lamb on Fladenbrot. It came with just enough chili yogurt sauce, plus peppers, cilantro, tomato, cucumber, red cabbage and onion. The fladenbrot itself was coated with seeds - which I failed to capture on camera (not realizing I had it upside down until I picked it up and dug in).

If you give The Berliner a try - and I strongly suggest you do - be sure to be prepared with the answers to three questions:

1. Which Döner do you want? (You can order by number, to avoid trying to speak German.)

2. What protein do you want - Chicken, Lamb, or Tofu?

3. What type of bread do you want - Fladenbrot, Ciabatta, Pita, Spinach Wrap or Wheat Wrap.

(You'd be surprised how many people didn't know the answers to these questions after standing in line for 10 minutes listening to every single person ahead of them order.)

Long Lunch at LunchBox Laboratory

Tear Jerker - Pepper-jack cheese and "Lunchbox onions" with jalapenos, habanero mayo, and Satan ketchup.



Potato salad

Tandoori Chicken

Dan & I picked up a whole frozen chicken from Tiny's Organics last week while at the Columbia City Farmers Market, and decided to give it the Tandoori treatment.



I only have a few Indian cookbooks, most of which focus on vegetarian fare, and none contained a recipe for Tandoori anything - so I did some searching around online. I ended up combining a few recipes into one - including the recipe for making your own Garam Masala I learned from the cooking class I took with Ruth a year ago - and making some divergent decisions from all the recipes I ran across. I couldn't see throwing away perfectly good chicken skin, so I opted not to remove it. I also decided to keep the bird whole, rather than break it down before cooking. Contrary to how I normally cook, I did add the red & yellow food coloring to try to give the chicken that distinctive red color - though you can see that even two teaspoons of coloring didn't do much.

I cooked the chicken with some potatoes and carrots, though they needed more than an hour of cooking for some reason, so I had to pull the bird out and put the veggies back in. We served it all with basmati rice, of course.



Tandoori Chicken
1 whole chicken
1 medium cinnamon stick, coarsely chopped
1 1/2 tspn whole cumin seeds
1 Tbspn coriander seeds
1/2 tspn cardamom pods
1/4 tspn whole cloves
1/2 tspn fennel seed
1/4 tspn grated nutmeg
1 tspn black peppercorn
1 1/2 cups plain yogurt
Juice of 1 lemon
1/2 onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 Tbpsn grated ginger root
1 tspn cayenne pepper
2 tspn salt
1 tspn yellow food coloring
1 tspn red food coloring





Dry roast the cinnamon, cumin, coriander seeds, cardamom, cloves, fennel, nutmet and peppercorn in a dry pan on a low flame, till you begin to smell their aroma. Remove from heat and allow to cool.



Slash the meat of the breasts, thighs and legs diagonally about 1/4 inch deep.



Grind the cooled roasted spices together in a coffee grinder to make a smooth powder.



Combine spice powder with yogurt, lemon juice, onion, garlic, ginger, cayenne, salt and food colorings to create a paste.



Coat the chicken (inside and out) with the paste. Cover and marinate for for at least 8 hours.

Place chicken in a roasting pan and bake uncovered in a 450 degree oven for 60 minutes.

Orient Express Delivers to Seward Park!

Dan & I got a craving for Chinese food tonight, but didn't want to go out in the rain and cold. We were almost resigned to the fact that there's no Chinese food delivery to our neighborhood when I decided to do some online searches.



Although Yelp specifically says they don't deliver, I found a 'Coming Soon' listing for the Sodo restaurant Orient Express on Eat24Hours.com that got my hopes up. A little more searching and I found Orient Express's web site, which confirmed they deliver (minimum order of $20).



Trouble was, their web site doesn't have a menu - so we weren't sure what we could order. From reading reviews on Yelp and Urbanspoon, I was able to come up with this partial list of menu items (both Chinese and Thai) we had to choose from:

General Tso's Chicken
Orange Chicken
Kung Pao Chicken
Peking Duck
Mongolian Beef
Sesame Beef
Broccoli Beef
Ginger Beef
Sweet & Sour Pork
Honey Walnut Prawns
Catfish
Salt & Pepper Tofu
OE Tofu
Eggplant Tofu
Pineapple Fried Rice
Special Fried Rice w/ Shrimp
BBQ Pork Fried Rice
Schezwan Green Beans
Chinese Broccoli
Egg Rolls
Shrimp Rolls
Crab Wontons
Egg Flower Soup
Hot & Sour Soup
Wonton Soup
Basil Chicken
Larb Gai
Red Curry
Beef Salad
Pad See Ew
Pad Thai



Fingers crossed, Dan gave them a call and we were on! Less than a half-hour later, they were at our door with two cute little bags filled with food.



We went for the General Tso's Chicken ($9.95), Honey Walnut Prawns ($8.95) and some steamed rice for two ($2). We both really enjoyed everything. The chicken had a little kick to it - spicier than most places make it. The prawns were huge, crispy and delicious (though there was a LOT of the mayo sauce). We'll definitely be ordering from them again, and tipping off our neighbors to this new delivery option. We'll also hopefully hit the restaurant itself sometime soon, both to pick up a menu, and to check out the unique decor (it's a train) and karaoke.

Spicy Szechuan Tofu & Veggies

Our meal planning process has adapted again, as we realized Dan was coming up with most (all) of the ideas anyway, and our pow-wows just slowed things down. Now, Dan's in charge of planning the meals (running them by me to make sure they sound good and do-able), and I'm in charge of cooking.

This week, he found a recipe for Szechuan Tofu online and we decided to give it a try. We adapted it to add some veggies, and both enjoyed the results - though the next time we make it I'd like to bump up the spicy factor a bit more (doubling the hot bean paste didn't quite get us there)

While prepping ingredients for this meal, I realized something I've begun doing that I didn't think to do when I started cooking, and thought other people might benefit. I start by reading through the recipe, including the ingredients and the steps, from start to finish, to understand what I need and how I'll use it - and catch anything unexpected (like "marinate overnight"). Then, while I'm measuring and preparing ingredients (like chopping veggies), I keep referring back to how they're used in the recipe, to group things together that get added together. For example, the sugar & salt in this recipe get added together, so I put them in a single bowl when measuring, rather than separate ones. Likewise, the scallions, ginger and garlic go in at the same time, so I toss those together in a bowl, and the tamari and stock go in together, so I put them in the same measuring cup. This saves Dan from washing extra bowls, but also make the recipe come together faster. The one big exception is I generally don't mix liquid and dry ingredients ahead of time, as that can alter the results sometimes.

Spicy Szechuan Tofu & Vegetables
12 oz. soft tofu
1/2 lb baby bok choy
1/2 lb green beans
1 Tbpsn peanut oil
1 tspn minced fresh ginger
1 garlic clove, minced
3 Tbspn chopped scallions
2 Tbspn Szechuan hot bean paste
1 Tbspn Tamari
1/2 tspn salt
1/2 tspn sugar
1/2 cup stock
1 1/2 tspn cornstarch dissolved in 2 Tbspn water
2 drops sesame oil
2 drops hot chili oil
1/4 tspn Szechuan peppercorn powder*

Drain and rinse tofu in cold water, and cut into 1-inch square pieces. Set wok over high flame and add peanut oil. When hot, add ginger, garlic and scallions, and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds. Add hot bean paste, tofu, bok choy and green beans. Stir gently to coat tofu and veggies with bean paste. Add tamari, salt, sugar and stock, and bring to a full boil. Cover and allow to steam for 2 minutes. Uncover and add cornstarch/water mixture. Continue stirring gently until sauce thickens. Add sesame oil, chili oil and peppercorn powder and stir to combine. Serve with rice.

* In a dry skillet or saucepan, heat peppercorns until fragrant and beginning to smoke, then grinde (while hot) in a coffee/spice grinder.

(Adapted from Spicy Szechuan Tofu Recipe on Epicurious.com, taken from the Vegetarian Times Cookbook.)

Spice Room

Columbia City recently had a flurry of new restaurants open up, from Full Tilt Ice Cream to Wabi Sabi Sushi, and we've been eager to try them and other spots in the neighborhood we've been ignoring in favor of El Sombrero. Thanks to Rowan's birthday, we got to check out Full Tilt a couple weeks back, and tonight (as part of our All New Restaurant April promise) we decided we'd try out Spice Room.



We'd heard good things about the food and GREAT things about the cocktails, so we started off with a Mojito for Dan and a 5 Spice Thai Tea ($8) for me. It's a blend of Malibu Rum, Thai tea, cream (coconut in my case), and Chinese five spice powder, that was rich and lived up to the restaurants moniker, with it's dusting of five spice on top.



Dan & I are in agreement that ripe papaya tastes like the sweat rung out of a dirty gym sock - though we've had rare occasions where it somehow transcended that flavor and worked in a dish (the shrimp & papaya salad at Luau comes to mind). But Dan heard that green papaya is a whole other animal, and wanted to give it a try.



The Spice Room version ($9) is a combination of shredded green papaya with green beans, dried shrimp, shredded carrot, cherry tomatoes and peanuts - with a very spicy dressing (2 stars minimum; we went for 3 out of 4) and served with a wedge of cabbage. The cabbage made me think we were supposed to eat the dish like Larb, picking up a bit of the salad with a piece of cabbage. The long papaya strands made this awkward and messy, so I went for my fork and had much better luck.



It definitely didn't have any of that foot flavor we both associate with papaya, and we both enjoyed it very much - though 3 stars was maybe more than we should've gone for.



We also shared a dish from the 'ADVENTUROUS' section of the menu that neither of us had encountered before: Kao Soy - Egg Noodles, Chicken, Mustard Greens, Beansprouts and Yellow Curry ($12). It was a soupy curry with a delicious broth.



And we went for another unfamiliar dish as our other shared entree: Phad Khing - Ginger Strips, White & Green Onion, Red & Green Peppers, and choice of protein ($11). We went for pork tenderloin in the dish, and it was fairly tender and certainly flavorful.



The cocktails, true to reputation, were great, and the food was flavorful and definitely spicy - though I wonder if the flavors would've stood out more if we'd been more conservative on the heat. I particularly like the variety on the menu, including many items I've never seen at other spots we've been (the roasted duck with pineapple is particularly intriguing). Next time, I'd like to try their Phad Thai - so I can compare this staple dish to other versions.