My biggest cooking day of the year is this month. Easter falls on March 31, early this year, and I haven’t even began planning for my brunch. Before we get there I have have Sotheara’s wedding, Kelly’s birthday, and St. Patrick’s Day. So there is a lot to look forward to this month. Seems like I better start getting more exercise.
March 1
We tried a new sushi restaurant tonight, Hanami in Belmont. We got the Watertown maki (yellowtail and jalapeno), sweet plantain maki, spicy tuna maki, ebi nigiri, and saba nigiri. The Watertown maki was particularly good. Even better was a small appetizer of black bass. We finished it off with yuzu cheesecake. They also have a very nice mai tai. We will be back again for sure.
March 2
I woke up hungry and made an Imo’s pizza for lunch. Then I went over to see Sophorn and his new baby. His family made some delicious Cambodian food, papaya salad with salmon, chicken egg rolls, and chicken wings. I loved that.
March 4
Tonight’s dinner was pork tenderloin with roasted red pepper risotto and a small side salad. The risotto was particularly good, one of the best I ever made.
March 5
I stopped at DeNo’s for lunch and got the chicken kabob sub. It was very good today. It is probably the best thing they make there.
March 6
I know I just had the chicken kabob sub at Deno’s yesterday, but I got the chicken kabob wrap at Ken’s today. I also got a side of buffalo chicken fingers.
March 7
Sotheara got married today. I was going to get a sandwich for lunch at Yas Chicken but the line was insane and that turned out be good because Sotheara was picking up his wedding rings and we were able to get lunch and a drink at The Bancroft. I had a cup of tomato bisque and a Black Walnut Social cocktail made with Aviation Old Tom Gin.
After the wedding, we had a lovely party at Mooo….. I started with a crab cake and followed that up with the best steak I have had in a while. It was a filet mignon cooked to a perfect rare and served with asparagus and mashed potatoes. For dessert was a huge piece of chocolate cake. Congratulations to the bride and groom.
March 8
We started celebrating my wife’s birthday weekend tonight with a trip to Woods Hill Table. The food was excellent, but we had some gripes about the service. I’m not a big fan of the waiter lectures about ordering your appetizer and entree at the same time, and we got one of those. Then despite his admonishment about the need to put in the order for proper pacing, they set our main course down and didn’t bring our wine for another five minutes. Then after I said something the waiter was cold the rest of the evening.
But the food was good. We split a bluefish pate. We both got the trout. And then we finished with the cornbread pudding. My son got grilled cheese and fries. Their fries are really excellent. I wish they could work out their front of the house issues because this isn’t the only time we have had issues there.
March 9
Birthday weekend celebrations continued, beginning with a run to Donna’s Donuts. The line wrapped around the store, and they could only take cash but it was so worth it. I got the butter crunch which was awesome. I also ate half of Kelly’s lemon, just as good.
For lunch/dinner, we went to The Druid. I got the shepherd’s pie for the first time and loved it. I also loved the drinks, the live Irish music, and the conversations with the people around us. If I could, I would go there every weekend. We came back home and had a slice of chocolate pudding pie with cherries that I made for Kelly. It was an absolutely great day.
March 12
I made dinner tonight. I was really in the mood for pasta, but I didn’t get as much flavor our of my sauce as I expected. I topped cheese tortellini with chicken, chorizo, garlic, onion, tomato, and parmesan. It was decent, not great. I made a little salad and we enjoyed a bottle of Duckhorn Chardonnay. I had another piece of the chocolate pie too.
March 13
Michael made kimchi and gave me a jar so I experimented with it. I made kimchi pancakes. Then I topped that with a slaw. I shredded a carrot and a small cucumber. I dressed it with sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, a little simple syrup, some lime juice, and fresh cilantro. That was really excellent. on top of the slaw was some chopped chicken in bibimbap sauce. I was happy with that too. Then I added a sunny egg and some chopped scallions. I would absolutely make this again.
March 14
Today is π day. I went to Verrill Farm to try to get a pie and they were sold out. So I ended up at Crosby’s and got a whoopie pie. I was disappointed at first, but it was a mint-chocolate whoopie pie and it was delicious. Before I got to eating that, I made tacos. I removed the casing from three Pig Rock Chorizo sausages and sautéed them with onion, poblano, jalapeño, lime juice, and mexican oregano.
March 15
Friday in Lent, so we had a cheese plate tonight. The cheese was from The Concord Cheese Shop, Roxanne from Maine. The rest was from Formaggio Kitchen, cornichons, stuffed grape leaves, bluefish pate, spicy nuts, fig jam, baguette. And of course a bottle of wine, Duckhorn 2018 Rector Creek Merlot.
March 17
Happy St. Patrick’s Day. I got an Irish cheese, Gubbeen, which we had with Guinness brown bread. Dinner was traditional corned beef and cabbage. I got grey corned beef which I don’t like as much as red, but I wanted to try the Wilson Farm corned beef. Part of the problem was that it didn’t come with a spice packet and I was left to try to make one on my own. I didn’t do a great job at that. I could work to make a better spice packet, but I think I’ll just go back to red corned beef with a spice packet. On the other hand, my mashed potatoes which were mixed with green onions were amazing. So was the soda bread that Michael made. For dessert, Kelly made an very cool Irish cream-chocolate cake with Baileys frosting.
March 20
I have been sick for a couple of days, but today I felt good enough to cook. I turned the leftovers from St. Patrick’s Day into corned beef hash. Kelly made a poached eggs and I griddled the soda bread. It was a nice dinner.
March 21
As good as this looks, I undercooked the filet tonight. It was even a little too rare for me. Oh well, filet, leftover mashed potatoes, brussels, and a nice glass of wine. We also finished off the St. Patrick’s Day cake.
March 22
We went on a double date with Spencer and Georgina tonight. We tried Douzo Sushi. I thought the shrimp and asparagus yaki were delicious and the black cod was amazing, but the sushi wasn’t very good. It’s not someplace we would hurry back to. After that we went to Grill 23 for dessert. Kelly and I shared the bread pudding, which is one of my favorites. Kelly and I stopped at Grafton Street on our way home for a nightcap. We ended up splitting a cheeseburger and fries at midnight. The last couple of times I have been in there, it’s been dead, but tonight it was crowded and a lot of fun.
March 25
I’m trying to eat a little less given all the celebrations this month and Easter coming up on Sunday. I had left over bibimbap sauce from the other day so I marinated steak in it and stir-fried it with red peppers, garlic, ginger, green onion, and cilantro. I served that over rice and topped it with the kimchi Michael made. It was delicious, but hopefully light because I am still hungry.
March 26
We tried the new Mexican restaurant in Concord, Bandoleros. It was very crowded for a Tuesday. We started with chips and salsa. Their salsa is very good. We got two orders of tacos, one carnitas the other fish. The fish wasn’t very good and I wouldn’t get it again, but the carnitas was excellent. They come on blue corn tortillas, which were solid. Tacos come with either rice or beans, but if you don’t say anything, they give you rice. We ended up ordering an extra side of bean, which was a good call. To drink I tried both the Bandolero, their house margarita, and the Medusa. The Medusa has tequila, aperol, maraschino, and lemon. It’s an excellent cocktail and I’m going to try to make it at home.
March 28
Dinner tonight was simple but good. I pan-fried some chicken thighs, made some mashed potatoes with three little potatoes I had left over from St. Patrick’s Day, and roasted some carrots with garlic and paprika. Alongside, we had a bottle of Gruner that is dirt cheap but really decent.
March 29
It’s Good Friday and we went to get some fish for lunch. We thought we would try Hourly Oyster House in Harvard Square. We had been there once before and it was ok, but they had a fish sandwich on their menu so I was for it. It was pretty empty when we arrived. We ordered Downeast Cider and they said they were out of it. Then two minutes later they said they had it. So we ordered two of them with a fish sandwich and a shrimp banh mi. Then they came back two minutes later and said they were out of the fish sandwich but I could get fish and chips.
This is where I began to get frustrated. What I don’t understand is how they can have fish and chips, but not a fish sandwich. They would have to be out of bread, but they weren’t. They had lots of sandwiches on the menu. I don’t usually count pennies when I’m out to eat, but the fish and chips was $6 more and not what I wanted, and couldn’t they have just taken some of the fish from the fish and chips and put it on a hamburger bun!?! So the waitress went away while I tried to decide what I was going to do instead of the fish sandwich. She came back two minutes later and told us they actually were out of the cider we ordered. At that point I got up and left and will never go back.
So we ended up at Russell House Tavern. They were nice and crowded but we got a seat right away. We ended up splitting a fish and chips (they didn’t have a fish sandwich) and an order of crab cakes. My only complaint was with the fries which were undercooked. I also had the Waldorf a cocktail with gin, pimm’s, lemon, and honey. A bit of a play on the Bee’s Knees. I enjoyed it so much I had another.
March 30
Tina and her family were in town for Easter, but we only had a small window for a visit so this morning we went to The Friendly Toast in Burlington for breakfast. I got a corned beef hash omelette with jalapenos, and pepper-jack cheese. It was solid, but not special. It came with an English Muffin but no jam and home fries that I actually ate, which says a lot about either the quality of the home fries or how hungry I was.
March 31
Happy Easter! It’s my biggest cooking day of the year, and I also got so busy that I didn’t take as many pictures as I should have. The day started with a charcuterie board including a goat, sheep, and cow cheeses. For meats there was petit jesu and pork rillettes. There was also crackers, crostini, fig jam, cornichons, pickled onions, and peanuts.
I sliced up fresh strawberries and pineapple. Kelly made a citrus pound cake and a chocolate-banana bread. We also got a blueberry coffee cake from Wilson Farm.
Next I made quiche with sausage, shallot, red pepper, and cheese. I also made a breakfast potato salad with scallions and bacon in a maple-mustard dressing. The dressing was a simple mixture of maple syrup, country style dijon mustard, apple cider vinegar, and olive oil. With that we also had sourdough which Michael made and a really good orange jam. I missed pictures of all this.
Finally, I made a Guinness lamb stew with potatoes, carrots, and peas. With that we had some brown bread that Michael also made.
Best of the month
I was a little disappointed in my cooking this month. I didn’t like my corned beef for St. Patrick’s Day, and the one steak I made was under cooked. The best thing I made was the risotto I had with pork tenderloin. After that, the best things I made were the two Korean dishes that included Michael’s kimchi. For Easter, the stew and the potato salad were both impressive.
Out to eat, the best thing I had was black cod and I had it twice, once at Hanami and once at Douzo. The steak at Mooo was amazing and so was shepherd’s pie at The Druid. I also have to give a plug for the carnitas at Bandoleros, almost as good as mine.
hungrytommy links:
Imo’s pizza
pork tenderloin – recipe
DeNo’s Pizza & Subs
Ken’s NY Deli
The Bancroft
Mooo…. Burlington
Roxanne – cheese
Gubbeen – cheese
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