Monthly Roundup: October – 2025

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October was good. The highlight was my trip to Houston, but I also had a great date night with my wife in Cambridge, cooked some great meals including a saffron risotto and a perfect sausage and cabbage dish, and tried a bunch of new gins. Here’s the roundup.

October 1
I was disappointed in my dinner so I won’t show you that. I tried to make a beet salad butI guess I didn’t cook them long enough. The steak with spinach and red peppers came out good, but I just can’t get over messing up the beets. On a brighter note, I had a solid fried fish sub and Riverside.

October 2
Kelly and I had a little time just the two of us today so we grabbed a drink at the bar at Bandoleros. We also tried two new dishes, Flauta Taquitos and Elote Preparado. Both were worth getting again.

October 3
Sophorn gifted me some saffron that he grew and I had some tomatoes from my CSA so I combined the two and made tomato saffron risotto. It was absolutely phenomenal. I made some fresh vegetable broth and steeped the saffron in a cup of it. To get good saffron flavor I didn’t add that cup until the very end. Then I topped the risotto with pan seared salmon, garnished with some additional saffron threads.

October 4
My wife and I had a date night, which we don’t get often enough. We started with a glass of rose and shrimp cocktail at Harvest. After that we went to Wusong Road for tiki drinks, tom yum wings, chicken bao, pork fried rice and coconut bread pudding. We even bought a couple of halloween tiki glasses to take home. We wrapped up the night at the Longfellow Bar where I tried a new gin, Ferdinand’s Saar Dry Gin.

October 7
I roasted kobocha squash and pan seared a couple of pork chops. That was excellent. I also opened my first bottle of ROCO wine from the new wine club we signed up for in Oregon. That was good too. Even better than all that was the combination of Guatemalan rum and lemon oreos. Yup sounds kinda weird, but it’s perfect.

October 8
I really improved on my celeriac root puree today. I used some chicken broth to smooth it out and since I didn’t have wine, I added a splash of cider vinegar. As always I stirred in some sautéed leeks, and tonight I topped it with duck breast.

October 9
I had a delicious breakfast at Anna’s this morning, starting my day with an apple fritter and a sausage egg and cheese breakfast sandwich. I’m very glad that they have new ownership. It has made a huge difference. For dinner, I had Michael over and made sausage and cabbage. This was the best cabbage I ever made. I’m giving an overview of the recipe below mostly for my sake. Lastly, we opened a nice sipping gin, no. 116, that Michael got for me in Portland.

In a large stock pot, brown the bratwurst on both sides then remove and reserve. Add half of a white onion, thinly sliced, to the pan and sauté for a couple of minutes add a thinly sliced granny smith apple and two minced cloves of garlic and sauté for another five minutes. Season with salt and pepper, a teaspoon of caraway seed, two heavy tablespoons of German yellow mustard and sauté for another two minutes. Add in thinly sliced cabbage and a cup to a cup and a half of hard apple cider bring to a boil. Return sausage and juices then cook at a simmer for about twenty to thirty minutes partially covered then remove cover and sausage and boil for five minutes until most of the liquid is evaporated.

October 10
We went to Mario’s for dinner and had the usual, Mediterranean Salad and Meatball Sub. Also, as we almost always do when we go to Mario’s, we went to Rancatore’s for dessert. I tried the pumpkin cookies and cream, outstanding!

October 11
I’m in Houston, Texas to meet my new grandson, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t also going to eat well. I arrived just in time for dinner at Xochi, an Oaxacan restaurant downtown. My favorite dish was the pavlova with mango and passion fruit, but the green chorizo that came with the wood fired octopus was the star ingredient. It was my first time trying it and I adore it

October 12
Today was the day to eat two big meals in Texas. I started with brunch at State of Grace. That was amazing. I don’t know what was better the enormous cinnamon roll, the crawfish eggs benedict, or trying a new gin – 135° East Hyogo Dry Gin. Ok I do. It was the benedict.

Dinner was great too. We went to Taste of Texas and I got quail and prime rib. This was the best prime rib I’ve had in years, and the quail was fantastic too, but don’t get the green beans and skip the jalapeno poppers. They weren’t great. Even better than that cinnamon roll was the giant piece of pecan pie to end the night. I think I ate too much.

October 13
I was so full from yesterday that I wasn’t sure I was even going to make it to BBQ today, but given that this was my one Bib Gourmand, I didn’t want to miss it. We hit The Pit Room where I got two types of sausage and a brisket taco. I’ll be honest, it was disappointing compared to Corkscrew, but the brisket was outstanding and the cocktails were good. Despite being full, I really wanted some banana pudding. We couldn’t find any so I settled for banana cream pie at The House of Pies.

October 16

We had dinner tonight at Bandoleros. I got two of my favorites which were very good together, choripollo and elote.

October 17
Ben was in town so I offered to cook dinner for him, Michael, and Ryleigh. I had some broccoli that I had planned to make beef and broccoli with so I expanded and added spicy Chinese green beans with pork to the menu. Unfortunately, my fermented mustard greens had gone bad so my green beans lost a little punch, but I think we had enough tiki drinks that no one minded.

October 19
We had a big lunch at Ken’s today. Kelly and I split a cheeseburger club and buffalo chicken fingers. It was very good.

October 20
Happy Dawali! We celebrated by getting Indian food at Virsa de Punjab. We got the tandoori mix grill so Thomas could have something besides naan. We also got a new dish, Dhabha chicken. The flavor was excellent though it could have been spicier for our taste.

October 23
Our CSA is at its end. I made chicken with a mustard cream sauce, roasted carrots, and mashed potatoes for dinner tonight.

October 25
I went out with the Nops tonight. I thought the best thing I would eat would be the duet a beef from Deuxave, one of my favorite dishes in Boston. It includes both beef carpaccio and steak tartare on one plate. But it turned out to be the fried chicken sandwiches at Hecate. I probably should write up Hecate, but really I don’t want more people going there. I also tried Coterie Garden Gin, a new gin from Short Path, if you can imagine, at the Four Seasons. I didn’t even know it existed.

October 25
No plans for lunch today so we went to Ma Magoo’s for buffalo chicken. It has been a while since I had it on a pizza so I went that direction. Good, especially with lots of honey mustard, but I’ll go back to a sub or a box of chicken next time.

October 26
The last time we went to Beijing, they took my favorite dish off the menu, pork and green beans. We asked if they could make them, and they didn’t turn out great. I was worried, but on this visit I got the green beans as they were on the menu and they were delicious. The peking duck was also good.

October 27
My wife’s coworker had a bunch of basil from her garden which she gifted us, so I made pesto and with the pesto made chicken-pesto pasta.

October 28
I made pork tenderloin tonight. I am using up the last of my CSA so with it I cooked mixed greens with onions and a roasted acorn squash that could have stood to be cooked longer.  

October 30
Michael and I got a bite to eat at Eddie V’s the steak tartare was a little bland but the yellowtail sashimi was excellent. I ordered a martini with Hendricks Orbium, but I had the last of the bottle and it wasn’t enough for a full drink. At least I got to try it, but it was as bland as the tartare.

October 31
No picture of a big pile of candy tonight. I did have some and some chips and dip, but mostly we had cocktails this Halloween. I brought over a couple of bottles of my gin and Doug gave me a bottle of The Muff Liquor Company Gin. Despite the name it was a pretty good gin. Happy Halloween.

links:
Bandoleros
Wusong Road
Longfellow Bar
no. 116 – Intervale Gin (new)
Mario’s
Houston 2025 (new)
The Pit Room (new)
Corkscrew BBQ
Deuxave
Ma Magoo’s
Beijing Chinese
2025 Gin


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