Tuesday, October 9th, 2007
I had all four of my wisdom teeth taken out this past Friday and thought I’d offer some post-op dietary suggestions. Please be aware that your oral surgeon or dentist is the final authority on this matter and that I only offer my personal experiences.
The day of the surgery, I got a McDonald’s chocolate milkshake on my way home. The shake had a most pleasant effect in my mouth. It helps that I love milkshakes too. A little later during lunch, I got some mashed potatoes from KFC with gravy. Obviously wait till it’s close to room temperature and then eat to your heart’s content. Vary your diet so you still get different kind of nutrients which will aid in the healing process. That evening, I had some egg drop soup. It was cooked with shiitake mushroom, pork bones, eggs, and some sort of broth. Obviously I only drank the soup and ate the eggs. It was mucho delicious.
Next day, I ate the leftover soup and mashed potatoes for breakfast. For lunch, I ate a huge bowl of oatmeal mixed with taiwanese dried pork. It’s a type of pork that’s usually used for gruel and as such makes it soft and chewy. I usually abhor oatmeal.. but it was delicious and it’s healthy too. Then for dinner, I got some squash casserole and mashed potatoes from Boston Market. I highly recommend both.. although for the casserole, there were chucks of squash and cucumber so be careful with that. They’re soft but chew with your front teeth first and then swallow as necessary. Also, I had some maccaroni with cheese.. to me, it’s too cheesy for my taste and I honestly felt nauseated eating it. But that didn’t have anything to do with the effects of the surgery.. it’s just a thing I have with maccaroni I guess.
Day 3 (Sunday).. I ate leftovers from the dinner the night before for breakfast. For lunch, more squash casserole, mashed potatoes, and creamy spinach from Boston Market. The spinach was a little too creamy and salty but I ate it nonetheless. For lunch, much of the same thing. When I find something that works, I stick with it usually. For dinner, I got mashed potatoes and casserole again from Boston Market. I also scrambled up some eggs with soy sauce cause I had a craving for that.
Monday. Actually now that I think about it.. I might’ve mixed up some days but the general gist is the same. I ate Boston Market and KFC most of the time. For drinks, smoothie from Smoothie Factory and chocolate shake from McDonald’s.
So there you have it. I have a post-op appointment next week and until then.. unless I feel less swelling in the extraction sites.. I’ll keep similar diets and maybe gradually add new foods for variety.
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Friday, May 18th, 2007
As you may know already, we recently started making our very own bento boxes. Yes, you can now enjoy those tasty, neatly-packaged meals that you see everywhere in Japan and Taiwan (among other countries) right here in Dallas! You can check out our menu history here. Let us know if you have any ideas or suggestions for future bento boxes — we’re always on the look out for good menu ideas.
As a side note, we’re also doing catering for special events on a limited basis (mainly for people we know right now). Our last catering event was more or less successful. Not everything went perfectly but it was definitely an enlightening learning experience. One regret was not having better equipment on hand. We definitely could have used some nice serving platters, pitchers, and other dinnerware. We had to use paper plates and cups, which isn’t exactly very professional, but at least the clean up was easy.
So try out our bento boxes and tell anyone you know that might be interested. It’s a healthy and unique alternative to your typical greasy fast food — and you won’t find it any where else!
Order online here
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Monday, January 1st, 2007
Against our better judgement, we decided to eat at the airport since we had some time to kill before our flight and we were hungry. We already knew beforehand the food wasn’t going to be great in terms of overall value but at least it was something to fill the stomach. Well we ended up trying this Bamboo Express place in Terminal D area at DFW airport.
Needless to say it was not very good. It was overly soy sauce flavored and salty beyond recognition. It was about the same as Pei Wei’s I guess is the best way to describe it. I got the beef and chicken broccoli combo with fried rice. Incidentally, white rice was not available so that really made the dish that much more salty. And I think it came out to be like $9.00 or something with the bottled water. Normally I don’t get water but I needed to get water for the plane… that’s besides the point. Point is.. just reiterating what I said earlier.. generally it’s not a good idea to purchase food at the airports here in the US. They usually overcharge and stiff you on quality. I guess they’re able to do that because there are those who have no choice but to purchase food there.
This was the place we stayed at upon arrival at Breckenridge. Fully furnished kitchen shown. Jason did an excellent job booking a fantastic place for this trip. I was mucho impressed.
Our first night’s dinner at our resort in Colorado. I didn’t want to spend too much time cooking the first night, so we bought a baked chicken from Safeway and some ready to eat dinner rolls. The meat was pulled from the bones because I wanted to use the chicken bones to make stock. We cooked some broccoli and cauliflower for the vegetables.
This pic was one peering down a fork in one of the blue trails up Peak 8 I think. This was our second time snowboarding so it was obviously not as scary as last year. I guess the best way to describe this view is just.. awe. I stopped many a time to rest and just capture the greatness of His creation. Well that and my knees were super tired.
This view was taken near the mid part of a slope and it shows what I just snowboarded down from.
I had my mind set on steak when I found out that our lodge had a gas grill. It took a while to pick out the perfect steaks at Safeway. We ended up getting 3 ribeyes that were cut 1 inch thick and were at least 16oz a piece. Inspired by one of our fellow Dining In Dallas compadres who opted to go to NY rather than join us on the slopes at Breckenridge, I decided to prepare the steaks Korean style…or so he says. Basically I just used soy sauce, coke, and some garlic.
Just as we’re about to grill the steaks, however, we discovered that the grill was so dirty that it was unusable. I was hungry, and I didn’t want to waste any time cleaning whatever gunk the previous irresponsible tenants had left behind, so I grilled the steaks on the skillet. Fortunately they turned out okay…a little more done than I had wanted them to be but still tender and juicy. That night we ate steak, more broccoli and cauliflower, and ramen. I was super stuffed afterwards.
Next morning we made eggs for breakfast. There were 4 of us, and we bought 5 dozen eggs for 4 days. That meant each of us had to consume about 4 eggs per day which is okay if you like eggs. I don’t usually eat that many eggs, so I tried to mix it up by cooking the eggs differently each time. What you see here is my version of scrambled eggs and egg omelet.
Green eggs and ham? No, they’re just green noodles and vegetables. I think the noodles had some spinach inside or something to make it green. Whatever. It tasted okay so I didn’t mind. More brocolli and cauliflower…lots of it. We decided to cook the rest of it to get it over with. I think it was at this point that I realized that we had bought too much food. For our 3rd night we had spaghetti with green noodles. I built the sauce from a jar of ready made spaghetti sauce, added some chicken stock I made the first night, freshly diced tomatoes, grilled eggplant, left over steak from last night, and chicken drumsticks. Whatever I could throw into the sauce I did…except for the bananas, but even those nearly fell victim.
After dinner, we decided to do a little shopping and sight-seeing to walk off what we just ate. For me it was almost torture. Nearly every other building that we walked past was a restaurant or eatery. My mouth watered every time the smell of food hits my nose even though I just ate a huge dinner. I could resist it only so much. When I saw the cookies on display at Mary’s Mountain Cookies, I caved in. I bought a Muddy Mogul, fudge sandwiched between two huge peanut butter cookies.
I knew I was in trouble when I saw the sign in front of me. “Crepes a la Carte” it said. Turned out it was a street vendor selling crepes. Again, I found myself ordering a crepe before it even registered in my mind that my Muddy Mogul was still untouched. The crepes were either savory or sweet. I asked what their most popular sweet one was. The guy said smores, and that’s what I got.
To maximize our time on the slopes, we brought sandwiches. A turkey sandwich with American cheese, lettuce, and mayo on wheat bread to be exact. On top of my sandwich was the leftover smores crepe that I didn’t finish last night. I stuck my sandwich in the front pocket of my jacket which wasn’t such a good idea because they were all smashed together when I took it out to eat it. Didn’t bother me though cuz I was hungry. Everything tastes good when you’re hungry, even a turkey smores sandwich.
On our last evening here, we did our customary tradition of eating at a fine dining restaurant. We had it on good authority from the locals of a place called The Dredge (boathouse) and decided to try the place. Sure enough, this restaurant was a huge boat sitting on a frozen lake almost like an island with a couple of bridges leading up to the entrances.
A while ago I watch an episode of Good Eats where Alton Brown made a French onion soup unlike any onion soup I’ve seen. Ever since then whenever I see onion soup on the menu I’m tempted to order it, but I never actually did until now. I guess my expectation for it was too high because I thought it was okay at best. The soup itself was good, but the bread was too soggy in my opinion. I was hoping for a little bit more texture from the bread.
House Salad was splendid. It had an assortment of veggies that meshed nicely together. Ranch dressing was supposed to come with the dish but the waitress had to be reminded because she forgot the dressing the first time around.
Coconut Braised Shrimp. This appetizer was very good. Probably the specialty in this dish was the sauce but the way the jumbo shrimp was prepared, was nothing short of perfection. I wanted more but at $3.00 a shrimp, it was a little impractical to order more.
Complimentary Bread. Not much I can say about this. Crispy on outside and soft inside makes for a good bread starter.
I love pork ribs. When I saw it on the menu I decided that I must have it. The question was, should I get the full or half rack? I ended up choosing the half because I had a picture of the full rack of ribs someone ordered at Blue Spruce last year in my mind, so I made my decision based on that. Turned out the half rack was just right quantity-wise. The meat was tender and the BBQ sauce was finger-licking good. The baked potato was perfect. I’ve never tasted a potato so fluffy before. I didn’t even use the butter that came with it because it didn’t need any.
Unfortunately there was one thing that I would’ve done to make this dish even better, and that’s the vegetables (more like the lack of). When I lifted the ribs, I found a couple sticks of baby carrots, exactly two pods of snow peas, and a slice of squash. They weren’t exactly there for decoration because I didn’t see them until I lifted the ribs. They’re not there as a side either (at least I don’t think so) because the quantity was laughably inadequate. My suggestion would be to either have more vegetables or not have them at all. Otherwise it’s just too confusing >_<
Salmon Special. One of the 2 or 3 specials that the waitress suggested. It looked very tender and much like the stuffed red trout dish, just under well done and very nicely seasoned.
Pork Saute. From what I could tell, it looked pretty good. Another person got this dish so I didn’t get a chance to sample it. He had no complaints though so I can only assume it was satisfactory.
Stuffed Red Trout. This dish was amazing. The red trout was prepared just a little under well done and stuffed with assorted seafood delights. I believe it was basically crab and shrimp stuffed inside. It was very well prepared and tingled my taste buds wonderfully. I, of course, squeezed the lemon all over the trout. The rice complemented the trout nicely because the stuffing was slightly on the salty side evident with the 4 or 5 glasses of water I went through.
The Dredge
180 W. Jefferson
Breckenridge, CO 80424
(970) 453-4877
Ambiance: 9
Food: 8
Service: 7
Cleaniness: 9
Value: 8
Health: 8
Overall: 8
We passed by this French bakery before our dinner at the Dredge. Again, I found myself inside the store a few seconds later. The owners were actually French, or people who spoke fluent French. They politely greeted me and said some other things, but I was only half listening because my focus was on the treats on display. I finally got a croissant fruit tart. For some reason I didn’t feel like cutting into it and messing it up, so I brought it back to Dallas with me.
We had so many eggs left over, that we decided to boil the rest and stick it on one of our carry ons back to Dallas. Waste not want not right?
Panda Express’s Orange Chicken entree. Ate this right before we went through security at Denver International Airport. It was actually not that bad considering I’m (George) not a huge fan of orange chicken. But as with any airport food, it probably wasn’t worth it. I didn’t see the receipt but that’s a safe assumption.
All in all, this trip was very efficient and fullfilling. On the snowboarding end, I think I learned or at least I achieved a better understanding of the S-turns. Before, my primary and only way to maneuver was with my heels but now.. I think I can use my toe to move a little. Far from mastery but just a little closer. Improvement nonetheless. One the food side, we were again pleasantly surprised with a great restaurant our last evening there. The locals did not disappoint us and gave us a wonderful choice. So basically, a solid trip all around. I can’t wait till next trip.
Tags: Breckenridge, Colorado, The Dredge
Posted in Eating Out, Cooking, Restaurant Reviews, Miscellaneous, American | No Comments »
Monday, December 11th, 2006
At a wedding reception the food and atmosphere are obviously very important aspects and are usually what make a great (or terrible) lasting impression for guests. But at the same time, the quality of service is just as critical, and in my opinion is probably the most difficult to get right. The food and decorations can be prepared beforehand (i.e., before the hordes of hungry guests arrive). But to achieve the kind of service expected at such an event — the type that is unobtrusive yet somehow omnipresent — requires not only preparedness but a certain degree of endurance and stamina. Let me explain. Imagine carrying a small plate of food with maybe 15 small one-bite servings, and walking into a throng of 350 ravenous Chinese folks crowded in a narrow hallway impatiently waiting to be seated for dinner. Imagine doing that not once or twice, but multiple times throughout the evening. I felt kind of sorry for the servers charged with this harrowing task. The people working behind the bar serving 50 drinks a minute certainly didn’t have an easy task either.
All in all though, I must say the wait staff did a commendable job. They managed to keep all the guests happy, and despite the rather long wait in the reception hall, the overall mood of the crowd actually seemed to improve as time passed. Some of the more “crafty” guests started learning where the servers would come out from and they would lie in ambush to get to the food first. But the servers caught on and started entering from different locations so that other guests could be served. Empty glasses and used napkins were removed quickly and without much interference, and the area was kept clean at all times. Overall, I was actually quite surprised by their efficiency.
While their efficiency is certainly to be praised, some of the servers seemed a bit lost though when it came to explaining the food (I don’t think they were too familiar with the menu). Not a big deal though. The food was good and it was served quickly, so everyone was happy. Maybe the next time they are hosting a crowd of Chinese people they can teach them a couple of games — like how to bob for apples with chopsticks. That should keep the crowd entertained for awhile.
I got a chance to taste test the lamb before the wedding reception, and it was just as good at the reception as it was at the tasting. The lamb meat was tender and it didn’t taste gamey at all. The red “sauce” on top was sweet mint tomato chutney, and I’m a big fan of sweet/salty combinations, so the pairing of the lamb and chutney was good. Served on the side were mashed bean and eggplant which tasted like a less starchy version of mashed potatoes, grilled quarter of a pita used to scoop up the mashed concoction, a rather bland corn tamale. The one thing I didn’t like about this dish was that the lamb portion was too small! At the tasting I got two pieces, and it was like an appetizer to me. Also missing were the fried plantain chips that I really liked from the tasting but didn’t make it to the final version.
The seafood and the vegetables were a nice surprise because they weren’t offered at the tasting. The seafood plate had a small sampling of shrimp, scallops, crab claws, and mussels. These were probably boiled in lightly salted water, then chilled before serving. Aside from the seafood cocktail sauce, no other flavoring was added to mask the delicate flavors of these tiny morsels. Drizzled on with a bit of lemon and lime juice, the seafood tasted refreshing after the rich lamb meat.
The vegetables came in their own plate, too. I think we were the only table to have all the food brought to us. Other tables had to stand in line for their vegetables and turkey. The vegetables were probably quickly steamed, then sauteed and served as is with a very faint hint of salt. I thought they were perfect because the broccoli, cauliflower, and the asparagus still had a crunchiness to them. The mushrooms and the tomato bursted with flavor. There was also a turkey dish that I didn’t take a picture of. Actually it was more like a turkey sandwich, and I nearly laughed when I saw it. It seemed so out of place after the previous three dishes. The turkey was dry, the bread was dry, so I didn’t particularly like the dish.
In keeping with the theme of small portions, the fruits were served in a martini glass. There was just enough to taste. If I remembered correctly, my glass had strawberry, blackberry, kiwi, star fruit, watermelon, and jicama. This fruit martini was somewhat exotic, and it looked colorful, but because this assortment of fruits do not all peak in flavor at the same time, it fails in the taste category.
Last but not certainly not least, who can forget the dessert portion of the wedding? Interestingly, the assortment of asian goodies were actually homemade and provided by close friends & family of the bride. Rather than going out to a local bakery to purchase these goodies, the bride & groom saved a lot of money by requesting homemade desserts as “wedding favors” instead of the customary gifts or money from these mommy chefs. Moving onto our dessert selection of the evening, first, there were the red bean (correction*) puffs - a crispy breading on the outside filled with red bean paste on the inside. Then we had the sweet biscuits and a special soft almond cookies treat made by one of the bride’s very own small group girls. The biscuits tasted similar to a very well-reknown Chinese delicacy, “Tai-Yang-Bing.” Perhaps both desserts share some of the same ingredients or have a similar “filling” inside but in any case, they were delectable. Finally, we had homemade spice cake. And needless to say, it was a big treat for everyone there. The outcome of the dessert portion that evening came to show that sometimes even the simplest foods, when they’re homemade, can be comparable if not better than catered or store-bought goodies.
Tags: wedding, dma
Posted in Eating Out, Miscellaneous, Food Events | 2 Comments »
