Take Two on Mongolian Grill Food

Recently I blogged about a new Mongolian Grill

restaurant that had opened in B-town.

While we didn't dislike the food,

we weren't intrigued enough by the chain

restaurant to go back.

A few weeks later a very similar restaurant opened

up a mile down the road.

We vowed to try out this competitor.

So on STUDENT MOVE-IN DAY!

the Foodie Daughter and I braved the 

crowds of out-of-town students

and their families to meet up at Mr. Hibachi.

We pulled into the parking lot and immediately

noticed that the place was packed.

It might be noted that Urbanspoon currently ranks this 

restaurant at 86% versus HuHot's 55%.

The prices are a bit better here as well.

I always ask for ice water with lemon on the side.

Dang it!  

I wanted it on the left side, 

not the right side of the glass!

For my first trip to the buffet, 

I decided to got to the grill.

I chose

pork, broccoli, pineapple,

bean sprouts, shredded carrots and celery,

mushrooms, green peppers, noodles and red onions.

I opted to go with 1/2 ladle of chili sauce,

1/2 ladle of garlic, 2 ladles of teriyaki and 

1 ladle of brown sauce.

I found it interesting that raw eggs were 

available on the hibachi bar.

Other items were cabagge, white onion,

chicken, shrimp,

and krab.

Mr. Hibachi also offers a sushi bar,

a salad bar and extensive dessert bars

besides the hibachi bar and the hot buffet bars.

The grill master works on the entrees.

This grill only handles three entrees at a time.

None of the other entrees were chicken

so I had no worries of cross-contamination.

I decided to add a half scoop of white rice to my plate

before I went to my seat.

This was good, but hot.

The Foodie Daughter chose

beef, shredded carrots and celery,

red onion, noodles and 5 or 6 ladles of teriyaki sauce

for her grilled plate.

She then stopped by the buffet and picked up 

a chicken on a stick,

some General Tso's Chicken,

crispy chicken and rice noodles.

She very much enjoyed her meal.

I decided to go back and try out some of the buffet 

items.

This time around I got fried rice,

pepper beef, mushroom pork,

Mongolian pork and two crab rangoon.

Those crab rangoon were the best I have ever had.

I could actually taste the crab.

Imagine that - crab in crab rangoon!

It wasn't just cream cheese with a tiny bit of flavoring.

The servers were attentive and very friendly.

All in all, this was a very nice meal.

You can bet that we will be returning to Mr. Hibachi.

Although, I might be holding back on that chili sauce

the next time.

Hot!

Back to China for Lunch

Friday was a lovely day and

after spending an hour and a half

at the eye doctor's office,

I decided I needed a treat.

You know, there's that whole:

is one better or two?

is three clearer or the same?

tell me when the images line up,

which image is brighter/sharper?

And then there is that icky

yellow gunk they put in your eyes

to check for glaucoma.

Yep, I needed a treat.

I had originally intended to head over

to my favorite Chinese restaurant in town,

Sunny Palace,

but I knew that if I did,

I would just order my favorite dish again.

Now, don't get me wrong,

I love the Boneless Pork Ribs there,

so much so that I can't ever seem

bring myself to order anything else.

But this time I wanted something different.

As I was walking out of the Target store,

I looked across the parking lot and saw

Mark Pi's China Gate restaurant

and made the decision to go there instead.

Now, this does break one of my self-imposed rules,

as Mark Pi's is a chain restaurant,

but I decided that I would give it a try anyway.

There were a few diners present,

but I was able to be seated immediately.

I like the decorations on the doors.

Interesting ceiling treatment in the dining area
in which I was seated.




Luckily, I had this area to myself.

All the better to snap pictures for my blog.





The restaurant was largely empty at this time of day,
but my understanding is that they are busier in the evenings.

I perused the menu and opted for the
Sweet and Sour Shrimp, a la carte,
meaning it was served with either
steamed or fried rice and a fortune cookie.

I chose to have fried rice with my meal.



After a very short wait,
my lunch arrived.

The tempura-battered shrimp were mixed
with pineapple, green bell pepper, carrot and onion.

I was impressed that there were more shrimp
than veggies and pineapple in the dish.

The shrimp were not overcooked
and were my favorite part of the meal.

I did think that the sauce was more sour than sweet,
but this was a nice departure from the norm.

Char Siu, Revisited

If you recall, I have been on a quest to replicate

one of my favorite Chinese dishes, Char Siu,

or Chinese Barbecue Pork.

The first try resulted in moist, flavorful pork,

but it lacked the char that I desired.

I vowed to try, try again.

And that is exactly what it took:

two more tries to get just what I was looking for.

Char Siu, accompanied by stir-fried carrots,

sugar snap peas, yellow bell pepper,

onion and celery

and tossed with Udon noodles.

I am cleaning out my freezer,

so I pulled out a package of boneless pork country ribs

and used that along with the pork shoulder blade steak.

The remaining ingredients are

1/3 cup tamari,

3 tablespoons sherry,

2 tablespoons honey,

1/4 teaspoon Chinese Five Spices,

2 tablespoons brown sugar,

1 teaspoon red food coloring,

1 scallion, halved lengthwise

2 cloves garlic, grated.

The marinade/sauce ingredients were mixed

before half the sauce was poured over the trimmed pork

and sealed in a zip-top bag.

The remaining sauce was set aside

to baste the meat as it cooked.

We have decided that it is best to leave a bit of fat on

the pork, as it makes for a more tender

and flavorful dish.

This marinated in the fridge for 24 hours.



Once again I lined a roasting pan with aluminum foil
for easy clean-up.

I then added about 1/2 cup water to the bottom of the pan
before placing the rack and the meat on top.

I basted the meat with the reserved sauce several times
throughout the cooking process.

The pork roasted in a 400 degree oven for 45 minutes.
I then turned to oven up to 425 degrees and
continued roasting the pork for another 15 minutes.

Slightly sweet, moist and tender Char Siu feeds the soul.

Char Siu

My favorite dish

at my favorite Chinese restaurant is

the Boneless Spareribs,

otherwise known as Char Siu,

or Chinese Barbecue Pork.

This dish is crispy, a bit sweet and delicious.

I really want to recreate this dish at home

and have looked long and hard to find a suitable recipe.

There are many recipes for Char Siu out there,

so then it was a matter of picking and choosing which one to try.

Char Siu/Char Siew

蜜汁叉烧

is pronounced "chow shoo"

and it means "fork burn/roast."

Char Siu is a popular Cantonese dish.

I finally decided on a recipe for Char Siu

and went to the grocery store to pick out some pork.

Typically, pork belly is used,

but as that cut of meat is not easy to find

in my regular grocery store,

I opted to get pork shoulder blade steak instead.

Bonus, it was on sale for $1.29 a pound.

Here I have gathered:

the pork shoulder blade steak,

1 tablespoon honey,

1/4 cup Tamari,

2 tablespoons sherry,

a pinch of cinnamon,

1 tablespoon brown sugar,

1 green onion sliced in half,

1 clove garlic grated,

and 2 teaspoons red food coloring.

I cut the meat from the bone and trimmed away much of the fat.

I then sliced the meat into strips.



Then the marinade ingredients were mixed together and were combined with the meat in a zip-top bag.

I allowed this to marinate for about three hours.




I lined a roasting pan with foil before placing the rack in the pan.
Then the strips of meat were placed on the rack.
One cup of water was poured into the bottom of the pan.







This roasted at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.
I boiled the remaining marinade for one minute
and then used that to occasionally baste the meat.







Jasmine rice and stir-fried veggies accompanied our Char Siu.

The meat was tender and quite tasty,

but it lacked that crispy exterior that I like.

I will be making this dish again,

but with the following changes:

for ease of handling,

I won't cut the meat into such small pieces,

I will double the amount of the marinade,

leaving the measurement for the food coloring the same,

I will substitute a pinch of Chinese Five Spice powder

for the cinnamon,

I will reserve half the marinade for basting

and I will be setting the temperature

of the oven to 375 or 400 degrees.

*

There were no leftovers from this meal,

so I'd say it was an overall success.

That doesn't mean that there isn't room for improvement,

though.

The Foodie Girls Plus One

We were fortunate to have our 14-year-old niece visit with us this weekend. The foodie daughter and I had plans to introduce the young niece to Chinese (or at least American-Chinese) food on her visit with us.

We went to the China House Buffet here in Bloomington, as this is a good starting point for anyone who has never had anything even remotely resembling Chinese cuisine before.

And by the way? If I invite you to lunch, I don't expect for you to pay your way. You are my guest and I am more than happy to pay for your meal. I finally convinced my dear niece to let it be when I told her that I did not expect my daughter to pay for her lunch, so why would I ask her to pay for hers?

I love that girl.

But first, a lesson in chopstick handling is in order.

Grasp the first chopstick thusly.

Then place the second chopstick just so.



If you have the correct hold of the chopsticks, you will be able to 'scissor' them and grasp food with them.

Like this. You can practice at home with snack foods or popcorn. You may even find that it is easier to grasp food with chopsticks while taking a bite out of the food. Try that with a fork and the entire piece of food will likely end up in your mouth. Very awkward.

The Foodie niece jumped in and tried several different dishes.

The foodie daughter loaded her plate with things that she knew she liked.

And I selected foods that I could eat without having to reach for my rescue inhaler (ie: no chicken).

It was fun to introduce someone to a new cuisine. And bonus! The food was pretty good. We all win! I just love it when a plan comes together.

Marilyn and the Beanstalk

A friend of my husband recently gave us a sack of home grown green beans. A sack of green beans that weighs about three or four pounds. Now, how can just the three of us eat these lovely green beans before 1) they go bad and 2) we get sick of eating green beans?

When I told my darling daughter that I needed to find some more recipes for making green beans, she asked why as she loves our usual method. As good as that recipe is, I am thinking we need just a bit more variety than that.

With that thought in mind, I present you with two variations.


Bean dish number one:

Aren't these home grown green beans beautiful? I trimmed the stem ends.

Then cut the beans in half for this particular dish.

A quick blanch and the beans are spread out to dry for an hour or so.

I pulled out this pre-made batter mix and opted to add water rather than beer for the liquid.

A bit more water and we have a quick tempura batter for the beans.

Heat your oil to 350 degrees and keep an eye on it. The temperature of the oil will go down as the beans hit the oil. I found that by the time the temperature began to rise again, the beans were ready to be pulled out and drained.

I had some leftover batter, so I fried that too. Darling daughter was happy with her mom.

These were good. Next time I will skip the blanching part as the water that was still trapped in the beans made the oil splatter something awful. Live and learn.

And now on to the rest of our lunch.

One of the things I miss most after learning that I am allergic to chicken is going to my favorite Chinese restaurant. But as most of the menu is chicken, I have found it to be a wholly unsatisfying experience to eat only the things I can safely have while staring miserably at all of my formerly favorite dishes. This has left me with the task of finding decent recipes that I can make at home, substituting either turkey or pork for the chicken.

I found a recipe for Two-Onion Pork Shreds that sounded similar to Pepper Chicken, so we will try this.

My local grocery store only had bone-in thinly sliced pork chops, so I started with that.

I trimmed off the fat (and fried that up as a treat for the cat and the cook - nothing healthy about that!) and cut the meat away from the bone. I then sliced the meat into 1/4 inch wide strips.

On to the marinade: The recipe called for 1/2 teaspoon Szechwan peppercorns, but as that particular ingredient was missing from my local grocery store, I substituted coarsly ground black pepper. Per instructions, I carefully toasted the pepper over medium low heat until the aroma of pepper filled the air. And it's not a bad aroma at that.

The marinade consists of:

1 teaspoon cornstarch

2 teaspoons soy sauce (I always use low sodium soy sauce)

2 teaspoons white wine (the recipe called for dry sherry, but that I have not gotten around to purchasing any for my pantry)

1 and 1/2 teaspoons canola oil

Mix together with the peppercorns and pour over the meat. Allow to sit for 30 minutes.

I grabbed three rather pathetic "green onions" from my garden along with the remainder of the vidallia onion I had in the fridge. As you can see, my "green onions" decided to skip that step and went immediately into the "let's form an onion bulb" step. They still taste good though, in case you were wondering.

And we've sliced the white onion into slivers while the greens of the onion were cut into two inch pieces.

Mise en place for the remainder of the dish: soy sauce, white wine, red wine vinegar, sugar, garlic, dark sesame oil and the marinated meat.

The sauce is mixed:

2 teaspoons soy sauce

2 teaspoons white wine

2 teaspoons red wine vinegar

1/2 teaspoon sugar

2 cloves garlic, minced

Heat some canola oil in a skillet and cook the pork over high heat until no longer pink.

This happens quickly, so don't walk away.

Add the white onion and cook for one minute.

Add the green onion tops and cook for another 30 seconds.

Add the sauce and cook for another 30 seconds. Finish with 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil and remove from heat.

And we have our finished dish.

It wasn't bad as is, but needs more pepper (or the right kind of pepper) for the dish to really sing. I will keep looking for a good recipe to replace my pepper chicken.

Bean dish number 2:

Again I am cooking for just two, but this time my husband is joining me in our evening repast.

I trimmed and then blanched some more green beans at the same time I was doing the beans for the earlier dish.

I decided to do spicy garlic green beans for dinner. In deference to my husband's mild tastes, I drastically reduced the amounts of sesame oil, garlic and red pepper flakes. Here we have sesame oil, garlic, red pepper flakes (mine need to be replaced as the flakes are more brown than red now) and green beans. Salt and pepper will season the dish later.

Heat a pan over medium-high heat and add 1/2 cup water and the beans. Heat until the water has evaporated.

I then added 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil, one garlic clove that was thinly sliced and 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes.

Continue to cook for another minute or so, being careful to not let the garlic burn.

These were good, but I greatly prefer to oven roast my green beans. Also, two green bean dishes in one day is a bit much. My husband seemed to enjoy the dish, even if he did pick around the garlic and red pepper flakes.

Alas, even after making several green bean dishes this past week, I still have quite a few sitting in that bag in my refrigerator.

Now, I find myself wondering: what would Rosie Hawthorne do?