half food blog. half tech blog. half george blog.
George
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AIM: potstckr
Posts by George
We’re Back!
Mar 24th
L and I just got back from NYC for a long weekend of fun and food – mostly food. Our friends Maryanne and Clarence got married! It was good times. However, there is only so much you can take of older Chinese people on the dance floor. In fact, there is only so much you can take of ME on the dance floor. That’s another story altogether.
Most important, this is what we ate:
Cheese slice at Gaby’s Pizza
Porterhouse Steak at Peter Luger
Cheesecake at Omega Diner
Dumplings at Joe’s Shanghai
Boba at TenRen’s Tea Time
Hot dog from a street vendor
Americano at Stumptown Coffee
Gyro from a Halal street vendor
Pastrami and corned beef at Carnegie Deli
Strawberry cheesecake at Carnegie Deli
Sausage pizza at Bravo Pizza
Red Velvet Cupcake from Magnolia Bakery
Gelato at Golosi
Blueberry pancakes and sugar cured bacon at Clinton Street Baking Co.
Shack Stack and Black and White Shake at Shake Shack
and of course, 14 bagels from Pick a Bagel for the road/freezer.
Not bad for 3.5 days, right? That’s not even including a wedding and a reception and all the touristy sightseeing stuff.
Pictures of deliciousness after the break.
Review: Phnom Penh Restaurant – Tucker, GA
Mar 17th
We went to Phnom Penh last night with Su and Sommie, and it was surprisingly delicious. When looking up directions to this place, I had a sudden recollection of Joe (number 2!) mentioning this place and how he really liked it when he and his coworkers stumbled upon it for lunch one day. Knowing Joe’s tolerance for Asian (and other ethnic cuisines), for him to praise a hole-in-the-wall Cambodian place was duly noted and filed away in my mental file cabinet.
It’s tucked away in a non-descript section of Lawrenceville Highway in Tucker, and you would never find it unless you knew to look for the wrong sign. The signage still bears the marks of its previous tenant, Beef Stix. If you’re looking for the place, just drive down Lawrenceville Highway until you see a modernish white and maroon sign labeled Beef Stix. It’s located between Flanigan’s and The Milk Jug but across the street, for you Tucker locals.
We were a little afraid when we pulled up because the place was fairly deserted. There were one or two cars parked out front, and a table of two inside. For context, this was about 7:15 on a Tuesday night. But through some voracious mobile Yelping, our fears were assuaged as review after review recommended a healthy handful of dishes. Inevitably, we ordered them all.
Quick food review:
Baan Chav – A huge nicely textured crepe with an amazingly flavorful meat filling inside. It’s excellent with their dipping sauce.
Fish Amok – Definitely get the fried version. Even though the fish is covered in delicious sauce, it somehow still maintains a good crispiness to it.
Beef Sticks – Very flavorful, with a touch of sweetness to it. The beef they use is fairly good quality steak, and is quite tender.
Noodle Soup with Chicken – This might have been our least favorite dish of the evening, largely because the soup is unexpectedly sweet. Granted, we’re no Cambodian food experts, but it was somewhat of a turn off. The chicken was also a bit dry, but the rice noodles had a good mouth feel and not overcooked.
Curry Saraman with Beef – Our feeling toward this dish might have been somewhat muddled due to the fact that this was the last one out and we were pretty full by then. There is definitely a LOT of flavor, but that may also be why it didn’t appeal so much at the end of the meal. I can see myself eating the whole plate of this with a big bowl of rice as a nice big hungry lunch.
All in all, the food was surprisingly good. There was so much flavor in every dish. Large portions, along with being incredibly affordable, was more than enough for me to grab a take out menu to ease this place into our rotation of go-to quick-and-cheap eats.
The owner was incredibly nice too. He served us the entire evening, and his wife does all the cooking. On weekends, his daughter comes in to cook as well. It’s a true family affair, and it shows. The restaurant, although sparse, is the result of this family doing what they do well – serving up good plates of home cooking.
If you haven’t had a chance to go, make some time to go. It really is a hidden gem in the middle of Tucker.
Some shamelessly stolen pictures from Linda’s phone after the jump:
chicken andouille gumbo.
Mar 3rd
I have this sudden craving to whip up a big pot of chicken andouille gumbo and enjoy Creole’s ultimate comfort food basking in the warm (not really, it’s a LCD) glow of my television.
A Serious Eats adaptation of John Besh’s My New Orleans recipe is after the break to remind myself to do this before the weather gets too warm, otherwise competing cravings involving smoked pork shoulder and other summer-y foods will begin to overtake.
Review: Two Urban Licks – Sunday “Splurge”
Mar 1st
So we went to Two Urban Licks (or using their trendy capitalization, “TWO urban licks”) for their “Sunday Splurge” last night. It was their first one, I believe, and the food of the evening: lamb. I figured, I like lamb, and so does L, so the two of us along with 4 other friends made reservations like a month ahead of time for last night.
I’ve never been to Two Urban Licks, but I HAVE been to its older sister restaurant, appropriately named, One Midtown Kitchen (okay fine, “ONE. midtown kitchen”). Maybe it was because it was many years ago and Richard Blais was on hand in his pre-Top Chef days, but it was quite a delicious dining experience. Also, the Atlanta restaurant blogosphere in general have given it some favorable words. And for $15 for all you can eat ($21 for all you can eat AND drink), it was too good of a deal to pass up.
Well, I’m glad I went in with not a lot of expectations. When we got there, while waiting in line for the valet, I was explaining to L why we’re eating in renovated warehouse in some out of the way abandoned industrial area. We concluded that it was because restaurants are poor, and so they’ve wound up marketing their cost-savings as something “trendy”. As soon as I opened my car door to the valet, it started going downhill, just as you would expect for dining in an abandoned warehouse. It started with them trying to give my reservation away. We got there a few minutes late, but Aaron had boldly gone in before us to get our table, only to be shot down to discover that our table reserved for 6 got cut down to 4, claiming it was a first-come first-serve basis. Yeah, that wasn’t going to fly with me and my month-old reservation. By the time I stormed in there, they magically had a table for 6 for us. Weird.
The place was packed out. Once we sat down, the food started coming. A cast iron dish of hummus, a Mediterranean cucumber salad, some small pita rounds, and a place of smoked lamb and roasted potatoes. I shared a similar sentiment with my fellow diners when they looked around and was like, “That’s it?” It’s hard to use the word “splurge” for the equivalent of one entree, one side, and one appetizer.
Regardless, our hunger surpassed any complaint and we dug in. Quick initial food review:
Cucumber salad – mediocre
Hummus – garlicky, with a hint of peppers
Pita rounds – somewhat stale
Lamb – smoky, but cold
Roasted potatoes – mushy
The all-you-can-drink part of the meal consisted of a cheap Spanish red and a white that I didn’t pay a particular amount of attention to. Bottles were all open and not full by the time they landed on our tables, which leads me to suspect some discrepancy between what’s on the label and what’s in the bottle. I personally didn’t have any, but it didn’t seem like I was missing out on much.
Service was also fairly abysmal. Granted, the server to table ratio could have been better for such a busy night, but our server definitely paid more attention to the table behind us than us. Automatic gratuity was added on for our table of 6. That probably had something to do with it.
Successive food refills were delayed and inconsistent. The second plate of lamb was so raw that JW thought it was an entirely different dish. When we finally grabbed the attention of our server, she tried to pawn it off as medium rare. For someone who takes pictures of everything he eats, this meal was so unmemorable that it didn’t really matter. Besides, I forgot my camera. But had I brought it, I think I would have taken a picture of “medium rare” raw lamb. The third plate had maybe 5 pieces of lamb and 48 chunks of mushy potatoes. The fourth was the most tolerable, as it was a) warmer than room temp, b) actually cooked, and c) we all got at least 1-2 pieces. Unfortunately, having no other scapegoat, the lamb wound up being overcooked and became an exercise in not cramping up your jaw muscles.
During the course of this meal, the kitchen ran out of pita circles as well as red wine, with a run on the white. That’s okay, by this point we were legitimating discussing Taco Bell as a finisher.
So that’s that. There are two more “splurges” scheduled for March – one for chicken and one for seafood. Caveat emptor.
Maybe their actual order-off-the-menu items are better. But Two Urban Licks (I will use proper capitalization thankyouverymuch), you did not leave me with a very good impression. I’d choose your big sister over you, but at the end, it’s still Concentrics Restaurants that gets my money.
note to self: populating a SPFieldUserValue object
Dec 7th
SPFieldUserValue user = (SPFieldUserValue)item.Fields["Field Display Name"].GetFieldValue(item["FieldName"].ToString());