Restaurant Review #7: Topolobampo

Restaurant Name: Topolobampo

Location: 445 North Clark Street, Chicago, Illinois 60654

Kind of Food: Mexican Gourmet

Price Range: $25 - $90 per person (tasting menu anyone? I know I was tempted....)

What I ordered: Trio Trio Trio (cebiche fronterizo, cebiche yucateco, seaside cocktail), Eggplant enchiladas, Classic Margarita.

Comments: I was REALLY tempted by the tasting menus. They sounded incredible. The price for one of them (around $90) was offputting, but the thing that really drove me away from them was the amount of pork in the dishes. Really, my allergies can be a pain in the butt sometimes when out on culinary adventures. I settled instead on the Trio Trio Trio as an appetizer and the Eggplant enchiladas as an entree. The Trio Trio Trio was absolutely fabulous. Spicy and infused with lime, the seafood tasted and felt fresh and refreshing - sending me on a 5 minute culinary vacation to the Mayan riviera even though I´ve never really set foot in Mexico. I was also big fan of Trio Trio Trio because it reminded me of traditional Ecuadorian cebiche and some of the interesting haute cuisine variations I´ve tasted on it (kiwi-based cebiche is surprisingly blissful) and so it tasted a bit like home. The Eggplant Enchiladas, while less exciting, were innovative and flavorful. I got nothing in the semblance of a tortilla anywhere in the dish. The eggplant was cut to slices so thin that they themselves were the tortilla keeping a small pile of vegetables and eggplant and mole in a little roll. Delicious and just the perfect size to be full but not stuffed. I must say the Margarita helped with the experience. While the flavor of it was nothing really exceptional, it packed a punch, and delivered - and I can also say that I could tell it was quality tequila, which is something that the average Margarita usually lacks.

Topolobampo was a fantastic experience in Chicago, although I would recommend making reservations in advance.

Categories: Chicago, foodie, Restaurant Review

Restaurant Review #6: The Palm

Restaurant Name: The Palm

Location: 837 Second Ave, New York, NY 10017

Kind of Food: Steakhouse

Price Range: $30-$50 per person

What I ordered: Signature crab cakes. Ceasar Salad

Comments: First of all, let me clarify that I´m a bit of a certified idiot. I went to a steakhouse and ordered the crab cakes, which were honestly not that great. There is very little food that I´ve encountered that I´ve had trouble actually eating and those crab cakes were definitely one of them unfortunately. Everyone told me to get the Chicken Parmesan (which would have been the intelligent choice) that was notoriously excellent. I was put off from it when I glanced at the caloric count next to the choice - I´ll skip the 1200 cal Chicken and stick to the 560 cal crab cakes thank you very much. I really should have gone with the chicken. Of course, it was a bit of a fish out of the water situation - a semi-vegetarian at a steakhouse isn´t exactly the best idea. However, the party I was with enjoyed their food enormously. And to be completely honest, even I was wishing I had ordered their steaks. Cooked to crispy perfection on the outside and juicy and tender inside. The smell of meat and sea salt and pepper wafted through the air, annoying my stomach that was stuck with the bland and gooey crab cakes. The sides were pretty amazing as well, with the breaded onions being my favorite. Crispy and stringy, they reminded me of the nests of fried noodles served over kobe beef at Quito´s prime sushi eatery Noé. After the main course, we ordered a small buffet of decadent desserts that included cheesecake and a mouthwatering carrot cake. The thing that impressed me the most, however, was the quality of the service. Really, the best restaurant service I´ve ever encountered and the first time I´ve wanted to overtip someone in a long time. The waiter was attentive, polite, and efficient. They even were nice enough to remove a dish that a member of our party didn´t like entirely from our check. They changed our cutlery quietly and unobtrusively and observed proper serving etiquette and were very helpful in accommodating a large party of 9. Well done!

All in all, a pleasant experience. I daresay I would definitely go back, but this time I will stay the hell away from those awful crab cakes.

Categories: foodie, NYC, Restaurant Review

Restaurant Review #5: Psari

Restaurant Name: Psari

Location: Suiza N34-41 y República de El Salvador (www.psariquito.com)

Kind of Food: Mediterranean Fusion

Price Range: $15-$25 per person

What I ordered: Grilled octopus. Lady Psaritini.

Comments:

Best. Grilled. Octopus. EVER. I´m usually really picky about Octopus and tend not to order it because it is unusually chewy. I think that if not well prepared, it is easier to chew on an eraser than a piece of octopus. But Psari´s octopus is grilled to perfection. Crunchy on the outside, soft and tender on the inside. The grilled octopus is so good that I don´t even remember what I ordered as an entree (the octopus is an appetizer). Unfortunately, the charm had worn off by the time dessert arrived. Dessert was ok. But the creme bruleé wasn´t really creme bruleé and that bothered me and my dad. The Marchesa Chocolate cake was pretty fabulous though. The guanábana ice cream creates an interesting combination with the dark chocolate cacao cake served with it. Another slam dunk at Psari is their Lady Psaritini cocktail. A delicious vodka-based martini with an infusion of cherry and chile. Spicy, sweet, and strong in one small bottle. One of the best signature cocktails I´ve had in a while.

Categories: foodie, Quito, Restaurant Review

Last Day in Quito

The sky is cloudy this morning - an endless gray cotton that stretches out beyond what I can see. At 6:30 am, the lights in the houses sprawling across the valley have still not died out. The fog has begun to rise above the mountains, leaving thick drops of dew stuck onto the green foliage in its wake. "Winter" here at the equator (or technically slightly north of it) has begun. I definitely prefer it to the ungodly heat and the Equatorial sun beating down on you that we were getting but two days ago.

Part of me believes that the cloudy sky is Quito´s farewell to me. Almost as if it were sad to see me go. And part of me is touched, because I am sad to go too. In my year and a half of living here, I´ve come to appreciate more of it. I´ve come to hate it less. I´ve come to see its other face that it had hidden from me while in high school. It is a thriving bohemian city that is struggling to find its identity. It no longer is the Quito of old - the one that belonged to the conservatives and bigots and hypocrites, but it still wears that mask. And until it can learn to remove that mask, I´m afraid that I cannot live here.

But despite me leaving Quito, I take Quito with me. In the same way that I take Amsterdam, and Qingdao, and even Poughkeepsie with me wherever I go. It doesn´t really define me or even tell me who I am or where I belong or where I am going, but it is part of me.

I´m reluctant to really get out of bed today. Not because I don´t want to wake up or because I´m getting nostalgic about Quito but because I have no desire to begin to face the list of stressful situations the city is bound to throw my way today. Murphy, it seems, has taken up residence somewhere near here and is running amok across town. Why Quito? Why? Why would you prefer that I go around all day trying to solve the issue of my paycheck being incomplete than me taking a stroll around the city center one last time?

Oh Quito...I hope that someday we´ll really understand each other. Until then, I think I´ll wander across the streets of Boston or New York or London or Beijing or Amsterdam or wherever the wind takes me - waiting, for you to grow up.

Categories: Ecuador, Quito, travel

Syncretic Traditions in Latin America

I came home today after a very long day (car decided to stop working, had to do some errands about town) to find a dead cat in my driveway. I was upset by this. My parents say it was probably the dogs that killed it because it trespassed into their territory. I mean, it wasn´t bleeding or anything. Just seems the dogs...I don´t know.

Anyhow, I had to dispose of the carcass. I felt a mix of grossness and sadness. I´m a cat person and I can´t imagine my own cat, Luna, ending up like that. Just really upsetting all around. Anyhoo, my mother told me to dispose of the carcass and then wash my hands and then do her a favor. What she asked me to do was to go upstairs to her room and wash my hands and face with some holy water kept in a flask in the shape of the Virgin Mary. I ask why. She said to just do it and then she´ll tell me. So I do this, and then ask her why I had to do that. She said that it was to protect me against any evil spirit or force that might harm me. Like from the cat or something.

A normal person would be skeptical about this, but I´ve seen my fair share of scary spirits to really not appreciate the extra protection (I´ve seen a shadow person and a ghost). Also, there´s something about growing up here that made that request and the logic behind it not seem weird. But it did get me thinking about how much of local folklore and practices really are mixed in with Catholicism in an interesting way here in Ecuador.

The first thing that comes to mind is the process of a "limpia" which is a ritual done by a Priest/Shaman (yeah, a Priest who is also a Shaman...you read that correctly) that basically cleanses your spirit. I´ve had one. I´m not supposed to reveal what goes on there. But suffice to say that it is WEIRD, but that it works. Weird shit happens during that.

Weirder still, my Great Aunt (who is a nun) had one done too and had a discussion with the mother superior at her convent because she felt it conflicted with her belief in God. The Mother Superior said something along the lines of "there are forces out there that we are not meant to understand".

Then there is the fact that my mother and my aunts lighted white candles and went about praying the rosary in my room when I saw the Shadow Man there. Surprisingly enough, I never had any more paranormal activity in there. Ever.

Or the mysterious family ritual I had done when I was 13 and go my first pimples. It is supposed to drag pimples away from your face. Can´t reveal the ritual, but it has to do Catholicism. I rarely get pimples on my face. My brother, who refused to have it done, gets tons.

All this stuff seems part of normal life here. And it dawned on me earlier today as I washed my face with holy water that maybe it is slightly peculiar.

Inneresting.

Categories: daoism, religion

This Particular Workaholic Needs a Break

I´m burned. I´m just seriously tired. I´m starting to think that taking that extra week at work was a bad idea, but I need the money, so I´m weathering the storm. Except I´m not really. I don´t think. I´m at that point where I just don´t care anymore. And maybe that´s not a point I should be at. Part of me is just really frustrated that the company waster two and a half days of my time last week that could have been spent otherwise. The other part of me is just tired of having to come home to no personal time and work on another project. Right now that project is the translation of a screenplay that is...well...idk if I can really say, but I just feel that it is boring and not particularly innovative. This just makes it difficult and tedious to get back to it and finish it. And has landed me in hot water with only 63 of the 102 pages done so far. With those 102 pages needing to be turned in by tomorrow. Joy.

At this point, I´m just really looking forward to Sunday, when everything needs to be done and turned in. I finish this translation tonight, my job at the office on Friday and then the doc should probably be done by Sunday evening.

In theory.

Naturally, these things have a nasty habit of being affected by Murphy´s Law.

The thing is, I have so much work that I dream about working in my sleep.

Raise your hand if you need a vacation!

Categories: stress, work