Fried Rice

I have been fighting a battle with fried rice for at least 10 years. I have tried numerous recipes and messed with numerous ingredients but have never been able to achieve the flavor of fried rice that is served up in Chinese restaurants. I think that I am finally coming close! I know that the big secret is having a super-hot wok, but I have a crappy electric range. This time, I preheated the wok and then added oil to the hot wok and let it heat up for awhile. The rice didn't stick and the flavor was almost right. The only thing missing was that the rice was a little too fresh and clumped.

A Shout-out to San Diego:

I recently went to San Diego, so thought I would share my stand-out eating experiences: Burned into my memory was Swadee Thai, in Coronado. So often, I have gone to restaurants where extra spicy disappointingly turns out to be mildly spicy. I want my food to make me cry, and Swadee Thai did that. The servers ask about the level of spice you prefer on a scale of 1 to 10. Based on my past experience, I requested a 10, but was warned off of it. And I am glad that I was. We ordered a papaya salad, which was an 8 and it had some real fire that required me to take a break while eating and made me gulp a lot of water. For my entree, I ordered a whole fried fish with fabulous chili sauce. A definite winner. I also visited the Mission for breakfast. It had a nice vibe, delicious, freshly squeezed orange juice, and a decaf capuccino that was so good that it made me wonder whether it was decaf at all. Finally, I wish I could have spent more time in Kearny Mesa. We found our way out there because we were trolling for a late night meal, and consulted an awesome late night dining guide, available here. There was a ramen shop open until 2 am, so we went. We jumped at the chance because of the dearth of noodle houses in the DC area. Surrounding the noodle shop, we noticed a lot of other promising looking Asian restaurants, including a tea house that I'd like to hit up if I'm ever back in the area.

Weary O'Leary's

My husband and I were cheese-olicious this Valentine's Day and decided to treat ourselves to a nice dinner out. We went to O'Leary's Seafood Restaurant in Annapolis (Eastport). I can't say that this was an inspired pick. It had V-Day reservations available the evening before the big day, and didn't have an outrageously expensive "special" Valentine's Day menu. I have no idea why restaurants think that people think that it is romantic to pay more money for less menu selection, but whatever. In keeping with the winter Olympic season, I would have to say that O'Leary's would not win a medal for best restaurant; if it were competing in a discipline where it would have to qualify to make the finals, it would be one of the bottom qualifying competitors, if it qualified at all. It simply made too many mistakes. I could have overlooked the fact that we had to wait at least 10 minutes to be seated despite having a reservation if the rest of the dining experience had turned out well. It wasn't terrible; it just wasn't good. It started out well, but like many athletes, couldn't sustain, and got tired toward the end of the meal. I liked the fresh lemonade, and the black bean soup with crab had a really nice flavor without being too heavy like some black bean soups can be. It needed a trifle more salt, though. My husband ordered the crab and lobster cake, which had a nice fresh flavor that let the crab and lobster meat stand out. On one hand, the server gets props for noticing (even though we didn't) that the cake was a lot smaller than it should have been; on the other hand, she said that she would bring a basket of bread, which never came. Main courses were disappointing. They took a long time to arrive after the appetizers. I ordered mahi-mahi, served with a Thai bbq glaze, rice, a pineapple salsa, and three jumbo cornmeal battered shrimp. The highlight of the entree were the shrimp, which weren't really anything to write home about. The fish, while fresh, was bland, and not even the salsa and the glaze could save it. The rice was inappropriate. It should have been stickier and of a finer grain to match the rest of the entree theme. It also tasted like the rice in rice pilaf that you would get at, say, Denny's. My husband said that the tuna was good, but that the soy-based sauce was too salty. His fish also came with shrimp, which appeared to be tempura battered. They were really good -- better than the cornmeal battered shrimp. O'Leary's dessert menu is uninsipred. Bread pudding, creme brulee, cheesecake, carrot cake, mousse, and coconut cake. Sometimes I wonder if there is a secret restaurant code of conduct that requires that there be creme brulee and cheesecake on every menu. It just gets old after awhile. I picked the coconut cake because the menu said that it came with blackberries, which I love. I was looking forward to the blackberry-coconut combo. Sadly, the cake came sans blackberries, and while good, was again, nothing special -- your standard coconut cake. Would I go back? No, but it's not a terrible place and has a nice atmosphere, so don't be dissuaded from checking it out. I think that our dining experience suffered somewhat from the fact that the restaurant was overwhelmed on Valentine's Day, and because we had a reservation on the later side. But, any gold medal restaurant would be at its best for any time that it accepted reservations.