Restaurant review: Siam Classic - Manassas, VA

Friday evening I went with my brother, sister, her boyfriend, and his brother to Siam Classic.  I have been wanting to try it out for a while.  So when Jon and Josh came down from New York to visit Janina we decided to go.  It is a pretty small place in Old Town Manassas.  We got there and the restaurant was about half filled with people.  The kitchen was rolling out the food.  It seems like they do a lot of carry-out.  We were there about an hour and a half and people were coming in left and right to pick up their food to go.

On to what matters...the food.  I got an appetizer, Fried Tofu.  I never had tofu before and wanted to try it.  It was pretty good.  The dipping sauce that came with it made it rather good.  Eaten just by itself was a tad weird.  For an entree I got Flaming Quail.  I don't really know how to explain what it was.  It was good though.  There were some quail eggs in it.  Yum!  The flaming came from some sort of alcohol they poured over it and ignited right before serving it.  Cool presentation.

Austin got the House Seafood.  It looked great.  He said it was awesome.  The rest of them got duck.  Duck is amazing.  I was thinking about getting some sort of duck before deciding on the quail.

For dessert I got the Fried Bananas and Ice Cream.  Two pieces of banana wrapped in some sort of dough and fried.  I forget what the dough was.   Served with a scoop of coconut ice cream.  Yum, yum!  The rest of them got Fruit Cheesecake.  It snuck a taste from Jon.  It was very good!

Again, as in my other restaurant review, I did not take any pictures.  I don't want to be that foodie guy who snaps picture after picture of the food in a restaurant.  I think that is not cool.  Check out their website: http://www.siam-classic.com/.  Nice place.  I want to go again some time for lunch and during the week when they are maybe not so busy.

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Shepherds Pie

I was at a lose for what to make for dinner tonight.  So I took to Facebook for suggestions.  One of the suggestions was shepherds pie, aka cottage pie. Thanks, Karen Czekalski.  I was thinking about making a Cajun shepherds pie, but didn't have the right stuff.  Then when she said shepherds pie I had to make it, even if it wasn't Cajun.  I found a recipe in one of Mom's cookbooks that called for ground beef, tomato juice, carrots, peas, onion, and some seasonings topped with mashed potatoes.  I didn't have enough white potatoes to make mash for the topping so I improvised and made mashed sweet potatoes.  It turned out quite good.  I also made apple salad, which in our house usually consists of chopped apples, raisins, maybe some celery and banana with a peanut butter, mayonnaise dressing.  I didn't have all the right ingredients, like mayo, so again I improvised and made the dressing with peanut butter, some milk, honey, and a bit of molasses.  Put that on chopped apples and raisins, and it was good.

I like to improvise while cooking.  I laugh in the face of traditionally prepared foods. :-D

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Pepsi Rib Roast

I was house sitting for my boss a couple weeks ago and watched the Food channel a lot.  During one of the Iron Chef challenges the Iron Chef used Coca Cola, or whatever it is there in Japan, and cooked a pigling in it.  So that got me thinking about using Pepsi and Coke in my cooking.  I researched it, hello Google, and there is actually stuff like Pepsi Roast Beef, Pepsi Steaks, etc.  I had a 2 liter of Pepsi sitting around, so I used that.  Put a rib roast in the crock pot with the Pepsi and a mirepoix (50% onion, 25% carrot, and 25% celery).  Since the roast was frozen I let it cook on low overnight and then pretty much all day Monday.  So by dinner time it was very tender.  The acid in the Pepsi helped make it tender, and it made the meat a nice dark color.  I also made my famous, at least in the household, mashed potatoes, gravy with Italian seasonings, and sauteed some broccoli.  I didn't really think the Pepsi made the roast sweet, like people said it would online.  It was quite yummy though.

The roast ready to cook.

Cooked roast.

It was good.

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Restaurant review: Tandoori Village - Manassas, VA

I want to start eating out more.  I want to eat at little places though, not big places, if you know what I mean.  Support the little man, not the big chain restaurant.

Today for lunch I went with my friend, and pastor, Ivan Schrock, to eat at Tandoori Village Restaurant in Manassas.  It is a small North Indian cuisine place.  We both got the lunch buffet.  Nice place.  Good food.  The chicken curry was good and spicy.  I don't usually like curry, but I now believe I like Indian curry.  They served us a big thing of fried bread, which was yum.  There was some sort of spinach and potato dish.  It look weird, but tasted fantastic.  The rice pudding was quite good, too.

I would go there again.  Nice place.  I didn't take any pictures but you can check out their website.

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Caramel Pudding

I love pudding.  Back in the day I used to love that instant boxed pudding.  I would whip me up a batch of it in no time and devour it.  Now that I am older and a chef, that seems gross.  Actually, it is gross.  I have since upgraded to cooked puddings. Made from scratch puddings.  My favorite is caramel.  Mmhhmmm!  You put some whipped cream and graham cracker crumbs on it and it is scrumptious.  I made 2 big batches tonight.  Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, it is not all for us to eat at the house.  Mom is helping with lunch at school tomorrow and is going to take pudding.  So I made enough for probably 40 people or so.  Lots of pudding.  Hopefully the school kids / church ladies that are there sewing won't eat it all.  I want to eat more.

So much pudding.

Yum yum!

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Maple Butterscotch Blondies

I had the urge to make brownies.  While going through Mom's recipe collection I found this one for Maple Butterscotch Brownies.  I think they turned out pretty good.  They isn't really anything special about them, though.  They are good, but not great.

Ready for the oven.

Baked.

Yum.

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Coffee cookies

Whenever I bake something I seem to want to keep baking.  Even though I'm not the best at it, I kind of like to bake.  There, I said it.  I think I'm getting better at it.  I made coffee cookies tonight.  They are good.

Ready to bake.

Baked.

Frosted, and so yummy!

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Pizza

I made pizza for dinner tonight.  First time I ever made pizza all by myself.  I made the dough from scratch.  That alone is a major feat because I am not good at working with bread.  It actually wasn't as bad as I though it would be.  Pretty easy actually.  At Janina's request I made a chicken and ranch pizza.  I also made a supreme pizza I guess you could call it.  It had pizza sauce, sausage, pepperoni, onion, bell pepper, and cheese.  I think they turned out very well for it being the first time I ever made pizza with no help.  There could have been more ranch dressing on the chicken and ranch pizza.  Oh well.  First time making that kind so I didn't know how much to put on.  If we ever make it again we will use more ranch dressing and add some veggies.

I now want to make Chicago-style pizza, aka deep-dish pizza.

Dough in the pans.

Ready for the oven.

Supreme pizza

Chicken and Ranch pizza. The cheese was a bit brown, but still good.

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Roast Beef with Mushroom Gravy

Yesterday Mom put a roast in the crock pot.  Then I finished the rest of the meal. We had some mushrooms in the fridge that I wanted to use so I made a mushroom gravy.  I also made mashed potatoes and heated up some green beans.  It was amazing if I can say so myself.  The mushroom gravy made the meal.  Even my siblings, who though they did not like mushrooms, loved it.  I know why that is. Umami.  Mushrooms have umami, which is one of the five basic tastes.  It's good.

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Potato and Ham Soup

A couple days ago I made potato and ham soup for dinner.  Mom wasn't feeling good because she had a migraine, so I whipped up a batch of soup.  I used leftover ham from our Christmas dinner.  It was delicious.

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