Eat, Play, Run

Birthday Dinner II: Dahlia Lounge

I'm calling this one, the Giada De Laurentiis Special.

The Friday prior to my birthday, I was watching this great show on the Food Network called "The Best Thing I Ever Ate." Each 30 minute episode has a theme. They were running a mini-marathon, so I watched four episodes. Here's where it gets interesting. On the Fried Foods show, Giada says that her favorite fried food she's ever eaten is the donuts from Tom Douglas' Lola, here in Seattle. That's high praise coming from a woman who travels the world in search of food. Then, on the Obsessions episode, Giada chose the crab cakes from Douglas' Dahlia Lounge as her number one food obsession. Just for the record, on the Pizza episode, Tyler Florence chose a pizza from Douglas' Serious Pie as his favorite pizza. I guess Douglas is regarded highly in the food world!

So, for my birthday, I went to the Dahlia and ate Giada's two favorite foods. Though she recommended the donuts from Lola, I'm assuming they're the same at the Dahlia, which is literally across the street.

Before I got to them though, I started with a happy hour app. of steamed penn cove manila clams w/spicy pork belly and nectarine relish. Wow. Easily one of the best appetizers I've ever eaten. Coming from the happy hour menu, it was only $6. The spicy pork belly was wonderful and heat paired nicely with the sweetness of the relish.

Next came the crab cakes. I have to say, the crab cakes were good, great even, but I would not call them my biggest food obsession. They are packed with Dungeness crab meat and have a nice spiciness to them. The two cakes are definitely enough for a full entree as they're quite large. I would recommend you order them and split them with your dining companion so you can try something else, too.

Finally, I had the donuts. This is my second go around with the donuts. They were great then, and they were on my birthday. Again, they're freshly baked to order and served in a brown paper bag filled with cinnamon and sugar. You then shake the bag and pour them onto the plate. They're served with two dipping sauces, and seasonal jam, in this case, huckleberry, and a vanilla marscapone. Simply wonderful.

It was a great birthday dinner. Now that I know they have a unbelievable happy hour menu, I have a feeling I'll be bellying up to that bar often.

Birthday Dinner: Salty's on Alki

My mom and I share the same birthday. so celebrating is always fun. This year, me, my mom, dad, brother James and his girlfriend Kristen went to Salty's on Alki in West Seattle for dinner.

We were surprised to find a bottle of champagne waiting for us at our table courtesy of my brother Steve and his fiance Leslie who couldn't join us due to the fact they live on Maui. Yeah, I don't feel too bad for them either.

We started the dinner with a seafood appetizer tower that consisted of crab cakes, fried calamari and coconut-flaked tiger prawns. All were very good.

For my dinner, I ordered the Alaskan Halibut Oscar. The halibut was prepared with Dungeness crab and a bearnaise sauce over a bed of garlic mashed potatoes and asparagus. I forgot that halibut itself doesn't have much flavor, but the crab and sauce made it quite good. The mashed potatoes and asparagus were also prepared well.

As it was our birthdays, my mom and I each received complimentary slices of the fantastic white chocolate mousse cake. The cake was moist and the frosting not overly sweet. I highly recommend this cake!

All in all, the food was good and the company great. It's not every day you turn 39... or something like that... :)

Capitol Hill: Tango

Met Jill on Pike street at 11th for dinner at Tango, a tapas place that I'd good things about.

I'm going to start with dessert. Why? Because the El Diablo is the single best dessert I've ever had in Seattle. In fact, it's one of the best desserts I've ever eaten. The El Diablo is a two inch by two inch cube of dark chocolate (it has the consistency of room temperature butter), sprinkled with cayenne pepper and chocolate nibs, served on a bed of meringue. The meringue is whipped until it feels like a roasted marshmallow. It even tastes like a roasted marshmallow, and that's a good thing. The meringue sits in a bed of a tequila caramel sauce with whole almonds. Sinful. Shockingly good.

The rest of the meal was pretty good, but I wouldn't call it great. We started with the "Cheap Dates," dates wrapped in bacon, served on grilled eggplant. I liked the contrast of the salty bacon and sweet date. Next came the Queso Fundido... a baked cheese dip served with apples, venison sausage and crostini. The dippers went faster than the dip, but the dip was very good on its own. Mmmm, cheese.

The meat plate was a pretty standard affair consisting of cured meats and cheese. The fois gras was very average, served with a fig marmalade over broa (a type of cornbread). I've definitely had better. The carnitas del puerco, on the other hand, was quite good. The cinammon spiced pork packed a ton of flavor.

And that was our dinner at Tango. The meal itself was good, but the dessert... oh my God!

Los Angeles: Mozza

Met my NY foodie friend Elaine in LA when I was there for work. Elaine moved back to Los Angeles about two years ago, and immediately visited every restaurant in the city.

She, of course, had numerous recommendations. I hadn't had good Italian for a couple of months, so I chose Batali's Mozza. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures.

Let's just dive in. We started with a mozzarella plate consisting of buratta, fiore di latte and bufala mozzarella. All three were wonderful, and served with a nice bread.

One of the first places Elaine took me in New York was the Spotted Pig. Sadly, the place seems to be known more for who you'll see than what you eat. But, honestly, they serve some of the best food in the city. It was here that I first tried gnudi. Gnudi is basically a nude ravioli... the center part without the wrapper. At its best, it's a soft, light, pillowy chunk of good. To this day, the Pig has the best I've ever had. The gnudi at Mozza had plenty of flavor, but was much heavier. Here, it would serve as an adequate entree.

For a main course, I had the grilled quail wrapped in pancetta with sage and honey. The bird was perfectly cooked, with a slight char on the outside, and juicy on the inside. I'm never quite sure how to carve poultry, and I made a mess of it. Elaine had the maltagliata pasta with wild boar ragu. Honestly, her dish was better than mine. I was sorry I didn't order a pasta plate.

We were actually too full for dessert! Normally, that doesn't stop me... but you know, diet and everything...

Diet: Week 4 Update

OK, tomorrow marks week 4 of the "diet." I keep putting "diet" in quotation marks because I don't really feel like I'm on what we normally call a diet. More, I feel like I'm changing my eating habits, and weight loss is happening at the same time. Here's a rundown...

What hasn't changed: I still eat the same amounts protein... beef, pork, chicken, seafood. I'm also eating plenty of sushi, Chinese food and ramen.

What I eat more of: Vegetables, fruit, nuts

What I less of: chocolate, rice, pasta

What I rarely eat: candy, baked desserts, potato chips

What I never drink: alcohol, canned/bottled anything... juice, soda, whatever. Exception being water.

On top of this, I'm trying to control portion sizes. For example, the other night I made a half-pound steak instead of a full pound. I also had it with asparagus and a fresh fruit salad (peaches, apples, blueberries and grapes) instead of my normal 1.5 cups of rice. I finished the meal full, but not gross.

If I really miss something, I'll eat it. Life is too full of important things to get caught up on missing chocolate, so if I'm craving it, I'll eat a piece.

I do miss hamburgers. Unfortunately, there's nowhere in my general home or work vicinity to get a decent enough burger to splurge. But, when I'm in LA next week, you better believe I'll be making a stop or two at In-N-Out. And when in NY next month? Oh yeah, it's on!

I was afraid this diet would affect my running. But it's not at all. I'm having no problem with 5-to-6 mile daily runs and did a 10-mile run yesterday. I don't think I'll go much past 12-miles for now. But, that's not based on the diet. It's more because any longer than that, and it would affect how many days per week I could run without hurting myself.

The core exercises and push-up routine are both going really well. I'm definitely getting stronger.

So, I know you've read this far just to see if I've actually lost any weight when I've really done is cut out snacking on candy, baked desserts and potato chips. Through four weeks I've lost 14 pounds. I weigh a little less now that I did when I toed the line for the New York Marathon 10 months ago. Really, all I've done is lost the weight I gained since moving back to Seattle last October. Though, again, I moved back at the tail end of marathon training, so that number was deceivingly low.

There you have it. As a side note, about a couple of weeks into this, I picked up Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food." It's a fascinating look at the food industry. It's not one of those "you'll never eat another hot dog again" meant to gross you out. Instead it looks at how the food industry has really screwed up our diets. What he advocates (I'm only 30% done,) so I'm sort of guessing, is that we need to eat as nature intended, not as the food industry dictates. I'm really no longer eating pre-packaged foods. It's all fresh veggies, fruits and vegetables. This means I'm going to the grocery store nearly every day, but thankfully there's a great one between my bus stop and home.