Sorry, I just had to say that.

I went this week to the new Kimono restaurant, formerly known as Pao Lim. The place looks nice after the remodeling, and I especially like what they've done with the old bar side of the house - it is now a sushi bar. But that's where my approval ends.

I only had the sushi, so I'm not certain how the other dishes were, but the sushi was sub-par. I'd say it's one step above Cafe Zen's sushi and several steps below Kurama's. I tried a couple of standards which I get everywhere - the spicy tuna roll and the salmon skin roll. I also tried one of their specials, which I wrote down somewhere and now have forgotten what it was called, but had avocado, hamachi, and asparagus in it. In all cases, the fish was not very fresh. At one point when the sushi chef was making the rolls, I got a whiff of something that *reeked* of unfresh fish, so that didn't help. The ginger dressing on the house salad wasn't very good, and while it was nice of the sushi chef to give me a free appetizer, it was a small bit of standard seaweed salad so it wasn't very inventive.

The staff was more than friendly and attentive, and I suppose I could have hit the place on an off day, but I'm not sure I'll be going back to find out. I liked Pao Lim a lot, and I can't say this is an improvement in any way except cosmetically. Too bad.

On my last day in Annapolis, I stopped by a new farmer's market at the Annapolis Mall. Picked up some corn, some peaches, some tomatoes, and most interestingly, some pickles. The name of the stand is The Pickle Guy, and they have some mighty tasty kosher dills. The prices were $4/pint, or 2 pints for $7. I got a pint of the kosher dills, and some horseradish pickles, which were interesting, but not as good as the dills. The farmer's market runs from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 pm every Sunday. If you live in that area, it's worth checking out.

Last night, back in Durham, I stopped by the Wine Authorities birthday party, although I didn't go inside (I do not need any temptation to purchase wine.) Instead, I ordered a Single, hold the onion and the ketchup from OnlyBurger whose truck was parked outside. I was their fourth customer ever! Sam Poley, formerly of Starlu fame, has a winner on his hands. I respect the philosophy of doing one thing, and doing it well. Their burger was the most flavorful one I've had since I can't remember when. It was juicy and cooked just right for me - pink in the middle. If you want your burger well done, you'd best tell them up front. The iceberg lettuce was more iceberg than lettuce, but that's the only complaint I have. I wolfed it down right quick. Next time I find them, I'll order a double.

I'm in Annapolis for a trip to view Mom's film premier (more on that later.) I got out of Durham well ahead of Tropical Storm Hanna, and made good time up to Annapolis. We went to my favorite place to get good steamed blue crabs, Cantler's Riverside Inn. It's always a good experience. Lots more photos in the set - click the picture to get to them.



A lot of my friends may not know how to do whammin' crabs, so what follows is a pictorial tutorial. I've made the pictures small so that the squeamish won't be too worried about the details. Click to see larger versions.

Step 1:

The first thing to do with a steamed blue crab is to open the "tab" on the underside so that it's pulled away from the body, in preparation for taking off the top shell of the crab.



Step 2:

Once the "tab" is open, pull off the entire top shell, or as my family calls it, the "hubcap". If you have a cat, they love to eat the innards left over on the top shell. They will love you forever if you give it to them.



Step 3:

Pull off the gills on the top left and right sides of the crab and discard. You really don't want to eat these. The sides will then have the cartilage exposed.



Step 4:

Pull off the front mandibles, and remove the digestive system / organ parts from the center of the crab. Discard.



Step 5:

Break the crab in two down the center. As you see in the picture, there is some yellow "crab mustard" still clinging to the sides. Some people love this stuff, some don't. I don't, so I usually wipe it off. (This is part of the hepato-pancreas and has a strong musky flavor.)



Step 6:

[Optional] Wipe off the "crab mustard".



Step 7:

Next, start pulling out the legs. Pull on each leg gently to get as much meat out of the central cartilage as possible. Usually these smaller legs aren't worth the effort, but this one managed to get a good chunk out. The backfins (the hindmost swimmer legs) are a different story - they are the most coveted, tenderest meat, so take care with those.



Step 8:

Pulling out the backfin very gently can give you a wonderful treat - the most tender, sweetest chunk of crab. Dip in butter, or vinegar and Old Bay seasoning, or just pop it in your mouth. All the effort is worth it.

After the legs are all pulled, you should go through the cartilage, picking it apart to get the meat on the inside. You don't need utensils to do this, as the cartilage is easy to tear apart.



Step 9:

Here's the actual "whammin'" part of whammin' crabs. Use the wooden mallet and a knife to make cracks along the claws. the claws have two sections where a slightly tougher, darker-flavored meat can be found, but you need to get through the thick shell to do so. Don't hit too hard - it's better to make small cracks and break the claw open with your fingers.



Step 10:

Breaking open a claw at the crack made previously with the mallet and knife. Do this carefully to expose the claw meat inside.



Step 11:

I'm a little out of practice - I should have made the break a bit further towards the joint to expose more of the meat inside. Still, it's not hard to wham it again and expose more.



After eating the claw meat, discard everything and pop another of those suckers open! Repeat until no longer able to walk.

It's a race to the finish to be the first Durham blogger to post about Toast, which opened today in downtown Durham. Bull City Rising, Eat at Joe's, and Durham Foodie were all there, and perhaps more that I didn't recognize. The turn-out was pretty huge, and aside from a few minor things, seems to have gone very well by the time I left. I think I may come in third with this post if I'm lucky. ;)


Click for food pictures

I went with three of my coworker friends, so I got to see a variety of their offerings, and all were considered good. These were the things we tried:

panini
* rapini, sweet Italian sausage, roasted garlic, asiago fresca
* proscuitto, mozerella, tomato
* spicy tuna, olivada, fennel, lemon
* grilled chicken, roasted peppers, mozzarella, salsa verde

soup of the day
* cannelini bean, tuscan kale, sausage

also
* warm olives with orange, rosemary, garlic, crushed red pepper
* brownie biscotti with walnuts and (we think) currants

Everyone seemed to enjoy their meals and would go back again. The clear winners of the menu were the brownie biscotti and the marinated olives. The soup was hearty but a little on the bland side. The grilled chicken panini was reportedly a good standard for the less adventuresome, and they did not skimp on the meat in the prosciutto panini.

Toast is within easy walking distance of the American Tobacco Campus (although coming across the tracks can be a bit dicey - best to go down to the light at Blackwell.) I'll probably go back next week. :)

Addendum:
Oops! Sorry, DurhamFood! I got the face right and the blog wrong. :( I'm really bad with names, and DurhamFood and Durham Foodie are just too similar... ;)

I went out to the Korean restaurant Chosun Ok last night for the first time, and I really enjoyed it. I haven't had Korean in I can't tell you how long - probably nearly 10 years. Annapolis has always had a very poor selection of ethnic cuisine (although the seafood can't be beat.)

I went with k and b, and also critter and his wife CA. We had a good time sharing and tasting others' dishes. I got the pork bulgogi, which was mighty tasty, and shared an order of steamed dumplings which were fantastic. Both k and I agreed that they might be the best dumplings either of us had ever had. I also had a house salad, and their ginger dressing is the best I've had in the area, hands down.

I also got to taste some kimchi pancake (or bindaetteok), critter's stir fried octopus which was nicely tender, k's pork belly which had been cooked in a nice spicy sauce with kimchi, and b's beef dolsot bibimbap. I would have tried CA's tofu soup, but I'm not a tofu person.

All of the sides were good, but the kimchi and the pickled spicy cucumbers were just awesome. There were potatoes in a sweetish brown sauce, broccoli with a small amount of spicy red sauce, mung beans, and some kind of marinated tofu (which again I avoided.) There was so much food and it was all so good that I definitely ate more than I needed to. Still, it was a wonderful experience, and I recommend it if you get a chance to go there.

Last night, I got dinner with my friends kph and b at Watts Grocery, and it was fabulous. Better than the brunch experience I had a month ago, which was good, but not this impressive.

We split a couple of appetizers: the Fried Green Tomatoes with shrimp remoulade and the Fried Chicken Livers served warm with grilled baguette and sherried onions - both were very good. For my entree, I had the Apple glazed Pork Porterhouse with double-stuffed baby beauregard sweet potatoes, sauteed lemony escarole, and creole mustard sauce. It was outstanding. I wish I were enough of a foodie to describe why it was so great, but all I can tell you is that it melted in my mouth, and the sweet potatoes were an excellent accompaniment.

I tried both kph's and b's entrees as well, and all three of them were very good, but I think I won. ;) b had the 12oz Hand-cut Ribeye with Buttermilk Smashed New Potatoes, Grilled Asparagus, Pimento Cheese Butter and Jim Beam Brown Sauce, and it was very tasty. kph had the Molasses Chile glazed Organic Salmon over collard green risotto in its pot licker, which was also good, although a little on the sweet side for me.

Both b and kph had desserts, but desserts aren't generally my thing. They did look yummy, though.

In general, I can't believe that this place is so well priced - the food is very much worth every penny. I'll be going back there again as soon as I can.

Afterwards, I found out from my friends Chris and Melanie that Six Plates was having its opening night, so we went to join them there. I had already eaten, but I got a glass of wine (don't ask me which kind, I don't know from wines). I got a tour from co-owner Sherry Everett. The decor is very nice, and the space seems very inviting - they've done a great job. I'll be going back there on my birthday to try some of their food. I'm looking forward to it. :)

Dad was coming through town today and so we had brunch at Watts Grocery. I had the Eggs Benedict equivalent with crawfish and Andouille sausage (yes, I'm cheating on the pesce-veggie diet again), and Dad had the Huevos Rancheros. Dad thought the huevos were too mild and should have ahd a spicier option, but were still good. Mine was pretty decent, although I found the flavors to be a bit muddled somehow. Next time I'll try the shrimp grits. The wait staff was very cordial and on top of things. I'm not much of a foodie, but in general it was a good experience. I'll definitely go back.



On our way out we stopped at High Strung next door. I had a nice chat with one of the ladies who work there. The space on Broad Street is much larger and nicer than their Ninth Street location was, with lots of places to sit and play instruments and an attractive stock for sale. One of these days, I'll go buy a violin from them and try to learn it.

I flew home yesterday after my week in Portland, and boy, was I glad to get home. A week is a long time to be gone from my kitties.

On Friday, after the conference ended, I managed to get over to the Portland Art Museum and saw the Rembrandt exhibit and some of the Asian art collection. Then the group had sushi (well, two of us had sushi, two of us chickened out and had teriyaki) at a complete hole-in-the-wall restaurant called Koji that was close to our hotel and had been recommended by the info desk. The sushi turned out to be passably good.

On the return trip, I took a controlled number of photos from the airplane this time. In fact, I wasn't going to take any shots at all on Saturday, and subsequently missed some really nice shots of downtown Portland in the sunrise. Silly me. In any case, I'm glad I got some good shots of Mt. Hood from the plane.

Today I took the technical track for the eduCause sessions, and I found several small items that we need to check on / document on the technical side, and also a few good ideas from other institutions for when we start doing entitlements / provisioning for services. So it was a useful day.

We went to dinner at the Heathman Hotel Restaurant, which came highly recommended as the chef is renowned. The food was quite good, especially the Dungeness crab salad, but the service was terrible. Nothing like a server who is both stingy and has a snappish attitude to put you off your food. It was too bad, because in general I give servers a lot of leeway since a lot of my friends are in the food industry, so I can sympathize with their hectic jobs. In any case, the general consensus was that South Park Seafood Grill was better on Sunday night.

One of my co-worker friends had a bit of a breakdown over dinner - this is something that had been building up for a while, clearly, and it finally came bubbling up. I could totally sympathize with this, having been there myself before. I can remember a couple of times in the .bomb era when I was under a lot of pressure and had impossible deadlines and was working 80+ hours a week when a negative comment or an immovable object would arise and I would go to the bathroom and sob my heart out. Then I would try to calm down and collect myself, and go back out and continue to try to slay the dragons. It's never easy to recover from those episodes, but sometimes they happen. And the best thing is to recognize for yourself how much stress you are really under and learn how to let off the steam earlier before it either explodes or implodes. I hope my friend will be able to use this situation to make some changes in her life, to help her cope better and enjoy life more.

Remember, there's more to life than work - stop and smell the roses once in a while. :)

Today I got very little sleep before flying out to Portland, Oregon for the eduCause Shibboleth CAMP and Advanced CAMP that I'm attending this week. Since I have a lot of trouble sleeping on planes and I was tired and punchy from getting very little sleep last night, I took over 100 photos from the airplane. That, and I love the southwest. I have very fond remembrances from seeing the Grand Canyon, the Painted Desert, the Cliff Dwellings and the crater at Winslow, Arizona from when I was 8 and we were living in Coronado, California. When I drove across country in 1995, New Mexico struck me even more as a beautiful, hard landscape, that was made softer than Arizona by the colors of sage, a dark pine sort of scrub brush, and the reds and whites of the sand. If there's anywhere I would live other than Durham, it would be Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The colors didn't turn out very well in the photos, but it was wonderful to see these places again from the air.

Once in Portland, I was struck by how lush and green a city it is, and how clean it seems in comparison to most big cities. The group from Duke had a lovely meal at the South Park Seafood Grill and Wine Bar and the conversation flowed nicely with the delicious entrees and excellent Oregon Pinot Noir we had. Ammendment: the wine was from Cristom Vineyards.

Click the Flickr stream for a slimmed-down version of all the pictures I took. Yes, I really did leave some out.



    "Patriotism swells in the heart of the American bear." - Fozzie Bear

Today was a bit different from yesterday - I went to a couple of great sessions on Java Server Faces, Spring, and Hibernate; and Open Source SOA. I also got a chance to go to the Java Pavillion trade-show thing and also look around the neighborhood more properly.



I forgot to take a shot of the folks at dinner - I got to meet sto, and see hlf and bc and see how they're ajusting to the west coast. Rob and moose were also there, and we had a good time. We also ate some excellent sushi at Sanraku, and some locally-brewed beer at The Thirsty Bear. Yum!

It's truly wonderful to have one of the best restaurants in the nation in your back yard. Last night I went to the Magnolia Grill, an awesome experience.




I took my friend Dean as a thank-you for taking me to the hospital last week. Also, I was really looking for an excuse to go again, as I've been wanting to go since my birthday in December and hadn't found a chance to go - the one time I tried, it was full, even in the bar area, which doesn't take reservations.

Dean took photos of the meal with my inept digital camera, and unfortunately almost none of them turned out, as the flash was off so we wouldn't disturb other patrons. But I did snag a copy of the menu on the way out, so I can report on what we had:

I had the following:

• Garlic Soup with Shrimp, Spanish Chorizo & Foccacia Croutons
• Grilled Atlantic Salmon in Citrus Emulsion with Herb Salad on Choufleur Fondue with Gingered Savoy Cabbage & Glazed Root Vegetables
• A glass of Vouvray - Loire - Pichot 2005

Dean had this:

• Creole Red Bean Soup with Andouille Sausage & Slow-Cooked Pork
• Local Watercress & Radicchio Salad in Hot Bourbon & Apple Bacon Vinaigrette with Maytag Blue Cheese Mousse, Roasted Walnuts & Sundried Cranberries
• A glass of Sangiovese "Badiola" - Italy - Mazzei 2003

We also split this:

• Grilled Octopus Salad with Lobster Romesco Sauce, Roasted Almonds & Peppers, Caperberries & Arugula

(Sorry, Bettina. I don't have the same problem with eating octopus as you do.)

It was all so fantastic! Dean didn't think the soups were that special, but I loved mine and tried his which I thought was even better. And the salmon was so tender it would melt in your mouth. Mmmmm.

Not something that I can afford to do everyday - although it turned out to be only about $100 with tip. I'm going to promise myself not to let it go three years before I go again



Happy campers, post meal

I haven't posted any pictured of my kitties yet, so I thought I'd remedy that today. I can never seem to get good shots of them - Zoot in particular - because they interact with me too much instead of posing for the camera. In any case, here are my babies:




Zoot, my most special precious baby girl. She's 11 years old, and has periodic health issues which may or may not be FIP-related - the vets always say the tests are inconclusive. Zootie is a complete spoiled brat, highly temperamental, pretends to be friendly to strangers and then turns around and scratches them, has a serious pot belly happening, and in most other ways resembles me in the extreme. She's my soulmate kitty.




Chester is indeed female, as are most calicos (except in Saudi Arabia, where I'm told male calicos are unusually frequent.) She's 14 years old, and a very sweet kitty. She will allow you to pet her if she approaches you first, but you must be very respectful. She's sort of the red-headed stepchild in this family, and she comes second in the pecking order at the food bowl. But she's a very good kitty. She always knows when I'm upset and comes and sits on my lap.

Unrelated picture of a Christmas present my Mom gave me:




A drawing of the front of Chick and Ruth's Deli in Annapolis, MD, done by a local artist whose signature I can't read. Chick and Ruth's is an authentic deli with awesome reubens, chocolate malts, and free pickles on the table. I used to hang out there a lot in high school. It's one of the few places in the downtown historic district that still remains from my high school days, aside from the pubs and Oceans II records.

Update: I'm now linking to Chick and Ruth's website, since Joe rightfully complained. And it turns out that they spell it "Delly" - not sure why I never noticed that before.