Dick's Hideaway

One of the places I've heard a lot about in Phoenix is Richardson's. Apparently they are one of the "must go" places if you want to try New Mexican cuisine in Phoenix. After a long day of car shopping (see Tara's blog for that fun time), I was driving semi-aimlessly along Bethany Home. I was debating on Hana or something else in the area. Tara thought I was going to Richardson's since I'd mentioned it earlier, so we headed there. We parked near the entrance to Richardson's along the Bethany Home side. As we were walking from the car, she said hi to some guy walking towards us. Apparently he was a coworker I've heard about but never met. He was meeting some people and said Richardson's was packed with a 45 minute wait. I'd been planning on hitting Dick's Hideaway, since it serve the same menu and isn't quite as busy normally. I asked him where the entrance was and he said it was around the corner, and that they were busy, but not as bad. After looking over the menu posted in front of Richardson's door, Tara said she could find something (she's not into spicy food) and we headed over to Dick's.

Around the corner on the 16th side, an unmarked doorway had a menu board next to it with the Dick's menu. We entered a dimly lit, bar-looking place. No hostess was evident and I peeked into what looked like a large wine cellar to the immediate right. It was a dining room, but set up for a private party. A waitress said we could at the lone remaining two-top (a short bar-like table at the back) or take a seat at the end of the bar. We took the bar seating. The waitress handed us two place mat menus (with Richardson's Dinner Menu along the top, instead of Dick's) and took our drink order of water with lemon for each of us.

The menu is divied into several sections: Soups, salads, pizzas, house specialties, and Sante Fe Trail. The specialties run from $21 for a pasta to New Mexican surf and turf for $29. The Sante Fe Trail items range from $9 for a cheeseburger to $16 for a cheesesteak sandwich. The Carne Adovada on the SFT side caught my eye while Tara settled on grilled bacon-wrapped shrimp. She asked the waitress about non-spicy items, and this was suggested, minus the spicy sauces normally include. A house salad was subbed for the spicy rice and beans with no problem.

Behind the bar was where there were cooking all the food. We were able to watch them prepare our meal as well as others. It was kinda fun, but the barstools were a bit high for Tara and her legs were hurting. Luckily the food came out fairly quickly.

Her salad was a fairly basic salad with ranch dressing. The portion size was pretty good and the vegetables were nice and fresh. It looked like it could use more salad, but was a good alternative to the spicy carb fest of rice and beans.

Her meal was six good-shrimp wrapped in bacon, service on a large platter with three sauces arrayed on it. She thought it was ok. Something was a bit spicy and she also bit into something hard that might have chipped or broken a tooth and caused a toothache. She's going to visit the dentist for it this week. So in addition to paying for taking her to Dick's, I get to look forward to her holding this over my head as well. :)

My carne adovada came out of the oven on a large metal plate. A large tortilla was spread on the bottom of the plate and the carne adovada, rice, beans, and cheese were put on top of it. A heated tortilla was folded into quarters and set on top of that. Once it cooled, I took a bite, and loved it immediately. The simmered pork was fork tender and the flavor and spice of the red chili permeated the meat. It was a low-level heat the built up slowly. It was a great, full flavor, and in short order, I was feeling the heat and mopping my head. It was a huge portion for the $12 menu price, and I ate about half of the meat and all the beans and rice.

Service was good. The waitress did her best to try to give Tara some non-spicy options, and we knew going in that that might be a problem. A large carafe of iced water was put on the bar in front of us, so we never lacked drinks. With the side room booked, the bar area was nearly packed. I really enjoyed it and would go back in a heartbeat to try some of the other SFT options. I'll just have to drop Tara off at Hobe Meats next door with a portable grill and she'll be more than happy.

Lack o' Updates

Sorry for the lack of posts this past week. My trusty Blogomatic (aka my laptop) didn't like it when I tried installing a Bluetooth adapter. It lobotomized my laptop so that it couldn't connect to any networks. Luckily, one of my coworkers mentioned a way to rebuild my laptop and once I did that, it worked great. I'm still tweaking things, but hope to be back to regular posting soon.

TiVo Addiction

Ever since I got my first TiVo back in 2000/2001 (can't remember exactly), I've loved them. Right now, I have, well, let's just say more than one. My primary one has been acting like the drive was dying, so I decided to replace the hard drive. I've done it several times before on my two original Series1 boxes. I've got all Series2 now for the wireless ethernet capability and TiVoToGo. I went to Fry's Electronics over the weekend, and they had a 300GB drive on sale for $59.99. This TiVo was a 140hr from the factory, so I figured this would give me about 300 or so hours. Thankfully the TiVo upgrade community had polished the home upgrade software, so all I had to do was download a CD image, burn it to CD, and haul one of my desktops out of limbo to use for copying the info from the old to new drive. I'm a fairly skilled technogeek and have built all of my desktops myself, so this was easy. Once I configured the drives, I booted up via the CD I burned, and literally had to run one command and it was all hands-off from there. The last time I did it, I had to have a couple bootable floppy disks and run some obscure commands. This was sweet. So I kicked it off and a mere 22 hours later, the copy finished and I've now got a 366-hour TiVo using Basic quality. Even at High quality (my default) I've got 167 hours, more than the Basic capacity before I upgraded. Granted it's not a dual-tuner, HD-capable, but it'll work for $60. :)

The only downside is I pulled my 80-hr TiVo from the back bedroom to use in the living room while I upgraded, and it died yesterday afternoon. Does that fall into the Irony category? At least if I can get the drive up, I can copy the base image onto my desktop until I can get a replacement drive. Otherwise, Tara won't shed a tear if I lose one of my many TiVos (and TiVo-knockoffs). :)

Super Dragon - Phoenix

After the debacle that was our visit to Gourmet House, I was in the mood for some good Chinese. As has become a semi-ritual, we decided to got to Super Dragon on our way to shop for groceries Sunday night. We got there a bit after 7 and snagged a spot in the lot as a car was leaving it. Several huge parties were there, but after a short wait for a booth to be bussed, we sat. During our meal, a party of 8 and a party of 16 came in and were somehow seated with no problems.

We got the pan fried dumplings, hot and sour soup for me, Sesame Chicken for Tara, and Orange Beef for me. I also got a pot of tea.

The soup was so much better than the stuff at GHHK. The flavors were balanced and it lacked the horribly overpowering vinegar taste that plagued GHHK's. I really enjoyed it. The dumplings were nicely fried and came with a nice soy-based sauce. We cleaned that plate in short order.

Our meals came out and somehow they brought me Orange Chicken instead of Beef. The waiter took the dish away and said the correct one would be up shortly. Tara's Sesame Chicken was as ordered. It's got a nice sweet flavor, with distinct sesame overtones. We really like this dish, and it was Tara's favorite up until my Orange Beef arrived about 10 minutes later.

Very dark pieces of beef in a dark sauce filled the large plate. Several whole hot peppers were mixed in, but we picked them out. Small bits of orange peel were also evident. The pieces of beef had been breaded and fried and were buttery soft. The sauce had a very savory flavor, and while it didn't seem very orangey to me, it was an outstanding flavor. Unlike the "sauce" on GHHK's Orange Beef, this had a full flavor bouquet. Tara tried a piece and immediately declared it her favorite. She loves savory over sweet, and apparently this was right up her alley. We each had about 2/3 of our dish leftover, and she took some of my leftovers instead of hers for lunch today. That was fine, since I really like the Sesame as well.

The memory of the horrid meal at GHHK displaced with this outstanding one, we left the restaurant very happy.

Yasu's - Lunch visit

I was craving sushi this past week, and I was torn between Hana and Yasu. Hana is great, but Yasu is closer for a lunch visit. I picked Yasu. I really enjoyed our first visit for dinner, so I had high hopes.

Unfortunately, they were dashed. The miso soup I got was a pale shadow of the great soup I had on that first visit. The California roll was uber-generic and something that was even below the supermarket stuff in terms of ingredients and presentation. I know Cali rolls aren't anything special, but done right, they can be really good. This was not. My shrimp tempura roll was equally mundane. I had to ask for eel sauce on the side as it wasn't served with the roll, as it is most places I go. I got some yellowtail, albacore, tuna or salmon (can't remember) and unagi nigiri. The eel was tepid, like it had been sitting out for too long after it was toasted. It had good flavor and texture, though, and didn't make me queasy like the order I had recently at Shiro. The rest of the nigiri was nearly room temperature, also leading me to believe my plate had spent some time just sitting in the back before it was served. All in all, I felt like I should have taken the extra time and gone to Hana.

Service and pacing was also an issue. After sitting for 20 minutes, the waiter said my soup would be out in 5 minutes. Um, how long does it take to ladle soup into a bowl? Then my soup came, and within a minute, both rolls were brought out at the same time. My nigiri came out just as I finished the rolls. Towards the end of the meal, my water was just about empty and several times my waiter walked by (my table was right next to the kitchen doorway), glanced at it, but didn't do anything. Finally, when I was obviously finished, he stopped by and asked if there was anything else. I pointed to my water and asked for a refill. He grabbed the glass and vanished into the back. For another 5 or 10 minutes, I didn't see him. An older waiter stopped by and asked if everything was ok, and I mentioned my missing water glass. He went to get me some more and just as he vanished around the corner, my waiter came from the other direction with my water. I'm not sure what happened, but it was very odd.

All in all, it wasn't a very good lunch. It was better than Shiro, but that's damning with faint praise. As for the rather Spartan rolls, I know it was lunch, but nothing was mentioned as far as the rolls being different than the dinner options. I did notice that the lunch menu seemed to omit the page that lists all the grilled items that I thought was their specialty, so that threw me as well. They seem to be more generic for their lunch offerings than for dinner. If I'd known that, I definitely would have chosen Hana.

I've been to Tokyo Lobby for both lunch and dinner on multiple occasions, and they have the same quality and presentation for both meals. They are also a bit more adventurous with their rolls as well. The cinnamon added to the shrimp tempura rolls adds a great dimension. I know Yasu doesn't bill itself as a sushi-centric place, but given the creativity of their grilled items at dinner, I expected something more than what I got.

Gourmet House of Hong Kong

Last night we were going to cook in, but Tara worked late and I did a long stint at the gym, so we decided to go out for something inexpensive. I suggested Centro, Sabuddy, or Chinese. She wasn't in the mood for panini (I was, but I always am for the Italian Press there...) and said Sabuddy or Chinese was fine. I thought of going to Super Dragon, our usual one, but as usual, I remembered that Seth had been to a good Chinese place recently, Gourmet House of Hong Kong. I suggested that and Tara was game.

GHHK is at McDowell and 14th Street. Not the best neighborhood, but the review, and others comments, suggested it was worth trying. We pulled into the lot at a little after 8 and found a spot. The interior has an interesting layout. A small area with a large cooled case for drinks is inside the doors. Turning left, you see the kitchen area and a hallway. Straight behind the cooler case was a darkened room, which I thought was the main dining room. That confused me, since they were supposed to be open til 9:30 or so. However, the hostess turned left and left again, revealing the real main dining room behind a short wall that I didn't see before. It was off the corridor by the kitchen. The dining room is dominated by several huge round tables with lazy susans on them that seat eight or so. Smaller two-tops line the walls. Two huge parties were finishing up and we were led to the far back wall to a two-top. We sat down, ordered a couple waters w/lemon, and looked at the menu.

And what a menu. It's very extensive, with pages and pages of items. We didn't get one, but Seth mentioned that they also have a second, more authentic Chinese menu. After spending about 10 or 15 minutes, we finally narrowed our choices. I was waffling between Wunan Beef and Orange Beef while Tara was torn between a couple of the combination plates. When we finally signaled the infinitely patient waitress we were finally ready, we got the appetizer combo, I got a medium bowl of hot and sour soup, Orange Beef for me, and Chicken Chow Mein combo for Tara. Her combo came with a small wonton soup, an eggroll, and chicken puff. I also ordered a pot of tea.

The first warning sign was when the tea was delivered. I peeked inside and it had two tea bags sitting in the water labeled "oolong". I poured a cup and got clear water. The busboy stopped by and said it still needed to seep. Huh? At every other restaurant I've ever gotten tea, when the pot is on the table, I can pour and get tea. And 99% of them use real loose tea, not tea bags. I poured my cup of water back into the pot and waited, hoping this wasn't a precursor to something worse.

Tara's wonton soup arrived a few minutes later. A small bowl had three wontons in the bottom. I tried the broth and it seemed tasty. Our appetizer combo came out shortly after and it contained many piping hot items: 2 pan-fried dumplings, 2 chicken wings, 2 fried shrimp, an egg roll, and a fried bread stick. A small plate with a bowl of duck sauce and a smaller bowl of mustard came with it. I put one of each pair on my plate to cool and tried half of the fried bread. It was ok. Once the others cooled, I tried each and the were nothing special. Tara said the dumplings reminder her of Schwans' egg rolls from growing up. She didn't mean it as a bad thing, as she liked them growing up. Nothing really had any distinguishing flavors for me.

My hot and sour soup showed up while we were eating the appetizers. A large, probably 20-oz or bigger held molten soup. I needed to let each spoonful cool a long time before I could actually try it. I first tried hot and sour at Super Dragon a few weeks ago, and loved it. This time? Not so much. There was way too much vinegar in the soup and it dominated the whole dish. It did have a nice thick consistency, with lots of tofu, chicken, and salad shrimp, but the vinegar was overpowering. It reminded me of when we colored Easter eggs growing up. I'd barely put any type of dent into the massive "medium" serving when our entrees arrived. Since our table top was very cluttered, I asked if the waitress could box the soup to-go.

Tara's combo had lots of bok choy, noodles, and chicken. What it lacked was any flavor. She doused it with a large amount of soy sauce and when I tried it, it still lacke any flavor. She ate some of the chicken and noodles, but only because she was hungry. "Boring" is how she described it and that pretty much summed up the evening.

My Orange Beef came on a huge platter, easily enough for two or three people. the pieces of beef were much thinner than I expected and the orange sauce was a very light orange. I put some somewhat mushy rice on my plate and tried some of the beef. Hints of orange were almost there, but then they stopped. I tried some beef that was in the sauce at the bottom of the dish and still got nothing. I finally tried some of the sauce by itself, and even then, there was no flavor. It was like the cook was making the dish and got distracted, forgetting the flavorful components. I love Orange Beef and usually use it as my benchmark at new restaurants. This wasn't even worthy of the name. I ate maybe a quarter of the huge serving before calling it quits. I pushed the dish away and waited for the waitress so we could ask for the check.

It was a good fifteen minutes before she finally came by. She asked if she could box anything and we declined. She was very surprised, since we both had more than 2/3 of our respective orders still on the plates. I explained that I just didn't find the beef that flavorful and wasn't how I liked it prepared. She said that lots of people love their Orange and Wunan beef. I told her that I debated between the two, and just chose wrong. She brought the bill and it came to $33. Considering the amount of food, if we'd liked it, it would have been a good deal. However, we didn't, so it really wasn't.

Service was good for most of the meal. However, shortly after our appetizers arrived, we never saw anyone until the end. Our waters up until that point had been diligently refilled. However, by the end, we were both sucking air and never saw him again.

So obviously, we were very disappointed. They seem to not use much seasoning on the dishes we had. Seth said that he's had their Orange Beef before and it had an intense orange flavor. It's possible we hit an off night. However, two bland dishes makes us more prone to skip CHHK and stick with Super Dragon. During our initial visits there, each of us chose a bad dish, but never on the same visit. So we'll stick with them, as they are also closer and the waitstaff is almost anal when it comes to keeping drinks filled.

Hashbrown Hotdish (aka Mormon Funeral Potatoes)

One of my friends recently found out she was having Mormon Funeral Potatoes as a side dish brought by a friend for dinner. She hadn't heard of these and posted on CH asking if anyone had heard of them. Being from Minnesota, Tara had of course heard of them, albeit by the name of Hashbrown Hotdish. After hearing about them all day yesterday, she decided she had to have some today. They actually turned out really good. I asked her for a recipe (she's an eyeballer cook) and she came up with this:

1 package frozen hashbrowns - southern style 1 16 oz. carton of sour cream 2 cans cream of chicken soup 8 oz. shredded cheese (cheddar or colby jack) 1/2 onion, chopped 2 cloves garlic Salt & Pepper 1/2 cup melted butter or margarine 2 cups corn flakes Mix together the first seven ingredients. Top with the corn flake/butter mixture. Bake for 45 minutes or until it's bubbly. The onion and garlic aren't part of the classic recipe, but I added them. If I did it again, I'd probalby saute the onions and garlic before adding them. I wouldn't cook them all the way, but just saute them until they're translucent.

Enjoy!