OK, this has nothing to do with the Restaurant Week that the city of New Haven has been organizing recently. This is all about a kitchen in shambles (remodeling, utter destruction) and consequent inability to make my own food (aside from some basic microwaving of leftovers which are long since gone…)

For the last few days then I have been sampling the local restaurants and fast food joints scouting for sustenance…

I have to say, overall, there is NOTHING better than a breakfast steak with two eggs, potatoes, and heavily buttered rye bread at 7pm (courtesy of a local diner Hamden Town House but probably a staple of every diner Ive ever been too). Surprisingly, a turkey melt sandwich with steamed and broiled broccoli piled on top of the turkey between the two pieces of bread is also sensational. I highly encourage whomever is reading this blog to visit (for breakfast  only) the Brownstone House in Hamden (which has nothing to do with a gay bar in Waterbury), right in front of the refurbished Town Hall…

Steak, Fries and Broccoli

Delicious Food

Right across the street from the Brownstone House there is a restaurant: Mickey’s. If you were ever asked whether your soup should come in a bowl or a cup, prepare yourself for an experience of a lifetime, their soups come in gigantic troths! Which is all the better considering that both clam chowder and black bean soup were home-heartedly amazing, and i just love soups. That was not the end though. That night’s special was hanger steak with broccoli rabe and fries. This was by far the best restaurant meal I’ve head in ages. The steak was seared to medium-well perfection, the broccoli was … well … rabe, and the fries… crispy, battered in something delicious, and without the bitter-oil aftertaste.

I sampled some gnocchi too – unbelievable.

Once or twice (or maybe I’ve lost count) I’ve sampled the offerings of the The Golden Star, can never go wrong with General Tso’s Delight featuring jumbo shrimp and chicken pieces battered in some sweet sauce, I don’t ask… I indulge but have problems sleeping afterwards… One plaza over there is Midori. Korean/Japanese restaurant the size of a typical hole-in-the-wall izakaya I used to frequent while living in Japan. Extremely nice atmosphere which reminded me of my Host Mom’s own bar in Hirakatashi… The sushi was very well done, and bibimbop was quite tasty too.

Now for the not so good.

The first major disappointment was Taco Bell on Dixwell. If thinking outside of the bun means pita wrap filled with salt and lard (or something even more greasy, gooey and artificially tasting) then I’ll take the bun, thank you very much. The two sole chunks of chicken in the burrito were so unbelievably processed that I had a really strange aftertaste for two days ! This was my first and last visit to TB (no, not you ThaiBinh). In fact i still twitch thinking how awful the flavor was… For authentic and not much more expensive Mexican food I’ll stick to Mezcal in New Haven (awesome margaritas too)

I love sea food, as it was getting late one day, somewhat out of desperation I decided to look into Red Lobster in North Haven. Very nice server lady unveiled in front of me and Damon a wonderful world of wood-burning grill which was apparently in operation, churning out fabulous meals for the surf (me) or turf (Damon) lovers! Drooling at the prospects I ordered some grilled shrimp in garlic sauce… A few minutes later a complete disappointment arrived on my plate as my microwave oven makes shrimp that are less bland. That was the driest (no sauce), blandest ripoff of a meal I’ve experienced. There were two skewers of shrimp, a dessicated pile of rice and, thank God, I ordered a side dish of a potato – that was probably the most flavorful part of that meal. Damon’s meal was equally disappointing – a chicken breast with the sauce poured after the “cooking process”! One could argue that a sea food joint does not have to do well the non-seafood things… One could also argue that it is REALLY difficult to screw up something as simple as chicken (and yet it did happen)… And, of course the ugly matter of tasteless, dry and yucky shrimp in a “sea-food restaurant”…

Across from there – The Olive Garden. When you come you’re family (as the commercial says, and quite true indeed — aside from very stingy on water refills, the service was pretty friendly… almost too friendly), when you leave, however you’re bloated and sick! I know i was. Even Gold Star can never get me to such stage. I ordered some soup: gnocchi and chicken… with every spoon-full my arteries were clogged by the cream in the soup but that was still nothing comparing to the outcry of my sodium channels hopelessly loosing the battle to the deluge of ions… Salty, Greasy… and thats before i realized that the gnocchi was overcooked… The memories of Gnocchi from Mickeys a few days earlier were just too strong to be satisfied by this poor excuse for Italian food…

Oh, and how does one make bland breadsticks taste “good”?  Well – Olive Garden seem to have perfected the art of adding flavor to breadsticks: baste the poor bread with salt and oil blend… A slice of fluffy, flavourful Italian bread was nowhere  to be seen…

Oddly enough, there was a LOT of basil everywhere. Clearly if there is basil and oregano then the meal must be Italian. The appetizer bread had TONS of basil on it (I suspect there was no flat bread underneath all the basil… I couldn’t verify as i was digging, and digging, and have never actually gotten through the layers of basil), the spaghetti sauce i ordered had tons of basil in it, the meatballs contained a lot of basil… why mask/overpower all the flavors with basil? are you hiding something, Olive Garden, wait was the only flavor in everything basil? Let’s just say that i will not be coming back to OG. Brazzi’s in New haven had some really awesome Spaghetti with meatballs!!! IKEA’s meatballs (part meat, part particle board) were better than OG’s !!!

so…

that’s that…

It will probably be another week or so before I can make my own food, so… there may be more mis-adventures of shpakOO scavenging for food…