Showing posts with label beijing garden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beijing garden. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

More Fun Playing with Ohio City Pasta and Cleveland's West Side Market

Among the many treasures at Cleveland's storied West Side Market is Stand E-3: Ohio City Pasta. In April 2010, I won a random-draw contest OCP ran on its Facebook page, and became entitled to one pound of pasta and one sauce, butter or oil, each month for a year. More than being a tasty prize - the opportunity got us back into the habit of visiting the West Side Market and it was a habit we'd forgotten.

As I documented in the first two blog installments about my luscious prize (here and here), some things at  the WSM change, and others stay the same year after year - it is worth a bit of your time to venture there and play with the food and related offerings. Following are photos from the four months that followed those first two posts, together with some of the meals to which the OCP pastas and toppings contributed.  The narrative resumes with June 2010, and another peek into the OCP case at the Market:



Our sauce/oil/butter pick for June:



Orange Basil Spaghetti

Garlic Chive Linguine

Whole Hawaiian Snapper (Kate's Fish)

 Stuffed with Herbs and Grilled


OCP Orange-Basil Pasta and Garden Green Beans with Roasted Shallot Red Wine Butter, Grilled Hawaiian Snapper

We basically rinsed and repeated for the next dinner, using the linguine pictured above.

July 2010:

OCP Wheat Somen

Cooked

Whole wheat somen under Duck Curry made with Roasted Makinajian Farms duck (LI/NY), garden corn and tomatoes


I believe that we froze the second package of OCP from our July prize because we were going out of town. That pasta (and my apologies that I don't have the variety), appeared in a melange of garden vegetables and cheese a few weeks later:





We didn't get back to OCP until the very last weekend in August. We had just returned from visiting family in NY, and had brought back some lovely ingredients to complement the fresh pasta and our burgeoning garden.



Chicken-Apple Sausage (CZUCHRAJ meats, WSM)

Ohio City Pasta, Garden Tomato, CZUCHRAJ meats chicken sausage, Richter's Orchard (LI) peaches (latter 2 on the grill)


Freshly made mozzarella (AS Pork Stores, 530A Larkfield Road, E. Northport 11731, 631-266-1540)


OCP, Garden Tomato, Garden Italian Beans, Fresh Mozzarella, Garden Basil, EVOO

September is the last month to be covered in this post (I'll try to take the second six months of the prize in two three-month intervals; we'll see how that goes). 

Pumpkin-Saffron Pasta





Pumpkin-Saffron Pasta with Lobster Cream Sauce, Garden Red Onion, Hot Pepper and Italian Green Beans

Whole Wheat-Fennel Pasta

Cooked

Whole Wheat Fennel Pasta with Lobster Cream Sauce

As of this point in the timeline, we had obtained but not yet sampled a roasted tomato-basil oil, and a Cajun Cream Sauce, which lived in our freezer until a couple of weeks ago. More on those items later. The lobster cream sauce and shallot butter were both lovely. Don't expect a lot of lobster pieces (and at the modest price point it sells for, quite reasonable), but the sauce sings with delicate lobster flavor.

We had fun playing with every variety of OCP pasta that we've tasted, as well as the toppings. Hope you've enjoyed reading about them - you can get them at the WSM and at most Heinen's Supermarkets in the Cleveland Area, as well as at the  Shaker Square and Crocker Park outlets of the North Union Farmer's Markets, as well as at Buehlers Grocery Stores (Store Locations) and Whole Foods (Store Locations).

In the next installment - something new for OCP and for us - freshly made extruded pastas - can you say awesome Mac N Cheese? I can!

Monday, August 16, 2010

Fun Playing with Real Chinese Food at Beijing Garden, Twinsburg-Hudson, Ohio

It has been too long since a post has made it out of my larder! I am currently cooking for the Cleveland Area Mensa Regional Gathering in September, trying to utilize the bounty of our garden, planning some trips, working on a new business idea, and, oh yes, working my day job as an attorney. Busy, busy, busy - but always delighted when fellow blogger Tom Noe, picking up on a comment someone left on one of my recent blog posts, suggested that we visit a relatively new Chinese restaurant sitting on the Twinsburg/Hudson border. And so, four of us descended upon Chef Shawn Chen and his lovely restaurant, Beijing Garden, this weekend.

Located in a small strip mall on Rt. 91 (Darrow Road), and easy to drive to, even in a monsoon-like rain that whetted our appetite for Sichuan flavors, all of us made it from different directions around Cleveland-Akron in less than thirty minutes. Bob and I arrived a bit early, and enjoyed a couple of Tshingtao beers (happy hour priced, even on Saturday, at $1.75 each until 8pm). The restaurant has two sides - the left side, with kitchen in full view, is the casual/take-out side, with a few tables for dining in. The dining room on the right is a freshly built-out, contemporary space offering tables and booths (including two large round tables with turntables on them, for traditional Chinese dining). The restrooms (at least the one  that I visited) are spotlessly clean and fully handicapped accessible - my mother and her scooter would be perfectly comfortable here.

Service was friendly and enthusiastic. Chef-owner Shawn Chen was everywhere - front of house, dining room and kitchen. He explained his menu, emphasizing Northern China and Sichuan cuisines. We couldn't wait to dig in!



Our sturdy plastic kuàizi (chopsticks) came in this wrapper, a celebration of Beijing. A nice touch.  

Since there were only four of us, we knew we'd need to exercise some restraint in the number of dishes we'd order. We settled on two appetizers and four entrees, which we knew would generate some leftovers, without overloading ourselves.

Dan Dan Mein 

Wikipedia tells us that the name of this dish "refers to a type of carrying pole (a dan dan) that was used by ambulatory vendors who sold the dish on the streets. Literally, the name translates as Peddler's noodles." I hadn't had it in years; the story I'd always heard was that the name derived from the slapping sound produced during the actual noodle making.


The tender noodles have a gentler texture than your standard Lo Mein noodle, though they are similar in size. These were very fresh.

 

I could have slurped a big bowl of these noodles for my meal! Pork, vegetables and seasonings were expertly proportioned, and we all got a bit of mouth numbing heat from the Sichuan peppercorn in the sauce.  Yum.

Chef's Special Dumplings Pork and Shrimp


Dipping Sauce



We loved these dumplings. Smaller than a potsticker, and not sauced, this little package offered great flavors and textures - a little crunch, a little chew, and savory filling that did not upstage the wrapper, but harmonized with it. The dipping sauce leaned a little to the vinegar side, which cut nicely through the richness.

We took our time and ordered our entrees after enjoying the appetizers. Our servers were impressed, as this is a very Chinese way to order and eat; many Americans are in a hurry when they dine out.

Ma La Eel 


Shredded eel strips were battered and fried with sweet onion, water chestnuts, and a Sichuan Ma La sauce. Wikipedia tells us that "[t]he term málà is a combination of two Chinese characters: "numbing" () and "hot (piquant)" (), referring to the feeling in the mouth after eating the sauce." This sauce absolutely delivered. The eel - not so much. I had failed to communicate to my dining companions what Chef Shawn had told me before they arrived - most of his seafood is frozen (which, given his location and price points below $15/dish, is not at all surprising or even disappointing). Though the breading and frying solved any textural problems the eel might have suffered - like most frozen seafood, it just didn't have a lot of genuine flavor. 

Chicken with Eggplant in Garlic Sauce


This was Tom's entree selection. Chinese eggplant was stir fried with lots of garden-fresh zucchini, onions, green peppers, whole dried chilies (Stuart actually ate one - I was impressed), and chicken, in a light garlic sauce. The sauce was much gentler than the sweet-and-soy-heavy versions often seen on Americanized Chinese menus, and it really allowed all of the flavors of the ingredients to shine through. We all thoroughly enjoyed this dish.

Our next dish came out of the kitchen on a flat plate, with a bowl inverted over the food. I immediately recognized this technique from a Chinese cooking class as a molded presentation. The contents had probably been steamed in the bowl, which was topped with a plate. Now, plate on bottom, the server coaxed the steaming hot bowl off of the top of the dish with her bare hands:

Braised Pork with Preserved Vegetable



In contrast to the Ma La or chili heat of the previous dishes, this dish said "Beijing" loud and clear! The preserved vegetable had to have stewed for hours to reach this consistency, and it was very tasty. The pork could have used some additional braising time - the connective tissue was still a little tough. But the meat tasted clean and the meat, vegetables and rice came together as a nice dish. I got the impression that they don't serve it often, and that is a shame. This is a dish that demonstrates how much more there is to Chinese cuisine than stir-fry, by combining braising and steaming with a lovely presentation.

Ironically, the order for our last dish got confused somewhere between the server and the kitchen - after we waited quite a while (remembering that we were being served Chinese style, which means dishes are served as they are ready and not in pre-ordained courses), we asked where our Ziran Lamb was.  This is ironic because the pork dish above could have used that extra cooking time.
Ziran Lamb


Sliced marinated lamb and slices of sweet onion were cooked in "cumin flavor spicy sauce," a "signature dish," says the menu. I love Cumin Lamb, which is a classic Sichuan item, and this version had all of the elements for a wonderful dish - tender lamb, bold spicing and crunchy onions. Unfortunately, I think the kitchen may have rushed this plate a bit because of the ordering mix-up - it was a little over-seasoned for my palate. But don't let that comment deter you from trying this dish - if you like lamb and you like bold spice - you will probably love this dish. 

I was very happy to see two groups of Asian diners enjoy some traditional-looking treats during our visit. I was less happy to see that the restaurant wasn't well populated on a Saturday night. We left around 8pm, and I don't think they ever had more than 4 other tables occupied, in addition to ours, at the same time. So, I'm getting the word out! You'll find all of your Chinese-American favorites priced under $10 a plate (except seafood items, which average $12), and a lunch special ranging from $5.50-7.95.

Beijing Garden has a beer and wine license and happy hour is 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Monday to Saturday and all day on Sunday. I didn't look at the wine list and I don't know what the happy hour discount is; the small beer list is light and lagery, which pairs well with spicy food, and is priced at Happy Hour at $1.75 for the imports and either $1.25 or $1.50 for domestic (sorry, I should have written that down). The restaurant offers four different varieties of tea. The menu has recently been revamped a bit, so the one you are handed may not entirely follow the on-line version, but the substance is the same.

If you enjoy Chinese food - whether authentic or Americanized, you will enjoy dining at Beijing Garden. Put yourself in Chef Shawn Chen's hands and be prepared, if you are willing, to journey to Northern China, Sichuan - or both! We had fun playing with Sichuan and Beijing food at Beijing Garden and look forward to returning.

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