Lee and I busted out our new blackberry gin a few Saturdays ago while watching the Capital Pride Parade roll through Dupont.  We subbed the blackberry-infused stuff for regular gin to make some mighty refreshing gin and tonics.  Be sure to include a healthy squeeze of fresh lime to balance out the sweetness. You won’t be disappointed.

Blackberry-infused Gin

• 2 pints blackberries
• 2 cups sugar, dissolved in 1 cup of water
• 2 cups gin

Combine all ingredients in a glass container with an airtight lid.  Mash up berries with a potato masher or large spoon. (I used a meat pounder.) Seal and allow to infuse for 2 weeks, shaking vigorously once a day.  Strain out berries, squeezing out excess juice.  You may wish to infuse for more or less time, depending on how intense you want the flavor.

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Post tags: blackberry, blackberry gin, cocktail, gin, gin and tonic, infused alcohol, infusion

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I’ve been trying to come up with a way to use my rosemary-infused vodka, but it’s a pretty distinctive flavor.   Searching for inspiration, I started thinking about how I cook with rosemary: I like it on lamb chops.  I then thought about what other flavors I had kicking around that taste good on lamb (pomegranate, lemon, saffron, cardamom).  Turns out, they also all taste good together over ice.

And then I realized then when you make up a new cocktail, you have to give it a (stupid) name.  I thought about giving it a name that somehow referenced lamb, but that didn’t sound appetizing.  I googled “rosemary vodka” and got several hits for a drink called Rosemary’s Baby. Rosemary’s Baby, as you probably know, was a novel from the 1960s that was later turned into a Roman Polanski film starring Mia Farrow.  I’ve never seen it, so I decided to check out the plot summary on IMDB.

Well, it turns out that the movie is all about SATAN WORSHIPPERS.

I thought… well, I don’t know what I thought it was about, but satan worshippers was NOT at the top of my list.  Needless to say, I don’t think I’ll be naming any tasty beverages after that movie.

Not Rosemary’s Baby

• 2 oz Rosemary-infused vodka
• 1 tbsp homemade grenadine (recipe below)
• 4 oz club soda
• slice of lemon
• dash of Sunshine Bitters

This would probably work better mixed in a cocktail shaker with ice, but this method will work in a pinch.  Combine vodka and grenadine in a glass with ice.  Stir to combine.  Top with bitters and soda.  Squeeze the juice out of the lemon, then drop rind into the glass so the citrus oils infuse the drink.  Stir and enjoy.

Rosemary-infused Vodka

• 2 cups vodka
• 2 sprigs fresh rosemary

Place all ingredients inside a glass jar with airtight lid.  Seal and allow to infuse for 4 days, shaking vigorously once a day.  Remove rosemary.  You may wish to infuse for more or less time, depending on how intense you want the flavor.

Homemade Grenadine

Grenadine, as you may or may not know, it actually made from pomegrante juice.  A lot of people dislike the taste of grenadine, probably because the stuff you get in the store is artificially flavored.  Real grenadine tastes much better and is super easy to make.

• 2 cups pomegranate juice
• 1 cup sugar

Simmer juice and sugar until thick and syrupy.  Pour into an airtight container.  Keeps in the fridge indefinately.

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Post tags: alcohol, cocktail, grenadine, infusion, pomegranate, rosemary, rosemary vodka, Rosemary's Baby, sunshine bitters, vodka

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Frankly, I don’t like eating cucumbers all that much.  They’re just so… watery.  And kind of, well… blah.  And every time I try to make a nice vinegary salad with them, they release all their liquid and dilute the dressing.  I’m not even sure if cucumbers have any real nutritional value aside from some fiber, which makes them even less worth eating in my book.

But cucumbers in a drink is an entirely different matter.  In fact, I think cucumber and gin might be the next great flavor combination, right up there with peanut butter and jelly or lamb and mint.  I’ve read that some gins (namely Hendrick’s) are made with cucumber, which explains why the flavors seem to pair so perfectly.  In any event, I really encourage you to try making your own cucumber gin.  It’s super easy and completely worth the effort because it takes the lowly gin and tonic to a whole new level.

Cucumber-infused gin

• 2 cups gin
• 4 garden cucumbers (the little chubby ones from the farmers’ market) or 2  supermarket cucumbers

Peel cucumbers and slice lengthwise.  Scoop out seeds and discard.  Slice or chop up cucumber — the shape doesn’t really matter, you just want to maximize the surface area.  Place cucumber and gin inside a glass jar with airtight lid.  Seal and allow to infuse for 4 days, shaking vigorously once a day.  Strain and discard cucumber.  You may wish to infuse for more or less time, depending on how intense you want the flavor.

Cucumber gin and tonic

• 2 oz cucumber gin
• 4 oz tonic water

Combine ingredients in a glass with ice.  Stir.  Garnish with a slice of cucumber, if you like.

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Post tags: alcohol, cocktail, cucumber, drink, gin, gin and tonic

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I’ve been shaking and tasting my infusions every day and, one by one, they are reaching the point where they’re ready to be strained and drunk.  I’ve been working on a few recipes and will be publishing them as I perfect the proportions.

Here’s my recipe for basil-infused vodka and a lemon and basil vodka gimlet.  (I’m not sure if it’s still technically a gimlet without lime juice, but I don’t know what else to call it.)  I can’t take credit for the flavor combination — I saw it on this blog, but they used a different method to make the drink.  In any case, it tastes amazing: bright, refreshing, and perfect for summer.

Basil-infused vodka

This recipe is based off of Chow’s recipe for a basil digestif.  The digestif recipe calls for Everclear 151 because it picks up the flavor faster than vodka.  Everclear is also really strong, and I probably would not be able to type this blog post after consuming a cocktail made with it!  If you want to use this as a mixer, it is probably worth waiting the few extra days it takes to infuse using vodka.

• 1 cup vodka
• 3/4 cup simple syrup
• 7 fresh basil leaves

Place all ingredients in a clean glass jar with an airtight seal.  (I used Mason jars.)  Seal and allow to infuse for 10 days, shaking vigorously once a day.  Remove basil leaves.  You may wish to leave the basil in for more or less time, depending on how intense you like your flavor.

Lemon Basil Vodka Gimlets

• 2 oz basil-infused vodka
• 1 oz simple syrup
• juice of 1 lemon
• 4 oz club soda
• sprig of fresh basil

Crush the basil leaves in your fingers to release the oils.  Combine all ingredients in a glass with ice.  Stir and enjoy.

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Post tags: alcohol, basil, basil infused, cocktail, drink, Everclear, infusion, lemon, vodka

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Oh, hello there. I haven’t blogged in quite a while, mostly because I’ve been out of town a lot, busy at work, and thus not keeping enough food in my house.  It’s gotten to the point where I’ve been making the same three pasta dishes over and over (penne with either carbonara sauce and peas, amatriciana sauce, or chard, raisins, and ricotta cheese).  I was boring myself.  But now that it’s summer (what happened to May?!), I’m excited again to cook and bake things with all the nice fruits and vegetables in the farmer’s market.

Between reading this article on digestifs on Chow.com and getting a giant bottle of homemade cherry cordial for Christmas, I’ve been wanting to infuse my own alcohol.  On Tuesday, I decided I was going to just do it.  So I spent the next two days running around after work in search of Mason jars and buying an embarrassing amount of vodka from the corner liquor store.  For the record, it’s surprisingly difficult to find larger glass canning jars.  If you live in the District, you’ll need to go to either The Container Store in Tenleytown or True Value Hardware at 17th an P.

Once you have your equipment, it’s pretty easy.  I stuck with gin and vodka, as they have pretty neutral flavor profiles.  You will want to use something with a high alcohol content, as it will draw the flavor out of your fruit/vegetable/herb faster. Beyond that, you just put it in the jar with the alcohol and let it hang out until the flavor is the desired strength. Some recipes also call for the addition of simple syrup, but otherwise there’s not much else to it.  Currently in the works are cucumber, blackberry, and ginger gins and lemon, orange, grapefruit, Asian pear, basil, rosemary, and Darjeeling tea vodkas.  I also made a small bottle of Sunshine bitters.  I also whipped up some ginger and lime simple syrups, along with homemade grenadine.

Right now I’m still waiting for most of my flavors to finish infusing.  If they don’t taste terrible, I will post the recipes, along with any original cocktail creations.  I’m generally planning to keep it fairly simple — cucumber gin and tonics, lemon basil vodka gimlets.  However, I am getting pretty excited at the prospect of an alcoholic Arnold Palmer with tea vodka and lemonade.  I’m also contemplating the future: Green tea vodka, soda, and lemongrass simple syrup? Coffee vodka with vanilla bean syrup?  Well, maybe I’m getting ahead of myself here…  I had no idea it would be this fun.  So many possibilities… in the meantime, I need to clean my apartment so I can start inviting people over for drinks.

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Post tags: alcohol, basil, bitters, blackberry, cocktail, cucumber, Drinks, gin, ginger, grapefruit, grenadine, infused alcohol, infusion, lemon, orange, pear, rosemary, simple syrup, vodka

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I just took this loaf out of the oven, and it’s so good than I ran to my computer to type up the recipe.  Now, beer bread does not have quite the same crusty texture and tender crumb as a yeast bread, but it’s quick, easy, and you can make it in an hour.  In other words, it’s about as close to instant gratification as homemade bread gets.

One thing I have learned is that baking with beer is a lot like cooking with wine–you should use beer that you’d actually drink.  If you don’t like how it tastes out of the bottle, you probably won’t like it baked either, so it’s in your interest to spend a little extra for something tasty.  I used Young’s Double Chocolate Stout because it is absolutely delicious.  Young’s is made with actual chocolate and is incredibly smooth.  The trick here is to use a beer that has a rich, malty flavor but is not strongly bitter.  This is a dessert bread and a very bitter beer is going to make your bread taste foul.  (I once made a completely inedible loaf out of some Bell’s Porter.  It was a grayish and tasted like burnt coffee–so, so wrong.)

I seem to be on a bit of a cherry kick here, but you could easily substitute a different type of  dried or fresh fruit.  For Christmas, I recieved a giant jar of homemade sour cherry cordial from Lee’s mom, and this seemed like a great way to use up the tipsy cherries left floating in the jar.  Fresh or canned sour cherries in water would also work just as well.

Chocolate Stout and Tart Cherry Beer Bread

• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup whole sour cherries, pitted
• 12 oz Young’s Double Chocolate Stout

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9″x5″ loaf pan.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together dry ingredients.  Make a well in the center of the bowl and pour in beer and cherries.  Gently fold the flour into the beer, stopping when the dough has just absorbed all the flour.  Be careful not to over mix or stir vigorously, as this will destroy the bubbles and make the bread dense.

3. Pour dough into loaf pan and smooth the top with a spoon or rubber spatula. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

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Post tags: beer bread, bread, cherries, chocolate stout, quick bread, recipe, sour cherries, Young's Double Chocolate Stout

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Ramen from Rai Rai Ken
Nestled on a quiet street in the East Village,  Rai Rai Ken is a little shoe box of a restaurant. There is an L-shaped bar that seats maybe 12 people, and chefs lowers steaming bowls of ramen over the edge of the counter.  Rai Rai Ken serves miso, shoyu, and curry ramen, along with a handful of other seasonal noodle dishes, appetizers, and yakitori.  This place kind of reminds me of the movie Tampopo and the protagonists’ quest for the perfect broth.  Rai Rai Ken’s is rich and multi-layered, and the egg noodles are fresh and wonderfully chewy.

Rai Rai Ken Japanese Restaurant
214 East 10th St, New York, NY 10003
(212) 477-7030

Chocolate Covered Bacon from Roni-Sue’s
Bacon + Chocolate?  How could we go wrong?  My friends and I saw this on Serious Eats and thought we’d make a stop at the Essex Street Market to give it a try. The first bite is all creamy chocolate, but then as you chew, all the salty, porky, bacon-ness starts to come out.  It’s very strange, fatty, and delicious.  Roni-Sue also make some great truffles.  Big ups on the coconut, pineapple, and toffee flavors.

Roni-Sue’s Chocolates
Essex Street Market #24, 20 Essex Street, New York NY 10002
(212) 260-0421

Korean BBQ at Kum Gang San
My aunt’s friend, a long-time New York resident, gave me two recommendations for Korean food–Kum Gang San and Hanbat.  They are only a few blocks from each other, so I let my friends make the final selection.  They chose based on which restaurant had the dirtier sounding name.  We feasted on grilled galbi, bulgogi, shrimp, vegetables, seafood pajun, and sake, all while being serenaded by a piano/cello duo that performed in this strange rock wall outcropping.  Their kimchi is especially good–so good in fact, that the placemats extol the its health benefits (children love New York kimchi, for it has no offensive smell!). Service was harried, and the restaurant was packed on a Saturday night. Ultimately, you can get Korean BBQ that is just as good, if not better, in the NoVa suburbs for cheaper.  However, it’s a fun place to eat with a group, and it fit perfectly with post-dinner karaoke plans.

Kum Gang San
49 West 32nd Street, New York, NY 10001
(212) 967-0909

Interlude: The Return of KTV
If you’ve ever spent some time in Asia, you’ve hopefully had the pleasure of experiencing KTV.  In Asia, they love karaoke and have these bars where you rent out a private room with your own tv, microphones, and drink service. The whole thing was freakishly reminiscent of the bars I went to in Hong Kong–unmarked building, nondescript elevator that opens up to a metallic, overly air-conditioned maze of rooms, all blasting pop music. I don’t know the name of the bar we went to and I’m not entirely sure I could find it again, but I suspect that 32nd Street between Broadway and Madison is filled with these places.

Uncle Ming’s
This was bar #3 of our Saturday night jaunt, so forgive me if my memory is fuzzy.  (The other bar was really small, crowded, and I can’t remember it’s name.)  Uncle Ming’s is this unmarked second floor bar somewhere in Alphabet City.  The space is dark and a sort of like cavern meets sexy French lounge decor. People make out on these couches by the window.  The bathroom door lock is broken.  The bouncer didn’t card any of us.  Everything was red.  But it was way less crowded than the last bar.

Uncle Ming’s
225 Avenue B, New York, NY 10009
(212) 979-8506

Free comedy show at Beauty Bar
This was actually my favorite bar of the whole weekend. It is resplendent with 60s kitch decor, including old salon chairs, bullet-shaped hair dryers, glitter, and beehives. We saw a free comedy show, which started out as truly abysmal and ended up pretty decently, with the last 3 or 4 comics actually being quite funny. The DJ also played some great music (sounded like the Ramones?) and the drinks were cheap, for NY and DC at least ($5 rail drinks). The only downside was that it quickly grew crowded and too loud to talk.

Beauty Bar
231 E 14th St – New York, NY 10003
212-539-1389

A good weekend all around, even though I didn’t make it out to Flushing to sample some bad ass Chinese food. It’s okay. I’ll be back soon. After all, I’m still hungry.

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Post tags: Bacon, bars, East Village, egg noodles, essex street, grilled galbi, japanese food, japanese restaurant, korean bbq, korean food, KTV, kum gang san, labor day weekend, new york, nightlife, nyc, ramen, shoyu, tampopo

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My first trip to H St occurred several months ago in the form of dinner at Dr. Granville Moore’s and local band night at Rock and Roll Hotel. I’ll admit, I was kind of stressing out. I find that DC nightlife can be rather depressing due to certain breed of suburbanite that flocks to Georgetown and Adams Morgan on the weekend, acts like an obnoxious, then drives drunkenly home, thankful they don’t actually live in the scary city.

But I also keep reading about this mythical creature known as the DC hipster (or “hip-tard” by so-called suburban haters), mostly in the DCist comments threads. Since H St is still a little rough, I figured it might have just enough street cred to keep the striped shirt crew away. Like, there might actually be cool people there. People so cool, they would take one look at me and know that I wasn’t cool enough. I might walk into Granville Moore’s and encounter a sea of shrunken striped sweaters, unwashed hair, and Chuck Taylors. I obsessed that my poser status might be given away due to my lack of canvas messenger bag and 1970s ski vest.

It turns out that H St is cool. But not in the way I was expecting.

Granville Moore’s is this narrow room with exposed brick and dark wood. It’s warm if a bit dimly lit. The windows on the first floor are covered with metal grates, making it seem like you’ve walked into a basement. A bar runs along one wall and there are tables along the other; the upstairs has a similar set up. At 7 pm on a Friday, the place was packed, with a 30 minute wait. We were told by the “hostess” that, “There might be some room upstairs. You can go up there and check if you want.” This seemed a little unprofessional to me, partly because it was so crowded and the stairs were on the other side of the room. Isn’t it the job of the hostess to check if there are free tables? She later went outside to smoke/text message/chat with a girlfriend, leaving several confused patrons milling around aimlessly for a good ten minutes or more.

Despite the hostess, Lee and I decided to wait for a table. Granville Moore’s specializes in Belgian beer and cuisine. Neither of us had heard of many of the beers on their sizable menu, but we were starving, so something full-bodied and flavorful was in order. I ordered a Delirium Tremens Nocturnum, which was delicious: dark, creamy, a little carmel-y and a little bitter.

While waiting for our table, it became apparent that H St is not overrun by motley hipsters. The crowd was on the younger end, but not exclusively. I saw couples out on dates, co-workers of varying ages having a beer after work, groups of middle-aged women, double daters dressed to the nines, sports-bar types.

The menu at Granville Moore’s is small but well-conceived. The specialty is mussels and frites. There are 4-5 types of mussel preparations, from your basic white wine and garlic to more creative incarnations involving Italian or Spanish flavors. There is also a selection of sandwiches and a handful of other entrees. Lee and I ordered a bowl of mussels with pesto and Parmesan, fries with horseradish and curry ketchup dipping sauces, and a steak sandwich to share. The mussels were good, but I think I still prefer a traditional white wine preparation. We ordered a large fries, and they were nothing short of enormous. Imagine slicing a basketball in half and filling it with crispy, herb-y fries. They were excellent but way too big a serving, even for this fry-loving girl. The fries come with a choice of six dipping sauces; you can choose two when you order. The curry ketchup was a standout but the horseradish cream was a little bland. I just don’t think it did anything to compliment the fries, whereas the curry ketchup added a sweet, spicy tang to the salty crunch.

All in all, it was a very good meal—flavorful food, flavorful libations, and a surprisingly homey and relaxed atmosphere. One thing that I hate about DC dining is going somewhere pretentious and paying for mediocre food. Food at Granville Moore’s is tasty and reasonable. The mussels were $14 and those huge fries were only seven bucks. The beers do cost more, running in the range of $7-$10. When it comes to drinks, I’m about quality over quantity. If you’re interested in a lot for alcohol for a low price, you should probably go drink $1 Bud Lights at some shitty happy hour. But if you want to savor delicious Belgian ale with your mussels and piping hot fries, it’s really a small price to pay for a great reward.

Lee and I then rolled ourselves down the block to Rock and Roll Hotel. From what I could tell (it was very dark inside), R&R Hotel is a rectangular room with a small stage, a bar and some neat gothic light fixtures and mirrors. It is not terribly big, but like all good clubs, the bathrooms are covered with incoherent Sharpie marker graffiti. We didn’t stay very long, just to hear a friend who was in the opening act. But, what struck me was that the patrons at Rock and Roll were an even stranger mix than at Granville Moore’s. I saw kids who looked like they had barely graduated high school, as well as a couple old enough to be grandparents, and everything in between (including a few striped shirts). Hiptards, preptards, whatever. They were all there. And that’s why I think H St is cool. In a city that always feels like it’s trying to hard, it is a rare thing to find a place that is legitimately chill.

Better go now, before it gets too safe/clean/gentrified/condoified. Then you won’t be able to keep the riff raff out.

Granville Moore’s
1238 H St. NE, Washington, DC
202-399-2546

Rock and Roll Hotel
1353 H Street, NE, Washington, DC
(202) 388-ROCK

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I returned to Beijing for my final week and spent most of it buying a new wardrobe for myself, swing dancing multiple nights a week, and eating all my favorite foods for one last time (sizzling eggplant with lots of garlic and minced pork, crispy Japanese tofu in sweet and sour sauce, Korean bbq, bottled green tea, and “plain” yogurt that tastes just like a sweet Indian lassi).

I spent my last 4 days in Hong Kong, with a day trip to Macau, which has some fascinating history and a whole lot of casinos. In Hong Kong I ate Indian food twice–at the Delhi Club in Chungking Mansions and at Branto (all veg) on Lock St in Tsim Sha Tsui. I cannot get over how much they’ve cleaned up Chungking Mansions (this slummy block of old apartments and the only place to find “cheap” hostels, mostly inhabitated by East Indian and African folk). It’s better lit; the floor isn’t sticky; there’s much less hawking; and there are security guards that help you navigate the weird maze of buildings, shops, and elevators that only go to odd or even floors. I suppose it’s for the best, but part of the charm was the weird, sketchiness of the place. It’s worth a visit in any case, though I really liked the food at Branto, and the atmosphere was nicer. They had delicious fresh mango lassis.

I also had my fill of dim sum and ate 3 servings of mango pudding in 3 days. Hong Kong is definately not designed to be eye-level; all these great restaurants are tucked away on the 2nd floor of rather run-down buildings. Half the time I walk past the signs because I forget to look up.

One thing I love are all the fruit juice stands on the street. For 5 or 6 HKD you can get freshly squeezed juice, smoothies, and tapioca drinks. There are also all sorts of little dessert shops (in TST and also dotted around Mongkok) that specialize in various fruit and geletin concoctions. They’re delicious on a hot, sticky day (which is most days in Hong Kong).

But, the bottom line is, it’s all over now.  I’m back home and recovering from my jetlag. I think my life might suddenly become a lot less interesting. We’ll see.

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