Saturday, January 4, 2014. Putting On A Skirt. Honduran Breakfast.
The weather guys say that the Cool Water Ranch will feel temperatures in the mid-teens in the next few days. It's all because of the Polar Vortex--something new to me. The vortex usually lives up to its name, but it slipped off the North Pole like a cap worn at a rakish angle, and is sending very cold air across the eastern half of the country. It's a measure of how mild our recent winters have been that I haven't had to hang skirts across the crawl space for years. They keep most of the cold air from getting under the house. As much of a jerry-rig as this seems, it works so well that you can feel a difference inside. But the tarpaulins I used for the skirts were worn after ten or twelve years, and I threw them away. I was thinking of using leftover sheet metal from the new roof we put on a year ago. But Mary Ann doesn't like that idea. She wants to build permanent planter boxes instead of buying new tarps. But there is no way that will be done anywhere near in time. Tarps it will have to be. [caption id="attachment_40705" align="alignnone" width="480"]
A grande breakfast at Baleadas Express.[/caption]
Across the street from Home Depot is a new Honduran restaurant that a couple of listeners told me about. Both the name Baleadas Express and the strip-mall look suggest a takeout place, but they have full table service. The main meal seems to be breakfast, which was still available at almost one in the afternoon. I had a platter that included scrambled eggs with chorizo, beans, and slices of what I think was round steak, marinated and grilled. A cup of a cheesy sauce and some flour tortillas completed the ensemble. The idea of a baleada is that you fold all these ingredients into the tortilla and eat away.
I found that out by looking for some further info on the restaurant. At least a dozen restaurants called Baleadas Express are in Honduras. Whether this is a chain I don't know, but it looks like one. If all the other locations are in the homeland, maybe that will work. It's an interesting addition to the scene, anyway.
Baleadas Express. Covington: 330 Falconer D. (985) 898-8181.
Sunday, January 5, 02014.
Great Underpriced Steak In An Unexpected Place.
I had to go back to Home Depot to buy more material for skirting the house. I'm using canvas drop cloth instead of tarps for the job. It doesn't look great, but it's already warming up the house.
Mary Leigh and The Boy joined me for a mid-afternoon dinner at Trey Yuen. It was ML's idea. I was thinking about the Presidential chicken, a spicy dish I've always liked at the Wong Brothers' Asian palace in Mandeville. But the young ones each had chicken on their minds. So I relinquished my claim on that meat.
[caption id="attachment_40703" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Choo-choo chicken at Trey Yuen.[/caption]
Both their dishes were spicy. In fact, "Spicy Chicken" was the name of one of them. Which, The Boy said, was not quite as spicy as the dish at Mary Leigh's position. Choo-Choo Chicken is cut into morsels, deep-fried, and coated with a thick, translucent sauce that was a sweet as it was spicy. I'm wary of the deep-fried Chinese dishes that seem to be taking over a lot of menus, to their detriment. But this, I had to admit, was pretty good.
Still my entree was easily the best dish on the table. I was going to order the steak kew, mainly because last time I was here Frank Wong told me he was proud of his new recipe for the dish. But Tommy Wong was in the kitchen today, and he had his own tout. "Try the steak with green beans," he said. I almost always follow such orders from chefs.
[caption id="attachment_40702" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Steak with green beans at Trey Yuen.[/caption]
What came out was undoubtedly a Regular Customer/Food Writer special. The steak part was tenderloin, cut into pieces as large of some petit filets I've seen in other restaurants. I'd estimate that there was about twelve ounces of beef here. It was nicely encrusted with seasonings, and the sauce had a beefy, savory flavor. It was among the three or four best dishes I've ever had at Trey Yuen.
My guess is that they don't routinely serve filet with this, but that you could get it at an upcharge if you asked. The standard cut of beef for this is ribeye--already a step up from what one usually finds in Chinese places. The menu price was $18, which some will register as high for a Chinese restaurant. That's absurd. If a similar dish were to turn up in a Creole bistro, it would be at least $30.
And I could only get about two-thirds of this dish down before reaching total satiety. Lots of leftovers came home to Mary Ann on this day.
Trey Yuen. Mandeville: 600 Causeway Blvd. 985-626-4476.
