Day 977: Washington, DC and… Mexican Food?

I’ve been reminiscing about food again.  


I don’t know what my problem is… maybe it’s the large amount of curry I’ve been eating over the last seven month… perhaps it’s the fact that I’ve started to really enjoy the burritos, quesadillas, and fajitas at the Islamabad American Club… even though… there is something… not… quite… right about them.  


I don’t know.  


I think there is some strange alien creature inside me who NEEDS Mexican Food... and that alien is crying, because he knows that come July, just before the whole Schutz clan heads back to Atlanta for our much needed Home Leave, we’re going to spend two weeks in Washington, DC for some training classes… thus denying my alien belly the amazing goodness that is Authentic Mexican cuisine.    


Now, I could be wrong, and please God I hope I am, and someone PLEASE point me in the correct direction, but I have yet to find a quality Mexican restaurant in Washington, DC.  


Sure, I’ve found some passable Tex-Mex chains like Chevy Chase, but my problem with chains is that they’re a bit too much Tex and not enough Mex.  But, I also own the fact that I’m picky.  


The last time we were in DC, we stopped at an authentic looking ‘Mexican’ restaurant complete with an authentic looking ‘Mexican’ menu… with some other Latin offerings, like paella.  


Now, the inclusion of the paella was a red flag.  You see, most ‘Mexicans’ running ‘Mexican’ restaurants in Washington, DC aren’t really Mexicans.  They are normally Central and South Americans pretending to be ‘Mexican’ because it’s a more popular cuisine.  In reality, Central and South American’s have very different diets and for the most part they don’t understand Mexican food… which is why it’s so hard to find authentic Mexican food in Washington, DC.


So, to be safe I went with the Seafood Paella.  I figured if Paella was on the menu I should stay away from Mexican dishes and since we were on the coast the seafood should be good.  Well… the paella was over salted and they used frozen seafood.  Yeah… it wasn’t good.  There is just something about chewy mussels and scallops that just don’t do it for me.  


However, I fared much better than Serena who went with the Burrito.  And I know what you’re probably thinking… Burrito’s are easy, how bad could it be?  Well, Serena’s Burrito came stuffed with dry over cooked chicken and bit of raw carrots and broccoli.  That’s right… RAW BROCCOLI!  


Listen, carrots are bad enough, that’s what we’ve come to expect when eating ‘Mexican’ in Europe… but raw Broccoli?  That’s just strange!  Am I wrong?  Have I been out of the States for too long?  Are raw broccoli burritos all the rage these days?  I don’t know about you… but that’s just plain old gross! 


I don’t know… I’m starting to think I should cut European ‘Mexican’ chef’s a break… because I’ve had a LOT of bad Mexican food overseas… but NONE has been as bad as I’ve had in Washington, DC.


And for that… my alien belly weeps.

Day 669: Poisonous Vietnamese River Fish, Part 3

REF: Day 643 & Day 660

Back on day 660, first time commenter ‘Chacho’ posted:

 “careful what you read on the internet. :) cheers,” http://www.ava.gov.sg/FoodSector/FoodSafetyEducation/Debunking+Myths+on+the+Pangas+Fish.htm

Now, I don’t mean to rip on you Chacho, I love my readers… all eight of them… but I took a look at this site… and well… I don’t think my opinion on Pangas has changed at all.  The site doesn’t seem to offer any hard facts except for the various names Pangas goes by around the world and the fact that it is ‘fit for human consumption’.  And the site certainly doesn’t address the fact that Pangas is a breed of catfish farmed in a polluted river.  Catfish are bottom feeders and I don’t eat catfish in the States… from a clean river.  And I’m not terrible excited about farmed fish either… but I am a fish snob and I am comfortable with that. 


I’m pretty certain Pangas IS ‘fit for human consumption’.  If you cook anything long enough and hot enough it will become ‘fit for human consumption’.  However, ‘fit for human consumption’ isn’t really what I look for in my meals. But I am in a position where I can make that decision.  I complete understand this is not a choice everyone can make.


A month ago I was blissfully unaware of Pangas.  Now?  I am noticing it in places I wish it wasn’t.  Like at a ‘fancy’ restaurant.  Last week Serena and I went out to eat with our neighbors to a restaurant called ‘Little Bay’.  It is a very nice opera themed restaurant chain (based in London) that has a pretty reasonably priced menu.  The food is quite good too… considering the fact they serve fillet of Pangas. 


Below, I have included a link to their menu… however, their Belgrade location menu is only in Serbian Cyrillic, and so I’ll need to talk to you through it a little. 
http://www.littlebay.co.uk/LittleBayBeogradJelovnik0310.pdf


Scroll down to the third heading, “ГЛАВНA ЈЕЛА” (Main Course).


I had the 7^th item down, “Бифтек”, a beef steak, for 895 Serbian Dinars.  At the current exchange rate, roughly 75 Dinars = 1 USD, my cost was about $12.00.  Roughly the same cost as a “Renegade Top Sirloin” at Longhorns.


Serena had the item just above, “дин.Ростирани филет лососа”, a fillet of salmon for 695 Dinars or $9.50.  


Now, these prices are insanely good… however, take a look at the very first item, the “Филет пангасиуса” for 395 Dinars… $5 Bucks… it’s a fillet of Pangas.  The price difference is very telling… even at a reasonably priced restaurant… they are essentially giving the Pangas away for free.  This certainly does display any confidence in the product as a quality ingredient… but I guess its ‘fit for human consumption’… so it has that going for it.

Day 665: Mex-Tastic

Ref: Mexican Food Series

It’s been a while since I’ve reviewed the ‘fine’ attempts at Mexican cooking in Europe. And by ‘fine’ I really mean ‘mediocre’ at best.  I was reminded the other day by a friend who was complaining about a Burrito she ordered the previous weekend which contained peas and carrots… peas and carrots… yeah… I don’t know about that.  A Burrito stuffed with peas and carrots sounds more like something Serena would make for Grayson to hide vegetable rather than a dining experience.  But, this Mexi-Oversight is quite normal here.

However, hearing the story of my friend’s woes made me remember a dining experience of Mexi-Worthy proportions that was quite surprising.

Serena and I had been to Pizzeria Snezana a couple of times… and it seems to be our normal lunch stop whenever we take people to the Kalemegdan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalemegdan) and the restaurant itself is located on the famed Knez Mihailova Street, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knez_Mihailova), so it makes for a pretty fun journey on a Sunday afternoon.

Anyway, as the name “Pizzeria”, might suggest, the restaurant specializes in pizza… and we never deviated from that part of the menu.  However, on our last trip I wasn’t feeling the pizza mood and started looking around the menu.  Two items caught my eye.  1) a Chicken Quesadilla; and 2) a basket of Chicken Fingers.  I had to have them… so the family decided to order both, plus a pizza just in case the items turned out to be suck-a-roo.  And when our smorgasbord arrived so did all of my hopes and dreams.  The Chicken Quesadilla and Chicken Fingers were fantastic… especially the Chicken Fingers.  Delicious!
 
Serena gives me a hard time regarding my praise for the Quesadilla, “How hard is it to make a Quesadilla?  It’s melted cheese between two tortillas.”  True… very true… it’s just melted cheese between two tortillas.  I will give her that.  And honestly, because of the cheap simplicity behind the dish, I’ve never ordered it at a restaurant before… however, when living in a part of the world where peas and carrots are added to Burrito’s and cheese is completely left off the menu, like my experience at the Burrito Bar and Kulin, I believe that screwing up a Quesadilla is very possible... and Pizzeria Snezana certainly DID NOT screw it up.  Hmmm… tasty!

DISCLAIMER: I’ve been in Belgrade for a year and a half… I’m not sure how long it’s been since I’ve had real honest to God ‘Mexican’ food or classic American ‘Bar’ Food… I’m not even sure if they exist anymore.   This separation may have influenced my review.

Day 573: Truly Great Chocolate

Serena and I are pretty spoiled. You can get some truly great Chocolate over here. And the fact we have family and friends in Switzerland really helps too. A few days ago, Serena and I were gorging ourselves with fabulous chili chocolates and some ginger chocolate we picked up from the store, when Serena pondered, “I wonder why you can’t find chocolate this great in America… you would thing American’s would have discerning tastes when it comes to chocolate.”

After thinking about it for a moment, I responded, “Yes, but American’s also eat Kraft singles.”

Serena: “Good point.”

Day 549: Mexican Food in Vienna

So… yeah… Mexican food in Europe has been something of an epic story here on SchutzHappens. And well… the story continues… this time in Vienna at a restaurant called “Kulin”. I will break it down fast for you.

1. It took a while to find.

2. They were closed for lunch.

3. We went back for dinner.

4. The service was terrible.

5. The food was gross.

I would have rather been at “Burrito Bar” in Belgrade.

End of story.

Day 537: Mexican Food, Where are you?

Reference: Days 445 and 481

So, I finally bit the bullet… and so far my tip about Mexican food in Europe holds strong.

First, in Belgrade, I finally made it to the “Burrito Bar”. The name sounded promising and upon my arrival the décor seemed to be sending the right message. It appeared as though Santa Fe, New Mexico had exploded on the walls inside. The only drawback about Burrito Bar is the smoke. Cigarette smoke is an issue throughout Belgrade, but Burrito Bar was one of the worst in regards to the thickness of the smoke.

Unfortunately, it was cold and rainy the day I went so I was stuck inside.  However, although I my come across Debby Downer about the food, I plan to take Serena and the boys this spring when we can take advantage of the outdoor seating.

Okay… so the food. Well, first of all… it wasn’t bad. But it wasn’t exactly “Mexican” either. It was as if a Serbian had gone to America, eaten at a Tex-Mex restaurant, was like “wow”, went back to Belgrade and tried to recreate their take on 'Mexican' cuisine by memory.  Things forgotten?  

Cheese, cilantro, and heat.

To their credit, Burrito Bar’s tortillas were fantastic. Their meats were cooked to perfection (Serbians really know how to grill meats). And their homemade tortilla chips were pretty nice as well (but you had to pick through the over and under cooked ones).

Their salsa was actually kind of nice. It was more of a chipotle, smoky, salsa rather than the traditional salsa’s I'm used to in the States… but their Guacamole was a travesty… but a travesty that must be forgiven. Avocado’s are available here, but insanely expensive. What arrived at our table was pretty much a cup of sour cream with just enough avocados to turn the cream a very light shade of green. There was a hint of avocado flavor… but it was more reminiscent of a sour cream based party dip. You know the ones… when you dump the packet of French onion soup into the pint of sour cream? Yeah… that's pretty much what it tasted like.

The strangest part of the meal was the cabbage salad though. Cabbage is a pretty normal addition to every meal in Belgrade, so it wasn’t much surprise… but what was a surprise was the weird mustard sauce on top. It was kind of like a “wannabe” chalupa with a mustard topping. It was very strange and it took me a few weeks to figure out what the deal was with the mustard sauce.

You see, heat and spice is different from culture to culture. In the Americas heat is more commonly defined as coming from peppers. We have a pepper based heat. But in Europe there seems to be a stronger emphasis on mustards as their source of heat. The kind of heat you would get from a nice brown mustard.

I know… culture shock.

Anyway, Burrito Bar… you get an “A” for effort… but alas… you are long way from home… and so am I for that matter.

Day 481: Serbian Fusion

Reference - Day 445: Living Overseas Tip #3

Again, Kerry chimed in and made me realize that I can’t simple throw down a bold statement about Mexican cuisine in Europe without addressing what exactly happened. Well, to be honest. Nothing had happened… at least not yet. Sometimes I simply make things up… but don’t get me wrong, the notions are formed from reality. And for those of you who’ve read my review of Ikki Sushi can probably understand where I am coming from. Cuisine here isn’t exactly what it should seem

Case in point, on another one of our infamous date nights we ventured to a lovely restaurant called “Que Pasa”. I use the word lovely because I really liked the place. The food was good, the atmosphere was nice, the service was amazing… and they mixed a mean Margarita from scratch (no mix). But, truth be told… the Margarita was the only thing offered even remotely reminiscent to south of the boarder cuisine on their menu. In fact, it was pretty much a Serbian/Italian Fusion restaurant… which is actually the case for most restaurants in town… like the equally excellent yet ill-named restaurant: “The Orient Express”… which offered neither “Orient” cuisine, nor speedy service.

Day 469: Sushi Grade?

So… yeah… not every choice in life is a good one… trust me I know, I have made quite a few bad decisions in my life, but none quite as comical as this.

Serena and I try to go out about once a week for a date night. When we first arrived in Belgrade we were pretty religious about it. It was fun, frolicking hand in hand exploring the city and checking out various restaurants. I describe this tradition in past tense because, as you can imagine, we’re not venturing out quite as much as Serena’s pregnancy progresses.

But anyway, this is pretty much how a normal date night would run down: at some point during my work day, I would receive a text message from Serena with an address. After work, I would jump in a taxi, get yelled at by the driver for putting on my seatbelt, and eventually I would be dropped off at the appropriate address (more or less). Most of the time I wouldn’t really know where I was going and I would simply end up in close proximity to a small bar/café where Serena was waiting… and this bar/café would always be a couple doors down from some restaurant we’d heard about, where we would eventually go have dinner.

Well… this one night… we probably should have stayed at the bar. For on that faithful date night… we through it would be nice to have some sushi. (Please note this was well before Serena was pregnant).

Hey, I know that sushi isn’t for everyone… I know… but I really like sushi… and that night I had the worst sushi I had ever had in my entire life. Now, the comedy behind this outing was actually pointed out by Grayson. Who, apparently, thought it was very funny that his parents were going to an icky restaurant for dinner.

I guess I should clarify. The name of the restaurant was “Ikki Sushi”.

Luckily… food poising was not on the menu.

Day 445: Living Overseas Tip #3

Unless you live in the western hemisphere, if someone invites you to the new "Mexican" restaurant… don't get too excited.