Ginga

I like ginger! I like red-heads, too, but this isn't about them. Ginger root. One of my favorite parts to a good sushi dinner is the pickled ginger. I try to steal the uneaten ginger off others plates. I like it at the beginning of the meal, in between pieces as a little palate cleanser, and of course, for desert. I love a spicy garlic ginger sauce, i had it once fairly recently, and was caught off guard by how much ginger there was. and the left overs had half the building coming over to see what crazy thing i was eating today. Oh, yeah, Thai House. (Pad Ped Beef : Tender beef stir-fried with a grounded red curry paste, Thai ginger, bamboo slices, peppers, onion and basil leaves) yum!

But lately is has been a beverage kick. It started with a trip to the islands (Key West) when I (re)discovered the Dark 'n Stormy. A lovely concoction of Gosling's Black Seal Rum, Ginger Beer and a lime wedge. This bar had a 1/2 price special when ever it was raining. Anyway, Gosling's also makes a Ginger Beer, and by beer, I don't mean alcoholic, just a bit more (flavor, bite, sugar...) than your typical Ginger Ale. It was pretty good, but left me wanting more. So I have been chasing down the more-better ginger beverage ever since.

Beer, as you may know, I am a homebrewer, so I tried to make my own ginger Beer. First attempt, not nearly enough ginger added late into the boil of a Hefeweizen. Nice beer with hints of ginger, but not what I was going for. Next attempt, I pulled out all the stops and added GINGER. Fresh sliced ginger root added 2 ounces every 15 minutes throughout the boil of a pretty Red Ale (a ginger-ginger beer). This is when I learned that the longer you boil ginger the less spicy it is... so another let down. Not to be deterred, I sliced up half a pealed ginger root and added it straight into the keg, ha, I say, take that! And several days later this beer elicited a smile from this curmudgeon. It continued to gingify for about a month, then stabilized as a tasty Ginger Beer. Not good enough for a Dark 'n Stormy, but pretty good.

A keg of homemade ginger ale was brought to Pints for Pets, and it was good! I think he said that 5 pounds of ginger was diced up and stewed in sugar water to extract the ginger. the leftover ginger was dried and became ginger candy. But, alas, that keg went home, and all I got was a 2-liter bottle to keep. And I covet the stuff... I will have some more again tonight...

But I struggle to find a commercial beverage to meet my desires. I researched "best ginger beer" on the internet, learning which had sugar, corn syrup, honey and other ingredients, the went looking for them. I tried all I could find, including the different versions of Reed's the Merc had, tried an off brand from Target, even picked up a promising six-pack from TJ Maxx, any ginger that I saw. A bar that didn't have ginger ale tried to make some with bitters and cola and soda, or something, not really even close. Then the day my life changed, I saw a brightly colored 2-liter bottle of Goya brand ginger beer, and it was good! But where to find it?! The Mexican grocer in OP did not have it (but did have Malto Goya, another quest). I thought I was going to have to order some online, but the season was fading. Dark 'n Stormy's are best when it is warm, nice refreshing cold drink, but not hot, a bit too sweet, so as the summer turns to fall, my beverage palate is turning. But then I walk into Checkers and look at the latin section, really for the Malto, but find a case of Goya Jamaican Style Ginger Beer in 12 oz bottles! Unsure if this was really what I thought it was, I just bought 2 bottles and hurried home to sample. So I have to come up with a new name for what I drank, Dark 'n Stormy is registered by Gosling's and since I was out of that brand I have been substituting Kraken, as similar colored spiced rum that is quite a nice little rum. I like the theme of the giant sea monster and tropical storms, but I will save that effort for another day. Any ideas? So, I pour my measured jigger of rum over ice the popped the top of the Goya. I like to take a sip before mixing, just to see what I have, a little drink followed by half a minute coughing fit! WOW! My smile was getting in the way of my cough, so I poured my drink and ambled into the living room. My throat was tingling from the ginger so I took a careful sip of my drink and bliss. yes, that is perfect, followed by more coughs. As I drank my second one, there was a little sizzle on my lips, maybe from the smile, maybe from the ginger.

Last night I picked up a bottle of Gosling's, and made another drink with my second precious bottle, just to make sure. This time no coughing, just a wonderful drink! One I can highly recommend to any ginger lover's out there. Now I have to hurry over to Checkers and get more, before they take it away from me!

Hurray for Ginger!!

Sushi x2

I ruined my run of tacos on Thursday when I had noodle leftovers again for lunch and sushi for dinner. I figured sushi was worthy of an imperfect taco game. We went to Kobe instead of the standard Yokohama because of the Sidewalk Sale. Downtown would be chaos and crowded and I had heard a good review of Kobe's sushi, so we tried someplace new. Well, it wasn't Yokohama, or even Wa. Not that it wasn't good, but for me so much of the dining experience, especially ethnic or fancier meals, is ambiance. Yokohama can be a little loud, especially when a table of kids start in with the sake bombs, but the dark and neon atmosphere is cozy and the din of liveliness is comfortable. Wa is a little more stately, not quite to pretentious, but more adult. By comparison, Kobe might as well be on the other side of the river. (Nothing against the other side of the river...) At 7pm in July, the sun makes the place glow from all the windows, illuminating things better left in the dark and kind of making it hard to read the menu. Looking around the room there were a couple Springer episodes. There was the 40-something mother, daughter and 5 grandkids, one of little girls shrieked when ever the Japanese grill flared up, or the pregnant teen dining with her mother and a pimple faced boy, relationship undefined. I amused myself by making up their stories...

Overall the food was decent, but the miso soup was a let down, the chunks of tofu were little flavor voids. The little dinner salad was silly, compounded by the efforts of eating dressing coated lettuce with chopsticks. My seaweed salad was yummy, as was the 9 pieces of sashimi. Spicy Tuna handroll was fun to eat, a big cone of seaweed stuffed with tuna, but nothing special. I was really looking forward to the roll I got, but was disappointed to see it swimming in secret sauce. I had pictured it to have a thin line of sauce, but it could have been applied with a ladle. scraping off as much as I could, I enjoyed the rest of the roll.

The beverage selection was disappointing, too. Besides BMC, Fat Tire and a couple Japanese beers there was a box of sake and assorted liquors and mixed drinks. The Asahi was a nice dry compliment to the meal, but if i were to return with the wife, there would have to be a taste sauv blanc option.

Not wanting this to be the sushi experience of memory, I jumped at a chance just 2 days later to go to Yokohama. The 4 of us devoured a large boat, several extra rolls, a bottle of pearl sake, a couple beers apiece, and all the fresh environs the place had to offer. Ahhh, sushi sated...