Mandalay Madness

So, Mandalay Restaurant & Cafe in Silver Spring is supposed to be THE place to eat Asian, particularly Burmese food.
If only I could have found out.

We went there last night (Tues.) and arrived at 9:27.
I know this because my car clock read 9:30, and it is 2-3 minutes fast.
We parked RIGHT in front of the door, and walked in salivating.

We were greeted by a waitress that told us that "The store is closed." (store?)

I said, "Oh, I thought you closed at 10:00."

She said, "Yeah, we do, but if we feed you now, you might stay past 10."

I said,"Okay, well, when is the latest we can come here and get service?"

"9:25," She said.

Wow, so if we would have walked in the door 120 seconds earlier, we would have been treated like human beings?
Hmmm. Nice.

I've never in my life been to a restaurant that posted a closing time 35 minutes after the ACTUAL closing time.
AND
What do they do with the customers that ARE there at 10:00- violently kick them out the door? --A point made by my hungry husband.

Who does this?

We've all overstayed at restaurants a few minutes, and we've all witnessed how a good waitress can politely suggest that the kitchen is closing (hint hint) so any orders must be put in immediately, etc.

Here's the funny part:

We left (rejecting her offer to order takeout from her!) and drove around Silver Spring for about 10 minutes looking for another restaurant. We found a place called Oriental East (I think?) and decided to eat there.

We ordered an appitizer, food, and beer, and the service was SO GOOD and SO FAST, that we were totally finished at 10:00 (closing time)-- and were in our car by 10:07. Nobody there said a word to us about us being there at 10:00.

So somehow, we managed to drive to a new place, eat, chat, relax, and still be done by 10.

Maybe Mandalay is SO slow that they knew it would be impossible to feed 2 people in under 35 minutes.

I'm really sad that they did this to me, cause now I can never go there.

So, if you love the place, I don't want to hear anything about it, cause I'll only be jealous.

-Shorty

Amish Market, Graber?

The Lancaster County Dutch Market in Germantown is a funny, yet wonderful place.

The market is in the inner corner of an L-shaped strip-mall on what appears to be the edge of Germantown, Maryland.
It looks small from the outside, but it is actually pretty big. The first thing you see as you enter is the booth for homemade soft warm salted pretzels. The line was long (10 people?), and I'm sure for good reason.

You can choose either to turn left or right (but you feel strongly compelled to go Right, since that is the "flow" of the place.
As you walk around what is really just a huge circle, booths surround you on both sides. Each booth is run by a real-life Amish person, dressed traditionally. The women have homemade dresses and homemade full-body white aprons and white, transluscent bonnets. The men (or man, since we only saw one) had on traditional clothes, a beard, and a slight unidentifiable accent (Amish?).

The booths that I can remember are:

-Spices, jams, and pickled stuff (I bought pickled okra and ate half the jar today- YUM!)

-Chocolates and Candy (huge chocolate rabbits for easter, homemade chocolates. This booth is called Lapps Candies)

-Butcher/Deli/Meat

-Flowers (the selection I noticed had mixes and by-the-breed selections. Nice gerbera daisies.)

-Handmade amish furniture

-Cheeses (called Zooks cheeses, this is where the one Amish man we saw worked. He was cool.)

-Produce

-Bakery

Each booth has its own check-out. There are 3 places to get prepared food that you can eat right away or take home-- the pretzel place, a place with pre-made salads (potato salad, etc.) and a place in the far corner that had ribs, homefries, and stuff like that-- long line though.

We went on Saturday afternoon at 2 pm. It was pretty crowded, so it may be best to go on a weekday if you can.

Here are the hours:

Thurs. 10-6
Fri. 9-7
Sat. 9-3 (early closing!!!)

Lancaster County Dutch Market
12613 Wisteria Drive
Germantown, MD
20874

301-916-4039

Each booth has its own number, but this is the main line. When I called a friendly girl answered and told us the hours.


I really don't know what the Lancaster County association is, cause the Market is in Montgomery County. All I can think is that either they want to evoke the Pennsylvania Dutch Amish by using the county name OR they actually live there and commute.
The cheese guy said that they close early on Saturday because it takes them so long to get home, and they want to have some weekend away from the market. So maybe they do commute. But do they do it in buggies? I didn't see any parked out front or anything. Do they take a bus? Does that conflict? Does the electricity in the building conflict?

I think that this particular set of Amish are unique: they belong to two worlds, but at the same time, are outcasts of both. They belong in neither Amish or American society. They are far too liberal to be good, traditional, conservative Amish.
But they are far too out there to be normal Americans.
Its like being an immigrant in your own country. I can't imagine. I really wish I knew more about how they live and how different, if at all, it really is back at the farms they live on.

Well, regardless, they sure can deliver the goods! God bless the Amish Market!

-Shorty

La Sirenita Restaurant in Little Mexico

La Sirenita - or- The Little Mermaid, translated, is one of the few places around here (DC/MD/VA) that you can get a homemade mexican meal for 2 for $10 (or less).

We went there tonight, a Friday, at about 6:00 pm.

La Sirenita is in Hyattsville, in Maryland, in a part of town known as Little Mexico. On our way there, proof of the local culture came in a taco stand, latino language hair salons, lots of dodgy looking mexican restaurants, and loads of mexican folks walking around.

We almost drove by the place, but caught it just in time. Its in this tiny little building that also houses a mexican general store-- bootleg CDs, shoes, and movies: just about anything a homesick migrant worker longs for, I guess.

The restaurant itself is adorable in the most innocent, unpretentious way. Following the mermaid theme, I suppose, there are posters of dolphins and little tiny dolphin windchimes hanging around (the kind that can be found in 8 year old girls' bedrooms everywhere). The walls are covered in wood paneling - popping out of the wall in places- and on one wall in the dining room there is this HUGE glowing electric Taco Bueno style menu with pictures and names of all their stuff.
There must have been 50 picture panels up there- stretching the length of the whole wall.

In every picture, the food is served in a red plastic Chinese platter *like, with chinese characters on it*--- and that is how it is served to you! So crazy!

On the tables, there was a vase of fake red roses (with the tag unabashedly still attached) and 2 bottles of hot sauce-- one labeled "Mui Picante", the other one "Hot"-- the food turned out to be pretty spicy (without the aid of sauce), so this is more proof of the tough latino clientelle, for sure.

So, we really didn't know what to expect as far as the food was concerned.
The place was PACKED with real latino/as and it was clear that the waitresses weren't really used to speaking english.
The giant circa 1982 juke box in the corner was always playing loud mexican songs, which put the final touch on this "Okay, did I just close my eyes and wake up in El Paso?" feeling.
Seriously, the place feels like a rodeo-lovin' border town. I love it.

I could have done without all the trash on the street outside and dirty floors (and walls, and ceiling), though.

But if you go there, try hard not to be put-off by the way it looks. You gotta be tough to roll in this neighborhood, and if you aren't, go there when its daytime, leave when its daytime, and order extras to take home if you are too scared to go back (wussy).

Okay, here's the IMPORTANT part: the food is GOOD and CHEAP.
Tamales are totally handmade-- they are huge-- and they are $1.50. A dolla' fifty, you say??!?!
YES.
Burritos are around $3. (although they are not as good as the tamales, which are amazing). The burritos have feta cheese in them.

I got a chicken tamale, pork tamale, beans, rice, and a Sprite.
Alex got a good sized burrito. He did a good job at resisting the very extensive (and higher priced $10-12) seafood choices.

And they gave us a lot of really delicious handmade chips and salsa.

Our total was $10.

Alex left a tip of $3-- the first time our waitress smiled all night...
:)

We were full half-way through and ended up bringing home leftovers.

Another funny thing-- when we first walked in, the waitress put our menus on the same side of the table, but after we sat across from eachother, she moved them. I thought that perhaps we SHOULD sit all snuggly next to eachother, just to get in the spirit of the thing, but I was too lazy to move, so I didn't bring it up.
But as you looked around the room, not only couples were next to eachother, but sisters and other non-romantic combinations of people. It was cute. She probably thought we were such freaks for not sitting next to eachother.
Oh well, there is bound to be another gringo couple that visits sometime. She'll see then that we're all prudish freaks.

Also, we spotted customers with pitchers of margarita, but also small individual sized pitchers- drunk out of with a straw! What's in that thing? YUM!

There were neon-colored paper signs (the pointy kind that car dealers write prices on cars with) on the wall with lists like:
Cerveza
Fresa Crema
Fruit Cocktail (but in spanish)
Bohemia

The address is 4911 Edmonston Rd. Hyattsville, MD.

I would go back, if only for the handmade tamales. Next time I have a party, I'm spending 30 dollars and feeding everyone tamales.

So good.

-Love,
Shorty

TRIP II - 3/17/06- Saint Patrick's Day!

We returned this early evening to La Sirenita and expanded our experience:
Alex ordered the Sopa De Meresca (sp?) and LOVED IT. It was this embarrasingly large bowl of red broth that had the following sea creatures in it:

small octopus
2 clam/oysters
a crab
shrimp
half a fish
potatoes
onions
- served with lime wedges and choice of corn tortillas or bread
$12

We got an appetizer of Guacamole, which was homemade and SO good. It had a lot of onion and cilantro. I added some juice from one of Alex's limes and that made it even yummier. $2.50- pretty good amount- chips were warm.

I ordered the combo fajitas, which appear on the menu to have chicken and beef, but alas, there was shrimp and some kind of dark meat that looked unfamiliar- beef tongue?- its on the menu.... who knows. I only at the chicken part. They also came with rice, beans, corn tortillas, green and red peppers, green onions/scallions, and tomatoes.

It was pretty good, but not at all like the restaurant fajitas you are used to. These aren't beautifully cut slices of grilled chicken. They are strange chunks of all sorts of meats fried up together, it looks like. Fajitas were $11.

I really should have stuck with the Tamales. Oh well. We got lots of leftovers out of the deal!

Also, I forgot to mention in my last entry that there is a glowing beer menu in the far corner by the television (window wall).

Once again, there was only one woman there- it really seems like a migrant worker hang-out. We got there at straight-up 5:00, and the place was almost totally filled with workers.

We stopped by the mexican food market 2 doors down, and I got some 5 cloves of garlic ($1.20), 2 plantains (cheap), 2 PERFECT avacados (cheaper than normal), and some green tobasco sauce ($1.10). In total, it was $5.00.
WOOHOO!
And they take cards at both places--- ALTHOUGH take a little cash for the TIP at the restaurant. They may tell you that you can't leave it on your credit slip.

How To Steam Salmon (plus BONUS poem at the end!)

This morning, for my afternoon guests, I steamed a salmon. I don't even eat seafood, so it was more of a gift to my husband and friends. It was easy, odorless, and best of all, fast.
Here is how I did it:

One lemon
One bunch fresh dill, unchopped
One salmon fillet

The following method of steaming fish is called the "plate method". The benefit comes by steaming the fish on the plate you plan to serve it on, but I find that this is useful even if you switch plates for serving.

Put the fish, skin side down, on a plate that will fit into a larger pot (for steaming). The plate must not touch the walls of the pan.

Season with salt, pepper, olive oil

Cut lemon into 1/4 inch slices and place slices on top of fish, covering it in one layer.

Place bunches of dill under and over the lemon slices, so that much of the dill touches the fish surface.

For extra lemon flavor, squeeze some lemon juice from leftover lemon slices onto fish.

Fill pot with one inch water.

Place small heatproof bowl (upside down), or any heatproof "platform" into pan's water. This is to be used to hold your plate above the water during steaming. Foil works too, just make sure that it is stable and will not allow plate to tilt or fall into water.

Place plate with fish on your "platform" inside of pan.

Cook on medium-high heat until it begins to boil. Keep lid off until boiling.

Turn down heat to a simmer, place lid on pan.

Let steam for 20-30 minutes, slightly longer if fillet is large.
Test for doneness by checking for flakiness in thickest part.

After its done, remove plate carefully from pan (its hot!) and set aside to cool slightly.
Remove lemons and all dill. Lemons can be used as garnish, dill cannot. Unsteamed dill may be used for garnish.

Man, the Indians downstairs are like, screaming at eachother - a whole bunch of them- what the hell is going on?
They are so loud! They are all arguing and switching between English and Tamil or something. Its crazy!

Some dill has yellow bits where the sun didn't hit the plant much. If you use it as garnish, trim this off.

Salmon is incredibly healthy, so if you can tolerate it, you should eat it often.
But not so often that you get mercury poisoning.
And not so often that you neglect other foods.
But often enough to make a difference in your health.
Avocados work, too.
And olive oil.

Here is a poem about this recipe

To cook a fish
on top of a dish
the dish must not
be bigger than the pot

the pot
shall not
be bigger than the stove
or failure commences
in recipe
attempts-es

So with this lesson
You now have
the armament
to take a stab

Delicious fish
shall now abound
your guests will sigh
as you astound


- And remember: There is no shame in following instructions.

Love,

Shorty