Too Much Salt is Asin

There’s this old Filipino joke that roughly goes like this -

Why did the priest stop eating salt? Because it’s asin!

You see, salt in Tagalog is asin. A sin. Ha ha! Alright… done with the silly jokes.

M and I went up to Clifton Park for a little bit of shopping and a quick bite to eat. I was leaning toward Saigon Spring, but burgers and fries are usually a good cure-all after a night of drinking. The menu at Red Robin has changed since we were last there, and I think the prices have gone up slightly. We both ordered the Whiskey River Burger, with the veggie burger.

I’ve ordered it several times before, and it was always really good. This time, nowhere near that. My burger was salty. And not just slightly salty, but extremely salty. At first I just thought it was some seasoning I had accidentally sprinkled over it while spicing up my fries. It wasn’t throughout my burger – there were bites that were completely fine. But it was salty enough for me to not finish it. It was starting to make me feel nauseated. M finished it, but also remarked how salty it was.

What the hell. So horrible. I actually wanted to have more fries, but anything with salt was making me sick.

M and I are thinking it was the onion straws. Someone went salt crazy and I was the unlucky victim. I really don’t think we’ll be going back to that location.

Imma Tell Ya Sump'n

Under no circumstances should you purchase, nor consume, Simpler Times Pilsner or Lager.

Just don't do it. Save your money and spare your taste buds the torture. We did it for you.

Of the two of us, M really is the one knowledgeable in beer and fermented goodness. So here are his thoughts -

There's nothing wrong with it - R bought it knowing it was cheap beer, so little can be expected from cheap beer. **NOTE: Simpler Times is made by Minhas Craft Brewery (Monroe,WI)** It's no Unibroue (which makes TJ's Vintage Ale), but then again, we still haven't tried their stuff yet. 

When asked to explain further, he refused. Because I apparently put him on the spot and he can't work under pressure. Anyways, I don't like it either. It's on par with Steel Reserve, which is disgusting. But it does the job and it's cheap. And sometimes that's all you need. 

Working Meal - Holiday Edition

Saving lives people... I'm saving lives here. Not time to make a meal from scratch. And then there was the thing about me trying to make it to ShopRite before they closed. But Merry Christmas!

By the time I got there, they had closed. It was 6:30.

The sign on their door said they were open until 7.

I may have yelled in frustration has the staff yelled to me through the doors they were closed. And I may have angrily told me walking toward the store to not even bother... they decided to close early.

Let it slide, girl. Let it slide.

(deep cleansing breath)

Anyways, that drive to Albany ate up what little break I had between cases so I made a pit stop at the golden arches just so I wouldn't pass out. Cheeseburgers, fries, chocolate chip cookies, and a coffee. Not the most nutritious, but it was quick and easy to eat while driving back to work.

Did I regret it? Absolutely. I'm still burping up that onion smell, and just thinking about what I wolfed down this evening makes me feel sick to my stomach.

But you do what you gotta do. And try your best to remember to bring some healthy foodstuffs with you the next time you're on call.

There ya go... got a resolution for the new year. BOOM.

Farewell, Peter Wong's

It's been a while since I stopped in for a bite. I should have gone back sooner, before it was too late.

Peter Wong's in Montvale is no more. The Antique Mall and barber shop which neighbored it in that strip mall have also made their exit. I don't know if they were turned out, or left willingly.

That far end of the strip, which seemed pretty empty anyways, has been fenced off and from what I've seen, is in the midst of reconstruction.

And what is filling the void?

The Fresh Market.

I noticed the sign as I was driving toward A&P Fresh, not even half a mile further down the road. The Fresh Market, which M and I both agree is very similar to A&P. Not to mention DePiero's is nearby.

Why?

At first, I thought it was pretty cool- they were expanding and hey... more options, right? But as I drove past, I saw who had to be sacrificed for that to go in. I became livid.

Three local business had to go so that a chain could come in. Mom & Pop's. Stores that seemed to be there forever. Now gone to appeal to the followers of "gourmet markets." It is the trend, after all.

I don't know. Very disappointed. Can't even tell you if I'll ever shop in that FM. I'm sure I'll stick my head in there to give it the once over, but then I'll get back in my car and shop where I usually shop.

No Bundts About It

I was very close to ending this blog.

AOA 3.0/ Van’s (Albany, NY)

Yeah, the party was weeks ago… but I figured I’d mention that I was there. For a quick second. I don’t do well being in a room of strangers, and I wasn’t in the mood to go up to random people and strike up conversation.

Besides, I really wanted some pho.

I know. I left a party with some tasty bites (and cupcakes!) to get more food.

What can I say… I’m an eater.

Chocolate Cube

 

The same day as the Vendy Awards I was invited to a party in the city. Big fancy deal, in the heart of Manhattan. Unfortunately I was running late. Really late. By the time I sat down at my table, the guests were just finishing up their desserts.

Ever see those molds that turn ice cubes into shot glasses? Well, this dessert had the same premise, with the cake turned into a bowl of sorts, filled with chocolate. And as you can see, it was decorated with mixed berries (blueberries, blackberries, and what looked like thawed out raspberries). Didn’t like this one at all. I don’t know if they were going for some dark chocolate theme, it was just not working for me. I resigned to some bad coffee and enjoyed the rest of the night.

As the party was wrapping up, I headed upstairs to the suite for the “after party.” Someone had brought in a bunch of Filipino food, which was delicious and made up for the cake disaster.

It’s How Much? (Take Two)

This “dish” is called Tostadita Nachos.

Really?

Because that doesn’t look like nachos. They should call it scraps. Why? Because it’s five corn chips topped with cheese, salsa, lettuce, avocado, and crema fresca. Normally it comes with seasoned ground beef, but I was going to share with M, and he doesn’t eat things that once had a face.

Do you want to know how much this cost? $8.99.  I could have just ordered the nachos and asked for no meat, and salsa and guacamole on the side… and the price for it would have been reasonable. Hell, what you see on that plate would make up one… maybe one and half of a taco and the price for one of those is still half of what they’re asking for with these “nachos.”

Here is what M thinks about the whole “nachos” fiasco:

They tasted pretty good… I’ll give them that. They reminded me of what I make after I come home from work. Except when I make mine, I make enough to fill me up, or at least satiate my appetite. This didn’t. I could buy a head of lettuce, a bag of tortilla chips, jar of salsa, block of cheese, and some 'fancy'-sounding sour cream for nine bucks and eat these things every day, for every meal, for a month. Five chips at a time.

I should have known better and asked the server how big it was. I should have just stuck to the tableside guacamole.

Not cool, Chevy’s. Tsk… tsk.
Refunds welcome.

A Tale of Two Coneys

So Michigan has this thing with Coney Island. Not that it has to do with Nathan's or the famous hot dog eating contest, they just like the name. They like that name so much that there are places called Coney Island's. They're really diners but they're called Coney Island's.

I don't get it. M tried to explain it to me once, but come on... it's a diner.

So they have eating establishments called Coney Island's. And in these establishments you can order a Coney dog, or Coney. The Coney is a hot dog topped with mustard, onions, and Coney sauce. Depending where you're at, the Coney is different. Flint style is not the same as Detroit. Detroit is more about the sauce, Flint is more about the meat.

Hey... it's a chili dog.

Damn you regional names!

Anyways, that Coney up there? M, MB, and I ended our night at some Coney Island. I was just going to get fries (my drinking food of choice) but it was there and I had to try it. If you can see in the picture, this was straight up Flint style- the sauce is on the dry side.

I made it half a bite before I realized I couldn't eat it. It could have been the dog, or it could have been the alcohol, but yuck. I was going to wrap it up to give to the dogs (hey... it was M's suggestion) but our waitress was nowhere to be found.

EDIT: According to Wiki, the Coney sauce is made with beef hearts. Perhaps that is the reason why I couldn't eat it?

This Coney is from CJ's. The Coney sauce on here looks to be in between Flint and Detroit style. Or maybe it was regular ol' chili... since it is a chili dog. Whatever style this dog was, it was edible and I scarfed that sucker down.

I had it with a burger, which was also scarfed down.

Bettie's Double Decker Cupcake Stand/Bus (Guilderland, NY)

Me: M! We have to go to Guilderland right away! There's a double decker cupcake bus!!

M: What?

So All Over Albany ran the story about Bettie's double decker cupcake bus and of course I was convinced I had to go check it out as well.

Here's a tip if you come across the bus- the doors don't open automatically like on a regular bus. You have to push them open. M and I must have looked like doofuses standing outside of the bus and not knowing how to get it. It took one lady to show us the very obvious door opening trick. We purchased a six pack ($16.75) and headed back to Troy. It was also on this trip that my car decided to die on Rt. 2 as I was driving. Luckily it died going down a hill and I could safely turn down a street out of traffic. It wouldn't start again for another 20 minutes or so, and only after I got really pissed off and vented my frustrations on the steering wheel with my forehead (not to the point of pain, think more [headdesk] action).

So here you go, the contents of our cupcake container. The one on the upper left makes me want to say it's a coconut lime cupcake (didn't try it), and the other two in that row were either vanilla or yellow cupcakes with chocolate icing. In the front row chocolate cupcake with chocolate icing, some cupcake that I think has a raspberry icing, and red velvet.

M and I ended up only eating two of the cupcakes, as the video shows.


Bettie's Cakes - Red Velvet Cupcake from Under the Copper Tree on Vimeo.


Bettie's Cakes - _________ cupcake from Under the Copper Tree on Vimeo.

Such a shame. But who knows, could the delay in eating have played a factor? Did it need to be warmed up (perhaps M's kitchen was a bit too cold)? Or maybe I should just man up and just be honest.

These were not good.

As M described it, the cake had the consistency of cornbread, and as he said in the video, he couldn't taste anything. That isn't necessarily true- I was able to distinguish the different flavors in both the red velvet and the mysterious cupcake, but they really were not appealing to me.

And look at the cake to icing ratio on the mysterious cupcake! Usually I would be kinda happy about that, but not when the icing is this thick paste thing. And even after trying the icing on its own, I had no clue what its flavor was (if there was any).

After those two, M brought the rest to work. Sorry M's co-workers, but we just couldn't eat them anymore.

Scam Warning!

Yesterday M got a call from his bank about a questionable purchase. Questionable as in someone buying a few hundred dollars worth of stuff out in the Midwest.

M is in Troy, and hasn't left the area in the last few weeks.

First we thought it was a gas station we stopped at on the way back from Michigan, it read his card but we never got gas. We thought maybe there was a reader of some sort at the pump. At the time it made sense, it was the only place we had a problem with the card.

We were so wrong.

It is now looking like the culprit was at McGrievey's, in Waterford. I don't want to say we're guessing here, since other people have called M up to let him know that they too have had mysterious purchases show up on their accounts. All out in the Midwest, either one purchase (like M) or multiple small purchases. We had all gone there for dinner a couple of months back and somehow it's just coincidence that this same dining group is having the same exact problem?

I don't know if anyone has called the restaurant to let them know what has happened, hell... does the Times Union even know about this (is it big enough to be newsworthy)?

Either way, if you have eaten there in the last few months (we ate there back in June) and used your credit card, check your accounts.

UPDATE: Just found out there have been others with this problem. I'm not sure how they figured it out, but it seems that the only connection between these recent local "issues" has been McGrievey's. Everyone involved has visited the establishment in recent months and had used their credit card. The owner has been notified, who knows what will happen next. Once again, I emphasize you contact your CC or bank's fraud protection service if you think your information may have been compromised.

The GBC Club - A Mutually Exclusive Culinary Extravaganza

So me and R were having a chat about food (transcript below) and we thought it'd be a good idea to have a GBC Party. What's that? What's a GBC Party you ask? Well read ahead:

m: fooooooood.. i could make green bean cassarole
R: there you go! i could make it tooo! we'll eat it together
m: we can have a GBC party!!!
R: yes!!!
m: holy shit, let's see if any of our friends want to join in..!
R: yea!
R: you see the big problem though, right?
m: oh, that's right.. we don't have friends.. .. most likely for just this reason..
m: ok.. well, let's go get our GBC on!
m: i'm gonna make mine Beautiful.. it's gonna kick the greenjeans off of yours!
R: whatever
m: ok.. here i go!
R: ok
R: don't forget to blog as you go along!
m: bah.. i'm concentrating on my extreeeeeemly good cooking right now.. oh my god, it's so creamy and beany and delicious!

R's kitchen is much better equipped for this sort of thing (cooking, that is), so I immediately knew I was at a disadvantage. She had tools in her arsenal that I could never dream to match -- things like pots, pans, forks, knives, and Milk -- yes, she has milk. So to make up for these minor shortcomings, I knew I had to pull out all the stops; I reached for my special ingredient... Love (sometimes known by the street names Old Miss, Special D, and Mrs. Dash Original Blend). After perfectly seasoning my sloppy mess of canned beans and soup, I set it in the oven at 350F for 25 minutes.. the final 5 minutes I added the rest of the fried onions and toasted them to a golden brown.

In the end it came out looking like .. well, I'll let you decide. But oh god, it sure was delicious.

Oh, the GBC. Or, as this time has shown, this is a study in "How Not To Screw Up a Simple Dish."

So far? M- 1 me- 0 


I've made this dish a handful of times. More than a handful maybe... but definitely at least a dozen. So, at this point I should really know what I'm doing, right?


Right?

So there I was, grabbing ingredients and really just working on auto-pilot. I don't do the canned green beans, so I pulled out the beans from the freezer. Okay, maybe I should have thawed it out first, but the extra liquid would have been negligible. Pour in the milk and soup. Fried onions, stir stir stir. Plop in the pan, into the oven. Add the rest of the onions, and heat some more.

So far... so good.

I got a huge helping and plunked down on the couch to catch the rest of the ballgame. After the first bite, something didn't seem right. I figured I just forgot how GBC was supposed to taste, so I kept eating. When I was done, that was it. No second helping, which is the standard for me. I waited for it to cool down some more and then put it in the fridge.


I tried it again the next day, only this time it was definitely off. "What is wrong with this?" I kept thinking, until it finally dawned on me.


The milk.

It wasn't expired, but it had been out Saturday night when people were making Halo-Halo. Maybe it was out all night. I didn't really do the sniff test when I opened the container, but then again, it didn't smelly funny when I poured it out.


Oh well. I think I'll leave the GBC cooking to M.

A Real Letdown

"Hey we're ordering from this good Italian place, do you want something?"

Why yes. Let me check the menu... ooh! Frutti di Mare sounds good. I'll go with that.

Yuck. It tasted as if half came out of a can, the other half out of the freezer. Should have gone the safe route and ordered pizza.

Latham 76 Diner (Latham, NY)

I really don't like this place. Neither does M.

And their Wifi is wonky.

That soup looks fugly, but it was good. Their french fries are good too.

/review

Temptations (Nyack, NY)

I gave the cupcakes and coffee at Temptations a second chance. It failed yet again.

I picked the coconut cupcake this time, but the end result was the same. The cake was extremely dry and the icing too sweet. The coconut was the sweetened kind, so another layer of sweet. The coffee was burnt and hard to finish. I was only able to polish off half of my cupcake, and A readily finished off the other half. She ordered the peppermint ice cream which she thought was pretty good.

The Foolish Things We Do

One Saturday I found myself hungry and nothing sounded appetizing. Except for White Castle.

So I bought a crave case. And a large order of onion rings to boot.

I ate that sucker in thirds - Saturday afternoon, Saturday evening, Sunday morning.

And the sick part is? I could totally go for WC right now.