Asian Fusion

Daniel and I almost always go out to eat on Friday night, and this past Friday we decided to check out the Dumpling Haus that opened a few weeks ago in the Hilldale Mall.

The restaurant itself is a low key affair.  It's pretty small with an open kitchen, and the "drink machine" is a pitcher of water in the corner with cups.  The main attractions on the menu are the jiao zi, which are little dumplings, and the bao zi, which are big dumplings.  They also serve some noodle bowls, salads, and rice.

We ordered the house jiao zi

and the house bao zi  

which were both stuffed with pork and scallions and served with a soy dipping sauce.

Both items were tasty and freshly made.  If you got bored watching the video about the Himalayas that was playing on a TV in the background, you could look in the kitchen and watch the kitchen staff preparing the food.  However, that means each dish is brought out to your table as soon as it's done.  Better to order a few things to split and eat them as they come than to have one dish sit and get cold before the other one arrives.

Would we go back?  I think so.  It's in a convenient location for us.  The prices are reasonable for a quick dinner out, and you can't just walk around and pick Chinese dumplings off the trees here like you can with cheese curds and bratwurst.  The only thing I'd do differently next time is- other than try different varieties of the dumplings and noodle bowls- is add a salad to share.  Although the menu describes both of our orders as containing vegetables, but I think that was true only at the atomic level, and a salad or some cooked veggies would round out the meal.

While I have no complaints about the restaurant staff or service- we had no trouble communicating with the man taking orders- I think there's some kind of weird translation thing going on.

For one, Dumpling Haus? But they serve Chinese dumplings, not German dumplings... if such a thing exists.  And also the slogan on the door.  We're steaming... hot.  I have absolutely no idea what that's supposed to mean.  Anyone???  Really- am I being dense and missing something obvious?  I mean, I get that the dumplings are steaming hot, but what's up with the ellipses?  Oh well...



In other news, I'm glad today is a rest day.  Getting back into lifting weights after taking a week off to recover from attempting two max lifts and to travel to FL made me crazy sore.  Plus, even though my max deadlift and bench press only went up about 5% from last training cycle, the regular workouts feel tougher (at least for the deadlift) already.  This was the first week of the training cycle and I'm already at 3 sets of 1 at 95lbs on the bench press and 3 sets of 1 at 130 on the deadlift.  AND- if you'll permit me one more whine- the squat rack at the gym that is open in the mornings during intercession has bars that run along the sides that aren't removable so can't actually deadlift in the squat rack.  You have to either a)Take the bar out of the squat rack and do all your weight changes on the floor, risking a smashed finger (which has happened to me already) or put the weights on the bar and then turn sideways and squeeze out through the tall bars on the back of the rack, which is not a lot of fun when you're already carrying a heavy weight.  Fortunately there's only one more week before the regular gym opens in the mornings again.

But I'm getting ahead of myself... time to go and enjoy today.  Have a good Sunday, folks.  

Restaurantville, USA

In the winter, if you can convince yourself to go outside for any reason, it's to eat.  The creators of Madison's restaurant week* know this, and that's why week one of this semi-annual event is scheduled for the last week of January.

And it is quite the event.  First you hear an ad and remember, "Oh yeah, it's going to be restaurant week."  Then you peruse all the menus for all the different restaurants to decide where you want to go.  Have you been there before?  Is the menu different from last time?  Is it substantially different from what is normally served (this can be a plus or a minus in my experience)?  Are you getting a good deal price-wise?

This year we picked The Melting Pot (didn't do a review of this because it's not a "Madison" place), Inka Heritage (with work) and Liliana's.

First up is Liliana's, where Daniel and I went Friday night:

Liliana's is a New Orleans style restaurant and is pretty fancy despite being kind of in the middle of nowhere.  I give them big points for the interior, which is lovely- but honestly the food didn't live up to the ambiance.  I'd heard great things about Liliana's and had wanted to try it for awhile. Maybe it was the restaurant week choices, but neither one of us was wowed.  Everything looked good and sounded good, but it was just nothing exciting.  Daniel had the red beans and rice as his entree, which he said was good but kind of bland, and I had the Cornish game hen, which I liked but- I dunno.  Would I go back?  If someone was paying, sure, I'd try a different dish, but probably not.  I wouldn't try to dissuade anyone from going, but it was not my favorite. 

Which brings us to what probably is my favorite restaurant** in Madison, Inka Heritage.

I think I've gone here for lunch with coworkers every single restaurant week (plus one dinner with Daniel) and I have never ever failed to be impressed.  Plus my dining companions- some of whom have very different tastes than me- have always been impressed.  Inka serves Pervuian food- think seafood, stews, rice, and potatoes- with mildly spiced, very flavorful sauces.  I have had both seafood and stew-type dishes and they are always perfectly prepared and taste like nothing I've ever eaten before (unless I've eaten it at Inka!).  This also the home of my all-time favorite (only served during one restaurant week- so sad!) desert ever.  It was this maple walnut flavored (it was actually some kind of Peruvian fruit) ice cream with a churro and chocolate sauce.  Maybe it doesn't sound like much, but it was out of this world good.  So good I went home and looked up the fruit (which I have since forgotten) to see if there was any way to get my hands on one.  Alas, there was not.  I would recommend Inka Heritage to anyone who wants to go out for a nice dinner and likes food- any kind- at all.  Would I go back?  I'm 95% confident I will be there for lunch during restaurant week in August.

Workout:
And now to work off some of this delicious food at the gym...  

*In brief: Restaurant week is where several local restaurants put together a 3-course meal for $25.  You get one of three choices for each course.
**Quivey's grove comes in at a close second.

Frosty

Sadly, no.

First of all, thanks to Daniel for getting us all huge.  In all seriousness, Daniel is pretty smart about the whole strength training gig and manages to get himself pretty strong when he can make it to the gym regularly.  He's also a big proponent of the "quality over quantity" theory of exercise- something that I am coming around to more and more.

Second, it's really really cold here.  I think it was something like -7 (which was warmer than a lot of the rest of the Upper Midwest) at 10am yesterday.  It's funny because you walk outside and think, "That's not so bad..." and then 20 seconds later you don't feel like you're even wearing pants or a jacket anymore.  The building I work in is tall and creates a wind vortex that blows straight at you when you walk toward it.  It's so cold that it no longer registers as cold- just pain.  Needless to say I ran on the treadmill at the gym yesterday morning.  After a fairly full week with the undergrads, the gym was back to its normal state of blissful emptiness.

We did brave the cold last night to enjoy Friday dinner out at Pasqual's.

We've eaten at Pasqual's on Monroe street many times, but this was our first time at their new location across from Trader Joe's (just opened on 1/20).  We overheard the service staff say they were still having some trouble getting used to being in the new place, but we didn't experience any issues as customers.

Pasqual's bills itself as a Southwestern restaurant, and as a past resident of the Southwest, I can say they have it about 85% right.  Lots of mildy spiced traditional menu items with the option to up the spiciness if that is your thing.  This review will sound a little critical, so I should emphasize that Daniel and I eat at Pasqual's a lot and really like it.  But we know just enough about what this kind of food *should* be like to make us dangerous.

The true mark of New Mexican food is that it's covered with so much red or green chili sauce (or both- that's called Christmas) that you can't see what you ordered. To the right is an example from a restaurant in Albuquerque.  Do you have any idea what that is?  No, you don't.

Pasqual's enchiladas come pretty much like that, but if you wanted a beef burrito New Mexican-style, you'd have to order a "Cowboy-style Pasqual's burrito with red sauce and beef" rather than a "beef burrito with red".  Most of the burritos come with rice and/or beans in them, which is not really a New Mexico thing either.  Normally Daniel orders a burrito or the cheese or pork enchiladas with red, and I get the garden veggie quesadilla, the salad burrito, or one of their salads (all of which are non-traditional additions to the menu that I am happy about).   The only thing I've ever had there that I didn't like was the mole sauce, which was a disappointment because I normally love mole.

Now if they would just bring out honey and a basket of sopapillas at the end of the meal.

So good... So glad they aren't as easily accessible.

Workout: 
Going to the gym to do weights before lunch.  I swapped running to yesterday because I figured the cardio machines would be less crowded at 6am on Friday than 9am on Saturday.  Here's hoping there won't be too many virtuous undergrads there this morning.

What's your sign?

Hopefully not Ophiuchus.  I'm not even sure how to say that word!  Is it a "ch" sounding "ch" on the end or an "sh" sounding "ch"?  Too confusing.  Adding in the new "octopus" sign, I changed from a Virgo to a Leo.  For a brief but thoughtful discussion of the impact of this change, see TutuRunner.*

Last night we ate dinner at Wah Kee,  a Chinese restaurant on the near east side that had high praise from a co-worker ("I would make a special trip in from out of town to eat at Wah Kee") and on Yelp.  I didn't take a picture from the outside, and I guess no one else has either because I didn't get any hits on Google Images.  Just imagine your typical strip-mall Chinese restaurant.

  

I'll start by saying that I like Chinese food, but I don't have a sophisticated enough palate to really tell the difference between the quality of restaurants.  I wouldn't like something if I felt like it was way too greasy or way too bland (or greasy and bland - ick), but other than that I'm not very discerning.

Like many Chinese restaurants, the menu was extensive.  Daniel picked the pepper steak rice stick (big flat) noodle entree immediately, but I had trouble choosing.  I knew I wanted something somewhat spicy with at least some vegetables and with noodles rather than rice.  When I asked the waiter for a recommendation for a noodle dish, he pointed at the page that said "noodle dishes" and said, "Well, these all have noodles in them."  Thanks for your help.  Actually, he ended up being helpful, and I settled on Pad See Ew.

We both added a little hot sauce to our dishes and thought they were really good.  Just enough grease to make it authentic strip-mall Chinese food but not enough that I went home and emptied the bottle of Tums.  I would definitely make this at least one of our "go to" places for Chinese.  I'd say it was equal in quality to Hong Kong Cafe (as if I really knew) but has the benefit of having more noodle dishes on the menu.

Workout:
Looks like 8mi of tromping through the snow.  We got a few inches last night.  Yesterday ended up being 6.5 on the treadmill.

*You really should.  It will take you 30 seconds, and you will laugh.

Summer Infusion

Camera-phobe no more.  This is my first Madison restaurant review!

After a week of cold and snow, I needed an escape to the islands.  Last night we used a Groupon to try out Jolly Bob's, a "Jamaican" restaurant on the east side of town.

To add to the island experience, we were seated at a table over a heating vent.  For me this was worth an extra dollar on the tip, but Daniel got so hot he had to cover it with a menu.

Dinner started off with wedge salads with four choices of "islandy" dressing.  I chose a curry vinaigrette and Daniel's was creamy papaya (I think).  The oranges were really tasty.

Next came dinner.  I had almond-crusted shrimp in papaya sauce.

And Daniel had chicken curry.

Like pretty much every other restaurant on Willy St., this place looked like a dive from the outside, but had good food.  There are not many places in Madison to get seafood that isn't fried cod.  I would definitely go back, but wouldn't make it a priority because (like pretty much every other restaurant on Willy St.) it's a giant pain to park- especially during the winter.

Workout:
It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.  25 minutes into a great treadmill run yesterday morning, our downstairs neighbor started pounding on the door, screaming, "Stop! Stop! Go back to bed!  It's too early!".  So I had to get off the treadmill and finish my run outside.  It's frustrating because 1) I was trying really hard to be quiet about it and 2) neither of our previous neighbors complained about it before.  I think it's because there's so many people living in the apartment below us now that there are people sleeping in the living room- and in shifts (like sailors in the 1800s) because they complained about Daniel using it a 3 one afternoon a couple months ago because someone was sleeping.  Oh well, they will probably be gone next year.  I did feel kind of bad about ticking them off, so I left a note on the door apologizing for disturbing them and saying that it wouldn't happen again.  I didn't want to start a large international conflict over a relatively minor event.          

Unfortunately that also means I have to go run outside this morning in the COLD (-5 with gusty winds) because the gym doesn't open until late.  But I'll bundle up and make the best of it.

Have a great Saturday!