Marengo on Union
On Tuesday I just happen to be on the bus headed out to get some ramen at Japantown when I was checking eater and found out that a new slider place was opening down in the marina called Marengo on Union. I checked out the menu and decided to change my eating location to this place. Boy was I happy I did. Located at 1980 Union st. at Buchanan it was an easy walk from the 22. I arrived slightly after the place just opened up so I was the third person inside. As you enter you are greeted by a large bar at the front where they do all the cooking. Nice to see your food being cooked while you wait, it makes me all the more hungry. The restaurant is nice an airy in design, with lots of windows, and skylights to bring in a lot of light, warm woods give it an elegant, but inviting feeling. There are two distinct spaces that are available for seating, the front with the kitchen bar, and the back room with a regular bar.
The menu consists of a selection of appetizers, salads, and the main event sliders. There are 8 savory sliders priced at $3.95 each, and two dessert sliders at $3.00 each. Each slider is about 2oz of meat which gives you about 3-4 bites of food. So a selection of 3-4 would probably satisfy the average eater. I started off by trying three different ones, the all-american, crispy chick, and the coconut shrimp, then followed it up with the porky's and the staring.
The first slider I had was the crispy chick, which is a crispy chicken, corn relish, romaine lettuce, and ranch dressing. The chicken was moist and flavorful, but it seemed like it was lacking the the crispy department. I was expecting more of a crunchiness to the batter, but it was more of a softer texture. The corn relish was slightly bland, and it seemed like it was missing the lettuce and couldn't even taste the ranch dressing. The star of the slider was the chicken, but the other cast of ingredients seemed to have disappeared in background.
Next up was the coconut shrimp. This was a fried shrimp with mango pico de gallo. Again there was a similar issue crispy chicken, in that the batter on the shrimp was not crunchy, resulting in a soggier skin. Despite that the batter was flavorful and the shrimp and mango pico de gallo worked well together. Giving it a tropical vibe.
The all-american is just what it sounds like a beef patty, with lettuce, tomato, cheddar cheese, special sauce, and caramelized onions. The beef was cooked to a nice medium and was juicy and flavorful. Each bite of this slider was just like eating a great burger, as it should be. All the elements in this burger worked together nothing overpowered it.
The next slider was the starling. This was ground lamb, with grilled halloumi cheese, tomato, cucumber, garbonzo tahini. The lamb had a bunch of herbs and spices added into and was cooked to a medium well. The seasoning reminded of me middle eastern kebabs and the ingredients as a whole reminded me of the region. Each bite of the lamb was packed with flavor, but it didn't overpower the other ingredients, the tahini came in boosting the flavor of the dish, and then the tomato and cucumber worked to cool off the the flavor. The grilled cheese added another mild component to the dish, and I think if it weren't for the cucumber, it might have been lost in the slider.
Finally I had the porky's which is a pulled pork shoulder, with tangy & spicy BBQ sauce, coleslaw and blue cheese & cider vinaigrette. Slathered in BBQ sauce the pulled pork was tender and delicious. The sauce itself had a little kick which complimented to coleslaw. What I was trying to identify was where the blue cheese was coming in, I never got that flavor profile as I ate. It also seemed like a vinaigrette might night be needed since the BBQ sauce is already tangy as is. I think it would be nice to to have blue cheese on it.
Rating
Crispy Chick: 7.5/10 - The chicken is the star, but it overwhelmed all the other components. Wanted a crispier batter.
Coconut Shrimp: 8/10 - Good combination of mango, coconut, and shrimp. Again, batter could have been crispier.
All-American: 9/10 - A perfect example of how a well made burger should taste.
The Starling: 10/10 - Packed full of flavor, but nothing overpowering each other.
Porkys: 9/10 - Excellent pulled pork, nice coleslaw, missing the blue cheese.
Overall: 8.5/10 - This is place is definitely on my radar now, and I will be going back. Sadly I didn't have enough room to try the appetizers or salads which all sound good too. The level of attention they put to each slider is amazing. The only concern I have is will they still be able to maintain that same level of attention when there are packed with orders. I was the only one getting sliders at the time, so I'm interested to see if they can keep it up when they have other tickets up. I will be back to find out though.
Coconut shrimp
Crispy Chick
All American
Porky's
The Starlin
Surf and turf, Japanese Style
Beef and seafood are two I strongly associate with Japan. Both have a quality that is on another level compared with products from anywhere else that I have been. While there is seafood at can rival that found in Japan, no one has ever been able to match the beef. It has never been replicated.
When I had the opportunity to some surf and turf in Japan I jumped at the chance. The place I went to was located in Akihabara. This surprised me at first because I have never come to associate Akihabara with good food. However, I was assured that this the place we were going was famous for preparing beef in a western style so my fears were partially assuaged.
They had various steaks as well as beef qualities as options. All beef was Japanese with high prices for higher grades. My eyes glazed over the pages as I saw picture after delicious picture of steaks. I locked onto one page that contained a piece of beef loin and a giant shrimp. This is the one I wanted, price was ¥6300, no big deal it was beef and I had to have it.
When it came to our table the meat and shrimp were on a heavy cast iron hot plate, the fat still sizzling from the residual heat. The portion of beef was puny compared to the cut you get at an American steak house. However, what it lacked on size it made up for in flavor. There was a nice beef flavor and richness that is hard to match. The marbling of the beef made it melt in your mouth. This combination made every bite a bit of heaven in your mouth and I wish for a bigger piece so I could eat more and continue to savor it. The shrimp was comparable in size to a lobster. It seemed like it was twice cooked, lightly boiled sliced in half and mayonnaise placed on top then grilled. The mayo gave it a tangy taste and infused it with an additional fattiness that one would normally get with melted butter. There was a lot of mayo for one which over powered the shrimp. I wasn't able to experience the sweetness of the seafood as much as I would have liked. However, the combination of the richness and tangyness of the mayo, with the sweetness of the shrimp went well together and it was a good combination. Overall the meal was fantastic and for the price I though was pretty reasonable. I would have liked a bigger piece of meat or even one from Matsuzaka, but that definitely would have made the cost of the meal exorbitantly high.
Something new: Paella
Paella is a dish that I have been looking forward to making. It's the quintessential Spanish dish combining saffron with rice, meat and seafood. Finding ingredients for this dish shouldn't be hard to do, but for some strange reason it was for me. I ended up going to 3 supermarkets and a butcher to find some chorizo. Normally it shouldn't be that difficult to find, but I was looking for some fresh made stuff or some Spanish chorizo which is a lot harder to find then I thought. I ended up with some from whole foods, not the greatest in the world, but it worked.
I was a little dissapointed with the taste, I think it was under seasoned. It wasn't really that bad, but I think I could have made it a lot better then I did. The thing with Paella is that it is hard to make a small batch so I ended up with a ton of it. Next time I will have to scale back or wait for a long time to make it again
MacGyver Food: Pasta part 1
When your hungry and don't feel like going out to buy groceries, but still want to cook its MacGyver time. When you have a fully stocked kitchen this type of challenge isn't that hard, but if you don't it can be quite challenging. Some may think that I have one of those fully stocked kitchens, but I don't. There are a lot of spices and components to make dishes, but not enough to make a complete dish from a recipe.
Pasta is one of those dishes that is pretty easy to make with limited ingredients. If you have some pasta and butter you can simple brown the butter, a little salt and butter, and toss the pasta in it and you pasta in brown butter. Luckily I found some frozen shrimp, and garlic. Melted the butter, and sauteed the minced garlic and shrimp. Tossed some pasta and had a nice tasty dish.
Friday (two weeks ago): Japanese
I made a lot of Japanese food this night, or should I say the regular amount. This number of dishes is what I usually prepared when it was my night to cook at my old place. Usually I would prepare two or three side dishes and one or two main dishes. On that night I made tamagoyaki, kimpura, a tofu mushroom dish, and ebi chili (chili prawns).
Tamagoyaki is basically a square rolled omelet. It is usually egg, soy sauce, dashi (japanese fish stock), and some sugar. It is possible to put items in like crab, or maybe even some veggies, but I usually see it done plain. If you have gone to a sushi place and ordered egg sushi, not fish eggs, this is probably what you got minus the rice and seaweed. For me, this is by far one of the most difficult dishes to do correctly in Japanese cooking. The problem lies in how your supposed to layer the eggs. There is a special pan that you use that is rectangular in shape. You pour a little bit of the mixture into the pan let it cook and then begin to roll. You need to repeat this step several times to get enough layers going. The biggest problem I have with this is how long the eggs need to cook. Sometimes I end up with a little bit of raw egg, or maybe even more then that. My first attempt at this about two years ago actually turned out pretty good, but I seem to have gone down hill since then. This is one of my better attempts recently. Usually it becomes all deformed looking with breaks in the omelet everywhere.
Kimpura, another side dish is basically carrots and gobo (burdock root). Thinly sliced and then fried with a little bit of soy sauce, mirin, and some red pepper flakes. Its one of the simplest dishes to make and hard to mess up. The biggest thing is cutting the carrots and gobo, which can take some time if your not use to it. There are of course tools available to make cutting them simpler.
The next dish was something I randomly put together. I was trying to simulate a dish I had at one of my favorite Japanese restaurants in the San Francisco. I came kind of close in the sauce at least, but the tofu didn't turn out as expected. I think i fired it too much with too much oil. It became like tofu-age (deep fried tofu).
The meal was okay minus the tofu dish, which i felt was bland and the thickness of the tofu didn't work, partially why I think the dish was so bland.
Asian night!
Tonight a made a vegitable and tofu stir fry. I also made chili prawns. These are dishes I have made numerous times before and they are kind of some of my toto dishes when I wanted something tasty and didn't want to think about it too much. The main thing that was different with my chili prawns this time was that I fried them with a little oil rather then a deep fry. I found this way is just as effective and uses less oil. The quality of the shrimp was questionable but overall I thought they tasted alright. Definatly not the best shrimp that I have used.
