avec

About a year ago, I ate at avec restaurant in Chicago and wrote about it. It's one of my favorite places in this city, so I wanted Gabe to try it. He spent about 5 days in Chicago during my short 2 week summer break, and Avec was among the many places we ate at.


This was my 3rd time trying Avec's famed chorizo-stuffed medjool dates with smoked bacon and a piquillo pepper-tomato sauce. It's just one of those dishes you MUST get during any visit to Avec. They are absolutely awesome as the different flavors stimulate all taste buds. If I were to be really picky, I would actually make them smaller so that the chorizo doesn't stand out more than the sweetness of the dates.


This is the whipped brandade with garlic bread and herbs ($9), which is the other Avec signature item that always stays on the menu. For those who don't know, brandade is a puree of salt cod, olive oil, and milk, although this was so rich that I wouldn't be surprised if butter were thrown in there too. For such a rich dish, Gabe and I absolutely loved this. It was extremely tasty and well-balanced as the salt cod did not overpower the creaminess.


The last dish that we shared was the wood-oven braised pork shoulder with garlic sausage, summer squash, fideos, and basil pistou ($21). This was a very hearty dish. The pork was so tender that it just fell apart at the touch of a fork. A knife was never needed for this. The garlic sausage was, well, garlicky, but it added a bold flavor to the dish. I personally didn't really care too much for the fideos, nor did I find them necessary. Overall, this was a great dish. I was afraid it would be more suitable for the winter since it's braised and a bit heavy, but Avec "summer-ed" it up a bit with the summer squash and basil pistou. However, the dish was still deceptively filling.

This was yet another fabulous meal at Avec. One of the things I love so much about Avec is that it's a great casual no-frills hangout spot that still serves excellent food and wine. This is something that is sometimes hard to come by, but all of Paul Kahan's joints fulfill this quite well. Avec (and all of Kahan's establishments, for that matter) change their menus so frequently that you can keep going back there again and again. It's great to see chefs constantly experimenting and stirring up new things.

Avec
avecrestaurant.com
615 W. Randolph St.
Chicago, IL

Momofuku Bakery and Milk Bar

For the first of mine and Gabe's big eating extravaganza during my visit in NYC last weekend, we stopped by Momofuku Bakery & Milk Bar for a pork bun and a couple of cookies.


We each had a pork bun with pork belly, cucumber, hoisin, and scallions. Of course, the pork belly was melt in your mouth. My only complaint is that after having so much pork belly lately, I think Momofuku's pork buns are a bit overpriced for only a few bites per bun. Maybe it's time to seek out equally good pork belly buns in Chinatown. If anyone knows of any, please let me know.


We also bought a couple of cookies - the Compost cookie and the Corn cookie. The Compost pretty much has everything in it - chocolate, oatmeal, some nuts, and I don't remember what else. I'm picky about my cookies, and this one was a bit too sweet for me, but Gabe loved it. I did, however, LOVE the corn cookie because, well, it wasn't really sweet in the way cookies usually are. It basically tasted like sweet creamed corn, which is a flavor I'm quite fond of.

Even though I still think Momofuku's tiny pork buns are a little overpriced, they really are quite tasty and tender, so it's definitely worth the try. I didn't try enough sweets, but from what I've read, Momofuku goes heavy on the sugar, so beware if you tend to be hyperglycemic.

Momofuku Bakery & Milk Bar
207 2nd Ave
New York City, NY 10003

(oh man, that's my old zip code...::tear::)

Pork Tenderloin with Apples

My dad, brother, and I cooked pork tenderloin with apples for Christmas Eve dinner last night. We marinated the tenderloins in salt, pepper, and olive oil. First, we browned and seared them in a wok. While that was going on, I made the glaze which consisted of dijon mustard, apple cider vinegar, olive oil, and sugar. I honestly don't know what my measurements were. I just kept adding stuff until it tasted well balanced. After the tenderloins were finished being seared, we poured the glaze over them and stuck them in the oven at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes. While that was being done, we cooked chopped green apples in the oil left over from when the pork was being seared and half a stick of butter. While the apples softened up, we then added maybe about half a cup of apple cider, about 2 tablespoons of brown sugar, and about 2 tablespoons of heavy whipping cream.

After 20 minutes of the pork being in the oven, we weren't sure if it was really cooked through yet but didn't want to cut it open, so we just poured the apple sauce over the pork tenderloins and left them in the oven with it turned off. We figured that by leaving them in the turned off oven, it would still cook a little bit but not too much.

This was a really great Christmas dish. The pork was very lean, and the apples gave the right amount of sweetness and moistness to the dish. I think it turned out great, and it was a nice change from our usual steak dinner on Christmas Eve. When I make this again, I think the only thing I'll do differently is marinate the pork in the mustard/apple cider vinegar/brown sugar/olive oil glaze so that the flavors will come through more in the pork.