March 13, 2015 Lunch Asian Pear Dinner M’Tucci’ Kitchina Argentinian Dinner

March 13, 2015  Lunch  Asian Pear   Dinner  M’Tucci’ Kitchina Argentinian Dinner

                Today I started working on my brief for the 10^th Circuit but took off a couple of hours to have lunch with Bill Turner and gather some evidence at his office.  At around 1:30 we walked to several restaurants that were not open and finally went to Asian Pear, thinking it was the old Teriyaki Chicken Bowl.  As soon as we arrived, we discovered that it was a new Korean fast food restaurant located at 508 Central Ave. SW with a rather limited menu.  Basically you can have one of three meat choices [BBQ Chicken cooked with a teriyaki sauce (Dak Gul), BBQ Beef marinated with a special house sauce (Bul Gogi), or Thinly sliced Pork marinated with a Korean spicy chili paste (Daegi Bul Gogi) with one of three choices of starch, boiled rice, fried rice or Chan Chae (Korean bean thread noodles tossed in a dark soy based sauce with green onion on a bed a fresh cabbage, lettuce and carrot salad.  These combinations come either in a bowl or as a plate.  As far as I could tell on my first visit the only difference is whether you receive your food on a plate or in a bowl, although plates are $.50 more, with all choices priced between $6.99 and $7.99, plus all dishes are offered with Kim Che.

 

As an introductory offer we were served a small plate with a tempura fried onion ring and slice of sweet potato and a fried ½ shrimp.

Three other choices include a Fried Crispy Pork Cutlet with Curry (Don Kasu) plate or a Korean Vegetable with curried rice bowl and a Mixed Vegetable Rice Bowl topped with a poached egg (Bi Bin Bob).

a complimentary vegetable pancake

the house kim che

Bul Gogi with cellophane noodle plate on lettuce

I enjoyed my meal and would go back for a quick flavorful meal.  Both the marinated beef and sautéed, sauced noodles in my Bul Gogi were delicious.

Suzette arrived at 5:45 just in time to go to the National Hispanic Cultural Center for the 6:00 sitting of the new concessionaire in its kitchen M’Tuccí serve its 6:00 sitting of an Argentinian Dinner and then the 7:30 p.m. concert by Sofia Rei, an Argentinian diva.

M’Tucci’s dinner was delicious, a well prepared three course meal with a first course of a mixed salad (Ensalada Mixta) combining organic greens, julienne squash threads and bitter greens including curly kale, resting on shaved slices of tomato garnished with crumbled feta and dressed with a rather acidic shallot vinaigrette dressing.  I liked the salad a lot.

There were three entrée choices, Grilled short ribs, green chimichurri sauce and herb roasted potatoes, which I chose (Asada de Tira), Grilled vegetables and a red chimichurri sauce (Verduras a la Parilla), and (Locro) a creamy Argentinian stew of braised pork, beef, hominy, chorizo, fava beans, squash and chili garlic oil and hominy stew, which Suzette chose, served with a piece of M’Tucci’s homemade Ciabatta soaked with garlic and olive oil. I liked both dishes, but was most impressed with the butchering of the short ribs across the bone in thin slices like a Mexican steak Milanesa, instead of between the bones like in the U.S..  The chimichurri sauce was redolent with garlic and fresh parsley and provided a striking contrast to the grilled beef.  The Locro was also delicious, a rather interesting take on posole, with lots of meat and the added slightly bitter flavor of fava beans.  The only problem was the outer husks of the fava beans were not removed leaving thick husks in the stew that had to be chewed and to remove the soft center and then discarded.

Dessert was a fixed item also, but lovely  parfait glass filled with with three layers: on top was a frothy head of whipped cream, in the middle was a dark chocolate mousse and at the bottom was a layer of caramel crema (dulce de leche).  The dessert (Dulce de Leche Pot au Créme) was terrific.

After dinner we then walked across the Plaza Mayor to the Roy Disney Auditorium for the Sofia Rei concert. She and her sextet were wonderful musicians and we enjoyed the evening even though I did not recognize many words of the Spanish.  Cynthia and Ricardo sat near us and we invited them to dinner tomorrow evening for grilled steak, squash, mushrooms and salad.  I may make my chocolate dessert, because we have PPI crème anglais from last Saturday’s meal at their house that needs to be used.

We made Gravad Lax with the two salmon fillets I bought on Thursday at Albertson's for $4.99/lb. when we arrived at home at 10:00.

Bon Appétit