February 2, 2016 Lunch – East Ocean, Dinner – PPI Blue corn Enchilada Casserole with Shed Red Sauce and Posole

February 2, 2016 Lunch – East Ocean, Dinner – PPI Blue corn Enchilada Casserole with Shed Red Sauce and Posole 

Today I met Aaron for lunch at East Ocean at 11:30.  I ordered my usual Scallops in Lobster Sauce ($5.75), but today asked for “No MSG”, which produced a lighter more flavorful rendition of the dish to my learned palate.

Aaron ordered Kung Pao Scallops (No. 18 on the lunch menu).  Aaron is a Szechuan fan and enjoyed the liberal use of Szechuan red pepper flakes in the dish ($6.50).

   The Kung Pao Scallops

   The Scallops inLobster Sauce and sweet ans sour chicken

As I told Aaron today, “East Ocean is my favorite seafood restaurant in Albuquerque and my favorite Chinese restaurant in Albuquerque.”

Ma, the chef/owner is a seafood cook from Hong Kong, so the seafood is impeccable.  And since I have no other strong favorite in the Chinese food category, the fair prices, properly cooked dishes, and great seafood and vegetable dishes at East Ocean give it a leg up on all the other contenders.

Besides the fair prices for lunches, we like to go to East Ocean for roast duck, which costs $10.99 for 1/2 duck with a light five spice sauce; a price I can not match at home.

For dinner I thawed out two pork chops. My intention was to prepare grilled pork chops with spinach couscous. Mi went to the garage fridge and fetched the spinach.  When I returned Suzette said she did not want to eat couscous because it was a carb.  I mentioned seeing the PPI enchiladas and Posole from last Tuesday’s dinner.  Suzette, “Let’s eat those.  They need to be eaten.  So I heated up the Posole and Suzette heated up a plate of enchiladas and I made a spinach side dish by spreading Crema on the bottom of a pyrex asking dish, filling the baking dish  with spinach leaves, and dousing the spinach with Sherry.  I then covered the dish with Saran Wrap and cooked the spinach in the microwave for 2.22 minutes at full power.  The spinach compressed into a cake like consistency under the pressure of the heated saran, but fluffed out a bit with some prompting with a fork.

I enjoyed a second bowl of the flavorful Posole on this chilly winter night in front of the fireplace, so I put most of my enchiladas and the spinach in the fridge for tomorrow's lunch.

I drank a Coors beer with dinner and Suzette,  true to her February commitment to go alcohol free, drank water.

Bon Appetit