September 26, 2016 Lunch – Café Da Lat. Dinner – Eggplant in Garlic Sauce with chicken, steamed rice, and steamed broccoli

September 26, 2016 Lunch – Café Da Lat. Dinner – Eggplant in Garlic Sauce with chicken, steamed rice, and steamed broccoli 

Today I rested a lot, I rode to Rio Bravo at 9:00 and met Terry Jassmann for lunch at Café Da Lat at 11:30.  I had not been to Café Da Lat in many years.  I noticed two things about it today.  First, the menu is extensive.  Second, the restaurant is very popular. 

I found several attractive items on the menu, but settled on Mussels in tamarind sauce.  What was odd today is when Terry arrived a few minutes after me and looked at the menu he ordered the same dish plus an order of spring rolls.  I was happy he ordered the appetizer, because I had not eaten breakfast and was hungry and devoured the spring roll.  A large plate with about a dozen green lip mussels on the half shell sautéed with onions and fresh pineapple, and cilantro in a tamarind sauce soon arrived, accompanied by a small appetizer plate on which was rice molded into the shape of an inverted saucer and three slices of cucumber.  The tamarind sauce was rather liquid so it coated the rice easily.  I would remove a mussel from its shell swirl it in sauce, onions, pineapple chunks, and rice and scooped up bites with my chop sticks.

I loved the mussel dish and will go back to Cafe Da Lat.

Many other people must feel the same way because by 12:30 when we left the restaurant was filled with folks.  This must be one of the most popular Vietnamese restaurants in Albuquerque, unless people come in greater numbers on Monday because other Vietnamese restaurants are closed.

 I returned home a little before 2:00 and worked until 4:30.  Suzette called to say she was going to Ta Lin and asked if there was anything we needed.  I mentioned that the eggplant we grew in our garden may be too small for the dinner and she should buy more eggplants.  

When she arrived around 5:15 she had bought three lovely Ichi ban eggplants.

After a quick snack of sliced gravad lax on buttered Wasa rye hard bread we launched into dinner.  Suzette decided to make her favorite Chinese Eggplant dish Eggplant in Garlic Sauce from the Mastering the Art of Chinese Cooking.  Here is the recipe:

I made a cup of rice and steamed the flowerets of a stalk of broccoli.

I also sliced our garden raised eggplant and two medium Ichi ban eggplants into julienned strips of eggplant about 21/2 inches long.

I minced six small cloves of garlic from our garden and ¼ cup of onion for extra flavor.  I then diced about ½ lb. of chicken meat from the Greenhouse Bistro roasted chicken Suzette brought home last Friday.

Suzette stir fried the eggplant in 1/3 cup of oil, which is less than the recipe required.  Then she stir fried the onion and garlic on high heat until it started to brown.  She then added the chicken and added back the eggplant and made a well in the middle of the wok and added the seasoning sauce the recipe called for made with, oyster sauce, soy sauce, Chinese cooking wine, and cornstarch.  

Suzette wanted to garnish the dish with chopped cashew nuts and chives, so while she chopped about ½ cup of cashews I went to the garden and gathered 7 or 8 chives and minced them.  

When the rice had 7:30 minutes to cook I started steaming the broccoli.  When the rice was cooked Suzette fetched beers and we piled rice and then the eggplant dish onto our plates and added steamed broccoli and garnished our piles with chopped cashews and minced chives.

We had a great dinner in the excitement of anticipation of the first Presidential debate at 7:00.  Willy arrived around 7:20 and ate dinner while we watched the debate.  He stayed until almost 10:00 when the MSNBC post debate coverage ended, during which we all ate PPI peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream.  I also drank a glass of yogurt drink and a few grapes.

We went to bed a little before 10:00.

Bon Appetit