after dinner sneeze

t says: We went to Koo Zee Doo with some friends recently.  We did order a lot of the same things that we ordered last time, so there’s no point in re-reviewing those as they were pretty much the same.  We did miss out on the cheese (they changed the menus), so that made us a little sad – and the chickpeas in the salad were a bit more al dente than I’d like.  However, there was one new thing that we had that made me quite happy: the Friday octopus special.  It was poached octopus with a creamy bechamel over mashed potatoes.  It was delicious.  On one hand, it might have been a tad too rich, as there really weren’t any vegetal or acidic flavors to cut through the almost-cheesy bechamel and potatoes.  That said, the octopus was the most unreal texture I’ve ever had – it was so incredibly tender with not the least bit of chewiness – it was kind of like biting into a  scallop, but a little heartier.  I only wish that the bechamel didn’t mask the flavor of the octopus, because it did kind of get lost in there.  It was so rich that we actually had some leftover that I brought home.  And get this.  The octopus stayed super-tender even after a trip to the microwave!  Holy crap!  I ate it with some of the leftover duck rice (gave nice salty twang to the rich octopus) and was back in heaven.

So hooray for Koo Zee Doo for cooking octopus so well …