Indian Royal Rumble: Ekta vs. Tiffin
t says: A long time ago, kp told us of an awesome Indian delivery place called Tiffin. g and I were fans of Indian food from our Hopkins days, so we couldn’t resist the idea of it being delivered to our door – especially if the delivery guy was wearing formal attire (white button-down shirt, dark dress pants, tie – VERY classy!). Well, times have changed. First off, Tiffin no longer has the prim-and-proper delivery dudes. Second, there’s Ekta, a second Indian delivery place which is clearly Tiffin’s rival. There’s actually quite a bit of history between the two – a “spat” as it’s called. Very dramatic, I assure you.
g and I had compared the two in the past, but neglected to write down the results. Our gist was: “yea, Ekta’s a buck or two cheaper, and it’s Butter Chicken was unstoppable.”. However, due to errors in tip calculation, I got into a “spat” of my own with an Ekta delivery guy (to be fair, both of us were to blame: I couldn’t calculate, he was a jackass, I was spiteful). The result: g and I banned ourselves from Ekta to avoid the addition of saliva to our food.
Flash-forward a year or so. a and v wanted to revisit the Ekta and Tiffin throwdown. They were veteran Tiffinites. We suggested that Ekta might be able to deliver food of greater deliciousness. They were intrigued. Obviously, the only logical next step is to get some foods from each and see who came out on top, right?
November 2011, Fri Night Delivery, Party of 4. The evening started with a wine-tasting at Ristorante Panorama. They were doing a Portugal-themed evening, with a producer from that area providing 2 whites, 2 reds, and 3 ports. It was quite an experience, as the wine was very good – especially when considering that you were permitted as much as you liked of any of the wines for a 2-hour span (6-8pm) for $25. I thought of it as a happy hour that I actually wanted to be at! Yea, the free food was kinda bad (the cheese insipid, the bruschetta soggy … but the calamari wasn’t bad!), but we’re confident that the real food (i.e. not free) served at the restaurant had to be better. After all – they put a lot of focus into their wine (they have the Guiness-Book-certified world’s largest number of wines on tap: 120), so they have to at least deliver “ok” food, right? I hope so.
But I digress – back to the Indian food. We returned to a and v’s apartment at 8:30 and placed our orders. g and I chose Ekta dishes. a and v chose Tiffin dishes.
Ekta: Butter Chicken, Masaladar Chola (“the chickpea dish”), Saag Paneer, Peshwari Naan, Samosas
Tiffin: Lamb Rogan Josh, Saag Paneer, Samosas, Plain Naan
Tiffin arrived first, taking approximately 40 minutes. I was VERY impressed, as Indian takes at least 1 hour (on a good day) to arrive at our humble abode near Rittenhouse – I guess Old City’s just closer! Ekta, on the other hand, went MIA. So we feasted on Tiffin as we waited. An hour-twenty passed. At this point, we were hungry – and perhaps a little impatient (I think the wine consumed was disinhibiting our behavior a bit). So we called near 10pm and were informed, “all the orders are out on delivery”. Cool. At 10pm, we brought in our “fixer”: v. She was able to ascertain that the driver had failed a delivery attempt – apparently “no one was home”. That was false – we were home. AND, the delivery guy didn’t call us! We were told he’d attempt to re-deliver. v somehow got the Ekta delivery guy’s cell phone number. That was weird that Ekta just gave out the number. She then proceeded to call the delivery guy to ensure proper delivery of food (see? she fixes things!). And voila – we had the food in the apartment in about 10 minutes time (turns out the delivery guy rang the non-functional doorbell, but didn’t bother calling us to see if anyone was home).
Ok – here’s the scoresheet:
Here's the summary sheet - complete with butter chicken stains.
Of course, the problem with the sheet is that it’s a little incoherent. I believe that the problem is that we got distracted a lot by what was said (we’re all soooo funny) to really do a full-on dish-by-dish evaluation. Allow me to summarize here:
Delivery speed: Ekta loses, obviously.
Delivery guy tact/competence: When we told the Tiffin delivery guy that it was a competition and that he delivered first, he asked, “so does that mean I get a good tip?” While we’re sure he was just being playful, it could be construed as kind of tactless. Meanwhile the Ekta guy was very humble/apologetic, which we appreciated – but does that make up for not even attempting to call us. We’ll leave it a draw or give Tiffin the edge (I favor competence over tact).
Saag Paneer Faceoff: At one point, a decided that “green poo” was a good descriptor of Saag Paneer. Kinda gross. But true. In the end, Ekta had the superior poo – it had more oomph than Tiffin’s. Personally, I preferred Tiffin’s texture, but it really did lack spice and spinach that Ekta brought.
Samosa Faceoff: Ekta’s was superior for having a nicer consistency filling, a crispier crust (that’s right – it was crispier and who knows how long it stayed in that styrofoam container for while the guy was delivering it?). Also, “the green stuff” (i.e. there’s some kind of sauce they put in a tiny round container that’s green – mint chutney?) from Ekta beat out Tiffin’s due to its thicker consistency and bolder flavor.
Dish of the night: Ekta’s Butter Chicken. Seriously. If you order nothing else from Ekta, you have to order the Butter Chicken.
Honorable mention: Masaladar Chola. g commented: “They taste have bacon in them – not just veg.” And it’s true. These are some kickin’ chickpeas. I think dz would like them a lot. They are spicy, though.
Food Winner: Ekta (just so long as you can wait for it). Damn – tough night to be Tiffin. Tiffin had a distinct advantage going into the challenge, as we were hungrier when they arrived. Despite that, Ekta really brought some thunder … albeit nearly an hour later.
As you can see, there were also a few desserts for the evening. I made a cranberry upside-down cake (with chocolate chips!) as well as a twist on Paula Deen’s pumpkin-gingerbread-trifle (I replaced the pumpkin with chocolate – duh!). At one point, when contemplating the categories that should be used to compare the two, after “Taste”, I decided “Chocolate” was a pertinent category. g felt that was silly: “That doesn’t make sense. You made them both – so you know if there’s chocolate in it – how is that a category?” My response: “It’s simple – does it have chocolate or not? They both have it. That means they both win!” a deemed this to be the new “funniest thing I’ve ever said”. I’m not sure if that means that it was particularly funny or if the implication is that may baseline funniness is low. Oh well. a felt the choco-gingerbread-concoction was superior to the cake. I disagreed. We’ll call it a draw.
k’s favorite pot
k says: I was perusing afterdinnersneeze, as I like to do when I’m too tired to do any more work for the night, but not yet ready for bed, and I saw the 2010 posting about Dutch ovens. I have no relevant information to share, no pros and cons lists, but instead, here below are my truest emotions about “my favorite pot.”
My favorite pot is our gray Le Creuset pot. It is gorgeous. It’s heavy. It’s shiny. I love cooking in it because it feels like you’re really cooking a real dinner. These days, dinner often consists of cereal, an apple and some cashews. But when we cook with the Le Creuset, it means we are cooking something special. Some of my favorite dishes have been cooked in this pot – cm’s pasta with butternut squash, perfectly browned conchas, braised chicken with vegetables, and of course “the good soup”. We used it to wow our judges in the famous Iron Chef battle, home edition, of 2009. (k and cm vs. t and g, Battle Carrot.) I’m sure the beauty of the pot itself bought us a couple points.
The truth is, it’s not a totally necessary pot. Most days we can get by with our other mediocre pots and pans. For many years, we did just fine without it. The year after graduating from college, cm and I and our two close college friends hosted a weekly dinner for our friends that still lived in the area. It was our first time learning how to cook, trying new recipes, and playing host. We called it “Sunday Dinner Series.” We stuck almost exclusively to recipes, poring through our first cookbook as well as trying our hand at our childhood favorite recipes. I remember Sunday Dinner Series fondly. It was the beginning of our love of cooking and eating with friends. Unfortunately, it fizzled off as we ran out of money…
Five years later, we were ready to own our first Le Creuset. cm and I went to Williams Sonoma after spending many months percolating on the idea, now wielding a gift card from cm’s parents. As we examined the wall of beauties, stacked up perfectly just like t said, an older couple started chatting with us and tried to convince us to buy an entire set of Le Creuset’s in one color. They were in the process of doing just that, as a wedding present for their son. Since a set costs many hundreds of dollars, we settled on our one pot… the one in the color that was on sale. It felt like a big day. I felt like a real grown up. We soon would have more visits to Williams Sonoma, and even purchase more Le Creusets, with the help of our wedding registry. But none would be more special than our first visit and our first Le Creuset purchase.
Han’s Dynasty Continues
t says: Han Dynasty is one of our favorite places to eat, especially because it’s far more forgiving on the wallet than the restaurants we typically visit. On one hand, it’s just Chinese food … but on the other, it’s no ordinary General Tso’s chicken. At the suggestion of smn, I threw together a Sunday night dinner with some peeps. In the end, it turned out that all of the attendees were adsz cast members: smn, dz, k, cm, n, g and me. a and v also dropped by a little later on (they picked up some food for takeout) – so it was quite an adsz extravaganza!
November 2011, Sunday Dinner, Party of 7. After taking our seats (no waiting! yay!), we were faced with our first decision of the evening: EtOH or no? In the good ‘ol days, this would be a stupid question, as Han Dynasty was BYO. But long gone is the era of carefree wine consumption as Han has started enforcing a $10 wine corkage fee ($1 per beer, $2 per large format beer). Boooo! Although $10 is incredibly reasonable, I guess the thought of a few extra dollars dissuaded us. Fortunately, cm, k, g, and I had a glass of wine before dinner, so we were content, and I think that the majority were anticipating a spicy meal which would be dangerous if wine was the primary liquid used to attempt to cleanse the palate. n gets a special shout-out for thinking of bringing a bottle of white to share – but she got to take it home to save for next time!
The next big challenge was figuring out what to eat. We initially contemplated the $20 “tasting” that we had done in the past. Basically, you pay a certain amount per head, and food just keeps coming out of the kitchen until you cry uncle. It’s a superb deal. That said, we had a vegetarian and a pescapoultritarian at the table, and the last time we did the tasting, very few veggie-friendly dishes came out despite our request. cm then decided to put himself in my hands, trusting that as the token Asian person at the table (or at least – “the Asian closest to China”), I’d be able to pick out the “good dishes”. That was a lot of pressure – so I called in a consult – our actually-Chinese friend who has had many-a-Han dinners in the past. Armed with his recommendations, I placed our order and let the food fly.
Beginners: Dan Dan Noodles, Cold Sesame Noodles, Spicy Crispy Cucumber, Dumplings in Chili Oil
Meats: Black Bean Sauce Fish, Double Cooked Chicken, Cumin Lamb, Tofu in Garlic Sauce (no, not really a “meat” – but close!)
Veggies: Eggplant in Garlic Sauce, Bok Choy and Mushrooms
Here are the highs and the lows:
Victory!: Dan Dan Noodles (of PW fame), Cold Sesame Noodles (smn said they were “the best sesame noodles she’s ever had”), the Eggplant in Garlic Sauce (k, who doesn’t even like eggplant that much still liked these!), and the Black Bean Style Fish (my pick for the best protein of the evening!). Special recognition should be given to the Spicy Crispy Cucumber appetizer – it tasted exactly like spicy, crispy, cucumbers (surprised?). k, who normally doesn’t do spice, found that she “couldn’t help herself with the spicy cucumbers – they were too spicy for her, but so good she wanted to eat more and more”.
Defeat!: Cumin Lamb (WAY too many chiles, and the lamb was sparse and overcooked and really tasted like nothing more than cumin).
Alrightie-then. So there was a lot of delicious food and really only one regret. And even though now there’s a corkage fee, I think we’re still happy to have Han Dynasty be the adsz pick for best cheap eats; our dinner was $20pp INCLUDING tax and tip! And if you want some wine, just bring in some magnums or something (it’s just one bottle, right?) – problem solved!
impending steak-off
t says: I’m a fan of Alton Brown … but I’ll be first to admit that his recipes are often a little complicated/fussy. In his defense, he at least attempts to justify the extra steps with some kind of logic/theory/evidence. I often use his steak-cooking procedure when I cooking my steaks at home. But then I saw this:
http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?/topic/119838-the-best-way-to-cook-a-thick-steak/
My world has been rocked. Hmmmm … I think we need a steak-off.
The Truth … about Wegman’s Wine, Liquors & Beer
t says: Wegman’s is a force to be reckoned with, as I can’t even count the number of people who claim to “save a bundle” because the generic Wegman-branded items are “so good”. While I slightly disagree with the “saving a bundle” statement (everything not Wegman’s brand is pricey indeed), I’ll acquiesce that for the most part, Wegman’s items are “ok” (with a few noteworthy highlights – g loves their version of Cheerios).
Well, now Wegman’s has gone and opened up a liquor store just across the river in Cherry Hill. Actually, it’s interesting how they do this, as the parent entity is only allowed a certain number of stores in Jersey (i.e. 2), and Wegman’s clearly has more than these. To circumvent the rules, they rely on family members to open the stores. Cool, right? No? “Don’t hate the player, hate the game.”
Ok, let’s focus on the Cherry Hill store that just opened:
Wegman's newest EtOH outpost
This new store is directly caddy-corner to a longtime favorite of mine (WineLegend) which is conveniently located between Wegman’s and HMart just down the road. Furthermore, WineLegend’s website, although crappy, allows me to FREELY ship wine to the Cherry Hill location for convenient pickup. I imagine that the WineLegend folk are pretty pissed that Wegman’s is so nearby, and very convenient for the Wegman’s grocery shopper.
g and I busted up into there to investigate the new digs … It was kind of disappointing … WHAT? Yep. It’s true. The shelves were stocked with a whole lot of nothing special. Yea, there are a lot of common wines in there, but it’s not like you’re going to find a bottle that’s particularly noteworthy. What was weird was that even though the store, itself, is small, the selection seemed even smaller than the store’s size would suggest – they had a whole lot of a fairly limited selection. Maybe as they get up and running they’ll increase the variety and cut down on the billion bottles of Yellowtail?
The upside is that it’s clean and bright in there … and, of course, it’s convenient as all hell. I suspect that for most people, this will be the place to go to pick up a few last-minute drinks needed for a party or something … meaning that this place will probably make a killing from the droves and droves of Wegman’s shoppers. But not me. I’m sticking with WineLegend. WineLegend’s got a guy named Phil in there that really knows good wine (that said, he’s not a particularly “friendly” guy – but who cares if he nails a good selection or two, right?). Furthermore, I don’t mind WineLegend’s selection – it’s at least better than Wegman’s. Actually, if only WineLegend cleaned up their store to make it bright/beautiful like Wegman’s – that’d be awesome. But I doubt they will. Oh well. I better enjoy them while they’re still here.
One thing I did find that was particularly funny (I’m not sure why I find it so funny) was this:
"Du Pin" ... that's Le Pin's second bottling, right? Riiiiiight.
Commonwealth Proper on RueLaLa
t says: I’m a big fan of Commonwealth Proper for my sartorial needs (follow-up photos pending)! They’re running a deal on RueLaLa in the Philadelphia section: 2 custom shirts for $150. That’s a darn good deal. Check it out!
How t Does Ramen
t says: The other day, a, v, g, and I were discussing childhood foods that we still enjoyed eating today … even if they are a little – shall we say – “unrefined”. For instance, a has found himself eating Spaghettios once or twice a year; I find this to be revolting. I, on the other hand, have been known to eat a Pop-Tart or two in my day (Cherry is the best); a finds this is ridiculous but not necessarily surprising (I believe his exact words might be: “you would … you would!”). g has a secret crush on sugar doughnuts filled with strawberry jelly (she can resist a lot of sweets … but not that one). This is when v reminded me of one of her food weaknesses: ramen. Mmmmmm. Ramen. I, too, love ramen. But not just any ramen – for me it has to be Sapporo Ichiban:
Sapporo Number One! ... Ichiban!
This is the brand that I grew up on – no “Cup-o-Noodles” or “Smack Ramen” (both of which are gross) or anything like that – this is the real deal. And, if you haven’t had this brand before, I strongly advise you find your nearest Asian convenience store and buy it (don’t mess around with the “flavored” Sapporo ones, either, as the “original flavoring” is by far the best).
Back in the day, I’d drop an egg or two into the boiling water to add a little “something extra” to the noodles and MSG goodness. Now, years later, I will cook the ramen using the full seasoning packet but avoid ingesting too much broth (that’s where the salt is). And lately, I’ve been playing around with my ramen toppings by adding some leftovers:
ramen with leftover Chinese food (shrimp and broccoli), leftover kimchi jige, some sauteed spinach, and a hard-boiled egg
No, it’s no Momofuku ramen, but if I close my eyes, I can pretend that it’s a balanced lunch (it’s got three pieces of broccoli in there, right?). One day, I do hope to master David Chang’s ramen, and maybe then I won’t need Sapporo Ichiban anymore … (but I’d still eat it anyways).
after dinner sneeze 