Mango -- Peruvian food in the Lou

Author: Dave

What comes to mind when you think of Peruvian food?

I assumed spicy. I guess, living in the U.S., I assume any food south of the border brings the heat. After dining at Mango Restaurant, which boasts the only Peruvian restaurant in the St. Louis area, I would say that the stars of this South American country's cuisine are fresh, vibrant and colorful, but not at all spicy.

From Mango's website at www.mangoperu.com:

"Peruvian cuisine, in addition to its Inca origins, combines Spanish, Asian, and African influences to make an eclectic fusion of indigenous crops, spices, meats and seafood. Fresh ingredients and imaginative sauces are a hallmark of Peruvian cuisine, as is the popular Aji Amarillo pepper."

Aji amarillo is a fruity flavored and aromatic pepper, and its incorporated into many of Mango's dishes to add mild spice and a pleasant yellow color. The restaurant also mixes the pepper with oil as a condiment or dipping sauce.

The food was all good. Kirsten loved the empanada, which is spiced differently than the Argentinian empanadas we've enjoyed in the past. I ordered a an ensalada exicotica salad, which is made from an "exotic" mix of field greens, roasted red peppers, fresh mango and cilantro with a light citrus and olive oil dressing. I liked it. Wasn't knocked out, but then again I am not a big fan of fruit in a salad. I figure it's Mango's -- let's get something with mango. Trying the other salads, I would say that part of the meal was fine, but not my favorite.

The freshness and mild spice really came out in two salsas, one resembling chili verde and one that resembled pico de gallo. A plate of fried plantains came free to the table with these salsas. Fried yuca, similar to potato, also tasted great in a fresh dipping sauce.

Kirsten and I each ordered a "small plate" -- mine a skewer of beef kabobs and Kirsten an oven-baked shrimp dish with olive oil and shaved garlic. Each was delicious. Other members of our large dinner party also enjoyed their meals, and we heard few complaints. Mostly, people wished they had more food. In fact, we were a little hungry that evening after eating. But, we did have the "small plates" after all.

The restaurant has a pleasant atmosphere with hues of mango and scarlet. But, whereas I feel like I've received a nice introduction to the flavors of Peru, I didn't learn much about Peru itself. As the only St. Louis area restaurant boasting Peruvian cuisine, I thought it would be cool to see a map of Peru and photos of the ever-important aji amarillo pepper plant, along with some education about the culture and its food. The website does a good job of filling in some blanks, but from a selfish perspective, I would have loved to have known a little more about the food I was ordering and the culture that produced this food.

I emailed Mango Restaurant asking:

Have you thought about doing more to educate diners about Peruvian culture. Perhaps have photos of Peru, a map of Peru, some history of Peru ... just enough to give people a "flavor" of your homeland? I think as the only Peruvian restaurant in our area, you have a great opportunity to teach people more about your homeland's culture?

I think I phrased this sloppily, possibly insinuating that the owners do nothing to promote their culture. Sandra Calvo, restaurant Manager, was nice enough to answer:

Thanks for your interest in our restaurant. In regard to your question, the answer is yes, we have thought about the possibility of doing brief description of Peru and its culture. We are in the process of opening a new location and the idea of having a small map of Peru on the menu has come up as well. On the other hand we also offer teachers and their students an opportunity to come to the restaurant and have lunch or dinner and we have had requests for presentations and demonstrations about Peruvian culture. I have personally given the small little lectures to grade school (and this year) kindergarten students. We show them typical instruments, maps and we tell them about popular places to visit.

Mango Restaurant is located at 7307 Watson Road in the Mackenzie Point Plaza in Shrewsbury, South St. Louis County.

OVERALL: Mango Restaurant has fresh, vibrant food, and is a wonderful introduction to Peruvian food. The portions are small, although well-prepared.

3 out of 5 spoons

SCALE:

5 spoons -- a divine, out-of-body culinary experience

4 spoons -- top-notch establishment

3 spoons -- a good place to eat

2 spoons -- wouldn't recommend

1 spoon -- avoid at all costs

Try Bombay Grill for Authentic Indian Food

Author: Dave

Bombay Grill is one of those pleasant strip mall discoveries. Nestled in Crossroad Plaza along Highway K in O'Fallon, Mo, Bombay Grill offers quality Indian cuisine ... and if you're a newbie, they take time to help you choose a dish.

Owner Hema Patel helped our table decide what we might want to order, and made it clear that her food isn't all heat. She says that Bombay Grill features north Indian fare, and that the food isn't necessarily about the heat ... although, yes, you can find some spicy hot offerings. She explained that dishes can be altered to suit your comfort with spice.

Our party passed around plates so that we could sample each other's food. And, after one Saturday evening at Bombay Grill, here's my suggestion: Order the meals that come with an Indian-style sauce. I've had chicken curry several times before, and I'd rate Bombay Grill's up there with all of them. (Again, you can alter the level of heat. I had the spicy curry.) Two members of our party had a lamb vindaloo, a hot dish ... one had medium heat and the other took the hottest dish. Both were quite good (and the hotter dish made my forehead sweat a little ... a good thing).

If you haven't had Indian fare, here's the great thing about the Bombay Grill -- the restaurant offers a lunch buffet. We plan to come back for lunch to sample more choices.

We did encounter some disappointments. The Tandoori Mixed Grill was a "mixed bag." Kirsten ordered this dish so she could sample a good variety of food, but some items were overcooked. Part of the problem may be that the food remains on a hot cast-iron plate. Bombay Grill's style is to bring all the entrees out on a hot plate, and rice on a separate serving plate in the middle of the table. You then combine your entree with rice as you wish on your dinner plate. Some of Kirsten's chicken and the shrimp got too dry, possibly by continuing to cook on the cast-iron plate after coming out of the oven. The grilled proteins also were calling out loudly for some type of sauce to go with them. Kirsten used some of the sauces from other dishes on the table to combine with elements of the mixed grill.

The best Tandoori specialty was the Tandoori Chicken. This dish has dark meat, which may be why it retained its juices and flavor better. One of our guests ordered just the Tandoori Chicken and seemed pleased.

We also loved the nan bread, a flat leavaned Indian bread. Heck, I'd go back to Bombay Grill just for the garlic nan itself.

OVERALL: Bombay Grill serves flavorful, authentic north Indian cuisine. Maybe try them out for buffet first one day ... and see if they hook you like they hooked us

3-1/2 out of 5 spoons.

SCALE:

5 spoons -- a divine, out-of-body culinary experience

4 spoons -- top-notch establishment

3 spoons -- a good place to eat

2 spoons -- wouldn't recommend

1 spoon -- avoid at all costs

RESTAURANT WEBSITE

Who knew homemade pulled pork could be this easy?

Author: Dave

Admittedly, this was really easy for me. I did nothing but taste and make suggestions. My greatest challenge was not over-eating (which I failed). Kirsten did all the work ... but, she can attest that an awesome restaurant-quality pulled pork is not a time-consuming task.

First, you need yourself a pork shoulder roast, also known as a pork's butt roast. (It's from the shoulder, and I don't know who gave it the "butt" name, but they didn't do the meat any favor.) Kirsten used a 3-pound roast. The night before, she rubbed it down with cumin and chili powder, let it marinate in the spices in the fridge overnight, and seared the roast in a pan with olive oil the next morning. Then, she put the shoulder roast in a pan with can of diced tomatoes, shallots, onions, garlic, salt, pepper, chili powder, cumin and a couple dashes of liquid smoke, covered the pan with tinfoil, and roasted this wonderful-smelling concoction in the oven at 275 degrees for 5 hours. The roast literally cooks in its own juices, and gets so tender you pull it apart with a fork. Adjust your roast size as you wish, but just know that when it's tender enough to be pulled apart, it's done.

Now, Kirsten didn't just stop there. She made her own BBQ sauce, mixing together chipotle sauce (from a local Mexican grocery story), store-bought raspberry chipotle sauce, ketchup, brown sugar, some vinegar, dijon mustard, garlic powder, liquid smoke, salt and pepper. This wasn't a recipe of any kind. This was Kirsten's usual experimentation -- a little of this, a little of that, until it tastes just right. The raspberry chipotle sauce originally made the concoction too sweet. Kirsten added the mustard to help cut the sweetness with some extra vinegar and spice. I tasted the BBQ sauce cold, and I was hopeful. Once cooked, this was an awesome mixture. Try making your own, and just remember that you want to cut sweet with spicy & savory, and vice-versa. If you're scared, buy your favorite brand-name sauce and have it available in case you're not happy with your own creation.

Let the pork roast cool a while so it sucks in those juices, then pull the pork apart and take out any visible fat. Then, add the BBQ sauce to the pulled pork in a separate pan, and you're ready to warm the BBQ pork in the oven as you prepare your sides. (I got another taste at this point ... and on my suggestion, Kirsten sprinkled some extra salt on the pork. I feel that salt really pulls out the taste of pork. Normally, we're stingy on the salt.)

The rest of the BBQ sauce was mixed with some extra chipotle sauce and simmered in a small pot. This sauce was available to add onto the pork when served for some extra heat and taste.

Serve on the bun of your choice (Kir used a toasted kaiser bun brushed with garlic butter), or serve on its own (as shown in the photo). Yes, I tried it both ways.

Kirsten also served one of our favorite slaws. You can find this at grocery stores -- a bag of prepared slaw fixings with broccoli, cauliflower, carrots and some cabbage. It's a crispy, super-healthy alternative to regular cabbage slaw. As usual, Kirsten takes it up a notch by adding chopped onion (for an extra bite) and soaking the prepared vegetable mix in vinegar and spices -- cajun seasoning, salt, pepper and a good grill seasoning. An hour or hour-and-a-half later, add the mayonnaise and a splash of milk and mix it in with the slaw/seasoning mixture until creamy.

We also ate some of our favorite potato chips for a crunchy, starchy, easy side.

Obviously, you'll want to prepare this meal when you're home most of the day to tend to the oven, but the amount of time babysitting the meal is pretty minimal. Kirsten left and shopped for a few hours while the pork roasted. Shoulder roast is also one of the more affordable pieces of meat you'll find at the grocery store. Our 3-pound roast made about 8 full servings. (I enjoyed myself a gut-splitting two servings, and two more coming my way via lunch this week. Some envious co-workers will get to smell this wonderful stuff twice this week.)

Before we ate, I had teased Kirsten that I would grade her work as if grading a restaurant ... and here's the verdict: A perfect 5 spoons. (The Girl, 8, also gave a perfect score.) I always talk about how it's hard to find great BBQ when we go out. Turns out, you can put together a great pulled pork BBQ meal at home.

White House Food Trivia

With the changing of the guard at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, I thought I'd post a few trivia questions about food at the White House. Check the Comments at the end of this "presidential" post for the answers.

1) You probably know that the White House has its own chef and kitchen. The President and family also have their own second-floor kitchen. Question: Who foots the food bill for the President's family and their personal guests?

A. You, the taxpayer
B. The President
C. The guests

2) The White House only carries American wine. The White House stopped serving French wine during this President's administration:

A. Nixon
B. Ford
C. Clinton
B. W. Bush

3) President Andrew Jackson accepted what 1,400-pound gift? Hint: He let it age for two years in the Entrance Hall and invited the public to eat it in 1837.

4) Henrietta Nesbitt was the White House housekeeper also in charge of preparing meals during Franklin Roosevelt's four terms in the White House. Henrietta narrowly avoided being fired despite her bland fare, but she didn't avoid the next President's chopping block when she served Harry S. Truman these vegetables once too often:

A. Brussel sprouts
B. Carrots
C. Peas
D. Artichokes

5) Before 1801, the only way to cook in the White House was:

A. In a brick oven
B. In an open-hearth fireplace
C. Boiling with pots

6) Susan Ford, daughter of Gerald Ford, convinced a White House kitchen pot scrubber to show her where she could find the key to the "cookie jar"--actually a large rolling container holding __ or more types of cookies.

A. 10
B. 20
C. 50

7) Tad, the son of this President, befriended a turkey intended for a White House feast and saved the animal from the "executioner." This anecdote is often cited during the modern turkey-pardoning photo-op at the White House.

A. James Madison
B. Abraham Lincoln
C. Teddy Roosevelt
D. Herbert Hoover

8) How did Woodrow Wilson's family signal during World War I that it was observing "meatless and wheatless" days in order to save food for U.S. troops and starving Europeans?

A. A Red Cross symbol on their door
B. A flag bearing wheat and a plow
C. A red, white and blue sticker on a White House window

9) No alcoholic beverage was served at any function during the Hayes administration–a prohibition earning the First Lady Lucretia Hayes this nickname:

A. Lemonade Lucy
B. Iced Tea Lucretia
C. Lady Teetotaler

10) Name the person who said this: "The good news is, my husband loves to eat and enjoys it. The bad news is, he loves to eat, even when things are not always right for him."

A. Nellie Herron Taft
B. Grace Coolidge
C. Lady Bird
D. Hillary Clinton

Whole Foods Market

Author: Dave

This is what we do on a sunny Saturday afternoon: Shop for groceries. Well, more like explore for groceries.

We spent the first nice weekend afternoon after the recent snowstorm at Whole Foods Market in Town and Country. This was an eye-opening, and sample-taste-tacular, experience.

Whole Foods Market is not going to be a place where we do our weekly grocery shopping. But, this is what we envision ... when we want fresh seafood and have time to try new foods, we're going to take the (under-a-half-hour for us) trip over to Whole Foods Market. (There's also a Whole Foods Market at the Galleria on Brentwood.) The employees seem to care about you, the customer, and their product, the food. And, they want you to get involved and sample the fare. On this day, we were met with a guacamole dip samples upon entering. Pineapple and grapefruit pieces were set out to savor in the produce section. We found hummus in the dairy aisle, homemade potato chips in a grocery aisle, and plenty of breads at the bakery.

In seafood, a quesadilla with mahi-mahi (or Maui-Maui, as my wife mispronounces it) and mango salsa tantalized us. The heavenly smell drew shoppers like a seal draws a great white (cue Jaws theme) ... but unlike sea predators, we also enjoyed a complimentary splash of wine with our bite. The fish quesadilla was pretty good. Kirsten and I like lighter fish, and therefore opted to take home sole and cod, plus jumbo shrimp. The prices were comparable to other chain grocery stores, but with higher quality. Each piece of seafood looked beautiful, and we've enjoyed some baked sole with Ritz cracker breading. You place the sole in a pan, crush Ritz crackers and mix with butter, lemon, garlic and parsley, spread the mixture over the sole, and bake in the oven at 375 for 20 to 25 minutes until the fish is flaky -- alter your cooking time depending on the thickness of your fish. The dish was very good, and good for you.

Here's the thing that's most special about Whole Foods Market ... it sells organic and natural foods. These people love their food. And, by love, I don't mean, like when you were in college, and the one guy on the floor ate everything he saw, always asking you "if you were gonna finish that" and "if you were going to eat your pizza crust." No, I mean, they respect the food and offer wholesome options. That just comes through in how the store operates.

In seafood, a nice woman came out from behind the counter with a whole snapper to show kids what the fish looks like, pointing out its fins and other parts. I've never seen this type of educational show-and-tell at a grocery store.

In a grocery aisle, a licensed dietician approached my wife and asked if she had any dietary restrictions that she could help her with.

I'm also not used to people behind a grocery counter answering questions intelligently. As we drooled over the sausages in the meat section, the gentlemen behind the counter took the time to answer some questions that led us to avoid a certain type of a English sausage best made with potatoes. (It looked good, but just wasn't our bag, baby.) We chose the Italian sausages and Andouille instead.

A cool-as-all-get-out wheel of parmesan reggiano signaled that we were entering the cheese area, where sampling is key because of the wide variety of selections. The nice man in the cheese secton could tell us just how long each cheese has aged, and even added some history behind some types we were considering.

The most unexpected thing for me was all the delectable, prepared fare you could buy from the (very long) gourmet food bar. In the Asian food area, employees called us over for some samples. A native New Yorker, Kirsten has long been on a quest to find quality Chinese food since moving to the Midwest. Having been burned too many times, I think she gave up a few years ago. Well, she loved both the orange chicken and the lemon chicken (and so did I). "I wish we lived closer," she said. "I would definitely pick up some prepared Chinese food from there every once in awhile."

The dessert area didn't have samples ... but here's what was cool. We wanted to try different items, but we didn't want to buy a huge, prepared sampler box. The nice man there customized a variety box for us, and I just want to say this: try the fruit tart. Trust me. Fresh fruit, atop a lemon curd, on a flaky crust. What's not to love? You can even claim it as semi-healthy.

Truth be told: We have yet to eat all the food we bought from Whole Foods. What we've eaten so far has been very good. We will be back, maybe once a month or every other month ... or maybe when we run out of seafood ... or maybe when we have a nice weekend day and just want to get out and explore some more quality, well-loved foods.