The food in AC vol. 1

In the car as we were heading out of dodge, Cap handed me a bag from The Chocolate Path. He is good. The Chocopologie burnt caramel and sea salt bar I've raved about here before. The Taza bar was new for me and very interesting. They stone grind their chocolate, which I want to know more about. The texture is definitely affected by this. This particular bar had a strong hint of vanilla in it, which I liked, and found notable. And, they are located in Somerville, MA, next door to our old stomping grounds.

Last night we had dinner at Buddakan. They are an Asain fusion restaurant born in Philly. The AC location is their second and they now have a place in Manhattan, as well. Getting there was interesting. It was located in an upscale mall that was nestled amongst two big casinos, one of them was Caesar's.

We parked in a nearby parking garage after driving up onto the boardwalk to get our bearings (you're not supposed to actually drive up onto the boardwalk :-) All these buildings face the ocean, so when you're on the streets trying to access them, you mostly see the asses of the buildings and for first time visitors like us, well, it's hard to know exactly where you are. The backs of the buildings are either non-descript, if only because they all look the same, or have these bizarre fake "store fronts" built or painted on. On the other side of these walls are the otherwolrd of casinos, which you enter from the boardwalk or from somewhere within the maze of parking garages or hotel walkways.

Onto the food.

Cap had the chicken ginger dumplings and I had the tuna spring rolls for appetizers. The dumplings had good texture inside and out, but for me, the flavor was pretty much burned away by the overwehlming salt. For me to be overwhelemd by salt means there was a lot of salt.

The tuna spring rolls intrigued me. I asked if the tuna was cooked and the waitress had said "no". It turned out to be deep fried spring roll skin rolled like a cigarette (open on either end), with tuna tartare with just a touch of ponzu, stuffed inside. The portions of the high quality and tasty tuna were generous. I liked this even though it was weird to have something cold in something deep fried.

I wanted to take pictures, but the lighting in the restaurant was pleasantly dim and the flash on my camera would have made for some unattractive photos I think.

We then had crab fried rice (my pick), chicken with cashews (his choice) and wild mushroom chow fun (something we both wanted to try). The crab in the fried rice was good, but the dish itself, reminded me of a lesser version of the fried rice I used to get from our neighborhood Chinese place in Sacramento (it was a white fried rice which I much prefer to the ubiquitous "brown"/east coast fried rice).

The chicken with cashews was tasty. It had a good variety of veggies (broccoli, pea pods and mushrooms) in it that complemented the brown sauce well. My favorite parts of the dish were the cashews and the broccoli. But, honestly, compared to the food I've had at P.F. Chang's, it fell just short.

The chow fun...for being dubbed "wild mushroom" chow fun, there was a disappointing amount of mushrooms in the dish. I honestly think there were more mushrooms in the chicken with cashews. I am a sucker for chow fun noodles and these were prepared well. But, the dish was really just "eh".

I saved room for dessert and had trouble ordering one because many of them sounded really interesting and different. I ended up going with the "Zenful Donuts". The best part was the melded flavors of the banana and chocolate sauces which arrived in different bowls. The donuts were more like fried pockets of wonton skin. Not doughy in any way. These had been injected with a dollop of liquidy sweet cream cheese. And rolled in cinnamon sugar. Not as good as I thought they would be. Again, there was an odd mix of cold and warm. The sweet cheese inside was cool to the tongue. Whle the pockets were warm.

For drinks, we had tap water with ice (the water in AC tastes good!), Cap had a Yingling beer and I had a decaf latte which was light on the coffee, but the cup was nice and weighty. I like a heavy little cup.

Overall it was totally fun being in a restaurant that we'd never been to before, and ordering food that was off our beaten path. (Despite there being many, many restaurants where we live we tend to eat the same things from the same places when we eat out.) For that reason, the bill at the end of the meal didn't sting. But, truthfully, I don't think the food itself was worth it.

Now I'm really going to do some qi going :-)