Goodbye Rochester!

Ed. note: This post originally appeared in my 2008 food blog Fork It Over on the website of the Rochester Insider magazine, which is now Metromix Rochester. Since the old blog is no longer available online, I'm re-posting some of those posts here and backdating them to their original posting dates. Although in most cases they are specific to Rochester, hopefully you'll still find them somewhat interesting!  ~Rachel, 6/28/10

How would you spend your last two weeks in Rochester? (Well, aside from packing.) What favorite restaurants would you visit one last time? What new places would you go to even though you won't get a chance to go back again? What aspects of Rochester would you miss the most?

The time has come for me to move on, a little reluctantly. I've been here since 2003, first as a student at UR, and then as a lab assistant at Strong. I can sort of quantify how my love for Rochester has grown by looking at how I've answered the question "Where are you from?" over the last few years, when asked by people outside of Rochester. (When someone asks you the question on campus, you automatically default to hometown, so I'm just talking about people I've met on airplanes or in other cities and countries.) During freshman and sophomore year, the answer was always "Boston," and then I might add on the detail that I went to school in Rochester. Somewhere around junior year, I started to say "I live in Rochester now, but I'm originally from Boston." Towards the end of senior year, I'd specify that I'd been living in Rochester for about four years, but I was originally from Boston, and then I'd always add on "...I'm probably moving away for grad school, but I might move back to Rochester someday. I really like it there." And over the last year, until my move back to Boston became finalized, I found myself answering simply "Rochester" and leaving Boston out all together.

The summer before I began at UR, my only impression of Rochester was that it was snowy and crime-filled. "Well, at least the campus is nice," I thought. I was completely isolated on campus during my freshman year, hardly realizing that anything existed outside of Mt. Hope, Elmwood, and Wilson Boulevard. Fortunately, I met Ben at the beginning of my sophomore year. Ben had a car and a real passion for Rochester, so our first few dates consisted of tours around the city and surrounding areas. Throughout the next few years, we spent a lot of time exploring Rochester together. My parents liked to joke that I was majoring in Ben, but I was actually majoring in Rochester. (Sorry, UR Neuroscience department. I cared about you, but sometimes I guess I cared more about exploring my new home.) Using resources like RocWiki and friends who were knowledgeable about the area, we really started to feel like Rochester was our home. Ben is a non-native as well, originally coming from NYC, so a lot of people that we talked to were confused about why we liked Rochester so much, coming from bigger cities. (Disclaimer: I didn't actually grow up in Boston, just in a suburb about twenty-five miles south, but it's easier to say "Boston" when you're talking to people not from Massachusetts.) I love that so much art, music, theater, and food is packed into a small, manageable city. I love that I can run into people I know in bars downtown. And I love how within fifteen minutes, you can drive through a city, suburbs, and rural areas. In less than an hour, you're in wine country. In less than two hours, you can get to Buffalo, Syracuse, or Niagara Falls. Not only are there great things to do right in Rochester, but other nice areas are just a short drive away. Rochester has an unbelievable amount of variety in such a small space, and if you are willing to put in a little bit of effort, you'll never be bored. Winter can be tricky, but there is always plenty to do; you just need to look for it. In a city like Boston or New York, you don't have to try as hard. But because you need to work a little harder to have a relationship with Rochester, that relationship means a little bit more.

I've grown comfortable here, and as moving day looms in the near future, I'm feeling nervous about starting a new life in Boston. I'll be studying science journalism at Boston University, and Ben, who has decided to follow me to Boston, will be working at a web design firm in nearby Cambridge. It's silly, but it's the little things that I'll miss the most, like shopping trips to Wegmans and midnight snacks at Tim Horton's. (Well, Wegmans is actually finally moving into Massachusetts, just fifteen minutes from my hometown, but I'm sure it won't be ready for awhile.) (Ed. note: Still waiting... ~Rachel, 6/28/10) I'm going to miss French onion soup at The Distillery, pomegranate mojitos at Tapas 177, penne vodka at Pane Vino, and mojito criollo chicken from Dinosaur BBQ. Most of all, I'm going to miss the amazing view from my apartment building rooftop deck.

So how would you spend your last two weeks?

I've been going about my routine as usual, without fully realizing that moving day is creeping closer and closer. All of a sudden, I'll be packing up the U-Haul, and I'll realize that I wish I had gone to a particular restaurant one more time, or attended one more ZooBrew, or walked through Highland Park again.

This will probably be my last post for a few weeks since my apartment isn't packing itself, and any time spent not packing should be spent enjoying Rochester. Next time you hear from me, I'll probably be writing about Restaurant Week Boston. (Go drool over the website if you have some time.) Yes, I will continue to write from my new home in Boston. I hope you don't mind that I won't be local anymore.

So, goodbye Rochester! It's been fun, and I do hope to move back here someday. I really like it here.

A Birthday Weekend in the Finger Lakes

Ed. note: This post originally appeared in my 2008 food blog Fork It Over on the website of the Rochester Insider magazine, which is now Metromix Rochester. Since the old blog is no longer available online, I'm re-posting some of those posts here and backdating them to their original posting dates. Although in most cases they are specific to Rochester, hopefully you'll still find them somewhat interesting!  ~Rachel, 6/28/10

Sorry for the long absence! I've been on mini-vacations for the last three weekends and hard at work packing up my apartment between trips. I'm moving in two weeks, but more on that later. My first trip was a fun-filled (and wine-filled) birthday weekend in the Finger Lakes. I went on a wine tour around Seneca Lake on Saturday and then hiked around Watkins Glen State Park and explored Corning on Sunday. The next weekend, I camped out in a friend's yard along Conesus Lake, watched the annual Ring of Fire celebration on July 3rd, and went out on the lake in his boat the next day. That night, I came back to Rochester to watch the downtown fireworks from my apartment building's roof. This past weekend, I took a road trip to Quebec City and stopped in Montreal on the way home. I had some pretty great food on all the trips (especially Quebec City...wow) but today I'm going to focus on the Finger Lakes weekend since that's a bit more local than Quebec.

We drove to Geneva on Friday night to check in at the hotel and then headed over to nearby Waterloo to eat at Mac's Drive-In, one of a dying breed of restaurants that have car hop service. There's seating inside as well if you'd rather not spill soda and ketchup on your car seats. As you can see on the menu, they offer typical diner food at very cheap prices. The food is tasty, and it's kind of fun to eat in your car once in awhile! It was also pretty amusing to see the waitresses try to figure out which car was just honking at them. You'd think someone would have come up with a better system since the 1950s. If you're ever near Waterloo, you should definitely check this place out. Warning: cash only; not open year-round.

We started Saturday morning off with some room service (which I've always found to be pretty overrated, but we had to be ready early for the wine tour, so it was the fastest choice). Ben got a delicious-looking Belgian waffle:

And I opted for a heart-healthy (haha) combo of sausage, eggs, toast, and homefries.

Hey, we had a long day of wine-drinking ahead of us. I needed to prepare my body for the onslaught of alcohol. (Let's just say I usually get pretty tipsy halfway into my first glass of wine.)

After breakfast, we took a trolley tour to five different wineries along Seneca Lake: Wagner in Lodi, Standing Stone in Hector, and Torrey Ridge, Anthony Road, and Fox Run, all in Penn Yan.

In addition to tasting wines, we got to take a tour of Wagner and then had some lunch at their Ginny Lee cafe. Down in the cellar, we saw countless barrels of wine:

Torrey Ridge was sampling their new "Redneck" wines, fun summery wines that, according to the description on the winelist, "will bring out the redneck in you!"

Anthony Road had a beautiful garden in the back where we roamed around after tasting wines. There were even a few rows of grape vines to look at.

Fox Run had a very nice tasting bar; it was a great way to end the day. After finishing up tasting wines, I bought some chocolate and relaxed on the patio until it was time to leave.

Eat chocolate? Sure, why not...

The chocolates were shaped like grapes and wine barrels, and they had wine in the middle. Yes, they were delicious. Yes, you can order online. I think. But the site looks a little outdated, and I can't figure out if there's a way to specify which flavor you want (there are many!) so order at your own risk, or just look for them at Fox Run :)

I also purchased an absolutely delicious mojito-flavored java rub at one of the wineries. Ben used it on some chicken on July 4th, and everyone loved it!

After the wine tour, we relaxed for a few hours and then headed out to Max at the Lake in Canandaigua for dinner. We've gone to Max at Eastman Place and Max Chophouse for various special occasions, so it was nice to finally get a chance to check out the third location. I had a tasty scallop appetizer, and my filet mignon was cooked perfectly. We sat out on the patio, which featured a beautiful view of Canandaigua Lake, and we were also entertained by a wedding party that was taking place in a nearby tent. After an annoying set of country music, the DJ mysteriously switched to "Baby Got Back" and other 90s "classics." It was an amusing evening to say the least. If you like the other Max restaurants but have not yet been to Max at the Lake, try to check it out while summer is still here. The dining room looked nice enough, but our meal on the patio was very enjoyable.

The next day, we hiked along the gorge trail at Watkins Glen State Park. It's a pretty low intensity hike, except for the 800 stone stairs throughout the trail. There are lots of beautiful waterfalls and rock formations to see along the trail.

And here I am, somewhere in the middle of the trail, most likely before the majority of the 800 steps since I'm not bright red and sweaty yet:

After the hike, we drove to Corning and looked through the Rockwell Museum of Western Art, which had some Ansel Adams photography on exhibit. We ended the weekend with dinner at the Market Street Brewing Company. I tried their blackberry lager, which did in fact taste strongly of blackberries, and for the meal, I had a pasta special. Ben asked them to put a birthday candle on my dessert, but they were out of candles, so he was nice enough to bake me birthday cupcakes later in the week :)

Overall, it was a fun birthday weekend, and I'm glad I got to spend some quality time in the Finger Lakes before my impending move away from the area. But more about the move in my next post!

Have you ever done a wine tour? Got any embarrassing stories to share? Feel free to leave a comment :)

Off the Beaten Path

Ed. note: This post originally appeared in my 2008 food blog Fork It Over on the website of the Rochester Insider magazine, which is now Metromix Rochester. Since the old blog is no longer available online, I'm re-posting some of those posts here and backdating them to their original posting dates. Although in most cases they are specific to Rochester, hopefully you'll still find them somewhat interesting!  ~Rachel, 6/28/10

Sometimes a little bit of research pays off, and other times a spontaneous choice will yield great results when looking for a place to eat. I spent the weekend in New York City and had time for one good dinner, so I did a little research ahead of time to find somewhere relatively inexpensive but still nice. It can be hard to find those mid-range restaurants in NYC; it seems like the majority of places are either super-cheap (pizza, subs, etc.) or extremely expensive, but not too many are casual and reasonably priced. When it comes to the city, I'm less than a native but more than a tourist. I've gone there at least a couple times a year but usually more throughout my life, so I'm pretty familiar with the layout and try to avoid the extremely touristy areas. My boyfriend, who is a Manhattan native, wanted to bring me to some areas I hadn't really explored before, so we planned on walking around the Lower East Side and Little Italy, and then we planned on having Italian food for dinner. A quick bit of research online reminded us that Little Italy is really aimed at feeding tourists overpriced poor excuses for Italian meals, so I checked out the lively Chowhound forums for advice on good Italian near, but not within, Little Italy.

A restaurant named Bianca kept popping up in the discussions, and it was just a short walk from Little Italy. Perfect! I glanced at some reviews and found the menu on Menu Pages, and everything looked promising. Nestled on a quiet bit of Bleecker St. between Bowery and Elizabeth, Bianca serves simple, inexpensive Italian in a comfortable, nicer-than-casual setting. We arrived at around 5:30 on Saturday night and had no trouble getting in. In fact, the place was almost empty. I was shocked to find that everything on the menu was $15 or less. I settled on the traditional spaghettini al pomodoro with a mesclun salad; my friend Kim got a spinach salad with apples, walnuts, and pecorino cheese; and Ben got the special, a Mediterranean fish similar to sea bass that came with spinach and fried potatoes. We also got a bottle of champagne to celebrate my impending birthday. The food was simple but delicious, and the place has a lot of charm. It's definitely a hidden gem. The bill came to less than $80 for the three of us, including the $30 bottle of champagne. Not bad for NYC!

We left the city around 5pm on Sunday night for the drive back to Rochester and got hungry for dinner around 8:30 as we passed through a small town named Hancock, located on the Delaware River. A restaurant search on the GPS led us to what appeared to be the center of Hancock, home to a couple Chinese take-out places and a diner. Not in the mood for either, we took a couple random turns. Suddenly, I spotted a brightly painted house with a sign out front that said, "Bluestone Grill: Eat, Drink, Laugh." Well, that sounds fun, doesn't it? Best of all, it was open late on a Sunday night, eventhough the rest of the town seemed pretty dead at the time. We stepped inside, weary from the first part of the drive, and we were greeted cheerfully as we walked in. We wound through a series of rooms and were seated by a window in a pleasant, dimly lit dining room. You can get an idea of the ambiance by checking out the photo gallery on the restaurant's website. (Warning: Music autoplays when you open the gallery.) It really felt like an unexpected oasis in the middle of the small, quiet town.

The menu had everything from a "five buck chuck" (a simple hamburger with a choice of sides) to fancier entrees in the $15-$25 range. I opted for a house salad and the five buck chuck with shoestring fries, and Ben chose a pan-fried skate wing with a side of cornbread. The cornbread was described as "insanely good" on the menu, and it lived up to its description. The presentation was lively and appetizing, and everything tasted excellent. The service was very friendly. If you're ever passing through Hancock for whatever reason, definitely check this place out. It was really a lucky find, and it energized us for the rest of the drive home.

Spontaneity can definitely be rewarding while restaurant-hunting. Not only do you get a great meal, but you also get a little jolt of excitement that you took a chance on a random place and everything worked out. If you prefer to do research ahead of time, some helpful sites are Chowhound, Yelp, and RocWiki (for Rochester). We used both methods this weekend and ended up with two really great meals.

Bianca:

Bluestone Grill:

Spicy Orange Garlic Shrimp and Cold Melon Soup

Ed. note: This post originally appeared in my 2008 food blog Fork It Over on the website of the Rochester Insider magazine, which is now Metromix Rochester. Since the old blog is no longer available online, I'm re-posting some of those posts here and backdating them to their original posting dates. Although in most cases they are specific to Rochester, hopefully you'll still find them somewhat interesting!  ~Rachel, 6/28/10

My dining companion was on a business trip last week, leaving the kitchen in my incapable hands once again. In honor of the sweltering heat (and the miserable cold that had been keeping me sneezing all week), I decided to go with a light and healthy fruit theme for dinner one night. I've always been intrigued by the idea of cold soup, and I've had a few that were pretty good. One that stands out in my memory is a cold watermelon soup from Veselka, a popular Ukrainian restaurant in NYC's East Village. A quick search for "cold melon soup" recipes turned up a bunch of results. I ended up settling for Cool Melon Swirl Soup, curious to see if I could actually accomplish the "swirl" part of the recipe. (Keep reading to find out if I succeeded!)

I didn't really measure out the amounts of the ingredients as listed in the recipe; I haphazardly threw melon chunks in the blender and liberally added the honey and lime juice. This may have contributed to the unfortunate thinness of the finished soup. I expected something a little dense, but my soup was rather, well, soupy. As you can see below, the swirl didn't really work. Big surprise, right? Maybe if I had used the correct amounts of everything, the densities would have been different and the orange part would have stayed separate from the green part. Anyone out there know how to make something like this work? Anyway, here's the finished product, garnished with whipped cream and berries. A mint leaf would have been a nice embellishment too, but the store was out of fresh mint. As you can see, I had some trouble forming a perfect dollop of cream, and the berries quickly began to topple into the soup. The presentation didn't work out so well for this meal.

Man overboard...

In addition to the soup, I made shrimp and rice. I decided to be daring (generally a bad idea) and improvised a shrimp marinade. I plucked some random things from the cupboard and ended up with a marinade consisting of the following:

• 1/4 cup orange marmalade
• 1 tsp lime juice
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• dash of chili oil
• dash of chopped garlic (the kind that comes pre-chopped in a little jar full of liquid)

This was enough for about 8 small to medium shrimp. For once, something worked out for me in the kitchen. This marinade was actually really tasty. The chili oil added just a bit of heat, the soy sauce and garlic gave it an Asian flavor, and the orange marmalade added some sweetness, but not too much. I let the shrimp marinate for about 30 minutes, grilled them, and served them over white rice, which I managed to burn slightly. Well, I guess it's just not possible for everything to work out perfectly in one meal.

This meal was less of a disaster than some other things I've made in the kitchen, but there's definitely room for improvement. The thin texture of the soup wasn't wonderful, although the whipped cream helped a lot. There are a lot of other recipes out there for cold fruit soups, so I might try a few others this summer. The shrimp was the best part of the meal, and I'll definitely be making the marinade again, maybe with a little bit more chili oil next time. The spicier, the better!

A Taste of New England

Ed. note: This post originally appeared in my 2008 food blog Fork It Over on the website of the Rochester Insider magazine, which is now Metromix Rochester. Since the old blog is no longer available online,  I'm re-posting some of those posts here and backdating them to their original posting dates. Although in most cases they are specific to Rochester, hopefully you'll still find them somewhat interesting!   ~Rachel, 6/28/10

Last week I spent some time eating my way through Massachusetts and hitting up some of the major tourist attractions. I grew up in a small Massachusetts town called Sharon, located about 25 miles south of Boston and home to one of the ten best ice cream places in the world, Crescent Ridge. Due to the short and relatively easy commute to Boston, I used to go into town often, but this was the first time I really got a chance to walk around on my own. I walked pretty much the entirety of Boston, took a painful amount of photos, and of course, ate some tasty food.

One of the most touristy places in Boston (but still worth a visit even if you're trying to avoid the typical tourist attractions) is the Faneuil Hall Marketplace. (The most common pronunciation of "Faneuil" rhymes with "manual.") The marketplace consists of Faneuil Hall itself, which is a historic building known for a whole bunch of things you can read about on Wikipedia; Quincy Market, which is the main food section; North and South Markets, which both house a lot of fun stores; and the outdoor areas between all the buildings, where you can find tons of carts selling a variety of crafts, t-shirts, and other items.

Quincy Market (that's pronounced quin-zee, not quin-see) is where you'll find most of the restaurants. The indoor area consists of a long hallway of to-go food counters featuring every type of food imaginable (see a full list here.)

In the middle of the hall of food, there's a large rotunda where you can battle other eaters for a seat at the long wooden tables on two floors.

There are also some large sit-down restaurants scattered around the marketplace, but the cheaper (and more fun!) option is to pick up food at one of these counters and go find a seat in the rotunda or outside. The empty space on either end of Quincy Market is usually taken up by performance artists, so there's always plenty of entertainment.

You can usually find people in interesting costumes.

No matter what you eat, make sure you leave some room for cookies. The Boston Chipyard, located along one of the outer hallways of Quincy Market, has the best cookies in the world. They typically have about ten flavors available on any given day, and you can order them in half-dozen increments. Last time I was there, I bought a half dozen chocolate chip cookies and a half dozen oatmeal raisin cookies.

Excuse me a moment while I wipe the drool off of my keyboard.

Of course, Quincy Market isn't the only place to eat in Boston. For authentic, delicious Italian food, be sure to stop by the North End. (Surprise! The North End isn't the northernmost area of Boston. East Boston and Charlestown are actually further north. Yes, East Boston is north of the North End. The West End is also in the northern part of town. Confused yet? One more interesting point: South Boston and the South End are two entirely different areas. Southie refers to South Boston, and the South End isn't the southernmost part of the city.) Anyway, back to the food. While you're in the North End, be sure to try a cannoli at Mike's Pastry, which has existed forever. The history part of the website is under construction so I'm not sure exactly how long it's really been there, but Mike's is definitely a North End landmark, so no matter how much you eat for dinner, save room for dessert and head to Mike's. Many North End restaurants are pricey, so be on the look-out for early bird specials. Recently, I ate at G'Vanni's Ristorante, which has an excellent early bird deal where you can get two large dinners AND a bottle of wine for $30, with various upgrades available for a little bit more money.

New England is known for seafood, so if you're anywhere in the region, be sure to eat some fish. Sadly, one of Boston's seafood landmarks, a store called James Hook and Co. that has been open since 1925, burned down several weeks ago (full story here, so cross that one off your list for now, although the owners do plan to rebuild.) Legal Seafoods, although a fairly large chain now, is still a great place to have a wonderful seafood dinner. You should venture outside of Boston as well, if you get a chance. Last week I spent a day on the North Shore of Massachusetts, which includes towns and cities such as Ipswich, Salem, Essex, Gloucester, and Rockport. I started out the day in Gloucester (pronounced Gloss-tah, not Glow-chester). First, I went to the Hammond Castle, a medieval-style castle built by inventor John Hays Hammond, Jr. in the 1920s that now serves as a museum.

Next, I stopped for lunch at The Gloucester House, a fifty year old restaurant responsible for popularizing fried calamari (thank you Gloucester House!!!) and specializing in North Atlantic seafood.

My mom ordered a lobster roll (pronounce it "lobstah" if you want to sound like a local), and it was enormous and delicious.

My dad got some tasty fried clams.

I had the baked haddock, lightly breaded to perfection.

After Gloucester, we headed to nearby Rockport, a coastal town full of little shops and art galleries. Once we were tired of shopping, we stopped by The Ice Cream Store for a little afternoon treat.

I got peppermint ice cream with jimmies. See the glossary if you're confused.

Eating in Massachusetts requires some specific food vocabulary, so here's a little glossary to help you out.

Glossary

• Frappes vs. Milkshakes: Frappes are what the rest of the country thinks of as milkshakes--milk, flavored syrup, and ice cream--while milkshakes in New England are made with just milk and syrup but no ice cream. So if you're from out of state and looking for a milkshake, you probably want to order a frappe. By the way, that rhymes with "rap." Don't pronounce it "frapp-ay."
• Jimmies vs. Sprinkles: You've probably had sprinkles before--the little candy pieces that you can get on your ice cream--in either the rainbow or chocolate variety. In most parts of New England, rainbow sprinkles are known simply as sprinkles, while the chocolate ones are called jimmies.
• Scrod: You will see "scrod" or "schrod" on the menu at almost any seafood restaurant. It's not a real fish. Scrod does not actually exist. The word "scrod" is a generic term used to refer to whatever whitefish is the catch of the day, most frequently cod or haddock. For more information about scrod, including a grammatical joke that will make you laugh if you're a grammar dork like me, check out the Wikipedia page.
• Tonic vs. Soda vs. Pop: Soft drinks are referred to as "soda" in Massachusetts. Never, ever "pop." If you call it "pop," you will probably be laughed at. Some Bostonians call soft drinks "tonic," but this isn't as common. "Tonic" isn't the same as what you might call "tonic water" (a carbonated beverage with quinine.)

I took way too many photos on this trip, and all the time spent sorting through and editing and uploading them is what held this blog post up for so long, so do me a favor and go take a look at them :)

• Rockport
• Gloucester
• Museum of Science
• Butterfly Garden at the Museum of Science
• New England Aquarium
• Miscellaneous Boston

Pomegranate Mojitos and Banana Xangas: Tasty Treats at Tapas 177

Ed. note: This post originally appeared in my 2008 food blog Fork It Over on the website of the Rochester Insider magazine, which is now Metromix Rochester. Since the old blog is no longer available online, I'm re-posting some of those posts here and backdating them to their original posting dates. Although in most cases they are specific to Rochester, hopefully you'll still find them somewhat interesting!  ~Rachel, 6/28/10

Tapas 177 gets crowded on the weekends, but I prefer to go at odd times so that I can savor the candlelit ambiance while dining on small unique dishes and drinking a refreshing mojito. Dessert and drinks became a Tuesday night routine for awhile, a nice way to unwind after one of my band rehearsals. Their mojitos are the best in town, but one evening, I asked the bartender if he knew of any variations, maybe incorporating some kind of fruit. He made a pomegranate mojito for me, and it was amazing. I'd usually pair a pomegranate mojito with the house special dessert, banana xangas, but more on that later.

I hadn't been there for an actual meal in awhile, so I headed there a couple nights ago with my boyfriend, who is finally back from vacation, thus saving me from my odd kitchen experiments (for example, Blueberries + Steak = Delicious?) We got there early, and we had the whole main dining room to ourselves for awhile. The bar is on the main level, and the dining room (as well as a second bar and a patio) are down a narrow, creaky staircase. You'll need a minute for your eyes to adjust when you arrive downstairs. It's almost cave-like, lit mainly by candles. Tapestries are draped over the walls, and several tables are enclosed in private alcoves by velvety curtains. I was seated at a table that has one chair and one seat on a long, cushioned bench. My seat on the bench included a couple of throw pillows for reclining. Here's a view of the main dining room.

Sorry for the blurriness; it was pretty dark down there, and it's probably rude to take out the tripod in the middle of a restaurant :)

To start, Ben got a glass of Chateau Luxeuil Cote du France Bourdeaux, a well-balanced red wine with hints of cherry and banana, and I got my favorite pomegranate mojito.

We were also given a basket of tasty focaccia bread.

Rather than order entrees, we decided to split three tapas and then get dessert if we were still hungry. (Ok, that's a lie. We were definitely planning on dessert, regardless of hunger. The banana xangas is irresistible.) In case you've never experienced tapas before, 'tapas' is a Spanish word that refers to small appetizer-like dishes that can be hot or cold. Outside of Spain, restaurants have popped up everywhere centering around tapas in a slightly different way than in Spain. They're still small dishes, but customers make meals out of them by ordering a bunch and sharing with the rest of the table. Tapas 177 offers a variety of these small dishes as well as some larger entrees. You can find tapas ranging from calamari salad to sushi. Entrees include some fish, pasta, and meat options. If you're feeling daring, try the pan-seared ostrich. A sampling of the menu is available on the Tapas 177 website here.

For our meal, we had the steamed chicken dumplings, beef braciola stuffed with chorizo and gouda, and egg rolls. The dumplings arrived in a bamboo steaming basket with a couple of dipping sauces (soy and spicy mustard.) The filling was made of chicken, cilantro, scallions, and ginger. The best thing about the dumplings is the simplicity. Many other dumplings seem to have lots of mystery ingredients squished together to make a filling, but with these, you can really pick out each flavor, and they come together well.

The beef braciola arrived looking sort of like meatballs in a pool of tomato sauce and oil, but upon closer inspection, we found that it was made of slices of beef wrapped around the stuffing, which was made of chorizo, smoked gouda, wild onion, and roasted garlic. I'm not really into gouda, but I tried some and was pleasantly surprised. The chorizo added a nice hint of spice, and the tomato sauce (actually tomato coulis, according to the menu) had a good rustic taste.

Our third dish was fried Vietnamese chicken egg rolls, which were served with a thick sweet and sour sauce that seemed to have a hint of BBQ flavor. This dish was my favorite of the tapas that we ordered. The egg rolls were delightfully crispy, and the dipping sauce was excellent. Plus, they were pretty thin compared to the egg rolls you might get at a typical Chinese restaurant, so the roll stays together better when you bite into it.

As the plates were emptied, so was my mojito glass. Just about everything on the lengthy martini list was tempting. I ended up settling on the 177 Martini for my second drink: vodka, raspberry liqueur, grenadine, and sour mix. It was very good, I think. I guess I don't remember much about it, because it went right to my head after a sip or two.

For dessert, we ordered a raspberry kiwi crepe and the house special, banana xangas. The crepe, which was exploding with whipped cream and raspberry coulis, disappeared into my boyfriend's stomach before I could try more than a bite or two. The little bit that I was able to try was pretty delicious.

Banana xangas is amazing. I would go to Tapas 177 just for this. It basically consists of a mix of bananas and cinnamon in a fried dough shell, served with ice cream, whipped cream, and caramel.

The bill came to about $70 before tip for the three drinks, three tapas, and two desserts. This was plenty of food for two reasonably hungry people. In general, if you're skipping entrees and getting a few drinks, you should be fine with enough tapas to allow for 1.5 or 2 dishes per person. I left comfortably full (and comfortably tipsy.)

Food can also be ordered at the bar, and free salsa lessons are offered on Thursday nights around 9:30pm. There's live music on Saturdays around 11pm, and there are wine tastings on the first Tuesday of each month at 6pm. Check out the website for more info about events.

Basic Info
Location: 177 Saint Paul St.
Phone: 585-262-2090
Website: http://www.tapas177.com

Festival Food

Ed. note: This post originally appeared in my 2008 food blog Fork It Over on the website of the Rochester Insider magazine, which is now Metromix Rochester. Since the old blog is no longer available online, I'm re-posting some of those posts here and backdating them to their original posting dates. Although in most cases they are specific to Rochester, hopefully you'll still find them somewhat interesting!  ~Rachel, 6/28/10

What can you find at the Lilac Festival aside from lilacs (and tulips, which are also in full bloom right now)?

Festival food! From fried dough to corn dogs to smoothies, you can find all your festival favorites scattered throughout Highland Park this week. I stopped by the festival on Saturday and battled the crowds to get a good look at all the flowers and a good taste of some of the food. Whether you're looking for something on the healthy side (smoothies, maybe?) or something to clog your arteries (just about everything else on the menu), there are plenty of options.

The Labatt Blue Beer Garden features beer as well as food from local restaurants like Beale Street Cafe, Abbott's, India Palace (Ed. note: Closed.), Nick Tahou's, and more. Elsewhere in the park, all of these vendors (Ed. note: Broken link. Sorry.) can be found selling tasty treats. Good luck maneuvering through the long lines! A weekday trip is a good idea if you have the time. The Saturday crowds were huge.

Fried dough has always been my favorite. I actually showed up to the festival not very hungry (yes, really) so I avoided it this time around, but it smelled amazing :)

Just out of (morbid) curiousity, I decided to look for nutrition info for an average piece of fried dough. This recipe on RecipeZaar claims that one serving of fried dough has only 168 calories and 4.3 grams of fat. It must be for a very small serving size, but if it makes you happy, you can pretend that it applies to the festival-sized portion! This chest-pain-inducing article from WebMD claims that one funnel cake has 760 calories and 44 grams of fat, but funnel cakes seem to have more surface area than fried dough of the "elephant's ear" variety (the round, puffy kind without all the little points) so maybe fried dough is a little bit healthier. Ok, "fried dough" and "healthier" don't really belong in the same sentence, but you know what I mean. If you're confused about the difference between funnel cakes and elephants' ears, check out this informative little article from TampaBay.com.

For something a little less fried, you can stop by a cart selling popcorn and candy apples.

Dessert crepes with a variety of chocolate and berry toppings can be found at Le Crepe Cafe. These looked amazing. If I go back later this week, I know what I'm eating :)

A Maui Wowi stand offers some tasty smoothies.

...and there was even a stand advertising pet food and giving away samples!

While you're eating, be sure to check out the flowers. It is the Lilac Festival after all. Many of the lilacs were already in full bloom as of this weekend.

These bunches of lilacs look like bunny faces :)

In addition to lilacs, there were tons of beautiful tulips around.

I have to admit that I liked the tulips better than the lilacs!

While you're in Highland Park, check out Lamberton Conservatory (on Reservoir Ave.) $2 gains you entry to a large greenhouse full of tropical flowers, cactus, and more. I love going there every month or so to practice taking pictures of flowers. It really is a great thing to have in the area, especially during the winter. Even when it's snowing outside, you can still find flowers in full bloom in the conservatory.

Enjoy the festival, and be sure to park far away so you can walk off all the delicious food you'll eat ;)

Blueberries + Steak = Delicious? Or, Why I Shouldn't Be Allowed in the Kitchen

Ed. note: This post originally appeared in my 2008 food blog Fork It Over on the website of the Rochester Insider magazine, which is now Metromix Rochester. Since the old blog is no longer available online, I'm re-posting some of those posts here and backdating them to their original posting dates. Although in most cases they are specific to Rochester, hopefully you'll still find them somewhat interesting!  ~Rachel, 6/28/10

I decided to be ambitious tonight. The dining companion (who is a much better chef than I am) is still out of the country, and I'm sick of pasta. In my fridge, I found a hunk of defrosted skirt steak and a container of blueberries. I'm pretty picky about my berries...if they're the least bit sketchy-looking, I usually won't eat them straight out of the container. These berries were somewhere between fresh and old, just a little bit wrinkly, but probably still safe. Not good enough to eat out of the container, though. While staring at the contents of the fridge, I got the idea that blueberry sauce might taste good on the steak. My first thought was to mash up the blueberries, maybe add a few random ingredients, and call it a sauce, but kitchen improvisation isn't my forte. (One day, I'll tell you about the time my friend and I tried to make chocolate mousse with all of the wrong ingredients. As a sneak preview, I'll tell you that we tried to use Cool Whip instead of heavy whipped cream, and we didn't have baking chocolate, so we picked the almonds out of mini Hershey bars and melted the remaining chocolate. But that's a story for another day.) Anyway, I decided that finding a recipe online was a safer bet. One recipe containing ketchup and mustard kept popping up, but that sounded pretty gross, so I finally settled on one containing sugar, vanilla extract, cinnamon, corn starch, and a pinch of salt. You can see the full recipe here. (Ed. note: Broken link. Sorry. ~Rachel, 6/28/10)

I had all the ingredients, and the recipe sounded easy enough. Mix everything together in a sauce pan except for the vanilla and blueberries, stir constantly, add in the blueberries after it starts boiling, cook and stir some more. Marinate. Grill. Eat. Simple, right? The first roadblock came when I realized that I had every type of sugar...except for plain old white sugar. Light brown, dark brown, and even a special type of sugar called demerara sugar. I determined that the demerara sugar was the closest match texture-wise, although it's a bit coarser than white sugar. It has a strong, molasses-like taste, which I though might actually enhance the recipe. The container does say that it's good for berries.

I started mixing the ingredients together, and everything went well, except that the cornstarch somehow ended up everywhere. Down the cabinets, all over my hands, and even on one of my shoes. Here's a photo so that you can better see my kitchen ineptitude:

Before the addition of the blueberries, the mixture looked and smelled like chai.

I've never really cooked a sauce from scratch before, so I was understandably excited when all of a sudden it started boiling and actually taking on the consistency of a thick sauce.

I added in the blueberries, and they gradually began to expand and ooze into the sauce, giving it a beautiful blueish purple color.

After it cooled, I poured it over the steak and put it in the fridge for a couple hours of marinating.

As it was marinating, I realized that I had no idea what to serve with it. Rice or potatoes seemed too heavy for a fruity, summery steak. I headed back to the fridge and found mandarin oranges. I suppose they're an unconventional side dish for steak, but they taste good, and that's what matters. Anyway, I'm eating alone, so there's no one else I have to please. I like steak, and I like mandarin oranges, so who cares if I eat them at the same time? Blueberry steak is already a somewhat odd combination, so one more weird thing on the plate can't hurt :)

Voila! Blueberry steak with mandarin oranges!

The presentation is awful, I know. But I didn't have the patience to make pretty arrangements and take a bunch of photos; I just wanted to eat it while it was still hot! Also, the steak was pretty boring looking, so that's why I hid it in the background of the picture :)

The first few bites were a little...strange. It tasted almost bland, but with a weird sweet undertone that got progressively stronger with each bite. A little bit disappointed, I got out my favorite steak sauce--the indisputably perfect A1. Surprisingly enough, the A1 and blueberry marinade meshed together perfectly. Each bite started with the sharp tanginess of A1 and ended with a hint of sweetness.

I wonder if a different cut of steak would have held up better in the marinade. The fatty, tender skirt steak soaked up a bit too much, but something a little tougher might have worked better. Also, maybe using the right kind of sugar would improve the taste. Fresher blueberries may have also helped. As I said before, mine were a little bit sketchy...just a couple days away from being thrown in the garbage.

If you're a steak purist, I wouldn't recommend trying this. It's unusually sweet, and the marinade almost overpowers the steak. But for anyone else feeling a little adventurous, I think it's worth a try. Mine didn't come out quite as tasty as I had hoped, but in my kitchen, that's par for the course. I bet you can do a better job. Be sure to leave a comment and let me know if you try it!