Chasin' Tails Redux

After a long Saturday full of running around taking care of different errands, workouts and appointments, we met up at home and debated where to go for dinner. We rarely are craving the same thing at the same time, so it was a miracle when we both said crawfish. High five!

Dozen oysters

1 pound of steamed mussels in a garlic butter sauce. 

This was quite good, although I did not pay enough attention to the hot liquid in the bag and poured a good amount over my lap. Ouch!

We finished off our seafood gluttony with 2 pounds of crawfish with hot whole shebang sauce for him, and I ordered one pound of crawfish hot cajun sauce. I did not get hot cajun, but a mild kind of bland and liquidy mixture. The whole shebang sauce was so much more flavorful I kept dipping the peeled tails in his bag of sauce. 

We'll have to come back and try out the special seafood combo with crawfish, mussels, snowcrab legs, corn and sausage.

Lighthouse Tofu has point cards!!

We had dinner with a friend at Lighthouse Tofu restaurant in Annandale. It's best to go there after the dinner rush from 6-8 pm. We arrived to a more relaxed atmosphere and were able to eat at a nice, leisurely pace and have a good chat.

Large haImul pajeon 

I think Lighthouse has one of the best versions of the Korean restaurants we frequent. It's never super super greasy, and there's a good scallion and seafood to batter ratio. Plus, it's great for sharing.

We like to crack a raw egg into the boiling hot soondubu when it arrives at the table.

Nice selection of panchan, so much better than over at Honey Pig.

Breaking with my traditional order of spicy mushroom soondubu, I tried the tofu bibimbap. They serve the rice on the side, and for me, there was enough various ingredients it did not need it.

When you mix it all up, there's zucchini, bean sprouts, carrot, cabbage, corn, fried touf and bulgogi meat with a fried egg and seaweed. Add in a shot of kochujang sauce, and this is a winner.

***

While we were leisurely finishing up, our waitress wandered over and asked if we'd like a point card. Having lived in Japan, I have an ingrained affinity for point cards at restaurants and stores. My wallet used to be stuffed full of them. Since we go to Lighthouse pretty regularly, of course I said yes. 

Carvy Sandwiches on 19th Street NW

After walking down to the new Taylor's Gourmet near 19th and M Street, NW, and seeing a ridiculously long line, I wandered back up 19th Street towards my office. There's a newish sandwich shop called Carvy.

Turkey, bacon, lettuce and tomato with spicy mustard on rye bread.

They hand carve the turkey and pile on a bunch. The rye bread is not as good as the one over at Axian, but the turkey meat was still nice and juicy. 

Chris' Marketplace Crabcakes

I love crab cakes. The steamed crabs on Monday were just a teaser, I needed more. After an event down near McPherson Square, I walked back towards my office and came up a Farmer's Market. Spying a tent with Chris' Marketplace, I knew what I had to do.

Backfin crabcakes are $5 each. Lump crabcakes are a little more, but these are delicious balls of crabby goodness.

Corn, pasta salad with roasted red pepper and artichokes, and an oven-baked crabcake. 

This is summer on a plate.

Harris Crab House on Kent Island, MD

We took the day off from work to catch up with some relatives who were staying for the week on the Eastern Shore. We haven't seen them since the baby was one, and he's almost 3 now. (I know, very bad aunt.) We met up at Matapeake National Park to go to the beach. It's not the cleanest beach by a long shot, and there are only port-a-potties. It was great to see them all, although being stung by a small jellyfish was not the highlight of the day for me. Just proves I'm ridiculously accident-prone. On the way home, we stopped off on Kent Island for some crabs.

Up the stairs you can see the marker where the Hurricane Isabel flood waters hit.

Sign near the handicap entrance.

Harris Crab House behind the boat. We sat up on the top floor on the deck.

Crispy, lovely onion rings

1 pound of mussels in garlic butter.

snow crab legs for the husband

1/2 a dozen steamed crabs for me.

***

Clearly I took a lot longer to eat my crabs than he did. By the time he was finished, I had barely made a dent in 1.5 crabs. Since it was a long day out in the hot sun at the beach and then letter-boxing, we took the remaining 4 crabs home to pick the meat and make a crab meat and corn pasta for our lunches the next day.

Japanese Homecooking

We had a friend over for dinner. Since she was craving some Japanese food, I decided to try my hand at a variety of items I thought would be healthy or natsukashii. I also made some pork gyoza with the help of my friend. It's definitely better to have two people filling, pleating and sealing the gyoza rather than one.

Seasoned some cooked Japanese rice with a mix of mirin-sugar-salt. Using some of the pickled ume we brought back from Japan (my husband's grandmother and aunt made them and they're fantastic), cucumber and shiso furikake, we customized some maki and rolled them. They turned out a bit on the large size, but the flavor was right.

Bento Boxes make nice containers for serving food for a party.

(Clockwise from top left): Sunonomu, karaage, hijiki, radish quick pickles, broccoli with gomae.

The husband helped by buying some gorgeous flowers and doing an excellent job frying the chicken.

Sichuan Express Mapo Tofu Ramen

Needing a kick of the real deal, I wandered over to the food court at Farragut West and ordered a #5, mapo ramen soup, from Sichuan Express. 

Deliciously spicy with the whole fermented black beans I can't seem to find in the store yet.

Topping noodles and chicken broth.

I kind of want to try a variety with spicier mapo tofu mixed with thinner ramen-style noodles. These are good, but a bit thicker.