Valentino's NY-Style Pizza

After a full day of apartment moving, dropping off donations at Goodwill, and returning the rental truck to an area of VA I'd like to not become too acquainted with, we drove over to Valentino's to pick up food.  The staff is really pleasant, they make enormous pizzas, and I love their salads.

 Valentino's Special Large pizza with an order of garlic knots.

Greek Salad half order - lovely feta cheese was creamy and not too briney, roasted peppers, artichoke hearts, olives and a great balsamic vinaigrette.

Sushiko Bento

Helping out with interviews, we had a choice of bento lunches last week.  Every year the meat, fish and vegetarian bentos are ordered from different Japanese restaurants.  Sometimes they are gloriously transcendant, other times I'm left feeling like I should have chosen better. 

 Thursday's Fish Bento.  Nice, fresh, but paltry in size compared to the steak bento that came with rice, potato salad, spinach and mashed sweet potato.  Even the vegetarian bento was more substantial.

 Friday's Fish Bento.  Despite the organizer calling and pleading for something different, only the orientation of the maki changed. I should have jumped ship with the others to the Vegetarian option.

 Vegetarian Bento.  2 maki, vegetarian nigiri and inari-zushi.

Plus! a lovely seaweed salad.

Malaysia Kopitiam...Where's the Heat?

I needed something spicy but flavorful and was debating the merits of Heritage India Bistro or Malaysia Kopitiam.  I liked both in the past, but the need for noodles pushed me towards the basement-level Kopitiam.  It's kind of a dive, and usually the restaurant atmosphere doesn't affect the meal.  Usually.  Unfortunately the heat in the restaurant was not working and the interior felt as cold as the winter evening.  Bundled in my coat, I did enjoy the roti canai and chicken curry laska with egg noodles, but next time I might just order take-out.

 The roti are buttery-flavored and delicious dipped in the curry.

I've had the laksa numerous times, and this was the first time I wondered, where are the bean sprouts? 

Valentine's Day

My boyfriend's probably similar to most males and not super enthusiastic about Valentine's Day.  He did offer to make reservations at a restaurant of my choice, but the idea of overpriced "special" set menus did not appeal to me.  Instead I suggested we cook something nice together at home.  Originially we were going to have lobster tails, porterhouse steak, caprese salad and risotto.  Since we're both trying to slim down so the pants are less tight, I switched the risotto for a light cauliflower puree and we had the lobster tails a different night.

 Creamy fresh mozzarella with vine-ripened tomatoes

 My boyfriend cooked the porterhouse medium-rare in his cast-iron skillet.

We had creamy cauliflower and zucchini as well.  The cauliflower was pureed with chicken broth and was lighter than mashed potatoes.

Brut Rose from Whole Foods was nice, bubbly and went well with the taramosalata and crackers.

Chinese-Bowling with Friends

I like planning themed group events.  Last year Chinese New Year and Valentine's day were the same day, so I gathered some friends and spent a Sunday packed with activities including brunch, bowling and dinner at a Chinese restaurant.  It was so much fun, I wanted to do it again despite the holidays not aligning. 

This year's theme was "the more, the merrier", and we gathered a group of 14 people together for Chinese-Bowling with lunch at Peking Gourmet Inn and bowling at Bowl America in Falls Church.  PGI is a nice place for groups with large round tables and an excellent and affordable group menu for lunch.  Due to some food allergies and diets, we had two tables, one for the group menu and one for ordering ala carte.  The lunch group menu is a bargain with Spring Rolls & Fried Dumplings, Peking Duck, Jeo-Yan Shrimp, Beef Szechuan Proper, Four Season String Beans, Yang Chow Fried Rice, Jasmine Tea & Fortune Cookies for a minimum of 8 people at $15.50 pp (about $20 pp with tax and tip). 

The other table ordered a melange of dishes and everyone seemed to enjoy their choices.  They have a special ala carte lunch menu for $8.95 including a soup, egg roll, fried rice and choice of entree.

 Hot and Sour Soup (this had duck meat as well as the mushrooms)

 Steamed vegetarian dumplings 

 Peking-style Chicken

 Shrimp in Lobster Sauce ala carte meal

Mu Shu Vegetables

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It was definitely fun to share food, some gross decomposing animal-related stories, and cheer for each other at bowling.  To mix up the day a bit, we drew names to create the teams for each lane, and I hope everyone had a chance to talk to someone new and share in the spirit of the day.

Super Busy Saturday

Today we had tons of errands to tackle.  After our dinner at Sushiko last night, we had enough time to do our weekly grocery shopping at Whole Foods, which helped lessen our Saturday chores.  We were going to have a lovely dinner together after shopping and errands, but our late afternoon snack was more than we should have indulged in.  Neither of us were hungry for a full meal, so after quick workouts, we settled in for something lighter.

 We love the Whole Foods brand of inexpensive wine.  The chardonnay is unoaked, so similar in body to the light pinot grigio and sauvignon blancs we often lean towards.  At $3.99, it's tough to walk out of Whole Foods with only one bottle.

 We picked up a half baguette of fresh multigrain bread, 2 lobster tails (1 day special for $5.99 each), and celery.

Which is better, a Maine lobster roll or Connecticut-style? 
Why choose just one when you can have both?

I cooked the lobster tails and made two types of mini-lobster rolls.  The chilled celery, mayonnaise Maine-style lobster roll and the warm butter-poached with celery lobster roll. 

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My boyfriend liked them both, but I think preferred the warm butter version.

Vegetarian and So Delicious

We have a busy week ahead of us, so I planned to use the kabocha squash and green beans we purchased at Lotte in an Epicurious recipe I found online that we can eat throughout the week.  It's a super healthy and low calorie kabocha, green beans and black beans stew.  Since kabocha can be quite sweet when cooked, the cumin and spices offset the flavor in a delightful way. 

Tomatoes, jalapenos, garlic, onion, squash, green beans and black bean stew with cumin, chili spices and oregano.