tuftears | Food Catchup: Ephesus (Greek), Shanghai Flavor Shop, Food Truck Food, and Homemade Chow

I blame

dracosphynx for getting me hungry a while ago for pizza. After their mention of pizza-by-the-slices, and the 'yote mentioning that Pizza My Heart's slice wasn't all that unhealthy since you could pair it with a salad cheaply... I decided to go out and try some.

...

Slices are bigger than I remember them being.

It was pretty good. Not super fancy or gourmet, but quite acceptable lunchtime fare.

After a long downtime for sickness of one sort or another, my aunt, cousin, and brother were finally up to trying restaurants again, so I suggested Ephesus, because I pass the Greek restaurants every now and then. Here's the starter bread. It's served with some sort of olive oil condiment. I'm not sure what the seeds at the bottom are. Mustard, maybe?

These are the appetizers. The lahmacun was the big pizza-looking flatbread topped with what looked like a tomato sauce, and the menu claims contains minced lamb and beef. It was delicious, a surprise show-stealer. The kolokithakia, or seared zucchini, were also pretty tasty. The spanakopita, or spinach-and-feta-cheese-stuffed pastry, was pretty good, but the other two appetizers were actually better, which surprised me; I'd expected that one to be the odds-on favorite.

Unfortunately, seems like my bro isn't fond of lamb. If I'd known that, I wouldn't have picked a Greek restaurant... Oh well! At bottom is the moussaka, which is basically a Greek lasagna. It was pretty good, but I think it would have split better between two people than four. At top is the chicken version of the 'beyti', a roll-up of meat in flatbread, which is then baked. It wasn't bad but I think the lamb version would have been better. The presentation was pretty stylish though, I like the small easy-to-divide-up pieces.

They suggested we get the manti, or beef dumplings wrapped in dough and fried, so we took them up on it. It wasn't such a good idea, honestly; they weren't very flavorful. Tasted better with moussaka sauce drizzled on them. Basically Greek version of ravioli.

We didn't stick around for dessert. Overall, I think the appreciation for the restaurant was muted; the appetizers were the winners, and the entrees weren't that awesome. I'd like to try it again sometimes with a friend who likes lamb, though.

Next up, we have the Shanghai Flavor Shop, which I'd discovered in browsing around for restaurants; other reviews cited them as having really awesome 'sheng jian baos', or pan-fried soup dumplings. I purrsuaded

dracosphynx to come along and give it a try.

The beef curry soup didn't seem to have a lot of beef to it. Mostly noodles. It was pretty good, if rather lightly flavored. Definitely not ramen; ramen would have a lot more ingredients. The bok choy was, well, bok choy.

This was one of the entrees that were recommended in the Yelp reviews. It was heavy on the noodles, but had pretty good flavor with the sauce.

dracosphynx demonstrates the art of mixing the noodles with the sauce, which starts at the bottom of the dish. Some people commented in their reviews that there was very little pork in the noodles. That's typical of all their dishes here, really, except for their signature baos.

Finally, we have the showpiece! This is why people come here, evidently. They're most comparable to 'xiao long baos', soup dumplings, but they're made with thicker dough and after being steamed, they are then pan-fried to make the bottom crispy.

Here's a view of what they look like on the inside. Were they worth it? They are pretty good, but IMO this is the kind of place where you stop by to pick up some dumplings to take to a potluck, rather than bringing a date. It's very much a 'dirty hole in the wall' lunch place, which is reflected in the menu, heavy on the filling carbs and light on proteins and veggies.

Google has food trucks that have been making the rounds; they appear on certain days, in a rotation. This time, I picked up this 'corned beef biryani' from the 'New York Delhi' food truck. It wasn't bad, but I had been expecting it to be a bit more like fried rice, and what I got was more like a loco moco, what with the fried egg on top.

Every now and then, I try to make salisbury steak. I had a packet of 'beef demiglace' that was nearing its expiration date, so I tried it for the gravy. ... Not such a good idea. It tasted more like red wine (and I'm not even a drinker) than beef. The 'salisbury steak' was made with ground turkey with a bit of shredded zucchini and bread mixed in, meatloaf style. Not bad but it really needed a good gravy to save it, and this wasn't it.

For the July 4th weekend, I made steak! Sous vide flank steak, but close enough, it's not like I'm going to go out and buy a grill for just one thing. I saved the beef juice this time and froze the drippings; next time I need to make a beef gravy or beef curry sauce, I'll be prepared with something that actually tastes like beef.

I tried making 'rice pilaf', which you can see on the side here, but it was a failure. Seems like I need to dry the cooked rice more, otherwise it becomes a paste. Still tasty enough but it's just not *pilaf*.

My brother was heading to the farmer's market the other day, and dropped off some blu-rays. I asked him if I could tag along this time. There were a few new booths this time; I picked up a strawberry pie cookie from the Second Story Bakery, pictured above. I also picked up a 100% cacao bar from 'Bisou' that I need to hand off to

dracosphynx next time we meet up.

The strawberry pie cookie was pretty good! I could see an apple pie version being really good, but it'd need more apple pie filling compared to the crust.