It was good, though I wish the mac & cheese had been warmer.  the bun was amazing.

BK’s first dog was the Chili Cheese dog, followed shortly by a Chicago Dog – he says they were well-balanced, flavorful and delicious:

To end we shared a trio of desserts – chocolate bread pudding, chocolate chip bacon cookie and chocolate covered bacon

The cookie was least exciting of the three – I thought the bacon would be baked into it, not just piled on top.  The chocolate covered bacon was the most intriguing and delivered – a tasty mix of salty & sweet.  The bread pudding was delicious, drizzled with a rum butter sauce and nice & warm.

Definitely visit if you find yourself in Austin.

The 2012 tour kicks off at the Austin invitational in early January, BK is currently favored by the odds makers at 2.5 to 1.

They serve breakfast all day and faniced up comfort food for lunch and dinner.  They also serve draft wine which was a new experience for the rent’s.  It’s a pretty good deal because you get essentially get a free glass when you buy a bottle..

I had the Mac & “Cheese”  which was delish – had a butternut squash sauce instead of a cheese sauce.

Dessert was the real star of the evening though – fried waffle with bacon carmel sauce.   MMM….

Happy Birthday Keith-O!

This time around we ate a great Korean BBQ place and a Szechuan seafood place, sadly I didn’t have a camera on me other than my phone for these meals and only managed one picture.  This is a plate of spicy shrimp, note that at least half this plate was red pepper, garlic, green onion and peppercorns.

The one thing both meals had in common was that they were huge.  Lunch and dinner in China is a very social affair and our host insisted on ordering enough to feed and army.  We finally had to somewhat forcefully beg for mercy at our second to last lunch and limit the food to dumplings and soup knowing a big dinner was on the way.

That night we went to a Beijing institution, Da Dong Roast Duck.  They have a couple locations and we tried out their newest spot, a sprawling two floors of dining rooms that was probably over 20,000 square feet of jam packed tables.  Walking in the front door we were faced with the large open kitchen filled with wood fired ovens where the duck is roasted pretty much non-stop.

The chefs were constantly in and out of the oven with a long pole the used to move ducks around within the oven and as in the photo above dip them into fire to ensure a crispy skin.  There were six of these ovens and as far as I could tell all of them were jam packed with slowly roasting duck.

As the orders for duck come flying in the pole goes in the oven and then the duck is moved over to a resting rack for a few minutes before all the liquid is drained out into a massive holding tank along with duck carcasses and is used to make stock.  The next thing they do is immediately carve off the crispiest bit of the skin so it won’t get soggy then the duck is delivered table side for carving but more on that later.

There was a bit of a wait for a table but they have unlimited free wine while you wait so we had a couple drinks before dinner.

Once we got our table we ordered several dishes and 1/2 a duck for the three of us.  Ordering is a challenge only because the menu is massive!  It’s around 100 pages of gorgeous food porn in full color, good thing too since it gave us a much better idea of what to order.

The first course, braised cabbage and chestnuts in saffron sauce came out and we dove right in.

It was thick, creamy and amazing; slightly sweet with a rich meaty undertone that we determined was duck stock made from the carcasses of the roasted ducks.

Next up was the house secret recipe, braised eggplant

The eggplant was garlicky with a hing of anise and some soy sauce it was a bit chewy but very good.

For the 3rd course we had some braised Ox Tail.  Meaty, rich and melt in your mouth good.  It’s like the best pot roast you’ve ever had times 100.

Now for the main event but before the duck arrives we got this curious tray of condiments including garlic, sugar, hoisin, daikon, and pickled carrot.

At this point one of chefs arrived with the duck and proceeded to carve it up in a rather unique way by creating many small slices and arranging them on a plate as we watched.

We proceeded to happily demolish the duck, the skin was crispy but not to crisp with just a thin layer of fat, and dipped in a bit of sugar the skin was like dessert.  The duck meat was perhaps a tad on the dry side but very flavorful and personally I would rather that than have a duck dripping with fat and oil.

At this point we were completely stuffed and then they delivered a large pot of fried rice, I didn’t get a photo and only had a bite but it was very good.

Next the delivered some mandarin oranges on a foggy platter of ice and I thought this was a crazy dessert but it was a nice light way to polish off dinner.

Much to my surprise that wasn’t it, the final course was a warm, sweet coconut milk “soup” with sticky rice balls stuffed with sesame with some grapefruit flavored “caviar” on the side.

Completely stuffed at this point we suited up in our arctic cold weather gear and ventured outside for what turned into an hour long Odyssey trying to find a cab in the 20 degree weather but that’s another story…

Han’s Christian Anderson once said “To travel is to live”, okay so I only know that from watching the Amazing Race a couple weeks back, none the less it’s  still a great quote but in my case “To Travel is to work” as I visit some colleagues in China and India this week.  This was my second trip to Beijing but this time instead of being warm to really hot it was cool to really cold which being from Seattle is just fine with me (or so I thought).  After an uneventful 13 hours or so flying from Seattle I got settled into the hotel and tried to sleep a bit but bam! wide awake at 4:30 AM.

Once the sun came up it revealed a crystal clear day and the city spread out as far as the eye could see.

After a lazy morning swim and breakfast I ventured out in the neighborhood to see what was around the general area starting with the local bike repair shop.

Then I found this nice little park on the river, not sure I would have eaten the fish that came out of the river though.

It was about this time that I felt a nap coming like a freight train and headed back to the hotel.  That was about it for the day so I spent the rest of the night napping and reading.

The next morning I met up with some co-workers to go see some sights, the last time I was in Beijing I didn’t make it to the Temple of Heaven so that was high on my list as we set out.

The temple is in an enormous park and it it was full of people doing all manner of things; Tai Chi, meditation, and these people enjoying some polka in the morning.

After a bit of a walk we found ourselves at the main attraction

The temple is really leaving me at a loss, it’s an amazing structure and I just sat there and stared at it for quite a while enjoying the view and sun while it lasted.

Walking back we got a little lost in the vastness of the temple grounds

But apparently we weren’t the only ones and this poor person left their coat behind.

Eventually we made our way out of the temple and then headed over to the north side of Beijing to check out the 768 Art Zone which KMJ had told me about and sounded interesting.

The art zone is an old factory complex that’s been turned into a series of indoor and outdoor gallery spaces, shops and dining.  The art all has a thoroughly modern/urban vibe so I of course really enjoyed it.

And that was that, the temperature at this point had dropped down into the low 20′s so we retreated to a Korean BBQ joint for some dinner and called it a night.  More on the food in a later post.

We started out with a fancy drink in the bar before heading into the private dining rom at Dahlia Lounge.  Tom Douglas came in to intro the evening and the menu, then Ruhlman said a few things before starting to meander through the dining room.  While I appreciate the fact that he was making an effort to greet everyone personally I was hoping for a little more open conversation and q&a.

Dinner was centered around the theme of braising, on of the chapter’s in Ruhlman’s book.  Fun style of cooking, but for me and Shelby that meant two meat dishes headed over to the boys (they did not complain).

First course was Tomme de Segala, braised gala apple, apple jelly, arugula, toast:

Next, Tomato braised sturgeon, green olive, fennel:

Breast of goose with braised leg, chestnut bread pudding, brussel sprouts, pickled huckleberry:

Red wine braised short rib, smoked potato agnolotti, black kale, chanterelles:

Sticky Toffee Date Cake, hot buttered rum sauce, braised cranberries, butter pecan ice cream:

Despite my best flirty attempts with Ruhlman, he apparently only had eyes for BK: