Ant eggs, grasshopper, all included in Quintonil's 10-course meal!

A few months before a recent Mexico City trip (recap of trip in a separate post), I booked reservations for Quintonil—one of the HOTTEST restaurants in the D.F. right now. I debated between Pujol and Quintonil, but figured Quintonil's menu was slightly more interesting and unique. I told traveling sisterhood that this was a splurge meal of the trip. I would usually never do a tasting menu in the states, but it's really quite affordable in the D.F.  

So, on Friday night, we made a trip to Quintonil in the Polanco area. The place is small but very well decorated and uber modern. 

All four of us opted for the 10-course tasting menu with the drink pairings. YOLO! We then proceeded to settle in for a 3-hour meal/experience!

If we only did the menu without drinks, it would have cost us 1300 pesos; with the drinks it was 2425 pesos. After tip and everything, it was around $160USD. Not bad at all in my opinion.

While it was 10-course meal, the meal was started with a palette cleanser of sorts with a ceviche mango freeze—which was kind of like mango dipping dots.

They also brought out house-baked bread, tortillas and bean sauce. The bread and homemade butter was amazing!

Dish #1: Cactus salad with beet root and seaweed

Photo Credit: Frida's Cafe

It was really refreshing and it was served with an amazing beet juice.

We all wanted more of the beet juice! Austinites would freak the F out about this beet juice. It was earthy but not dirt-like (you know what I'm talking about) and sweet from the oj. 

Dish #2: Half moon scallop in orange 'aguachile'

The scallops were thinly slide and placed on a plate with the aguachile. For me, this was a top 4 dish. The flavors were refreshing and delightful!

Dish #3: Charred avocado tartare with escamoles (ANT EGGS!)

Did you know ant eggs in interior Mexican food is a delicacy? It's like their caviar. Fo reals. 

Photo Credit: Frida's Cafe

I will say that the dish was beautifully presented. The dusting of pepper (or whatever the black stuff is) was great. My sister couldn't eat all of her dish so I gladly accepted. The ant egg sacks don't have a distinct flavor, it's more of a soft texture thing. 

Dish #4: Salbute with cuitlacoche and chile powder

Cuitlacoche is basically a corn fungus. Sounds good, right? The dish actually needed a bit of salt but it was basically a snackable gordita. We had a really good laugh when my sister proceeded to make it talk. 

Photo Credit: Frida's Cafe

The dish was served with a nice Mexican IPA but the IPAs they're making are not overly hopped like American beers. It was quite muted and great floral aroma.

Dish #5: Catch of the day with chileatole made with hoja santa and seaweeds, chayote and flowers

I think most of us agreed that this one one of the BEST dishes of the night. The sea bass was perfectly cooked and presentation was amazing. 

Photo Credit: Frida's Cafe

Tableside, the chayote sauce was poured on top. I cook with chayote all the time, but I never make a puree out of it... so I totally came home with a new idea.

The dish was served with a mezcal cocktail that had the perfect amount of spice from the pepper. 

I think my sister approves of the mezcal!

Dish #6: Durango dry-aged rib eye, grasshopper and quelites chimichurri, rutabaga puree

Photo Credit: Frida's Cafe

This dish had very earthy components to it. The puree was really good and you couldn't even tell the grasshopper was made into like a rub of sorts. Meat melted in your mouth!

Dish #7: Chilacayotes (squash) in homemade mole, charred tortilla, basil and lemon thyme sprouts

Photo Credit: Frida's Cafe

While this was was beautifully presented, I thought it lacked any type of flavor. The mole was there but it wasn't as forward as I would like. Overall a mediocre dish.

Dish #8: Cactus sorbet

When Mandy took I bite of this, I nearly died on the floor laughing. The fast she made when she took a bite of the super tart sorbet was priceless. 

This was basically a palette cleanser after the heavier meat dishes. 

Dish #9: Berries "caos"

I dream about this dessert. So light and airy but tangy and sweet. It's the perfect light dessert I don't feel bad about eating.

Photo Credit: Frida's Cafe

A nice brachetto type wine was paired with it and it was delightful.

Last but not least, Dish #10: Mamey panna cotta, sweetened corn crumble and mamey seed ice cream

Photo Credit: Frida's Cafe

Seriously, how beautiful is this?? The colors, the flowers, the "dirt." Mamey is a type of fruit that is reminiscent of papaya. The corn crumble actually reminded me of graham crackers. I devoured this plate, flowers and all. 

Nightcap: Mexican cafe and sweets

Photo Credit: Frida's Cafe

After three hours and a full belly, we all wanted a little cafe before we headed out on the town... and sure enough that was the last thing they brought out. The cafe had the quintessential cinnamon in it which helped settle our tummies after 9 beverages. 

The cafe was served with some traditional Mexican desserts. 

Let them eat cake!

Before we officially walked out the door though, my sneaky friends alerted the waitress to the fact that my birthday was a few days earlier, so the staff brought out this lovely cake!

We were so full we couldn't even make a dent in the cake but the gesture was pure love. 

Quintonil, Gracias for one of the most memorable dining experiences I've ever had.

 I'm just glad I was able to share the experience with an equally amazing group of women.

Pho for Pho-ty

While we haven't had any ice storms this winter (thank goodness), it was still cold enough for our annual Pho Party a few weeks ago.

This year's dinner party was the largest crowd yet! Around 40 people came for dinner, which meant it was a lively fun night. 

Since I knew it was going to be a larger crowd, I did get a few more pounds of extra beef bones and made an extra large pot on the stove to add to the large turkey fryer when I got low on broth. Since I was already at Sam's Club picking up brisket and eye of round, the store had some good looking ox tail so I grabbed a package of that and added it to the broth. 

I added pre-made veggie eggrolls to the apps roster this year. While I know how to make viet eggrolls, timing was an issue so I decided to cheat and get the Saigon Eggrolls. The Saigon Eggrolls are actually pretty legit and are a good option if you're in a hurry but still want quality. 

From left to right: banh pate chaud, veggie eggrolls, turkey meatballs, tofu spring rolls. (Photo Credit: Angi W.)

The other apps were the same: banh pate chaud, tofu spring rolls and turkey meatballs.

I also made 4 gallons of cider (recipe will be up later) and Micah made some tepache (pineapple wine) along with several other brews.

Manning the noodle line.

While it was a BUSY night, we had a great time and people left with full tummies. That's all a hostess can ask for. 

By the end of the night, I only had a few quarts of broth leftover. Success!

Previous Pho Parties

• 2011 in San Antonio
• 2014 
• 2015

Zoos and Brews in Sunny San Diego

The Germans discovered it in 1904, and they called it San Diego, which in German means “whale's vagina."

For Micah, quotes from Anchorman were his favorite past-time while we visited San Diego in early December. We decided to visit SD after we discussed other options and determined everything else was going to be too cold in December (Micah's a wuss when it comes to cold weather).

When planning trips, I always have to consider beer options... hence why SD was on this rotation. While I've been to SD before (a decade ago!), Micah had never been so we figured it'd be the perfect 4-night trip. And besides, the San Diego Zoo has been on my must-see list for a long time.

Once we had the flights booked, I went searching for our lodging. After searching around, I settled on staying in the North Park neighborhood (there's a crapload of brewpubs in the area) and this vacation rental. The bungalow was within walking distance to most of the brewpubs and plenty of restaurants.

Since there are so many breweries in the San Diego area, we narrowed it down to the ones we really wanted to visit and then added on from there if we had time. If you get a chance, grab the San Diego Craft Brewer's Guild map from the airport or you can check the online version here. I like having a real map with the guide that I can open and close and store in my purse... I blame it on loving key maps as an assignment editor.

So, this is a brief rundown of how our vacation played out.

Day 1

1. The Brew Project: Place only serves SD brews. Good way to get an idea of what breweries you like in the area.

2. La Jolla Cove: We had to see the seals, right?

3. Dinner at Underbelly (a ramen place on 30th Street and within walking distance to our rental)

4. Right next door to Underbelly is Modern Times Flavordome. We were going to initially go there first but when we got there the bartender said their CO2 tank had failed and they were waiting on a new one. That's the first time we've ever encountered anything like that! We were actually unimpressed with their beer, even though we've heard great things. We didn't really like anything on their December roster. 

They serve their beers in cigar boxes. Cute but not practical.

5. Mike Hess Brewing: We walked up 30th and made our way to this place. It's beautiful and clean and stark, but the beers were OK. Not bad but not great. 

6. Waypoint Public: We ended the night there with a few beers.

Day 2

1. We ate breakfast at Mission Restaurant to make sure we had enough food in our tummies to tackle the...

2. San Diego Zoo: It's pricey but worth it! We spent 4 hours there and it was fabulous. There were no lines on the Thursday and I enjoyed every moment of it. I highly recommend it!

3. Stone Brewing: We went to the location at Liberty Station. We didn't love anything they had on tap but Micah did pick up a few bottles to go.

4. White Labs Tasting Room: Learning while drinking. I can get behind that. If you brew, you're familiar with White Labs yeast and a few years ago they decided to open a taproom to showcase their yeast strains - genius! I thoroughly enjoyed the tour and it's fun to see how the yeast strains vary.

5. AleSmith Brewing: Since we were already in the Miramar area, we decided to check out this place. If you like big and boozy beers, this place is for you. Their new taproom/brewery is massive.

6. Ballast Point: Since it was right around the corner from AleSmith, we checked it out too. This place was hopping! CROWDED! I can see why they got bought out for a bajillion dollars. My least favorite drink there? A watermelon beer -- tasted like a jolly rancher. Gross.

Day 3

1. Breakfast Republic: Great breakfast joint in North Park!

2. San Clemente and time with childhood friends: A childhood friend of mine and his girlfriend were able to meet us halfway in San Clemente from L.A. We met up at Pizza Port in San Clemente. 

3. Artifex: We then moved over to Artifex, which I really enjoyed. The beers were solid and the price points were spot on for their samplers.

So glad to see familiar faces!

4. Left Coast Brewing: Nothing memorable at this brewery.

5. ToolBox: After saying by to Doug and MaiAnh, we headed back towards SD but made some stops in Vista. We heard that ToolBox had some good sours so it was a no-brainer. We chatted with the bartender, who happened to be the guy who helped them plumb the place and originally worked at Stone Brewing. We really liked the Autumn Bliss and took a bottle home.

6. Lost Abbey: We had less than one hour at Lost Abbey and we made it quick. Micah loves Lost Abbey so he would've loved a some more time to enjoy the beer there but they were kicking everyone right at closing time. We grabbed a few bottles to go and called it a night.

Lost Abbey

Day 4

1. Coronado Beach: Beautiful day for sun and beach! We spent some time just walking around the hotel and the area around the beach.

2. Coronado Brewing Company: The brewpub was so busy! After stalking the bar for a few minutes we were able to snag a seat for two at the bar. I didn't love any of their beers but none of them were bad either.

3. Half Door Brewing: Cute place in the downtown area. I liked the gose and the red they had on tap.

4. Hamilton's Tavern: Saw that they had Pliny on tap so we stopped there on the way back to the house. It's kind of divey but has a great beer selection and is well priced!

5. Oscar's Mexican Seafood: I didn't get to take any pictures (I was HONGRY), but the Mexican ceviche and seafood tacos here were fantastic. Get the grilled octopus - perfectly cooked but still chewy.

6. North Park Bar Crawl: Since there are so many brewpubs in the area, we decided to do a crawl on our last night. We went to Toronado (great beer bar!), Tiger Tiger (not as a great beer selection as Toronado, but good gastropub), Belching Beaver and the last stop was Rip Current Brewing.

Since we had to wake up early the next day for our flight, we called it a night and finished watching Master of None on Netflix! It was the perfect vacation!

Guinness Nitro IPA: Not your typical IPA

A few weeks ago, Micah and I attended an amazing beer dinner for the launch of Guinness Nitro IPA. I thought it was going to be a more casual party, with passed apps and snacks, but when we arrived at Fixe in Downtown Austin, it was an intimate sit-down dinner for two dozen.

When we arrived, we met with Ian Colgan, Guinness' Beer Ambassador, along with several other Guinness reps. We chatted with Ian about Ireland and beer places he should visit while he was in town (we told him to check out Jester King, obviously).

Before we even sat down at the table, the table was already full of delicious biscuits (served with andouille paste), deviled eggs and a beet salad. The biscuits were fluffy, buttery and everything you want in a biscuit!

If you haven't eaten at Fixe, you should. It's "new" southern and it's great! The space is best described as sophisticated, French country-ish. I also noticed that the male kitchen and wait staff were abnormally good-looking. Just an observation.

While we were snacking on the apps, Ian gave us the lowdown on the new IPA. The IPA is brewed in Dublin and contains five hop varieties: Admiral, Celeia, Topaz, Challenger and Cascade. I like that it is a mix of American and European hops. European hops are much more subdued than American, which I prefer. Guinness does use a similar "torpedo" system to run the beer through the hops so the hops don't clog the system and you get a fresher hop flavor. The beer is also brewed with the same yeast used to ferment their stouts.

Since IPAs are so popular in America, Guinness obviously wanted to add an IPA to their lineup to capture some of that audience and shelf space. The only problem is that the American IPA is so hop-forward that European IPAs have a hard time keeping up and this is true for the Guinness IPA.

When I cracked open up my can and poured it into the glass, it was a perfect swirl of nitro and caramel. Once the beer settled, it was a gorgeous reddish-brown color -- kind of reminiscent of a Kilkenny (my favorite Irish beer).

A pretty delicious pairing!

The nose has great hop smell, but once you taste the beer, you realize it is definitely not an American IPA. I actually really liked it, which means it's not an AIPA--I am not a fan of IPAs, which is odd, because I love bitter foods, just not bitter beers. The Nitro IPA has 44 IBUs, while most American IPAs hover around 70-80 (or higher!). While the IBUs in the Nitro IPA were lower than AIPAs, the maltiness and body were a hit for me. It is basically a hoppier Kilenney!

Micah thinks Guinness should really market it as a Pale Ale -- but the problem is nobody wants to buy pale ales! Everybody wants IPAs. But then Micah retorted that Sierra Nevada's Pale Ale is one of their best sellers... touche. I think marketing will be the biggest challenge for the Nitro IPA. People wanting an IPA will be surprised that it's not that hoppy and won't like it, and if you were to judge it in an IPA category, it would score really low. But as an overall beer, it is balanced, malty and just plain tasty!

The bottom line, would I buy this beer? Yes! I would gladly pick up a six-pack. And now you can! All the major grocery/liquor stores were stocked with the beer a few weeks ago. Just don't compare to an American IPA and you'll be fine.

And if you want to learn about how the nitrogen widget works, watch their video below. I ain't no scientist so I'm not going to explain to you how that thingamabob works. 

And because every time I hear an Irish accent it reminds me of my trip to Ireland, here are a couple of pics from our 2009 trip.

DIY: Chicken water dispenser with nipples

It's been four months since we got our first set of chickens and I've yet to consume one egg from my urban farm. We're actually now on our third set of chickens. Yep, you heard that right. It's like the killing fields in our backyard. Even with a reinforced fencing, the dogs still managed to kill two of the chickens (one died of natural causes the week before the second massacre).

Before we got our third set, we reinforced the gate again! I ended up getting chickens from a person who was actually one of the homes we visited during the Chicken Coop Tour back in April. He had three black polish hens, so I got all three! They should start laying eggs in the next few weeks (fingers crossed).

In the past few weeks, we also decided to build a water feeder. I had been using something similar to this, which worked fine but the chickens would kick crap into it and I had to clean it out every day.

So, we decided to make our own water dispenser that would be clean and efficient.

Here are the items we used to make the dispenser, which ends up holding around 1.25 gallons of water and lasts about four days. The total cost of the dispenser? $45.

• 4 inch PVC pipe
• 4 inch PVC cap for the top
• One cheap door handle for the cap
• 4 inch to 2 inch reducer
• 2 inch to 3/4 inch bushing
• 3/4 inch pvc pipe
• 3/4 inch 90 degree elbow
• 3/4 inch pvc cap
• -2 worm clamps
• small worm clamp
• 2 3/8inch spacers
• pvc glue
• water nipples

Breakdown of the items used and where they were used. Fancy captions, right?

We were able to put the water tube together in less than 1 hour. It was a lot faster than I thought. We had to cut down the 3/4 inch pvc pipe, but that's super easy with a saw and we drilled out the holes for the nipples, but that was quick and easy as well.

We drilled out a small hole out of the coop to insert the pvc pipe.

3 water nipples for 3 chickens!

And here are our new chickadees.

Fourth Annual Slip-N-Slide Party!

Now that we're in our fourth year, I think we've got this slip-n-slide party thing down.

The week before the party, Micah and I spent 45 minutes repairing any tears in the main slide and re-taping/re-grommeting any grommet areas that came loose (info on how we originally added the grommets here). Thankfully there were only a couple of small tears and grommets that needed replacing -- which means our grommet experience from last year passed with flying colors.

Since we had the same layers going down as last year, this year it took less than one hour to put up the entire slide. Shout-out to my family and friends who helped us set-up! You guys rock!

Micah had the genius idea of doing a time lapse of the day. With a little engineering and duct tape, Micah secured his phone to the grill and this was the outcome:



As for the food offerings, I threw around some different ideas but came back full circle to the same ol' nacho bar! I mean, it's just so easy... and I'm so lazy... and everyone loves queso... and everyone loves guacamole.

I did, however, add tacos to the menu. I needed something I could make in big batches and would keep well in crock pots. I ended up making 6 pounds of green chile chicken tacos and 8 pounds of pork tinga tacos. Both are from Rick Bayless' Mexican Everyday cookbook.

What I did the day before the party:

• Roasted the pork for in a large roasting pan for three hours. Everything went into the fridge. 
• Fire roasted and prepped the green chiles for the chicken
• All the mise en place for pico de gallo and guacamole
• Made salsa verde (recipe at the end)
• Made 3 gallons of sangria (same one as mentioned here)

Since I had most of the food prep done, on the morning of the party all I had to do was pick up fresh tortillas and corn chips from the local tortilleria shop (on Rundberg, of course).

My sister helped with making the delicious guacamole (I bought 20 avocadoes for it) and the queso. 

Guests digging in... once again I fail to take real photos of the food.

A few hours before the party, I did cook the chicken and have it ready for the heating plate. Once the party started, I combined the chicken with the rest of the ingredients and everything was ready. I put all the pork tinga into a crock pot and voila!

All the food I made fed nearly 40 people, with pork tinga left to spare!

I didn't make any sweets so I'm glad several friends brought some cookies to share! 

Micah made three beers for the party: IPA, saison and a orange berlinerweisse. There was something for everyone!

Between the noshing, there was some sliding! 

Since we love a good game, we decided to add flippy cup to the mix. In actuality, we just want friends to stop posting this video to our FB pages. Slip and Flip was the perfect addition to the party! 

I would say this year's party is the best one yet! We even had folks from Cali fly in JUST FOR THIS PARTY. It's that legit. 

And no party would be complete without a montage of the day. Enjoy.

**Editor's note: "Drip Drop" is one of my favorite songs off the Empire 1st season soundtrack. Get it.

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Salsa Verde Recipe:

• 6-8 tomatillos, husks removed
• 1 jalapeno, sliced in half
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 white onion cut into quarters

1. Put all the ingredients into a pot and fill with water.

2. Heat until boiling and then lower to a simmer for 5 minutes.

3. Remove all the solids and place into a blender.

4. Add a bunch of cilantro and juice of one lime.

5. Blend together. Season with salt and more lime if needed.