On the taste front, I guess there was nothing particularly wrong with Kanlaya. Often I judge restaurants like this by their vegetarian menus. It isn’t that hard to pump out chicken pad thai, or pad see yew, or any number of other meat dishes (of course, really good meat entrees aren’t that easy). But is the vegetarian food anything more than sad bits of fried tofu with veggies and sauce?

Kanlaya has a large veggie menu, which means maybe I just picked the wrong thing: my Pad Prik was tasty, but the beans (which were advertised as “Fresh String Beans”) looked like the frozen cut beans you can get at Giant, and the sauce was watery, and not particularly spicy (for its rating of two peppers on the menu, the highest they gave).

Evidently this is a problem that others have had:

Some like it hot, and diners who do had better make that point clear to the staff. This is a kitchen that pulls its punches if you aren’t insistent; shaved beef with bamboo shoots in a supposedly spicy red curry didn’t sound a single fire alarm.

Everyone else seemed to enjoy their food however, even a friend who had chicken satay, and was alarmed to see two pieces of toasted Wonderbread swimming in the sauce. So maybe I just picked wrong.

The final verdict: the food was fine, and if I had something going on in Chinatown and I was jonesing for a little Thai, I would go back again. But now I really, really, REALLY need to go to Thai X-ing. You can see my Twitter feed, admittedly short because of the tweets sent to the SCOTUSblog feed, after the jump.

I’m sure you are all sorry to hear that. But there are some positives that will come of this. First, I will be resuming posting this week. Also, during this busy time, I’ve been learning about what I see as a great little blogging tool: Twitter. I’m sure some of you know what Twitter is; you can skip this. But for the rest of you, Twitter is a microblogging tool, where each entry can only be 140 characters long. Also, Twitter can be updated from your mobile phone, meaning you never have to be somewhere where the Internets can’t immediately figure out what you are doing with your life. Yay! Anyway, read more here, if you really want to.

What Twitter can do for me, though, is allow me to create instant reactions to the various things I’m doing. And that is what I’m going to do with the blog. I will post entries, which will contain a link to my Twitter profile, where I’ll “liveblog” dinners out, dinners in, food festivals and basically anything else I can think of. Afterward, I’ll post the whole thing on the blog proper. If I don’t think that Twitter has done the event justice, expect a longer post with more considered thoughts.

So, starting this week, here’s what you can expect: one long post, on larger topics or events and one or more liveblogs of various places I’m visitng or foods I’m eating. I’ll try to announce the liveblogs earlier in the day on the blog so that you know what is coming. If you wanted, you could also follow me on Twitter – though I should warn you, not everything I write is about food, or is even vaguely coherent.

Check out my first post, on the Zagat guide’s attempt at cheap food rankings for DC, here.

Eat these things this week:

• Homemade Belizean pepper sauce. [Rice and Beans]
• Tuscan pasta with Canellini beans. [the arugula files]
• Pressed chicken with yellow squash and tomatoes. [The Bitten Word]

Anyway, you might have noticed that the title of this post mentioned couscous. Couscous is a really interesting food – you might think it’s a grain, but in fact it’s pasta, ranging from the tiny (traditional couscous) to the somewhat less tiny (Israeli, or pearl, couscous). Personally, I dislike traditional couscous, though: it gets mealy, it never hold up on its own. So why am I writing about couscous? Israeli couscous.

Israeli couscous, unlike traditional couscous, is much larger – the size of small peas – and holds up much better to cooking. Even better, when toasted before being cooked, it retains a nutty sweetness that comes from the carmelization of the of the starches in the pasta. Israeli couscous, however, has proven exceedingly difficult to find in this town. Which is exceedingly strange, considering how easy it was to find in Boise Idaho. Yes, people, the state that brought us Larry Craig’s bathroom shenanigans and Bill Sali’s independent discovery oil alternative fuels in our forests also gave me pearl couscous in the bulk food aisle of my local supermarket, something DC’s Whole Foods, Yes Organics and Safeway/Giant pu pu platter haven’t provided.

I was on the verge of taking desperate measures, when I finally found some – yes, Whole Foods had heard my silent prayer. I loaded up; at $2.50 a pound, it’s more expensive than regular pasta, but at this point I was desperate. Since my supply seems to be somewhat intermittent, I’ve come up with a plan to stretch my couscous supply: I’m going to eat so much of it that I get sick of it, and then I don’t want it again for months.

So here’s the first step towards couscous overload:

Pesto Couscous Gratin
Obviously, this was a Mark Bittman production, with modification.

Note: this dish requires about a cup of pesto. You could buy some…but maybe you should just quit reading if that’s the case.

Also, I modified this recipe pretty heavily, trying to use mostly seasonal veggies.

2 Tbs. Olive oil
1 shallot, finely chopped
1 cup chopped mushrooms (I used 1/2 cup of baby portabellas, replacing some of the mushrooms with other veggies)
Veggies (the recipe calls for asparagus, instead I used one medium zucchini, very thinly sliced – maybe a chiffonade cut – and two bell peppers, diced)
1/2 cup cream (I used whole milk)
1/2 pesto, or more depending on taste
1 egg
1 1/2 cups pearl couscous
4 oz. goat cheese

Pesto:
2 cups packed basil leaves
1/2 cup olive oil
2-3 cloves garlic, minced or put through a press (more or less depending on how much time you spent in close proximity to loved ones)
1/4 cup pine nuts

1. Put the couscous in a 2 qt. saucepan with a little olive oil and toast until golden brown. Add two cups of hot water and bring to a boil. Cover, turn heat down to medium and cook 12 minutes or until most of the water has been absorbed. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. While that’s happening, throw the basil, garlic, pine nuts and about half the olive oil in a food processor. Pulse for about 15 seconds. Check the consistency and aroma: you want the pesto moving towards creamy and really, really fragrant. Close up the processor and pulse while streaming in the rest of the olive oil – use more or less to control the wateriness (remember, I’m looking for creamy and that needed about 1/2 cup of oil).

3. Put the rest of the oil in a skillet and add the shallot. Cook, stirring frequently until softened – maybe 30 seconds. Add the peppers and cook another 3 minutes, then the mushrooms and zucchini. Cook until everything is tender but still slightly toothy. Sprinkle on some salt and pepper, then stir in the couscous and cook until heated through.

4. Whisk the cream, egg and pesto together in a small bowl and season. Set aside. Spread the couscous mixture in the bottom of a buttered gratin dish. Drizzle the pesto/cream/egg mixture over the couscous, then spread the goat cheese on top.

5. Bake until the edges and top of the gratin are brown and bubbling, about 30-40 minutes. Serve hot.

I really enjoyed making this dish; the combination of basil, peppers and zucchini make for a nice summer combination. One note: Bittman allows you to substitute stock for the cream, something I might do for a summer dish, allowing you to cut down the richness for a hot day.

I’m not nearly sick of couscous yet, but I’ve got plans: a pilaf of couscous, raisins, spinach and sun-dried tomatoes, and a couscous risotto. We’ll see if I ever want to see round past again.

Keep watching (or reading, as it were) for more.

Once we were seated, however, service was very good. We were pressed a little to order – though I’m not sure if that really passed the line between “attentive” and “pushy” – but once our food came, our waiter pretty much stayed out of our way (he only stopped by to clean up the table after I, during one of my more expansive hand motions, knocked over a water glass). Of course, there was no reason to be getting bad service; our waiter only had two other tables in his entire half of the restaurant.

The menu was pretty big for Restaurant Week: it isn’t the full menu, but seven apps, eight entrees and three desserts isn’t half bad. Though we had a lot of choice, in the end, we went with what had been recommended elsewhere: beer poached mussels, tuna tartare sliders, cornmeal-crusted trout, the “big hot brown” (an openfaced sandwich of turkey, bacon, tomato and mornay), the beignets dessert and the “cobbler of the day.”

On a purely technical note, I’ve managed to overcome my discomfort with taking pictures in restaurants (it always seemed somewhat rude to me). In fact, it was my friend and fellow diner who brought her camera – I was just going to use the phone – but for the first time, we have extensive photography of restaurant food.

Our appetizers came quickly; the mussels were still steamy, and the tuna was quite nicely presented (unfortunately, we scarfed it down before we remembered to get the camera out, so no picture). The tuna, little piles of chopped tartare with toasted sesame seeds piled on small rolls, was very tasty. It was cool, and the contrast of textures between the soft tuna and the slight cruch of the toasted roll made it an interesting dish. My only complaint was that sauces, which were artfully dotted and smeared on the plate, were weakly flavored (or maybe there just wasn’t enough of them); even the sriracha couldn’t impart any heat to the sliders.

The mussels were also delicious – briny, with mustard and rosemary flavors. They were, however, only the second best mussel dish I had during RW: while this overall was a stronger meal, the mussels I had at Bistro Bis were on a completely different level than these.

My trout was also a solid dish in all respects: light, flavorful, a nice contrast of textures between the flesh of the fish and the cornmeal crust. The corn-watermelon salad added sweet, summery flavor. My plus one, if you remember, had the big brown, which was the direct opposite of “light and summery” a thick piece of turkey, topped with multiple slices of bacon and covered in copious amounts of melted fontina cheese and mornay. Needless to say, she didn’t finish the whole thing, but what she ate got a very positive review.

We finished our meal with beignets and cobbler. The “cobbler of the day” was rhubarb-strawberry (specifically said that way, and not strawberry-rhubarb; the reasons for which I would learn when I bit in). It was fantastic, definately the highlight of the meal. Mostly, the cobbler had rhubarb, with that wonderful combination of sweet and sour that cooked rhubarb takes on. The filling also had strong strawberry, and interestingly, ginger flavors as well. The crust was also a little different from what you would usually see: less granola, more toasted nuts, with crushed walnuts making up the bulk of the crust. All this was topped with a scoop of very vanilla-y vanilla ice cream.

The beignets were also well done, and beautifully presented (in fact, my friend called them “to pretty to eat;” she had to look away and knock over the little tower they came presented as before she could dig in). They were really light and fluffy, which you don’t always get in beignets, and provided a nice light counterpoint to the heaviness of the “big brown,” I’m sure.

In the end, our meal at PS-7s was altogether enjoyable. While there was no single dish that was better than anything else I had during my RW tour (though the cobbler came close), I would definately recommend it again.

On the VA Beach front:  Mahi Mah’s (no second “i”) is pretty good, though I think its gotten a little tired lately.  When I lived down there (3+ years ago), it was definitely the hot destination on the strip; seems a bit less so these days, but it still has a great ocean view and a large beer/wine selection. Part of my disappointment could be due to the fact that it is grossly overshadowed by the newish Catch 31/Salaccia at the Hilton.  I was down there a few weeks ago and it seemed like everything revolved around C31(which is the bar adjoining the restaurant Salaccia) – in fact it was so packed, my group would have had to wait almost 2 hours for a seat.  Needless to say, I can’t comment on the food.

I saw someone commented on the Jewish Mother — I wouldn’t make it a destination based on food alone, but it’s the perfect place for a post-drinking greasy/carb-heavy breakfast.

That’s about all I’m familiar with on the boardwalk/strip.

Any thoughts, comments, responses?

[I must confess I got this from Deb Puchalla, who I follow on twitter and who once linked to my recipe for stuffed zucchini on her blog, thus earning my eternal devotion. --Ed.]