Week 19 - Tea

We have a lot of tea at home, but when the tea challenge came up, I really wasn't sure what to make. I didn't want to make dessert, and nothing really inspired me until I looked through what other people submitted for the challenge and saw something I had never heard of called ochazuke. A simple Japanese dish, it's made by pouring tea (or dashi or a combination) over rice and savory ingredients. After reading more about it, it reminded me a lot of a dish we had gotten in Vancouver, but we just hadn't known this was what it was called.

Since ochazuke is usually made with green tea, I decided to use genmaicha, in part because it's one of my favorites and in part because I thought the roasted rice flavor would go well with the cooked rice. (If you're unfamiliar with genmaicha, it's green tea combined with roasted brown rice.) Apparently the other common teas used besides genmaicha are sencha and hojicha, and I'm not sure if we even have either of those at the moment. I wasn't sure how the savory ingredients would go with the tea alone, so I decided to experiment and for each of our two bowls, make one with just tea and one with a tea/dashi mix.

The ingredients for the ochazuke were:

- 2 cups (uncooked) brown rice ($2)

- smoked salmon ($7.26)

- 3 green onions ($0.30)

- 1 package of Maui onion seaweed snacks ($0.33)

- 1/2 tsp of sesame seeds ($0.10)

- 3 genmaicha tea bags ($0.50)

- small spoonful of Hondashi mixed with water ($0.15)

On the side, I also made sunomono (based on a Japanese Cooking 101 recipe) because I wasn't sure there would be enough vegetable matter in the ochazuke alone. Unfortunately, the time I went to Trader Joe's they were out of the non-organic Persian cucumbers, so I had to go with a regular hothouse cucumber, which probably contributed to this not being as good as we had hoped. I probably also made too much sauce for it and should have drizzled it in instead of pouring in the whole bowl at once, as the salad was a little too drenched. It tasted fine, but just like cucumbers with soy sauce and vinegar, nothing we need to do again. I mention all this now because I was so unenthused about it that I forgot to even take a picture of the finished product. Anyway, the ingredients were:

- 1 hothouse cucumber ($1.29)

- about 1 tbsp sugar ($0.10)

- 3 tbsp rice vinegar ($0.25)

- splash of soy sauce ($0.05)

- a few shakes of sesame seeds ($0.10)

Combined with the ochazuke, that put the grand total for dinner at approximately $12.43, but that wasn't surprising since smoked salmon isn't cheap. We need to eat more fish on a regular basis though, so no complaints.

The first thing we did for this was start the rice since that would take the longest to cook. While the rice was cooking, I made the sunomono and also did prep for the ochazuke. The prep steps were to chop the scallions, tear up the sheets of seaweed, toast the sesame seeds, make the dashi, and of course to steep the tea.

I remembered one of the sites that I had looked at about ochazuke talked about cooking the rice so it would get some nice browning. We tried doing that with some rice patties, but it didn't really make much difference so we only did it for the first bowl.

This dish was basically all about prep, and once everything was prepped, it was easy. A ball of rice at the bottom, and then layer on the toppings of salmon, scallions, seaweed, and sesame seeds. (I just realized those all start with S!)

After everything is in the bowl, you pour over the tea (and/or dashi) and then let all the ingredients soak in the broth. It ends up being kind of like having soup.

The ochazuke wasn't bad - very light and healthy tasting - but also not amazingly flavorful outside of the delicious smoked salmon. The tea didn't have as much flavor as we thought it would, and it definitely tasted better once we added the dashi. It was good though to have such a healthy, simple dinner.

I don't know that I would plan to make this again since it was good but not amazing, but outside of the smoked salmon, we have pretty much all the ingredients on hand most of the time, so it might work as a good way to use up ingredients sometime. What this dinner really did more than anything else was remind me that I should incorporate smoked salmon into more dishes. So much flavor, and a little bit goes a long way. It's basically the fish equivalent of bacon.

Week 18 - Stir Fry

We stir fry on a regular basis, so I thought the best thing to do for the challenge would be to look for a new recipe. But nothing really caught my eye as I looked at recipe after recipe, so I decided instead to make black bean chicken for the challenge. I've made this before (and even posted about it), but it had been many months since the last time and I was kind of craving it.

There were some differences in how we made it this time, mostly because we were going to eat it on its own and I wanted to make sure there were enough vegetables in it for a meal. Instead of just a bell pepper, garlic, ginger, and scallions, I ended up using onions, a green bell pepper, a red bell pepper, mushrooms, garlic, ginger, and leeks (store was out of scallions). And lots more black beans than in previous times, but there was also more stuff in the dish.

This was really good, although I wanted more black bean flavor. I always forget how easy it is to make this and how we just need some fresh vegetables to throw in. I should probably make this and ma po tofu more so I can finish off the black beans we have and get some newer, fresher, probably stronger in flavor ones.

Week 17 - Cafeteria Food

The last cafeteria lunch I ate was probably in elementary school, and I have fond memories of beef turnovers and French bread pizzas (although I already made those pizzas for a different challenge) and breaded chicken (formed meat) sandwiches. I thought about making meatloaf (except I've made meatloaf for a number of different challenges already), but in the end went with grilled cheese, mostly because we had bought a loaf of wheat bread for other reasons and were going to have leftover pepper jack cheese to shred after using it in grits.

The ingredients were basic - bread, butter, and shredded jack cheese. Alongside the cheese I finished off a bag of frozen tots that we had opened long ago. Looked like a cafeteria meal to me.

I made the grilled cheese the same way I've been making the toasties ever since our Kappacasein visit  - buttered bread, shredded cheese, flattened with a pan in a skillet. I don't think I'll ever make grilled cheese another way again.

Dinner was fine, even if nothing special. But grilled cheese and tots were definitely cafeteria food!

Week 16 - Vacation Food

I was really perplexed about what to make for the vacation food challenge. Food is such a big part of our vacations that it was really difficult. Our most recent trip to Seattle and Vancouver was the first thing I considered, but so many of the standout things we ate there involved amazing quality seafood and/or equipment that we don't have at home. That wasn't going to happen. I thought about it a little more and eventually remembered how 2015 was the year of Nando's, the year when we first had Nando's (finally) and then ate at Nando's on three different vacations that year. There was no way I could replicate Nando's exactly since we didn't buy the bottles of peri peri sauce during our trips, but I could at least do a Nando's-inspired chicken meal. Even better, the peri peri seasoning that we had at home was a souvenir from London that we hadn't opened yet. Perfect for the vacation food challenge.

Peri Peri Chicken

The first part of the meal was the peri peri chicken which was pretty easy to prepare. I used two frozen chicken breasts, thawed them out, and then rubbed them in olive oil and the peri peri seasoning. After marinating for a few minutes, I baked them at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes until they were fully cooked. The chicken was okay, definitely not as good as Nando's, but made differently. Since the peri peri seasoning came from a spice shaker and wasn't mixed with other ingredients into a sauce, it had less of a nuanced flavor than the Nando's chicken. The flavor was mostly just "hot." (At least the label didn't lie.) While this was fine, it was probably the weakest part of the meal.

Cole Slaw

I made the cole slaw a few hours before dinner so that it would have time to sit in the fridge and chill. It was pretty much the same cole slaw that I make all the time (at least the one I've made since discovering it with the bean sliders), except this time I substituted agave for honey since I didn't want to open the new large jar of honey. Basically you mix together shredded green cabbage and chopped scallions with a dressing made from mayo, dijon mustard, red wine vinegar, agave, salt, and pepper. This was good as always, although it did taste slightly different (not bad different, just different) because of the agave substitution. It was a very welcome part of dinner as it helped offset the spicy peri peri seasoning (which I honestly hadn't expected to be as hot as it was).

Seasoned Peas

One of our favorite sides at Nando's is the macho peas, and we've always felt like we could make this at home. In the end, I couldn't justify buying mint just to use it in the peas, so I made our own version of a side of seasoned peas. I microwaved one of those "steam in the bag" bags of green peas, and once they were cooked, dumped them into a skillet with some olive oil. I started smashing some of them as I stirred and added chopped cilantro (about 1/3 of a bunch), some minced garlic, and peri peri seasoning. I cooked the peas with the seasonings for about 5 minutes and just adjusted the taste here and there. 

The peas tasted really good, and even though the peri peri seasoning was the same, the addition of other flavors made this much better than the more one-note chicken. We have so many seasoning blends in the spices cabinet that I don't really use as much as I should, and I liked how this came out with the cooked peas so much that on a subsequent grocery trip, I picked up a bunch of steam in the bag frozen vegetable options (one thing TJ's actually doesn't have). Would definitely make vegetables like this again.

In the end, it wasn't exactly Nando's, but it was definitely inspired by it. Peri peri chicken with two of our favorite sides - peas and cole slaw. If it hadn't been so many moving parts already, and if we lived closer to a place with good, cheap bread, I probably would have added on our other favorite side, garlic bread. Now we just need Nando's to open in the NYC area...

Petite Pumpkin Spice Cookies

Product name: Petite Pumpkin Spice Cookies

Price: $2.99 for 10 oz box

Quick review: I've liked some of the other yogurt-coated shortbread cookies from TJ's (although thinking about it now, I'm not sure if I've finished those reviews; will have to go look after this!), so when we picked up these petite pumpkin spice cookies during pumpkin season last fall, I was sure we were going to like these too. The cookies are shaped like pumpkins and came in both white and orange varieties (although they tasted the same). The cookies themselves were pumpkin spice shortbread, in addition to the pumpkin pie flavored yogurt coating, and they were just a little bit too sweet all around. They did taste like pumpkin spice, but I think maybe we're just hitting our limit on pumpkin spice these days. Don't like it as much as we used to.

Buy again? Probably not. They were fine, but my standard for cookies these days is, "Would I rather buy these or eat the cookies/almond cake that A makes?" So, in this case, probably not.

Kerbisher and Malt

Before going to London, I did a lot of research into fish and chips. That was one thing we knew we wanted to get in England, and it seemed like everyone liked different spots for different reasons. One of the highly recommended spots online was Kerbisher and Malt, which we were especially attracted to since it was located in Hammersmith, only a short walking distance from our hotel room.

Kerbisher and Malt offered up fried fish in almost every form imaginable - plain, with chips, in butties and burgers, as fish fingers. (You could get it grilled too, but we don't remember seeing anyone do that.) One thing we really liked about them was that all the fish was from sustainable sources and cooked on the spot after ordering (and then delivered to your table). We also liked that they had some lunchtime specials which came with chips or a salad, ranging from £5-6. I got one of the specials, while A ordered off the regular menu and got fish and chips.

Since A was already getting chips with his fish, I opted for the salad as my side, thinking it would be healthier and we could also get some vegetables in. It was a small portion on the side of the plate, but at least it was more interesting than just some lettuce. The salad consisted of lettuce, tomato, cucumber, red onion, radicchio, and pomegranate seeds. It was lightly dressed with what tasted like olive oil and vinegar. The salad was fine, nothing extraordinary, but it was nice for lightening up the rest of our meal of fried food.

For the special itself, I got the fillet of fish "burger" which really just seemed like a fried fish sandwich. What arrived was a fried fillet of fish on bread with lemon mayo, lettuce, tomato, cucumbers, and onions. We weren't sure which fish this was (they had several options you could choose from for the regular fried fish, but the sandwich didn't specify), but it was good. The vegetables on the bottom were very reminiscent of the salad ingredients (quite possibly were the same without the pomegranate), and the lemon mayo added some nice flavor. Unfortunately I was still feeling some of the effects of the stomach discomfort from the day before, so I didn't have as much of an appetite as I thought I would when we were ordering and couldn't finish the sandwich, but I wished I could have.

A ordered the fish and chips with haddock (the other options on the menu were cod, plaice, pollock, and coley). He also got a side of tartar sauce, but we had forgotten with the initial order that you had to order the sauces separately so we had to add it while we waited for the food to come. (The other sauces they had were mayo, lemon mayo, red curry, and sweet chilli.) The price wasn't too bad for the fish and chips with sauce (a little under £10), and for people with smaller appetites, they did have slightly less expensive "small" fish and chip specials.

As for the fish and chips themselves, we found the batter a little on the sweeter side, sort of like those Chinese fried milk things you get at banquets. The fish itself was a really large single piece of fried fish, and very flaky. It wasn't very seasoned or salty, which was good since it seemed like they were trying to let the flavor of the fish itself shine through. We thought similarly about the chips which were also not very salted so you could really taste the potato. I didn't love the batter and preferred the way the fish sandwich was prepared, but A liked it.

Kerbisher and Malt also offered numerous sides, many of which sounded good. We had to decide whether to get mushy peas, or a fennel and dill salad, or coleslaw, or pickled onion rings, or baked beans. I've made no secret of my love for onion rings, and we were really interested in trying the pickled onion rings because they sounded different (and looked good in all the Instagram pics we saw before going). Basically they take pickled onions and then batter them and fry them up. The flavor was definitely different from "regular" onion rings because of the pickled flavor, and they were definitely worth trying. Back then, we had no idea pickled onions were so popular and loved in England, but between these onion rings and the pickled onion snacks we brought home to eat, we feel like we didn't take advantage of this as much as we could have when we were there, and have definitely learned our lesson for next time.

It's hard for us to compare Kerbisher and Malt with other fish and chips places in London, since we didn't visit any others. But we did like what we got there. We probably would have enjoyed it more if our stomachs weren't so uneasy and uncomfortable from the days before (no fault of theirs, obviously), and we would return to try it again if we were in the mood for some fish and chips.

A Year of Nando's

The next post in our London recaps was supposed to be about our visit to Nando's Peri-Peri, our fourth visit to a Nando's in 2015 while on vacation. Unfortunately we haven't gotten around to recapping any of the other Nando's visits, so any comparisons we would make between the restaurants in London and the States would have no context whatsoever. Considering that, and also the fact that the next post in our Savannah recaps was also supposed to be about Nando's, we thought it was best to just put them all together in one post and take you through our year of Nando's.

Visit #1: Woodbridge, Virginia (Savannah road trip)

We had known about Nando's Peri-Peri for a long time before we ever tried it. Founded in South Africa, Nando's is a fast casual restaurant serving grilled chicken (and other stuff, but the draw for most people is the chicken) with peri-peri sauces, flavors that originated from Portugal and Mozambique. Nando's only recently expanded to the US, with locations in Virginia, DC, Maryland, and Chicago. Unfortunately they don't yet have one in New York, but that was why we definitely wanted to try some on our way to Savannah.

A got the half chicken, medium spiciness, with macho peas ("rugged pea mash with whole peas, parsley, mint and chilli" according to the menu). The chicken was very moist except for a few sections of the white meat which was a bit on the drier side. The sauce had a good amount of heat that didn't overpower his senses, and the peri peri seasoning added a nice floral hint. The macho peas were very tasty. They had a good bit of heat to them, and our guess was that they included the same chilli as their peri peri seasoning in them. The mint and parsley added a nice herbal freshness to the dish as well.

M got the sandwich called "Nandocas choice" which made her top 10 list that year. The sandwich was a chicken breast topped with cole slaw on buttery garlic bread. It was really, really good. She thought that the flavor of the chicken itself might have been a little bit better on A's regular flame grilled chicken, but all together, this combination was great. Can't really go wrong with a sandwich built on garlic bread.

Visit #2: Hanover, Maryland (Savannah road trip)

We liked Nando's so much on our first visit, just like we thought we would, that we also got lunch at one of the Maryland locations on our drive back home. The Hanover location was in the Arundel Mills mall not too far from our hotel, so it was our last real meal on the trip (if you don't count rest stop fries). We thought the Virginia location was a little better as far as organization and layout, but we really didn't care because we were eating delicious Nando's chicken.

The first time we got the chicken, we didn't add much seasoning or extra sauce to it, because we wanted to taste it right out of the kitchen with the flavors it was supposed to have. This visit, we experimented more with the sauces, especially the wild herb and garlic, which we liked even more mixed together. The garlic herb peri-peri sauce was our favorite on its own. We love garlic, and this had a really good garlicky flavor to it. The wild herb peri-peri sauce had a good flavor to it, but it just wasn't as good as the garlic herb. Together they formed a great, balanced sauce.

A wanted to kick things up a bit so he got the half chicken, hot spiciness, with corn. The chicken was similar, moist but with a few dry spots in the white meat, and the hot sauce was good and hot, but it was, for the most part, the same chicken he had on the way down. The corn was nice. He had seen a bunch of people ordering it on our first visit so he wanted to give it a try. It was really just a grilled ear of corn, but it was sweet, and the char on the corn gave it a nice smokiness. M isn't as big a fan of corn on the cob, but she thought it tasted good from the little bit she tried.

For her meal, M got a chicken breast (medium) sandwich with arugula, tomato, pickled onion, and peri-peri mayo, with sides of macho peas and fries. These were the same two sides that we had gotten in Virginia, and they were both good. As for the sandwich, it was fine, not as exciting as the Nandocas choice, but the chicken was really good. That said, M still thought A's chicken was better so she decided she would ditch the sandwiches and get regular chicken whenever we were lucky enough to go to Nando's again.

Visit #3: West Loop, Chicago (Great Lakes road trip)

The first Nando's in Chicago opened in spring of 2015 in the West Loop, and once we learned that, we knew where we absolutely had to go during our time in Chicago over the summer. This location was a little different from the other two we had been to, in that it wasn't located in a mall or shopping development, but just a regular neighborhood restaurant. We were really excited to see if anything was different about the Chicago locations, but they were mostly the same. The Chicago one did have better decor though.

A got a half chicken, hot spiciness, with peas and Portuguese rice. The flavor of this Nando's was just as good as before, but the chicken size was much smaller. The peas were tasty like last time, and the rice had really good flavor. We also used the garlic and herb sauce like last time and it was just as delicious.

M got a quarter chicken, medium spiciness, white meat, with coleslaw and garlic bread as sides. The garlic bread was delicious, even if garlic bread is the type of thing we could probably make it at home. The coleslaw was really, really good and better than M remembered from before. With the sides she picked, it was like she could make the Nandocas choice sandwich all over again if she really wanted to, selections which weren't intentional but perhaps subconscious.

Visit #4: Shepherd's Bush, London (2015 vacation)

Our stomachs weren't feeling particularly great after our pie and mash and jellied eels lunch, so we thought the best thing to do was to grab some Nando's for dinner. Grilled chicken sounded like it would be nice and calming. There were two Nando's locations not too far from our hotel, including one a little more conveniently located at the Westfield mall. (You might remember the mall from our first day visits to Square Pie and Pho.) The Nando's at the mall wasn't in the takeaway food court, but in a section with other restaurants. When we got there and saw the line, we were alarmed to see it stretching out of the restaurant and around a corner. The mall was packed, but it was a Tuesday night so we really weren't expecting it to be so crowded. (We kept forgetting it was half term.)

Since that wasn't going to work, we left the mall and walked over to the other Shepherd's Bush location, which had free tables and very little line. It was nice being in a place where there was more than one Nando's within walking distance.

M got a half chicken, medium spiciness, with garlic bread and coleslaw, pretty much the same thing she got in Chicago. She got a half so that A could eat some of the dark meat, since she was planning to eat mostly white meat. The chicken seemed to be very similar to the ones we got in the States, and it was nice to see that the quality was consistent. Both sides were good, but the garlic bread wasn't seasoned as much and didn't have the garlic spread to the edges, so it wasn't quite as good as the ones we had had previously. It was probably healthier that way, but M likes garlic bread with lots of butter and garlic on it. It was a nice, solid dinner that M really hoped would soothe her stomach and erase all memories of jellied eels.

A got the chicken livers which we both knew he was going to get as soon as we looked at the English menu. The chicken livers aren't on the American menu, and that's a real shame. The chicken livers came with a Portuguese roll and he got a side of fries. We couldn't pinpoint exactly what they used to cook the chicken livers, but they were so good. Looking at the Nando's recipes online before they were removed, it sounded like it was just butter and peri-peri sauce, but it tasted like something more than that. There was something familiar about it, but we just couldn't figure it out. We tried these on everything: plain, on the roll, on M's garlic bread, and even on the fries. It didn't matter how we ate them, they were just awesome. There was a little bit of a spiciness to the sauce as well as A ordered them with medium spiciness.

Dinner was really good. We were very glad that we had such a good, tasty dinner since lunch was not as good as we were expecting it to be.

After visiting Nando's four times in 2015, we haven't been to one since then, pretty much since they don't have one here in New York. When the day comes (hopefully) that they do open here, we will be so happy. It's the perfect fast casual type of spot - good flavorful food, no fuss, not too expensive. Nando's, please open in NYC, and if possible bring the chicken livers too!

Nettle and Chive Cheese

The current spotlight cheese at Trader Joe's is the nettle and chive cheese, a handmade cheddar style cheese. The main flavorings here came from a nettle and chive dried herb blend composed of nettle leaves, chive, parsley, onion, and garlic.

M's quick review:

On paper, this cheese was everything I love. Cheddar, chives, parsley, onions, garlic - that's absolutely my thing, and we've had cheeses from TJ's before with those flavorings that were great. This one was a little different though because of the nettle leaves. I'd never had nettle before, but had always been curious about it because of its medicinal effects especially for allergies. I have no idea what nettle leaves taste like, so I have no idea if this cheese tastes like that at all. The flavor was pretty mild, and oddly I didn't get a ton of flavor from any of the herbs in the blend at all. There were hints of some of them, and again I don't know what nettle tastes like, but the flavor was a little subdued. Nothing like one review I read which said it tasted exactly like sour cream and onion dip. I didn't get that at all.

Rating: 7/10

Buy again? Maybe. I liked it, but I like other ones more.

A's quick review:

I thought I would like this more than I did. It was fine as a cheese, but I didn't get a ton of chive flavor from it. No clue what nettles taste like, but during allergy season we wanted to test out how well nettles actually worked for that. I didn't notice a ton of difference, but at least I got some pretty tasty cheese. This was an okay, mild white cheese.

Rating: 7/10

Buy again? I guess so? It would depend on what other cheeses were available.

Goddards at Greenwich

Taking a little bit of a break from our Greek honeymoon recaps to dream about London...

This is a post that I've been dreading writing ever since we ate here. I knew that M would ask me to write this, and I'll get into that a bit more later. Before arriving in London, we did our research on what to eat that was traditionally British, and one of the things we found was jellied eels. We figured that even though we'd never had them before, they'd probably be fine. We like eel in other preparations like sushi, so how different could these be?

The location we chose was Goddards at Greenwich. It had really good reviews, and everything we read about it said it was an institution as it had been around for a long time (1890 by the signage). The first thing that we found that was promising was that it seemed like a lot of locals seemed to be eating here. When we're on vacation, we try to find places that are packed with locals when we can.

We figured that getting just jellied eels wasn't a great idea (or enough for lunch) so we also each got a pie with some sides. M got the traditional mince pie with two scoops of mashed potatoes, peas, and eel liquor (the green-ish gravy). The choice of gravy was between brown gravy and "parsley" which was the liquid from the boiled eels thickened with herbs and spices mixed in. I got the steak and kidney pie with mashed potatoes and eel liquor and also the bowl of jellied eels. We opted to share the additional sides (peas and eels) so that we didn't each have to get them.

M's minced beef pie had a very rich and buttery crust, but it didn't have a great deal of flavor from the filling. It certainly wasn't as good as the pie we had the day before. Overall the pie was just okay. The gravy didn't impart much flavor, and the filling for the pie wasn't that special either. The mashed potatoes were just okay. The peas were also just okay though they might have been our favorite thing from this meal. Everything was just somewhat lackluster.

I got the steak and kidney pie. There was a lot more texture to the meat since it was larger chunks as opposed to being minced up. We couldn't tell what was the kidney, though, so for all we knew it was all kidney and no beef or vice versa. There were also onions mixed into the filling. M preferred her pie more, and I preferred the flavor of mine. The only issue for me was that the beef was a little too dry. Overall, both pies were nothing special. We really enjoyed the other pies we had in London far more than these.

Now for the part that I was dreading writing about the most - the traditionally British jellied eels. The options in these old-school pie shops were stewed versus jellied eels. The difference is that the stewed eels are warm and in liquid whereas the jellied eels are cold, and the liquid has solidified into jelly. We opted for the jellied as that's how we read was the way to eat them.

My first bite wasn't so bad. It was a little salty and squishy, but the texture was similar to other eel I have had in other preparations. The jelly also was pretty salty and had a rather heavy fishy flavor to it. It was so salty and fishy to the point that I started to get a little nauseated from eating it. I opted to ignore the jelly and focus on the eel itself. The eel was still okay to me so I made sure to just eat that. Each piece of eel had a small circular bone in the middle so we had to be careful to pick around that as well as the other little bones that were attached to it since there was a possibility of them getting stuck in our throats.

M had a much different experience with the eels. She hated them and would never eat them again even if it was the only thing left in the world to eat (and she hopes it never comes to that). They were slimy and salty, they were a ton of work with all the bones for not much benefit, the taste and texture of the jelly and the eel skin made her feel sick, and she just did not like them at all. She could barely get through more than one bite, which is why she thought I should write this post instead of her.

Overall, this was a very disappointing meal for us. The pies, mash, and peas were fine. There was nothing special about them, and they were generally bland. The eel liquor poured on top didn't add much either. The eels were a touch on the nasty side, but at least I could eat the eels themselves if not the jelly that came with them. M, on the other hand, would not touch them ever again. While we're glad we got to experience this very old, traditional meal, I doubt that we'd ever do this again.