The Spokane Craigslist for sale section includes more listings for food than I was expecting. Check out these items:
Farm Fresh Fruit, Vegetables, Meat, Eggs, delivered, support local farmers $1
Post Street Ale House
Restaurants – Spokane –
Look, we’re all about second chances here at ye olde SFB. And after our first disaster of a visit to the Post Street Ale House, we decided to give it another go. I mean, why not? Last time was opening weekend and all.
Yet here I am again, hating on the place. Has it improved? Yes, but only from “comically awful” to “comically bad.”
The Post Street Ale House calls itself an ale house. It’s right there in the title. That, to me, means they’re getting themselves into a social contract with the customer, a contract where they guarantee they know ale.
The Post Street Ale House does not know ale. Far from it. There were some limited changes to the tap selection since our last visit, which was more than three months ago. The selection wasn’t particularly great then, and, surprisingly enough, it hasn’t gotten better with time. About twenty taps, give or take, is not particularly mindblowing for an ale house at any rate.
The Post Street Ale House really does not know ale. If they did, they wouldn’t serve their ales at almost freezing temperatures. I mean, for heaven’s sake, if the Swinging Doors, which has been around since about the 1320s, can serve brews at a decent temperature, then a brand new swanky ale house should be able to do the same thing.
If The Post Street Ale House did know ale, they would have a selection of hundreds of ales on bottle. Of course, maybe they do, but they choose to hide the menu? I doubt it. Walt Worthy should get on his square feet and run down to Bittercreek Ale House in Boise. He might feel inspired.
The Post Street Ale House might not know ale then, though their food was marginally better than during our first visit. Not that deep fried pickles are amazingly exciting, but they tasted OK for what they were. The sliders, meanwhile, reminded me of the one time I tried a pre-made microwavable hamburger (it came with a bun and everything). It wasn’t good.
Nor were the sliders.
Nor is the Post Street Ale House.
Of course, nobody will care what I say. The place is jumping, so I guess people like it. But hell if it’s an ale house.
El Mercado del Pueblo
El Mercado del Pueblo has opened on 1814 N Division, which is all kinds of awesome. Up until now, the Mexican food market of choice was all the way up on Francis, which is great if you live north, but not so great if you don’t.
And as, inevitably, comparisons will be made, we decided to just provide you with a Prize Fight challenge, pinning El Mercado against De Leon!
Round 1: Deli
There’s not much of a competition here: The reason most of us go to De Leon is to check out their ever rotating selection of guiso and whatever other crazy things they can come up with. El Mercado, for the moment at least, only provides tortas, tamales, and menudo. Not that what they have is bad, far from it. It’s just that De Leon is pretty much untouchable in this category.
Winner: De Leon
Round 2: Tortas
Comparing tortas, De Leon wins out on having better carne asada, though El Mercado has better bread. The tortas are comparable in quality and toppings, although, really, Guerrero beats them both.
Winner: Tie!
Round 3: Bakery
El Mercado’s baked goods section is huge, and full of Mexican goodness. Great cookies, but really, what you want is to get the aforementioned bread. They might not have the best torta in town, but my goodness, the bread definitely is top of its class. In fact, buy the bread, take it home and make a torta yourself. There’s plenty of strange and wonderful baked goods you can buy with it. You know. For dessert.
Not to say anything bad about De Leon’s baked goods. They do of course make their own tortillas (El Mercado doesn’t), but that’s not quite enough to reach up to El Mercado’s variety and freshness.
Winner: El Mercado!
Round 4: Groceries
De Leon is good. Many fun things to be found there, obviously. Yet, El Mercado wins out on having a larger variety of your daily perishables. Canned beans, a large spice section, dried peppers… El Mercado’s selection is excellent.
Winner: El Mercado!
The battle was close, but the winner is… El Mercado! Unless you’re going for a meal at their deli, in which case the winner is… De Leon!
No really, just show them both love. They deserve it. And now you have a choice, which is awesome.
Bouranee Baunjan - Afghan Eggplant with Yogurt Sauce
I adapted this recipe from Recipe Zaar for an Afghan foods potluck. I have also made this dish in Afghanistan but the cooking devices were much different from my kitchen. I did not use the green peppers (because I didn’t have time to run back to the store) and did not deep fry the eggplant. Instead, I heated the eggplant slices (with peel off) in a pan. Then assembled the dish in a baking pan. I placed a layer of the eggplant then covered it with a layer of the tomato and onion sauce and repeated this process. The dish was placed in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. I purchased the yogurt at International Food Store and added garlic.
Once the eggplant is out of the oven, scoop it on a plate and add a tablespoon of the yogurt sauce. This also tastes great cold after a night in the refrigerator.
Bouranee Baunjan tastes great with Kabli Pulao.
Ingredients
- 1 large globe eggplant
- salt
- oil (for frying)
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- 1 teaspoon butter or ghee
- 1 large onion, sliced thinly
- 1/2 green bell pepper, seeded and sliced thinly (optional)
- 1 pinch red pepper flakes, to taste
- 1 (14-15 ounce) can chopped tomatoes, with juice
- 1 cup strained yogurt (also known as yogurt cheese or “chakah”)
- 1/2 teaspoon crushed garlic, to taste
- salt, to taste
Directions
- Clean the peel of the eggplant, then cut the stem off.
- Cut into 1/2 inch thick slices (leaving the peel on).
- Spread slices on a flat surface or tray and sprinkle generously with salt; let sit for 30 minutes, then dry well with paper towels.
- In a skillet or pan melt the olive oil and butter together over medium low heat; sauté the sliced onion (and green pepper, if using) until nicely browned and slightly caramelized, then stir in the red pepper flakes.
- Pour oil into a separate deep frying pan (one that has a lid) to cover the bottom of pan; over medium high sauté the eggplant slices on both sides until lightly browned.
- As the eggplant slices are done, gently squeeze them with tongs to remove as much oil out of them as possible; discard extra oil.
- Remove extra oil from the deep frying pan, then place one layer of eggplant slices on the bottom of the pan.
- Place a bit of cooked onion on top of each slice; repeat with another layer of eggplant and cooked onion, until you’re out of slices and onion.
- Pour the chopped tomatoes with their juice over the slices and onion, careful to not dislodge the onion too much.
- Cover and simmer over medium heat for 15 minutes, then remove cover and simmer another 5 to reduce the sauce a bit.
- Combine the strained/drained yogurt, crushed garlic to taste, and salt to taste to make the chakah sauce.
- When eggplant is done, remove from heat then carefully transfer the slices to serving dish (careful not to dislodge the toppings), then top each with a dollop of the chakah sauce.