Mongolian Nighmare, Miami Dream

On nights I have class, it's Ian's responsibility to cook dinner. So we went out to eat. Finding a coveted 2-hr parking spot in the busy 39th Street business and entertainment district, we set our sights on sushi. As we walked toward the restaraunt, I expressed my excitement to Ian, who voiced his concern: the last time he ate sushi was in Portland and it was the best of his life. I immediately vetoed sushi on the grounds that he would find any sushi inadequate and disappointing after his last experience, and that I didn't want to handle his bitching about perfectly decent but not life-changing sushi.

Ian demurred, and we found ourselves revisiting the Genghis Khan Mongolian Grill. We had visited once before, when I was pregnant, and found the experience pleasant enough. Despite a bad experience with a sort of green tea milkshake, we recall rather nice decor and service, and serviceable stir-fry. You see, Mongolian Grill really means you pick out meat, veggies, rice or noodles and spices and sauces and then the grillmeister fries it all up for you on a big grill. If you are the kind of person that finds your food being cooked in front of you while you stand makes the food taste better, you will love this place. If you find, like Ian and I do, that a chef's job is to create inventive and fresh flavor compositions for the restaraunt visitor, then you will find the job of creating and making your own food to be cooked, assembly-style, while you wait, to be tedious and contrary to the whole notion of eating out. If I wanted stir-fry I'd cook at home, except for the tedious chopping bit.

This time, we opted for the specials, which lured us with their sired chalk-board song on the street. Ian got the Siracha shrimp while I ordered the clay-pot simmered basil seafood curry, and we both tried a glass of reisling while we waited. The reisling was cloyingly sweet, resembling kool-aid with an adult edge. The Siracha shrimp, which Ian ordered in hopes of enjoying a smaller plate, came out as 7 lonely shrimp presented in a bowl of chopped green lettuce, all drowned in a disgustingly sweet and yet fatty mayonnaise pepper sauce that tasted somewhat like leftover General Tso's chicken sauce mixed with Hellman's. A side of white rice rounded out his meal.

When I ordered the seafood curry, I envisioned Lulu's curries--beautiful, balanced, unexpected flavors mixed with fresh, fresh, fresh veggies or meat. I was hoping for a red curry balanced with coconut milk as it was described as a Thai-style curry. In reality, the Chinese ceramic pot was the most attractive feature of this concoction. It was a seafood stew with mussels, tiny shrimps and wee scallops, unidentifiable white fish, rubbery calamari and mushy, slimy eggplant. All these ingredients, plus god knows what else, was presented in a thin gray gravy that tasted not at all of basil but overwhelmingly of fish.

As much as I detested the taste of the stew, I am not a "send things back to the kitchen" person. Even more difficult in a small restaraunt than a chain, because I always worry about hurting the feelings of the owner, the cook, or hurting the waitresses' bottom line. So I sucked it up and took Ian's advice about eating Chinese food in Shantou, where he says it's best "to just eat and keep eating," so you can't tell what's in there. Of course, after that I was pretty sick.

These culinary delights set us back $41. Ian was really disappointed in the quality and value of his meal, which was more like a glorified appetizer. I was just worried about my spiking mercury content of my breastmilk.

We both felt pretty unclean after dinner, what with the fish breath and all. We decided that a visit to Miami Ice was in order. The locally-owned Miami Ice is resplendent in its unironic Art Deco glory. We ordered the mint/cashew/chocolate combo mashed up on the ice block and enjoyed it at an outdoor table. With tip, we paid $6. The music from the farmer's market and the eclectic street crowd did much to alleviate the evening's trauma. Not to mention the mint in the ice cream.

After numerous tooth brushings, the bottom line is: Mongolian Grill--make your own damn stir fry. Miami Ice is a nice treat on a summer evening.