The Flow of Consciousness

A few weeks ago, my girlfriend and I visited an interesting restaurant: Youngstown Crab Company. YCC is on Belmont Ave, just off of Interstate 80 (google maps).

I admit that I was skeptical. A fancy seafood place…in Youngstown? I was a little concerned, but once I saw the menu on the web site, I was hungry and willing to venture up there from Pittsburgh to try it out.

I’m not sure what used to be in the building, but it’s unlikely a new building for the restaurant. It’s the only one — this is no chain. The staff was friendly and welcoming, and our waiter Jack was knowledgable not only of YCC’s menu but of seafood in general.

Orange Roughy Coquilles

I enjoyed the Orange Roughy, Coquilles St. Jacques style: “A rich mixture of petite bay scallops, butter, white wine, mushrooms, cream, and Gruyére cheese, topped with breadcrumbs and oven-baked.” Orange roughy is probably my favorite fish, and I was excited to see it on the menu. This dish, or really the sauce, was among the tastiest I’ve ever had. The scallops were served underneath the fish, with mushrooms surrounding it all. The paired side was a small spinach souffle, and was tasty in its own right.

The portion size was right on, and left me wishing my stomach was larger. I enjoyed it with an Apricot Wheat beer from Ithaca Beer Company.

Oscar-style Mahi Mahi

Brigette feasted upon the Oscar-style Mahi Mahi. It was served topped with crabmeat and asparagus in a Hollandaise sauce. She opted for a side of rice pilaf and a draught of Strongbow hard cider. She liked the dish, and found the sauce to be an excellent preparation. I had a taste of the mahi mahi, and it was delicious.

We also enjoyed the Crab and Shrimp Queso dip, a delicious appetizer made with New York cheddar, Monteray pepper jack, and parmesan cheeses and scooped with tortilla chips.

Together, with tip, our meal was approximately $90. It was quite pricy for the area, yet on par with most of the seafood places I’ve visited in the greater Pittsburgh area.

We found Youngstown Crab Company to be an enjoyable experience and will most certainly dine there again.

Here are some other pictures from the restaurant. It was well-decorated with a seafaring ship theme in the main dining area, and more of a beach theme in the bar area.

Bart from Bart’s Bakery recently did an IAMA titled Six years ago my wife and I sold everything and bought a 90ft tunnel oven to make cookies. We’re now shipping between 1 and 4 thousand pounds per week. AMA. In it, he gave a coupon code for Redditors to purchase cookies from his company at a discount. The offer was wildly successful, bringing in more than 1,700 orders and more than $20,000 in sales in just a few days.

I participated, too, purchasing a box for myself and a box for my parents.

I just took some pictures with my new camera as I was opening my box and thought I’d share.

These cookies are pretty tasty. They’re of the hard variety and use dark chocolate. I recommend them for a good snacking cookie!

An important warning in the package’s “documentation” says to let the cookies “decant” like a bottle of wine for approximately 10 minutes. I had to kill time somehow!

You can see the whole set over on Flickr, too: Bart’s Bakery photos by Colin Dean.

I went into tonight’s dinner primarily wanting chicken alfredo. After discovering that my jar of alfredo was a little, well, old, I decided to search the cupboards for alternative ingredients to match the chicken.

The result will go down in history as one of the most delicious dishes I’ve ever concocted. Now, I’m sure someone has done this at some point, but I’ll humor my ego and continue thinking that I’m somewhat original.

Has the picture already activated your salivary glands? It should have. Huzzah.

Here’s my recipe:

• 1/2 pound diced, pre-cooked filet chicken
• 1 can of olives
• 1/2 – 3/4 cup of crumbled feta cheese
• 1 cup of sliced/diced sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil and basil (I got it at Costco)
• ~1/4 pound of pasta (I used capellini, but farfalle or fettuccine would work well, too)
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil

Cook the pasta and drain it separately. You’ll eventually mix it with the rest.

Heat the chicken over medium heat in a large skillet until it’s fairly hot, then add the olive oil. Adjust the temperature slightly higher, but no so high that the olive oil fries the chicken. Add the tomatoes. Stir. Add the olives, crushing them by hand as you drop them into the skillet. Stir. Add the feta cheese. Stir. Heat for ~5 minutes until feta is slightly melted, stirring occasionally.

Taste it here to see if you want to add more tomatoes or oil or basil. I didn’t.

Once it’s sufficiently hot, mix with the noodles however you’d like. I mixed my capellini in the skillet, but the chicken mix could also be served on top of the noodles.

If you mix in the pasta, stir it thoroughly to coat it in oil and melted feta. Serve! I have enough to two large portions.

It’s probably quite possible to add some pine nuts, spinach, parmesean cheese, and/or additional basil.

As for a beverage pairing, stick to a berry fruit juice, lighter beer, or white wine. I had a Cerveza SOL (wp) with mine. It wasn’t ideal, but it sufficed.

If you try out this recipe, let me know in the comments how it goes.