Cream of Wheat

The first thing that comes to mind, when you hear mention of cream of wheat, is probably "blah!".  White tasteless lumps of wheat goo.  Even when it is well stirred and smooth, thus not lumpy, it is still a tasteless mess of goo.

Now before I go on, you all know I like a bit of spice.  I like hot food.  I enjoy curry gravy on rice - Thai Curry, Malaysian Curry, Indian Curry, any curry.  I find the taste of spicy juices on rice both exciting and pleasant.  So this gives me the idea of adding Thai Red Curry paste onto cream of wheat. This Thai Red Curry paste is not hot spicy, but imparts enough flavor to make the hot cereal tasty.

Recently, I also found another good addition to the hot cereal: Anchovies in hot oil. The fish dish comes in a small bottle, anchovies soaked in hot oil.  The hot oil is not really hot.  In fact, it is devoid of any spicy hot flavor, but instead tastes a little sweet.  I find adding the little fishes add so much crunch and taste to the cream of wheat, it is now one of my favorite breakfast food.

Here is a picture of the cream of wheat, with red curry paste stirred in, and a dose of anchovies on top. (The color of the place mat is an unfortunate choice, so similar in color to the cereal.  I should have used a darker color mat.)  It is tasty, filling, and fun to eat.  If you want to try some, you are welcomed to come over for breakfast anytime.

Tia Maria Portuguese Restaurant

Friday January 10, 2014

We read in the Standard Times on Thursday that they visited the Tia Maria Portuguese Restaurant recently, and they give it a very high review.  I like Portuguese food, so I was excited to try it out.

Mom and I arrived at the downtown restaurant around 5:30 PM. We found the restaurant using our GPS.  It is just behind the Whaling Museum.

It was a rainy night, and the cobble stones were very slippery.  Mom and I held each other's arm, and walk slowly across the street from our parked car.  Even with us holding each other, we still almost slipped.


The restaurant appears to be quite large, taking up two shop spaces, but there were only about a dozen tables.  The back room area is a large living room, with a couple of couches and coffee tables.  This place used to be a coffee house, where coffee drinkers can sit at the living room and read while drinking coffee and eating desserts.

The menu is not extensive, only one page, but it does have 8 appetizers.  We ordered a plate of Shrimp Mozambique for appetizer.  I asked for a basket of rolls, so to mop up the spicy garlic butter.  The shrimps are the small, peel-and-eat type.  In most Portuguese restaurants, they give you the bigger (not jumbo) shrimps.  Anyway, the garlic sauce was quite nice - not too spicy, not too buttery, and certainly garlicky enough.  I mopped up most of the sauce with the bread.

The restaurant is a bring-you-own-booze BYOB kind of restaurant, so no alcohol for me. Most customers came in with their bottle of wine.  The ladies in the next table brought in two bottles.  I was tempted to buy one of the bottles from her.

My order of Pork Alentenjana came out while we were still eating the shrimp appetizer.  I allowed the waitress to take away the plate with still a lot of garlic sauce in it. The Pork dish is made up of small cubes of marinated pork, on top of cubed, deep fried potatoes, and cooked with some little neck clams.  The pork cubes were very tasty.  The only complain I have about this dish is that it is not hot.  It came out lukewarm, like it has been sitting in the kitchen for a while.   I brought most of it home.

Mom ordered Portuguese steak.  It comes out with two large fried eggs on top.  Mom said no hot peppers, otherwise there would have been some slices of spicy red peppers on top of the steak as well.  The potatoes is the round, deep fried potatoes.  Mom said it is very good.

On the way to the rest room, I stopped at the living room couch, and took a picture.  It seemed quite comfortable here.  I may come back some day with my books, and enjoyed a cup of cappuccino.