Sauce
- 1/4 cup mayonnaise
- 1 T whole buttermilk
- 1 T Sriracha chile sauce
- 1/2 T sweet Thai chili sauce
- 1/2 t rice vinegar
I just had a thought that if I like the flavor of this sauce, I might start using it for my hash browns at JK’s. *So, I just made a small “batch” of this sauce and… it’s okay, but not quite memorable. It looks like Yum Yum sauce (which I like on my egg rolls at Maguro’s.
I’m now thinking of adding some of the other spices listed in the Bang Bang Potatoes recipe to see if that will put this sauce “over the top.” The other spices were to be added directly to the potatoes. — I just tried a bunch of spices and none actually improved this sauce greatly. I added onion & garlic powder with smoked and regular paprika. Nope. I added amchur and tamarind powder, cilantro leaves, celery seeds. No matter where I tried to go with this, failure. Oh, well. But, the new spice jars do make this process easy.
**I haven’t been to Maguro’s in quite a while, but I liked their Thai Basil Chicken for lunch. I had it about once a week back during Covid. ***Russ and Deborah took me to Maguro’s for the first time, for my birthday. Russ had the Thai Basil Chicken and Deborah and I ordered something else, but I kept looking across the table at his meal and thought it looked pretty good. Mine was okay. At some point Russ asks something like, “What’s that hot thing in this.” I thought I saw a slice of jalapeno. As I recall after lunch they were planning to spend the afternoon with me to celebrate my birthday, but as I walked to the parking lot, I was already feeling stomach uneasiness and knew I was going to need to go to the bathroom, so I “bowed out” and told them I was going back home. Which I did, but next day I drove back up to Southern Pines and to Maguro’s and I ordered the Thai Basil Chicken for lunch.
It was soooooo good! It was worth coming back the next day, and for many other lunch specials for the next couple of years. The chicken had a unique flavor. The fried rice was good, and the spring roll was delicious. They had a sweet sauce, but I later asked for some Yum Yum Sauce and it was good too.
This dish wasn’t always prepared the same way. Sometimes it didn’t have any jalapenos. Many times it had mushrooms, which I like, but not in this dish (and sometimes I would pick them out). It did have colorful sweet bell peppers almost always. The spring roll was fried crispy and had a good filling. I guess it didn’t have chopped cabbage like egg rolls. I did find that when I didn’t eat all of this dish at lunch, I could take the rest home in a “to go” box and add some more onions & peppers and it might even be better than what I had experienced at lunch… but not always.
Talking about the spring roll and egg rolls, quite a few years ago, but after I had come to Fayetteville to work (August 1995), there was a Chinese restaurant near the corner of Tokay and Ramsey Street, where the Baskin Robbins has been for many years now. It was called “Good Luck” and it had a small dining area with maybe four or six booths. They had the best egg rolls I’ve ever eaten, and I am speaking about ever in my whole life. These would be the best egg rolls ever like Seaboard Station’s fried chicken is the best I’ve ever had (in my whole life). I think I was told that they double fried the egg rolls, and they were bigger (fatter in diameter) and had a crispy shell. Two egg rolls would make a meal easily.
There was a large Chinese take out box on a pole out front (next to Ramsey Street). It had the name of the restaurant painted on it’s side (maybe two sides) and although I never saw it move, I’m thinking that it might have been an electric rotating sigh at one time. I think the main chef was an old Chinese gentleman, and I figured that when he finally became sick, or maybe even died, that they had no one that could cook those delicious, special egg rolls. One of my first food losses.
Food losses? Well, I think I’ve lost the really delicious Margherita Pizza from “Sticks-n-Stones” Restaurant in Greensboro, NC. The last two times I’ve been there this pizza just hasn’t tasted as good, and I’ve had many of these that were so good that I would actually stop, briefly, and say to myself, “That’s a really good pizza.” I first heard about this exceptional pizza from a morning TV show. They said that Sticks-n-Stones was one of the three best artisanal pizzas in the United States. When I heard that I told myself that I was going to go there and try one. And, I did and it WAS really tasty. I think I read or was told that they had a wood fired pizza oven that helped make these pizzas so special.
Lost foods? There was a Chinese restaurant near the Red Lobster Restaurant in Fayetteville. It was called “China II” and it was located on the corner of McPherson Church Road. The Hibachi Grill came to town and it wasn’t too long after that that China II closed up shop. I guess they couldn’t compete. But, China II had a Jalapeno Pork dish (on their buffet) and I would get that almost every time that I had lunch there. I have tried to repeat the flavors of this dish, and have come relatively close, but have never quite made it perfectly at home. Cooking cubed pork with jalapenos and with a little garlic powder might go a long way. *As I recall I loved the spicy flavor of this dish, but as good as it tasted at lunch time, when it was burning my asshole at 3 am the next morning I always regretted it. I did think several times it would be wonderful if you could get that jalapeno flavor without the jalapeno heat, but it was years later that I saw a jar of “Tamed Jalapenos,” which were without much heat.
Wendy’s hamburgers? Several years ago, I was eating one of the basic Wendy’s hamburgers and began to think that I didn’t enjoy it as much as I once had. After I came back to work from lunch, I googled about this and found that Wendy’s had changed their basic burger. I think they changed from a sesame seeded bun that was steamed before serving, and the hamburger might have also been steamed in the process because both bun and burger were warm and moist. Well this change wasn’t for the better. I must have saved the chain money, but if it chases away enough customers it wasn’t worth it in the long run. Still Wendy’s hasn’t gone out of business, but I haven’t been to Wendy’s in a long time.
Subway lunch combo? For many years, Subway offered a lunch combo which included a six inch sub (your choice of bun, meat and veggies) and you could have chips or a cook with that, and a drink with free refill. The Subway that I visited for lunch, for many years, located on Raeford Road just down from the Harris Teeter (now between HT & Publix) stopped offering this special about two years ago. I haven’t been back since they first told me about no longer offering the special. But, during tough economic times, I appreciated that they offered a cheap & delicious lunch.
Almost forgot this loss. Hunan Garden Chinese Restaurant on Raeford Road in the Harris Teeter shopping area. I went to this restaurant for many years, and they had good food even changing ownership at least once. But then one day I go for lunch and order and I ask the waiter if they can change out the rice for more veggies. And, to my surprise, the waiter told me they couldn’t do that. After the waiter left I thought about this for a while, and finally came to the conclusion that I had switched out rice for veggies many times in the past. Later I found that the new management had said to no longer do this.
I was also thinking that the egg rolls didn’t taste as good as I remembered. And, now I would say, “they weren’t as good, because their flavor had changed.” It wasn’t me, that had changed. So, all those years of good will that had accumulated “went out the window” with the new ownership. I noted that they closed off the side entrance and created a new one facing Raeford Road, but I don’t think I’ve ever returned to this restaurant since they made that change. I just saw it “in passing” in my car.
[NOTE 09/19/24]: I bought a bag of Russet potatoes at Food Lion. They had an unusually dark brown skin and all were approximately the same size, small. But, this is exactly what I wanted. I’m a Type 2 diabetic and I don’t need a lot of starch in my diet, but I also don’t want to cut out potatoes all together. Normally when you buy either potatoes or onions in a bag there is an assortment of sizes included. But as I said, these were ALL the same small size.
I was a little wary of their dark skin color, but I guess that’s a fear ingrained from my youth;-) No, in a potato, I thought their skin might be tougher. But they weren’t. I have baked several of these already and the whole potato is tender and delicious. I don’t have to cut a larger potato in half to get the exact portion I desire.
The company that packed these potatoes was Nature’s Way Farms of Faison, North Carolina. This surprised me. I guess I think that most potatoes come from Idaho, but this produce packer is “local” and I often drive nearby when traveling on I40 (going to/from Jacksonville, NC to visit family). I would also like to compliment this company on an effective web site. I am a retired web master from a small, local university, and I wouldn’t think that a local agri-producer would be this “on the ball” regarding both a good product and good communications/advertising via the web. *I hope they won’t mind if I try to visit them sometime in the future. [end NOTE]
Bill Gibson, II 