Des Moines: Good Times at A Dong

Mom and I enjoyed ourselves twice at her favorite restaurant, A Dong. This Vietnamese restaurant has become a Des Moines standard. The food is great and the service is extremely gracious. For our first visit, I wanted something light. This noodle soup hit the spot. The broth, clearly homemade, was rich but not overpowering.

For our second visit, I ordered this chicken curry with noodles. The curry was made with coconut milk, giving a rich creaminess to the spice. The noodles came on a separate plate for me to add in myself.

I enjoyed my curry with this wonderful Vietnamese/French coffee. The thick sweetened condensed milk was a great treat. Ice cooled everything down for the warm day. And the condensed milk/coffee combination matched perfectly with the curry.

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Eating Around Georgia Tech: Ecco

Our Texas Instruments colleague Cathy Wicks was gracious enough to host several of us at Ecco tonight. This is one of those restaurants that has been on my list for a long time. Even though it is within easy walking distance of Georgia Tech, I hadn't made it there until tonight. The menu is a combination of Italian, Spanish, and French that make use of some local Georgia ingredients. The combination of those three countries is sometimes a little forced, although the georgia ingredients (fruit, cheese) were all great and perfectly appropriate. We started out with a meat and cheese board. This actually reverses the French tradition, where cheese usually follows the main course. Everything was excellent. The Georgia cheese was a big hit, as was the French cow/goat cheese. I thought the sauscisson was very subtle and very good. The waitress said that the roast pork pasta was their signature dish, so I had to try it. It had traditional broad pasta (fresh, of course)

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