Stumping the Irish

"There's a potato dish I haven't heard of?" So asked my Irish diplomat friend, Iseult, when she heard Keryn was whipping up twice-baked potatoes. For my part, I had at least heard of them, I had just never tasted them before last night. (Refried beans, on the other hand, are an old friend. As they say, "My compliments to the chef. Again.) Keryn baked, twice, two varieties, one with roasted broccoli, the other roasted red pepper.

Tonight's dinner: Keryn's salad nicoise, with green beans and kalamata olives.

In other Pipóneratable news, here's three juicy culinary tidbits from a wedding invitation that just came in the mail from my friend, Harvard Magazine writer Elizabeth Gudrais, who is getting married in Minnesota and the Azores in June:

1. The "campfire" steak gets a cognac demiglace (a rich brown sauce that begins with a basic espagnole sauce and is combined with beef stock and madeira or sherry and slowly cooked until reduced to a thick glaze)
   
2. The almond-encrusted walleye gets a cream veloute (one of the five "mother sauces," velouté is a stock-based white sauce)
   
3. The post-wedding "picnic lunch" in the Azores involves burying food in the soil of a volcanic geyser, canoeing and then, when you return a few hours later, "it's cooked!"
   

Noodles 102

Noodles 102, an Asian noodle house, opened recently on Ives Street in Providence, a surprisingly happening commercial stretch in a mostly residential section of the East Side. The building is not particularly attractive, and the modernist interior decorating in the cozy dining area (the owners call it a "contemporary atmosphere") does not match the tone set by the minor history lesson on the menu that includes the phrase, "started in China over 1,000 years ago."




The food, however, seems pretty darn authentic. It's also amazingly cheap. The tea leaf eggs, hard boiled, halved and served with dribbles of hot sauce and wasabi and a bowl of soy sauce, go for $2.50. The dumplings, five to a serving, sell for $5.50. The signature soups -- offered with a choice of egg, pho, udon, rice or somen noodles with chicken, shrimp, beef or vegetables in coconut curry, spicy miso or house broth -- will set you back just $9.

The noodles are homemade. Slurping is encouraged. B.Y.O.B.

UPDATE: My Providence Journal colleague, Jennifer Jordan, just remind me that the Projo's wonderful food writer, Gail Ciampa, mentioned Noodles 102 in September in a story about the food scene on Ives. "Jumping right on a popular fusion trend are Lisa and Mustafa Kusco who opened Noodles 102 at 102 Ives St. less than a year ago," Ciampa reported, noting that the restaurant offers Turkish coffee (owner Mustafa Kusco is Turkish) and "claypot dishes with fragrant jasmine rice paired with fresh vegetables."