Author: Eugene

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Adventures in Coffeeland

I have never really been much of a coffee drinker. Cafeteria coffee got me through exam week all-nighters and thesis writing during undergrad and grad school, but aside from that, drinking coffee was just a very rare thing I did when other primary caffeine sources were unavailable (or too much work to obtain).

Lately, driven mainly by late nights staying up trying to write papers, the easy availability of freshly roasted coffee beans (as in still-warm-from-roasting fresh), a recent introduction to the Aeropress and my usual curiosity, I’ve taken to experimenting with coffee the same way I experiment with new food recipes.

Having a couple of coffee shops within walking distance of the house hasn’t helped either.

I’m still pretty much a coffee noob. For the most part, there really aren’t a whole lot of differences between different beans or roasts at this point. Depending on how long this current coffee fixation lasts, that will probably change.

The latest thing I’ve been playing with is iced coffee, and the Aeropress makes it super easy to do. Following the coffee:water proportions used in the CoffeeGeek guide produced a pretty decent cup. Add chocolate milk and it’s a cup full of yum. Perfect for those hot days.

I also experimented with a small batch of cold brewed coffee yesterday. It was about 60 g of a fairly dark roast coffee to 250 mL water that I used for my first batch. Put it into a jar, stirred it a few times and let it sit for about 12 hours. Ended up with a pretty potent brew that had me buzzing for most of the morning, but wasn’t too bad. A little bit of bitterness from the dark roast, but not horrible.

Now I’m out of coffee beans and need to restock before I can experiment some more.

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Asus Transformer Prime GPS Extension Kit

In response to numerous complaints about the lousy (non-existent) GPS performance on the Transformer Prime, Asus had these GPS Extension Kits (or GPS dongles as most people call them) made and sent out to registered owners.
A month after I registered for mine, it finally arrived. It uses the dock connector and latches on pretty securely. Looks a little odd, but I don’t think it’s overly intrusive. In any case, it proved to be pretty effective at improving GPS performance. I don’t know if it completely replaces the existing GPS antenna or just augments it.

Without the GPS dongle, my Transformer Prime might find a couple of GPS satellites, but would never lock on to any of them, even when I was out in the open.

With the GPS dongle, it only took a few seconds to find a bunch of satellites and get a GPS lock.

Turning wifi off decreased the position accuracy a couple of meters, from 8m to 10m, but still pretty reasonable. Probably would be better if I wasn’t sitting in the shadow of my house at the time.

Haven’t used it long enough to know how much impact there will be on battery life but I’m sure I’ll find out over the next few days.

Since it attaches to the dock connector, it obviously can’t be used with the keyboard dock and needs to be removed to plug in for charging. I consider these pretty minor inconveniences since I don’t have the keyboard dock yet. Not really sure how much I’ll even need to use the GPS on my Prime, but if it’s there it might as well be usable.

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Failed platelet donation

I suppose it had to happen at least once. For the first time in my long history of donating blood and platelets, a donation failed. The return needle just wasn’t getting into the vein for whatever reason. Not a good thing, because you want the blood going back into the vein and not into the arm, which is painful.

After a few attempts to reposition the needle and to find another vein to use (apparently all my other veins are pretty deep and the other easily accessible ones are too small), they decided more messing around would cause more damage than it was worth.

Not sure what the problem was, but I suspect I just didn’t hydrate enough after the run I went on just before going to donate.

Will give it another go next month.

The bruise on my left arm is going to attract some attention I think.

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Charleston Eats: The return of Steak-Out

When I first started working at MUSC, deliveries from a place called Steak-Out were pretty common. I’d see someone making a delivery almost daily to some place in the hospital. Seemed pretty popular.

And then it stopped. Don’t recall when it happened, but one day the deliveries just stopped and their location on Savannah Highway (near Andolini’s) went dark. That little building served as home to a few different businesses over the intervening years, including a BBQ joint and a little catering/take-out operation.

Now it appears they’re back, and (I think) in the same building. After a friend mentioned it was there, I drove by to look. Couldn’t tell if it was actually open yet, and the website doesn’t list it as a location so it may not be officially open (or just hasn’t made it to the website yet).

Maybe the Steak-Out delivery guy will become a fixture at MUSC again.

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Charleston Eats: The state of Asian cuisine

A trip to a relatively new Korean restaurant (after discovering the one I normally go closed its doors) got me thinking about the history and current state of Asian cuisine in the area.

When I first moved to Charleston in 1999, the state of Asian cuisine was pretty sad. From what I could see at the time, it was just Chinese take-out and buffet places. I remember an article in the Post & Courier around that time saying the Chinese population in Charleston was a few thousand. I’m pretty sure half of them worked at MUSC and the other half worked in cheesy Chinese buffet places.

When Red Orchid and later, Dragon Palace opened, they nudged Chinese cuisine away from take-out and buffet just a little bit. There are still lots of cheesy Chinese buffet and take-out places though and nobody serving real dim sum for the foreseeable future (which makes me sad). If you’re looking for something a little better than the typical take-out or buffet, Red Orchid, Dragon Palace and Osaka are the places to go. If you’re lucky enough to go with the right people, I know at least one place where you can order off the secret Chinese menu and get some really excellent dishes that blow the ones on their regular menu out of the water. Sadly I cannot read the secret Chinese menu, so I can only have them when I go with the right people who can.

Japanese food was (and for the most part still is) limited to hibachi style dinners at Miyabi. A few more hibachi style places opened, then sushi bars started popping up like mushrooms after a rainstorm. It seemed like everybody was adding a sushi bar to their restaurant. The popularity of sushi is a trend that still continues with the openings of places like Octobachi and O-ku.

Basil opened downtown and brought Thai food to Charleston’s culinary scene. After that, everybody started opening Thai restaurants it seemed. Thai became a Thing and still remains pretty popular.

Korean and Vietnamese fare still remain under-represented in Charleston. For a while, Kim’s Korean Restaurant West of the Ashley was the only place to get Korean food, and it was pretty good. Later, Mama KIm’s opened downtown, and relatively recently Rice B out in west West Ashley. Stopped at Kim’s today and found it was closed, with a dumpster out front. It looks like Mama Kim’s and Rice B are currently the only choices left for Korean food in Charleston.

For a while, the only spot I knew of to get Vietnamese food was a little restaurant in North Charleston (not sure if it’s still there). Vietnamese cuisine in Charleston suffered a bit of a set back with the closing of Quyen, but seems to be making a bit of a resurgence in the form of places serving up banh mi style street food and a new restaurant (CO) downtown. Now there are a couple of restaurants dishing up banh mi sandwiches including Autobanh, a new food truck that hit the streets a couple weeks ago. If these prove successful (and what I’ve heard so far is pretty good), they could do for Vietnamese food what Basil did for Thai food in Charleston.

Asian cuisine has come a long way since I first came to Charleston, and continues to evolve. It will be interesting to see how things continue to develop.