Refrigerator clean-up; reader review of Red Palace
Hey, there's nothing good in here! Photo by Lindsey Nair.
This photo shows what Howard and I spent the evening doing last night, and I’ll bet it is a familiar sight to many of you. For those who lost power for an extended period of time and still have not cleaned your refrigerator/freezer, here are some tips. I would add that the easiest way I found to clean all the shelves and drawers from my unit were with a Brillo pad in the bath tub. They are just way too large to wash in a standard-size sink without making a big, wet mess of the kitchen.
Having a nice, clean fridge is a silver lining in all of this, but I am not looking forward to seeing the total on my bill when I go to the grocery store this weekend. Fortunately, we were able to save some food but the only meal-starters I have left are a package of chicken thighs and a small pork tenderloin. I was most disappointed to have to throw out my last few packages of venison and several big containers of homemade chicken stock. But, oh well. Life goes on.
As we all try to move on from this crazy week, I thought I’d share reader Ray McKee’s thoughts on Red Palace at Valley View Mall. Please remember, as always, that if you have a recent restaurant experience you’d like to share, you can email it to me at lindsey.nair@roanoke.com.
Click “Read More” to see Ray’s review.
By Ray McKee of Roanoke:
Being diabetic I really don’t find myself eating “out” all that often, but when I do I really try to find something that offers good, healthy and/or unique foods. For years I had been friends with Tom & Sabrina Gulick, former owners of Nanjing and the Red Palace Chinese restaurants here in the Roanoke Valley. They were sticklers for detail, always doing and offering their very best. They did indeed set the standard when it came to a fine dining experience, especially pertaining to what one might find while frequenting a Chinese buffet. Well, the Gulicks sold their restaurant interests here in the valley and moved to start up a new place called Jonathan’s at Smith Mountain Lake.
For the longest period of time I didn’t bother visiting their former Red Palace location at Valley View figuring the new owners would never be able to even come close to the quality and selection that I had been accustomed to. Boy…was I wrong…dead wrong.
Twice now, in the past couple of months both my mom and I visited Red Palace (Valley View) and had our high expectations EXCEEDED! Each and every selection was done independent of the other to absolute perfection…piping hot and seasoned just right…not too salty, as most have a BAD habit of doing. The service was superior and prices VERY affordable. In fact, this Sunday the two (2) of us arrived at 2:15 PM…had the buffet…two cokes…walking out an hour later paying only $30.30.
The entire Red Palace crew works as a well-oiled machine, paying special attention to every minute detail to assure ones visit as being a very positive and memorable one. They are indeed worthy of Roanoke’s continued support, and I can only hope that they will be with us for MANY more years to come.
July 6, 2012 - 10:47 AM
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Wo-hoo! Power came on at 4 pm today! With our remote site it took them 2 hours of chainsaw work and then about 3 hours with a different crew to actually get the line up (they had to hike, use 4 wheelers and climb the poles)
I gave up on the fridge on Wednesday and tossed everything except the fresh fruit and vegis from my garden, vinegar based stuff and the bread and the beer for thermal mass. I stuffed all those in the freezer compartment with big bowls of ice and that stayed at about 50 degrees. We even have a generator but my fridge just will not hold any sort of cold temperature. (Time for a new fridge – the power’s back on and it is still not getting down to temperature) Luckily, between the generator and dry ice everything in the chest freezer is still solid.
Lindsey, I’m like you. Half of what I tossed were ancient condiments, sauces, pickles and things that were probably 5 years old at least. I found at least a few bottles that expired in 2009. My recycling bin overfloweth, and that’s probably a good thing.
Red Palace at Tanglewood is equally good.
Different topic, but very worthy of attention. Some information on the latest farm bill that’s been proposed. A thoughtful reading shows how tilted it is to appeasing huge corporate lobbyists and their funding, as opposed to doing the right thing and promoting healthy food and lifestyles for Americans.
While this is a political topic, it is all about food, and public awareness.
http://www.ewg.org/agmag/2012/07/really/
I cleared mine out on the first or second day, as things had already thawed. I had cleaned it recently, so there wasn’t that much in there, fortunately. I did lose some salmon and a nice soft cheese that I had just bought.
@Crooked Road, thanks very much for that link. You are correct, the 2012 Farm Bill is an extremely important topic.
To me, it looks like it’ll be tough to pass in the House, though. Democrats don’t like the deep cuts to the food stamp program and, according to some stuff I’ve read, Republicans don’t think the bill cuts enough spending.
This is an interesting report from The New York Times for anybody who wants to read more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/22/us/politics/senate-passes-farm-bill-but-tougher-road-seen-in-house.html