we nom nom

Alinea

2009-05-04T18:20:00.001-07:00

Short version: Best meal I've ever had by leaps and bounds. Nothing else comes even remotely close.

Long version: Will come when photos are posted.

Shan Dong

2009-02-24T23:54:00.000-08:00

We've had hand-made noodle dishes delivered from Shan Dong Mandarin Restaurant before, but today was the first time we got their specialty: Special Shan Dong Dumplings. They are 10 for $6.95 and are served with a very delicious soy, vinegar, garlic, red pepper sauce.

I LOVED THEM. I am still drooling. They are very rustic-looking; I'd post a pic but all the flickr ones have restrictive copyrights, so I don't want to post them. The first few matches from a search are the correct dumplings though, so you can see them there.

I also learned that Shan Dong cuisine is the variant to Chinese cuisine that crossed over into Korea, so jjajangmyun (zhia jiang mien) and cham pong (chao mao?) are originally Shan Dong dishes. Koreans also inherited gganpoonggi (sort of a sweet and sour chicken or shrimp dish) from Shan Dong.

I wish to have about 2 dozen of those dumplings. Right now. I think these are my favorite type of dumplings now, after xiao long bao (Shanghai soup dumplings).

Extra bonus is that they always deliver within 30 minutes. Even when they tell me it'll be 45 minutes, it's more like 25. :)

Me me me! (seppo)

2008-09-06T21:20:00.000-07:00

Here's "The Omnivore's Hundred." A list of 100 things somebody thought people should eat before they die. They ask that you post all of the following and then mark it up. Begin:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. ~~Kaolin~~
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche ~~absinthe~~
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. ~~Roadkill~~
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

By far, the biggest category I miss out on are the alcoholic beverages. It's not even that I'm actively avoiding them, so much as I just don't really care all that much. It's a pretty odd list - some really lowbrow stuff, some really common stuff, some stuff I can't really imagine anyone wanting to eat (the clay, roadkill - stuff like that).

There's not really anything on the list I'm missing where I feel like I really, really have to have it.

The next question is, how much of that list can you do in one day?

A Delicious Sandwich

2008-08-29T00:42:00.000-07:00

Ingredients:

Sort of normal sandwich roll
Pepper salami
Thinly sliced turkey breast
1 clove garlic
1 tablespoons mayo
1/4 avocado
1/2 roasted red pepper (I used one from a jar)
some Pepper Jack

Finely mince garlic - probably using a press would give even better results. Mix with mayo. Let sit around a little bit. Cut roll in half, spread on mayo. One layer of salami, one layer of turkey, one layer Pepper Jack, one layer sliced roasted pepper bits, one layer thin slices of avocado. Oil bread, squash in a panini press (or do like I do and use a Foreman Grill). Cook 'till cheese is nicely melted and bread is thoroughly toasted. Chop in half on the bias, and go to town.

Cassoulet

2008-06-30T00:06:00.000-07:00

Spent the better part of the day making a cassoulet from America's Test Kitchen. While it turned out well, it was pretty radically underseasoned. If I make this again (which I might), I'd definitely have to check the seasoning once the beans are done. We had the cassoulet with some broiled asparagus, grilled eggplant, and portobello mushrooms.

Earlier in the weekend, Seth made us some pineapple/pork skewers, which we had with some homemade guacamole and sour cream taco-style. Delicious! Saturday night, we had grilled kielbasa and some artichokes. I really love artichokes. Mmm.

Another picture of the cupcakes

2008-06-28T19:51:00.001-07:00

Just because...

Cupcakes!

2008-06-08T23:22:00.000-07:00

So. Friday, we made cupcakes. More accurately, Friday, Ei-Nyung, Lindsi and I made 144 cupcakes for a pair of friends' wedding. That's a picture of the finished result at the wedding. I can't say much about the cakes themselves - Ei-Nyung's been making cupcakes semi-regularly over and over again over the last year. This batch was the best she's ever made, fittingly enough.

For me, I ended up doing the frosting. There were two kinds - a vanilla cream cheese frosting and a chocolate ganache. The vanilla was really simple - 2 sticks of butter, a package o' cream cheese (both whipped 'till fluffy), a quarter vanilla bean, 2 tsp vanilla extract, and 4 cups sifted confectioners sugar. No cooking required, goes together quick, easy as pie. I could probably have used a touch more sugar, and the frosting could have stood to be a little stiffer (made piping out something that looked nice difficult), but the flavor was awesome and complemented the cupcakes perfectly.

I'd 'stolen' the recipe from http://cupcakeblog.com/, which has so many delicious recipes for cupcakes it boggles the mind, but even more recently, from Jess, who brought over some vanilla cupcakes with the very same frosting.

The second frosting was chocolate - the original request was for chocolate/chocolate, so I looked around for a bit and independently of the first recipe, ended up at the same blog again (before having tried Jess' cupcakes, this was the recipe I'd found that I'd wanted to try for the choco frosting). Still, since H wasn't into the dairy thing, I wanted to try something dairy-free/minimal if possible. One recipe I'd seen was from David Lebovitz, who wrote a *spectacular* ice cream book called The Perfect Scoop. This one, strangely, had you melt the chocolate *in* water, then add a little butter and some sugar. It turned... interesting. You could make a really nice smeared-on-with-a-knife frosting with the stuff, but piping it was, far as I could tell, impossible. Impossible for me, anyway.

One weird side-effect of that frosting was that if you put it into a canvas piping bag and squeezed, you would separate the fat from the water, and the fat would ooze out the pores in the bag. Gross, and the resulting frosting was... not great. REALLY chocolatey when you smeared it on a cake, but unusable for what we were doing.

So, the end result was that I went with the Cupcake Bakeshop recipe - 4oz bittersweet, 5oz semisweet, 2 tbsp butter, 2 tsp vanilla extract, 1 cup cream, 2 cups sifted sugar. Heat the cream 'till bubbles form around the side, pour over the chopped chocolate. Wait a minute, stir to combine. Add vanilla, butter, mix till (at least mostly) combined. Wait 10 minutes (this is actually really, really, really, really, really important). Slap into stand mixer with whisk head, whisk in sugar, mix at high speed until thick enough to ribbon. By the time you get it into the pastry bag, it'll have set up enough to pipe.

I originally tried a triple recipe (at the beginning of the evening), but because when you triple a recipe any time-to-temperature sorts of conversions fall apart, it didn't turn out right. Those 10 minutes are there so that the icing cools down. If you mix it up to hot, it never sets up. I spent a couple hours trying to see if I could salvage that batch, then eventually gave up and made three single batches in series. Mix up frosting, pipe 20 cupcakes, wash (literally), rinse (literally), repeat.

All in all, it took way longer than it should have, though about an hour less than I'd mentally budgeted for the task. My piping technique got better as the night went on, but some of the early cupcakes were *ugly*.

We ended up topping the cupcakes with some little vanilla meringues we got from Trader Joes on a whim the evening before. Ended up being a real lifesaver. We'd tried making little fondant decorations - some little flower cutouts, but they looked a bit too cutesy. We then tried something more "realistic," which was a white calla lily thingamabob with a pair of pink and blue spheres contained within, but being novices with fondant, they were a bit more elegant in concept than execution. We ended up topping four of the cupcakes (the tops of the "trees") with the best of those. Part of the problem is that vanilla meringues are delicious, fondant really isn't. So, not really a problem - it all turned out for the best.

All in all, despite the lack of visual flair, the cupcakes ended up delicious, H&M were happy, the other guests seemed to enjoy them, and the wedding was a blast. Awesome.

Whew.

2008-06-03T23:37:00.000-07:00

So, for the last couple weeks, the cupcake thing has been stressing me out in the back of my head - I'd agreed to do the frosting half of the equation, but I'd never been able to get it quite right. This weekend, I'd tried a recipe by David Leibovitz, which was a really bizarre ganache made by melting chocolate in water. It tasted great - *intensely* chocolatey, but the texture wasn't appropriate at all.

This morning at like, 4am, I woke up and a good portion of the reason was that I was freaking out that this was still an "unknown." Obviously, people *have* iced cupcakes well - there must be information out there. So, I spent a couple hours reading about frosting techniques, and 1.) figured out what I was doing wrong and 2.) found a recipe I thought would work.

This evening, I tried out the recipe (a relatively standard but not-overly-sweet chocolate buttercream) from the Cupcake Bake Shop blog. I'd picked up a "real" pastry bag at East Bay Restaurant Supply this morning. Tried a handful of different piping tips, but settled on the now-popular "no tip" method, which Jess had pulled off on some DELICIOUS vanilla cupcakes she brought over last time she was here.

The frosting was easy to manage, tasty, and looked alright (chocolate frosting on chocolate cupcakes... it's hard to make it not look turd-like...).

So, no worries. It'll work out. One batch of frosting looks like it's good for about 10-15 cupcakes, so I'm gonna need to make a LOT of the stuff, but fortunately, it goes together pretty quick.

woo.

Game Plan for Wedding Cupcakes

2008-05-10T15:09:00.000-07:00

This is my cupcake baking schedule. Seppo is spearheading the frosting, so he'll have his own schedule. He is still figuring out if he should frost the night before or the morning of, or on location. We'll test with our cake boxes to see what rattling them around in the car will do.

Sometime before wedding:
- Get ice cream scoop w/ that swiveling thingy to portion out perfectly uniform amount of batter
- Borrow U&C's Kitchenaid? May not be necessary from what I've seen, but could be helpful.

Weekend before wedding:
- Buy all staples (flour, sugar, etc.). Get Dutched cocoa from Peet's.
- Weigh out 6 double recipe amounts of flour and portion into separate baggies. Do same with sugar.
- Chop/shave 6 double recipe amounts of chocolate and portion into separate baggies with dutched cocoa.

Wednesday night before wedding:
- Make sure kitchen is super-sparkling clean and ready to go.
- Triple check all ingredients and hardware to make sure we have everything.
- Make sure we have leftovers or take-out/delivery plans for Friday.

Thursday night before wedding:
- Make 1 double batch of cupcakes. Should take less than 2 hours for prep to out-of-oven according to my trials.
- Put together cupcake-tranport boxes and lay them out on the dining room table.

Friday (take day off):
- Make 4 double batches. This should take 7-9 hours & I should assume some major mishap will happen, so start as early in the morning as possible.
- Make another double batch if there are a number of duds.

Friday night:
- Box up all the cupcakes
- Pack up car with cupcake stands (easier to transport in their boxes)

Saturday morning:
- Get to venue at the earliest allowable time
- Set up cupcake stands (and make sure the cupcake holding part will reliably hold cupcakes)

Frosting will happen in parallel sometime Friday or Saturday morning.

So...

2008-04-28T00:23:00.001-07:00

Since this last post, our entire kitchen has been completely gutted and renovated. It's much, much better in every respect, without reservations. But the question is, does having a nicer kitchen help you make better food?

Yes and no.

Does it make our food better? Not really. Yeah, the oven gets hotter faster, and yeah, there's a ton more prep space which makes things easier to organize, but no, the food itself isn't all that different. But because the kitchen is much, much better organized, it's easier to find stuff, so we end up finding random things and getting inspired to cook them. Because the prep space is so much larger, it's easier to manage multiple items. Tonight, for instance, we made a whole lot of Korean dishes without any space problems at all.

In the end, I think we cook more because the kitchen is a more pleasant place to be, it's easier, because of the space and organization, it's better lit, and just a lot more casual. Good stuff.

In the linked post, it discusses our new "buddy" system, where I help Ei-Nyung learn how to cook Korean food, and she helps me with some indie game development stuff. This means we'll be doing a lot more Korean cooking - I'm pretty psyched, cause there's some stuff that I'd really like to learn to do well.

Sahn Maru makes a great ginger/cinnamon drink which I tried replicating from a cookbook recipe tonight. It got most of the right flavors, but holy moly the balance of it all was bonkers. Sahn Maru clearly uses less ginger (or steeps it for a shorter time), more cinnamon, and MUCH MUCH MUCH less sugar. I used only half what the recipe called for and it was still much too much. Between the intensely powerful ginger and excess sugar, the drink was pretty... hardcore. Watered down, it's mostly right, but then loses the cinnamon hum that it should have.

Well, it's not like I can't try again.

Also made some Philadelphia-style vanilla ice cream from The Perfect Scoop, a book the Team gave me for my birthday. I'd made the French-style vanilla when I borrowed the book from them a while back, and it was awesome. The Philly-style may be even better, simply because the French-style custard is exceedingly rich. Well, I like the French version, too - I guess they each have their uses. Just different. But the Philly-style was definitely right for tonight, 'cause it's getting warmer, and the ice cream feels lighter (it's not *actually* lighter, I think - it's just a textural issue).

Yeah. Sorry this post is getting a bit scatterbrained. Lessee - anything else we've made recently that was good? Hmmm. Nothing comes to mind - but more Korean food in our future! woot.

Fish Tacos & Guacamole

2008-01-17T00:33:00.000-08:00

So, about a month or so ago, Ei-Nyung and I went to Tulum, Mexico with some friends, where we had an insanely good time marked by some extraordinary food. One of the best things we ate was also one of the simplest. Los Arrecifes, the place we stayed, had a small restaurant (what looked like one or two guys, tops) that had fish tacos.

Now, fish tacos aren't exactly complex, and they're certainly not new. Even in Oakland, there are more places than you can count that serve fish tacos. But I'd never had them before. If I had, it'd have been "Baja-style" fish tacos, where the fish is breaded and fried. These were different - simple.

The fish was pan-fried with some lime. The tacos consisted of two corn (and one time, flour) tortillas, a small pile of iceberg lettuce, a generous smattering of fish, some thin slices of tomato, and a thin slice of avocado. Pretty much exactly as it looks in the picture.

Whether these were the best tacos I've ever had on their own, or whether it was a combination of the absolutely gorgeous place, the perfect vacation, and the tacos I'll probably never know. But that said, after getting back from Tulum, we went out in search of fish tacos in Oakland.

Cactus, Baja Taqueria and Los Cantaros all have fish tacos, but they're Baja-style. Sonoma Taco Shop in San Rafael has non-breaded fish tacos, but they have beans, which throws the whole balance of flavors off. One night, Ei-Nyung made fish tacos using some cod she bought at whole foods, and they were delicious. A couple nights ago, I gave it a shot, also using cod, but that wasn't because it was the perfect fish (though it's close), it's because it was cheap at Safeway, and the only white fish they had.

Bascially, the process involved pan-frying the fish in some oil, squeezing some lime juice (in this case, half a lime) over the fish as it cooked, and seasoning it with some salt and pepper. I steamed some corn tortillas for about 30 seconds in the microwave, hacked up some iceberg lettuce, sliced up some heirloom tomatoes (the only even marginally ripe tomatoes the Safeway had), and chopping up some onions and a little cilantro.

In lieu of the thin slice of avocado, I went with a recipe for guacamole I've been making. I started with America's Test Kitchen's recipe for guacamole, then incorporated some of Rick Bayless' recipe. It's basically two medium-sized avocados, spooned out of the husk and mashed with a fork then mixed with the juice of half a lime, along with about two diced tablespoons of onion, a diced jalapeno (seeds and internal ribs removed), some chopped cilantro, a dash of ground cumin, pepper, salt, and a roughly diced tomato with the seeds and juice removed.

The cod is a pretty good fish for fish tacos. I have no idea whether it's specifically what they used in Tulum, but it has a nice, flakey, meaty consistency that's pleasant, and a flavor that's distinctly fish, without being overbearing. The guacamole's great with chips, but perhaps a little much for the delicate fish flavor in the tacos - still, I can't say I minded all that much. A dash of hot sauce, and you're off to the races.

For me, it's a meal that will forever be flavored with a great deal of affection and nostalgia. The week we spent in Tulum was one of the best times I've ever had, and this is one of those meals that will really be associated with a very happy time.

Tostones: Quick & Delicious

2007-11-08T00:14:00.000-08:00

A place we go to for lunch near work makes these, and I wanted to try making 'em at home. Ridiculously easy:

Buy some plantains. Green or very slightly yellow. Cut a slit down the side of the whole thing to make them easy to peel. Chop into 1" chunks, and peel each. Heat up about 1/2" of oil (we used peanut) to ~350 degrees. Put chopped plantain chunks into oil, so the oil comes halfway-ish up the side of the pieces. Flip 'em over when lightly browned to do the other side. When all browned, take the pieces out of the oil and drain.

Smash each piece (gently, I suppose) with the bottom of a pan 'till ~1/4" thick. Some recipes say to toss into cold salted water, but I didn't do that. Start simmering some olive oil with a couple cloves of smashed and minced garlic over low heat, and let this go until you're done frying the plantains.

Get the oil back up to "hot" (350-375), and fry each of the discs (I did 2 at a time) until crisp at the edges. Couple minutes each. Drain on paper towels, salt while hot. Drizzle the garlic oil and garlic over the thing, and eat while hot, crispy, sweet, chewy, and garlicky.

Relatively quick, probably nothing even remotely like healthy, but totally delicious.

What I've been cooking/eating

2007-11-07T13:16:00.000-08:00

Lunches have mostly been salads with smoked salmon, smoked duck breast, or prosciutto.

Wed 10/31: Geta & Fentons with Lindsi
Thu 11/01: fondue at home.
Fri 11/02: dinner at Alex & Christina's, a delicious vegan dinner of an African stew, quinoa, spaghetti squash, and an apple crumble & coconut sorbet.
Sat 11/03: Lunch: New Korean restaurant, Sura, with Seppo. It was ok. I had mool-naeng-myun. Good broth! Dinner: homemade falafel and all the fixings on whole wheat pita.
Sun 11/04: Lunch: Merritt Bakery with Seppo & Klay. I had a chef salad and chicken & rice soup. Dinner: salad with smoked duck breast.
Mon 11/05: Sloppy joes, made with ground turkey and white beans, and oven fried sweet potato wedges. I need to make more sweet potato wedges. So damn good.
Tue 11/06: Shabu shabu with A&B and J.

Tonight will be a beef & vegetable stew, quinoa, roasted butternut squash, and whatever Seppo is going to do with the plantains. :)

Sukiyaki

2007-10-17T22:36:00.000-07:00

Note: This is not a picture of our sukiyaki, but is very similar in ingredients. I am linking back to the photo owner.

For our sukiyaki venture, I ended up getting almost the exact same ingredients as I did for shabu shabu. The biggest differences are the use of konnyaku noodles (instead of udon noodles) and the sukiyaki sauce (made with soy sauce, mirin, and sugar, instead of the ponzu and sesame sauces).

With everything cleaned and chopped up, we were able to sit in front of the tv and cook on the electric skillet. The general instructions say to put clusters of the ingredients into the skillet and pour some sukiyaki sauce over it and pull things out to eat as they finish cooking. A lot of pictures seem to indicate that you'd put the entire list of things in at once and simmer in the sauce + liquid from the cooking veggies. We opted to put in a very thin layer of food at a time and cook the meat one piece at a time. It was a nice, leisurely, relatively healthy meal, full of mostly vegetables and a relatively low amount of beef (around 3 oz each?), compared to how we usually eat.

We had this last night and tonight. And there is enough food left over for tomorrow night... if we dare. Heh.

I think this would make for a nice, easy Sunday dinner with a couple of friends.

Shabu Shabu

2007-10-01T13:24:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite cool weather dinners is shabu shabu. It's so simple, tasty, inexpensive, and easy to make healthy. Well, it's also very easy to overeat, so be careful there. :D Basically, we just get an assortment of things and add them slowly to the hot pot at the table. For instance, last night, we had the following:

bunch of different types of mushrooms (e.g. oyster, enoki, shiitake)
napa cabbage
spinach
scallions
crown daisy (or any other bitter greens, just as contrast)
tofu
udon (you can use tofu noodles instead to avoid the empty carbs)
some thinly sliced rib eye
a couple of pieces of konbu
two types of sauce (sesame seed based and soy sauce based ones)

It would be really good to get lotus root and turnip too, but it's the kind of thing I always forget. You put the konbu in the water and bring it up to a boil. Then you transfer the pot to a portable stove at the table and sit around adding things to the pot and fishing things out of the pot as they cook. The meat should be picked up one piece at a time and swished through the boiling/simmering water to quickly cook, instead of getting dumped in all at once.

We fed 5 people last night for about $3 per person, and we have a bunch leftover for tonight. Yay!

Places on our to-do list

2007-09-14T16:16:00.001-07:00

Seppo's parents have been visiting this week and have given us a handful of ideas for places to go, based on their meals with friends while they have been out here.

Coach Sushi - website, reviews, map
The Wood Tavern (also recommended to us by U of TUPbC) - reviews, map
Soizic Bistro - website, reviews, map

Yuki Ichigo ("snow strawberry")

2007-08-26T22:35:00.000-07:00

Seppo has been telling me about this confection for years.

So we are going to try to make it this weekend. :D

Strawberry + whipped cream + short cake* + mochi = crazy delicious.

*I'm thinking we might use pound cake instead. Either way, yumbo.

Plan for next cupcake attempt

2007-08-21T01:46:00.000-07:00

Recipe provided by Holly + secret to doming = awesome? I can only hope so.

Crazy Dinner, for a Tuesday.

2007-08-15T00:14:00.000-07:00

So, tonight we had:

The pork belly I started cooking last night - turned out alright. The first pieces we had hadn't crisped up as much as I would have thought they ought to have. So, for the second go-round, I threw 'em under the broiler until the skin had crackled and popped, and it was much better. The wine/roasted garlic/chicken stock/thyme sauce was awesome, and all in all, pretty darned good. Next time I'll know to really make sure the skin's super crisp, but it was tasty regardless.
Grilled squash - I grilled up two kinds of squash on our grill pan with some olive oil, salt and pepper, and they turned out really nice.
Some homemade bread that Ei-Nyung whipped up a couple days ago
A baguette
Cowgirl Creamery's "Mt. Tam" cheese
An aged gouda, I don't recall the specific brand
Rillettes du Perigord - a duck pate/confit of some sort, from the French dude at the farmer's market
For dessert, a dark chocolate Dove Bar

Yeah, a totally ridiculous meal, but pork belly's sort of an "event" dish, so I figured we might as well really blow it out. Good stuff. I'll post pics later.

Pork pork pork!

2007-08-13T23:25:00.000-07:00

Spent the better part of the evening making this:

Pressed belly of pork

Ingredients
6-8 servings

about 1.3kg belly of pork

2 heads of garlic, halved horizontally

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

handful of thyme sprigs

olive oil, to drizzle

generous splash of white wine

450ml brown chicken stock

Method

Preheat the oven to 170˚C/Gas 3.

Untie the belly of pork if it is rolled and lay it flat on a chopping board. Score the skin evenly in a criss-cross pattern with a sharp knife. Turn the belly skin side down and cut a slit through the thick end of the pork to open it out like a butterfly so that the meat is evenly thick throughout. Rub all over with salt and pepper and a drizzle of olive oil.

Place the garlic, halved side up, on a lightly oiled roasting tray and scatter over the thyme sprigs. Lay the pork belly on top, fat side up. Trickle with a little more olive oil and sprinkle with a little more sea salt. Add a splash of white wine around the pork, cover the meat with a piece of foil and bake for 1½ hours. Remove the foil, baste the pork with the juices and return to the oven, uncovered, for another ½-1 hour until the meat is tender. Continue to baste the pork occasionally with the pan juices.

Transfer the pork to a clean chopping board and leave to cool slightly. While still warm, place another tray on top of the pork and weigh down with a few heavy tins to flatten it. Cool completely, then chill for four hours or overnight in the refrigerator to set its shape.

Pour off any excess oil from the roasting tray and place over high heat. Deglaze the tray with a generous splash of white wine, scraping the bottom and crushing the heads of garlic with a wooden spoon to release the sediment. Boil the liquid until reduced by half, then add the chicken stock and bring back to the boil until reduced and thickened. Strain the stock through a fine sieve, pressing down on the garlic pulp with the back of a ladle. Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.

Heat the oven to the highest setting, about 250˚C/Gas 9.

Cut the pressed pork into individual portions or squares and pat the skin dry with kitchen paper. Place the pork squares, fat side up, in a roasting tin and drizzle with olive oil and a generous pinch of sea salt. Roast for 15-20 minutes until the skin is golden brown and crisp. Rest the pork for 5 minutes, then serve with the light gravy and accompaniments.

TIP - A clean and sharp Stanley knife (or craft knife) is the most effective tool for scoring the tough pork skin.

-----

It's a recipe from Gordon Ramsay's show The F Word - I think it's the season closer, when he cooks the pigs he raised in his backyard. It looked awesome on the show, and reasonably straightforward. Tonight, I did the 2.5 hr roasting process and gravy-making, and now, it's all in the fridge - the pork belly's being squished under a couple cans o' beans, and the gravy's chilling on top of it.

Tomorrow, I cut it into squares, roast it at a higher temp so that the skin crisps up, and eat a bunch of it. Mmmmm.

For the record, it smelled AWESOME.

Belgian Waffles

2007-07-05T15:48:00.001-07:00

I made Belgian Liege waffles from a recipe I found online.

I'm gonna copy it here, not because I want to rip it off, but because these things historically have a way of disappearing after a few years, and I don't want to lose the recipe. The ingredients are:

1 lb. (500g) plain flour
7g instant dried yeast (one sachet)
2 medium eggs
1 cup Whole Milk
½ lb. (250g) Butter
2 oz. (60g) honey
Vanilla
10 oz (300g) pearl sugar (or loaf sugar, broken into small, 1/8'' 3mm chunks)

If you can't find pearl sugar, I did what they recommended, and moistened 300g of granulated sugar with just enough water to make it clump up, then put it in a 325 degree oven until it dried out. Once it's dry, break it up into half-sugar-cube-sized chunks.

I started the batter the night before, putting the flour & yeast into the Kitchenaid, and setting it to low as I cracked in the two eggs. Then added the milk & honey, and the melted butter. This turned into a really loose, sticky batter. I scraped down the sides of the bowl, covered it in plastic wrap, and left it to sit overnight.

I made the sugar blobs the next morning, and the batter had about doubled in size. I used the dough hook to mix in the sugar chunks, then left it for another half hour on top of the stove, which was warm from when I'd dried out the sugar.

With a ladle, I dropped in a giant blob of the batter into the hot waffle iron, and let it go 'till it was a dark brown. The sugar chunks melt inside the dough, forming these sweet channels of carmelized sugar that run through the waffle, and a nice, crunchy crust.

I served 'em with a really sparse drizzle of maple syrup, and a sliced strawberry. They freeze well, and just require a toasting to become nice and edible again.

Total prep time wasn't bad - maybe 20 minutes of actual work, with a night + a half hour worth of waiting. I'd definitely make this recipe again.

Almond "Brittle"

2007-06-26T14:18:00.001-07:00

The "brittle" is in quote marks because it's not actually hard and brittle, but more crispety-crunchety. *cough* [Side note: Instead of typing "cough", I repeatedly typed "gough" then "gouge". I don't know why.]

The crispier, less hard/brittle quality is achieved by throwing in a pinch of bakig soda into a pretty straight-forward brittler recipe... Which is just hardened, caramelized sugar.

WHOA, hold on there, cowboy.

I just looked up some peanut brittle recipes to check that my assertion was correct, only to find that many already contain baking soda! I am totally shocked. Well, why the hell are they so brittle and hard then? Sheesh.

I guess there is no secret recipe to give away here then. My version was a modification of something I had previously posted about, where you basically add toasted slivered almonds.

One of the interesting things we had at Gordon Ramsay was something off the dessert tray called "honeycomb". It was this rich deep golden colored crunchy, sugarly confection with all sorts of holes in it, much like a honeycomb. I believe that is exactly like the recipe I posted, except with the addition of honey for flavoring. I loved the novelty of finding something so low-brow (IMO) at a high-brow place, but I supposed I shouldn't have been so surprised as GR often extolls the virtues of getting food that people already like (like home-y stuff) and making it well. Another delightful item was cotton candy. It was just cotton candy. Fun! :D

In actuality, I think I prefer the plain sugar version of the brittle. And it's better when it's pressed out into uber-thin leaves.

Lakeshore/Grand Restaurants

2007-06-26T13:48:00.000-07:00

Wow, things are really happening out here. In addition to the much-touted and much-awaited Trader Joe's hitting our main street sometime this year, we are seeing a whole new crop of kick-ass restaurants in the area.

Last night, we went to the newly-opened Flavors of India, where we had a kick-ass (pardon the repeat), albeit slow, meal. We were warned about the backed-up kitchen though, so we knew we were in for a wait, but we still wanted to give it a try. It seemed like they were working out their first week kinks, so that wasn't a problem for me.

Having just finished the leftovers from last night, I'd have to say I'm extremely happy about its opening! We had veggie pakoras, lamb chole, and a chicken dish (I don't remember quite which one we got), garlic nann, onion kulcha, and a mango lassi.

I don't really know Indian food that well, so there's that. But I do know when things taste in balance and when bread has a good chew and when meat is tender and flavorful. And last night's dinner was all of those things and more. The reviews of the other location in Rockridge seem to indicate that they serve Northern Indian cuisine. The menu indicated that every dish was cooked to order and the vegan and kid-friendly dishes were marked clearly. The service was nice but you can tell the waitstaff was nervous, probably because they are all new to the restaurant (I don't know if anyone came over from the Rockridge location), and I'm sure they will get their groove on soon.

While searching around on Yelp for a review for this restaurant, I also found rave reviews of Neecha Thai, which is located on Grand Ave, where Cafe Pirawan used to be. It is an upscale (I can't tell how upscale) Thai restaurant, a branch of a well-loved one in San Francisco. Between this restaurant, Flavors of India, and L'amyx Tea Bar, it seems like the best candidates for the area are all branches of proven establishments. I don't know how I feel about that. Well, at least these are all local joints.

Another restaurant that recently opened in Grand Ave strip is Cafe DiBartolo. By "recently opened", what I actually mean is, "has been around for two years but I never even noticed because I'm oblivious like that". ... Well, ok then. I'll have to try it, as the reviews are pretty good.

Lakeshore has one additional new restaurant opening "soon" (I have no idea when): Vine, which bills itself as a wine bar and tapas lounge. I sure like tapas. I think it's because I'm Korean and always want a lot of little dishes around me when I eat. Just for my leftovers, I used one plate and two bowls! I don't know. I'm just like that.

Yet another eagerly-awaited restaurant will be coming next year:

Russell Moore—a chef and buyer for Chez Panisse—and partner Allison Hopelain will open a restaurant at 3917 Grand Avenue [map] in Janary 2008.

A few Grand Lake neighbors met with Russell and Allison on February 26 to hear the couple’s plans.

Although we’ll have to wait until early 2008 for the food, what we learned is that they intend for the restaurant to be warm, inviting, and affordable, serving good healthy meals to food lovers in both our and surrounding neighborhoods. They plan to procure their produce and meats as locally as possible.

- From Grand Lake Guardian.

Nice.

New dishes

2007-06-19T23:24:00.000-07:00

Today, I made two things I had never made before:

Thai Basil Eggplant & Jasmin Rice
Almond "Brittle"

I had bought eggplant, some chili peppers, garlic, onion, and basil from the farmer's market on Saturday, so the eggplant dish was definitely going to make itself known this week. Since I work from home on Tuesdays, today was the day.

I cut up the eggplant into 1.5" inch chunks, salted them, and let them sit on a rack for about half an hour. I rinsed off the salt, patted the chunks dry, then popped them under the broiler for about 5 minutes.

I heated up the wok, threw on some soy bean oil, then sauteed some sliced onions until softened but not fully cooked. I took them out of the wok and put aside. I did the same thing with the eggplant. Exciting.

Back in the empty wok, I heated up some more oil (on a lower flame than before) and threw in several cloves of minced garlic, two chopped up chili peppers, and about 5 of those fiery little dried red peppers that sometimes come in Chinese dishes. After about 30 seconds to a minute, I dumped in the eggplant and onions.

I cooked them all together for a bit, then threw in the sauce, which consisted of about 2 tablespoons of fish sauce, 1/2 tablespoon soy sauce, 2 tablespoons (loosely packed) brown sugar, and 3/4 cup water, and let things simmer under the eggplant felt done.

I poured on a mixture of cornstarch (2 tsp) and cold water (1/4 cup) and stirred over heat to thicken.

I turned off the heat, threw in some basil leaves, some chiffonaded, some ripped, some whole, and tossed. Seppo and I dug in with some jasmin rice which I made in the rice cooker.

Next time, I'd like to add bell peppers, chili peppers which are hotter (the ones I used were very mild and fruity, and not hot at all), and use real Thai basil. Maybe also add more soy sauce and some fried tofu. Yum.

Almond brittle coming soon.

A shift in priorities

2007-05-01T12:39:00.000-07:00

So, I get it. I understand the whole "fine dining" concept. Great food, great service, subtle balances of flavor. It's incredible stuff, and I'm totally over it.

That is, we've had some exorbitant meals, both in terms of cost, and overall quality, but the value per unit of pleasure has fallen off relatively quickly. $150 is a lot for a meal. A few years ago, I'd have thought it was completely, utterly ridiculous. I still do, but it's been worth it because I really wanted to explore what the high end of food was all about.

Now that I know, that experience holds less and less value for me.

A dinner at Gordon Ramsay at the London is fun, and interesting, but so is a dinner at Cuvae - and the dinner at Cuvae is cheaper, more accessible, and more relaxed. The thing I loved most about the dinner at the London was hanging out with the people I was with. The food made a great conversation piece, but the biggest part was the social experience, and how the food enabled that.

I think that's the draw of a lot of the post-Alice Waters-era cuisine. Create a novel sensation that spurs people to think, and to talk about the experience. Challenge what the eater expects, make them reconsider how they perceive food, and then get the people involved to discuss their experiences.

That holds a lot of interest to me. It's the *best* part of a meal - that shared experience. And that's the sort of thing that could cost hundreds of dollars or next to nothing, and change very little.

Chocolate Nothing

2007-03-26T23:57:00.000-07:00

So, I tried making something that I'd heard that has been done at El Bulli. I'm not in any way claiming that this is an original idea, but I didn't find any recipes around for how to do it, so I just sorta figured it must be sorta like this...

* 1 tablespoon dutched cocoa
* 1.5 tablespoons sugar
* .25 cup boiling water
* .5 cup heavy cream
* 1.5 tsp lecithin

Boil the water, and dissolve the sugar and dutched cocoa. Whisk until smooth. Remove from heat. Add cream. Using an immersion blender, mix in the lecithin. Whiz air into the mixture until bubbles form on the surface. If the bubbles aren't stable, add a touch more lecithin until they are.

Scoop off the resulting foam and put into ramekins. I put them into cupcake paper thingies that I'd set into the ramekins, but I'd recommend against this. Freeze.

Now, if you've done well, and you've *only* got foam when you scooped off the bubbles, what you'll have is a ramekin full of what El Bulli would call "Chocolate Air." A spoonful of this will taste quite chocolate-y, but when you put it in your mouth, it completely disappears. There's almost no sensation of having eaten anything, except for the substantial chocolate flavor.

I got that on about the top half of the ones I made, but the bottoms were a bit sloshy and dense. Probably could have used more lecithin, as the bubbles of the foam weren't totally stabilized. I'd also bet that a cream whipper would have made a much more uniform, silky foam. Ei-Nyung suggested using the Nespresso's steamer attachment, which would probably also really work well.

I'll be trying this again, for sure. Pictures next time, though really, it just looks like a very airy chocolate mousse.

Waffle

2007-03-25T23:51:00.000-07:00

So, the place that makes the best waffles in the world is Merritt Bakery. They're crisp, light, tender, flavorful - a great carrier for butter, or syrup, or chicken and hot sauce. Absolutely fantastic.

So it was with some hesitation that I decided to drop $4 on a single square of waffle from the Belgian Waffle Truck that showed up at the local Farmer's Market. But strolling around the market, and being sort of unimpressed with the sea of random greens that all looked sort of the same, I wanted a bite of something new.

One waffle, with powdered sugar.

I could have gotten it with a myriad of toppings, but I wanted to see what the *waffle* was like. Toppings schmoppings. They all sort of taste the same. If the waffle wasn't any good, none of the toppings would matter, anyway.

The guy gave me one of the waffles that had been sitting in the warming area - not too long, but it definitely wasn't fresh off the iron, which sort of disappointed me. But one bite, and I was absolutely sold. This wasn't a Merritt Bakery waffle - it was something entirely different. This wasn't meant to have stuff on it. This *was* the stuff. It was crisp, but it wasn't light. It was doughy - not bready, in the uniform, spongy sense - doughy - like a Babka, or the inside of a cinnamon roll. Just a hint of vanilla, and a subtle, not cloying sweetnes that was amplified (obviously) by the powdered sugar that was dusted over it.

You chewed this waffle - it didn't dissolve in your mouth like air - it had substance. Each bite was satisfyingly elastic - meaty, almost, if you can dissociate the flavor, and just understand I'm talking about how substantial, and satisfying it felt.

It took about five minutes to eat that one square of waffle, and every mouthful was a pleasure. The sweetness never got tiresome, and the texture and flavor of the thing was complex, and interesting enough to keep me engaged for the entire duration of the eating process. This waffle was spectacular, and it had been one that had been held in standby for at least a few minutes before I was lucky enough to purchase it.

If the guy had given me one hot off the iron, I'd probably still be in front of the truck eating waffles.

Manresa 2

2007-03-25T22:00:00.000-07:00

So, pictures are forthcoming, but I want to get my impressions down now, so they'll be added later.

Ei-Nyung (and her family, by proxy) took me out to Manresa tonight for the tasting menu. We'd been there once before, and had a spectacular meal, so I was really excited to go back. If you've never been there, it's sort of a modern Californian food - not quite Alice Waters' "let the natural flavors just do their thing," but also not the more insane stuff that a place like WD-50 might serve. It tends to be basically what you'd think of as "normal" fine dining with just enough of a modern twist to be regularly somewhat surprising.

The run-down:

Petit-fours "red pepper-black olive": We'd had this the last time we came - same as it was before. The black olive madeline may be my favorite thing at the restaurant. Just a little unexpected, but still absolutely perfect in execution. Everything is in perfect balance - texture contrasts crisp with soft & chewy, and the savory-sweet interplay is just *delightful*.
Garden croquettes: These are also something we'd had last time - basically a deep-fried cube of liquid something, that's supposedly garden greens. These are *magic*. They just burst in your mouth - the crisp, fried exterior basically giving way to an intensely flavored liquid center.
Oyster in urchin jelly: This isn't exactly the most appetizing-sounding thing, but like everything else we had, the execution was brilliant. It had essentially a seawater gelee, which the oyster, and a small piece of uni were suspended in. The saltiness of the gelee, and the er... oyster-y texture of the oyster were really well served by the creamy uni, and it's the first time I've had uni where I've been completely in love with it. I still haven't had the uni at Angelfish, which is supposedly quite good, but it just worked perfectly here - the creamy texture, a perfect complement to the rest of the ingredients.
Arpege farm egg: This is something we'd had before. The last time we had it, my egg was completely out of balance. There's some sherry vinegar, and maple syrup in this egg, which gives you an idea of the balances they're trying to achieve, and in part because I ended up eating it wrong, and in part because I think the ingredients were actually out-of-whack last time, I didn't really "get" this dish. This time, I understood it. The twang of the vinegar contrasts nicely with the creamy egg, and the sweet, lingering hint of maple really makes each bite a whole variety of experiences all in one. Great stuff.

That was just the amuse-bouches (amuses-bouche?) and appetizers. The "main courses" were

Beef and oyster tartare, asparagus: This, to me, was the standout dish of the night. A perfectly cooked spear of asparagus was flanked by a bright red beef & oyster tartare, and a canelle of horseradish cream. If I'd seen this on a menu, I'd not likely have ordered it, but when I go back again, I'd *definitely* get this dish. The richness of the cream and the tartare was offset by the asparagus and spicy hotness of the horseradish. Most dishes have a "perfect bite," where you get just the right amount of everything, and it just works the way you're sure the chef intended. This, I felt I could eat in a whole variety of ways. Every bite had a different balance of flavors, but they all worked, and were all interesting and delicious
Amberjack, sashimi-style, olive oil and chives: This was good, but I've had things that are similar to it, but better - primarily, the best single dish I've ever had was the hotate hot-oil sashimi at Morimoto. Chez Panisse had a similar dish as well, and neither of them have held a candle to Morimoto. Still delicious, mind you, but it suffers only by comparison.
Watercress veloute with cauliflower, green garlic: The watercress veloute was *intensely* green, and somewhat bitter on its own. The cauliflower was a little sweet, rich, and mixed with what I think must have been little fried bits of green garlic. The mixture of everything was excellent, offsetting the bitterness of the watercress veloute. By the end of the plate, when excess veloute was all that was left, it was too bitter on its own. But still, quite good. The only disappointment was essentially how this interacted with the next dish.
Slow roasted monkfish, potatoes with anchovy, pine nut: This was a piece of monkfish, some tiny potatoes, and a pine nut puree with a foam of some sort. I thought it was quite good, but the strange thing about it to me was that a lot of the flavor components were very similar to the previous dish, and the way those things balanced together felt very similar. As a result, these two dishes immediately blended together for me, and between the two dishes, the only thing I really remember was the bitterness of the watercress, and the general overall balance of savory, slightly salty flavors. Don't get me wrong - each one was delicious, and on their own, would be excellent at any restaurant - but I think the fact that these two dishes were very similar in the way their flavors were constructed meant that instead of complementing each other, they ended up detracting from each other.
Pig's trotters, frisee salad, gribiche: This was a fried ball of pork. I think Ei-Nyung thought it was a little too salty, but I thought mine was fine. Very similar, strangely, to the fried ball o' rabbit we had at the French Laundry, though the rabbit was a really interesting flavor I wasn't used to, and though I don't think I've had "trotters" before specifically, still pork. Not necessarily as interesting, but still delicious.
Local spring lamb, carrots with dates, mache: The lamb was awesome - perfectly seasoned, tender, just the right amount of gamey. No complaints whatsoever, and one of the best pieces of lamb I've had. But the weirdly incredible thing to me about this dish was the small piece of carrot that garnished the lamb. Best bite of carrot I've ever had in my entire life. Nicely caramelized flavor, a perfect match for the more straightforward sweetness of the carrot. It was just like every distinct flavor of the carrot had been amplified by the slightest hint of caramel. Awesome.

And that was that for the mains. On to dessert!

Grapefruit and tarragon soda, campari: Holy mother of god, this was GREAT. There was a 'tarragon sugar' that lined the edge of the glass. The overall impact reminded me of a dessert we had during Dine About Town at Rubicon two years ago that had a lot of similar flavors. I think grapefruit, in a dessert like this is just a fantastic palate cleanser, and really ends a dinner on a bright, happy note. Lovely. I've gotta figure out how to make something like this.
Avocado mousse, gene's mandarins: This was basically a canelle of sweet cream, avocado mousse, and a citrus granita. While I "get" why there's avocado here, honestly, I thought the avocado flavor wasn't necessary, and actually unbalanced the dish a bit. The sweet cream and the citrus granita, to me, were perfect together. Maybe I've got a simpler palate, but there you go. The creamy ... uh... cream, and the bright, frozen crunch of the granita, and the sweetness and citrusy twang were great.
Chocolate beignet, hot fudge, and tonka bean ice cream: Whoa. This was great. There was some sort of foam I had trouble identifying on top of the beignet (my nose was partially still stuffed from an afternoon encounter with cats), but the hot fudge was HOLY SHIT CHOCOLATE!!!!! intense. The ice cream, hot fudge, beignet combo was inarguably awesome.
Petit fours "strawberry-chocolate": This is the punchline to the joke at the beginning of the meal, a more traditional version of the initial amuse-bouche. Delicious as before, but nothing particularly surprising.

All in all, I really like Manresa. It's likely my favorite restaurant in the Bay Area, and possibly anywhere. It's 95% the quality of The French Laundry at 50% of the price, and with a more laid back, comfortable atmosphere.

I'm not saying that Aperto, or Geta, or any of the various day-to-day restaurants have anything to fear - but if I'm looking for "fine dining," Manresa's got to be at the top of the list for me. Excellent food, excellent service, just relaxed enough to be comfortable, just upscale enough to be special, and an experience I would gladly repeat, again and again.

Bento

2007-03-12T00:31:00.000-07:00

Flickr seems to have a quite an active community of bento enthusiasts. Inspired by them, I decided that I'd take a bento box to lunch tomorrow.

My bento box has three compartments:

A large container that can probably hold about 1.5 cups of food.
A smaller container that can probably hold about 0.75 cups of food.
A smaller container of the same size as above, except with a little divider in the middle.

I've packed into those respective containers the following:

A Pink Lady apple from Saturday's farmers' market
Some fried rice
Blueberries and half an avocado in the two halves

I think some nuts would be a welcome addition to what I'm taking (maybe squeeze in with the blueberries), but I don't feel like digging around just now.

I'm pretty psyched about trying to pack cute bentos.

Fried Rice

2007-03-11T23:14:00.000-07:00

Seppo and I are not masters of the fried rice. It always looks so simple, but always ends up a disaster. Sometimes, it's gluey, sometimes, it's too oily, sometimes the vegetables are limp and add little to the dish.

I think I finally broke through our fried rice barrier.

We had rice leftover from one of the days that Seppo made buta no kakuni this past week. There it was, a tub of rice sitting in the refrigerator, getting dryer and harder by the day.

Perfect for fried rice!

Seppo had also purchased some more smoked duck breast this past week, a different kind than the one we had last week. It wasn't as good and had a weird ham-like texture, so we didn't really enjoy eating it straight on a salad.

Perfect for fried rice!

I assembled the following:

4 5mm slice smoked duck breast
2 very small yellow onions, courtesy of the farmers' market from Saturday
1 medium shallot, also from the farmers' market
1 skinny young carrot, swiped from Joe's stash (thanks, Joe!)
1/4-1/3 cup frozen green peas
4 skinny young scallions, from the farmers' market

Everything was diced to about the size of the peas, except the shallot, which was roughly minced.

With this Manresa review fresh in mind, along with my recent attempt at making jap chae, I decided that I'd cook each item on its own, to let it cook the perfect degree of doneness.

First, I pulled out the rice to sit on the counter, so it won't be so cold going into the pan. Then, I sauteed my ingredients in a fake wok-like nonstick pan in the above order, from duck to carrot.

I let the fat render out of the duck breast, which I then used to sautee the onions and shallot (these two were cooked together). The duck breast was started in a warm-ish pan on medium high to high. After they took on a little color and some of the skin crisped up a little, I strained the meat out and left in fat in the pan, which amounted to about one to two teaspoons.

I lowered the heat to medium-high. I added only the tiniest pinch of salt to the onions and shallot, as the duck fat had a decent amount of seasoning already.

After the onions and shallots were softened and had no trace of bite left, but not browned in any fashion, I scooped those out and added about 1/2 teaspoon of oil, maybe less. I added the carrots and a wee bit of salt, and sauteed.

After scooping out the carrots, I added about 2 teaspoons of oil and threw in the rice. I think there were about 3-4 cups of cooked rice.

The key with the rice is to scoop from below and fluff up at every step, almost like the motion you'd use to fold batter or egg whites into something else.

After the rice had stopped sticking together and heated up thoroughly, I added back the cooked ingredients and raised the heat to high, constantly tossing and stirring, never letting things get noticeably brown or scorched. You want to hear a little sizzle, not like the wok action at the real restaurants, since you aren't working with the same equipment. When things looked pretty done, I added the frozen peas and a small squirt of sesame oil and about 2 teaspoons of soy sauce and tossed around for about 2-3 minutes until the peas were bright and cooked through.

Finally, I sprinkled on the scallion, gave everything a final toss, and removed from heat.

It's not high on the health meter, but compared to the average restaurant fried rice, it had the following going for it:

A bit less oil
A higher vegetable to rice ratio
Tastier primary ingredients
The ability to control if you want your rice to finish with a little bit of crust or not
A tasty way to use leftover rice and bits and bobs of random vegetables

It looked like the real deal and tasted great. Each bite was full of the flavors of the vegetables (and duck). Next time, I'd actually reduce the amount of cooking oil for parts of the process and increase the amount of carrots, which I usually don't like all that much but turned out to be fantastic in the dish.

Cuvae

2007-03-10T20:08:00.000-08:00

So... we've posted about Cuvae before. We've always liked it, but we went there tonight for a nice, quiet dinner for our 9th anniversary. It's a little different - they've rearranged the menu to be more of an Asian fusion tapas style place. Rather than appetizers/entrees/desserts, the proteins and starches are basically split up, so that you can order all sorts of crazy combinations.

Tonight, we got:

* Dry-fried garlic pork ribs
* Shiitake mushrooms
* Chayote squash
* Maple duck breast
* "Poki bites"

as well as a "Crab with a green tea vinaigrette" amuse bouche.

Everything was really good, as it always is, and there were a couple other people in the restaurant, which was nice. The food's never been a problem, but the location's troublesome for the restaurant.

The ribs were great - not really "tender," but had a nice, meaty texture. The sauce appeared to be honey, soy sauce, garlic, and maybe something spicy, like sriracha. The sauce was good enough that once the ribs were gone, we got some rice to mop it up.

The mushrooms were incredibly 'meaty' - which I tend to mean that you could eat them all by themselves, and feel like you've had a complete meal. Heck, you could probably use a vegetable side dish to go with the mushrooms.

The perfect accompaniment to the mushrooms would be the Chayote squash, which used to be one of their vegetable sides for the entrees. I have absolutely no idea how it's prepared, or what they're using to give it the flavor that they do. It's rich - it almost tastes smoky, but the texture is absolutely perfect - tender, but not mushy. It's a combination of the rich smokiness and a very delicate flavor that gives it a great balance.

The duck was delicious - tender meat, crispy skin (it's no Great China Peking Duck, natch), and a nice sauce. I wish I could describe it better, but Cuvae does seem to use a lot of flavors I'm not really familiar with enough to 'deconstruct.' Still, the duck was done perfectly.

The "Poki Bites" are clearly their old ahi poki appetizer, served in a slightly smaller form factor. My guess is that people often wanted more, numerically, to split between larger groups, and that by making them smaller, they're able to maintain a reasonable cost to the dish, while making it accessible to lots of people. Six little bites is a good number, divisible easily by two or three, and enough for (obviously) up to six for larger parties. The only thing that disappointed me was that the ratio of fish to crispy "cup" thing was slightly different, and it just didn't feel as luxurious.

We finished off the meal with a really tasty ginger creme brulee, which tastes more or less like you'd imagine if it were very well done.

It's strange - every meal I've had at Cuvae has been satisfying, but it's clear that the restaurant is never going to be a destination spot. In part, it's the location - I think it's just not a great neighborhood for a restaurant like that, and in part, it's the overall presentation. While I don't mind it, because I *know* about it, I think that just walking by, the restaurant sadly has almost zero curb appeal. The main dining room is in the back of the restaurant, and the kitchen's up front. There's a large patio space to eat outdoors, but that's essentially useless for 1/2 the year.

I'd really like them to succeed (at least enough where I can get in regularly without too much trouble), but at the same time, every time we choose to go, I worry that when we get there, we'll find they've gone out of business.

Salmon Cornets

2007-03-10T01:05:00.000-08:00

Last year, we were fortunate enough to dine at The French Laundry.

Last month, we attempted to make our own salmon cornets (which I keep calling "salmon coronets" which... is kind of a disturbing thought). Here is the head to head:

Theirs is of course much nicer looking, but actual flavor- and texture-wise, ours competed quite well.

By the way, don't make the f!@&ing cornets. They take forever and aren't that good. I'm kind of sad that the batch from my test run turned out so much better than the batch I served to the guests.

This entry won't tell you how to make this dish because I don't think they'd like for me to give out the recipe.

The ingredients await my punishment.

Die, butter, die!

A most unimpressive view of them before they hit the oven:

I didn't take a picture of the rolling step because I was too busy cursing Thomas Keller and trying not to burn my fingertips with the oven in my face and hardening batter in my hands, but here is the finished product:

I've been reading the blog of a woman who is going to try to cook every recipe from the French Laundry Cookbook. I've been excited to see her tackle the recipes, but so far, she's cooked mostly things we have made before. It's wise, since they are the easiest items from the book, but I am looking forward to the more complex dishes getting documented.

Thoughts About Cooking

2007-03-10T00:54:00.000-08:00

I went back and read the post where we blogged about going to the French Laundry, and I'm actually sort of surprised by how much better Ei-Nyung and I are as cooks than we were say, three years ago. Back then, most dinners would consist of rice and some curry, something take out, or just something random and simple. Nothing really terrible, it's just that we weren't really into cooking - it was just something you did when you had to.

But I think it was happening on the Naked Chef (Jamie Oliver) that really begun the sea change. His series, Pukka Tukka (still my favorite of his TV series'), really showed that good, flavorful, healthy food didn't have to be particularly complex. The roast chicken from his first book is still one of the best roast chickens I've ever had (though the butterflied chicken & 40 cloves or chicken with sage & vermouth sauce from America's Test Kitchen are probably better), but more importantly, the recipes were accessible, and his *excitement* about cooking really shone through.

This was essentially the motivator to get us in the kitchen, and fostered an interest in food. After Jamie Oliver came Alton Brown, which was the perfect transition - excitement to accessible knowledge. Alton Brown, in simple, easy to understand terms, began to explain the science of food in a way that appealed to the pragmatic, hacker-y side of me (a side that's not particularly developed, but really entertained by making a meat smoker out of a locker).

So, Jamie Oliver (simple & enthusiastic) + Alton Brown (scientific & entertaining) led to America's Test Kitchen, which was methodical and exacting. This was really good because Alton Brown had given us the basics of the science, while America's Test Kitchen had applied that science with rigor and thoroughness. Their iterative approach, coupled with explanations as to *why* things are they way they are was understandable because of the basic foundation of Good Eats (Alton Brown's show), and by this point, we'd developed enough experience that we could tackle these recipes with confidence.

Around this time, we ate at our first really high-end restaurant, Morimoto. Iron Chef fits in somewhere in here - before any of the other stuff, really, since I'd been watching Iron Chef since high school. Iron Chef, I think, really opens your mind about food, because the things they create are utterly bizarre, fascinating, and you get a chance to really see what skilled people can do, and what does and doesn't work.

But Morimoto was an eye-opener. The balance of flavor, and the unusual combinations of flavors were things that I'd never experienced at that level before. It really was a moment where it took food to the level of art, for me, and raised what I could *expect* out of a great meal. Following Morimoto, we'd been to Chez Panisse, then Manresa, and the French Laundry, then WD-50, and frankly, it was a pretty good progression of restaurants. Morimoto was familiar, in some weird way, because we'd seen so much of Chef Morimoto on Iron Chef. Then, Chez Panisse showed us essentially the mainstay of California Cuisine, which is basically the foundation of all "fine dining" in the area. Following that, Manresa was a bit more experimental, but definitely in the vein of California Cuising. The French Laundry is then its apex, and WD-50 is a good introduction to post-California Cuisine, or as some call it, Molecular Gastronomy.

So, the progression was sensible, sort of in the same way that our interest in food was developed by a sensible progression of shows, and information.

But it's strange - again, that three years ago, a steak would have essentially been the apex of my abilities as a cook, and now, we can competently mimic some dishes from the French Laundry, I'm willing to make decisions about replacing various ingredients, I can understand and attempt to reconstruct certain dishes I liked at restaurants, and in some cases, take a recipe and change it enough that I could say that this is definitely "my" take on it.

I'm not a great cook - not by any stretch of the imagination. But I'm good enough to do some things that are reasonably impressive, I enjoy the hell out of it, and it's a very, very useful skill to have. It's just strange that it's developed by essentially luck, that we managed to find the right information at the right time. I suppose you could make an argument that we found those shows and restaurants and books relevant at the time because of our skill levels, but a lot of it wasn't planned - it was just something we happened upon by circumstance or chance.

Wacky stuff.

New Year's Food, Part 2: jap chae

2007-03-10T00:41:00.000-08:00

Jap chae is really easy but kind of time consuming. It basically has four steps:

Julienne veggies.
Sautee veggies.
Mix with sweet potato noodles (which you'll have cooked in a step that doesn't exist here).
Season with soy sauce and sesame oil.

It's pretty simple, really. The secret to having an authentic tasting jap chae is in what vegetables you use and how carefully you season.

I used the following:

Onion
Scallion
Shiitake mushroom
Carrot
Egg (see previous post)
Bell pepper (there was a red one in addition to the green one shown, but it was not fit to eat, sadly)

I didn't have spinach on hand because I forgot when I went shopping. My mom usually makes this with little bits of meat (like used in the last post), but I didn't feel like it this time.

Everything except the onion is sauteed. The onion is sweated. Each vegetable is cooked entirely on its own, with a dash of salt and a little bit of corn/canola/soy bean oil. The shiitake mushroom gets a splash of soy sauce while sauteeing. I think I might even have cooked it with an minced garlic clove or two. Each vegetable should come out of the pan tasting delicious and being perfectly cooked, because you won't do any more cooking.

Make sure you take the vegetables out of the pan while the colors are bright and beautiful. It's best to start sauteeing with the lightest colored vegetables first, moving on to the darker ones later. My order was onion, carrot, scallion (this cooks very fast so be careful) bell pepper (I would have done the red first then the green), then the mushrooms. If you had meat, you'd do that last.

You know, maybe it's not really a sautee. You really don't want to get much hotter than medium on your pan, because you definitely don't want to scorch your ingredients. Maybe something between a sweat and a sautee for everything, then.

It's kind of hard to see, but I swear there are noodles in the pot.

I followed the package directions, which said to bring the water to a boil, drop in the dry noodles, remove from heat, and let sit for 10 minutes. Ideally, you'd time things so that this would come out of the hot water as you are done sauteeing your last vegetable. I have yet to master this.

The noodles don't expand much. I would guess it grows about 15-20% at most, unlike Italian pasta. I think you'd want to make about as much noodle as the sum of your veggies. Maybe slightly less. I like it with lots of veggies. :D

The picture is just the veggies, before I added the noodles. After adding the noodles, you have to sort of wing it with how much soy sauce and sesame oil you put in. Just add like a teaspoon at a time until it seems right. Sadly, you won't know if it's right, unless you've tasted it before. It shouldn't be salty though, just a little savory, letting the flavors of the vegetables carry the dish.

Eat while warm.

New Year's Food, Part 1: dduk mandoo gook

2007-03-10T00:06:00.000-08:00

It was Lunar New Year a couple of weekends ago. I cooked up some food, and finally, I'm getting off my butt to blog about it. We served a bunch of stuff, but the two things I made were dduk mandoo gook (rice cake and dumpling soup) and jap chae (sweet potato noodle with julienned vegetables).

Dduk mandoo gook is a really, really easy dish. The ingredients consist of the following:

Rice cake. Like 10-15 slices per person. I could probably eat like 20, but let's show a little restraint here.
Thinly sliced stew beef or sliced rib eye cut into pieces about 1 inch squares/pieces. I think about an ounce or so per person is fine.
Soy sauce. 1/2 to 1 teaspoon per person.
Garlic. 1 clove per person.
Dumplings. 2-4 per person. I actually prefer this dish without any dumplings (in which case it would be called "dduk gook" instead, as "mandoo" means dumpling) but I think Seppo prefers it with them.
Egg. Optional, but about 1 egg per two people work out pretty well.
Toasted (unseasoned) seaweed. Optional, but about 1/4 to 1/2 sheet per person works out ok. I like lots, so I end up putting half in as I serve and the rest halfway through my meal. :D
Scallion. I would guess something like a tablespoon per person, according to your taste.

I sadly only took three pictures of this dish.

Start by soaking the rice cake in water, so as to rinse off any residual rice flour. Or if it was frozen, this will let it defrost without developing nasty cracks in it, which is what will happen if you put it in hot water directly from the freezer.

While the rice cake is soaking, mince your garlic and mix with the soy sauce and meat in some sort of bowl-like bowly bowl. Let it sit for about 10 minutes.

While the meat is sitting in the marinade, you might as well beat the egg(s) and make egg "crepes". Don't add any water, just salt it a little.

I was able to make three sheets out of two eggs in a 10 inch non-stick skillet, so that's the level of thinness you are looking for. Start with a medium-low pan and put a tiny bit of cooking oil on it, spreading it around with a paper towel. Pour a small amount of the beaten egg into the pan and quickly pick up the pan and swirl it around. Swirl! Swirl like your life depends upon it! Lower the pan back onto the stovetop and lower the heat even more.

You'll see the egg start to look less wet. Flip the sheet then, and take it out of the pan in about 10 seconds.

Let the egg sheets cool.

While the eggs sheets are cooling, sautee the meat. It doesn't have to fully cook, because it's thin and will cook in the soup later anyway.

Add water. Hmm, how much water? Maybe two cups per person? I have no idea. It's one of those things. Sorry.

Let it start to come to a simmer. While it's coming to a simmer, slice up the egg, seaweed, and scallion. I went all fancy-pants over making scallion curl up in an ice bath this time. Usually, I just make 2 inch slices on the diagonal. I also don't usually bother cutting up the seaweed, but crumple it up into the soup. Ok, I'll admit that I also don't make the egg sheets. I usually stir it in at the last minute, much like you might with egg drop soup.

Are you all ready? When the soup base comes to a simmer, drop in the rice cake.

The rice cake will cook very, very quickly, so it's pretty much done as it gets to be tender and floats to the surface, much like fresh ravioli might. This will be within a matter of single-digit minutes, so be ready! When the first rice cakes even remotely look halfway tender, throw in the frozen dumplings (make sure you bought the fully-cooked, flash-frozen kind).

Add soy sauce or beef broth to season a bit.

When things float, serve out into individual bowls.

Top with toppings and eat while hot.

Great China Redux

2007-03-06T22:42:00.000-08:00

I can safely say that Great China is my favorite Chinese restaurant. We went back there last weekend with U, and the Peking duck was absolutely mindboggling. I'm going to try to make it sometime this week - probably Thursday->Friday (yes, that's two days - it air-dries overnight), but I know I'm not going to achieve the sheer majesty that is the Peking duck from Great China.

We also had the Ong-Choy with Garlic Sauce (which was good, but more or less what you'd expect), and the Walnut Prawns, which I'm sure you're thinking is the dish you'd order if you're an ignorant foreigner. Well, fine - be that as it may, we got them because everyone's said they were spectacular, and guess what? Everyone was right.

It's hard to describe something when its main selling point is that its flavors are perfectly balanced. It was sweet, but not cloying. The mayonnaise-based sauce was creamy without being overpowering. There was a hint of orange that was welcome, and the walnuts themselves were very subtly candied, without being actually turned into candy.

The large prawns were perfectly fried, the batter crisp despite the sauce. The sweetness of the sauce complemented the sweet, meaty prawns. The crunch of the batter contrasted nicely with the texture of the prawns, and the creaminess of the sauce. I know, I'm sorry - I just don't have the vocabulary to actually describe this.

But if you imagine the dish as a balance of sweet, savory, crunchy, smooth, citrusy, nutty - each of those is a spinning plate, this dish balanced them all, and kept them all spinning at the same time, where every other place I've ever eaten at ends in a catastrophe of shattered porcelain.

This is hands down the best duck you'll ever have, and every single thing I've had there so far has been spectacular. For things I've eaten elsewhere, Great China's versions of those dishes are far, far superior. For things I've never had anywhere else (the 'Double Skin', or the 'Ants on a Tree') the dishes have been delicious, interesting, complex, and entirely worthwhile.

If I ate there every week, I could be satisfied, I would suspect, for years.

Great China, I love you

2007-02-14T12:13:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentine's Day, Great China. We only just got reacquainted yesterday, but I do remember meeting you for the first time a couple of years ago, on my now-mother-in-law's birthday. Last night, as on that first night, you showed me a feast of tastiness. Last time, I was too naive, too foolish to know how wonderful you were.

But not any more. Now, I know just how wonderful you are.

---

Last night, we had Peking Duck, Double Skin, Pea Sprouts, Ants on a Tree, and Mongolian Lamb.

I want that Peking Duck again. I need that duck again.

Luxury: A Korean Restaurant Review

2007-01-03T12:27:00.000-08:00

Seppo and I went to Luxury, a funnily-named Korean bun shik jeom in Oakland, across the street from Koryo Village. It's the kind of place younger kids stop for a snack between meals or adult drop by at for shots of soju or glasses of beer with some bar-type foods.

East Bay Express wrote up a pretty detailed review here.

I had a dduk bokki (fat rice noodles the size and shape of your pinky in a spicy red pepper paste sauce with fish cake and scallions) which came topped with grated cheese, to my huge surprise. But strangely, it worked really well. How odd. The rice noodles (dduk) were perfect! Too damn spicy (I will ask for it to be milder next time) but they were cooked to perfection: hot, tender, with a satisfying amount of chew. Seppo had yang yeom chicken (deep fried breaded chicken pieces coated in a sweet, spicy, and garlicky sauce), and we shared a hae mul pa jun (seafood & scallion pancake). It was nice and crispy. I couldn't really taste Seppo's dish because mine was so spicy and my tongue was on fire. But she had asked me if I wanted it spicy and I stupidly agreed. Heh. Now I know better.

The proprietor (she apparently owns at least two other restaurants!) was friendly and jokey without wanting to stand around having an entire conversation. We sat next to a non-Korean table and further down the room from another non-Korean table, and she was equally friendly to everyone, joking about how huge her dishes were, so I feel pretty confident that she'll be nice to you even if you aren't Korean, for those of you who have worried about dining experiences like that.

She also mentioned as we were leaving that they were going to expand the menu, so I told her we'd return. :D

I liked the place because it's yet another specialty restaurant that carried dishes that I wouldn't see in most other general Korean restaurants in the East Bay, and because it was tasty. You won't get a bajillion ban chan (side dishes) because it's not that kind of place, and you won't be able to order bbq, but I'll be going back to try their kal gook soo (literally "knife noodle" but means hand-made noodles made from flat sheets of dough that are cut with a knife, rather than pulled through fingers, in a meaty soup with potatoes) and soo jae bi (prob the same soup as the other one with hand-pulled non-filled dumplings dropped into the soup while it is bubbling).

Yum.

Pumpkin Bread

2006-11-15T17:03:00.000-08:00

Before last week, I had never made pumpkin bread before. As of yesterday, I've made two loaves! Fun.

Sorry, no pics. Because I am a sucky loser why don't you stop punching me I just want my mommy please leave me alone I am going to cut you you bully.

It's really because I keep cutting into the loaf and eating it before I stop to get a picture. Next time, I swear.

I used Alton Brown's recipe.

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups shredded fresh pumpkin
1 cup toasted pumpkin seeds

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

Sift the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together.

In a separate bowl, mix the sugar, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla. Combine both mixtures and fold in the shredded pumpkin and pumpkin seeds. Once the ingredients are all incorporated pour into a non- stick 9 by 5 by 3-inch loaf pan. If your pan is not non- stick coat it with butter and flour.

Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes. At this point a knife inserted into the middle of the loaf should come out clean. Cool for 15 minutes and turn out onto a cooling rack. Cool completely. For muffins temperature should also be 325 degrees F., but bake for 30 minutes.

Note: It's extremely important to sift the dry ingredients and have the wet ingredients mixed up by themselves before combining. Here's why

Tenderness. You want to mix as little as possible so as to not develop gluten and have a tender loaf. Sifting the dry stuff and premixing the wet stuff lets the dry & wet spend less time together potentially becoming a rubber blob. Try to fold gently and as little as possible.

Lift. You want to pretty much throw the stuff in the oven as soon as you are done bringing the ingredients together. Sifted dry ingredients incorporate much faster w/ wet stuff, as far as I can tell. Fewer blobs to break up. It's a really dense loaf, so let the second part of the double-acting baking powder do its job before gravity overwhelms the first part of the double-acting baking powder.

The first time, I used canned pumpkin. The second time, I used fresh pumpkin and a mix of freshly ground cinnamon & preground stuff. I also accidentally doubled the amount of baking powder. I didn't use toasted pumpkin seeds in either recipe. The second time, I made them on the side, but I just put them aside to eat. :D

Over all, I really like the recipe because it's not too sweet (in general, I hate overly sweet things) and it makes for a very fluffy textured bread. However, I'd reduce the amount of oil by just a little bit. It's not because of the fat content (I'm looking at you TU PbC!!) but because the resultant bread was just a touch greasy. The eggs are needed to provide the right amount of lift, along w/ the baking soda and powder, so I'd leave that alone.

Round 1: Canned pumpkin. Also, too much canned pumpkin. I used 3.5 cups instead of 3 because I wanted to use up the entire can. Bad idea.
Pros: Crusty & moist. Almost a caramelly flavor compared to fresh.
Cons: Too wet and had to bake for an extra 45 minutes, 15 of which was at a higher temperature! The heavy puree sank to the bottom where it took on a custard-y, pumpkin pie-y consistency. It wasn't really bready. The top half of the loaf where it had proper lift was divine though. The extra cooking time made the most delicious crust. Mmmm.

Round 2: Fresh pumpkin.
Pros: A more subtle flavor. Nice to have the shredded pumpking mixed throughout the dough, rather than a completely homogenous mixture you get when you use the canned stuff. The texture was much fluffier and lighter, and the consistency was even throughout. Also, having the pumpkin guts to make toasted pumpkin seeds is a plus.
Cons: Took f'ing forever to cut, gut, and shred. Less of a caramelly flavor.

I think next time, I might try this same recipe with the following modifications:

1 cup pumpkin puree

2 cups fresh shredded pumpkin

Use extra baking powder like this time.

Bake for required amount of time, then finish at 375 for another 15 minutes to compensate for the wet & dense puree.

Also, I butter my nonstick loaf pan with salted butter because I like my crust to be a little extra crusty and salty. Heheh.

Sweet Potato Fries

2006-10-27T17:31:00.000-07:00

So, we'd gotten sweet potato fries at Grasshopper, and again (twice) at Pearl. Ei-Nyung seemed to really like 'em, and at one point, had bought sweet potatoes. I happened to get home relatively early one night, and figured I could try to make sweet potato fries.

Basically, the recipe was pretty simple. Boil the potatoes for about ten minutes, then take 'em out and let them cool. Cut 'em into fries. Simple, but a little difficult because the exterior of the potato is now realtively soft, while the interior's still pretty dang hard. I don't really know *why* I was supposed to boil the potato, so it's probably worth trying this once without bothering to do the boiling step. I suppose if I had been intent on peeling the potatoes, this would have made the process easier, but I wasn't, so whatever.

Then, fry the potatoes in 300 degree oil for 5-7 minutes, until they become just wilted & soft. Take them out, and drain them on a rack for about 10 minutes. For me, I had about four or five batches to do, so I was able to just keep frying, and by the time I was done with the last, the first was ready to go.

The next step is to fry the potatoes AGAIN, except this time at 350 degrees, until they're golden brown. Then place again on a draining rack, salt, and eat. Deliciousness.

The French Laundry

2006-10-20T23:23:00.000-07:00

Thanks to P & M for getting us reservations with them at the French Laundry as a wedding gift. It was a spectacular evening, full of incredible food, and hanging out with friends. Couldn't ask for much better.

Ei-Nyung worked from home, and I took the latter half of the day off so that we could make it up to Yountville in time, given the traffic heading out of the Bay Area on a Friday afternoon. If I lived up that way, I'd get a hybrid for sure, just for the ability to use the carpool lane. 1:20 after we left, we arrived, and found a parking spot across the street from the restaurant, a quaint little two story building. Next to our parking space was the French Laundry's garden, which had all manner of beautiful vegetables and such. Frankly, I was surprised - there's no fence, there's no... anything to protect it from anyone who'd want to grab whatever they wanted. Maybe a security cam or something, but no physical barriers whatsoever. Not that most people are like, "I'm gonna steal a head of lettuce!" but still...

So, we got to Yountville a little early, and spent some time next to a little fountain with a statue of a fireman surrounded by rose bushes. Cute little park. We wandered down to check out Bouchon - we were interested in the bakery, where we picked up an orange mascarpone cream/hazelnut/chocolate tart, a couple cream-filled cookies, and a raisin pastry (and a bottle of water, since I hadn't had anything to drink all afternoon. Expensive water is going to be a running theme, here).

We went to the little patio in the back of the bakery, and ate the tart, which was delicious. Subtle orange mixed perfectly with the hazelnut, and the slightly crispy chocolate... beautiful.

We walked around a little more, curious about how much it must cost to live out here, then headed back to the park to sit on a bench and talk for the hour we had to kill before the reservations. P&M were delayed getting out this way, so Ei-Nyung and I had a pleasant time hanging out.

When P&M arrived, we got seated, and the meal began. Here's an important point: When someone asks you if you want sparkling or still water, the correct answer is "tap." "Still" is not the same as tap water - "still" water comes in eleven dollar bottles. This is a good point to note *before* the meal starts (which is why I'm pointing it out here), rather than after, when you've consumed more in water than you'd spend on most very nice meals. For future reference, and so that no one else makes the same inadvertent mistake.

Now, the meal, and I'll get to the end first. This was an extraordinary meal - the best single meal that I've ever had, without question. HOWEVER - we've eaten at a number of quite nice places in the last year or two, and had meals that I think compete in the same sphere as the French Laundry. The French Laundry beats them all - but *for the cost*, I can't say that this is number one on my value-to-pleasure ratio. Currently, I think Manresa "wins" when you factor cost and availability in. But still - money no object, I'd choose the French Laundry over anything else I've ever eaten in a heartbeat. For a complete meal, that is. The single best dish I've ever, ever eaten anywhere is the hot-oil scallop sashimi at Morimoto.

But I'm hemming and hawing at this point only becuase the meal was *so expensive*. If I can put the price aside, still, the quality of food was just astonishing.

Lemme go get the menu;

Gruyere Gougers - the same basic puffs that Ei-Nyung made for the FL dinners we did a while back, except that these were filled with some sort of cheese. Delicious, but actually flavor-wise, something we'd experienced in its entirety before.

Salmon Coronets

The FL's signature item, and something we've both been wanting to try for ages. Eric & Christy made them for the FL dinner, and as good as those were, these were better. Much better. No offense to E&C, but the flavors were so perfectly balanced that every flavor was beautifully complemented by every other flavor. I took a couple tiny bites of the salmon, and broke off a bit of the cone, and they're individually delicious flavors, but the sensation is improved by an order of magnitude when you just take the thing and eat it in one bite, getting the crunch of the cone, the subtle brightness and creaminess of the creme fraiche, and the richness of the salmon all melding together into one mega-flavor. This, to me, embodied the essence of what makes the FL a worthwhile experience - the technical achievement is way out of my reach, and both the conceptual and technical executions are *brilliant* - flawless, in many respects. With every dish, you understand what the intention was, and know that it was fulfilled to the highest level that anyone could expect. Beyond, in many cases.

"Oysters and Pearls"

This was the first FL item that we'd never experienced in any form, and it was mindboggling. Out came mother-of-pearl spoons, and small bowl, filled with what appeared to be a yellow custard, a few oyster meats, and a small pile of caviar. The actual description of the dish: "Sabayon" of Pearl Tapioca with Beau Soleil Oysters and White Sturgeon Caviar. Wow. I mean, wow. The "Sabayon" was a sort of loose-custard consistency, slightly warm, with an onion-chive flavor (little bits of chopped chives were spread throughout). The oysters were immaculately prepared - very ... "clean" - I don't really know how else to describe it. I've had what are supposed to be good oysters before, and I've never really enjoyed them all that much. Sort of, "Yeah, oysters. Whatever." Same thing with caviar. I know it's weird, but a while back, Joe brought home a whole ridiculous pile of caviar, and we ate it all. "Meh," was about as much as I could muster for the experience. Not really my thing. Except that in this? Wow. The warmth of the custard, the saltiness of the caviar, the ocean-y richness of the oysters all came together, and it was like magic. Caviar, IMO, is usually basically salty and fishy. But in this application, it was sort of like how people use anchovies to lend a subtle rich, sort of "depth" to flavors without immediately screaming "ANCHOVIES!!!" In this case, the caviar lent a saltiness, and the fishy taste complemented the oniony flavors of the custard in such a way that you never thought "fishy" - it just made the custard taste more complex, more interesting, enhanced all its flavors without even making its presence obvious. This, to me, was the dish of the night - just a perfect blend of everything.

Jacobsen's Farm "Musquee de Provence" Soup

Hadley Farms Medjool Date, Curry-Scented Yogurt and Cilantro Shoots. When this came out, it was sort of a WTF? moment - we got shallow bowls with a couple random pieces of squash, a couple dates, and a stripe of yellow stuff (the curry yogurt, naturally). And I thought, "Hm. This is high concept, but almost a parody of what people think of when they think of California Cuisine." Then, they came out with a couple little ceramic bottles, and poured a rich orange soup on into the bowl, and it all clicked. Duh. This was a beautiful squash (pumpkin? <-Mr. Ignoramus) soup - rich without being overpowering - the sort of flavor that swirls around your mouth, but never feels heavy, or forced. Then, when you happen upon where the stripe of curry yogurt was, it's a surprising little burst of curry flavor (as you probably know, a wonderful complement to this sort of squash/pumpkin flavor the soup had going on). The dates were odd - almost totally uniform in their texture - smooth, like someone'd managed to puree them without actually breaking the skin. Weird, but very pleasant.

"Borscht"

Ei-Nyung got this, I'll let her describe it.

Lake Erie Walleye Pike "Boudin"

Tokyo Turnips, Nasturtium Leaves, Beech Mushrooms and Green Orange "Aigre-Doux". I have no idea what Aigre-Doux is supposed to be, but it manifested itself in this instance as a moderately thick, subtly orange-flavored sauce, upon which a pike custard sat, accompanied by some small mushrooms, some leaves that looked like mini lilipads, and a few perfectly done white turnips. The pike mousse was very subtly flavored, sprinked with some chunky salt crystals (a common and very well-used theme throughout the dinner) that burst in your mouth as you ate the custard. The thing that was interesting to me was that the custard sans salt was so subtle as to be almost plain. But then when you hit one of the chunks of salt, it was like being in a beautiful room with the walls covered in extraordinary art, lit only by a candle. When you hit one of the salt crystals, it was like the whole room lit up for just a moment, then dimmed. And you wanted the room to be bright all the time, but if it was, you'd lose interest quickly. I can't say I'm a fan of Nasturtium leaves, which were inredibly astringent. With the mushrooms and custard, it provided an interesting contrasting flavor, but I made the mistake of eating one by itself, and it punched me in the face with its astringency. It was like eating an aspirin.

"Fricassee" of Maine Lobster "Mitts"

Roasted Romaine Lettuce, Braised Applewood-Smoked Bacon, Baby Onions, Black Truffle, and "Creme de Homard." This is right up there for dish of the night. The waiter described this as lobster, that had been cooked with butter sous vide, and damn, it was the best lobster I've had. But to me, there were three significant things about this dish, none of which had to do with the lobster: 1.) The grilled Romaine lettuce was really good. And that was totally, totally unexpected. Like a less bitter endive, and a perfect complement to something where the flavors weren't overpowering. 2.) The Baby Onions were *perfect*. Caramelized on the outside, with just the perfect amount of onion "bite". Not limp at all, not underdone at all - absolutely *perfect*. One of those things that I've rarely noticed in other restaurants because though others have done them well, no other restaurant I've been to has done them *perfectly*. 3.) This was the first time I've had a large piece of truffle, enough that the flavor has filled my mouth, and I've known that it was *truffle*. In this case I could taste it clearly and distinctly. And this is the weird part - I can get this flavor for $4.25 at Gregoire, whenever they have their truffle scalloped potatoes on the menu - those are *incredible*, and provide a "complete truffle experience," as far as I'm concerned. So that was nice - knowing that that is what a truffle's *supposed* to taste like, adn that I have access to that experience in a more "normal environment was a pleasant surprise. The dish? Oh yeah, it was awesome.

Pork Belly w/Cranberries

This was a substitution that M had requested, and Ei-Nyung got it as well. I'll let her describe it, but IMO, this was the best done pork belly I've ever had, better than the one from Rubicon, IMO, though I think Ei-Nyung disagrees.

Devil's Gulch Range "Jambonnette de Lapin"

Melted Collard Greens, Yukon Gold Potato "Puree" and Blis Maple Syrup. This was rabbit. I've had rabbit before, and never really thought much of it - it was a long time ago. Tasted like chicken. And I like rabbits, you know, when they're not food - but I'd read "The Importance of Rabbits" in the FL cookbook, and you know, frankly, in this situation, if the FL had said, "the third dish is people," I might have said, "Ok, let's give it a shot." So, rabbit. This particular iteration of rabbit was pretty abstract. When it came out, it looked like a small, fried meatball with a bone sticking out of it like a drumette, sitting on a bed of potato puree. Then, there was a canelle of collard greens, which were basically cut up into brunoise-sized pieces. Everything about this dish, IMO, was awesome. The collard greens were very distinctly collard greens, but the astringency of the greens was balanced with the sweetness of the maple syrup, and enhanced by actual brunoise (carrots/celery/onion). The meatball? It was essentially shredded meat, balled up, lightly battered, and deep fried. It felt in some sense like a little chicken falafel ball. But the flavor! It was subtle, yet unlike chicken in any way other than the overall texture. It had flavor, much in the way that good chicken hasn't had all the flavor bred/processed out of it. It tasted like something unique - rabbit, I guess. I'd say that to whip out the SAT analogy style, beef:lamb, chicken:rabbit. Not the super-gamey lamb, but the more subtle stuff, where it's obvious that it's not beef, but you're not beat over the head with the gameyness of most lamb. To me, this was the most surprising dish of the night, and definitely one of my favorites.

Elysian Fields Farm "Selle d'Agneau Rotie Entiere"

I have no idea what that means. The rest of the description: Sunchokes, Haricots Verts, Nicoise Olives, Toasted Pine Nuts and Sweet Red Peppers. I guess the part in quotes above must mean 'lamb' in some form or another. This was probably the most straightforward, and least surprising dish of the night. Good, and again, technically extraordinary, but in terms of a part of dinner, in context, almost ordinary. Honestly, I don't really "get" the lamb/olive pairing. Gregoire did the same thing, and they feel like flavors that just don't go together for me, particularly when you have lamb whose gameyness is so muted that it doesn't taste like anything when you pair it with something really punchy like an olive. Not saying it was bad - far, far, far from it - just in context of the rest of the meal, merely what I expected.

"Brin D'Amour"

Globe Artichoke, "Croquante" San Marzano Tomato "Fondue" and Arugula Mayonnaise. Basically the cheese course. Two wedges of a nice medium hard cheese with a piece of currant bread and walnut bread. The tomatoes were very similar to the tomatoes that Ei-Nyung made for the Haricots Verts salad she made for the first FL dinner, but the flavors were more finely tuned, which resulted in a more punchy tomato flavor. P said it had ketchup-y notes, not in a bad way, and he's right - it had an intensity of flavor and sweetness that weren't dissimilar to ketchup. I can't really say much about the cheese - I liked it, but it didn't stand out in my mind. However, the cheese + bread + arugula mayo + tomato = awesome. The globe artichoke was a tiny choke, deep fried to perfection. I wish I'd had a bowl of these to eat as snacks while watching TV or something. Absolutely delicious.

Bartlett Pear Sorbet

Wildflower Honey Cake and Whipped Tupelo Honey. This sorbet was like eating the perfect pear. Nothing more, and nothing less. Thing is, we've had sorbet at Manresa and FL, and one of the main things that separates these places from other places I've had sorbet is that it's all about the texture. The sorbet has no noticable ice crystals - it's just *smooth*. It feels like cutting into nothing, when you cut into it with your spoon - it's almost like a transport medium for pure flavor. I've tried to make sorbet on several occasions, and the recipes inevitably end with "freeze according to your ice cream maker's instruction manual." To this, I say, "go screw." My ice cream maker can't produce sorbet of a hundredth this quality. So, I guess my only recourse is to go to expensive meals. Alas! This, I think, is simply a technical limitation of home cooking. Not many of us have industrial ice cream machines, and the difference, in a case like this, is painfully obvious.

"Chalice de Chocolat a la Noisette"

This was one of the most convoluted desserts I've ever seen. White Chocolate "Granite", Toasted Hazelnut "Sable" and Praline "Semifreddo." Whatever all that means. Basically, it was a white chocolate brownie, topped with a freakin' creme brulee, which itself was topped with a milk chocolate/hazelnut cream, which was *all* surrounded by a thin chocolate cylinder. Next to it was the praline semifreddo, which sat on top of a white chocolate granita. Holy crap, this was extraordinary. Just the variety of flavors, the fact that you could eat them all separately, or all together, and that the creme brulee was still noticable because the top still crunched even though it was hidden under a layer of foamy cream? Just totally bizarre, and ambitious beyond my wildest imaginings. So many parts, all of which had to work together in just the right way, then get served within moments of being assembled, lest the brulee get soggy and pointless... damn. Incredible.

Additional Desserts

These included a creme brulee for the ladies, and the gents got a plum-topped trifle. Both delicious - my personal preference was for the trifle, as the creme brulee was relatively straightforward. Then, a selection of a truffle. I got a butterscotch one, Ei-Nyung got one infused with allspice. Good, but at this point, I was a bit beat up - my head was spinning from the sheer amount of sugar in the desserts. Or the caffeine from the cappucino, or the ridiculous quantity of ridiculous food we'd just eaten. When *even more* stuff came out with the check, I didn't even think about it, I couldn't eat any more.

Total bill: $210 per for the tasting menu per person, $55 between the four of us for way overpriced water.

Wow. That's a lot of scratch. Yes, it's an awesome meal. And for an almost-once-in-a-lifetime experience, worth it easily, simply to know what's *possible* with food, and in some cases, how things are really supposed to taste. It definitely skirts the line where part of my brain is like, "HOLY CRAP that's expensive." But it was a great night out, again, with friends, food and an experience that couldn't be beat. In that respect, who cares how much it costs? Life's for living, and there are some things that if you can do it, you should. For me, this was one of those things.

Much thanks to P&M, who secured the reservations, for both letting us accompany them, and for a wonderful time. Given the opportunity, I'd definitely go back, but probably not more than once every two years or so. And that, if we can even manage to get a table.

Gregoire

2006-10-03T00:33:00.000-07:00

Writing that last post made me realize that I've never written a "thing" on Gregoire yet. It's a small place on Piedmont Ave. that has a number of seats, but is primarily a take-out restaurant that serves French food, using spectacular ingredients. Most of the lunch menu consists of sandwiches and stuff for about $8, which is pricey, but not out of the range of most sandwich places these days (at least of this caliber). But, you'll undoubtedly get the crispy potato puffs, at $4.25, because they're totally worth it.

While the almost the entire menu changes on a monthly basis, the one thing that remains the same are the potato puffs. They're these crispy-on-the-outside, silky smooth on the inside deep-fried potato balls. Basically, like mashed potato on the inside, but somehow surrounded by a crisp, light crust that they sprinkle with kosher salt, giving it a period little burst of salty goodness. They don't feel greasy at all, and they're unlike any other potato "device" I've ever had. Awesome. It'll come with a dipping sauce of some kind, but that varies from month to month.

The sandwiches vary from "ok" to "incredible." Recently, I had a pork sandwich that I thought was overly mustardy, but I've had sandwiches there that are really quite excellent. It just depends on the month, I guess, and whether a particular concoction aligns with your taste. The preparation and the quality of ingredients are uniformly spectacular.

Dinners are all over the place, ranging from little fried chicken tenders, to elaborate fish dishes, or other interesting meat or vegetable preparations. I've had one meal (lamb kabobs with kalamata olives) that I thought was unspectacular, but everything else has been extraordinary. A recent six-hour braised beef cheeks over penne pasta had a wonderfully balanced, earthy sauce over the most perfectly done pasta I've ever had. So far, it's the only thing I've ever gotten twice. We usually don't go enough to exhaust the monthly menu (maybe twice a month), but this time, rather than try something else, I just got the beef cheek again, sad that it would rotate off the menu in a few days (at the time - the rotation happened yesterday, in fact).

Everything's served in little corrugated octagonal cardboard containers. It's great for takeout, and you sort of always know how much food you're going to get. Which is good, but it makes your weird little value-for-money calculation go haywire sometimes, becuase you know that for dinner, you'll spend about $17 on the entree, and it'll all fit in that octagon, come hell or high water. Still, occasionally, it's definitely worth it. The food there is really, really good - often interesting and challenging, always spectacularly prepared, and always with the finest ingredients.

It's a wonderful place to grab a quick dinner, when you're feeling like you really want something nice, and are willing to pony up the dough, but not the time.

And the truffled scalloped potatoes that you now can't get 'till it reappears some month on the menu are the best potatoes I've had maybe ever. Awesome stuff.

Favorites

2006-10-03T00:18:00.000-07:00

I'm sure I've done something like this before (This is Seppo - Ha! I've ruined Holly's little game...), but I figured I'd do it again, because it's likely that there are random things that have changed in the time since I did it last.

My favorite places to eat:

* Cheap Sushi: Geta (Piedmont Ave.)
* Expensive Sushi: Angelfish (Alameda)
* Upscale but quick dinner: Gregoire (Piedmont Ave.)
* Indian Take-Out: Raj Indian Cuisine (Piedmont Ave.)
* Cheesesteaks: The Cheesesteak Shop (Lakeshore Ave.)
* Brunch: Merritt Bakery (South side of Lake Merritt)
* Chocolate Croissant: Semifreddi's Bakery (Emeryville (yes, I realize my "location" tags are really inconsistent)
* BBQ: Doug's (Emeryville) (sorry, Your Neighborhood Backyard BBQ - you know I love you, but Doug's beats you by just a touch, 'cause they're consistent)
* Burgers: The Smokehouse (Telegraph Ave.)
* Pizza: Zachary's (College Ave.)
* Burrito: Cactus Taqueria (College Ave.)
* Ice Cream: Fenton's (Piedmont Ave.)
* Food on a stick: Askew (Emeryville)
* Fries: Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe (Emeryville)
* Korean Food: Sahn Maru (Telegraph Ave.) (though part of me thinks the *real* answer is Ohgane, and I'm just saying Sahn Maru 'cause I feel guilty)
* Asian Fusion: Cuvae (College Ave.)
* Asian Fusion (Small Plates): Gochi (really damn far)
* Ramen: Himawari (San Mateo)
* Most Frequented Grocery Store: Safeway, in the Rockridge Plaza
* Farmer's Market: The one under the 580 freeway on Sat. mornings
* Vietnamese Sandwiches: That place in San Jose that I can't remember the name of.
* Dim Sum: Koi Palace (Daly City)
* French: Aperto (San Francisco)
* Lunch on a workday: The Thai place in the Emeryville Public Market (Emeryville)

Notably Terrible Experiences:

* Bangkok Palace (Grand Ave.)
* Herbivore (San Francisco)

Places I wish were better, but aren't:

* Samurai Sushi Boat (Grand Ave.)

Pearl Oyster Bar

2006-10-01T20:16:00.000-07:00

So, Friday, we went to Pearl Oyster Bar, which is on College a couple doors down from Cactus Taqueria. We had:

2 Kumamoto Oysters
We each got an oyster. Since it was an oyster bar, this seemed like a reasoanble thing to do. They came with a vinegar-y garlic-y sauce, which was good. The oysters themselves were alright - I suppose I don't know much about oysters, but they definitely reminded me of say, the beach, which I thought was pleasant. They had an oystery taste, as well, which wasn't bad, but I'm not a huge oyster fan either, so... yeah. Sorry for being so noncommittal. :D

Sweet Potato Fries
So, if you're a regular reader of this blog (and honestly, who isn't?) you might remember we had some sweet potato fries at Grasshopper, and were impressed by the curry aioli, but not so much by the fries themselves. The sauce was an aioli of some sort at Pearl, as well, and not as distinctive as the curry aioli at Grasshopper, but everything else about this was better, otherwise. The fries were more uniform, better fried, crispy on the outside and silky on the inside. I think sweet potatoes just don't cook like you expect say, a Russett, or something, so you end up with expectations that'll just never be fulfilled. Still, these fortunately eliminated any reason we might have to go back to Grasshopper, which I suppose is a good thing.

Tuna Poke
Cuvae is still the Poki king, IMO, but this place had a nice variation on it that was interesting. You got the same basic garlic/ginger/sesame oil flavor combo that every tuna poki has out here, but this time, it was served in a martini glass, on top of cucumber that was cubed about the same size as the tuna, with a subtle spicy sauce under the cucumber. It was actually a little awkward to eat at first, but it was really quite tasty. This was the first instance, though, of a theme that sort of ran through the meal, and that was that in a lot of respects, the fish flavors were de-emphasized. Though I liked the Poki, it wasn't "TUNA!" it was a very nice combination of flavors that worked more as a harmony than to say, enhance the melody that the tuna might have been. In this dish, that was totally fine, but the next dish...

Thai Ceviche
This was weird. It was five little clusters - one nice, large piece of fish, on top of a salad comprised of slivers of green - I think cucumber, maybe, in a relatively strong sauce. I think the big thing with this one was that the flavor was something I totally didn't expect, despite it being called a Thai ceviche. FISH SAUCE!!! FISH SAUCE MOTHERFUCKER!!!! BOOYEAH!!! was definitely the impression I got from this, and with every bite, it was suprising. Not because it was *bad*, just because when you think ceviche, you don't think fish sauce, I guess. But the biggest thing is that I have *no idea* what that fish was. It had a nice, meaty texture, but it could have been yellowtail, or white tuna, or any number of things. No idea. Couldn't taste the fish *at all*.

Lamb Flatbread
This was a really nice Moroccan-influenced lamb meatballs on a piece of grilled flatbread with a couple different sauces. Weirdly, again, to me I couldn't actually taste any sort of obviously lamb flavor, but maybe it was part of just creating a good harmony of flavors for the sauce. Dunno. It could have been pork, or beef, or sawdust. That aside, though, it was really tasty, I'd love to have it again.
"Coffee" & Doughnuts - These were a bowl ful of cinnamon & sugar dusted beignets, with a coffee and cardamom-based "creme anglaise" dipping sauce (it was way too runny, IMO, to be creme anglaise, unless I really screwed up the French Laundry recipe, which I'm pretty sure I didn't. I really liked this, as a dessert. The beignets were nicely fried, and sort of silky, rather than airy on the inside. Very different than your generic 5 cent doughnut holes. The cold dipping sauce was a nice complement to the hot doughnuts, and it all just worked really well, for me.

Rhubarb "Dry" Soda
A rhubarb-flavored soda that Ei-Nyung got. Surprisingly good, and not very sweet at all. Almost like Pommac. And if you get that reference, you're either my dad, or my cousin. Hi!

Overall, I'd go back. I wasn't blown away, but it was reasonably interesting fare, there looked to be a good variety, and nothing we had was bad. At worst (the Thai Ceviche), it wasn't what we'd expected. I'm curious as to whether they have other fish dishes where the fish is the "star" of the dish, or what have you. But it was good enough I'd like to try it again.

Kaya Tofu & BBQ. Bonus: East Bay Korean Food Review!

2006-09-12T09:37:00.000-07:00

Kaya Tofu & BBQ is a new-ish Korean restaurant in the Peninsula. In fact, many people seem to believe it's the only Korean restaurant in that entire area, with the next closest being in Sunnyvale/Cupertino or San Francisco.

In the last week, I've had the opportunity to go twice, both times to meet up with different friends who work in that area. The first time, I tried the Pork Soon Dooboo and my friend tried the Galbi Tang. The second time, I tried the Kimchi Jjigae and my friend had what I had last time. We also split a pan-fried tofu appetizer.

Both times, the soups were tasty enough that I didn't really notice them. See, that sounds like an insult, but I don't mean it as such. They was tasty in just the way I had hoped and expected. I wasn't disappointed. I also wasn't falling out of my seat in ecstasy, but they are dishes I'd definitely get again when I get the craving.

They have the full complement of the general dishes you get in a generalized Korean restaurant: the basic stews, BBQ dishes, noodles, dumplings, and bibimbops. And from the smell of things, they make everything just fine.

So if you live on the Peninsula, I think you'll be very happy with Kaya. You won't say it's your favorite restaurant ever, but you'll probably find yourself going back when the old craving hits.

The thing with Korean food (and many other types of food) is that you really want to be able to go to a specialty restaurant for a specific dish you want. You want tofu stew, you go to a tofu joint (like Pyung Chang Tofu). You want grilled BBQ, you go to a grilled BBQ joint (like Ohgane, Sam Won, or Koryo).

Wait, this could use a list about now. Here is a guide to East Bay Korean food.

You Want:	Go To:
Grill-at-table BBQ	Koryo, Sam Won, or Ohgane
Tofu stew	Pyung Chang Tofu
Oxtail soup	Seoul Gom Tang II*
Jja jang myun	Yet Nal Jja Jang
Grilled pork & rice cake wraps w/ drinks	Kang Tong Deji*
BBQ Chicken w/ beer	I forget the name of this place. OB Chicken?
"Formal" or "Full" meal	Sahn Maru

The places I've put *s on are hard-to-find or only have the tiniest sign.

There are places that I've been to in Oakland that either didn't leave an impression or I didn't like:

Lee's BBQ. I don't remember it. But I think it was ok.
Hahn's Hibachi. Please, please kill me now.
That stand in the Emery Bay Food Court. Really greasy, but ok flavor-wise. Fine for food court food, but that's it.
That other stand in the Emery Bay Food Court that serves noodle soups. Soup base is great, but wtf is up with that fake-ass not-kimchi vinegared cabbage thing posing as kimchi? It's disgusting. Over all, so-so.
Jong Ga House. The sides (banchan) are some of the best I've ever had. They give you a feast-worthy quantity of food and is sort of country-style, as far as I can tell, with more old-fashioned flavors. That said, I don't like their stew dishes so I don't go back even though it's so close. I should give it another shot though. Other people love it.

Places I have not yet tried:

There are a couple near downtown Oakland and in Chinatown too.

Grasshopper

2006-09-08T21:38:00.000-07:00

So, tonight we went out in search of some sort of tapas. We were in the mood for a variety of flavors, rather than any one particular thing. Ended up at Grasshopper, an Asian fusion place. Had:

* Tuna Poki
* Sweet Potato Fries w/ Curry Aioli
* 12-Spice Pork Ribs
* Chard w/Sesame Sauce
* Braised Duck Donburi
* Chocolate & Cardamom Profiteroles
* Cappucinos

The food started out well - the poki was quite good, and the curry aioli was really tasty. The fries were really varied, running the gamut from super-crispy to limp & flaccid. Tasty, but the texture could have really used some work.

The ribs had good flavor, but the spice rub was a bit too heavy on the salt (something that was commented on in a lot of the reviews of the place - a general over-saltiness that Ei-Nyung attributed to it being a sake bar).

The chard was really good, but at first the sesame sauce was again, overpoweringly salty. Once we realized that the sauce needed to be mixed in, and that it was only drizzled on top, the dish balanced out a lot more nicely.

The duck donburi was suprisingly, underseasoned, and lacking in really "ducky" flavor. It was good, but pretty much unremarkable.

The profiteroles had a nice combination of chocolate & cardamom, which was pleasant, but otherwise, they were just profiteroles, and unremarkable in any other sense.

All in all, it was ok. I don't think I'd necessarily go back, but I don't feel like I totally wasted an evening. The curry aioli and the poki were worth the trip.

Oakland Korean-Chinese Food

2006-09-06T23:39:00.000-07:00

I just learned of a new (to me) Korean-Chinese restaurant in Oakland! It's called Yuyu Za Zang, located at 3919 Telegraph Ave, Oakland, CA. The thing that excites me is this quote in the review summary:

Larry Yu, a Korean-born Chinese chef, opened this cheery yellow cafe on Telegraph to sell Chinese-Korean noodle dishes like his dad used to make – namely jam pong, a spicy noodle soup, and ja jang myun, black-bean sauce noodles beloved by children all over Korea.

Randomly, the full review had this interesting tidbit:

According to the Korea Herald, March 14 is now known as "White Day," when young men who received chocolate gifts from their girlfriends on Valentine's Day are supposed to reciprocate with white chocolate. And April 14 has become "Black Day," when bitter singles are supposed to dress in black, drink coffee straight up, and eat jjajangmyeon. Mark your calendars.

Heh, that's totally awesome.

At the table

2006-09-06T14:40:00.000-07:00

I love dishes that are either cooked or prepared at the table. If it involves lighting a fire dangerously close to your face, even better! :D

Meals we've had at home (or the home of a friend) that involved at-the-table cooking/prep:

Korean bbq
Sushi
Onigiri
Vietnamese spring rolls (fresh, not fried)
shabu-shabu

I can't think what else.

I'm thinking fondue is next. I've had a set forever that I've never used.

Foodstorm!

2006-09-06T14:10:00.000-07:00

We've been on quite a cooking kick lately. In the last week, we had:

Thursday: Curry (cr. Seppo) and rice
Friday: Braised short ribs and rice
Saturday: Flank steak sandwiches with baba ganoush and tomato & feta salad (cr. Joe for entire meal)
Sunday: Orange chicken with grilled artichokes, artichoke bread (bought), salad (cr. TU,PbC), and rice
Monday: Roasted Pork Shoulder (cr. Seppo) with bok choy, kimchee (bought), and rice
Tuesday: Mapo tofu, seaweed soup w/ shitake mushrooms, green beans, steamed dumplings (from frozen), kimchee (bought), and rice. I was also going to make scallion & chive pancakes, but I didn't want to hold up dinner (which took less than one hour to cook).

Tonight is dinner with H! Fun!

This coming week, we'll probably have some homemade pizza with Trader Joe's dough, and I'm not sure what else. I have sliced fatty pork and kimchee and tofu leftover so that I can make myself a hot tofu stew during the day on Friday when I work from home. :D

Short Ribs Again

2006-09-02T18:32:00.000-07:00

In the past, I've blogged about my quest to make the perfect short rib dish:

First time, braised on the stove
Second time, braised in the oven
Third time, braised in the pressure cooker

Since the third time, I have made this dish a couple of times in the pressure cooker. The last attempt was on Friday. Before Friday, Seppo's observation had been that the flavors seemed somewhat dull and the meat seemed somewhat greasy. I had noted an undesireable mushiness in the vegetables.

To address these issues, I made the following adjustments:

To add a deeper meaty flavor, I seared the meat in the pan at the very beginning, instead of parboiling it.

To remove greasiness, I deglazed the pan (with the meat in it) and poured out the liquid into a grease separator. I used a part of the defatted liquid for braising liquid for the meat. I also reduced the amount of sesame oil.

To add brightness, I reduced the rest of the defatted liquid and added a small dash of red wine vinegar and added this to the cooker when I added the vegetables. I also finished the dish with a bit of lemon and finely minced scallion, the latter of which also added a pleasing visual note.

To keep the vegetables from becoming mushy, I added the vegetables in later in the process and cooked them for a shorter time. Last time I had cooked the meat for 11 minutes and then added the vegetables for 9 more minutes. This time, I cooked the meat for 12 minutes then added the vegetables for 8 more minutes.

To add a little kick, I added a small handful of whole peppercorns.

Even though this wasn't previously thought of as an issue, I switched to boneless short ribs rather than the bone-in ones I had been buying before.

I started cooking at 6pm by putting the rice to cook in the cooker. Total cooking time was about 1 hr, counting prep and most of clean up. There was enough food to serve 4-5 people comfortably.

Ingredients:

2.5-3 lbs boneless short rib meat
1 large (or 2 small) onion, cut into big (3/4" to 1") pieces
4 cloves garlic, run through a garlic press or finely minced (sometimes, I just throw them in smashed and nearly whole, depends on my mood)
10-15 very thin slices ginger (I sliced them across the fibers, so that they formed about 1" rounds)
2 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into big (3/4" to 1") pieces
2 medium to large carrots, peeled and cut into big (1/2" to 3/4") pieces

a little less than 1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup mirin
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
1/2 tablespoon corn syrup
10-20 whole peppercorns

cooking oil
salt
pepper
lemon
red wine vinegar (actually this would be much better with some wine instead, but I didn't want to open a new bottle)

Score each piece twice on each side, making sure to slice across the grain, then salt and pepper liberally.
Sear meat in heavy-bottomed pan which has been preheated over medium-high heat with about half a teaspoon of oil. If your pan is not preheated, then the meat will stick, so be careful. I used the pressure cooker, which so happens to have a nice, heavy bottom. :) Turn over meat pieces when you think the surface has a good sear. You aren't looking for the meat to be cooked through, so don't worry about that.
While the meat is cooking, stir together the soy sauce, mirin, sesame oil, and corn syrup in a cup.
Keeping the heat on, add about 1 to 1-1/2 cup of water to the meat in the pan, enough to scrape up all the nice brown bits up from the bottom of the pan. You should hear some crazy sizzling sounds. Let the liquid warm up to a gentle boil, then remove from heat. The hope is that some of the fat from the meat has rendered into the pan and then into the liquid.
Pour out the liquid into a grease separator (or put in a tall container like a cup where you can let the fat rise to the top and skim off). I used a doubled up cheese cloth to strain out the scummy bits from the liquid.
Add about 1/3 cup of the defatted liquid to the sauce.
Add the garlic, half the ginger, half the onions, peppercorns, and the sauce into the cooker containing the meat.
Close up the pressure cooker and turn up the heat. Once it hits the optimal pressure, cook it for 12 minutes. If you are cooking this in the oven or on the stove using a slow-cook method, you should do this part for about 2+ hours.
Put the rest of the defatted liquid in a pan in the stove and reduce on high heat until there is only about 1/4 to 1/2 cup
Chop the rest of the vegetables and clean up in the interim. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I didn't chop the vegetables until I needed them, which is good because there are times of just waiting around.
At the end of 12 minutes, turn off the heat, and release the pressure.
Once the pressure is fully released, add the remaining ingredients: the potatoes, carrots, leftover onions, and leftover ginger. Add the reduced liquid, along with about 2 teaspoons of red wine vinegar (or 1/2 cup or so of red wine for maximum deliciousness).
Close up the pressure cooker and turn up the heat. Once it hits the optimal pressure, cook it for 8 minutes. This part would be at least 1-1.5 hours in the oven or in the stove.
At the end of 8 minutes, turn off the heat, release the pressure, then open up the cooker. Turn on the heat to the lowest possible setting, and add the juice of about 1/4 to 1/2 lemon (depending on tartness and size of lemon -- start with 1/4 and adjust) and toss the contents around and let simmer for 2-3 minutes.

Serve with finely minced scallion and rice. I used a total of three scallions for the entire dish. I actually added the scallions while the dish was still in the pot so that it cooked a bit from the residual heat.

The meat had actually reached a satisfactory level for me, but the vegetables were still a tad bit mushy; the potatoes were not at their optimum creaminess. For next time, I'd shift the cooking time to 14 min for the meat and 6 min after the rest of the vegetables are added, and finish off on the stovetop if the vegetables seem a bit underdone.

Aside from the mushiness, I think the modifications successfully addressed each of the problems we had observed before, but my guess is that the recipe could further be improved by:

Using a good dry, acidic red wine & beef stock to deglaze the pan
Adding chive oil!
Having a really crunchy vegetable to serve as a side dish

Chocolate Souffle: Nutritional Analysis

2006-08-23T14:59:00.000-07:00

Because we are all nerds around here, I am listing the full ingredient list and FitDay's analysis of the components.

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate
2.5 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/6 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
3 egg yolks
4 egg whites
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract (I think)
1/2 tablespoon Grand Marnier (I think)

This comes out to:

Since there were 6 souffles, this means that each one was only 205 calories. Not bad. *looks away from pie chart*

ETA: Oops, that's without the Grand Marnier, which adds a total of about 25 calories, 3 more grams of carbs, and 2 grams of alcohol.

Chocolate Souffle

2006-08-22T23:51:00.000-07:00

Tonight, I fulfilled my reasonable dream of making a souffle. At around 9pm, I decided that tonight was the night. At 9:05pm, I realized that I needed to run out to the store to get eggs. By 10:00pm, I was back at home with the requisite eggs, ready to whip and beat -- the souffle, that is.

In making Île Flottante for the second FL party, I felt that I had erred on the side of underbeating the egg whites. So this time, I vowed to not make the same mistake.

Which, naturally, resulted in my overbeating the egg whites. :D

This error resulted in the inability to easily fold the beaten egg whites into chocolate + beaten egg yolk mixture, as the whites were so stiff that they fairly crumbled into the mixture. Because they were harder to mix in, I felt that a lot of the lift was lost in the process. In trying to compensate for losing the lift, I tried not to over-fold. You can see how this kept snowballing. :)

The ramikins were slightly smaller than those suggested in the recipe, so I ended up overbaking the souffles, which meant no soft, warm, liquidy center for me. Boo.

So for next time:

Definitely take care not to overbeat
Cook for less than the 16.5 minutes I cooked them this time around

They came out of the oven at around 11pm. We served this with crème anglaise to people who were awake at the house.

I was surprised by how fast the process was. There was just enough baking time that I could clean up all the bowls I had used in the process. This is a recipe I'll keep working on for some time to come. Let me know if you want to be a guinea pig. :)

French Laundry Party 2

2006-08-20T21:33:00.000-07:00

The Rundown:

* 'Caesar Salad'
* Heirloom Tomato Tart
* Smoked Salmon & Gnocchi
* "Pacific Moi"
* Walnut Soup
* 'Ile Flottante'
* Poached Peaches & Verjus Sorbet

[Note from Ei-Nyung: I think my Gruyere gougers made it out of the oven between the first and second courses. We just put them on the table to eat with everything else.]

Caesar Salad :

This is easily the most labor intensive and ridiculous salad I've ever seen, much less made. Essentially, it's the basic flavors of the salad, done up in completely differet ways. If it weren't for the novelty of its given name, I'd have called it "Parmesan Three Ways" or something similar. Essentially, the salad, from the top down, consisted of:

* Parmesan shavings
* Dressed narrowly-cut Romaine hearts
* Parmesan Frico
* Parmesan Custard
* Croutons
* Dressing

The custard was the weirdest part, essentially a standard custard with a lot of parmeggiano-reggiano(sp?) added to the mix. The dressing was incredibly punchy - a quarter cup of balsamic, garlic, shallots, anchovies, lemon, and olive oil. Good stuff. I don't think say, I'd make it again casually, simply because of the work involved. But damn tasty, and it turned out pretty well.

Heirloom Tomato Tart

Uyen & Charles brought over the tomato tart, which was apparently made completely from scratch. Their dish involved making their own puff pastry, which is no easy feat for any non-pastry chef. There were a variety of tomatoes in different states of cooked-ness -- top layer was raw to provide a fresh, cool bite, and the underlying layer was roasted in the oven to intensify in flavor -- and they all played off each other really well. The tapenade provided a high (but not too high) note and tasted kind of nutty. The puff pastry hadn't "puffed" as much as it perhaps should have, but the flavors were spot-on, and delicious. The basil dressing & fresh pepper on the baby greens provided a crunchy, cool, light contrast to the rest of the dish.

Smoked Salmon & Gnocchi

Colin & Jess smoked *their own salmon* in a cold smoker they built this past week. That was pretty ridiculous. It was spectacular - subtle, but really flavorful, and very "salmon-y" - it was one of the first times where I'd say the smoked quality of the salmon really complemented the flavor of the fish, instead of simply being a parallel flavor. I love smoked salmon, and this stuff was really good. The hand-made, hand-rolled gnocchi were a great accompaniment, and the various sauces made for a delicious blend of flavors. Chive oil, balsamic glaze, and some sort of butter & lemon-oil sauce, with a fine bruinoise... great stuff.

"Pacific Moi"

Klay & Nana made a dish that normally contains Pacific Moi, but due to the unavailability of that particular fish, used one of the specified replacements. Klay had the uneviable job of filleting a ridiculously small fish, and managed to do an admirable job of it. The early concerns such as filleting the fish, the sauces "breaking" and some other concerns had me worried for a bit, but the end result turned out really well. The orange sauce was a little over-reduced but the fish was really quite good. The edamame and brunoise hiding under the fish was fantastically tender, and the fish's skin had crisped up wonderfully, providing a nice contrast to the soft meat of the fish. The salad on top provided a nice bite from a ice water bath, which also served to curl up the julienned scallion.

Walnut Soup

The second dish I made was a "canape dessert soup" - basically amounted to an espresso cup worth of "soup" for each person. Walnut, simmered in cream for about 45 minutes, then cooled, and blended with pears poached in a white wine/sugar/lemon mixture. There's no way that I'd ever have been able to have more than an espresso cup worth of this stuff - it was apparently originally a sauce for another dish, but people liked it enough they turned it into its own little dish. Tasty, but probably took a year off the end of all our lives.

'Ile Flottante' (floating island?)

This dish was Ei-Nyung's - a soft, slow-bakedmeringue, with a chocolate mousse center, in a pool of creme anglaise, with a small chocolate wafer on top, chocolate shavings, and mint oil. I thought this turned out really, really well, and I'll let her describe it.

[Ei-Nyung edits post to add her comments.] If I were to make this dish over again, I'd reexamine my opinion of when "soft-peaks" are forming in my meringue, because I think I didn't really get it this time around. This dish posed a challenge for me because both the software (the components of the dish) and the hardware (the equipment) were unfamiliar to me -- I had never made a non-cookie meringue before, and because we only had four ramikins, I decided to use a muffin pan instead. This posed an issue when it came to removing the meringue.

Seppo has full credit for making the creme anglaise and the chocolate mousse, which, damn, delicious, yeah, me == incoherent from memory of taste.

The mint oil added a nice light note to the dish. It's a very rich dish, yet the lightness in texture of both the meringue and the mousse (as well as the weenie size) and the accompanying sauces kept it from feeling too heavy to follow five entrees. This dish took me about 2 hours last night and another 1 today. Not bad, compared to last time.

[Ei-Nyung steps away.]

Poached Pears & Verjus Sorbet

Uyen & Charles' second contribution to the evening - peaches poached in the same liquid as the pears from the walnut soup, and a sorbet made from verjus, which is apparently a very hard to find unfermented juice made from sour grapes. This was really punchy, bright, and 'clean' tasting - a great way to end the evening. The sorbet was perfect- not too sweet, and the peaches were delicious.

More than anything, what I love about these events is that a.) it's getting a bunch of friends together to push the boundaries - all of us are "reaching" - no one cooks like this on even a marginally regular basis, and we're all doing things that are signfiicantly more complex, and harder than we're used to. More than that, we're doing it with, and for each other, which adds a whole new world of pressure. And yet everything people made was delicious. Sure, it's not perfect, but it's *damned good*, and sharing great food with good friends... man - nothing better.

Cuvae

2006-08-15T14:57:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: I usually HATE fusion foods.

I have no idea what is up with Cuvae. It's almost always empty or very sparsely populated. I know that it's not in the most ideal location, being about block short of where the restaurant cluster begins on College. My guess is most people park about a block away and work their way north heading away from Cuvae in the search for drop-in food.

And that is a crying shame, because every single time I've eaten there, I've been extremely happy with their food. This isn't to say that every dish has been out-of-the-ballpark in every aspect (and some have been), but I've never eaten anything that wasn't delicious.

It is an Asian-American fusion restaurant. I've eaten about half the items on their menu and I love how the fusion aspect of the dishes is achieved. I've eaten at places where "fusion" means a clunky blend of incompatible flavors, but this is not the case at Cuvae. In plain words, stuff just tastes good and goes together.

We've taken several different friends there, and everyone has enjoyed their meals there. Yet, everytime we go there, it's so empty. That sucks! The owner/chef is friendly and the staff, while not polished, is really friendly and tries to do their best to make sure you are having a good meal. At least twice, when we've had the wrong number of people to share the appetizers with, they've thrown us freebies to make sure everyone gets a taste. Last night, they were also pretty flow-y with the wine and gave us all a shot of soju on the house, as we were there celebrating my friend's birthday (on the early side).

And yeah, I love a good deal as much as the next guy (if not more). Their prices are really reasonable for the quality that they serve up. I'd expect to pay anywhere from 10-30% more for comparable dishes in other, more established restaurants.

So, if you live in the Bay Area, get off your butt and head over to Cuvae for some good eats. Go! Go now! :D

I just had the leftovers (hoi sin duck breast) from last night for lunch and MAN! So tasty.

Restaurants I want to try

2006-08-15T14:52:00.000-07:00

In December 2005, I listed a bunch of restaurants I wanted to try. Let's review which ones have been crossed off the list:

Michael Mina's (Bay Area)
Chez Spencer (Bay Area)
The French Laundry (Norhern CA) Will be going in October
The Fat Duck (UK)
Gordon Ramsay's at Royal Hospital Road (UK)
Nobu (not sure which location would be best)
~~L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon (the one in France and not in LV or Japan)~~
Zushi Puzzle (Bay Area)
~~Chez Panisse (Bay Area)~~
Foreign Cinema (Bay Area)
Gary Danko (Bay Area)
~~Wagamama (UK)~~
~~Yo! Sushi (UK)~~
~~Vic's Chaat (Bay Area)~~
The Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton (Bay Area)
~~Manresa (Bay Area)~~
Sushi Zone (Bay Area)

Not bad!

French Laundry again!

2006-08-09T14:12:00.000-07:00

We are having a second French Laundry party for people who missed it last time. In fact, it's not even for *everyone* who missed it last time either because the number was pretty high, so don't be upset if we didn't invite you. :D We will almost definitely have a third one for those who couldn't make it to the first or second, or those of you who want to do it again!

It will take place Sunday, August 20, 2006. Watch this space.

New flavors

2006-08-08T12:37:00.000-07:00

As a result of the French Laundry extravaganza, I've discovered a couple of flavors that I refuse to do without in the future.

One is chive oil:

and the other is tomato confit:

I refer to these as "flavors" because they are not meant to be eaten for bulk/fullness, but to add a dimension to your dishes.

Chive oil instead of olive oil in a mixed herb salad w/ a small drizzle of balsamic vinegar (bonus points for teeny buffalo mozzarella and proscuitto) brings a subdued brightness to the party, as Alton Brown might say. I drizzled some on my baby asparagus last night, and man, was it good.

As for the tomato confit, it is a pain because it takes a while to prep then partially dehydrate/concentrate in the oven, but it's worth it. At least, to me. I've had fresh tomatoes, cooked tomatoes, canned tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, and this is now my favorite way to eat tomatoes. Mmmm. It's not too different from a halfway point between regular tomatoes and sundried tomatoes in olive oil, both of which I love, but I think I love how it balances out between the two extremes.

Laundry Party 2

2006-07-31T00:13:00.001-07:00

Ei-Nyung's Haricots Verts salad. This was a test run, and is missing some parts, but it still looks pretty fantastic.

My Black Cod dish

So, since I did the Cod, I'll write about that. I'll let Ei-Nyung fill in the details on her two dishes.

Basically, this was supposed to be Red Mullet, but we couldn't find Red Mullet, so we got Black Cod from Whole Foods. (Color) (Fish) was apparently the order of the day. The recipe basically consists of five parts:

The Fish
The Parsley Salad
The Garlic Chips
The Palette d'ail Doux
The Parsley Coulis

The fish was actually remarkably straightforward. 1/8" of canola oil in a pan (we subbed vegetable oil, since we forgot to pick up canola), and fry the fish, skin side down (skin removed on the black cod, unfortunately) for 1 minute. Flip, and "kiss" the other side, for a total of about 1:30 cooking time. That's it. Oh, it was seasoned with salt & white pepper. I wish it had at least had the skin, because a lot of the appeal is the cripsing of the skin as it fries. Alas. Next time, I suppose.

The Parsley Salad was pretty straightforward - parsley leaves, good olive oil (the McEvoy Ranch olive oil that we got from the ferry building, in this case), salt, pepper, and some shallot.

Ei-Nyung sliced the garlic for me with a peeler. They basically got boiled, then shocked in milk three times, to mellow out the twang of the garlic, before getting a bath in 300 degree oil for supposedly 12 minutes. The first shot, I'd overheated the oil to ~350. I figured, well, that's a pretty standard frying temperature, so I tossed in a handful of the chips. Well, the problem is that there was so little mass in the chips that it did nothing to cool down the oil. Even though I'd pulled the pan from the fire, it was too hot, and the garlic crisped up in about 30 seconds. The recipe had said ~12 minutes at 300, so I let the oil cool down, and tried it again. The results were as they said, but honestly, I couldn't really taste much difference between the two. The garlic got browner than they'd suggested, I think, but the good thing was that because of the milk soaking, they weren't bitter - they just had a carmelized garlicky flavor.

The parsley coulis was pretty straightforward. It took a while to strip five bunches of parsley, but then the leaves & small stems were blanched in a huge pot of salty water, then shocked in an ice bath. After wringing out all the water from the leaves, they got tossed in a blender with enough water to get it all going. Why'd I wring them out before? Whatever. After blenderizing, the now Incredible Hulk-looking mass got drained in a fine strainer, to remove excess water. That whole thing stuck around in the fridge 'till the day of the party, when it got mounted with 2tbsp of butter. The recipe recommended Beurre Monte, but since it was only two tablespoons, regular, unprepped butter sufficed. This turned out quite impressive, I think - very fresh, an incredible green, and such a bright, punchy flavor. Ah, there was some salt there, as well, added as the butter was added, to taste. Good stuff. I think I hadn't drained it *quite* enough, because when I plated it, it was a touch thinner than I'd expected. Live and learn - I think as a sauce, this is supposed to be thicker than I'd originally expected.

Ah, the Palette. Or, as we called 'em, the garlic pucks. These we did the night before, because they needed freezing time. Basically, it's a whole bunch of hard boiled egg yolks, cream, and garlic that's been boiled three times then mashed. A lot of garlic - four heads of garlic, for a concoction that fit in our mini-food processor. (for processsing mini-foods, of course) The boiling basically cut off the harsh tones of the garlic, and the resulting mashed mess was remarkably subtle, airy, and delicate - the combined flavor was unlike anything I'd had before - I could imagine making scrambled eggs with the neutralized garlic, or an omelette - it'd be quite extraordinary. This, though, was destined for something else. Spread out on cling film, and tossed in the freezer. The next day, we cut them out into 1.5" discs with ring cutters, then dipped in cream, panko, cream again, panko again. Stupidly, this is one part where I misread the recipe - it's supposed to be flour, cream, panko, cream, panko. This'll have repercussions later.

So, back in the freezer they went. These things were incredibly, incredibly delicate. Picking them up, you had to pick them up like you're picking up... oh, I dunno - if someone handed you a disc of ice cream on a hot day, and said, "don't let that lose its shape," it wouldn't be too dissimilar. But I managed to get all the pucks breaded and back in the freezer without too many problems. Here is where I actually made a relatively smart decision. We had a choice of either making 10 large-ish discs from the mixture we had (~2" discs), or about sixteen 1.5" discs. I went with the 16 1.5" discs, because I thought I'd need some testers, given how freakishly fragile this ended up being. And that was a really good thing, because cooking them was nigh-disastrous.

I'll digress for a second here - when we decided to throw this thing, I figured we'd end up with one or two things that turned out well, and that everything else would in some way be a minor or even major disaster. This was, to me, part of the wacky fun - to see how we'd get bamboozled by recipes that were more complicated than anything we've cooked before. To my very pleasant surprise, everything everyone brought, without exception, was extraordinary. Clearly, people had spent a lot of time and effort doing things *right*, and holy crap, am I glad in that context that in the end, I didn't fuck this up completely. And we have some incredibly awesome friends.

The first disc I tried to cook, I cooked in too much oil. I'd misjudged how deep the oil was, and instead of coming halfway up the puck, it was bascially being deep fried. The oil started to bubble, and *stay* bubbled, which I thought was odd. It bubbled enough that I could no longer see the puck in the oil. And so I reached in with a spatula, and gently pulled it out. It was about maybe .75" in diameter now, which means the bubbles must have been the protein in the egg yolk getting cooked by the hot oil as it broke apart. Hooray. Ok, so the oil was too deep, right? Shallow oil, no problem. I tried another in shallower oil, and had much the same result.

Hotter? No. Colder? No. Four down, 12 to go, and I had to have 10 that worked. I tried dumping out the oil, and just leaving enough to have a very thin coat on the pan. Put in puck number 12, and it began to cook. Bingo. Ripping hot, it browned the outside before it could fall apart, giving the panko the structure it needed to keep the puck intact. Nicely mottled on one side, flipped it over, and finished the job.

For the actual cooking of the pucks at dinner, the first six were slightly undercooked (all done in one batch), but good enough that they were served. I was worried about them breaking up if I tried to flip them again, frankly. The second batch were perfect.

Assembly was odd, because the pieces of black cod weren't uniform, or as thin as they appeared in the picture that accompanied the recipe. Supposed to be two pieces of fish, criss-crossed, but the size made it a bit difficult to get it all to stay. The parsley coulis went into the ring cutter, set in the center of the plate. The puck on top of that, two piece of fish on top of that, a few leaves of the parsley salad, and a couple garlic chips. Voila.

About four bites of food. Six hours of prep.

Good times.

Laundry

2006-07-30T00:54:00.000-07:00

So, tonight we had some friends over for a French Laundry-themed dinner party. The thing was that you had to make a recipe from the French Laundry cookbook, and bring it with you. The dinner consisted of:

"Cornets" - Salmon Tartare with Sweet Red Onion Creme Fraiche: Eric & Christy made these, one of the French Laundry's signature items. This was all about contrast. The soft, delicate tartare against the cripsy cone it's served in, or the chunky meat of the salmon contrasted with the smooth richness of the creme fraiche. Delicious little bites.
Gazpacho, served in hollowed out tomatoes: Steve made a fantastic, slightly spicy, rich gazpacho, which he served in hollowed-out tomatoes. A really nice touch, which lent a perfect fresh balance to the delicious soup. Easily the best gazpacho I've ever had.
Gruyere Cheese Gougeres: Ei-Nyung made these, which were basically a savory pat a choux, made with Gruyere. Holy smokes, these were good - fresh out of the oven, they were beautifully light, crisp on the outside, salty and nutty from the cheese, and warm, soft, airy on the inside. I probably ate eight of these over the course of the night, and would have been happy to have eaten eighty more.
Salad of Haricots Verts, Tomato Tartare, and Chive Oil: Ei-Nyung's second dish, this was a complex piece of work, with many time-consuming steps. But oh, goodness, it was worth it. The tomato tartare was the epitome of "TOMATO!" flavor, but not overbearing or overpowering in any way, when combined with the beans, frisee, or chive oil that accompanied it. The beans were coated in a flavored cream, and though this seemed odd when I first saw it, after adjusting to the idea, the flavor and texture were incredible. Delicious and beautiful, I'd eat it again and again.
"Fish and Chips" - Red Mullet with a Palette d'Ail Doux and Garlic Chips: This was my dish, and unfortunately, the Red Mullet was replaced by Black Cod. I'm sure this is a really awkward substitution, but we didn't really know what else to do. Unfortunately, the cod's skin was removed, which was another knock against the dish, which is supposed to have beautifully crisped skin. Alas! Still, this was essentially a stack of a parsley coulis, the Palette d'Ail Doux (a egg yolk & garlic paste, formed into discs, frozen, then breaded and fried - remarkably subtle and airy), two pieces of fish, a parsley salad, and some deep-fried garlic chips. More on the preparation later, but though the fish was not what was intended, the various flavors seemed to work together well, and the texture of the firm fish worked well with the light, airy garlic puck.
Whipped Brie de Meaux en Feuillete with Tellicherry Pepper and Baby Mache: Joe's contribution, a whipped brie, served with croutons, and Baby Mache, with some really beautiful old balsamic that he's kept stashed away in his little safe (at least, I imagine this is how he stores it). Instead of Tellicherry pepper, it's standard pepper, but still, the brie, balsamic, crouton, and mache combo was spectacular.
Lemon Sabayon - Pine Nut Tart with Honeyed Mascarpone Cream: Sean & Hoa brought these tarts, which were absolutely perfect. I can't really imagine any way to have made them better. The acidity of the lemon is cut by the richness of the mascarpone, and the pine nuts in the crust lend a subtle but distinct flavor that I never really would have expected. These things were worthy of being photographed for a cookbook. Stunning.
Strawberry and Champagne Terrine: Holly's terrine had an incredible strawberry punch, apparently from drying the strawberries overnight. The bold stawberry flavor was balanced by some mint, and the delicate flavor of the champagne jelly. Delicious, light, and a perfect way to end a meal.

More to come, including pictures, and some discussion of our part of the preparation process. Appoximately six hours of cooking for three dishes.

French Laundry Party I

2006-07-26T14:31:00.000-07:00

Seppo & are hosting a French Laundry party this weekend. There are a total of 9 participants. We'll be reporting back with the menu, pictures, and reviews. :)

We'll be having another soon to include people who can't make it this time around.

Shrimp & Orzo

2006-07-06T19:14:00.000-07:00

T minus 15 minutes: Put water on to boil in medium pot over the "power boil" burner.

T minus 14 minutes: Put frozen uncooked shrimp under a small trickle of cold water to thaw, per directions on bag.

T minus 13 minutes: Peel some garlic.

T minus 12 minutes: Put sautee pan on medium heat, add about a tablespoon and a half of olive oil. Note: extra virgin olive oil is sort of wasted at this step because of the breakdown it experiences during cooking. Best to add the good stuff later, after it comes off the heat.

T minus 11 minutes: Add orzo and big pinch of salt into boiling water and lower to normal high setting. Love the power boil. Stir every so often.

T minus 10 minute: Peel shrimp.

T minus 7 minutes: Press garlic through garlic press (er, redundant) into warming oil. Add a sprinkle of red pepper. Pop open some anchovies and plop some in.

T minus 6 minutes: Add shrimp and big pinch salt.

T minus 5 minutes: Chop some parsley and basil, while keeping the shrimp moving in the pan.

T minus 4 minutes: Add a little white wine into the shrimp if you want.

T minus 3 minutes: Take orzo off heat and drain. Dump into shrimp.

T minus 2 minute: Add julienned sundried tomatoes (preserved in olive oil) into shrimp & orzo mixture. Also plop in some frozen sweet peas and a spoonful of capers. I put in some of the caper juice too to add a little brightness. I like capers so I add a lot. Toss around over heat.

Remove from heat when peas seem warmed up and serve with chopped basil, parsley, and some cheese grated directly onto bowl/plate over shrimp & orzo. I also added a glug of some super awesome extra virgin olive oil. Between the last step and eating, I had time to wash my orzo pot and the strainer, so after dinner, all I had to clean up was the sautee pan.

The best part of the meal is that I was just using leftover ingredients that we had lying around in our pantry and in the fridge.

Manresa: Seppo

2006-07-03T22:23:00.000-07:00

Took Ei-Nyung to dinner at Manresa, in Los Gatos. She's been eyeing it for the better part of the year, and the tasting menu sounded really interesting. So, since the tasting menu is the sort of thing that everyone at the table should order, to have the whole experience, that's what we did.

And good lord, what a variety of stuff (apologies for the poor focus in many of the shots):

Olive Madelines and Red Pepper Jellies: When you look at the plate, it looks rather straightforward. You get a madeline, and a little sugar-covered jelly. Everything in your brain says, "Sweets!" and when you take the first bite, that thought is justified. My first bite was of the madeline, a slightly crusty, soft, sweet, typical madeline in every way - an extremely good, velvety sort of texture. And then it creeps up on you slowly, this sense of, "Huh. This is like the Transformers," as the subtle olive taste becomes the dominant note. It never feels overpowering, and the sweetness and savoriness really sets the stage for the major flavor contrasts for the rest of the night.

The red pepper jelly is similar - it takes a moment as your brain processes the little bursts of sweetness that come from the sugar that coats the jelly, and then tries to re-sort the flavors you're experiencing, because at first, it just doesn't make any sense. It's like eating a red pepper, in jelly format, and it's really clear that the pepper's been roasted, with a sweet, smokey, charred flavor. In the future, when all nutrition comes in condensed, abstract form, I hope the chefs at Manresa are around.

Sweet French Breakfast Radishes and Creme Fraiche w/ Tarragon & Chervil: This dish establishes the other major melody of the night's eating - really, really fresh ingredients whose flavors are allowed to shine. The radishes were bright, crisp, and slightly sweet - perfectly delightful to eat raw. But the creme fraiche complemented the vegetable's brightness perfectly - the tang of the creme fraiche highlighted the sharp "fresh" flavor of the radish, while adding a nice herby harmony to the whole thing.

Citrus Salad w/ Rhubarb Gelee and Horchata Foam: Tasted like orange, grapefruit, and possibly some lemon & lime in small pieces under chunks of a sweet rhubarb gelee, as the title would imply. We didn't make out what our waitress said the foam was at the start, so it was really confusing, as the horchata provided a really familiar, but not-instantly-recognizable flavor. This was odd, in that it was purely sweet - sweet and tangy citrus + sweet rhubarb + sweet and creamy horchata foam. Still, it wasn't overbearing, and didn't feel out of place at all.

Sweet Pea and Spring Lettuce Croquette: I'm not sure Ei-Nyung's recollection that this was a Pea & Spring Lettuce croquette is accurate - the pea part, definitely, but I didn't clearly hear the waitress, and I don't think Ei-Nyung did, either. This was a small cube that we were advised to eat in a single bite. So, I popped it in my mouth, and the outside was crisp and crunchy. As I bit through it, I can't even recall a specific flavor, other than the sensation that the interior of my mouth had been coated in "deliciousness." It had the sweetness of the peas, but was otherwise just a slightly sweet, earthy, velvety kaboom of flavor. And then it was gone. I wouldn't mind having had two of these, one of which to experience in exactly this way, and one to pick apart, and figure out what, exactly, I was tasting.

The Egg: This came in an eggshell. We were told it was a layered dish, and the recommendation was to dip the spoon in to the bottom, and scoop out that way. It was basically a whipped egg white mixed with sherry vinegar, a couple layers of some sort of other creamy stuff, chives, and the yolk at the bottom, gently cooked. Then, a small touch of maple syrup was added. This actually really stymied me, because when I dipped my spoon in, I hit the solid edge of the cooked yolk (just barely solid, but still solid), and what happened was that the yolk pushed to the side, "turning" the entire interior of the dish. So, I ended up with a spoonful of the white, which was really vinegar-y, and since I didn't have any of the other cream, and the maple, this one spoonful totally blew out my palate for the rest of the dish. It's really unfortunate, because as I scooped around, trying to reconstruct what it *should* have tasted like, I got a sense that the sweetness of the syrup, the tang of the vinegar, and the creaminess of the other layers, whatever they were, would have been quite pleasant, indeed. But, unfortunately, my experience was a bit less than ideal.

Twice Cooked and Mesquite Grilled Foie Gras With Balsamic Strawberries a la Plancha: This was a quarter-inch thick slice of foie gras, sitting over a grilled, balsamic marinated strawberry. The smokiness and buttery-ness of the foie gras, mixed with the slightly firm, juicy, tart, sweet strawberries was a very interesting combination. There was a very fine dice of some other vegetables as well, but I couldn't make out distinctly what they were. As tasty as this was, it actually brought up an issue I wish I'd raised earlier, when the waitress asked if we had any dietary restrictions. I don't have anything I *can't* eat, I just have things I'd prefer not to eat. Not because of taste - I'd eat pretty much anything at a place like this - but rather, I'd simply rather not have foie gras and veal, and I'd hope that if I requested not to have them at a place like this, that's pretty well the only way I can really "vote with my pocketbook," in the dim hopes that veal & foie gras stop being "made."

Sashimi of Summer Sea Bass: This was, I believe, marinated in a white Dashi, and was accompanied with some julienned radish, nori, and white sesame seeds. The bass was cut thick enough that you got a good sense of its texture and flavor. THe first few bites were excellent, but by the end of the dish, I'd realized my only noticable complaint of the night, which is that a couple of the dishes (noted later) were a touch overseasoned. Still, we've had similar dishes at Morimoto, and Chez Panisse. Though the seasoning was better at the other two, I'd put this in the middle, for the actual components of flavor, with Morimoto's version head and shoulders above the rest.

Cool Persian Melon Soup w/ Almond Tofu: This, to me, was the most bizarre and confusing dish of the night. It was basically a yellow soup, with a dab of a beige-ish blob in the middle, and a couple very, very small balls of the melon that made up the soup. Don't get me wrong - this was *delicious*, but it was really weird, to me, because the three dominant flavors were the sweetness of the melon, the earthiness of the almond tofu (which was basically almost liquid), and butter. The particular interplay of butter flavor (which was probably, in fact, butter) and the almond flavor was really weird, and the weirdness was heightened by the sweetness of the melon. It felt like an awkward date, where the best friend of one of the people keeps telling weird and slightly inappropriate jokes.

It took a good portion of the dish to get my brain to understand what the heck it was eating, and once that happened, it was remarkably good. Deep, interesting flavor, unusual contrasts, and again, a delicately balanced contrast of savory and sweet. Good stuff.

Dover Sole Roasted on the Bone With a Vegetable Gazpacho with Cardune and Chantrelle Mushrooms: I've never had Cardune before. It had the texture of bok choy, and the flavor of something like artichoke. It was so completely unexpected and delicious that short of the first bite of the olive madeline, this was my favorite bite of the entire night. I'd love to find more of this stuff, just to spring it on friends in some random dish. The sole was very well cooked, and the whole dish excellent - a couple of perfectly cooked vegetables, and a very smokey, crisp-on-the-outside-delicate-on-the-inside piece of fish. One of my favorites. (very slightly overseasoned)

Braised Sweetbreads w/ Chantrelle Mushroom With Charred Lettuce of some sort and corn and something pudding: The description was too long, and so neither of us could remember the specifics. The sweetbreads were surprisingly good, and the grilled lettuce (?!?!) complemented it well. But the notion of eating veal really put a damper on the dish for me, so that was that.

Roasted Rabbit w/ Rabbit Consomme: Man, this is getting long. This was a small cut of a roasted piece of rabbit, with some sort of stuffing, fingerling potatoes, and a small quarter of a carrot, which I thought was a very odd touch. This was really good, but honestly, if they had said it was chicken, and not rabbit, I'm not sure I'd have been able to tell the difference. (slightly overseasoned)

Curried Kid Goat w/ Sweet Peas: When the waitress put this on our table, the first thing we noticed was just a punch in the face of curry aroma. Tasty, sure, but *POW*. So, it was really weird when we ate the dish, and found the curry flavor to actually be mild enough to clearly make out the flavor of the meat, and be complemented by, instead of overpowering the peas.

Hibiscus Jelly with Watermelon Sorbet and Strawberry: The strawberry was good - not extraordinary, but definitely good. THe hibiscus jelly was incredibly floral, and pungent (in a good way). Very clean-tasting, and sweetened just right. The watermelon sorbet was *awesome*. I could have eaten a huge scoop of it, but alas, the scoop we got was tiny - maybe a #20 melonballer. Great stuff.

Cherry Souffle with Basil Ice Cream: The cherry souffle appear to have been made in an egg holder. It was this little tiny souffle, with a small scoop of light green basil ice cream. Both were creamy, and beautiful. The souffle was hot as all hell, and it was hard to eat at first because to get a good scoop out, you had to steady the egg holder it came in, but you couldn't, because it was ripping hot. Still, once it had cooled a touch, it was just a great, fluffy consistency, with a subtle cherry flavor that went well with the also subtle, but distinctly basil ice cream.

Churro with Hot(?) Chocolate: The small churro was dusted with sugar and tonka bean, which is a bean that's sometimes used instead of pure vanilla when making vanilla extract. The chocolate came in an espresso cup, and was surprisingly not at all hot. Cold, in fact. Intentional, I believe, but weird. I've never had chocolate that was liquid at that temperature, and still as thick as that, and as chocolate-y. The churro was like eating air - incredibly delicate, yet still crispy and flavorful.

Strawberry Gelee with Chocolate Madelines: The strawberry gelee was incredibly flavorful, and the chocolate madeline was also excellent, but to be perfectly honest, after the other dishes, which were almost all challenging, unexpected, or surprising in some way, this, which was exactly what it looked like, was a bit of a letdown. Which may have been the surprise, in and of itself.

All in all, an excellent meal. Not cheap, by any stretch, but an experience I'd heartily recommend.

Gnu Bars

2006-06-16T12:35:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I've groused about how I'm an old lady and thinking about such old lady things like fiber, but the other day, I was on LifeHacker and saw a link to a discussion on Ask MetaFilter for recommendations on a good Power Bar-like bar that you can have as a mid-day snack that wasn't so gross. Various people recommended the Gnu Bars by Gnu Foods.

Check out the ingredients for the Orange Cranberry bar:

Gnu High Fiber Blend ™ (Organic whole wheat flour, oats, wheat bran, psyllium, flax, millet, soy flour), fruit juice, natural grain dextrins (a natural and unmodified starch), canola oil, raisins, apples, plums, cranberries, rice, natural flavors, aluminum-free baking powder.

Here is the nutritional info:

Sounds great! The only real worry was what it would taste like. I ordered a month pack (best deal), which arrived yesterday. So far, I've had an Orange Cranberry one and a Banana Walnut one. Both of them are delicious and taste like actual food, and have a good chewy bite to them. Feels like a granola bar, except not glued together with honey and sugar. I haven't tried the Cinnamon Raisin one yet, but I have high hopes.

Food for thought.

2006-06-04T22:29:00.000-07:00

Two items:

Ei-Nyung suggested a new franchise for Mexican food made from octopus:

* Tako Taco

I had an idea for a korean-fusion burrito:

* Bi Bim Burrito

Tell me those aren't awesome.

Dinner

2006-06-01T23:12:00.000-07:00

Joe made us some excellent chicken fajitas. Man, the thighs are the way to go. Breasts never, ever turn out as well, IMO. Sure, they're less fatty, but so much less satisfying. Anyway, excellent fajitas.

After dinner, Christy and Eric had brought over some strawberries & chocolate. So, itching to try out our new food slicer/shredder attachment for the KitchenAid (it's not a unitasker! It slices AND shreds), we ran the chocolate through the fine shredder. Awesome. The end result was about double or triple the volume of the original bar, in little tiny pieces.

A couple weeks ago, Alan & I had gone on some lazy weekday afternoon, to a cafe on College called Bittersweet. We had a pair of drinks there - I had a white chocolate & cardamom thing, and Alan had a hot chocolate spiked with some cayenne.

Tonight, with the shredded chocolate, some milk, and the milk steamer on the espresso machine, we duplicated both those drinks, and they were delicious. The cayenne gives the chocolate some punch - it's like the fat from the chocolate coats the front of your mouth, while the cayenne kicks a hole in the back of your head. Tasty!

The white chocolate & cardamom drink is weirder, because frankly, I'm not used to the flavor of cardamom in anything but Indian curries. So, that flavor in a sweet, creamy white chocolate drink is very odd at first, but quite compelling. It's nice to know we can do this sort of thing with the equipment we have. Obviously not the intended use, but a great result nonetheless.

Blackberry Jam

2006-05-23T15:48:00.000-07:00

About a month ago (I am not sure of the exact date), Seppo and I received a package in the mail. It was no ordinary package. It wasn't something we had ordered, and it wasn't something we were expecting.

It was a gift basket from Michigan.

But wait, you say. You don't know anyone in Michigan! You've never even set foot in Michigan. Ah, young foolish... uh.. fool. Have you never heard of the Internets? Through the magic of The Gamers' Forum, we had developed several meaningful friendships. We conversed with many of them several times a day through TGF & chat (and for Seppo, via XBox Live), saw pictures of their lives & loves via Flickr, and kept up with their angry thoughts or otherwise non-angry lives through their blogs.

Two of them, Chad & Stephanie, sent us a gift basket! And this was no ordinary gift basket, ordered from a cold, impersonal distributor meant for the Average Joe. No, this was a gift basket that had ALL SORTS OF AWESOME SHIZNIT! Oh yes. Packed to the gills of awesome shiznit, personally assembled by these cool-assed people. Some of the items were homemade, and one of those things is what I am reviewing here today.

So Chad had "warned" me via chat that the blackberry jam (from his mom's backyard, no less!) was the best thing in there, and I had no reason to doubt him. But man! Was it good!

I will have to post pictures to do it justice, but from the moment I first opened it up, there was definitely a noticeable difference. I would classify it more of a preserve rather than a jam, but I think the distinction is a regional thing and is debateable. But that's just how I think of it. :D

It was extremely dark and opaque. I could see the texture of the blackberry very clearly as I scooped the first spoonful. That was the first difference. It didn't cleave into a blob or give off a goopy appearance like many jams. It looked more like a scoop of macerated blackberries than any other jam I had had.

Now, I was a little worried before tasting it because I find that most jams & jellies are just way too sweet for me, and I was really cognizant of this being a present that I felt a lot of pressure to like it. I didn't break out in sweat, but I was worried. However, having that first taste, I knew I didn't have to worry about reporting back on the flavor of it. It was great!!!

It was everything I want from a jam, in that it tasted almost exactly like the fresh fruit, except in a more convenient-to-store form. It had a touch of sweetness that tasted really natural, and the very slight tartness of the berries was just enough to make it taste really fresh. It held together better than mashed fresh fruit would, but didn't feel rubbery or gelatine-y at all. I hate the gelatine-y stuff, where you have to crush the jam to get a semi-uniform spread. The fact that it held together just enough meant that you could really slather it on bread without worrying it would be "weepy".

Oh yeah, that was the other component that really made it great: it wasn't weepy at all. I have never made my own jam or preserve, so I don't know what makes things weepy or not, but this was clearly made perfectly in that it felt moist -- no, maybe plump with fruit? -- without feeling wet in any way.

In a word: fantastic.

So far, I've had it with pieces of baguette, on top of a little vanilla ice cream, on toast (with a little butter -- hee hee), on plain oatmeal, and once with cream cheese on crackers. Uh, don't ask me why about the last one. But it held up great in each instance, even w/ the cream cheese, although I have to admit it was a bit odd. :D It was perfect. I also have eaten little tiny teaspoonfuls alone, which I was warned about, but at least I haven't yet found myself with a spoonful in my mouth in front of the refrigerator in the middle of the night, having no idea how I got there. Heh. I haven't made a PB&J sandwich with it yet, mostly because I don't really like to mix the two, as the J component is generally to sweet, but my suspicion is that it'll go great together with PB.

I told Chad that our household gets a lot of fancy schmancy jam as a result of the fancy schmancy grocery connection via Joe, but honestly, this is the best I've had.

Cheers to Chad & Stephanie! And a "w00t!" to his mom!

Thanks guys!

Thai Steak Salad

2006-05-15T20:56:00.000-07:00

No picture, alas.

* Two ribeye steaks (which I'd bought last week and frozen)
* Two limes
* A fistful of mint
* A head of Romaine
* A carrot
* 1 tbsp. Sugar
* 1 tbsp. Soy Sauce
* Hot chili oil
* 3 tbsp. vegetable oil
* A couple chopped salted peanuts

Squeeze out the limes into a glass. Add soy sauce, sugar, chili oil, vegetable oil. Mix vigorously until suspended. Marinate steaks in this for 30 minutes. After marinade is done, grill or fry steaks over high heat until done medium rare. Rest steaks on a covered plate. Chop romaine into 1 inch thick "rounds", toss into salad bowl with mint leaves. Use peeler to peel long strips off of carrot. Realize at this point that I used all the marinade to marinate the meat, which is also nominally the "dressing." Realize also I have no more limes.

Jog out to back yard, grab some lemons. Close enough, I suppose. Remake marinade for use as dressing. Slice steak across the grain into thin strips. Plate the salad, lay the strips of meat on top, dress with marinade, add some chopped peanuts (or, if you're out of peanuts like we were, I suppose cashews were ok, too.)

Turned out ok - the weird mistakes led to the flavor not quite being right, but since the marinade was proper for the meat, you could still taste the lime-y punch. All in all, pretty tasty.

Salmon

2006-05-14T20:53:00.000-07:00

Dinner tonight was:

Salmon with a lemon zest, toasted pine nut, parsley and cranberry relish on baby spinach. Simple enough to do, and remarkably tasty. The original recipe had called for raisins in place of the cranberries, but I'm not much of a raisin fan. The cranberries and the salmon were remarkably good together, and the olive oil that the relish steeped in was delicious with the spinach. All in all about 30 minutes to do, tasty, and even relatively healthy.

Coke Ribs & Potato Puffs

2006-05-13T21:08:00.000-07:00

So, made two things tonight, sort of from a mix of a bunch of recipes:

Coke-braised Ribs:

* 1 slab baby back ribs
* 2 cups of Coca-Cola
* 1 tablespoon soy sauce
* 1/4 cup brown sugar (light, in this particular instance)
* garlic powder (to taste)

Mix up all the ingredients save the slab o' ribs. Lay out a strip of aluminum foil twice as long as the rib slab. Place the ribs on 1/2 of the foil, rub some salt on the slab, fold the other half of the foil over, and crimp to form a pouch. Leave one end open. Pour in the coke mixture, and loosely close the open end.

Toss in a 250 degree oven for 2.5 hours.

After 2.5 hours, take the ribs out of the oven, then uncrimp the loosely closed end. Pour out the liquid inside into a saucier, and reduce by half or more, until it's a syrupy consistency. Place the ribs on a grill pan (I would have done this on the BBQ, over some hickory chips, if I'd had the time), and grill until brown, basting with the sauce as you go. Once the ribs are nicely browned, slice 'em up, and serve with the reduction as a dipping sauce.

This was sort of based on a desire to replicate a recipe we had at Andalu, in the city. In terms of mimickry, they were less sweet, and syrupy, which maybe worked better for me. I wouldn't mind actually cooking the ribs with a spice rub first, to give 'em some heat - I'll probably try that next time. It's definitely worth making again, even it if takes say, 3 hours to do.

As for the potato puffs:

* 3 russet potatoes, washed and peeled.
* 1/2 cup whole milk
* 1/2 stick butter
* flour, as needed
* 1 egg
* vegetable oil, for frying

Boil the potatoes in salted water until just squishable with a pair of tongs. Dump the water, then add the butter, chopped into relatively smallish pieces. Mash for a bit. Add the whole milk, once the potatoes have cooled somewhat, and mash until mostly smooth. Beat the egg, and add that. The mixture is pretty light, fluffy, and loose. Add flour, bit by bit, until the mixture feels like a loose gnocchi dough. It should hold together pretty sturdily if you ball it in your hand. Heat up some vegetable oil, to ~325F. Using two spoons form balls of the potato, and drop them into the oil. Remove when they're golden brown & delicious. Salt while still hot, and serve while still lightly crispy on the outside.

So, that was tonight's dinner. Both dishes turned out pretty well, IMO - I'd certainly make them again. The potato puffs were also an attempt to replicate an existing recipe, one from Gregoire - a take out French restaurant on Piedmont Ave. They didn't have the hard shell that Gregoire's puffs have, but they were actually sort of airier, which was pleasant. Strangely good with the Coke reduction. If I had to do this again, I'd actually flavor the potato mixture to complement whatever else it was I was making. With the ribs, I could see trying to do something similar with sweet potatoes, or in a different situation, with some curry powder, or chili powder or something similar.

Great stuff. Fed four people for ~$13.

More backlog

2006-05-02T11:56:00.000-07:00

Must review:

Delicious, delicious home-made jam from a friend in Michigan. Oh man oh man.
Ethiopian restaurant in Oakland that we went to with friends on Friday
Falafel place in Paris
Georges in Paris
Boxwood Cafe in London
Afternoon tea in the Rose Salon (? Room?) of the Sofitel Hotel in London
Marcus Wareing at the Savoy Grill in London

In a word:

Jam. Yes.
Ethiopian restaurant. Yes.
Falafel place. Yes.
Georges. No.
Boxwood. Yes.
Afternoon Tea. No.
Marcus Wareing. Yes.

Hopefully, I'll be able to post some blurbs along with some pics we managed to take.

need to review

2006-04-04T12:23:00.000-07:00

I need to review these places. The short of it is that they were both f'ing awesome. The long of it is that I need more time to put together the reviews.

Car? Neat. As...? (Under Pressure 2)

2006-03-26T21:54:00.000-08:00

Tried making Carnitas tonight. Couldn't find a recipe that "felt" legitimate to me, except a few on Food Network, which required slow-frying the pork in two pounds of lard. Given that I didn't have two pounds of lard, or the desire to fry pork in lard, I searched around for a "less traditional" recipe, since I'd made something similar in the past in the slow cooker.

Ended up going with this, which is a mix of a couple recipes:

2 oranges, sliced
2 lemons, sliced
5 lbs. of pork shoulder (butt - don't ask me why the shoulder's called the butt. I don't get it.)
ground cumin
coriander seeds
a fistful of cilantro
salt & pepper
2 cups chicken broth

Rubbed the meat with the cumin & coriander, salt & pepper, and browned on all sides. Put the fruit in the bottom of the cooker, and plopped the meat on top. Poured in the chicken broth, closed the cooker, and cooked for 18 minutes. After 18 minutes, removed the meat to find it nearly uncooked on the inside. Realized that I needed to cut the meat into chunks. Cut the meat into chunks, cooked for another 10 minutes, then shredded the meat with forks, and fried the shreds in a cast iron pan (enough fat still in the meat that additional fat was not required).

Ate with black beans, tortillas, cheese, salsa, and guacamole (all but the cheese bought from Trader Joe's).

The mistake in the recipe was that instead of the oranges, I should have used limes. The orange-yness of it is too strong, and not as acidic as limes would have been. In retrospect, the first time I ever made carnitas, it was with lime rind. So, I should have known better. Alas! It's still pretty tasty, it's just a little bit odd. Good texture, and good pork flavor. What's weird is that even the first burst of flavor is good, and the aftertaste is good - it's just a weird note in the middle that tastes distinctly orangey.

Pan? Nice.

2006-03-24T15:20:00.000-08:00

For my thirtieth birthday, Ei-Nyung took my mom and me to Chez Panisse. I'd heard about it for a long time, and even being someone who really enjoys good food, I'd never been. The dinner was excellent. Not the life-changing experience that was our dinner at Morimoto, but a spectacular meal overall.

1.) Halibut - this was a raw cut of halibut pounded flat. On top of the halibut was a mix of herbs, and the whole thing had some sort of lemony butter or oil drizzled on top. The lemon was really punchy, and really nicely complemented the delicate flavor of the halibut. Hands down the favorite course of the night, it was light, bright, delicate, and perfectly balanced. I could have eaten this one dish, and paid the full price of the meal, and been satisfied to some degree. It'd have been expensive, but still worth it on some level. That it was just the first course... well, that's quite a treat.

2.) Ravioli - this was some sort of game hen ravioli in a consomme of some sort. Oh yeah! There's some accurate describin'. Three ravioli, basically stuffed with a smoky, slightly herby mix of dark meat, in a thin, very delicate consomme. Again, the thing that I find most appealing about really "good" food is the balance of flavors - this is what sets Angelfish apart from other Sushi restaurants, or the quality that made the dishes at Morimoto extraordinary. The ravioli & the consomme worked beautifully together - the texture of the ravioli was meaty - the filling was still chunky, not smoothly pureed. Each bite had a slightly different consistency and flavor, depending on how much of the consomme, or the pasta you'd managed to get with the filling.

3.) The main cours - honestly, this is the only part of the meal that was even a marginal disappointment. It was a fire-roasted quail, with a salad, artichokes, and some potatoes. The basic issue I had with the dish wasn't really the flavor, just that everything felt greasy - the quail, the dressing on the salad, the potatoes - it all had a bit of a sheen to it. It tasted great, but some contrast would have been good - if the salad had a bit of the punchiness of the starter, in addition to the smooth, smoky flavor of the quail, I think I would have been a bit more able to appreciate it. As it was, it was like hitting a note, and just hollding it for a while. Not bad, but not my favorite dish of the night.

4.) Dessert - maple profiteroles, with a chocolate sauce. The chocolate sauce was like getting hit in the face with a chocolate bar. Really dark and rich. The ice cream and the pastry were very delicate - the pastry remained crispy, and the ice cream had a mild, subtle flavor that let each part of the dessert bring its own flavor to the party. The caramel-like drizzle over the top was crunchy and sweet, the chocolate brought a slight bitterness, the pastry had an almost wheaty earthiness, and the ice cream was ... er... creamy, and again, sort of earthy in its maple flavor. There were some glazed nuts that added to the variety of textures and flavors. Everything worked like a charm. Ei-Nyung had mentioned it was my birthday, so mine had a small candle, and a paper cutout of a banner that said, "Happy Birthday".

All in all, an excellent meal, and for what it was, even reasonably priced. I'd definitely go back for a special occasion.

Under Pressure

2006-03-19T20:53:00.000-08:00

Last year, I discovered that I could replicate my mom's braised short ribs almost perfectly. Each time I've cooked this dish since, it's taken me 2-3 hours of actual cooking time, not even including the prep time.

Enter the miracle of pressure cooking. My mom always makes that dish (among others) in the pressure cooker, but I never knew exactly how much time she was saving. I called my mom last week and spoke to both my mom and my sister, who have different pressure cookers, to get their opinions on how long I should cook the ribs for. My sister said 8 minutes once pressurized to the right psi; my mom said 18.

Whoa. Really? Because they weren't sure if my pressure cooker would be more like my sister's or my mom's, they advised me to cook the dish the first time for about 10 minutes.

I cooked this dish last night, and after 10 minutes, the dish was like it was after an hour in the oven. I wanted the meat to be more tender, even though the potatoes were perfect, so I locked the lid back on and gave it 7 more minutes. The dish came out like it does after 2.5 hours in the oven. Whoa.

Whoa!

Awesome. I love the pressure cooker. Even if I only use it for this one dish (which I won't), just that makes it all worth it. Woo hoo!

Next time, I am totally going to cook the meat & turnips w/ sauce for about 8 minutes then, after depressurizing, add the potatoes & carrots for the last 9 minutes under pressure again. Oh man, I can't wait.

Ohgane

2006-02-26T15:49:00.000-08:00

Seppo and I went to a new-to-us Korean Restaurant on Wednesday night. It's called Ohgane and it's located at 3915 Broadway in Oakland, near 40th Street.

Suffice it to say that this is probably my new favorite Korean restaurant. Seppo and I both feel strangely guilty about pulling Sahn Maru from its current first place ranking, but this is a great all around restaurant. Sahn Maru is definitely more homey and cozy, and has a strong "family-run" vibe and friendliness. This restaurant is clearly less homey, but the decor is pretty nice (the murals are fairly impressive) and everything looks squeaky clean. They served us 12 banchan dishes in addition to our entrees and appetizer. The banchan had a nice variety of textures, colors, and spici-/nonspiciness, and included some dishes which I never see in other Korean restaurants.

The galbi we tried was much more tender than anywhere else in the Bay Area (at least that I can recall). There was some miscommunication such that they brought us the meat cooked in the kitchen instead of having us cook it at the table, but it was no big deal. The bindaeduk (Seppo's favorite appetizer, which is a fried mung bean paste-based pancake with vegetable bits and/or a little meat) was cooked as well as the ones as Sahn Maru, which to date had been the best ones we had had. The dumpling rice cake soup was also really good, with a rich broth and lightly cooked rice cakes with good bite. They served not only lettuce but seasoned perilla leaves (I LOVE these!!!!) and wasabi-infused turnip slices to use to wrap up the meat & rice.

I could find nothing to criticize, except that it took them a while to give us the check. However, there are little buzzers at each table which indicate to the waitstaff you want service (sort of like the flight attendant call button) if you really feel neglected and need them to come by.

All in all, I give it a thumbs up and would definitely return again. If it weren't for the fact that I feel a weird personal attachment to Sahn Maru, I'd declare this once and for all my favorite and never go anywhere else again for bbq + soups. (There are some specialty places, like for fried chicken, tofu stew, oxtail soup, jjajjangmyun, and grilled pork, that I would still go to.) This place is especially great for large groups as it is frickin' huge. But it was great for just the two of us too.

Essential Flax Seed Bread

2006-02-15T12:51:00.000-08:00

This is the bread I have stocked up at work to make my turkey sandwiches with. Check out the crazy ingredient list:

Ingredients:
Sprouted Organic Whole Wheat Berries, Filtered Water, Wheat Gluten, Sprouted Organic Whole Flax Seeds, Soy Fiber, Organic Dates, Fresh Yeast, Organic Raisins, Soy Based Lecithin, Sea Salt, Cultured Wheat.

The nutritional info is pretty insane too. Note that the info is for 2 slices of bread per serving.

Athena Grill

2006-02-09T21:56:00.000-08:00

I went to Athena Grill today with Alan L. It's a surprisingly high quality, casual Greek restaurant in the midst of a seemingly unending (but clearly, this is an incorrect observation) strip of business park after business park.

I had the lamb souvlaki sandwich with Greek style fries (turns out these are just thinner cut in one direction tossed in some parsley), with a little eggplant-y dip for the fries. It was delicious. Today, we were blessed with a particularly beautiful day, so we sat outside and got caught up while munching on the tasty food. Well, when we weren't interrupted with a constant flow of emergency SMSs which led to a lot of laptop & phone time for Alan, which led to a lot of chatting with some random old dude who went to CalTech once upon a time and recognized my MIT ring. Heh.

The prices were reasonable, and I appreciated the touches like the eggplant dip rather than something like ketchup for the fries (apparently, the proprietor specifically formulated the dip to replace ketchup because she thought it would be healthier and less tacky, as well as more Greek) and the complimentary bread & pita served with hummus for each table. The owner was very pleasant and clearly had a lot of pride in her restaurant. Her baklava was delicious as well, with plenty of honey, nuts, and layer after layer of crispy phyllo. Yum.

Barbeque!

2006-02-05T00:40:00.000-08:00

Our neighbors across the street run a BBQ stand at the local farmer's market. Today, we got the ribs, but in the past, we've gotten the tri-tip, as well. Pork ribs, not beef ribs, to be sure.

They've got a trailer that attaches to a little van, that's basically a BBQ/smoker combo. It's huge, and that's good, because their business has been steadily growing.

Their meats are well smoked - no doubt about that. When meat's smoked, the smoke reacts with the meat to turn it a bright pink - not an "underdone" pink, but rather, a distinctively bright pink on the outside, that indicates how far the smoke has penetrated the meat. Their pink layer, whatever the official name of the thing is, is quite deep, and their meat definitely has a strong, smokey flavor.

Their sauce is distinctly tomato-y, but today, had a slight kick, which was pleasant. No flavor was particularly overwhelming, but today's sample was a bit saltier than it's been previously.

The tri-tip was good - not blow-your-socks-off good, but definitely tasty. My recollection was that the meat was a little on the dry side, maybe from having been cooked a touch too hot.

It's a little hit-and-miss - sometimes, like today, the seasoning's a touch off - too salty today, for sure. But other times, the meat is really, really good - on par with way more established places like Everett & Jones, or Doug's.

I'm really glad to see they're getting more business. They're friendly people, working hard, and it's clear that on top of being busy, this is fun, for them.

I'd say go to E&J for the spectacular sweet potatoes, go to Doug's for the best balanced and most consistent meat, but that Your Friendly Backyard Barbeque is a worthy contender. Give 'em another season to iron out some inconsistencies, and they may be the only BBQ place I need to go.

Bucci's

2006-02-03T11:52:00.000-08:00

Last night, Seppo and I met one of his coworkers for dinner in Emeryville at Bucci's.

I think they bill themselves as modern Italian cuisine. I think that fits pretty well. They did a lot of little details very well, very cleanly. The olives, bread, and olive oil that came before dinner were all quite excellent. The olive oil in particular was so fragrant and fruity, quite remarkable.

I don't feel up to an extensive review, but suffice it to say that I had a grilled rib eye steak that I think was in every way the best rib eye steak I've ever had. It wasn't something that made me want to fall to my knees and weep or anything, but it certainly hit all the right notes for what I want in a steak. It was perfectly done, halfway between a warm and cool pink almost all the way through, quite tender, while maintaining a bit of a satisfying meaty chew, the grill marks lending a nice robust [read: carcinogenic] flavor, and the accompanying sauce adding a really welcome and complementary touch of brightness and tinge of sweetness. The mushroom and arugula salad that came with it was, in a word, fantastic.

I ordered the steak because I didn't feel like having pasta last night, and just sort of expected to have "steak" which is almost always pretty good, but sometimes fairly average, and also sort of unsurprising in most ways. This steak quite surpassed that.

I'd go back for the steak alone. The ambience was quite nice as well. The service staff was quite nice and efficient and dignified, without being either too friendly or too offputting. Just a great balance.

They really do get the small details quite right. Still, something about the restaurant or menu keeps me from making any definitive recommendation to someone else one way or the other, but I did enjoy this one visit quite a bit.

Crossroads Café

2006-02-03T11:37:00.000-08:00

Klay, Seppo, and I met for dinner in San Francisco at Crossroads Café which is tucked away on Delancey, off Brannan. It's a quiet little cul-de-sac that you'd never suspect was there, especially so close to the bay and to Pacbell Park.

There are books, magazines, and newspapers aplenty to browse while eating. The seats vary from comfy leather couches and coffee tables to standard chairs and tables. I've been there twice now and I never feel rushed. The food is good, the coffee is good, the tea is good, and they offer the craziest deal on a high tea that I've ever seen. :D

In addition, it is run by the Delancy Street Foundation.

What Does the Delancey Street Foundation Do?

The Delancey Street Foundation is a residential education center where drug addicts, criminals and the homeless learn to lead productive, crime-free lives. It has been called the most successful rehabilitation project in the United States.

The foundation runs at no cost to the taxpayer or client. They earn revenue by operating more than 20 businesses, including the Delancey Street Restaurant and Café and the Delancey Street Moving Company. These "training schools" not only generate income, they teach residents marketable skills and inculcate in them habits of self-control and self-discipline.

Each resident spends up to four years at the facility and must pass equivalency exams to obtain a high school diploma in order to graduate. They also need to line up a job and a place to live. Silbert likes to see each of her students graduate with three marketable skills to ensure their job success.

Silbert reports that 65 percent of the organization's operating costs are paid for by revenue from its businesses. She originally rejected foundation money, fearing it would deter from the participants' feeling that their survival depended on the success of the businesses. Today, the organization receives more than ten million dollars from private donations every year.

Silbert and Delancey Street are always facing new challenges. Today, offenders are often third-generation criminals. Silbert used to tell clients that their parents wanted a better life for them. Since participants' parents are often criminals as well, the draw to go back to the streets can be strong. Fortunately, after more than 30 years, Mimi Silbert isn't about to give up.

from PBS's The New Heroes.

I think this is gonna become the regular hangout that we are looking for.

ETA: It looks like the Delancey Street Restaurant, which is located very close to the cafe and just across the street from the unfortunate La Suite on Embarcadero, is also run by the same Delancey Street Foundation. And as can be seen in the review, people seem to love it. AND it's cheap, even with the exact same bay/bridge view. Yay! I am so going there.

Eating on the job

2006-01-27T14:09:00.000-08:00

I feel like there is a big gap for easy, packed lunches for adults to eat at work that still needs to be filled by the grocery market. They have crappy lunch things for kids, but they are pretty gross.

Yesterday for lunch, I had this:

I have to say, it was pretty good. I got it on sale, so it was about $2.50. The prep method involves some hot water and a microwave, both of which I have access to at work, so it's perfectly convenient. It's shelf-stable, so there is no problem with getting it and letting it sit around a while until I feel like eating it.

However, since I also have bowls at work, I can use regular udon packs (with soup), which only set me back by about $2-3 per pack of three with the same prep method! I just didn't think to try to make them at work before. But it's perfectly plausible. I'll have to add them to my collection of work foods.

I also have little packets of microwaveable, single serving rice (not that crap Uncle Ben's), single serving seasoned & toasted seaweed, instant miso soup, cans of pop-top tuna, cans of soup, kosher salt, a pepper grinder, good extra-virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, Fiber One cereal, instant oatmeal, a small cutting board, two knives, and a vegetable peeler at work. The peeler is for when I buy hard cheeses to put on top of my salads or in my sandwiches. I shop a few times a month for salad or sandwich supplies, with some fruits thrown in. Having these things around me gives me a lot more option for lunch than the paltry establishments around my work and gives me a healthier option than is generally available for lunch.

Vik's Chaat Corner

2006-01-23T14:06:00.000-08:00

Saturday morning, we headed out to Vik's Chaat Corner in Berkeley. We had heard great things about this fun warehouse full of Indian street foods, served cafeteria-style.

We arrived around... 12:30pm on Saturday, found good parking as it is in a warehouse district, and proceeded to stare at their food listings trying to figure out what we want to get. We had not had the benefit of looking up the menu with photos beforehand, so we took a shot in the dark.

We ended up with:

Bhel Puri $3.50

Lamb Baida Roti $5.50

and

Samosa Cholle $3.50

The samosas were some of the best I've ever had, with a pungent, kick-y curry spice in the potatoes. The "cholle" (I think this refers to the garbanzo curry that comes with the dish) was pretty good -- not remarkable, but pretty good.

The lamb baida roti was REALLY good. It had a minced & spiced lamb filling in the flattened bread -- pretty straightforward, and pretty damn good. It was a pretty thin layer of filling, not like a bursting burrito if that is what you are expecting (so don't). I would eat this again and again. Compared to some of the other dishes there, $5.50 seems a little on the pricy side, but I'd say it was well-worth it.

The bhel puri was the only bomb. We didn't know what to expect and chose it semi-randomly. It was a cold dish with little puffed rice kernels, and I was expecting neither the cold nor the puffed rice-ness (ok, not a word) of it. Oh well. Live and learn.

Seppo and I plan to go back again this weekend, except with a couple of friends so that we can try a bigger variety of dishes. Tasty!

What I Expect.

2006-01-22T23:30:00.000-08:00

I eat all sorts of things.

When I cook at home, I expect to either have a nice, simple meal, learn something, have a good time preparing the meal, for it to be cheaper than most restaurants, and for it to be healthy, and/or tasty.

When I eat, for <$20, I expect that the food will be relatively simple, but good. I'm thinking a good burrito, a nice burger, sushi from Geta - something along those lines. Your sort of standard walk in & eat, or take out sort of food. Sustenance, not art, but still pleasureable.

$20-40 sort of holds a slightly higher standard. Aperto, Cuvae - nice restaurants. Generally nicer stuff than I can make, without careful, iterative improvements on a recipe I know well. I'd say there are maybe three or four dishes I could put together that might, with more practice, be worthy of this sort of menu, and they're generally things I could only cook on the weekend. Still, what I expect out of a meal like this is the high end of what I think I can do. Flavors might be something I'd expect, but done well. Aperto, Cuvae, and Angelfish, my three favorite restaurants in this category, do that, and also periodically surprise me with something that's quite brilliant.

$40+, and what I want is an *experience*. When we ate at Morimoto, which was ~$100/per, what we got was an extraordinary balance of flavor. Combinations I wouldn't expect, but were harmonious, in a way that felt completely natural, even if unexpected. That's my yardstick for "fine dining" - that perfect, harmonious balance of flavor - something that has been, and will continue to be for some time, out of my personal reach. This is not something I understand how to do at home, and could likely not replicate it, even given a relatively precise recipe. This is the sort of thing that a talented chef is required to make, and to understand to get right. When I'm looking at $40+ per person, what I *expect* is something that I can marvel at, and wonder how the chef managed to pull that off.

Which brings me to the main point, really:

Rubicon, for ~$45/per, did that. The pork belly was perfectly done, slightly smoked, giving it a just-barely-hamlike flavor, though it retained a very characteristically "pork" flavor independent of the ham. The skin was crisp, the meat was tender, and all the side dishes worked together in various combinations to create a wide palette of flavor to draw from. The pork went beautifully with a thin polenta. It could be accentuated by the dried fruit compote that accompanied it, giving it a subtle sweetness that echoed the sweetness of the pork. The slightly bitter, slightly sweet green that sat to the right provided balance, and contrast that worked beautifully.

The dessert was a nougat glace, which I can't really explain. It was like a nutty icecream, with bits of pistachio and dried cherry, but it was dryer than any ice cream I'd ever had. It was served over grapefruit slices that had been marinating in some sort of carbonated , fruity liquid, that also served as a sauce for the nougat. I suppose that was the glace. It was quite unlike anything I've ever had before - the bubbly, fruity liquid melded beautifully with the creamy nougat, and the contrast between the creamy and very bright pop of the liquid was completely unique. Ok, maybe not - it was like a fruity root beer float like thing, but again, what it had was that sense of harmony, that I imagine would be very hard to replicate.

La Suite, on the other hand, was largely a run-of-the-mill meal. The starter, a pate, with some warm toast, mustard, and cornichons, was good, but nothing I'd write home about. I've had better pate. The mustard was good, and it worked well together, but the ratio of toast to pate was a little bizarre, and I ended up using a number of pieces of bread from the basket to finish off the pate. If I had finished the pate with the amount of bread they'd given me, the ratio of pate to bread would have been pretty extreme.

The main dish was beef cheek, with some vegetables, served over mashed potatoes with what appeared to be some sort of red wine sauce. The vegetables, straight off, were perfect. Absolutely perfectly done. The cheek, on the other hand, was tender to the point of absurdity, and lacking any real beefy punch. It was good, but the lack of textual contrast between the beef, and the mashed potato was a little disappointing, and I expected more of a beefy flavor. Maybe that's what the cheek is supposed to be, but I found it less appealing than it could have been. The sauce was also overpowering, and very hard to eat without a spoonful of mashed potatoes. That is, the beef, on its own, was overpowered by the sauce, and needed to the potato to cut the saltiness of the whole thing.

I don't mean to sound like it was a bad meal - it wasn't - but instead of the $40+ category, it's squarely in the low end of the $20+ category. I've had many superior meals at Aperto. Not to mention that the service was absolute crap. The guy who came later to keep our water full was spectacular, and I'd have switched him with the main waiter, who was a condescending, brusque snot. We mused that if we'd had a more competant waiter, the whole experience would likely have left a very, very different perception in our minds. But fundamentally, the whole experience is what I'm looking for, when we're eating in that price range, and that man had no place at a fine dining establishment. Boy, do I sound snooty.

Still, Rubicon? For $50, yes. A fine meal, and one I would definitely try again, on some special occasion. La Suite? For $35, no. For $20, yes, but that's a pretty big difference.

La Suite

2006-01-22T19:07:00.000-08:00

Tonight, Seppo, Seppo's mom, and I went to La Suite, as a part of the 5th Annual San Francisco Dine About Town event.

Here is the menu from the DAT website:

First Course
Soup of the day
or
Butter lettuce salad with mustard vinaigrette
or
Country pate style with cornichons, old fashioned mustard and croutons

Second Course
Oven roasted Monkfish with piperade, yukon gold potatoes, manila clams
or
Cassoulet with house made sausage, bacon, duck confit and cannelini beans
or
Slow-braised beef cheek daube with cipollini onions and cabernet wine sauce

Third Course
Pain perdu
or
Trio of chocolate
or
Apple tart with crème anglaise

The menu we were presented with was actually different. The second course options were the monkfish, beef cheek, and the "Cider-Brined Pork Tenderloin with Brussels Sprouts, Chestnuts, Pomegranate Glaze" from their regular menu.

The dessert options we were actually presented with were pain perdu, apple tart, and "Chocolate Fondant Cake with Red Currant Port Sauce".

Seppo's mom ordered the salad, monkfish, and apple tart. Seppo ordered the pate, beef cheek, and pain perdu. I ordered off the regular menu (after checking the prices to determine that there was only a small difference in the prix fixe menu), and got their "Bone Marrow Flan with Pepper Cress, and a Meyer Lemon Vinaigrette" and pork tenderloin, and didn't order dessert, with the unspoken intention of ordering from their famed cheese platter at the end.

We had a really odd time with the server. He was... odd. Rather abrupt and impatient, even though our reservations were at the ridiculously early hour of 5:30pm, and the restaurant was still quite empty when we arrived. He recommended various reds to Seppo's mom while not even looking at her, even though she asked for a white recommendation, and was quite flip when he finally gave her a white recommendation, just throwing out a name and not going to any trouble to describe its various qualities so that she may make a more informed judgment.

He spilled ice in front of me, which I normally am not that mindful of, but it was more that he didn't notice or care. For such a high-brow place, he felt really out of place. The people who were bussing the tables, as well as another server that was within view the entire night, were quite professional and pleasant. When Seppo's mom's wine came, he just dropped it on the table and walked off.

The bread and butter were very meh. The bread probably would have been ok, but the butter was just so hard. My bone marrow flan was quite tasty, especially with the lemon-y vinaigrette, which gave it a subtle bright note. It's a unique dish that I've never had anywhere else, and it was delicious, so I give them full credit for that. My pork tenderloin was also flavorful, moist, and had a smokey char around the edges. The sauce it was served in was tasty, if unremarkable. I can't say I could detect any real pomegranite flavor. It was served on a little bed of separated brussel sprout leaves and small chunks of smoked pancetta (I think). I didn't really notice the chestnuts either.

Seppo's mom's fish was really good: light, flakey, moist, tender, with a very subtle combinations of flavors that supported the fish well. She said that her sides were so over-salted that she found it difficult to eat. Her "salad" was literally something like six leaves of butter lettuce and a couple of pieces of sage (I think), with a little dressing on the side. The apple tart was perfect though, with a tender crust and apples that were not too sweet but had a pleasant amount of bite to them.

Seppo's beef cheeks were great, but Seppo felt that while it was tender and the vegetables were perfectly cooked, the flavors didn't really complement each other. The meat and sides simply existed on the same plate, with nothing much to do with each other. Seppo's pain perdu (which is bread pudding) was a perfect temperature. Seppo didn't like that it was very banana-y, but it was ok for me.

I didn't have a chance to ask for a selection of cheeses because our weird server just rushed us through and didn't give me a chance to ask for either that or a dessert menu. Arg. I was really looking forward to the cheese platter because, according to many different websites, this restaurant has one of the best selections of cheeses in the entire Bay Area. They also are known for their wine list, but you know how that went. Oh yeah, I checked the final check and it looks like he just recommended the cheapest wine by the glass. Seppo's mom said it was quite ordinary and not really a good choice. WTF, mister server?!?!

Anyway, I would not return. In my opinion, Seppo's starter and my starter were the best things we ate tonight, but they are not worth going back for.

Rubicon

2006-01-22T11:37:00.000-08:00

Last night, Holly, Max, Amanda, Uyen, Charles, Seppo, and I went to Rubicon for January's Dine About Town. Uyen and I had chosen the restaurant earlier in the month because it was the most expensive and highest rated (in the standard rating systems) restaurant that was participating in the program this year. Hee hee, we are so mercenary.

Here is the menu from last night:

Dine About Town Menu

January 1 - 31, 2006

Our menus are chosen from the best ingredients the season has to offer. Chef Stuart Brioza and Pastry Chef Nicole Krasinski invite you to enjoy either our a la carte selections or the three course Dine About Town Menu we are offering for the month of January.

_________________
Dine About Town 2006

First Course
Choice of:
Grilled Calamari
Garlicky Salt Cod, Citrus Vinaigrette
or
Chestnut & Celery Root Soup
Duck Prosciutto & Gizzard Confit

Principal Dishes
Choice of:
Seared Hawaiian Tombo
Cipollini Onions, Assorted Mushrooms, Caramelized Garlic-Marjoram Broth
or
Smoked & Glazed Pork Belly
Soft Polenta, Dried Fruit Condiment, Braised Greens

Desserts
Choice of:
Pistachio & Dried Cherry Nougat Glacé
Winter Fruits
or
Wild Anise Chocolate Mousse
Espresso Shortbread, Fleur de Sel Caramel

3 courses $31.95

I had the soup, followed by the tombo, finishing up with the chocolate mousse. The bread served with dinner was quite good, if unmemorable after the fact, but it was served with a particularly delicious butter. Yes, butter is butter, but once in a while, it is somehow much better: fresher, creamier, something. This time, it was something.

They served an amuse bouche after everyone had gotten seated and ordered food and various wines by the glass. I believe it was a tiny round mound of duck liver mouse, with a little blob of fig sauce in front of it, and the tiniest round of buttered toast stuck into the top of the liver. I really liked this.

My starter, the soup, was fantastic. When they brought it out and placed it in front of me, it smelled great. I am not sure what flavor combination I was expecting when I read the description, but the celery root was the baseline flavor in a creamy savory soup, with detectable amount of chestnut, and great little bites of duck prosciutto and gizzard. I think I loved biting into the gizzard the most. Who knew I would feel this way. I had initially though it was little chunks of mushroom because the texture was almost identical. The soup was garnished with garlic oil, which did not at any time overwhelm the other flavors, but gave a nice little boost whenever a bigger proportion of oil-to-soup was spooned up. I would have this soup again.

The tombo, supposedly a white tuna, was quite a disappointment. Whether it was or not, it felt totally overcooked and tasted it as well. It took a lot of effort to separate out bite-sized chunks with my fork and knife. It was dry in my mouth. It was kind of hard to chew. The flavor of the fish with the mushrooms was really well-matched though, which makes the over-cooking even more tragic. I liked the presentation in large bowl-plates that had a slight built-in angles to them that let the garlic-marjoram broth pool in the front for easy dipping and spooning access. I would never order this dish again. Ok, that's not true. I would order it again if I could see that someone else was getting it served perfectly cooked. But man, it was disappointing.

The chocolate mousse was probably one of the top two or three favorite versions of chocolate mousse I've ever had, and it was quite delicious and pleasant my mouth. But it was really just chocolate mousse, so I couldn't expect to be delightfully surprised by it or anything. The little blob of ice cream with an orange fragrance really played a great supporting role to the mousse though, a lighter tasting and feeling contrast to the richness of the mousse.

Seppo should really post about the pork belly, because in my eyes, it was clearly the star of the night. It was DAMN good.

I would go back to Rubicon again at any affordable opportunity. It's priced out of my range for non-special event dinners though. Perhaps I will return for another dine-about-town event or on Wednesdays for their special fixed price menu lunches.

comfort foods for sick times

2006-01-17T17:52:00.000-08:00

My childhood comfort foods (in particular, while I was sick) were:

kimchee jjigae (spicy kimchee stew)
dweji bulgogi (spicy pork)
rice porridge
miyuk gook (seaweed soup)
gom tang (ox tail soup)

It's weird how the food varies between extremely spicy and bland (thus easily digestible).

Nowadays, my easy go-to foods are

instant oatmeal
eggs (boiled, fried, etc)
instant miso soup
onigiri (rice balls with seaweed and usually some sort of filling)

The last one is due to the fact that two of the last four times I have been sick (or something like that), Seppo's mom has brought those over. Delicious.

What are your sick/comfort foods?

worst idea ever

2006-01-13T17:46:00.000-08:00

Once in a while, during the process of cooking, I have A Truly Terrible Idea (tm). And once in a while, I find myself utterly unable to resist the temptation to follow up on that self-same idea.

Today, Seppo was sick so I cooked him some rice porridge during the day while working from home. After cooking his porridge, I thought to myself, wouldn't it be nice if I had some kimchee jjigae?

I looked around the fridge and found some kimchee I had been aging for just such a purpose. I had some extra firm tofu I had bought a week or two ago. Excellent. I found, to my delight, that there were a couple of rashers of bacon in the freezer, as well as some ham we had frozen from the holidays. In addition, I had some leftover frozen rice cakes that would go well in the stew, since I didn't feel like taking the time to cook rice. I had a little chicken broth leftover from Seppo's rice porridge. This would be the perfect storm of jjigae.

But as I was cooking, I thought to myself, "Hmm, that's really not enough bacon. I need more fat if this is gonna turn out right."

This is when I had the Truly Terrible Idea (tm).

I opened the fridge to find a nob of unsalted butter. I'm sure this jumped int my mind because last night, I watched some of Robert Rodriguez's "10 Minute Cooking School" on the Sin City dvd, in which he made some breakfast burritos, a part of which was making the tortillas from scratch using butter and lard.

I should have gone for the lard, or even Crisco. Or even oil. Seriously, these are all bad options, but none of them would have been as awful as the butter actually turned out to be.

Without the benefit of hindsight -- or, apparently, sanity -- I took the nob of butter and dropped the entire thing into my gently bubbling stew. I looked at it for a second and thought, "Hmm, I could fish out the butter before it melts all the way," then foolishly rejected that idea.

The stew turned out disgusting. Any reasonable person would have realized this was the only possible result.

I tried fishing out the solids from the liquid. It wasn't so bad that way, but any liquid was utterly buttery and gross. The worst thing was that I realized that in every other way, this was probably the best kimchee jjigae I had ever made. Sigh.

I actually tried dumping the liquid I had and re-adding water and some jjigae paste that comes in a jar. But even then, it was (and still remains, in a little container in my fridge) too buttery.

WHAT WAS I THINKING?!?!

dive

2006-01-05T17:23:00.000-08:00

Looking for a chill dive in SF to hang out in. Any suggestions?

Restaurants I want to try

2005-12-14T13:04:00.000-08:00

In no particular order, except the order in which they come to mind:

Michael Mina's (Bay Area)
Chez Spencer (Bay Area)
The French Laundry (Norhern CA)
The Fat Duck (UK)
Gordon Ramsay's at Royal Hospital Road (UK)
Nobu (not sure which location would be best)
L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon (the one in France and not in LV or Japan)
Zushi Puzzle (Bay Area)
Chez Panisse (Bay Area)
Foreign Cinema (Bay Area)
Gary Danko (Bay Area)
Wagamama (UK)
Yo! Sushi (UK)
Vic's Chaat (Bay Area)
The Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton (Bay Area)
Manresa (Bay Area)
Sushi Zone (Bay Area)

I'm sure this list will get longer with time. Zushi Puzzle & Foreign Cinema are both affordable and local, so I would guess that we'll hit them at some point in the near future. Vic's Chaat is even cheaper and even closer, so we could get that knocked down in 2006 also. Wagamama and Yo! Sushi seem to be pretty cheap & entertaining chains that I think I'd get a kick out of while we are in the UK, so those will prob get crossed off the list soon. My feeling is that Yo! Sushi would do well in the Bay Area, based solely on reviews and their website.

How did we get here?

2005-12-02T15:17:00.000-08:00

It seems that at some point, Seppo and I have accidentally slipped and fallen down the well of foodie-ism (yes, that's the official word, I swear). I am not quite sure how it happened, as we are quite low-brow in almost all other aspect. Heck, even for food, we have no qualms about getting McDonald's or KFC once in a while.

So how did this happen?? I think it all started with Iron Chef. Well, that's not true. The show had always been entertaining, but it never made us want to whip out an apron ourselves and cook. I think the real credit belongs to either The Naked Chef or Pukka Tukka -- I don't remember which we saw. I think we caught our first episode shortly after moving in together. I vaguely have a memory of showing Roopa and her friend Robert an episode on our replayTV at the new house while he was in town, shortly after we discovered Jamie Oliver for ourselves.

His cooking on those shows (unlike Oliver's Twist, which I am not a fan of) really showed you easy, simple, and fast ways to create fantastic dishes. He really made it look so simple that we were able to start thinking beyond Create-A-Meals (shaddap, you!) and start thinking of trying to put together interesting dishes.

At some point, we found Alton Brown. The science of cooking was quite fascinating. That same year, I bought Seppo a copy of On Food and Cooking, which Alton recommends in his books (which we had bought earlier). It really is the reference of all references.

Just over a year ago, I purchased a Cook's Illustrated magazine subscription for Seppo as a part of his Christmas present. I think I heard A_B refer to it enough times that I wanted to try it out. Then shortly after the new year, my then-new TiVo started recording America's Test Kitchen (by the same people who make Cook's Illustrated) on PBS as a TiVo Suggestion. We became hooked and started trying the recipes. The recipes are awesome. We haven't perfected our techniques at all, but the dishes definitely come out far better than anything we could have hoped for with any random recipe.

It's not all tv shows, of course. I think that as we have gotten older, we've been more interested in getting quality rather than quantity. We dine out with friends more often than we used to. As a result, we end up comparing a lot of different places with each other. We've also found a couple of favorite restaurants that never let us down, so going somewhere that is disappointing is a huge contrast now, whereas in previous days, we might have acceptable meh food as the norm.

I think that at some point, large parts of last year and this year were spent obsessively watching different cooking shows. We've had some busy periods, so we spend a lot less time watching tv now. Sometime this summer, we went to Morimoto in Philadelphia and watched Gordon Ramsay on Hell's Kitchen (followed by Kitchen Nightmares and Kitchen Nightmares Revisted on BBCAmerica). That was probably the final, irreversible step for us. Seeing someone so concerned for quality and perfection intrigued us and now we are dying to eat at his restaurant.

Web skipping, mind boggling

2005-11-27T01:17:00.000-08:00

Retrace my steps on my journey, if you will.

First, I was looking for information on Gordon Ramsay at Royal Hospital Road, when I ran across a website called tastingmenu.com which had some really incredible pictures and restaurant reviews. On the London restaurants page, I noted a reference to The Fat Duck, which is apparently the highest rated restaurant in the world.

The tastingmenu.com review of The Fat Duck led me to the blog of someone who interned in their kitchen for a few months. (It's a fascinating read, by the way.) Most of the action begins in April of 2005 but one particular entry caught my eye.

It mentioned a bizarre phrase: "meat glue". Say what? Googling this led me to an article on MSNBC, which mentioned a thread on eGullet, both of which mentioned a website for a product called Activa TG, a.k.a. transglutaminase.

Life is strange.

As a postscript, I recommend the tastingmenu.com for checking out pics of food for some of the high-end places you've dined at or of the places you'd like to dine at.

Herbivore

2005-11-26T00:00:00.001-08:00

So, we went to a vegan restaurant called "Herbivore" tonight. The vegetable sampler we got at the beginning came with three sauces, a lemon garlic, a pesto, and a tahini sauce that were all punchy, bold, and interesting. A good start, it seemed. The vegetables were well grilled, and held their flavors and textures properly. I ordered a Lemongrass Noodle dish, which was supposed to be grilled vegetables, noodles, and a lemongrass sauce.

I don't think I've had a restaurant go from decent to completely inedible in as short a time. The Lemongrass Noodles were basically rice noodles, the same vegetables from the vegetable sampler (not a terrible thing, but feeling a little one-trick-pony at this point) with some tofu, drenched in the most godawful sauce I've eaten this year, and probably the year before, as well.

The first thing that came to mind was laundry detergent. The second was LEMONGRASS!!! HOLY MOTHER FUCK!!! LEMONGRASS, BITCHES!!!! and then that was it. I ate the rest of the tofu, 'cause I needed to eat something, and it absorbed the least amount of sauce of anything else. THe noodles were utterly inedible, and the porous vegetables were the same. The sauce was so caustic and overpowering, I simply could not eat any more of it. The thought of another mouthful made me nauseous.

The sad thing is, (aside from Ei-Nyung's way over-peanut-buttery pad thai) most of the other stuff looked pretty decent. But holy crap, the dish I had was absolutely terrible. Terrible. Basically, it felt like the cook thought, "Flavor = good, therefore, more flavor = better," without actually ever bothering to *taste* any of his dishes. Where a great restaurant like Morimoto is all about harmony - making all the flavors balanced, and complement one another, this place was all about beating the living crap out of you with a single, bold flavor. It was like going to the symphony, and having a guy with an air horn blowing it in your ear for an hour.

Not recommended.

Spanish Tapas: Picaro

2005-11-25T18:00:00.000-08:00

I visited Holly in her new apartment on Wednesday. After hanging out in her gorgeous Mission district apartment for a while, we walked out to find some place to eat. We stumbled upon Picaro and decided to feast there.

We ordered grilled artichokes, a red beet salad, grilled scallops, and grilled salmon. The grilled artichoke (accompanied by some light herby creamy sauce) was my favorite of the four. I can't say that they did anything particularly special to it, but I had never had grilled artichokes before, only boiled or steamed, and I am now a convert. Grilled is the way to go.

My second favorite dish was the grilled scallops with a side of spanish rice. The scallops were so juicy and favorful. For a split second, I thought about stealing Holly's skewer, but sanity prevailed, and I stopped myself from being a jerk over food. I save my jerkiness for other occasions. :D

The other two items were also very good. I had no complaints whatsoever. The food was prepared simply, with accompanying sauces that played the perfect supporting roles: not overwhelming the star but working to bring out the best in the main ingredients.

I would recommend this restaurant to anyone looking for high quality tapas with clean flavor lines.

Braised Short Ribs, Part II

2005-11-22T12:33:00.000-08:00

OH MAN! I rock. My short ribs from last night were so good. I'll try to write down most of the recipe so I can remember how I made it.

The solids:

3 lbs short rib (12 pieces in a pack)
3 medium potatoes, cut into large chunks (maybe 6 chunks per potato?)
2 medium onions, cut into 1" or bigger chunks
2 medium carrots, cut into 1" pieces
5-6 cloves garlic, crushed
5-6 large slices of ginger (each slice about 1mm by 1 inch by 1.5 inches?)

The liquids:

1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons mirin (I basically overflowed the 1/2 cup measure)
2 tsp sesame oil
1 tbs corn syrup
4 cubes frozen chicken broth (I'd guess this was around... 1/2 cup?)

I actually went over on the soy sauce and mirin, but later decided the broth was too strong (great with rice though), so it could use less, so I've written down how much I think I should use next time.

I followed the same process as last time, except this time, I didn't add any additional liquids and just after bringing it up to a boil, I covered it and put it in the oven at 300 degrees for two hours, then lowered the heat to 210 for another hour. The reason was that it was perfect after two hours and I was worried about it losing too much of the texture if I left it on that high for that long, and Seppo didn't get home from work for another hour after that.

Every half hour, I tossed the contents around so that the braising liquid could get into contact with each piece of meat and potato.

Next time I try this, I think I'm going to try searing the meat in the pan first, rather than going through a boiling step. I'm also going to try dropping in some peppercorns.

This was a relatively easy-to-make, inexpensive dish, given the quantities of meat we end up with, so it might make regular rotation in our house.

Worst food ever

2005-10-17T14:59:00.000-07:00

I should really say "food" in quotes because I don't think what I'm about to write about can really qualify as food.

Software:
- a tablespoon of sugar
- a tiny tiny pinch baking soda

Hardware:
- a lightly greased metal saucepan (non-stick is best) or a metal ladle.
- a chopstick or bamboo skewer
- a slick surface (try a silpat or some foil wrapped around pan, lightly greased)
- another slick surface (see above)

I actually have a kit my sister and brother-in-law purchased for me.

This thing is called a "dargona" with a long "o" or "poki" (not like the Hawaiian poki -- if you couldn't tell from the ingredients, there is something weird with you).

How to "cook":
- Melt sugar over low heat. You really want it low so that you don't accidentally look away and burn the sugar. Keep stirring it with your stick.
- Keep cooking until your sugar caramelizes to a nice light to medium amber.
- Remove from heat and immediately stir in the pinch of baking soda.
- Stir just until your caramel has turned light and fluffy, probably like 2 or 3 seconds tops.
- Slam stuff out onto slick surface #1 and then press with slick surface #2 to about a milimeter or so thickness.
- Optional: Use your stick to play with the leftover goop in the pan and spin neat-o sugar web.
- Optional: Use cookie cutters to lightly press a pattern into the flattened sugary goodness.
- Eat.

This is probably one of the worst things you could eat. It's as bad as pure sugar, but the caramelizing and "fluffing" stages make this even more delicious than plain sugar, so it's highly addictive. I make this maybe twice a year, except it's more like a quadruple recipe. It's sick, I tell you.

Hmm. I bet this could benefit from the addition of a tiny bit of butter. Yum.

Fish run amok

2005-10-17T12:30:00.000-07:00

We had a big sushi party on Saturday. We probably had around 12 people for dinner. Joe brought home a crazy amount of salmon (I'd guess 2 lbs) and tuna (a ridiculous 4.5 lbs -- an estimate), as well as some cooked shrimp. Seppo and I provided a pound of hamachi, two unagi, some vegetables and pickles, nori, wasabi, spicy sauce (for spicy tuna), and sushi rice. Uyen and Charles brought profiteroles and some really sick and rich double chocolate cookies. Klay and Nana brought crab claw meat, avocados, and ice cream (no, not served together). Colin provided grilled asparagus and sliced peaches (and not for dessert -- gasp). Hee.

It was an insane amount of food. We really should have taken some pictures. We had so much leftover fish that we asked Uyen, Charles, and Long to come over for dinner on Sunday. They brought mashed potatoes and peas with proscuitto. Yum. We ate ourselves silly and we STILL have a couple of tuna steaks and an unagi in the freezer.

Uyen says she's going to have a Vietnamese rolling party soon. I am going to hold her to it.

dressing up ramen

2005-10-03T23:14:00.000-07:00

This entry is also known as a filler entry. :D Ramen, while not high concept, high class food, can be a nice, easy meal, especially if you dress it up a little.

One of my favorite variants is the following:
1. Boil slightly more water than usual.
2. Drop in a few frozen dumplings. Boil for 2-3 minutes.
3. Add ramen noodles and soup packet.
4. At finish time minus 30-45 seconds (from what it says on the package directions), drop in an egg and swirl it around. Lower the heat immediately. If you like the light ribbons of egg, slightly beat it before adding to the pot. I like it slightly poached, so I just drop it in and swirl it around a teeny bit.
5. When egg is almost completely set, dump out in to a bowl full of chopped scallions.
6. Top with some crumbled dried seaweed.

Once in a while, I just drop in some frozen peas into the plain ramen. Generally, quick-cooking veggies like sprouts or spinach make a good addition. I like to squeeze some lime or lemon in with some basil and cilantro, pho-style sometimes.

braised short ribs

2005-10-01T22:51:00.000-07:00

Step 1: Wash and slash the short ribs. Salt liberally.

Step 2: Add water just to cover and put on high heat. Watch it to see when it just starts to boil and the meat juuuust barely starts to cook and turn slightly brown. You'll see blood seeping through the marrow and float to the top in gross gray grainy blobs. Remove from heat then dump out the water and wash in cold water. My mom told me to do this and I was like, "Huh?" I think now that it was to wash away all the gray blobs of what used to be blood and to remove some of the fat as well, as it floats to the top and congeals in the cold water.

Step 3: Into the pot that now only holds the meat, add some potatoes and onions, and turnip too, if you have it handy. This is where the recipe became frustrating because getting a recipe from my mom is impossible. I was instructed to add "a little" soy sauce, "some" mirin, "a few" lightly crushed garlic, "a bit of" sesame oil, "some" ginger, and "a little" sugar or corn syrup. I appeared to have done ok proportion-wise, but I didn't use enough of anything. I should have doubled or tripled the amounts I used. I also used too much water. I think you are supposed to only add enough water (or broth) to come up maybe a centimeter or so on the side of the pot, but I added enough to almost cover. This caused the dish to become more of a stew rather than a braised dish. Dang.

Step 4: Bring the stew to just below a boil and lower to a simmer. After maybe 20 minutes, I added some carrots. Well, the carrots are really optional. My mom never uses them. I simmered on low for about 1.5 hours and found that I need to go for at least another hour, which I did. It was fairly tender, but it really should have gone for another hour or two. So I would advise cooking for roughly 3-4 hours for maximum enjoyment.

My mom cooks this in the pressure cooker. In the pressure cooker, you are pretty much done in 20-30 minutes and are guaranteed meltingly delicious meat and potatoes. Curses. I should get one.

alton brown's fried chicken

2005-10-01T22:41:00.000-07:00

On September 24th, Seppo made some fried chicken.

He soaked the chicken overnight in buttermilk and something else. Hopefully, he will edit this entry with the proper details.

An unfathomable amount of Crisco (with 0 trans fat but lots of other fat) was melted and heated to between 350 and 375 degrees.

The chicken was dusted with a seasoning mix consisting mainly of salt, paprika, and some other stuff that, again, hopefully Seppo will comment about. It was then dredged in flour and left on the rack to crust up just a little bit before going into the oil.

That picture is scary, but a large part of life is scary, my friend.

Seppo cooked everything in about 5 batches, I think. It was extremely moist and flavorful. Fried chicken that has soaked in buttermilk definitely wins over fried chicken that hasn't.

watermelon water ice

2005-07-31T22:13:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, we got some fruit from Trader Joe's. Most of the fruit was really quite lousy, and one of the items was a watermelon that had decent texture, but not a tremendous amount of flavor. So, rather than eating it in its current state, which was somewhat unsatisfying, I spooned it out into a blender, added a little sugar, and a single ice cube (so that the blender had something to toss around), and turned it into a smoothie. I drank that, then realized that I had another half watermelon, and nothing really compelling to do with it.

So, I did the same process to that one, and stuck it in the fridge, in the ice cube containers and froze it. I ate two of the blocks, but they were kind of unsatisfying as well, not to mention hard to eat, because they didn't have any "handles." So, I figured, I'll turn 'em back into a smoothie. I tossed the cubes into Joe's blender (which is a little more hardcore than our KitchenAid), and started to blend 'em up. Without any liquid, it was slow going, so I added some simple syrup I had lying around from the plum soup I made last week.

Blend blend blend, and a couple minutes later, I had something that resembled a sorbet. Yum. I brought it over to Ei-Nyung, and she immediately (and correctly) likened it to Water Ice - a treat we had when in Philly. Exactly the same consistency, and more or less the same flavor, without the chemically overtones of artificial watermelon flavor.

Excellent. I've gotta do this again sometime.