Starting the Austin Trip Right!

Austin Business Trip here I come!

We got off the plane and were

starving after skipping lunch due to the timing of the flight, so we went straight to Trudy's for some drinks and queso! I don't really like nacho cheese so I'm not sure why queso in Texas seems so much better when in reality it's not much (if at all) different... Those mexican margaritas that were on special for monday nights were huge and quite good but I definitely couldn't finish it all, being the light weight that I am. We also ended up having dinner- I had the beef fajitas with whole wheat tortillas and all the fixings yummm...

We checked in at our hotel and then went to get some Amy's Ice Cream close by. How can it be bad named "Amy's"? I got a mix of Mexican Vanilla and Dark Chocolate... sure hit the spot! The interior was very cute with all the cow designs and seemed like a very fun atmosphere. It even had one of those old school photo booths inside! Besides, warm night and cold ice cream how can you go wrong? Overall, good first night!

Tataki Sushi

For dinner, I had planned to go with my Mom to Tataki Sushi in San Francisco. I had heard about it from a foodie friend, as well as read articles about the sustainable sushi and how popular this tiny place is... so clearly I had to try it!

One cool thing I read and found is that they have Happy Hour even on Saturdays from 5-7pm. Their signature "Kin Sangria" cocktail (with Riesling, Sake, and fresh fruit), beer, 5 different rolls, and calamari are cheaper than normal during this time. Jeremy and I tried the cocktail which was really good filled with apples, strawberries, and lychees, but I couldn't finish mine (I'm weak sauce plus I was driving). We also got calamari which was nice and tender on the inside but not as crispy as I'd hoped on the outside. However the flavoring and pepper on the outside as well as the sauce were quite yummy.

Since the restaurant's name is Tataki, we tried the kampachi tataki because my Mom likes kampachi. It came with avocado slices, a roasted jalapeno slice, and served in ponzu. We were a bit disappointed because the jalapeno and ponzu completely masked the fish flavor. On the second piece we removed the jalapeno and ate it without, even though the flavor still lingered. We thought that since they're using such a flavorful and valuable fish, why mask it with so many other overpowering flavors? If it was a cheaper fish, that would be fine, but I would prefer a straight sashimi, not even seared!

My friend had raved about the tataki and sushi, so I had to order the chef's nigiri special of 9 pieces. Items to mention out of the nigiri items are the arctic char (what they use instead of salmon), "faux-nagi" (seared black cod with unagi sauce to try to imitate unagi), and albacore tuna (or shiro maguro). The first thing my Mom and I noticed were that even though the rice was made fine, the rice was too big, making the rice to fish ratio unbalanced. I tasted so much rice that the fish was a bit in the background. The arctic char looked and tasted almost exactly like salmon. The "faux-nagi" in my opinion tasted nothing like unagi- not texture or flavor- and nothing to be excited about. The albacore was by far my favorite with the buttery melt in your mouth texture and flavor... My Mom and I also ordered our favorite aji nigiri but were again disappointed. The rice again was too big overpowering the fish so we had to take some out. Plus the fish just wasn't as fresh and melt in your mouth as the others we've had... that was a sad point when neither my Mom nor I "fought" over the last aji nigiri :(

The rolls were actually quite nice and my Mom was impressed. We got 4 rolls. The Pacific Sunrise was one my Mom wanted because it was 4 types of fish wrapped in cucumber, not rice. It was good but nothing special that I would be inclined to get again. We also got the Golden State roll, which in other Yelp pictures had golden flakes on it. I however missed the first description word on the menu- "spicy"- so was surprised when it came out. It is spicy scallops with apple pieces topped with albacore tuna and avocado. It's also supposed to come with gold flakes but ours was replaced with yellow masago... the economy perhaps? Anyhow, after I got past the spicy mix up, I really liked the mix of sweet apples with the spicy scallops and buttery tuna. Jeremy also picked out the Tataki roll which ended up being his and my Mom's favorite. It had cucumber, avocado, and 4 types of seared fish on top with a sweet sauce. The seared fish and avocado tasted great together and we all loved it (shown with the nigiri platter picture). The last roll was the arctic char and avocado roll which was one of the happy hour specials. It was very simple with just arctic char (like salmon) and avocado but the simpleness of it went so well together and we loved it!

For dessert we tried two different kinds- green tea cheesecake and the kinako mochi. The kinako mochi was served warm and was good but a little too sweet for my Mom's liking. The green tea cheesecake served with strawberries on the side (a little odd combo) was quite rich, but very tasty. I wouldn't be able to eat it all myself because it was very creamy and dense but Jeremy had no problem!

Overall, I enjoyed my experience and am glad I went. All the fish were fresh and tasted good, but not my new favorite sushi place that I would drive an hour for and wait 40 minutes to eat for!

Banana Leaf

My Mom was in town this weekend and Saturday was the only day that we were going to see her. Jeremy and I decided that we would take her to Banana Leaf, which is a Malaysian food restaurant in Milptas and very close to our place. We've only been twice but enjoyed it both times we've been there. Jeremy even took me there when he was trying to "woo" me :)

As an appetizer, we got the roti prata, which is an Indian bread that they serve in a cone shape with a side of curry sauce to dip in. I don't go to Malaysian places too often, but since I went to Layang Layang last week, I have to compare... I actually liked the roti and dipping sauce better at Layang Layang. The roti at Banana Leaf was a little too crispy for me because I like more dough-y, chewy parts than the thin crispy parts, and this one had too much crispy for me. We also got Penang Poh Piah, which is a steamed spring roll in essence. It comes in an almost crepe-like or thin mushu rice paper type wrapper filled with all sorts of vegetables- carrots, egg, bamboo shoots, cucumber, cabbage, and a few more that escape me at the moment. It is served with I believe hoisin sauce and a little bit of a spicy sauce to give it a kick. I liked it but it was quite hard to eat because it wasn't cut into one bite pieces. It did take me back to my Singapore hawker center days though (of course at 3x the price)!

For our main dishes, we ordered Hokkien Char Mee (a new dish they offered), Banana Leaf Rice (comes with Redang Chicken), and a vegetable dish with sugar snap peas, shiitake mushrooms, onions, tofu, and a few other vegetables in an almost gravy-type sauce. We ordered an extra side of brown rice to go with all the strong flavors, and the brown rice was really good! The Hokkien Char Mee is a stir fry noodle dish which is almost black in color due to the special soy sauce mixtured they stir fry with. My Mom commented that the flavor wasn't as strong as it looks, but it was still pretty strong for me. Jeremy really liked it though!

The Banana Leaf Rice was I believe coconut flavored rice with a side of a few chicken pieces in a curry type sauce. It was also served on the side with a few boiled egg slices, cucumber slices, roasted peanuts, and a pickled vegetables mixture. Although I did not get the expected rice mixture wrapped in a banana leaf, the sauce as well as the rice were quite tasty. (I still liked the plain brown rice better!) My Mom called this "Malaysian curry rice' because it was served with eggs and pickled vegetables just like Japanese curry is done sometimes.

The vegetable dish was not what my Mom was expecting either because she expected a dry stir fried vegetable dish, and not a brothy/gravy vegetable dish. However, the flavor of the sauce was good, not overpowering, and the vegetables were cooked well. It wasn't too soft as some vegetables get when cooked and heated for too long. It definitely needed to be eaten with rice though, at least for me, so I'm glad we got the extra bowl!

Overall, we like this place still, even though I want to keep trying different things to find what I like the best :) Also we went on Saturday right before noon. That was the perfect time because it got PACKED right after us and the service got quite slow... other than that, we all enjoyed our food!

Layang Layang

For lunch today, I met up with some of my friends from work that I don't get to see as often as I'd like. We went to Layang Layang in Cupertino, which serves Malaysian food. Upon looking at the menu, it took me immediately back to all the food I had in Singapore... of course the prices were nothing alike, but the choices of food made me so sentimental! I had to decide between so many things just on the lunch menu- Hokkien Mee, Prawn Mee, Char Kway Teow, Mee Goreng, Nasi Goreng, Chicken Rice, Mee Siam, Kari Mee... I finally decided on Mee Siam hoping for the yummy goodness I had in Singapore.
The first thing we received with our lunch special was a spicy, sour soup. I actually really enjoyed it even though it was on the heavily sour side. I can't take much spicy heat, but I thought it had a good balance going in the soup. It was a little on the cold/lukewarm side so I'm sure it would have been even better if it was warmer.

Before we received our entrees, we ordered Roti Canai as an appetizer. It is a thin, partly crispy, partly doughy bread-like item that gets served in a cone shape with a dipping sauce. I particularly liked the doughy parts... and the sauce was delicious! It was a sweeter tasting yellow sauce that I couldn't pinpoint the taste for, but it was really good! Maybe some coconut milk, lots of spices... I'll stop guessing and look into it :)

When my entree came, I was a little surprised, because I thought it was going to be a little on the brothy/gravy noodle side. However, it was actually dry stir fried noodles. It still had the sweet, sour, and salty tastes to it and it was good, but it just was not exactly what I was expecting. It was also a little on the greasier side but I would still order it again a different time after I made my way through the menu. Other people ordered Nasi Goreng, curry, Prawn Mee (which ended up being very spicy but the broth I sampled was quite tasty), and Hainan Chicken. I definitely have my work cut out to try different things here!

A Pizza Weekend

Those that know me know that I'm not a "crave pizza all the time" kind of person. This weekend though, somehow it became an unplanned pizza weekend- meaning 3 pizza meals in a row! However, they were all different kinds of pizza which made it okay.

1) We invited some friends over on Friday for dinner and we decided to have an interactive homemade pizza night. I made a honey wheat dough in our bread machine and Jeremy made a regular white dough. For toppings, we had a whole range from sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, mixed veggies, and a lot of mozzerella cheese. We split the dough and each made our own personal pizzas which was nice since everyone could choose what they wanted. Somehow the girls had lots of veggies and the boys had meat and cheese... go figure... We also had a regular tomato sauce as well as a vodka sauce that was requested by our guest. My pizza turned out really well but I was so eager to eat it that I took a blurry pizza and didn't realize it!

2) For lunch on Saturday (I skipped breakfast), I had been invited by an out of town college friend to come up to Berkeley for a mini college friends reunion at Cheeseboard Pizza. For those that don't know, they serve"gourmet" thin crust pizza but only one flavor of the day. That day it was corn, carmelized onions, green peppers, key limes, goat cheese, and mozzerella cheese. It was fantastic and great to hang out with my girls from college! We even got free Dreyer's since they were having an annual scoop day- can't beat that!

3) For dinner on Saturday, our friends had invited us to go to Pizza Chicago, so we decided to go. Deep dish pizza is again different from the first two pizzas I had, so I was up for it. I apologize that the picture is again blurry because of my desire to eat. The one I ate was the "Sears Tower" veggie pizza with black olives, artichokes, onions, red peppers, and zucchini. I love veggies so hopefully it offsets the unhealthiness of pizza...

Even though I wouldn't want to do a pizza weekend again, I'll admit I did enjoy it! Jeremy didn't go to Cheeseboard but I know he loves pizza and loved how much we had it this weekend!