Ames to Eat, Laugh, and Enjoy

Australia & New Zealand Trip

2010-09-06T11:01:00.000-07:00

Big trip #2 for us this year was to Australia and New Zealand! We went for a little short of 2 weeks to Sydney and Auckland. The highlights for me are depicted below for food and things we did, but mostly it was great to see some friends I hadn't seen in a while!

Sydney highlights in no particular order:
Manly Beach- Fish & Chips , Harr's Cafe meat pie with mashed potatoes and peas, bacon roll from the farmer's market, and pub grub from the Shakespeare pub...
I also tried Vegemite at Elissa's place but that was a lowlight haha but glad I tried it!

Now for highlights of activities:
Featherdale Wildlife Park where we were among the kangaroos, koalas, emus, and all sorts of other animals... Bondi Beach with Elissa and Luke (our wonderful hosts)... Blue Mountains to be out in nature... and we found Nesbitt Street in Sydney!

Now on to Auckland and the food and activity highlights (which are significantly shorter due to less days): We actually loved the kebabs they had so had that twice... went over to the seaport town of Devonport where we hiked up to the top of a volcanic cone to Fort/Mt Victoria to overlook the bay (it was quite rainy whilewe were there)... we went on a ferry to the volcanic island of Rangitoto... and we had dinner our last night at the top of the Sky Tower- great trip!

Replicating the German Apple Pancake from The Original Pancake House

2010-07-31T14:09:00.001-07:00

It's the weekend which means I have time to experiment with food! This week, I'm determined to truly hold to my previous goal of cleaning out our fridge and/or freezer before going to go buy more things at the store. Currently in our fridge we have... eggs! My dilemma is trying to be healthy (especially after the coconut water cleanse) and it seems the most eggs are used with desserts or for main dishes, I would need to go get more ingredients from the store.

All that said, I was inspired to make pancakes, but not just any pancake... German Apple Pancakes like at the Original Pancake House in San Diego! I found a recipe online that tried to replicate the apple pancake from OPH, so I said, we have apples, we have eggs, we have buttermilk that I had frozen, let's give it a try! I was a bit hesitant since it was buttermilk when the recipe called for half cream and half whole milk and I also didn't know how the defrosted butermilk would turn out, but I figured it is worth a shot. The apples smelled fantastic as they were sauteing in the pan... I could have just eaten that but I was patient :)

I then let it cool for about an hour like the recipe said (I'm not sure what exactly that does for the pancake, but I took my husband's advice to "just follow the recipe" since it was the first time. When I was was ready, I prepared the batter, which actually seemed to be very little compared to the pan. I was hoping that it would puff up, but I wasn't sure so I added some baking powder (outside the recipe I know) hoping it would help and into the oven it went... and out it came wonderfully! It looked beautiful when flipped onto the plate but I will admit that I was a little sad that the batter was still on the thin side and it wasn't the thick pancake I was hoping to see.

When we tasted it though, it was delicious! I think next time I will decrease the amount of sugar and butter for the apples, since it was a bit overly sweet for me (not for Jeremy of course). I would also double the batter for the amount of pancakes, but other than that, I loved it and would definitely make it again! Gosh I love food :)

Sen Dai Sushi and Yogurtland, Milpitas

2010-07-23T21:32:00.000-07:00

Tonight Jeremy and I had an impromptu Friday night date night... okay maybe it was more like I was craving sushi and my husband loves me. Either way, we decided to try a new place that was rated well on Yelp- Sen Dai Sushi in Milpitas. It is a tiny place so we waited about 25 minutes and were seated at the sushi bar. We had looked at the menu while we were waiting so we knew what we were getting but of course I oogled all the food that was created and passed out... I always have food envy... it's so bad sometimes!

We ended up getting the nigiri special- 9 pieces of the chef's choosing. I asked for no ebi and no tobiko which appeared on the picture. I ended up getting salmon, smoked salmon, hamachi, maguro, tai, hirame, shiro maguro, ika, and disappointingly kanikama aka imitaion crab. I'm guessing that they add a 9th item that is cheap like tobiko or kanikama or egg or something but it was nonetheless a bit disappointing. For the nigiris the fish was fresh and there were some large pieces, but they weren't the most flavorful. I also thought it was interesting for a place to serve smoked salmon as a nigiri. I usually end up loving salmon, but this time the hamachi was my favorite of the nigiris.

For rolls, Jeremy humored me and got the Las Vegas roll (inside is tuna, hamachi, salmon, and avocado) as well as Spider roll (soft shell crab with avocado and a few other items) per my request. He also added the Milpitas roll which I think had spicy crab, smoked salmon, and avocado all topped with some tempura crisps. His favorite was the Las Vegas roll, and I think the spider roll would have been better if the soft shell crab weren't fried for so long. Jeremy thought it was fine but I thought it was a bit on the burnt side. The other issue we had was that each roll was way too big- about 3 bites worth. Jeremy said "I have a big mouth but those were too big even for me" haha. We both think they should make them thinner and longer as opposed to 4 ginormous hunks that fall apart with the first bite.

Overall, nothing too bad to say about it- the sushi was good but nothing special. I wouldn't necessarily make it my top sushi destination despite the good ratings on yelp by everyone else. I still prefer Yuki Sushi (which I need to visit again), Sushi Maru, and Satsuma Sushi over this one!

For dessert we headed over to Yogurtland which has a prime location right on Calaveras. It is fairly new and I think it is very cute inside, although we noticed that there is very little visibility from an employee perspective of what is going on in the rest of the store the way that it is structured. Regardless, the yogurt (nonfat mind you) was delicious with many different options to choose from- we got double cookies and cream, vanilla wafer cookies and cream, matcha green teta, and plain tart. Jeremy and I both picked 2 flavors- if you know both of us guess who picked which ones! I also topped my side with a few mochi balls and voila dessert for 30 cents an ounce, totaling a mere $3.44! I love the places where you can put your own choices in and just weigh the whole thing- LOVE LOVE it :) Now that place I could go back to... good thing it's not right by our place or I might become obese!

Coconut Water Cleanse

2010-07-23T21:25:00.001-07:00

I know it sounds crazy but I survived a coconut water cleanse! I followed the same process that a coworker of mine did- a 3 day cleanse by primarily only drinking coconut water. The first day is only coconut water (about 3L a day), the second and third day is coconut water with almonds. I had 20 almonds the second day and 25 the third day in addition to coconut water.

For anybody that knows me, they know I love my food and I love eating but I was amazed at how fine I felt. I started it this week because I had wanted to do it for a while but I was finally motivated by how gross I felt after consuming way too much on our Tahoe camping trip. The time I tried to start the cleanse before I was sitting at home while my husband baked bread as a means to fix himself food and I couldn't fight the desire to eat fresh baked bread that smelled fantastic... so this time I started it during a busy time at work which helped tremendously. I didn't even really think about it too much and I didn't have to leave to go get lunch or think about what to take for lunch haha. I had a lot more energy than I thought I would and surprisingly I didn't feel deprived this time. The power of will and mind! I even made dinner for Jeremy one night and didn't have the urge to eat the food I made- amazing!

Anyhow, I felt good through it- I didn't wake up with discomfort in my stomach, didn't have the sick, full feeling from eating too mcuh, and just truly felt fine. On the flip side, I didn't feel great or like I was cleansed throughly in my body or any other dramatic changes, so was it really a big difference maker? Mmm... probably not but at least I tried it! Of course I'm putting toxins back into my body after it, but who knows? Maybe it'll be an annual thing!

SF Jazz Festival and Foodie Tour #1

2010-07-04T21:42:00.000-07:00

For the Fourth of July, we decided to head up to the city for some Fillmore Jazz Festival and foodie eats. There were 5 or us that went and after some time of walking up and down the streets of the festival as well as listening to some of the acts, we figured it was time to head over to Delfina Pizzeria for real dinner. My husband and I snacked on a funnel cake in the mid-afternoon, but we were plenty ready for thin crust pizza!

We started with a cured meat platter which had salami, and many other cuts of fatty and salty cured meat that were good, but not things I would eat on a regular basis. I'm actually not sure that I'd order that appetizer platter again. We also got a side of grilled fennel which was actually quite tasty, and was a nice intro as we waited for our pizza. It was a bit on the greasy side, but very flavorful.

Now for pizza we ordered the margherita, salsiccia, and the special of the day with a cured meat and a cream type sauce. I thought I was going to like the simple margherita the best, but it turns out I liked the other two even better. The salsiccia came with sausage, tomato, onion, bell peppers, and cheese. The sausage had plenty of flavor but without overpowering the other ingredients so it wasn't too much meat. The third pizza, which I can't remember the name of, was quite different and unique. It was a cream based pizza with cured meat, onions, and big chunks of cracked black pepper that gave it quite a kick that startled me at first but grew on me. This was the most unexpected pizza but I was very pleased by our choice. If I were ordering a whole pizza for myself, I wouldn't get the cream pizza, and the margherita would probably be my choice. Overall the dough was good and the toppings were good- the only thing was the burnt dough bubbles on the edges that were numerous and very burnt... We picked them off but I could do without that.

After finishing our pizza, we headed over to the Mission for some Bi-Rite Creamery Ice Cream and Tartine Bakery goodies for the next morning. At Bi-Rite, Jeremy and I shared a triple cup of 3 flavors: salted caramel, coffee toffee, and Ricanelas. Our order of favorites is Ricanelas, which is a cinnamon ice cream with Snickerdoodle pieces, salted caramel, and coffee toffee. The cinnamon was surprisingly good- thanks Quartons for the recommendations- and won hands down. The salted caramel actually didn't taste that different from regular caramel to me... I didn't really taste a saltiness to it that brought out more flavor, but maybe my pallet isn't refined enough... and usually I love coffee ice cream, but this one was a bit too coffee bean-y from me and the tiny toffee pieces didn't really bring anything special out. They were all good, but Ricanelas, which wasn't our automatic choice, was hands down the winner. By the way, Jeremy also got a chocolate and salted caramel soft serve at the window which was actually quite delicious also!

Now on to Tartine bakery where I got the morning bun, croissant, and country loaf. The morning bun was not as good as I expected- tasted pretty much like one of those twisty, flaky pie type snacks... although we only tried the outstide of it, so maybe the inner core is fantastic who know- I'll update tomorrow. The croissant was deliciuos- buttery, flaky, soft and pure goodness... the country loaf was a bit hard to tear off, but there was good flavor and chewiness. We were still pretty full so I'll update on this tomorrow too when I have some for breakfast :)

I also baked my own multi grain bread the night before so we have a lot of bread in our house! It might be freezing time!

Hand Pulled Noodles Lesson

2010-07-03T14:34:00.000-07:00

Last night I was invited by my friend Jimmy to attend a personal cooking lesson to learn how to make Chinese hand pulled noodles. He had arranged for Chef Tomm to come teach us a lesson on how to make noodles and then make 2 dishes with the noodles we made- noodles with flavored chicken stock and stir fried noodles (spicy garlic sauce). For details, you can see the link below which is exactly what we did: http://www.cheftomm.com/chinese-hand-pulled-noodles/

It was a lot of fun (and work) since we were pulling noodles for about 2 hours if not more. That's also why there are no pictures- we were too busy and hands dirty! I brought my kitchen aid since the dough can be made by beating it in the kitchen aid mixer for 12 minutes. It was a bit crazy how hard the mixer was working to beat this dough, but it was also amazing to see the result of a very elastic dough. I found that it was all about getting the dough to the right consistency to come out with dry noodles ready to cook and to try to get the strands even. I must say that I think my noodle pulling skills diminished throughout the night somehow or maybe the first batch of dough came out the best... who knows.

The dough was simple to make but it is also very important to measure precisely and feel for the right consistency. The dough can easily be adjusted, you just have to know what you're looking for, so hopefully I'll be motivated to play around with this some more :) The other key is that you have to cook the noodles right after you stretch them, so you have to have a pot of boiling water to cook them in. As soon as they float they're good to go! I actually enjoyed the different sized noodles- skinny somen sized noodles, and fat, doughy, udon sized noodles... variety! I definitely enjoyed my first at home, personal cooking lesson so thanks Jimmy and Chef Tomm!

Yuki Sushi after Tuesday Golf

2010-06-29T22:15:00.000-07:00

I am playing in a ladies' league on tuesdays thanks to a few co-workers who invited me, and after one round we all planned to go to Yuki Sushi in Santa Clara. I had heard so many great things about it, that I was excited to try it! By the way, the league is super fun and the ladies are fabulous!

They started us all off with little complementary soba noodle appetizers which was a very nice touch. I then got the nigiri sushi dinner combo which included 7 nigiri and a tekka maki. I must say that their fish was fresh, delicious, and everything else there looked fantastic also. My special favorites were the hamachi, salmon, and maguro. One of the girls let me have a california roll and that was good too although I guess you can't go too wrong there :) Also to note, their edamame pods were huge, served warm with a bit of salt, and not over cooked to mush- great to keep us waiting for the rest of the food. Everything that came out of the kitchen looked fantastic and I can not wait to go back and try more!

Dining Club is Back!! Sumiya!

2010-06-29T22:01:00.001-07:00

For this month I had the ambition to bring the dining club back! I missed my lovely old roomies and I love going to new food places so this was a good excuse. Plus, maybe now I'll update my blog AT LEAST once a month! This time I chose to go to Sumiya in Sumiya, which is known for its yakitori style japanese food... they even give you a big bowl of cabbage with ponzu sauce to start off so you can eat veggies with the rest of your meal!

We ordered a number of things- the second set menu with tori soup (translated bird or chicken soup) which had chicken meatballs, kalbi don, 2 tsukune (chicken meatball) skewers, 2 negima (green onion and chicken) skewers, and 2 butabara (pork belly) skewers. We also ordered a gyutan (beef tongue) skewer, a tri-seaweed salad with yuzu miso dressing, a yakitori don, and a peach and oolong tea panna cotta to round out our meal.

I liked the soup, which I loved that we were all comfortable sharing a few sips out of the bowl haha, since it had depth of flavor and the meatballs were melt in your mouth delicious. I also liked the negima skewers which were simple but the meat was nice and tender. The pork belly was a bit on the fatty and salty side, but still good for a small piece. The seaweed salad and the dressing was delicious- perfect to offset some of the fatty items! *Sorry about the lack of pictures- I was eager to eat and they turned out blurry... maybe I need to upgrade to an iPhone 4 :P

Unfortunately, I thought I was going to love the kalbi don and gyutan, but both were a bit disappointing. The kalbi was nothing like what korean kalbi is... it actually tasted more like liver that was marinated which was quite odd. The gyutan was not the thin, chewy, grilled deliciousness I've had elsewhere, but small ball- like pieces that were chewier and not as flavorful as others I've had. I thought the donburis (rice bowls) were a bit disappointing due to being on the bland side. They looked great with the half cooked egg to mix, but there just wasn't that much taste... maybe the yakitori sauce on there didn't have that much flavor... and finally the panna cotta- that to be honest was something I would recommend highly against. It was too rich to be a panna cotta with overpowering tea taste that did not mesh well. It was not light and gelatine-y but much more like a heavy custard or cream dish that was not very sweet or well flavored. It was a disappointing end to the meal, but I did get frozen yogurt at Yumi Yogurt right close by to make up for it!

Wow it's been a while

2010-06-04T21:37:00.000-07:00

I knew that I had put off blogging even though I took food pictures everywhere... but I just now figured out it's been 2 months! I need to get back on the ball!
I'm thinking about starting another food project, maybe a bento project to see if that's something that I could do someday... I'll have to give it some thought but it's always nice to have a goal or project to keep me motivated and steering me in a direction I want to head in!

On a different tangent, I am aiming to start up the dining club again so that the girls and I can check out a new place at least once a month and spend time together! Those I will force myself to blog about!

What happened in the last 2 months...
-Tonight we went to eat at Premier Pizza, at which I got a HUGE slice of creamy chicken pizza (recommended by the guy who looked like the store manager) and small salad. Jeremy got a pepperoni pizza slice and a BBQ chicken. The creamy chicken was actually too creamy since I don't care that much for cream sauces- I prefer a lighter tomato, so I had a bit of mine and I had a bit of the BBQ chicken (quite good). The pizza is good- I'd go back!
- At the beginnning to mid May we went on a cruise to Alaska with some friends on the Norwegian Pearl. Overall my opinion is that the food quality was better than Carnival, but variety day to day in the buffet was subpar. Also, no 24 hour pizza (their pizza was mehhhh) or soft serve??
-Right after the cruise, I went to Austin for work. We had some good margaritas and queso at Guero's, good ribs and bread at County Line, and some good Salt Lick brisket at the airport. I will say though that I was quite meat, tex mex, and BBQed out when I got back!

I think those are the highlights from the last month... I promise to be better about this! It's like following my life since my life revolves around food!

Cupcake Battle: Sprinkles vs Kara's

2010-04-08T21:38:00.000-07:00

The perfect opportunity arose to have a Cupcake Showdown between Sprinkles cupcakes and Kara's Cupcakes! They were the double chocolate with sprinkle cupcakes from each place, so we had a side by side taste test after dinner. The picture may not do it justice, but the Kara's cupcake on the left was quite a bt smaller than the Sprinkles one- not sure what the price difference was.

My opinion to be honest is that they were pretty similar as far as cake portion, but as an overall experience, I preferred Sprinkles. The cake portion as I said was fairly similar, but I think I preferred the Kara's one a TINY bit more- there was a lasting flavor that I enjoyed after I had swallowed my bite. The frosting however, I liked the Sprinkles one better. It was a little denser and creamier compared to the light fluffy one on Kara's. I think Kara's cupcake has a very large layer of frosting because it's so light (as you can see from the cut cupcake picture). I'm not a huge frosting person to begin with, so I liked that the Sprinkles cupcake had a much higher cake to frosting ratio in one bite. Both cupcakes were moist, quite tasty, and not too sweet- bottom line I'd eat both :)

I made Jeremy do the taste test too and he actually was the exact opposite of me. He liked the Sprinkles cake and Kara's frosting- he didn't really hesitate on it either! Again, to each their own! Of course, he doesn't discriminate when it comes to eating chocolate or chocolate cake :)

Also, our work bake off round 2 is coming up next week... I haven't decided what to make for it or if I'll submit something, so I'll have to think about it. The categories are: pies, cakes, cookies, and bars. If anybody has ideas or suggestions, feel free to let me know!

April Foods

2010-04-08T21:00:00.000-07:00

There have been a number of food adventures already in April (Coconuts Carribbean food may have been end of March...) that I thought I'd share!

1) Coconuts Carribbean Restaurant in Palo Alto- We went to celebrate our friend Robbie's new job, which has been his dream as long as he can remember! Several of our friends had been there before and had rave reviews and for cheaper than Mantra Restaurant, at which we were there for Happy Hour drinks prior to dinner. We ordered the plantain/chickpea cakes with guacamole appetizer that our friend was raving about. They were in essence mashed and fried plantains and chickpeas that were battered and fried served with guacamole. I didn't think it was all that great enough to order again, but to each their own!

The main dish that I ordered on the other hand was delicious. I went for the traditional dish of jerk chicken, since that's what they're known for! It was deliciously cooked- moist and very flavorful but not overpoweringly spicy. It was served with delicious fried plantains that were sweet as could be, rice cooked with red beans that were fantastically flavorful, and assorted vegetables that were good but slightly oily for me. I was very glad to see vegetables though :)

Jeremy got the jerk salmon so of course I tried some of that as well. Again, very flavorful but it didn't completely take over the salmon, and it was cooked to perfection. I could have done without the tartar sauce type sauce on top since I'm not a mayo fan, but others seemed to like it. Their mashed potatoes were mighty delicious, but you can tell they had a lot of butter to make it that good. Finally the green beans that came with the salmon was good too- thankfully not too mushy! Overall, I would definitely come again for the main meal!

2) Kung Fu Taco Truck- Some people at work arranged for the Kung Fu Taco Truck to come down from San Francisco so I decided to give it a try. It is a fusion of mexican and chinese food, which a lot of people were skeptical about, but since the Korean/Mexican fusion taco truck is so popular in LA, this seemed pretty normal to me. There were 5 choices: chicken with asian marinade, steak with asian marinade, mushu veggies, roast duck, and char shiu. After much debate, I decided to go for the steak, duck, and veggie tacos. My favorite was the roast duck because the flavors were pretty much like peking duck, just with a tortilla not a bun or thin wrap. The mango salsa went fantastically with the duck that was a little fattier but oh so flavorful. They were all different so it's hard to pick a second place since the other two were both good as well. The steak wasn't too different from a normal taco, just a little sweeter because of the marinade. It also had a carrot salsa type dollop on top which was a bit different. The only bad thing about it was that I had a very chewy and fatty piece of meat that I had to spit out. The mushu veggies taco was very flavorful and tasted just like mushu which I love. The only bad thing about this one was that it was quite juicy from the vegetables and sauce that it was really messy to eat. I would definitely eat at this taco truck again and I want to try all of the other kinds too!

3) I decided to make homemade honey nut granola since I had thought about it for a while and have started cutting out processed foods. Plus, it's a lot cheaper when you make it at home and you can control what and how much sweetness goes into the product. I don't think I had enough liquid because it didn't come out as cluster-y as I wanted, but the flavor was good. I may have added a little too much healthy stuff like flax seed which takes away a bit of the sweetness. With that said, I feel like it's healthier, because I put in thick rolled oats, sliced almonds, flax seed, and sesame seed mixed together with just vegetable oil, honey, and vanilla. It was very easy and I would definitely make it again, although it's dangerous since I keep munching on it at work! Maybe next time I'll make granola bars- thanks All Recipes!

4) Bibimbap- We went to Cupertino Village for korean food since several of us were in the mood for some dolsot bibimbap. I had been to the restaurant in Cupertino Village before, but I had only had the tofu soup before so I ventured out for the bibimbap. As usual, I thought the side dishes were great, even though there were a few items that were a little strange to our non-Asian friends. Now for the main course... when it first came out, I was a bit surprised because it is definitely smaller in size than other restaurants in the area, but it was good. It was awesomely crispy on the bottom already so you could start mixing pretty quickly. It wasn't too greasy either which I appreciated, but I thought the vegetables could have used a little more flavor and I could have used a little more meat since the pieces were very small and just floating on top in a thin layer. With that said, I still took part of it home, since I didn't need to eat the whole bowl plus the side dishes just for lunch!

Diane's bday cake and homemade cinnamon rolls

2010-03-27T15:44:00.000-07:00

Wednesday was our beloved pastor's wife's birthday and so I volunteered to make a homemade chocolate cake for her. I hardly make homemade cakes since box mixes are so easy and so tasty, but I decided to go all out for this woman that is ever so faithful in making us meals and delicious goodies each week! I found a recipe online titled "BEST MOIST CHOCOLATE CAKE"- who can see that and not try it? So I made it with Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa Powder and it was soooooo delicious. Everybody absolutely loved it and it was so easy! Why would I keep buying boxed cakes with preservatives and junk like high fructose corn syrup if this is just a tad more effort? I think I am committing to buy much fewer, if any, boxed mixes that contain junk. Trader Joe's or Whole Foods may be an exception if the ingredient list is acceptable :)

Then today, we had our friends the Ls over for brunch. We hadn't seen them in a while so I wanted to make something different. I finally attempted homemade cinnamon rolls (along with buttermilk pancakes). First off, I love our bread machine! It just makes so many things easier and fills our hearts with love (and tummies with carbs). I found a recipe on AllRecipes for a "Cinnabon Clone" which it wasn't quite, but that may have been my fault. I think I left them in the oven for a bit too long while I was cooking other stuff so they were a bit crispier than desired on the inside- but the inside was soft and gooey! I'm sure Cinnabon puts a LOT more butter and sugar in their innards though! I think I thinned out the icing a bit too much also. Otherwise, the flavor was good and our guests enjoyed them as well! By the way, I tried the floss cutting method and it really works great- just use some dental floss and slice up that rolled up log in no time without squishing the whole roll!

Five Finger Shoes!

2010-03-27T15:36:00.000-07:00

This has absolutely nothing to do with food, but I thought I'd share my new acquired possession- five finger shoes! They're a little weird at first- think toe sock shoes... the concept is that you can run, hike, walk, etc as if you're barefoot but with the protection you need from sharp or dangerous objects. It takes a bit of getting used to, and putting them on isn't as quick as normal shoes, but they seem nice.

I went for a run in them and going on gravel for a train run was a big mistake since I could feel every pebble under my feet- on the pavement was fine though. My calves were sore the next day, I guess I do run differently even though I'm not purposely changing my form!

My co-worker went hiking in hers, as well as paddle boating, and absolutely loved them. She still needs to go running in them to provide that verdict.

Ramen ALMOST 2 days in a row

2010-03-18T22:46:00.000-07:00

So I almost had ramen 2 days in a row (not a horrible thing if it had happened by any means) at new places- Orenchi Ramen and Dohatsuten.

I went to Orenchi ramen yesterday for lunch with a few coworkers of mine that I hadn't seen in a while- thanks Lucy for introducing us to the place and for organizing! The ramen was really good. I got the house "Orenchi" ramen which is a tonkotsu ramen. What made it unique was the thicker, chewier noodles which I really liked and thought was delicious. I don't like soft, soggy noodles at all, so it was fresh and "al dente" if you can use the same terminology for asian noodles as well. The broth was tasty and had depth in flavor, but was a bit salty... not that it stopped me from sipping almost all of it! I'm also not a big egg person, but this egg was perfectly soft boiled and looked gorgeous when it was bitten into. I still didn't eat all of it, but it was quite delicious. They offer tonkotsu, shio, and shoyu ramen (along with a few appetizers) I believe but that's it- they again prove my point that it takes being good at a few things and doing them well, as opposed to offering a lot of things but being mediocre in them.

Then tonight for dinner, my old roomie Christina and I had an impromptu shopping and dinner outing. We decided to go to Dohatsuten in Palo Alto. They are a izakaya type restaurant which means small plates that usually go well with sake or other types of alcohol. They also offer ramen and clay pots, so Christina got the Dohatsuten ramen with a small shiro maguro don, and I got the chashu and kimchee clay pot. I will definitely have to go back to try the ramen, but my thought was to try the clay pot since I could take it home if I didn't eat it all since I wasn't that hungry... but of course I ate it all! I'm still holding/rubbing my tummy regretting how much I ate, but it was tasty. The soy saucy flavor was a bit too strong, but you have got to love the crispy rice bits which they have a lot of! I also didn't like that there was soy sauce on the rice under the shiro maguro- the customer should be able to adjust the flavor themselves instead of having already soy sauced rice. Other than that, I'm excited to go back and try the ramen!

March adventures thus far

2010-03-14T21:42:00.000-07:00

I need to get better at updating on a regular basis... with that said here are my March food adventures so far :)

1) Pho Linh- it is a new pho place in Cupertino that I went to for lunch with a few of my co-workers. I must say that it was quite delicious and hit the spot on a cold, drizzly day. I ordered the rare steak and brisket pho, while a few friends ordered a chicken pho. I've never tried chicken pho, but apparently they're fans. My only complaint is that they only gave us one dish of vegetables to put in our pho, when there were 4 people! Sure they provided us more when we asked, but one dish sure isn't enough... especially when you have someone like me that loves bean sprouts, basil, and lime!

2) Shan- I went out for lunch again with some co-workers to an Indian restaurant called Shan. From the people that had eaten there before, they recommended the Chicken Tikka Masala, so I gave it a shot. It was definitely different from the other creamier tikka masalas that I've had and liked, but this was good also. The chicken was a bit on the drier side, which semed obvious from everyone leaving some chicken even though the sauce was soaked up. Their naan was delicious- slightly crispy on the outside, but oh so soft on the inside, and delightfully warm. Some people ordered the garlic naan or curry potato stuffed naan, but I liked the plain naan- simple and traditional! It wasn't my favorite tikka ever and my fingers definitely smelled for a long time, but I would go back and try other things again!

3) Blue Rock BBQ catered to work- we had BBQ to celebrate a co-worker's gain of American citizenship with what else but American BBQ? I personally ordered the ribs with hush puppies and baked beans. The ribs fell off the bone and were tasty- drenched in sauce but good and not too fatty. The baked beans were thick and a little sweet, but delicious otherwise and very flavorful. The hush puppies (my first experience) were a bit of a downer because they were a bit too dense and not too flavorful. Maybe those needed to have some sauce on it also! Everyone else agreed also though so it wasn't just me. I also sampled other items- the pulled pork was a bit dry but again drenched in yummy sauce made it good, chicken was moist and tender (made for good BBQ chicken rolls. As for the sides, mac and cheese was like a lasagna with cheese sauce, cole slaw was a bit bland- they were nothing special... the baked beans and ribs were the winners!

4) Jeffrey's burgers- We went with friends to Jeffrey's in Menlo Park. I didn't have high expectations going into it, but I must admit it was quite tasty. I got the plain hamburger, but with the addition of lettuce, tomatoes, and a tad of ketchup from the very fresh looking condiment bar, it was perfect. Even more delightful was the combination of the burger with their delicious french fries and chocolate/vanilla milkshake. The french fries were quite a bit thicker, and you can see the potato skin on it which I always love. Crispy on the outside but nice and soft on the inside I'm usually a greasy, soft fry lover, not the crispy so this was a good combo! As for the shake, yummm.. this was my splurge since I ran the Angel Island 12K yesterday (no food pic but here's my victory pose after the race) :)

Now for some home cooked items
5) Mabo tofu with Lucy- I needed something quick and easy for a week day, so I made mabo tofu with brown rice (attempted and loved in my Japanese food project). No surprise, still loved it, and this time I used ground turkey in an attempt to be a bit more healthy :) Lucy said it hit the spot for her too- soft tofu, rice, a little soupiness... yumm...

6) Stuffed Cabbage- This has been something my Mom made time to time in between Japanese dinners, and I definitely liked them. There is something soothing about cabbage stuffed with ground meat (turkey in this case), carrots, onions, and a little brown rice, all cooked and braised in a tomato sauce concoction... the thing is, it doesn't have to be perfect- the first ones were much more pliable, but as I got deeper into the cabbage layers, they weren't as soft, so the top layer of my pot had some "rolled" pieces with the stuffing sticking out of it. Hey, it still tastes good and now it's soup!

7) "Beef" and barley soup- I put beef in quotes because I used ground turkey instead. I seem to have a lot of turkey according to what I'm posting, but I promise it's because I'm rolling them into one blog entry and only talking about the more unique dishes I've cooked lately! My friend Jamie had brought beef and barley soup to a girl's group and it was delicious so she emailed us all the recipe. Now I made it with turkey and it was delicious- Jeremy ate several bowls of it even though it was a little more tomato than he cared for. I liked it and we're both taking some for lunch too :)

Still to come since I stocked our fridge and cabinet this weekend... corned beef for St Patrick's Day, quinoa with salmon, and more! I'm also going to a new ramen place in Santa Clara so that review to come soon~

February Food Adventures

2010-02-21T19:17:00.000-08:00

I hadn't made something new in a while, so here is a log of what I attempted recently:

1) The first was Chicken Cacciatore in the slow cooker for our friends who just had twins! It's always nice to be able to use the slow cooker since it is a weekday and I don't have too much time after getting home to make a nice dinner for friends. I actually did it over a course of a few days since the flavors meld and get better over a few days. Plus I had to debone the chicken, skim some of the fat, and adjust the flavor as necessary. I added multi grain pasta to it and everybody seemed to like it- success! The recipe I used was the one below (I'm becoming a bigger and bigger fan of the simply recipes website), but in true Amy style I adjusted a few things:
http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/chicken_cacciatore_hunter_style_chicken/

2) The second was Shephard's Pie, which I like but in all honesty, I made it because we need to use up some potatoes. I blended a few different recipes with what my Mom used to make, and it actually came out great! I used ground turkey to make it a bit healthier, and flavored it with some Mrs. Dash for a low salt flavoring option, plus chicken stock, tomato sauce, and a few other adds to add flavor complexity. Topped it with mashed potatoes, and a lot of cheese on Jeremy's side, and voila! I really liked it, and Jeremy really liked it since he ate about half of the 9 x 13 finished product... it may have been because we went for a run and I didn't feed him until after 1pm! I'm starving my husband apparently, oops!

3) The third was Okowa or Japanese sticky brown rice (pictured next to the lemon bars below). I cooked it like any "takikomi gohan" or mixed rice, with chicken stock instead of dashi, mirin, soy sauce for flavoring, and for vegetables I included shiitake mushrooms, carrots, gobo (burdock) root, and konnyaku noodles. It didn't come out as sticky as I thought it would, so I'm not sure if I didn't add enough liquid, or too much, or if it was a different issue... it still tasted good though! Jeremy didn't like the flavor but oh well can't win them all...

4) Finally, I made Lemon Orange Bars courtesy of Rachael Ray's recipe to take tomorrow night for our girl gathering :) I halved the amount of crust since I don't like too much crust on my lemon bars, hopefully others share that preference! I used a 9 x 13 pan like it called for but it came out pretty thin, so I may have overcooked it, but the edges that I tasted (as I scraped the pan) tasted good so hopefully everyone else likes them too.
http://www.rachaelraymag.com/Recipes/rachael-ray-magazine-recipe-index/dessert-recipes/Golden-Lemon-Orange-Bars

It felt good to try new things in the kitchen again... I'm considering doing another experimental project to get myself trying new things again, and maybe inviting more people over this time to test these dishes out!! If you read this, suggestions are welcome for the next Amy cooking/baking project!

Anniversary- Rok Bistro

2010-02-08T21:48:00.001-08:00

Happy 1 year wedding anniversary to us! We made it :)

After a rough week of migraines for me, a weekend flight down to SD for a wedding, and the super bowl, somehow planning something for our wedding anniversary had slipped our minds. We knew we wanted to go out for dinner to celebrate so I was put in charge of finding a place and making a reservation... it was kind of a random choice, but Rok Bistro in Sunnyvale was the chosen one.

We weren't really sure what to expect, but we ended up selecting the 4 course meal similar to a fondue place, except with a grilled entree on a super hot "rok" so you can cook your meat to exactly how you want it. Apparently they heat it to 700 degrees, and it will maintain heat for about 45 minutes so you can cook the meat the whole time you eat. We went with all the recommended choices for each course: a half salad, cheese fondue, entree meat, and a chocolate fondue. The half salad we chose was the "citrus salad" which was spinach with strawberries, tangerines, and candied pecans with a sweet vinaigrette dressing. It was really good, but if I got picky, I wish they had left the dressing on the side as I had asked...

For the cheese fondue, we went with the recommended "California Dreamin" which had a blend of 3 different cheeses with herbs. They provided bread, crisp veggies, and apples to dip, but Jeremy and I both agreed that the bread was the best. The fondue was okay but definitely my least favorite of the courses. Of course I would choose a dessert fondue over a cheese fondue any day so maybe I'm not the best evaluator...

For the entree, I chose the NY Steak and Jeremy got the buffalo. We both chose a side of garlic mashed potatoes to go along with the maple glazed veggies, which were both delicious, even though I know both are not healthy at all... The hot rock for our entree was quite interesting and although you have to work for your food, it's nice to be able to cook each bite to your liking! I liked both meats- the buffalo was very tender and juicy, and the NY steak was flavorful but not as tender as I would have liked- and the chimichurri sauce they served with it was a nice change to lightly dip it in.

For dessert was the Snickers fondue- dark chocolate, crunchy peanut butter, and caramel sauce mixed with a little cream. We were pretty darn full by then, but I was out of control on that chocolate! It was ooey gooey chocolatey goodness! They served bananas, strawberries, apples, pretzels, Rice Krispies Treats, pound cake, and cocoa dusted marshmallows with the fondue. Although in the end I took the "find you lost item" spoon and turned it into a "try to finish the fondue" spoon! You know we're really full when neither one of us can finish a chocolate fondue!

To finish it off, they brought us vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup on a cold rock slab with a candle to celebrate our wedding anniversary. They sang their usual birthday celebration song for us with "anniversary" switched for "birthday" which was quite cute for trying. Overall, we had a good time, good food, and even though we had to be rolled out from being stuffed, thankful that we are blessed to be able to splurge every now and then for restaurant outings!

Korean Food with Jessica

2010-01-25T20:39:00.000-08:00

It was so exciting to have lunch with Jessica and Darrel on Saturday since I don't get to see my good friend that often. We met up in Fremont and I found Auntie's Korean Restaurant on Yelp as a highly recommended place so we went since there aren't many korean places in Sacramento by them.

This weekend was quite bad for sticking with the Jillian Michaels' Making The Cut Diet but hey I'm sticking to the exercises like no other! Anyhow, I got their tofu soup with beef which was okay but not the best I've had. The side dishes were okay but nothing too special to talk about either. Kimchi as usual (2 types), a plain boiled broccoli type dish, fish cake pieces, a seaweed salad, a burdock root dish... anyhow not too much to rave about! We also ordered the seafood and green onion pancake which came with good reviews from Yelp, and Jess was craving it, which was good. Again, not the best I've ever had, but it was quite tasty. It didn't meet Jillian's "no white flour" rule but I didn't follow the no white rice rule either... I still have to live life and good food is a good life!

I just enjoyed the company for lunch, and Jessica asked me to be her matron of honor! Kind of scary but exciting at the same time- hopefully I can do as good a job as she did for me!

New Year's "Resolution"

2010-01-09T13:40:00.000-08:00

It's the new year! I'm not much of a fan of new year's resolutions, but my friend and I decided to follow Jillian Michaels' Making The Cut book so we have accountability to get in better shape. The timing just happened to be right after the holidays since we were both going to be gone for the holidays without access to the gym. You may know the author as the scary trainer lady on the Biggest Loser... definitely intimidating, but I'm up for the challenge!

So far I've completed week 1- I've been sore beyond belief almost this whole week because of the boot camp type exercises, but it's a good feeling! Plus, the food I can eat is normal- none of this shake only or no carbs stuff that I wouldn't be able to stick to. For example, below are the foods I ate this week:

Breakfast:
Kashi Go Lean Crunch Cereal
Oatmeal (my usual at work)
Yogurt with frozen berries

Lunch:
Spinach salad with grilled chicken, bell peppers, avocados, and a sprinkling of wild rice
Brown rice and Asian chicken

As a snack I had either some almonds, an apple, a tangerine, or munched on some more cereal.

Dinner:
Brown rice and Asian-flavored chicken
Wild Rice with Moroccan spice grilled chicken and spinach salad
Curried Tilapia with eggplant

We'll see how it goes for the next 3 weeks but it helps to have an accountability partner even though we don't work out together! I'm on my way to being the strongest me to prepare for the rest of 2010!

BBQ Dinner with Friends in FL

2009-12-27T06:20:00.001-08:00

Last night we went out to dinner with our friends Ryan and Nichole. We sadly don't get to see them very often since we live so far apart, so this was a good opportunity to meet up- yay Christmas! They suggested Lee Roy Selmon's for some good BBQ so off we went. Jeremy and I split the BBQ family platter which included "Soul Good Pulled Pork", ribs, BBQ chicken and meatloaf. They allowed us to switch the meatloaf for something else, so we went for the brisket. We also got two sides and chose the baked beans and cornbread casserole.

When our food came though, we still had meatloaf on our plates, so our waitress (who was quite good) told us to keep our meatloaf and she would bring out the brisket. It was all quite tasty and the bread they brought out was delicious too- yeast buns with BBQ sauce dripped on top. If I were to rank the meats, I'd put it in the order of... top choice pulled pork hands down, then ribs, then chicken, then brisket (probably because it was drenched in sauce), and last meatloaf. I really liked the sides, especially the corn mush type side we had even though I do feel like I should have vegetables right about now... it's been a lot of meat and potatoes with vegetables covered in some sort of sauce... salad anyone? I can get that when I go home though :) Nichole got the cheese and bacon grits which I wanted to try also, but oh well some other time it shall be! It was a great time at dinner and so good to see them- what more can you ask for good friends and good food!

Some Nesbitt Adventures in Nov and Dec

2009-12-23T13:56:00.001-08:00

It's been a while since I last posted, but here are some of the Nesbitt adventures over the last few months:

1) Apple Caffe Macs breakfasts:

The first time I came for breakfast, I got a wheat germ pancake with strawberries, bananas, and chocolate chips. It sounds healthy until the chocolate goes in... but oh so good and huge. The other thing I finally tried is the Crazy Potatoes. May I recommend half hash browns and half potato squares, then add the toppings! I didn't know they had egg whites only, which I would have chosen, but boy they were delicious. I would be obese if I ate that every day but if you're willing to splurge, go for that!

2) Chick-Fil-A in San Diego (over Thanksgiving vacation):

After many sad sundays for Jeremy in which we passed the Fairfield Chick-Fil-A, we decided to meet my friend for a second lunch at Chick-Fil-A. To be honest, I don't really see the big deal

of the place, but Jeremy has a sentimental value attached to it and we were finally able to meet that! I'm all for being a supportive wife!

3) Okan Japanese Restaurant in San Diego

My Dad wanted to take me to this Japanese restaurant because of the concept that he thought I'd like. It is a restaurant centered around "mom's home cooking"and has some quick foods already on display in bulk as well as a full menu. The food was good and healthy- I would definitely consider a business similar to this concept but try to make it more efficient!

4) Harry's Hofbrau in San Jose for Jason's birthday

The idea here is very neat- very homey feeling comfort foods served cafeteria style. Everyone can order what they want, pay, and sit togeth

er. I got the open faced turkey sandwich as recommended by the birthday boy. It comes with their famous roast turkey on top of toast with mashed potatoes, and TONS of gravy smothered on top. I meant to ask for the gravy on the side but mistakenly answered yes to everything in the rush of things. Jeremy ordered tri tip which was the special for the day and it was delicious. It was like thanksgiving all over again!

4) Lobster Shack in Redwood City for Emily's birthday

The place looks very casual but is very expensive but I have to remember it IS lobster after all. Jeremy got the lobster bisque in a sour dough bowl which was very tasty. I splurged for the naked lobster roll, meaning the lobster isn't tossed in a mayo dressing (since I don't like mayo and I want to taste the lobster I pay for). The roll was good but I don't think I'd pay $19 again for that roll... on the other hand, the free oyster crackers were delicious!

5) Cracker Barrel in Florida (Christmas vacation)

I had heard many friends from Florida and the South talk about Cracker Barrel as a must go once place so we went during out Florida Christmas trip. I ordered the chicken and dumplings plate with country green beans and hash brown casserole. It also came with a biscuit and corn muffin. The chicken and dumplings were good- more of a noodle consistency on the dumplings than the biscuit type I was expecting, but quite good- just very heavy since it is a creamy sauce. The green beans were good but nothing special- thankfully they weren't doused in butter (I don't think). The hash brown casserole which has potatoes, lots of cheese and onions baked together was good but again very heavy and I couldn't finish it all. I had high expectations for the biscuits, but they were nothing special to tell the truth, and the corn muffins were bland. I'm not sure if I'm just not cut out for heavy southern cooking but again I would be obese if I ate this all the time in the portions they served! It was good but let's just say it's not my first choice.

6) Cici's Pizza Buffet in Florida

$5 for a pizza buffet already set my expectations, but it was actually not bad! I learned that the key is to order what you specifically want (in my case a red sauce veggie pizza) since that ensures that it is hot. The other pizzas were under heat lamps but it didn't really seem like it. I guess I can't complain for $5... I will say their desserts were quite good- I liked the cinnamon rolls that kept coming out the best. I actually also liked the fudgy, seemingly undercooked brownies, as well as the apple pie pizza. Definitely not healthy and definitely not an all the time thing, but as Jeremy says "we're on vacation!"

Florida food vacation to continue :)

"Bon Voyage" Brenda Lunch

2009-10-04T21:09:00.001-07:00

Today I had lunch with my good friend Brenda in Millbrae because she's moving to Thailand for 8 months- crazy! She isn't Asian, she doesn't speak the language, and this is a new job... way to go Brenda in jumping out there! Anyway, before she leaves the Bay Area, I had to see her, catch up, and wish her good luck abroad. Hopefully Jeremy and I can make a trip out to Japan as I am hoping, and maybe Brenda can meet us over there- that would be fun and something we have talked about doing since high school :)

So for lunch we went to the Shanghai Dumpling Shop in Millbrae my friend Cindy told me about. Apparently there is a SF branch also, and that shop just so happened to come up in conversation with a few other friends... very strange and coincidental indeed! We ordered some xiao long bao which is something they're known for and some pan fried pork buns. We also got the Shanghai wonton soup and dajanmien (black bean sauce noodles).

Overall, I must say that it was not the best I've had before, but you don't find the xiao long bao in very many places around here so not bad! Everything was good, but not great, thats all. Besides I was going there for the company more than the food. Plus, I didn't know if Brenda wanted Asian since she is going to Asia, but the location was crucial as a place for us to meet somewhere in between and not too far south from her since she has a lot to do before her trip.

Brenda, I'll miss you but be safe and have fun!!

Top 3 Dish Recipes

2009-10-03T09:31:00.000-07:00

Thank you to my friends that have commented on my blog along the way! Who knew I had friends that actually read my craziness :) As suggested by Miss Molly, I have decided to pick my top 3 surprise favorite dishes and put the recipes I used here with my slight tweakings. Enjoy!

#3: Mabo Tofu

Ground beef 70 g
Ginger (minced) 1 tsp
Garlic(minced) 1/2 tsp
Soft tofu 80g- cut into large cubes since they will break apart
Miso 1 tsp
Soy Sauce 1 tsp
Brown Sugar 1/4 tsp
Sake 1 Tbsp
Dashi 1/2 cup
Corn or potato starch 1/2 tsp dissolved in 1 tsp water
Green onions 1 strand chopped for garnish

1. Heat a little oil (a little bit of sesame oil enhances flavor), then cook the ground beef, ginger and garlic together. Try to break up the meat pieces.
2. When cooked mix in the ingredients from miso to dashi and distribute flavors evenly. Then add in tofu trying not to mix too much as the tofu breaks apart easily.
3. Add in the corn starch and water mixture and cook a few minutes longer, so that it thickens a little.
4. Turn off the heat, add the green onions, and enjoy with some rice!

#2: Sukiyaki

Dashi 1 cup
Brown sugar 2-3 Tbsp
Sake 1/2 cup
Mirin (sweet cooking sake) 1/2 cup
Soy sauce 1/2 cup
Water 1 cup

1. Feel free to chop up any vegetables you want to put in! I would recommend Napa cabbage, shiitake mushrooms, enoki mushrooms, firm/grilled tofu, shirataki/konnyaku noodles, and green onions. Don't forget the thinly sliced beef available at asian markets to swish around in the soup as you cook your dinner!
2. Mix those together for the base of the soup. These should heat together to cook the alcohol off (plus it'll cook off while the vegetable are put in).
3. Put the vegetables in and when they're ready to be eaten, start getting vegetables and "shabu shabu"ing the meat!

*Traditionally it is dipped into raw egg (it gets cooked by the heat so not dangerous) but I didn't make my friends do that :)

And now drumroll please...
#1: Nikuman (steamed beef buns):

For the bun:

bread flour 150g
all-purpose flour 150g
sugar 30g
a pinch of salt
instant yeast 4g
baking powder 10g
milk 40ml
water 100ml
butter 15g

1. Mix them all together until it combines and forms a dough. I had to knead it with my hands after the standmixer was finished to bring it all together. Let it rest for 30 min. You can make the meat filling (recipe below) in the meantime.
2. After 30 minutes, break off pieces and roll them out into thin rounds (as round as you can get it) and add the filling. Wrap it up and twist at the top to create a seal.
3. Let it rest again for 15 min.
4. After 15 minutes, steam them for 15 minutes and you're done!

For the meat filling:

thinly sliced beef- 6 slices - pre flavored with the cornstarch and sake combo below
japanese cooking sake wine 1 TB
cornstarch 1/2 TB

Mix the cornstarch and sake together to dissolve, then add the meat while you prepare everything else and start adding it in. Mix everything well!

chinese cabbage about 4 leaves (I cheated and used leftover sukiyaki cabbage with konnyaku noodles since it was already cooked)
garlic 2 cloves, minced
ginger about half the size of a golf ball, minced
shiitake mushroom 1/4 cup, sliced
slight sale and pepper

I hope you guys enjoy! Let me know if you try any of them or if you have any other dish or project suggestions!

Last day!

2009-09-30T21:13:00.000-07:00

Today is the last day of the project and I made it! 30 Japanese dishes in 30 days! I had a hard time deciding what to make as my last 2 dishes, and wondered if I should've invited my old roomies over to celebrate the last day, but I was a little too last minute on it. I ended up deciding on shira-ae which I had wanted to make, and the reason I bought my suribachi. I also made crispy rice balls with salmon... and to top things off, I even made mitarashi dango or sweet mochi balls that I love.

Dish 29. Shira-ae- This is one of my favorite light side dishes that my Mom makes so I needed to give it a whirl. It is basically vegetables cooked in a soy sauce, then mixed with ground sesame and "smashed" tofu. It all mixes together to almost make a vegetable dish with a creamy tofu sauce. I know it probably doesn't sound very good and the picture doesn't help its cause either (I forgot to take a picture before I took some on my plate), but if done well, it really does taste awesome! I guess you have to like the taste of tofu though... either way, my version was fine but definitely way below the level of my Mom's shira-ae. Next time I go home I'll have to study up on what my Mom does!

Dish 30. Yaki Onigiri aka Crispy Rice Balls with Salmon- What I did was use the toaster oven to crisp up the rice balls that I had molded with a little soy sauce on the outside. I tried a low heat and cooked it for quite a while, but maybe the best way is to broil it in a short period of time so it really crisps up. In the end, it wasn't too crispy, and the bottom side stuck to the foil when I tried to flip the rice balls. It still tasted good with the salmon and green onions placed on top, but it just was not the same as, say a Gochi, crispy rice ball! I'll definitely have to experiment on that some more to see how I can create it without a nice grill or some special tools.

Bonus Dish: Mitarashi Dango aka little mochi balls with a sweet sauce- This is one of my favorite street food items when I'm in Japan. Little grilled mochi balls on a stick covered with a sweet sauce. I used a mix of mochi flour and shiratama flour to make the little mochi balls. The texture didn't come out perfectly the way I had hoped, but they were still quite tasty. It was actually better when it cooled off rather than right away. I made the sweet soy sauce, but added a little sesame and it made it even better!

Overall, I think the project was great and I can't really believe it is finished. It was a bit anti-climactic tonight since I didn't share it with anyone and the food wasn't fantastic but I did it! Now I'll have to go back through the items that I was good at or that I think would be good items to further experiment on! Wish me luck as I continue on this journey of trying to figure out what would be potential future business opportunities!

2 more days! 2 more dishes!

2009-09-28T22:04:00.000-07:00

There are only 2 more days and 2 more dishes to go... I am definitely going to make shira-ae with my new suribachi before this project is done, but what should that last dish be? A dessert or a big BAM! finish dish? Mitarashi dango, a cooked fish dish, miso stir fry... the list goes on... It is also difficult since this week is fiscal year end close which means... unpredictable work hours and a tired Amy that comes home.

I'll have to think a bit but if anybody has good ideas for a simple but exciting finale dish, let me know! Of course I'll need this idea tomorrow or wednesday afternoon at the latest :)

J-Food Day 27: Nikuman and Ginger Potato Beef

2009-09-27T21:41:00.000-07:00

I'm blogging on time before bed! Today's food was actually quite exciting and delicious! I decided to make Nikuman, or steamed meat buns, and a ginger potato-beef dish for dinner. For dessert we still had the array of desserts that were in abundance in our home this week!

Dish 27. Nikuman- I had never made steamed meat buns before but I had this odd craving for one so I decided to make it and I'm going to say they were awesome. The bun came out fluffy, soft, and not too sweet, and the filling was

quite tasty also! I followed the bun recipe I found online but tweaked it slightly by mixing different types of flour and decreasing the sugar.

For the meat, I used thinly sliced beef pieces

and actually ended up using the napa cabbage and other veggies that I had from the leftover sukiyaki! The flavors were bold so they worked out perfectly and saved me time- win win! Both Jeremy and I loved these buns. There were 7 made, and only one remains in our fridge... maybe I'll become a bun specialist if they were this good the first time :)

Dish 28. Ginger-Potato & Beef- I used the same thinly sliced pieces of beef, but prepared it ahead of time with a little sake and potato starch to soften it up. I then flavored it with ginger, and added in the potatoes to cook and soften. Once that was done, add a little soy sauce flavor, some green onions and sesame seeds... voila! Simple and tasty! Jeremy and I swallowed this up too, even though my favorite of the night was still the buns! I heart carbs :)

J-Food Day 26: Sushi

2009-09-27T06:59:00.000-07:00

I'm one day behind on actually posting my blogs now, but last night was sushi night! I made both nigiri and rolls, yummmmm...

Dish 26. Sushi- Everybody knows I love sushi, so I've made these at home before! Plus growing up, we used to make sushi at home all the time so I've had some practice :) This time we had salmon nigiri and I stepped up the rolls by including salmon, unagi, avocado, cucumber, and shiso leaves. Yummmmmmm... I still have to step up my cutting skills a bit more, but after talking to my Mom a bit about how to cut without squishing the rolls (and not getting a super expensive sushi knife), she gave me some tips and I definitely did better! Jeremy loved them too and we swallowed up all the ones that I made! I would definitely say it was a success :)

J-Food Day 25: Sukiyaki

2009-09-26T09:39:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I think was the first time I cooked for a crowd during my Japanese Food Project! I made Sukiyaki for a birthday celebration dinner for me. They gave me a hard time for cooking my own birthday celebration, but given the circumstances, and given how much our friends do for us, this was something I was delighted to do- plus sukiyaki is so easy!

Dish 25. Sukiyaki- For those that don't know what sukiyaki is, it is basically hot pot but with a stronger, sweet soy sauce broth. All I had to do was create the sauce with a mix of mirin, dashi, dashi soy sauce, soy sauce, grated ginger, sake, and brown sugar. Cook it up to let the flavors meld, and add in all the chopped vegetables! The vegetables I included were napa cabbage, enoki mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, green onions, and tofu. We also had thinly sliced beef to "shabu shabu" in, as well as rice and udon as complements for the meal.

There were 6 of us eating; Jeremy and I, the Ls, and the McCarthys at the McCarthy home. We had some edamame as an appetizer, sat with the hot pot in the middle of the table and swooshed our way through dinner! I think this was the first time for all of them with sukiyaki and they liked it, woohoo! I think it's a super easy and fun thing to do with a party, plus it accommodates a lot of different tastes. Who doesn't like sweet soy sauce? Well who in their right mind doesn't like Japanese food is my real question, but then I'm sure Jeremy would tell me I'm biased :)

The other fun part of the evening was the collection of desserts. We brought our package of cookies that I've made throughout this week, the Ls brought chocolate covered macadamias from Hawaii, and the McCarthys provided me with a wonderful pink frosting birthday cake. I got to blow out my Winnie the Pooh, 1 year old(er) candle. What other way would I want to celebrate my birthday than with good friends, good food, good desserts (separate category), and good conversations?

J-Food Day 24: Shoyu Ramen & Gyudon

2009-09-24T20:54:00.001-07:00

I'm not sure why the blog is messing up the dates because I definitely did not post all the blog entries on the same day as it says I did last wednesday... in any case, it is Day 24! The weekend were packed with birthday parties and for my birthday, I saw Wicked which was fantastic! That also meant that I didn't cook. I also had another birthday celebration at Gochi yesterday with my old roomies so I didn't cook yesterday either. But I did bake for the retail bake-off which made for a late night! I had baked a few days ago to practice too which is why we have a growing tub of cookies! And notice the cookbook holder with glass to protect the cookbook- a wonderful bday gift from my lovely husband!

The cookies I made last night for the bake off were cookies with a hint of peanut butter in the dough with a chocolate spread center, topped with walnuts. I didn't win the bake off but boy my stomach feels like it weighs a ton from all that I ate! I still wasn't very hungry but I'm back in cooking mode and today I made 2 dishes.

Dish 23. Shoyu Ramen- I used the same chuuka noodles as the cold noodles, and made a warm broth for them with dashi, dashi soy sauce, soy sauce, sake, and brown sugar. I had also sauteed some ginger and garlic in sesame oil prior to making the broth to give it a little depth of flavor. For the ramen, I added wakame/seaweed, enoki mushrooms, a bit of carrots, and a few sugar snap peas for color. I didn't make it extremely brothy because I know Jeremy doesn't like too much broth, but it tasted good. It wasn't as good as ramen places that spend a lot of time cooking the broth from bones, etc but it was a good attempt for homemade ramen!

Dish 24. Gyudon aka Beef Bowl- Japanese food has very similar ingredients in most of its cooking since it is some variation of a sweet soy sauce flavor. So again, the flavoring was based on ginger, garlic, dashi, dashi soy sauce, soy sauce, sake, mirin, and brown sugar. I sauteed ginger, garlic, and onions prior to adding the broth flavors along with some enoki mushrooms and konnyaku yam noodles. I used thinly sliced beef and debated whether to saute them at the beginning for flavor or add it at the end, and decided for the end so it didn't overcook. I thought this actually tasted really good! I wish I was more hungry so I could eat a whole bowl full!

I'm also happy to announce that I finally acquired a suribachi! I can now make my shiraae or any other items that require something to be ground. You can always count on Daiso to have useful things for pretty cheap- $6 for the bowl and stick!

J-Food Day 21:Kinpira Gobo, Katsudon, Gomaae

2009-09-16T22:48:00.002-07:00

Day 21 was another catch up day since this weekend didn't allow for very much cooking. I cooked up Kinpira Gobo, Katsudon, and Gomaae of sugar snap peas.

Dish 20. Kinpira Gobo: This is a very home-y dish made with burdock roots and carrots. I actually took a short cut by buying the frozen package of unflavored but cut up burdock root and carrots. This meant I didn't have to peel, or cut vegetables- what a time saver! I then flavored it with a little red chili, soy sauce, mirin, sugar, and dashi. I thought it turned out really well, even though it was a little spicier than I originally intended to make it. Sprinkle some sesame seeds on top and voila, a yummy and quick side dish!

Dish 21. Katsudon: We still had some chicken katsu left over, so I decided to make katsudon, which is basically a rice bowl dish. Start with sauteed onions, then simmer in a sweet soy sauce flavored dashi broth. After it simmers for a while, add the katsu, and then finish off with a beaten egg poured on top. The egg puts a nice covering on top to seal in all the goodness... well in my case I may not have had enough egg to cover it all so some of it mixed into the broth. Overall, Jeremy liked it even though I thought the flavor could have been stronger. My initial broth tasting and finished product didn't quite taste the same! I further added to the flavor after we grabbed our dinner, to improve for Jeremy's round two and tomorrow's lunch. He liked it enough for seconds and lunch, woohoo!

Dish 22. Sugar Snap Pea Goma-ae: Gomaae literally just means mixed with sesame, but you can make this with any vegetable. I wanted to use something other than sugar snap peas since sugar snap peas are so good plain, but I didn't feel like going to the store so peas it was! (My laziness at its best even during my food project.) It's a very simple but delicious side dish that is really just a sauce mix of sugar, soy sauce and ground sesame seeds. Jeremy liked it, but of course he likes all things sweet, so I think this was right up his alley. Plus we're both big fans of sugar snap peas, so can't go wrong there! This sauce is actually really good with baked plain mochi too... mochi with sweet soy sauce, wrapped in seaweed... yummm... ok I digress but you get the drift that this sauce can be used for many other things!

On a side note, I also made a practice batch of cookies yesterday to take to dinner as well as to test for the bake off coming up at work. I made regular chocolate chip as well as nutella walnut with chocolate chips. I think these were a hit but I'm going to experiment some more before the bake off.

Overall, today was a success- I also didn't try too much that was new but I actually hadn't made the kinpira gobo myself so that was good. It was almost like my Mom's! I still have a ways to go before my katsudon tastes like my Mom's though!

J-Food Day 19: Kabocha Croquettes

2009-09-16T22:48:00.001-07:00

After a few days of birthday celebrations, I'm back on day 19 with the 19th dish!

Dish 19. Kabocha Croquettes- I had prepared the inside of the croquettes a few days ago but never got around to finishing the product, but today I did! I had basically mushed together the kabocha squash, with carrots and onions. I took that mixture, put some cheese in the middle, floured it, and fried it. I would have breaded it like a regular croquette, but I didn't realize I had so little Panko bread crumbs. It didn't come out as crispy as breaded croquettes, but I thought they tasted really good!

This was also my first time with the Fry Daddy, so it was fun! The inside was already cooked, so I just needed to fry it for a little bit to get the outside golden brown and cook the flour. Jeremy only ate a bite because he wasn't hungry but he liked it. He especially liked the cheesy parts! Maybe I should've added more cheese!

J-Food Day 16: Oyaki & Hiyashi Chuuka

2009-09-16T22:48:00.000-07:00

Day 16- I didn't end up finishing the croquettes but I did make oyaki which is like Japanese pancakes but different because they have a very thin batter. I also ended up making HiyashiChuuka or cold noodles with sauce.

Dish 17. Oyaki- I made this thin pancake (which didn't really turn out like a pancake) with bean sprouts, garlic chives, and carrots. I mixed them together with a little batter and tried to pan fry it... but any crispy parts stuck to the pan while everything else just stayed mushy and fell apart. I was expecting something similar to the pancakes you order at a korean restaurant but it definitely did not come out like that. It also tasted bland without adding sauce... so mushy and bland... very NOT awesome!

Dish 18. Hiyashi Chuuka aka cold sesame (?) noodles- I think I actually cheated on this one so I'm not sure if I can call this a dish I made, since I didn't make the sauce. It was a packet sauce that I had from when I bought a Hiyashi Chuuka sauce before. Jeremy isn't a big sauce person, nor am I for that matter, so we never use all the sauce that comes with packaged food. For the noodles, I actually prepared correctly the noodles I previously used for the yakisoba. This time I boiled them in enough water so they didn't become gobbly goo as I called it before. The noodles came out great, I added wakama/seaweed, bean sprouts, carrots, and sugar snap peas. I just boiled them and added the sauce and sesame noodles so yes I may have cheated, but it was a work day!

Tomorrow we have a friend's birthday party, then Jeremy's birthday the day after that, so I'll have to hold off on cooking for a bit until the weekend! By the way I'm still looking for a suribachi so I may call Daiso to see if they have one!

J-Food Day 15: Kabocha and Mabo Tofu

2009-09-15T21:24:00.000-07:00

Japanese Food Project Day 15... Jeremy was playing raquetball tonight so I got home and started cooking. I started out really ambitious but didn't make everything I intended to, but still made 2 complete dishes.

Dish 15. Braised Kabocha- I love kabocha squash, which is Japanese pumpkin, but similar to butternut squash. I braised it with onions, carrots, yam noodles, and shiitake mushrooms in the usual sweet soy sauce and dashi flavoring. Japanese food really isn't that complicated when a lot of the flavors are consistent. This is one of my favorites and go to dishes so I think it turned out good. The only issue that I encounter is if I don't pick a good kabocha and it's not very tasty to begin with. This one wasn't the best, but I think it turned out fine!

Dish 16. Amy style Mabo Tofu- We had ground beef that I needed to use up, so I decided to make mabo tofu even though I didn't have the "tobanjan" chili paste but I added some red chili pepper to add a little spice to it. I flavored it wth miso, soy sauce, a little sugar, and simmered it all together. It actually turned out great! I had never made mabo tofu from scratch before, but I really liked my first attempt... this is my first awesome dish on the first try!

Jeremy definitely liked the mabo tofu a lot better than the kabocha, but I liked both of them!

I was also trying to make kabocha cheese croquettes at the same time, but I was a bit overambitious with that. I got to the point where it is ready to be shaped and breaded, but that will have to be tomorrow or the day after!

Week 2 Ratings

2009-09-13T20:45:00.000-07:00

Here is the week 2 recap and ratings of the dishes I made for the Japanese Food Project.

Yamakake Soba
Yakisoba- 1 1/2 stars... must try again
Curry (improved over 3 days)- 3 1/2 stars
Chicken Katsu- 3 stars- next time I'll fry it
Hijiki- 4 stars
Hijiki Mixed Rice- 3 1/2 stars
Rolled Cabbage- 3 stars... I'll go back to the tomato version

There are a few things I definitely need to improve on but it has been a good project so far! Many more to come!

Next week I'm looking at making braised kabocha squash, kabocha squash croquettes, salmon avocado rolls, kinpira gobo, shiraae (if I can find a suribachi/mortar & pestle), miso stir fry, miso soup, and maybe ichigo daifuku dessert! But again, we know how schedules change based on my mood or desire! 8 dishes a week and I'll make it to the 30 dish goal by September 30!

J-Food Day 12- Lots of Dishes

2009-09-12T13:02:00.000-07:00

Japanese Food Project Day 12 meant LOTS of dishes because I was slacking throughout the week for numerous reasons. Today I ended up making 5 dishes before 1pm- don't mess with this determined girl!

Dish 10. Veggie Curry from scratch (not cubes)- I was determined to make curry without the cubes sold in stores, so this was trial #1. I thought I had all the spices for the "make your own garam masala" mix but it turned out I didn't... but it was okay despite that! I put onions, potatoes, and carrots into my curry and thickened it with a roux (which I messed up a little so it didn't thicken as much). I also wanted to add some grated apple for added depth of flavor but I clearly didn't plan well enough to follow the recipe to a tee. I started the curry yesterday and finished it today- don't try to squeeze in cooking when you have to be somewhere for dinner that night! Overall, Jeremy had seconds so that must mean it wasn't too bland!

Dish 11. Baked Chicken Katsu- I know it is never going to taste as good as fried chicken katsu but it was worth a try. I needed to pre-season it a little better also since it would have tasted better if it were flavored more ahead of time. Since it went in for katsu curry though, it wasn't so bad! If we were to eat it alone, I would've made some tonkatsu sauce for it too, so either way, I guess it's not so bad! It wasn't as crispy as it would have been fried, so lesson learned!

Dish 12. Rolled Cabbage (dashi style)- The usual rolled cabbage I have made many times before is a tomato sauce type, which I didn't think was super Japanese so I tried the simple dashi type. The cabbage didn't stay together for the rolling as much as I had hoped, so there were 4 fully rolled cabbage pieces and the remainder were meatballs with cabbage pieces on top. For some reason there was a bit of a buttery flavor to it (there was no butter added), but it was simple and good. I still think I personally prefer the tomato version but again, this project is a learning experience!

Dish 13. Braised Hijiki- Hijiki is dried seaweed that needs to be soaked in water for about 15-20 minutes to return it to cooking shape. I added carrots, shiitake mushrooms, and a few sugar snap peas for color. I braised it in dashi, soy sauce, mirin, brown sugar, and sake until the liquid was practically gone. That would be the one dish today that I think turned out just as I hoped! My Mom's is still better, but for my first time, it was pretty close!

Dish 14. Mixed Hijiki Rice- I cheated a little by combining the hijiki I was braising and the hijiki I was going to mix into the rice, because the braising liquid was only slightly different. After making so many other dishes, I thought "not worth the minor change, combine it!" I cooked them together, then mixed it in to the freshly cooked white rice. This is the first time I made mixed rice, not to be confused with takikomi rice, because mixed rice is adding flavors after the rice is cooked. Takikomi rice cooks the flavor in during the rice cooking process. I would say this rice was fairly successful too!

I'm going to a 4 year old's birthday party tonight so pizza and cake doesn't allow for more Japanese cooking. I'm still well within reach of the 30 dishes in 30 days!

J-Food Day 10, "Yakisoba"

2009-09-10T21:45:00.000-07:00

Japanese Food Day 10... yesterday was dinner at a friend's place so I had big dreams to make several different easy dishes... you have your on days and your off days- this was an off day.

Dish 9. "Yakisoba" Seems simple enough when you make yakisoba out of the packet, but I tried all different things this time. I wanted to make "shio yakisoba" or translated to salt stir fried noodles, instead of the usual saucy kind. Mistake #1 at the store was that I assumed "Chukamen" or Chinese noodles were the same noodles as the yakisoba noodles, and that I could treat them the same. It ended up becoming... well gobbly goop as I like to call it. (I don't know if the picture makes it look goopy enough.) The stir fry of veggies was fantastic- ginger, garlic, cabbage, onions, carrots, bean sprouts, onion chives, and ham. Mistake #2 was deciding to add the noodles which were already looking like an issue before I added it to the stir fried vegetables. Part of me regrets adding the beginning of a gobbly goo mess, but it was done and that's the end of it. I also ended up making a saucy yakisoba, instead of a salt one, in an attempt to save the dish. I figured with the goo ball, it would be better saucier than as a salt goo ball. Trying to save this mess took forever and I didn't get around to making other dishes also... it looks like the weekend or the next few weeks are going to be packed with dishes!

Overall, it was okay but neither one of us really liked the texture of the finished "yakisoba". I wonder if the leftovers will be eaten... yes, I think it was that bad. I kept thinking to myself "but I'm not a cooking failure!" I thought about doing it again to improve but I don't have a strong desire to someday offer a noodle option. I'm leaning more towards rice bowls or rice bentos so maybe I'll give the noodles another try after this month is over!

J-Food Day 8: Yamakake Soba

2009-09-08T20:12:00.000-07:00

How is today day 8 of the project when Friday was day 7 you ask?
I knew I was going to be away during Labor day weekend so I substituted the last weekend of August for labor day weekend. Which means Sat-Mon don't count! I'm starting to thinkthat fitting in 30 dishes is going to be tough especially with birthdays and events I know we'll be attending, but I will make it happen!

Dish 8. Tonight was "Yamakake soba" which is basically warm soupy noodles with yamaimo or white grated mountain yam on top. I cheated and used dashi powder instead of making my own stock... next time! I also added dashi soy sauce, soy sauce, and mirin for the soup base. I added shiitake mushrooms for flavor, some daikon, cabbage, and carrots for a healthy mix of flavors and colors. I then added in the soba noodles and voila! Dress up with a little green onion, pour on some of the grated yam "goo" and dinner is served!

I really liked it and Jeremy liked it too. He mixed the yam into the whole thing so he didn't really taste the "stickiness" of it. I don't think it has much flavor but definitely adds to the texture. It was delicious but not something that could be served as a bento-type item. Maybe the soup could be a side soup on its own! No matter, it was a successful Amy concoction!

I have a lot of ground to make up for this week, but the plan so far is:
Braised Kabocha Squash
Pilaf or flavored rice
Kabocha squash croquettes
Baked chicken katsu
Curry
Another type of pickled vegetable
Maybe sushi rolls
Maybe miso soup

J-Food Day 7: Unfried Potato Korokke

2009-09-04T19:46:00.000-07:00

Week 1 of the project has been completed!
Today I was inspired by a recipe I saw for potato korokke or croquettes that are the flavor without the hassle of shaping, flouring, egg-ing, breading, and frying. Instead, it's an assemble in the pot and put it over rice method!

Dish 7. Potato Korokke (unconventional)- The ingredients are potatoes, ground turkey, carrots, onions, corn, and cabbage to serve with it. I sauteed the meat, carrots, onions, and corn in one pan, then added boiled potatoes to it and mashed it together. Add flavorings, and voila! I used the tonkatsu sauce I made for the okonomiyaki/Japanese pancakes with this as well. I love being able to use so many of the same ingredients for different dishes! I also toasted and sprinkled the panko bread crumbs to give it a crunch, but I didn't really feel the crunch since I didn't put as much on as a fried korokke would have.

In assembling for eating, we put some brown rice down as the base, then some cabbage, then the potato mixture, topped with toasted panko and sauce. It was quite delicious, but of course Jeremy still likes the fried version better. Who doesn't like fried food, right? It was my attempt to make it healthier but of course it wasn't as good as what it would've been in its traditional shape! It was worth a shot!

Since it is the end of week 1, I wanted to recap the list of items I've made this week and how I felt about them:
Turkey & Cabbage Gyoza- 2/5 stars
Okonomiyaki- 3/5 stars
Turkey-burg- 2/5 stars
Nikujaga- 5/5 stars! Keeper!
Pickled Cucumbers- 4/5 stars! Keeper!
Chicken Teriyaki- 4/5 stars! Keeper!
Potato Korokke- 4/5 stars!

Woohoo- I'll be taking a weekend break but to be continued next week!

J-Food Day 5: Teriyaki Chicken

2009-09-02T22:00:00.000-07:00

Japanese food project day 5! Today is chicken teriyaki day! I marinated it overnight in a little sake, soy sauce, and ginger, so I was hoping that after I got home it would be a breeze...

Dish 6. Chicken Teriyaki: Result- yummy!
It started out well where I browned the chicken on both sides, but I was using some bone in chicken breasts that I had purchased for soup a while back and froze extra pieces. The problem was that these were huge pieces that I couldn't exactly slice off the bone to make chicken teriyaki with. So, I browned both sides and I was supposed to steam it with a little sake for 5 minutes... well 5 minutes ended up being a little longer than that to cook these big doggers. Good thing I wasn't absolutely starving, even though I didn't get home until a little after 7pm, and thankfully I have a patient husband!

After I checked that the chicken had cooked through (I had to add more water and raise the heat to steam faster) I added brown sugar, mirin, sake, soy sauce, and dashi soy sauce for the additional flavor. Right as it was finishing, I added some shiitake mushrooms and cabbage to cook in the sauce as well to soak up the delicious flavor of the sauce. The sauce isn't as thick as what comes out in restaurants or is sold in bottles because I didn't add any cornstarch or other thickeners. I like it more broth-y than a goo-like texture, especially if it is homemade. The pictures may not look that great but trust me it tasted good. A little rice, a little chicken, some cabbage and mushrooms topped with a little sauce... It took a while and in the end the chicken got chopped up into pieces but Jeremy liked it, I liked it, everyone wins! Another successful dish- this is encouraging!

J-Food Day 4: Nikujaga

2009-09-01T21:22:00.000-07:00

After a break day because of a long day at work, I'm back to the kitchen! One of my favorite dishes of all time is nikujaga, which means literally "meat potatoes". I forgot to buy the thinly sliced beef from Nijiya market the other day, even though I only had two things on my list to buy, so it is just going to be 'jaga" or "potatoes".

Dish 5. "Nikujaga" I added potatoes, carrots, onions, ginger, shiitake, and konnyaku (yam noodles). I have made this with the "little bit of this, little bit of that" method in the past, but I decided to try a recipe... but of course I tailored it to make it better after I tasted it! The base that I made by altering the recipe had water, soy sauce, dashi soy sauce, sake, mirin, and brown sugar. I personally like the flavor a little stronger when it is with potatoes, so I tweaked here and there.

I think this may be the first dish so far that Jeremy liked and had seconds of! I thought it was delicious too, but again it wasn't much different from what I have made before. Usually it's served as a side dish, but we made it a rice and nikujaga main dish! This dish I definitely feel very comfortable making! Even though we didn't end up eating until 9:15pm, because I went to the gym after work and didn't start cooking until close to 8 and had to wait for the rice to cook, I still enjoyed it and ate a lot!

By the way, the pickled cucumbers turned out great! They tasted like my Mom's, which is a huge success, and Jeremy liked it too!

J-Food Day 2

2009-08-30T15:06:00.001-07:00

Day 2 of the Japanese Food project was better!
Again, I'm usually making things I've made before but trying new recipes or tweaking them a little bit to experiment with new things and go out of my usual comfort zone. I'm also making everything from scratch instead of using mixes or taking the easy way out!

Dish 3. Okonomiyaki aka Japanese savory pancakes- The ones I made today had a base made of nagaimo, eggs, flour, chicken stock, and dashi. Then I mixed in cabbage, shiitake mushrooms, ginger, green onions and chives. It's always an interesting experiment to try to convert from metric units and to increase serving sizes so I may have put too much nagaimo. It was very moist, but it may have been a little too thin/runny and not as "flour-y" and thick. I usually put some sort of meat or seafood, but not this time! I'm finding out that Jeremy doesn't really like shiitake mushrooms so I may have to go easier on those too. Overall though, I was happy with the flavor and we ate it up!

I actually even made my own "tonkatsu" sauce. The recipe I used was good but the sugar it called for made it a little too sweet, in my opinion, so I might cut back on that next time. Besides, ketchup already has sugar in it!

Dish 4. Pickled cucumbers- This is my Mom's recipe that I've never made on my own, but hers is awesome so hopefully mine will turn out well. If it doesn't, it means I didn't take good enough notes of my Mom's "a little bit of this, a little bit of that". Learning from an awesome "feeling" cook is hard... It's still marinating and I can't try it until tomorrow, but I will definitely have to provide an update in the days to come!

This day was very encouraging since the food turned out better even though I'm still experimenting. Even though it's hard work making dishes and figuring out when to fit it in to my schedule, I love doing it! I heart food- especially Japanese food!

J-Food Day 1

2009-08-29T13:19:00.000-07:00

Japanese Food Project Day 1 is off to a start!

I switched up what to make and started with gyoza and tofu patties. Let me preface with this- I don't make these very often from scratch so it wasn't a picture perfect turnout... neither Jeremy nor I were huge fans of either dish but we didn't dislike it either.

Dish 1. Gyoza- The inside consisted of ground turkey, chives, green onions, shiitake mushrooms, cabbage, ginger, and sessonings It was quite green since I put in a lot of greens in comparison to meat, to which Jeremy asked "Are the insides supposed to be that green? Our Costco ones aren't that green are they?" Definitely not. I will agree that I overdid the greens a little bit because the taste was a bit "green-ier" than even I would have liked... definitely less chives next time. However, that wasn't the only thing that went wrong. At least I took a before picture when they looked pretty.

When I assembled and lined them up on the cookie sheet, and the pan, they were absolutely gorgeous, but come time to cook them in the pan, they stuck to each other AND the pan. I'm not sure if the skin is thinner than what my parents and restaurants use, but after the water disappeared from the pan, most of the pot stickers were stuck to the bottom. Apparently I will need to use a lot more oil at the beginning than I actually did this time. As you can imagine, when I flipped them out of the pan, instead of beautifully browned gyozas, they were pot STICKERS with green insides exposed and homeless. I had to do a careful reassembly project to make them presentable!

Dish 2. Tofu Patties- Japanese people call it "tofu-burg" like a burger, but I see it more as a patty (I guess they're the same thing). I included tofu, egg, chives, shiitake mushrooms, carrots, and green onions. My first mistake was putting too many veggies in there for the amount of tofu and egg to bind it together, which means it wasn't going to hold together. I was obviously willing to hope and take the risk though!

Now for the things that went wrong. First off, it fell apart so it didn't turn golden brown like I would have liked on both sides. I might as well have scrambed it all together. Two, I tried to steam it for a while while I was housing the homeless gyoza innards and well the bottoms burned. At least I was able to scoop up the tops without the burn-y flavor and they somewhat stayed together in patty-ish pieces. The flavor itself wasn't bad at all even though it did lean a little bit on the bland side in my opinion. The book mentioned eating it with grated daikon so maybe that would have made a difference, but I should have flavored it a little more from the beginning. Overall though, not bad but not something Jeremy nor I will crave.

To add to the disastrous morning, I was cooking rice and chose the "brown rice" setting as I normally do, instead of the white rice setting I meant to do this time. So it took FOREVER to cook...

For anybody that saw the movie Julie & Julia, this was definitely a Julie going crazy in the kitchen moment for me. I've never been a failure in the kitchen but I sure felt like one today! I thought to myself "On the first day? REALLY? Maybe this is why I don't venture out of my normal favorite dishes!" BUT, I will press on because it can only get better from here! Heck, these are learning experiences so I may make these again with these improvements I've noted!

Getting Ready for Japanese Cooking Galore Month

2009-08-27T19:59:00.000-07:00

The time to execute my Japanese Cooking Galore Month is approaching! 30 dishes in 30 days... After much thought about all the events in September, such as being gone for Labor Day weekend, friend's birthdays, and both Jeremy and my birthdays, I have a feeling that there will be quite a lot of days where I can't cook dinner at home... so I'm starting this weekend to swap with Labor Day weekend!

I went shopping today at the Asian market for pretty much the first week's worth. My list for the first week is as follows (in order for now but that may change):
Chicken Teriyaki
Pickled vegetables
Okonomiyaki
Gyoza
Miso-flavored Stir Fry
Nikujaga
Sushi rolls
Miso Soup
Takikomi rice
Tofu Burger

It seems like a lot for the first week but some are side dishes and some are less labor intensive so two items can be made in one day. Besides, I think now is going to be less event filled than later in the month. Next week is going to be close week, but hopefully I have picked things that aren't too difficult, even if I get home a little later than usual. Hopefully nothing blows up at work and off we go!

Stay tuned for day by day picture updates :)
Comments are obviously always welcome!

A Gifted Janie Lunchbox

2009-08-17T20:23:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to blog about how nice my co-worker Janie was today. I had planned to go out to lunch with a different co-worker today, but she ended up working from home due to being sick. Thus, I was left without a lunch (I usually bring a lunch for those that don't know me very well) and was a bit sad that I would have to go somewhere for food I didn't REALLY want. Janie who is also a consistent lunch bringer, offered me one of her lunch boxes. She cooks a lot over the weekend, freezes tons of lunches, and brings different ones to keep in the freezer.

I accepted her generous offer, and chose the fried udon she had made. It was kind of like the idea of yakisoba, but with udon noodles instead. The flavor was also different from yakisoba, because it was more soy saucy, but it was delicious. She had added udon nooodles, fish cakes, chicken, carrots, cabbage, green beans, and I think that's it. I thought it was quite funny that it was purple from the purple cabbage she added, but I loved it. She warned me it might be salty- the chicken was MAYBE a little salty, but other than that I thought it was great! My lunches usually tend to be on the smaller side, so I actually ended up eating more than usual but it was so good I just kept eating... besides I had already heated it up!!

Thank you Janie for your kindness and I definitely either owe her a lunch or samples from my September month of Japanese cooking. Too bad she is rotating out of our group in a few weeks already!

Japanese Food Cooking Commitment

2009-08-13T20:36:00.000-07:00

After talking to my friend Jimmy, as well as watching Julie & Julia, I am now inspired to do a committed time of cooking Japanese food. This is my commitment to experiment and see what I may want to do someday for my own business. I know food is my passion and that I'd love to share delicious and healthy food with everyone else... but that's about it. I have a few ideas floating in my head, but we'll see what solidifies in me and what floats away!

I haven't decided quite what this commitment is going to be either- a month, 30 days, or some other time frame. Whatever the time frame, I'm going to choose different Japanese dishes to cook and experiment with, so I can truly make them my own! Or on the flip side, it may help me decide what I'm not good at or what a lot of people might not like. Right now I'm leaning toward 30 dishes in 30 days. That sets a limit on time, and allows me to make multiple dishes in one night since cooking every day really isn't reasonable in my mind.

If someone is reading and has a suggestion, I'm always listening!

Homma's Brown Rice Sushi

2009-08-01T07:58:00.000-07:00

I met up with Brenda for dinner at Homma's Brown Rice Sushi. I had heard good things about the place, plus I love brown rice and I love sushi so I figured it will be great! I read Yelp reviews that said the wait is long, etc, but I didn't see crowds of people so not worried, I walked around the streets and shops of Palo Alto while I waited for Brenda to drive down from SF.

When Brenda arrived, we walked into Homma's where again, there was a group of 2 sitting inside. In my head I laughed about the line comment... but a little too soon. The boy came over after discussing with Homma the chef, that there were orders backfilled over the phone so it would be 45 minutes to an hour before we got our food. I said WHAT?? There is nobody here and you're telling me you can't make a few nigiri for us because you're prioritizing phone orders? After my initial disgust, I asked the chef himself by busting out my Japanese, if it is really going to be 45 min for anything we order, to which he said yes. Brenda didn't seem to mind and we both had time, so we said what the heck, we're here to hang out and chat so let's just chat until they bring us our food. We also ordered miso soup so I thought at least that would come quick, but they didn't even bring that until maybe 40 minutes in. I didn't mind so much because I got to catch up with Brenda and time passed by :)

When the food finally came out, I will say it was quite good and the priecs are good for sushi. We ordered a plate of nigiri and rolls to share- maguro, hamachi, saba, unagi, and salmon nigiri, a veggie roll and a hamachi avocado roll. All were good. The unagi was actually surprisingly different and good in the sense that it was warm and crispy from being toasted, but yet soft and sweet at the same time. That was quite different for me. The maguro, hamachi, and salmon were also very good but nothing that was greatly different from other places. The hamachi and salmon were on the fattier or oilier side (but not too much) which I like! I didn't know what to expect from the saba because my family and I don't order it too much when we go out because it is vinegarized, but we ordered it and I was pleasantly surprised. There wasn't anything particularly special about it, but it was a nice amount of vinegar combined with some pickled ginger and a little wasabi that hit the spot.

As for the rolls, those were good too. The hamachi avocado roll is what it states and was good. I could have used more avocado in a few of my pieces, but that's ok. The highlight of the rolls was actually the veggie roll for me. I think it had asparagus, cucumber, avocado and burdock root? I think it had 5 things in it, of which the first 3 I listed I'm sure about. The asparagus was a really nice touch in the roll with the slight bite yet soft texture, and all the flavors worked well together. The rolls were small, so they were good bite size pieces, but I could have eaten more. However, maybe it's a good start to having self control... especially when eating out or eating socially...

Overall, I liked the food and price a lot but there's not much atmosphere and I'm not a big fan of their attitude/service. They were really nice about informing us of the time and thanked us for waiting but I am still a bit turned off by the prioritization. I guess that's what happens in a one-man show! Next time I would probably just get it to go and eat it somewhere else so I know I don't have to wait that long for my food! This time though the important thing was I hung out with Brenda!

Yummy Foods Made in Casa Nesbitt

2009-07-19T19:53:00.000-07:00

In the last month I have had good eats at restaurants but also at our home so I wanted to share some of those.

First off, brown rice sushi! I got some yummy salmon from home during our visit to San Diego, so I made nigiri as well as rolls. In an attempt to be even healthier, and because I love brown rice, I used brown rice for the first time for sushi. The rolls aren't the prettiest, but they sure tasted delicious with avocado, cucumber, and shiso leaves to go with the yummy salmon! Jeremy was delighted also- gotta love a husband that can appreciate good Japanese food.

The second featured item was today's experiment at two kinds of rolled breads. One was an almost pizza-like bread even though I was originally inspired by the eggplant brioche rotolo appetizer that was served at our wedding. I didn't actually get to eat it at our wedding since we

were taking pictures, but I had it at the tasting! Anyway, this wasn't quite like that as I made with a regular white bread, not brioche, but still delicious! Jeremy loves pizza, so he liked this bread a lot. Almost like a calzone, but with fluffier bread and no cheese- soooo gooooood (if I say so myself). Next time, I'll try it with cheese and add more filling. The possibilities that have opened up...

Bread roll #2 was a request made by my co-worker quite a bit ago:

cinnamon swirl bread, which he eats almost every day for breakfast. I needed some time to work on this one since it's not just an easy bake in the bread machine. I'm happy to say that both breads came out really well. We even slathered on a little Nutella and ooooohhhh even better...

Overall, I'm having fun experimenting and when I have the time to cook, I will give it a whirl! Weekdays are tough after long days at work, but there are still good eats in the Nesbitt home!

Starting the Austin Trip Right!

2009-06-15T21:10:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-14T20:42:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-14T20:23:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-10T19:54:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-07T18:48:00.000-07:00

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!

Falafels in Fremont

2009-05-30T23:13:00.000-07:00

Cindy was coming down to see us at Fremont via public transportation, so I decided to try to find a good place by the BART station. Yelp had recommended a place called "Falafels Etc" which won out over both Olive Garden and Sweet Tomatoes.

Jeremy and I both got a falafel sandwich and Cindy got the chicken schawarman sandwich. I had to go for the falafels because people on Yelp raved about them. They were definitely crispy on the outside and wonderfully moist on the inside. It also had a definite but subtle taste to it which was nice, compared to other overly salty/flavorful ones I've had previously. I also got my tahini sauce on the side because some places drench their sandwiches in tahini sauce, making it juice from the pita pocket very easily. I liked the pickled veggies in the sandwich, which was different from other places where they just have the standard tomato, onion, cucumber, and lettuce. I had a bite of chicken from Cindy's sandwich. It was good but it had a different, slightly curry taste to it.

They also had a little condiment bar which was neat. It had yogurt sauce, some chili sauce, pickles, peppers, and some flavored onions. I didn't use much of the sauces but I will experiment more next time I go! The food overall was good and I'd go back again to the place. However, I'm not a huge falafel person and I don't feel like driving out of my way for falafels so next time I'm in the area, maybe I'll stop by!

California Burrito at Lolita's

2009-05-27T19:35:00.000-07:00

Jeremy finally had his long awaited California Burrito at Lolita's! Lolita's has been a consistent stop every time we visit San Diego, but I previously failed to mention the California Burrito or Carne Asada fries until it was too late. I think Brenda had mentioned it after we had ordered last time, at which Jeremy gave me the "I can't believe you never told me about this" look... which is why our last SD meal was Lolita's.

The California Burrito consists of carne asada meat, sour cream, cheese, and french fries. Jeremy being the french fry lover that he is, wanted to try this. Misato came with us and suggested that we add guacamole to make it even better. I had never been a California Burrito fan, since I prefer just a regular carne asada burrito, but took some of Jeremy's anyway. Besides, only a few hours had passed since our Pancake House meal! I know the picture doesn't look too appetizing but you can tell there are a lot of french fries in the burrito-too many in my opinion. That's probably why Misato ate the meat side and not so much the french fries side! The items are also segregated which makes it difficult to have a little bit of everything in each bite.

A few days ago my parents, Jeremy, and I also went to Tacos El Gordo after the driving range for some Tijuana style tacos. I love the small tacos made right in front of you... a little pricey at almost $2/taco but so delicious! You definitely don't get those very often in the Bay Area! You can tell I devoured them right away because I was so excited to eat them I forgot to take pictures... I love San Diego and its delicious Mexican food!

The Original Pancake House

2009-05-27T19:21:00.000-07:00

The last morning in San Diego was spent at The Original Pancake House in Clairemont Mesa. When Jeremy heard about this breakfast place, his eyes lit up, so my Mom, Jeremy, and I set out to have a good breakfast.

Their most well known specialties are the Apple Pancake and German Pancake so we had to get those. Between the three of us, those two pancakes plus a side of fried potatoes were plenty. The Apple Pancake is very sweet because the apples are caramelized with cinnamon and sugar. I really liked it with a little lemon because it made it not overly sweet. We think they use the same batter on the bottom as the German pancake, but it also seems to have an additional layer that is almost like a light custard under the sweet apple layer.

The German pancake looks so neat when it comes out because it is huge and "poofed up". It starts falling quick though so we tried to take pictures quickly and start eating. I really enjoyed it with the lemon and powdered sugar they serve with it, as well as the berry syrup sauce. I believe it was lingonberry but I'm not positive. They were both delicious but I could definitely taste eggs in both pancakes so I'm glad we didn't get an omelette in addition. We did see one family order an omelette that was basically the size of the apple pancake, but even thicker! We joked that it would take 4 of us to eat that omelette. The potatoes were good but nothing special. I saw some other interesting menu items like the buckwheat pancakes or various crepes that I would love to try next time!

World Famous in Pacific Beach

2009-05-27T16:10:00.000-07:00

Memorial weekend/week off for Jeremy meant Jeremy and I were going to San Diego to visit my family. My long time best friend Misato suggested we go to a restaurant called World Famous in Pacific Beach for breakfast/brunch. She loves the place, so I decided it was a perfect time to try something new!

We thought parking might be crazy since it was Memorial Day and World Famous is right on the Pacific Beach boardwalk, but it wasn't bad at all... at least when we got there at 10am. We waited for about 10 minutes outside, but it was fantastic because we were right on the beach and we enjoyed the cloudy/sunny weather and soaked up the atmosphere. Misato loves sitting on the patio area, but we got an inside booth which was quite comfortable and not too big for our party of 3. Jeremy liked that it was inside since he wouldn't get burned.

We finally got to ordering and I got a pork carnitas chilaquiles platter served with eggs, beans, and tortillas. I'm not a huge egg person so I only had a little with my meal but it was delicious! Some tortilla pieces were crispy while the others were softer. The carnitas meat was a little on the saltier side, but balanced out in the whole bite when you had avocado and some salsa with it.

Jeremy got the Carne Asada Benedict. Again I'm not a huge egg person, but he seemed to devour the 2 muffin, meat, and egg mounds as well as the potatoes served with it.

Misato's go-to-meal at World Famous is the Carne Asada platter, so she got some Carne Asada meat, eggs, and beans, served with tortillas. She also got a raspberry mimosa, since they make about 5 different mimosa mixes that apparently are all delicious! Maybe next time I will have a mimosa also!

Mil's Diner with Angela

2009-05-27T15:58:00.000-07:00

Angela and I were finally able to meet up for a Saturday hang out! After hearing good things about the breakfast items at Mil's Diner in Milpitas, we decided to give it a try.

We decided to split a few things, including the avocado, tomato, mushroom, and and onion omelette (which came with hash browns and buttered wheat toast), short stack of buttermilk pancakes, and a bowl of fresh fruit. The omelette was really good- I think the avocado was what really did it for me! The hash browns were good but a little on the too crispy/burned side for my liking. I like crispy, but it was a bit too crispy overall. The toast was good but a bit too buttered, since I'm not a huge buttered toast person.

The pancakes were soft and fluffy. I usually don't get plain pancakes but we thought about giving it a try to test the taste of the original buttermilk pancake at Mil's. I'm not sure why every breakfast place puts the butter mound right smack in the middle, but I always scrape it to the side... I'm sure I'm one of very few people that actually don't like butter on my pancakes though. I wish there were fresh preserves and not just the packaged jams, but that may be asking for too much. I added some fresh strawberries from the fruit bowl on my pancake and made it a fruit pancake! The fruit was good, but some of the fruit still seemed a bit unripe. Overall though, I was pleasantly surprised with the bowl of fruit. It was a nice touch to balance out the carbs, oil, and heavier items on our table. I'm glad we shared because it was still a large amount of food! I'd definitely go back again!

SJ Giants Game and BBQ

2009-05-21T22:35:00.000-07:00

I went to my first minor league San Jose Giants game! People have told me that it is really fun and that the Famous Turkey Mike's BBQ they have at the stadium is really good. We went as a work fun event so I didn't even have to pay to experience the fun!

The rib dinner I got was delicious. The ribs weren't too fatty which I very much appreciated, and they gave you a lot! (Even though I ate it all while I was chatting...) I chose corn on the cob and baked beans as my sides. The baked beans weren't super sweet which I liked, but it could have been a little more saucy. It had dried out by the time I had gotten to them. The corn was sweet, and I love corn on the cob so that was a good side. The only issue with this meal is that it is messy and there are many things that get in your teeth. I survived! Thankfully they had wet wipes to use after the meal is done!

Other people got sandwiches and chicken. The chicken was rather small, but the sandwiches looked good! I have heard that the tri tip sandwiches are delicious and I heard good things about the cheese steak as well. I learned that though there are posters that say "frozen cocktail" they have not sold it in a very long time, if at all, so don't expect to find one!

Overall, a super fun event, but I would go back at night next time. It got super hot sitting there in the sun, and apparently I didn't put on enough sunscreen on the edges, because I am a bit sunburnt on the edges of the tanktop! Apply lots of sunscreen when you're out directly in the sun without moving too much for long periods of time!

Red Egg and Ginger Party

2009-05-16T22:30:00.001-07:00

Today I went to my first Red Egg and Ginger Party at the Hong Kong Flower Lounge in Millbrae! I had never been to one before, so this was an exciting new experience for not only Jeremy and I but a number of people at our table!

It was a HUGE menu... let me see if I can recall:

1) Seaweed salad, BBQ pork, and jellyfish- the seaweed salad and pork I enjoyed, but the jellyfish was a bit different from the usual kind that I like.

2) Seafood and tofu soup- good but I think it needed a little more flavor so we added a little white pepper.

3) Walnut Prawns- the walnuts were a bit more mayo-y than I would have liked but the candied nuts were fantastic!

4) Mongolian Beef- just enough spice and loved the dish!

5) Lobster in sauce with green onions- very tasty but shellfish is a bit messy and hard to eat. I gave up on a few because I was lazy...

6) Duck in lettuce cups- Loved it! I've had ground beef mixtures in lettuce cups as appetizers before, but this was the first time I had duck in a lettuce wrap- delish!

7) Peking Duck- I love Peking duck and I liked the buns they were served with. I can't say it was the best I've had but it was still good!

8) Whole pan fried fish with soy sauce- Nice and crispy! It was hard to break off pieces and pick out the bones, but the sauce was great and when you got a piece, it was yummy!

9) Crispy noodles with vegetables, seafood, and gravy- I personally like the soggy parts mixed with some crispy, but I felt like the noodles were thicker, so the crispy parts were a bit chewy. Loved the veggies!

10) Fried sesame balls with lotus paste- I love this dessert since I love mochi, I love sweet paste and what is not to love about fried foods! This combines it all!

And of course there were 2 types of cake to finish and celebrate in American style :) Jeremy especially loved the cake! The cake was not too sweet and I loved the custard filling!

Overall, the meal was great and I was so thankful I was able to go. Baby Jake is adorable, and was especially adorable in his special outfit for the day!

Thanks for inviting us to the fantastic banquet!

The Old Siam

2009-05-16T22:13:00.000-07:00

My friend Jessica who I became friends with during my time in Japan is back in town and came out to have dinner with us! In an attempt to find a place to eat that would meet the special diet I was on this past week, as well as a location close to our small group, we found a cute and delicious Thai place called The Old Siam in Sunnyvale! It is small but very authentic and well priced!

There were 5 of us that went and we all loved our food! Since I wasn't supposed to have any starches on phase one of "The Maker's Diet", I chose to get the Yum Nua salad. The description is "Beef, tomato, carrots, cucumbers, onion and lettuce mixed with spicy lime sauce." I actually read on Yelp that it was delicious so decided to try it! It was a fantastic combination of sweet, spicy, and sour!

The others were also very happy with their food. The other items ordered were Pad See-Ew, and three different types of curries. Apparently all of the curries were absolutely delicious because the rice and all the gravy was devoured! I will definitely be going back again to sample more foods!

Homemade Pizza

2009-04-24T18:14:00.000-07:00

A while back, Jeremy and I attempted to make homemade pizza- everything from scratch! We had received a pizza stone as one of our gifts as well as a bread machine. Paired with Jeremy's obsession with pizza, it only made sense we would try it!

We made honey whole wheat pizza dough, topped it with some tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, and veggies on my side. Jeremy's complaint was no pepperoni which we adjusted for our second attempt a few weeks later. I highly enjoyed my pizza. The dough was very wheat-y, which I actually liked and Jeremy was okay with as well. The dough was a little thicker than I think it should have been, but these are all learning opportunities! I'm glad I loaded up my side with veggies because it added so much flavor and depth to the wheat-y pizza. Maybe Jeremy is a purist in wanting the taste of cheese alone (except when pepperoni is available)... but I always tell him to eat more veggies.

The only sad thing was that the pizza stuck to the pizza stone depsite the oil and sprinkled cornmeal. It may have been because I tried to stretch out the door further on the stone so again, a learning point! We will definitely need to keep trying to "perfect" our homemade pizza!

Ocean Blue Sushi for Sie Deen's Bday!

2009-04-24T17:48:00.000-07:00

April 24th was Sie Deen's birthday! To celebrate, we went to Ocean Blue Sushi Club in Sunnyvale. It was Sie Deen and James, and Jeremy and I. None of us had ever been there before, but as soon as we walked in, all of were amazed at how nice or "posh" the place looked. It looked like quite a fancy and modern restaurant, not the usual Japanese home-y restaurant. The price, though it was higher than usual, was thankfully was not at the level of how the place looked.

I got the sushi plate #2 with 8 pieces of nigiri and california rolls. It also came with salad and miso soup. I must say I'm not a huge dressing fan, but the sesame dressing on the salad was delicious! It tasted a tad peanut-y to me, but I may have been completely imagining it. As for nigiri, I was surprised at how large the slices of fish were. It was draped beautifully over the rice with room to spare so that the fish was longer and wider than the rice. Yummm... oh how I heart sushi! There was maguri, salmon, hamachi, ebi, ika, hirame, a special white tuna, and a different salmon like fresh fish. My only complaint would be that there was a little too much wasabi already on each nigiri for my liking. The fish was very fresh and we loved the presentation. Notice the special white tuna with the gold flakes! I like controlling how much wasabi I consume with mu sushi and don't like needing to wince from the strength of the wasabi already on there. I also do like sushi restaurants that use freshly grated wasabi which is actually NOT that strong but flavorful! I think the waitress may have been looking at me weird since I ate half the nigiri and left half for Jeremy, so he could try all the different kinds too! Hey, can't blame a girl from trying to turn her husband Japanese :)

Jeremy ended up getting tonkatsu which is one of his favorites. At a different sushi place, he really likes the katsu curry. He said that the katsu here wasn't as good as the Sushi Maru one. However, it may be because of the lack of curry... who knows. The picture is a bit blurry but you can see there was quite a bit of katsu. It was crisp and soft, so I thought it was well cooked. It's not pictured here because we forgot to take pictures of the spider roll that came later. It was delicious with the soft shell crab still hot from the fryer, with avocado and cucumber. The only thing was there was a bit too much sauce for my liking. It made the rice fall apart which made it a bit more difficult to eat but fun to watch someone else try!

James had read on Yelp when he was looking at this place that the Firecracker roll was their specialty, and everyone raved about it. We had wondered what the difference was in the specialty rolls versus the regular rolls (without pretty pictures on the menu). We soon discovered the specialty rolls not only had a few added ingredients, but they're HUGE. The regular roll came with 4 regular roll sized pieces. The specialty ones came with 8 LARGE rolls. Sie Deen really enjoyed her roll though- quite spicy as she likes it! I didn't try it but I'm not sure if I could handle the heat being the weak sauce person I am when it comes to spicy food...

Overall, we had a fantastic meal and I was very satisfied with the food as well as the service. They DID run out of Aji which is my favorite fish for nigiri, so I couldn't substitute one of my nigiris for it. If they had aji, who KNOWS how much I would rave about it!

By Th' Bucket Santa Clara

2009-04-19T18:07:00.000-07:00

For the last day of one of my coworkers, our group went out to lunch at By Th' Bucket in Santa Clara. I had driven by it many times before, and by the sound of it, it sounds like fried chicken! However, they actually have all sorts of stuff from seafood to burgers, pastas to sandwiches... the list could go on. Everything that people ordered looked amazing. Some of the things ordered were a crab cake sandwich, burgers, and some other hot sandwiches. I ended up ordering the pasta & salad combo... my attempt to be healthy and diverse!

I got the pesto chicken fettucine with the tomato mozzarella salad. It was good, but I think it was hyped up much more in my head than what I actually ate. The salad was like a caprese salad (which I love) with greens and avocados (which I love) so the salad was great. I wish that they had given me more salad though! The pasta was actually a creamy pesto. I am actually not a huge creamy sauce fan to begin with, so I was disappointed that I didn't read that part clearly. Obviously if I'm expecting regular pesto and get a creamy pesto, it is going to start me on the wrong path... I think it also could have used a little more flavor, but again I am quite critical!

Everyone else thoroughly enjoyed their food, so I think I'll try either seafood (which seems to be a specialty of theirs) or a sandwich, since those looked amazing! I'm definitely willing to try again!

Easter @ Yosemite and Bunny Cake!

2009-04-19T17:53:00.000-07:00

Growing up, my family didn't have many Easter traditions. It definitely was not a huge holiday in my house, and it did not mean as much then as it does to me now that I understand what the day really signifies. It's usually a good season... or at least a week/day for me to reflect and truly appreciate the sacrifices that have been made for me. Of course from there, realizing how blessed I am.

Prior to Easter, I was able to participate in a fantastic tradition with our fantastic friends. Apparently Jen's bunny cake is an annual Easter tradition that has been going on. I was finally able to experience and enjoy dinner and bunny cake with our friends :) It's marvelous how two round cakes and jelly beans can turn into an awesome bunny cake!
Jeremy's tradition has been Cadbury Creme Eggs which I didn't get him, but he got some other candy... as long as he gets candy he is happy! I also ended up getting him a creme egg (not Cadbury) after Easter and he enjoyed that greatly.

This year for Easter we went to Yosemite with our friends and it was a great time of being out in nature, God's creation, and really be able to enjoy the outdoors. It was my first time in Yosemite and it was an absolutely beautiful weekend... during the day. It got VERY cold at night and there was quite a bit of layering and shivering that happened... I think we were a bit ill prepared and it didn't help that the fire didn't start because the wood was damp. We survived, still enjoyed each other's company (thanks to the Ls), and ate very well so no complaints there! It's an annual Yosemite camping trip that again was a first to me! A lot of firsts for me this Easter which is great.

Good friends, good food, good times- can't ask for much more than that in life!

Mediterranean House Grill

2009-03-16T20:33:00.000-07:00

Wow it has already been a month and a half that I've been married! I've eaten at a lot of places in the last 2 months since my last blog but I haven't been as diligent in reporting them. As for honeymoon, there were A LOT of food pictures taken on the cruise of all the food but maybe that will come soon... it seems these days the time to blog has been sucked away!

Anyway, yay for dinner with friends! I was able to have dinner with Carly at the Mediterranean House Grill on Castro Street. It was towards the end near El Camino, which is not the end of Castro I usually eat at, so I was happy to try new places! I had the chicken schwarma plate which included chicken, rice, choice of salad (I had Mediterranean salad), and a dip (I had hummus). It also came with pita bread and 3 different dips. It wasn't the best mediterranean food I have had, but it was pretty good. The chicken flavor was good, but it was a bit on the dry side. I also was not a huge fan of their hummus which had a bit of a kick to it.. more than I was expecting in hummus. The rice was flavorful and good, and the salad was nice and refreshing although I would have preferred less dressing. Then again, I'm not a huge dressing person and it is probably pre-mixed. Carly got the veggie deluxe plate which looked like a nice assortment of various items like falafel, the sour leaf wrapped appetizer, and several other items I can't recall right now. Her salad was the yogurt salad and she seemed to like it! The pita bread was good as well as the dips. The spicy chili dip was quite spicy so don't put too much on the first time!

I liked the service, and was pleasantly surprised that you get to choose between the various salads, as well as your choice of eggplant or hummus dip (baba ghanoush- sorry if I'm completely butchering the spelling). Though we didn't get dessert, they had several different dessert options that looked quite tasty including an awesome looking baklava. Overall, not an extreme favorite but if someone else asked me to go, I'd go again :)

Rick's Cafe

2009-01-03T16:47:00.001-08:00

After church on Sunday a group of us decided to go to a fun sit down restaurant and went to Rick's Cafe in Los Altos. I had previously heard that they have amazing brunch type foods so I was all up for it! They were great in accommodating our group that ended up becoming bigger than when we had originally called in our party. There was even coffee outside for free to tithe over the people waiting in the cold until they get seated.

We were finally seated and the menu is so large it took us quite a while to decide on what to order. I ended up deciding on the Torino Crepe which was a lunch item. It was a crepe with artichoke hearts, sundried tomatoes, feta, and I can't remember what other goodness was in there. It also came with a side of potatoes and a green salad. The crepe was tasty, although I must say I'm a bigger fan of crepes that are a bit thicker, and I have realized I like sweet crepes better than savory. The potatoes weren't as good as I was hoping in my head since I was expecting more home fries type potatoes, while these leaned more toward hash brown form. They were stilll good, but just not what I was expecting. I tried some of Jeremy's banana wheat germ pancakes which were absolutely delicious! They were light, fluffy, and sometimes you got a surprise banana chunk which was to look forward to in every bite to see if you got a piece. Overall the food was really good.

The only downer was that they bring out a pitcher type thing of coffee in the beginning before you order and plop it down on your table along with water pitchers. I guess Jeremy and I were naive or something, but we didn't think they'd leave that if it was not ordered and it was not free, so he had half a cup to kill time before the food got there. I don't even like coffee but I was also killing time and figured I'd try this "free coffee". I ended up just taking a sip and leaving the rest of my fourth of a cup. To our surprise when the bill came around, they charged per mug that had coffee in it, and we were not happy. Our friends were mixed in their opinions, but we overheard several people later outside that had to clarify whether the coffee was complimentary. Jeremy thought it was deceitful and doesn't want to go back again even though the food was really good. I would give it another go and tell them not even to bring the coffee to our table. They ended up taking it off our tab once we explained our disatisfaction but it definitely left a bad taste in our mouths. If you go, just remember good food but don't touch the coffee pot unless you actually want to pay $2!

Habana Cuba

2008-12-28T20:09:00.001-08:00

This entry is out of order, since a bunch of us went to Habana Cuba before Christmas and prior to my leaving for San Diego, but better late than never!

We started out the dinner with a pitcher with sangria which was really good. It wasn't very strong at all, but it was quite tasty. I still got my "asian glow" after maybe half a glass with my cheeks getting warm and pink. We had a big group, but Jeremy, Christina, and I were going to share a few things.

We started with an appetizer of bocaditos or cuban sandwiches which were delicious! The bread was toasted nicely and the slow roasted meat inside as well as the caramelized onions with cheese just melded perfectly! The sandwich seems so simple but they were so delicious! We then split the surtido (?) for 2 which includes 3 types of meat- the famous slow roasted pork, a beef with potatoes dish, and chicken with onions dish. The side dishes were really good with fried plantains being the highlight for me, as well as the white rice (I think loaded with butter) and black beans. The slow roasted pork which is the cuban specialty apparently was really good and recommended by me :)

One of my friends ended up getting some desserts- tres leches cake, flan and arroz con leche. The cake was DELICIOUS, with a great moistness and wasn't too sweet which is a turnoff for me if a cake is too sweet. The flan was a little firmer than what I'm used to, but still creamy and good. The arroz con leche was a bit soupy and on the sweeter side (from the bite I had), but everybody else seemed to enjoy it! Overall, a good first cuban dining experience for me!

Lolitas- San Diego

2008-12-28T19:58:00.001-08:00

Another must stop when I'm in San Diego is Lolita's, usually in Bonita for some carne asada! It's not like we don't have good mexican food up here in the bay area, but there's something about Lolita's and the memories! I usually get a Carne Asada burrito or a Carne Asada taco with an extra corn tortilla to make it 2 tacos :)

My friend is obsessed with the Carne Asada Fries or the California Burrito which is a Carne Asada burrito with french fries, sour cream, and cheese in it. She also claims that the salsa is to die for, but I'm not a connoisseur so I just use a little of the hot sauce like any other hot sauce! I'm also not a huge fan of the fries and carne asada thing, so I stick with the traditional burrito or taco... oh so good... I usually get it with horchata to wash it down, but this time I just stuck with water since it can be pretty darn sweet sometimes. We met up with my friends who had never met Jeremy before, so it was a good time of eating good mexican food and catching up on what's new in our lives. I had mentioned carne asada fries to Jeremy (since french fries are his favorite "vegetable") a few days prior to going to Lolita's but he had forgotten about them- for which he still gives me a hard time about! He greatly enjoyed his carne asada burrito but talksa bout trying this carne asada fries business next time we're down there!

Another place I would have loved to go to was Tacos El Gordo for some more of the small street style tacos, but I didn't get over there and decided I could survive without it. Maybe next time! Man, I love the numerous and delicious mexican eateries in San Diego!

Sushi Ota- San Diego

2008-12-28T19:35:00.000-08:00

If you asked me what my favorite Japanese restaurant is in San Diego, I would be VERY quick to say Sushi Ota in Pacific Beach!

Jeremy came with me to San Diego this year for Christmas, and we went to Sushi Ota one night so he could experience the glory. My parents took us and we got the chef's tasting menu of about 7 courses as usual. We started off with a crab wrapped in cucumber dish topped with daikon, dried pomegranate, and a ponzu type sauce on top. My favorite dish was the foil wrapped steamed dish with an excellent broth! It had cod, enoki mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, mizuna greens, napa cabbage, and as I said, AMAZING broth. It was so good that Jeremy, who normally does not drink the soup and only eats the solids in any soup, drank all the broth!

We also had really good sushi such as two different types of Aji (Spanish Mackerel my favorite), and a special toro (fatty tuna). We put Jeremy to the test by giving him uni (sea urchin) and ikura (salmon roe) which even many Japanese people don't like. It took me a long time to actually eat it, but I still don't choose to eat it over other sushi items. He definitely tries everything once, which I think is a great characteristic! We also asked specifically for a salmon skin handroll for Jeremy & I since I love them! I don't think they're as good in a regular roll because you don't get as much of the crunch factor when the crunchy items are distributed throughout a long roll. It was warm, very crispy, and absolutely delicious, especially with the extra salmon pieces added into the roll. Jeremy really enjoyed it too. You can get that roll in other places, and I may be biased, but I love everything about Sushi Ota. The place is pretty casual, not the elegant, snooty feeling restaurant you have to dress up for, but I love the food and Mr. Ota is fantastic. I have and will continue to go every time I'm in San Diego!!

Sonny's BBQ- Eating in Florida

2008-11-25T05:52:00.000-08:00

My first time in Florida is this Thanksgiving to spend this holiday with my fiance's family.

Jeremy, Jeremy's mom, and I went to eat at Sonny's BBQ, which is a large chain of BBQ places around Florida. Jeremy had wanted BBQ so we went for lun-ner on Tuesday. Jeremy was excited for the sweet tea and all you can eat pulled pork. I also had a sweet tea, which they served in ginormous cups. Jeremy downed his first glass, but I'm not sure if I even finished the first big glass because they kept filling my cup. I had to also get a glass of water because I'm not used to drinking so much of a sugary drink, but I must admit the sweet tea was very tasty, though even sweet tooth Jeremy thought it was a bit sweet.

For our meals, I got a half rack of baby back ribs with cornbread. For my 2 sides I chose baked beans and green beans, since I'm usually lacking vegetables when I go out to eat. The ribs were good but nothing special to call home about. The meat was nice and soft, and the sauce was good- not overpowering in sweetness or smokiness. I highly enjoyed the cornbread without butter, especially with the rest of the food that was very flavorful. The baked beans were really good with ham or bacon pieces baked in. It was on the sweeter side, but I still highly enjoyed it. The green beans were good too. They were very soft since they were stewed in a pork base, but very flavorful.

Jeremy got the all you can eat pulled pork with garlic bread and his 2 sides were fries and baked beans. Apparently it's all you can eat on every part of your meal- great news for Jeremy! The first batch of fries for both him and his mom were cold but the second batch were oh so fresh and hot. I had one of those, and yet again as usual, burned my tongue because of my lack of patience. They were the normal crinkle fries- I'm not enough of an expert to say for sure that it was the frozen kind, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were. I didn't try any of his garlic bread but he says "It was AWESOME." He also got second helpings of it, so it must have been good. Now onto the main part which was the pulled pork. That was actually quite delicious and I actually felt like I should've ordered that too. It was easier to eat and scrumptious, especiall since you are able to doctor it up if you want to with the 4 available sauce bottles at the table. I believe we used the "Sizzlin' Sweet" sauce on Jeremy's mom's recommendation which was a good one!

We were definitely too full for dessert, but the menu looked good. Besides, there was superb homemade apple pie and Publix Cookies & Cream ice cream waiting for us at home when we were ready for it! I would definitely go back to Sonny's again to try either something new or go for that pulled pork, cornbread, baked beans, and... I'll decide on that last vegetable side dish later :)

Thanks for Lun-ner Jeremy!

Royal Tofu House

2008-11-16T19:11:00.001-08:00

A colleague and I went to Royal Tofu House recently for lunch, because it's really close by and I felt like something warm but healthy in the cooling weather. I had been to other korean restaurants such as in Cupertino Village but had not tried this one, so we finally went.

Overall, it was good, but there weren't as many side dishes that came with our food as some other restaurants I have been to. However, each of the side items were good. A broccoli with tofu dish, little fish dish, bean sprouts, seaweed, and of course kimchi. I'm not a kimchi expert, but I thought it was actually quite good. I dipped it into my soup to spice it up a bit more, as well as eat it with my rice. I can be pretty weak sauce when it comes to spiciness but this was just right for me! So all you really spicy kimchi lovers may not enjoy it as much.

I ordered the vegetable tofu pot, mild spice, and thought it hit the spot. Of course I burned my tongue as usual since I'm so impatient when it comes to food, especially when I'm very hungry! Their rice was good too. I would definitely go back again, especially with the proximity, but I can't say it was the best ever!

First Ethiopian Food Experience

2008-11-09T17:32:00.000-08:00

To celebrate my roommate Christina's birthday and experience Ethiopian food for the first time in both of our lives, we went to Zeni Restaurant in San Jose, which got great reviews on Yelp. I was expecting long lines since we didn't get there until close to 8pm, and Yelp had warned that lines are long between 7-9pm on weekends. There were 6 of us that went, so we ended up waiting 40 minutes or so, but we went next door to a discount shop to roam around and hang out so it wasn't too bad. Besides, if there are a lot of people always waiting to eat at this place, that must be a good sign!

We finally got in and the place was cute. A bit cozy in between the groups so if one person had to get up to wash their hands, it was a tiny ordeal but we managed. The seats were actually quite cushier than I thought, and quite comfortable although most of them had no backs. Okay on to the food...

We ordered the vegetarian combo which came with I believe a spicy lentil dish, a cabbage dish, a greens dish, perhaps a potato-ish dish, and a cold type of bread salad using their spongy unleavened bread. They were all different flavors, but tasty and flavorful. The only one I didn't have much of was the spicy lentil one, because it was very spicy and I'm a bit weak sauce when it comes to pure heat. We also ordered a chicken dish that looked like it had a tomato flavored sauce, including chicken, onions, and carrots. It tasted quite good alone as well as with the spongy bread they give you. The third thing we shared was the beef dish which was a green curry type sauce but not spicy. It had some potatoes and a few other vegetables I believe, but that was really good too. It kind of reminded me of a pulled pork type look for the meat, but again very tasty when the sauce absorbed into the spongy bread.

I'm glad we also got the appetizer salad to have some raw, cold greens to balance the warmth and different flavors of the other dishes. The bread alone wasn't my favorite thing due to the sourness that it had. I really liked the pieces on the plate underneath the various sauces, because the flavor had soaked in and made the bread very flavorful and not so sour.

We also got a bottle of the Ethiopian honey wine because we had heard that it was pretty tasty and went well with the meal. I like plum wine so I thought I might like it, but I wouldn't get it on my own again. It was a bit too sweet and had an odd alcohol or wheat-y aftertaste to it. I'm not sure it really complements the food that great either, but again I'm not a wine expert!

Overall, the food was good, but not at the top of my cuisines list. I am willing to try more Ethiopian restaurants if there are specific really good ones people recommend, but I'm more likely to go eat a different cuisine. I'm biased but Japanese and other asian foods still rank at the top of my list! Aside from that, the point was to spend time with beloved friends and celebrate a birthday so it was a success and HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRISTINA!

Sushi Tatsumi

2008-10-18T17:45:00.000-07:00

I went here for lunch the other day since it is close to where I work.
When I looked at the menu, it was a bit pricier than the usual lunch sets, but I said what the heck and went for the sushi and broiled mackerel. I was very pleased with what I received, because it was not just the typical lunch set but so much more.

I knew I couldn't describe everything and give an idea of how good it looked, so here are some pictures. The first is of my lunch set which included rice, salad, tofu, fried spring roll, potato salad and miso soup along with my 2 choices for the lunch set. The salad was different from the usual lettuce with creamy dressing. Instead it had mixed greens with other veggies and a light vinaigarette which I liked a lot. The tofy was in a dashi sauce that was great. The mackerel was quite tasty with a squeeze of lemon and lots of daikon oroshi! The spring roll was nice, hot and crispy. I also would like to mention that I highly enjoyed their rice which glistened more and you could tell it was a higher quality rice.

The second picture is the 4 pieces of nigiri sushi I got. The fish was very fresh and tasty. I wish I had salmon instead of ebi, but maybe I'll ask if I can trade next time. The ebi was actually better than I expected though! Overall, I must say I was very pleased and would go back again! Of course it can't be every time since it's a bit pricy- probably $20 with tax and tip for this lunch, but worth it!

My Bday: SushiMaru

2008-09-23T22:46:00.000-07:00

For my 24th birthday I wanted sushi, so guess where Jeremy took me... SUSHI! I had heard that Sushi Maru, which used to be in Sunnyvale but is now in Milpitas, is pretty good. I had to try it out myself, so that was where we went! I read that they have sushi boats, which I'm typically skeptical of since they float around for who knows how long waiting to be taken by someone. To their benefit though, the items actually looked rather fresh, except for the fried items which I would never get off the boat. I didn't end up getting anything off the boats, but I saw them add a number of items as well, so I would've chosen those- maybe next time :)

What I DID have, was the sushi dinner. I got some of my favorite nigiris like aji, hamachi, salmon, and tuna among others. I was actually quite impressed with their California roll, as was Jeremy, because it wasn't too mayonaise-y which I hate. I believe they also use actual crab instead of imitation crab which makes it taste better. I enjoyed all the pieces of sushi in my meal... gosh I love sushi. I also made Jeremy try some of my raw fish. He had eaten them before but just wanted to share some sushi love with him :) I also liked their miso soup that came with the dinner. I can't pinpoint exactly what I liked about it, but it had enough miso flavor balanced with some seaweed and tofu pieces. There were a few pieces of salad that looked kinda sketchy to me, as in a bit brown, but nothing detrimental to my health at all.

Jeremy got the katsu curry and enjoyed it. He really liked the pickled daikon that was served along with it too. Of course I sampled a little bit of the tonkatsu as well as the curry and must say I enjoyed the bite as well. Jeremy is a big fan of curry, and a big eater, but he didn't quite finish all of it. He finishes mine though as he pointed out, so mine must be better :P

Overall a pleasant experience and I would definitely recommend it to friends as well as go back again for some more sushi! Thanks Jeremy for my bday dinner.

Another thanks to my roomie Christina for getting me a delicious Cookies N Cream Ice Cream Cake- what a way to finish the night! I had Carvell ice cream cake at work because my lovely coworkers had gotten me a cake as well, but hey if you can't splurge on dessert on your birthday, when can you?? I love birthdays- until next year!

Brenda's Bday

2008-09-17T22:34:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Brenda! For those that don't know, Brenda is my best friend from high school that lives up in SF. I decided that I don't see her or Erika hardly often enough even though I always try to get up there more often... so since all of us are september babies, I decided I have no excuse this time to not go at least for dinner! We met up at Cha Cha Cha's, which is a Cuban tapas restaurant, in the Haight because it was right by the bar they were going to celebrate further with a group later tonight.

The sangria we got to drink to kick off the night/dinner was quite delicious. It didn't have too much alcohol and I didn't drink too much since I was driving, but I enjoyed what I had- the fruit in there was good too soaked in the wine and juice!

As for food dishes, we got 4 dishes: a creamy shrimp dish that had a hint of spiciness to it, fried plantains with black beans, BBQ chicken quesadilla with guacamole and salsa, and a mixed greens salad. All the dishes were quite delicious! The shrimp was good, especially as you dipped the bread in the creamy sauce and munched away. I'm really glad we had salad to even things out, especially since I've been feeling vegetable deficient from eating out so much lately. I must say my favorite though was the fried plantains. There were crispy parts that I love, and a perfect ripeness and sweetness to the plantains. It's a small side dish but yet can be a dessert too!

Brenda, happy birthday and I'm really glad I got to see you on your birthday! Thanks for all the laughs & good times over the years and may 25 be a great year!! I love you and love that you're a part of my life. I can't be thankful enough for friends like you and Erika who I may not talk to for long periods of time but feel comfortable like nothing has changed when we get together... I'm saying it again but we need to get together more often!!

Gombei San Jose

2008-09-11T22:30:00.001-07:00

Fine dining club strikes again! My two wonderful, food-loving roommates Angela & Christina and I went on another adventure to try a restaurant that none of us had ever been to called Gombei in San Jose. They apparently have 3 stores now, in Menlo Park and Santa Clara, but San Jose Japantown was the first one. It is definitely a good sign when the people you talk to on the phone and that greet you are actually Japanese!

We went into the place knowing that it is technically not a FINE dining restaurant because the food there is more of a set dinner and more of a home cooked feel than like a 4-course, high class meal. I do like the fine dining experiences every now and then, of course, but the home cooked, good bang for your buck places are more my style! We ended up getting 3 "set" meals and split them all. Each set came with veggie sides (kiriboshi daikon and stewed greens), really well cooked white rice and miso soup. I highly recommend looking at the white board of specials because they all looked quite good. We got three sets off the specials board:

1) Sashimi set which came with tuna sashimi and hiyayakko (cold tofu)

2) Broiled yellow tail with yuzu and salmon creamy croquette set also came with salad

3) Salted and broiled hamachi-kama served with Agedashi Tofu.

They were all very satisfying, but we all particularly liked the veggie side dishes that came with each set- thankfully we each got one! I especially liked the kiriboshi daikon, which is not surprising since I love when my Mom makes it! I also liked the hamachi-kama and yellow tail with yuzu, even though I didn't really taste the yuzu too much, both piled with daikon oroshi. I LOVE daikon oroshi. Nothing tastes as good as oily and lightly salted broiled fish with a squirt of citrus and refreshing grated daikon... YUM. I wasn't particularly impressed with the creamy croquette or the agedashi tofu. Not that I drank the tofu broth, but it was quite strong in saltiness. The tuna was good but apparently women aren't supposed to eat too much tuna as we discussed in the car ride over... that is very sad news and I might be in trouble if that really causes issues since I grew up on fish and love maguro/tuna!

I think the only disappointment for us was that Gombei doesn't offer dessert. We sat and drank tea for a bit since it wasn't too crowded on a Thursday night, but I do wish they had dessert. To satisfy Christina's and my craving for something sweet, we went to... McDonald's for soft serve ice cream cones- what an interesting twist of events for our "Fine" Dining Club dinner. That's why I love my roomies- spontaneity and appreciation for good food regardless of cost! Gombei was definitely fiiiiiiiine food- we'd all go back again any time :D

Jeremy's First Gochi

2008-08-30T17:54:00.000-07:00

I really enjoy going to Gochi, as does my roommate Angela, but my fiance Jeremy has never gone and has wanted to go since everyone talks about it. Four of us finally went: my Mom, my maid of honor Jessica, Jeremy, and I. He met up with us after a busy day of dress shopping for me-fairly successful I believe. I didn't actually get the dress yet, but basically narrowed it down to two, leaning towards one, and trying to be okay with the price.

Anyway, back to dinner at Gochi. We got a few things that I have gotten before like the daikon salad which is good (not fabulous) and HUGE. I had forgotten how big that thing was! We also got the fried chicken and eggplant with a ponzu type dish that I love. We also got a kimchi pork clay pot where the girls all wanted the nice crispy rice parts- it's the best part! We also got a few new items: "kabocha mochi" which is mashed japanese pumpkin with cheese inside and I believe grilled with a soy saucy flavor on the outside to really make it have the texture of mochi. It is then wrapped in seaweed just like you would eat a plain mochi! I really enjoyed it so I hope it is there next time I go. We also got grilled squid which was new and just okay, not huge flavor, nothing special. I can't remember if we got anything else, but we sure did get dessert.

My mom saw a dessert come out at a different table and wanted it. It ended up being delicious green tea tiramisu with red bean on top. It is definitely not like the usual tiramisu, but I'd say it was very tasty! The other dessert we shared was black sesame ice cream which I had before and enjoyed. I didn't know how Jeremy would like either of them but he liked both, especially the tiramisu! No wonder I love the guy! He likes what I eat, and everybody KNOWS how important food is to me!! :) Yay Gochi!

Sushi Sam's

2008-08-30T17:31:00.000-07:00

I went to Sushi Sam's with my Mom and her friend when she was visiting me so we could go dress shopping. A good friend of hers had recommended this sushi restaurant in San Mateo, so we made reservations and went.

To be frank, the food was good but I wasn't blown away. The "chef's special" only included sushi unlike what we're used to with other culinary dishes besides sushi incorporated in for the whole meal experience. The sushi chef ordered some appetizer dishes for us, and they were all delicious. I will say though that the star was the sushi. The fish was fresh, well presented, and we ate some unique/rare items. My only complaint is that most of them had ponzu sauce on it which kept it the same flavor as well as hiding the natural flavor of the fresh fish a little. There was also a scallop with salt and lemon but it had toughened up a bit with the lemon on it for too long.

The other thing that hung me up about the place was the service. The sushi chef conversed with us, especially when it came to golf, but he would shout out orders often. We also were not told when our sushi specials were done and were waiting there for a while before we asked if that was it. We thought they were going to ask if we wanted any additional sushi or ask us about dessert, but we had to initiate both conversations. We had heard good things about their handmade desserts, so we tried 2 different kinds and my mom's friend was correct to say the desserts are delicious! The sushi chef's niece who is a waitress there makes the desserts that change from time to time. I got the kinako panna cotta with red bean sorbet, mochi balls, and fruit. Not too sweet, beautifully presented, and enough to share around.

I enjoyed the meal, but I left not completely satisfied for the price we paid. But again, maybe I'm too spoiled from Sushi Ota in San Diego that I absolutely adore :)

Dacia-cakes

2008-08-04T22:06:00.000-07:00

I have to give a shout out to my coworker and cube neighbor Dacia. She makes the best cupcakes in the world and she made me engagement cupcakes today :) She played around with fondant and kneaded like no other to make a beautiful and DELICIOUS white cupcake with milk and white chocolate chips as well as a hint of raspberry! It was so moist and yummy I can't even explain. I am not a big frosting person so I opted for the naked cupcake. A good cupcake really doesn't need any frosting!

Dacia, you're amazing and if you open up your own shop I will be a frequent customer! I brought one home for Jeremy too and he devoured it very quickly~ I've already hinted that if we don't get a wedding package and she's up for doing a lot of cupcakes (since whole cakes overwhelm her), there may be some talking... :) They are THAT good!!

It makes me want to specialize and perfect something I make so that I can be a specialty person that can own her own place some day too!

Santa Ramen

2008-08-03T21:30:00.000-07:00

After a disappointing first wedding venue viewing, Jeremy & I decided to dinner in San Mateo since we had driven all the way to Burlingame. We decided on Santa Ramen, and we discovered that it had moved to a larger location! The good thing is that they can let more people in, even though there is still a continual line out the door meaning you can't linger with your food. I ALSO found out, that they no longer have the stewed pork ramen option. You have to choose either shoyu, tonkotsu, or miso ramen for $7.95, and add 2 pieces of stewed pork for $4.95!

They get a better place to serve more people and hike up the prices... I was not so happy... the stewed pork was good and I will say that they are clearly larger than what was included before, but it wasn't worth $5 for Jeremy or I. I will say that as usual the broth impressed me, and I was drinking it up. I kept doing tastings between my tonkotsu and Jeremy's shoyu... can't pick a favorite because they are both quite tasty and it just depends on the mood! Jeremy had to remind me to take pictures before diving in to my food haha what a great fiance (accent on the e) I have!

Last Week Good Eats Pt 2- Last Whole Day

2008-07-24T09:09:00.000-07:00

The Last Whole Day in Singapore and my last day of work...

Old Airport Hawker Center for dinner

My main point of going was the famous rojak stall that I was told about. I have been having a craving for rojak before I leave, so Viv told me about this famous stall in the east. The durian stall we could go to was close by, so I decided this would be a great opportunity to go eat the famous rojak... sad thing is that it was CLOSED!!!! It just wasn't meant to be... Instead we had a different rojak which was still pretty nice, along with the wanton mee that was recommended. It is out of order, but there is also a picture of our table finished afterwards. I needed to leave room or part 2 and highlight of the night- DURIAN~~

A few colleagues of mine agreed to take me for a REAL durian experience since I was told this week that the packaged durian is usually the not so good quality durian, even though I liked it! They also winced when I said I had the durian pancakes, so we agreed to go for the real experience on my last night here. Key things for a real experience: pick your durian, have it cut open for you, take the pods out of the fruit to eat with friends, and stink for a while!! They said don't regret it tomorrow when you burp and smell it, smell it on your fingers, and people scoot away from you... but it was WORTH it :)

Here is the durian that Marianne and I picked, as well as a picture of me with the one I sampled. It was a D24 I believe which is supposed to be high quality, sweet durian. It was definitely tasty and worth it! Very creamy, sweet, and no wonder it is the king of fruits!

One final picture of me with durian in one hand, husk in front of me with the pods in it, and a coconut drink to balance it out! I didn't get to drink water out of the husk which is supposed to somehow help reduce the stinkiness, because we had to run to our car so we didn't get a ticket hehe. Hopefully the people in the plane tomorrow don't mind!!

Last Week Good Eats Pt 1

2008-07-24T08:32:00.000-07:00

The last week in Singapore only means one thing for me...

Squeeze in as much good food as I can! This whole week was filled with good eats so here is my attempt to capture my culinary adventures throughout the week...

Tuesday- Peranakan Food at Ivan's with Alvin & Christina followed by Island Creamery Ice Cream

Alvin ordered a number of dishes at Ivan's for us and they were all really good. He sure knows the yummies! My favorite (not pictured because it came later than the rest) was what I believe is called itek tim, or the stewed duck in a tamarind gra

vy. It was a bit sweet but still had a bit of a different, unique kick to it and

absolutely delicious with coconut rice or alone as I drank a couple spoonfuls at the end because I liked it so much. My other favorite is the deep fried rolls above with a sort of sweet meat in the middle, eaten with a sweet sauce and a bit of chili. Yummyyyyyy is all I can say. We also got some "must try-s" that I think are called ayum buah keluak (chicken with a hard nut stewed in a spicy sour sauce), babi pongteh (pork stewed in soy sauce with spices), vegetables, and of course all with coconut rice. I had Pernakan food one time previous to this but this time was so much more memorable!

For dessert we headed over to Island Creamery which is a local ice cream shop that makes their own ice creams, with some unique flavors. Some of those unique flavors included chendol, teh tarik, pulut hitam, and Tiger beer. I ended up getting the Teh Tarik

which was delicious- a nice milk tea that apparently tastes like the real drink! We also tried to print a picture for their wall, but their printer adapter was broken so we couldn't print our picture. We won't be on their wall, but I'll have the picture we wanted to print!

Wednesday- Crystal Jade farewell lunch with colleagues & Lau Pa Sat dinner with Vivien

My colleagues took me out to a dim sum lunch at Crystal Jade. It was a good choice since I had gone to Din Tai Fung before for dim sum, but Crystal Jade is an originally singaporean establishment. We had TONS of food and all of it was really good. Pictures aren't too flattering so I'll keep them to myself, but I'll share the highlights of what I ate. I really liked the hor fun I think it was- dark stir fried noodles, roasted meats like pork and duck, and sweet water chestnut rice cake. I don't exactly remember all I ate since there was so much, but those are the ones that stood out to me.

Lau Pa Sat was actually kind of a disappointment. First of all, not too many queues that I can use as a cue of good food. I wandered around trying to figure out what to eat and finally decided on ban mian because I like homemade noodles. I tried a few bites of Viv's Kway Chap which was actually quite good with an herbally taste. Many people may be turned off that its pig's organs though... I also tried a bit of her bok chor mee, aka minced pork noodle. Then for dessert I sampled a bit of her sweet potato longan dessert which was quite delightful I must say! I've heard that the satay street isn't that great so we didn't even try. For having tons of stores, I had no idea which places were good, and it seems like not too many are famous for their items!

Bangkok, Thailand Part 2

2008-07-21T05:27:00.000-07:00

Now for Bangkok part 2- the sweet stuff!

My first sweet came in the form of mango sticky rice at the floating market. Ok so the first picture is from the thai iced tea lady, but the sticky rice lady was right behind her. As you can tell in the second photo, I was a tad sweaty from

the heat, humidity, and all the people. I could try to touch up the photo and get the hair out of my forehead, but clearly I didn't care enough! The sticky rice wasn't as sweet as what I have had in the US, which doesn't surprise me, and I really enjoyed it!

My second sweet was at the Chatuchak Market where there were a lot of stores with actually some good stuff. It wasn't the road of junk like we saw walking to Wat Pho from the Grand Palace. I know one person's junk can be another person's treasure but... that stuff was REALLY hard to imagine as someone's treasure...

The second picture is the dessert that I got. I'm actually not quite sure what it is, but you pick what you want in your dessert with coconut milk. The pink balls were gelatinous with a sort of water chestnut-ty crunch center. The white balls I got that looked like banana cut up was the same crunchy thing that was in the center of the pink thing I believe... Then long white pieces were just coconut inside bits I believe. It wasn't the best dessert I've had, but it wasn't bad by any means, and I tried something new that I wouldn't eat otherwise! For the equivalent of $1, this is the place to experiment with new foods right?

Third stop was my last Bangkok eats and was yummyyyyyy. It was a banana roti or pancake

with chocolate. I know Jeremy would have loved it- banana and chocolate! It was basically like a crepe, and when I used to go to summer festivals in Japan, I would always get the banana nutella crepes. So here at the Khao San Road roti cart, I got the delightful pancake that I needed Riga's help eating since I had been snacking all afternoon. The sweetness with the crispy outside-yummmmm what a way to cap off the trip!!

Bangkok, Thailand Part 1

2008-07-21T04:30:00.000-07:00

Bangkok in a weekend... quite a lot to do but I think Riga & I covered good ground.

Besides all the sightseeing, you know what's important to me- food! Lots of pictures and stuff to talk about so as far as actual meals, a buffet breakfast was included with the hotel we stayed at- Viengtai hotel by Khao San Road. I liked staying by (but not on) Khao San Road because it stayed lively even at night so it was pretty safe with a night scene.

Our lun-ner on saturday was at Mango Tree. We had some yummy food: I got the Mussaman Curry, and sampled Riga's goodies that included chicken satay, tom yam koom soup, and chili catfish. The rice they served also had some other grains in it and it was really good. They even

gave me a tad extra rice when I wanted some more for the curry sauce that was deliiiiicious. The catfish chili was really spicy but it was very flavorful. The satay wasn't as sweet as the satay I've been eating in Singapore which was different and quite tasty. Of course I got a thai iced tea to

wash it all down as well! It wasn't as sweet as the usual ones I'm used to, which was a refreshing change. Pretty with an orchid in the glass :)

We then went to get massages which I was a bit worried about on such a full stomach but I was fine- enjoyed it very much. Of course there was pain every now and then when they knead out all your muscles but felt really good!

On day 2, I got sticky rice with mango at the floating market, but that's for part 2- desserts! At Chatuchak Market I got 4 spring rolls for 20 baht which is about

80 cents or so- gotta love cheap food! There was a wide selection of spring rolls but they were out of the ones that I wanted to try. They also weren't freshly fried so not as crispy and yummy but I was hungry so it did the job.

We went back to Khao San Road where I was determined to try some pad thai here in Bangkok! 25 baht for a pad thai with egg- yummmmm... however it wasn't as satisfying because it was a bit different from the sweet pad thai I'm used to. They stir fry it for you but apparently you do a lot of the flavoring yourself. They have some sauces and sugar on the side of the cart for you to add in as

desired. I didn't know it wasn't sweet at all, so I just added a tad of sauce. It was good, but it didn't really taste like Pad Thai. If I had another one, I'd flavor it accordingly to suit my taste buds. I guess I like the pre-flavored kind better!

Stay tuned for part 2- desserts!!

Chili Crab Xiao Long Bao

2008-07-17T05:29:00.000-07:00

Limited time edition Chili Crab Xiao Long Bao at Din Tai Fung? I'm there! Even though the reviews had said they are neither chili crab nor xiao long bao, I had to try it for myself. Before the main item though, I tried the chili vinegar veggie appetizer which was quite good. It wasn't too spicy and it was a nice salad type appetizer, since I don't think I get as many vegetables as I normally do back home. Plus it comes out fast when you're hungry!

On to the main focus of my food adventure that I dragged Riga to.

Besides the fact that on my last bite I squirted red juice on myself... just when you think you're safe and clear of mess, you get bright red on the white part of your shirt! It was actually quite delightful- not too spicy but very juicy with the chili crab juice locked into the dumpling. The reviews were right that it doesn't take the place of either dish, but it is something worthy of trying if you're here when they offer the summer special!

Can't you tell by my face that I enjoyed my meal?

I also learned from Riga that the flower mode on my camera, also called "macro" mode lets you take pictures of things really up close without bluring! As in the really close bao pic above :)

Funny Realization

2008-07-14T07:20:00.000-07:00

Just a random realization that was quite funny to me...

The people that sell fried puffs on the side of the road in the morning and some afternoons aren't saying "calipa, calipa, calipa" which I thought was a different language meaning something like "come buy". They are actually saying "curry puff" over and over- REALLY fast.

Malacca, Malaysia yummies

2008-07-14T06:17:00.000-07:00

A weekend trip to Malacca, Malaysia. Despite people trying to scare me about the dangers of Malaysia, Malacca was fine and lots of fun!

First thing on the list, chicken rice balls! We went to one of the two famous stores that serve chicken rice balls for lunch right before the masses came in! The rice balls were quite good as well as the chicken and cucumbers, but I like regular chicken rice better because the rice balls are a bit mushy because they are packed together tightly.

Next on the list was chendol, so I had a Mango

chendol and Audrey had a durian chendol. The ice stayed solid much longer than the desserts we have here in Singapore because apparently Malaysians pack the ice tighter. The molasses like brown sugar sauce was delicious too! They even give you more in a green bottle if you want it sweeter! (Jeremy, you can have

the whole bottle to yourself.) Not too coconutty, but there was enough coconut taste with the ice and mango.

At night after we rested for a bit, we went out to the Jonker night market, which I must say was my favorite part of the trip. There were all sorts of things on sale, including lots of good food

to choose from and my eyes were much bigger than my stomach. First thing we had at dinner time was a sampling of dim sum items from the auntie and young man selling the loads of yummy looking delights at a stall. Lots of colors of small deliciousness that I picked and chose from. As usual, they squirted in a bit of chili sauce for me. We savored them as we walked to our next destination where we had Asam Laksa.

It was really spicy which made me sweat a lot more from eating it rather than just being in the hot weather, but it was quite nice. It wasn't heavy in a creamy way like the usual laksa but the sourness was a nice fresh combination with the spiciness.

We also had nonya kueh that was absolutely fantastic! I had the sweet potato kind while Audrey tried

the pandan kind. They were soft and the right amount of chewiness. I think I really enjoyed it because it wasn't overly sweet as a lot of sweets tend to be. We both really enjoyed our kuehs and when we went back to see if we wanted to buy more possibly for breakfast, they had run out. Our decision had been made for us... that was of course returning after a 1 hour plus martial arts street show of a kung fu laoshi and his powerful index finger.

Last but not least, this is for Jeremy because it was a funny sign I showed him from our hotel bathroom:

More Local Favs & Sad food search

2008-07-06T00:25:00.000-07:00

An update on the local favorites that I'm trying over again.

First I tried the popiah at Wisma Atria Food Republic when I met up with Steve and Adelene. I love popiah, but that was my least favorite... I believe it was the egg bits inside that I didn't like. Plus, the skin wasn't as crispy or fresh as I would have liked. They asked me if I wanted it spicy and I said a little, which I believe is the sauce on top, but it wasn't spicy at all, so was a bit confused about that too. I still haven't been impressed with anything I've eaten in that place!

Second thing I tried again over the weekend was Char Kway Teow.

I've had it a few times and wasn't blown away any of those times. I had this odd urge for it, so I went looking... the sad thing about today is that I had this plan to go to Queenstown Shopping Center to get a tennis dress and then to Tiong Bahru hawker center to use the Singapore Food Festival voucher at one of the places. I've heard the center is good so I wanted to try it... However, sadly no luck with the tennis dress AND I ended up at the wrong hawker center (Redhill), and didn't feel like going to look for it again. This one was good with cockles and not too spicy. I liked this one better than the one at Gluttons Bay but less than the one I ate with Jeremy at oddly the Thai place in Far East Plaza. Maybe I'm biased towards Pad See Ew...

I really wanted dessert but was full when I stood up, so I waited until I got off at my MRT (train) stop and said if there was an ice cream man on the way home I would get one of the $1 ice creams in bread. Sure enough I found a nice uncle, and I decided on flavor #4: coffee. My favorite is still the sweet corn believe it or not!

19 more days in Singapore~

Singapore Food Festival

2008-07-04T07:06:00.000-07:00

Three words: Singapore Food Festival!

What's there NOT to be excited about? I love food and they're letting me try 3 different things for free! I'm not quite sure what I'll try because not all stores participate, and I've already tried all 10 things on the local must try list...

It was difficult to do, since they're all good and different, but here are the top 10 Local Favorites list in my (current) favorite order:

1. Chicken Rice

2. Chili Crab (except for the hard work)

3. Rojak

4. Roti Prata and teh tarik

5. Char Kway Teow

6. Laksa

7. Satay

8. Bak Kut teh

9. Fried Carrot Cake (I like the black one)

10. Fish head curry

My Thai Dessert Experiment

2008-07-04T06:36:00.000-07:00

This week I hadn't really tried any food out of the ordinary of what I've tried already...

BUT, I did cook something I haven't tried before. I really like the Thai dessert of sticky rice with mango. I had coconut milk that I was trying to use as well as a bunch of brown rice I need to eat before I leave Singapore, so I though "Hey, let's try regular brown rice with sweet coconut milk!" It was actually quite easy, and absolutely tasty, but be patient as it takes a bit of time. Here's what I used: just 5 ingredients, anybody can do it right?

I know it's not much of a picture with the recipe but here it is:

Amy's Brown Rice Dessert Experiment:

3/4 cup short grain brown rice

1 cup light coconut milk

1 cup water

1/4-2/4 cup brown sugar

pinch of salt

Just put all the ingredients in a pot and bring to a boil. Then, simmer until the liquid is practically absorbed. Mix every now and then to make sure the rice isn't sticking to the bottom and that film isn't forming on top.

*If you don't want it as sweet, just add less sugar. I added sugar about half the amount of uncooked rice, and it was a tad too sweet for me. But I'm sure if Jeremy were eating it, he would have wanted more sugar. (Or maybe he would've told me to follow a recipe...)

Seemingly Odd Tapioca Combo

2008-06-29T01:42:00.000-07:00

This entry is dedicated to my boyfriend Jeremy.

Jeremy's favorite tapioca is Vanilla Cookie Swirl or something like that at Tapioca Express, because it pretty much tastes like candy. When I told him tapioca/bubble tea here is S$1-S$2, he was very excited. There are many options for that price, but who in their right mind would choose banana oreo? Answer: my boyfriend. I'll admit I thought he was crazy when he said he wanted to try it, but his reasoning was why not be a little more adventurous when its cheap? It made sense and although I was EXTREMELY skeptical, I tried it and it was actually not bad! The first sip I took, it was just ok, but I must admit that it grew on me the more sips I took. So today I ended up buying one of my own. It was good still, but it was

a bit too much after a while. I couldn't finish a whole thing all by myself, so for myself in the future, I prefer passionfruit tea or something not as sweet (and healthier).

Food often tastes better when you steal a few bites off of someone else's plate, so maybe this drink was one of those cases. I wouldn't buy it again for myself, but I'd take a few sips of someone else's banana oreo tapioca again any time :)

More New Foods For Lyzz

2008-06-29T01:25:00.000-07:00

Lyzz tried a lot of new things while she was in Singapore with me. She wanted to try durian and some local desserts, so we combined them and ate a durian ice kacang at Maxwell Hawker Center. She thought durian was good too! The smell wan't too bad to her either, so I'm not the only abnormal foreigner that likes the fruit! The ice kacang was better than the last one I tried because it wasn't as sweet as the last one. The really bright colors still aren't ideal in things I consume, but it's good with the items on the bottom. There are red beans, grass jelly, fruit jellies, and surprisingly corn! I love having shaved ice in hot times!

Another thing I had her eat, was a literal ice cream sandwich. All the uncles with the ice cream carts on the street give you a selection of ice creams that they cut

for you from a block of ice cream. Then, you can choose to put it between wafers, in a cup, or in a slice of colorful bread! Before, I tried the sweet corn ice cream with Jeremy, but this time I tried the yam ice cream (I have liked all the yam desserts here). Lyzz just got a strawberry-vanilla swirl, but we both enjoyed the sandwich. The bread has a hint of sweetness on its own, but I'm not sure if that is just plain white asian bread. Who knows, but all I can say the combination seems odd but its fantastic!

Mos Burger & Thai Express

2008-06-27T19:55:00.000-07:00

Friday lunch time was a serving of Mos Burger. I must say I hadn't had anything from Mos Burger since my childhood summer days in Japan every now and then. The burgers are actually QUITE small, especially compared to American burger sizes. My Singaporean friends have said that the sizes are still smaller than the American fast food chains here as well.

I tried the Unagi Rice burger, which is actually quite tasty. They shape the rice to basically hold in the shape of buns and sandwich unagi pieces in between. I like Unagi bowls, so it was exactly like that but you can eat it with your hands! As I said, it's pretty small so you have to get a side of fries to share with your friends or you can go get a bubble tea (tapioca) afterwards to fill you up! Take your pick :) We ended up gettin

g fries, and I like eating them with a mix of the chili sauce and ketchup they give you!

For dinner time, Lyzz had mentioned wanting some Thai food, so we ended up going to Thai Express at the bottom of Paragon. **Apologies now for pictures of food that has already started to be eaten.** We got their "popular" Mango salad. It was delicious! I'm not sure if it is a different type of mango, like green mango (similar to their green papaya salad), but it was a great combination of a slightly crunchy texture, that is slightly sweet with a hint of sour. Plus the slightly tangy/sweet sauce that goes with it was really refreshing.

Our 2nd dish was Pad Thai to see what the flavor here on this classic dish was. I was a little

disappointed because it came out so quick and it was not piping hot... it seemed like they make a lot because many people order it, but it isn't freshly made after an order is placed. The taste was good with chilis on the side that you could add in yourself. Not the best Pad Thai I have had, but not the worst either. I guess you can't expect too much out of a chain restaurant. The mango salad is a definite recommendation to try though!

Gluttons Bay With Lyzz

2008-06-27T19:30:00.000-07:00

Lyzz is visiting for a few days and we're having a fabulous time!

We went local the first night and went to Gluttons Bay Hawker Center next to the Esplanade. It tends to be a litle more expensive than usual hawker centers, because of the beautiful view by the water and it is supposed to be where good stalls are brought together. It was only two of us so I couldn't have her eat everything, but we tried some of the unique/unusual stuff. Of course I forgot to take a picture of the most unusual one, grilled stingray with chili. It actually just tastes like white fish, but I like it with some of the chili sauce grilled in. It's good to balance the spice with plain white rice, but the rice isn't very good here... very dry... But my tolerance for spicy has definitely gone up since living here!

I also had her try Kaya toast even though it is usually a breakfast or snack food, but hey if we don't have much time, who cares when we eat it! It is a type of jam I would say made with coconut and egg (plus sugar obviously). I really like it but I've heard that coconut is high in cholesterol because of the high fat content, but there's much debate, so I'll go with my usual motto: "Everything in moderation!" (or at least try)

We also had carrot cake which isn't the American carrot cake

dessert we would immediately think of. It is actually like the radish cakes that they serve at dim sum places- I love that stuff! In Singapore, they offer a black kind that is a bit sweeter. They cut up the cake pieces and pan fry it with a sweet black sauce and other little veggies. This time though, we tried the white version which we were told was more salty, and since neither of us had tried it, we said let's try it! We thought it was just going to be pan fried cake without the sweet sauce, but it actually ended up being more of a radish cake omelet. I'm not a huge egg fan, so I personally like the black version better, but it was still okay.

Also, this goes for the next post as well, but apologies for not remembering to take a picture before we started eating... but better than nothing right??

Durian

2008-06-25T07:20:00.000-07:00

So many people have asked if I have tried Durian, the king of fruits, so here is my answer:

Yes I have, and I liked it! People gasp and tell me I'm pretty much abnormal. Apparently most first timers, especially Japanese people don't like it. But, Jeremy had it and didn't think it was too bad, and my family liked it as well. It's very sweet and creamy, so I can't eat very much at once, nor do I want to because I believe

the caloric content is pretty high. I actually thing it's good though and I liked the durian pancake snacks that are sold in malls as well. The bad thing is that when you burp or something hours later, you smell the durian again... though I don't think the smell is THAT bad, it's just very strong. I also made the mistake of taking durian home with me into my fridge for a few days. Thankfully it was packed well so it didn't smell up my whole fridge and home! For anyone that wants to try it but is scared, I'd say definitely try it and don't be turned off by the smell!

Coca Restaurant

2008-06-25T06:35:00.000-07:00

This week is going to be the week of eating out. Tuesday I went to dinner with Alvin and Christina at Coca Restaurant, a Thai steam boat restaurant on the 4th Floor of Takashimaya Ngee Ann City. We ended up getting the buffet dinner so they brought out whatever we asked for, ranging from crab, house special wontons, thinly sliced beef, greens, fishballs, to noodles. After everything cooked together, the chicken broth was so delicious! The only bad thing is that the broth is the best at the end, but you're so full that you can't drink anymore! Next time I'll eat slower just so I can have more of the yummy soup. They also serve a delicious chili sauce with the steam boat/hot pot. It reminded me a little of the chili crab sauce because it isn't too spicy but a good combination of spicy with a little hint of sweetness. My favorite items were the greens, the fish goo, the crab (even though it's a chore to get to the crab meat), and the thin slices of beef. The fish ravioli isn't too great because there isn't much filling, and it uses a thicker, pasta-like wrapper. I much prefer the soft wonton wrapper. It was a very satisfying meal, especially because I have been getting tired of greasy foods and I love soup! Thanks Alvin & Christina!

Din Tai Fung

2008-06-25T05:56:00.000-07:00

On Monday, I had dinner at Din Tai Fung, a Taiwanese dim sum chain, with Vivien after work. I had liked the xiao lon bao last time so we got those again. I also had the Dan Dan Mian that I had wanted to try last time. I thought it was going to be a bit spicy but it ended up actually being a sweet peanutty taste with a hint of chili. It was a bit thick and had much more of a peanut taste than I expected. I'm not sure if I would get it again, but I still enjoyed it.

The previous time I had gone to Din Tai Fung with my family and Jeremy, I tried a lot of their selection such as xiao lon bao, black bean noodles, wonton soup noodles, shrimp dumplings, shrimp fried rice, and yam dumplings. My favorite was the xiao lon bao, which I'm still amazed at how they wrap it so none of the delicious juice gets out until you so desire. AND I love the ginger and vinegar to go along with it- what a great accompaniment! The noodles are really good as well, cooked to the right texture with a slight bite still to it. I liked the dry noodles with black bean sauce better than the soup noodles, because it didn't let the noodles get too soft and the flavor was a good amount of salty without being overly flavorful. Sadly I forgot my camera both times, but I would recommend this place to people that want not too oily but a lighter, flavorful meal!

Chinatown Eats

2008-06-22T05:11:00.000-07:00

Intrigued by the Japanese Singapore guidebook/magazine's recommendation for some stores on Chinatown's food street, I went for a Sunday night food adventure.

First stop, Lanzhou Lamian for some Dha Zhang Mien...

I'm not sure if that's how it is actually spelled... At first I was a bit disappointed because it came out really quick, they didn't hand make my noodles at the point of order like I had read would happen. It meant it wasn't as fresh, but let's not get hung up on it and go on to taste. It's a simple dish with noodles, cucumbers, black bean sauce with minced meat, and some chili sauce on the side. The noodles were not too soft and had a good chewy-ness to them, so the noodles were to my liking. The sauce was quite nice as well with a hint of sweetness to the saltiness. It tasted even better with a bit of the slightly spicy side sauce, which wasn't as spicy as I was expecting, mixed in. Overall, quite tasty, but the dish was a bit on the small side, so if you're expecting a very filling dinner, get a few of the side items as well. I guess it worked out perfectly for me, since I was going for dessert somewhere else anyway!

Second stop, Ah Balling Peanut Soup stall on Smith St aka Chinatown Food Street. I got the peanut soup (figured I'd go with the classic soup and shop name) and sampled 3 different kinds of the glutinous rice balls. Out of the black sesame, yam, and green tea paste filled rice balls that I tried, the black sesame was my favorite (green tea pictured above). Maybe it is the Japanese in me liking that black sesame paste! The soup was good because it was not too sweet and the soft peanuts are a great touch to accompany the paste oozing out of the perfectly soft balls. Be warned though, that the dessert is quite filling if you eat all of it by yourself, so make sure to leave room after dinner!

Some After Tennis Mee Siam

2008-06-21T01:11:00.000-07:00

After 2 competitive sets of tennis under the sun, we went for some Mee Siam at Whampoa market. It was "very nice" as they say here, meaning delicious! The spicy, sour, and sweet all in one taste is one that I have grown to love.

This shop only sells 2 items, what a great business!

Singapore Favorites (So Far)

2008-06-20T05:32:00.000-07:00

I've been in Singapore for almost 2 months now, can you believe it?

Sad to say I have no pictures at the moment of the foods but here are some of the delicious dishes I have had so far in no particular order:

Savory foods:

*Chili Crab (especially with mantou) & Black Pepper Crab

*Char Kway Teow

*Grilled Stingray with Chili

*Laksa- a spicy, coconut noodle soup

*Fish porridge

*Popiah- a fresh spring roll that uses a crepe like wrap

*Mee Siam

*Chicken Rice- Just as it sounds but simple and delicious!

Desserts:

*Delicious Exotic Fruits: Thai Mango, Mangosteen, Rambutan, and of course Durian

*Sweet Corn ice cream sandwiched in a slice of colorful bread- It sounds adventurous but it was REALLY good :)

*Sweet Yam Paste desserts

*Cold Aloe Vera dessert- consists of shaved ice, sweetened aloe vera and jellies

*Rojak- Many people don't like the tamarind-chili flavor, but I personally enjoy it!

*Cheng Tng

*Chendol

*S$1 (S$1.80 max) Bubble Tea (aka Tapioca in the US)- can't beat the price!

I've got a little over a month to go here, so I am going to take full advantage of eating to my heart's delight. I'll try to narrow my favorites down to provide an "Amy's Top 10 Singapore Foods" by the end of my trip!