Recent delicious treats via the Bay Area

Last weekend I visited my sister in the Bay Area (just saying "Oakland" sounds so... ya know). Anyways, there were a lot of delicious things I consumed, which is one of my favorite reasons to visit her, besides that whole seeing your sister thing. It was a Friday night- Sunday night trip so we tried to fit in as many meals as possible (as usual). I landed around 9pm Fri night, and she was kind enough to take me to Popeyes for delicious juicy spicy fried chicken. I still believePopeyes has the best Fried Chicken, and Fried Chicken is definitely #1 or #2 of my all time favorite foods. The nearest Popeyes from me is 40 minutes away so I don't frequent it often, which is good for my cholesterol level.

Anyways, Saturday was white water river rafting day at the American River. Our trip included a lunch of all you can eat sandwiches, which we definitely loaded up on. We were starving the whole morning so we kept chanting "Sandwiches, sandwiches!" to motivate ourselves. After lunch was finished and the post-food coma passed, we chanted "korean bbq, korean bbq!" to motivate ourselves for dinner. And it was quite the feast. We went to a place in Sacramento and boy was it tasty.

Lots of fatty pork ala bacon, beef and chicken, and the famous korean sides as well. I am a BIG fan of korean bbq, especially from shabusen, where they have the all you can eat korean bbq and sushi. :)

We finished off the night at Fentons Creamery in Oakland, famous for their ice cream. The line was out the door when we arrived at 10:30pm - definitely a hoppin' place on a Saturday night. More food-induced comas followed post consumption of ice cream. I ordered 2 scoops - chocolate marble and coffee & cookies. Delectable.

Sunday was my favorite meal day. My sister surprised me with a new place - Bakesale Betty's - which as AMAZING fried chicken sandwiches. They're served in a hoagie roll with a spicy cabbage slaw mixed with cilantro and sliced jalapenos. MMMM. BB's also has amazing baked goods - we got a chocolate chip cookie and a candied ginger scone. Both were baked to perfection.

Of course, Manpuku was an obvious choice for dinner. I cannot visit my sister without going to Manpuku near UCBerkeley - cheap but delicious sushi. You can rarely find that combo. It's usually either cheap or delicious. Not here. It's both! :) We ordered the hot king roll (cali-roll inside, tuna on top, with siracha and green onions), the aloha roll (my fave! cali-roll inside, salmon on top with slices of lemon), and the avocado and salmon roll. So effing delicious that my mouth is watering right now just thinking of that meal. We topped this meal off with a steaming bowl of hakata ramen ("tonkatsu" for you noobs). The pork broth is so savory and flavorful, and they include picked veggies, a hard boiled egg, and braised pork with perfect al-dente ramen. Definitely gives Samurai Noodle a run for their money though I'd like to go to Japan and get the real deal. There's always next trip...

Zucchini

Zucchini is growing like crazy in our yard. We think they are growing a couple inches a day - I also think the hot heat is the cause of it, but I'm not complaining.. yet. They are delicious, but also must be consumed rather quickly.

from right to left: cilantro, zucchini, tomoatoes, flowers, thai basil, basil, flowers, sunflowers, basil, rosemary

haha just cuz. ^^

From Nancy Leson's blog, I swiped a recipe for Crispy Zucchini and Shrimp pancakes. My pancakes turned out a little too salty (too generous with the salt & fish sauce) but other than that, they were tasty, and reminiscent of Korean seafood pancakes :) MMMM.

in the makings. the sauce on the left is of soy sauce, rice vinegar, white wine, and chili oil.

the crispy edges are my favorite. i wish the whole thing could be a delicious crispy edge.

I also made a pasta dish with zucchini by first frying slices of zucchini in butter/"evoo", garlic powder, sliced king mushrooms, and some "leen ouw" - I don't know the name for it but it has lots of holes inside and is a crunchy root. Then I sauteed some shrimp in garlic, deglazed with white wine, and added in some Trader Joe's 3 cheeze tomato sauce, which is delicious! Boiled up some spinach/garlic fettuchini I got from Pike Place, and when the pasta was almost done, added it to the sauce to soak up all the deliciousness. It was tasty, especially for lunch the next day. No pix of this but maybe next time!

Need to find some more recipes for zucchini but I think zucchini bread is up next.

Pictures!

Some more pictures of recent delicious things I ate:

Potato and Chicken Flautas @ Maria Gallos in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico trip:

They're like little fried enchiladas. I got 2 stuffed with a savory potato mixture, and two with shredded chicken, topped with a sour cream sauce and cabbage. It was the most "authentic" thing I had while in Mexico, from this really cute cafe called "Maria Gallos". The chef was originally from PV but studied cooking in San Francisco and worked around the US before returning back to PV to open his own restaurant. It's located 2 blocks from his grandmother's restaurant, which we went to for dessert afterwards.

Fish Fajitas @ Pepe's in Mexico:

Pepe's is a famous Mexican restaurant for tourists in PV. It's a bit over the top, though not to the extreme of Senor Frogs. The wall has a huge slogan painted inside that reads "Don't drink the water, drink a margarita!" Right when we arrived and were seated, a man came around with a hysterical laugh and a tray toting guacamole making-stuffs. He made delicious guacamole table-side, which we tipped him $6 for. I ordered fish fajitas, and was given an American-sized serving of food. The fish was a bit dry, but all together, it tasted pretty good. So much food, but was good because I had downed a large Margarita on the rocks right before. :)

Shanghai dumplings @ Shanghai River Restaurant in Vancouver, BC:

This is our favorite place to go for a snacks-dinner in Canada. The Shanghai dumplings are a famous dish. Little delicate dumplings that encase pork and soup. When you bite into it, the soup gushes out, so you must be experienced in eating it. What I do is take a tiny bite, and then slurp out the soup, then spoon in tasty black vinegar and ginger slivers. It's delicious. I ate 20 of them while in Shanghai at the Yuyuan Garden where they are famous :) Too bad it's way cheaper there, 20 for about 2 dollars. Here it's like 8 for $10. The side dishes here are a green onion pancake and glass noodles and chicken in a peanut sauce.

Salmon sashimi on top of an avocado roll @ Shabusen in Vancouver, BC:

Our other favorite restaurant to visit is Shabusen, where we get all you can eat sushi and Korean bbq. This is one of my sister's ingenious ideas- we ordered a bunch of salmon sashimi and avocado rolls and topped one on the other. It's the of both worlds, delicious salmon and avocado. And all you can eat! The Korean bbq is also delicious.

Lastly, more HOT POT! :) @ home:

One of my favorite meals! Using "Little Sheep" soup base we buy in Canada, hot pot is a delicious feast. Don't remember if I've written about it before. But it's basically like Chinese fondue - you dip foods into hot bubbling broth and then eat them right after. This time we had a lot of mushrooms (enoki, shitake, button, etc), pan fried taro, meat balls, sliced pork and beef, yam noodles, tofu, and other good stuff I can't remember. Usually we use a dipping sauce of sesame oil, cilantro, and minced garlic. So you can tell what we had for dinner the night before if you see one of us with crazy garlic the next day.

That's it for now!

- Belinda

Back Again...

I've been reading more food novels lately, my favorite being The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry, by Katheleen Flinn. She's actually a local journalist from Seattle, who writes about a mid-life crisis that led her to going to Le Cordon Bleu, the imfamous cooking school in Paris. [She's also making an apperance at Bumbershoot with Tom Douglas Sept. 5th!]

Now I've started to read Julie and Julia, by Julia Powell, which incidentally is coming in theathers in August with Amy Adams and Meryl Streep. Julie attempts to make every single one of Julia Child's dishes from Mastering The Art of French Cooking. And Julia Child rox my sox. Must finish book before movie comes out. I feel more inspired to cook and experiment, so hopefully this blog will become more utilized. [Watching The Brady Bunch Movie... it's hilarious! Those kids are so dumb.]

Just a note: cooked avocados are not so tasty. I made a breakfast scramble by sauteing onions, then adding eggs, basil, rosemary, and cilantro from my garden, and decided to throw in some diced avocado into the pan. The warmed texture just makes the avocado lose it's tastyness. I think because avocado is so soft, it sort of just melts into the background, and tastes a bit like cheese with that softened warm texture, and rich buttery taste. Next time I'll just add the avocados on top after everything is cooked.

Pictures: More Delicious Treats!

Since I know Eri-san lovvves pictures, I'll put up a compilation of some of my favorite foods/dishes I got to eat.  These are all from while I was in Europe, which was when I was obsessed with taking pictures of food:

Sushi in Milan! Italy kind of gets the whole "sushi" thing.  Not bad for Italians. Above we have shrimp tempura, perhaps the salmon+creme cheese roll to the right, and at the bottom, I'm not sure but it looks like cooked salmon. 

This is spaghetti eis!  Ice cream made to look like spaghetti. It was a dish made for children but I love playful dishes like this!  This was from a gelateria in Freiburg- they used vanilla for the spaghetti strands, some strawberry sauce for tomato sauce, and white chocolate shavings for Parmesan cheese.  How quaint!

This was the most delicious thing I had in Italy: tomato and sausage pizza in Rome, right by the Colosseum.  It was on our first day in Italy, too. Something about the gooeyness of the cheese and the spicy sausage just made this pizza unforgettable.  There was another pizza we got there that had mashed potatoes in it and it was divine as well.

The classic fish and chips in London.  My friend Megan and I spent hours deciding where to go but our choice paid off. The peas are an English thing, as well. They love their peas, and they eat them all prim and proper with a knife and fork, too.

A Happy Meal! I think this was in Germany, judging from the packaging; going to McDonalds was our late night guilty pleasure after dancing at the discotek.  Not a memorable meal or toy, but I enjoy "testing out" Happy Meals around the world.  I've had them in HK, Beijing, and some other random places in Europe. 

The best beer I have ever tasted was in Freiburg, at one of the local breweries called "Feierling".  I would pay almost anything to get some more of that beer. It was hearty, wheaty, and so drinkable- the perfect wheat beer. 

My favorite "fast food" is the doner kabab.  It's likened to the gyro, but so much tastier. A Turkish delight, they roast slabs of meat (either chicken or lamb) on a spit that rotates around a flame, then carve off some delicious crispy meat and put it into a bread roll or tortilla with a tangy yogurt sauce and veggies.  The perfect 4 euro meal.

You're probably thinking I had good food all the time. But here is a picture of the most unappetizing thing I had in Europe: Sausage salad in Freiburg, Germany.  They took hot dogs, shredded them up, and put them on a salad with pickled peppers, chunks of feta cheese, and picked veggies.  Worst food choice I had made to date. 

Here is the winner for most delicious thing I had in Europe: a cup of hot chocolate in Riga, Latvia.  We were at a trendy Starbucks-ish cafe in Riga, and when I ordered a hot chocolate, they brought me out a steaming cup of milk served with a piece of chocolate on a stick.  I am a definite proponent for playing with your food so I loved this concept. You stir the chocolate into the piping hot milk, so it's a do-it-yourself hot chocolate. Except I don't think I could recreate this at home because the chocolate they had was so rich and decadent that the hot milk turned into perfect cup of hot chocolate!  I bet this concept could hit it big in the US....

Well, that's all I have for now. 

Pictures: All Sorts of Yum!

I don't have anything constructive to write about so I thought I'd just post pictures of some food as of late that I've been eating/making:

I've been baking a lot of bread. Of course. The latest technique is mixing the beer bread and the sourdough bread recipes; that way, I get the best of both worlds: sour taste with fluffy texture and crispy crust. It's so delicious my family usually ends up eating a whole load right out of the oven so it's a good thing the beer recipe makes two loaves. MMM!

It make this delicious bread I used:

-about 1/2 cup of sourdough starter

- 6 C King Arthur bread flour

-3/4 t instant yeast

-1 T table salt

-2 t sugar

MIX with:

-12 ounces water

-3/4 C blonde lager beer

-2 T white vinegar

-1 T honey

Let sit overnight 10-20 hours in a bowl covered in saran wrap and a kitchen cloth.

Then punch/deflate and and seperate into 2 loaves. Slash top of loaves to cool bake-marks. Let rise in a warm-ish oven for 2 hours.

Then it looks like <- that picture :)

Other things I've been making are this delicious pot of asparagus and pancetta risotto. I think this was my second time making risotto and that night it was so-so, but oh man, the next day, it was SO GOOD! And then the day after, it was so much better! So my conclusion is that risotto taste so much better the day after because then it has time to soak in all the juices and sauce.

I also made this plate of "caprese salad" with crustini. I had roasted the slices of tomatoes in balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and crushed garlic [at 350F]. After about 30 minutes, let it cool and then layer with fresh mozzerella and sprinkle chiffonade of basil and drizzle of more "EVOO". (ugh). And serve with slices of bagette that have been brushed with olive oil and toasted 'til crispy.

Well... that's all I got for now! :)

Movie: Earthlings

Watching "Earthlings" was definitely a mood-kill.  Recommended/suggested to me by Lindsey, I finally watched (some of) it on Sunday and have been thinking of it ever since.

Narrated by Joaquin Phoenix, "Earthlings" is a documentary about mankind's dependence on animals for pets, food, clothing, entertainment, and use in experiementation.  I was only able to watch up to the part of clothing- watching the behind the scenes of slaughthouses was really gruesome and unsettling, both mentally and physically...  

So I definitely have a lot of things to ponder.  It definitely brings a new light to meat that we eat, where it is mainly coming from, how animals are killed.. etc.  All I gotta say is that Kosher ain't so kosher. You can watch it on Google videos if you are interested...