Cooking and Dining in the Bay Area Lately

Oops, I forgot to update my blog for more than a year. Between then and now I have certainly cooked some note-worthy things, I guess I was just busy. So I'll try to play catch-up a bit. I moved back to San Jose, but I spend the weekends with my boyfriend in Sunnyvale. We try to cook at least once every weekend, although sometimes "cooking" ends up meaning grabbing a rotisserie chicken from the store and tossing together a little salad. It has just been way too hot this summer to do much cooking. I'm really looking forward to fall so I can get in the mood to start using my slow cooker again!

In July, we made a delightful ratatouille. I don't remember which recipe we used. Basically we just chopped up some eggplant, tomatoes, zucchini, garlic, onion, and bell peppers, and cooked them together. It was very tasty and filling.

Also we have been to some great restaurants in the area that have become our go-to for different kinds of food. One of my favorites is Shah Restaurant in Sunnyvale. This Indo-Pakistani food is just the right amount of spicy, and bursting with flavor. We always get the raita, a cucumber yogurt dip, with naan, as well as the lamb curry and chicken tikka curry. I love their complimentary chai, too.

Our favorite brunch/lunch place is Roger's Deli and Donuts in Mountain View. They serve delicious deli sandwiches, donuts, bagels, bagel sandwiches, soups, and all kinds of breakfast items all day, like pancakes, omelettes, french toast, and all kinds of breakfast sandwiches. The food is simple and delicious, the ambiance is also relaxed and down to earth, you just order your food and grab it when it's ready, no one bugging you or checking up on you afterwards, which is perfect for a leisurely Sunday morning. I always get the blueberry pancakes and Irish creme coffee.

I occasionally work in downtown San Carlos, and when I do, I love going to Bianchini's Market for lunch. They offer soups, a salad bar, as well as pre-made sandwiches or sandwiches you can order from the deli counter. My favorite is their chili, which is satisfyingly spicy and filling at just one small cup. Just being in the store makes me feel so classy, because I am surrounded by gourmet products that I am sure add an exquisitely sophisticated touch to anyone's kitchen.

Well, that's about all for now.... getting ready to celebrate Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, during which I am sure to enjoy some excellent food and wine and enjoy the company of several like-minded individuals. Till next time!

The Most Delicious Foods of December

Not to make you guys hungry or anything, but I just wanted to share about some of the most delicious foods I have enjoyed this month....

These latkes are from Hanukkah last month but I also made more when I got back home in December. I made a big batch and they only lasted like two days, they're that delicious. I'll probably make some more when I get back after Christmas.

Might look a little grody? I don't know? But these chicken tacos from the little market down the street from me are delicious and about as authentic as you can get, taco-wise. Perfect enjoyed with a classic Mexican coke, made with real cane sugar.

Chicken and waffles! I just couldn't get that chicken and waffle dish from LA out of my mind, and I was pleased to find that San Francisco has some of their own chicken and waffle places, like Gussie's Chicken and Waffles. Next time I go I'm going to have to try their Georgia peach skillet cobbler for dessert, if I'm not too full after my chicken and waffles.

Good food is definitely one of the greatest pleasures of my life. It's so fun to be able to write about food every week for my writing job, and share those articles with my friends and family.

A holiday weekend in Los Angeles :)

I spent this past weekend in Los Angeles visiting a friend. I had a really nice time. We ate delicious food, saw the sights around downtown and East LA, Hollywood, San Pedro and Long Beach, went to Amoeba Music, went to the Griffith Observatory, and went to Angel's Gate Park in San Pedro and enjoyed the sunset and ocean view.

The first thing I did when I got into town was to go to Rounds in West Hollywood for a Western burger and fries. Awesome lunch. The fries were so crispy, too.

Later on that night I stopped by Original Snow Cone and Funnel Cakes and got some fried Oreos, a fried banana and a Churro. If I can give a piece of advice, it's this: scarfing down fried foods is liable to lead to heartburn. Still: it was worth it.

Next night: Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles in Hollywood. A friend of mine recommended this place to me and it did not disappoint. I got the fried chicken breast and waffle combo, with a side of gravy and some macaroni and cheese. Kinda jealous we don't have one of these in the Bay Area.

We got a dazzling view of the city from up high on a hill at the Griffith Observatory. Pretty popular place, apparently. This photo doesn't do the view justice, but it's as close as I could get with my phone camera.

At Amoeba Music, I found one of my favorite movies, North by Northwest, for only $2.99! Great deal.

So now I'm back, refreshed, and ready to take on the rest of the week. Looking forward to the next holiday!

Chicago!

I just got back from a few days in The Windy City of Chicago (actually wasn't windy at all... occasionally a little breezy but mostly just really humid and hot, with a tiny bit of rain). My travel buddy and I went to some museums, ate at interesting restaurants, went and saw some live jazz, went to a movie, and just walked around a whole bunch and enjoyed the sights.

A little glimpse of downtown from our hotel room on the 12th floor.

Food-
Exchequer Restaurant and Pub- our first meal when we arrived that night. We just had to try some Chicago style pizza, and it was delicious. So innovative to have sauce, toppings, then more cheese, or however it is they did it. There was lots of cheese.
Lou Malnati's Pizzeria- More pizza, we ordered a pizza here one of the other nights. It was slightly better than Exchequer's pizza, in my opinion at least. Pizza at this place was like, toppings, cheese cheese cheese, sauce on top. Maybe some sauce snuck in with the "toppings" too (which were not really "topping" the pizza per se since they were bundled in with the other layers). Every time we passed by this place the line was out the door so we just ordered, picked it up and took it back to our room because we knew it had to be good but didn't want to stand in line for half an hour and then be crammed into a restaurant stuffed with people.
Grahamwich- A cute little sandwich shop, very reminiscent of San Francisco. Really sunny, seating was "family style" with comfy leather ottomans pulled up to a simple wooden table, with chalkboard drawings of vegetables on the wall. They had super healthy fruit juices, and a variety of tasty sandwiches and salads. I got the pastrami sandwich, very fresh tasting and filling.

Russian Tea Time- We had a light dinner here on our last night of some beef and potato dumplings and a lamb samsa, all served with leafy green salad, carrot salad, and rye bread.
Berghoff Cafe- got a tasty lunch here, a pulled pork sandwich and a bottle of their own house brewed root beer. Very classy little cafe below ground level, with stained glass windows.

Toni Patisserie and Cafe- a delightful little French cafe where we got brunch one morning. I got a slice of quiche lorraine, an iced mocha, and some macarons.

Each table had pretty flower arrangements, like this one.

Sugar Bliss Cake Boutique- Here we got a dozen mini cupcakes, with fun flavors like banana, strawberry, pumpkin, chocolate, vanilla, mocha.. all with just a few decorative dollops of frosting on the top so they weren't too sweet.

Museums-
Smith Museum of Stained Glass- a pretty little museum at the Navy Pier, where you could walk down hallways and little rooms to see different scenes depicted in stained glass windows.
The Field Museum- A pretty neat museum of various aspects of natural history. We saw exhibits on creatures that glow in the dark on land and under the sea, the original Native American tribes, ancient wall paintings discovered in France, and mammal and bird exhibits too.

Etc.
Jazz Showcase- We caught the last hour of a show here at half price, and it was more than worth the money. Excellent musicians on the trumpet, piano, bass, an instrument kind of like a xylophone, and a full set of drums. Each of them were really into their instrument, given solos that were met with a wave of applause each time.

Millenium Park-  A vibrant community park, home to The Bean, some lovely plantlife, and a big fountain where kids love to cool off on humid summer days.

The Bean, a truly awe-inspiring work of art.

This fountain was really interesting, different faces would show on these LCD screens on these brick structures on each side, while water sprayed down the sides and onto the street to make a little pool that kids could walk on. 

Despicable Me 2- Went and saw this movie at an AMC theater near us, very funny and cute. I actually hadn't seen the first of the series but the movie stood well on its own. 

Random observations-

Gambling is totally not ok on the trains. They mentioned this several times over the intercom on the train. No soliciting, either.

Kids everywhere, but hey, I guess that's how it is in a touristy place.

The Shedd Aquarium has the longest line all the time.

Humidity is kind of exhausting, important to drink water all the time and take breaks every few hours to relax in an air conditioned hotel room.

So it was a really fun few days, always something to do and see. The city is a bit noisy, trains constantly passing by overhead, lots of people... but, it was cool to see what Chicago was like!

An eventful Sunday

For a while I was so busy/tired I didn't go out and do much of anything on the weekends, but that seems to be changing. I visited the San Jose Museum of Art today with a friend, and afterwards we got gourmet french fries from the Little Chef Counter. I got poutine again... this time, with shredded braised short ribs. Delicious, as expected. I've gone to the farmer's market in Mountain View two weekends in a row, and they have just as much of an abundance of produce as they did in the summer. It's really remarkable. Last time I got kale, some kohlrabi, a butternut squash, a variety of apples, a pomegranate, some tangerines, some grapefruit and some daikon. Today, I got more grapefruit, some blood oranges, another pomegranate, a couple Asian pears, some more apples, some carrots, some yellow onions, some green grapes, and a head of cauliflower. It's so fun to just browse the aisles, try the samples, and decide what new and interesting thing to get each week.

I couldn't decide what to do with my butternut squash at first. Make a soup? Maybe. Make some fritters? Tempting. Fry it up in chunks and add it in with some kale and melted Monterey Jack cheese for quesadillas a la The Pioneer Woman? I thought about that too. In the end, though, I turned to my Smitten Kitchen cookbook by Deb Perelman, one of my very favorite bloggers, and made her butternut squash and caramelized onion galette.

I knew it would take a while to make-- from making the dough, to peeling and chopping the squash, to roasting the squash in the oven, to grating the cheese (Fontina cheese, which I actually kind of had to search around for to find, but it was worth the effort), to caramelizing the onions with butter, olive oil, and a little sugar and cayenne pepper, but it didn't take quite as long as I thought it would. It actually probably takes longer to make a nice, quality quiche. More vegetables to chop.

Anyway, this dish was fantastic. I was surprised how big it came out, but it'll be great to take to work for lunches, perhaps with some kale salad. Super healthy, to be sure.

Mine came out almost exactly like the one in the book. I just forgot to get some fresh thyme to sprinkle on top, but I used dried rosemary instead. I can see myself making more variations of the galette in the future, or other savory tarts. I used to be so intimidated by making crust from scratch but it's actually really easy, even without a pastry blender or a food processor.

It's great to feel inspired to actually bake/cook dishes that take some time and effort. At some point I'd really like to make Boeuf Bourguignon.. also involving a lot of steps and preparation, but I know the amazing flavor would be worth it in the end.

Hope my readers had a nice weekend too! :)

Fun times

So, last weekend I went to the Ferry Building Farmer's Market in San Francisco with my cousin, and it was a really nice day. I got pomegranates, red potatoes, kale and some apples... and with some of my ingredients I made this lovely soup.

It's got kale, potatoes, white cannellini beans, carrot, vegetable broth, a little garlic, onion and salt, zuchinni, and a little shredded cheddar ontop. Definitely a keeper!

We also went inside the ferry building where we made a visit to Miette, a cute little pastry shop where I got an amazing chocolate lavendar macaron...

...and also Blue Bottle for some coffee and cookies.

This weekend, I went to the San Jose Flea Market to search for inspiration for my Halloween costume. As I observed all the fun animal hats, I recalled that they sell a lot of those at anime conventions too... so I decided I'd buy one and be an anime convention attendee. I even have my old badge from 2011 with all the buttons I've been collecting ever since I started going to conventions. Next post I will post a picture.

They had a farmer's market at the flea market too, where I got some more pomegranates, tangerines, and avocados.

After the flea market, I visited Japantown and got some pocky to go with my costume.. and no visit to Japantown is complete without a Hawaiian shave ice.

This time I got blue raspberry and green tea. A little boy and his mom shared my table with me, they were from Campbell and super nice. We talked about legos and farmer's markets.

Pretty relaxing day so far, went to get some things at Whole Foods and just relaxing now. Hope everyone else is having a nice weekend too! :)

Friday night scene

Tonight on my way home from work I remembered that there is a food truck night-- locally referred to as Moveable Feast-- at the Curtner light rail station. A bunch of gourmet/street-food trucks get together and sell every kind of food you could want....

....from sushi, to shrimp, to burritos, to curry, to ice cream, to espresso drinks, to sandwiches of all kinds... and tater tots and french fries. Not just any fries, though. Sometimes there is also a poutine food truck.

I went to Moveable Feast last week looking for Little Chef, but it was not there. Luckily this time it was! My coworkers rave about poutine, so I thought it was about time I tried it, especially because I have two fantastic friends in Canada-- you, Meesh, and also my other friend Christian in Vancouver. :)

What is poutine, the uninitiated may ask? Well....

"A dish of french fries topped with cheese curds and gravy. Origin: 1980s, Canadian French, either from French pouding "pudding" or directly from PUDDING."

Now, I don't really get the "pudding" part, but a lot of different countries have different ways of defining pudding....

Anyway, this was what I got to enjoy: the classic poutine with gravy and cheese curds. They also had poutines with shredded short-ribs or duck confit.

It was quite delicious, with a delicately flavored gravy to enjoy with every bite and the perfectly melty cheese curds to enhance it even more. Add a gourmet banana white chocolate and snickerdoodle ice cream cookie sandwich and it was a lovely Friday night meal.

I think I'll start going to Moveable Feast more often! It's really a pretty nice little setup. They put out these red buckets for people to sit on as they eat, and they play music, and if it's cold out, they put out space heaters or bonfires.

Stay tuned to hear about my visit to San Francisco tomorrow :).

A Fall Weekend

This weekend I am celebrating fall. Today my housemate and I went to the Emma Prusch Farm Park Harvest Fair & Exposition. They had a bunch of neat booths, a pumpkin patch, music, and the occasional chicken wandering around. 

This hen and her chicks in front of the pumpkin patch attracted much attention from the kids. We think she was teaching her chicks how to peck for bugs or seeds. :)

Here is a glimpse of the park. It would be really nice to come here some weekend and just enjoy nature with a book and some fruit as a snack.

Here's another chicken. It's fascinating to see the different patterns of feathers that chickens have. This one is almost like a zebra chicken.

I picked out a pumpkin at the fair, and my housemate helped me hollow out the pumpkin so I could make a pumpkin stew like the one I made last year with my family. This one came out just as tasty. Later on we will get 1-2 more pumpkins, so I can make a soup or we can just have one as a jack-o-lantern.

I also went to Walgreens and picked out some Halloween themed pencils for the kids I tutor. They always need pencils to do their homework, so if they are extra good, they get to keep the pencil at the end of the day. :)

Commercial break

You know how when you're watching TV, there are commercials sometimes? Well, this is kind of like that, in the sense that there will be a brief break from our regularly scheduled programming of DC updates to share these amazing Mediterranean stuffed tomatoes with quinoa. My housemate has been growing a whole bunch of big tomatoes in our garden, so it dawned on me that stuffed tomatoes would be a fantastic way to use them. After a quick google search I found this recipe, which was perfect because I just made some quinoa that day.

It can be kind of tricky to hollow out the tomato without cutting through the skin-- I use a paring knife to kind of loosen it up and then my fingers-- but the filling manages to stay inside if you don't cook it longer than about 15 minutes at 375-- just long enough for the tomato to get nice and warm, but not fall apart.

The ingredients work perfectly together: quinoa, olives, artichoke hearts, feta, and a little olive oil. I used different kinds of olives and quinoa, but that's just what I had on hand. I've been eating these all week, and just one cup of cooked quinoa plus the added ingredients can fill up at least 5-6 large tomatoes. Super easy small meal or side dish. Tonight I paired one with some salmon.

The possibilities for stuffed tomatoes are endless, so grab some at a farmers market near you and enjoy! :)

East Coast- Restaurants

Hi! I am back from the East Coast where I had the opportunity to visit some great and interesting  restaurants in Washington, D.C. and Virginia. Among them:

American City Diner in D.C. for burgers and an outdoor movie,
Crumbs for birthday cupcakes in L'Enfant Plaza (D.C.) (chocolate dulce de leche for me--- and it was so big, I had to finish it the next day),
Graffiato in Chinatown (D.C.) for my birthday (hip Italian-style tapas-- we got the lemon risotto with rock shrimp, the flatbread with pepperoni sauce, lamb, and panna cotta for dessert-- and it was so neat sitting at the bar because you could watch them plating everything and cooking pizzas in this big wood oven),
Busboys and Poets on U Street (D.C.) for a mellow brunch-- I got the Oaxaca omelet (black beans, avocado, pico de gallo, and cheddar-- very tasty),
My Brother's Place for lunch after a visit to the Conservatory and Botanic Gardens (I got a nice chicken pesto panini),
Elephant & Castle after visiting some Smithsonians (where I also got a chicken pesto style panini... what can I say, it's one of my favorites),
Chutzpah (Fairfax, VA) while Friend was getting his hair cut (an authentic New York style restaurant and deli with a Jewish attitude where I had a very tasty pastrami sandwich and potato salad), and...
El Rancho Migueleno (Arlington, VA) for tacos one night (because we couldn't think of anywhere else and didn't want to travel far-- odd ambiance, to say the least-- the lighting was super dark and they were playing this loud South American music while a telanovela played on TV.. and no one else was there.. yeah, a little spooky, haha).

I read about American City Diner on the internet somewhere, and it looked like they were pretty much the only place in D.C. that was still showing outdoor movies at that point in the summer. Plus-- buy dinner and watch a free movie-- can it get any better? We ordered burgers, fries and a milkshake, and enjoyed watching The Hustler (1961). Every night is a different movie, many of them classics. They had really fun decor, too.

In the parking lot, they had a neat mural showcasing a bunch of different Hollywood stars. Humphrey Bogart, James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor...

Elvis Presley...

and Marilyn Monroe, Sammy Davis Jr., and Frank Sinatra.

More homage to movie stars inside.. James Dean and Marilyn Monroe on the restroom doors.

They played the movie on a screen in the outdoor deck area so people could watch the movie as they had dinner.

It was fun to see the neon sign all lit up once it got darker by the end of the night, too.

So, needless to say, the East Coast has an awesome food scene! Next time I will share more about the other places I went. :)

San Francisco and other things

Here's a more expanded look of my little San Francisco excursion.

Here are some boats from Pier 39, my friend took this picture. The view of the mountains from Pier 39 is so pretty, and it's so nice to just go and see the water.

Here's a picture from the Pride Festival, which was that weekend. People were dressed so colorfully and really had a lot of fun.

Look at that interesting outfit! People were taking pictures of this guy left and right.

I will post some other San Francisco pictures later. :)

Friend's mom sent me a cookbook from Baton Rouge! This was the highlight of my week. She got it from a restaurant over there that she visited. So thoughtful. :)

It's got recipes for stews, rice dishes, seafood dishes, vegetable dishes, even some dessert dishes. I immediately made the Shrimp Jambalaya.

Due to the interesting method of simmering some onion, garlic, celery, and bell pepper in oil for a while, and then simmering it a while longer (40 minutes!) with some tomato paste and water, the shrimp and rice mixed in (shrimp first to cook for 20 minutes, then the rice at the end) came out this deep, dark color, with some fresh green onion and parsley to give it a pop of brighter color. Somewhat reminiscent of "dirty rice," I would imagine. There are a lot of ways to make jambalaya and this was quite good, with some hot sauce mixed in.

My housemate and I went to this farm today called Emma Prusch Farm Park because he thought it was going to be a farmers market but it was just a farmstand with vegetables. Still kind of fun to go and visit, the park itself is lovely (not pictured) and they have all kinds of birds wandering around.

This is a mama bird of some sort and her little chick. :)

A little peek at the farm. 

A goose! Brings back memories of being chased around by geese at Waller Park back home.

Also lately I have been enjoying crepes. Deb's crepe recipe is easily adaptable to savory crepes with the omission of the honey. The other night I made crepes with roasted asparagus, spinach, and zuchinni from the garden. Tonight I made a simple crepe with turkey lunchmeat, some pieces of fuji apple, and a little monterey jack cheese. Protip: if you ever don't really feel like cooking a big meal but still want something light and satisfying and not frozen or "just-add-water," make some crepes! 

Chocolate & strawberry dessert crepe I made a long time ago. 

So, fun times... now back to studying... so I can try to get ahead before I go and visit Santa Maria in a week and a half. Hope you guys are ready to have a good week!

Weekend cooking/baking

Hi readers! I hope you are having a nice weekend. I wanted to make some new things this weekend, so I made some curry on Friday and some cherry muffins today.

This is a green curry made with coconut milk, plus garlic chicken and green bell pepper mixed in. It was a bit spicy because I didn't add in the sugar like the directions with the curry paste suggested, but I added it in after to the rest of the batch, along with some lemon juice that kind of balanced out my own serving.

These muffins, though, came out perfect. I used a cake recipe from The Joy of Baking, and adapted it to muffin form. What I really like is how nicely the lemon zest comes out in the flavor of the muffins.

Tomorrow, my coworkers and I are going to get dim sum! Tonight, my housemates and I are having a barbecue, too. So, more fun times ahead.

Boogie on the Bayou, and more sushi

Well, the festival was okay. It was really hot that day, and there were a lot of people. It was crowded because there was not very much space on the narrow street in which the festival was held, plus a lot of people were at the festival all at once. A lot of the same booths were there as I saw in Mountain View. There were a few New Orleans/Southern food booths....

......and one little Jazz band that made an appearance before wandering off...

.....but it wasn't as exciting as my friend from work had hyped it up to be. He was really disappointed because he lived in New Orleans for years and it is a lot different than this festival. I had an ok time though. I got some really good jambalaya, and there was a gelato place along the street so I got some gelato. I got to choose 3 flavors for my size, so I chose: white chocolate raspberry, creme brulee, and tiramisu. As far as I'm concerned, nothing is a bust if there is gelato involved! I could see myself going back to Campbell just to get some more of that delicious gelato.

It has gotten even easier for me to make sushi with practice. This week, I made coconut curry shrimp sushi with cucumber and avocado, topped with a chipotle mayo sauce. Eating that delicious, spicy jambalaya at the festival just made me realize how much I like spicy/really flavorful foods, and I should cook that way more. Using multiple spices together to create unique flavors is really an art, and it's an art I want to learn.

On Saturday, a friend came into town to visit me and we went to San Francisco. We walked to the Mission district and got dinner at Bar Tartine. I heard it was a good restaurant from one of the blogs I read. It's kind of one of those "hidden gems," because on the outside it's just this unmarked, inconspicuous little shop. I knew we were there because the map function on my phone told us we were there, but I had to ask a security guard nearby exactly where it was, and we were right next to it. Their dinner menu is really specialized, it's just one page. My friend and I shared a biscuits and gravy dish with potato and herbs that no longer seems to be on the menu, and the stuffed chicken with stewed smoked sausage, sauerkraut, mushrooms and sour cream. These dishes were just packed with flavor, so even though they were not huge dishes, we were quite full and satisfied by the end. Two servings of bread before our dishes came out helped too, I'm sure.

This weekend is Fanime again! That is the anime convention held here in San Jose that I went to last year. It will be nice to see my friends and all the people in fun costumes. I realized I never shared any pictures of people in their costumes, but next post I will post costume pictures from this time and last time I went.