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Merry St. Patrick’s Day

March 17, 2009 in Food | 1 comment

I have not one drop of Irish blood in my system, and like many others on this day, I am “celebrating” St. Patrick’s day.  In Chigago, they dye the Chicago River green every year, and I do a micro-version of that in spirit - a mint-chip Guinness float! After consuming this (and a few more Guinness’), I pseudo-physically inherited some Irish blood :)

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Boutique Brew

March 12, 2009 in Food | No comments

My sister-in-law Helen knows the way to my heart - a 6′er from a boutique brewery.  Sudwerk is a microbrew out in Davis.  She picked some up on the way home from a daytrip to Tahoe for some boarding action (note the beanie).  

Here we have the Marszen which is a darker brew with a nice nutty and malty flavour (that’s right, I put a “u” in flavor).

Variety IS The Spice of Life

March 10, 2009 in City Life, Food | 4 comments

Since moving up to the Bay Area on January 28th, 2009, I’ve eaten at a variety of places (to say the least). In the OC, you turn the corner and there’s yet another TGI McFunsters* in a brand new plaza (no offense, it has it’s own charm and sense of security we all need).  Up here, turn the corner and you find a place that you’ve always wanted to go to that’s on your list of 100 places to go to before leaving the Bay Area.  Having said that, 28 days passed before I went back to a place the 2nd time around - the “Taco Truck” on the corner of Polk and Hayes.

BTW, for those of you who have given up (good) food for Lent, I didn’t write this post to rub it in :p

Here’s my list of places I have eaten in the last 40 days - yelp links provided:

* phrase coined by Anthony Bourdain, my foodie hero

** yumm!

Sunday Night Dinner

March 8, 2009 in Food | 2 comments

Tonight’s menu was requested by my mom herself.  She had a whole bunch of fresh fish fillets sitting in the fridge and thought fish ‘n chips would be a good way to dispose of them.

Nothing super fancy here, just meat and potatoes, so to speak and literally.  I also made some yellow and green squash along with some eggplant and mushrooms, sauteed in garlic chunks and olive oil.

For the fish batter, I used some flour, salt, pepper, and the secret ingredient, a bottle of New Castle.  A bunch of sauces also came to the party.

Weekend Cooking

March 1, 2009 in Food | No comments

Living with the parents definitely has it’s perks, namely, built in babysitting.  Another great perk is that my mom loves to cook us dinner.  Needless to say, she’s a great cook since it has been her profession for the last 30 years.

To give her a break, Susan and I cook dinner for the weekends - not a bad deal for us, a 5:2 ratio.  This Sunday, I cooked a few dishes I’ve been cooking and refined many times over since college (the mid 90’s).  Here we have a Chinese food trinity - starting on the left going clockwise: garlic chicken, hot braised string beans, and eggplant.  I’ll leave you with the ingredients:

Garlic Chicken:

  • chicken (duh)
  • garlic (double duh)
  • water chestnut
  • bamboo shoots
  • soy sauce
  • ginger
  • green onions
  • Tuong Ot Toi Viet Nam Chili Garlic Sauce (but of course)
  • sugar
  • salt/pepper

Hot Braised String Beans:

  • String beans (duh)
  • garlic
  • ginger
  • sesame seed oil
  • Tuong Ot Toi Viet Nam Chili Garlic Sauce
  • soy sauce

Saucy Egg Plant:

  • Eggplant (duh)
  • Mr. Yoshida’s Original Gourmet Sauce (I cheated)
  • garlic
  • ginger
  • salt/peper

BTW, no MSG added.

Happy McFlurrytine!

February 14, 2009 in Food, TV | 3 comments

30rocksalmaalec_l

 With my new work schedule, I get home around 7:30pm, which doesn’t give me much time to do much before sleepy time (which bedtime is now around 11pm).  My priorities when I get home are my family and eating dinner.  Before I know it, it’s time to sleep already, which means no time to watch the myriad of wonderful shows on during the week.

So Friday nites and the weekend have become catch-up time on our TV shows.  On this Valentine-Eve we first watched America’s Best Dance Crew and Lost.

FREAKY TANGENT: In the ep of Lost, there’s a lot of time travel going on temporal displacement - which basically means each time you travel through time, your body dies a little bit more, which on the show is shown by nose bleeds.  So after one of the time-warps a couple of the characters noses started bleeding… and then all of a sudden MY NOSE STARTED BLEEDING!!!  WTF!

Back to the nite.  So after those 2 shows, we started watching this weeks 30 Rock. By then it was already 1am an we were getting tired.

So 30 Rock has always had a ton of obvious product placement and I always kinda laughed at it… until this ep.  The sub-plot with Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) and Elisa (Salma Hayek) is revolved around the greatest dessert - which is a metaphore for their status’.  Jack is a capitalist rich white guy who thinks this $1K dessert at some fancy smancy place is the best around.  Elisa being a middle-lower class hardworking nurse says the McFlurry trumps all.

20 minutes later, I’m on my way to a 24/7 McDonalds in the neighboorhood getting a McFlurry for my wife and I to share <3.  It was sort of an early-valentine-impromptu-celebration (just like when we were kids).  And just like in the show, we had a great time sharing such a “cheap” non-fancy-smancy dessert.  BLAST YOU CAPITALISM AND 30 ROCK!… and thank you at the same time :)

Now go get a McFlurry!

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What The Heck Is An Eggette?

February 8, 2009 in Food | 1 comment

 Apparently Eggettes (pronounced aye-gets) is what all the cool kids are getting these days.  Here’s where it stands in my unofficial food anthropological timeline:

Boba / Milk Tea >> Frozen Yogurt >> Eggettes

I am making no claims on whether it’s a fad or not, but it seems to have trace levels of hype surrounding it.

So what is it?

It’s basically a waffle made in a mini-egg (or eggette) shapped hot iron.  Each eggette is about the size of a quail egg.  It’s fun to eat but the taste is nothing to write home about (but apparently enough to blog about :p).  It’s definately a novelty item in my book, but then again so was boba.

Check it out on Yelp >> http://www.yelp.com/biz/eggettes-millbrae-2

What Do You Do With Stale Day Old In-N-Out Fries?

February 7, 2009 in Food | 1 comment

As a musician and a food lover, I often see many parallels between the two.  In jazz, it’s all about improv - playing what you feel in the moment and reacting to what the other musicians are playing.  In cooking, some situations call for the same inspiration, like, stale french fries.

Here, I was partially inspired by jazz and partially inspire by the Chinese who invented fried rice out of the philosophy of “nothing goes to waste” by using old rice as the cornerstone ingredient.

Here’s what happened - watch the “music” unfold:

Loosely chopped up the cold fries
Got the pan greased up with some cut up bacon… I could have stopped here
Combined the two and let the soggy fries regain some crunch by swimming in the bacon grease
The fries and bacon seemed a little loosey-goosey and would be a little difficult to eat. So I decided to add some eggs as glue.
sorry for the sideways picture - iPhone error!
At this point, my wife (fellow musician/cook) saw what I was doing and remarked “ADD SOME CHEESE AND CHOPPED GREEN CHILIES!”
sorry again for the pic
Put a lid on it so the cheese melts and the egg cook up
BOO-YA! Add some ketchup, Tapatio, and/or Tobasco to taste. Not bad if I say so myself.