I went to the Stanford shopping center with my family a few days ago, where there is the only Sprinkles in Norcal. I obviously make cupcakes quite often - if you're in the wedding business, it's really unavoidable. However, just the thought of Sprinkles just makes me cringe - feelings that haven't changed for awhile. $3.50 for a tiny little cake?? It drives me nuts. A woman in front of us in line bought $70 worth of cupcakes. That's just plain ridiculous. And the lines! Their brand strategy is to serve customers at the door, so even if there are only 5 people queuing up, there's already a line out the door.
Granted, Sprinkles does have a good red velvet, which is what they're known for. Everything else, however, is not much better than a dozen you can get at Safeway for the same price. Cupcakes are cute; it's undeniable. But really. Sprinkles just has no soul in their food, just like all franchises. BLAHHHH
And yes, we did buy a few because my sister really loves them and my parents had never been before. =P
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Cupcakes Must Die, Part 2
Christmas Desserts A Plenty
I had a good amount of egg yolks, whites, and cream leftover after the wedding, so before I left SF I wanted to use it all up so it wouldn't end up in the trash.
- olive oil ice cream + fleur de sel ganache: When I arrived at my parents' house for the holidays, I mentioned that I had an ice cream base to spin and their eyes lit up as they inquired what kind. Olive oil, I said (adapted from a David Lebovitz recipe), and immediately their faces looked of disgust. After I made it my dad was like "it tastes too oily"... who would've thought. I used a really good bottle of olive oil that Mike gave me that was actually kind of old, so it probably didn't taste as good as it would have if it had been fresh. I made a quick 1:2 ganache using the leftover bittersweet chocolate from the truffles I made for the wedding and some fleur de sel to give the ice cream some contrast.
- leftover "vanilla" cupcake batter + vanilla buttercream
- leftover lime cream => lime meringue tart, pate sucree shell: Since the lime cream (adapted from a Pierre Herme lemon cream recipe) wasn't intentionally made for a meringue pie/tart it didn't really hold when I put it in the oven and the entire thing deflated by the end of the day. Usually you just use citrus curd, and not a cream that is mostly butter.
- butterscotch pudding a la tiffany from top chef holiday special: I put this, unwrapped, in a bag with a bunch of other stuff and left it in the hallway of my parents' house, and when I finally remembered I left it there, it was partially eaten! Sneaky little Bonnie (sister's dog)! This had very dark caramel flavors from the brown sugar, and was extreeeemely rich, but my dad made me throw it out since he was afraid Bonnie's germs might get us sick.
- round chinese pineapple cake vs. rectangular: We went to my cousin's new house on Christmas day, and they had a container full of round pineapple cakes. I had never seen them before, but they tasted exactly the same as the rectangular ones, except without all the extra cakey parts. Since it didn't have corners, there was a pretty even ratio of cake:filling, which made it ten times more enjoyable to eat since the cakey part is usually really dry. No pictures of it, but if you ever see it... trust me... it is a much improved eating experience!
- Egg custard tarts from Golden Gate Bakery: My family had dinner at the House, and stopped by Chinatown for a little pre-meal snack. As always, there was a line, but they are so worth it. Sure, you can find them for cheaper than $1.15 elsewhere, but there is no bakery in the bay area that makes them better. Always the best when eaten on the sidewalk - hot and fresh out of the oven! (The House isn't as good as it used to be, btw, although it was still packed).
Friday, December 26, 2008
The Dining Room
Every year after Thanksgiving, my family usually eats at a fine dining establishment to celebrate both my mom's and my birthdays. Last year it was Aqua, and this time, after recs from quite a few friends, we decided to venture to the Ritz Carlton. Our family is very talkative and loud, and although the restaurant scene is a bit more lax in the bay area than, say, nyc, I found the Dining Room really stuffy and a bit too fancy shmancy for my taste. The ambience felt stiff and embarassingly quiet, and I think half the room was listening to our inane conservations. Sure, the chairs were ridiculously throne-like and plush, but they were definitely comfortable seats for our 3-hr ride.
All that aside, we were all extremely impressed by our meal. We each got the "Salt and Pepper" tasting menu - eight courses of dishes spotlighting varieties of (you guessed it) special salts and peppers. With 3 delicious amuse bouches to start (chicken empanada, sea urchin panna cotta, and caviar + the most perfect quail egg ever), we were already wowed with what they had to offer.
Foie, Sea urchin panna cotta, and the Caviar + Quail Egg on a vessel full of smoke (there's a better picture of that here)
Every dish was executed almost perfectly. The poultry course was a poussin (young chicken) that was so Californian in its simplicity, but you could really taste all the ingredients in their own light. The only real disappointment was the wagyu that came with a $30 supplement. I asked for rare (my mom, medium rare), and I'm not sure how they cooked it, but it tasted like it was deep-fried and my cut tasted overcooked and really just like fat. I must've gotten a bad cut or something, because my mom's actually tasted like meat, although you wouldn't be able to tell it was wagyu. Regardless, not worth it. The ribeye with bone marrow was much tastier and overall had better complementary sides.
Desserts weren't as impressive as the rest of the meal, but they were still done well. At the end of the meal, I decided that this was probably the best fine dining meal I've had in SF!
Bar Crudo
I pass by this tiny nob hill "modern raw bar" every day on my way to work. It's been in the Chronicle's Top 100 for the last two years, and my friend suggested going there after reading some positive reviews. Taking some queues from yelpers (despite my disdain for yelp in general, I still skim reviews to see any ordering trends), we ordered the crudo sampler (left), the lobster + beet salad (right), and halibut cheeks (not pictured). They actually gave pretty fair pieces of fish in the sampler, but the flavor combinations weren't anything astounding. The halibut was quite impossible to eat - bones everywhere and barely any meat.
I think the only thing worth going back for would be the lobster and beet salad - light and refreshing, even with the chunks of buttery burrata. Sharing the salad between two people, with some $9 (seriously) Hitachinos would be a nice afternoon snack!
Thanksgiving, a month later
"Deep-fried" turkey, apple pie (cured apples to maintain shape), vanilla bean ice cream. Sweet and simple, hot and cold. The pie turned out much better than last year's. No pictures of the creme fraiche ice cream + pumpkin caramel sauce.
Monday, December 15, 2008
TOP 5: 2008 round-up
Top 5 Hits of my own:
brioche bread pudding
Roquefort quiche w/ leeks + mushrooms
chevre panna cotta
meatballs
Lime chiboust
Top 5 Meals:
Pizzaiolo
Taim
La Mar (Lima)
Michael Mina desserts
The Dining Room
Top 5 New Regulars:
Herbivore: soy chicken shawarma, red curry w/ quinoa + soy chicken
Blue Bottle: New Orleans
Philz: Iced Coffee, Philharmonic
Muracci's: katsu curry
Harvest + Rowe: split pea soup
Non-food-related lists after the jump!
Top 9 Albums in no order (I couldn't think of a 10th that i really liked)
bon iver (#1)
department of eagles
vampire weekend (regardless of how overrated it was)
fleet foxes
dodos
top ranking (diplo x santogold)
sigur ros
the kills
marching band
Top 6 songs I liked not on my top 9 albums:
juana molina - un dia
beach house - used to be
we are scientists - after hours
musee mecanique - like home
el guincho - palmitos park
okkervil river - lost coastlines
2008 pop songs i liked (i can't help it!)
katy perry - i kissed a girl
beyonce - single ladies
jason mraz - i'm yours
ne-yo - miss independent
2007 albums i didn't listen to until 2008 that i really liked:
akron/family
mum
port o'brien
st vincent
there will be blood soundtrack
Friday, December 12, 2008
Mission Street Food: Take 2
My second visit to Mission Street Food was for Ryan Farr's (Orson, Fifth Floor) guest menu. If you ever take a look at his blog, it's filled with detailed photos of how-tos, mostly involving meat. Vegans, stay away!
Photos (courtesy of Gigi) and details of our meal after the jump!
We started off with the chicharrones, nicely fried and melt-in-your-mouth. We all pretty much agreed that the "spicy dip" didn't do it for us - tasted a little too much like Panda Express sweet and sour sauce, which really made us feel like we were eating Chinese shrimp chips. The sausage w/ the persimmon/brussel sprout salad was a bit lackluster... didn't have much flavor.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
3rd time's the charm - Salt House
This is my 3rd time eating at Salt House. The 1st time was when they first opened and it wasn't that remarkable. The 2nd time was lunch and I forgot what I had :P. BUT this time, it was very good. Thanks to our insider hookups (Thanks Kathy), we got to try a lot of different things and desserts were amazing!!
To start, we ordered the house favorite Poutine (crispy potato with gravy and cheddar, the ultimate comfort food)
Then the chili and foie gras, compliments from the head chef :)
For the main event, we got duck confit, shepherd's pie, gnocchi, and sole.
By this point, we were already pretty stuffed. But how could we skip desserts when they were THESE!!
Apple "tatin" w/ white cheddar crumble, vanilla bean ice cream, and huckleberry sauce. Chocolate cremeux on top of a hazlenut dacquoise, with a chocolate lace tuile, vanilla ice cream, and chocolate crumbs.
Brioche bread pudding w/ bourbon caramel sauce and raisins, topped with dollop of bourbon chiboust. Meyer lemon meringue tart w/ basil sorbet (candied orange garnish)
We were really full so we had to box some of them to-go. When we got back to the office, food coma ~o~
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Scratched Bicycle/Smell Memory
- This holiday season is bittersweet. We all knew that small restaurants were already feeling the effects of this recession, but even SF's most popular are no longer untouchable. Times are tight - change in purveyors, changes in staff... then there are less bookings and less covers, giving us less to do.... If we're feeling it, everyone must be.
- Thanksgiving: apple pie (cured the slices) + vanilla bean ice cream, creme fraiche ice cream + pumpkin caramel sauce
- 25: The Dining Room (the most perfect soft-poached quail egg of my life). Tartine cookbook! <3
- Bar Crudo: lobster + beet salad, nothing else.
- Ramen + Asahi on a bloody cold night.
- Chewy chocolate mint cookies w/ white chocolate chunks - 5 dozen gone in one day at the office. Simple is always better. I am the best coworker EVER (Jason and Marc are so lucky to sit next to me).
- When I read this article, it reminded me of my friend Jason who lost his sense of smell awhile ago. He really liked the aforementioned cookies, which means I did a good job in evoking his other senses/catering to the tastes he can still detect (the potency of the peppermint, the crispy edges and chewy center, the sweetness of the white chocolate, etc).
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Mission-Street-Food
After weeks of waiting (Alice!), I finally made it out to this fairly new Thursday nights only pop-up restaurant, no longer a Mission Street-Food taco truck. Now Mission-Street Food, the team has been using this Chinese restaurant between 18th + 19th the last 2 Thursdays (they will be closed the rest of November). At first I was hesitant about the move away from the fun and laid back appeal of the taco truck, but the whole pop-up concept worked out just fine. The only real advantage from the customer's point of view is not having to brown-bag it. You can still BYOB, or get one of theirs for a buck.
Tan and I shared 4 of the 5 available dishes, where the one we didn't try was a vegetarian version of the smoked rice. The smoked rice had a very nice char flavor - I normally don't like smoked things, but it was also seasoned well which brought out other flavors so it wasn't just concentrated on the smoke. The coconut curry soup was my fave - very rich, lots of depth, and just really tasty.
The week's special was a rare beef and glass noodles app, served with fried lotus chips. It wasn't really what I expected - instead of the traditional thinly sliced pieces of raw beef, we got ground meat, like a steak tartare. It was OK - pretty basic. I think it needed some (or more?) acid.
The PBJ (pork belly + jicama wrap), their signature thus far, was actually disappointing for me. Maybe because there was a lot of hype around that dish so my expectations were high... but I just didn't like my pieces of meat. They were overcooked - dry and almost completely fried fat. I know pork belly is all about the fat, but it shouldn't taste like fat - it should taste like yummy pork goodness, which it didn't. I'm sure if I got better pieces of meat it would've tasted better, so it isn't just about execution.
Overall, the food was good - comfortable and in a relaxed environment. It didn't blow my mind, but this type of food isn't necessarily supposed to. And for $9? Yes, that's right. HELLZYEAH I'm going back!
P.S. Sorry for the horrible photo - it was REALLY dark in there and I don't like using flash in restaurants. That's the best one I had (soup + rice).
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
What A Wonderful, Magical Animal
To celebrate 53 years of cumulative old age, Mike and I, along with some talented friends, ate a lot of pork. Carnitas, Korean BBQ spicy pork, meatballs, kimchi fried rice with Korean pork belly, Chinese BBQ pork... the list goes on. Dessert? Bacon cheddar apple pie and [applewood and apple cinnamon] bacon cinnamon rolls.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Boozin for Barack
I made some Mexican chocolate cupcakes with dulce de leche cream cheese frosting that I brought to an election party. To make up for the craptastic picture, I will include the recipe and my "yes we can" playlist (which I made during the primaries) after the jump! What a momentous day for American history and American people.
RECIPE: Mexican Chocolate Cupcakes
1 cup APF
3/4 cup cocoa
1 t baking powder
1/4 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 t vanilla
1 stick butter
1.5 oz mexican chocolate
0.5 oz chocolate
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, room temp
1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 t cayenne
YES WE CAN/angryhippiemix
Wake Up - Arcade Fire
Revolution - Elliott Smith (Beatles cover)
Pull Up the People - MIA
The People - Common
One Mic - Nas
You & Whose Army? - Radiohead
Table by the Window - The Botticellis
I Feel Like A Child - Devendra Banhart
Scenic World - Beirut
Fools - The Dodos
Shift - Grizzly Bear
We Shall Overcome - Bruce Springstein
Knock On Wood - Justin King
Solo Su Voz - Juana Molina
Secret of the Easy Yoke - Pedro the Lion
A Change is Gonna Come - Sam Cooke
Love, Love, Love (everyone) - Akron/Family
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Candy Corn + Peanuts = Candy Corn + Peanuts
Monday, October 27, 2008
Ain't No Sunshine
Berkeley Thai Temple
I haven't been here since college (ie, a LONG time ago) and it was pretty much how I remember: Berkeley students and hippies, lines lines everywhere, and tasty Thai food. Spicier than I remember, and the token exchange lady this time was really rude, but that still won't spoil good food with great friends on a sunny day. Yay!
Here are some prices for reference:
Thai iced tea = $1
1 entree over rice = $5
2 entrees = $6
...
papaya salad = $5
mango sticky rice = $5
Sweet Coconut & green onion rice ball things (SO GOOD) + fried taro = $4
Sunday, October 19, 2008
The Richmond: More than Asian and Russian
Sure, there's more than just Asian restaurants and Russian bakeries out in the north avenues. Near my hood, there's the overrated Chapeau! ... the ecclectic Simple Pleasures... the always ironic Trader Sam's.... Yes, we really have quite a selection, I must say. Well I finally made it over to Pizzetta 211 after a long-time recommendation by a coworker. Goal: become a regular (ie. gain 15 lbs).
This tiny little 4 table+bar spot is so cute and so good... I am definitely going to return. Good thing we showed up a little after 5pm on a Saturday evening because almost immediately afterwards there was a wait outside. The staff was great and friendly... pizzas came shortly after ordering, even when they were made to order (I'm pretty sure they were at least). We only tried 2 - the potato, leek + pancetta w/ egg, and the margherita w/ white anchovies. They were both great - the former a bit heavy but tasty, and the latter could've had more anchovies. White anchovies are way less fishy than other kinds, so I would've liked more than just one per slice.
Regardless, we really enjoyed our meal here. The short walk from home is just a bonus! Mike said it reminded him of di fara's in bk because of the tiny space and thin crust. I still need to go =P
Sunday, October 12, 2008
El Farolito: Tastes Like Home
Not my home, but Mike's (Chula Vista, south of San Diego). I asked Mike to post about our meal here, but he said blogging was lame. Well, that makes him lame by association! Ohhhh snap! Moving on.
If you think I'm a food snob, just bring up bay area Mexican food with Mike. He is about as elitist as you can get (since he grew up next to the border, he's spent a lot of time in Mexico, eating real Mexican food. From Mexico. Made by Mexicans. Oh wait, that's not that different). However, we were in the Mission the other night after watching Call and Response at the Roxie, and I hadn't eaten dinner and wanted some tacos. With Mike's nose scrunched up and the whining commenced, we took a short walk to El Farolito since I had never been there.
Now, Mike judges a Mexican burrito/taco place by its carne asada, and to do that, he always gets the same thing: a carne asada burrito with guac, and everything else on the side (the rice and beans filler masks the taste). They forgot his, so mine was sitting pretty as we waited. Finally, with the salsa cups and marinated carrots ready, we dug in.
Apparently, the "correct" way to eat a [good] burrito is to let the juices that are dripping all over you come out from the bottom and straight into your salsa, which you pour back into the top with each bite. And how those drippings taste, according to Mike, will tell you if the carne asada is good or not. The result? "Tastes like home."
His must've been fresh off the grill because it was a lot better and juicier than mine. Mine was still tasty, but a little tough in comparison. Thus, we decided that a good Mexican restaurant is one that makes its meat to order (among other things). La Burrita, La Taqueria, and a lot of other bay area places (including El Farolito) usually grill their meat in bulk and let it sit in a hotel pan before assembly. Letting it sit out will dry it out, and you won't get those yummy meat juices. Mmm meat juices.
So yes, the bay area Mexican food scene is thus redeemed. I'm sure you can ask them to grill it fresh for you, but the person taking your order will probably hate your guts, or will think you're some HM chick/DB from the Marina* and ignore your request. Who knows? Try it and leave a comment haha.
* Sorry, I just can't help it sometimes! Tris???