AN ITALIAN AMERICAN DINNER AT GIACOMO'S

I decided to emphasize the fact that Giacomo's is a truly Italian-American restaurant in my title, just so people don't get confused and think they'll be eating an authentic Italian meal. There's a pretty big difference between true Italian food and the Americanized version of it. (which isn't all that suprising, you can say this of all cuisines). and Giacomo's does a really good job of putting out tasty Italian-American food.

So for those who don't know, Giacomo's is a pretty famous restaurant in Boston. They have two locations. One in the North End and the other in the South End on Columbus. Leah and I decided to have dinner at the South End location this past Monday. I've actually never been to the location in the North End, because I know that I'll never find parking and in addition, Giacomo's doesn't take reservations, so the North End location is famous for having a very long line. On the other hand, the South End location is less well known. Parking is still nearly impossible to find, and after circling a few times, Leah and I gave up and went for the improvised valet parking from Giacomo's and paid $10 for parking. (yes, that seems pretty expensive, but we split it, and you gotta factor in the temperature, around 25F, and the fact that we were both starving.)

On to dinner. We were lucky that there were a number of tables opening up when we arrived, so after a very brief wait, we were seated near the front window. The rest of the restaurant filled up pretty quickly afterwards. Now, the thing with Giacomo's being a famous Italian American restaurant in Boston is that it's crowded and very very loud. Plus people are, for some reason, super boisterous when they eat there. So it's not a place for quiet conversation. We were pretty quick in deciding what we wanted to order. I got a lemon fettucine with shrimp and scallops and leah got a fettucine with peas and prosciutto in a cream sauce. I actually would've picked the famous pumpkin ravioli, but I knew I was coming down with a cold, and wanted to avoid anything with dairy or cream (which is actually really hard to do at Giacomo's. I'd say 2/3 of the entrees featured cream or dairy).

So here's leah's dinner:

and here's mine:
I found mine pretty tasty, especially after i added some red pepper flakes, though it was a bit oily. the thing i like the most is the fact that the pasta is all handmade and you can really tell. Plus all the dishes are a rather large size. I think leah also enjoyed her entree, especially since she finished it all.

Service for our table was pretty crappy. It just seemed like our waiter was totally new and out of it. It was nearly impossible to track him down, and he didn't tell us what the specials were. (we overheard them being recited to a neighboring table. ) And i would've seriously considered the mushroom ravioli. Ah well, i guess it'll be something to try next time. Our food did come out pretty quickly, which was a good thing. We skipped dessert cause after glancing at the menu, I didn't truly find anything new or interesting.

All in all, we still had a pretty great dinner. The "valet" guy even saw us paying up and brought our car around for us. And even with the parking included, you can still have dinner for under $20- $25, which is pretty great deal in the South End. So if you're ever on Columbus and looking for a place to grab a hearty meal, definetly check out Giacomo's and have some yummy homemade pasta.

TORO! TORO!

Fine. This place is only called toro. (not in reference to the fish, in japanese, but the bull, in spanish). And this being a Spanish Tapas restaurant/bar, I thought i'd invoke what the Spanish call out during a bullfight. But back to the review. Last night Arti, Karishma and I had dinner at Ken Oringer's new tapas bar in the South End. Now, for those of you who don't know, Ken Origner is one of those Boston celebrity chefs. He also co-owns Clio and Uni in the Eliot Hotel. This new resturant just opened a month or two ago, and I heard it was actually affordable (unlike the other two places), so I definetly wanted to try it out. Plus, it was cool to actually see the chef/owner serving ppl and working at his new place.

So when Arti and I arrived at the restaurant, at 6:15ish, there were some people in the restaurants, but still a good number of tables left. They wouldn't seat us until the whole party arrived and they don't take reservations, so we waited at the stainless steel bar where we both got a glass of cava (a spanish sparkling white wine). I enjoyed my glass of cava, but it was a little sweet, though arti enjoyed it much more than i did. She didn't like her glass of rose cava which was more dry. We also had time to check out the place. It has nice exposed beams, brick walls, high ceilings and big windows. Yet it was still dark inside. I definelty liked it. Oh, and it had an open kitchen and I like those. Unfortunately, very soon after we arrived, the restaurant and bar filled up very quickly. When Karishma got there, we were told it'd be a 45 minute wait for a table. (which sucked since we'd already been in the place for like 20 minutes) So my advice is to get there early and make sure your whole party is present.

Luckily, we were able to snag two extra seats at the bar that were right next to ours, so all three of us were able to sit there and have dinner. Sometimes I actually enjoy sitting at the bar more than at a table. Here, it was sort of mixed. Our bartender was very friendly, but he was the only one there. So he not only had to handle drinks, but also serve all the ppl crowded around the bar and we were neglected for various periods of time. Not as bad as Pomodoro, but not great either. The food made up for this though. And here's what Arti and I shared:

we started with these fried green peppers. they're seasoned with just sea salt and are totally tasty. apparently 1 in 10 of them are supposed to be hot, but i had a hot one and it really is a very mild heat. Definetly try these. I almost wanted to get a second order.

Then we got these potatoes. Which are fried and served ontop of a tomato sauce. But the best part of the dish was dipping it in the delicious garlic ailioli. sorry for the blurry pic.

Ok. this next dish was a little disappointing for me. It's a dish of mushrooms served with an egg and some foam. The foam is tasteless, but it's supposed to look like the white of the egg, get it? at any rate, i think the mushrooms could've been more flavorful, and when they arrived at the table, they were just warm.

Next up was the grilled corn. I think this was my favorite dish of the night. Not as good as the grilled corn from Cafe Havana in soho, but still really tasty, with the hint of chili, lime and cheese.

And our final tapas was smoked duck. Which actually tasted like it'd also been fried, due to the crispiness of the skin. I also really liked this.We finished off our meal with three orders of churros with chocolate. As in fried dough with powdered sugar and a side of chocolate sauce for dipping. I think this was the most disappointing dish of the night. If they were going for spanish or mexican style churros, the batter should've been much denser. And i wouldn't have minded some cinnamon sugar. If they were going for a little version of the churro, then it should've been much lighter. Basically, these tasted like the frying oil temp was a bit too low, causing the batter to absorb too much oil and become a bit heavy. They were tasty, I just didn't love it, and don't think i'd be getting again.

So my favorites were the peppers, duck and corn. The price of the tapas ranged from $3-$12, though the vast majority stayed in the $6-$9 dollar range, so the standard tapas price range. I think that's pretty nice, given the setting, the famous chef and quality of food. I'll admit that the plates tended towards the smaller side, but nothing completely unreasonable. If you don't drink, I think you can still have a satisfying meal in the hi-2os range. And i certainly look foward to returning and trying some of the plates that I missed.

ZON'S, JAMAICA PLAIN

I apologize, I couldn't come up with a creative title. It's not the easiest thing in the world to do. And i also need to apologize cause this post will involve no pictures. (though the effort was made. I had my camera phone, but it was just too dark for anything to come out) and Zon's, a neighborhood restaurant in JP, is definetly post-worthy, so you'll just have to live without pics. ( i guess i could steal them off the zon's website, but i'm not gonna bother doing that when you can just go over to their website yourself http://zonsjp.com/).

I had dinner last night with katie and dustin. Katie likes going to restaurants that have "tasty" food. I had known of zon's for a while, I drove by it everytime I went to JP on my way to other restaurants, but never made it there, so after checking out the website and approving of the menu, we all headed over. So the thing with zon's is that they're all about serving comfort food, and they certainly do it in an excellent setting. If you actually went over to the zon's website, you'll notice that the restaurants has deep red walls. This is enhanced by the dark furniture, black ceilings and totally funky decor. (like the cool chandelier with the plant in it that katie pointed out) It's kinda like a friend's cool apartment that you wish you could have, but are too lazy to accomplish. The first thing i saw when I walked into the place were the nice comfy couches that served as the waiting area and a really cute, tiny bar to the right of the entrance.

On the left was the dining room. Which wasn't tiny, but wasn't huge either, and made for a very nice, comfy setting where you could observe other ppl and still have a dinner conversation. And what I observed was that most people there looked like locals. Dressed down and out for a casual dinner. So like i said, this place is all about comfort food. Which means that the meau was filled with things like mac and cheese (in 3 versions), burgers, sandwiches and pastas. But they were all very appealing and reasonably priced. Katie ordered a bowl of tomato soup (apparently a traditional Italian version that was thickened with bread) with a spinach and goat cheese salad. Dustin got parpadelle(aka thick handcut pasta) with salmon and other stuff in a light cream sauce. I got a turkey burger with a side of handcut fries. I was won over by the burger cause it was embellished with gruyere and portabello mushrooms. (plus i wanted the fries).

The service was pretty casual and friendly. Not hugely attentive, but I have no major complaints. At least she brought bread and kept the water full (wow, after living in boston, my standards for service have truly been lowered). Our entrees arrived promptly and i think both katie and i were a little jealous of dustin's pasta which looked great. However, i thoroughly enjoyed my turkey burger, especially with the portobello mushroom that added a nice texture and flavor. Despite the fact that at $13 this was the most expensive turkey burger I've ever had (it topped the $12 turkey burger at had at Diner in Union Sq.), the size and condiments made it worth it. (unlike the buger at Diner. if you're ever in union sq, go eat at republic instead) Maybe katie will post and add some comments about her dinner.

Of course we had to order dessert after dinner. And we all agreed to share the plate of ice cream sandwiches. When it arrived, it looked totally cool. The chef decided to slice the sandwiches into quarters and then stacked them in this crazy tall arrangement and sprinkled the entire thing with chocolate and caramel sauce. There were two types of sandwiches, chocolate cookies with what we guessed was a mocha oreo ice cream and chocolate chip cookie with chocolate ice cream with choco chips and nuts (i said it was kinda like rocky road without the marshmallows). Now that i think of it, maybe they got their ice cream from jp licks, which is just down the street. These were totally yummy and a great way to finish off dinner. And it was actually so big that we still had a little quarter of sandwich left even though we all had a few pieces, definetly a dessert you should share.

So in conclusion, I was very happy with my dinner at zon's. And in general, I'm pretty happy with all the dinner's that i've had in jp. I kinda compare the neighborhood to a mini south end. Lots of good restaurants in a small area, and no matter where you go, you'll pretty much have a solid dinner. so if you have a car, definetly get out of boston and give the restaurants in jp a try.

MARVELOUS MINESTRONE SOUP

Ok ok. I know i'm on this whole soup kick. But I've discovered it's the best thing to make when you've got a whole lot of produce and don't really know what to do with it. Anyway, it's winter. So remember that Boston Organic's order I got last week? Well, I still had mushrooms, lettuce, carrots and zucchinis left over from it. I couldn't come up with anything creative to make, so I turned to the recipes on foodtv.com and typed in zucchini. At first, I considered making some type of pasta with veggies, but in the end, I found a recipe for minestrone soup. It's by Michael Chiarello and it's pretty easy. (I also liked the fact that the name of the recipe was Super Quick Minestrone). So here are the ingredients below:

1 cup (4 ounces) tubetti pasta, or other small pasta shape
Extra-virgin olive oil
6 cups chicken stock
1/4 pound pancetta, cut into 3 pieces
6 medium garlic cloves, each cut in 1/2 lengthwise
2 cups finely chopped yellow onions (2 small onions)
1 cup small-diced celery (2 medium stalks)
1 cup small-diced carrots (2 to 3 medium carrots)
1 tablespoon finely chopped rosemary or thyme leaves
1 (14-ounce) can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1 (14 1/2-ounce) can diced tomatoes
4 cups small-diced zucchini (green/yellow) (5 small zucchini)
2 cups small-diced, peeled russet potatoes (1 large russet)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan

I was missing some items and substituted other items. I picked up onions, cannellini beans and garlic at the market and decided to omit the celery, potatoes, pasta and pancetta. (the whole idea was to use up what i already had at home, so i didn't want to be purchasing more stuff unless it was actually necessary). Also, I looked at a few recipes before I picked the Michael Chiarello one, and a lot of ppl added swiss chard, so i figured red leaf lettuce was pretty similar and added that in too. Most of the work for this recipe is involved in chopping everything up. So here are my chopped onion, garlic, carrots and zucchini. First, you want brown your garlic in a heated pan with olive oil. Then you toss in you carrots and onions. Here's a pic of those ingredients cooking away in my pot. You cook those for about 8 minutes, until they're soft.Meanwhile, you heat the chicken stock in a separate pot. When the veggies are soft, you toss in the beans (I picked mini cannellini beans, rather than the bigs ones.) Here's a pic of them below. I learned it's important to rinse these guys off, even where they're coming out of a can, cause in the can, they're surrounded by this very gooey substance and you wanna get rid of that.

and you also toss in the rest of your veggies. In the pic below, i've got my zucchini, mushrooms, lettuce and a can of peel, crushed tomatoes. Now you're supposed to put in a can of peeled diced tomatoes, but i didn't have those, and this turned out fine. and toss in your herb of choice (i used thyme).here's what it all looks like before the tomatoes are added. (colorful, huh?) once i added those, everything turned red. the last step is to add the warmed chicken stock. Then you just bring the whole thing to a boil and it's all done.
Here's the final product in my little bowl. So the best suggestion in this recipe was at the very end, where he suggests that you serve with olive oil and parmesan cheese. let me just say, this is a totally necessary step. I sprinkled on some high quality olive oil (notice the yellow splotches on top) which added a bit of sweetness and complexity to the whole thing and i grated on some pecorino romano cheese (i'm all out of parmesan at home, but this is a good substitute). I was very happy with the results. Lots of fresh veggies in a yummy filling soup and leah enjoyed it too (i brought some to work so she could eat dinner). and it really was super fast and easy. so if you ever have a bunch of veggies lying around and you need to do something with them, try out this recipe. I promise you won't be disappointed.

A SEASON FOR SOUPS

I was trying to think of different creative things to do with my Boston Organics order and I came up with the idea of making a potato-squash-cheddar soup. Kinda like a cross between a butternut squash soup and a potato cheddar soup, but with the addition of sweet potato squash. I would've loved to have photographed the whole process for you, but after the second pic, I realized that I was running low on batteries. And since i wanted to give you all a pic of the final product, I decided to save the batteries for this last photo. Here's my soup below.
Also, i didn't follow a recipe. I kinda made it up as i went along. to be honest, once you've made one soup and gotten down the basics, it's not that hard to make another soup.

So here's what i did. I first infused some hot olive oil with fresh thyme. Be careful when you do this, cause I learned that thyme burns pretty damn quickly. (unlike the rosemary i used for my mushroom soup.) then i threw in a random assortment of chopped garlic and shallots. Meanwhile, i prepped the sweet potato squash by cutting it in half, scooping out the seeds and sprinkling it with olive oil, salt and pepper. That and the butternut squash (that'd already been cleaned, courtesy of russo's) went into a 425F oven. Here's the sweet potato squash:
Back to the thyme, shallots and garlic. I cubed up my potatoes and sauteed those in the olive oil until they were cooked, but still firm. Here they are below:
I removed half of the cubes and set them aside. Then I added in 3 cans of chicken broth and let the whole thing summer while waiting for my squash to cook. When the sweet potato squash was cooked until soft, i chopped it up and tossed it into the chicken broth. With the butternut squash, i cooked it until it was still a bit firm, and then cut that into cubes and put it aside. Now that everything was soft (potato, butternut squash and sweet potato squash) I took out my handblender and pureed it all until it was smooth. I grated 8 oz. of cheddar cheese and tossed that in and i finished it all off by returning the cubed potatoes and butternut squash to the soup.

So how'd it all turn out? well, that squash really sweetend the soup a lot more than i thought it would and also masked the flavor of the cheese. so i added more salt and i think i should've used less squash. otherwise, it turned out to be a pretty tasty soup. I liked the chunks of potato and butternut squash, cause i'm a big fan of textures. so next time you're given a sweet potato squash, try to be creative and come up with your own squash soup.

DELIVERY FROM BOSTON ORGANICS

I had promised to update you guys on my boston organics delivery and it arrived today. So look at the pretty pics of all the fresh fruits and veggies i got!I've already eaten one bosc pear. And i was happy to see avocados and kiwis, which i love to eat, but never buy. in the brown bag are crimini mushrooms (the irony is that i just bought some last week) and there are yukon potatoes in the plastic bag. also, look at this pic.

In the top left hand corner there was this funny looking squash that'd I've never seen before. I tried figuring out what it was by going to the boston organics website, but nothing was listed, so i resorted to google. Turns out this is a sweet potato squash. I don't cook squash often, this will be a first, but apparently, you can cook it like a butternut squash. Speaking of which, i think i have butternut squash at home. so maybe i'll throw them together and make something.

I'm very happy with my delivery. It's got all this good food and it really wasn't that expensive. in addition to the fact that it took no work on my part. I took me like 10 minutes online to register and then i get the drop offs at my work. it's a win win situation. Now to carry it all home and make yummy stuff!

MUSHROOM SOUP AND BRUNCH AT AQUITAINE

I promised you all more posts this week, so here's another post to entertain you all (and myself, of course). As you all know, I'm a loyal reader of the Amateur Gourmet's blog. and last week he made some really yummy mushroom soup. After looking at the ingredient list, I decided that I wanted to try out the same recipe, with some Minty Choco Chip modifications. Now, I did not photograph and document that whole process, and I'm not gonna repeat the recipe here, cause the Amateur Gourmet already did it, so if you wanna see all that, just click over to his blog and read the post titled "Make Room for Mushroom Soup."(I'm not good at coming up with witty post titles like him)

Here are the changes I made. Rather than using just shitake and button mushrooms for the fresh mushrooms, I actually used a package of crimini mushrooms too. So in total, I had 4 types of mushrooms going. Dried porcinis (i opened up my last package from Italy, meaning it's time for another trip to Europe), plus fresh crimini, shitake and buttons. Also, I replaced the heavy cream with half and half, it makes the soup a little lighter. Lastly, I poured in half a cup of white wine at the end. And really good white wine (some German risling that i had leftover from Thanksgiving). I think the wine really made a huge difference. But the entire thing was so yummy and not hard to make at all. I spooned it down with a nice baguette on the side. So definetly try it out sometime.

As for other food adventures this weekend, I will now review Aquitaine in the South End. (There's another Aquitaine in Chestnut Hill, but I've never been to that one). In the past, I loved meeting up with my friends at Aquitaine on Saturday for brunch, cause they have this cool prix fixe menu, which is only like $10. It's an excellent deal for a restaurant in the South End. On Sunday, Leah and I went down to the South End hoping to finally try out Perdix. We got a great parking space and walked into the restaurant only to find out it didn't open until 11. (It was 10:20 when we arrived). So we ran across the street and were lucky to find an open table at Aquitaine.

We were seated right away at a booth in the back and it was all very lovely. It's a beautiful restaurant with big windows and high ceilings, so we could see the snow falling outside while we were all warm inside. We decided what we wanted pretty quickly. Leah got the Brioche french toast with bacon. I got the Eggs benedict (but with tomatoes and avocado rather than ham). But that was about the only thing that happened quickly. It took our waitress a good long time to actually take our order and then it took at least another half hour before we even saw our entrees, which kinda sucked cause we were hungry. But like i sad, i've been to Aquitaine many times before, and this is the first time that service has been poor, so i'll give them a break.

anyway, maybe the kitchen was backed up or maybe they were going through a staff change. You never know what could be happening in the back. but here's a pic of leah's entree. i apologize for the blurry pics from my phone cam, but at least you're getting a pic. two big pieces of french toast. apparently they were skimpy on the pear compote, though.and here are my eggs benedict. very colorful plate. they were ok, but you could tell that they'd been sitting in the kitchen for a while, because they were lukewarm, and i am a big fan of very hot food. The eggs yolks are supposed to be runny, but by the time the eggs got to me, they had totally congealed and the toasted english muffins were totally cold. The potatoes were great though. and i ate it all down anyway, cause i was hungry. I think the best thing to do is avoid Aquitaine for sunday brunch. they're just too busy and packed. A much better time to go is Saturday morning, cause then you can have the prix fixe brunch and hopefully, you're entree will arrive promptly and still warm. Try it out though, all restaurants have an off day every now and again.

FRESH FRUITS AND VEGGIES DELIVERED TO MY DOOR

i know i've neglected the blog for nearly a week now. but honestly, i haven't eaten anything great enough to blog about. i did have an ice cream at jp licks with katie earlier this week, but we both forgot cameras and cell phones, so i'll blog about them when i return and can take pics. don't get the turtle ice cream, though. stick with the coffee oreo. i did have dinner and drinks at Eastern Standard last night, but since they're my neighbors, i've opted not to blog about my numberous eating experiences there. suffice it to say, eat at the bar over getting a table. order the pim 75 which is an excellent drink (both katie and i enjoyed it immensely) and the squash soup is also very tasty.

i promise to try and blog more this week, though it's unlikely to happen since i'll be spending most of the week working towards the south end holiday market next weekend. but come visit me there and i'll give you hot chocolate samples. ok, back to the title of this post. So at some point last year, I was visiting my cousin Cindy in Berkeley. And she was a member of this really cool veggie/fruit delivery service. Basically, she paid $25 a week and this company would put together local fresh fruits and veggies, whatever happened to be in season, and pack it into a box and deliver it once a week.

now, i thought that was a super cool idea. and one that'd work well in california since they're all into fresh food and organic stuff. i thought it'd never be seen in boston. but i was wrong. i was reading the improper bostonian a few weeks ago, and they wrote about a service in boston that did the exact same thing. it's called Boston Organics and here's their website. http://www.bostonorganics.com/. So i've just signed up for this service and here's what I did. I signed up for the $25 delivery, except i got it for every other week. (since I live alone, i can't eat a whole box of fruits and veggies by myself every week, so I was happy to see this option). Also, there are different options to pick from. I chose the 50% fruit/50% veggie option. But you can get like 2/3 veggies or 2/3 fruit, etc. And they let me pick stuff that i never wanted delivered. I'm a picky eater, so i was also happy to get rid of stuff like bananas, eggplants, melons(i have an allergy), and various berries.

Everything that I'm given will be organic. And the delivery's free. I'm having it delivered to work since I'm here all the time, but they'll also leave it on your doorstep if you're not home. Here's the one big difference, though. Since we live in New England, we don't have a 12 month growing season like in CA. So though Boston Organics tries to source local farmers as much as possible, they will also bring in stuff from CA and certain farms in South America. I'm ok with that, though I do look foward to my boxes in spring and summer. The other thing I like about this services is that it forces me to be creative and try new foods and recipes. I don't know what I'm gonna get each time(though it's listed on the website), but when i do receive it, i can start looking for different recipes to try out. As soon as I get my delivery, I'll take picks and update you guys on how it all looks, but i'm excited to have something to look foward to!

CHOCOLATE SOUFFLES AND OTHER LESSONS LEARNED ON TURKEY DAY

Here in Boston, many of us often find ourselves without family members on Turkey Day. Some of us live too far from home, some of us own businesses and can't travel and some of us would just like to avoid parents at all costs. Which is why it's great to gather all of these friends togther and celebrate a day dedicated to excessive eating. This Thanksgiving, we celebrated with dinner at my house and we did it potluck style, which was great cause it divides up all the work and that meant I spent most of my day sitting on my couch and watching tv. I was in my pajamas until 4pm. At any rate, my contribution to the potluck was duck breast, potatoes cooked in duck fat and chocolate souffles.

So for Turkey Day, we decided not to have turkey. Despite Katie's opinion that it's just not Thanksgiving without turkey, I prefer to think of Thanksgiving as a day to get the people you care about for a night, when you can actually sit down, have a conversation and consume a meal (almost like you were an adult.) It's amazing how few of us actually do this. It's not so much the food that matters, it's the company. That being said, we're a big group of foodies, so we're not gonna have crappy food, either. In place of turkey, I decided to make duck breast. I used the recipe from my previous posting (the one that Martha made) and this time, I ordered the duck breasts from D'Artagnan and had them shipped to me. At the end of the day, the breasts, including the shipping, cost as much as it would've had a just gone to Whole Foods and bought them, except these breasts were much thicker and I had a guaranteed supply. So it was totally worth it. This time i also marinated the breasts for 2 days and I improved my technique cooking them, so I think they came out better. (i'm not repeating the recipe here, just go back and look at my previous post).

What I will detail is my chocolate souffle making. Here's the recipe below, stolen from the Scharffen Berger website. To be honest, I don't like Scharffen Berger chocolate. I find it too acidic. So i'm not all broken up that they sold out to Hershey's. But this is still an excellent souffle recipe.

Here's what you'll need:
Butter and sugar to coat the souffle cups
8 ounces dark chocolate, chopped into small pieces
1 tablespoon sweet butter
1/3 cup milk
3 egg yolks, at room temperature
4 egg whites, at room temperature
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/3 cup sugar
Eight 6 ounce souffle cups

So first, heat your oven to 375F and coat the interior of your cups with butter and sugar. Next (and i didn't remember to start taking photos until later in the process) put your chocolate, milk and butter all in one bowl. Place bowl over a pot that has small amount of water at the bottom and turn on the heat to melt the chocolate.(This is known as a bain marie) Here are a few tips I'm gonna give you. First, I've seen some ppl place the bowl directly into the water. Hell, when i was a kid, I even did this. I thought it would speed up the melting process. But that defeats the purpose of a bain marie. Don't let the bowl touch the water!! The steam created by the heating water is what will melt the chocolate. And why? Because it will melt the chocolate across a more even surface area. Second, you'll see that i place my bowl on top of the pot before the water was heated. The reason why is so the bowl and chocolate will heat slowly along with the water, which is better than shocking the chocolate by placing it over direct heat suddenly. (it will prevent chocolate from breaking if you're ever making a ganache). Ok, so as the water heats, stir the chocolate until it's totally melted. Remove from heat and add your egg yolks.

Here's another helpful tip. The recipe tells you to bring the eggs to room temp. And say you forgot to take the eggs out of the fridge and you don't want to wait from them to come to the right temperature. The key is to place the eggs in a warm bowl of water for a few minutes. That'll help bring them to the correct temperature. Anyway, here's the chocolate with all the other ingredients already mixed in. At this point, the chocolate has a rough, grainy look to it. The first time I made this recipe, I panicked a bit, thinking the chocolate had broken. But it evens out in the end, so don't worry.

The next step is to whip the egg whites. Which i documented thoroughly for all of you to teach you how to whip egg whites. People have a fear of making souffles, and I think it has to do with the egg white part. When I was a kid, I remember the first time I had made a recipe calling for whipped egg whites. It was a recipe for a Sacher Torte. Now, coming from a Taiwanese family, baking is not something that I grew up with. My mom didn't make cookies and cakes from scratch (though she does make excellent sticky rice) and I was the baker in the family. Having never used whipped egg whites in a recipe, I didn't have a very good idea of what it meant to whip the whites to soft peaks. (I now realize that i had overwhipped the whites when I made that first sacher torte, but live and learn)

So here's the thing. When you're whipping eggs whites, all you're doing is forcing air into the whites. And during the whipping, the whites go through several stages. I'm not going to confuse you and tell you all the stages, just start whipping with a handblender or whisk attachment. When the whites are a bit frothy, start adding the sugar gradually, along with the cream of tartar. Ok, and then the key is to keep whipping until the eggs start rising and turning white. Here's a pic.

Gradually, the egg whites will acquire a shiny, wet look to them. This is the point where you want to slow down your beating. Every so often, lift up you beaters or whisk and look at what happen to the egg whites when you do it. Do they just slide off? Then you need to keep whisking. For this recipe, we're asked for eggs whipped to "soft peak". To figure out if it is at soft peak, lift your beaters again, the egg whites are shiny and they stay on the beater, but the peak of the egg whites will fall and point down. Here's a pic. That's what we want. If you're ever asked for egg whites with "stiff peaks" it means that when you lift up your beaters, the egg whites will stand straight up, and the peaks won't fall.

Moving on, we're gonna combine the melted chocolate and egg whites. And remember what I taught you guys about the rules of thirds. And here's another lesson. Always add the lighter ingredient (whipped egg whites in this case) to the heavier ingredient (the chocolate mix). So here's a pic of the first third of egg whites going into the chocolate. Fold the remaining whites in thirds and you'll end up with this lovely chocolate mixture. Ok, and here's another lesson (i'm so full of lessons today!). When you're folding, you're always told to do it with a spatula and be super careful not to deflate your egg whites! But i fold with a whisk. Why?? The purpose of folding is to avoid decreasing the volume of air whipped into the whites. What is the point of a whisk? To add air! So rather than trying to prevent your egg whites from deflating by using a spatula, why not just add more air by using a whisk? Makes more sense. Think about it.

I divided up the mix into my waiting souffle cups and here's the cool thing with this recipe, you can now refrigerate your souffle, covered, for up to 24 hours. So my souffles went into the fridge, to be baked right before serving.

From the title of this post, I mentioned that I also learned some lessons this Turkey Day. Lesson 1: recipes from a 1960s edition of the Joy of Cooking make no sense what so ever. But at least Leah and I figured out why Julia Child was so popular back then. If all cook books were written like the 1960s Joy of Cooking, nothing would have ever been cooked. It's completely incomprehensible. No wonder Julia Child was needed to decipher recipes for us all. Lesson 2: Bring your souffles to room temp before cooking them. ( I will also mention that Kjell and Huong learned that tapioca starch cannot be substituted for corn starch when making a lemon meringue)

So we'd finished our massive dinner and everyone was ready for dessert. I stuck my tray of souffles into the oven, directly from the fridge and allowed them to cook for 15 mintes. Now the 15 minutes is a key part of souffle making. You can't open the door during these first few minutes or your souffle will collapse! Why? By opening the door before the souffles have started to rise, you create a decrease in temperature and that's what will cause your souffle to fall. The timer went off, I checked my souffles and they hadn't risen. Crap. I didn't want to overcook my souffles because they'd lose that nice molten center if left in too long. I let them go for another 5 minutes. Checked again and they'd risen more. 2 more minutes and they were perfect. So they ended up taking an extra 7 minutes. Here it is, the finish product spinkled with powdered sugar and totally yummy.

After speaking with my friend Akash today, I figured out that I should've brought the souffles to room temp prior to baking them. If you noticed in the original recipe, the eggs and the entire mixture is at room temp and I think the refrigeration part is what caused the delay in cooking. Ah well, it was still delicious, as was our entire meal. And as a parting picture to all of you, here's a pic from the Thanksgiving Day table. There's the my platter of duck, with my potatoes in the background, Arti's dates wrapped in bacon, May Ann's mashed potatoes, Leah's sweet potato casserole and my bottle of '94 Chateau Mouton Rothschild. Not pictured were samosas and lemon meringue pie from Kjell and Huong, Karishma's Chocolate, Pear and Almond tart (I was very impressed with how well it came out, especially since it was her first time making it), Harin's very yummy turkey cooked peking style with wraps, and Leah's Corn Pudding. Hope you all had a great Turkey Day, and next year, my souffles will be even better.

INSPIRATION FROM RUSSO'S, CREAMY POLENTA WITH MUSHROOMS

Yesterday after work, I decided to make a quick run to Russo's to pick up some supplies for Thanksgiving. I knew it'd be probably be crowded, but I wanted some nice fresh ingredients since I wouldn't be using them until Thursday. So after getting lost and consulting the map a few times, I finally arrived to busy shoppers with full carts. You know it's busy when you get in a traffic jam of grocery store carts.

So the last time I wrote about Russo's, I commented that it was a good idea to arrive with recipes in hand, so you don't get sidetracked and end up buying a bunch of random stuff. But sometimes the ingredients provide the inspiration. So yesterday, I saw some beautiful mushrooms and decided that I was gonna make some creamy polenta with mushrooms. I picked up a handful of chantrelle mushrooms and oyster mushrooms and a bag of polenta.

Here's the bag of polenta. When buying polenta (which is basically Italian cornmeal), you wanna look for stone ground polenta. But this bag didn't have much English on it and I didn't want to buy the instant stuff, so I chose this one.And here are my mushrooms. Aren't they pretty?

So the great thing about polenta is that it's traditionally a peasants food. So it's super easy to make, with few ingredients, yet it's really filling. Kinda like risotto, a little goes a long way. So i consulted a few recipes and relied on my polenta making experience for this dish.

First, I started the polenta by boiling 3 cups of water and then pouring in 3/4 cups of cornmeal. Ok, actually the recipe on the back of the bag of polenta and all the other recipes I consulted said water. But i wanted a little extra flavor, so I used 1 cup of chicken stock and 2 cups of water. Then I let it cook for 3o minutes, stirring occasionally. Here's the polenta after 10 minutes in the pot. See, it's thickened nicely.

Next, I started to cook my mushrooms with a simple sautee. I cleaned and chopped the mushrooms and chopped up half a shallot. I threw the shallot into a pan with some olive oil and when it was golden, i threw in the mushrooms and a few sprigs of thyme. I let that all cook down until the mushrooms were tender.
And back to the polenta, which has been bubbling away on the other burner. So again, the cool thing about polenta is that it can be really simple, just flavored with some salt, or you can add other ingredients. Before I took the polenta off the heat, I threw in a tiny bit of half and half to make it more creamy. I also tossed in a chunk of butter, some salt and pepper and best of all, a combination of shredded gruyere and pecorino romano cheeses. (see it below) Then i stirred at all up until it was creamy, cheesy and smooth.I spooned some of the polenta into a bowl and also added on a few spoonfulls of the mushroom sautee. Looks nice huh? And it was all very yummy. I feel like Rachel Ray, having made my 30 minute meal. Except that she pisses me off with her perkiness and EVOO. So if you're every feeling inspired, make this easy polenta and top it with anything yummy you have lying around in the fridge. It makes for a great warm meal, especially on a cold winter's night.

AN ORGY OF MEAT. DINNER AT GREEN FIELD.

A week ago, it was my friend Akash's birthday. Unfortunately, as you all know, I was in NY attending the Chocolate Show and Akash was out of town attending a conference. So we decided to celebrate this weekend by going to Green Field Churrascaria, a Brazilian BBQ place in Brighton. Here's a pic of the big steak knife and cute little logo on the napkin. (that's right, you're about to eat that logo).
I chose Green Field cause I had heard of it before. It's actually a pretty big chain of restaurants and they even have locations in CA. In addition, knowing my group of friends, I suspected that they would appreciate this type of restaurant. And what type of restaurant could that be? An all you can eat place where servers bring you hunks of meat on skewers and cut off slices for you. Here's a pic of three of the skewers with Ed in the background.
So here are my three tips. 1. Arrive very hungry. 2. Leave yourself a lot of time for dinner and 3. Don't waste stomach space on the sushi bar, cause the sushi is pretty crappy and you're there for the meat anyway. Oh right, I also picked Green Field because I knew that it is the largest restaurant in Brighton. Meaning that even if you arrive with a big group of friends on a Saturday night at 7:30, you're still likely to get a seat without making a reservation. So walking into Green Field, you'll immediately notice the decor. And this being a BBQ joint, that means cow hides, and the heads of deer and other such animals mounted on the wall. I was not thrilled. I sat as far away from the cowhide as possible, though Ed had a good time playing with the tail.

Next comment about service. It sucks, which is why I'm telling you to give yourself a lot of time for dinner. Maybe it was the size of the restaurant and the amount of ground she needed to cover, but our waitress was MIA the majority of our dinner. It was nearly impossible to track her down if we needed anything and at the end of dinner she took 15 minutes to run our credit cards. But back to dinner. So all Brazilian BBQ places have the obligatory buffet. And there is a myriad of rices, different Brazilian dishes, salads and this place had sushi. But really, all of that stuff is there to fill you up. Don't waste you're time eating french fries you can get from Mc Donald's. (Though I did enjoy these yummy cheese puff bread thingies and ate 3 of them). However, here's a pic of Akash's place after we returned from the buffet. Many of those pieces of sushi went uneaten as soon as the meat arrived.
And onto the meat. So at each table you're given these funny little wooden sticks that have a red side and a green side. If you want meat, you flip it over to the green side, and if you need to take a break or want to stop, you flip it to the red side. After succeeding at catching the attention of the servers, we started getting an endless supply of meat which included: various cuts of beef, pork, rabbit, chicken, lamb, sausage and duck. Now for those of you who read my duck post, you'll know that i don't eat red meat. or pork. or rabbit. (you get the idea) so that mainly left me with chicken and duck. Luckily, I also can't eat that much, so I was happy with a few portions of chicken and some chicken hearts. (that's right katie, chicken hearts. yummy!!) I did take a bite of Akash's duck (I was pretty full by the time it rolled around) and I found it too overcooked. That's the thing that I've found with duck. It's either got to be rare to be tasty, of cooked until super tender, like confit. Anyway, here's a pic of my plate. There are only some pics of chicken, but hey, that's what i eat!
We ate for about 2 hours straight. And believe me, there was a lot of food on our table. I think for a period of time, we were the epicenter of meat consumption in the restaurant. The entire dinner is very reasonably priced. It's just $16.95 for the buffet and meat. Drinks and dessert are extra. Most people at the table ordered some exotic fruit juices and at the end of the meal, they also got 2 different mousses- a coffee mousee and a passion fruit mousse. (both pictured below). Everyone at the table enjoyed the coffee mousse, though most people weren't fans of the passion fruit.So in conclusion, this restaurant is a great place to try if you have a big appetite, love meat and aren't afraid of cow hides of deer heads on the wall. I'm sure leah would've loved it, had she been in town, or Juliet, i promise to take on your next trip to Boston, and it was an excellent choice for dinner for Akash's 32nd bday.

MY FAVORITE CHOCOLATE SHOP!

Last week i was reading the Amateur Gourmet and what did I find, but an entry about Kee's Chocolates. Now, the writer had just been wandering around SOHO and had stumbled upon Kee's while walking down Thompson Street. Unbeknowest to him, he had found one of the best chocolate stores in New York, and in my opinion, the U.S.

I've been going to Kee's for a couple of years now. And I always identify her shop by the green awning outside. Here's a pic for you. So here's the story. Like many chocolatiers, Kee stared off working in the corporate world. But she quit the life and decided to attend FCI so she could pursue her passion. At FCI, she trained under Jacques Torres and after graduation, she opened, her tiny little chocolate shop, Kee's Chocolates (which was originally called the Chocolate Garden, but had to be changed due to some trademark infringement).
And this is what I love about Kee's. It's a tiny little place, but she makes everything right there by hand. With a little refrigerator, marble table and induction burner. And Kee is always there. In the nearly three years that I've been going, there's never been any time when she isn't in the store (minus the times that they're closed for holidays and such). Her ganaches are super smooth and lovel, the enrobing chocolates super thin and she has innovative flavors, but nothing too wild. My favorites include the Thompson, Cappuccino, Passion Fruit and Toasted Sesame. My designer, who works near by, loves the Thai Chili. Since everything's made fresh, the flavors change fairly often. So you might not find your favorite flavor every time you go. That's ok, though, cause it forces you to try something new.
Here's a pic of the box I brought back from NY. There are two sesame, two lemon basil, an earl grey and some flavor I've never tried and don't remember. So the lesson is, if you're ever in NY, stop by Kee's on 80 Thompson Street for some exquisite made chocolates that are lovingly made. Tell her that the girl who owns a chocolate shop in Boston sent you.

DINING IN NEW YORK, MINTY CHOCO CHIP GOES ON THE ROAD!

Well here i am, back from New York following the worst train ride of my life. Amtrak you have disappointed me. No wonder you just replaced your CEO. But why was I in New York you ask? Well, to attend the NYC Chocolate Show, the biggest chocolate show in the US. Lots of fun, but really, I was there to work, and this is a fun blog, so I'm not going to talk about work. What I will talk about is dining in New York.

Now as any reader of this blog knows, I greatly value New York food above Boston food. So going to New York is always a nice little treat for me. Of course, not everything is going to be perfect, and there are always going to be duds among the good places. So let's talk about the place I liked eating at the most this weekend. And the winner is...

SPICE MARKET
(like the red? It's also one of the only places I took pictures). As some of you may know, Spice Market is owned by Jean Georges. It's his hipper restaurant with lots of Asian influences. And it's located in the very trendy Meapacking district. I've wanted to go to a Jean Georges restaurant for some time. Normally I can't afford it, but my buddy Moses says he goes here once to twice and week and he said the appetizers were "cheap" so he and his girlfriend Roxanne took me for some cocktails and snacks. (which really ended up being my dinner). Now, what I really like about Spice Market is its design. It's beautiful and dark and you feel like you're really in another country. They really paid a lot of attention to details and thought about things. As Moses and I waited for Rox to arrive, we sampled some very yummy cocktails at the bar. Here's mine, I ordered this drink cause it had passion fruit in it. Plus champagne and some other ingredient i don't remember. But it was super tasty.

And here's Moses' cocktail. He had a pineapple mojito. I didn't try it, but it certainly looks pretty. So Spice Market is divided into a main floor and a bottom floor. The mian floor holds the dining room and bar. The bottom floor is like a lounge where you can order drinks, appetizers and desserts, which is what we did when Rox arrived.

Ok, so here's the deal. The appetizers are not "cheap" as Moses had said, but they are very reasonably priced. So i always like that. I got an order of chicken samosas and an order of spicy chicken wings. Here are the samosas.

There are three pretty big sized samosas and they come with a yummy green dipping sauce which i'm sure had mint in it. I really enjoyed these. since they used phyllo rather than the normal samosa pastry, these were much lighter than the samosas you get at your local Indian restaurant. Ok. I just tried to look up the actual description for you all, but apparently Spice Market isn't listed on menupages and Jean George's website was no help. So tough. Though I did get distracted and start reading an entry on the Amateur Gourmet about Janet Jackson Breast Cupcakes. But I digress. Back to my appetizers.

Here's a pic of my spicy chicken wings.

Now when I ordered these, the waitress warned me that these were really spicy. Which they were, but not in a bad way. What I also like was the slices of fresh mango topped with mint that i could use to cool my palate in between wings. It's a really simple combo, but i liked it alot. Maybe even more than the wings. So as I said, these appetizers weren't "cheap" but they were super reasonable. I think the samosas cost $9 and the wings were $11. And for a Jean Georges restaurant in the Meatpacking district, I guess you could all that "cheap". The other thing is that these were really well made appetizers. Not like when I went to Pomodoro and got totally ripped off. And that's one of the big differences between restaurants in NY and those in Boston. You really do get more for your money in NY.

Ok, my last comment is that I also discovered that I could never be a waitress at Jean Georges, cause man were those uniforms skimpy! Basically, they've got all the female waitress wearing orange scrubs. But the top has no back. just 2 pieces of string holding it together. I don't see why they can't make them men wear skimpy outfits too. At any rate I had a very enjoyable time at Spice Market. I'm not sure how much it'd be for dinner, though I can pretty much guarantee that based on the appetizers, the entrees would be in the mid 20s up to the 40s range. But it really is a lovely atmosphere and I'd love to go back there again for a full meal.

GALLERIA ILLY
No No. illy Cafe has not opened its first store in the U.S. What they have done is opened an exhibition space in SOHO to introduce American to illy coffee. Yes, I realize that illy has been around for a while, but i think this is a cool concept. So off i went to check it out. and here's the cappuccino that i ordered below.

ain't it pretty? i gotta work on my espresso art. Ok, so here's the thing. This is just a temporary exhibit space for illy. They're only gonna be open for another month. But it's beautiful. Huge floor to ceiling windows where you can have a coffee and watch ppl walking by on West Broadway. I sat right in front and munched on my lunch while sipping my coffee. You can also order desserts. Really relaxing. My friend Jayna was studying coffee houses for a project and she noticed that Americans in coffeeshops never just sit and watch. They're always doing something. Reading, talking on the phone, etc. They never just sit! I pointed out that I'm sure it's the American thing because if people just sit and do nothing it feels like a waste of time. But at galleria illy, there were plenty of ppl just sitting and watching and drinking. I thought it was great.

ok, so here come the criticisms. think of them as constructive criticism. Since this is a tempoary space none of the machinery they're using is hardwired in. A true industrial machine needs to be hooked up to plumbing, and of course, you can't do that if you're only using a space for 3 months. I think that kinda effects the quality of the coffee a little. The second problem is that I watched the barista make my coffee. and he pulled the shot prior to steaming the foam. (ideally both the steaming and the shot pulling take place at the same time so the shot isn't sitting there breaking down while you're waiting for the foam). Lastly, my cappuccino cost $5. And that's just freaking ridiculous. Yes, i know they need to pay for this beautiful space, but $5? No way.

Otherwise, the staff was super helpful, the displays beautiful and it was a great place to relax while waiting for my friends. Sometimes, it's just fun watching all those ppl rushing by. So if you have the time, definetly stop by galleria illy for the one more month that it's open, I think you'll find it very enjoyable too.

SHOPPING AND DINNER UNDER ONE ROOF, A TRIP TO SUPER 88

Last night Arti mentioned that she wanted to do some grocery shopping at Super 88, so I figured we could meet up there for some quick dinner and then she could shop away. For those of you who don't know, Super 88 is this giant Asian grocery store on the border of Boston and Allston/Brighton. I like this Super 88 more than the ones in Chinatown because it's bigger and a whole lot cleaner. The other great thing about Super 88 is that they have a nice food court attached with a number of different restaurants, so you can find food to make everyone happy.

Arti had a cold, so she decided that she wanted to order some spicy soup to help clear her sinuses. She order a Tom Yum Noodle soup from the Thai restaurant in the food court. Here's a pic of it along with the watermelon juice that she ordered from Lollicup, the bubble tea shop.








I decided to also have a noodle soup and ordered a pho ga (aka. pho with chicken) from the Vietnamese restaurant. Here's a pic of their sign:
And of course, a pic of my dinner- a big bowl of noodle with the fixings (raw bean sprouts, basil and lime) on the side. My pho was pretty good. Not the best in the world, but also not the worst. A little too much white pepper on top, but for less than $7, I'm not gonna complain a whole lot. It was so big that I ended up eating only half of it, but I've never really been up to finish a whole bowl of pho anyway.Oh, and for those who don't know, the Super 88 food court finally got a liquor license. It was a big contentious issue for sometime, but it looks like they finally won out. So now there's this little roped off area on the side of the food court where there's a bar and you can order drinks and watch tv. Personally, I'd rather have a drink in a real bar, but if you'd like to have a beer with your big bowl of pho, at least you can now.

After dinner, we just hopped over to the supermarket where Arti bought a lot of instant noodles. I guess it is better than eating nothing when you're tired. And so, if you ever want to eat and shop at the same place, Super 88 is a great location to pick up something exotic and quick and satisfy even a group of diners with lots of different tastes.