DIM SUM: WHAT CHINESE PEOPLE DO ON XMAS

It's starting to become a Xmas tradition for us to go to dim sum on Xmas morning- no matter where we are. Last year it was dim sum at the Pearl. This year, it was dim sum with my extended family in Monterey Park. I guess it's because there are so few places that are actually open and have good food, so people in the know flock to the open dim sum restaurants.

When I was a kid, I actually hated going to the dim sum restaurants in Monterey Park. Back then, there weren't any dim sum restaurants on the westside where we lived, so my parents would wake us up super early on Sunday (the only day we actually had the option to sleep in since we had Chinese school on Saturdays) and would haul our asses over to Monterey Park, which is East of LA. Ummm, maybe this is where you start seeing where I get my obsessiveness for food.

One place we often visited was NBC Seafood, which is where we headed on Xmas morning. When we arrived, we found out that NBC was under construction. It was still open and serving food, but there was very little parking, and a whole lot of people were trying to get in. We had 15 people, so we ended up splitting up into 2 tables. This place was sooooooooo busy. They were turning tables like crazy and they weren't very nice about it. But at least we got our fill or yummy dim sum dishes like:

Baked pork buns, chicken buns and fried sesame mochi

Spare ribs and flat rice noodles stuffed with shrimp or fried dough
This strange concoction of shrimp balls and corn- it was allright.
Panfried flat noodles with dried shrimp and green onions served with peanut sauce. The noodles themselves were rather tasteless, so you had to add the sauce to give it flavor.

These greasy, but super tasty cause they were just fried, shrimp dumplings.

And of course, the regular shrimp dumplings (Tom's learned how to call them by their correct name- har gow, and I made him show my mom), siu mai and some Chinese broccoli.

We spent over two hours there, and by the time we finished and left, there were even more people waiting to get it. I guess it is worth arriving early after all. But we had a great meal and I certainly look foward to getting more dim sum in LA next Xmas.

CHRISTMAS EVE DINNER AT BIZOU GARDEN

On Christmas Eve, we had planned on going to Korean BBQ. But at the last minute, my mom decided to make the reservation for the previous night (she was busy Christmas eve) which left us scrambling for a place to have dinner on Christmas Eve. Us being 9 cousins, sisters and boyfriends and my dad. My little sister suggested that we go to a restaurant called Bizou Garden featuring California/French/Italian inspired food and since they actually took our reservation for 10, we settled on that.

The thing with Bizou Garden is that it's not normally I'd pick to have dinner at. It's a nicely appointed restaurant and a comfortable place to go, but their prices don't justify the quality of the food. As you guys know, I'm willing to pay quite a lot, if it's worth it. Plus, it seems to be confused as to what type of cuisine it should be serving.

After perusing the menu, I settled on ordering an ahi tuna steak. What was surprising was that all the entrees came with a soup or salad. So few restaurants do that these days- they normally just make you pay extra. And I must say, I didn't enjoy the salad that was served and finished it quickly.

My tuna, on the other hand, was a sadder story. I'm not one of those people who enjoy eating tuna totally raw, so I had ordered mine medium. When it arrived you could tell it'd be seared on the exterior, but the interior was completely raw. So I sent it back.

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Of course, you know what happens. It came back completely cooked through. Like it could've been canned tuna at that point. Plus, the sauce it was served it was soooooooo salty. I ate some of it and enjoyed my super buttery potatoes.

Tom didn't have much better luck with his entree. It was kinda like a cioppino, except it wasn't served as a soup.

As you can see, they put all the seafood and all the sauce into one foil packet and cooked the entire thing together. The problem is that different seafood cooks at different rates, so some of the seafood came out totally overcooked (like the shrimp). Had they cooked things separately, it probably would've turned out better.

Lastly, there was dessert. They did have my favorite dessert on the menu- tarte tatin, so of course I had to order that. My little sister correctly predicted that I'd also mention that I make a fantastic tarte tatin- but it's true. I'm good at so few things in life, at least I can do that. So here's my tarte tatin below. It wasn't too bad. Kinda sweet, but I enjoyed it. Meanwhile, Tom ordered the tiramisu, which basically look like it had melted.

Again, it wasn't too bad, but I preferred eating my tarte tatin. And maybe had I tried some of the entrees that my family ordered- like pork chops and lamb (not that I eat those things) I might have enjoyed the food more. Overall, it's not so much the food that matters, but the chance to hang out with my family on a more regular basis that's important to me.

A CHRISTMAS TRIP HOME

There are several things I like about living in Northern California. And one of those things is being a one hour flight away from my family, making two day trips home totally do-able. After spending almost 10 years living on the east coast, I'd felt kind of left out of family gatherings and such, so it's really nice being able to enjoy those occasions again.

As I said in an earlier post, my new job is not so different from my old job. I guess that comes from being small businesses. (My current company has only been open a year longer than my own store). Which is great for some reasons and crappy for others. It's crappy because we're currently understaffed at the store. So while my boss goes to China, my co-worker goes to Argentina and the sales staff gets a week off, I am the only one in the entire company to not get an extra day off for Christmas or New Year's. It just so happens that my regular days off also fall on these two national holidays. So our two day trip down to LA was fun, but short.

The first night we got there, my parents stuffed us with dinner at Korean BBQ. Tom at so much beef that his tummy swelled. The next day, we were off to see the Murakami exhibit at MOCA, but before that, I wanted to stop and say hello to Katie. We dropped by her house and played with her cute kitties for a bit and then decided to head out for some lunch.

We ended up at a local Greek place called Daphne's. I'd been here with Katie before, except that time, I hadn't eaten. This time, I ordered a chicken pita.

It was small and simple, but quite tasty. Our food came out super fast after we had ordered, but it was tasty, healthy fast food. Tom got this plate of fried shrimp:

That was also really tasty. The shrimp were greasy or over fried at all. I keep telling Katie that if we had a place like this near us, I'd be going all the time (which I think she does).

After lunch we checked out the MOCA exhibit, which was very cool, even though it was kinda small. Afterwards, I met up with Juliet. It was SUPER hot when we were in LA, so we decided to cool down with a little fro yo from Pinkberry. Now, as almost all of you know, Pinkberry is this super famous frozen yogurt place that's very popular in LA. However, I'd never been, and that's because I'm not a huge fan of yogurt, or really any super dairy stuff. But I decided to give it a try and ordered the green tea (your other option is plain) topped off with some mango.

And as I suspected, I didn't like it. It was just too tangy for me. I took a small bite and just ate the mango off before disposing of it. So I effectively paid $5 for half a cup of mango. At least I've learned that I really really don't like Pinkberry, and so, I'll stick with my favorite gelato, or just ice cream.

IS THIS REALLY MEXICAN FOOD?

One of the nice things about Tom working from home is that on my days off, we can go out and have lunch together. Such was the case one sunny day. I had to pick up something from Kiehl's on 4th street, so we decided to have lunch nearby. There aren't a ton of food options on 4th St., and certainly nothing you'd consider cheap, but we decided to check out Tacubaya, the Mexican restaurant on 4th St.
Tacubaya is a casual "taqueria" owned by a well known chef named Dona Tomas. Now despite living in California, we've yet to had really great Mexican food. Actually, I miss El Pelon. Apparently, I need to go to LA for the authentic stuff- or make a trip to the Mission or Oakland. So I had high hopes for Tacubaya.

Tom and I got in line to order. I got a chicken taco and guac and chips while Tom ordered a torta al pastor. Also, we both ordered Mexican Coke. For those of you who are unfamiliar, basically formulations of soda can be very different depending on where they're manufactured. For example, you may know about my love of orange Fanta, but only from Europe. The European one is much less sweet and a lot more like Orangina, while the American version is a lot more like Sunkist. Same thing with the Mexican Coke. Coke made in Mexico is made with cane sugar, while the U.S. version is made with high fructose corn syrup. Coke claims that the flavor is the same, but they're lying to you. The Mexican Coke definitely has a sweeter, more real sugar flavor. But I'm so used to the U.S. version that I prefer it.

Ok, onto lunch. Here's my taco:
Can you believe that this lone little taco cost me $3.50. What the hell? Plus, the chicken in it was overly juicy, which resulted in it soaking the shell and making it all soft and messy. And the chicken in it wasn't even that flavorful or great. I did like the seasoned spicy carrots on the side, though.

Oh right, and our chips and guac.
It was pretty disappointing. It was really watery and the flavor wasn't so great. Plus authentic Mexican guac DOES NOT CONTAIN TOMATOES. It was so watery that Tom claims that took salsa and mixed it in with the guac. The chips were ok, but I prefer the chips from El Pelon.

And lastly, Tom's torta.
I think he felt it was pretty good, but I also think he preferred the tortas at El Pelon. Overall, we're still looking for a good Mexican place. I know there must be some around, so I guess I'll just be making a trip to the Mission sometime soon.

IN SEARCH FOR A GREAT SLICE

I gotta say people, my current job is so similar to my old job that it's scary. Here I am, at work, just counting the minutes before I can finally go home. Of course, in my last job, I could've just closed and gone home, but I stayed around hoping for that extra sale that'd make my day better. Now what keeps me here is knowing that I'll actually get paid for it. But that also means that I have some time on my hand to blog.

Ok, let's start off with this adorable pic of our cat.

Awwwwww. Isn't she just the cutest? As you can see, she misses Boston and especially, the Red Sox. Which is why the Red Sox blanket that Tom bought me on his last trip to Boston has now become her favorite place to sleep.

Anyway, since arriving here, I've been trying to find Tom a great slice of pizza. Growing up in NY, he's actually quite particular about the type of pizza he does enjoy. And when we're in Brooklyn, you can actually witness him eating a whole large pizza by himself. A trip to Lanesplitter wasn't great. But I'd heard of another pizza place, Pizzaiolo, that my boss really enjoys, started by a former employee of Alice Waters. (ok ok, it seems like all restaurants in Berkeley were founded by people who once worked for Alice Waters), so we headed over there one evening with my friend, Nish.

Luckily, I had made reservations before we arrived. The restaurant quickly filled up, and it was quite noisy, but we got to sit at a little table up front in it's own little spot off the bar, so were set apart from all the noise. Of course, this place serves fancy pizza. I decided to get two appetizers, while having some of Tom's pizza.

I started off with some plain arancini served with gremolata and I must admit, it was quite good. With the side of gremolata, I didn't even miss the cheese that normally oozes out from certain arancini. Along with that, I had a little gems salad. I don't know what it is about little gem lettuces (I'd also had them at Chez Panisse), but they are so tasty and make for excellent salad.

Meanwhile, Tom got a pizza margherita.

It came out piping hot from the oven, but for some reason, the cheese was really funky. It was like fresh mozzarella, and had this texture of almost melted goat cheese. It didn't taste bad, but it wasn't what we were expecting and not exactly our favorite thing. The pizza my friend ordered with potatoes was much better.

Had I actually ordered a pizza, this is the one I would've picked, especially with its sprinkling of black truffles. Overall, our dinner at Pizzaiolo was pretty good. I think Tom put it well when he said that it's a place we'd take people from out of town, but not one we'd be regulars at.

THE FERRY BUILDING FARMERS MARKET

Well friends, I'm sitting here suffering from a bit of neck pain. I think I slept funny last night or something, because it's been bothering me all day. No biggy though. I'm just resting, propped up against a bunch of pillows. And I made myself an appt at the local massage therapy school for tomorrow morning (just $35 for a 55 minute massage!) so hopefully I'll be feeling better very soon.

Anyway, I figured I'd take this time to update my blog. So I'll write about yet another farmer's market- the famed Ferry Building Farmer's market. So after lunch at the Slanted Door, we walked around to check out the farmer's market. It wasn't all that different from the ones that I regularly visit in the East Bay, except the setting was quite impressive.

I was finally able to try out Blue Bottle Coffee, though. It's a pretty famous coffee company and it's located over here in the East Bay. They don't have a store yet, and are pretty selective about who can sell their coffee, but they do participate in a couple of farmers markets, including the one at the Ferry Building.

I tracked down the booth and ordered myself a cappuccino and a coffee for my aunt. Here's my cappuccino.

As you can see, perfect latte art, and he cappuccino itself was quite good. I didn't get to try the coffee, but they use these special drip filters to make it, so it takes a few minutes. The only thing that bothered me was that they didn't offer sugar. Sure, I understand that you're purists and sugar masks the overall flavor, but it does help make it a bit more enjoyable. And they always give you sugar in Italy.

Lastly, here's a pic of the historic Ferry Building.

Overall, it wasn't the greatest farmer's market that I'd ever been to. (maybe cause I'd already had lunch) but I think we may go back this weekend to pick up a few bags of Blue Bottle for Xmas presents.

DINING IN SAN FRANCISCO AT THE SLANTED DOOR

For those of you who haven't heard of the Slanted Door, it's a super famous Vietnamese/French restaurant in SF. In keeping with the style of the Bay Area, they use all local, and heavily organic produce. And as you might imagine, it's kinda pricey. So taking advantage of the fact that my parents were in town, we headed off for lunch at the Slanted Door, which is located in the Ferry Buildling.

The actual restaurant in quite stunning. It's very modern and it has these huge floor to ceiling windows that look out on the bay. I had to make an earlier reservation (11:30) since they were booked for anything later. When we walked into the restaurant, it was about a quarter full, but it would fill up quickly as we sat there. Lots of people were having business lunches, but there weren't as many tourists. Here's a pic I took of the inside:

They do everything family style here, which was fine with us. We had five people, so this just meant we could order more dishes and try new things. The menu was actually heavily Vietnamese, so the dishes were quite familiar. Out able started off with some fresh summer rolls, which I skipped due to the addition of pork.

Actually, I skipped a lot of the early dishes, like this scallop carpaccio that my dad wanted. But he seemed to like it and said it was very fresh.

Oh, here's a dish a tried which I really did like. This is a Vietnamese crepe. I've only had it once before at a restaurant in Boston, but I really like the crispy texture of the crepe which contrasts with the warm, soft interior. Also, this was full of fresh veggies, which I really enjoyed.

Next up, my parents ordered this dish of spicy squid, which was yet another dish I avoidedBut I was quite happy with the arrival of the green papaya salad. It was again, super fresh, crunchy with clean flavors, though it could have been a bit spicier.And we ordered two noodle dishes. To be honest, we actually ordered a few more dishes than that, but I didn't take pics of all of them. This dungeness crap dish with crystal noodles was quite goodBut I was disappointed by my dish on lemongrass chicken. The chicken ended up being quite touch and not anything special. Overall, the food at the Slanted Door is characterized by super fresh, clean flavors. But there are certain cuisines that I don't feel great about pay a whole lot of money for. I know that's unfair, but it's true. And when you order a place of sauteed bok choy for $8.50 (which we did) it'd better be the best freaking bok choy you've ever had in your life, or you're probably paying too much. For me, I enjoyed our lunch at the slanted door, and I'd glad go back if someone else were paying. But for me, I could be just as happy as going to a hole in the wall and paying half the price.

GELATO MILANO

I've been secretly lamenting the fact that there are very few non- chain ice cream places to visit since I've moved out to Northern CA. All we have near us is a Coldstone and a Baskin Robbins. But I think the problem is that the little artisan ice cream places are all located in Berkeley and you gotta make an effort to find one.

I was having dinner near the Berkeley campus with my parents and aunt and uncle and they wanted to get dessert. So I suggested gelato. I was planning on taking them to Cafe Naia, but then I noticed another gelato place a block away from Naia and headed there instead.

The other place, Gelato Milano, was tiny and spartan. It looked as if they'd just moved in, cause the walls were white, there were just 2 white gelato cases and a couple of seats. Here are some pics of the gelato in the cases:

I don't think they had strawberry gelato, so I got pink grapefruit and chocolate instead. It was certainly creamier than the gelato at Cafe Naia, and I thought it was pretty good.

I'm now on the search for a few more local ice cream places. There's Sketch on 4th street and I'm hoping that today, if I feel up to it, I can try another place called Ici.

CAFE FANNY

Everybody seems to know about Alice Waters and Chez Panisse, but lesser known to people nationwide is Cafe Fanny. Cafe Fanny is another place opened by Alice Waters, but it's really a neighborhood place for people living in Berkeley and nearby. But it's a really popular place and there's always a line. Plus they don't really have a seating area- just a handful of tables outside, a bar that you can stand at and a little bench indoors. Still, that doesn't keep people from showing up.

My sister hadn't been there before, so I decided to take her so she could try it out. We got there a bit later than I normally do- a bit after 9 and it took us 20 minutes just to order. Still, they were pretty nice about it. The one things I always get here is a cafe au lait, served French style in a big bowl. It's always tasty.

Oh also, they don't exactly have a kitchen at Cafe Fanny. Just a small work area out in the open. So here are orders lining up on the counter waiting to get finished and picked up.

Christine ordered poached eggs and prosciutto. I think she enjoyed it quite a bit.

And I always get a 3 minute boiled egg with toast. It seems so simple, but it's my favorite thing here and I always order it. The first time I got it, the egg shell was almost blue- totally awesome.

This is a place a visit frequently for its simple food and atmosphere. I actually ended up taking my parents like 3 days later, and I think they like, it too. So if you do come and visit, don't be surprised if this is one of our stops.

THE DAY AFTER TURKEY DAY

So the day after Thanksgiving, I had to work. But it was my uncle's birthday, so additional cousins came up from LA to celebrate. In all, there were 12 of us. My aunt made a traditional birthday food, which is noodles with marinated eggs. You usually have stewed pigs feet with this, too, but we used left over turkey meat instead. Here's my bowl.

This is the perfect thing to have on a cold morning- steamy, warm and delicious, it got me all ready to head off to work.

While I was at work, my sister spent the day with all the cousins and kids, which ended up wearing here out. (There were 4 kids, all under the age of 5). We were supposed to go back and have dinner with them after my shift, but my sister just couldn't deal with any more crying, so I picked an Indian restaurant for dinner.

I'm still trying to find some good Indian in the East Bay, but after speaking to my friend last week, it seems that this may be more difficult than I had planned. Anyway, we ended up going to Cafe Raj on Solano Ave., which I had been told is a pretty good place. When we arrived, the restaurant was packed, but luckily we were able to grab the last open table.

After taking a look at the menu, I decided to get my old stand by, which I use to gauge all Indian restaurants- the Chicken Tikka Masala. But first I got a few starters. Here's the order of papadams I got. They were ok, though not very flavorful.

Then I got an order of veggie samosas. The exterior on this was a little different- much more similar to a spring roll wrapper cause it was so thin and crunchy. It actually wasn't too bad, but I prefer to have tamarind as a dipping sauce, and here, they just gave you a mint sauce.

Lastly, here's my order of chicken tikka masala. I had ordered this medium, but it seemed to have no heat to it at all. It's a pattern that I'm noticing for restaurants on Solano- they just don't like to really spice things up. The flavor was Ok, but I disliked the fact that there were raisins.

Overall, this was another disappointing venture into the world of Indian food on Solano Ave. Also, the service wasn't so great. I realize they were busy and only one us was eating (my sister had already had dinner), but it took forever to get our bill, or even a refill on water. I don't think I'll come back here, but I'll keep searching for a good place while serious missing Gourmet India of Comm Ave.

TURKEY DAY

Hey, I hope everyone had a great Turkey Day! Tom headed off to NY the day before T-Day, but my sister and aunt came into town to spend the holiday over at Cindy's house. All together we had 8 people. I was in charge of dessert, but somehow, I always end up making more stuff.

I figured since I was only making dessert, I was gonna do it all from scratch. So using my Martha Stewart Baking Handbook, I decided to make a classic apple pie and a pumpkin pie. I made the crust a couple of days before and froze them and then I got started on making my pumpkin puree for the pumpkin pie. Here's my pretty sugar pumpkin that I got at Monterey Market (which I'll write about in a later post)

It was really easy preparing this guy. I just cut him in half, cleaned out his insides and roasted him for like an hour. Then I just pureed everything. I did this the day before Turkey Day, and also prepped a few other things before the big day.

So when the big day arrived, I was preparing all my stuff. I decided to make a salad with roasted beets, oranges, avocados, toasted pine nuts and a citrus dressing that I got from my Chez Panisse cookbook. Since I had extra pumpkin puree, I also made a pumpkin and sweet potato puree and topped them with homemade candied pecans. Oh, I also made a batch of chocolate chip cookies, cause more cousins were arriving the next day. And of course, I had my pumpkin and apple pies. I really spent the entire morning cooking. So as I'm getting all ready to cook, I find out that my oven's out and it smells like gas.

So I had to wait for my cousin to arrive to figure out what was wrong (the pilot was out). He lit it, then turned it off to show me how to do it in the future. He left and I get back ready to cook and find out, the oven's out again. I didn't have matches, so after a trip to get some, the oven was back on and I was ready to cook. (of course this all happens on Thanksgiving).

I got the pumpkin pie cooking and had the apple pie in the oven when I had to leave and pick up my sister at the airport. The apple pie came out half cooked. And ended up finishing it while we ate dinner. Here's a pic of all the food:

And my apple pie, which came out beautifully (you go Martha). I served it with a side of fresh organic whipped cream. (I like that you can find that kind of stuff here).

Overall, Thanksgiving was quite yummy. I was stuffed and hauled my very full tummy home to sleep it all off.

ANOTHER LOCAL BREAKFAST PLACE

Yes, we found yet another breakfast place to visit. This one, Raphael's, is really close- literally 2 blocks from the house. So one morning, we figured we'd give it a try. It's pretty small, just one cook and one waitress, and it's got a very basic menu. Here's Tom drinking his coffee.

And here's a shot of the interior. Kind of diner-y.

I ended up ordering an omellette with chicken apple sausage and cheddar cheese. Fere you see it below. It wasn't so great. The eggs were a little too runny, and it was odd having chunk of chicken apple sausage just cut up and thrown in. I could've made a better omelette at home (if only I weren't so lazy)

But Tom had blueberry pancakes, and he actually liked them a lot. I know he still hasn't tried the pancakes at Bette's Oceanview Diner, which I think are great, but he'd rather walk the 2 blocks and get pancakes immediately. Me, I'd be willing to wait the half hour for Bette's pancakes. But if we're in a pinch and it's too late to go to Fat Apple's, I'm sure you'll find us here again.