SMALL BITES

Here's a collection of small bites that I didn't feel needed their own individual posts.

The first was a visit to a new cafe that's opened near our home called Cafe St. Honore. We had walked and driven by it several times, and I noticed that it served breakfast, so one morning we decided to go check it out. Armed with a newspaper, we were hoping to find a cute French style cafe, hopefully serving some nice homemade pastries and baguettes.

We did find a cute cafe, though the very white interior feels a bit sterile. Unfortunately, we didn't find anything homemade. I don't think the place has a kitchen, and it was very clear to me that they had purchased all their pastries (basically croissants and chocolate croissants) premade by someone else. The "breakfast menu" was quite short - it was basically a selection of the aforementioned pastries and a few baguette selections. Tom ended up getting a baguette with butter and coffee. Since I'm currently off the coffee, I got a baguette with poached eggs. Here it is below:

Yeah, I know. It's not pretty. I confirmed that they didn't have a kitchen when I saw our server cooking the poacked eggs in a pot on a hot plate behind the counter. It ended up being pretty overcooked. The baguette was really the worst part - it was leaden, so dense, not airy at all and none of the crunchy outside. I had Tom finish it off for me. And it made me sad knowing that Cafe Fanny was just a few blocks down the street. (We also wondered why they didn't just buy their baguettes from Acme Breads since it's located next door to Cafe Fanny.)

I'm not saying this place was horrible. The service was very friendly. It's open late and they offer free wi-fi. However, it isn't the place for breakfast, nor for baguettes.

Next up was our visit to the Asian Pearl Restaurant located inside the Pacific East Mall. We have visited most of the restaurants at the Pacific East Mall, but this is one of the largest one that we had not yet visted. One of the reasons we hadn't visited was because this place is really more well known for its dim sum, but since they start later in the morning, (I think around 10:30) we've eaten breakfast by then.

So one evening we couldn't decide where we wanted to have dinner at the Pacific East Mall and decided to give Asian Peal a try. It's a much larger, nicer restaurant than the rest of the places at the mall. (it actually had tablecloths). Because it's a large restaurant, it looked pretty empty when we entered, though there were other people eating there.

We ended up ordering three dishes (though only 2 are pictured). Tom got his usual salt and pepper shrimp and we got a cold tofu salad.

I liked the tofu salad, and the salt and pepper shrimp were pretty good. The dish that I ordered that isn't pictured is a clay pot with chicken and tofu. It was actually pretty awful. The sauce was really gloopy and not too flavorful. I ended up eating the tofu in the pot and left the rest there.

However, the food wasn't our issue here. It was really the service. They took forever to allow us to order and after they delivered the food, they basically ignored us. Though we asked for our check, they never brought it, and Tom finally went up to the front to pay (which he also had to wait to do.) Tom ended up leaving a tiny tip, which is really unusual for him, but that just shows how bad we thought this place was.

The funny thing is that Tom ended up going back there the next day for dim sum with his friends. But I don't think we'll be returning there again.

Bite #3, Superbowl Sunday. For Superbowl, we spent the afternoon at my friend, Kim's, house. We all made stuff and kind did a weird combination of foods for Superbowl. Starting in back, you'll see a bowl of hummus with veggies. Next is homemade nacho cheese with tortilla chips, I made my own homemade chicken pate (so much easier and cheaper than you could ever imagine, and totally tasty) with cheese from Cowgirl Creamery, Tom insisted on getting KFC, Kim also made some small snacks, including Totino's pizza rolls, and these chicken patties with cheese that were fried. Not surprisingly, we all stuffed ourselves. And we even watched a bit of the actual game.

And the very last bite - pizza at Cheeseboard. I actually have had Cheeseboard pizza before, but I've never actually had it at Cheeseboard - they have some pretty weird hours, so I've never really made it there while they're open (or I refuse to wait in the long line). Lately though, I've had Tuesdays off from work, and since we were able to snag a parking space right in front, we decided to drop in to get a couple slices and visited next door to get some cheese.

I will admit that the pizza is much better out of a pizza oven than a regular over. I still don't think that Cheeseboard pizza is as amazing as people claim, but I will say, the experience it having it there is much better than having it elsewhere. I'm sure we'll be back again soon.