Saving the best for last... A and I had our last supper at Aioli Bodega Espanola in Davis, a.k.a. the tapas and sangria place in Davis, California. We ordered a decanter of sangria to start with. Generally, they have a very extensive tapas menu. If it's your first time, it may take you an extra moment to take it all in and decide which dish(es) you will try. And you will definitely want to return to try something different.
We ordered three dishes: (Unfortunately, I can't tell you exactly what dishes we ordered--but I can describe them to you.) Shrimp with jalapenos and cilantro, Lamb with pearl onions, vinegar dates sauce (sounds as good as it tastes), and of course, we had to have an order of paella. Everything was so good. And yes, the two of us finished with the sangria!My favorite dish of the three may be the lamb with the dates, because it wasn't what I expected. The sauce was a lil sweet (of course, with all the dates cooked in to it), but it had a lil spice if I remember.
And we always have to leave room for dessert! We passed on the dessert that they had to offer at the restaurant. And instead, enjoyed (decaf--yes, Jackie actually had decaf coffee) coffee and cakes at Ciocolat in Davis. I believe A ordered the Chocolate Decadence cake--which is not just mousse on cake--it's the most heavenly chocolate cake I've ever had, and I ordered the something with fruit in it. I've broke and decided to look it up--I believe it was the Tropical Mousse cake which has passion fruit coconut mousee on top of a white cake (unfortunately, both these desserts are not pictured.) We joked about the chocolate mousse on top of a chocolate espresso cake--that I was getting the caffeine that wasn't in my coffee out of the cake. Funny how it turned out that I liked A's cake more, and she mine;o)
It was a lovely evening! Feel free to comment or suggest on the last lovely evening you enjoyed.
Yay for tapas, sangria, and chocolate decadence!!
First stamp in the passport... but not my first time out of the country:o) hahaha... Even if I was only there for 2 nights and 1 1/2 days, here it is:
On our second night/our first real night in Out in Vancouver, I decided we try the restaurant my sister recommended... It's called Coast Restaurant (1054 Alberni St, near Robson St)--the ultimate of seafood restaurants. They even have sushi on the menu! Apparently, the fish and chips are to die for in Vancouver/British Columbia. But I chose to go with the fish that doesn't get much love--the Arctic char. Wikipedia tells me it's commonly comparable to salmon and trout. It's a meatier salmon--if you've ever heard me describe it. Po ordered a big o bowl of mussels. I'd have to ask her what was in it because I don't remember. What I did find interesting was that both my fish and the steak were served with this curiously large tomatoes (see top left photo). They were really good tomatoes--sweet and tangy. As I reflect on it now, it disturbs me a little because it doesn't show much creativity in the taste/seasonings department.
The next morning, even though we didn't get the chance to enjoy the patio seating--we had breakfast at the Bellaggio Cafe, it's across the street from Vancouver Art Museum. I don't know about you but there is something about high ceilings that really open up the room. Despite the fact that I was sitting up in the corner up to the window, it didn't feel too crowded. If you're wondering what that monstrosity of a breakfast dish is at the top center... well, I'm gonna tell ya: They call it Neptune's Benedict. It's a eggs benedict but instead of ham, they used smoked salmon. It was quite delicious.
More recently, I'd like to discuss the Crab Cake Benedict. Honestly, maybe it's always been around and I am just now noticing. O-M-I-G-O-D... whoever invented the Crab Cake benedict took two great things and put them together especially for brunch. Squat and Gobble (San Francisco) makes a filling, tasty Crab Cake Florentine--on the menu, it's listed as a benedict with hollandaise. But I could have sworn they did the hollandaise different than usual. Instead of light and buttery--it was more of a tangy and orangy color. The other can be found at Sacramento's Tower Cafe. The Crab Cake Benedict can only be found on the weekend Brunch menu. The crab cakes are made with both Dungeness crab and shrimp with an avocado spread and a bernaise sauce! There's a poached egg in there somewhere... And all these flavors just come together. There isn't a thing out of place in this medley. My only critique would be that they make their bernaise a bit lighter (than Squat and Gobble's) and it works otherwise I would think that the avocado spread is too much.
Websites to reference:
Vancouver, British Columbia
http://www.coastrestaurant.ca/
http://www.bellaggiocafe.com/
San Francisco, California
http://www.squatandgobble.com/
Sacramento, California
http://www.towercafe.com/
If you didn't drink and you were about to fast for the next 30 days, what would you do?? My friends and I went to get pizza and the best dessert in town.
Put on your list of Places to go in Sacramento:
Luigi's Slice (Midtown--J St)
Rick's Dessert Diner (voted one of Sacramento magazine's favorite dessert places)
I don't care what or who you believe, Luigi's slices of pizza are comparable to Blondie's Pizza (from the Bay Area). No... it's bigger--the slices I mean! I said comparable, not the same. And please don't ask why I thought I could have two slices. My first choice of slice was their veggie pizza. Two words: simply good. It had mushrooms, olives, green bell peppers, and onions. Then I had to go with the meat lover's slice--that put me over the top: pepperoni, sausage, salami, and turkey bacon.
THEN, we headed over to Rick's Dessert Diner. See picture for reference. Going from right to left: Strawberry Amaretto Poppyseed cake a la Mode, and the other, the Black and White cake, which is "Chocolate sour cream layers filled with vanilla Butter cream iced in chocolate ganache." Unfortunately you can't quite taste the amaretto in the cake. The poppyseed cake and the strawberry filling in between the layers of cake were enough taste to go around. The chocolate cake is a very balanced way to do a chocolate cake. You could tell that the cake had sour cream in it because it was so moist yet still somewhat denser than regular cake. The vanilla butter cream in between the layers keeps the dessert from being too chocolatey.
With my return to food blogging, I will spare you of my apologies and just get right to it. Cooking is like riding a bike, right? You never forget? But truth be told I haven't cooked in a while... More accurately, I haven't cooked anything new in a while. The good news is: I have had GREAT food while out and about. So, in my return, I will be telling you all about where I've been and what I've eaten this summer. Please feel free to comment and share your own summer stories.
1st STOP: SF Outside Lands Festival--where there's not only music, but also a sampling of food from some great San Francisco restaurants, AND this place they call the Winehaven!
I have a secret love for Southern comfort foods--such as fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, collard greens, and occasionally some fried catfish. The Chef recommended Farmer Brown's to me. It appears a little more upscale than your usual greasy spoon--course I'm only going by the photos I saw on the website. I have yet to experience the restaurant, but I got a taste at the festival.
To explain the photo I was trying to create (top photo): It's supposed to be symbolic of my choice between two things that I long for... New Orleans cuisine (because I'm always searching for ways to improve my gumbo and I *heart* spicy foods) versus Southern food.
Like most people that are travelling in pairs... In the end, M and I decided to go half-sies on the two dishes: I went to get the Chicken and Sausage Jambalaya and M got the Fried Chicken and Mac and Cheese from Farmer Brown's. That's really the only way to go... if you want to taste everything!
My critique: Yat's Chicken and Sausage Jambalaya was good... spicy but that's how I like my jambalaya. It wasn't the sausage so I'm curious to what kinds of spices I can use to achieve that taste.
The fried chicken and macaroni and cheese from Farmer Brown's was good--it had a really clean and almost organic taste to it... Know what I mean?
Last but not least, I NEED to tell you about the organic S'mores I had (see picture above). If you don't know what an organic s'more is... well, lemme tell ya. Start with an organic graham cracker, then stack bittersweet chocolate and homemade marshmallow. It's from this company called Charles Chocolates, and I'm not sure if you'll be able to get this particular product from a store, but you can order it from their online store on their website: http://www.charleschocolates.com
So... I'm taking yet another page out of my childhood in making this dish. My mom used to buy this curry mix... It's very specific--House brand Vermont Curry Sauce mix. They make a variety of spiciness--I chose "Medium Hot" for this dish. Also note, this curry does not have coconut milk in it.
Basically, I just used the recipe off the box, and added a couple more veggies. I used beef chuck for the cut of meat--it came out a lil chewy for the type of curry stew I wanted. Maybe I'll try brisket next time... mmm... sounds yummy.
Beef Curry
1 (4.4 oz.) box of House Vermont Curry Sauce mix
1 1/4 lb. beef chuck, cubed
1/2 onion, cubed
1 large potato, cubed
3 stalks of celery, sliced
1 carrot, sliced
Brown onions, celery, and carrots with a little bit of butter. Add meat and potatoes to the saucepan until lightly browned. Add 3 1/2 cups water and bring to full boil. REmove from heat. Break curry sauce mix into pieces and add to saucepan. Cook over low heat about 20 minutes or until curry thickens. Serve over cooked rice (or pasta).
The weather was getting warmer so I had to make something lighter. You don't feel like eating pasta with cream sauces when it's 90 to 100 degrees outside. With that in mind, I knew I wanted pasta and shrimp. I took a shrimp recipe and experimented with this glaze idea, when I decided to make shrimp with a glaze and put it over linguine pasta. Yay for new ingredients! Today's secret ingredient was: Adobo sauce... I also used some dry chipotles in this recipe. Adding some spice in my life!
Pan Seared Shrimp w/Chipotle-Lime Glaze
2 lbs shrimp, peeled and deveined
salt and pepper
1/8 tsp sugar
2 tbsp vegetable oil
Chipotle-Lime Glaze (Combine before Step 3)
2 tbsp fresh lime juice
2 tbsp chopped cilantro
1 minced chipotle chile in adobo sauce
4 tsp brown sugar
2 tsp adobo sauce
1. Pat shrimp dry with paper towels, then season with 1/4 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper and the sugar (regular). Heat 1 tbsp of the oil in a 12-inch nonstick skillet over high heat until smoking. Add half of the shrimp to the pan in a single layer. Cook until the shrimp are curled an pink on both sides, about 2 minutes.
2. Transfer the shrimp to a bowl and cover with foil. Repeat with the remaining 1 tbsp oil and shrimp.
3. Off the heat, return all of the shrimp to the warm skillet, add the chipotle mixture and toss to combine. Serve over pasta or rice.
Notes: I'm going to have to think of some way of making that sauce thicker--that w0uld make it taste better when pouring over the pasta. It may have been the Adobo Sauce I chose to use--It was adobo paste and I should have worked on that sauce a little more before adding it to the other glaze ingredients. Next time! Live and learn!
I can NOT for the life of me remember where I found this recipe. But whenever I'm home and I got a cravin for Apple-cinnamon pancakes... I tend to look for a new recipe to try. I've tried it with oatmeal... I've tried it with Bisquick ("instant" pancake mix)... and then... I came across this recipe, which of course, had a picture of the pancakes. Now, how cool is it that this has HUGE slices of apple in it. Check it out!
Apple-Cinnamon Pancakes (version 3)
2 Granny Smith apples (I used Golden Delicious--which worked just as well)
2 tbsp. ground cinnamon
2 eggs
2 cups of flour
2 1/2 cups of milk
1 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. granulated sugar
4 tsp. baking powder
Peel and core the apples. Slice thinly (They can be moon shaped, but what I did was I cored the apple and sliced it horizontally.) Toss with the cinnamon. In a (separate) mixing bowl, mix together the remaining ingredients. Ladle the batter into a pan with oil, then place the sliced cinnamon-apple in the center of the pancake batter. Carefully turn over and cook until both sides are golden brown.
What are the other two versions of apple-cinnamon pancakes that I like? (you ask?) Well, I don't like to share ALL my secrets... but here's a couple other recipes you can try on the same day or another day.
Apple-Cinnamon Pancakes (version 2)
2 cups milk
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
2 eggs
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
dash of salt (optional)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/3 cups veggie oil
2 tbsp honey
1/2 cup unpeeled apple, chopped fine
Pour milk over oats and let stand for about 10 minutes. Stir in eggs. Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon and add to the oats, mild and egg mixture. Stir in oil, honey and apples.
Quick note on the apples--I don't remember if I left them unpeeled... Sometimes what I like to do is "roughly peel the apple"--meaning leave some peel on there but peel off some of the peel. (Just because the thought of leaving those apples unpeeled totally doesn't sound that appealing to me.) OH! And I almost forgot! I cheated jus a lil maybe... I used INSTANT (Quaker) Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal--yum-O! I think it jus adds to it... If you're worried about the extra sugar, I guess you could always cut back on the... honey? (haha... I also jus noticed that this recipe doesn't add sugar--very healthy, don't you think?)
Apple-Cinnamon Pancakes (version 1)
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tbsp baking powder
3 tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 cups milk
1 whole egg
1 egg white
3 tbsp oil
1 apple, finely chopped
Combine milk, egg, egg white, and oil. Mix dry ingredients. Add combined liquids. Stir in apple. Cook on griddle.
Hahahaha... I copied this recipe verbatim... I think. It's a basic apple-cinnamon recipe... for those of you too afraid of the above recipes--here's something a bit simpler.
