Christmas Eve Dinner...

(disclaimer: there was much more food than what i photographed, but i was too busy eating to take a photograph)

I celebrated Christmas with my parents for the first time in 4 years...we decided to do alittle potluck on Christmas Eve with a few family friends.

I decided to tackle my first prime rib :) With the help of my dear chef friend mLee, i obtained a recipe and an idea of what i wanted to do...get a bone-in prime rib roast, make a good rub of garlic, rosemary, and olive oil...I tried to capture the process i took in making it, but as you will see below, i did not do a great job in getting my camera out.


The 8 lb standing rib roast


The spices used for the rub


Fresh out of the oven, with a bulb of roasted garlic on the side


moose cookies that my friend made...they're like rockyroad ice cream put into a cookie. quite delicious (i'm eating one as we speak)


The gingerbread house (from a kit) that a few of the girls made.


The yule log cake that we had for dessert...unfortunately looked better than it tasted..

Homemade Pumpkin Pie

My sis made some delicious pumpkin pie (as reference on cathalinaK). she made the crust from scratch..and then mixed the pumpkin mixture. it turned out pretty well.

here are some photos of the process.


pouring the batter into the pie crust...


after the filling was poured into the crust...


after coming out from the oven..notice the crater...anyone know why?


first slice of yumminess.

Our Food System...

I came across this video...an interview with Michael Pollan..who is a writer..and has a very unique view on our food policy as a nation..

I'm currently reading through his book "Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals" (thanks to Peter)...

Take a look at the interview here. You can read the transcript here.

He talks about how our food policy affects our health care crisis...how the food system affects our energy independence...moving school lunch to department of education...

one of my favorite parts:
"Cook. Simply by starting to cook again, you declare your independence from the culture of fast food. As soon as you cook, you start thinking about ingredients. You start thinking about plants and animals, and not the microwave. And you will find that your diet, just by that one simple act, that is greatly improved. You will find that you are supporting local agriculture, because you'll care about the quality of ingredients. And you know, whether you're cooking or not is one of the best predictors for a healthy diet. It's more important than the class predictor. People with more money generally have healthier diets, but affluent people who don't cook are not as healthy in their eating as poor people who still cook. So, very, very important. If you don't have pots and pans, get them."

E'Tutto Qua

270 Columbus Ave * San Francisco, CA

This past Friday went out with a group of friends for a night out on the town...decided to give E'Tutto Qua a try before hitting up Bubble Lounge (sorry! no pictures, no post) Our reservations were for 7:30, but at 7:15 our friends called to say that they were stuck in traffic by SFO. So i called the restaurant and asked if we could push our reservations back and the maitreD was very nice about it. good thing we pushed back our reservations, it took us a good half hour to find parking :( no fun...

The food was delicious here with homemade noodles, lotsa italian accents all around, and a great atmosphere!


(debuting my new logo!)

elbow pasta with Italian Sausage & Mushrooms in cream sauce


Spaghetti Neri Squid Ink pasta with Seafood


Swordfish Pasta Special


tonnarelli di mare Homemade Spaghetti noodles with seafood


Scallop Pasta Special


Shells from our delicious meals

There were too many dishes to write a lil blurb about each. I didn't get to try all of them, but the reaction from the rest of my party indicated that the dishes were all good.

Paws: 4.5

Bouchon

at the Venetian
3355 Las Vegas Blvd S * Las Vegas, NV

Was in Vegas a few weeks ago with Ed and took him to Bouchon to celebrate his birthday. Now, if you don't know what Bouchon is...it's Thomas Keller's (French Laundry) Las Vegas bistro. I was expecting to be wow'd, which i can't say i was completely wow'd. The food was executed very well, however, I was not a big fan of all the flavors.

They brought us some delicious bread and butter, i love this kind of fresh, fragrant butter. Along with the bread they brought out some pistachios, i've never seen this before, but it was greatly welcomed!





To start off we had some appetizers...


Rillettes aux Deux Saumons
fresh & smoked salmon rillettes served with toasted croutons

This was a good appetizer, recommended by our waiter; Ed was a bit skeptical b/c there are minced shallots in it, but it came out pretty good, no strong onion-y taste. The salmon is preserved in a little jar with a later of solidified butter on top (see below). The croutons were a perfect accompaniment to the salty salmon. They were nice enough to give us extra croutons.


See that layer of fat that he's scooping out??


Soupe du Jour: Butternut Squash Bisque
Butternut squash bisque with a drizzle of oil and some currant compote

I really enjoyed this soup, it was nice and creamy, and the currant gave it a nice kick to freshen it up. The bread was a great dipper for this soup.

To the main entree


Bay Scallops Special
Scallops on a bed of brussel sprout leaves and chicken of the woods mushroom with a balsalmic/shallots reduction sauce

The scallops were cooked really well, to the perfect temperature and texture. I wasn't a big fan of the mushrooms, but they were something new and interesting. The sauce was good, but alittle too tart for me.
This dish also comes with a roasted shallot, but due to someone's dislike of all things onion, they kindly didn't plate it.


Poulet Roti
roasted chicken with puff pastry tartelette, ratatouille, garlic chips & chicken jus

The chicken was again executed very well, moist throughout. The puff pastry surprising held up under the mass of wet sauciness. I found that I am not a fan of the flavors in ratatouille. I was quite full after eating this.

Overall, i think this was a good place to go to for getting my feet wet into Keller's cuisine, definately a lot easier on my wallet than French Laundry. The food was fresh and well executed, and i think my taste palette is just not developed enough for French food.

Paws: 4 (bc my expectations were too high)

New post on the way....

with reviews of my Vegas trip eats...

Sticky Rice...

for our International Potluck

I made this for a potluck at work. I adapted ChezChristine's recipe

What's inside?


After mixing in the mixture to the rice...


all done!


If you tasted it..let me know what you think

Katy's Travel Adventures

Back in August, we had a little get together for our dear friend KTD, whose getting married in alil over a week!! Her family/bridesmaids put together this amazzing spread of international foods, for our world traveller. I took a few pictures of what was offered. They did sucha good job


Tri-Tip Salad (San Luis Obispo, CA)


Paninis (Florence, Italy)


Lamb Shawarma (New York City, NY)


Haupia (Honolulu, HI)

Assortment of Drinks

Pomegranate Green Tea (CA)


Green Tea (Japan)


White Wine Sangria (Spain)

Sporq

Found myself another new site.

Sporq



It is a site that has menus of restaurants from around the area. This is helpful especially when you're ordering out or deciding if you would like to try a particular restaurant.

It's nice for me, because I like to have an idea of what I want to eat before I go. b/c otherwise I take forEVERR to order.

Blowfish Sushi to Die For

2170 Byrant St * San Francisco, CA

Ed took me here for a celebratory dinner to congratulate me on passing my exam. We got here early, which was good, because apparently our reservations was not found in their system. It's an unassuming place in a not-so-great neighborhood. (I've come to the conclusion that all the good restaurants are in not-so-great neighborhoods) The atmosphere was definitely different for a japanese restaurant.

It was a fairly quick meal, I think we were done in under half hour? Overall, the food was at par. A little pricey for the amount of food. quality was good. However, I still have my preferred sushi places.


Seabass Broiled sea bass in a sweet vinegrette soy sauce with zuchinni-squash medley, mashed yams, and string beans

The photo was not that great, but the food was pretty good. though the portions were not great. the fish was cooked to a good temperature. i enjoyed the sauce that they used to glaze the sea bass. The zuchinni squash "cake" (see photo below) was pretty well done, interestingly it had some cheese to bind it together. The other sides were nothing special



Sashimi Baby Hamachi and Tuna
Isn't it interesting how when you take the photo from this again it doesn't look as appealing. It rubs me the wrong way when I look at a picture taken from this angle. The fish was fresh, portions were small. I don't mind thin and small cut fish, but a few more slices wouldn't have been a bad thing...


Miso Soup with LOTS and LOTS of green onions

Overall, this place was interesting with good food. Unfortunately, it did not meet my high expectations.

Paws: 3

EastCoast WestCoast Family BBQ

A few weeks back, my cousin Felicia invited us all over to her apartment for an EastCoast WestCoast family bbq. We had family in town from both sides of the States, hence the name.

She marinated some meat, fired up the grill and we started chowing down.


Food on the Grill
Here's just a snipbit of the food that we had that day. Some drumsticks, hot dogs, carne asada..


Seasonings
Some grill side seasonings


ChauMian yes, i put chauMian instead of ChowMien bc i'm mandarin speaking.
The noodles were made for my grandma who isn't so keen on the bbq meats


Grandma!
Speaking of grandma, she was so happy and proud of my cousin. no one had ever had my cousin's "cooking" up until this day :)


Strawberries
Some fresh strawberries that one of the aunties brought




Alchie
And of course, no meal with my family is complete without some alcohol involved..We had our assortment of wines. there was one can of beer, that no one touched.


It was a fun time. great sunny afternoon. got to meet some new extended family members. Also got to see this little one again.

Ella's Restaurant

500 Presidio Ave * San Francisco, CA

We had been eyeing this breakfast joint for a while. decided that we would go on a breakfast date. Unfortunately, they only serve brunch on weekends, so the menu was not quite what we were hoping for. The food was pretty good. The restaurant was packed with people. We were able to get an upfront view of the chefs preparing all the food that went into our dishes and other dishes as well.


Chicken Hash
Shredded chicken mixed with potatoes and spices. two eggs. toast

We both ordered the Chicken Hash, only difference was how we had the eggs cooked. I found that the hash needed something extra to kind of give it alittle life. for me that was tabasco and some ketchup. The hash had some good size strips of rotesserie chicken with nice chunks of seasoned boiled potatoes. The jam that they had at the table was quite delicious and went perfectly with the toast.

We both had leftovers of the hash, it doesn't look that big but the potato fills you up. It was quite tasty when we reheated it.

paws: 3.5

SFO Marriott

1800 Old Bayshore Highway * Burlingame, CA

So, after a week of training and meetings at the SFO Marriott, i decided to talk about the food per a suggestion from my co-worker. The photos are not going to be great b/c they were taken on by phone, but they'll have to do.

I only captured two meals, but overall, the food was pretty good for hotel catered to 150+ people. the only exception would be the sandwiches, they could have been a bit more interesting. each day was a diff't theme buffet for lunch; breakfast was consistently your typical continental; the one night we had dinner was a pretty good variety...

Italian-Themed Lunch
On the second day, there was an Italian themed lunch with tomato/mozerrela salad, pasta, roasted veggies...


papa al pomodoro soup
creamy tomato based soup with a wheat ciabatta roll

This was a highlight of the week. well seasoned. good consistency. a friend of mine said "I'd totally pay $41 for another bowl of soup."



cappuccino bandecake
Cappuccino mousse on chocolate cake

This was interesting...from the picture it doesn't look very appetizing. even as we were trying this it didn't look appetizing. but it was surprisingly decent. the mousse was a pretty strong espresso taste. i liked the consistency of the cake.

Asian-Themed Lunch

Paul's Gourmet Chinese Plate
Chicken Potstickers, Veggie Eggroll, beef with peppers in a black bean sauce, Jasmine Rice, Lychee from Asian Fruit Salad

As the meals were all setup buffet style, Paul's plate was able to showcase almost all of the items served that day for lunch. The potstickers tasted like linglings from costco to me, the skin was alittle bit too hard| eggrolls were pretty good. however based on talking to others, it seems like they may have been inconsistent. some found it to be too salty, while others did not | black bean beef was also alittle inconsistent in terms of the degree of cooked-ness of the meat. however, i thought for a catered event and the amount of food in each tray, there was a consistent flavor and the bell peppers were good | Jasmine rice is rice, nothing special |the asian fruit salad was interesting, it had lychee, pineapple, melon, strawberry in a mint marinade.


Overall, I thought the food was better than some of the other hotel-banquet/catered events I had been to...though still not the best food I've ever had...

(if you were there, i would love to hear your feedback..on the food)

paws: 3