We went to check out
La Boheme last night, partly as research for you know what. Consensus: the food's good, the service is lovely, and the place is gorgeous, but I can't recommend it for a regular evening out because it's terribly overpriced. Everything we had was $18-26, even the appetizers.
Tuna Tataki was perhaps everyone's favorite. The tuna is in both diced pieces and larger slices, and the avocadoes and shredded vegetables add a nice textural contrast. The wasabi aioli gives the dish a definite Japanese flare.
Seared foie gras was a disappointment. It was overcooked, so the texture and flavor became too livery. However, the portion was generous. Kitchen mistake, or overcooking to hide sub par product? I just don't know.
Seared snapper. This was the night's other winner. A big, thick slice of fresh fish with a crispy crust on a bed of mashed potatoes. Nothing new, but very well done.
Lobster risotto. Good, but not any better than I could make myself at home. It was very obvious that this risotto was not cooked to order, but few restaurants do that anyway. And the peas were pretty uninspired.
La Boheme is a safe bet in a trendy neighborhood if money's no object. The food is solid, just not different. This would be a good place to take someone from out of town, someone you need to impress, or to go when you're not paying.
I took advantage of the weather today and ran a few miles along the bluffs overlooking the Pacific. In this photo, I would be running along where the palm trees are. To get to the beach, I'd have to take a long set of stairs down the cliffside and cross a highway. I like the view from the cliffs and the shaded dirt path, plus there's no sand blowing around, so I don't bother going down to the beach. And to make it a very healthy day indeed, a balanced dinner! The cooking slump is coming to an end.
Tonight we had daikon kimchi, garlic stir fried spinach, and a stir fry of cuttlefish, carrots, and sugar snap peas with black pepper sauce. The strawberries I found at the farmers' market and had to have. How often does one find sweet, fragrant strawberries in February?
J's lunch tomorrow is a tower of ham, cheese, and greens. It's not gourmet, but he does enjoy a tall sandwich.
Okra, andouille sausage, and chicken probably don't make an appearance together in too many dishes. Combinations of two of the three are common in Cajun cuisine, but all three? Not as often. I can't take credit for the gumbo because J is the resident Gumbo King. I do the chopping, and he makes the super dark roux and works his magic.
We shared the crab melt sandwich, possibly the fanciest thing on the menu aside from the crab benedict. The waitress assured me they use fresh Dungeness. I don't know if it was super fresh or frozen, but it was definitely good quality crab with large chunks of meat. Delicious, and she even split our sandwich and sides onto two plates without our asking. I like eating lunch with other girls. It's easy to share, and by sharing we have enough room left for dessert (in this case, Buttercake's red velvet cupcakes).
Food included a cold meats platter, cold seafood platter, braised beef, steamed beef, braised pork leg over green onions, creamy napa cabbage, fish cake soup, kimchi soup, glutinous rice with pork and mushrooms, Chinese mustard greens, seaweed, turnip cake, whole duck, and probably some other things I'm forgetting. That's me in my holiday red, discussing with my aunt where to start digging in. There's actually another table behind us in the other room filled with more food. We had some vegetarian sushi and such because Sandy brought friends who don't eat meat.
This is the dessert table. The princess cake I brought was very popular because no one had ever had princess cake before. The eight treasure rice, which Junei's mom made, was fantastic. Probably because she used lard in it. The new year's bread, sticky new year's cake, and fruity mango cake were all barely touched. Too much food!
Soon, I will crush you.
Sliced rib eye steak, blanched asparagus, and udon tossed in black pepper sauce.
My sister was talking about going to Clementine with her friend yesterday, so today I had the urge to stop in for breakfast. I got their homemade apricot yogurt, a raisin bran muffin (one of my favorite kinds of muffin), and a chewy caramel. Their homemade apricot yogurt confirms what I suspected after my own homemade yogurt attempts: homemade yogurt is watery, like gravy. Tasty, but more sipped through a straw than eaten with a spoon. 
The same sister found dark chocolate Kit Kats for me in Little Tokyo. Interesting, no?
The dumplings are just part of the usual batch of dumplings I make and freeze every few months. I took pork and chicken stock, cooked the dumplings with a few slices of ginger, and then added sliced green onions, baby bok choy, and napa cabbage when the dumplings were about halfway done cooking. You could add the vegetables with the dumplings if you like them softer. Noodles, other vegetables, a sliced up egg crepe, or some hot sauce would also be good additions.
Cooking geoducl is fairly easy. I killed it by slicing the meat away from the shells and removing the whole clam. Running it under hot water for a minute releases the tough outer skin very easily.
The whole thing is sliced thinly, then either blanched or stir fried in oil, and served with green onion slivers and soy sauce paste or oyster sauce. It's crunchy, light, and just a little fishy.
Also, we had record highs this weekend. I kid you not, it was close to 90 degrees in February, before noon. Ice cream vendors must love all this global warming.
I finished my sock last night. Thank goodness for small projects on not too skinny yarn. Unfortunately, my feet are wider than average so that pattern I used made a sock slightly too small for me. I'm going to play the Cinderella game at family dinner tonight. If the sock fits, you get both!
This huge tray of sushi (20 pieces of nigiri plus a spicy tuna roll) was $25. This isn't the kind of place where people ooh and ah over the pure simplicity of an exquisite slice of sashimi--it's the kind of place where you get colorful sushi rolls with crazy names, or party platters for a drunken crowd. 
The curry udon wasn't quite as great a value, but it was really tasty and I often like something hot to go with all my cold fish.
And look. two-thirds of a psychedelic sock. I sure hope it's wide enough for an adult foot.
I love knitting with alpaca. In addition to coming from 
This is the inspiration, as shown off by a well put together size 0 model. Mine will look closer after I wash and shape it so the bottom doesn't curl up and the whole thing won't look so bumpy. I'll take a better photo when that's all done. For now, I just want to roll up in it.
So, when asked what I wanted for dinner tonight, I said burritos. We drove to the place down the street but they close at night so we drove down to Olympic and Sepulveda and gave California Mexican Grill a try. I gotta say, good find. Solid food, decent prices, big portions. The steak enchiladas came with rice and beans.
The steak burrito in a grilled tortilla was the winner for me. The toasty tortilla smelled so good on the car ride home! The steak is charred around the edges, very smokey, and tender. Sorry, I forgot to take a photo of the inside.
I tried to make mocha cookies like the ones I love at 
Here's an unusual workout photo too. Today I'm reminding everyone that stretching is important! I've always been able to touch my toes because, let's face it, I have short legs. But now I'm past the palms touching floor stage and trying to get my elbows to touch the ground..
The cake itself was great too. Light, fluffy whipped cream that's just barely sweetened, a fruity jam layer, and very thin marzipan that's fresh and not grainy. The jam could have been just a touch more tart, but that's a very picky comment.
Their napoleon, by comparison, was kind of bland and buttery tasting. Stick to the princess cake, folks. B&L is also the only place I can remember decorating and puting fresh fruit on their single slices of cake, which is a really nice touch. And, best of all, sheet cake versions aren't expensive!
I also bought a slice from Viktor Bene's inside the Century City mall. For being half a mile from me, this was pretty darned tasty. The jam was super tart, and they use a light custard mixed in with their whipped cream, which I like. The slice was smaller and the same price as B&L's though, and their whole cakes are not as pretty and are kind of a scarily dark shade of green. So you know who wins, but Viktor Bene's is still delicious. I think it was $4-5 a slice.
