Treats from Lalaland

We took a very last minute trip to LA last weekend, and of course came home with some treats.


This Taiwanese street food directly translates as "bowl cake." You can tell why. The flavor and texture is sort of like daikon cake, which is usually served in pan fried squares at dim sum restaurants here. However, a bowl cake has a slightly more sticky texture. On the whole I prefer daikon cake, but anything drenched in garlicky soy sauce is usually a winner in my book.

This is a shot of a slice of pudding bread from JJ Bakery. A lot of Chinese bakeries are similar, but I like JJ not only for the quality of their goods but their regular addition of new items to their shelves. It takes dedication to not just coast on your laurels, and I appreciate the effort. Pudding cake is a cylinder of fluffy bread with a flan-like center. Imagine a giant egg custard tart with bread instead of pastry dough. The whole thing was bigger than my palm, making it plenty for breakfast or sharing.

Shrimp Handrolls

This is the easiest Japanese-inspired food I know how to make, and it's great when it's warm enough to eat get away with not eating a hot meal.



For two people, I used the following:

-Half a pound of large shrimp; peeled, coarsely chopped, and blanched
-2-3 heaping tablespoons of mayonnaise
-1/8 cup masago, give or take depending on your preference
-1 package horseradish sprouts. You can find them in most Asian markets, in a plastic box with the roots still growing out of a white sponge.
-1 package large squares of nori.
-cooled sushi rice made with one cup of rice, one tablespoon of rice vinegar, a 1/2 teaspoon of sugar, and however much water you usually use to make regular rice.

Combine the shrimp, mayonnaise, and masago. Use half the mayo at first, then add if you think the filling needs to be more moist. That's it! End of recipe.

Assemble the handrolls as pictured above. You'll have to fold the squares of nori in half and break them unless you want monster sized handrolls. Roll into a cone and enjoy! The recipe makes enough for 10-12 handrolls, depending how big you roll them. I forgot to add any wasabi or soy sauce, but you can certainly make a dip to give your meal a kick.

Lunch for a Sunny Afternoon

The weather this winter is really surprising me. In a good way!

To celebrate, I ate a peanut butter and avocado sandwich today and a big bowl of fruit: kumquats, strawberries, and peaches. It was deliciously happy making, even if I was pretty hungry by 3 o'clock snack time. Nex time, I'll have to make the sandwich bigger.

Burritos!

Tonight we had healthy burritos: fresh and tasty ingredients without any lard or too much fat of any kind. I seared up a skirt steak, roasted a pan of onions and three kinds of peppers, cooked and drained some white beans and then slightly mashed them with some salt and pepper, and added some chopped cilantro and red onion at the end. Really tasty, though I think some fresh salsa and/or lime juice would have really made the meal.

Surf Clam Salad

You know that funny little clam on the sashimi plate that no one likes? The one that looks more like a crab claw than a clam? Well, J loves them, and I hate to say they're growing on me as well. They're cheap, plentiful, and the kind that comes frozen in this box tastes better than at most restaurants. Today, I had an especially successful stint in the kitchen making this salad.

As usual, I didn't measure. However, this is roughly what I did for a nice big salad for two. It's enough to be the greens with our fish and rice tonight.

• 1 cup, packed, frozen surf clams. More is fine. Defrost the clams, slice them in half so you can wash the sand out of the inside, and then slice
• 1 large cucumber, peeled and sliced thinly
• 2 tablespoons dried shrimp, soaked, drained, and chopped
• 1/3 bunch cilantro, chopped
• 2 bundles vermicelli noodles, cooked, cooled, and chopped
• wasabi and soy sauce to taste

Toss the salad ingredients and top with the soy sauce immediately before serving to prevent everything from turning brown. Alternatively, we're going to make a Vietnamese fish sauce with the exact same salad next time. This is a great salad for the unseasonably warm weather we've been having!

Gallardo's

J's search for a great menudo in SF has finally come to an end. In celebration of a Monday away from the office, we went down to Folsom and 14th (near Rainbow Grocery) for a Mexican brunch.


The menudo was everything it should be: unctuous, deeply flavorful, and full of large tender chunks of all the right innards.

I opted for albondigas, a meatball soup with some potatoes and carrots. This is the kind of food anyone would like: big hearty meatballs with bits of rice floating in them, in a soothing hot soup. I also got a big cup of orange and carrot juice, made fresh to order.

Our food came with chili and oregano flakes, cilantro and onions, limes, and some big homemade tortillas. I really appreciated the use of homemade tortillas, because only homemade tortillas break down just enough to soak up the soup but not enough to become a soggy mess. Many on yelp claimed Gallardo's is the best place for Mexican soup in San Francisco, and so far I have no reason to disagree.

Playa Azul

Hungering for Baja style seafood like we can easily find in East LA, we ventured down to the Mission/Bernal Heights border last night to check out Playa Azul.

The margaritas were quite delicious, especially with our substitution of Herradura silver.

Raw oysters were a mixed bunch. At least three were slightly off, but the others were nice. Mild, sweet gulf oysters.

The seafood cocktail was pretty good, all things considered. I prefer fresh tomatoes to tomajo juice, but it is the dead of winter. There were plump scallops, shrimp, oysters, octopus, and shredded crab. I missed having fish in the cocktail, but enjoyed it overall.

The seafood nachos were a disappointment. Greasy processed cheese and an overdose of what I assume was Kraft Parmesan killed any flavor the seafood might have had. It wasn't inedible, it just ended up tasting bland and mildly cheesy.

The whole snapper was someone else's entree, but it looked great! She said it was a little overcooked, but good overall.

The octopus tostada was just right: simple, fresh, and tender. It's not my favorite kind of food (I needed more salt and lime), but J liked it a lot.

Two squares done!

Wow, what a day. I started a really intense quilt pattern today (for me, at least). You can see others' finished versions here and here.


First, I cut my fabric into big rectangles. Then, I cut out the pattern and laid it out so that all the pieces would fit on the rectangle. I then layered the rectangles so I could cut a bunch of layers at once.

My photos are missing a step, but what happens is that the fabric is stacked in alternating layers of yellow and orange. When I'm done cutting, I lay out the pieces in the shape above. Then, I shuffle the top orange layer to the bottom on half of them, so that when the pieces are sewn together they'll create alternating boxes of yellow and orange.

I've only managed to cut the fabric for what will be twelve squares of Block 1. It'll take at least another day to sew twelve squares. Then I have to repeat for Block 2 and Block 2, sew and attach a back, quilt everything, and then bind a border around the whole thing. It's going to take me a month, if not longer! But watching it all come together is fascinating to me, and it keeps me out of trouble. Stay tuned!

Asuka Ramen

Asuka Ramen opened up a few months ago just two or three blocks from me, and I finally checked out out. I got the lunch special, which is a choice of ramen with a half order of fried rice for $10.31 after tax. Not bad for downtown SF, and definitely a shareable light lunch for two, even.


I chose the tonkatsu ramen and was not disappointed. The broth was deep and rich, though a little heavily salted for my taste (as is most ramen). The noodles could have been a bit firmer, but they were generous with both the pork and bamboo in the soup. The eggs were cooked so the yolks were just barely cooked through, which I love. I fear that this may have been a lucky fluke, since I don't see most corner ramen houses taking the care to perfectly soft-boil eggs for every dish.

The rice was a very generous bowl--much bigger than a typical rice bowl. Nicely flavored, with plenty of pork and eggs in it. I'm horrified to admit that I finished both the ramen and the rice because I'd just finished a two mile jog and a one mile cool down. Oh well.

I did manage to keep dinner light. We had rice, spinach, and this tasty pork bone soup with daikon and green onions. It was a very soupy day!

Red Box Sushi

Red Box Sushi is in the heart of the Tenderloin, steps away from Little Saigon behind a tiny, unassuming doorway. J found great reviews of this newish sushi bar and we had to stop in. Consensus: wow! We may actually have found high quality, affordable sushi in San Francisco.

The sashimi combo is why we came. $20 for about fifteen pieces of fish is unheard of in SF. Everything was fresh and tasty, even the mackerel which I usually don't like. I was impressed to see an amaebi (sweet shrimp) on the plate. Yum.

The maki rolls were about $9 each. Pretty standard pricing, but they were both good. The seaweed wrapped trio of fish eggs (named menage a trois) was particularly unique and tasty. The rolls weren't as impressive as that $20 plate, which would have been a great meal for two if paired with two bowls of rice and some soup or appetizers.

Drago Centro

We decided on Drago Centro, a shiny new restaurant in downtown Los Angeles, for New Year's Eve dinner with J's family. Boy, I wish we'd gone to Providence instead. Though I think Providence is a step below Bay Area restaurants which offer tasting menus, I have to say Drago thoroughly disappointed in its price point ($90 for six courses). Maybe it just reinforces the known fact that dining out on holidays is usually a bad idea. Or maybe Drago just needs to shape up.

I didn't even photograph the first course because I could not believe that a tablespoon of boiled lentils topped with a quarter slice of salami could be considered a first course. That's right. It wasn't even an amuse. It was a first course and they had the gall to serve a wine pairing with it.

The foie gras creme caramel was the only course that impressed me with its taste and creativity. I admit it was a little on the sweet side for a savory course. Some at the table said in a blind tasting they would have thought it was flan. But I thought it was pretty incredible that they could get foie gras to be so fluffy and smooth.

A few of the tasting menu courses came with options, and for the second course J got langostine sashimi instead of foie gras. This was a lovely dish. Not too creative but fresh and good.

Everyone had truffle ravioli next. It was fine, but there were no exceptional flavors or even a real punch of truffle. This is the kind of thing I enjoy at the other Drago restaurants, but as a hearty pasta meal. It's not really what I'm looking for in a tasting menu.

The next course was saffron risotto. Again, no distint saffron taste, and just awful presentation. I think our parents wanted to know why we were being served congee at a $90 meal. It was tasty enough, but it was a tiny portion of something that just showed no creativity whatsoever.

We were given choices of meat or fish for our fifth course. What kind of tasting menu doesn't offer you both meat AND fish? It's odd, no? Out of the three steaks at our table two were overcooked. The one that was cooked properly was delicious. The gnocchi were kind of rubbery. You can sense by this point that I was neither full nor particularly pleased with Drago.

John dory was very nice. No points taken off here.

Desserts were a little more interesting. The citrus choice was the winner, especially the lemon curd and the panna cotta. Too bad the panna cotta was about the size of a half dollar. The jelly shot with foam was sort of ambitious but went nowhere. I'm not sure if that description makes sense. It just looked like it was supposed to be very avant garde, but all it tasted like was sugary jelly.

The chocolate desserts were pretty bad overall. The mousse was middling, a little watery. The chocolate cake was flavorless. I'm not even sure what the white tube was supposed to be, but it tasted like rubber enclosed in plastic. I know, that's harsh. I usually find something nice to say about everything but the white tube was just awful. Whatever it was served on seemed like a mound of leftover cookie crumbles. Ick.

As you can tell, I would not recommend a trip to Drago. I did see a la carte dishes at other tables that looked good, so maybe it's just the tasting menu that falls flat. I simply didn't see the creativity and use of interesting ingredients that makes a tasting menu exciting. The servers also did not really explain what the dishes were. From what I could tell, that's because they weren't very interesting. Final gripe: the wine director and chef clearly did not communicate. How can you have a tasting menu, much less a New Year's Eve menu, that is entirely comprised of white wines? It unbalanced and disappointing. The server was kind enough to offer a pour of a red wine when we commented that there had been zero red poured that night, but c'mon. I know this has been a mean review. I just hate taking people to places that end up being really not worth it, especially when my group isn't familiar with a particular cuisine. I think everyone left with a very poor impression of both Italian cuisine and the idea of tasting menus. The idea was to show them that Italian food can be very high end, and that tasting menus are exciting and worth a long meal. Oops. Thanks a lot, Drago.

Banana Bay

Banana Bay is a really cheesy looking restaurant in a Rowland Heights strip mall. The interior is decked out in tropical themed decorations like grass streamers, bamboo huts, sand and seashells, and a big dance floor with a disco ball. It's the kind of place where you'd expect to see hula dancer waitresses and coconut filled drinks with paper umbrellas.

Nevertheless, the food is great. They consistently serve a saucy, tangy pad thai that's not too sweet and not a big sticky mess.

The Hainan chicken rice is another favorite. When my sister and I go we always end up getting these two dishes and sharing. Hainan chicken rice is served over rice cooked in chicken fat, with a side of simple chicken broth. The only complaint is that the sauce at Banana Bay is not the traditional salt/green onion/pepper sauce.

We keep saying we're going to branch out and try other menu items, like Crying Tiger or Moo Yang. But the pad thai and chicken rice always calls to us.

Susina Bakery

I have a few favorite cake bakeries in San Francisco (Tartine, Delessio, Schubert's), but in Los Angeles my favorites are spread all over the county. This trip, I paid a visit to Susina, my favorite place for a fruit filled chiffon cake with whipped cream. They call their version the Berry Blossom Cake. It's expensive as far as cake goes ($6 a slice; $35 for a whole cake) but the huge, fresh, sweet berries are used generously and the whipped cream tastes light and fresh. I also like the meringue chips they use to cover the cake for their light crunch.

I'd never sat and enjoyed a slice of cake at the bakery, but it was a great place to sit with a book while I killed an hour. I had an interesting Japanese Cherry tea made by Art of Tea: green tea, rose petals, and cherry blossoms (?). Light and fragrant, though the quality of the green tea was slightly lacking--typical for flavored teas.

A closer shot of the cake. It's really one of my favorites anywhere. It's deceptively light and fluffy, and the contrast of tart berries to sweet cake and cream means I could probably eat half a cake before slowing down. Dangerous, huh?

Seoul Garden

On my last trip to LA my friend introduced me a style of Korean hot pot that I ended up enjoying immensely. This week, I returned for another great meal.

You pick the type of meat you want (we picked beef) and how many orders (2 here). Each table also gets panchan and a mountain of vegetables: green onions, napa, and what I think is shiso. There are also things like tofu, mushrooms, fish cakes, etc. but it's mostly just meat and greens. You cook it yourself in a Mongolian style hot pot and eat it with dipping sauce.

When the table's done with the meat, a server brings udon, cooks it up, and divides it among the diners. There's not much udon, it's just an intermmediate dish to eat after all the meat.

While you eat the udon, a pot of porridge cooks in the pot pot. It's mixed with toasted seaweed and sesame oil, and quite filling. Multi-course Chinese meals usually end with a fried rice or fried noodle. The idea is that you should never let your guests leave hungry, so having some carbs at the end of the meal ensures that everyone is stuffed to the gills. Koreans have the same idea!

OnDal 2

Sorry for being MIA, I was in Los Angeles for the new year. And boy, was there a lot of eating! I'll start with my favorite meal and sort of work backwards. We met up with some college friends at OnDal 2 as a spur of the moment decision. None of us had ever heard of it, but we're definitely all planning to return. This is definitely one of the most unique and worthwhile Korean restaurants in Ktown, in my opinion. And unlike a lot of places that are cheap and decent, this is a place that has good enough quality that I'd take parents.

First of all, the panchan were all delicious and some were a bit unique. I especially liked the little fish tempura nuggets and toasted seaweed (which tasted delicious with everything). I missed photographing the crispy vegetable pancake and grilled fish, but both were excellent.

At OnDal2, the menu is comprised of about a dozen choices of stew. You pick a stew and a size. Our table got a large spicy crab and a medium beef (above). The beef came with rice cakes in it, which I love.

The star of the meal, and what almost every table gets, is the spicy crab stew (#2 on the menu). Can't blame them; the crab flavor in the soup is deliciously intense. Sometimes, Korean restaurants coast by simply making their food spicy. At OnDal 2, there's actually flavor to back it up.

Once the pot is presented to your table, a server scrapes out most of the eggs from the shell and cuts and cracks each crab into manageable pieces. Some of the shells are stuffed with a mix of chicken and crab egg before the stew's made, so there's kind of an eggy cake that's also mixed into the stew. Rice is scooped into each shell, topped with the stew and plenty of bean sprouts, and served.

We skipped the second preparation because were were already half full after appetizers! The second preparation is hand ripped noodles. We saw the servers preparing it at other tables: basically they flatten and rip off thin chewy rounds of dough right at the table. It looked delicious, but we had to pass and go straight for the fried rice. The pot is emptied, the rice is mixed in with seaweed, chili paste, and a light brown powder none of us could identify. some of the crab liquid is added back in for flavor, and the rest packed up to go while the rice is enjoyed by all.