Food Craving Wednesday

Resuscitating this series of Food Craving. On my last vacation in October/November, I made sure that I have chocolate con churros in Barcelona. Otherwise, the Barcelona experience wouldn't be complete.

Of Corned Beef and Cabbage and WTH.....

2013_03_30 002, originally uploaded by M'roy.

Every year on St. Patrick's Day our non-Irish household has adopted this tradition of eating an Irish dish, corned beef and cabbage. I love this dish. It's one of those dishes that can give you comfort, that one can make you happy. I look forward to St. Patty's because of this dish. It's also one of those once-a-year meal, like turkey is only for Thanksgiving.

Anyway, something happened to me. I don't know how to explain it. I don't know how it happened.

A couple of days ago on my commute home from work as I was nearing a Costco where I would gas up for the week, I suddenly found myself swerving left and right and my speed is higher than I would normally do.

I don't know what happened or how it happened. It seemed to me like all of a sudden I was trying to control the car from swerving the left and then to the right. It only happened a few seconds, but I felt like I was watching myself do it. It's pretty frightening on hindsight. But while it was happening and soon after I got the car in control again I was not scared. Fear wasn't what I felt. Confusion was. I was at a loss for explanation for what just happened. I was too shock to be scared. As a matter of fact, I felt my pulse and it's normal. My heart was beating normally, not jumping out of my chest as I expected after an experience like that. I am easily ruffled and get nervous quickly and so my "normal" reaction to what had transpired puzzled me. I told myself to take a few minutes longer to gas up so that I can compose myself, but when I got out of the car to put gas on, my legs weren't shaky. NO part of my body was stressed or agitated.

I pinched myself. Am I alive? I read and watch so many stories like this. Anyway when I got home (I made a conscious effort to drive slower than normal) I asked the husband to kiss to me. I then blurted out what happened.

Days later I am shaken, scared, but still very much baffled at what really happened.

One thing I know for sure....I'm lucky. I'm truly blessed. My guardian angel was with me the whole way.

Starting the new year with some curries.

Sa Wad Dee is one of those cliched hole in the wall restaurant that seemed to be there forever. A no-frills Thai restaurant that is centrally located in busy San Pablo Avenue in Richmond, a few blocks from the El Cerrito Del Norte BART.

For the first dining out experience of 2014, it was Thai for lunch. A New Year's Day dining tradition that we started a few years ago that was initially composed of 5 people. As the years went on, there had been additions and subtractions to the members of the group.

This year there were 5 of us for lunch this year. The hubs is the one assigned to select the restaurant this year. We've thought about it for a half day and the choices boiled down to Mexican cuisine versus Thai cuisine. I think the reason behind the loss of Mexican cuisine is that the hubs is tired of the cuisine and he's afraid I'd fill up on the chips and dips. Well he's right of course.

It makes me happy to see small restaurants stay in business for long. Not an easy feat considering the Bay Area is full of many good restaurants. So I reckon Sa Wad Dee (a Thai greeting) is doing something right.

AMBIANCE:

The small restaurant is split in two set ups. The right side is where the traditional Thai seating is located. People sit on the floor with cushion to sit on. The left side is a regular booth and tables set-up. We chose to sit on the floor in the traditional Thai setting. The interiors is decorated with a few items/statues of Thai culture. Nothing fancy.

SERVICE:

Personally I felt it was a tad slow considering the restaurant wasn't full at that time. In fact at one time there were about 4 tables of diners at most including us. However, the wait staff is friendly, but not too chatty as well.

FOOD:

Since there were 5 of us, we ordered 5 different items to be shared. The order size is large enough for two people, or three people with bird appetites. In addition to the 5 items, we also asked for a side order of steamed rice (then ordered a second one later on).

Fried Tofu - appetizer - served with sweet chili sauce and cucumber salad. The crispy tofu was so good. One order is big enough for five people.



Potak - soup - sour soup similar to the Filipino sinigang. It came with mixed seafood. The broth was very comforting, it's something that would be perfect on cold days. A hit with everybody, just like the fried tofu.



Pumpkin Red Curry with chicken - on the special's menu. A tad sweet but the otherwise very good. Except that personally, I am not fond of curries in general. I find them way too sweet for my taste buds. Also a hit with everyone else.



Tofu Green Curry - a hit with everyone, especially me. I enjoy the green curry better than the red or the yellow curry. Less sweet than the red curry in my opinion.



Mung Sa Virut - stir fried noodles with black mushrooms and vegetables. Very tasty and flavorful. Someone in the group thought it could use more mushrooms, which I seconded.



Fried Banana and coconut ice cream - a perfect dessert. We ordered only one because we were all too full from all the curries. This one was the bomb. I loved the coconut ice cream, really perfect with the fried banana.



Including tip, each diner's share of the bill was $16.00.

(Photos courtesy of cell phone.)

This and That

It has been a busy few days. And I don't mean physically busy. I don't mean application of elbow grease. Just busy. Things around me are busy.

This weekend my aunt from Texas passed on. I found out on facebook. My relationship with that part of my family is sustained by facebook. It's sad I know but before facebook we hardly had any relationship at all. So yes, facebook made it better to communicate with relatives. When I told my mother, she said, "Oh no, we can't go right? Apparently all day Sunday her mind was filled with thoughts of this aunt and her husband, my uncle, my dad's younger brother. I think the spirit of my aunt was visiting my mom.

The news about possible turkey shortage spurred the hubs and I to run to the grocery store yesterday and grab a turkey before they run out. Funny I know. But it's better safe than sorry. The fact that we only have turkey once a year on Turkey Day makes the availability of the fowl on our table on that day much more important. I remember one year for Thanksgiving as we were shopping for turkey we saw a lot of goose. Every grocery store carried so many frozen goose that year. Since we were having turkey for thanksgiving we decided that we'd have goose for New Year's instead, ham was for Christmas. And so when we got back to the grocery stores after Christmas for goose, there were no more goose to be found. We drove around for goose but no goose. Since then, we vowed to buy something when we find it just to be on the safe side. However, we never attempted to serve goose after that failure.

There is another park in Pinole! I mean a park that I like to walk and bbq at. It's mind boggling how one can live in one place for decades and still find something new. I'll be back here bbqing in late spring through summer. It's a lovely spot and there's a walking trail that is perpendicular to the Pinole Creek. We weren't ready to walk the length of it but the trail from the park will definitely lead to the shopping center where there's Five Guys Burger and Jamba Juice, not to mention Chipotle and Peet's Coffee. Will take that walking trail another season.

I had a wonderful day yesterday. I made dinner plans for Tuesday with another couple, and the hubs and I went to dinner at friends' house. We got invited when the male friend mentioned he was making paella. His paella was excellent. He really has talent in the kitchen, I suppose that's why my hubs and him getting along so well. They both love to cook. I promised to have them for dinner someday (they've been to the house for 49ers watch party and bbq) where I'll have them sample Filipino cuisine.

I'm exerting immense patience by not putting up the Christmas tree before Thanksgiving. I think I'm going to fail, because I really want it up by next week. What do you think, early tree up okay?

One Week Later

So one week after the last post, I'm still struggling to write a post. I've got something to talk about but somehow drafting it takes a lot of energy on my part.

Some days, writing comes easily. Other days, like lately, it's like pulling teeth.

Despite this obstacle, I'm finding so many little things that make me happy. I choose to be happy.

Costco's rotisserie chicken makes me so very happy. It's so good I have to snack on it on the drive home.

Another happy occasion happened when I finally got to see BREAKING DAWN Part 2. I'm so pathetic. A woman of my age should not be watching these kinds of films; but I suppose it's the romantic bone in my body that make me crave these chick flicks.

In addition, my kitties continue to make me happy. I love watching them sleep. I love playing with them. Buster has gotten to be very vocal and we engage in full blown conversations. I don't care if you call me crazy cat lady, but Buster and I understand
each other.

Hopefully I will find the inspiration to write more, because first and foremost it makes me happy.

Food Craving Friday

Cocktails and appetizers, perfect munchies when cruising the bay.

Food Craving Friday

Anyone else craving some sushi?

Food Craving Friday

Some days you just want to eat desserts first.

Our anniversary is coming up. Well not right away, it's two months away. But the planning for a small get-away has started. I have started to explore areas where we might be tempted to spend 2-3 days. Nothing concrete yet. No solid plans. I do have two places that are vying for the top spot. Both are in the Central Coast.

One is in Cambria. The hotel package is reasonable - we've been there before for hubby's b/day get-away. Plus it includes tickets to the nearby attraction, Hearst Castle, and a wonderful 3-course dinner for two. We've been really impressed with the dinner we had at this restaurant before and so we long to dine there again someday.

Monterey is the second one. The dessert sampler in the photo above is from Jack's Restaurant that is inside Portala Hotel and Spa. The hotel is really fancy and swanky, so did the restaurant. We had the best time here and the most likely the best dinner we've ever had was here. Incredible food. Just look at the dessert.

The final destination will go down to which place will give us the best bang for our buck. Budget speaks loudly when we go travel, either for an overseas trip or to a place 2 hours down the road. Either one of the places we choose, I can't wait for the anniversary dinner because I know it's going to be good.

Daily February: Day 7

Coming soon to a strip mall nearby. I have been hearing rumbling about how good the burgers are in this place and little did I know the small communities in the I-80 corridor is getting one. I still limit my burger intake to 2 per year. I'll wait for this to open and see how good the burgers really are.

In Search for the Perfect Adobo

Lately I've been obsessed with adobo, the Filipino dish of soy and vinegar. It has always been my favorite food. My mother used to have her own version, wherein she only puts soy sauce and no vinegar and calls it lutong toyo (cooked in soy sauce).

So whenever I go to any Filipino restaurant or store that has some cooked food I always seek out the adobo. You'd be right if you guess I'd go home with adobo to go. I always do.

However, it has been a constant longing on my part to find the perfect adobo taste. Andrea which is a popular Filipino restaurant in neighboring Vallejo makes a decent adobo. The fact that their chef (okay cook if you quibble with terminology)is a Kapangpangan makes their adobo more believable, to me at least.

Over at Cabalen, another Filipino restaurant, they make a pretty good version as well. However, the best adobo I've tasted so far was over at my brother's house. We were invited to an impromptu dinner last week when his daughter and her family were visiting for a few days. In order to spend time with family, especially my niece and her kids who have moved to Southern California, my SIL rushed making dinner after work.

Her adobo is superb! My husband said the adobo has been simmering in a crockpot for a long time that's why the flavor is really rich and the meat is falling off the bone. They used short ribs for the adobo, which I never even considered. I've always been using chicken and little bit of pork liempo. But now that I have tasted the short ribs adobo, oh my gulay, I think I'm going to try that one this weekend.

We've been consciously trying to eat healthy, and adobo with all the sodium content of the soy sauce, not to mention all the fat of the meat, I don't know if I can indulge in adobo as much as I wanted to.

If you are a cook and have made adobo, is there any tip about cooking it that you'd like to share with me?

(I composed this post sometime in September, have yet to cook short rib adobo.)

Food Craving Wednesday

The Eat Real Festival is coming in 2 weeks, but my schedule is full that weekend. I wonder if I can find a little break in my busy weekend to sample some food truck delights?

A Tale of Two Truffles

I've planned on drafting a post about the "winning" recipe from my church's fundraiser. However, with work and preparation for the coming trip - only 10 days to go - free time was difficult to come by. So I was happy that Princessa Musang also asked about them.

No big deal about these recipes. I entered two types of chocolate truffles at the fundraiser on its second year. One was crème de menthe cookie truffle, the recipe of which came from a blog that I follow. The other was from Nestle, almond truffle, who can go wrong with Nestle, right?

As I said before no big deal. But this is me. I don't cook. I don't bake. The kitchen and I are practically strangers. My mother told my husband right after we got married, "My daughter doesn't know where the kitchen is." Thankfully, my husband loves to cook and turn to cooking for relaxation and meditation. God knows what we need and supplies it/he, before we even know it for ourselves.

And so when a group of strangers, people who buy tickets to pig out on chocolates vote my creation as one of the best 4 out of the many chocolate offerings in a fundraiser billed as CHOCOLATE EXTRAVAGANZA, that is a big deal.

This "win" comes at the heels of very little preparation. The crème de menthe truffle didn't need any test run before the affair. I've made it before. In fact I gave it away as Christmas gifts to family. They seem to like it. Who doesn't like chocolates anyway.

The almond truffle however is a new find. I was cleaning out the boxes in the garage one day when I found these postcard recipes in one of my boxes labeled "personal items". It's perplexing how they got there. The box contained old resumes, certificates from classes I've attended, some antiquated job hunt paraphernalias and a handful of Nestle recipes. Can you believe that? I didn't even cook in those days, during my single lady days.

It must have been foresight on my part that made me tack these recipes on the side of refrigerator. They stood there for a few months before the planning of the event. When the church was soliciting people/members for chocolate offerings, I gladly signed me up for the crème de menthe truffle. Out of nowhere and without forethought, I found myself putting down almond truffle as well.

Now my work is cut out for me. I knew this was my project and whatever role my husband would play in these truffles would be as supporting parts. He would not be the main baker/cook or whatchamacallit.

Despite the tight schedule - was at the same time busy with physical preparations for the event + working full-time - I managed to test run the recipe. I followed the recipe to a T, without the mister's help. It turned out well.

Now listen to this, on the truffles that we offered at the fundraiser, we didn't follow the recipe to a T. We substituted half of the milk required with half and half, we thought it would make it more rich and dense (almond truffle). We also added a little bit of butter for that shiny texture (crème de menthe). In addition, we jazzed it up with a little cognac, which was what was available in the house that day (creme de menthe). I brought some left-overs to my co-workers the next day and one lady called me up - we work in 2 different buildings - and says she's all boozed up and happy because she tasted cognac. I was surprised she even tasted it, I couldn't. In fact no body mentioned they tasted the booze. Almond truffle also had some cayenne pepper that wasn't in the original recipe.

Here are the recipes:

CREME DE MENTHE TRUFFLE



Ingredients:
15 Oreo cookies
2-3 oz softened cream cheese
1 pkg Andes mint candies (unwrapped about 28 total)
1/4 cup white or semi sweet chocolate chips (I skipped this ingredient.)

Put cookies in food processor and pulse till you get very fine crumbs. Add creme cheese and process till dough forms. Using a small cookie scoop, form into small balls. Place on a pan lined with parchment paper.

Microwave the Andes candies, stirring every 15-30 seconds until melted. Cool slightly. Dip truffles in chocolate; place onto pan. Let stand 5 minutes or until the chocolate is set.

Microwave chocolate chips on HIGH 30-60 seconds until melted. Drizzle chocolate over truffles. Let stand 10 minutes or until chocolate is set. Store truffles in an airtight container in the fridge.

This made 24 truffles, depends on the size of the truffles you make.

....Please note the last ingredient we skipped because we thought there was enough chocolate presence without drizzling more chocolate.

ALMOND TRUFFLE



Ingredients:

1/2 cup evaporated milk
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 3/4 cup Nestle Toll House Milk Chocolate Morsels
1/2 to 1 tsp almond or vanilla extract
1 cup finely chopped almonds, toasted.

Combine evaporated milk and sugar in small heavy-duty saucepan. Bring to a full rolling boil over medium-low heat, stirring constantly. Boil, stirring constantly, for 3 minutes. Remove from heat.

Stir in morsels. Stir vigorously until mixture is smooth. Stir in almond extract. Refrigerate for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Shape into 1 inch balls. Cover. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

....Please see the tweaking we made on this recipe above. Likewise, I did not toast the almonds and I did not use milk chocolate morsels (chips), we used semi-sweet chips.

Enjoy!!!!

Food Craving Friday

Burgers, anyone?

Do you like burgers? What is the best burger you've had?

Sisig

When I was growing up, sisig is a banana blossom dish, not the pork cheek dish that's so popular nowadays. In fact, I just heard of the pork sisig when I came here in the States. Here is the recipe for the banana blossom sisig version. I miss eating this dish, I will probably cook it within this month.


Have you had this sisig dish?

Food Craving Wednesday

How about a trio of lamb tacos?

What are you craving for today?

Of Weekend Eating

It's Monday again, drat, I haven't even digested the weekend yet.

Oh the weekends of adults are mostly running around doing errands and performing chores at home. If I knew it was going to be like this, I'd have delayed my adulthood (wink).

Kidding aside, I'm already feeling run down early in the year, and this despite the gorgeous atypical weather we've been having. 70F in January, no kidding. I was wearing short sleeve! I cannot remember when our weather was this gorgeous. However, all this beautiful weather has some bad side to it. If we continue to have this spring-like and summer-like conditions, we might get in trouble come summertime when we need our water. Our water reserve mainly rely on the snow in the Sierra in the winter and rain down where we are during fall and winter months. We haven't had rain down here, nor did it snowed in Sierra yet. All the snow that's in the resorts right now are all man-made. Somehow, we need to get our winter going here.

Still, the gorgeous weather makes one want to be outside. Which meant that we found time to remove our "lightings" from the Holidays. We didn't really put many stuff outside, so when I was done, hubby was surprised that we put in too little time getting the decors back in their boxes.

I have to still get our Christmas tree down, maybe one of these nights. Not tonight I have a church meeting, which means I may have to miss CASTLE.

Let me tell you about some eating I have done this weekend.

Every Saturday I take my mom around to run her errands. Among her errands is lunch in either Chow King or Jollibee. Now that she completely dumped Jollibee (price is high for the serving they give you, she said), she has found a regular lunch place in Red Ribbon. She simply adores the combo meal - half an order of arroz caldo and 2 mini siopaos. I on the other hand either gets the palabok by itself or the half palabok + half arroz caldo.

So you see I don't really miss so much of the Philippine food scene. Next door is Max Fried Chicken. There are plenty of other restaurants that serve cafeteria style Pinoy food around.

On Saturday evening we took our newly widowed friend Gay to a little dinner over at Villa Romano. Our plan was for lunch but for pete's sake the restaurant doesn't open for lunch on the weekend.

So dinner it was. We drove to Napa where the restaurant is located. You see we pass by this restaurant each time we drive to Napa and every single time I let out a sigh wanting to try that restaurant. We never got around to it, until last Saturday.

We made reservations at 5 pm the time they open. There was one table already occupied. It's an old house converted into a restaurant. It feels like eating at a friend's house.

The waitress said we have to have the garlic bread, it's a must she says. So we had it. It's actually like a half of a round french sweet bread that was baked until the crust was crunchy and brown and it was topped with cheese and served in a nice platter. The waitress then took a broiled/baked whole head of garlic, pinched it and all the goooey garlic goodness oozed out and was spread thickly on the bread. It was too die for. Not only was the bread really delicious, the presentation was superb. Never had a garlic bread done this way before.

For appetizers, we got only one order of fried calamari, which in my experience is always enough for four people. I was right. There were only three of us, but we ate the whole thing all thru the meal, we couldn't seem to finish it.

Caesar salad followed. I didn't really want a salad, but said okay when hubby suggested we split one order. Thankfully we did that because as always the Caesar salad itself looks like an entree portion.

For our entree I chose risotto with chicken. The husband had the three cheese tortellini with pancetta. Gay had the seafood linguini.

I simply adored my risotto. The serving was large, the chicken was delicious, I don't usually order chicken in the restaurant. The creaminess of the risotto was wonderful. Although it's not the traditional big grain risotto that we're so used to. It was marvelous.

Gay's seafood linguini looks very soupy, which didn't escape her notice. But it's supposed to since she ordered seafood and seafood is watery. Anyway we asked the waitress to give us some extra cheese to counter the soupy nature.

Hubby's tortellini dish was right on the spot too. However, there was more pancetta than I or he wanted and needed more tortellini, but otherwise a good dish.

After all these dishes and wine, we had room for dessert. We ordered one sampler dessert and that was just fine serving. The dessert plate had a sorbet, which was a palate cleanser, an espresso tiramisu and flourless chocolate cake. While the chocolate cake was good, the best flourless choc cake I had eaten so far is at Ristorante Due Rose, Italian restaurant in my neighborhood.

And so it was a fun 2.5 hours of dinner we had. We even saw the sunset while sipping wine.

You know I do have photos of the dishes, although I don't think they turned out well. I was only using a point and shoot, because I cannot bring myself to whip out a DSLR when dining, do you?

I'm going to keep track of all our dining out expenses this year. While we were really good with budget last year, we didn't really know how much of it goes to eating out.

Food Craving Friday

I'm supposed to have a Food Craving Wednesday, but I only remembered it today.

I am a bit saddened that the little restaurant next to the cinema is closed. It was a combo of restaurant and sports bar and it has a rocking happy hour 7 days a week. My favorite during happy hour is this chips and spinach dip. The price is right at $3 and the portion is just enough. Plus it's really good. Now where am I going to get my spinach dip?

Reminiscing

It's almost 11 pm Sunday night and tomorrow is Memorial Day - a federal holiday which means we don't go to work, and here I am blogging about something from my Barcelona trip from November 2009.

I was moving my albums from one external drive to another - a bigger one that's 1 terabyte capacity - when I aimlessly opened one of the albums and the image of food popped on the screen.  My husband who's reading the papers in bed and watching tv and surfing at the same time glanced at where I am (he's behind me) and immediately recognized the image on the pc.

Did you know that we stayed in a dormitory in Barcelona for 3 days?  We were looking for a bargain, since we were afraid that we'd bust our budget on a 3 week Europe vacation.

The choice to stay in a dorm was better than staying in a hostel for us.  The dorm was located inside the University of Barcelona Mundet campus - easily accessible by subway.

We have our own room, a  large room in fact with two beds, a tv, small ref, and the bathroom was furnished with towels and little soap.

Apparently here families come to visit and they stay in this part of the building.  The private rooms were separate from the accommodations used by the students.  So while you hear all the ruckus (music to my ears) in the "living room" once you take the hallway to the private rooms, it's pretty quiet and you'd actually forget you live in a dorm.  Many post grad students stay here too.  As a matter of fact I have seen many families stay there while we were there.

Another good thing aside from the affordable price is that it includes free breakfast.  The dining room is open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  But only breakfast was included in the price.

What a buffet it was - one side is all bread of different kinds, crusty bread, rolls, savory kinds and even plain sliced white bread.  There is an area for meats, but the most enjoyable was the bacon, it's totally different and tasty. It wasn't crunchy like the ones back home but soft and a little greasy, but not the greasy kind like we know.  Then there are fruits to choose from and omelets and cereals.  And their coffee machine is to die for.  It's a vending machine kind but it makes the best coffee.  I o'd on the coffee - cafe au lait. 

I couldn't find the rest of the images I took of the spread, what I found were the plates we savored.  Enjoy!









Would you consider staying in a dorm while traveling?

Comfort Food

After garlic fried rice and longganisa, this would be my favorite breakfast. Believe it or not every single day in our cruise I eat this. My husband can't get the fascination I have and how on earth don't I get sick of eating it day after day.

I posted this today because I'm feeling so low. I am dealing with some news that are frustrating. I have never cried infront of my doctors before but I did yesterday. It was a low point. But I managed to put a brave front today in another appointment.

Breathe in, breathe out!

Peace!

Food Craving Wednesday

My husband, er WE, make this pasta dish that I adore so much. It doesn't require a step to step procedure since whatever veggies are left on the fridge is what we put into it.

We first grill the veggies or sometimes broil them in the oven. Then we add them to the cooked pasta (whatever you prefer) and toss it with some homemade pesto, which we always have. When I go to farmers markets I never could resist buying basil even though I have no use for it. Well there is always a use for basil. We make pesto and freeze it for occasions like this.

We top off the dish with cheese - our choice is feta.


The good thing about this comfort dish is that it can be eaten hot/warm or cold/room temp.

Grab a fork and dig in.