Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Monday, April 28, 2008
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Sunday Dinner Night Edition
Starter 1: 3 types of goat cheese (soft, medium soft, and medium hard) served with crackers and acacia honey (not pictured).
Starter 2: "Meat Sticks" Imported Prosciutto wrapped on Grissini sticks and served with Melon.
Starter 3: Crack Candy. Candied Almonds. I used the David Lebovitz recipe. So easy to do and so freakin' good.
I made a cumin flavored batch and a cinnamon flavored batch. I prefer cinnamon.
Gnochetti all Sorrentina.
soaked Baccalà
Finished Baccalà Livornese. It ended up a bit salty(despite soaking it for 36 hours) and I did forget to put the pinenut and raisins in the dish when it was going into the oven. Not an easy dish to pull off but I think there is potential. It's just too complicated and time consuming to do very often.
A pre-Castagnaccio shot
Dessert 1: Castagnaccio. A chestnut flour cake.
Dessert 2: (not pictured) Strawberries and Marscapone + sugar.
CRUCK YOU
Marnee Thai on Irving.
Thom Ka
Basa Fillet
Praram Phak
Kang Dang (Duck)
Table is really crucking cramp.
A crucking gong?!?
Don't go drinking with Dan. He is an evil evil EVIL man. Hence the title of this post.
Steve's friend Kenji (Left) also joined us for dinner and drinks. Apparently a Pepcid AC exactly 1 hour before you drink cures any "Asian Redness." I think he had around 12 drinks that night so you can judge just how red he ended up looking. And by "a" I mean he had like 6 tiny pellet sized pills. I guess that's the regular size?
So happy birthday to Steve. Getting home was not so pleasant for me.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Sunday, April 20, 2008
A day of Asian things.
San Francisco 2008 Cherry Blossom Festival
Crazy Taiko floats...
neeeeeeeeeeeeRRRDDDSSSS!!!!
Neko-bus head. I think we have a new horror video game boss.
This giant head always amuses me.
The JAL pageant float is pretty funny too.
And of course the highlight of the parade is always the last float. Crazy diaper tower.
Festivals are all about getting foods you don't normally get so I usually will get a plate of short ribs.
Green tea pudding w/ red bean.
Anderson Bakery Festival Exclusive - Banana Pound Cake
An after festival snack.
Met up with Kevin to see Forbidden Kingdom (aka the Jet Li and Jackie Chan movie) at the 4-Star next to my apartment. Only $8.50 for a movie ticket! Remember those days? That was like back when gas was still under $3/gallon. The beginning is hokey and the Chinese actors speaking English is cheesy. The action doesn't fully realize the potential of a Jet Li and Jackie Chan movie. Jackie Chan doesn't do acrobatics and Jet Li isn't being filmed to show off his speed. The plot is a mish-mash of the Karate Kid meets Wizard of Oz and the Lord of the Rings.
Afterwards we went to the Mandalay Restaurant
Been craving some simple sticky rice and mango.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
You would too if it happened to you...
and that would be tired. I'm trying out a larger font size out...
my tiring day started out with another go at North Beach. Making sure to check hours of operations, I had all my places pre-scoped out. Brunch starts here (above) and Mama's, a popular brunch spot in North Beach. The above picture was taken around 2pm but when I was in line (which was about an hour wait to get in) there were approximately 50 people in the queue.
And then when you get inside, there is yet ANOTHER line for ordering food! Add another 10-15 minutes. I ended up sharing a table with some random people who were in line. I went by myself and simply assumed that their group of 4 should take the big table. It'd be a bit greedy for me to take it all for myself so when I told them to take the table they simply invited me to join which made for some fun random talking but I mostly talked to this one girl Summer who sat next to me. She told me her husband was a/the? producer for the Invisibl Skratch Picklz. and then about the project she was working on with some of these folks. I let the others mostly alone because they were 1) across the table and 2) seemingly catching up on gossip and stuff. I could have talked (and did a bit) about stuff like "where do you live? where are you from? what do you do?" but I... don't loathe but highly prefer to avoid those types of conversations. Wow, bigger font sure makes it look like I'm writing a whole lot more!
Food! You want to know about the food I waited 90 odd minutes for! That's 15 for sitting at the table. The above is the salmon scramble with bagels and cream cheese. Savory. Quite to Very good.
3 Buttermilk Pancakes with Berries. Very Good to Awesome. Probably the best and fluffiest pancakes I can recall having. Light and tasty. Not full marks (as if I was giving marks out) because this would have benefited from having a homemade berry based sauce to bring the dish together rather than the standard syrup. Still don't hesitate to get this. The whole experience was worth the wait.
Made it to Molinari's Deli where I picked up some Italian goods for what I think will be a next Sunday dinner night. So all you lurkers who live in SF leave a comment or shoot me an email if you want to be invited. I've been working out a menu with Deda...
Next up I met with Akiha. I took her to the Office Max to get her a new chair and desk. I tried my best to bring up usability concerns and issues while ultimately letting her make a decision. While it took her awhile to finally decide, I'm always glad to help a friend out. I just won't let my unfathomable patience go unnoticed!
We then went to Studio Gallery on Polk for a show. They always have these nice show spreads which while mostly consisting of Trader Joe products, are always welcome and make for tasty art noshing.
Here I am with the featured artist Chiami Sekine who has earned the "happiest person in picture with Nat" award. Must have been the Nitrous Oxide cologne I had on.
I think someone said this painting was featured in a magazine. Plus, someone bought it. See the red dot? Art gallery secret code stickers.
Bird Bird Bird Bird Bird. I like these.
Long day! Even longer. Went to Lennon Studios to make noise with Casey and friends.
Afterwards, we were sadly turned away from Suppenkuche for a late dinner but ended up next door at a place called Bar Jules.
The ambiance was nice and very typical of Hayes Valley.
The prices were a bit high.
The food were pretty good. I had the quail which is quite tiny but it takes you a long time to eat it because it's so hard to get the meat off and you have to really dig in with your hands. The quail complemented the farro quite well. The farro on its own was a bit... different. The portions were small but appropriate for a late night meal. Everyone else also enjoyed their meal. This is definitely not a place for your average hungry American. Then we all went home.
my tiring day started out with another go at North Beach. Making sure to check hours of operations, I had all my places pre-scoped out. Brunch starts here (above) and Mama's, a popular brunch spot in North Beach. The above picture was taken around 2pm but when I was in line (which was about an hour wait to get in) there were approximately 50 people in the queue.
And then when you get inside, there is yet ANOTHER line for ordering food! Add another 10-15 minutes. I ended up sharing a table with some random people who were in line. I went by myself and simply assumed that their group of 4 should take the big table. It'd be a bit greedy for me to take it all for myself so when I told them to take the table they simply invited me to join which made for some fun random talking but I mostly talked to this one girl Summer who sat next to me. She told me her husband was a/the? producer for the Invisibl Skratch Picklz. and then about the project she was working on with some of these folks. I let the others mostly alone because they were 1) across the table and 2) seemingly catching up on gossip and stuff. I could have talked (and did a bit) about stuff like "where do you live? where are you from? what do you do?" but I... don't loathe but highly prefer to avoid those types of conversations. Wow, bigger font sure makes it look like I'm writing a whole lot more!
Food! You want to know about the food I waited 90 odd minutes for! That's 15 for sitting at the table. The above is the salmon scramble with bagels and cream cheese. Savory. Quite to Very good.
3 Buttermilk Pancakes with Berries. Very Good to Awesome. Probably the best and fluffiest pancakes I can recall having. Light and tasty. Not full marks (as if I was giving marks out) because this would have benefited from having a homemade berry based sauce to bring the dish together rather than the standard syrup. Still don't hesitate to get this. The whole experience was worth the wait.
Made it to Molinari's Deli where I picked up some Italian goods for what I think will be a next Sunday dinner night. So all you lurkers who live in SF leave a comment or shoot me an email if you want to be invited. I've been working out a menu with Deda...
Next up I met with Akiha. I took her to the Office Max to get her a new chair and desk. I tried my best to bring up usability concerns and issues while ultimately letting her make a decision. While it took her awhile to finally decide, I'm always glad to help a friend out. I just won't let my unfathomable patience go unnoticed!
We then went to Studio Gallery on Polk for a show. They always have these nice show spreads which while mostly consisting of Trader Joe products, are always welcome and make for tasty art noshing.
Here I am with the featured artist Chiami Sekine who has earned the "happiest person in picture with Nat" award. Must have been the Nitrous Oxide cologne I had on.
I think someone said this painting was featured in a magazine. Plus, someone bought it. See the red dot? Art gallery secret code stickers.
Bird Bird Bird Bird Bird. I like these.
Long day! Even longer. Went to Lennon Studios to make noise with Casey and friends.
Afterwards, we were sadly turned away from Suppenkuche for a late dinner but ended up next door at a place called Bar Jules.
The ambiance was nice and very typical of Hayes Valley.
The prices were a bit high.
The food were pretty good. I had the quail which is quite tiny but it takes you a long time to eat it because it's so hard to get the meat off and you have to really dig in with your hands. The quail complemented the farro quite well. The farro on its own was a bit... different. The portions were small but appropriate for a late night meal. Everyone else also enjoyed their meal. This is definitely not a place for your average hungry American. Then we all went home.
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