Sunday, October 10, 2010

Test

Test

Thursday, August 12, 2010

A is for apple

A few words that I reviewed last night in the LG book..


Abondance - a cheese from France in the Savoie region..

Abattoir - A one who will process a whole animal for you, meat, offal, skin, etc...

Not of my own accord

So it's all his fault.. damn the Gordon Ramsey and his cooking shows that get me all riled up and what not...

I missed the Hell's Kitchen and Master Chef shows this week but I'll need to watch them later on this week. I have not really gone anywhere new.. aside from a very mediocre Japanese place near the house... Really Japanese food in has gone to crap where I live... no good sushi places... I have to drive a fair amount to get some good ramen... but just down the street I can get Korean or Vietnamese... even Thai...

I'll need to put together the review for this place some time soon... before I purposely forget about it..  OOHH how could I forget I had awesome Indian a few weeks ago.. that I will review about soon...

So anyway... I'm on a mission.. one I no doubt will drop after a month or so... just like this blog..

I'm going to go through a few cookbooks in the coming year... in attempts to get on some freaking cooking show... My Larousse Gastronomique Encyclopedia and the CIA book plus a techniques book from Jacques Pepin..

No more excuses.. I'm going to pace myself.. I need to freaking do this!!!!!

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Yelp Sucks!! Sort of...

So out of nowhere I got hankerin' for some hot wings and a beer. Mmmmm tasty spicy vinegary goodness washed down with a nice pilsner. The only question was where would I want to go should I need to fulfill this craving.

For me my favorite place is Hooters, they have some awesome wings. Service isn't all that great but I like the food there. They also have a decent seafood sampler platter. Second is Buffalo Wing's n Things in Huntington Beach, though I haven't been here in well over 5 years. So I was trying to think of what other options are available to me. This brings me to Yelp.

On a normal given day they are about 80%-90% on the money with suggestions and ideas of culinary exploration. Though today I'm reminded yet again at how lame they are on occasion. So I do a search for hot wings and I'm hoping I get places that specialize in this item, though I get all these places that are not really related but because they offer it on the menu and someone decides to comment about how they did or did not have them. Really blows!

Now some of the places mentioned I wouldn't even consider getting hot wings at them... um.. the Boiling Crab is awesome for Louisiana style peel n eat shrimp and crab and what not.. but hot wings?? um.. no thanks!!

So if there is a specific culinary food item your looking for I would not recommend Yelp... perhaps Chowhound though... it's a little more of a forums board but at least it's more relevant.

Speaking of which I've still yet to go to Buffalo Wild Wings and Wingnuts.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

I really think so.....

I love Japanese culture.... possibly due to my Dad being stationed in Japan and related a few stories about being there and also it was the first culture I remember being exposed, at least with some relative regularity. Either Japanese restaurants or going to Little Tokyo in Downtown LA, I was exposed to it. Hence I like the song by the Vapors...

Now as this is supposed to be a blog about food, let me preface this with I still consider myself to be a "food tourista", by this I mean that I'm still relatively new (perhaps I'm being a bit modest here). While a majority of people I have talked to have said - "You should start a blog about food" - I always scoffed at them. Yes I know there is a mini Japanese strip mall in Fountain Valley. Not too mention the ones in the South Bay (Too many to list - Gardena/Torrance) or little stretch on Sawtell in West LA (Between Pico & Santa Monica) or the patch in Costa Mesa.... While I know where these places are.. I still consider myself a tourista.

Just to add to that, I've become enamored with other Asian cultures as well. Korean, Vietnamese, Chinese, Thai... (India is in Asia but generally not considered Asian.. how does that work???) as these are what I am close to.

Now after going through that nonsensical rant.... on to what I was going to talk about.

For me food is one of the universal constants.... we all need it. Just like air and water, you really can't survive without food.  Look at how many things revolve around food, we have festivals, birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, graduation parties... you get the picture.

We eat throughout the day... we have aisles and aisles of food in the US (which on a personal note I absolutely hate!!!).  The point is a good amount of a time is spent eating, so why not enjoy the food.

So there is this About section I get a weekly articleon Japanese food, this week it's....

Mabo don!!

Which for me I like and one of those dishes that you should try if you've never had tofu, but probably already like if you regularly eat tofu. Which by the way I like, but don't eat it as much as I would like to.. but am in no way a vegetarian or vegan. 

Yet for me I like the unagi (eel) or sake (salmon) don much better than the teriyaki ones.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

I missed all of May?!?!?!? Avoid Pink's if you like hot dogs...

If you have the taste buds of a cockroach, you'll probably enjoy Pink's Hot Dogs in Buena Park at Knott's Berry Farm.


Really where do I begin with this place, aside from the customer service, this place is a  dismal failure on so many levels. Let's start with building location/layout. The place is too cramped for the amount of traffic that they get. There is one window to order and one window to pick up. It just so happens that they have all the condiments and what not around said pick up window. It really looks like a traffic jam on the 10 East of the 405 at 5PM on a holiday weekend. If you like dealing with rude throngs of people, while waiting for your food then this is your place!!

Did I mention how disgusting this place was?? Now it's not like there was puke on the floor, but I don't think you'd notice if there was. The floors and tables where pretty awful, I've seen cleaner tables at Chuck E. Cheese in Santa Ana.

Now on to the food like substance.... There are a few handful of places that I hold in a special category of crap, these are the ones that deserve a wordy worded letter, which is pretty aweful coming from me. That is the wordy worded letter, my English skills are pretty atrocious.

One, I have to say they have the worst menu on the planet. These jacked up names for hot dogs and the multitude of combination's that top them. Understand that hot dogs should not be confused with the various sausages out there, whether your various wursts, bangers or other ethnic sausages, namely the Polish. Hot dogs are in a class of their own and depending on how they are prepared can usually tell you what part of the country you are from or where you are at as well.  Generally a dog should be kosher.. all beef... no by-products or additives, who needs that?! Now you can have them prepared a number of ways but the more popular ways are mustard & onions (or sauerkraut!!), Chicago style (steamed poppy seed bun, onions, pickle wedge, tomato, yellow pepper -- my all time favorite!!). Hot dogs come steamed, grilled, pan fried, wrapped with bacon, battered and deep fried. However, this place apparently is a one trick pony, let's cover up the sub par quality of the dog with sub par quality toppings.

To think that we passed up going to Portillo's.. but alas we did not know. It was the "we've live in California for over 30+ years and never had Pink's!", they are not like the other Ca institutions, In-n-Out, Tommy's, (fill in your Ca only food establishment here). Let just say the initial sign of how crappy the dogs where... the rubber like casing they were in only encased the bland flavorless meat-like substance inside.

While Pink's is not in the category of the Golden Steer and Captain Kidd's and... I know there is another that goes here... anyway... Pink's is just north of the line of crapsville, I know I won't spend a dollar there again, but I'd be willing to sample something else if someone else paid for it.

So to summarize.. if you want a hot dog go to Portillo's.. it's just down the street in fact... about a mile East of Beach Blvd on La Palma before Dale, or go to Wienerschnitzel --- no really I'd rather have gone here compared to Pink's.  I have heard of this place called PCH in Orange.. I need to try them out... but avoid Mustard's there is one in Long Beach and one in Los Alamitos/Cypress... they suck as well, what an abomination of a "Chicago style" hot dog they serve there. Though Costco serves a decent dog at a great price... $2.50 for a half pound hot dog/polish sausage and a drink.

At least i was able to get a $5 boysenberry pie from Knott's, my receipt was a coupon.

And lastly they have mediocre onion rings as well, a small basket of rings for $3.50 there were maybe 8 in the small paper tray.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Hong Kong Phooey


So in case you haven't heard me say it enough already.. I love Asian food..
I don't think there is a better regional cuisine than Asian.. Really from Indian to Japanese to Korean to Chinese to Thai... and I've only just started. Phillipino (debatable if it's Asian as I've read in some places) is one that I've just started to explore and aside from lumpia (a type of egg roll), one that needs further investigation. Though just like my venture into Sri Lankan a few weeks back I don't know really where to start.

Check out the Food Frenzy blog.. good times..

Monday, April 26, 2010

mmmm..... Bacon & The Art of Gorging Oneself.

It'd been a while.. years in fact that i can think of eating oneself silly.. or to the point that I slept horribly and needed antacid's.

The past Friday we went to Incheonwon Korean BBQ in Garden Grove. Oh my gosh.. this place rocks...

I need to Yelp a review for this place but basically here is the low down. It's a bit spendy!! Especially on the hard liquor and wine.  We went with the cheaper AYCE (All You Can Eat) @ $17 per person. They have a large menu of options in case your not feeling BBQ as well, but I was single minded on this and this alone.

Damn they give you a lot of food.. and for only 3 of us.. well 4 but apparently there was a communication issue about the $$ of this place. So when at the last moment when yet again Scratchy decides he'll eat to which Spam starves..

Oh my gosh is the food good here... It was the first time in a long time that I got to take the twins to K-BBQ... I think at least 4 or 5 years.. 

Again to give you an idea on the price of drinks... beers are about $6.. Wine is about $12, mostly being rice or other Asian fruit wines (raspberry/plum). Whiskey, Hennessey and the like are about $10 a pop.

The amount of food we got we barely dented... at least 2 more people could have been there and i think we'd still have left overs...

SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY

So haven't been to the Wiliams Sonoma classes since the end of March.. the healthy cooking classes don't seem to have the same appeal... Though I managed to make a few dishes this weekend... Chili con carne and Bacon Wrapped Scallops.

The chili was straight up... Meat, seasoning, garlic, onions  and tomatoes.. that's pretty much about it.. I found it pretty bland actually.. well maybe bland is not the right term.. I would said one dimensional... there was something missing on it.. aside from salt... I'd been wanting just plain meat chili for a while but perhaps that was it.. maybe it needed beans.. or some green chili or green pepper.. It's hard though I'm all about making it that way but i ask people more often than not about what they want in it...  People liked it.. I didn't..  I'd like to make a different one next time.. the way I want it.. maybe add some cornmeal to it.. it lacked depth..  green peppers.. small chunks of stew meat.. slow cook it longer..


Sunday involved two things I'd never done... Scallops and aioli...
Specifically bacon wrapped scallops with aioli...


Scallops... hhmm.. I'm finding that I'm having a indifferent attitude towards them... they are slowly slipping from my personal menu of enjoyable seafood items.. Don't get me wrong.. I personally think they are a excellent choice for those new to seafood.. tender, sweet and mild... just that I didn't really enjoy these ones... though again apparently I was cooking for everyone else but myself this weekend.. they all liked them..

Aioli... I'm confused on this crap... After a bit of research this morning I apparently made aioli as it should be.. it's a garlic mayo... yeah not so much of a fan of it.. which leads me to believe that I didn't make it correctly... I think it may have been too much lemon juice.. this is one of those things that irritates me about cooking at home... How do you know if it right or not??  Namely I have a list of sauces that I need to go through... but how do you now if it's the correct taste?

Oh well... The lotto is fast approaching 200 Mil... I still plan on going to cooking school... among learning how to fly plane/helicopter, pilot a boat and a master at least 2 languages..
Should I win!

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Mac n Cheese for Adults

Mac n Cheese.. for adults!

So this past weekend I made some adult variety mac n cheese. I must say that for me MnC is usually the blue box. Highly processed crap... I don't know.. maybe there is crack in it. Well this past weekend I made some potentially high "adult" mac n cheese. I think that is why i went down this route, it was not the typical MnC,it was different. Though I don't like the recipe as I got it. The roux base is way off, initially calling for 7 tbs of butter and 3/4 cp of flour... yeah needless to say this was the worst thing about it. Also I swapped the cheese out, Trader Joe's carries a 4 cheese Italian blend that I went with instead of the parmesean it asked for. Overall I liked it a lot, there is a huge amount of potential in this dish.

So the basically it called for the following..

1 lb of macaroni
2 1/2 cups heavy cream
3/4 milk
4 oz cheese (Parmesean is on the recipe I swapped this with the Quattro Formaggi from Trader Joes)
3/4 cp flour (I'd change this to 7 tbs of flour as it should be 1:1 ratio on flour & butter)
7 tbs of butter
1/2 tsp each of the following:
Salt
Pepper
Old Bay Seasoning (or eyeball the following - 1/4 tsp celery salt, 1/8 paprika & red pepper (not 1 each but 1/8 tsp total) I found Old Bay to be a bit of a luxury item considering it contains celery salt, black pepper, red pepper and paprika - in that order on the container.)
3/4 cp MINCED onion - Minced I said!

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees

Boil up the macaroni to al dente, should be about 8 minutes. Follow the directions and go with the first number if you have a range i.e. 8-10 minutes, go with 8 minutes. Drain and rinse with cold water to stop the pasta from cooking any further and set aside.

So you make the roux by melting the butter on med heat in a medium sized pot, then slowly whisk in the flour which should be a bit on the pastey side. We are looking for a light golden color, just before caramel. Then add the dry ingredients and then the milk & cream, then combine these in a casserole dish and cook for about 20 - 30 minutes until you get a slight golden crust.

Now this is a slightly modified version of what I had, notations made where I changed it.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Review - Georges - Huntington Beach

I eat bad Mexican food so you don't have to...

I grew up down the street (Edwards & McFadden) of Georges (Edwards & Edinger) which I think was there when I moved to HB as a kid in the late 70's. I've been here 3 times I think, once when I didn't know any better, once because I was with people who didn't know any better, and once because I forgot I didn't know better.

Check out my review on Yelp.