Late night snack

Occasion: In between baking the snickerdoodle cookies, I snacked on some Pho. Henry's mom is a fantastic cook! YUM! 11.25.11

  Pork base Pho with fancy pork, shrimp, cilantro, green onions and vermicelli noodles

Just what I needed to keep me going late at night.  I had a tiny bowl, just enough to tease my stomach.  Her broth was flavorful, delicious and just what I needed.

Late Night Baking: Snickerdoodle Cookies

Occasion: Decided to do some late night baking. Project snicker-doodle cookies with my new cookie press! 11.25.11 

Snicker-doodle Cookies

First time baking these treats. We played around with the cookie press, which is why you see uneven shapes, but we finally figured it out. They were best eaten fresh out of the oven. Successful batch for our first time.

Recipe from Brown Eyed Baker

Yield: About 4 dozen
2¾ cups flour
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1½ cups sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or a baking mat and put in refrigerator to chill.
2. Whisk together the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.
3. Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla.
4. Gradually stir in the flour mixture, beating on low speed just until the flour is blended.
5. Chill the dough for at least 30 minutes.
6. In the meantime, mix together the sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.
7. Scoop 1-inch balls of dough and roll in the cinnamon and sugar mixture to coat.
8. Place on chilled cookie sheet about 2 inches apart and bake for 10 minutes.
9. Chill the dough and cookie sheets between batches.
10. Let cookies set on baking sheet for 2-3 minutes and then remove to a cooling rack. Store cookies in an airtight container.

Palace BBQ Buffet

1092 E El Camino Real Sunnyvale, CA 94087 

Occasion: Celebrating Henry's sister's bday! My first time here and it was very hyped up. It's not really worth it for me to go to buffets because I can't stuff myself crazy. 11.27.11 

pickled radishes, kimchee and bean sprouts
raw blue crabs
korean short ribs

Kingdom of Dumpling

1713 Taraval St

San Francisco, CA 94116

 

Occasion: Saturday night dinner for 5 with Henry's siblings and bff.  So simple but so delicious. 11.26.11

Dumplings

We ordered three different dumplings with the same exterior look, but completely different tasty fillings.  My favorite was the pork with spinach filling followed by the pork and chives filling and lastly the shrimp, pork and chives filled ones.  The skin was not too thick and just the perfect size to pop into your mouth.  Be careful though, they're hot and can burn your tongue or the roof of your mouth.  I dipped it in the little tray of soy sauce they provided for each of us for a little more flavor, but the dumplings itself were so flavorful, I could have eaten each one with out the soy sauce dipping.

Xiao Long Baos

I take a little bite to create a hole on the skin of the buns and slurp up the soup from within the bun then dip it into the sauce and stuff it in my mouth.  Probably the best I've had in the city.  The skin is perfect and not too thick, though it wasn't filled with as much soup than I'd like for it to be. Flavorful and delightful little treats. YUM!

Cucumber Salad with minced garlic and sesame oil

Crunchy, flavorful and refreshing.  It was delicious and very addicting.  Right off the bat, we could taste the garlic in it, which made it even more tasty.  The sesame oil adds a great aromatic flavor to it.  Two of my favorite seasonings combined on one of my favorite veggies.  This was a winner appetizer.

Fresh cilantro bean noodle

I really really liked it.  It's my kind of dish.  It's amazing knowing that the noodle was made with bean curd.  It had a springy, yet crunchy texture.  Flavor was simple, but delicious! It was one of my favorite dishes of the night.  It's definitely unique and not something I've had before.

Marinated Beef

Cold appetizer.  My least favorite dish.  It was cold, the meat was dry and rough.  It wasn't that flavorful either.  I only had 1 piece and that was more than enough for me.

 Beef Noodle Soup

It was good, but not your typical northern beef noodle stew.  The broth was pretty "qing" and simple.  There were mushroom and mustard green with the flat rice noodle in it.  I enjoyed it on the cold winter night.

Onion pancake

Greasy and delicious. One of my favorite things to order at a northern Chinese restaurant.  The pancake batter was thin, crispy but soft and chewy inside. My favorite! YUM!!

Brix

7377 Saint Helena Hwy
Napa, CA 94558-9726

Occasion:After a day of wine tasting and hanging out with the girls in Napa Valley we ended our day trip here fore dinner. 11.20.11

Tempura fried string beans with a lemon aioli sauce

This was not on their menu and was a special request.  They do however have tempura fried vegetables though.  This was the best thing we had that night.  Great little crispy finger food to start the meal with!  Love the idea of tempura batter. How genius!

Foie Gras spread with toast

It was a special of the night and we were definitely fooled.  The waiter said "seared" foie gras.  If we had known that it was more of a pate, I would not have ordered it.  The gelatin thing around the foie gras was so weird! Not my thing.  It was rich and flavorful, but I could not consume too much of it at once.

Dungeness crab salad 

with citrus supremes and an avocado meyer lemon vinaigrette

Annie and I shared this and the chef was nice enough to split it in half for us. Not what I expected when I saw the plate.  I thought it was a salad with chunks of crab meat.  The grapefruit chunks were a great balance with the flavors of the crab meat.

Beef ribeye with truffled mac & goat cheese timbale and a bone marrow butter

This sounded better than it tasted.  Again, Annie and I split this dish and they were nice enough to split it for us. The meat was not cooked to a medium rare that we had requested.  It was more cooked than we had wanted it to be.  The mac and cheese was too dry and not cheesy enough, though the bone marrow butter did add flavor to the meat.  I was already so full, I did not finish my portion!

Duck confit roulade with slow braised pork belly warm lentil vinaigrette

Jtpizzle's dish.  It was decent, but nothing to rave about.  I was not about all the lentils on the bottom.

Wood grilled pork chop with pumpkin-pancetta risotto, collards and cider jus

We were all amazed at how big the piece of pork chop was.  The meat was surprisingly moist and juicy and not dry.  I really wanted to taste the pumpkin-pancetta risotto. I mean how can you NOT want to try that?  The pumpkin flavor added a nice mild sweetness to the risotto and I thought it was a great complement to the porkchop.