I Am The King Of Thai - 2010 San Francisco & Napa Trip Day 1

I travel to eat. Of course I travel also to see new places and experience new things. But the local food scene is what I am ultimately interested in. The heart of any culture is in its cuisine, and eating what the locals eat gives me a glimpse into the way the people live in any particular community. It's hard as a tourist to find the real local spots. Having yelp is definitely a plus in our day and age, but with so many places it can be challenging to narrow your choices down to the five or so places you have time and stomach for.

For someone who have been to San Francisco a few times in my life, I really didn't know much about the city. All the previous times I went I fell victim to the tourist traps of Fisherman warf. This time I was determined to get a real sense of what San Francisco is truly about. As I was planning the entire trip, I posted to my thirteen hundred Facebook friends for possible suggestions for places to dine at and things to do up north. I had also enlisted my nearby friend Kenneth, since he had lived shortly up in San Francisco before, for his opinions and suggestions of possible restaurants to check out. Ultimately I was fortunate enough to have a friend currently living in San Francisco who loves food, to take me to one of his favorite spots as well as a quick tour of San Francisco.

(Adante Hotel)

It was a rainy night when I arrived to San Francisco with my travel buddy. I originally wanted to drive up highway 1 along the coast and visit jade cove and other coastal towns along the way. But I scraped that idea when I saw the weather forecast that it would be raining up north by the late afternoon and into the night. It was a bit risky to take the Pacific Coast Highway up north as the roads may end up being extremely congested because of the rain. Instead we opted to go up the 5 Freeway, cut across on the 152 to the 101 and head into San Francisco from the south. I also wanted to avoid the toll bridge during rush hour.

I made Vietnamese spring rolls for the road trip. They were the same as the ones I had at my family's Christmas day dinner. This time I wrapped them myself with the same ingredients as the ones my aunt made. My wrapping skill was a hit or miss; I definitely can use some practice. A few turned out nice while the others barely stayed intact. I will spare myself the embarrassment of posting pictures of them here. Nevertheless these vietnamese spring rolls made for a good lunch on a road trip. They were light and didn't stink up the car, though the rice noodle did put me in a slight food coma immediately afterwards. I was able to switch off and let my travel buddy take over the drive for an hour or so.

We arrived at our hotel the Adante Hotel, which was a few blocks west of Union Square at the border of Tenderloin. Because of the location, the hotel was very reasonably priced. There was really no problems with the neighborhood at the hotel as long as we didn't venture too far west in the middle of the night. My friend Dave came by at 730pm to pick us up and take us dinner. The spring rolls were a good snack on the trip, but I was ready to have a real meal on this cold and wet night. I told Dave I wanted to check out a low brow dive joint, a place where the locals would eat. He ended up taking us to a local popular chain of Thai restaurants, King Of Thai Noodle House.

(Combination Beef Noodle Soup)

The noodle house was south of market street near Powell. It was a happening place despite the rain. We parked a block away from the restaurant on the street and ran in the rain over to the entrance. The restaurant was mostly full. There was a table by the door but we opted out of that one and waited a few minutes for another one that was further inside. I detest sitting by the door, especially on a cold, rainy night. Dave told me he used to eat at this chain nearly every day a few years ago. Supposedly there was a rift in the family and some of the members went down the street and opened another Thai restaurant. I wasn't able to confirm this story, but I still enjoyed a good old fashion restaurant drama before a good hearty meal.

The menu was rather basic. I suppose I have been spoiled by the enormous amount of choices from restaurants in Los Angeles. Nevertheless I asked Dave for suggestions based on what he normally eats. I wanted to eat like the locals, so why not ask the local what he eats here and order that. He ordered the combination beef noodle soup and I followed suite.

I don't recall ever having a noodle soup at a Thai restaurant. It's not the first thing that pops into my mind when I think of Thai cuisine. I normally would order either some form of curry over rice, a pad thai or some sort of dry noodles, or even a tom yum soup. In terms of south east Asian cuisine, like most people I think of Vietnamese Pho when I think about noodle soup. I didn't quite know what to expect in terms of flavor from a Thai noodle soup.

The menu said the soup was a little spicy. I am always weary of spiciness; I have a rather low tolerance of spice. My friend reassured me that the noodles are not spicy at all. I was still weary of the soup since my friend had a high tolerance of spice, but I went for it nevertheless. The soup turned out to be barely spicy but extremely flavorful. It was a rich, dark, beef broth that almost tasted like a good bowl of Taiwanese beef noodle soup. We ordered the rice noodle, but apparently they changed their rice noodles a year ago from the thin version to pho noodles.

That aside the beef stew was very tender and melted in my mouth. The beef slices were thicker than the Vietnamese style which I prefer in my noodle soup. It's very easy to over cook the beef in a noodle soup because the broth continues to cook the beef after plating. Their beef was just bordering well done so it was still acceptable in terms of texture for me.

(Vegetables Over Rice)

My travel buddy ordered vegetables over rice since she wanted to eat something lighter. I took a bite of her veggies and thought the dish was pretty flavorful. On one hand I do enjoy the rich flavors of the sauce that the vegetables were stir fried in, but at the same time I almost miss the original flavor of the vegetables. I generally prefer my vegetables to retain their original natural flavors. Once in a while, a heavily sauced vegetable dish is still nice over a bit of rice.

(On Top Of Twin Peak in San Francisco on a Rainy Night)

After dinner Dave gave us a quick driving tour of the city. We ended up on top of Twin Peak with a night view despite the rain. Having had a crash course on the neighborhoods of San Francisco, I had a slightly better feeling for the city. I was ready to go to bed and hit the city head on the next day.

Continue reading at:
A Fortunate Pilgrimage - 2010 San Francisco & Napa Trip Day 2 Part I
It's a Small Small World - 2010 San Francisco & Napa Trip Day 2 Part II
Burger To Die For - 2010 San Francisco & Napa Trip Day 3 - The Food
Riesling, riesling, where for art thou my riesling? - 2010 San Francisco & Napa Trip Day 3 - The Wine

Read more »

Homemade Chocolate Dipped Fruits

Last week I started making a few batches of chocolate dipped fruits. I wanted to do a little post specifically on them.

I'm all about giving things a try. One of my best friend this Christmas received a batch of chocolate dipped chilled dried mangos from a friend of his and said they were fantastic. So I immediately went out to make a batch of this for someone I was dating. The things I would do for my dates. Truth be told I would do this for any friend if they happened to be there and they are willing to be my guine pig.

(Chocolate Dipped Frozen Bananas and Apples)

I figured it would be pretty simple, just like chocolate dipped strawberries that I already know how to make. My chocolate dipped creations aren't as fancy as the ones you can by at the store yet, but I plan on getting them better looking as I do this more. But even without all the fancy stuff, these little creations are easy to make and turns out to be quite delicious.

(Chilled Dried Mangos)

(Melted 72% Dark Chocolate)

(Chocolate Dipped Chilled Dried Mangos)

My first batch were chocolate dipped chilled dried mangos. I kept them simple without adding walnuts or pecans. I plan on using those in the future. But even without the little crunch, these chocolate dipped creations make for a surprisingly tasty treat. The chilly gave the chocolate a little bit of a sting, intensifying the bitterness of the chocolate. I used a 72% dark chocolate from Trader Joes. It's their store brand called Pound Plus. I actually only used about half of it on this batch and used the rest on the next batch two days later.

I melted the chocolate by steaming in a small pot over a boiling wok of hot water. I find steaming them the most effective way to melt chocolate without burning them either by directly placing them on an open fire or inside a microwave. The chocolate melted in a very consistent manner and I didn't have to stir at all and worry about burning it. Just remember not to cover the pot to avoid water from being mixed in the water.

After melting the chocolate, it was just a matter of dipping the mangos in the chocolate and taking them out, placing them on parchment paper to let dry. I experimented by dipping them in a little bit of sipping chocolate. I think next time I would sprinkle them on instead of dipping. It didn't quite work out the way I thought it would. But it still tasted pretty good.

(Chocolate Dipped Frozen Bananas)

(Chocolate Dipped Frozen Bananas Drying)

(Chocolate Dipped Frozen Bananas)

I made the dried mangos on December 23. On December 25, I had the big family dinner. I went snowboarding in the morning. I wasn't planning on making anything. But when I got home, I felt like I should make a contribution to the dinner aside from the the bottle of Riesling I got. So I decided to make some chocolate dipped fruits. We didn't have any more chilled dried mangos and Trader Joes was closed on Christmas Day. All I had were a couple of bananas and apples at home. So I decided to cut up the bananas into smaller chunks and dip them in chocolate. I figured since they sell chocolate dipped frozen bananas at the beach, so they must be good. I actually have never had one in my life. I did also dip a banana while making the mango batch and it tasted pretty good. So I decided to give it a shot.

I melted the chocolate the same way by steaming. I actually used leftover chocolate that was already melted during the first batch but I kept it in the pot and set it aside afterwards. The chocolate was still perfect after this second remelting. It was mixed with the remaining bar of chocolate I had and the consistency of the chocolate was great.

I dipped each piece of banana and apple slices inside the chocolate and then picked it out with a toothpick. I deliberately poked the toothpick on the top of the banana which resulted in a little dimple. It was actually quite cute. I left them on a parchment paper to solidify for about an hour. After the chocolate hardened, I placed the pieces on a plate and then placed it in the freezer to freeze them. I served them about four hours later.

Frozen chocolate dipped fruits are really easy to make and much healthier than other frozen treats. The frozen banana tasted almost like frozen ice cream balls while the frozen apples tasted like a frozen icicle. Personally I think these are much better and healthier alternatives than having actual ice cream and icicles. I am definitely going to be doing a lot more dipping in the future. Next time though I will start decorating the chocolate with nuts and white chocolate swirls to "fancify" them.

Read more »

Christmas Day Dinner Extravaganza: Vietnamese Style

Wow, where do I begin?

I have a lot of uncles and aunts around the world. My parents' siblings and their descendants span across four different continents. My Dad's parents actually live right here in Los Angeles. On occasions some of his siblings would come in town and visit. One aunt of mine from Canada visit quite frequently since she's rather close. I always look forward to her visits because I know I would get some really good homemade Vietnamese foods. The irony is that I generally do not crave Vietnamese foods, though lately I ate a lot of Vietnamese foods because I dated a Vietnamese-Chinese guy for a short while. This year since my aunt is in town for Christmas, we decided to do a half Vietnamese and half Chinese meal for our big family Christmas day dinner.

(Shrimp and Vietnamese Cold Cuts Spring Rolls)

(Shrimp and Vietnamese Cold Cuts Spring Rolls with Fish Sauce and Vinegar Dipping Sauce)

One of my absolute favorite Vietnamese dish is the Spring Rolls. I am a big fan of rice products, especially thin rice noodles. Rice paper is used as the skin to the wrap. The content varies from person to person making it. My aunt uses rice vermicelli mixed with a little oil and chive to keep the strands from clumping, shredded lettuce, shrimp and Vietnamese cold cuts as the main ingredients. Half of the batch had an assortment of mint inside while the other half had a long strand of green onions. My Dad made the dipping sauce with fish sauce, vinegar, garlic, chilly pepper and a little bit of sugar. This is by far one of the best appetizers on the planet. It's light and I can eat this all day long. I stuffed down at least six of them since 4pm in the afternoon.

(Taro and Pork Eggrolls with Cloud Fugus)

To compliment the spring rolls, my aunt made egg rolls. I found out the secret to a good and non-oily egg roll is in the skin. My aunt bought some amazing egg roll skin and it was the least oily egg roll I have ever had in my life. There was no need to use a paper towel to soak up excess oil. It was perfectly crunchy without oil dripping everywhere.

The egg rolls were stuffed with taro and pork as the main ingredients with shredded carrots and black fungus, cloud ears in Chinese. It's always fascinating how weird foods in Chinese always have pretty names. I wouldn't order black fungus off a menu, but I would consider a cloud ears. I actually love black fungus. It's a jellylike substance that is similar to a jellyfish, only much flatter. Most of the stuffings are normal egg roll ingredients with the exception of the taro. The taro made the egg rolls just a bit lighter than a all pork egg roll, while still retaining a similar texture to an all pork egg roll. An tasty egg roll with fiber inside is definitely not something you can easily find in stores or restaurants.

(Crabmeat and Fish Stomach Soup)

Of course no Chinese or part Chinese meal would be complete without a soup. My family absolutely adores a good crabmeat and fish stomach soup. I have had this so many times in restaurants but this one was fresh and light. The crabmeat were hand shredded from live crabs. The fish stomach was very high quality presoaked and cooked before cutting it up to put into the soup. Fish stomach is also a jellylike substance but with a much less crunch than a jellyfish. Add to the soup a bit of vinegar and it's perfect. However my parents bought the light vinegar which wasn't strong enough to really bring out that vinegar sting. Still the soup was just fantastic and we have plenty of that leftover.

(Pork, Beef and Shrimp Bun)

Bun is another one of my preferred Vietnamese dishes. I generally prefer bun than I do Pho. It's actually pretty simple to make. We used the same rice noodles with oil and chive and shredded lettuce as the spring rolls. We actually had some shrimp and cold cuts left from the wraps so we tossed those in. Then we just add sprouts, pan stirred beef and onions and pan fried bar-b-que pork. Toss a sprinkle of grounded pan fried peanuts and the same fish sauce and vinegar sauce and it's a nice dish. I would say though this wasn't one of the best buns I've had in my life. But it really was almost made as an afterthought while the spring rolls were the main event. The appetizer and the entree really were flipped backwards in terms of emphasis. The whole family ate more soup and appetizers the whole night than the bun and the vermicelli noodles.

(Pan Fried Beef Vermicelli Noodles)

This was our other entree that really wasn't eaten the whole night. Partly it's because we eat this dish way too often as a family than we do the spring rolls and egg rolls. A good beef vermicelli noodle is hard to make at home because it really requires a stove that has a really big flame. We sometimes actually use a special stovetop that can be hooked to a small tank of natural gas to cook this dish. But we didn't do that tonight. I totally understood since the rest of the meal was so much work, it was just way too much trouble to break out that stove to make this dish. The dish basically is composed of vermicelli noodles, beef and spouts. It was good, but the other dishes totally out shined it.

(Pork Ribs, Sea Cucumbers and Portobello Mushrooms)

The pork ribs, sea cucumbers and portobello mushrooms was the final of the three main course of the night. It also had dried scallops inside to add to the flavor. I generally love this dish when my Dad makes it and would eat a ton of it. But the truth is it really didn't fit with the rest of the meal. This dish really required rice for me to eat it. but I had a bit and it was very tasty as usual. Sea cucumbers are best made this way for me. It totally absorbs the juices from the pork and the mushrooms and is just dynamically flavorful. It did take an extremely long time to soak and cook so that the sea cucumber turns into a really soft jelly. I know, the entire night was full of jellylike foods. We love jellylike foods. That and also my grandmother is only willing to eat soft foods. She doesn't like to chew on food because of her teeth. She did eat a few of the sea cucumbers tonight.

(Deep Fried Shrimp Crackers)

Since we were frying egg rolls, my dad decided to fry some shrimp crackers. I really try to avoid this dish because it's super oily. The crackers really do absorb a lot of the oil. I ended up actually not eating any of it at all. 

(Oyster Pancakes)

The oyster pancakes is one of my Dad's best secret little recipe. It's actually hard to find good tiny oysters. This is a very popular Taiwanese dish that can be found at a lot of night markets. But most places smothers it with a ton of sauce and the flavor of the oyster and everything else gets lost. My dad makes it without any sauce and it's just divine. When made right, the edges of the pancake is a little crunchy while the center and the oysters are still gooey. The blend of his secret recipe just makes it a perfect little finale to a great meal.

(Lemonade with Brown Sugar)

Of course no dinner at my house is completely without our homemade lemonade with brown sugar. By using brown sugar, which is slightly healthier than refined sugar, the color of the lemonade almost looks like tea. We generally blend the sliced lemon with the sugar first by crushing the sugar with the lemon before we pour in the hot water to melt the sugar. Then we add cold water and ice to it to make our light and easy to make instant drink. The lemons are also from our backyard.

We also had a bottle of my favorite bottle of Chateau Ste Michelle Riesling that I mentioned in another post a week ago. Riesling and I suppose various white wines do go well with lighter types of Asian cuisines. A lot of Rieslings are pretty sweet but this bottle was dry enough so that it didn't intrude in the flavor of the foods. It really worked very well with especially the wraps and the other lighter items. Of course it didn't work as well with the pork ribs and the beef, but then most of us who drank the wine actually didn't eat much of any of that. So we really did enjoy the bottle very well.

(Pumpkin and Taro Sweet Soup)

This was actually the first time I had my aunt's pumpkin and taro sweet soup. There were also a little bit of small tapioca balls inside to give it a little thickening. The soup was lightly sweetened served warm. It was definitely a very delicious way to follow a generally light meal.

(Frozen Chocolate Dipped Bananas and Apples)

(Frozen Chocolate Dipped Bananas)

To finish the entire dinner, I decided to make a little frozen treat for everyone. I actually first did this two days ago. One of my best friend Tim was telling me about how another friend of his made him a batch of chocolate dipped spicy dried mangos. Immediately after that I made a batch of that myself and it turned out interestingly good. I'll actually blog about that experience and the making of this treat in a separate post soon. While I was making the batch of chocolate dipped mangos, I had a lot of chocolate left. I saw some bananas on the table and decided to throw it in and see what happens. I didn't freeze that batch, but it was still pretty good and enjoyable.

I then remember seeing all those frozen chocolate dipped banana stands all my life and never actually buying one. So when I made them earlier today, I decided to freeze them and hope for the best. It actually turned out very well and my family did enjoy them tremendously. I discovered that frozen bananas aren't rock solid It was semi-flaky. Well I only froze it for about four hours. Next time I'll experiment with how the duration will affect the banana. I am also going to add some nuts and even white chocolate swirls to future batches.

All in all the dinner was a great success. Everyone was happy. We had a lot of great food and had a fantastic time. The best part was that this meal actually was light enough that I didn't feel completely bloated. Either that or I just didn't eat enough. Still with so much food intake lately, now it's time to start my New Years resolution early and get all that fatty stuff off my tummy before it latches onto me permanently.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

===UPDATE===

I was asked here in the comment about what the brand of the egg rolls skin were. Here's the picture. It's called Spring Home.

(Spring Home Egg Roll Skin - Small)

(Spring Home Egg Roll Skin - Large)

Egg rolls often are very oily. I was told that the key towards having non-oily skin is in both having a good skin to begin with as well as to deep fry them in fresh vegetable oil; do not reuse old oil. After removing the egg rolls from the oil, lay them over a sheet of paper towel to absorb some of the excess oil before serving. There will always be some oil whenever something is deep fried, but this combination will help keep that to a minimal and keep them from being oily.

Read more »

Geoduck Saved My Christmas Dinner

My parents dragged me out to dinner tonight with some friends. To be honest, I wasn't in the best of mood today because of some personal things. It wasn't a big deal, just was a bummer. But I decided to go just to get out of the house and have a good dinner. Fortunately the friends had a kid who is possibly the happiest and most talkative kid I have ever met who managed to make me laugh and cheered me up. The kid was non-stop laughter. Laughter is truly contagious.

(East Gourmet Seafood Restaurant)

The restaurant was pretty busy on this Christmas Eve night. I suppose a lot of families like to do Christmas Eve dinner at home, but we ended up doing it at at East Gourmet Seafood Restaurant in Rosemead. My family's doing our big family dinner tomorrow night at home with everyone. I'm definitely going to blog about that one. We came here because we had Dim Sum here yesterday and got a coupon for a free lobster.

(Ginger and Chive Lobster)

The lobster was small given the fact that it was free. But it was still fresh and the meat came right off the shell. You can tell if a lobster is fresh when they are cooked in this style by their meat coming right off the shell. It wasn't a spectacular dish, but I can't complain since it's free. The quality is pretty much what you would expect your cut-of-the-mill seafood restaurant. Good but not memorable.

Lobster was one of the deals they had tonight. They also had a special for geoduck for $4.99 a pound. Geoducks are clams with a giant trunk that looks like the trunk of an elephant. They are the largest burrowing clams in the world. Naturally the shell was weighted as a part of it so we had to order about 5 pounds worth to be enough. But geoduck is usually over $10 per pound so this is definitely a deal not to be passed. There are a couple ways geoducks are usually served: stir fried, boiled or sashimi. I recommend either the boiled option or the sashimi option to retain its original flavor. We ordered the boiled version since my father doesn't eat sashimi. Actually my mother doesn't like geoduck served as sashimi despite the fact that she likes a lot of other kinds of sashimi. I always worry about eating sashimi in second rated restaurants because of freshness anyways. The head of the geoduck is typically served deep fried, otherwise it would be much more difficult to chew.

The geoduck that was served was actually pretty sweet and had a good crunch to it. It was topped with a little bit of chilly pepper, parsley, green onions, all of which is placed over a plate of sprouts. The sprouts complemented the rest of the dish since it's served sort of like a cold appetizer even though it was just freshly cooked. Even though I had better quality geoduck before, this was still well worth the money, especially since we get two plates for one item.

(Boiled Geoduck)

The meal actually started off with a soup like most Chinese meals. We ordered the corn and egg flower soup. It's a thick starchy soup. The flavor was decent and edible. I'm not a big fan of corn based soup. I suppose a lot of it has to do with the fact that nearly half of the things we eat have some sort of corn in them. I will eat corn, I just don't find them all that interesting. But my mother ordered it so I wasn't going to object.

(Corn and Egg Flower Soup)

We did order one of my favorite dishes at a Chinese Seafood Restaurant: walnut shrimp. This is also one of those items that is almost a guarantee at most Chinese wedding banquets. I don't think I've ever had a plate of bad walnut shrimp, but it's hard to make them amazing. This wasn't amazing. This was your average walnut shrimp. I think the temperature was just not hot enough for it to be amazing. For me, the shrimp needs to be much hotter so that the dressing feels like it's melting when you eat it. When the dressing just taste like paste, it's just that. It's not bad as it is, but it isn't a version that I would say I have to come back to this restaurant to have. I can't recall where I had a really good version of walnut shrimp. I'm just hoping one day I'll stumble across an amazing version again.

(Walnut Shrimp)

We also had the Egg Plant with Cod Clay Pot and the Filet Mignon French Style. I'm not a big fan of eggplant so I actually managed to forget to even taste it tonight. Some food critique I am. Actually by the time I got to it, the kid ate all the egg plants. Kudos to him for eating his veggies, but then of all things he ate eggplant. We did also have an order of sprout leaf too on the table which was devoured pretty quickly. The cod that I did manage to get a bite of was descent. The Filet Mignon was mediocre at best and simply forgettable. It's not even worth my time blogging about it.

(Eggplant with Cod Clay Pot)

(Filet Mignon French Style)

Dinner ended with a complimentary Red Bean Sweet Soup. This one was more gooey whereas I prefer mine to be more grainy. That's just a matter of preference. However it was on the sweet side so my diabetic mother had to pass and I only ate half a bowl.

(Red Bean Sweet Soup)

Honestly the dinner food here was just average. I was hoping for more on Christmas Eve but I didn't pick the restaurant. We came because of the free lobster and that some of the items at Dim Sum were pretty good. Dinner however wasn't spectacular enough to warrant me to come back except for the price point of the geoduck. The competition is tough for these Chinese Seafood Restaurants in the San Gabriel Valley. There are quite a few of them and they are all very good; some better then others.

So if you are looking just to get the geoduck while the special is still going, I say go, go now. Having had that geoduck did brighten what would otherwise be a bummer of a day. But if you are looking for a really good Chinese meal, I would say pass this one up and try Newport Tan Cang Seafood Restaurant in San Gabriel instead. I had an amazing but more expensive meal there in October of this year.

Well Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you are all having an amazing time with amazing foods.

Read more »