Wednesday, August 23, 2006

secret dinners and veggie ribs

it's been about a week since my last post. i have found it somewhat hard to keep up with these and especially since i have been trying to be better about not eating out quite so much.

i was a little saddened this past weekend to confirm that dairy is causing me some stomach problems. i didn't eat any cheese until this past friday for 2 weeks. i luv cheese to death and it was hard to go off of it for 2 weeks. this past friday, at panchita #3 i opted to go for cheese again and had pupusas and cheese enchiladas. of course i thoroughly enjoyed my meal but my tummy paid dearly for it the next few days. so, i am off cheese again but i have bought some lactaid to keep on me for when i can't hold myself back.

on a positive note i was treated to a wonderful vegan meal on saturday night. our friends maya and ben invited us along to celebrate their engagement and their cousin's birthday. it was a fun night with friends and good food. we were treated to a wonderful salad with strawberries and pine nuts, some empanadas stuffed with potatoes and some other veggies i can't recall, lemongrass skewers with grilled mango, tomatoes, starfruit... these were the main dishes. there were some others but sorry they escape me. i really liked the idea of using the lemongrass stalks at the skewers and the starfruit made them very cute. the empanadas were good but i wish they had been a bit more juicy or maybe had some salsa to go with them. we were also treated to a chocolate vegan cake that was incredible. there was raspberry sauce and fresh raspberries to top it off with. maya had asked some of us to bring extra desserts and so i made some brownies (not vegan) i found off of epicurious and they were amazing. very chewy and made with ghirardelli chocolate (my decision) not coco powder. all in all it was a fun night with good food.

since saturday i haven't eaten out for dinner. well i take that back, i had a burrito at el metate on sunday night and as usual it was very good. and you know, i actually had cheese that night because i was starving. geoffrey and i went on a 50 mile bike ride and that was hard but fun.

i did eat out lunch yesterday and had some thai food from plearn in berkeley (i work in downtown berkeley). plearn is my go to place when i want a lot of good thai food at lunch. i always get the green curry with tofu. it's not on the menu but you can ask for it. yesterday it was especially spicy which i liked. if you get the combination lunch plate you get a salad, 3 mini spring rolls, 2 are fresh and one is fried. the fried one has taro in it and is yummy. you also get a nice piece of fruit, like watermelon, to eat when you are done. oh, and before the meal even starts you get a bowl of their wonderful rice soup. it's salty with a few chunks of celery. sounds boring but i promise it's good. they swear its veggie but sometimes i do wonder if they don't put some stock in it. let's hope not.

tonight i cooked at home and tried something new that caught my eye in the grocery store recently: garden burger bbq riblets. i usually don't buy fake meat except for gimme lean sausage. however, occasionally the weird fake meat product will catch my eye. so, i deciced to try the riblets because i like the garden burger brand. what i forgot though is that i never really ever liked pork when i did eat meat, except very crispy bacon and sausage. so, i was only able to eat half of one of the riblets. at first i thought it tasted ok and the bbq sauce was good which is crucial. however, the taste was a little too real for me and i had to throw the rest out. so, overall i say if you miss ribs and are veggie or vegan (yep, they're vegan) then give these a try. also i may try to grill them in a few weeks for a cookout (the picture from the garden burger website gave me that idea), they might be better in small pieces mixed with other veggies.

Thursday, August 17, 2006

dosa

last night i returned to dosa to give it a second chance. for those of you who don't know dosa is the only south indian restaurant in san francisco; it opened up earlier this year. it is named after a south indian dish called "dosa". dosas are somewhat like crepes, but are usually bigger and have a spicy filling in the middle. you typically dip your dosa in either sambar or a coconut chutney. i went the first week dosa opened with VERY high hopes because i love south indian food.

note: some might think i have sort gone overboard with indian food in general since geoffrey and i visited ryan in india one and half years ago. but i don't see how that can possibly be a bad thing except listening to geoffrey complain if i make indian food more than once in a month.

so, anyway i had high HIGH HIGH hopes for dosa when i went earlier this year but sadly i was not blown away. i thought the portions were small compared to what i have had at other places in the east and south bay and also dosa is far more expensive. also, i really didn't appreciate the look, or feel of the restaurant. as a result of this first trip to dosa, i wrote a review on yelp, giving dosa only two out of five stars. one of the owners of dosa immediately wrote to me asking me to return and try them again.

last night i finally made it back. it's been a long time coming. geoffrey and i met up with our friend tommy and only had to wait about 20 minutes. i have heard horror stories about the wait and was expecting more like an hour. as soon as we were seated, i immediately noticed the noise level. i don't really know what dosa can do about this but it's too loud in the restaurant. sometimes, i could barely hear geoffrey or tommy and i felt like i had to yell a little bit (and i talk loud as it is).

we started out by ordering the potato croquettes. the plate came out which just two, but they were a decent size and enough for three. we also orderd the south indian mung sprout salad. this was my favorite part of the entire meal. i loved the crunchy mung spouts mixed in with tomato, cucumber, chiles, ginger, and lettuce - dressed lightly in oil with cumin and other spices.

for my main entree i had the chile and coriander uttapam. my mouth was on fire in a good way and i ate almost the entire dish which was pretty big. i did think the sambar was a little to thick and i also found the coconut chutney to be somewhat flavorless. the coconut chutney is usually my favorite dipping sauce and last night i barely touched mine.

geoffrey and tommy both had the chatni masala dosa. i had never heard of this type of dosa before. i guess sometimes it has a ridge gourd in it, but last night the chutney featured eggplant. i can't really say much about this dish because i actually didn't try geoffrey's. i can say that the dosa itself looked more like a crepe you could get at ti couz. i thought this was strange because dosas are typically larger than this and also more cripy toward the outer edges of the dosa. they don't usually start getting the moosy texture until you move in towards the filling. however, like i said, i didn't taste this - i only tried to absorb a little bit of what geoffrey and tommy said.

i did enjoy the food i ate better this time. i increased my rating on yelp from two to three (out of five) star. probably, two was a little harsh now that i think about it. so overall i would actually give dosa three starts if i could go back in time. the reason i can't give it five is first of all the dining room is way too loud. also we spent close to 75 dollars total, or 25 each. note, you can get a bigger dosa plus appetizer for about 10 dollars cheaper (if not more) in the east bay.

i complained about the price in my first yelp review of dosa and the owner told me to consider their location and the style of the restaurant. and, yes i can agree dosa does not have the cafeteria/no style/boring thing going on that can be typical of some indian restaurants - dosa is indeed decorated with a more hip vibe. dosa is dark, with a lot of dark red, and nice lighting overhead. however, i think there is a way to make a restaurant look and feel nice without having to make the cost of food suffer.

today i wrote to the owner again to tell him about my latest experience. i once again brought up the cost issue. this time he told me that restaurants in sf have to pay servers a hourly wage of almost 9 dollars an hour (i wasn't aware of this) and also he brought up the style difference between dosa compared to vik's or udupi. he also informed me that his staff, some of who have worked in kitchens at updupi, are paid a higher living wage. when he tells me this sort of information i can understand their prices being higher but still i have to think they are making a killing charging 10 dollars for a masala dosa and 7 dollars for idli sambar (now that's just crazy).

one last thing, dosa only offers three curries. two of these have meat and the one veggie currie is channa masala (which is a north indian dish and is so typical of indian restaurants). i am disappointed that dosa doesn't offer some of the more exciting curries and other veggie dishes you can get in south india. when geoffrey and i were in kerala with ryan, we had a thali almost everyday. we also had some amazing vegetarian food in ernakulam, outside of cochin. and, not to mention the menu at a vegetarian restaurant would have an overwhelming amount of items to choose from and i wanted to try them all! i want a restaurant like this to make it's way into the bay area. i know i can get a thali in the east or south bay, but i want even more exciting and different dishes!

with all of this said, i can say i am glad i went back to dosa and gave it another try. if they get some new things on their menu i might try it again down the road. however, for now i think i will just stick with getting dosas in the east bay (since i work in berkeley mon-fri). i don't have a problem with a restaurant not having a hip atmosphere as long as the food is outstanding and a good deal.

Monday, August 14, 2006

tortilla soup veggie style

so all of a sudden our tivo has started recording every food show imaginable. it's actually pretty cool because i am getting lots of pbs food shows, although some of them are a bit dorky, but nonetheless it's fun to watch yummy things being cooked that i know i can somehow transform into my own.

this past weekend, everyday food appeared in our tivo choices, and i decided to give it a whirl. i don't remember much about the show except for the tortilla soup one person made. it seemed so simple and easy that i decided that tonight i would make a veggie version. i just ate it and i am happy to report it turned out quite nice. here's what i did and it is pretty different from what they did on the show.

so if you want that recipe you can look it up on their website: everyday food

first, I sauteed about a tablespoon of butter with one clove of chopped garlic. Then after about 45 seconds i added a small handfull of onion and celery to the mix. this all sauteed for a few minutes and then i added another small handful of potato and tofu. again, this all sauteed for a few minutes and then i added a small box of imagine organic vegetable broth
.

i also added 2-3 cups of water. then i added one diced (seeds and all) jalapeno to the soup. i let everything boil until the chopped potatoes were cooked through and then i turned the soup down to low.

next, while the soup was on low and simmering, i put the oven on 400 degrees. i coated about 5 corn tortillas with canola oil front and back. i used a brush to do this but you could use a paper towel instead. i stacked them and cut them into then strips and then once across the middle. i spread them out over a baking dish and put them in the oven for 15 minutes or so. i flipped them a few times with a spatula.

once those were done i ladled some soup into a bowl and topped it off with the crunchy tortilla strips. then i added some scallions, avocado, sour cream, and a taste of lime.

here is a picture of the final product. i think it turned out pretty tasty and i will have leftovers for at least two days. it wasn't quite salty enough so make sure you add enough salt to where you like it. i had to add some to my soup after it was already in the bowl.



let me know if you try it.

what else. this past weekend landon and melissa came to visit us and we had a great time. we ate out a ton. friday we went to my all time favorite neighborhood spot, el nuevo fruitlandia. as usual it was outstanding. my favorite thing to get at fruitlandia are the chile rellenos. however, i am trying not to eat cheese (or any dairy) for two weeks. i of course ended up cheating when we were at fruitlandia and like usual geoffrey and i split the chile rellenos and an order of maduros (fried plantains). i did forego ordering my own pineapple shake or having any of geoffrey's mango shake. i have a review of fruitlandia on my yelp page (see link for kristie's yelp page).

saturday, being on a good eats roll, we ate breakfast/brunch at the universal cafe.
as usual everything was delicious and if you are afraid to eat here because of the cost or the long waits on the weekend, just give in and you'll see that it's worth it. you can read my recent review on my yelp page.

later saturday, we ate at spices II to get our spice on. hao has been going on and on about spices II and i decided to give it another try. once i ate there and it wasn't so good. spices II has however redeemed itself. there were tons of veggie options and the ma po tofu was very spicy which i enjoyed. once again there is more on this experience on my yelp page.

being the pigs we are, we went right around the corner to genki crepes and mini mart. genki is one of my favorite stores in the city. it's basically like a japanese 7-11 except a million times better. they have savory and sweet crepes, egg puffs (like waffles), cool sodas and snacks, and fun toys! i hardly ever get to go there though because we live in the mission and the richmond always seems so far away and it's cold there. but, whenever we do venture over there i always stop in to buy something cute at genki. that night though, we were there for crepes. well everyone but me was there for a crepe. being on my no dairy kick i had to settle for egg puffs which may have had some dairy but not as much as a crepe with ice cream and nutella. the best part of the night was when i discovered a cute new toy. they are called "woodmate kitchen petite" and i must have the entire collection. someone has some pics up on flickr:


and now that i have gotten way off the topic of food i will end here. i also promise to take more pictures of the fun food we eat out.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

too much food so little time

i ate out a ton this past weekend. i have posted some to my yelp page but i am working on posting to the blog soon. tomorrow, i'll have a massive post because i am going to cook a veggie version of tortilla soup. more tomorrow.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

southern style tacos

most of my friends know i love okra. i feel like it's much more prevalent during the nc summer months and so about this time of year i try to patiently wait for it to make an appearance in my sf grocery store. (note however, i have found out i can sometimes find okra year round in indian groceries around the bay area, although i can't believe it's local). anyway, i was in rainbow the other night and behold, they had okra! i was very excited and bought about a pound. basically i like okra cooked just about every way: breaded and deep fried, breaded and pan fried, pan fried no breading, boiled (gotta love the slime) and pickled, especially spicy pickled okra. mmm....

obviously i didn't just whip up a batch of pickled okra, although i do want to take up pickling one day. so, instead i decided to make tacos. that's right, okra tacos. i used to make these way back in the day in chapel hill when ed and i had a huge garden. those were the days. i miss having a garden out here. instead, for now, i am settling for two very teeny tiny planters of lettuce (see pic). depressing isn't it?



back on track now.

for my okra tacos i first boiled some black eyed peas with a smidge of butter and salt. that's right black eyed peas!, not black or pinto. i always have black eyes peas on hand - they are quite versatile and i love to just make beans and rice with them (and they sort of repalce field peas which seem to only be able to get at thanksgiving and christmas via pender county, nc). while the peas were cooking, i made some salsa with two green zebra and 1 cherokee purple heirloom tomato. i tossed in a little lime juice, cilantro, salt, garlic, onion, black pepper, and jalapeno.

i pan fried okra (not breaded) with garlic and a little chopped onion in some olive oil. i salted everything while it was cooking and let the okra get a tad brown. i took the okra off, kept the skillet super hot, and added my corn tortillas one at a time (about 30 seconds each side). a small pinch of pepper jack was added to each tortilla before piling on the black eyed peas, okra, salsa, avocado, and a taste of sour cream.

i have to say this meal turned out pretty damn good. i did get one crtique from my nightly critic, geoffrey. he said i piled the tacos a little too high so he couldn't easily pick them up with his hands. i think he just wanted to eat more tortillas. next time i'll try to remember to take a picture of what i cook instead of just posting a pic of some depressing lettuce.

Sunday, August 6, 2006

never too busy to eat out

i have been super busy the past 1.5 weeks and so have been pretty slack about writing. however, due to having a lot of visitors in town this past week (my brother and ryan and rebecca) i have gotten to eat out a lot and have even gotten to eat a three places i have never tried before.

first, i ate at the roosevelt tamale parlor. they have one of the best signs in the city and if you see it, you will want to eat there just because of it. in fact two years ago i ate here mainly because the sign was so great and also the menu seemed interesting. unfortunately my experience eating there as a vegetarian ended with an appetizer with some hidden meat surprises, yick. back to present day...i was pleasantly surprised to hear they were under new management, had changed their menu and decor, and had also had some help with their menu from the owner of primavera.

primavera is one of my favorite places to eat brunch/lunch at (it's at the ferry building and i have reviewed it on yelp).

with this new knowledge, i had very high expectations going in. i thought the servers were very nice and friendly and the food also came out really fast. i was surprised at the lack of flavor in the beans and also in the veggie tamale but i am happy to see a restaurant at least making the attempt to serve a veggie tamale. my brother had a combo plate with a taco, chile relleno and beans/rice. his chile relleno was pretty good (although not as good as el nuevo fruitlandia). we also split the chilaquiles, which are chips that are cooked with a red or green sauce (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilaquiles). the chips are not crunchy. i thought this dish was one of the best, but i do wish there had been cheese, sour cream, or avocado on top.

i am really looking forward to giving the tamale parlor another try. they have some interesting sounding enchiladas and also a quesadilla with sqaush blossoms (doesn't that sound so good?).

later in the week i finally ate at
boogaloos. i know, everyone has been there but i never get there because st. francis is very close and also the line at boogaloos on the weekends is crazy. i had the day off this past tuesday and finally decided it was the right time for boogaloos. more soon.

Roosevelt Tamale Parlor
2817 24th Street
San Francisco, CA 94110