One of the main purposes of my trip to NYC was to help JL celebrate her upcoming nuptials. She shirked at the idea of the typical garish, penis-themed bachelorette party (who wouldn’t?), so a low-key event was planned instead. We started off at JL’s apartment with drinks and appetizers. DIY goddess EF graced us with homemade ricotta cheese and pesto made with homegrown basil for a delicious bruschetta. She also made guacamole from scratch, though she wants everyone to know that did not grow the avocados herself. The cocktail of the evening was Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka with lemonade. It was delicious and deceptively easy to drink, despite the high alcohol content. Because JL eschewed all penile-themed party favors, we went with a silly “girls rock!” theme, with Bonnie Bell lipsmackers and personalized “J+N 4-EVAH” temporary tattoos.

After the pre-party, we headed downtown to Sazon restaurant, which specializes in Puerto Rican cuisine. I had a San Juan martini (ok, maybe I had a couple), which were delicious. The gin was infused with cucumber and it was really refreshing. Since there were 9 of us, and because it was already past-dinner time, we opted to share the appetizer sampler, a couple of large salads, and dessert. The appetizer sampler was all fried and all delicious: empanadas, fried plantains topped with seafood (which I regretfully did not sample), fried calamari, fried shrimp, and fried pork. The highlight of the rest of the meal was the Peanut Butter and Chocolate Timbal. (I had to look up what a timbal was, and all I figure out was that the dessert resembles the shape of a drum… so if anyone can clear this up, please comment!) It was like a cake/mousse, with a crunchy crust at the bottom.

The strangest part of the evening had to be when they sent a birthday dessert to our table, even though it wasn’t anyone’s birthday. At first I thought the cake was for JL, because it was her party, but then they gave the cake to her sister NL, who thought there had to be a mistake because it certainly wasn’t her birthday. We realized that the restaurant seemed to be giving every table a free dessert and acting like it was someone’s birthday. So weird!

This will most likely be my last post for a while. I’m off to Japan for a week tomorrow… I might hijack the blog and make it about travel instead of food. That will depend on wi-fi availability.

The happy couple!

Last month, my friends J&M got married in Pleasant Hill, California. Every single aspect of the wedding was lovely and unique, from when M, the bride, walked down the aisle to gather irises from guests for her bouquet, to the finger puppet wedding favors. I’ll keep the descriptions short and let the photos do the talking.

After the moving ceremony (yes, I cried through the whole thing), there was a cocktail hour featuring a number of tasty “signature” cocktails, such as strawberry mojitos and mango iced tea with vodka. I opted for the gin and tonic with cucumber and rosemary, which was so refreshing. J&M also provided tons of homebrew, and their friend designed all of the labels, with each of the beers representing something personal to J&M.

Gin and tonic, infused with cucumber and rosemary. Perfect for a hot summer day.

A couple that brews beer together, stays together?! From left to right: Red Presidents Dry-hopped Red Ale, RIP IPA, Love Triangle Hefeweizen, and Final Move Blueberry American Ale. Not pictured: Illegible Digits (mystery beer/assorted brews).

The beautiful table settings. Each table featured a different centerpiece.

We all got finger puppets and a Lindt truffle for the wedding favors. This little froggy belonged to me.

Dinner was a Thai food buffet from Champa Garden in Oakland. I got a little of everything, and a lot of pad thai, of course!

Instead of having one cake, J&M opted for 7 different cakes from 3 different bakeries. (Fruit tart not pictured.)

At the end of the evening, the bride and her brother kicked off their shoes and let loose!

Congrats, J&M!! May the rest of your life together be as happy and wonderful as your wedding day!

Lucky you — two posts in two days! I’m trying to catch up on blog material, since I’m leaving for Taiwan and Japan this week, and I KNOW there will be much to blog about from that trip!

I had the second of my Sunday Night Dinners a few weeks back. On the guest list: LC, who cooked dinner for me in order to appear on this blog; SP, who has hosted me many times especially at Stitch n Bitch; and JL, my good friend and film watching buddy. In addition to being a very fun group, there were special reasons to invite each of these friends. LC and SP are both moving far, far away soon, and JL was celebrating a birthday the following Tuesday.

For the menu, I decided to focus on the dessert since it was JL’s birthday. In addition, SP is vegetarian and JL doesn’t eat red meat or pork, so I went with two recipes from the Chez Panisse Vegetables cookbook by the one and only Alice Waters. We started with olives and Manhattans — very civilized, no? For the first course, I made a pink grapefruit, avocado, and curly endive salad with citrus vinaigrette. It was delicious but would’ve been better had I chosen riper avocados. You’d think four years of living in California would confer some innate ability to buy avocados, but nope. Big shame!

Yummy salad!

For the main course, I made a simple roasted eggplant and tomato penne pasta. The key to this dish was the ricotta salata cheese that is crumbled on top of the pasta. Ricotta salata is an amazing and flavorful (and salty!) cheese that is solid, unlike its liquefied and more common cousin. It will beat Parmesan any day of the week, in terms of being a pasta topper. It is also, for the record, the only cheese made from sheeps’ milk that I have ever liked.

Penne with roasted eggplant, tomatoes, and ricotta salata.

Now, for dessert! Back when LC cooked dinner for me, I had requested moelleux au chocolat, or molten chocolate cake. It is probably my favorite dessert of all time, which is saying a lot! He didn’t make it then, so I thought better late than never, right? And as I said earlier, it was JL’s birthday so I wanted to make dessert extra special.

You might recall that I’m not the best baker in the world, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that the recipe (from The Gourmet Cookbook) was fairly easy.  Instead of the coffee créme anglaise that I was supposed to serve with the cake, I bought Häagen Dazs vanilla ice cream, which I thought would provide a refreshing cold contrast to the warm cake. Besides, LC said that the créme anglaise would have been too rich as an accompaniment. I’m so happy when there’s a good excuse to be lazy!

The cakes, straight out of the oven. Check out the chocolate oozing out the middle.

Happy Birthday friend!

It was a very successful dinner party, in part due to the amount of alcohol we imbibed. Between the four of us, we managed to put away four Manhattan cocktails and three bottles of wine. Cheers!

Three empty bottles of wine. Manhattans not pictured.

My dear labmates AW and SP are leaving the lab and moving on to bigger and better things. Last month, our lab threw a potluck party at the boss’s house to thank them for being awesome members of the lab and also to wish them the best of luck. As you might recall, we know a thing or two about eating a lot and throwing a good party. The photos below represent a mere fraction of the food at the party; usually I eat so much at these potlucks that I have to do a “walk-about” around the lovely garden just to digest!

Delicious pork used to make sliders.

cheese and bread

The best ribs ever. (Finger used for scale.)

Meat, meat, and more meat!

The boss's famous cheesy potatoes. He made two batches of it, and we ate almost all of it!

Fennel salad to balance out all of that meat.

Fruit salad, very similar to the one I've made previously.

It’s no secret that the Bay Area is blessed with many highly-rated, world-renown restaurants serving fantastic food without a lot of attitude.  To celebrate getting my cast off last month, I decided to treat myself to dinner at Rivoli, often rated as one of the best restaurants in the East Bay (aka Berkeley and Oakland).  It did not disappoint, rivaling my experience at Chez Panisse Cafe.  One bonus: relatively easy reservations.  One negative: walking in with friends M & K, we (median age = 35) were half the age of most of the diners in the restaurant.  Maybe it’s because we were there on a Sunday. Who knows? More importantly: who cares? This was one of the best all-around meals I’ve ever had.

View of the garden from the dining room at Rivoli. Quite charming!

To start: we ordered a bottle of rosé: Vin Gris of pinot noir by Robert Sinskey, Carneros 2008.  We went with this particular wine because M & K were fans of Sinskey wines.  It turned out to be a great choice — fruity, dry, and stood up well against most of the food.

"Artistic" photo of the cork on the cork dish. Cuz I'm artsy fartsy and stuff.

Took a photo of the wine, in case I forgot... typical after a few glasses!

For appetizers, we shared two dishes. First, we had the Bellwether Farm ricotta gnocchi with roast pear, fig marmalata, toasted walnuts and fried sage.

Ginormous gnocchi. Not as big as my head though.

The gnocchi were the biggest gnocchi I’ve ever seen, and had a smooth velvety texture.  They were really really good. However. Not to be gauche, but for $13.95 I better get some mind-blowingly awesome gnocchi.  Either that, or serve me more than 3 pieces. This was the only “disappointing” dish the whole meal, and it wasn’t even that disappointing.

Balancing out the minor disappointment was the highlight of the meal (also, one of Rivoli’s signature dishes): portabella mushroom fritters with aïoli, parmesan, arugula and caper vinaigrette. OH MY GOD. This was heavenly… so much so, that I kept raving about them for a full 72 hours afterward.  Perfection. That is all.

You cannot even perceive from this photo how divine the portabella fritters were. Amazing!

Next up: main course. The great thing about going to dinner with good friends and fellow foodies is that you can taste their food without shame.  M ordered the grilled wild Alaskan halibut with mashed potatoes, spring vegetable ragout and chervil butter.  Sometimes, grilled fish ends up too dry, but not this halibut. Tender and flaky, just the way I like it.

Grilled halibut on a bed of yummy.

K went for the garlic and parsley tagliarini with braised beef Bolognese, porcini mushrooms, red wine, prosciutto, tomato, toasted breadcrumbs and parmesan. You might ask (as we did), “What is tagliarini?” It’s just a fancy name for a long, ribbon like pasta — wider than linguini but not as wide as fettucini. The sauce had that braised, slow-cooked goodness that was rich and hearty.

Hearty and savory pasta. This photo doesn't do this dish justice.

My choice was saffron and fennel risotto with dungeness crab, Prince Edward Island mussels, shrimp butter and salsa verde. I was craving risotto for some reason, and this really hit the spot.  The seafood was so fresh and delicious, and the risotto broth was perfection.

Seafood risotto - perfect.

Mid-meal and loving every minute of it!

Even though we were stuffed, we knew we couldn’t leave without ordering dessert.  We ended up sharing the warm chocolate and hazelnut cake with vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce and orange caramel. It wasn’t terribly unique, but warm chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream is my definition of the perfect dessert. (Or, one of them anyway!)

Mmm...cake.

Happy diners. Bon appetit!

It seems like everyone I know is having a baby these days, including my good friend JL who is due on the 4th of July (ironic, I know). When friends wanted to throw her a baby shower, her only request was, “Please, no baby games.” Such as: “Guess the baby food flavor!” Or “Smell the diaper with a melted chocolate bar in it that looks like poo!”

R and J, the expecting parents.

This constraints forced the hostesses M, R, and E to think of more creative ideas.  Luckily, these talented ladies were up for the challenge.  They focused on JL’s love of food and centered the shower around cooking and eating.  They hired Emily Dellas, of First Class Cooking, to provide a cooking demonstration. Under Emily’s watchful eye, we made enough food to feed all 13 ladies: cold Vietnamese spring rolls, Mediterranean orzo salad, chicken and chanterelle phyllo triangles, red pepper and walnut dip, and roasted corn soup. Every guest took turns chopping and shredding, and we all picked up cooking tips from Emily.

Me and J, looking just the same as we did when we met 14 years ago (haha).

Needless to say, I absolutely loved this!  It’s definitely the most fun I’ve ever had at any shower.  Sure, we did some typical baby shower things like open gifts and make onesies, but it never felt forced. For favors, M typed up the recipes into a cute little book, and we also received boxes of cupcake mix.

(Editor’s note: The following was written by my sister Katie, with some minor editing by yours truly. I cannot be held responsible for content or confusing statements.)

At my age, most of my friends are married hence I don’t have much chance to go to weddings.  So when my friends and former colleagues Tungwei and Mei were getting married, there was no way that I would miss it.

Odd as it seems, most Taiwanese weddings take place at banquet halls.  This shouldn’t come as a surprise as Chinese people take food very seriously, much like a religion; therefore, restaurants are our places of worship.  To avoid lengthy discussion of Taiwanese customs, we will limit the scope of this article only to what we ate on that particular Saturday afternoon at the wedding banquet of Tungwei and Mei.

The happy bride and groom

Before the banquet starts, the menu listing the entrées is promptly placed at the center of each table. There are four appetizers, seven main courses, two desserts and a fruit platter.

Banquet Menu

The first entrée is “Flowers Blossoming under the Full Moon” (花好月圓).  It is fried tang yuan (湯圓), or sticky rice balls, coated with lightly sweetened peanut powder, dashed with raisins.  Chinese people like the round shape because it has no sharp corners or edges.  It symbolizes that everything will fall into place nicely.  Because it is the first dish after a long wait, the tang yuans went rather quickly as shown in this picture.

What's Left of the Sticky Rice Balls

Then comes an appetizer platter with roasted piglet, drunken chicken, pork gelatin roll, five flavored squid, and mysterious appetizer #5 (I didn’t get a chance to taste it).  These are cold dishes that require advanced preparation. They’re also served cold so that hungry guests can eat quickly without worrying about burning their mouths with hot food. (Ed note: So logical! I like it!)

Appetizer Platter

There are two other appetizers, Scallop with Broccoli and Fried Shrimp Cakes.  Give me some rice, yum yum yum.  For wedding banquets, they don’t usually serve rice so that the guests can focus on eating all of the courses instead of filling up with starch.

Scallop with Brocolli

Shrimp Cakes

To Be Continued…

A couple of weeks ago, my coworker hosted a first birthday party for her daughter at Todai, a Japanese buffet in Cupertino (though it is also a national chain).  It is an immense buffet with all kinds of Japanese food (sushi, gyoza, tempura, udon), Korean food (japchae, bulgolgi), Chinese food, and a wide selection of desserts.  (No mochi though, which was disappointing.  I heart mochi.)

Growing up in a cost-concious (a.k.a. Asian) family, I was trained early on in the art of all-you-can-eat dining.  These are the rules I follow, in no particular order:
1. Stay away from fried foods.  They will fill you up.
2. Go for your favorite pricey items first, e.g. seafood, prime rib, steak, etc.
3. Don’t fill up on carbs.
4. Balance the heavy stuff with some vegetables and fruit.  It will make you feel healthier and prevent indigestion.
5. Try a little of everything first before piling your plate with something that might only be so-so.
6. It’s not all about the money: if you like something, even if it’s cheap, eat it!  This is about the whole dining experience; you might as well enjoy it.

I didn’t realize that not everyone has a “buffet philosophy” until 3 years ago, when I was talking to two friends on the way to a birthday buffet.  They thought my approach was preposterous — too focused on a strategy rather than just eating for fun.  Maybe so, but I do always get my money’s worth!

Here are photos from my dining experience at Todai.  I’ve been to another Todai (in Virginia), which I think is slightly better.  The sushi in Cupertino was only so-so, but the rest of the food was pretty good.

The sushi island of the buffet at Todai.

The rest of the buffet.

The casserole dish of wasabi.

Plate #1. Highlight: eel nigiri.

Plate #2. Highlights: Teriyaki chicken and gyoza.

Plate #3. Highlight: Japchae!!

My dessert plate wasn’t that pretty or memorable, so I don’t have a photo of it, but I do have a photo of another dessert plate…

JY's dessert plate (food styling by JY)

The birthday girl! (No, I did not eat the baby...)

It was my birthday last week.  Tuesday, to be precise.  Now, I’m not one of those people who celebrates on the weekend before or the weekend after.  The birthday celebrations MUST happen on my actual birthday; anything less is unacceptable.

Being that my birthday fell on a weeknight, I decided to play it low-key and local.  Dinner with a small group (that ended up being 14) at Fellini’s, a no-frills Italian place within walking distance of my apartment.  The perk of going to Fellini’s on a Tuesday night is that they waive the corkage fee.  Being the thrifty drunk that I am, I showed up with 6 bottles of wine! (Don’t worry; I shared.) After dinner, more revelers joined in for drinks at the Albatross, a great pub in Berkeley with darts, Connect Four, popcorn, and relatively nice bathrooms.

Hiding behind my indecision...

I was put in charge of ordering appetizers for the entire group, and decided on bruschetta, calamari and a green salad.  Everything was great, but I have to say that the calamari was the best.  It’s nice when the breading isn’t so overwhelming and you can still taste the squid — which, in this case, was fresh, chewy, and tasty.

Bruschetta & calamari (the photo doesn't do the food justice)

Next up: main course.  I ordered one of their specials: turkey and fennel meatballs with linguini.  While it was good (and very filling), I have to say that R&J ordered the BEST PIZZA EVER.  It was a shittake and oyster mushroom white pizza that was bursting with garlic, olive oil, and deliciousness.  Everyone seemed pleased with their food, which made me happy.

Linguini with turkey-fennel meatballs (not quite as big as my head but pretty close! Just kidding...)

Digging in...

The shittake and oyster mushroom pizza was outstanding.

Finally: dessert.  I ordered the Chocolate Crème Gateau, which they describe in the menu as, “A moist layer of chocolate cake topped with a white chocolate mousse and finished with a creamy mocha mousse.” Chocolate, with chocolate, with more chocolate?  Sign me up!!  A tiramisu was also ordered and shared.  Both were great, though I favored the gateau which was airy and sweet without being too over-the-top.  Major bonus: they brought it over with a candle on it!

Chocolate Crème Gateau

Tiramisu

But you know what was the best part of this meal?  My friends who were there to celebrate with me!  Because the greatest meal in the world wouldn’t be quite so delicious without good company, and I definitely had some delightful company on hand that night.  Thanks guys!