Last night was our first date night since Camila, our second baby, was born. We decided to go to the Piedmont Springs, a hot tub place on, wouldn't you know it?, Piedmont Avenue. We didn't have much time for dinner before hand (we didn't want to take advantage of our babysitters' graciousness) so we decided to go to China Garlic, which is conveniently located right next door to Piedmont Springs. It wasn't a good choice.

China Garden serves typical Chinese-American food at reasonable prices (about $7 for entrees). The portions are not very large, but that was fine with us as we weren't planning on taking any leftovers home. Unfortunately the food just wasn't very good - even when compared to similar restaurants.

Mike got the sesame chicken. It had a thick coating and a syrupy sauce that wasn't quite sweet. The sesame seemed to be there for just decoration. In all, I can't say we enjoyed this dish.

I went for the lemon chicken, as I was in the mood for something sweet. Once again, the coating on the chicken was too thick - almost as thick as the chicken itself. More problematic was the sauce, which was yellow and somewhat sour but didn't taste at all like lemon.

The restaurant itself is small and characterless, just another Chinese dive. Service was fine and we did manage to get in and out in half an hour, which was our goal.

Next time we're in the same situation, however, we'll probably try the pizza place a couple of doors down.

China Garlic Restaurant
3941 Piedmont Ave
Oakland, CA
(510) 654-5033

When I saw "All About Braising", the new cookbook by Molly Stevens, at the library I had to check it out. I LOVE braised meats, but I haven't had that much experience making them. I figure this would be an opportunity to learn.

There were so many wonderful choices in the book that I couldn't make up my mind as to what to make so I had to let Mike decide. He decided on this recipe here and a leg of lamb recipe I'm currently cooking and that I'll post soon.

I made the recipe pretty much according to the instructions, though I didn't use bay leaves as I had misplaced them (ok, ok, they'd fallen behind the stove - sheesh!). I also wasn't very dilligent about spooning off the fat, making the braising liquid fatter than it should have been. In any case, the results were very good and worth all the work. Mike loved it and would definitely like it again. I liked it too, but I think I like short ribs braised in wine better. Still, its certainly a dish you can serve to family and friends and make them happy. I would use about 1 lb of short ribs per person.

As usual, the recipe below is what I made.

Last night I made the above mentioned dish, also from the All About Braising cookbook I got from the library (and which I'm going to buy). It was good, though not worth all the trouble. A roasted leg of lamb is just as good (particularly the Armenian Leg of Lamb recipe) and much easier and cheaper to make - so I wouldn't make it again. But we did enjoy it a lot.

It consisted of a boneless leg of lamb stuffed with a mixture of Italian parsley, mint, rosemary (you could also put thyme and/or sage), garlic and shallot, then rolled and tied up and browned on olive oil. The leg was then braised on a mixture of red wine and broth (I used beef, the book called for veal, lamb or chicken broth) with chopped onion and carrots, parsley stems and a little bit of chopped rosemary and mint. The lamb was then sliced and served with a reduction of the braising liquid.

I served it with steamed green beans and mashed potatoes from a box. Fresh mashed potatoes would have been better, but I hate peeling potatoes. When I mentioned that to Mike he told me he actually likes doing it - so in the future I'll make home-made mashed potatoes.

In any case, it was a great dinner. Mika wasn't too enthused by the lamb, but she did eat a lot of green beans :)

I just came across jatbar.com, AKA Jason and Terrys Bay Area Reviews, a new (to me) website with personal reviews of Bay Area restaurants. The reviewers specialize in the South Bay, and they have LOTS of reviews. It's worth checking out.

I just added a few reviews of restaurants I visited before Camila was born. These are:

Gregoire
A French take-out place in Berkeley I finally got to try while staying at Alta Bates. The food was awesome.

Aziza
An upscale restaurant in San Francisco serving experimental and traditional Moroccan food. Great appetizers, OK entrees.

Dragon Express
A terrible but super-cheap Chinese take-out place in San Leandro

San Leandro

Saigon Palace on 17580 Hesperian
Grand Taipei on 25036 Hesperian
Hawaiian Sista's Cafe ( 10:00 a.m.-7:30 p.m. Tue.-Sat.)
Halan (vietnamese on Lewelling)
Vietnamese place by Pak n'Save
Ozeki Sushi

Castro Valley

$$
Sazio Ristorante Italiano
Doug's Place (breakfast)
Dolci Amore
Hong Kong BBQ Restaurant (chinese)

Hayward

$$$

Le Maconnais
Caravan
East Harbor (hesperian & west a)- good chinese
New Hong Kong on Mission, dim sum

Berkeley Oakland

$
Taste of Africa +
Museum Kitchen +
Priya (indian buffet) +
Han's Big Burger +
Vik's Chaat Corner, Berkeley +
Kabana, Berkeley+
Addis +
Caribbean Cove

$$
Tsing Tao (dim sum) +
Restaurant Peon (dim sum) +
Kensington circus pub +
Phnom Penh House
Italian Colors (Montclair) +
Breads of India - (no res)
Soi4 - college, upscale Thai
Taste of the Himalayas
Bosphorus
Locanda Olmo - college, Italian

$$$
Chez Simone (piedomont ave, t-f-sa nights)
Zaika (indian)
Bucci's (Emeryville)
Soizic
Eccolo
Fonda
La Belle Creole
Garibaldi's
Zax Tavern (closed Su/Mo)
Chef Paul's (pied)
Oliveto
Trio (grand ave, closed M/Tu)
La Rose (small, french fusion, closed mondays)
La Note (provencal, dinner Th-Sa)
Le Theatre (French/North African, closed mondays)
Tanjia

$$$$

Chez Panisse

Fremont

Mariam- Persian
De Afghanan Kabob House (fast food)

Milpitas

Shahnawaz - Indian

San Francisco/Peninsula

$$
Jakarta
Pícaro (Mission) +
Chow +
Park Chow+
Iluna basque
Zuni's Cafe
Basque Cultural Center +
Chapeau
Le Charm
Jeanty's at Jacks
Katia (Russian, go early with Mika)

$$$

Garcen Court at the Palace Hotel
http://www.gardencourt-restaurant.com/
for lunch or afternoon tea (sans Mika)

Fifth Floor
Manresa
Campton Place
Viognier
Michael Mina
Tartare
Trio

Wine Country

French Laundry - Napa
Girth and the Fig - Sonoma
Cafe La Haye - Sonoma

San Jose

Ori Deli - Indonesian
http://www.orideli.com/

Yesterday, a Sunday, we found ourselves hungry and the Metreon and headed to Buckhorn Grill, Mike's favorite eatery at the place. The restaurant, part of a small Northern California chain, shares space with three other eateries. Its open dining room is darkish, comfortable and much nicer than those at conventional malls. Its also child friendly and you'll find plenty of families with children around.

The Buckhorn Grill prides itself on its tri-tip, and both of us ordered the tri-tip sandwich ($8, in a special including side dish and a drink), with added blue cheese. Mike really likes this sandwich but I have my reservations. The meat is tasty and mostly lean and tender, but its drowned by the onions and bun. As the onions and blue cheese (and extra BBQ sauce) are all served cold, the sandwich becomes cold very quickly - not my ideal for a meat sandwich. But in the whole, it is a tasty sandwich.

The fries are short and thin, good but not remarkable. Mike thought the mashed potatoes tasted weird - though he ate them anyway. I thought they tasted OK but they were quite lumpy.

Buckhorn Grill
101 Fourth Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
415-369-6150
http://www.buckhornsteakhouse.com/

Last night I made chicken simmered in Trader Joe's Green Curry sauce. It was yummy. The sauce is a little bit too spicy for my taste, but it had a very light and yet full flavor, with a strong hint of cilantro. Its high fat content made the chicken feel wonderfully buttery and in all it was very enjoyable. I added some orange bell pepper to the chicken and served it with rice. In all, a thumbs up.

Vatran's Flying Sausages has been our favorite area deli for years. It served delicious sandwiches and offered a very nice assortment of charcurterie as well as assorted food items from Europe. Recently it was sold, a fact that dismayed me as I feared the quality would go down (I'll report on this later, we've decided to go there for lunch later today).

In response to my post about it, I got a message from the son of the owner. He told me they have opened a new restaurant in Alamo called Xenia! Bistro. According to the Contra Costa Times the new restaurant offers Romanian food from Mr. Vatran's grandmother's recipes. The CCT gave it 3 forks and said it was a great neighborhood bistro. It's located at 115 Alamo Plaza, Alamo. We expect to head there some time soon.

Some time ago I ran across the website of a Gastronomic Society from the Basque province of Alava. Wednesday night I finally made a recipe from the site, oxtails in red wine sauce. Unfortunately they didn't turn out well. But hey, I have one more "A" in my list of international cuisines.

Ben & Jerry's selling strategy must be based in introducing new flavors, as they do so quite regularly lately. We, of course, have to try them, though it's been years since we found a new flavor we really liked. For the most part I stick to my old favorite Chubby Hubby and mourn the demise of Wavy Gravy.

So far, I've tried 2 of the many new flavors.

I really liked Fossil Fuel, a "Sweet Cream Ice Cream with Chocolate Cookie Pieces, Fudge Dinosaurs and a Fudge Swirl". It reminded me a little of the dearly departed Wavy Gravy, in that it was a light-flavored ice cream with a fudge swirl, alas it doesn't have the nuts. B&J's fudge is delicious, though, so I'm glad there is another ice cream that features it.

I wasn't as excited about The Gobfather, a "Chocolate Ice Cream with Fudge Covered Almonds & a Nougat Swirl". I'm not a huge chocolate ice cream fan to begin with, and I didn't feel the almonds or nougat swirl contributed much to it. Indeed, the chocolate flavor is so strong that the nougat was completely drowned.

I also recently had chocolate peanut butter chocolate chip cookie dough - a flavor I can't find in their website - which I also wasn't crazy about for similar reasons: the chocolate flavor overwhelmed the cooky dough flavor. I guess no more chocolate-based ice creams for me.

The wheather has once again turned cold and rainy, which put me in a mood for braising. A good thing as last week I got a copy of All About Braising. I decided to invite my friends Regina and Boris for dinner and as the only meat Regina eats is chicken, then it was a chicken that I had to braise. This recipe sounded good and seemed relatively simple.

I served it with a rice pilaf (rice cooked in chicken broth with onion, saffron, cinnamon, paprika and thyme) - which was OK but not great - and started the meal with a mixed green salad with Gorgonzola Vinaigrette I'd previously made. Everybody loved it.

I followed the recipe pretty much as in the book, though I used beef stock instead of chicken as I had some leftover and I didn't have rosemary around, so I used dry thyme instead. I also used cider vinegar instead of white wine vinegar as I didn't have any of the latter around. The recipe below reflects my modifications. I used Bosc pears, as they are in season right now, though you can also use Forelles.

Everybody loved the recipe and Mike would like me to make it again. I found the flavor a little too mild for my taste, though I'll add it to my repertoire.

Why, or so why, are leeks soooo expensive? $3.60 a pound, which means only 2 leeks! It's really absurd for things that are little less than glorified onions.

Yesterday I posted two new restaurant reviews

Strizzis is an Italian restaurant in San Leandro with good, but uncreative food at high prices.

Banyan Garden in Union City serves Malaysian, Singaporean and Thai food. It wasn't as good as my old favorite Rasa Sayang in Albany (gone for many years now), but it was quite good nonetheless.

Last night we went to Boulevard in the city. I was underwhelmed and I'll write the review soon.

Wednesday night Mike took me to Boulevard for our anniversary. I had wanted to go there for a long time and I think he was curious as well. I loved the restaurant itself - the energy, the elegant yet wimsical Bell Epoque furnishings and gentleman's club feel - but wasn't thrilled with the food. It was great in itself, but not in the least original. I'd had similar dishes in other restaurants before, and often better executed. I liked their foie gras, for which they are famous, but prefer Piperade's version. Their seared scallops were yummy, but not as good as those of Neumanali. My squab was perfectly prepared, but no different from the squab I've had at Aquerello and as part of a tasting menu at a score of restaurants. Mike's pork chop was good, and yet no better than the one we had at Jojo's for our last anniversary, and while we both really liked the roasted pork riblets, it reminded us of the better braised pork at A16. Desserts were also good, though unremarkable. I've written a full review which I'll post here as soon as Mike edits it.

For my birthday which is coming up I'd like to go somewhere where the food is not only excellent but original, where I can taste something I'd never tasted before and fall in love with it.

Some options I'm exploring are:

-Fifth Floor. We loved Melissa Perello's food at Charles Nob Hill and I can only imagine she's only grown since. However, I'd be disappointed if her chef tasting menu wasn't very different from the one at Charles Nob Hill.

-Quince. I just read a great review of it that gives the pasta glowing recommendations but shows less enthusiasm for the entrees.

-Manresa. My friend Lola LOVED it, it just was nominated as one of the 50 best restaurants in the country by Restaurant magazine and the people at Vinography seem to like it as well.

-Michael Mina. The Chronicle gave it a great review and I'm very curious.

Anywhere else?

A couple of days ago I was searching for reviews of Quince when I stumbled upon the Vinography.com blog. As expected, the blog focuses on wine but it also includes a few reviews of Bay Area restaurants. What's notable is how well written they are. I usually just read restaurant reviews for the information, but these were just a pleasure to read for their own sake. I wish I could write like that!

I'm adding a link to Vinography and I'll be reading its feed, maybe it'll encourage me to get more into wine as well :)

I bought a bottle the other day by accident. I won't say that this soft drink is vile - I did drink it all - but it's just not good. It's rather bitter, a bit like an RC cola, and doesn't even have a hint of lime flavor.

Today we made it to the Oriental Tea House for dim sum. We liked it much better than East Village, though we didn’t get to taste the baked pork buns as they were out of it by the time we got there around 1 PM. The steamed pork buns were excellent, however, the bread was moist, the pork succulent and not too sweet. I got an additional order to go. The fried chicken was also very good, crispy and moist and wonderfully spiced. We also found a winner in the paper wrapped chicken - moist and delicious - and on the shrimp dumplings. We were less fond of the sesame balls and the deep fried meat balls, I’d never had those before and the thick pastry wrapping had a strange consistency that I didn’t find appealing. Egg custards were OK, but not sweet enough for my taste. Lunch, including 3 canned sodas, came to $24 before tip. It's pretty crowded on Sundays, but I'm sure we'll be going again.

Tonight for dinner we had grilled chicken thighs served with heated up Trader Joe's Mole sauce and couscous. This is the sauce that is labeled under TJ's name and comes in the small jar - they also serve another one. We were not happy with it. The sauce had a distinctive chocolate flavor and was slightly spicy, but it had no complexity of flavor a all. It was monotonous and slightly bitter. I wouldn't buy it again.

I always wanted to have a neighborhood restaurant. I don't mean a restaurant in my neighborhood, but a place I could consider "my restaurant", where I could go for lunch or dinner without thinking twice about it and would go there a lot. A place where they'd get to know me and my food preferences.

When I was in college, Pirro's, a small, super-cheap restaurant on Shattuck was "my" restaurant. My friend Connie discovered it and soon we were all hooked. The food was simple and good, I really liked its hearty tomato sauce, and the portions were generous and cheap. A lunch-portion of ravioli, large enough for dinner, was abut $4.25 (keep in mind this was over a decade ago). I could also get a glass of wine (never carded me) for about $2. As a non-adventurous broke college student, this was perfect. They never really got to know me - even at those prices I couldn't afford to go that often - but I certainly felt it was my restaurant. Whenever I had to take someone out to dinner or suggest a place to go, that's where we'd go. Pirro's close a few years ago, and a (pretty good) Thai restaurant opened in its place, but I will always have fond memories of it.

When we moved to San Leandro, Pring's, a coffee-shop on East 14th, became "our" restaurant. We liked the food - their San Francisco burger was our favorite - and loved the service by veteran waitresses. We also liked how the restaurant was open until very late at night and that the portions were large enough to share. Our favorite waitress did get to know us and what we ordered and we could always do some small talk with her when we got there. Alas, Prings was sold (probably for too much money) and soon after that it closed. Now it's an Italian restaurant, Bella Italia, which we don't like nearly as much.

For some time, I'd entertained the hope that Pee Wee's could become our restaurant. It's only down the street from us and like Pirro's, it's Italian and quite cheap. It doesn't have the atmosphere of Pirro's, but it has the advantage that it's child friendly enough. Unfortunately, I don't like the food nearly as much as I liked Pirro's. While I oftened found myself craving the melt-in-your-mouth softness of Pirro's pasta, I can't even recall what Pee Wee's taste like, even though we've gone there several times.

For quite a while, then, I mourned the lack of a neighborhood restaurant I could call my own. Then, a few months ago, Le Soleil opened in downtown San Leandro, only a few blocks away from my home. We liked Le Soleil right away, the food was yummy, the service friendly and the atmosphere stylish yet inviting. The portions at first were on the small side, but they grew to be nicely filling and the service has become not just friendly, but solicitous and outstanding.

Despite all this, I never thought of Le Soleil becoming our restaurant for the simple fact that it serves Vietnamese food, which I don't associate with comfort. And yet that's what it has become. I should have realized it last summer, when after watching a movie on our "girls night out" Lola and I decided to stop at Le Soleil for some dinner - only to run into Mike and Michaela who were dining there, and later greet our friends Tita and Percy who were also coming there to eat. Without much throught, Le Soleil became the place for Mike to take Michaela out for dinner on my girls night out - and for Lola and I to dine when we can't think of anything else (and there isn't anything else better in San Leandro), we now try to go at different times, however. It's also the place I take friends from out of town (unfortunately their vegetarian selection is not great, so it doesn't work for Regina) and a regular stop when Kathy comes to visit. And it's the place we go when we don't know where else to go, which is quite often.

We still haven't become friends with the waiters, though knows Michaela and always gives her some candy (with our permission) but I'm sure that will come. For the time being I'm just glad to have found a restaurant in San Leandro I can call "ours".

I found Molly Stevens' All About Braising at the library a few weeks ago and liked the first couple of recipes so much that I decided to buy the book. I got it for only $11 plus shipping brand new through one of Amazon's affiliates, which I think it's quite a bargain.

The book has a long section on the principles of braising which I haven't read yet, but I do mean to. I'm new to braising but I enjoy the results so much that I do want to try it.

The recipes themselves have been quite good. So far I've made Short Ribs Braised in Porter Ale with Maple-Rosemary Glaze, Herb-Stuffed Leg of Lamb Braised in Red Wine, Whole Chicken Braised with Pears and Pork Pot Roast with Apricots, Cardamon and Ginger. All of them have been quite good.

In all, I can recommend this book wholeheartedly.

Food Muse is a food blog by one of my favorite writers. I love the elegance and sumptuosness of her writing. I also like the clean look of her blog and the ever changing top pictures. I may just copy that :)