A week or so ago I stopped by for a late lunch at Viva Pancho Villa, the new Mexican restaurant/taquería that occupies the space where the troubled Francisco's used to be and that may actually be Francisco's. The name on the sign outside say Viva Pancho Villa, but the take out menu's say "Francisco's", so maybe the restaurant is having an identity crisis.

The menu is taqueria style, with tacos, burritos, tostadas and quesadillas and dinner plates with meat, rice, beans, salad and tortillas. The meats are less varied The restaurant offers both take-out and table service, if you are planning to eat in just sit down and someone will come bith menus. If you want to order out you can head towards the counter underneath the large wall menu.

I got a carne asada super burrito ($5.75) which comes with meat choice (I chose carne asada), without rice or beans. Even so it was fairly large and tasty, though not remarkable. I'd order it again, however.

Mika got a chicken quesadilla. It was plain - tortilla, cheese, shredded chicken - but fine, Mika liked it well enough.

The chips were greasy and the salsa a bit too spicy, but they weren't bad. Service was quite good, however.

In all, Viva Pancho Villa! is a perfectly fine choice for a burrito for people in the neighborhood.

For years, we've driven or even parked by Marita's Sweet Potato Pie Co. as we visited our friends Regina and Boris, who live in the neighborhood, or stopped by for a drink at Zocalo. I've always been curious to check it out, but the concept of "sweet potato pie" just does not appeal to Mike. In the last few weeks, however, I've started walking by Marita's once a week and have had my opportunity to give it a try, and another, and another :)

Marita's is a bakery but one that sells basically two things, cakes (mostly by the slice) and pies. The cakes are simple affairs, consisting of plain cake and frosting. The slices are displayed in two large display cabinets, one of which is filled by slices of Red Velvet Cake alone. The latter is their pride and joy. I liked it, the cake itself didn't taste like much but the creme cheese filling was delicious. Indeed, this seems to be the case with most of their cakes, the cakes themselves are not special but the fillings are just plain yummy. So far I've had the Red Velvet, the coconut, the butter cream and the yellow chocolate - I enjoyed the latter most of all. Still, I'm planning to taste them all in my weekly visits. The slices - priced at $2-2.75 each are quite generous, you shouldn't have a problem sharing one.

The full cakes ($13-18) are quite large, and they only seem to have a few on display so you may want to call ahead if that's what you are looking for. In addition to cakes, they serve sweet potato pie, peach cobbler, bread pudding and pecan pie.

The bakery doesn't have a place to sit, it's strictly a take-out operation

Marita's Sweet Potato Pie Co.
600 Dutton Avenue
San Leandro
510-562-3844

My friends and I are now getting together monthly for tea. In May, we celebrated my birthday with tea at the Ritz. In June, Regina was supposed to host but she was too busy (poo poo her!). In July, we celebrated Lotty's birthday at Lovejoy's and this month it was time to celebrate Vienna's birthday at my house (we are out of birthdays for September!).

Our experience at Lovejoy was so positive that I modeled my menu after their own. Of course, I knew I wasn't going to be able to replicate those incredible fluffy scones, so I decided to make a ginger scone recipe that has been getting raves in the Craigslist food forum. They were very, very good, even though I overbaked them a little bit. I served them with European-style butter, clotted cream (available at Joaquin Deli), orange marmalade, raspberry jam, lemon curd and dulce de leche. The dulce de leche was by far the most popular toping (ha!). I was glad that I got to use the little bowls that I bought at the Japanese restaurant again.

I also served three types of tea sandwiches: cream cheese & cucumber, chicken salad and Stilton and apple - all inspired by the offerings at Lovejoy's. The cucumber sandwiches were the least popular, apparently traditional cucumber sandwiches have cucumber and butter, not cream cheese. Next time. The chicken salad ones were great and the Silton worked very well with the thin apple slices. I'd originally meant to make them with pear, but the pears available at Safeway are just not very tasty this time of year. I used white sandwich bread to make them and cut the crusts myself, which made them look not very neat. Unfortunately, Safeway no longer stocks Ironkids Crustless Bread, which I LOVE. Does anyone know a source?

Finally, I got a tripple-mousse cake from Safeway, which was delicious.

Lotty brought crumpets, but we never got around to them.

The teas were Akbar Yellow Gold and an Orange Pekoe Tea that I got at the 99-cents store. Both are from Sri Lanka, and both were delicious. I suspect I drank too much, as Camila had a pretty restless night.

In all, we had a great time. The tea started at 3pm and went on until 8pm. It won't be my turn to host again for several months but I'm looking forward to the next time.

I made this chicken salad for the sandwiches I served at the tea party I threw last weekend. It was wonderful and I'm planning to make it again. All of the quantities are approximate, so modify them to your taste. I cooked the chicken breasts on my George Foreman, but you can cook it anywhere you want.

-4 chicken breasts, cooked and shredded
-2 large celery ribs, chopped
-2 green apples, peeled, cored & chopped
-3/4 cup walnuts, chopped
-1 cup mayonnaise
-1 tbsp. lime juice
-1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
-salt & pepper

Combine the chicken, celery, apples and walnuts. Add mayo, a little bit at a time, just enough to join all the ingredients. Add the lime juice and vinegar, salt and pepper, tasting to make sure the proportions are to your liking.

This recipe for ginger scones is from Rose Levy Beranbaum's "The Bread Bible" and was posted on the Craigslist food forum by "claymonkey". It got well-deserved raves. It's easier to make than it appears at first and simply delicious. The original recipe called for unsalted butter, I used lightly-salted European style butter and that worked well enough. I made this recipe for the tea I hosted at my house and served it with a variety of butters & jams.

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 tbsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. ground ginger
• a dash of salt
• 1 tsp. grated lemon zest
• 12 tbsp. butter, cold
• 3/4 cup whipping cream, whipped
• 2/3 cup crytallized ginger, chopped ground ginger - 1 tsp
• 2 tsp. whipping cream
• 1 tbsp. sugar

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Oil and flour a large baking sheet.

In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, ground ginger, salt and lemon zest. Cut the butter into pats, add them and mix by hand until the mixture resembles fine crumbs. Mix in the crystallized ginger.

Make a hole in the center and add the cream. Mix with a rubber spaturla until the flour is moistened. Knead the dough inside the bowl until it holds together and then turn it onto a lightly floured working surface. Knead it into a smooth ball and chill it.

Remove the dough from the fridge, divide in two and shape each half into a ball. Press each ball into a disk, about 3/4" high and 6" across. Wrap with plastic wrap and freeze for 15 minutes.

With a sharp knife, cut each disk into 8 wedges. Brush with the cream and sprinkle with sugar. Place the wedges onto the baking sheet. Place the pan in the center of the oven and bake until the edges start to brown, about 15 minutes.

My review of Fleur de Lys, the French restaurant in San Francisco where we went for my birthday, is finally up. It's available at:

http://www.marga.org/food/rest/fleur.html.

We are going to go to Manresa for Mike's birthday - I hope the review will take less time on coming.

A couple of weekends ago I joined my friend Lola for a girl's day out. Lola and I met in Egypt during our college year abroad eons ago, and we spent much of our time together there hanging out at the cafe of the Semiramis hotel. It was across the street from the building where the American Research Center in Cairo was located (our other hangout) and quite close to school - almost any afternoon you could find us there sipping cappucinos. So when Lola and I decided to get together for a girl's afternoon out a couple of weeks ago, it was natural that we decide to spend most of it hanging out in yet another hotel coffee area.

The Fairmont Hotel is coveniently located in downtown San Jose. It has an old-fasioned, somewhat imperial lobby which is however populated by tourists in brightly colored t-shirts, shorts and flip-flops. The Lobby Lounge is in a recessed area in the center of the lobby. It's furnished with sofas and comfy chairs and it's quite attractive and relaxing. It offers a vast menu of alcoholic drinks, a few sandwiches, desserts and sushi. They also do a tea service between 2 and 4 pm, but by reservation only. We basically hang out while drinking very expensive cokes ($3, no refills). It was very nice and relaxing.

After a couple of hours of doing this, my husband Mike and our two daughters came to pick me up. Mike was hungry, and the foie gras burger in the menu sounded quite enticing - though at $20 it was quite pricy. Still, he gave it a try. It was quite good, the meat was juicy, the foie gras delicious and yet the whole thing didn't work for me - at least not to the tune of $20. I thought that the burger would have been better if it was seasoned - just some salt would have helped, but that might have hidden altogether the subtle taste of the foie gras. Still, it was a pretty good burger and worth trying once.

One minus point for the Lobby Lounge is that the underside of their sofas is completely filthy - as I discovered while trying to recover a toy that had been dropped.

The Lobby Lounge
The Fairmont San Jose
170 South Market St.
San Jose, CA
408-998-1900
http://www.fairmont.com/

A couple of weekends ago (August 2005) I joined my friend Lola for lunch in downtown San Jose and she suggested House of Siam. This Thai restaurant has two locations, the one on South Second St. where we went had been recently remodeled and had some nice Thai art, but it wasn’t otherwise particularly remarkable. Its menu is pretty standard Thai, a little on the expensive side with most entrees priced at $11 (plus $1 for rice). Still, portions were generous though not enormously so. We finished most of the food, but had to work at it.

Lola ordered the chicken Pad Thai and I had the Mussaman Curry. They were both quite good. The Pad Thai had a fresh, not-at-all-spicy flavor and nice pieces of chicken. The Mussaman Curry was spicy and almost too intense in flavor, but it was also quite good. The meat was tender and good quality.

Service was competent and I'd go back if I was in the neighborhood.

House of Siam
151 S. Second St.
San Jose, Ca
408-295-3397

My friend Desiree turned 34 last weekend and she celebrated by inviting us to dinner at her house. She made a delicious and gorgeous Cuban menu and I thought it should be immoratlized by pictures. Alas, I was too busy eating so I forgot to photograph the arroz con pollo which was the dinner's main dish.

The girl can bake - not only was the bread gorgeous but also delicious, specially with the soup

The breadpudding was delish