May 29, 2005
May 28, 2005
Waikiki Hawaiian BBQ
Waikiki Hawaiian BBQ is located in the space that once belonged to Cafe Zula (OK but overpriced) and later to a taqueria which, at least according to my friend Boris, was pretty bad. Even though the space is close enough to city hall to ellicit a healthy lunch trade, the space seems to be doomed and I can't imagine Waikiki Hawaiian will last long, it just isn't very good. In a city that's quickly filling up with Hawaiian restaurants, Hawaiian food fans have better places where to get their fix.
Waikiki Hawaiian offers a large number of Hawaiian plate lunches (starting at $4 for "mini plates" and going up to $6.75 for a combo plate) as well as sandwiches and burgers (starting at $1.65!). They have many things marinated in teriyaki sauce but also some more unusual offerings such as lemon chicken and beef curry. Mike and I decided to try a little of everything, I got the BBQ Mix Plate (teriyaki steak, short ribs & chicken) and he got the seaffod combo (mahi mahi, deep fried shrimp and choice of meat). None of the food was good. The chicken had the weird consistency of processed chicken, the ribs were mostly bone and fat and the little bit of meat was very chewy, the steak was chewy too and the sauce wasn't very yummy. In all, we were quite disapointed and see no reason to go back.
Waikiki Hawaiian is part of a small chain with locations in El Cerrito and Concord.
Waikiki Hawaiian B-B-Q
635 E 14th St.
san Leandro, CA
510-0-882
Su-Th 10:30am - 9 pm
F-Sa 10:30am - 9:30 pm
Note:
You can read Meathenge's take on the El Cerrito branch here. It may be that we just ordered the wrong thing.
May 26, 2005
Bahian dinner
Last Sunday night I finally cooked my Bahian dinner - as in food from Bahia, Brazil. I had been planning this meal for a WHOLE year. First, I couldn't find dende or palm oil, an essential ingredient of Bahian cuisine. A friend finally gave me a jar, but I was then missing malagueta peppers which I finally came across in a Latin store in LA. Finally armed with all the ingredients, I set a date for the meal and invited my friends Boris, Vienna and Frank over.
The meal was a great success, the food was excellent and unusual. My friend Vienna is from the Caribbean and she hadn't encountered those types of flavors either. As everything is cooked with palm oil, everything is awfully fatty but I imagine Bahians can get away with it as their protein mostly comes from seafood, which is usually low in saturated fats. The palm oil makes most dishes pretty orange as well.
In all, I'm very pleased with how the meal turned out and you can find the whole menu here.
Next on the menu: I may make some more Bolivian dishes this weekend and I have a Berber meal planned for next week.
May 22, 2005
La Plaza Market
La Plaza Market AKA La Cubana is a Latin market in the San Fernando Valley. My father shops there for Argentine meat cuts for their weekly asado, and they have a plethora of other products imported from all over Latin America. From Argentina they have several brands of cookies, dulce de leche, yerba mate, and even things such as flour (why?). It's pretty cool and I recommend it to anyone in the Valley.
La Plaza Market
19239 Roscoe
Northridge, CA
818-701-5005
Juan J's CreamyFlan
I got this already made flan at Casa Lucas. Heed my advise and stay away from it. This thing was vile. Even though sugar is its second ingredient after milk, it wasn't very sweet at all. Mostly, however, it had a bitter, medicine-like taste that I can only imagine comes from the artificial vanilla extract. All I can say is "yucky".
May 21, 2005
Casa Lucas
Casa Lucas Market (Number 2, the first one is in San Francisco) is a pretty cool Latin American market on East 14th in San Leandro. As you would expect they have a large selection of Mexican products, but they also carry an eclectic selection of other Latin American products. It's a relatively small store, so their selection /is/ limited.
I usually go there to buy empanada shells (tapas para empanadas), they also have a nice selection of yerba mate (including in little bags) and a few canned jams and Savora mustard, for some reason. They only have small jars of dulce de leche, though. They did have Havana alfajores (no habannets, though), at $1.60 each they are expensive (about 3Xs what they cost in Argentina) but ooooh, so good.
Anyway, in today's trip I was able to find cassava (manioc) flour which I need for my Bahian meal (they also have white & yellow corn flour, rice flour and even banana flour) and guaraná soda, a very typical Brazilian soda. They didn't have malagueta peppers, however, so it's a good thing that I got these in LA. I also don't think they have palm oil, but I didn't look closely.
I did find ají amarillo sauce, an essential ingredient of Andean cuisine. I'd already bought some in LA, but it's good to know it's available here. They had a few other Andean sauces.
They also have Colombian sodas, Venezuelan arepas and Central American products. They have a good variety of (cheap) fruit and vegetables.
Casa Lucas Market
16684 East 14th St.
San Leandro, CA 94578
510-317-5750/51
Oh, for those who care, the owners seem to be religious. Their business card says "Christ Saves" and they were playing Christian radio (in Spanish) in the store.
May 17, 2005
African for the weekend
This weekend we went to two African restaurants. Friday night it was Finfiné, an Ethiopian restaurant in "The Village" (that woodsy mini-mall where Fondue Fred is located) on Telegraph. The food was a bit expensive for Ethiopian and as a consequence there were no students there that night. It was good and clearly made with higher quality ingredients that your usual Ethiopian, and there were quite a few seafood choices, again not very usual for Ethiopian. But it didn't awe me. A review, when ready will be available here.
Saturday night, 8 of us parents took our 4 3-year olds and 3 babies to Tropical Paradise on University in Berkeley for Ghanaian food. All of us but the actual Ghanaian loved it. The menu is pretty brief but its peanut soup, ginger bananas and chicken skewers are clear winners. Review will be available here
May 14, 2005
East Bay Express Reviews
I love the restaurant reviews of the East Bay Express. When I'm looking for a new place to try for dinner, I check the Express first. They review all sort of interesting restaurants (here is where I found The New Zealander, Old Weang Ping and Tropical Paradise) and the reviews are well written and fun to read. They also tend to be much more thorough than those of the Chronicle (which are utilitarian but boring). So if you're looking for a place to eat in the East Bay, check it out!
Xenia!
The East Bay Express has reviewed Xenia!, the new restaurant opened by the Vatran clan in Alamo. The review is mixed, the place still seems to need work, but I still want to go! Maybe in a few weeks, when I recoup from eating out so much lately.
eastbayexpress.com | Vatran's Flying Restaurant | 2005-04-27
May 12, 2005
Fleur de Lys
I finally got to go to Fleur de Lys for my birthday. The food was wonderful though the dinner was badly balanced, the the first three courses were small and the cheese and dessert courses overwhelming. There was also a problem with the pacing of the dishes (too brisk) and the table were they first sat us frankly sucked - though they did move us when I expressed my disatisfaction to a better location. But again, the food was excellent, familiar yet innovative and delicious.
And yet... I left disatisfied. I think I have to admit that I've become jaded with nice restaurants. My expectations are now too high, I want perfection for my $300. I think I'm going to put off going to nice restaurants for some time - though I'll probably take Mike to Manresa for his birthday as he said that's where he wanted to go. And I may go back to Acquerello, where the warmth and quality of the service awed me.
Of course, if anyone can suggest a superlative dining experience in the Bay Area (or LA, for that matter), I'd love to hear about it.
When ready, my review of Fleur de Lys will be at http://www.marga.org/food/rest/fleur.html
May 11, 2005
Gregoire for Mother's Day
For Mother's Day Mike decided to get us lunch at Gregoire and have us had a pic-nic lunch at Muir Woods. It was a rainy day, however, so we decided to eat the food in the car instead. Fortunately most of it lent itself to it. It was all delicious.
I couldn't really see the cheese or the mushrooms in the cheesteak sandwich ($7.50), but the chopped beef was bursting with flavor, it reminded me of the taste of steak in Argentina. The lamb in the roasted lamb sandwich ($7.75) was also very tasty and "lamby". Sharing half of each sandwich kept them from getting boring. Once again we loved the potato puffs ($4.25) and were less thrilled by the potato gratin ($4.25). I think next time we should try the french fries. I liked the mango red pudding ($3.75), it had a fresh, satisfying mango taste, but it became easily overwhelmed by the tartness of the berry coulis. They just didn't go well together. Mike liked the chocolate mousse ($3.75) but it reminded me of the chocolate mousse I used to make when I was a kid out of a children's cooking book.
Gregoire's menu changes monthly, so if you want to enjoy these sandwiches you'll have to do so in May :)
May 10, 2005
Bolivian Week at Chez Marga
My international cooking project has been on hold for several months. A difficult pregnancy and a small baby are not really conductive to entertainment. But I miss it, and I want to get through those damn "B"s so I've planned a couple of international dinners in the next few weeks (Bahian and Berber) and decided to make this "Bolivian" week at the Marga household. Rather than cook a whole Bolivian dinner for my family, however, I decided to try a different dish every other night or so. I started last night by making Picante de Pollo or Spicy chicken, an easy yet very typical dish. I'd been meaning to make it for quite a while, but finding yellow pepper (ají amarillo) wasn't easy. It doesn't seem to be available in any of the Latin stores in this area (though I'm told somewhere in the Bay Area there is a large Chilean community) so I had to wait until I went to LA to get some. Even then, I could only find "sauce" rather than powder kind, so I had to adjust the recipe.
It was OK, I thought it was pretty tasteless myself but Mike was very happy with its chicken flavor. It was a bit too spicy for Mika, though, and I'll probably won't make it again, though I'll certainly eat the leftovers.
May 9, 2005
Banyan Garden Revisited
Our friends Eddie and Arthur suggested we get together for dinner at the Texas Roadhouse for dinner last night - but when we got there around 8 PM, the place was a madhouse. They told me there was a 4 hour wait, and while that seemed unlikely, it clearly did not make sense for us to stay there for dinner. So we suggested we go to Banyan Garden, we had liked it last time and we didn't think the place would be so full.
Being mother's day and all, we still had to wait, though only for fifteen minutes or so. We were then given a large table for 8 at the back of the restaurant. We ordered quite a lot of food and it was all good.
The Roti Canai ($2.50) was a very light, thin, flaky and somewhat chewy flat bread (thinner and lighter than a crepe). We all liked it, and I once again was won over by the spicy curry dipping sauce. The chicken satay ($5.50) was also a winner, with nicely marinated chicken chunks and a spicy, chunky peanut sauce. I'd definitely order both again.
We liked the mango chicken ($8). It was served on two hollowed mango shelfs and consisted of chicken pieces and slices of mango and red and green bell peppers in a sweet and sour tomato sauce. The sauce tasted fruity rather than tomatoish and was nicely spiced and quite good. The mango slices were too crunchy for my taste, however, they didn't seem ripe enough. The sizzling beef ($12) was sizzling and spicy and quite good with their black pepper sauce. The thin slices were tender though in that pounded sort of way. The padang lamb ($10) tasted just the same as last time and the Malaysian short ribs ($9) also had that pounded consistency but were enjoyable. I didn't get to taste the pineapple rice ($7) but others liked it, and the one noodle dish I did have (can't recall what it was) was fine but not remarkable.
In all we had an enjoyable dinner and I'll certainly go again.
May 7, 2005
Carnitas
I wanted to make something Mexican for Cinco de Mayo and Carnitas came to mind. I found this incredible recipe at Epicurious.com. It's super easy and delicious and will likely become part of my repertoire.
As it turned out, we went to Pee Wee's instead (that's where our friend Percy wanted to go) so I made the carnitas the following day.
I made the recipe according to the instructions, though I used bone-in short ribs. The bones they had were very small in any case, I just cut them out, added them to the meat and removed them before serving. I found the recipe too salty, next time I'll start with 1 tsp of salt and add more later if needed. I did use regular salt rather than the "sea salt" it asked for. You can also use chicken broth instead of water, if so you may want to use even less salt. You can also substitute good quality tequila or possibly another liquor for the brandy, and you can use pork shoulder or another (somewhat fatty) cut instead of the short ribs.
Carnitas
Instructions
Trim large pieces of fat from the short ribs and set aside. Put the short ribs, reserved fat, water, orange juice, garlic cloves, salt and orange peel in a wide pot or skillet. Mix and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer covered until the meat is soft, about 1 3/4 hour. Make sure the ribs remain at least partially submerged in the liquid, if not add more water.
Uncover the pot, increase the hit and bring the mixture to a rapid boil. Boil until the liquid is reduced by half. Add the brandy. Boil off the remaining liquid, stirring frequently. When the liquid has evaporated, remove from hit. Cool down slightly, remove the fat and bones (if any) and serve.
More SL restaurant news
A new Hawaiian BBQ place has opened on East 14th at the sport where Cafe Zula used to be. In between, it was a taqueria which we never tried but which according to our friend Boris was pretty bad. We did try this new Hawaiian place and it wasn't very good either. maybe the location is doomed.
Right after I finally write a review for Strizzi's, the restaurant decides to close. It makes me sad to see all these old-time San Leandro restaurants closing. I'd feel well if they were better, though. A new Thai place is opening in its space and, of course, I'm hopeful.
There is a new Chinese bakery opening also on East 14th near New Hong Kong. Could it be that I'll finally be able to feast myself on pork buns without having to go into a restaurant? May be. Stay tuned.
And a couple of more I neglected to include yesterday:
Dragon Express, the fast-food Chinese restaurant on East 14th next to 7-11 has closed and is now Chopsticks Express. Haven't tried it yet. Dragon Express was pretty bad.
Francisco's, the Mexican restaurant on Bancroft that was closed for a while due to hygene problems, bankrupcy, etc., has now been sold and has re-opened as another Mexican restaurant, Pancho Villa, I think. Haven't tried it either.
New Restaurant Reviews Up
Mike has returned to me a bunch of edited restaurant reviews and they're now up on my website. These include:
Speisekammer, a child-friendly German restaurant in Alameda
Thai Garden, the main attraction of this Hayward restaurant is that it's the closest Thai restaurant to San Leandro
Boulevard, good but unimaginative Californian food at this San Francisco institution
Nick's, had some awful food at this San Leandro coffeeshop
Joaquin Deli, few changes since it was Vatran's Flying Sausages means good sandwiches and deli products.
May 4, 2005
Not Fleur de Lis for me :(
I'd been looking forward to my birthday dinner at Fleur de Lis since, well, since I made the reservations a few weeks ago. But alas, I had to cancel it at the last minute. Both Mike and I have colds and I wanted to be able to enjoy the full dining experience, not be distracted by a headache or an itchy throat. But more importantly, our little girl was sick with the stomach flu, and we didn't want to leave her. Canceling turned out to be the right decision, as Mika was unwell throughout the evening.
So my birthday dinner ended up being Indian delivery (not bad, though) and I didn't even get a cake - oh well.
May 1, 2005
Pastries By Edie
One of the (few) treats of going to LA to visit my parents is stopping by Edie's for some of their amazing French-style pastries. The pastries are beautiful and delicious, combining richness with lightness and winning flavors. They average about $3 each and the larger ones are big enough to share (if you're not too hungry). We usually split them four ways so we can all taste a little of each one. We always get them to go, but they are sold off a little European-style cafe that would be a nice place to stop by for a coffee if it was in a nicer neighborhood.
Pastries By Edie
21608 Sherman Way
Canoga Park, CA 91303
(818) 716-7033