A friend of mine sent this glossary of foods, and I figured it may be useful to keep it here for future reference.
Author: marga (Page 116 of 120)
Kathy wanted meat with sauce and I decided on making a beef stroganoff. I’ve made one years ago without great success, then had a great one prepared by a Russian friend in Italy so that I can now really tell the difference between good and not-so-good. The recipe I found at allrecipes.com was supposed to be great, it got 5-star ratings, but at least in my hands it ended up being not-so-good. It was edible, all right, but it didn’t have much flavor. Maybe I should have used more mustard.
Yesterday I had a slice of pizza at the pizza place next to the Shattuck cinema in Berkeley. $2 for a Berkeley-size slice. I liked it a lot, it had that slightly alcoholic taste (don’t tell me it’s something bad) that pizza sometimes gets. The thin dough was pretty flimsy, though, if you picked it up from the outside crust, the end of the slice would fall down. The cheese also didn’t stick to the crust, making eating it somewhat messy (in other words, don’t get a slice of pizza to eat as you walk), but the taste was great.
The pizza place (I don’t know its actual name) has a couple of counters with stools, it’snot really kid friendly (hard to eat the pizza & control the kid) but I’ve been there alone with Mika a few times without too many problems.
I just posted a review for Lotus Thai Cuisine, a small and very cute restaurant on Piedmont Ave. in Oakland, where Kathy and I had lunch earlier this month. We loved the restaurant, in particular its recessed tables, but hated the dried-out food.
Another recently posted review is for The Rice Table, an Indonesian restaurant in Marin we visited last month with our friends Charlotte and Daniel. The food was great but the portions left some to be desired.
Closer to home, we went to Porky’s Pizza Palace in Washington Manor, a place where you can eat and let your kids run around. The pizza and pasta are OK too.
We’ve visited a number of other restaurants, the reviews for which are still on the editing process (I’ll add the links to them as I get them back). These include:
-The Egg Shop in Montclair, a great spot for a Father’s Day brunch
-Casa Madrid in Pleasanton, we didn’t like the tapas at this Spanish eater but got the best service we’ve ever had.
–Pasta Pelican in Alameda, the bay view is a winner at this moderately-priced eatery. The food is not bad either.
–Stacey’s, a nice bistro in downtown Pleasanton had the best herbed butter but very slow serive.
-Village Bistro in Castro Valley offers traditional continental cuisine, comfort food for grown up palates.
-Sansar also in downtown Pleasanton has delicious Indian food, at Pleasanton prices.
Though it happened over a month ago, I figure I should write about the great Bourguignone dinner that never was before I delete the menu from the “next on the menu” section and have it disappear forever.
I had invited my friends Alistair and Suzanna to dinner a week after I had Eddie & Arthur over for a Bermudian dinner. Sometimes I get overly ambitious which proves to be a mistake. I decided to skip on the other “B” cuisines and go directly to Burgundian because I wasn’t confident on the recipes I had for the other cuisines. With only a week to prepare, I didn’t have enough time to research enough to be confident that the Bolivian or Bhutanese menu I’d prepare be both enjoyable and manageable.
It was not as easy to come up with a Burgundian menu as I first thought. It was a given that I’d serve Beef Bourguignonne as a main dish, but finding appetizers was harder. I didn’t want to repeat the same ingredients on different dishes, which meant no mushrooms in the appetizer and no cheese as I wanted to serve a cheese course. That finally didn’t happen so I decided on some cheese pastries. Dessert was even more difficult, I couldn’t find anything suitable save a bread pudding (Mike hates bread pudding) and decided to serve strawberries in wine as we were in strawberry season, though I wasn’t very confident on them. I never could find any vegetables to serve.
The dinner didn’t come out great. The store-bought pate de campagne was great (oh, how I’ll miss pate for the next few months!), but I don’t think Mike liked the eggs Dijon style. I couldn’t quite figure out how the Burgundian cheese pastries were supposed to be, but they sounded like empanadas so I used empanada shells, the cheese filling was OK but not as good as plain cheese.
The braised Boeuf Bourguignone should have been great, and it would have been if I hadn’t let it run out of liquid in the oven. I tried to save it by adding more wine (Cab, I didn’t have any burgundy left) and stewing it for a while, but it wasn’t that great that night. The next day, though, it was like mana from heaven, soooo delicious, convincing me that next time I make it I have to let it rest for a day.
I never found the Burgundian cheeses and never got to dessert, probably a good thing.
For alas, not only did my dinner fail but my guests forgot to come! They are also new parents and the invitation had been extended a month before, so it was easy to understand how they could forget. I have to admit that as much as I wanted to see them, I wasn’t completely upset that they didn’t make it – this was not a meal I was proud to serve.
I’m planning to cook another Burgundian dinner when I get to it, so this menu won’t go on my webpage. Here I leave it just as a memory:
Burgundian food
Pate de Campagne with Cornichons
Eggs Dijon Style with mixed greens
Cheese pastries
Beef Bourguignonne with egg noodles
Vanilla Ice Cream with Strawberries in Wine
Kathy wanted beef for dinner last night so I decided on this easy marinade recipe. It calls for Italian dressing, Worcestershire sauce & BBQ sauce. I used tri-tip, which is a good grilling cut.
They were OK – Kathy didn’t think they were flavorful enough. I think I should have salted the meat before marinating it.
Tonight we are going to Casa Madrid for dinner – I can’t wait.
I had a salad from lunch. Just a garden salad from Safeway with some blue cheese topping. It’s the third salad I have in less than a week. No salads for 35 years, and then 3.
It’s interesting how our bodies can sometimes take over. I guess mine needs salad.
This meat sauce is really easy to make, as it relies on store-bought sauce, but it’s absolutely delicious. I always get great raves from everyone when I make it.
For an even more delicious dish, sprinkle shredded cheese (mozarella, jack, provolone or a mixture of cheeses) over the hot pasta before serving the meat sauce.
- 1 tbsp. olive oil
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 lb ground beef
- salt & pepper to taste
- 2 tsp. garlic powder
- 2 tsp. oregano
- 2 tsp. paprika
- 1/2 tsp. curry powder
- 1/2 tsp. coriander
- 1/2 tsp. cumin
- 1/2 tsp. chili powder
- 1/4 tsp. allspice
- 1 jar pasta sauce
- 1/2 cup red wine
Sauté the chopped onion in the olive oil over medium-high heat in a deep skillet. When soft, add the garlic and sauté for a couple of minutes. Add the ground meat and brown. Add the spices and stir. Add the pasta sauce and the red wine, stir and cook until the meat is well cooked. Serve over any type of pasta.
We now have our third Vietnamese restaurant in San Leandro: Le Soleil. It’s located on E. 14th STreet, downtown, next to Luke’s Grill.
We went last night, its second day of operation. There were some glitches with the food & service (waitress got one of our dishes wrong, kitchen hasn’t learned the dishes well so descriptions don’t match what you are served), but we had a very good experience overall. The food was quite yummy, the waitresses very nice and attentive, and the little space is very cute. It’s hard to believe that a year ago it was an stationary store.
Full review availble at http://www.marga.org/food/rest/soleil.html
We went to Elios the week before our cruise, too long ago for me to remember the details well
enough to write a proper review. However, it’s unlikely we’ll return so rather than leave it un-reviewed altogether, I will
write a few remarks on the restaurant here.
Elios is one of the last of a dying breed, the all-American restaurant. It looks like a spiffed-up coffee-shop, it has
bright red vinyl booths, large mirrors that make the place look bigger and waitresses who have been working there for years it
not decades. Its long menu offers a wide selection of burgers and sandwiches (don’t expect anything innovative here), as well
as steaks, veal, chicken, seafood and pasta dishes, all moderately priced. There is a long list of daily specials, some of
which also appear in the regular menu at the same prices.
That evening, I decided on the broiled coulotte steak ($11.55). I remember it being fine, though not remarkable. I don’t
remember what Mike had, I think also a steak which was marginally better than mine.
For dessert we shared a piece of chocolate cream pie which wasn’t very good, it didn’t have much flavor.
Perhaps one day I’ll go back to Elios to write a proper review. It’ll have to be without Mike, however, as he refuses to
go back with me.
Elios
260 Floresta Boulevard
San Leandro, CA
510-351-0463
http://eliosdining.com/
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