Mike has just returned a few edited reviews – so I finally get to put them up. Here they are:
–Cafe de la Paz served us its delicious take on Latin American dishes – but did we just get lucky?
-We visited Spettro’s again, for Mike’s 40th, and it was probably one of the most disappointing meals we ever had.
-We celebrated Mike’s 40th again at The Dining Room at the Ritz Carlton and had an amazing albeit terribly expensive meal.
-After two visits to Chevys in San Leandro I learned that they just can’t do babyback ribs
Mike stills owes me reviews of Doña Tomás and the Rotunda at Neiman Marcus
Author: marga (Page 71 of 114)
Last night I threw my annual Halloween party – a smallish event (as I have a small house) for both kids and adults. I was originally thinking of making a Creole menu – but then my friend Arthur asked me to make empanadas, my signature dish. Arthur is moving away (darn him!) so I figured I’d owed it to him. That meant changing my menu, which wasn’t that big a deal, as I recycled many old favorites. I served.
-Tortilla chips with guacamole (storebought)
–Deviled eggs (Mike’s favorites)
–Meat empandas
–Chicken Satay
–Chocolate chocolate chip cookies
-Pumpkin pie (from Costco)
–Spider cake
The menu wasn’t very Halloweenish, but I wasn’t inspired this year. The food, however, was great. Mike loved the deviled eggs and was happy to have some leftover for today. The meat empanadas received raves – specially from Arthur. I was very happy with the chicken satay. I changed the recipe a little bit because I remembered that last time the sauce had been too spicy to eat. I used 1 Tbsp of red curry paste in the peanut sauce instead of the 3 I originally had written in the recipe – and 1 1/2 tsp of red curry sauce in the chicken marinade instead of 2. It was great, the chicken was only slightly spicy and the sauce was restaurant-quality. I’m going to modify my recipe to show this.
The cookies were pretty good, not spectacular but child friendly. I think next time I’d try another recipe, though, just to see if I can find something even better.
The cake turned out just like the one in the picture. Once again I used a bunt cake from Lucky’s (old Albertsons), good n’plenty’s cut in two for the eyes and a pink full good n’plenty for the nose. Kids loved it.
For drink we had water, coke, Tropical punch and wine. I don’t know what the first few bottles we had were (people brought them with them), but the latest was a 2005 Virgin Vines California shiraz which my friend Alistair in particular liked very much. I’m not one for Shiraz in general, but this one was very nice – even though it came with a screw cap (a la Australian wines). I’m pretty amazed that Virgin has gotten into wines as well, they seem bent on getting into every industry. In any case we enjoyed it.
The party went very well, we had as many adults and children as our house could accommodate and the kids seem to have a great time running around and playing. I was really surprise how 12 kids could not only fit in our house, but play so well together. Hurray for little kids!
Today I took my daughter to lunch at her favorite chain restaurant, Panda Express (783 A Street, one of *three* locations in Hayward). It was much better than I expected. For $5.50 you get your choice of fried rice or a simple chow mein, and any two of about a dozen entrees.
All the meat is tender and seems to be of decent quality.
I didn’t try the fried rice, but the chow mein has “wok hei” – the smoky aftertaste of a properly made stir-fry. The orange chicken (my daughter’s favorite) was tangy and not over-sweet; the crust was not mushy at all. The sweet and sour pork is – well, inoffensive.
I had broccoli beef and black pepper chicken. The broccoli was cut a little too large to be convenient to eat. It would have been more manageable either cut smaller or cooked a little longer. Mind you, it was delicious. The pepper chicken was aromatic with black pepper, but not hot, and strewn with slivers of onion and green pepper.
Very little of the food is prefab; we were able to see a huge glass-fronted refrigerator filled with trays of raw vegetables.
I don’t know that it’s a particularly child-friendly place: most of the chairs and tables are tall, like bar stools, which would be risky for small children. (My daughter’s an adult, so that wasn’t an issue for us.)
There are banners hung from the ceiling proclaiming “Gourmet Chinese Food.” I wouldn’t go that far, but Panda Express presses most of the Chinese-American-cooking joy buttons.
Michaele Maurer
It’s time to update the list of wines I have at home, so I can check it next time I need a wine to match some food. Clearly I need to buy more cheap wines. And clearly I need more special occasions for the expensive wine.
Under $10 wines
Chateau Briot 2004 Bordeaux
Columbia Crest 2003 Two Vines Cabernet Sauvignon
Zonin Proseco Brut
Villar Carlotti Prosecco
Medium Priced Wines
2000 Atlas Peak Vineyards Sangiovese, Napa Valley
Piper Sonoma Brut
Better wines
2006 Bink Sauvignon Blanc, Randle Hill Vineyard (this, like the other Bink wines, we got at an auction for Girl’s Inc – we paid $80 for all four)
2002 Casola Lopez Malbec (my cousin Betiana Lopez gifted it to me in Argentina)
2004 DeLoach Sonoma County Zinfandel ($35 or so, bought at winery)
2003 BV Rutherford Cabernet Sauvignon (I think $20, Mike likes it)
2001 Yorkville Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon (bought at winery)
A syrah we bought at Roederer and that’s too high up in the closet for me to look at.
2001 Fife Meritage (was $15 at Safeway off $32)
2003 Bink Merlot, Hawks Butte Vineyard
2003 Bink Syrah Hawks Butte Vineyard
2004 Bink Pinot Noir Weir Vineyard
1999 Roederer L’Ermitage Brut ($45 bought at winery)
Sweet wines
Westover Port (someone must have gifted it to us, doesn’t say which kind, must be around $20)
2005 V. Sattui Muscat (bought @ winery >$20)
2005 Navarro White Riesling ($29 small bottle)
Lustau Dry Amontillado Los Arcos Sherry
I bought this wine after we came back from our wine country trip and we were all enthused about wines. It was 50% off at Safeway (from $20) and it seemed like a good deal. I’ve been meaning to drink it every since, but after our initial enthusiasm with drinking wine, we kind of forgot about it.
Tonight I made a nice dinner and decided it was a good time to have some wine. Yes, I had made chicken and a white would have been more appropriate, but I didn’t have any in the fridge and I wanted to open this wine once and for all.
I found it to not be a bad choice at all. The wine is definitely robust, but it didn’t overwhelm the chicken. It has hints of black cherry and is somewhat chalky – the finish is pretty sharp. It’s not an easy to drink wine, but it feels nice in a cold night – it warms you up.
Some times mistakes can turn up well. Last Monday I went to the supermarket with my shopping list, which was supposed to include 2 1/4 lbs. of sweet onions for a Calabrian onion soup I meant to make. Alas, I wrote 2 1/4 lbs of sweet peppers instead – an easy mistake to make given that I had peppers on my mind, Calabrian cuisine uses a lot of peppers. I didn’t buy 2 1/4 lbs of sweet peppers because that seemed like a lot, peppers don’t weigh that much. I saw a little bag of small sweet peppers, though, and decided to buy those instead. When I got home I realized my mistake, and I was left with the problem of what to do with the peppers.
Amazingly enough, I couldn’t find any recipes for baby sweet peppers – other than stuffed peppers, which I wasn’t crazy about. So I thought and thought and decided to go with what I knew, and make this recipe for pollo al chilindron or chicken with peppers. I didn’t do it exactly like last time, I didn’t use green peppers, both because I didn’t have any and because I thought that would make it too spicy for the kids (not that I should have bothered, as they didn’t eat any). The results were pretty good, however. It wasn’t delicious, but it was homey and satisfying, comfort food. I ate the sauce with bread and it was very good.
Sunday we went to Ardenwood Farm for their Fall Festival. They had food there (the most pathetic tri-tip sandwich ever, barely any meat and flavorless) and a bunch of demonstrations, including baking demonstrations of food cooked the old fashioned way in an old stover. One of the things they made were these amazing crispy cookies. Their program came with a recipe for “Oatmeal Crispies”, and while these cookies (recipe below) were also very good, they weren’t as good or as sweet as those I tried at the festival. Still, they are worth making.
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1 cup butter
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 1 1/2 cups white flour
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. salt
- 3 cups oatmeal
- 1 package chocolate chips
Cream together the butter and the sugars. Mix in the eggs and then vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking soda, salt, oatmeal and chocolate chips. Bake at 350F for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and cool.
This morning we went to yet another Friends of the Library booksale at the San Leandro library. I didn’t mean to buy too many cookbooks, I have no room as it is, and it’s not like I ever use them. But once again, I couldn’t resist them. So this is what I got:
A Taste of Florida, by Dorothy Chapman – I guess I’m adding Floridian, to the list of cuisines I’ll probably never cook.
The wine lover’s cookbook by Sid Goldstein – Mike found it. It’s not a book of wine-based recipes (darn!), but of recipes with recommended wine pairings. It gets good reviews at Amazon.com, and it seems it’s the kind of book one has to read and not just get recipes from. Seems like a good buy.
The Greens Cook Book by Deborah Madison. I am, as you may know, an anti-vegetarian, I eat barely any vegetables, but I do cook vegetarian food from time to time and I thought it’d be a good addition to my cookbook collection.
The Complete Book of Caribbean Cooking by Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz. I already own two or three Caribbean cookbooks, but there are so many islands in that area that I can always use another one. And this book tells you from which country each recipe is.
Middle Eastern Cooking and American Cooking: The Northwest from the Time-Life Foods of the World collection. This is a really old collection – the books are from the 1960’s and 70’s, but I’ve found some good recipes in some of them. I have quite a lot of them now, as I keep buying them when I see them at the library sales.
And this is it – until the next sale 🙂
The following is a letter I got vis a vis my review of The Station House at Point Reyes Station. Apparently I’m not the only one who finds the food bland. I encourage my readers to comment on my blog or e-mail me about the restaurants I’ve reviewed (whether agreeing or disagreeing with me)
—-
Hi Margarita
I should have checked your review before visiting the Station House cafe but
alas I did not and it was our loss. We decided to have dinner there as it
was recommended by a local but it was very disappointing to say the least.
To start with, our hostess seemed to have a bit of an attitude when we were
seated and it went downhill from their. Our waitress came to take our order
and had to ask the chef about what we wanted three different times; Could
they just steam the veggies? could we just have garlic with no butter on the
Mussels? and could we have the salad dressing on the side.
My wife had the 1/2 pound of steamed mussels, a salad with no dressing and
and steamed veggies, I had the special of the day, chippino and a cup of
clam chowder. We waited about 1/2 an hour for our food (no popovers or bread
was served and no one returned to fill our water glasses).
When the food finally arrived my wife’s steamed mussels were on the short
side (more like 1/8 of a pound) and the dressing was on the salad. It took
about 5 min. to get the busboy to take the salad back and get another, that
was the last we saw of the salad! We asked for some bread and the busboy
finally got it for us.
My chippino was ok but not worth the 20 dollars we paid for it. The clam
chowder was watery and it was difficult to tell if it had any clams in it.
The service was very bad and as you said the food was insipid. The waitress
checked back with us once towards the end of the meal however it was a
prefunctionary walk by. The best part of service was the busboy who was a
lot more attentive and even apologetic.
Needless to say we will not be returning to the station house cafe.
Best regards
Stan Gelber
Saturday night, Mike and I went to Women of Taste, a benefit for Girls Inc. – a local charity that works to empower girls. The event features women chef presenting some of their food. There are a couple dozen (or more) tables, each one manned by a retaurant, cattering company or winery – and you go from table to table picking up small bites of what they have to offer. It’s a great idea and we had a lot of fun doing it. Some of the food was really good (a goat cheese on endive bite from a catering company, a caviar appetizer from a restaurant I can’t remember and a BBQ pork sandwich from T-Rex in Berkeley), but a lot of it was merely pedestrian. There were a lot of brochetta or brochetta like things – understandable, given that the restaurants must provide 1,200 pieces of food for free. Other than the BBQ sandwich, and a couple of tiny fish bites, there was no protein at all. The wines were much better. I liked the syrah from Concannon winery in Livermore and whatever red wine I had from Handley Cellars. The Barefoot Cab, however, was pretty much undrinkable. There were a lot of sweets – including a pretty good cheesecake from Trader Joe’s, ice cream from Fenton’s and an amazing chocolate Truffle from Boulevard.
There was also a silent auction (we didn’t win anything), and live music.
As I said we had a great time, run into some political acquaintances, and we’ll probably go back next year. Tickets are expensive, $125 each ($100 if you buy them well in advance, which we didn’t), but they benefit a good cause. About 1,200 people attended, but in general the lines weren’t too long.
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