A couple of weeks ago, I got together with my usual dinner group and we went to Phnom Penh II. For dessert we headed to Adagia, on the recommendation of a friend of Parker’s. I’d been there before with Mike, but I couldn’t remember at all how the desserts were.
Well, I’m here to tell you that their chocolate bread pudding is out of this world. Rich and yet light, very chocolaty and sultry in texture. I think three of us got it and we all enjoyed it.
We weren’t as fond of the spiced semolina cake. It was still good, but I think it may have been better had it not been spiced. The tea creme brulee was a little bit disconcerting, a new flavor. I’m not sure that one that I’d go back for, but it did enjoy it. I’m not one for fruit desserts, but the port poached pears were delicious.
Service was impecable, we went late and they didn’t kick us out 🙂 In all, a great place to go for dessert (and get that bread pudding).
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I finished my “A” cuisines several years ago, only to later find out that I had neglected to cook any Azorean food (the Azores are little islands that belong to Portugal). There is a whole website online dedicated to Azorean recipes, but I wasn’t really inspired by them. I did find a very good recipe for chicken with wine, which was all I cooked for my Azorean menu.
Country style pork ribs are almost always on sale, but I never buy them because I never know what to make with them (other than carnitas). This time I figured I’d look for a recipe before I went to the supermarket. This recipe for saucy country-style oven ribs from epicurious got great reviews and seemed relatively easy to make. It was, but the results weren’t really my cup of tea.
Like some of the reviewers suggested I only boiled the ribs for 15 minutes, and they were pretty tender (though not forked tender) when they were done. I also cooked them in my braising pan, rather than a baking pan, I’m not sure how much of a difference that would have made.
My problem, however, was with the sauce, not the ribs. It was just too tangy for my taste. It wasn’t too overwhelmingly tangy, but I just prefer less tangy flavors. Mike, on the other hand, liked it. But as I’m the one cooking, I wouldn’t make it again.
Update: This restaurant closed and re-opened several times.
Last week our friends Arthur and Eddie suggested that we go out to dinner at Tequila Grill before the kids headed to a show at the library. I’m always in the mood for not cooking (well, that’s not really true, but I thought it sounded cute), so I thought it was a splendid idea. Well, perhaps not splendid as I haven’t been impressed with Tequila Grill in the past, but it’s nice to get out. And alas, it’s good I have that attitude because Tequila Grill failed to impress me yet again.
I had the milanesa sandwich, and the milanesa was nice and tender but not very flavorful. There was also too little meat to bread ratio. The fries it came with were perfectly fine.
I also ordered some guacamole and I did like it a lot, it was fresh and well balanced. Alas – there were no chips to eat it with (I did ask for them, they just never came). I found out that french fries with guacamole sort of work.
Mike had the flautas and he thought they were just OK.
I didn’t ask Arthur and Eddie what they thought of their dishes, but Elektra – who’d come with us along with her kids Orestes and Aegea, didn’t seem very impressed with whatever she ordered. Orestes’ actually found his burrito nauseating, though he couldn’t quite figure out why.
The younger kids seemed fine with their quesadillas (I didn’t try them).
So no, I won’t be rushing back to Tequila Grill, though I imagine I’ll end up there again some time.
Tequila Grill
1350 E. 14th St.
San Leandro
(510) 895-5351
I was at home with the girls with no plans to go out, and I wanted to make something cool for them. I never have that many ingredients at home – no chocolate chips for cookies, nothing for a pie, no patience for ice cream – but I had just bought a bunch of eggs, so I thought I’d make this simple recipe for flan, that I’d very successfully made before. I’d double it so there would be plenty for everyone. Or that was the plan.
It wasn’t until I’d beaten the eggs that I realized that I only had one can of condensed milk. The second can had expired in 2004 – and I’m not that adventurous. Yes, I could have just divided the eggs in two, but what would the fun of that have been? Instead I decided to substitute the can of sweetened condensed milk with an equal amount of dulce de leche. The results were just plain weird.
When I took the “flans” (and I do mean the quotation marks) off the oven, they had risen as if they were souffles! They fell as they cooled down. Even weirder was the consistency. I can’t quite describe it. It was denser and nowhere as smooth as a flan – it lacked its bubbles for instance. And yet it was too smooth to be considered chalky or caky or even brownishy. Somewhere in between, I guess. The taste was sweet, not at all like flan and only a bit like dulce de leche. It wasn’t bad, but I felt it was flat.
All in all, it wasn’t an experiment worth repeating.
I made this recipe for honey and vinegar-braised short ribs a few days ago (sorry, no pictures). I really love short ribs and I’m hoping to find the definitive braised short ribs recipe some time soon. Unfortunately this was not it. The sauce was very good – and there was a lot of it, even though I had decreased the recipe by 1/3rd, but it wasn’t out of this world. It also didn’t really infuse the ribs with enough flavor. All in all, I liked it – but not as much as other recipes. I probably won’t make it again – and will continue my search for the best braised short rib recipe ever. If you think you have one, LET ME KNOW!.
Safeway has been periodically having tri-tip roast on sale for something like $3-4 a lb. Pretty cheap, all in all. It’s not the tastiest of cuts, specially the Safeway brand which emphasizes tenderness over flavor, so I looked for a recipe that would infuse some flavor in it. This recipe for Hoisin-Marinated Tri-Tip Roast sounded pretty good and it got good reviews. Alas, it wasn’t as good as I’d hoped. The outside of the meat was nicely caramelized and very tasty, but the flavor didn’t make it all the way through. I don’t think I’d bother making it again.
Last Friday, we took our friend Paz to dinner at La Note. I’d been there once before with my friend Regina, and while my burger hadn’t been that good – Regina’s dish had been wonderful. We’d won a $25 gift certificate at the Girls Inc.’s Women of Taste event a few months ago, and I figured I’d use it and give La Note another try. My experience, once again, was mixed. Mike had a great dish, while I had a merely OK one. Paz was too polite to complain about her chicken sandwich, but she didn’t seem to enjoy it too much.
Once again, we started the meal with the Crotin de Fromage de Chevre Cuits aux Noix, “oven baked, nut crusted goat cheese served with french country toasts, roasted garlic & provençales tomatoes.” As in my other visit, the combination was excellent and I think we all enjoyed it.
Mike had a large pastry pocket filled with a variety of seafood including scallops, shrimp, salmon fillet and crabs. He thought it was excellent. I had chicken with prunes (I think), and while the outside of the chicken was tasty, the inside was pretty insipid and the breast was terribly dry – so much that I could not eat it.
For dessert I had a flourless chocolate cake with berry coulis and vanilla ice cream. It was very rich and very good – though I don’t particularly like the coulis (I have to remember to ask them to skip it next time). I’d order it again.
I hear that La Note has a very good brunch, but I haven’t tried it yet.
Last night we went to downtown Palo Alto to relax at Watercourse Way. We left our home a bit late, and it took us a while to get there, so we found ourselves with half an hour for dinner. Taxi’s Hamburgers looked like the sort of place we could get a quick bite.
Mike got a bacon cheeseburger, and he liked it well enough. He found it juicy, though not as juicy as burgers from Nation’s. He’d have it again.
I had their pulled pork platter, which included a pulled pork sandwich (in a hamburger ban), some veggies and your choice of fries or onion rings. The onion rings were a bit dry, but tasty enough. They’d been better with some ranch dressing, of course. I wasn’t thrilled with the pulled pork. It came with a side of a very generic bbq sauce. The pork itself was dry and tasteless.
The food came reasonably quickly.
The place itself tries to look like an old fashioned diner, with a lot of white tiles. You order at the counter, and a waiter brings your food and takes away your plates. They have self-serving soda machines and a potato bar. The food is a bit on the expensive side, it was a bit over $20 for what we had (including two sodas).
I’d probably go again if I was in a hurry, but I’d order a burger.
403 University Ave
Palo Alto, CA
(650) 322-8294
More restaurant reviews at http://www.marga.org/food/rest/
I got the following message today in response to my failed attempt at cooking Belizean rice and beans. I thought I’d share it with all of you who want to know how to do it right. Thanks Dorla!
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I saw your recipe for the above dish from Belize. I wanted to share my
mother’s recipe with you, and see if you like this one better. The idea is
to make the rice somewhat fluffy, but not sticky, so after you add the rice
to the beans, as shown in step 5, stir (only once), after 30 mins the rice
will need to fluffed with a fork, and at that time, you will know the
consistency, and if a little water is needed, you sprinkle a little around
the edge of the pot and in the center, but I have made this recipe a
thousand times, and did not need any water. I also use long grain rice, and
it comes out perfect every time.
Ingredients
- 1 lb. Red Kidney Beans 2 plugs Garlic (crushed)
- 1 tsp. Salt 1 cup coconut Milk (either squeezed from grated coconut or bought prepared, canned, or made from powered variety)
- ½ tsp. Black pepper
- ½ tsp. Thyme 2 lbs. cleaned Rice
- 1 medium Onion (sliced) 6-8 cups of water
- (optional) 1 small pigtail or salt beef or pieces of bacon
Method
1. Wash the beans, then soak beans for 4 hours, using the 6-8 cups of water.
If you are using distilled water, then soaked beans only needs 2 hours to
soften.
2. Boil beans until tender, with the garlic, onion and pig’s tail/or salted
beef or bacon pieces. Note: pre-wash the pigtail or salt beef and cut off
excess fat. You can use a pressure cooker to cut down on the time.
3. Season beans with black pepper, thyme and salt. Note: You may opt not to
add the salt if you used salt beef or pigtail above.
4. Add coconut milk. Stir and then let boil.
5. Add rice to seasoned beans. Stir, then cover. Cook on low heat until the
water is absorbed and rice is tender. If necessary, add more water gradually
until rice is tender. Note: Usually, one cup of rice absorbs two cups of
water, although rice grains can vary in the amount of water they absorb. To
warm up leftover rice-and-beans, you can sprinkle with water to re-moisten.
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