Cooking Mexican Food in Bangkok

Posted on 2 August 2012 by christao408

A few months ago, a group of our friends gathered to cook dinner. Being mostly from the United States (or having lived there), we were missing Mexican food, something that is difficult to find in Bangkok – at least if you want decent quality Mexican food and not something akin to Taco Bell. Thought I would share some pictures with you.

The final spread, a mishmash of sauces, condiments, and dishes, all of which were very tasty.

Home made black beans and rice with a soffrito – onion and pepper mixture.

Put them all together and we wind up with a wonderful soft taco and side of black beans and rice.

I also served homemade horchata, the traditional Mexican rice milk beverage. I followed a recipe on the internet which is based on one from the book “Paletas” by Fany Gerson. Can’t say if it is the authentic process, but the end result tasted familiar.

From left to right, blend the uncooked rice. The result is a rough, sandy powder. Put the powdered rice and cinnamon stick in a container and add warm water, letting it soak overnight. The next day you remove the cinnamon stick, puree the rice and water mixture, strain it to remove any solids, and then add sugar and rice milk (or cow milk) and mix until dissolved. Of course, adding rice milk at the end seems a bit redundant but as I said, the flavor turned out as I remembered from the taquerias of San Francisco.

Candice shows us a baby lychee, the runt of a large batch of lychees we ate our way through.

For dessert, I served mangoes on home made cornmeal pound cake. I brought my panini grill along and was going to grill the pieces. Unfortunately, I forgot that the waffle plates were in the grill instead of the panini plates. Undaunted, I used the waffle plates instead, which produced this interesting toasting pattern.

End result of the dessert: curiously toasted cornmeal pound cake with mangoes and fresh whipped cream spiked with a touch of almond liqueur and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

Italian Sunday Gravy

Posted on 28 July 2012 by christao408

Not the first time I’ve written about Italian Sunday Gravy, the seminal slow-cooked tomato sauce filled with various cuts of meat. Shortly before leaving for the US, we visited a Swedish-Thai couple we know and prepared Italian Sunday Gravy for them and several other friends.

A plate full of meats – sausages, ribs, and loin – are seared to get some color into the pot. Then onions are sauteed, tomato sauce is caramelized, canned tomatoes are added, and then the meat is placed back in the sauce and the whole thing bakes in the oven for three hours.

Meanwhile, I made some homemade pasta using Thomas Keller’s French Laundry pasta dough recipe. Since we were at friends’ house and I didn’t want to carry my KitchenAid mixer (which has a pasta rolling attachment) I just used a cutting board and rolling pin. A little more rustic, but it still turned out okay.

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Letting the sheets of pasta dry for a few minutes before cutting them. This way, the individual pieces of pasta cut more easily.

The hand-cut pasta – I didn’t have a ruler or straight edge handy so these are cut with all sorts of varying width. Very rustic, indeed! My technique (or lack thereof) would shame Italian grandmothers.

Cook the pasta in salted boiling water just as the sauce is finished. Fresh pasta cooks much more quickly than dried pasta so one needs to pay close attention.

Once the meat is tender, you pull it out of the sauce and serve it on a platter.

The remaining sauce is served directly from the pan and spooned over your pasta. Lots and lots of flavor in there!

A side dish of cabbage, fennel and radish cole slaw with a sesame dressing. Makes a nice accompaniment to the heavy Sunday gravy.

For dessert, one of our hosts cooked raspberry almond bars. These were fantastic. All in all, not only did we have a very fun time visiting with our friends, but the cooking was fun, too.

Chow at Chow San Francisco

Posted on 23 July 2012 by christao408

The afternoon that we departed San Francisco, our cousins from Salt Lake City flew in to see us. We had time for lunch at Chow restaurant on Church Street, right around the corner from where we were staying and where we used to live. Still one of our favorite restaurants. I didn’t take pictures of everything, but there are a few shots that turned out nicely and are worth sharing.

Chow has been around since 1997 and its premise is simple: high-quality, healthy, affordable comfort food. Its menu reflects the Italian and Asian immigrant heritage of San Francisco.

Hangar steak, grilled to a perfect rare and sliced thin. Served with mashed potatoes and a cherry tomato confit.

Rigatoni of spring lamb sugo. Simple, hearty, perfect for lunch before a long plane ride.

Home made peach pie with vanilla ice cream. Summer in a slice.

Classic menu item: ginger cake with pumpkin ice cream. Yum!

My cousin Alex with her son Tommy. Tommy looks mighty happy about his suacerful of ice cream!

Trying my Own Souffle

Posted on 19 July 2012 by christao408

Inspired by yesterday’s entry about Cafe Jacqueline, last night I decided to try making a ham and cheese souffle for dinner.

Very cool to watch how it rises during the 30-35 minutes of baking.

It turned out quite nicely, although could have used a bit more salt and pepper to season it.

Romantic Dinner at Cafe Jacqueline

Posted on 18 July 2012 by christao408

For our final dinner in San Francisco, Tawn and I returned to Cafe Jacqueline, a charming restaurant in North Beach that specializes in soufflés, both savory and sweet. We first went here a dozen years ago and the place remains as charming as ever.

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The restaurant is not very large – a dozen tables, perhaps – and reservations are strongly encouraged. Reviews on yelp.com and other sites sometimes complain that the staff is rude to walk-in customers, but I think that perception is understandable when you consider that their style of restaurant is very different from the average well-reviewed restaurant. They serve only one thing (soufflés) made by one person (Jacqueline) and so the pace of service is very leisurely. People – especially foreign tourists toting their guide books – arrive without reservations and confrontations ensue when their expectations differ from reality. Because of this, the wait staff interrogate walk-in customers in a brusque manner: “Do you know what kind of restaurant this is?”

If you have reservations – or if you are a walk-in and pass the interrogation – you are treated with old world courtesy by friendly, professional waiters who have worked at the cafe for years. It is an old-fashioned kind of place, in the best meaning of that term.

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This is a restaurant made for romance. Next to several tables are small plaques commemorating special occasions that happened there. Our table had two such plaques: “George & Laura Vidalia – First Date… Married…” and the more interesting “Dav and Kate – Handshake of Monogamy, MLK Day 1997 – Proposal, MLK Day 2001”.

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There is a small selection of soups, salads, and appetizers, all of which are very French. Escargots, onion soup, caviar, and our choice: a spinach and bacon salad.

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It took some forty minutes for our savory soufflé to arrive, but this was totally expected and we kept ourselves occupied with an amazing bottle of old vine Zinfandel from Lodi, California. We had the prosciutto and cheese soufflé, which was a thing of beauty.

So that you don’t muss it up, the waiter serves the first portion for you.

Truly, the soufflé is a dish whose tremendous beauty is dashed just as soon as you cut into it. But despite its deflated appearance, the taste is tremendous and the textural contrasts energizing: rich and light, salty and eggy, crispy and smooth – all at the same time.

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For dessert, we took advantage of the season and enjoyed a fresh strawberry soufflé. This, of course, was another forty minute wait or so, but that meant that by the time it arrived, we actually had some room in our bellies to enjoy it. I’d say that this soufflé was ever so slightly undercooked, but to such a minor degree that it remained very enjoyable.

Cafe Jacqueline is one of those restaurants that is a must-visit and very appropriate for a special occasion. I hope we’ll make a return visit sooner than another dozen years from now, for I fear that once Mme Jacqueline reaches a certain age, she will decide to retire. As the cafe is a one-woman show, her retirement would likely mean the end of an era, and that would be a truly sad thing.

Dining in SF: Zarzuela

Posted on 12 July 2012 by christao408

While in SF, I had the opportunity to meet up with a trio of Xangans (two of whom are AWOL from the site – ahem!) for dinner at Zarzuela, a Spanish restaurant on Russian Hill. The conversation was excellent and the food very good.

Located on the corner of Union and Hyde Streets, the cable cars climb the hill outside Zarzuela’s front door. The room is cozy and the service friendly.

Jamon Serrano con Pan e Tomate – Serrano ham with toasted bread and tomato sauce. The ham was tasty, the bread was nice, the tomato sauce was weak and watery.

Gambas Ajillo – shrimp sauteed with garlic and olive oil. Very tasty but the portion was very small – this was the entire serving before any of us helped ourselves.

Mejillones Vinagretta – A specialty is the cold mussels served with chopped veggies and a sherry vinaigrette. Cold mussels seem less common than warm ones, but this dish is a good argument why cold mussels should be more comon.

Calamares a la Plancha con Aioli – Grilled calamari shells with a garlic mayonnaise sauce. The taste was fine but the presentation was awful. It looks like a three-year old just squiggled some mayo on top with a squeeze bottle.

Pollo con Setas – Sauteed chicken with mixed mushrooms and sherry wine sauce. This was tasty but not particularlly inspiring.

Pescado del Dia – Fish of the day, in this case salmon, served with a red tomato sauce and a side of green beans. Again, tasty but not very inspired. The type of dish that I feel most home cooks could easily create, which makes me wonder why I’m going to a restaurant to eat it.

Fideos con Marisco – Vermicelli and seafood tossed with white wine and saffron. This had a bit of a “boxed mac and cheese” quality to it. Again, tasty food but not very refined. Having not been to Spain, perhaps you can argue that the food there is rustic but for a restaurant in San Francisco, I’m expecting a little sophistication for $14.95.

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Trio of desserts. I didn’t catch what they were (other than the middle one, which is an almond cake kind of like an Italian Torta del Nonna). Actually, the one on the right might be a rice pudding.

The two AWOL Xangans, Jason and Sheening. Didn’t catch a good picture of the third Xangan joining us, Piyapong. Even if they have largely abandoned blogging on Xanga, it is always a pleasure to catch up with them in person.

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Fantastic view of North Beach and Telegraph Hill (and Lombard Street) just a few blocks north of the restaurant.

Chloe, Ella, and Savor – A Trio of San Francisco Breakfasts

Posted on 9 July 2012 by christao408

During our final pass through San Francisco, we set out on a small project to revisit a trio of our favorite breakfast restaurants from when we lived there. San Francisco is a great city for breakfasts – the same cannot be said for Bangkok, at least for Western style breakfasts – and we were excited to indulge in some early morning reminiscing with a few cups of coffee and plates of eggs, pastries, and meat products.

Savor

Our first breakfast was at Savor, a southwestern themed restaurant located on 24th Street in Noe Valley. In addition to Miss Millie’s, a now-defunct restaurant that was located on 24th at Castro Street, Savor was a frequent stop for breakfast when I first moved to San Francsico in the late 1990s.

The interior space is pleasant. You walk past the kitchen at the front of the restaurant and find a large dining room and a bright but shaded patio behind the restaurant. The interior is, as mentioned, southwestern and a fireplace lends a cozy atmosphere to the high-ceilinged space. We visited on a weekday morning and the restaurant wasn’t crowded. A friendly bear was our server and he had an amiable, almost maternal manner.

Tawn ordered the Coronado frittata. Years ago, frittatas were on the menu but have been removed and only omelettes remain. Tawn enquired with the waiter, though, and he said they’d be happy to make any of the omelettes as a frittata. This was a nice touch. The Coronado has avocado, sharp cheddar cheese, and onions and is topped with black bean chili, salsa fresca, and sour cream.

I ordered the Santa Fe, one of Savor’s many crepe selections. The Santa Fe has grilled chicken apple sausage with scrambled eggs, green onions, provolone cheese, and salsa fresca. The side of home fried potatoes was disappointing as they are under seasoned and would benefit from the use of some herbs.

One treat at Savor is their spicy cornbread, which is toasted and served with jalapeno jelly. This is what I remembered about the restaurant and was eager to try it again. Like the potatoes, I found the cornbread underseasoned, begging for a little more salt.

Overall conclusion was that Savor remains a comfortable place with friendly service and decent food, but the food seems more about quantity than quality. The quality isn’t bad, mind you, but it doesn’t stand out from the crowd. If they could reduce portion sizes slightly and improve the flavors, then they would have something really special.

Ella’s

The second of the trio is Ella’s, a self-described “neo-classical American” restaurant located on Presidio Avenue where Laurel Heights meets Lower Pacific Heights. More upscale, Ella’s has a sophisticated but inviting look. Waits can be long on weekends but on a weekday morning, we were seated immediately.

One of the two dining areas. Banquettes line the windows and tables are tightly spaced. On a busy morning, there is an energetic vibe and service is very prompt, encouraging a quick turnover. Service was detached and while employees were not outwardly rude, they also weren’t very friendly.

We started by sharing one of Ella’s famous cinnamon pecan rolls. These gooey delights are generous enough for a quartet to share but not as overwhelmingly sweet as, say, the rolls from Cinnabon.

Perhaps the most famous item on the menu is the chicken hash. (Which, unfortunately, is hidden under the eggs so you can’t see it!) Made with a combination of Russet and Yukon Gold potatoes, their hash is an immensely satisfying breakfast. The lumpy mashed potatoes are combined with sage, thyme, parsley, sauteed onions, and mustard, then formed into a patty and fried. My only complaint with this dish is that they garnish it with a heap of raw green onions, which give it a “grassy” feel. I just brush them to the side and enjoy the hash ungarnished.

Tawn tried some French Toast, which was nicely battered and cooked to that perfect point where the bread is rich with the eggy custard but not soggy. Portion sizes are more moderate than at Savor, leaving you feeling satisfied but not stuffed.

One of Ella’s charms is that they bake their own, very good bread. The entry area shows off their baked goods, which are available for takeaway purchase. Overall, Ella’s hasn’t changed in the years since I left and remains a nice place for a special breakfast.

Chloe’s

My final morning in San Francisco, I headed down Church Street to Chloe’s while Tawn slept in. Arriving a few minutes before the restaurant opened, I browsed the newspaper and waited on the seats outside. A long-time neighborhood attraction that occupies a small space, Chloe’s quickly has a queue and waits can be long on weekends.

Not fifteen minutes after they opened, most of the inside tables were full. The space is cozy and the staff is buzzing about, refilling coffee, taking orders, and keeping things moving without ever making you feel rushed. Only open for breakfast and lunch, the restaurant’s daily specials are written on the chalkboard and always include a scramble of some kind as well as a soup of the day.

I decided on buttermilk blueberry pancakes with scrambled eggs. Most breakfasts come with the option of toast, a pastry, or a bowl of fresh fruit. Obviously, I took the healthier option. While simple, the food is made with top-notch ingredients and is well-prepared. Your cup of coffee never gets cold thanks to the attentive employees who keep filling it up.

An F-Market car passes Chloe’s, heading up Church Street to start its day. There’s enough housing the in neighborhood to support a restaurant twice Chloe’s size, but they keep it small and are able to stay on top of the details. Chloe’s really has a neighborhood charm to it.

Conclusions:

Of the three restaurants, Chloe’s remains my favorite. While the food at Ella’s is a little fancier, Chloe’s has the scale and charm of a true neighborhood restaurant. Ella’s, located on a busy corner, seems more isolated. Although not a bad choice, Savor is a distant third when compared with the other two restaurants. Its service is friendly but its food isn’t as good as at the other two restaurants.

Food in SF: Four Barrel Coffee

Posted on 2 July 2012 by christao408

Located in the Mission District (Valencia Street between 14th and 15th), Four Barrel Coffee is a place that takes its artisanal coffee to a level of seriousness that you might expect from a master sommelier. Their attention to detail, bordering on the obsessive, would be ripe for parody if the results weren’t so impressive. The coffee is amazing, the pastries are fantastic, and the atmosphere is communal in the best sense of the word.

The space is a large warehouse. From the front, you could breeze by (as I almost did) without realizing that there is a coffee house inside. If in doubt, look for the funky bicycle racks and outdoor seating (above).

Immediately on your left as you walk in is a pour-over coffee bar. This “next thing” in coffee is all about the slow brew of coffee through a cone shape filter. Sound familiar? Yes, that’s the way most home coffee machines brew coffee. It seems, though, that you can get really particular about the details.

Anyhow, the person working at the bar can also answer questions about their coffees (sourced from micro-regions all over the world and brewed at the back of the shop) and other coffee making paraphernalia. In fact, one lady spent twenty minutes demonstrating the various Japanese made ceramic coffee grinders to me.

The counter and espresso machines are in the center of the room. The baristas have their own personality and flair, demonstrating a level of artistry that your average Starbucks barista will not. Of course, your average Starbucks barista is also now using a fully automated machine that requires no more skill to use than the average coffee vending machine minus the coins.

The coffee roasting takes place in the back half of the warehouse. You can sit at a counter watching the action take place and it gives the space an especially industrial feel, which may explain what attracts the huge number of hipsters.

Besides the coffee, Four Barrel offers really amazing pastries, sources from three different bakeries.

One that caught my heart (and caused me to make two return trips) was the kouign amann, a butter pastry from Brittany that seems to be the new cupcake on the west coast. These are provided by Starter Bakery in Oakland.

Layers of buttery, sugary goodness that caramelize as they bake. You are not allowed to think about diets while you eat this. Just don’t.

Another wonderful treat (not sure what bakery it was from but possibly Dynamo Donuts on 24th Street) was a lemon-thyme donut. I’m not generally a huge donut fan, but this was a spectacularly light, pleasant, and surprising donut. The lemon-thyme flavor is refreshing and much more complex than you might expect.

And then there is the coffee. You can order any of Four Barrel’s single-origin coffees as an espresso. Not sure what the default espresso is, but I found it nicely balanced, not too acidic, and just what I needed to start the day.

Food in SF: Wise Sons Deli

Posted on 30 June 2012 by christao408

East Coast transplants to Baghdad by the Bay long bemoaned the City’s lack of good pastrami. Over the years, the deli scene has scarcely improved. Good news has arrived: Located on 24th Street near South Van Ness, Wise Sons Deli brings San Francisco an authentic Jewish deli, ironically in a corner of the Mission district where tacquerias are more common.

Owners Evan Bloom and Leo Beckerman had been serving their deli food for more than a year at pop-up restaurants and from a cart at the San Francisco Ferry Building. This spring they opened a storefront of their own and have quickly gained a lot of publicity. While in the City in May, Tawn and I stopped by for an early lunch.

The interior is homey and comfortable. There is a line out the door throughout lunch and popular items do sell out. Service is friendly and efficient, which makes you feel welcome.

Something you don’t see often enough on the West Coast: New Jersey based Boylan Bottling Company’s Black Cherry soda. Tasty!

Waiting patiently for our food. You place orders at the register behind me. Food is then delivered to your table.

Matzo ball soup with a tender but not mushy matzo ball and a broth so rich and satisfying that you could easily ascribe to it all sorts of magical healing powers.

Pastrami on rye with a side of potato salad and homemade pickle spears. This is the true test of any deli, right? The good news: it exceeded expectations. The pastrami, sliced just a bit thick for my tastes, is moist and flavorful. The pickles are fantastic and make you wonder why more people don’t make their own pickles.

Close up on the meat.

Tawn had a special, a chicken cutlet pounded thin, breaded, and fried in a Schnitzel style. It was very tasty, too. Fries were nice, although nothing substantially different.

Conclusion: Wise Sons is the type of place that, if I lived in San Francisco, I’d visit regularly. The ambience and service are pleasant and the food is top-notch. Will definitely put it on the list to revisit next time I’m in town.

Breakfast and Lunch in Honolulu

Posted on 26 June 2012 by christao408

One corner of Honolulu that we found ourselves returning to throughout our two-day visit was Kapahulu Avenue. This neighborhood runs from the north side of the Honolulu Zoo (which is at the south end of Waikiki) to the H1 freeway near Chaminade University of Honolulu. The approximately two-kilometer distance is gentrifying nicely, with lots of long-time shops rubbing shoulders with a new Safeway supermarket. On our visits there, we ate a breakfast and a dinner.

Breakfast: Sweet E’s Cafe

Located in a small shopping complex kind of hidden off Kapahulu Avenue near the H1 freeway, Sweet E’s Cafe is one of the higher-rated breakfast places on Yelp.com. To be certain, I take Yelp reviews with a few large grains of salt. That said, it looked like a good bet for a decent Saturday breakfast before we started driving around the island.

Arriving early, we found the dining room less than half full. From the reviews, I get the impression that the restaurant is very crowded later in the morning. The interior is pleasant and the servers were helpful, if not exactly warm.

Poached eggs with Kalua pork. My big beef with lots of places is that their poached eggs are overcooked. This time, the problem was that the eggs were undercooked. In my mind, the perfect poached egg has solid but not rubbery whites, with runny yolks. When I cut into the first egg, the whites were still watery inside. It was right on the line between “worth sending them back” and “not worth sending them back,” so I didn’t. As the watery whites soaked my English muffins, though, I regretted my decision. The pork and the sauce were tasty, so points there, but the potatoes were bland and would have benefitted from some herbs or spices.

Tawn ordered a basic waffle with maple syrup. It was pleasantly crisp, cooked to just the right point.

We also ordered French toast stuffed with cream cheese and blueberries. The toast itself was nicely done but the blueberries inside the toast were tough, leading me to conclude that they use frozen blueberries for the stuffing and only place fresh berries as garnish for the plate.

Overall conclusion: Sweet E’s didn’t show such a sweet face for us, at least as far as quality. It has the potential to be very good and if we lived there, we would give it another chance to redeem itself. But if you are just visiting, I would suggest you search out Boot’s & Kimo’s in Kailua.

Dinner: Sam’s Kitchen

On Friday evening, we found ourselves looking for a tasty dinner that didn’t involve a lot of expense or effort on our part. Turning to Yelp.com, I searched for “cheap seafood dinner” in Honolulu. Sure, that’s probably the last place you want to eat – somewhere serving cheap seafood – but we got a result whose high ratings were accompanied by thoughtful reviews: Sam’s Kitchen.

Located on Kapahulu Avenue right across from a new Safeway shopping center, Sam’s has a slightly retro dive bar appearance. When we arrived about 8:00, we were charmed by its exterior but baffled (and slightly worried) by its almost vacant state.

We entered and found only a half-dozen customers (if that) listening to live Hawaiian music. I felt a little conspicuous walking in during their performance – after all, it wasn’t like we could sneak in unnoticed. The lady behind the counter was welcoming, though, so we figured out the menu and placed our order.

Sam’s is about as “Hawaiian” as you can get, a fusion of flavors that represent the different cultures that make up the local population. There is a heavy Japanese bent (and it seems that their original Waikiki location is wildly popular with Japanese guide books), but other cultures are represented, too. Dishes are mostly either rice bowls or bento boxes and their garlic sauce is apparently “famous.”

Tawn tried the spicy garlic shrimp rice plate, which came with a salad and a half-ear of corn. This was good food – the shrimp is tender and sweet and the garlic packed a punch – and stayed with us for the next day.

I had the fried mahi mahi with macadamia nuts. The fish was very fresh, lightly breaded, and the sauce was tasty. Both dishes were simple, inexpensive, huge, and excellent. So much so that on Saturday night, our second and final night on Oahu, we decided to visit Sam’s again.

This time we stopped at the original location on Royal Hawaiian Avenue in Waikiki. This location is take-out only, although it does offer some self-service tables if you can’t wait to get back home to eat. The menu is the same and the customers were mostly Japanese.

Tawn ordered a combo plate (left) with the same two items we had the night before, but half a portion each. On the right, I ordered a garlic steak plate. The steak was tasty, although pretty tough.

With two small bottles of wine from the convenience store downstairs, we celebrated our last night on Oahu with a sunset dinner on our balcony.

christao408

The adventures of an expat American who moved to Bangkok for his husband.

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