karendipity cooks: gougeres

april and lennon gave us a lovely "bride and groom's cookbook" as a wedding gift. it's meant to be used by a couple to cook together in the kitchen. there's lots of entrees, salads, pastas, but what caught my eye was the recipe for gougeres, those fabulous cheese balls that they serve at churrascarias like pampas. my gougeres did not turn out as puffy and light as the picture in the cookbook, but they're still delicious. the secret to these was a pinch of cayenne to the mix for a hint of spice.

reposado

palo alto, ca

website

reposado is one of our favorite places to eat on university avenue ("the ave"). great raucous atmosphere - lots of people chatting and having a good time. excellent wine list and very good sangria. this is a good place to bring friends to - i brought anthony and his cousin here when they were in town.

my absolute favorite entree is the hanger steak. unfortunately it's not a very photogenic hanger steak, but it's delicious - perfectly grilled and served over an arbol chile demi glace. because i always get the guacamole (not quite spicy enough but perfect if you add their smoky salsa), i can never finish the entire steak. it's fantastic as leftovers, especially over some noodles. also - the chocolate gelato is homemade and amazing, but my favorite part of the dessert are the buttery mexican cookies they serve on the side.

kanpai

palo alto, ca

website

yes! finally! two things to celebrate. 1 - derek and i finally found a decent sushi spot in palo alto and 2 - i've finally caught up with all of my posts. i ended up skipping a few places because i either forgot to take a picture or i had taken a picture, but couldn't remember the restaurant. i hope to blog more regularly in the future but we'll see how it goes... anyway, back to the food -- kanpai received some pretty good ratings on yelp, so we decided to give it a try. as soon as we walked in, the atmosphere reminded us of authentic japanese restaurants we visited in tokyo and manhattan, so that was very promising.

derek knows all about my love of uni. as soon as we sat down he asked the waiter whether they had uni. the response - "yes, and it's very fresh!" and it was amazing uni, some of the best that i've ever had - extremely fresh. in fact, i ordered another piece after eating the first. the rest of the sushi was good, but not the same quality as the uni. next time, we know to ask them for what is "very fresh" that day. they also serve the sweet shrimp nigiri with the shrimp heads deep-fried, so you get all the good brainy bits too. delicious. in addition, kanpai has an excellent sake list and really good rolls - we'll definitely be back!

reggio's @ o'hare

chicago, il

website

i'm a huge fan of chicago style pizza. my co-workers and i went to pizza due after a work event, but only because it was close to our hotel and open late. nowhere near as good as giordano's. so i was still craving a true chicago-style pizza at the airport, on my way back to SFO. reggio's was a little stand in the middle of the united terminal advertising a "butter crust." how could i say no to that? it didn't seem to really be chicago-style pizza. the crust was good, but not great. sauce was a little bland. but the cheese was good and it was sufficiently filling to sustain me through my five hour flight.

the publican

chicago, il

website

chicago has amazing food, but it's not easy to figure out which places are going to be good. thankfully i have christine and val to show me around whenever i'm in town. we headed to chicago's version of the meatpacking district for a meat-centric meal at the publican. the restaurant is clearly one of the farm-to-table types and it appears to have brought the tables and pigpens from the farm as well. christine, val, and i were seated at a booth located in one of these pigpens, which was fun.

there's vegetables and starches available on the menu, but we focused on the good stuff - a full order of the mussels served with crusty french bread to dip in the broth (i'm glad we ignored the waiter who suggested that a half order would be sufficient), a plate of pork belly served over lentils (if i remember correctly), and my favorite - the blood sausage served with kimchee and apples. this was my first time trying blood sausage (but i've seen anthony bourdain rave about it on tv). it was fantastic - the richness of the sausage was perfectly balanced by the spicy acidic kimchee.

sasabune

los angeles, ca

website

you know a place is going to have good sushi when ... (1) it's recommended by cindy c and (2) you're greeted with a sign that warns you that they don't serve california rolls, spicy tuna rolls, or teriyaki. the only real option at sasabune is the omakase -- the waiter asks you whether you'd like the japanese or the american tasting menu. (we chose japanese, of course!) i had no idea how much lunch was about to cost, but i didn't particularly care. i had been deprived of good sushi for far too long to let financial concerns interfere.

amazing sushi, definitely around seki-level quality. we started with two plates of sashimi - toro in a ponzu sauce and what i think was raw clam with pink salt. so good - extremely fresh, buttery sushi. then the waiter brought us the nigiri courses, two pieces at a time. my favorites were the uni and ikura (pictured) and sweet shrimp, although every piece was fantastic. finally, they serve crab hand rolls - they don't look appetizing, but they were delicious. lunch ended up costing about $100 (incl. tax and tip) so this is definitely a special occasion spot, but i was very happy with the entire experience.

randy's donuts

inglewood, ca

website

cindy c and i make a lot of spur-of-the-moment dining decisions whenever we're together. (see in n out post). while driving to lunch, cindy c pointed out the famous 30-foot tall donut atop the randy's donuts structure. i might have remarked, "donuts sound good," and before you know it, we're in the parking lot. cindy c pointed out that we weren't exactly in the safest neighborhood, but nothing was going to stop us from getting donuts. the verdict? excellent cheap donuts - moist and delicious.

pacifica del mar

del mar, ca

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after outlet shopping in carlsbad, derek and i stopped by del mar on the way back to san diego. there were some cute restaurants along camino del mar, but we decided to go to del mar plaza for easy parking in the multi-level garage. del mar plaza has several restaurants (and very random expensive shops). we really wanted to try flavor del mar, but they were no longer serving lunch at 2 in the afternoon.

we tried pacifica del mar, which was right next door. we got great seats on the patio with a nice view of the ocean. we were still looking at buildings across the street, but you could see the ocean beyond the buildings. the food was good, but not great. my pasta with clams was good, but covered with too much cheese. there's an italian custom of not putting cheese on seafood dishes, which i know many people ignore. it would have been preferable to have cheese as an option rather than a requirement.

richard walker's pancake house

san diego, ca

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one of the benefits of having friends scattered across the globe is that there's always someone willing to show us great restaurants wherever we go. san diegan monica suggested that we meet her for brunch at richard walker's pancake house. there was already a line outside at 11 am on a sunday. a good sign. we ended up waiting only about 10-15 minutes before getting seated.

the menu has a variety of pancakes - much like ihop, only so much better. monica ordered the apple pancake, which appeared to be an apple pie in the form of a single giant pancake. i decided to order the potato latkes (pictured) - i haven't had these since moving out of manhattan a year ago. served with apple sauce, the latkes were delicious. derek had normal-sized pancakes, eggs, bacon, and hash browns. everything was good, but i think monica's massive apple pancake was the clear winner.

extraordinary desserts

san diego, ca

website

wow. this place really lives up to its name. this is a favorite of cindy and ryan, former san diegans, and they make a trip here whenever they're in town. this time derek and i went with cindy, ryan, and the kids. the table was filled with sweets - strawberry napoleon (pictured), strawberry pie, truffe framboise (raspberry chocolate cake), and i think we also had a brownie but the sugar overload may have affected my memory. each dessert was artistically presented, showered with flower petals. beautiful and delicious, truly extraordinary.

before driving up to disneyland, we all went one more time for breakfast. i ordered the chocolate coffee cake, which turned out to have molten chocolate liquid in the center. cindy ordered the chocolate strudel. an intense breakfast, to be sure, and neither of us could finish. ryan had the brilliant idea of boxing up our leftovers and bringing them into disneyland. it was the perfect dessert after our (surprisingly good) meal of pasta and salad at the pizza port.

emerald chinese seafood restaurant

san diego, ca

website

blogging ethics dictate that i have to disclose if there is a potential for bias in my reviews, so i have to tell you that steve's parents own this restaurant. i might be biased, but the food was seriously good. i love dim sum and emerald has all of my favorites, especially the stir-fried noodles that you don't always find at dim sum places.

shown at the bottom of the picture is the magical plate of noodles - magical because they were delicious and also because no matter how much i ate off the plate, there always seemed to be a massive pile of noodles left. other favorites were the pork shiu mai, congee, and hom sui gok (deep fried glutinous rice dumpling filled with pork). finished the meal with some egg tarts, of course, but watch out - the plates are hot! biased or not, if i'm ever in san diego again, we're going here for dim sum.

los panchitos

san diego, ca

website

adventures in san diego with our host, steve, started with excellent spanish tapas and expensive cocktails at cafe sevilla in the trendy gaslamp district in downtown san diego. progressed to rum+cokes and a video dj mash-up performance (turn-table scratching with videos?) in a warehouse at the afterparty for the asian american film festival. and ended with cheap mexican food on pacific highway. a job well done, steve.

los panchitos was the final stop of the night. open very late, it serves perfect post-partying cuisine. authentic? probably not. but it was still pretty good. i had cheese enchiladas and ordered rolled tacos for derek, which are basically flautas. cheesy greasy hangover-prevention goodness.

korean bbq

palo alto, ca

link to yelp

yes, that is apparently the name of the restaurant. which is somewhat descriptive because they do serve korean food, some of which was probably barbecued earlier in the day. it's tucked away in a corner of town & country mall. in fact, we had been to town & country at least a dozen times before and we had never seen it. derek found it on the internet when he was searching for korean food.

the restaurant is basically a buffet of pre-cooked korean food, most of which gets nuked in the microwave before they serve it to you. you choose two entrees and two ban chan for your plate. i went with the japchae (noodles), bulgogi, crab seafood salad and kimchee. the food isn't great - the bulgogi is a bit dry and the japchae is a little bland, but it's basically the quality that you would expect from a fast food korean buffet spot in a mall. (although the korean in the westfield san francisco mall is much better).

gilbert's firefish grill

santa cruz, ca

website

after costco, we continued our tour of the south bay by driving down to santa cruz, which was highly recommended by derek's cousins. traveling to santa cruz from palo alto requires taking a windy highway through the mountains and derek was thrilled to test out the car's maneuverability. i was less than thrilled, but was convinced that it was the only way to get to the beach. santa cruz's boardwalk was pretty fun - my favorite "ride" was the skyglider, which is basically a skilift that takes you from one end of the boardwalk to the other. while on the skyglider, we saw a bunch of neon signs in the distance and decided to head out there for dinner.

turns out, we were looking at the santa cruz municipal wharf, which is a long pier lined with restaurants and shops. all of the restaurants served the standard seafood options that you would expect on a wharf. we chose gilbert's because it looked a little bit more modern than the others. something about being near the ocean just calls out for fried seafood - derek ordered a platter with fried calamari and grilled fish, i ordered the fish and chips. everything was very good, but it's hard to go wrong when everything is deep fried.

margaritas

redwood city, ca

website

trying to broaden our horizons and explore more of the south bay, derek and i decided to venture to redwood city to find restaurants, culture, and whatnot. actually, we were running out of paper towels and redwood city has the closest costco. anyway, we did walk around downtown redwood city. there was a nice farmer's market, a theatre district, and a beautiful old courthouse which now houses the san mateo county history museum.

the restaurants looked very promising too. we decided to try margaritas, which was pretty good mexican food. not the best i've ever had, although derek really enjoyed his pork carnitas. as we walked off our meals, we walked by another mexican restaurant which was much busier - milagros cantina. we'll have to try next time.

il fornaio

palo alto, ca

website

this is another restaurant that derek and i frequently pass by. the atmosphere looked a little too formal for us. finally, it was a special occasion (which might have been that we were both out of the office at dinner time) and we decided to celebrate by dining at "fancy" il fornaio. turns out, there's a lovely patio area in the back with very effective heat lamps where the atmosphere is much more casual. looking at the menu, we realized that this restaurant is part of a chain and we had been to the seattle location before. the menu's specials periodically change to highlight a different region of italy.

i didn't recognize any of the wines listed on the menu, so i just picked whatever was reasonably priced. our server (who was extremely attentive and friendly, by the way) apologized because they ran out of that wine, but recommended another that was "more frizzante." i shrugged and said okay. it ended up being a red sparkling wine, which was weird but not unpleasant. anyway, now i know what "frizzante" means. the food was very good - derek is still raving about his bacon salad and my butternut squash ravioli was delicious.

slider bar

palo alto, ca

website

a brilliant marketing strategy -- a giant banner advertising belgian frites. i've passed by this restaurant many many times, but they managed to draw me in with the promise of belgian frites. they didn't exactly fulfill their promise - belgian frites are supposed to be double-fried, which makes them dark and crunchy on the outside with fluffy potato in the inside. but the fries were still good, especially the curry dipping sauce.

derek likes the chicken sliders here. i ordered two of the beef sliders and they were good. nothing remarkable. seems like a nice place to hang out, eat a small burger, and catch up with friends. but if i was craving a really good burger, i would head to in n out instead.

akane

los altos, ca

link to yelp

derek and i have been desperate to find a quality japanese restaurant in the south bay. akane is not it. derek chose this restaurant because it had a favorable rating on yelp. i'm not sure why. maybe it was an off day but when derek and i went, the food was very disappointing.

i ordered the nabeyaki udon. the only thing right was the poached egg, which was perfect with the udon noodles. but the broth was bland and the fish and the chicken were overcooked (and bland). we ordered a sushi roll and some nigiri. the uni tasted funky and not in a good way. the mackerel was not fresh. the sushi roll consisted mostly of green onion and what little raw fish was included was tasteless. sigh.

charlie palmer steak

washington, dc

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charlie palmer is best known for his restaurant aureole, which i've never been to but heard good things about. after several days of hotel catering, i was really looking forward to a real meal and a real steak. when i lived in manhattan, derek and i went to many excellent steakhouses. palo alto, not so much. in california, they tend to drench their steaks in unnecessary sauces. ridiculous.

charlie palmer did not disappoint. my steak was excellent - perfectly cooked and perfectly seasoned. the right amount of char and the right amount of fat. a pleasant surprise was the amazing starter salad, served with a poached egg to add yolk to the dressing. dessert, a berry cobbler, was also very good.

ben's chili bowl

washington, dc

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i first heard about ben's chili bowl from stacey, who went when she was in DC for president obama's inauguration. i was in DC for a much less glamorous reason - a three-week trip for work. work was very busy and we rarely made it outside of our offices to see sunlight, much less eat a meal ... but a group of us managed to escape long enough to make a pilgrimage to the famed ben's chili bowl. if you have a certain number of people in your party, you can go straight to the back and grab a table. someone will come by to take your order. we didn't realize that, so instead we ordered amidst the chaos of the front of the restaurant.

ryan recommended the "half smoke," which is a quarter-pound half-beef half-pork sausage, doused in chili. yes, it tasted as good as it sounds. i've never had chili like this before - it's spicy, meaty, and thick - more sauce than soup. however, when ordering, i made a tactical error by assuming that the massive amount of chili that they poured on the sausage would be sufficient and i ordered my fries plain. big mistake. next time, i gotta go with the chili cheese fries just to get more of that amazing chili sauce.

crepevine

palo alto, ca

website

the crepevine is popular with stanford kids, or who i assume are stanford kids. they look young and unemployed. my guess is its because the prices are reasonable, the portions are large, there are plenty of seats, and they let you sit wherever you want for however long you want. derek and i have been here a few times. i don't like sitting inside because during the summer, there's usually flies. outside, for some reason, the flies don't bother me that much. however, i much prefer ordering takeout and eating my food in the comfort of my own insectless living room.

crepevine generally serves diner food - for brunch that means pancakes, waffles, eggs, etc. obviously, they also have crepes which are premade, then heated and filled when you order. on our first visit, i ordered blueberry pancakes, which were good, but nothing compared to the magical blueberry pancakes at clinton st. baking co. in manhattan. derek's corned beef hash, however, was excellent - cheesy and meaty with crunchy bits of fried potatoes. solid brunch fare.

1331 bar & lounge

washington, dc

website

in town for a week of meetings, i managed to escape long enough to have drinks and snacks with anthony at 1331, located inside the marriott near the white house. it was surprisingly spacious and modern for a hotel lounge. instead of booths, the lounge has small couches set up that face eachother, with a coffee table in between. it's a little awkward for eating, but theoretically we were only there for snacks.

but we were hungry, so we ended up ordering grilled vegetables, hummus, bruschetta, and buffalo wings. it didn't sound like a lot at the time, but our little coffee table was overflowing with food. everything was good, the bruschetta was probably my favorite. 1331 also had a decent and reasonably priced list of wines by the glass. overall, a nice quiet spot to hide from the summer DC heat and catch up with a friend.

yank sing

san francisco, ca

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strangely situated in an office building (rincon plaza) near the financial district in downtown, yank sing is a massive dim sum operation. at least on weekends, the crowd of dim sum'ers fills the restaurant and spills out into the lobby of the office building. jen and matt brought the kids and we found a perfect table in the lobby, underneath a ray of sunshine from the skylight above.

some of the dim sum options were better than others. we ate here a while ago, but i remember being a big fan of the shanghai soup dumplings and not such a fan of the regular pork dumplings. pictured is the fatty duck served in mantou pancakes - delicious. yank sing is a little pricey for dim sum, but it has a great atmosphere and quality food.