Benihana for New Year's

No long excuses for my lack of posting tonight - I'm too tired. Hopefully I'll be better at keeping this New Year's resolution of doing a better job of maintaining my blog however, and then the explanations and ruminations on why I haven't posted in whatever lengthy period of time will no longer be necessary.

So, let's begin with New Year's. For New Year's Eve, Matt and I went to San Francisco and ate at the Benihana in Japantown. I've been a couple of times before for birthdays, but for New Year's Eve they had some different specials. I had filet mignon which was served with soup, salad, shrimp, vegetables and fried rice. Matt had a main dish of shrimp and steak with everything else I additionally listed plus ice cream. The chef was pretty entertaining, but since I've seen the show before (and it's always pretty much the same) I was more interested in the food, and the filet mignon did not disappoint. None of the teppanyaki places I know of around here are cheap, but Benihana was founded first (in NYC apparently) and has always been an enjoyable polished experience for special occasions, particularly birthdays, but it's seemingly pretty popular for New Year's as well.

Here is the chef cooking for our table. We didn't make any reservations, and just happened to walk in at the perfect moment for a table that needed two more people to be full. The next seats wouldn't have been available for probably another 30-40 minutes.


Here is my fried rice and filet mignon with liberal amounts of onions. No one else wanted the extra onions, so Matt and I wound up with the rest of them.

edit 1/16/12 - Oh yeah, and we took purikura as well, which I am now adding to this post now that I have it scanned



Since we were driving back to San Jose afterward, we didn't have anything to drink. I realize it was only Matt driving, but since he wasn't going to drink, I decided to wait as well. Once back at the apartment, we had *ahem* "California sparkling wine" (aka champagne that can't be referred to as champagne) and liqueur cherries from Trader Joe's. Delicious. After researching movies that took place on New Year's Eve, we settled on this :


Each of the Four Rooms mentioned was a separate story taking place in the same hotel and sometimes sharing characters, but told by a completely different director. Both Matt and I felt the Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino stories were stronger than the other two, but that may have just been because I was immediately able to tell which two were theirs. While they were both still young directors when this movie was made and each piece is pretty short, their now famous trademarks are almost all there. And they were both satisfyingly ridiculous.

Finally we watched the New Year's ball drop at Time's Square on TV, then eventually after that we went to bed. And today? Not much either. I slept in late and read stuff. Pretty quiet, which was fine with me after the craziness that was Christmas. Maybe tomorrow I'll blog about that.

So much eating out...

I'm not even going to try to come up with an excuse for what happened to my blog this past month...it would take too long. But a friend and I are both going to try and post at least one entry in our blogs every week to see if that doesn't help us both update more regularly.

My next reflecting series is also going to have to wait until I find the correct SD card and I'd rather summarize the past few weeks using recent pictures of food anyway.
So this entry is instead brought to you by the letter S.

Sonoma Chicken Coop


On Saturday, May 22nd, my Uncle Bill and Aunt A'delle from Sacramento, CA came down to San Jose to celebrate my birthday (actual date May 31st, but I already had plans for that day). They picked the primarily California based chain Sonoma Chicken Coop. It wasn't bad - I'd heard it was expensive, but for this area, I really thought their prices were pretty good. This was one of their specials for dinner that day - the Thai Peanut Chicken Wrap. I was really full from earlier that day from eating at...Applebee's I believe, so I wanted something lighter and this was perfect. Tender chicken, lots of vegetables, jasmine rice, and a nice peanut sauce made for a solid if less traditional American chicken restaurant entry. I think the rest of my party had Italian style dishes.

Steak

This steak represents the 2nd most expensive meal I have ever had and paid for by myself. This meal also included mashed potatos, wine, and Italian seltzer (don't ask), but as it was eaten at a Morton's the Steakhouse I believe it is fair to concentrate exclusively on the steak. This was their small (yes, small) rib-eye, cooked medium rare and it was a very very good steak. I actually can't say outright that it was the best steak I have ever had because of this grocery store called Dorothy Lane Market and their steak...but it is now very very high up there on my list. I went with a bunch of Matt's friends during Memorial Day weekend, along with one Japanese guest that was there for that weekend's FanimeCon. My Japanese is getting so bad though...
Worth going once for the atmosphere, service, company, and food, but I think it will be a while before I go to this expensive of a restaurant again. Or at least until I find a better job or something.

Sushi

Since people seem to like photos of sushi, here is another one. One of my-coworkers, Bing, and I eat out together practically every day now as an excuse to escape the horribly depressing Cisco environment. This is where we went for on Monday, June 7 - a pretty good sushi place called Sen Dai Sushi. A small place, but apparently always busy, we shared these two delicious and reasonably priced sushi rolls there and also ran into some current and former co-workers there, two of whom are still at Cisco, but no longer with our department. It was a good lunch.

Okay, I think that was a pretty good update entry for now. I might try and find some people pictures to accompany these food pictures, but it is getting late and I still have "work" tomorrow. Good night!

Finally! But first, a transformation!

All right, I'm tired from being productive with job stuff, making a mess of the kitchen, and going to the gym so I will try to keep this blog post fairly short.

Today (Monday) was all around a delicious day as I figured out what I wanted to eat for lunch and dinner. I didn't feel like cooking anything elaborate for lunch,but I was bored with our usual easily microwavable meals, so I stuck my head in the fridge to see what was in there. As a result,

these rather boring leftovers (somewhat tough tri tip steak, hash browns, steamed green beans) from last Friday night

became this delicious sandwich! I actually liked the reheated-steak sandwich with Swiss cheese, sourdough bread and tomatoes a lot more than the freshly cooked steak by itself - as my friend Valeria said in a comment on my last post, never underestimate the power of sandwiches! I think it was actually my dad who taught me this trick - if life gives you leftovers (or weird canned foods or a lack of hot dog buns) make sandwiches! Previously unappetizing food can be saved this way.

What the "Finally!" in my title refers to is what I made for dinner: a recipe I have been wanting to attempt for around two weeks now - Japanese karaage (fried chicken)!




I have missed it so much. Since a number of you reading this probably already know how to make it or have a pretty good idea, I am not going to post the full recipe I used, but for those who aren't familiar with it, I soaked the chicken (boneless, skinless, thigh pieces with excess fat cut out) in a marinade that consisted of soy sauce, ginger, sugar, sake, and garlic. I then coated the chicken in cornstarch and then fried it in some very hot canola oil. Very hot. The chicken was never burned but some other kitchen implements were...hence the mess mentioned at the beginning. While it was a pretty simple recipe, I was very happy that my karaage tasted almost exactly like some of the ones I had eaten at restaurants in Japan. I served it over broccoli and steamed white rice.

Drink - Nigori (unfiltered) sake. I forget which brand right now but it was from Kobe and in a small pink bottle.

And in other food-related news of interest, on Sunday we went with Matt's family (including an aunt) to a good Mexican-American style restaurant in the small mission town of San Juan Batista.

It was called Los Jardines (the gardens) which should seem fairly appropriate with this picture here as most of the restaurant was outside in areas like these (look towards the back). Sunday had been a very hot day (easily over 100) but by evening it had cooled off so of course we ate outside. Los Jardines was also actually a fairly decent sized restaurant for such a small town.

But how was the food?


Carne Asada (roast meat, in this case beef), with rice and beans. Such a big portion but I was very hungry by this point (we had just gone to a Catholic mass in a very hot church) so that's ok! This food was delicious. Unfortunately not pictured, but one of the best parts of this meal were the flour tortillas that were also provided. I am so used to store-bought, chemically preserved flour tortillas that having freshly made tortillas was amazing. I need to make it a point to eat fresh flour or corn tortillas more often because the ones I have in the fridge just aren't the same. My taste buds and mouth can so easily tell the difference in both flavor and texture.

Okay, enough for tonight, I am getting hungry! More food to come...stay tuned...

Beginning - a real one this time

All right, this time I am determined to keep up with this blog on a more regular basis. As it already has a long formal introduction from my last post, I would just like to add something simple before I begin blogging about the good stuff. This blog is EDIT: Initially but not exclusively END EDIT dedicated to all my friends from NCC, especially those who lived in or regularly visited the room in Ward my junior year of college and who cooked for me, taught me to cook, or even bravely allowed me to cook for them . That includes, but is not limited to, Yusuke, Valeria, Peggy, Matt R., Tsuyoshi, Megan E., Jislaine, Jun, Michico O., Kimberly, Jack, Megan O., and so many more wonderful friends from International Club and elsewhere who really helped expand my knowledge and appreciation of really good food.

This blog will not be a pure recipe blog but simply feature all and any good food that I ate, be it at home, or restaurant. However, I decided my first feature meal will be one that I did indeed cook, because it was recent and I was particularly proud of it. It is so American (I am American after all) and not that complicated or gourmet, but still delicious.





This was thinly cut T-Bone Steak broiled with an Apricot Teriyaki Glaze (my first time broiling meat without setting an oven mitt on fire), twice baked potatos which I found seem to be a midwest staple but unheard of here in California, and a vegetable medley with brown rice. I don't think I need to include a recipe for broiling beef (I like medium rare) or for steaming the brown rice, but here is what I used for the potatos and vegetables:

Twice Baked Potatos (one variation anyway)
Cook potatos in oven or microwave until soft. Cut potatos in half. Scoop out the insides and put them into a mixing bowl. Mix with butter salt, pepper, shredded cheddar cheese, and nutmeg. Replace the potato insides and bake until slightly brown on top.

Italian Peppers and Tomatoes (using all fresh vegetables/fruits)
Heat olive oil in a skillet at medium heat. Dice garlic. Cut peppers and tomatos as desired. Add the pepper and tomatoes to the oil, as well as garlic, salt, pepper, and fresh basil. Serve over the rice.

Drink pairing - definitely a good red wine. We had French table wine, but a good merlot from any country should work well too.

Finally, as much as I talk about food, I would like to bring attention to the reason I gave this blog the title of "World Cafe" and not simply "World Food." The word "cafe" evokes the image of unique setting that one does not go to out of a necessity to consume food, but rather for the ambiance and often even the company of friends or loved ones. While some people may indeed to prefer to eat by themselves, in many of the cultures I am familiar with, eating is all about the event, sometimes even more than the food itself. This is basically my convenient excuse to post photos of things other than food, as each picture of food has a story that I would like to share behind it anyway. Besides, narrating my own story through food clearly should not be very difficult for me. Such is my life.

As for the story behind this food and why I was so proud of it? This was my first time cooking more than just dessert or a snack for my boyfriend's parents. I was very nervous and trying out some new things at the same time, so I was just happy it turned out well in the end.

My boyfriend Matt P. and his parents, Marc & Carol, in our dining room area in our apartment, San Jose, CA


The next entry will feature some restaurant food as that is what I would really like to talk more about, (the food is usually more photogenic than my food) but at least I have now written an actual blog entry!