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Happy Breakfast Time @ Original Pancake House

2010-03-15T19:42:55-07:00

During last Sunday's trip to The Original Pancake House (OPH), I learned three things:

1. Designer Girlfriend, our most frequent dining buddy, has never been to OPH.
2. Agent Orange had horrible service here three straight times and now refuses to go back (we've had bad service here absolutely never, so it must be Agent Orange with the problem. Just kidding, Agent O!).
3. If I send a text message to 10 people with a picture of my bacon waffle, twice as many of them will answer as the time I texted the same 10 people that we closed on our new house.

We've written about this place before. It's the only chain restaurant where I will choose to have breakfast.

It's that good.

Actual started out with some coffee. I think this was her second cup. At OPH, they don't mess around with any of the ingredients. When you ask for cream, you will get little cute pitcher-ettes of straight up heavy whipping cream. Wahahahaha!

My personal dish was the Eggs Michael. Take a split English muffin. Then add two sausage patties (these are hand formed from ground sausage, which I'm guessing is made with a proprietary recipe since I've tried just about every type and brand of breakfast sausage and it never tastes this good, with the exception of Neese's). Then add two perfectly poached eggs. Then add sherry mushroom gravy. The combination is seriously good.

Actual went for the Dutch Baby. You know this is serious breakfast business when they bring out what I call the Dutch Baby accessory pack.

The Dutch Baby is one of their signature items. It's a giant puffed pancake. The taste and texture is pretty indescribable... you're just going to have to get one for yourself.

This is Actual's Dutch Baby after proper application of lemon juice and butter. OH YEAH.

More for takeout purposes, I got a bacon waffle. Just like it sounds. A bacon made from batter with bacon bits in it, then covered with more bacon. This is probably enough bacon and carbs for two or three people. Or one Yod.

After all this, Actual felt the need to order something healthy, and out came their fresh fruit bowl. Now, unlike other, crappier places, the fresh fruit bowl here at OPH costs real money ($4) and contains real fresh fruit. Doesn't it look good?

Hungry? There's probably one near you! Check out http://www.originalpancakehouse.com/

Friday Asian Food Extravaganza!

2010-03-12T23:04:01-08:00

Actual and I were talking today and noticed that we had been eating a lot of white people food lately. As many of you know if I don't have my daily ration of rice, bad things happen. So it was interesting as to just how long I had gone without an Asian meal... well if you don't count the "Asian-inspired" Healthy Choice frozen dog food meal that I ate in desperation a few days ago.

For lunch, we decided to return to our favorite sushi place: Sakuran. The longer we go between visits to Sakuran, the more interesting and sometimes scary things the chefs have been dreaming up in our absence. As you will be able to tell, it's clearly been too long since we've been there.

This first course is the only thing that was ordered off the menu. Traditional zaru soba, or cold buckwheat noodles. You add onions and wasabi to the sauce, then pick up the noodles with your chopsticks and dip them in the sauce, then consume. I believe this is a traditional breakfast food in Japan. These are great on a hot day, but were a questionable choice on my part on this cold and rainy Friday. Tasty anyway.

And then a standard (for them) chef's special roll. Crabmeat and soft shell crab on the inside (interesting combination, don't you think?) and a variety of different fish on the outside topped with tobikko. I call it standard, but it's really better than everything the other sushi places in town serve.

And then things got a little crazy.

We saw the chef walk out of the back kitchen with something the size of a Pop Warner football. We watched for about five minutes as he messed around with it and plated it. Turns out he took a whole squid, then stuffed it with a blend of raw fish and spices, then deep fried the entire thing. It was really good, and I don't even like squid.

But they weren't done. I saw the chef giggling as he plated the last dish. It took us a few minutes to try and figure out what it was, and eventually we gave in and asked the chef to explain his dish. He made lettuce wraps and stuffed them with shrimp in a ponzu sauce. Then he deep fried the lettuce wraps. Ok, seriously. Nobody cooks lettuce. It just goes limp and wilts. Not this stuff. I don't know how he managed to deep fry the wraps and leave the lettuce still crunchy. He just flashed me a peace sign and told me it was a secret technique he came up with one night.

About eight hours later we were ready for dinner. We decided to close out our Asian Extravaganza at Golden Dragon, a world-class Szechuan restaurant inexplicably stuffed into a strip mall in Rocklin.

This is me enjoying my Tsingtao. Check out how dirty my glasses are :(

First dish: traditional Szechuan spice dumplings. Those red peppers are your color code for DANGER. The owner says she has this for breakfast every morning. I doubt she needs coffee after these things. Intense fire, but oh so good. After these, every wonton you get served is just another ball of meat and dough.

Next we have the Szechuan cumin sauce lamb. This is the dish that PF Changs bastardizes into "Chengdu Lamb". Once you've had the real thing the corporate chain restaurant version just tastes bland. The Szechuan peppers and cumin work well together.

Salt and pepper scallops. They take fresh scallops, dip them in a lotus flour batter and fry them up. Simple and sinfully delicious (and I'm too lazy to crop this picture).

Last up was the tea smoked duck. These guys do it the right way. Most places that serve this dish don't go through all the proper steps to make it properly. The correct way to make it goes something like this: take a duck, marinate it in spices and Chinese booze, then give it a quick boil and dry it. When the customer orders one, hot smoke the duck over tea and camphor branches, then steam it, then deep fry it.

The final product after all this almost defies description. It smells like it was cooked in a campfire. The meat is highly spiced from the marinade. The skin is crisp and tastes salty and smoky. Because of the tea and camphor branches, the smoky flavor is unlike anything you've ever tasted (except for... other tea smoked duck).

I could probably eat four of these plates in one sitting.

We got a little surprise at the end. Usually we get fortune cookies with the bill. Today they brought us fresh baked Chinese red bean cookies.

Guess tomorrow we're back to pizza and burgers :)

F*ck and Run

2010-03-09T19:12:42-08:00

One of my favorite songs is an old one from Liz Phair named "F*ck and Run". In the song, Liz sings about waking up yet again in the bed of a man she really doesn't want to be with. For whatever reason, she keeps ending up there and hates herself for it. Although the song doesn't really specifically touch on why she hates the guy, you can probably come up with a good narrative using personal experience.

Nice to see Liz just as bitter in 1995 as she is now.

So I started thinking about the sheer number of meals I eat in a given week that make me feel like this. The food isn't particularly tasty. It's not good for me. It's not that cheap. I feel cheated and abused. And I go back for more.

This is especially stupid because I run a food blog. I spend all day telling you to go get something tasty, and then go and feed myself reconstituted dog food. This entire blog is full of proof that I have plenty of delicious places to go eat at if I choose to do so. But often, I don't. The yummy place is too far away. Or too expensive. Or I'm just plain lazy.

For you, dear reader, a tour of my abusive relationships with restaurants.

1. McDonald's

I eat at this godforsaken place at least once a week. At work, I have a drawer full of Chinese injection-molded plastic toys that proves my long and disgusting relationship with McDonald's. Why do I keep going back?

It's right next to where I work
Fries
McNuggets

Ok, I can't argue with it being right next to where I work. The only other restaurant that close is Subway, which I'll be discussing in a few pages.

The fries thing pisses me off. Almost everybody loves McDonald's fries. I know I do. Most people prefer them to the fries at other fast food places. McDonald's fries seem to be the gold standard. And that's the really funny part, because:

McDonald's fries are the absolute cheapest fries used in the industry.

A McDonald's french fry is what they call a 3/8" straight cut fry. It is produced to be as cheap as possible. Every other kind of fry costs more. A fatter or different shape (like curly) costs more. Most other fast food places also use coated/battered fries. If you've ever worked a fryer, you have a love/hate relationship with hold time. The hold time of a food is how long after cooking a product will stay tasty. Coated or battered fries have THREE TIMES the hold time of a McDonald's fry. If you're lucky, your McDonald's fries will be tasty when you get them. The hold time on their cheapie fries is so short, your fries may be already soggy by the time you get them. Not eating there or in the car? Don't even bother. Your fries will be of the wet noodle variety.

The McNuggets have changed at least three times that I can count. The original, made from actual white and dark chicken meat, were by far the best if you liked dark meat. At some point after 2000, they decided this wasn't working for their focus groups and switched to all white meat. These nuggets were disgusting and like chewing on a Gumby. Obviously America agreed with me, and they reformulated the nuggets again into their present form (I'm sure there have been maybe 20+ reformulations of this product, they just didn't significantly change enough to make me notice). They are still all white meat, but the breading is puffier and the chicken tastes decidedly artificial. Don't be fooled, you're still just eating a nugget of chicken bologna that's been battered and fried.

Oh hey, I like McRibs too. Oh wait, nevermind. McDonald's figured out a long time ago (and they admit it publicly) that the longer they leave those things on the menu, the less people want them. If you hold the product hostage whether completely or in short supply, people will go nuts when you let some out (see: Zhu Zhu Hamsters, Beanie Babies, Toyota Prius 2005-2009, anything made by Nintendo, Leica M8/M9). But you have to bring them out once in a while. The last time I saw one was 2007. This year they had a limited release over the holidays that only happened in a few Midwestern states and Southern California. Thanks.

Instead of McDonald's, try:

Are you kidding me? Good independent hamburger joints are everywhere. Even the smallest podunk town has a place where you can go grab a burger. They probably serve beer too.

2. Subway

Commerce is a pretty simple concept. You do something for someone that they can't or won't do for themselves and in return they give you money. In turn, you give that money to other people to do things for you that you can't or won't do for yourself. In most cases, they can do something you can't do (build an iPad), or they can do it faster/cheaper/better (restaurants fall into this category), or they do something you plain just don't want to do yourself (landscaping, janitorial work, etc.). Simple, right?

So why the hell do people eat at Subway? I ate there yesterday, by choice.

There is nothing special or difficult about what happens there. Take bread. Insert cheap meat and cheese. Add some produce and sauce. That's it. You all know how to make a sandwich. You have the access to the same, no, BETTER ingredients than what Subway uses. Yet, like me, you line up for a $5 footlong. It just tastes ok. You think you got a great lunch deal. Guess what? You didn't.

Instead of Subway, try:

How about you just make your own damn sandwich? And if you want to pay for a sandwich, go to one of the many delis and sandwich places around you that use (or better yet, make for themselves) much better quality ingredients than you might even be able to find at a supermarket. There's nothing wrong with paying for a sandwich, just make it worth your while.

3. Pizza Hut

I fully realize that I order from Pizza Hut because it's cheap and convenient. Their website is actually pretty non-seizure inducing compared to most places. And they're fast.

But the pizza is oh so horrible. I never eat more than a 1/3 of what I order.

Although I don't know about the inner workings of Pizza Hut's kitchen, I suspect that the crust is precooked. Why? Have you ever noticed that the cheese and toppings don't really meld with the crust in a Pizza Hut pizza? They sort of float above the crust, separated by a layer of orange grease. The crust itself is unnatural tasting. Sort of like the bastard child of a hockey puck and a loaf of Wonder Bread.

At least Domino's admitted their pizza tasted like crap. I doubt Pizza Hut will ever realize just how bad their product is. Actually, they probably realize it, but are happy with their current profitability ratio and don't want to mess with a "good" thing. More power to them if idiots like me keep coming back for more.

This one, though, has sort of a happy ending. Pizza Hut doesn't deliver to my new house. WIN!

Instead of Pizza Hut, try:

Again, let's not be stupid here. There are plenty of independent pizza places in every town. Go to one.

4. Chili's

It couldn't get more corporate generic than Chili's, but I still go there about once a month. It's not my fault. In a recent book, the title of which I can't remember right now, the author revealed that food engineers at Chili's actually design the food to hit all the right points. Unless you get a steak, you won't need a knife. Everything requires less than 6 chews (or maybe it was four). The flavor and fat are balanced not to be healthy, but to maximize the impact to your pleasure centers. And who can fault them for that?

The point is, there's food that hits your pleasure centers because it's actually good, and then there's food like this which is designed to convince you that it's good, when really it's just a bunch of industrial ingredients engineered into something your brain detects as tasty. And if you're wondering where they get the money to accomplish all this, just check your bill next time you go. The amount you end up spending would have probably bought you a very grand (and much better) meal at a local restaurant.

I'll admit that I'm addicted to their cajun ribeye. It's so overtenderized and injection marinaded that it really doesn't even resemble the texture of real beef anymore. It's like a moist slab of jerky. It's so bad, it's good.

Instead of Chili's, try:

Chili's has made a market segment about having food that is adventurous but not enough so to scare Joe the Plumber out the front door and over to McDonald's. If you're in the mood for exciting food, find a local ethnic restaurant and eat there. The food will be better and you'll probably get to learn about another culture along the way. And don't tell me these don't exist in your town. Unless you live in Idaho.

5. Any cheap casino buffet

$9.99! All you can eat!

Right.

These places are meant to keep everyone fed and delirious so they can go lose more money in the casino. All of the food is made with the "good enough" mentality where as long as you get what you feel was $9.95 worth of semi edible food you will leave happy. For most people, me included, it works.

They distract you with chaos. Individually, any of the different stations at a cheap casino buffet would fail if served at a real restaurant. But it's not about that. With 1000s of items, surely you will find something passable. Something bad? Throw it out! There's always more. And if you don't manage to find anything at all to like, you'll just tell yourself that you just didn't locate the 10/1000 items that were tasty. Surely the buffet isn't that bad, right? I mean, this place is packed! Look at how happy everyone looks!

Instead of a cheap casino buffet, try:

Anything.

So here's my challenge to you: Make your own list of five places that you eat at regularly that you know aren't worth the money or calories.

Eat at all of them one last time. And NEVER go back.

F*ck and run.

24 Dreamy Hours in San Francisco

2010-03-06T15:38:38-08:00

This all started with a conversation between me, Girlfriend Actual, and F+ Girlfriend (if you recall from previous posts, F+ Girlfriend is named so because she actually gave one of her students an F+. I knew it was always possible to get an F+, but I never thought anyone would actually do it).

The topic was: What is the American Dream?

We all agreed that at some point, what the American Dream represented was the right to do whatever you wanted--within reason. This was only really true during the years when we were locked in a culture war with the Communist Bloc. America represented a place where you could go and express yourself. Our government painted us a picture of flocks of counterculture poets and sexpressionist painters abused by their oppressive governments, hunted by the secret police, and forced to toil underground in a cold basement before being liberated by Uncle Sam.

But the above was just a propaganda war. The true American Dream comes down to this: if you come to our country and work hard, you can join our middle class. Now, if you worked hard in your home country, you could join their middle class too. But our middle class ROCKS. Middle class life in your country SUCKS, and you know it. If you don't believe us, just watch our movies.

It takes a trip outside of the US to realize that as long as you're not homeless, life in this country is decidedly more pleasant than in about 98% of the rest of the world. You can drink the tap water. You can have your own car. If you don't live in California, you can have your own house. There are clean bathrooms for you to use EVERYWHERE. Most public transit is not scary, nor will it kill you unless a nearby BART cop is having a bad day. For all the bad press, the police in this country actually tend to not be corrupt. Public utilities actually stay on.

Most importantly (to me) the food is safe. Granted, there have been recalls and outbreaks here and there, but compared to the rest of the world this is a microscopic problem. Food is so safe in this country that other than the other G-8 countries, we're one of the few nations that actually demands for LESS to be done to our food. Irradiated meat? Can't get anyone to buy it in this country. It's a godsend in most other places. On a trip to Thailand one year, I was informed by my driver not to eat my favorite street food which was grilled meatballs. Oh, too bad. Was it e. coli? Nope. There was an anthrax outbreak in the beef supply. ANTHRAX. Seriously? Nevermind that 95% of those street food hawker stalls and 85% of the restaurants would never pass a health inspection in the US. When you judge a new restaurant in this country, the discussion usually centers around whether or not it's going to be good, not whether or not the food will kill you.

So we established what the American Dream is. But what's the California Dream? What makes California this mythical place where everyone wants to go?

F+ Girlfriend had an answer for me: the California Dream is that we've assembled such a diverse group of people in California that you can not only join the middle class, you can do it doing what you're passionate about. Feel your artform is painting palm trees gold? You can probably find a customer base that wants it. Want to start a bakery making beef stuffed Twinkies? There's probably already a meat-filled snack cake group in the area.

So, how much of the California Dream can we eat in 24 hours?

12:00 PM- Cafe Gratitude

The last place you should ever be able to find me is a raw vegan restaurant.

The back dining room of Cafe Gratitude is built like a greenhouse. I didn't like this either. I don't like greenhouses. Or gardening. Or nature.

Here's the menu. I was surprised it was so long. There aren't that many meals you can make with raw vegan ingredients... right? Note that all of their menu items are named "I am..." something. You're supposed to think about how you feel and your general mental state. The waitress actually asks you some sort of metaphysical question before you order. It's all very surreal. We've all heard of places like this, but most of us have never been in one. Someone in our party mentioned it was like eating at the Dharma Initiative cafeteria. Namaste.

Cafe Gratitude's raw vegan latte? How is this possible? Turns out they use cold brewed coffee (which is delicious, since you get none of the bitterness) which they soak overnight. This is blended with organic hazelnut milk. The whole thing was absolutely scrumptious. This cold brewed coffee thing has taken off everywhere in the past year or so, and you can get it at lots of places now. I highly recommend it if you can find it. Don't bother looking at Starbucks.

First up, our sampler plate. On this plate in no particular order: sprouted almond hummus, Asian kale-sea vegetable salad, hempseed pesto crostini, spicy cashew nacho cheese with flax chips, olive tapenade, buckwheat crackers, and a spring roll. All raw, all vegan, and all entirely tasty.

The macrobiotic bowl. Too many ingredients to list, but I will say that this thing was the most delicious thing I've eaten in years that didn't contain a lick of meat. It was pretty huge but I ate the whole thing.

Live pizza with raw marinara sauce. Actually tasted better than a real pizza and I felt a lot healthier eating it. The cheese is made from brazil nuts.

Dessert time. And now presenting the best dessert I've had in three years. A key lime pie made with avocados, topped with coconut meringue in a macadamia nut and date crust. So creamy and so delicious. This blew my mind. I wanted another piece.

The others were in more of a chocolate mood and went for the chocolate mousse pie made from pure cacao and hazelnuts. So good. Creamier than the "real" thing.

3:00 PM- Miller's Deli

Me: I feel like I've cheated on the meatatarian community.
Actual: I guess...
Me: What would be the opposite of the meal we had at noon?
Actual: Cured meat.
Me: How about cured meat with a huge carbon footprint?

So we headed to Miller's East Cost Deli, where we were told the cured meat was flown in from the Bronx.

I started with a bowl of matzo ball soup. I could tell you how good it was, but I think you can tell from this picture.

I went for the pastrami sandwich. Tastes like a good NYC sandwich. Not Katz's good, but nothing really can be. Best one I've had outside of NYC or Montreal. The flash on my camera at the time (my old, horrible Photosmart) totally washed out this picture, so you can't tell just how juicy this thing was. Meat this good is worth the global warming it caused getting to me.

4:00 PM- Tommy's Joynt

Me: Hey, Tommy's Joynt is about a mile from here, let's go!
Actual: Are you serious? You just had a pastrami sandwich!
Me: IT'S TOMMY'S!!!

And that's how we ended up at Tommy's Joynt, even though we still had cured meat in our stomachs from another place. Tommy's has been featured on every gastrotourism show known to man with the exception of No Reservations. If you have a slice and serve comfort food cafeteria-style eatery in your town, Tommy's is the same thing, only 1000 times more delicious. Readers from the UK: apparently in your country this sort of thing is called a carvery.

As you can see, the place is hard to miss.

Ordering is pretty simple. Get in line (probably long, but it moves fast). Order your meat entree from the carver. Tell the second person which sides you want. Tell the third person if you want dessert. Pay the fourth person. Go eat.

Since I was still full, I took home my Tommy's corned beef and cabbage. Here it is after I sloppily plated it. It was spectacular.

9:00 PM- Naan 'N' Curry

Me: OMG F+ ate all my corned beef?
Actual: Yeah and so what? You're staying at her hotel for free.
Me: Oh yeah. But I still need to be fed.
Actual: OMG how many meals are we going to have today.
Me: I'm writing a post about 24 hours in San Francisco.
Actual: ... [cussing] ... [more cussing]
Me: We're only two blocks from Naan 'N' Curry! I've always wanted to eat there!!!
Actual: Nowhere you've ever "wanted to eat" actually turns out to be good.

So we headed to Naan 'N' Curry. This is a small chain of Indo-Pakistani restaurants in San Francisco. They are extremely famous for a few things:

Open 24 hours
Very chaotic, smoke filled restaurant
Full of all sorts of interesting characters
Food is decent

What's not to like about that deal?

We showed up and paid for our two buffet meals and found a table. The tables around us were packed with a motley assortment of cab drivers, tourists, students, and various gangsters. There was indeed a layer of smoke crawling on the ceiling. I tried to get a picture of this but failed.

In fact, I didn't take any pictures of this place. It was just too strange but pictures wouldn't have captured the supreme strangeness of it all. The food is pretty good too so, just go yourself and have fun with it.

9:00 AM- Ferry Building

The next morning our 24 hours were running out. We wanted to end the day eating food made by people absolutely obsessed with their craft. So off to the Ferry Building we went.

First stop: Boccalone. This is a salumiera run by Chris Cosentino, of Food Network and Incanto fame. All of their stuff is made from the best pork and made traditionally at their facility in Oakland. Before they opened their storefront in the Ferry Building, the only way you could taste their tasty pig parts was to subscribe to their deliveries.

These are their prosciutto cones. Best prosciutto I've ever had. At $3.50, an absolute steal. We got three for the two of us.

A few doors down we found Cowgirl Creamery. We skipped their aged cheese area and went to the fresh cheese cooler where one of their cheesemongers was happy to let Actual try all of their fresh cheese varieties and pack some for her to take back to the hotel.

Here's our breakfast. A fresh loaf of sourdough, chocolate croissant, herbed fromage blanc, clabbered cottage cheese, and nduja, a spreadable salami... all of it made within 20 miles of where we were. We really should have paired it with a bottle of California wine, but we really wanted to open our bottle of Brunello di Montalcino.

If you're nuts for food, San Francisco has your brand of crazy. It's the tasty side of the American Dream.

Review: Ruen Thai

2010-03-01T22:29:36-08:00

Ruen Thai, I'm sorry to say, I really liked your restaurant.

Why am I sorry? It's simple. Every Thai restaurant in town that I like ends up going out of business. It's a curse.

My favorite place in town used to be Muang Thai restaurant, which was hilariously located in something that looked like a converted Pizza Hut. The owners were Thai and loved joking around with me about just how horrible my Thai was. The husband ran the front of the house and his wife ran the kitchen.

This restaurant will always have a special place in my heart because it was the place that convinced Actual that she actually liked Thai food. I didn't know this when I met her, but Actual hated Thai food. She had tried a Thai restaurant in Davis and hated it, then tried a Thai restaurant in Hawaii and hated it more. The first time I met her family, we ate at a restaurant called Thai Basil in downtown Sacramento. It was downright disgusting. My curry tasted like vomit.

We wandered into Muang Thai on a whim, and I knew after talking to the owner that Muang Thai was the real deal. Actual discovered that she really loved Thai food. We ate there maybe 40 times over the next year, even having Actual's birthday party there. It was my favorite Thai restaurant in America.

One really funny thing happened one day at lunch. We were having a quiet meal when a white lady in scrubs came in and sat down. The owner went to go take her order.

"I want meatball curry."

The man just shot her a blank stare.

"You have meatballs right? You have curry right? Make me a meatball curry!"

The man took a deep breath. "You want meatball... and curry?"

"Yes."

The man looked around the dining room, then back at the woman. He nodded. "Yes, we can make." He walked back into the kitchen.

He yelled out the order to his wife.

[in Thai] "Lunch special... yellow curry, add meatball."

Two long seconds of silence. The sounds of cooking coming from the kitchen had stopped completely.

[female voice, in Thai, loosely translated] "WHO THE F*CK ORDERED THAT?!?"

[male voice, in Thai] "Some white lady."

[in Thai] "Figures. I assumed as much."

The woman at the table did get her meatball curry and she seemed to like it.

A couple weeks later we went there for lunch and it was permanently closed.

When Muang Thai closed, we discovered a new Thai restaurant right around the corner from our place named Tara Thai. The owners here were Thai too. And the food was stupendous. We ate there lots of times. We even had Actual's birthday party there.

Are you sensing a pattern yet?

We got takeout one night from Tara Thai and the food was disgustingly bad. A couple weeks later we went in there for dinner and it was equally bad. We noticed that the owners were no longer Thai. Too bad. We stopped going.

About a year later, Actual needed a venue so she could hold a meeting for her group. Out of options, she decided to have it at Tara Thai. It turned out that the third set of owners were from the Isaan area between Thailand and Laos. If you know Isaan people, you know these people can cook some fiercely delicious food. They even had a special menu on the wall of Thai and Isaan delicacies. We ate there all the time.

Then we went back and it was now Dara Thai. New owners. And the food was back to blah.

So, Ruen Thai, I very much like your restaurant. Please stay in business. Thanks.

Originally, tonight we were going to go downtown for mama's pupusas. But a few days ago, Designer Girlfriend mentioned that she had never had Thai food with us, so we decided to go to Ruen Thai instead. Actual and Designer were happy with our dinner choice.

The ambiance at Ruen Thai is great. Unlike many Asian restaurants, the tables are far enough apart to be comfortable. The restaurant is super clean. And the part that made me really happy: they have the requisite "Thai Restaurant Hut".

Designer started out with a Thai iced coffee. It was cold and delicious and had a flavor that Designer will still remember as she lays in bed awake at 3AM from all the caffeine.

Appetizer course! We got the usual Angel Wings. Chicken wings stuffed with noodles, pork, and mushrooms, then deep fried. Amazingly good.

It's written into her employment contract that I'm not allowed to eat with Actual at a Thai restaurant unless she gets her bowl of tom kha gai. This version was exceptional. Unlike the sickly sweet versions that Thai restaurants seem to be very fond of, their version has the perfect blend of coconut and lemongrass. So very good.

Som tum, or green papaya salad. With carrots, fish sauce, and a crazy amount of pepper. Because of the way it's prepared, the dish starts out pretty mild and gets spicier as time goes on. At about 10 minutes you're dealing with serious heat. Past that, it can get dangerous if you're not into spicy food. The som tum at Ruen Thai is fresh and crispy and had just the right amount of heat. For me at least :)

Pork kra pow. Basically a stir fry with Thai Basil.

Designer initially refused to eat it because she said she hated the texture of bamboo shoots. I had to convince her to try this dish with the promise that these were good bamboo shoots and not the tree bark variety that seems to be favored by Chinese restaurants. She tried the dish and loved it. Woohoo!

Panang curry with beef. Like the soup, perfectly balanced and not turned into some sort of candied dish like other places. I appreciated that it tasted like curry and not the inside of a Reese's peanut butter cup. Tasted super great on rice.

Finally, dessert time. You know what's coming: mango with sticky rice! Well, not really. Mangoes aren't in season. Some lower quality Thai restaurants will serve it to you anyway. The good ones like Ruen Thai will tell you that mangoes are out of season and they won't serve it until they can get the good stuff. So they substituted mango ice cream for the mangoes. The ice cream was phenomenally good. Actual and Designer inhaled this entire plate in 90 seconds flat.

Congratulates, Ruen Thai. For better or for worse, you're the only Thai restaurant in town that I actually like! Please stay open!

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Leeya's: The best cookies EVER

2010-02-28T11:30:45-08:00

Through the power of Facebook, I have reconnected with most of my extended family. For Thai people, that entails quite a bit of people, since your close family friends are all considered your family. Thankfully, most of my Thai family doesn't play Spamville or WoWistoocomplicatedforme Wars, or else my Facebook news feed would just be a big load of useless information.

One night a few weeks ago I was catching up with my cousin Paw. Turns out that she ended up going to culinary school here in the US. After a few years of managing restaurants she moved back to Bangkok to open a cookie bakery. Her Facebook wall now started making more sense, as this explained why half of it consisted of pictures of people eating cookies. I just figured it was some sort of inside joke.

Anyway, I started whining that I didn't want to go all the way to Bangkok for cookies. Paw just laughed and said that if I really wanted cookies she would send some to me.

Yesterday, I met my new mailman. He was holding an airmail package from Thailand. He also speaks fluent Thai. Did I mention that he's a middle-aged white guy? He speaks better Thai than I do...

Actual ripped open the package for me and revealed two boxes of Leeya's cookies. Note Cousin Paw's slogan: "You just can't put them down!" Oh really. We'll see, Cousin Paw, we'll see.

No preservatives! Why wouldn't you want to eat them fresh anyway? If you want a cookie that can sit in your pantry forever, get some Oreos.

The cookies are awesome! They are the perfect texture of being crunchy but not tooth chippingly hard. For the fruit flavored cookies, there are actually little bits of fruit in the dough. The combination of the dough and fruit creates a very interesting mouthfeel which we both enjoyed. I would buy these by the crate if I lived in Bangkok. Hmm... maybe Cousin Paw will let me open a franchise in the US.

The kiwi cookie in the middle is my favorite. I love the light green hue of the cookie with the bits of kiwi in it. Yummers.

Guess I'll have to go visit Cousin Paw for my next batch. If you find yourself in Bangkok, Thailand and need some jawesome cookies, give the bakery a ring at 083-1977-332!

Review: La Islita

2010-02-16T22:02:49-08:00

Do you like seafood?

Do you like Mexican food?

If so, stop reading right now and go to La Islita. RIGHT NOW. Come back and read this later.

Still here? Just got back from eating there? Okay. Here we go:

HOLY CRAP.

One of my Mexican friends has been trying to get me to go to one of their other locations for years, but we've never found the time. I feel really stupid not having gone for this long... I could have been eating this food for a long time now.

The location in Citrus Heights is their third location and I'm sure will be just as successful as the other two.

This is the exterior. Check out all the signs with various specials written on them. Note that they have pozole and menudo EVERY DAY. That's dedication.

Upon entering we encountered one of the owners, Juan. This guy rocks! He knew it was our first time in his restaurant and gave us a five minute crash course:

Traditional Mexican seafood restaurant
These are mostly his family's recipes
His chef is crazy brilliant and turns out some crazy good dishes
His chef is from a different part of Mexico and they have heated discussions about whose interpretation of certain dishes is the best... but the diner benefits as all the good stuff makes it onto the menu regardless
The best selling dish is the house special shrimp (I forget the exact name)
The next best selling dish is his langostinos preparation
He's very glad we're there to enjoy their food
He imports his favorite hot sauce from Mexico and calls it the "anti Tapatio"

Sure enough, his favorite sauce was on the table, staring down the Tapatio all "what are you looking at, ese?"

So we sat down and got ready for some crazy good food. We were rewarded... greatly.

Instead of chips and salsa, La Islita serves a shrimp ceviche with tostadas. I would have paid for this as an entree at any other restaurant. Juan says next time he will bring us chips and salsa as his chef has a special blend of salsa based on a recipe he brought from his hometown. I can't wait.

While ordering, Juan mentioned that they serve his mama's pozole and menudo every day. For those of you that do not consume these two wonderful soups (you should), most restaurants will only make these on the weekends as they are reputed to be wonderful hangover cures. It makes sense, as a lot of work goes into making this stuff and if not enough people order it you've wasted a lot of time.

Designer and Actual mentioned that they had never tried pozole. Juan couldn't let this one slide and brought out a bowl of pozole for them to share. I am a pozole veteran and this was easily the best pozole I have ever had. The broth was nice and thick but not greasy, something you can only accomplish by carefully cooking a bunch of high collagen animal parts. The hominy was very flavorful and the perfect texture. We could have ended our meal here and it would have been one of the best meals we've had this year.

Turns out, Actual has had pozole before. Just not pozole this good. Designer, as with many other things, is now ruined on pozole forever as her first was impossibly good. I'm not kidding. I've had at least 200 different pozoles in the US and Mexico and this was the best one. We didn't try their menudo but I'm going to guess it's just as good.

Also, while the pozole contains all of the usual pozole ingredients (Google it), Juan's kitchen will serve you what I call a "gringo-style" serving of pozole that is all hominy and meat and doesn't contain any scary animal parts that you aren't expecting.

Like all of our favorite restauranteurs, Juan at La Islita realizes that he needs to let you try all of their best dishes, as you will get hooked and dream about them until you come back and order some more. Mission accomplished.

Next up, a dozen oysters. At La Islita, you can order them plain or "preparado". Now, their oysters are extremely fresh and are spectacular on their own. The "prep" version adds octopus and shrimp ceviche. Juan only uses Gulf and Mexican shrimp, and you can totally tell by the splendid texture and flavor of these shrimp. We couldn't even hazard a guess as to how they prepare their octopus, but it was tender and delicious. Spectacular doesn't even begin to describe these. A fancypants restaurant could serve ONE of these to me and I would be impressed. A whole dozen for $20? Good lord.

This is a closeup of Designer's first oyster, which she deemed the prom queen of the bunch.

And now, the best shrimp dish on Earth. They start with butterflied but unpeeled shrimp that are deep fried for ten seconds then cooked in their crazy good mystery sauce. The ten second deep fry means you can eat these peel-on. The shells after the flash fry are like soft shell crab shells. And they taste FANTASTIC. If you don't like the texture of the shells, you can peel them off and the shrimp still taste awesome. But, as Juan said to us, "you can get a version of this with peeled shrimp anywhere else; if you want the special version where you can eat the shells, you come here."

Actual says that that shell-on, the texture is just like popcorn shrimp.

Last up, the superstar of the meal. Remember what I said about smart restauranteurs that give you samples of their best stuff to make sure you get addicted? THIS WAS IT. These are whole roasted langostinos that are split in half then covered in the best sauce I've had as long as I can remember. You suck the combination of the sauce and the natural langostino juice off each piece then eat the tail. Simply phenomenal. I'm coming back for a full order of these as soon as possible. And no, none of you can share. GET YOUR OWN.

I felt luxuriously gluttonous after this dish. If you know me, you know just how hard that is to accomplish.

RUN, DON'T WALK TO THIS PLACE. This is easily one of the best restaurants in Northern California, along with the other two locations.

Here are the girls with Juan. Sorry for the blurry picture, but after 4381 shots on one charge my battery grip finally died, so I had to take an iPhone picture like I used to way at the beginning of this blog. The guy in the hat is the International Mexican Chef of Mystery. Juan, I don't know what you pay this guy, but he's totally worth it.

GO THERE NOW!!!

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A very Chomple Valentine's Day at Ella

2010-02-14T22:48:28-08:00

After last year's decidedly mundane Valentine's Day dinner where we got severely underwhelmed at another downtown Sacramento restaurant, I decided to book the hottest table in town... last October. Ella called me once to secure the reservation with a credit card, then called me a few days ago to make sure I was coming. I know you guys are in demand, but come on, you already have me by the plastic.

Sorry for the low light pics... the pictures from tonight look like the crap pictures I used to post on here that were taken with my cameraphone. We're going back to do a proper review later, but we definitely were not going to disrupt everyone else's dinner with loud shutter clicks and bouncing the flash off the ceiling.

This is Actual shortly after sitting down. She's waiting for the Pierre Morlet champagne that comes with their Valentine's Day prix fixe.

This is their Valentine's Day prix fixe menu. The only choice you have for the entire meal is whether you want the wine pairing. To me, this is the way it's supposed to be. I want the chef to show me what his idea of a romantic meal is. If I wanted to design my own meal I would have gone to Mongolian BBQ.

Bread and butter. Both were just ok. When even Outback Steakhouse can serve fresh baked bread and a unique butter concoction, it has always befuddled me why truly great restaurants like Ella skimp on this part.

First course: "Dungeness crab crepe, fines herbes creme fraiche, sterling caviar, brown butter hollandaise". The crepe was perfect. Ella, promote the guy that makes these, he's way too skilled to be standing around making crepes for this dish. The crab inside was obviously very fresh and tasted spectacular. The real star of the dish was the hollandaise sauce. Seriously. I could have downed an entire bowl of this stuff. Actual said it was as good as her brother's hollandaise, a feat which has never been accomplished until now. As her brother is now a vegan, we may be having to go to Ella from now on when the hollandaise cravings hit.

Second course: "Fettuccine forestiere wild and tame mushrooms, parmesan cream, candied garlic". This was great but not stupendous like the other dishes. The fettuccine was obviously boiled in water without enough salt or EVOO and was bland by itself. I didn't miss the flavor coming from the pasta itself, but Actual (who is actually Italian) said it threw off the entire dish for her. The parmesan cream/foam was a pretty cool trick. It delivered the huge dairy/cheesy flavor of an alfredo without any of the heavy richness that would have been overbearing in this dish.

Third course: "Slow roasted Creekstone Farms beef tenderloin, Nantes carrot puree, black trumpet mushrooms, sauce Bordelaise". This dish elicited an "Oh my GOD" from Actual and a "HOLY F**K" from me. Dear reader, this is Chomple's first superstar dish for 2010. I wish this was on their regular menu so I could go back and get it whenever I wanted.

The beef itself is roasted in some secret way that I wish I could convince them to train me on. The inside of the beef tasted like it was braised, while at the same time, somehow they got a nice roasted crust on the outside. Flavor wise, the Creekstone Farms beef had the hugest beefy flavor I've ever experienced from cows raised on corn. Knife not required on this one.

You may remember Nantes carrots from the dish I made for my family's Christmas dinner. Nantes carrots are much sweeter than normal carrots and have a unique texture. Ella used these for the puree under the beef which was a fantastic pairing. They also didn't make the mistake of adding sugar to the puree and left the carrots at their normal sweetness level which is plenty for a savory dish.

The black trumpet mushrooms were wonderful. Actual commented that she's only ever had Asian preparations of trumpet mushrooms which are mainly salty, whereas the chefs at Ella were very gentle in their treatment of the mushrooms and they tasted almost smoky when paired with the Bordelaise sauce.

Me in between the beef course and dessert. I still look kind of dazed from how good the beef course was.

What's a Valentine's Day dinner without dessert? The menu described our last course as "Chocolate Napoleon, orange chocolate mousse, white chocolate ice cream, citrus coulis". I can't even find the words to describe this dessert, other than to say that I never eat desserts, and I considered eating the entire thing.

Actual's tasting notes say that the citrus coulis was snappy and fruity, the white chocolate ice cream was fantastically creamy, and the orange chocolate mousse in the Napoleon hit new heights of intense chocolate flavor.

My notes on this one aren't that detailed. They consist of a bunch of swear words followed by "GOOD".

Finally, here's Actual's reaction to the bill. Just kidding... we knew how much it was going to be. We suggest you go on a normal day which will cost you a lot less and let you actually order off the menu. Still, if you want a guarantee that your Valentine's Day meal will leave you dazed in food happiness, this is your choice for next year.

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Review: A Southern Komfort Cafe

2010-02-05T21:54:57-08:00

We're really not on a barbecue kick here at Chomple, I swear. We just keep ending up at barbecue places. Like magic.

Honestly, we should have eaten at A Southern Komfort Cafe a long time ago. We pass it every single day on our commute. Unfortunately, their location is in the middle of a stretch of Auburn Road with such poorly timed lights that we've rarely stopped anywhere in there because of fears that we may actually be trapped there forever.

Traffic lights be damned, we finally went.

Having been featured on not one but two news channels, I expected the place to be full of people, but it wasn't. That's a complete shame. Where were the rest of you eating dinner? I'm guessing somewhere entirely not as yummy.

Shame on you. More for me. Then again, I think these guys can make plenty for everyone.

This is their menu wall. This is proper decor for a neighborhood barbecue and soul food place. Note the lineup of best barbecue in Citrus Heights certificates. They deserve all of these.

We were lucky enough to show up on Fish Fry-Day. Catfish, red snapper, and tilapia are on offer. We would take advantage of our good luck.

This is my plate of soul. Clockwise from the upper left:

Louisiana hot link sausage. Really spicy! Just like I like it. Now would be a good time to mention that their sauce is FANTASTIC. Sweet at first, with a building bite. There's a reason their website is www.itmustbethesauce.com, although... it's not JUST the sauce. The meat is pretty spectacular too.
Pork spareribs. By a longshot the best ribs we've had in a while. We're not sure how they cook their ribs, but the meat itself had a ton of flavor. With their sauce on it these ribs become out of this world. Unlike most ribs these days, they have not been cooked to death. "Fall of the bone" ribs aren't really a positive quality. If you've cooked ribs to the point that the meat falls off the bone, the meat is probably mushy and has lost most of its porky texture. The ribs at A Southern Komfort Cafe are cooked just right.
Collard greens. Tender and savory, not overly salty or fatty. Good, and good for you. Better for you than most collard greens which seem to be less greens and more pork delivery device. If you're eating greens, they're probably a side dish to some pork, you don't need more pork in your greens!
Spicy rice. I have to have my daily rice!

A closeup of the ribs. I want to lick my screen right now. Designer Girlfriend could not join us for dinner as she was cramming for an ARE exam, so we brought her some ribs. According to her, these are spot on for ribs she used to eat as a child at a local restaurant, and she had never been able to recreate the experience until now. The best kind of food experience evokes an intense childhood memory.

Actual's plate. Tr-tip on the left, mashed potatoes and gravy on the right . The tri-tip was less tender than others but see my previous comment about the sad tendency of barbecue places to cook things to death; this stuff had great texture and a ton of flavor. And, of course, their stupendous sauce on top.

The mashed potatoes were described by Actual as "almost as good as my brother's". That's high praise. His mashed potatoes are pretty breathtaking.

Actual's second side dish was a bowl of black eyed peas. Deliciously salty and smoky. I could eat a half gallon of these in one sitting, I suspect.

Around this time a plate of fresh cornbread came out. We had earlier ordered garlic bread as they had run out of cornbread, but they decided to bake us a fresh batch. It was so good. Not too sweet, not too soft, just right.

Last item to arrive was Actual's fish. Cornmeal battered red snapper, straight out of the fryer. Crunchy on the outside, tender and steaming hot on the inside. Like all southern style fried fish, served with the proper and really only allowable condiment: Crystal hot sauce. They do soul food by the book here.

Finally, our leftovers box. You know what I always say about how your leftovers from a great restaurant will look better than your actual food from a just ok restaurant?

If you like ribs or fried fish and live anywhere near A Southern Komfort Cafe you need to go right now. It's not very often that I feel truly stupid for waiting so long to go to a restaurant. I feel that way today. That's ok though, I have plenty of chances to make up for it, one luscious rib at a time.

Note: they are cash only

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Review: Dickey's Barbecue Pit

2010-01-31T17:02:31-08:00

We're finally done with all the Fancy Food Show coverage, so back to our normal Chompling!

I am so glad Dickey's BBQ Pit is here. Seriously, I started screaming when I first saw the bright yellow Dickey's sign go up. Ever since I moved here from Dallas, I have been unable to find unable barbecue anywhere. Before Dickey's, my only source for barbecue was Actual's Dad. Although he enjoys making us barbecue, I'm sure he's already tired of my constant pleading for tri-tip and ribs.

If I remember correctly I actually used to eat at Dickey's once a week back in Dallas. They had a location across the street from my place and I would stop there all the time to indulge in more meat than any individual should probably eat unless they are Michael Phelps. I eat more reasonable portions now. Promise.

And now, a Californian Public Service Announcement from Girlfriend Actual:
Dear fellow Californians, what is served here is Texan barbecue and not Californian barbecue. Californian barbecue has a highly seasoned dry rub and requires no sauce for consumption. Santa Maria tri-tip and the baby back ribs served at most Californian non-chain barbecue places are good examples of the Californian barbecue ethos. Texan barbecue has very little seasoning on the meat itself (except for the sausage varieties) and relies on the sauce for the flavor. Both are great in their own respects, but you need to realize which you're eating lest you be disappointed.

One thing to gleefully note up front is that Dickey's charges the correct price for barbecue. Their two meat platter is $9.50. I'm not going to name names, but I have tried more than a few barbecue places in the area. Most of them suck. Those that do not suck, instead decide to make me sad by charging INSANE prices for their products. If your food sucks or you're way overpriced, I'm not going to bother mentioning you on Chomple. I barely have enough time to tell our readers where all the good places are, much less spend time whining about crappy restaurants.

Thanks to hitting the yumminess per dollar target dead on, Dickey's is the first and only recommended barbecue restaurant on Chomple.

This review spans two meals, both lunches. First was takeout and second was dine-in.

We've determined that the Roseville Police Department has to have an entrance test for their officers to see whether or not they can identify delicious places to eat. We frequently run into the Roseville PD eating at the same places we do. This may sound silly, but I definitely feel safer knowing that the local police officers had a delicious and wholesome lunch rather than chowing down on junk food. We've actually discovered a couple good restaurants in town after we drove past and saw a bunch of police cruisers parked up front and decided we should stop and see where they were all eating.

So, seeing this out front of Dickey's was a great sign...

Here's their menu. Check out the completely reasonable prices. Not pictured is their special deal for January and February where every Monday you can get $1 pulled pork sandwiches. Also, kids eat free on Sundays with the purchase of an adult meal.

Freebie #1: soft serve. It's real soft serve too, not the crud that most people have to call "frozen treat". If you have kids, this machine is a godsend.

You sauce your own barbecue at Dickey's. Sauce choices are original, sweet, and spicy. This is a welcome change compared to other barbecue places as most of them tend to severely oversauce their products. The sauce is in a warmer so it's always at the correct temperature to go right on your food before you eat it.

Right next to the sauce is Freebie #2: dill pickles. GOOD dill pickles too.

In the background to the right (not really visible) is the drink area, where they serve proper brewed unsweetened and sweet tea made from Luzianne tea leaves. I'm an unsweetened iced tea addict and Saucy loves sweet tea. We'd come here for the tea alone.

Note Girlfriend Actual feeling the "ooh warm" surface of the sauce area.

Do yourself a favor and get your drink in the $2 32oz Big Yellow Cup. These things are high quality and very reusable. I am willing to wager 1/3 of the households in Texas keep a stack of these things for general use. Plus they're nice and bold, and great to carry around when you want to tell the world "I had kick ass barbecue for my last meal, what bland, boring crap did you eat?"

This was our sauce and freebie collection from day 1 when we got takeout.

My day 1 takeout. Clockwise from upper left:

Jalapeno beans- just ok. I don't really like jalapenos though.

Green beans and bacon- PHENOMENAL. This portion was probably 50% bacon. Go Dickey's! If you want something healthier, you can order this side "heavy on the green beans" like Actual does. More bacon for me!

Chopped brisket- AWESOME (Almost-Father-In-Law: it's not as good as yours. Don't disown me. Please. I love your daughter. Sometimes we have to get brisket from other people, okay? It happens. Carnivores have NEEDS.). This stuff is great in a sandwich, but I don't really like bread so I just eat it freeform. Dickey's chops their brisket to order. That is very important, as chopped brisket if left to sit just turns into a disgusting mess, no matter how good your starting product was.

Hot link sausage: just ok. Flavor was tremendous (Dickey's is well known for their stupendous hot link sausage) but I think this batch got overcooked. I think this was just a fluke though... will try it on the next trip.

The above meal, after I covered it in Dickey's spicy barbecue sauce. OM NOM NOM!

Day 2. This is my pulled pork and virginia ham combo with fried okra and barbecue beans. Everything was amazing, but the okra really made me happy. Fried okra is hard to find here in norcal, and fried okra this good is hard to find anywhere. This stuff tasted like it came right out of the fryer.

Actual's platter. Check out the mac and cheese and the "heavy on green beans" green beans and bacon. She got the their old recipe polish sausage which was spectacular.

And here is her portion of sliced brisket that has been sauced with their original sauce. I didn't even get to try a bite of this. Thankfully I had the monster camera in burst mode so I got enough pictures taken before the brisket was happily consumed.

And a word of warning: the residents of Roseville have all heard that Dickey's is now open. The lunch crowd can get huge. Don't let this dissuade you: it's the true sign that the food here is GOOD.

I am so glad a Dickey's opened in my neck of the woods. If you love barbecue, quit eating it at all the overpriced places in town and PLEASE stop eating it at the megachain restaurants where the only good thing about their barbecue is the catchy jingle.

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