Mango pancakes

Some of my family came into town this past weekend so I decided to make brunch on Saturday morning, mango pancakes with candied pecans, pan fried potatoes and ginger, strawberry lemonade. The mango pancakes were made by using a basic buttermilk pancake recipe and adding diced mangoes to the pancakes after pouring batter onto the griddle (or in my case, the pan). Being from Vancouver, BC, my sister asked whether the maple syrup I was serving with the pancakes was Canadian maple syrup. I'm happy to say that my reply was 'Of course!

My uncle's girlfriend, C, has a keen interest in tea so we were able to visit a few tea places on their last visit and this most recent visit. We visited Sassy Teahouse in Redmond on her last visit since I had driven by many times, but never quite got around to going in. They serve tea in the traditional English manner. The chocolate, hazelnut tea that we had was fragrant with a nice nutty flavor that was enhanced by adding a little hawaiian rock sugar that was presented with the tea. Unfortunately, it seems that the Sassy Teahouse has closed their doors.

We also visited Teavana inside Bellevue Square where they offered more Asian style teas and retail traditional Japanese style teapots. C picked up a beautiful deep green teapot with a dragon engraved on the front. I sampled their Strawberry, Kiwi Rooibos that had a sweet fruity flavor. Teavana has locations all over the US; however, the Bellevue Square location seems to be the only one in Washington.

Poop culture

Coffee beans - Picture from http://www.animalcoffee.com/

One of my sisters just left for Japan last week and she asked if my youngest sister, V, and I wanted her to bring back anything. V, who is much better at keeping up with all things trendy and Asian than I, has apparently requested ‘Golden Turd.’ V describes it as being a small golden good luck charm shaped like a spiraled poop pile. From what I’ve read, there’s something about a play on words with poop and good luck so Japanese school girls have been carrying around mini piles of s*** attached to their cell phones. I’ll post a picture if / when my sister returns with one.
In keeping with my blog theme, there is a culinary twist and it has to do with civets (a tree dwelling cat like creature) and coffee beans. It seems that there is a market in Japan for Kopi Luwak, naturally processed coffee beans with a process that I would consider completely organic. The story goes that civets ingest whole coffee berries and after digestion, release intact coffee beans that are then collected by harvesters to be sold for over $100/kg. Now that’s coffee with a kick!

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1486529.cms

San Francisco Day 2

San Francisco Day 2

Ferry Building Farmer's Market
This was my third trip to SF, fourth if you count the time my parents decided to go on a family road trip from Vancouver to Anaheim, but that was a different kind of food trip involving meals of pepperoni and cheese sticks from gas stations. This time I didn’t want to miss the Saturday CUESA Farmer’s Market at the Ferry Building that Louise Hasson from Bon Vivant raves about. It rained on Friday and Sunday, but Saturday the sun was out as we walked around the stalls of fresh vegetables, dried fruit and artisan products to the beat of a marching band playing nearby. Just like yesterday, I was a kid in a candy shop again.

Virtually all the food stalls offered samples so we walked around tasting trail mixes, granola and dried fruit. We ended up buying a mixture of dried pluots and ranier cherries from Bella Viva Orchards and cranberry orange granola and raspberry granola from Galaxy Granola. Pluots are a hybrid between plums and apricots and Bella Viva had some plum colored pluots and some apricot colored pluots. I like prunes but don’t really like apricots (due to another another long road trip with my parents involving apricot picking) so I liked the plum colored pluots for their plum flavor more than the apricot ones since they tasted more like apricots to me. Is this a psychological association or was the taste difference real?

Hungry for lunch we walked into the Ferry building where the permanent shops are located. There are specialty shops in here selling caviar, cheeses, mushrooms, and Japanese deli items to name a few. While sampling olive oil a young women scurried by carrying one of those paper plates divided into sections with each section carrying something that instantly grabbed my attention, one looked like a braised meat and another looked like a baked mushroom with a bright green herbed sauce? I knew what I wanted to eat so I it was just a matter of my feet leading me to it. The food ended up being from Mistral Rotisserie Provencal and they’re a highly recommended stop for their value if you get to the Ferry building. They’re just a small takeout counter with glistening organic rotisserie chickens in the background and an impressive selection of pre-cooked items. KC and I both ordered the specialty lunch, one main item with 2 sides. Mine was 2 duck legs in a delicious fennel orange sauce, snails with gnocchi and cauliflower au gratin. Not your standard deli fare. KC ordered the beef stew with roasted potatoes and wild rice pilaf. Not bad for $30 including drinks and tax. So, why is it that I can be happy about a meal that isn’t quite perfect, the duck was a little overdone, but the sauce superb, the gnocchi and snails lackluster, but the cauliflower delicious, if the meal was inexpensive; yet be disappointed with the same at an upscale restaurant? It’s interesting to note how the same food can produce completely different reactions depending on the mindset we have going into the meal and how ambiance contributes to that.

O'Reilly's Oyster and Beer Festival
After lunch we met up with friends at O’Reilly’s Oyster and Beer Festival at Fort Mason. It was a great excuse to be outside to enjoy some sunshine and enjoy live Celtic bands, but what kind of oyster and beer festival offers one kind of oyster and one kind of beer?

Charanga
After reading Gastronomie’s description of Peruvian food in SF, I had to go and try for myself. KC’s friends said they knew of a good place and kindly whisked us off to Charanga. Charanga is actually Caribbean-Cuban, but the food was so good I can't say I minded. 2 of us shared a half pitcher of very gulpable sangria. Appetizers we shared were champignones al jerez (mushrooms sautéed with shallots, garlic and sherry) and asparagus in a balsamic dressing. I loved the simplicity of the flavors and how everything was done just right, the asparagus cooked, but still firm to the bite. I ordered the picadillo Cubano estilo Elena (ground beef cooked with a sofrito, olives and raisins) accompanied by black beans and two pieces of delicious candied fried ripe plantains. Just writing about it makes me want to go back again.

San Francisco Food 1

Metro Crepes:
Whew, two and a half days in San Francisco and a whole lot of eating! After a lazy start to the day we finally arrived at Metro Crepes at 11:45am or so, just beating the office crowd that quickly formed a line behind us. I enjoyed the Paris crepe (ham and Jarlsberg cheese, although I’m still questioning Jarlsberg cheese in a 'Paris' crepe) while KC ordered the Rome (chicken, romaine, parmesan, and Caesar dressing). The crepes were decent and service fast, but nothing remarkable either. Seating was in the general indoor courtyard for the building with marbled floors and dramatic high marbled walls with ivy growing from floor to ceiling.

Fog City News:

After a quick lunch we walked down to the bus stop and stumbled across a newsstand / store called Fog City News that carried chocolates from around the world. I kind of felt like Charlie stumbling into a Wonka store, but instead of Wonka bars, it was exquisite chocolates from Scharffen Berger and Valrhona. I picked out a Vosges Red Fire bar (ancho and chipotle chili peppers, ceylon cinnamon and dark chocolate), plus a Valrhona chocolate bar which our sales person pointed out was a limited addition chocolate and therefore carried a higher price tag. KC chose a Hachez strawberry and pepper. We’re still waiting like Charlie to get home before we open our treats.

Boudin:

The next stop was Boudin bakery at Fisherman’s wharf, origin of San Francisco sourdough. Bakers stand at the window shaping and kneading pillowy dough balls enticing tourists with their displays of turtle and lobster shaped breads. KC and I paid for the $3 Boudin museum tour, which starts off with a brief history of San Francisco and bread making, continuing onto a platform where you can look down on the bread making process and the mother vault containing the sour starter, that has been maintained daily since the start of Boudin’s 150 year history, that goes into their bread and finally a tasting room. The tasting included their asiago cheese, sourdough, and raisin bread. There was also Californian olive oil, blackberry balsamic vinegar and strawberry jam for tasting as well. KC liked the blackberry balsamic vinegar, but I think it was a little too sweet and not quite vinegary enough for my taste.

Ghirardelli:
Fisherman’s wharf is really the tourist area of SF. Souvenir shops line the street and there are Ghirardelli chocolates to be found in every single one of them. KC and I walked along Fisherman’s wharf and up to Ghirardelli square where he recalls having to wait an hour and a half to get into Ghirardelli for a sundae on a previous visit. There wasn’t a wait this time (it was a wet Friday afternoon) and we were able to order a specialty sundae right away; vanilla ice cream with hot fudge and caramel syrup, sweet and sinfully good.

Ozumo:



After a hard day of eating we met up with a few friends for dinner at Ozumo, adjacent to the Harbor Court Hotel where NG and L were staying. Ozumo has a large bar and lounge area in front with the restaurant extending back into a quieter formal dining area. I read somewhere that they designed the restaurant to resemble a Japanese tea garden. I love the understated simplicity of Japanese design, natural wood, simple elegant floral arrangements, harmonious greens and whites. Ozumo has the most extensive sake menu I have seen anywhere, comparable to many restaurant’s wine lists. We had to wait for about 30 minutes after our reservation time, but management was kind enough to send us drinks on the house. Once seated, our server arrived with a little too much attitude for our liking. I understand trying to be helpful, and the possibility that there are people out there with a fear of Japanese cuisine, but she basically told us what we should order and how we should order and the recommendation was that once we had ordered she would order more for us to fill in the gaps. She emphasized that everything was ‘family style’ meant for sharing. Well, the food was great but 3 small chicken skewers for $17 isn’t exactly divisible amongst a family. I think what she meant was that the food was izakaya style with family style portion prices. (Note: For good izakaya at reasonable prices I like Guu in Vancouver or Kenka in NYC). I ordered one of my favorite items black cod in a miso sauce. The cod was perfectly cooked, buttery soft interior with slightly crunchy caramelized exterior, but once again pricey for the portion size. We didn’t really eat a full meal since we had been munching all day, but I would expect a regular dinner would run about $100 per person.

Pike Place Market CSA Basket

I'm still trying to finish up my San Francisco food details, but thought I'd post quickly about the Pike Place Market CSA Basket since they're offering a discount on orders placed before April 15th ($535 for 20 weeks before tax day or $600 after) The CSA basket is an organic produce basket that is delivered weekly, June through October, to Pike Place Market or a number of other drop off spots around the city. Luckily my company is on the list of places they deliver to. I subscribed last year and since deliveries stopped last October, I've been missing the straight from the farm vegetables that arrived still smelling of the soil they came from. The great thing about CSA is that they only work with Washington farmers so food doesn't have to travel far. The salad mix was good enough to eat without any dressing and the potatoes arrived smelling earthy and sweet. There were often sweet surprises in the basket too, like jars of honey or baskets of blueberries harvested that morning.