B & O Espresso

I've always loved B&O's fabulous desserts - those Rum Balls are to die for! But last friday, we were especially happy to have B&O around. After a long kayak ride and the drive back, it was almost midnight and we were dying of hunger. And B&O serves dinner till 00:00 hours! Woo Hoo!! So, we rolled in there all grubby and starving!

The menu there is such a hodge podge of cuisines - obviously a lot of middle eastern flavors, but they also have a ton of sandwiches, some pastas, steak and probably a lot more! We got the lentil soup - they totally ODed on the vinegar here. I usually love the flavor of a dash of balsamic vinegar in moroccan lentil soup, but this soup had way too much of it, totally overwhelmed the bay leaf and lentil flavors. Guess Pupp's clam chowder (New England style, as I learned :)) was pretty decent.

We then dug into the Egyptian foul (pronounced "fool") and a spinach salad. The foul was again doused with vinegar (instead of lemon juice?!) and wasn't as flavorful as I remembered. The spinach salad had mushrooms (I think that's a no-no for spinach salads!) and almost swimming in dressing *ick*. But when you're hungry, pretty much anything tastes quite decent :)

Our drink of the night was actually pretty decent - coffee spiked with Godiva liqueur and Drambuie (I think) - warm and fuzzy!

International Potluck Night

a.k.a. - Serious food orgy! :)

Waaaay overdue post! A few weeks ago, I think Autumn and Lisa came up with this idea of doing a potluck where we all cooked food from cuisines that we hadn't really cooked much from before. Such a great idea. So we planned it out, May 19th was the day - at Daria's place, perfect way to warm her new house (and take her cute kitchen apart! :))

This is how we did it: each person/couple wrote out a country on a scrap of paper and we then drew lots. Daria got Vietnam, T&A got Russia, C&L - Costa Rica, A&J - Indonesia, us - Japan. And Jeremy picked Switzerland for dessert (apparently his initial choice - Australia is not sweet-friendly! :) and we picked Italy.

It was fun! And super yummy! And we kind of ended up with a good assortment of food. We tried to replicate the famous Dark Army from Vij as the drink of the eve. It turned out pretty decent, but could be better.

Basic Recipe:
===========
A shot each of lemon-ginger juice, simple syrup, mango juice, lime juice. Muddle these up with 1-1.5 shots of amber rum. Serve on ice. Sprinkle with a pinch of freshly ground garam masala. *hic*!

We started off noshing on these yummy baked plantains with guacamole and a blackbean dip (Costa Rica). The Russian entree was beety borscht along with this dark rye-like bread (lame! I've already forgotten what it actually had!). The borscht was really flavorful and smooth. The Vietnamese salad was awesome - it had mangoes, it *had* to be awesome! :) The noodle salad was super yummy too - the spicy limey dressing was seriously tasty - I was ready to drink it up! The tilapia on a bed of rice/beans/oranges/veggies was really light and flavorful.

And we made sushi - our first attempt! Obviously, spicy tuna rolls (we couldn't really find any other sushi grade fish at Whole Foods!). The tuna was so tasty - almost melting in the mouth. We marinated it in a sauce of the Snappy Dragon spicy sauce (*so* good!) along with a little wasabi. After marinating for a few hours, we rolled it with scallions, avocados and some stealth wasabi. The rolls came out looking *okay*, they definitely got better as we rolled more. And Pupp's rolling was *way* better than mine! :) But it was fun, we loved it and we'll do it again!

Dessert was this great chocolate cake with a mop of frosting - very yummy! We made this Cassata alla Siciliana - it was a serious flop! *so* sad! Firstly, the pound cake from Whole Foods was awful - dense and lifeless. And we could not find any candied fruit, so we used chopped dried fruits - NOT the same. *bleh*. I'll have to rework this recipe sometime.

Anyway, Daria's house was well-warmed (and a minor mess!). *happy*

Vancouver - A gastronomic adventure - Part I

*lots* to catch up on, this last week has been way too busy!

So, last weekend was a long-awaited trip up to Vancouver - delightful as always. Obviously, we stayed at our fave hotel - Pacific Palisades where Vodka was treated like royalty - he even got his own doggy basket of goodies! :)

We've never really explored Gastown before, so Vodka and I wandered off to check out the oldest neighborhood of Vancouver - reminds me a lot of Pioneer Square - paved stone streets, some derelict buildings, but oozing old world charm. We hit this really fun restaurant/lounge - Chill Winston. They have a great cocktail list and some really fun food too - a thin-crust pizza with a garlic-chickpea base with cauliflowers, broccoli and onions - very different, very tasty. But the killer was the organic greens salad - one of the best I've ever had - the fig and grapeseed oil vinaigrette was fabulous.

And obviously, we hit Vij's for dinner! And it was divine, like always. Seriously, Vij's is the biggest inspiration for the restaurant that I hope to have someday. I love everything about this place - hanging out at the bar sipping a Mangalore (or my new fave - the Dark Army), nibbling on the delicious snacks from the trays that are constantly passed around, chatting with the staff there who are more than happy to share their incredibly imaginative recipe ideas, watching Vikram wander around his restaurant constantly checking on his guests. And to top it all, the food is *divine*. Like always, I ordered the jackfruit in the cardamom and cumin masala - this is definitely in my top 10 appetizers ever. And this time, we tried a new entree - zucchini koftas in a pomegranate curry - fabulous. And the laddoos were to die for - freshly made khoa blended with sugar and crushed almonds. *yum*

Chiso - so good!

We hit Chiso in Fremont last night for some yummy sushi. And some yummy cocktails -they have a great ginger-pear martini and a killer mojito. We also sampled some decent sake - the nigori is the first unfiltered sake I've ever had - it was milky and reminded us of ouzo (which made us go 'Opa!' as we drank it, much to the amusement of people around us :))

We started with a large order of edamame - it was a seriously large bowlful and took us some effort to finish it off :) *so* good!

Obviously, we had to eat the spicy tuna roll - very good. The tuna was super tender and very flavorful. The negihama (yellowtail and green onions) was great - a first for me, I really want to try the yellowtail nigiri now! The futo maki was delicious - the gourd was a lot tastier than I expected. Apparently, the maguro and spider rolls were pretty happy too.

I just checked out the menu and they seem to have a pretty large non-sushi menu too. Can't wait to head back!

Keep those Bloody Marys comin'!

So, apparently fruity cocktails qualify as health food now. Guess I should start spiking my smoothies with a shot of rum to make sure I get *all* the goodness :)

Hmm ... maybe Happy Hour needs to become Healthy Hour?