Perfect food?

Is there such a thing? I have to say ... this weekend, I came pretty close to it. Went to a neighborhood ramen joint for lunch on Saturday. Yes, it's a little hole in the wall type place. Boy! Was it good. The soup base was almost creamy. Great flavor, fragrant and rich with the meaty taste (Mine was the pork soup base). The noodles ... oh my! They were just perfectly done. A little chewy and just the way I like it. Overall, I would definitely have to go back. But I think I'll try something else beside the curry flavor next time. It was a little too strong and too spicy for me.

I finally did the burger thing! I cut up a piece of chuck roast and stuck the pieces in the food processor, along with some seasoning, crumbled blue cheese and sauce and made my own ground beef. Also sauteed some mushrooms and onions as a topping. I was too lazy to go and grill the burger so I just pan fried them. Since I can cook them however I liked, I went with medium rare. Oh wow! It was probably one of the best burgers I have ever had. I even made an extra one so I can have it for lunch on Monday. Unfortunately, H. came by my house and wolfed it down after dinner. Must make some more soon ...

You know you eat out too much when ...

Everybody at the restaurant knows you. The chef comes out to greet you by name and tell you you're his best customer.

This happened last night. A new (pretty nice) restaurant just opened up last Friday, and last night (Wednesday) was the 3rd time I've been there.

It was nice, really ... we were sent a couple of things at the beginning and the chef came out to chat for a while. Turns out he lives a block away from me!

I ordered a soup and a very excellent tofu cake salad. The tofu cake was somewhat smashed silkened tofu sauteed with different kinds of mushrooms over a bed of spring greens and citric vinegritte. Very refreshing summer fare.

Won't be going back there until Friday night, with my aunt.

For the time being ... here's something I want to try making:
Lemon-y risotto
Grilled prawns (about 3-5 of them)
Crab dumplings (about 2-3) ... haven't decided whether they should be wonton skin wrapped crab meat with ricotta cheese and a bit of chives and fastened with a piece of chive - fried or steamed?

Oh my god! I look like Lisa Simpson!

I caught a reflection of myself in the mirror every now and then. Sometimes, I would surprise myself by the revelation.

I few weeks ago, I saw the way I walked. I looked like a football linebacker ready to shove somebody aside. I had never known that and promptly walked back to the office to share that with R. He smiled and told me that I haven't exactly been the delicate type. I thought it was actually kind of funny and we've been joking about that for a while now.

Last night, I tried some exercise-wear and looked at my side view. I'm shaped like Lisa Simpson ... just not her hair. A bit squat, belly hanging out ... Yikes!

I know how I got to be the way I am. I just need to exercise more to get in better shape. Why don't I? Is it laziness? I already know that I haven't been motivated to. And I know that I actually feel pretty good every time after I work out. Strange, isn't it?

I was all ready to go ... several times this happened, in fact. I go home, change into my exercise clothes. Instead of heading out the door, I turn on the TV, or grab a bit to eat and find myself settling in for the night and watching infomercial on exercise equipment, at best.

Sad, isn't it?

I ... must ... do ... better

Where'd all my money go?

I just looked at some past financial records that I've been blowing most of my income on FOOD! More specifically, by eating out.

I have an interesting relationship with food. I know half of what I eat are just plain junk. But they're so ... yummy ... convenient ... fast ... easy ... I just crave them sometimes. So, I indulge myself with whatever it is that I crave.

I make endless resolutions to myself. Eat better (healthier) foods, exercise more, drink more water, eat more vegetables, more fruits ...

I mean well. I even make it easier for myself by stocking all those items at home. Atlas, they tend to go bad before I finish even half of them.

What happens is that I usually end up getting home late, or staying out late. The easiest (and fun) thing to do would be to eat out, or grab something that I don't need to cook and start chowing down on it.

Out of convenience (and budget), I've been known to have any of the following for a meal: grapes, handfuls of cereal, plain hotdogs, poptart, crackers, cup-o-noodle ... not exactly a well balanced diet.

With the new realization of my financial situation, I am making a new promise to myself to at least NOT eat out during the week for lunch. It's been going pretty well so far. It has been a week and I've been eating salads almost every day. Sometimes a sandwich, sometimes a soup. Fruits (they have these big boxes of fresh mango slices at Costco ... ummm ... mangos ... yummmm ...), and even have these cups of jello as a special treat. I'm telling ya! I haven't eaten so well in a while ... though I still crave the occasional fried squid or egg rolls.

I went out for dinner a couple of nights ago at this family style steak place and ended up with a dinner tab that's roughly the same as I would have spent at a nicer French place. Time to re-think my whole choice of places to go to.

I'm now craving a nice juicy burger, perhaps with some blue cheese and maybe even some mushrooms inside it ... wonder who's got ground beef on sale. Ummm ... maybe I'll get a slab of beef and ground my own. Afterall, I've got a food processor to play with now. Gotta make it do something to earn its keep.

Random thoughts on Tradition

It gets harder and harder these days to describe a restaurant whenever somebody ask me what kind of food they serve. Ok, so there's the typical ethnic varieties, which are simple - Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Mexican ... Then there are the specialties like Seafood or Vegetarian ... Not counting fastfood, what about the rest of them? With the better chefs experimenting with using ingredients from other cultures, it has became really hard to pinpoint the type.

There are descriptions like Continental, California Cusine ... What is "Continental" anyway? What about "Pan-Asian"?

French restaurants are serving pasta. I had a really excellent risotto dish from a French Restaurant recently, with meyer lemons!

Fusion is equally confusing as it really doesn't tell me much.

These days, when people ask, I usually just tell them whether the place is fancy, casual, nice ... whatever; and that the place is kind of like whatever other restaurant that we both know about.

There was an article on the paper a little while ago talking about how the newer, better chefs are using unexpected ingredients to "kick it up a notch", as Emeril would say. In this case, it was Fish Sauce!

Why not? Afterall, the Hispanics have been using chocolate in their mole sauce for a long time now, and it's damn good.

I was talking about "traditional food" last night with a couple of friends. For some of the newer countries, there is really nothing food-wise to identify with. What exactly is the traditional Amercian food? What about Australian? I mean, I think we eat pretty well. But when you ask any average person what American food is, I think most would think Hamburger or Hotdogs. But how many of us eat that stuff on a daily basis? God, I hope not!

After all that, I guess the lesson, if any, is that we should not try so hard to put things in such strict order and just enjoy them as they are.