Rice Soup

Went out for dinner last night. As it was pretty late (9PM or so), I opted to share a soup, salad and burger with my friend.

The blue cheese salad had a really excellent blue cheese dressing (homemade, no lumpy chunks of cheese). The mouth-feel is great, since it felt rich without being too heavy.

The soup was what prompted me to write this whole thing. It was sort of an Asian inspired one made with non-asian spices. Basically, it was a spicy jook with an egg drop whipped in and presented with a few fried wontons. I think I'm going to try this new fusion jook-soup. Very enjoyable, but of course, at least twice as expensive as the chinese jook-joints.

The burger was great and just the right size for two people to share.

A nice meal was had by us both.

Cotton Candy

I've got cotton candy on my brain tonight. The day went on normally enough, but you can't really stop inspiration from attacking sometimes.

I wonder why nobody ever serve cotton candy as dessert? I'm not talking about the general pink stuff one finds at carnivals or fairs, but fancier versions. Perhaps in different flavors. I'm thinking a nice fluffy nest made out of vanilla sugar spuned cotton candy with an assortment of cookies and pastries resting amongst it?

Chocolate flavored ones?

Now where can I score a home unit to try out my experiements? I'm gonna hit the toy store for it soon.

Speaking of dessert ... it was quite gratifying to find out recently that something I said long ago about it had some sort of effect on others. I told H years ago the correct spelling between dessert and desert (so many people get them wrong!) ... Dessert is the sweet stuff that everybody loves and wouldn't mind having more of (two S's); and Desert is the sandy hot place that not too many people want to hang out in for too long (only 1 S is enough). He told me that to this day, he still remembers what I said whenever he uses either of those two words in writing. Guess I made my contribution to society.

Miscellaneous Offerings

First of all, let me just say that crab season officially starts today. Yay!

Weather's been getting a bit cooler these days and I have been playing in the kitchen once again. Chicken leg quarters are usually pretty easy to deal with, so ... within the last week or so, I've made a batch of Coq Cou Vin (chicken braised in red wine, pearl onions and mushrooms); and a batch of Tuscany braised chicken (with red wine, chopped olives, sun dried tomatos and mushrooms). Both batches turned out really well. Both H and D have been lucky recipients of my bounty (or unfortunate test subjects ... depending on your point of view). So far so good. H even hosted a meal with a friend of his. Whether it's to share his loot or to lessen the impact remains to be seen though.

Another trip to the ramen place. This time with D. He gave it his stamp of approval and has been lamenting his own experience with food in Tokyo.

A friend of mine sent me this link (wish it was the real thing though) and thought it's just too cool not to share: http://www.kookisushi.com/index.htm

ummmm ... weather cool ... me want soup ... ummmm ... crab bisque sounds mighty good ...

Food consumed during vacation doesn't count, right?

Oh, don't I wish! Normally, when I go on vacation ... I like to indulge a bit. Afterall, it's vacation! Besides, I tend to do a lot more walking around when I'm on vacation and not just spend my day sitting behind a desk or lounging around in front of the TV like I normally would be doing. So ... I figure it's all logically justified.

Went to Yosemite this past weekend. It was lovely. Not a whole lot of crowds. Weather was still mild enough for a long sleeve TV to get by during the day. We did a hike up to see the top of a waterfall and did some biking around. Overall, it was a great trip.

The place had bear warnings all over the place, so we opted to not bring any food with us. We ended up eating REALLY well for being in the middle of a forest. Aside from the couple of all you can eat meals where the food really wasn't all too bad (or maybe we were just hungry?) We had one of those dinners where EVERYTHING was juuuust PERFECT. The steak was juicy, tasty and tender, the fish was flavorful and cooked right. Not a bit over or under cooked at all. The duck breasts filets were moist and the skin was slightly crispy. Salad dressing was yummy while the candied walnuts were still crunchy.

Brunch at a four star hotel in the middle of nowhere (well, not quite ... but it's not like it's NYC or anything) was an interesting experience. The place was very nice. There was a pianist playing a very interesting mix of songs. The fixings, while not excellent for a four star joint, was great ... considering a lot of the hot food was being kept warm for half the day. Overall, it was a very enjoyable meal in a very nice space.

We stopped at a Mexican restaurant on the way home. Since we had no idea where we were, we asked the waitress. She just smiled at us with a little bit of that "you poor poor retarded folks" look. We explained a little more about what we were asking and why. She replied, "California". ummm ... ok ... thanks!