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On the Bridge, SF – Eating Yoshoku! :)

Awhile ago, we were in the city, specifically wandering around Japantown to use up a photography class I purchased for us on Groupon. Unfortunately the class was pretty useless to us but at least I got to spend time in Japantown, oogle at the gorgeous fish at the Amano store, and lastly, get an awesome lunch at On the Bridge. They serve yoshoku which is westernized Japanese cuisine.

I’m very partial to mentaiko sometimes also called tarako depending on what kind of fish it came from (pollack or cod) but it is now more interchangeably used. When I eat at Tanto, Gochi, or Sushi Tomi, I usually order some sort of roasted rice ball with mentaiko in there (yakionigiri).

Years ago, when I was still living in San Diego, they opened up a Curry House and I immediately got hooked on their Ika Mentaiko Spaghetti, which essentially spaghetti noodles tossed with mentaiko and topped with some poached squid. It was briney, savory and delicious! Curry House made its way up to Cupertino, complete with the manager from SD so it was really nice when she recognized me up here.

I saw that On the Bridge served mentaiko spaghetti so Sam and I wandered in for lunch. They also served all sorts of random fusion Japanese dishes such as hamburg, various flavors of spaghetti, and a good variety of curries and donburis.

I had the mentaiko spaghetti:

Hubster ordered the unagi-don:

I was so inspired by seeing these pictures well probably more inspired by my hunger and I picked up the ingredients so that I could make it at home.

MMMmmm….

Fleur de Sel Caramels!

I finally got around to trying my hand at making caramels. I had some really nice heavy cream leftover from making a strawberry whipped cream for my trifle so I dug up a recipe I saved awhile ago. Whenever I hear the word trifle, I think about the meat and berry trifle that Rachel made on Friends in one of their Thanksgiving episodes.

Overall the candies were easy to make, and the flavor impressive. It was amazing and better than most store bought caramels I’ve tasted due to the freshness and how quickly it went from cutting board to my mouth.

Ingredients were super basic: organic heavy cream, rice syrup, vanilla, sugar, butter. That was it. Nothing crazy, nothing unpronounceable.

Results? Amazing. Good enough to bribe co-workers for favors. 😀

My little Shun knife went through a grueling workout trying to cut up the caramels.

The most time consuming part of this was actually cutting up the wax paper into little squares to wrap the caramels up.

Soup in the Morning

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Normally I’m a dry cereal eating kinda gal in the mornings. I’m pretty addicted to my Honey Nut Clusters sans-milk but the latest batch of my beloved Honey Nut Clusters seems to have reformulated clusters. They’re definitely not the clusters I remembered as a kid. Sadly, they’re pushed off to the side again while I try to find a replacement cereal.

The weather here has been kinda iffy, some days are super hot, some days are drizzly cold. I keep a stash of the instant miso soup I get in bulk from Costco in my desk drawer so I can whip up a quick mug of soup for breakfast. I guess it’s a strange meal but when I was with my Japanese godparents, it was fairly standard to have rice and soup in the mornings.

Strange looks aside, it definitely warmed me down to my toeberries!

Feel Better Cupcake…

I wasn’t feeling well yesterday so I had taken the day off. I had in essence a semi-three day weekend that included lots of rest yesterday. Today was my first day back and when I came back from lunch today I found this on my desk:

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Anita got me a feel-better-cupcake. :)

Thanks Anita!! <3

Cupcake!

It was also my favorite flavor! Coconut! :)

Little things to put a giant big smile on my face.

Napa Wine Tastings! :)

One of my friends coordinated a lovely Napa trip at the beginning of the year. It was nice seeing friends fly in from LA since I haven’t seen them in quite a long time. We started out at Peju and then worked our way through to Trefethen, Domaine Carneros, and then had a lovely dinner at Boon Fly Cafe at the Carneros Inn.

We had a quirky weird host who asked us about aliens at Peju but since our group was so big they put us in the side private tasting room which was nice.

We also had a newly engaged couple in the group! Congrats Cindy and Alan w/ her 3 day old ring! :)

No Napa trip is complete without a pitstop in Bouchon! We went there and had lunch and gorged ourselves on the pastries. I ended up sharing a loaf of bread with butter followed up with a macaron! Tres bien!

On a side note, I think the macaron there are more like the Italian style macarons. The pastries were crisper and held up more firmly. I bought a box back for Sam and I to share and they were delicious even a day later! I’ve only made French macarons in the past but I found an awesome recipe on a cooking blog that featured an Italian style macaron which includes melted sugar to make a stiffer more stable meringue.

My idiot brain forgot to pack my extra battery and by the end of lunch, I got the low battery alert so I didn’t get shots of Trefethen and Domaine Carneros. I have to say though, I really wish I had my camera for Domaine Carneros. It was beautiful. I love how some of the sparkling wineries have such beautiful settings. In the past Mumm was a favorite for Sam and I for its views. I think I need to add Domaine Carneros onto the rotation just for the building/stately-ness. (Is that even a word?) The view from Mumm is better but the architecture of Domaine was amazing. What I don’t get is the gazillion stars leading up to it… I’m sure they’ve had their fair share of tipsy people slipping when trying to make their way down to their cars!

Post Domaine, we went off to Boon Fly Cafe for dinner. Our server was great but their need severe retraining for their floor supervisor. For all the horrid details, I’ll shamelessly redirect you to my yelp review.

Now for my endless food porn:

We shared some appetizers…

The pork belly was excellent. One of the best pork belly preparations I’ve had in a long time. The glaze was perfect and the apples and cabbage went perfectly!

I’m normally not a fan of poached eggs (runny yolks scare me which reminds me to tell that story on a different day) nor do I like goat cheese, but this salad was pretty good. Once I got over the yolk flavor.

The other half of the table got the fried shrimp appy.

We got mac and cheese. Can’t go wrong with mac and cheese. All that was missing was a good dash of truffle oil and some shaved truffles. But then everything’s delicious with truffles.

I ordered the flank steak entree which came with plenty of sides. I definitely know they have truffle oil in the kitchen since my fries came deliciously truffled!

MMM… The red wine jus was delicious and the pricing was fair, it was an entree that didn’t break the bank. I wasn’t a huge fan of the creamed spinach that it came with.

I <3 truffled fires so they get their own picture. 😉

Personally I think that Boon Fly Cafe needs to get their stuff together since my medium rare steak came out closer to medium/medium well.

Donuts…

I have a bad craving for Shipley Do-Nuts… Unfortunately they’re nowhere to be found here in California. The craving’s almost bad enough for me to jump on a Virgin America plane and head off to Dallas so I could get a few donuts… And some good ol’ Texan BBQ. I blame my husband for converting me to “real BBQ” which is really unfortunate since there isn’t that many places around here in CA that serves good ol’ Texas style ribs.

Sunday Night in the Kitchen

After a long break from cooking, I got bit by the bug again and I have a pork shoulder brining to roast into pulled pork, cajun inspired coleslaw soaking in the fridge and meyer lemon bars baking. I was good and took pics of the lemon bars so that recipe should be up soon. I got inspired by a recipe Jenn sent me that used a coconut crust and I made a meyer lemon curd to go on top since our meyer lemon tree had fruit on it. Sadly it wasn’t enough so I had to go to the neighbors and ask for some lemons. :) I know they don’t read my blog but a big thank you to Ted and Jean! :)

Friday!

I’m semi-celebrating Lent with my friend which means sushi on Friday!

 

We had lunch at Sushi Sam in San Mateo. It was pretty good but disconcerting to hear the chefs speaking Cantonese. So much for being a Japanese owned restaurant!

I ordered a very un-Lent dish of Kurobuta Kakuni. Unfortunately I was too busy wolfing it down with my Yaki Onigiri to take a pic…

Off to Da Sichuan in PA for dinner tonight!

ABC’s of Me

A. Age: I’ve been stuck at 21 for a few years now.

B. Bed size: Eastern King! 😀

C. Chore you hate: Scrubbing the kitchen

D. Dogs: None, I sorta have a dog-in-law since Kandy’s owned by my husband’s parents.

E. Essential start to your day: Checking my email with my squinty eyes cause I can’t find my glasses.

F. Favorite color: Blue

G. Gold or silver: Silver

H. Height: 5 feet 8

I. Instruments: Piano when I was a kid.  Would love to start taking lessons again.

J. Job title: I spend people’s money… Professional buyer

K. Kids: Joey, Pamplemousse, and Unklah. (3 Cockatiels. No humans yet)

L. Live: Palo Alto, CA

M. Mom’s name: Tina

N. Nicknames: Not going there.

O. Overnight hospital stays: None

P. Pet peeve: Rudeness, lateness, pretentiousness ~ is that even a word?

Q. Quote from a movie:  I’ll need t o think about that…

R. Right or left handed: Ambidextrous

S. Siblings: None

T. Time you wake up: Alarm goes off @ 7:20, I don’t roll out of bed until 7:40

U. Underwear: Aerie boybriefs

V. Vegetables you dislike: Carrots!!!!

W. What makes you run late: Trying to find my keys, cell phone, bluetooth headset, and badge.

X. X-Rays you’ve had: Knee, back, neck, elbow, ankle… I’ve had my fair share of skiing and car accidents

Y. Yummy food you make:  Steak!

Z. Zoo- favorite animal: Penguins. :)

This Little Piggy Went to the Market

I love going to Farmers Markets to see what the freshest stuff in season is. I feel so blessed to be living pretty close to some good markets. I like the one hosted in Mountain view cause of the variety of products. This past week, tulips were in season!

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