San Francisco Edition: Discovering Blue Bottle Café

Blue Bottle Cafe

One of my favourite things to do is just sit in a café, especially in Europe. Europe just exudes café au lait et les cigarettes, neither of which I do. The North American café scene, though still great, it’s just not the same. But you can still find cute little cafés with so much personality and character.

In San Francisco, we stumbled upon Blue Bottle Café. Though it was tucked away in what seemed to be an industrial block with nearby restos and shops, it was incredibly popular. It was in a large building, hidden, barely seen with very little signage. I love incognito places that you stumble upon. It’s funny because Blue Bottles are extremely popular in San Francisco and have many locations. Yet, this particular location was small, but very bright and open. It had a very long cafeteria in the middle of the café and breakfast bars along the windows. And check out the instruments they use to make their coffee. Insane! I loved this place and the food was delish.

French Toast

Poached Eggs and Cured Ham with Gruyere Fondue

Coffee and Espresso

In the Kitchen with Gordon Ramsay’s Pasta with Crab

I scored some plumpy fresh crab meat and decided to make a linguini with it. It only needed about half of what I bought, so I’ll be making another crab dish very soon. I adjusted Ramsay’s dish around but here’s what the original calls for.

Gordon Ramsay’s Angel Hair Pasta with Crab, Chilli and Lime

4 servings

Ingredients

200g angel hair pasta
3 garlic cloves, peeled
1 red chilli
4 spring onions
Approx 75ml dry white wine
1 lime
250g white crab meat
Handful of flat leaf parsley
Salt
Black pepper
Olive oil
Extra virgin olive oil

Cooking the Crab

Preparation

Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil. When it comes to a rolling boil, add the pasta and cook according to pack instructions until al dente (approximately 3-4 minutes).

Heat another large pan with the olive oil. Chop the spring onions, thinly slice the chilli (deseed if you prefer) and crush the garlic. Sauté for 1-2 minutes and season with salt and pepper.

Add the wine to the pan and cook out for a minute to reduce. Add the crab meat, stir together and allow to heat through.

Drain the pasta and drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Add the pasta to the crab mixture, chop the parsley and toss the ingredients to combine.

Divide between warm plates and serve immediately with a generous squeeze of lime juice, and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

Pasta with Yummy Crab

Review

This was a very tasty dish and leaves a lot of the flavour of the crab intact. Very yum, but here are the minor adjustments I made to my dish:

• I used linguini pasta instead of angel hair.
• I didn’t add the chilli flakes though I acknowledge it would have given it a good kick! But I’m a weenie and can’t handle the spice!
• I also used lemon instead of lime.

San Francisco Edition: Discovering B Restaurant & Bar

The one thing I miss about Toronto is a damn good patio. When it’s warm out, there’s nothing that beats a couple of hours people watching, sipping and nibbling in the sun. It’s a happy good time!

It was ridiculously warm in San Francisco last week. I only spent a couple days there, but the heat was starting to pack in. And of course, that brought me to B Restaurant & Bar. It’s situated at the top of Yerba Buena Gardens. There wasn’t any shade on the patio (I need to be shaded!), but the inside was airy with floor to ceiling glass and plenty of doors which were wide open. It was happy hour with buck a shuck ($1 oysters) and a list of drinks! I was one happy camper.

We got there and it was empty but the time we left, this place was popping with after work crowd. I would definitely go back again.

B Restaurant

Margarita Time!

Happy Hour Oysters!

In the Kitchen with Fish & Mushroom Wine Sauce

Since I’ve returned from Toronto, I’ve been craving Chinese cuisine. I stuffed my face on the regular with mom’s cooking and the local Asian restos. Now that I’m back in LA, I have neither. So, I had to get cracking in the kitchen. I made my own version of the very popular and delicious Szechuan dish: sliced fish with wine sauce. This is one of my favourite dishes.

Original Szechuan Dish: Sliced Fish with Wine Sauce

Instead of slicing the fish and cooking it in a pan, I kept it whole and baked it. Instead of using black mushrooms, I used King Oyster Mushrooms, also known as King Trumpet Mushrooms. These mushrooms are frequently used in Asian cuisine and can be found at an Asian grocer. These mushrooms are very flavourful. In fact, I don’t recommend eating them raw. They just don’t taste the same.  I then used the cooked mushrooms as a topping rather than mixing it with the fish.

Fish ready to bake

Sliced king mushrooms

Cooking the mushrooms

Baked fish with wine mushroom sauce served with gai lan (green vegetables) and brown rice.

London Edition: Discovering Good Eats Part 2

Here’s part 2 of my food diary in London. On my latter half of my trip I found some very YUMMY things including the best fish in chips in London and an amazing Chinese resto. And since I didn’t have to travel an hour for Chinese food (ahem, Los Angeles), I was totally game!

Master Super Fish

One of my girlfriends who used to live in London suggested I go to Master Super Fish. She told me it’s a super casual place and can be a bit dodgy but roll with it. And it was amazing. I didn’t take a photo of the fish half eaten but I kid you not, it was about an inch and half thick. That’s a good chunk of fish! Also, we got little shirmpy apps and all the fixin’s for our fish and chips. It may be a hole in the whole (though it wasn’t really that bad at all), but it is quite delish.

Master Super Fish

We received complimentary fish as an appetizer.

Check out the size of that fish! You can't tell but it was thick!

I got the lunch portion and in the background is the full size portion! The fish was sizeably bigger.

Borough Market

This is one of my favourite markets. I always get the mulled wine. It wasn’t that cold out, but drinking mulled wine outside on a cold day just tastes oh so good. The last time I was there, I got the Raclette which is sautéed potatoes and onions topped with melted raclette cheese (which they melt right in front of you and then scrape it over your plate). This time, I went to the same vendor, called Kappacasein and hit up their cheese toasties!

Kappacasein stand in Borough Market

A row of Raclette cheese. They're sitting beneath the heaters. When the cheese bubbles and begins to brown, its ready to serve.

Cooking some cheese toasties!

I'm about to eat one of those toasties. Fire it up!

The second thing I ate at the borough market was the duck confit sandwich from Le Marché du Quarter. It was jam packed with duck.

That's not paella, it's duck! Quack! Quack!

Duck stirrin'! That's a lot of meat I know.

Duck Confit Sandwich

Petrus Restaurant

In case you didn’t know, I have a massive crush on Gordon Ramsay. I’ve eaten at his Claridge’s which was probably one of the most memorable meals I’ve ever eaten. Coming back to London we wanted to splurge again on another Ramsay meal. We choose to eat at Petrus. Before sitting down I made a promise to myself I wouldn’t get the day’s set menu. At Claridge’s, I ate for about 6 hours and could not even eat a chocolate mint. I was spent and about to burst. But when I opened the menu at Petrus, I blurted out, “I’m getting the set menu!” I was in for a rough fat ride. The food was fantastic but did not compare to Claridge’s. Also I didn’t eat for 6 hourse so that should say something. Nonetheless I had a great time and still stuffed my face. I apologize for the dark pics but I didn’t use my flash. How tacky is that in a dimly lit resto? Lol.

Immediately when we sat down we were served canapes. I knew immediately it would be a good night.

An amuse bouche

Foie gras

Scallops!

My main course was duck breast!

B's main course was the pork belly with some seriously crackle!

Our first dessert. Do you like the dollop of meringue?

Dessert #2

Dessert #3. This was served to us shaped as a dome. They poured hot chocolate sauce over the top and the dome melted revealling more chocolatey goodness underneath.

Dessert #4

and chocolate. Chocolate dusted almonds and chocolate squares served in a box. They even gave me some chocolate almonds to take home with me. How nice!

Piazza Café

I love hanging around Covent Garden. It can be a zoo sometimes but come on, there’s an opera house right there in the midst of all that chaos. I needed a pick me up got myself a fruit scone with jam and clotted cream. I love scones with clotted cream. I don’t understand why I can’t get clotted cream in North America. Yum!

I love scones and this was the only one I had. I actually just wanted to eat the clotted cream 😛

Leong’s Legend

This was my last meal in London. We actually intended to eat at a Japanese Noodle house that handmakes their udon but the line was literally down the block. I have never seen people line up like that in London. So we opted out. And since Chinatown was around the corner, that’s where we went. It didn’t disappoint. It made me wish we got take out for the flight. But we all know I was taken care of by Virgin Atlantic.

Beef brisket is a staple in Chinese cuisine. This was cooked to perfection.

I love shao leung pao (soup filled dumplings). These were so so. I've had better. But tasty nonetheless.

This chicken with wine sauce was surprsingly better than I thought it would be. The chicken was very tender.

Steamed pork topped with salted egg. This is very favourite dish of the bunch.

The crispy duck was served like peking duck. The skin was super crispy and some areas a little too crispy!

Turnip fritters. The fritter part was very crispy and not overly oily. This was the first time I've had it like this and it was good!

Read Part 1 of my London Food Diary HERE.