Chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate!

I had a blast in SF hanging out with the cousins and trying out the SF food scene. What I didn't realize was what a big chocolate city San Fran is. I mean, SF really likes its chocolates! Everywhere we went, there would be specialty/artisan chocolates sold in all sorts of stores. I suppose I should've expected it because after all, Ghirardelli started in SF!

There was a chocolate store we chanced upon in the North Beach (or Little Italy) neighbourhood that offers a huge variety of chocolates, most of them made in California. I have been a bit of a chocolate junkie, like my mother, and I have been getting into dark chocolate. I find its complexity and mouth feel to be very rich and enjoyable. Hey, I like the occasional Hershey too but recently I've been finding milk (or even semisweet) chocolate to be a tad cloying on the tongue. I've also been inspired by a recent posting on a Chicago-based food forum that I belong to about a chocolate tasting party. Wouldn't that just be perfect for the holidays? Hmmm... I might cross that with a knitting session too! Hooray! So, anywayz, I bought a lot of chocolate in SF and they're all pretty good. The shop we encountered is "Z. Cioccolato", very Italian-ish, since it's in SF's Little Italy.


One of the chocolate bars I purchased there was a dark chocolate bar made in Boulder, Colorado for about $3.50. It contains 70% cocoa and tastes just heavenly! Unlike many other dark chocolate bars, this is smooth, creamy and rich without the slightly waxy mouth feel. The bar is not too thick and not too thin and has a nice surface area exposed for optimal tasting! There's also a love poem (awww!) in the inner side of the wrapper (which I haven't bothered reading ... yet). It would make the perfect gift for your sweetheart! Besides 70% cocoa bar, the same company also makes chocolates with other exotic flavors. They offer various cocoa percentages of dark chocolate bar in addition to raspberry-filled, espresso-infused and orange-flavored chocolate bars.

Also, at 160 calories for a third of the sizeable bar, it is a pretty good dessert or snack! Check out the other flavors they have and if you're interested, go to www.chocolove.com. They're available in select grocery stores but I found none in the Midwest. Sigh~


The other chocolate bar I got at the chocolate boutique is this 65% bittersweet chocolate by Charles Chocolates. I was too blinded by the prospect of hazelnuts in this dark chocolate and didn't realize that it also contains candied orange peels until I was about to open it and have some a few days ago. Part of the reason that I bought it was it's made in California. I mean, really, when in California, buy Californian stuff to bring home! However, this chocolate was a bit of a disappointment because to me, it doesn't have enough hazelnut flavor and the orange peel taste is too strong for me. The chocolate bar is also pretty thick (I like my chocolates thinner). Overall, it's not too bad but I wouldn't get this again. I would try the other bars this company makes but this wasn't really worth the $3.99 I paid. You can find the rest of the collection at www.charleschocolates.com.


I'm so happy that we had the chance to go to Little Osaka (SF's Japantown) for dinner and that we stopped by one of the grocery stores there! I luuurve grocery stores and I like to just even walk around and see what's available although I might not buy anything. Naturally, this grocery store has so many more Japanese products than the one I go to in Chicago. I was so excited at the sight of new, cute Japanese snacks I've never seen before that I just had to have a picture!


Okay, back to business! And of course, I bought a couple of snacks to tide myself over on the plane ride home and for times when I need some Jap goodness back home *sniff* *sniff* The first item I got was this box of milk chocolate bars called "Ghana". It's pretty dang good for milk chocolate and it has portion-controlled packaging for snacking at work. I had the impression that it was dark chocolate (which is why I bought it) but I think I was just too excited at the sight of so much Japanese snacks that I didn't read the box too carefully. But that's cool because this is one of the darkest-tasting milk chocolate I've had. Yay! I'm guessing that by naming it Ghana, the company's trying to tell us that the cacao beans they use to make it is from Ghana? Hmm, I need to learn Japanese!


Another Japanese chocolate snack I got was a box of "Meltyblend", which is basically individually-wrapped square truffle-like chocolate bites that has a strawberry-flavored center. The chocolate coating is very delicious and dark-tasting, and the individual wrapping is, again, a great portion control.


My favorite Jap snack from SF are these green tea wafer-ish cookies that has a light green tea mousse sandwiched between a thin shortbread-y cookie and a thin wafer-like cracker. It is not too sweet and you know me, I luuurve green tea!


Another huuuge favorite are these black sesame Pockys! The sesame flavor is delicious but I wish it was stronger and more potent, but that's just the sesame but in me talking.


And now, for the worst Jap snack ever, is this green tea-flavored protein-y energy bar. I thought it looked interesting and I checked out the nutrition info and it sounded really good. Since it's green tea-flavored, I thought I'd give it a shot. What could be better than a green tea power bar? ... A lot, apparently! The bars are shaped like shortbread but it does NOT taste or feel like shortbread AT ALL! It was brittle and dry and tasted like cardboard. I could make out some green tea essence but it was mild and it was just not delicious. Although I'm not one to waste food or money, I threw the whole box out after one bite. Fortunately, I only got one!


I bought a bar of the new 72% cacao bar from a Ghirardelli boutique. They had a special promotion and since my cousins and I combined our purchase, we got two additional 72% free of charge (score!). Overall, I liked the taste, it sure was intensely dark, though still not as intense as the 70% Chocolove bar above. I also liked that the bar is thin and this exposes more chocolate surface area for my tongue. However, it is a little ... what's the word ... kinda, waxy, I guess. It's not as smooth as some of the other dark chocolates I tried. At $3.50 for a big bar, it's not too bad. I'll definitely be getting more of those if they're not too expensive. Well, that's all for m forays into the rich, dark world of chocolate in SF! Have a great weekend!

More Frisco Thxgiving!

The arctic weather has frozen Chicago solid and it's way too cold to do anything but to stay in and snuggle in my blanket while watching an unhealthy dose of TV. Besides the addictive "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" marathon, I managed to rustle the boyf out of our comfortably warm cocoon to shop for groceries on Saturday and we had steak and a bottle of wine at home. It was one of the best steak dinners I've ever had and it was well worth the money! (Yah, I'm cheap, I know, I know!)

Anyway, back to more of my SF Thanksgiving adventure with my fellow cousins! We went to the restaurant Citizen Cake for lunch on the day after Thanksgiving. We were really excited about it because we had heard a lot about this place (whether it's on the all-pervasive TV or magazines or word-of-mouth). It is a place known for its individual-sized cakes and pastries. After a whole morning of shopping (we got our asses off the bed at 6 am, in an attempt to scout out post-Thanksgiving deals), we were hungry and were hoping to have brunch at Citizen Cake. Unfortunately, they don't serve brunch on weekdays (sigh, and I was eye-ing the French toast already). However, their lunch menu had some yummy-looking fares too. It consists mostly of sandwiches and salads, all very light and delicate (how Californian! Oooo). I had a smoked turkey sandwich called the Pavo Rico. In addition to the smoked turkey, the sandwich also has cocoa nib mole (which I didn't really taste), delicious mozzarella, roasted red peppers and cilantro mayo in between grilled panini-style bread. It was served with a small baby salad on the side and I loved it! It's possible that my hunger (remember, no breakfast) made the sandwich taste even better but hell, it was good!


My dear sister ordered the pizza with marinara, pepperoni, mozzarella and baby arugula. It was very simple but well-done.

My cousins had their ultimate grilled cheese sandwich which had cabot sharp cheddar, gruyère on acme italian bread also grilled to a delicious crisp with a small side salad. It was also very scrumptious.

Having made a thousand-mile pilgrimage to Citizen Cake, we just had to try their desserts, right? I mean, after all, it IS a restaurant owned by a pastry chef. The item that was recommended by out waitress is this rich, chocolatey cake covered in a delicate ganache. It was perfect: not too sweet, not too bitter and 100% dark. Yum!

The second dessert item we had was less impressive: the rose petal creme brulee with saffron cookies. It was bruleed perfectly but the creme part was way too soft and liquid-y for my taste.The hint of rose syrup in the creme was nice and unique, but I found the saffron cookies unnecessary and too sweet.

The third dessert (yes, you read it correctly, THIRD) was the worst. I mean, it was rather disappointing but I must give them credit for inventiveness. It was named "gleaming the cube". It consisted of date-soft chocolate, sherry-date purée, pumpkin purée and coconut-thai sorbet. The plate was like a modernist piece of art but overall, the taste was bizzare and unfocused. I thought it was trying to do too much and ended up botching everything up.

I think maybe we should've stuck to the patesserie section of the place for dessert instead because the patisserie offering ranges from sinful cookies and cakes to fluffy, angelic meringues and cheesecakes and tarts. Maybe next time? Overall, it was an unexpectedly good place for lunch! And the sourdough bread they served was quite good. I mean, really, who in SF does NOT serve sourdough bread?


A better place we went to on our last night in SF was NIck's Lighthouse at Fisherman's Wharf. I know, I know, a rather touristy area but hey, they're by the wharf! So their seafood must be pretty fresh and it was. My cousin Jessy recommended this place and we started with a cup of lobster bisque and clam chowder. Both were delicious and creamy.

We then shared two main courses: the lazy man's Cioppino in tomato broth and a plate of lightly sauteed shellfish. I loved the freshness of everything and how well-cooked the seafood was. Sigh~ Just thinking of it makes me want to move to the coast.


Well, thanks to this entry, I'm now famished and it's time for lunch! Oo-ee! Leftover stuffing and microwaved Boca soy burgers, here I come!

Happy Frisco Thanksgiving!

I just came back from San Francisco for Thanksgiving and I must say that I was rather impressed by SF's food scene. Maybe I'm just too deprived of great Asian and seafood options in the Midwest but I am very happy with what I tried out there. It was also just wonderful to catch up with my cousins and be with (somewhat) like-minded people in terms of food. Most of my friends just don't understand why I am so passionate about something they consider to be a mere necessity. I personally believe the enjoyment of food with all the senses is a daily joy and is something to look forward to. So anyway, we tried many different places but I'm not going to bombard you with too much in too little time. I'm going to recount our culinary adventure little by little.

I'm going to start out with the best places we went to so that if I got tired of writing about the trip, you would only miss out the places that weren't so great. Yay! So the best joint that we went to is Swan Oyster depot. It's a hole-in-the-wall kind of place that serves some of the freshest seafood I've ever had. I first saw it on Rachael Ray's "$40 A Day" and my interest was piqued. It is also the place that many chefs cite as not to be missed when in SF when I was reading issues of Gourmet magazine. Swan Oyster Depot is a very small place, it fits approximately 12-15 customers at the bar. My cousin, Jessy, and I waited in line for a little under an hour and we both thought it was totally worth it!


Besides being a restaurant, Swan Oyster Depot also sells fresh, raw wholesale seafood to those who want to cook their own seafood at home. We saw some of the biggest and juiciest-looking scallops but unfortunately, they weren't on the menu (unless we wanted to have them sushi style). We started with a half dozen fresh oysters that our server recommended. There were six different varieties and we thought we'd try them all. All of them were super fresh and awesome! Each had a different taste and mouth feel to it and they were all very well-shucked. Topped with a small dab of cocktail sauce and horseradish, the oysters were heaven on a shell!


The other items we had were lobster and crab cocktails. When our first cocktail came, it was already mixed up with cocktail sauce and we thought that it would be served with the sauce on the side so we asked our server if we could have ours on the side and he obliged immediately. Now is that great service or what? So he went ahead and cracked open a new, freshly boiled lobster and collected the meat for us with the sauce on the side. The crab and lobster were tender and tasted so fresh that I almost cried. The bar that all the customers were seated at was very intimate in that we get to essentially witness the food preparation. There was a huge slab of smoked salmon in front of us and we weren't sure what it was and so we asked about what it was. The proprietor gave us each two slices of the smoked salmons and that's how I had the best smoked salmon ever! Not only was it perfectly smoked, it tasted fresh and didn't smell fishy at all. Its pure salmon taste filled my mouth and I felt like it melted in my mouth.


I am so happy that I found and ate at Swan Oyster Depot. Like many others, I think Swan Oyster Depot is that place not to be missed when in SF. Not only is the service friendly and warm, we were made to feel like we were just visiting a friend's place (a friend who happened to be a fisherman). Even though it's on the pricey side and we had to wait in line to eat, the fresh seafood was totally worth it!

The second awesome place we went to was this small bakery in Chinatown that sells the usual slew of Chinese pastries. My cousin, Jessy and I went there the morning we were departing SF for a small breakfast. Prior to the bakery we had already visited another Chinatown eatery for the famous leaf-wrapped steamed glutinous rice (for lunch on the plane) and shiu may (part of Jessy's breakfast). At the bakery I ordered my two all-time favorite Chinese pastries: egg tart and paper-wrapped steamed chiffon cake. Jessy had a custard filled bun that was topped with a layer of sweet cookie.


The egg tart I had was the very best egg tart I have ever had. The puff pastry crust was rich, buttery and melted in my mouth. The egg custard filling was even better! It is not too sweet and has the perfect texture. The filling was like the creme of creme brulees that one can get at top notch restaurants, not too creamy yet not too solid. If only I had bought more to bring home to Chicago...


Jessy's custard bun was also delicious. I had a bite of it and really loved the crispy cookie crust that topped off the bun. Its custard filling was a tad sweet but the bread was soft and pillowy, and the cookie crust was perfectly baked. Eaten with a piping hot cup of tea, this is the breakfast for (Chinese) champions!


The paper-wrapped steamed cake was also very good. I like that it was only slightly sweet and its faint vanilla aroma was just nice. Its texture was very light, even lighter and fluffier than an angel food cake. The shiu may that Jessy bought were also delicious. They were packed with meaty goodness and so much flavor. Dipped in some soy sauce, it was even better and provided some protein for our breakfast.

So these were the two top places (I think) that we had the fortune to eat at. They are definitely places I will return to when I visit SF in the future. I find that the SF culinary scene is alive and bustling with a lot of excitement, whether it is a good old American seafood or a quintessential Chinese meal.

Most recent confections

You know, weekends are way too short when you're enjoying yourself! Even when you're doing nothing or just vegging around the house, they fly by so quickly! Weekends feel even shorter when you have to go to work (like I did) for almost half a day (on a Sunday no less!). Thankfully, I still had time to try out a few recipes, which I was super excited about, before the family and I descend upon Frisco for a rollin' good time!

So for Saturday breakfast, I made crepes for the first time ever! I thought it would be really challenging but I was really inspired by Dave Lieberman's simple recipe . and he made it look so easy when I first saw it on his show. And boy oh boy, were they easy to make! The only "special" equipment you need is a non-stick pan. I don't think that's such a specialty equipment because virtually everyone owns a non-stick pan, right? The batter is also very simple; it consists of flour, eggs, milk and vanilla extract. The only minor hassle is you have to refrigerate it for at least an hour. I think you can do it overnight if you really have to have breakfast ready as soon as you get up.

The first two crepes weren't very pretty but as with making pancakes, the first few would always look ugly. Subsequently, my crepes turned out evenly browned and nice. Check out how beautiful my virgin crepes turned out!


I filled the crepes with either Nutella spread or strawberry jam. As you can imagine, the Nutella-stuffed ones were very decadent and rich, just like a dessert! The strawberry jam ones (also served with fresh, sliced strawberries) were light and delicious, and are more appropriate for breakfast. Also, you can taste the crepe more with the strawberry jam while the rich Nutella tends to overpower the palette.


The boyf had the strawberry-filled crepes with a (huge) dollop of whipped topping and it was a piece of heaven, man!


Another recent new recipe I tried out was for cream puffs. I didn't have heavy cream on hand so I couldn't make the cream filling. Instead, I substituted it with ice cream and made profiteroles! As you may know already, ice cream is always good in my universe. The puffs were very simple to make and the recipe starts by making the dough batter in a saucepan on a stovetop before spooning them onto baking sheets and baking them in the oven, where they will puff up beautifully. These puffs' texture reminded me of some popovers that I had in Boston a few months ago. They can be eaten plain or with a mere pat of butter when they're warm. Of course, they make perfect cream puffs and profiteroles.



To create the profiteroles, I cut the puffs in half, filled it with vanilla ice cream, topped it with the other puff half, and drizzled chocolate sundae sauce to top it off. I must say that the home-made profiterole is one of my favorite home-made desserts ever. Because when you make it yourself, not only can you add as much (or as little) stuff you want, you can bask in the glory of having created the dish yourself *harharhar*


That's all the decadence for now before Thanksgiving but you can expect more, especially after Christmas. This is because I have convinced the boyf to get me a Kitchenaid stand mixer for Christmas when Amazon was having a huge houseware sale. Can you believe he got the Artisan mixer for under $200? I always love getting a good deal, even if it's someone else paying for it! Of course, being a Christmas gift, I can't open or use it until Christmas. Argh! Can't wait for Christmas!


Well, anywayz, I hope you have a very Happy Thanksgiving, blessed with good food and even better company! Ciao!

It's that time of the year agaaaain ...

Thanksgiving is around the corner and I am so super excited because my cousins and I are descending upon good ol' Frisco for a long weekend reunion. I am particularly looking forward to meeting Hendra, a cousin whom I haven't seen in years and years and years! What I remember of him last is a 12-year-old game-crazed boy but he's almost 20 now and is in college! Wow, time sure flies!

Besides spending some Q time with the cousins, I'm so excited about eating around SF. Two particular spots I must visit are Swan Oyster Depot and Citizen Cake. I have heard so many good things about Swan Oyster Depot from many different people and magazines. I was made aware ot its existence of Rachael Ray's "$40 A Day" San Francisco episode. It is a small spot that sells cooked and raw seafood that was caught the very day. They close the place when they've run out of fresh catch. Now is that awesome or what? Subsequently, I've read many chefs is different foodie mags rave about it being the place not to miss when in Frisco. I also first saw Citizen Cake on the same show, actually, but it never really struck me as a must-eat-at place until recently, when the owner went on Iron chef America to take on Cat Cora with a honey-themed challenge. If I'm not wrong, she beat Cat Cora and well, someone who can handle that much pressure should own a pretty decent establishment. Also, who can resist a place that specializes in dessert?

Sigh~ I can't wait to get to Frisco and see my sis and cousins! For now, I'll just dream of it ...