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Quesozilla: THE GRILLED CHEESE TO END ALL GRILLED CHEESES

So, we had a Chomplevent. Lots of people showed up. It was great fun and a rather calm event until THE GRILLED CHEESE TO END ALL GRILLED CHEESES (henceforth referred to as Quesozilla) showed up.

We headed to the Roseville outpost of The Squeeze Inn. Yes, THAT Squeeze Inn. This burger joint (now small chain) creates cheeseburgers with giant cheese skirts. It's been on every food travel show known to man except No Reservations (come on Tony, you'll love it).

It began as a calm affair. We all ordered our food. Here's the part of the menu that shows all of the fun addons you can put on your burger. They're good, but not really necessary.

   

Parks and Recreation Guy got the first burger. I think it scared him a little. By the way, this was not the most grandiose cheese skirt of the night...

 
 

This was my dinner. I don't really like cheeseburgers, even ones this good. So I always get the teriyaki steak sandwich. Thin sliced ribeye with homemade teriyaki sauce? YES PLEASE!

Also pictured: my corn dog.

 

The most grandiose cheese skirt came as part of Concierge Girlfriend's Squeeze with Cheese. Just look at that thing! Designer Girlfriend estimated that the average burger here probably comes out to 40 Weight Watchers points.

 

And then came... Quesozilla.

Sir Ocho's son Kart King came along to the Chomplevent and was amped when he saw grilled cheese on the menu. Watch out, we warned, these people take cheese way too seriously. It's going to be a scary monster of a sandwich.

He wanted it. He ordered it. They made it.

Here's Kart King with the freshly arrived Quesozilla. He's not sure quite what to make of it. It looked innocuous enough.

 
   
See that huge wedge of fried cheese on the edge? That should have been his first warning sign that he was about to experience the monstrous cheese of Quesozilla.

 

"This should be easy enough... I'll just pick it up like a normal grilled cheese... yeah."

 

"Uhhhh... what the hee haw. Um. Mom. Mom. MOM HELP. MOM!"
"Ok Kart King, let me help you... uhhh what the heck? How much cheese is in this thing? Hey hubs, we have health insurance for Kart King right? We do? Ok, good."

 

"Here, take a bite."

 

"Oh... ohhh yeah. That tastes sooo good. Hey. HEY. It's still ATTACKING ME. IT WON'T LET GO."

 

"I WILL DESTROY YOU QUESOZILLA!!!!!!!!111!!!!!!!1!!!!1!11!!1one"

 
 

Ten minutes later, the sandwich was defeated. Congratulations were given by all at the Chomplevent. Kart King 1, Quesozilla 0.

 
 

I don't think he'll look at cheese the same way again. 

Review: PK Sushi

So, can lightning strike three times in the same place?

PK Sushi occupies the same location as our previous two favorite sushi restaurants: Wave and Sakuran. Sakuran disappeared a few weeks ago and PK appeared in its place.

One new twist is that PK is following the big trend of offering an all-you-can-eat deal. These have been popular on the East Coast for years and are finally (and yay for my pocketbook) becoming popular here. 

The deal is, for around $20 (slightly cheaper at lunch, slightly more at dinner) you can order pretty much whatever you want. You incur extra charges if you don't eat something you order or if you order something using a very expensive ingredient. Over two very lengthy visits to PK so far, that hasn't happened to me. Just use common sense when ordering :)

We headed there with our usual compatriot: Designer Girlfriend. She had an anonymous diner tag along.

I guess I've been there enough that the owner and head chef, PK, recognized me. Haha! That's him in the middle. The other sushi chef, Jin, is there on the left. 

 
 

Although I was happily drinking my Asahi, PK decided that the table needed some cold sake. He brought us a bottle of Pure brand sake. This stuff was the booooooooooooooooooomb! I think I'm going to buy a bottle every time I go back. Nice clean flavor. As a side note, did you know that when sake is served hot it's usually because the sake is crap and heating it hides the crappy diesel-like flavor of bad sake?

 
 

Even the edamame is pimped out here. The bowl in the back is regular garden-variety edamame. The bowl in the front is their spicy edamame with peppers and garlic. I could have consumed 20 bowls of the spicy edamame, well, if not for all the sushi that was coming!

 

The first sushi course out was salmon nigiri. Check out those huge bands of succulent, omega-3 laden salmon fat. This stuff was amazing. Note that the rice part of the sushi is just right. Quite a few of these all-you-can eat places try to stuff you with rice by offering zero sashimi dishes and overdoing the rice content of every kind of sushi. Not PK.

 
  

Pepperfin. This seems to be on every sushi restaurant's menu these days. Simple combination of any kind of whitefish, peppers, soy, yuzu, and sesame oil. Most places use their crappiest whitefish in these dishes. Not at PK. Whatever fish they used in this had perfect texture and tasted great. I can't stand sushi places that cut corners... which would be most of them, and almost all of the all-you-can eat places. Thank goodness PK opened, because I was warily eyeing a few months of sushi abstinence.

 

Don't like raw fish? PK has you covered. In addition to a multitude of fully cooked rolls, PK offers many other cooked Japanese dishes on their all-you-can-eat menu. You can stuff yourself with teriyaki, or have some tasty Korean BBQ. We got some of their tempura, which was excellent.

 

...or how about some delectable crab stuffed mushrooms?

 
   

The next four rolls are the BMW, M3, M5, and Oh Yes. I don't remember which is which. All four were awesome. I'm trying to talk him into letting me design some rolls for his menu. The first one would be a Lady Gaga roll studded with edible LEDs. Or maybe a Justin Bieber roll filled with cheese. The possibilities are endless!

Or maybe a Yod roll that's sauced with bitters ;)

 
   

 
 

Here's rolls #3 and #4 of the BMW group. In the upper right corner is a deep fried California roll that found its way to our table by accident. It was actually pretty tasty.

 
 

And now, for the really fun stuff. This is what resulted when I asked PK for a "spicy salmon roll". Mindblowingly good. Note that in this as well as the rest of the rolls, they've used the proper amount of rice. I've been to quite a few all-you-can-eat places where the rolls looked like something out of an adult movie from all the extra rice used to attempt to fill me up.

 

The best thing of the night. This was PK's response to "make me a spicy scallop roll". I can't even begin to describe just how good this roll was. When I asked PK what to call this roll on the Chomple review, he said "Something PK just made up". So here you have it. The Something PK Just Made Up Roll. You can ask for it, but I think he'll just make something else up. Which is a good thing, because that man is a genius.

 
  

Although this is like using Patron in a spring break margarita, I ended my meal by making a sake bomb out of the Pure sake and the rest of my Asahi Super Dry. It was ungodly, tremendously good. Hey PK, put this on the menu as the Premium Yod Bomb. Please?

 

Obviously this gets our RUN, DON'T WALK, RUN THERE RIGHT NOW rating. This place is crazy good and an even crazier value. 

PK Sushi 
2168 Sunset Blvd. Ste 100 (across Pleasant Grove from the Safeway)
Rocklin, CA 95765 

The best and worst of Roseville's Fast Food

Kind of like when I discovered McDonald's poutine, I was morbidly curious when I heard that Burger King was selling bone-in ribs made in their new broiling machines. 

Really?

I had to see this disaster for myself. 

For $7.50 I got a box of six ribs, onion rings, and a drink. Straight from the grill? I guess my definition of grill differs from that of the King.

 
 

Now, you may have seen the tv and print ads for BK ribs. Through the magic of advertising, those things look like luscious baby backs. Not so fast. These are pork shortribs from the short end of the slab. 

 

They tasted just OK. Burger King used a lot of that artificial grill flavor that they use in their Steakhouse burger patties.

I've included an onion ring here for size comparison. These ribs are TINY. The pigs they used for these are probably from that same farm that KFC uses to make the tiny chickens they use for their grilled chicken, where the drumsticks are the size of the wing drumettes from regular chickens.

Also note how inconsistently they are cooked. I thought their new high tech broiler was supposed to guarantee effortless even cooking. Guess not.

 

While digesting this very dissatisfying meal, someone texted me to remind me that Squeeze Inn had just opened in Roseville. 

Yes, THAT Squeeze Inn. The burger shack in deepest darkest Sacramento that's been on every food TV show in existence. Apparently they set up an outpost in, you guessed it, a Roseville strip mall.

We'll do a full review and Chomplevent soon, but until then here was our takeout order:

One thing about these hard to get to (and more to the point, hard to find parking at) restaurants is that there are other items on their menus than their signature items. But you never get them, because you didn't go all that way to have something other than their famous dish. Nobody knows what the hamburger tastes like at Peter Luger's, or the fish at Tour d'Argent. 

This all changes when they open near you and the lines aren't as bad.

This is the never seen before Squeeze Inn hot dog. It's a huge all beef hot dog either grilled or deep fried (couldn't really tell) served Chicago style. And boy, it was good! I got one whole bite of this...

 

And... what?  A taco? Yes, a crispy fried taco stuffed with what I think is ribeye. No joke. This is like a high class Jimboy's taco. The meat was nice and juicy. And of course it has the trademark cheese skirt. I almost like the taco more than the burger.

 
   

But, of course we got burgers. Mine got smooshed in the bag so it didn't get photographed. This is Actual's Squeeze with cheese, with bacon and avocado. The bacon and avocado are somewhere behind the cheese and top bun. The burger fell over while taking this picture, but it gives you a great view of that majestic Squeeze Inn cheese skirt. OM NOM NOM

 
 

The Squeeze Inn is on the corner of Sunrise and Douglas where the Round Table Pizza used to be. Lines aren't bad (yet) and there's plenty of seating. 

If you own a burger joint in Roseville, I hope you have some sort of contingency plan.

Review: Amerikan Ichi Sushi

This review started with a conversation that a year ago I would have considered improbable to say the least.

First, let me tell you about my (almost) father-in-law, henceforth referred to as Daddy Actual. He rides a Harley. He's from a farm in Nebraska. Chinese food was banned in the Actual household for years. He thinks curry is an odd creation that's not exactly meant for human consumption. 

He likes barbecue. He makes killer barbecue. His indirect smoker is larger than the engine bay of our Prius.

As far as we knew, the only thing that he had ever ordered at a Japanese restaurant was chicken teriyaki. And that's only if someone made him go to a Japanese restaurant.

So it was a complete shock to me when we were discussing heading up there to go out to dinner, and these words came out of his mouth:

"How about we go to my favorite sushi place?"

What???

Daddy Actual shouldn't have a favorite sushi place. 

Just like I don't have a favorite gym. Or a favorite Olive Garden. Or a favorite place where I like to get waterboarded by security contractors.

We figured any sushi place that could make Daddy Actual happy had to be a great place. So we all went.

Now, we weren't sure what to expect. Daddy Actual knows good food, but does he know good sushi? And this place is in Placerville, and the odds of a good sushi place (by Chomple standards) in Placerville are about as high as finding a good soul food restaurant in Dubuque.

Amerikan Ichi is stuffed into a very small space in a strip mall. To the left there's a day spa. Of course, in Chomple World, this is a good thing. All the best grub comes from strip malls.

 
 

Amerikan Ichi is as small on the inside as the outside makes it look. Sushi bar has seating for about 15, and there are a few tables. The place was packed, which was a great sign. An even better sign was that the three chefs behing the bar were happily chatting up the patrons as they made sushi. Later on in the evening, a couple sat down next to us and didn't even bother ordering anything. The chefs knew what to make for them.

They have a steal of a deal. Order as much as you want for $22. Check out the rules of the all you can eat. I'm very glad that they say all this up front for people who have bad manners. When customers act stupid, the rest of us have to pay more for our food. I couldn't back up far enough to get a picture of the entire all you can eat menu. Probably 100+ items to choose from.

 
 

Apologies as I was too busy eating and don't remember what half of this stuff was with any sort of detail. It was that good.

This roll had fish and cream cheese inside, and was topped with more fish, some crunchies, onions and unagi sauce. They used just enough sauce.

 
 

Godzilla roll. Tuna and yellowtail (and more that I'm forgetting) in the middle, then deep fried, then topped with two spicy sauces. I usually can't stand deep fried rolls but this thing was amazing. Very happy that on this as well as the rest of the rolls, the chefs at Amerikan Ichi don't oversauce. Oversaucing sushi is a bad bad trait that runs deep in most sushi restaurants.

 
 

While the four of us were contemplating our next move, one of the chefs made us this platter of mussels baked in a mayonnaise based sauce. These were so good we forgot our plans for what to order next. Thanks a lot, chef dude! ;)

 
 

Some sort of rainbow roll derivative. Had two different kinds of tobikko. Girlfriend Actual was about to die from fish roe happiness. 

 
 

Don't remember what this was, other than it had spicy crab and tasted amazing.

 
 

This is my Fuji Mountain roll. Huge. Packed with fish. Yummy. Similar to the roll we had earlier with the crunchies, except this one subbed out cream cheese for more fish. At this point I was cursing bringing a 50mm prime to a crowded sushi bar. Can you tell?

 
 

This is Actual trying to eat a piece of the Fuji Mountain. It sort of collapsed on itself. In a good way.

 

And now, the real curiosity of the night. Amerikan Ichi's Tropical Roll. Deep fried banana on the inside, with mangoes and strawberry sauce on the outside. I didn't try this one as I can't stomach rice used in a non savory application. Clan Actual said it tasted great. Kudos to Amerikan Ichi for being creative and still managing to deliver a tasty product. With most sushi places, you have to pick one or the other (or sometimes, end up with neither).

 

Because I can see the "WTF, REALLY?!?" look on your face, here's a cross-section shot of the Tropical Roll.

 

If you order off of the regular menu, you can get this large arrangement of sushi. Definitely a welcome change to the usual sushi boat. I want to order one of these with served with some sake bomb "trolls" underneath. 

 

The best thing I ate all night, week, and month. Maybe for this entire culinary quarter. Spicy raw scallop hand roll. The scallops were hyper fresh and would have been amazing on their own. Add a simply sublime spicy sauce and this whole thing is so off the hook it probably bent the hook out of sheer awesomeness. Also available in a cooked version if you so desire. I may go back, order a dozen of these, and call it a night.

Note: That is Actual's hand. My fingernails only look that nice in the ten minutes following the nice Vietnamese lady at the salon telling me that I squirm too much and not to come back.

 
      

Final course! Tobikko with raw quail egg. Or as I unceremoniously call it, "The Eggo".  Rich beyond belief. Any lingering hunger I had in my body was defeated Mortal Kombat style. Do not start out with this course if you're planning on having a long run at Amerikan Ichi's all you can eat.

 

RUN, DON'T WALK. RUN THERE RIGHT NOW.

That's right, folks. That's two RUN, DON'T WALK reviews in as many posts. I guess the food gods are making up for the month of McNuggets I endured earlier.

Now I'm waiting for Daddy Actual to recommend a curry place :)

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Review: Ficelle

The best places we eat in the name of Chomple seem to be the places where we can't believe we found what we did where we did. A full rijsttafel serving Indonesian restaurant next to a pizzeria. A world-class sushi joint in a Rocklin strip mall next to a yogurt place and a place selling wraps. A so-authentic-it-burns Szechuan place behind a yarn store in a part of town where Arby's is considered culinarily adventurous. A traditional style curry joint that you would absolutely miss if you weren't paying attention on the walk from It's a Grind to the sushi buffet. 

So we found ourselves in the car for an hour-long ride to Winters, CA. As far as Northern California is concerned, Winters is pretty much the middle of nowhere. 

We were promised wondrous tapas and great drinks by reader Special K. It's great, she said. It'll blow your mind, she said. Just make the trip, she said.

The three of us arrived to find another group of diners also lost as to how to find Ficelle. We found it tucked into the back half of a long building that also houses a coffee shop. One hilarious thing is that they have a door that's not the entrance, that opens (or would open if it weren't locked) right on top of one of their tables. I witnessed no fewer than three different groups try to open the door, to the shock of the couple who were at that table eating. And I mean, that door was smack in the middle of that table. Are you people so hungry that you can't tell it's not an entrance?

This is their main tapas menu. I hear it changes seasonally but certain very loved items stay pretty much year round so as not to cause some sort of customer riot.

 

To the right is their specials menu which changes more frequently. So, let's just say that unless you're a picky eater with an attitude problem, you aren't leaving this place hungry.

 

The first course they hand you right at the counter. Bread with ajo, their family recipe garlic aioli. I would say this stuff is more garlic with salt added for color :) Amazingly, stupendously great if you love garlic. Special K mentioned "The ajo is for you and your date to both have some, otherwise kisses are out of the question for the night!"... well, she was right! But in a good way. I want to know what kind of garlic they used, as I've eaten raw garlic straight before and it didn't taste as garlicky as this.

 
 

While I sipped on my IPA from their great beer selection, Actual and Designer opted for their sangria. This stuff is worth every penny. Most restaurants that serve sangria use some nasty combination of box wine and canned fruit. Not here. They used good wine and perfectly ripe berries. It still amazes me how many restaurants haven't picked up on the whole "buy good ingredients and keep it simple" theme. This place happily gets it.

 

Actual and Designer wanted the salmon fillet salad. I was completely dumbfounded as to why they wanted to order something so pedestrian sounding when there were so many options that sounded better. A salad with a piece of salmon? Even Olive Garden pulls that dish off well. I grudgingly ordered one anyway, since the two of them complain incessantly about how they never get to order anything they want.

Lo and behold, some salad and a salmon fillet is exactly what we got.  Except, not really. The salmon was infinitely more flavorful than what most restaurants call "salmon". Most of the salmon I've had served to me in the past year (outside of a sushi restaurant) has been something that could have easily been replaced with a lump of orange Play-Doh. The vegetables were fresh. The dressing was ridiculously good. I take back my previous statement. Olive Garden does NOT pull this dish off well. Ficelle does. (And thank goodness for that, as I find it hard to believe that Olive Garden pulls anything off correctly other than ice water.)

 
 

Actual and Designer were not yet done outvoting me on ordering dishes that I had absolutely no interest in. Next up they opted for the brie with golden raisin-apple compote. Really? You haven't seen enough of these "brie topped with something sweet" concoctions at pretty much every single dinner party held since 1980? To me, this dish is indicative of the Rachael Ray "I put something on something else and I cooked omg it's so easy" pathos. It's like prosciutto and melon. It's good, but calling it cooking, and paying someone to do it for you, is a bit zany.

That being said, I had to eat my words on this one too. The brie was served at the absolutely perfect temperature. Hey, chefs in Northern California that serve brie dishes, please come to Ficelle and learn what the proper serving temperature for brie is. It is NOT supposed to have the texture of Velveeta like I normally experience when I'm out dining and someone orders brie. Ficelle seems to be the only place that gets it right. The fruity compote was equally amazing. Once again, Ficelle's chef (or chefs, it was my first time there and I haven't met everyone yet) didn't go overboard on sugar which meant the flavor of the raisins and apples really came out. 

 
 

This was followed up by another Actual and Designer request: the sliders. Now, when even Burger King starts selling mini burgers the trend has died out. Every single restaurant on earth has some sort of mini burger creation they want you to try. And sadly, most of them are just mini burgers, meaning:  the sad part is, most of the places that serve these aren't burger places. You wouldn't buy a burger from them. You didn't go there to have a burger. So why are you ordering burgers because they're cute?

By now you're expecting that I had to eat my words on this one too. And you would be right. Ficelle's sliders are made with juicy beef and the patties are stuffed with cheese. Then on top of the patties they put a house spread that I can only describe as "Big Mac Special Sauce, delicious version". Eating my words has never been this delicious.

One billion bonus points to Ficelle for using white bread buns instead of brioche. Brioche is so 2009.

 
  

Next arrival was their Basque-style garbanzos with sausage. This cassoulet-esque dish smelled divine and tasted even better. The garbanzos were infused with the flavor of the sausage and the sausage actually picked up a hint of garbanzo flavor. This was served piping hot and I burned my tongue multiple times because I couldn't stop eating it and was too impatient to even blow on the spoon. I was willing to risk injury on this one... that's how good it was. There was much spoondueling as we fought over who got the next bite.

 

Pasta time. We ordered their wild mushroom ravioli. Now, I don't know what kind of mushrooms went into these but they were intense. I've spent way too long eating at places that feel that mushrooms are there for texture and not flavor. Not here. Also the cheese on top was so rich that three of these probably would have singlehandedly filled me up. If you have been bemoaning the state of pasta mediocrity in your life, you owe it to yourself to get to Ficelle and have this stuff.

 

My favorite dish of the night: braised short ribs served with rice and ranchera sauce. But first, a small PSA about braised short ribs.

Many of you have probably consumed short ribs recently. They seem to be on the menu everywhere, either has a standalone dish or more likely, as a topping for pasta. There is a reason for this, and it's not a good one. Ever heard of a retort pouch? If you're in the military you've unfortunately had a meal out of one. Retort pouches are basically the same thing as a metal can, except made with a coated plastic pouch instead. In a military MRE, your entree comes in a retort pouch. Lots of ready to eat camping food comes this way too. Don't think anything is different because it's in a pouch. You are eating canned food. The only thing that changed was the can.

A few years ago, a food company that I will not name figured out that braised short ribs tasted almost perfect (to them, anyway) when cooked and then put in a retort pouch. Braised short ribs used to be the domain of only the most dedicated restaurant kitchens. Now, anyone could serve them, straight out of a pouch that didn't even require refrigeration. Airline caterers picked up on this trend first, followed by a lot of lazy chefs.

So if you've had braised short ribs served to you in a restaurant recently, chances are those short ribs were cooked in a factory months ago. And I don't care what they say, they do NOT taste the same. When does canned anything taste the same as the fresh-cooked version?

If you would like to indulge in braised short ribs that are actually cooked in the same month as your meal, head to Ficelle (I would say cooked the same day, but I know crazed chefs that braise for over 24 hours). Their short rib dish is amazing. The flavoring is perfect, the texture of the meat is silky (well, as silky as braised beef can be) and the rice on the bottom soaks up all the flavors. This dish was so good that we sent Designer up to the counter to get more food and stealthily nommed what was left. Sorry! 

 

Eggplant stack. I abhor eggplant. Designer doesn't like eggplant. Actual is sort of neutral.

I didn't try this one. Designer and Actual said it was pretty good, They fought over whose pieces had more of the balsamic reduction which both of them said was foodgasmic. Two people who don't really like eggplant thought this was a good dish, so if you actually like eggplant, you'll find this one phenomenal.

 
  

Grilled lamb served with orzo pasta. I'll let the picture speak for itself on this one. It smelled so good I forgot to take a picture. I was halfway through it before Designer or Actual got a single bite. It was at that point that I finally remembered to take a picture. Very tender and absolutely bursting with flavor. One of those dishes that are so good I break my own "No touchy until snappy" rule.

 

Actual and Designer ended the meal with a slice of Grand Marnier chocolate cake. Like the rest of the dishes, the chefs at Ficelle understand that overdoing things is not very tasty. We've had a great many versions of this exact cake, and most of them are either so heavy on the chocolate that it just tastes like an orange brownie, or so heavy on the Grand Marnier that the cake tastes like a straight up shot of the stuff in cake form. This cake was very well balanced and was a great way to end the meal.

 

We're obviously going to give this place our "RUN, don't walk, RUN THERE RIGHT NOW" rating. It's been over a month since we had anything worthwhile to write about or review here. This was a spectacular way to end that horribly bland dry spell.

Make sure you check their website for their hours. They are limited and sort of strange :)

http://www.ficelle-restaurant.com/

  

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Designer Girlfriend's Big Sunday Adventure

At dinner on Friday,we promised Designer Girlfriend a nice relaxing Sunday. She totally deserved it after getting us into the VIP tent at the Sacramento Pinkberry launch. Besides, we like having her around. Nothing beats having someone with you who can point out all of the code violations in every building where you eat.

We started the day with breakfast at The Original Pancake House. You see, Designer Girlfriend has a serious issue. There are serious holes in her culinary history. In this case, she loves breakfast food but until today hadn't been to The Original Pancake House. That's like a steak lover never having been to Peter Luger's, or Tiger Woods forgetting to take a trip to the Mustang Ranch when he's in Vegas. 

During the twenty minute wait for a table at OPH on Sunday morning (whose great idea was it to go right when all the churches let out... especially the megachurch down the street? Oh wait, me!) we headed down to Goodwill so I could scrounge for cameras. The only thing they had was an old Kodak Folding Vest, which doesn't even take film that they make anymore. 

Eventually we made it back to OPH and sat down. Apparently the menu was overwhelming for Designer Girlfriend.

 

In my sleepy state I tried to explain to her that the menu isn't that scary, and besides, she already knew what she wanted. Actual told me to post this picture because she says it properly expresses what it looks like when I spout useless food trivia while we're waiting for food.

 

Since this was Designer's first time at OPH, Actual decided to order them two dishes to share, one savory and one sweet. The winner of the savory dish derby was OPH's eggs florentine. This was sort of an odd choice since Designer likes her scrambled eggs cooked until they are almost powder, so a poached egg was a huge departure for her. She liked the dish anyway.

 

Of course we had to get a Dutch Baby, which is a giant puffed pancake. This Dutch Baby has already been dressed with the Dutch Baby Accessory Kit that consists of lemons, powdered sugar, and butter. Actual and Designer massacred this poor thing. They ripped it part like famished hyenas. I don't blame them. The Dutch Baby is very tasty. Plus, I think the pancake said some rude things to them about shopping at Goodwill. The nerve!

 

Once we were done with breakfast, we headed to Whole Foods to get raw cashews. During breakfast, Designer mentioned that her favorite breakfast dish in the world was from a place called Nut Tree. It was a bowl of sliced bananas and cashews onto which you poured a small pitcher of cream. The dish was called "bananas and cashews" and Designer after all these years had never been able to replicate it. She said every time she tried to make it the cashews were too soft and not sweet enough. I was pretty sure the difference was that the Nut Tree was probably using raw cashews. 

While we were at Whole Foods, Designer decided to end another one of her food mysteries. She apparently has an old piece of cheese that's been in her fridge for as long as she can remember. Every once in a while, she scrapes off a little piece to eat. The pieces keep getting smaller because the cheese is almost gone. The label from Whole Foods has faded so that only the logo is visible. What follows is perhaps the most entertaining 20 minutes I've ever had in Whole Foods:

Desginer Girlfriend: I need a cheese but I don't know what it is.
Cheesemonger: Tell me what you know.
DG: I bought it here. It's hard. Tasty. Little crunchies. Italian. The rind has red stuff.
CM: Hm. It's this one [points to bright orange Dutch gouda] or this one [another gouda].
DG: No, it's.. no, really?
Actual: Can we try these?
CM: One sec, let me carve these up...
[much cheese sampling]
[five minutes later]
DG: OMG this is it!
CM: Told you it was one of those!

Once again proving that 1) cheesemongers love challenges and 2) Designer Girlfriend gets special treatment everywhere!

 

After a stop at the trail mix bar and grabbing a bag of Wehani rice, we headed to Lollicup. Turns out Designer is addicted to boba tea. Actual is addicted to drinks with no boba made by boba tea places. Fair enough. Besides, Lollicup is next to the nail salon!

 
  

Designer fell victim to a sudden and debilitating craving for lumpia. Thankfully we were in a Filipino establishment that had lumpia on the menu. They came out fresh from the fryer. Designer wasn't expecting the mouth sploding heat. 

 

Next stop was the nail salon next door. We all got pedicures. I even got my toenails buffed. Designer and Actual decided to go for the pimpin' toe designs. 

 

After all that we came back to Chomple HQ to sit around and harass my cat. After a few hours of cat harassment, we decided it was time for dinner. Hey... we have a fridge of leftovers! SCORE!

The appetizer course consisted of Chinese rice noodle rolls in XO sauce and a bowl of Actual's custom blend Whole Foods trail mix.

 

And then the main course: more of Daddy Actual's BBQ from Easter. Sooooo gooood. More for me, none for you. Better reheated than everyone else's stuff fresh off the grill.

 

Here's Designer's plate. See? We shared our BBQ! Granted, it was only with one person, but whatever! See you next time!

 
     

Our Octagonal Easter

Girlfriend Actual's dad lives in an octagon. No joke. Daddy Actual decided he was done with us suburban folk and moved up into the foothills and into a giant octagonal house. Luckily for us, he took all of his meat preparation equipment with him. On most holidays we make the drive into the foothills for delicious foodage. We have a Prius, so the deliciousness per gallon rating of the meals stays pretty high, although we would obviously still make the drive if we drove a Camaro.

 

It was, of course, Easter. The official holiday of garish colors. We began the celebrations by putting hot pick Soft Paws on Ebby.

 

Daddy Actual's new cats got a text from Ebby warning them that we were headed up armed with hot pink cat accessories. They regarded us with extreme caution and kept their distance.

 

Like all holiday meals at the Octagon, Mortgage Mom made her famous deviled eggs. Girlfriend Actual enjoys these a lot as they cause me to act very erratically. I love deviled eggs. I love them so much that I ate two deviled eggs EVERY DAY for THREE MONTHS in seventh grade (they sold them in the cafeteria). Pretty sure my cholesterol was pretty epic that year. Mortgage Mom's deviled eggs are the best I have ever had. I'm pretty sure she's given me the recipe about 50 times but I'm usually too busy inhaling the eggs to hear what she's saying. Of course, I have to be polite, so I just eat an egg then rock back and forth for a while trying to fight the craving.

 

And then the (not very long, but very painful) wait for the tri-tip in the indirect smoker. You can smell the stuff cooking coming up the driveway. But you can't have it yet. So you just stand there and... inhale.

 

If that wasn't torture enough, Daddy Actual decided to put some baby back ribs in the smoker too. You know, just for good measure.

Side note: I posted some pictures of a previous family holiday with a picture of Daddy Actual labeled as "Dad". One of you readers was stupid enough to ask me whether that was my father or Girlfriend Actual's. Quick genetics lesson for everyone: tall white people have tall white kids. Short Asian people have short Asian kids. 

 
       

Daddy Actual took pity on me standing there doing my best PLAINTIVE YOD IS PLAINTIVE look. He actually had a surprise course. Tequila-lime marinated jumbo shrimp. These were as succulent as they look in the picture. We each had a skewer of shrimp the size of Ebby's head.

 

We broke out one of our favorite wines: Noceto OGP (the '06, not the impossible to find '05).

 
  

Time for the meal itself! Situated to the left of me I found Meat Extravaganza Platter #1. On the left is Daddy Actual's famous Santa Maria style tri-tip. Month long family feuds have been started over who gets the leftovers of this stuff. It's so juicy, so flavorful, so mouth bombingly good that family members have thrown entire gatherings just to convince Daddy Actual to make some of it. ANY sliced beef dish you have after this point is just crud. This is one of those genre-defining, it's all downhill from here sorts of dishes.

On the right are the aforementioned smoked baby back ribs. Watch out, Chili's and Applebee's. One of these days, Daddy Actual is going to take to the road on his Harley with his saddlebags full of these ribs. He's going to hand them out to America all Johnny Appleseed style and America is going to figure out that they've been ripped off all this time eating chain restaurant ribs. I'll have to coin him a memorable name. Maybe something like The Rib Whisperer.

 

And then there was Meat Extravaganza Platter #2. In the background is a spiced and cedar planked salmon fillet. Mortgage Mom doesn't eat land animals that don't cluck or gobble. We all tried the salmon and it was phenomenal. The flav... oh, hey. Actual... hey, those are my ribs. There are plenty for everyone. HEY. HANDS OFF. HE'S YOUR PARENT SO YOU CAN COME BACK ANYTIME, I CAN'T CLAIM A BLOOD RELATION IN ORDER TO GET MORE RIBS. I WANT MY RIBS NOW. 

Oh, hm, where was I? Lamb! Yes. A wonderful marinated frenched rack of lamb. Daddy Actual claimed that the rack of lamb had some of mishap and had spontaneously combusted. That had to be something he imagined. It had a perfect char on the outside and the inside was a juicy, silky, medium-rare. Little known fact: the pastured lamb he cooked for us at Thanksgiving was the first time he ever ate "the other cute meat". Sorry little lambs. He knows about you guys now. Run!

 
 

Here's my assembled plate. I would love to say that I took my time eating this, but that would be a complete lie.

 

Dessert came about an hour later. After all of this spectacular food, Girlfriend Actual wasn't about to use canned whipped cream on her dessert. She whipped it fresh with a hint of Mexican vanilla and sugar.

 

Final dessert product. The whipped cream went on fresh strawberries. In the background there is a carrot cake muffin from Trader Joe's. You can't have Easter without carrot cake!

 

We wrapped it all up with port and dark chocolate. A dessert even a Yod could love.

 

Best Easter meal EVER. I didn't even notice not having ham. That's saying something, because I miss not having ham at just about any meal I eat that doesn't have ham. 

Finally, I leave you with this picture of Girlfriend Actual and Mortgage Mom using napkin rings to demonstrate what style of sunglasses Daddy Actual and I should buy them for Christmas. 

 
     

Happy Breakfast Time @ Original Pancake House

During last Sunday's trip to The Original Pancake House (OPH), I learned three things:

1. Designer Girlfriend, our most frequent dining buddy, has never been to OPH.
2. Agent Orange had horrible service here three straight times and now refuses to go back (we've had bad service here absolutely never, so it must be Agent Orange with the problem. Just kidding, Agent O!). 
3. If I send a text message to 10 people with a picture of my bacon waffle, twice as many of them will answer as the time I texted the same 10 people that we closed on our new house.

We've written about this place before. It's the only chain restaurant where I will choose to have breakfast. 

It's that good.

Actual started out with some coffee. I think this was her second cup. At OPH, they don't mess around with any of the ingredients. When you ask for cream, you will get little cute pitcher-ettes of straight up heavy whipping cream. Wahahahaha!

 

My personal dish was the Eggs Michael. Take a split English muffin. Then add two sausage patties (these are hand formed from ground sausage, which I'm guessing is made with a proprietary recipe since I've tried just about every type and brand of breakfast sausage and it never tastes this good, with the exception of Neese's). Then add two perfectly poached eggs. Then add sherry mushroom gravy. The combination is seriously good. 

 
  

Actual went for the Dutch Baby. You know this is serious breakfast business when they bring out what I call the Dutch Baby accessory pack.

 

The Dutch Baby is one of their signature items. It's a giant puffed pancake. The taste and texture is pretty indescribable... you're just going to have to get one for yourself.

 

This is Actual's Dutch Baby after proper application of lemon juice and butter. OH YEAH.

 

More for takeout purposes, I got a bacon waffle. Just like it sounds. A bacon made from batter with bacon bits in it, then covered with more bacon. This is probably enough bacon and carbs for two or three people. Or one Yod.

 

After all this, Actual felt the need to order something healthy, and out came their fresh fruit bowl. Now, unlike other, crappier places, the fresh fruit bowl here at OPH costs real money ($4) and contains real fresh fruit. Doesn't it look good?

 

Hungry? There's probably one near you! Check out http://www.originalpancakehouse.com/      

Friday Asian Food Extravaganza!

Actual and I were talking today and noticed that we had been eating a lot of white people food lately. As many of you know if I don't have my daily ration of rice, bad things happen. So it was interesting as to just how long I had gone without an Asian meal... well if you don't count the "Asian-inspired" Healthy Choice frozen dog food meal that I ate in desperation a few days ago.

For lunch, we decided to return to our favorite sushi place: Sakuran. The longer we go between visits to Sakuran, the more interesting and sometimes scary things the chefs have been dreaming up in our absence. As you will be able to tell, it's clearly been too long since we've been there.

This first course is the only thing that was ordered off the menu. Traditional zaru soba, or cold buckwheat noodles. You add onions and wasabi to the sauce, then pick up the noodles with your chopsticks and dip them in the sauce, then consume. I believe this is a traditional breakfast food in Japan.  These are great on a hot day, but were a questionable choice on my part on this cold and rainy Friday. Tasty anyway.

 

And then a standard (for them) chef's special roll. Crabmeat and soft shell crab on the inside (interesting combination, don't you think?) and a variety of different fish on the outside topped with tobikko. I call it standard, but it's really better than everything the other sushi places in town serve.

 

And then things got a little crazy.

We saw the chef walk out of the back kitchen with something the size of a Pop Warner football. We watched for about five minutes as he messed around with it and plated it. Turns out he took a whole squid, then stuffed it with a blend of raw fish and spices, then deep fried the entire thing. It was really good, and I don't even like squid.

 

But they weren't done. I saw the chef giggling as he plated the last dish. It took us a few minutes to try and figure out what it was, and eventually we gave in and asked the chef to explain his dish. He made lettuce wraps and stuffed them with shrimp in a ponzu sauce. Then he deep fried the lettuce wraps. Ok, seriously. Nobody cooks lettuce. It just goes limp and wilts. Not this stuff. I don't know how he managed to deep fry the wraps and leave the lettuce still crunchy. He just flashed me a peace sign and told me it was a secret technique he came up with one night. 

 

About eight hours later we were ready for dinner. We decided to close out our Asian Extravaganza at Golden Dragon, a world-class Szechuan restaurant inexplicably stuffed into a strip mall in Rocklin.

This is me enjoying my Tsingtao. Check out how dirty my glasses are :(

 

First dish: traditional Szechuan spice dumplings. Those red peppers are your color code for DANGER. The owner says she has this for breakfast every morning. I doubt she needs coffee after these things. Intense fire, but oh so good. After these, every wonton you get served is just another ball of meat and dough.

 

Next we have the Szechuan cumin sauce lamb. This is the dish that PF Changs bastardizes into "Chengdu Lamb". Once you've had the real thing the corporate chain restaurant version just tastes bland. The Szechuan peppers and cumin work well together.

 

Salt and pepper scallops. They take fresh scallops, dip them in a lotus flour batter and fry them up. Simple and sinfully delicious (and I'm too lazy to crop this picture).

 
   

Last up was the tea smoked duck. These guys do it the right way. Most places that serve this dish don't go through all the proper steps to make it properly.  The correct way to make it goes something like this: take a duck, marinate it in spices and Chinese booze, then give it a quick boil and dry it. When the customer orders one, hot smoke the duck over tea and camphor branches, then steam it, then deep fry it.

The final product after all this almost defies description. It smells like it was cooked in a campfire. The meat is highly spiced from the marinade. The skin is crisp and tastes salty and smoky. Because of the tea and camphor branches, the smoky flavor is unlike anything you've ever tasted (except for... other tea smoked duck). 

I could probably eat four of these plates in one sitting.

 

We got a little surprise at the end. Usually we get fortune cookies with the bill. Today they brought us fresh baked Chinese red bean cookies.

 

Guess tomorrow we're back to pizza and burgers :)  

24 Dreamy Hours in San Francisco

This all started with a conversation between me, Girlfriend Actual, and F+ Girlfriend (if you recall from previous posts, F+ Girlfriend is named so because she actually gave one of her students an F+. I knew it was always possible to get an F+, but I never thought anyone would actually do it).

The topic was: What is the American Dream?

We all agreed that at some point, what the American Dream represented was the right to do whatever you wanted--within reason. This was only really true during the years when we were locked in a culture war with the Communist Bloc. America represented a place where you could go and express yourself. Our government painted us a picture of flocks of counterculture poets and sexpressionist painters abused by their oppressive governments, hunted by the secret police, and forced to toil underground in a cold basement before being liberated by Uncle Sam.

But the above was just a propaganda war. The true American Dream comes down to this: if you come to our country and work hard, you can join our middle class. Now, if you worked hard in your home country, you could join their middle class too. But our middle class ROCKS. Middle class life in your country SUCKS, and you know it. If you don't believe us, just watch our movies.

It takes a trip outside of the US to realize that as long as you're not homeless, life in this country is decidedly more pleasant than in about 98% of the rest of the world. You can drink the tap water. You can have your own car. If you don't live in California, you can have your own house. There are clean bathrooms for you to use EVERYWHERE. Most public transit is not scary, nor will it kill you unless a nearby BART cop is having a bad day. For all the bad press, the police in this country actually tend to not be corrupt. Public utilities actually stay on. 

Most importantly (to me) the food is safe. Granted, there have been recalls and outbreaks here and there, but compared to the rest of the world this is a microscopic problem. Food is so safe in this country that other than the other G-8 countries, we're one of the few nations that actually demands for LESS to be done to our food. Irradiated meat? Can't get anyone to buy it in this country. It's a godsend in most other places. On a trip to Thailand one year, I was informed by my driver not to eat my favorite street food which was grilled meatballs. Oh, too bad. Was it e. coli? Nope. There was an anthrax outbreak in the beef supply. ANTHRAX. Seriously? Nevermind that 95% of those street food hawker stalls and 85% of the restaurants would never pass a health inspection in the US. When you judge a new restaurant in this country, the discussion usually centers around whether or not it's going to be good, not whether or not the food will kill you.

So we established what the American Dream is. But what's the California Dream? What makes California this mythical place where everyone wants to go?

F+ Girlfriend had an answer for me: the California Dream is that we've assembled such a diverse group of people in California that you can not only join the middle class, you can do it doing what you're passionate about. Feel your artform is painting palm trees gold? You can probably find a customer base that wants it. Want to start a bakery making beef stuffed Twinkies? There's probably already a meat-filled snack cake group in the area.

So, how much of the California Dream can we eat in 24 hours?

12:00 PM- Cafe Gratitude

The last place you should ever be able to find me is a raw vegan restaurant.

 

The back dining room of Cafe Gratitude is built like a greenhouse. I didn't like this either. I don't like greenhouses. Or gardening. Or nature.

 

Here's the menu. I was surprised it was so long. There aren't that many meals you can make with raw vegan ingredients... right? Note that all of their menu items are named "I am..." something. You're supposed to think about how you feel and your general mental state. The waitress actually asks you some sort of metaphysical question before you order. It's all very surreal. We've all heard of places like this, but most of us have never been in one. Someone in our party mentioned it was like eating at the Dharma Initiative cafeteria. Namaste.

 
   

Cafe Gratitude's raw vegan latte? How is this possible? Turns out they use cold brewed coffee (which is delicious, since you get none of the bitterness) which they soak overnight. This is blended with organic hazelnut milk. The whole thing was absolutely scrumptious. This cold brewed coffee thing has taken off everywhere in the past year or so, and you can get it at lots of places now. I highly recommend it if you can find it. Don't bother looking at Starbucks.

 
 

First up, our sampler plate. On this plate in no particular order: sprouted almond hummus, Asian kale-sea vegetable salad, hempseed pesto crostini, spicy cashew nacho cheese with flax chips, olive tapenade, buckwheat crackers, and a spring roll. All raw, all vegan, and all entirely tasty.  

 
 

The macrobiotic bowl. Too many ingredients to list, but I will say that this thing was the most delicious thing I've eaten in years that didn't contain a lick of meat. It was pretty huge but I ate the whole thing.

 

Live pizza with raw marinara sauce. Actually tasted better than a real pizza and I felt a lot healthier eating it. The cheese is made from brazil nuts.

 

Dessert time. And now presenting the best dessert I've had in three years. A key lime pie made with avocados, topped with coconut meringue in a macadamia nut and date crust. So creamy and so delicious. This blew my mind. I wanted another piece.

 

The others were in more of a chocolate mood and went for the chocolate mousse pie made from pure cacao and hazelnuts. So good. Creamier than the "real" thing. 

 

3:00 PM- Miller's Deli

Me: I feel like I've cheated on the meatatarian community.
Actual: I guess...
Me: What would be the opposite of the meal we had at noon?
Actual: Cured meat.
Me: How about cured meat with a huge carbon footprint?

So we headed to Miller's East Cost Deli, where we were told the cured meat was flown in from the Bronx.

I started with a bowl of matzo ball soup. I could tell you how good it was, but I think you can tell from this picture.

 

I went for the pastrami sandwich. Tastes like a good NYC sandwich. Not Katz's good, but nothing really can be. Best one I've had outside of NYC or Montreal. The flash on my camera at the time (my old, horrible Photosmart) totally washed out this picture, so you can't tell just how juicy this thing was. Meat this good is worth the global warming it caused getting to me.

 
 

4:00 PM- Tommy's Joynt

Me: Hey, Tommy's Joynt is about a mile from here, let's go!
Actual: Are you serious? You just had a pastrami sandwich!
Me: IT'S TOMMY'S!!!

And that's how we ended up at Tommy's Joynt, even though we still had cured meat in our stomachs from another place. Tommy's has been featured on every gastrotourism show known to man with the exception of No Reservations. If you have a slice and serve comfort food cafeteria-style eatery in your town, Tommy's is the same thing, only 1000 times more delicious. Readers from the UK: apparently in your country this sort of thing is called a carvery.

As you can see, the place is hard to miss.

 

Ordering is pretty simple. Get in line (probably long, but it moves fast). Order your meat entree from the carver. Tell the second person which sides you want. Tell the third person if you want dessert. Pay the fourth person. Go eat.

 
  

Since I was still full, I took home my Tommy's corned beef and cabbage. Here it is after I sloppily plated it. It was spectacular. 

 

9:00 PM- Naan 'N' Curry

Me: OMG F+ ate all my corned beef?
Actual: Yeah and so what? You're staying at her hotel for free.
Me: Oh yeah. But I still need to be fed.
Actual: OMG how many meals are we going to have today.
Me: I'm writing a post about 24 hours in San Francisco.
Actual: ... [cussing] ... [more cussing]
Me: We're only two blocks from Naan 'N' Curry! I've always wanted to eat there!!!
Actual: Nowhere you've ever "wanted to eat" actually turns out to be good.

So we headed to Naan 'N' Curry. This is a small chain of Indo-Pakistani restaurants in San Francisco. They are extremely famous for a few things:

• Open 24 hours
• Very chaotic, smoke filled restaurant
• Full of all sorts of interesting characters
• Food is decent

What's not to like about that deal?

We showed up and paid for our two buffet meals and found a table. The tables around us were packed with a motley assortment of cab drivers, tourists, students, and various gangsters. There was indeed a layer of smoke crawling on the ceiling. I tried to get a picture of this but failed.

In fact, I didn't take any pictures of this place. It was just too strange but pictures wouldn't have captured the supreme strangeness of it all. The food is pretty good too so, just go yourself and have fun with it.

9:00 AM- Ferry Building

The next morning our 24 hours were running out. We wanted to end the day eating food made by people absolutely obsessed with their craft. So off to the Ferry Building we went. 

First stop: Boccalone. This is a salumiera run by Chris Cosentino, of Food Network and Incanto fame. All of their stuff is made from the best pork and made traditionally at their facility in Oakland. Before they opened their storefront in the Ferry Building, the only way you could taste their tasty pig parts was to subscribe to their deliveries. 

These are their prosciutto cones. Best prosciutto I've ever had. At $3.50, an absolute steal. We got three for the two of us.

 
  

A few doors down we found Cowgirl Creamery. We skipped their aged cheese area and went to the fresh cheese cooler where one of their cheesemongers was happy to let Actual try all of their fresh cheese varieties and pack some for her to take back to the hotel. 

 

Here's our breakfast. A fresh loaf of sourdough, chocolate croissant, herbed fromage blanc, clabbered cottage cheese, and nduja, a spreadable salami... all of it made within 20 miles of where we were. We really should have paired it with a bottle of California wine, but we really wanted to open our bottle of Brunello di Montalcino.

 
   

If you're nuts for food, San Francisco has your brand of crazy. It's the tasty side of the American Dream.