Beer on a Sunday afternoon
This was shot recently out at Uncle Billy’s at the Oasis.
They’re having a fundraiser for HB 660 soon. Two Tons of Steal are playing the fundraiser, it looks fun, I think we’ll try to go out there.
Food and Family
The other night while I was cooking dinner I had a discussion with a friend. I was telling him about this blog and some of my reasons for making it. Then later I was thinking about it and I thought you guys might be curious too. So the following day I had him sort of interview me about it. Here’s the video below:
Korea House
Mmmm, raw fish on salad. Sounds strange, but don't knock it till you try it.
For my birthday most of the time we go to a Korean restaurant. I really love Korean Rice. I grew up on Chinese rice, which is drier, and longer grain, but there’s something about the korean rice that always gets me. We went to Korea House not too long ago, I went with my boyfriend, my best friend and his father who was in visiting from Colorado.
My boyfriend spent some time in Korea teaching english, so he’s pretty well versed in Korean food. Unfortunately I’m not. However, I do have previous experience with food in general, and more precisely asian food. And even though I may not know what is traditionally the “correct” way to cook much of it, I can always eat it, all of it. I like the weird stuff, jelly-fish salad, bring it on.
Is DIY cooking at Korean places cool or too much work?
So, naturally I wanted the sashimi salad. Who would have thought to put bonito flakes and raw fish on salad? Well, in truth I guess this isn’t so strange, but it was quite yummy. The salad had baby dikon, bonito flakes, raw fish, seaweed strips, and onions on a bed of romaine. I forget what is the korean name for the salad, but seriously, go try it.
The Weather’s getting colder, that means it almost Turkey day!
Thanksgiving is perhaps one of my favorite holidays, it’s a tough toss up between that and my birthday/Halloween. The one thing all these holidays have in common for me is the food, are you surprised? This year for my birthday, I’m going to do a trailer food round-up. Take a few days that weekend and visit no less than six trailers, one for every meal over the course of two days. I’ll have some pics soon, that’s only the end of the month don’t worry.
In the meantime, here’s a few from my last year’s Thanksgiving, so you can prepare for what this year will be. (BTW, I’m actually cooking this year, these things pictured were at a friend’s house.)
Brussels Sprout and Pecans, I prefer bacon, but Pecans will do.
And the turkey, wow the turkey. My friend brined it for about a day then deep fried it. The skin was gloriusly crispy, and the inside was just salty enough and moist. It was a very technically sound turkey, also a really great tasting turkey. Maybe I’ll fry mine this year.
Juicy turkey.
My Summer Vacation food
Here’s a fun slideshow of my summer vacation in food. I went with my two best friends to visit my family, and we ate our way though Chicago. It was fantastic. If you want to know where or what any of this stuff is, leave a comment.
Maria Maria
Carlos Santana should stick to music and shoes. Maria Maria in downtown Austin is mediocre at best. I went with a few friends last week so that one of them could write a review. This is her blog, it’s called “Creative Test Kitchen.” She wanted me to shoot the food for her so she could have more professional looking photos. We ordered one appetizer, two entrees, and a few drinks. I will say that the appetizer was pretty, but it didn’t have any real flavor. There were pickled red onions, chicken, cojita cheese, pickled jalepenos, and cheese, all in all it was pretty boring, I could make better nachos.
We had chicken nachos:
Chicken Nachos, pretty plating but mostly bland.
We also had Short ribs:
um, tough shortribs? really?
The shortribs were tough. How does that happen? This was a bad sign in my book, if you can’t braise shortribs, you probably can’t cook. It’s one of the easiest things to make. To top that off, they were bland. Shortribs aren’t supposed to be bland, you just put some alcohol in the braise and you should have flavor. The menu read nicely, and everything sounded good, but it was not. The Mole was described as having blueberries in it. I wasn’t even sure it was real mole. I think it was pastilla peppers and oil, couldn’t even taste the hint of cinnamon or chocolate that should be there.
We also got mushroom fajitas:
Too much dried peppers made this horribly bitter.
The mushroom fajitas were not really mushrooms. The menu said that the dish would be wild mushrooms, I think there were portabellas and button mushrooms. Well actually, it was mostly just bell peppers. The were doused in a pepper sauce. It wasn’t hot, but just bitter. It appeared to me that it was dried peppers that weren’t even rehydrated and instead just blended with heavy oil. They had a terrible mouth feel, and the flavor was terrible.
The three good things about the meal were the waitress, the all day happy-hour $5 margaritas, and the house made tortillas. The tortillas weren’t even that good, you could tell they were made with already mixed masa, and pushed through a machine. And perhaps that encompasses all that is Maria Maria, trying to sound good, and making just enough effort to have the menu sound good, but in practice not putting any love in the food or even technically executing the dishes to even the lowest standards. Friends, I do not recommend this place, don’t go and waste your money. If you do happen to go for HH, get that awesome waitress, (I don’t remember her name right now, but I’ll find it and post it in the comments) and tell her she should work some place where the food is better.
Two things I love: Scallops and Kimchi
Kimchi Scallops. I don't think there's anything more to say.
Before this semester started, I took my two BFF’s to Chicago for an epic eating vacay. We stayed with my parents at what I like to call “the resort.” In actuality, they just have an awesome kitchen to cook in and a swimming pool in the back to lounge by. We did many different cultural enclaves of the city, but my favorite was perhaps Chinatown.
I know what you’re thinking, every place has Chinese Food. It’s really different in Chicago though. I’m a firm believer that each city’s China Town is different though. For example Chinatown in NY is waaaaaay different than Chinatown in SF. Since I’m not totally knowledgeable about differences within the Chinese culture, I’ll instead suggest that each Chinatown has a different “feel.” I know that’s nebulous to say, but there’s not a better way to describe it.
On to the food. This is kimchi scallops. We ate it at Joy Yee, which is also a pan-asian style restaurant. (Can you sense a theme here? I really like asian mixed with anything.) The scallops were seared first in a wok, then mixed with the kimchi. The strange but good thing is that the kimchi wasn’t too wet, it wasn’t too thin. My best guess is that the kimchi was reduced or there was corn starch added to it to thicken it. At any rate, it was super yum. The slight sweetness of the scallop definitely complimented the spicy sourness of the kimchi.
Odd Duck Farm to Trailer food
Trailer food? Can't be.
Wow, what can I say? This is perhaps the most gourmet burger in Austin. And guess what, it comes from a trailer. Odd Duck has blown away all my expectations of any trailer let alone gourmet food in Austin lately. Pork belly is yes, such a “hot” thing right now, but this is not just a fad, well at least not coming from Odd Duck.
Bryce Gilmore is the chef in charge. He’s so humble that he calls himself “a grill cook” on the website. He comes from a rich culinary history, his father Jack was the chef for Z’ Tejas Grill. After being exposed to the culinary lifestyle from his father, he then went to San Francisco to go to culinary school. After working around the US for a while he came back to Austin to start his trailer.
Most if not all of his ingredients are locally sourced, and sustainable. So eating there is not only delicious but environmentally friendly.
This was a pork belly slider. Crispy pork belly, sweet red onions, firemans #4 grain mustard, arugula all on homemade buns. Lovely.
It’s over on south Lamar. 1219 s. to be exact. They’re closed on Sundays and Mondays, and only open for dinner, 5:30-10 PM. And I highly recommend it! There’s usually about 6 or 7 dishes each day, and they recommend 2 or 3 things each. Try it and let me know what you think
Uchi – Asian Fusion
This is Asian Fusion
This was foie gras nigiri. I consider this to be the “real” stuff when speaking about asian fusion. I mean how can you go wrong with pan seared foie on top of barely warm, slightly sweet sushi rice? The foie melted in your mouth, kind of like butter, but warm, and more creamy, instead of just oily. The rice was perfect, just a hair warmer than room temp, particularly how I like it.
And you know, I used to think Uchi was tired. Well in all fairness, they have always used super high quality ingredients. However, they were using the same back-pocket recipes for what seemed like eons to me. Thing is, Tyson Cole started working on Uchiko and got a new chef de cusine for Uchi, that breathed new life back into Uchi. Everything felt like it had more love in it, and just felt more like what Tyson had originally planned for Uchi. It was a lovely night, great food, so kudos to the chef.
We went to Uchiko in the same evening, expect to see more pics from that evening.
