Ok, so you know it had to come down to this at some point, right? I am originally from the East Coast, but now I’m living on the West Coast. When I first moved out here and people found out how much I love to eat, the first thing I people asked was “Oh, have you tried In-N-Out yet?“
Answer: Yes.
And then, when I meet people who have been to the East Coast for a somewhat prolonged period of time, I get asked, “Which do you like better, In-N-Out or Five Guys?“ Then I am faced with a pair (or several pairs) of wide-eyed spectators, waiting eagerly for my answer. The person asking is almost invariably a Californian, and they usually try to answer their own question with a quick “In-N-Out, right? Of course, In-N-Out!” (By the way, why do people like to ask these questions and then answer for me as if they already know my answer? Oh, but that’s a rant for another day.)
Whoops. This may be blasphemous (and detrimental to my online career), but sorry to disappoint In-N-Out fans, but . . .
I love Five Guys.
This means a lot, coming from me. I’m not a huge steak person, and I am definitely not a huge burgers fan. At barbecues, I skip the burgers and go straight for the hotdogs. Now, this is not to say I don’t like In-N-Out. I do! I can see the appeal of both, but when it comes to preferences, Five Guys wins me over every time. The ability to choose from a ton of great toppings (onions, mushrooms, various sauces, pickles, peppers, etc.) without having to think about some “secret menu” for a juicy, savory burger topped with a slice of melted cheese . . .
‘Scuse me while I wipe the drool off my keyboard.
So when I flew home for a self-declared holiday in mid-October, the one thing I wanted to eat was, of course, Five Guys! I got home late Wednesday night (or in the wee hours of Thursday morning, whichever you prefer) on October 14, and when I went to pick up my brother on Friday from College Park, we headed right over to the College Park Five Guys across the street from the school to satisfy my craving.
Not only that, but the fries. I am a SUCKER for carbs. Especially french fries. Especially steak fries. I think that’s the main beef I have with In-N-Out (pun intended, of course): their fries suck. I discovered “well-done” In-N-Out fries this past summer while working in Irvine, and their crispiness helped their case somewhat, but what really makes me happy are thick, salty fries (see picture to the left).
What you see is a “small” order. They take a 16 oz. styrofoam cup, fill it to the brim with fries, then add another scoop of fries just as they put the whole cup into a large, brown paper bag, filling half the bag in one go. It really isn’t so much a “small” as it is a helping for a “small” giant. Or for three people: my brothers and me. I can’t even imagine how many fries a large would bring.
By the way! How is it that people on the West Coast have never heard of Old Bay seasoning? Or Boardwalk Fries? How do they live? How?
Ah well.
One last thing about Five Guys before I go and cry because there isn’t one in San Francisco: they give away peanuts. Salted, unshelled, free peanuts. Before I went to pick up my brother, my parents asked me to bring back some peanuts for them. So I did. An entire bagful.
Delicious.
YUM. CHOWTIME FOR ME WITH MY FIVE GUYS!
(Disclaimer: I am in no way saying that In-N-Out is not good. It is. If you have not been to In-N-Out, please take the opportunity to go and try it and decide for yourself. Five Guys is just better, is all I’m saying.)
Filed under: Eating Out, Travel, photography, restaurant | Leave a Comment
Tags: Food, restaurant, washington dc, san francisco, burgers, In-n-Out, Five Guys, french fries, fast food, College Park
Yay birthdays. I’m still young enough to not be scared of them but old enough to know that I better enjoy that feeling while it lasts, because it isn’t going to last much longer.
Actually, my philosophy about birthdays is that it isn’t so much about me as it is about my friends. I see any opportunity to hang out with friends in a fun setting as an excellent thing. After all, it happens far to rarely during law school. Especially second year. With my Asian Pacific American Law Students Association, scrambling for a job amid the debris of an extremely unfortunate job market (which, by the way, I still have not found– if anyone out there is reading this and would like to offer this poor-but-awesomely-talented second year law student a summer position at their law firm, I welcome you!), and hundreds of pages of reading every week, I have been neglecting this blog. Apologies all around.
Case in point? This post. My birthday was a day over a month ago (Read: October 6), and yet here I am, blogging about it only now (today: November 7). I procrastinate, I know, but a ton of things came up, and here are my excuses: I went home (yes, East Coast home home), I got sick (I don’t think it was the pig flu, err, to be politically correct I think it’s now just H1N1, but regardless, I still maintain that it was food poisoning, despite the fact that everyone ate the same things I did the day before I was upchucking my internal organs into a nice, porcelain bowl– apologies again, this is not the stuff you want to read in a food blog), and then I just turned in a 20+ page paper today (21 pages and 97 citations! And counting!). Perhaps not the best excuses, but . . . I am back! I am alive (sort of), and I am ready to eat/cook/blog!
Anyway, back to “my birthday.” Last year my birthday celebrations consisted of a week-long off-and-on party, beginning with a potluck with friends and culminating in a final clubbing event at Roe (651 Howard St). This year I switched it around, starting with a clubbing event at Bubble Lounge (a champagne bar in North Beach, on 714 Montgomery St) and ending in a potluck the following Saturday. Curious. How will I mix it up next year?
This year, I received mostly food as my birthday gifts – actually, mostly dessert items (who knew that my friends knew me so well?). My friend and next door neighbor, Peter, brought me Japanese wagashi (desserts) from Minamoto Kitchoan on Market St (see above pictures). Delicious! Thank you!
Here I am, devouring one of the delicious pastries he brought back for me. Haha. I was a little excited about it, maybe. Just a little bit. Nothing too dramatic, of course. I’m not a dramatic person.
Ever.
It’s amazing how much good food will make you happy though. I held off on eating this right away, waiting for a moment when I could just sit and enjoy this snack in the comfort of my room . . . Just knowing this was waiting for me when I returned to my room made me happy.
What can I say? I’m a simple woman with simple tastes.
Or maybe not so simple.
My friend, Priscilla, bought me a box of French macarons from the famous Paulette. I didn’t even know what this cute little box held within its pink grasp was a row of scrumptious macarons when she placed the box in front of me before our Wills and Trusts class started. (As a side note to any Hastings students reading this: take Wills and Trusts with Professor Beth Hillman if you can because she is an awesome professor and all that jazz. She’s engaging and interesting, and if that doesn’t encourage you, then perhaps the idea of prying into the sordid lives of rich people like Anna Nicole Smith and examining why her will sucked will. I am enjoying the class, anyway. Hopefully you will, too.) When I got back to my room and opened the box, I couldn’t resist. I had to take pictures of it.
So there you are.
YUM…
It was so good that when I flew home the following week, I ran over to Paulette (in Hayes Valley) and bought more – one box for my family, another box for my friend, Yaeri, whose birthday was that day, and another couple of individual ones for myself and my friend, Sara, each.
Speaking of which, Sara, one of my best friends in law school, is an extraordinary baker and cook, and she has agreed to guest blog! She will be blogging about the two cakes she made for my birthday (Goodness, what did I do to deserve such an awesome friend who bakes cakes for my birthday? Not just one, but TWO!). Please look forward to that entry coming soon!
Filed under: desserts, friends, law school, photography | 2 Comments
Tags: birthday, french macarons, japanese, Minamoto Kitchoan, Paulette, wagashi
I really didn’t like eggplant much as a kid. I mean, come on! A purple vegetable? Gross! That being said, I think a good part of my dislike of eggplant was the fact that I had only had poorly cooked, tough-skinned, American eggplant. You know, the big, fat, bulbous, so-dark-the-purple’s-almost-black kind. As I grew older, however, I discovered that eggplant doesn’t need to be so difficult to eat. I don’t remember where or when I first started eating eggplant again, but now I don’t mind the purple color at all. In fact, I find it strangely appealing. After all, how many vegetables can claim to be part of the nightshade family (a family of toxic plants) and also be related to the tomato and the potato and be purple?! Pretty impressive, I’ve got to say.
I found this recipe in my Yum Yum Hakka (好食客家菜) recipe book, and the moist and juicy tenderness of the eggplant is just delectable! After discovering that it’s apparently eggplant-season in San Francisco (all the stalls of the Civic Center farmer market were filled), I had to make it. I’m still working on cooking it properly so I can retain more of the vibrant purple hue of the eggplant’s skin. But regardless of its final color, it’s still tasty, and that’s what matters!
Stir-Fried Eggplants with Basil (九層塔茄子）
Ingredients:
- 3 eggplants
- 4 stalks basil
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1 stalk leek
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- 1/2 tsp salt
Directions
- Rinse eggplants well and cut into chunks by turning a quarter turn after each cut, then soak in salt water for some time. *
- Heat 4 bowls of cooking oil in wok, deep-fry eggplant pieces until soft and remove. **
- Heat 2 tbsp of cooking oil in wok, stir-fry crushed garlic until fragrant. Return eggplant pieces and leek sections with seasonings (soy sauce and salt). Stir until evenly mixed. Sprinkle with basil leaves before removing from heat. Mix well and remove. Serve.
*Eggplants darken once cut, soak in salt water before cooking.
** The eggplant will maintain its purple color if deep-fried first before stir-frying. Eggplants darken if fried directly with a little oil.
Filed under: Homemade, Recipes, farmer's market, photography, taiwan, vegetarian | 6 Comments
Tags: basil, eggplant, Food, hakka, Homemade, photography, recipe, taiwan, vegetarian, 客家, 九層塔茄子
Cindy is the eldest cousin on my dad’s side. She and Tom recently got married at Berkeley Gardens, and, as I said in my last entry, my father and my brother both flew out from the East Coast to join in the celebrations (unfortunately, the baby bro has just started high school, and so he and my mother stayed in the East to make sure his adjustment to a new level of school wasn’t thrown totally off whack by a jolly old weekend.)
It was a beautiful ceremony, and I am super happy for both of them! The only problem now is that all the cousins older than me are married. Which leads my uncle to constantly turn to me during the course of the entire weekend and ask pointedly: “So who’s next?!” Ha ha, very funny, Uncle John . . .
The wedding took place at Berkeley Gardens Redwood Grove, and all of the family showed up early to explore the gardens themselves and get some pictures.
Here are me, my dad, and my brother, smiling and looking pretty for the cameras.
It’s strange– The East Bay is an entirely different world from San Francisco. I felt like I had traveled to another state, and the law books I had brought with me, stashed in my luggage? Unopened and untouched. Oh well, it’s not that often a cousin gets married, right?
Did I mention . . . we like to pose?
In any case, the reception was at Adagia, a really cute restaurant in Berkeley. There, we drank mimosas and ate skewers of halloumi + portabella mushrooms, thinly sliced beef, and other appetizers. The newlyweds had their first dance together as husband and wife, and I popped around to look at the scenery. The cake was gorgeous! The picture I have here is a little blurry, but you get the idea, right?
It was so good, actually, that our cousin Jimmy had at least two slices (we had to send the waiter to the back in order to find some more cake!).
And the flowers! So beautiful! I don’t think I would ever have thought of using an orange theme, but this definitely worked out in Cindy’s favor. I didn’t mention this earlier, but Cindy basically put this entire wedding together on her own! The entire ceremony was simple and elegant, without any of the normal frou-frou that I usually think of when I think of weddings. Keep it simple but beautiful, no?
I actually took two of these centerpieces home to decorate my room. Sadly, all the flowers have since dried up and died. I still have the vases that they came in though, and they’re still making themselves useful in my apartment!
Considering this is a food blog, where is the food? Here it is!
We had three options for our main entree: steak, salmon, or vegetable risotto. Because all of the people at my table (aka, all my cousins and their respective spouses) ordered the steak, I made a deal with my brother: I’d get the salmon, he’d get the steak, and we’d share pieces of both.
I really liked the salmon. It was well cooked, and very flavorful. Personally I liked it better than the steak, but that might just be personal bias. First of all, I’m not a huge steak person to begin with (I prefer seafood over red meat usually), and second, my brother ordered his steak medium, while I prefer medium rare.
No matter! They were both pretty good, and I loved the roast squash and polenta the salmon was paired with! Squash is delicious in any form, and the yellow squash was exquisite.
The steak, on the other hand, was paired with (surprise, surprise) mashed potatoes. Why is it that they’re always paired together? I gues it doesn’t matter too much, as long as our palates are satisfied. And, trust me, they were.
Looks good though, don’t it?
So after our entree, we were served chocolate cake. I can’t say how good it tasted – I don’t eat chocolate. But considering how much my cousin enjoyed in, I’m sure it was great.
On the other hand, my dad seems to be enjoying Uncle John’s drunken coma. I mean, food coma . . .
(The reception was all-you-can drink mimosas and beer. Dangerous, says I. Great-o, says everyone else!)
I really enjoyed the wedding. Good job, Cindy, for planning it so well!
And to both Tom and Cindy — Congratulations!!!
Filed under: Travel, desserts, friends, photography, restaurant | 2 Comments
Tags: Adagia, Berkeley, Berkeley Gardens, cake, Cindy, East Bay, family, friends, photography, Redwood Grove, salmon, steak, Tom, wedding
My cousin, Cindy, got married last month (August 30, 2009!), to a wonderfully tall British boy named Tom. To celebrate their wedding, my father and my brother flew out to California from Maryland the prior Friday.
I went to pick them up, then took them to dinner with my friend, Lisa. We went to the Inner Richmond, where we discovered that if you’re early enough, the wait for Burma Superstar is only 15 minutes! Unfortunately, I forgot (gasp!) to take pictures our food at Burma Superstar. I think the person who enjoyed the food the best was my brother – he called me yesterday still dreaming about the chicken casserole dish he ate . . .
Luckily, I remembered (rather belatedly) my camera when we left to get dessert. Genki crepes! My brother, the chocoholic that he is, got the chocolate-cheesecake crepe. Decadent? I think so. My dad got the same thing as I did – mixed fruit – except his was with nutella and mine was with whipped creme. Yummyyy!
Next, we went back to my little apartment during one of the hottest days in San Francisco since I’ve been back to sweat it out and drink wine and eat dessert. Yes, I said dessert. Take two. This time, dessert was a jumbo cupcake that Lisa had brought for us.
Isn’t it adorable? I forget where she got the cupcake, but it had a design of San Francisco and everything frosted on! Cute, and tasty to boot! Lisa, remembering my abstinence from chocolate, got a carrot cake with creme cheese frosting. Mm. I am salivating as I type this.
The next day, I had a meeting in the morning, so my dad and my brother wandered around the city on their own. They went to the SFMOMA which, apparently, is a bit disappointing after spending almost the last decade and a half in the museum and art gallery heaven that is Washington DC. Oh well. We can’t win them all.
I got out of my meeting and met up with them in time for lunch, then we went for a walk down Market Street to the Ferry Building. There we tried Blue Bottle Coffee, the newest rage in SF.
I think my dad liked it. I don’t really drink coffee, so I’m not sure if I’m the best gauge of how good it was. We were trying to get New Orleans style iced coffee, but sadly it was sold out by the time we got there, so we just got iced coffee latte and coffee americano. The lines, of course, were huge. What is with San Franciscans and loving their slow drip coffee? I don’t understand. But then again, I don’t drink coffee . . . I have friends who swear by Blue Bottle and Philz Coffee.
Power to them. Personally? I prefer coffee-flavored ice cream!
Next entry: A Wedding!
Filed under: Eating Out, friends, photography | 1 Comment
Tags: Blue Bottle Coffee, Burma Superstar, carrot cake, clement street, crepes, cupcakes, family, Ferry Building, friends, Inner Richmond, photography, SFMOMA
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