San Francisco - Chinatown

San Francisco Chinatown was packed with many locals and tourists on Chinese New Year.   According to their website, SF has the oldest Chinatown in North America and has the largest Chinatown outside of Asia.  We spent most of our day there after we arrived shortly after one o'clock.  We had a late lunch and  spent many hours browsing a variety of stores.  

Golden Gate Bakery had a very long line of people waiting to eat their famous egg custard tarts.  I can understand why people stood in line for them because they are just that good.  We had them the first time we visited SF and there was no wait.  Anyway, we decided to pass on the tarts this time since the line was so long.  However, just before leaving Chinatown, we walked by the bakery again and the line was much shorter!  We joined the line and ended up waiting for 5-10 minutes and ordered a dozen egg custard tarts to share.  I think they must have just came out fresh from the oven because they were still warm.  These tarts were huge and the crust was flaky and delicious just like I remembered it.  For only $1.15 each, these not so little Chinese desserts were totally worth the wait!   

In-n-Out

The entire family went to cosmic bowling on the second night of our trip at Strikes in Elk Grove.  A few of us decided to drive down the street to In-N-Out Burger while we had a 45 minute wait for our lane.  I'm not a big meat eater but I wanted to check out what all the hype is about, especially since we don't have one here in Washington state.  I heard that they only use fresh high quality ingredients and none of that pre-packaged frozen stuff.  This fast food chain was packed, mostly with teenagers, when we arrived.  Luckily, most of them left when we started placing our order.  The  menu was very simple - burgers (hamburger or cheeseburger), fries, drinks and shakes.  It reminded me of the menu at Dick's Drive-In, a very popular local fast food eatery in Seattle.  Their shakes are pretty good but I wouldn't recommend their fries (very greasy).  Anyway, we weren't that hungry so hubs and I shared a cheeseburger meal with fries and a drink.  The beef patty tasted fresh and so was the lettuce.   The fries was not the best I ever had.  Overall, I thought the food was average at best.

2010 Year of the Tiger

 

We just got back from our mini vacation to visit my in-laws in Sacramento.  It was a fun trip - good food and good company.  It can't get better than that!  I have many pictures to sort through and will be posting them up shortly.  In the meantime, I want to wish everyone a healthy and prosperous new year!  Kung hei fat choi!  

Buttermilk Cranberry Scones

I made these scones last night and they were delicious. We leave in a few days to go on our vacation and I needed to use up the buttermilk I have leftover from baking a red velvet cake for my sister's birthday over the weekend. The scones were very moist and reminded me of biscuits. I would definitely make these again.

Buttermilk Cranberry Scones
From Pinch My Salt

Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into small chunks

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 large egg

1/3 cup sweetened dried cranberries, chopped fine

finely grated zest from one small lemon (about 2 teaspoons)

heavy cream (optional, for brushing tops of scones)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk or sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, soda and salt. Add butter chunks and toss lightly with flour; place bowl in fridge.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together egg, buttermilk, and lemon zest; place bowl in fridge.
4. Get organized: measure out and chop the cranberries; set aside. Line a baking sheet with parchment or a silpat; set aside. Lightly dust a counter top with flour. Pour a little bit of heavy cream in a bowl and have a pastry brush handy.
5. Remove bowls of flour and buttermilk from fridge. Cut butter into flour with a pastry blender or rub together with your fingertips until it resembles coarse crumbs. Add cranberries and stir to combine.
6. Add buttermilk mixture all at once to flour mixture and stir until the mixture clumps together. Dump mixture out onto floured counter top and, with floured hands, gather into a ball and knead once or twice to combine everything. Pat into a circle about 1/2 inch thick. Cut into 8 slices, like a pie, or cut with biscuit or cookie cutters into whatever shape you prefer. Put scones on lined baking sheet and brush lightly with heavy cream (optional).
7. Bake in a preheated 425 degree oven for 13-15 minutes until lightly browned. Remove to cooling rack.

Curry House

One thing hubby can't live without is curry, especially Curry House CoCo Ichibanya curry.  He first fell in love with curry from his mom's homemade Vietnamese version.  Then he discovered what he calls the best Japanese curry ever during his first year in college.  Curry House is a Japanese chain restaurant with locations internationally as well as in Hawaii.  They serve regular (spicy) or mild curry with your choice of topping(s).  Hubby's favorite is squid and fish fry.  When we were living in Hawaii, we usually go to the McCully location above and for a very good reason.  He took me there on one of our very first dates and introduced me to Japanese curry.  We even shot a scene for our wedding video there.  Honestly, I don't think we would be together if I hated curry.

Every time I go back to Hawaii to visit,  the Mr. would tell me to bring him back curry but I always failed to bring any back.  Last summer when I went back for a wedding, I finally completed my mission.  Curry House sells frozen curry sauce in a styrofoam container which you can only buy from their University location.  You can imagine my husband's reaction after he took his first bite of curry after two long years.  He was in heaven.  Then recently, my friend from Portland just came back from Hawaii and brought us more curry from Curry House!  We finally decided to heat it up for dinner since we had some squid in the freezer.

The fried squid was very quick and simple to make.  All we did was cut the squid into rings, lightly seasoned the flour with togarashi (Japanese chili pepper spice), and tossed it into the flour mixture to coat.   The squid was then fried and added to the curry to top it off.   Delicious!