Daniel's Birthday

Again rolls around Daniel's birthday, and this time he chose Zachary's Chicago Pizza in Berekely as the venue to gather his friends. I've heard nothing but good things about Zachary's since moving here in 1997, and somehow I'd never made it there until now. Partly it could be that I've never been a fan of Chicago style thick pizza... seems sooo heavy. It's a good thing to go somewhere despite your preconceived notions, since the pizza was fabulous!

The interior walls are well covered with awards and amusing posters about eating at Zachary's.

Daniel ordered four large pizzas, Mediterranean, Super Veggie,

Spinach Mushroom, and Roasted Red Pepper. All were delicious according to my tastebuds, and reports of the other 9 people around the table.

Here's a close up of my slice of Super Veggie. It was so stuffed with vegetables that it lightened it up.

Miraculously, I found a no sugar added pecan pie after search four bakeries for something non-sugar per Daniel's request. The ingredient list ready rather spookily, but it actually tasted quite fine. We had a little fun with Daniel's candles. Happy Birthday Daniel!

Thai in the Heartland

Last month I visited Fayetteville, AR for a short business trip and enjoyed the atmosphere of a place new to me. The first night we arrived, we were given an enthusiastic recommendation of "A Taste of Thai" from the hotel staff. They weren't the only ones who knew about this place as we found that we had a short wait to secure seats.

We started with a cup of the House Vegetable soup which contained chopped small zucchini, cabbage. cauliflower, and celery with clear vegetable broth. I always have a small fear that these type of vegetarian soups will be thin and watery, and was pleased to find this one was light and flavorful.

We then had some Poh Pia Tod, which is Thai Spring Rolls. The rolls were filled with clear noodles and mixed vegetables, deep fried and served with sweet and sour sauce with ground peanuts. These came to the table piping hot and were quite a tasty treat.

I tried the Pad Woon Sen Tofu as my main dish which is stir fried crystal bean noodles with fried tofu, black mushrooms, bamboo shoots, cabbage, carrots, celery and green onion. I really enjoyed this light, yet filling dish.

An eggplant fan, Michael tried the Ma Kur Yao. This dish featured sliced eggplant sauteed with tofu, garlic and basil. Although he didn't feel it deserved superlatives, it was a solidly good dish.

We enjoyed our time and the friendly service, and no doubt we'll visit this place again and try out more of their extensive vegetarian choices on a future trip to Fayetteville.

Totally hidden in plain sight

Here's one I was amazed to find. California Bakery & Restaurant is located in San Rafael on an industrial street tucked away not far from Bellam Rd. With its $4 specials and generally well-worn interior it would not be off to call it a 'dive'. Upon entering I immediately noticed two square tables surrounded nearly 2 men deep where card games were played and Spanish was being spoken. I was the lone female in the place besides the woman who took my order at the counter and served me. She gave wonderful service and exuded peace and grace.

I found the drink selection of large sizes and unusual flavors interesting, deciding to try the Watermelon Fruit Juice Cocktail by Arizona.

The hot and flavorful Egg Flower soup was served nearly simultaneously with my meal.

There was no problem substituting prawns for beef in a delicious stir fry which then consisted of prawns, fried tofu and vegetables over rice. It was hot, had fresh ingredients and was a very satisfying lunch. If you don't mind the 'dive-yness' of this place, the limited menu of Chinese rice plates are healthy, tasty and the price is sure right.

Restaurant Inspection Results

Critical: 1
Noncritical: 2
Last Inspected: 3/11/2009

Find address/phone number/directions on Anna's Map.

Supper Club - Holiday Party 2009

I joined up with the Supper Club again for its annual Holiday Party - although this posting is after the holidays, these dishes are great any time of year.

First thing up was an amazing, and I do mean amazing, Poached Pear and Truffled Pate Mousse. Glenn made this masterpiece, and the fois gras with truffles and spiced poached pears topped with pistachios was one of the most delicious dishes I've ever tasted.

The Pecan Amaretto Baked Brie, although looking over-caramelized was totally delicious as well. Janice and her daughter Victoria teamed up on this, being Victoria's recipe and made by Janice.

I believe that Janice brought and made on behalf of her husband, Bill, the tasty Sausage Stuffed Mushrooms. Glen recommended eating these hot, risking top of mouth burn. They are tastiest piping hot!

Our fearless leader, Tom H succumbed to food poisoning from a tea party the day before and left our party early, but leaving good instructions on how to finish of this smooth and savory Fennel Soup he brought.

Next up were the delicious main dishes, and their sides:

Dungeness Crab, Tom M. - peak of season perfection.

Gingersnap Style Sauerbrauten, Connie. Very good rendition and it used two different cuts of meat one leaner than the other for a taste comparison. Both were great!

Well, the plainness of my Whole Foods purchased Mashed Potatoes paired well with the Sauerbraten, but it wasn't the intended dish. The Scalloped Potatoes that I prepared, fell out of my hands in its crock, just steps from the party door and broke in pieces, yellow cheese sauce and potatoes streaming down the sidewalk in the rain! A clean up and a quick trip to Whole Foods yielded these... In fact when we went around the table discussing our dishes we found that many of us overcame kitchen disasters this time before coming out with our final dish.

Janice brought some wonderful corn pudding too.

Karla and Wayne brought a wonderful caramelized and pecan-sprinkled Brussels sprouts dish -

as well as taking the mystery out of bringing out the sweetness of both Brussels sprouts and cauliflower with careful roasting.

The meal was topped off by two lovely desserts - Karen's lovely Citrus Bundt cake and Stephanie's equally dazzling Chestnut Torte.

We have such fun at these events! I would recommend anyone loving to cook and enjoy good company create a opportunity for yourself and friends to showcase and experiment with delicious foods this year!

Hospitable

One cool evening last month I paid a visit to Tenkyu in San Rafael. It's so dark in December! And the staff at Tenkyu are so welcoming that it makes you forget the cool outdoors, and settle in to enjoy leafing through the extensive menu with a surprising amount of vegetarian choices to find your dinner.

Most dinners include miso soup, which sure tasted hot and soothing that night.

And they were nice enough to let me flex around the combination dinners to come up with a combo that suited my taste that evening, vegetable tempura and salmon teriyaki plus their regular sides - salad - gyoza - rice. (The gyoza was vegetarian). It all was fresh, hot and tasty. It was typical home-style food prepared well. I intend to come back more often, and try out some of the interesting vegetarian selections.

Restaurant Inspection Results

Critical: 1
Noncritical: 1
Last inspected: 2/10/2009

Previously reviewed:
December 30, 2006

Find address/phone number/directions on Anna's Map.

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had some fun ringing in the New Year!

I've been attending to things apart from the virtual world which we all need to do from time to time. I have plenty of things to write about, so will be back as all goes back to normal in the new year.

I had a fun celebration with friends at my place to ring in 2010, with the features cuisine being Korean. One of my friends brought over a Korean feast! And I didn't think to photograph until all there was left was the remains of the fun.

Merry Christmas!

The Christmas Dinner for 10 turned out fabulously! We had an Alaskan King Crab feast which we ate, talked and laughed through. This was the ending, a 'traditional' Japanese Christmas cake, a lightly sweet and creamy end to a marvelous occasion!

I hope everyone celebrating Christmas had a joyous day! And everyone else too!

It's almost time...

for a Merry Christmas! and happy holidays whichever ones you celebrate.

I've not succumbed to any strange and new disease... just caught up in the general holiday busy-ness... and since I'm hosting 10 for dinner tomorrow, I'm especially working on making my house be in tune with the season. I'm making Alaskan King Crab with garlic sesame soba noodles with some lovely side dishes coming with friends, and a beautiful white Christmas cake from Japantown!

I'll be back with more reviews when I can catch my breath again.

It's my birthday...

and I'm not crying. It had a fun lead in last night at Jo-Ann & Jonathon's with my Dad, Michael, Hal, Toran & Aurelia. Jonathon & Aurelia made the birthday cake pictured, a lemon cake with lemon cream cheese frosting, made with fresh lemons hand carried from San Diego. It was the perfect balance of sweet and sour. The candles each represent 6.375 years. Aurelia, being 8 thought having 8 candles on the cake would be a fun shared experience, with her birthday not far behind me.

It was fun to have a dinner theme from my Northwest origins, near Seattle. Jonathon made cedar planked salmon, thought it needed cooking on the outside grill a bit faster, and this was the result. The salmon came out well done, but not burnt, just the way I like it! We also had fresh steamed asparagus, and a wonderful wild rice mixture with onions and mushrooms. Oh and not to forget the butternut soup starter. What a feast, and what good company. We had a poetry reading around the table using the book of poems Hal brought, and Toran accompanied the Happy Birthday song with his violin, which made for a haltingly beautiful melody. Wouldn't have it any other way.

Tonight I'm enjoying watching Miss Olivia as a cast member of "A Christmas Carol" and having dinner with her grandma, my friend Linda. My day is and is going to be fabulous!

What's in a name?

According to The SF Chronicle, Fondue Fusion has become Ray's Hot Pot. This would have been a great place to go during the past cold spell!

I've been in the area, just in a bit of overwhelm between big projects at work, and the holiday season. I will be back as I can.

Lights of the Ozarks

Zoomie asked me to say more about Arkansas. I arrived one evening, conducted some business, and left in the afternoon the next day so my exposure was brief. The evening we arrived, we had dinner at a restaurant near "The Square" in Fayetteville. The Square enthralled us with its Christmas finery -- the entire area was decked out with lights and Christmas displays, and there were Christmas carols playing from speakers in the night air.

Fayetteville is home of the University of Arkansas, and there are Razorback mascot images everywhere! I didn't take a snap though.

Fayetteville is also known as the "Track Capital of the World" because of the numerous awards won by the University of Arkansas track team.

Everyone I ran into was charming and helpful. That certainly put a shine on the already positive experiences there.

My business took me to the RFID Research Center of the University of Arkansas. It was quite an amazing place, and this gadget-girl really enjoyed the tour after the business aspects were done. There were amazing applications of this technology demonstrated in several areas of a very large laboratory. Imagine taking a dress into the dressing room where there was an interactive screen where it 'knew' what you brought in and could suggest accessories, or you could press a button for someone to bring you a different size of the item(s) you had? Or a smart jewelry case that keeps a constant, automated inventory and locks things up tight at the end of the day?

The countryside on the way to and from Northwest Arkansas Airport, when out of the city, did look like yesterday's photo with gentle rolling hills, lots of grass and winter-scene bare trees.

I was charmed by it and thought it would be a interesting place to explore if you like peaceful prairie environments. My intuition tells me that the quality of life here is pretty high. I look forward to returning there.

Arkansas

Yes, I've been out of town again, and quite busy leading up to the trip. This visit was to Fayetteville, Arkansas and the above photo is typical of the surrounding area that I visited. I saw some unique things like a drive through liquor store, with pick ups lined up (in 21F weather!) for a cold beer through the drive in window! Wish I got a photo of that, and I'll remember the mental picture for a long time. There were lots of BBQ places, and the typical national chains along with a selection of ethnic and deliciously unique places. I'll be blogging a little more about the food and sights in future posts.

Great Neighborhood Breakfast Place

I had a craving for breakfast crepes and realized that it had been some time since we visited Mary's Place in Novato, and we'd never tried their crepes. So we jumped in the car, and took off! A nice surprise for us was to find that there is actually a Mary behind this all, and she's very friendly, efficient and manages to single-handedly keep all the tables happy at breakfast time.

After Dad arrived and saw the photo in the window of the pancake breakfast, he lost his interest in crepes. And loved his meal of pancakes, eggs and bacon.

I stuck with what I intended, and ordered the vegetarian crepes. The crepe came with home fries which were quite crisp on the outside and soft and potato-y on the inside. I liked the green onions included too.

When I opened up the crepe, I was happy to find it not only included spinach, onion, tomatoes and mushrooms, but scrambled eggs! It was hearty and delicious. I would recommend Mary's Place for a great neighborhood-style breakfast with good service.

Restaurant Inspection Results

Critical: 0

Noncritical: 0

Last inspected: 10/16/2009

Previously reviewed:

August 4, 2007

Find address/phone number/directions on Anna's Map.

The Wasabi Incident

Dad & I went to Robata Grill & Sushi for a lovely lunch today. When I saw Dad's hand on the pretty green wasabi, I warned him- that' s hot mustard, it goes in the dish with soy sauce, not directly in your mouth! Oh, said he. He had a lovely obento special for $10.50 that included Teriyaki Chicken, Deep Fried Scallops, Salad, Miso Soup, fresh fruit, and an eel-cucumber roll (hense the wasabi). I had a combo of Teriyaki Salmon and Tempura. About three quarters of the way through our meal Dad suddenly looked like he was choking! Coughing, teary-eyes and redfaced suddenly, I jumped out of my seat thinking he'd inhaled something, and started patting his back and trying to remember the Heimlich maneuver. However, as he calmed down he said that it was something too 'hot', and I looked at the empty spot the wasabi tower had been. He'd forgotten that he wasn't to eat it. Next time, I'll have to ask the waiter to hold the wasabi from his plate.

Cool Find in Walnut Creek

I went out to a movie (The Men Who Stare at Goats) with a friend last week, and heard that Kabob House is a great Persian restaurant with good values. My friend was willing to give it a whirl, so that's were we found ourselves after the movie. When you enter the first thing you notice is the mouth-watering aroma of freshly cooking food.

As soon as we ordered, some fresh, hot Persian bread came out. I couldn't find it listed on the menu, but I believe it's called Taftoon. Whatever you call it, delicious is its second name.

A tossed salad is included with each meal. It was fresh and flavorful.

The Chicken Kabob Platter smelled SO good, and looked fresh and well cooked. My friend Stephanie said it was great!

I ordered from the extensive vegetarian menu section, finding the Spinach Treat intriguing. It is described as spinach and eggs sauteed with garlic and onions, served with saffron basmati rice. Somehow I expected something more omelet-like from this description than the savory, lemony spinach treat with bits of egg and topped with fresh tomatoes. I liked it!

I was one of those who couldn't choose between a rose water flavored ice cream, or Faloodeh (a Persian slushy - rice noodles coated in rose water, topped with a touch of lime juice and sour cherry syrup). So I had the Makhloot, which tops the rose-flavored ice cream with Faloodeh. It was a bit much, but what a delicious taste treat!

Stephanie knew what she wanted for dessert the minute she walked through the door - Baghlava. It was great that their rendition is so good. It was very flaky with the right pistacio sweetness. The restaurant seemed to be run by an extended, very warm and gracious Persian family. I would definitely go back.