Have you ever tried noodles made out of moroheiya? I found this noodle in the Japanese market and decided to give it a try. According to Green Noodle, the brand that carries moroheiya noodles, the Japanese Ministry of Education and Science reported that "moroheiya contains great amounts of vitamins, minerals and dietary fibers in quantities that surpass most known vegetables and herbs."
This would be a good substitute for fatty instant noodles or pancit canton :)
lechon kawali |
Square vs. Groupon- who will win? |
What do Square, Groupon as well as Paypal and Intuit have to do with the food industry? Well, this new form of point-of-sale system has created traction from SMBs- food trucks, farmer's market vendors, mom-and-pop cafes, etc. Is it really time to throw away the traditional cash register and credit card machine? One thing is for sure- Visa, Mastercard and Amex are still happy campers. The Cash Only signs at food trucks, for example, will soon be a thing of the past.
Note: This is not a paid post.
From the colorful tapas bar, Destino, serving a variety of Central and South American inspired dishes... The lomo saltado caught my eye although I couldn't devour, so I settled for the ceviche a la mexicana with tuna, red snapper tacos, chicken empanada and pumpkin quinoa stew.
Overall, something was missing though. I can't quite identify what's wrong with this place, but maybe because the hype didn't live up to my food expectations and the $$ we paid. There was a weird moment when the lights were dimmed abruptly, hurting my eyes for a few seconds. The noise level also became more unbearable as the night went on.
Overall, something was missing though. I can't quite identify what's wrong with this place, but maybe because the hype didn't live up to my food expectations and the $$ we paid. There was a weird moment when the lights were dimmed abruptly, hurting my eyes for a few seconds. The noise level also became more unbearable as the night went on.
ceviche a la mexicana |
red snapper tacos |
pumpkin quinoa stew |
chicken empanada |
lomo saltado with fries |
Life o life ohhhh life... I was singing to this tune in my head while lunching on a patio on a sunny day at the new comer of Palo Alto's dining scene. Lyfe. Love Your Food Everyday.
This is the brainchild of chef/owner Art Smith who was Oprah's former private chef. For the food conscious folks, calories and sodium are listed on the menu, indicating vegan, gluten free, has nuts and certified biodynamic (can someone tell me what this means?) for each dish. It had to be that good and reasonably priced with a fuss-free service for me to say that I will surely be back (with a better camera in tow).
This is the brainchild of chef/owner Art Smith who was Oprah's former private chef. For the food conscious folks, calories and sodium are listed on the menu, indicating vegan, gluten free, has nuts and certified biodynamic (can someone tell me what this means?) for each dish. It had to be that good and reasonably priced with a fuss-free service for me to say that I will surely be back (with a better camera in tow).
(Top) Griain bowl, (Bottom) Roasted mushroom and goat cheese flatbread |
shrimp risotto with green beans |
the buzzer that doesn't really buzz but rather let the waiter know where you're seated |
Albeit not free ($2.40 for one), these sourdough breads are cheesy and packed with flavor. Brought to you by Acme Bread of Berkeley, California, they come in rolls or pinwheels. The sourdough cheese rolls are for those who want a softer bread, and the tougher pinwheel are for those who don't have sensitive teeth. The 5-inch pinwheel is my favorite. Since it is very filling, it reminds me of my collegiate days in Singapore where all I would eat for lunch are the breads at Breadtalk, Takashimaya. And yes, they had a lot of cheese in their breads too.
(Top) Sourdough Cheese Roll, (Bottom) Sourdough Cheese Wheel |
Project stuff myself with crab during the Crab Feed FAILED.
The San Francisco Crab Feed on April 28th at Fort Mason, San Francisco didn't sit well in my tummy. No, the crabs didn't give me heartburn because in the first place, they already ran out of crabs by the time I got there at 3ish pm. The event started at 2 pm for general admission and was slated to end at 5pm. Obviously not even half way through the event, all the crabs were gone which leads one to think that they, the major sponsor Pinchit, oversold the tickets! Once you hear about an org overselling tickets, it is mostly due to very poor planning or plain old greed. I pity those who had to drive all the way from out of the city to attend this event only to find out that they will not be able to eat all-you-can crabs as described online. Would they refund transportation cost, too?
Bad communication
I've been standing there for 30 minutes drowning myself in 2 glasses of overpriced, crappy wine when one of the staff reassured us, the people in line, that there would be more crabs coming in 20 minutes since he spoke to the "CEO." Another 30 minutes later, still no crabs, the other people in line were getting very impatient, and some started to leave with a pissed off face. At this point, another staff started counting people in the line with green Heineken straps in his hand, and a blond gal told us there were no more crabs coming (what!), and we needed to sign our names for refund on a paper pad taking another 30 minutes or so. As a token of waiting in line for more than an hour, we would be able to eat the left-overs (what!!) soggy salad and forgettable garlic bread and get free alcohol (what can I drink when the white wine is already sold out?!!).
Here is my recommendation
As someone who has attended many food events in/around the city (as a food blogger, as part of a vendor or for pleasure), turn people away at the entrance when food runs out. The Pinchit staff didn't do this and even let us line up for more than an hour for nothing.
Wear uniforms! Who is the official staff? There were people wearing all black who were apparently security but were also telling us that there would be more crabs coming. Another staff in regular clothes also told us the same thing with an added "I talked to the CEO" to make his point. He later got refuted by another staff also in regular clothing telling us there are no more crabs coming. Can't the Pinchit staff wear a uniformed big pin, apron, shirt, something (!!) to make them look "official"?
OR don't sponsor this event again. Save yourself from an army of unsatisfied customers.
Overall, a frustrating, waste-of-time event. More than 100 people didn't get their crabs! What's a crab feed for if people don't get fed with crabs?
A week later
I've decided to publish this more than a week later to wait for Pinchit's prompt response. I received a reply five days later after the event from the Pinchit Support team stating:
****
We sincerely apologize for the Crab Feed fiasco. We are currently working our way through a large-scale refund process. Keep an eye on your inbox for an email detailing refund options. Thanks so much for your patience and understanding. Resolution and rectification are at hand.
Cheers,
The Pinchit Team
****
Ok, so I'm still waiting for that refund process email to land in my inbox. My money's interest is ticking! I'm also intrigued by their use of a "large-scale" refund process. It had to be that big of a flop to be "large-scale" and a "fiasco."
The San Francisco Crab Feed on April 28th at Fort Mason, San Francisco didn't sit well in my tummy. No, the crabs didn't give me heartburn because in the first place, they already ran out of crabs by the time I got there at 3ish pm. The event started at 2 pm for general admission and was slated to end at 5pm. Obviously not even half way through the event, all the crabs were gone which leads one to think that they, the major sponsor Pinchit, oversold the tickets! Once you hear about an org overselling tickets, it is mostly due to very poor planning or plain old greed. I pity those who had to drive all the way from out of the city to attend this event only to find out that they will not be able to eat all-you-can crabs as described online. Would they refund transportation cost, too?
Bad communication
I've been standing there for 30 minutes drowning myself in 2 glasses of overpriced, crappy wine when one of the staff reassured us, the people in line, that there would be more crabs coming in 20 minutes since he spoke to the "CEO." Another 30 minutes later, still no crabs, the other people in line were getting very impatient, and some started to leave with a pissed off face. At this point, another staff started counting people in the line with green Heineken straps in his hand, and a blond gal told us there were no more crabs coming (what!), and we needed to sign our names for refund on a paper pad taking another 30 minutes or so. As a token of waiting in line for more than an hour, we would be able to eat the left-overs (what!!) soggy salad and forgettable garlic bread and get free alcohol (what can I drink when the white wine is already sold out?!!).
Here is my recommendation
As someone who has attended many food events in/around the city (as a food blogger, as part of a vendor or for pleasure), turn people away at the entrance when food runs out. The Pinchit staff didn't do this and even let us line up for more than an hour for nothing.
Wear uniforms! Who is the official staff? There were people wearing all black who were apparently security but were also telling us that there would be more crabs coming. Another staff in regular clothes also told us the same thing with an added "I talked to the CEO" to make his point. He later got refuted by another staff also in regular clothing telling us there are no more crabs coming. Can't the Pinchit staff wear a uniformed big pin, apron, shirt, something (!!) to make them look "official"?
OR don't sponsor this event again. Save yourself from an army of unsatisfied customers.
Overall, a frustrating, waste-of-time event. More than 100 people didn't get their crabs! What's a crab feed for if people don't get fed with crabs?
A week later
I've decided to publish this more than a week later to wait for Pinchit's prompt response. I received a reply five days later after the event from the Pinchit Support team stating:
****
We sincerely apologize for the Crab Feed fiasco. We are currently working our way through a large-scale refund process. Keep an eye on your inbox for an email detailing refund options. Thanks so much for your patience and understanding. Resolution and rectification are at hand.
Cheers,
The Pinchit Team
****
Ok, so I'm still waiting for that refund process email to land in my inbox. My money's interest is ticking! I'm also intrigued by their use of a "large-scale" refund process. It had to be that big of a flop to be "large-scale" and a "fiasco."
no crabs at the Crab Feed |
Got super bored so I took this picture outside |
I'd like to dedicate the title to my friend who I had an argument with whether or not duck is red meat. So we appeased ourselves by agreeing that I don't eat four-legged animals (i.e. pig, cow, goat, sheep, etc.) but do eat two-legged ones (i.e. duck, chicken, and turkey).
Disclaimer: Wrote this as my last homework for my Food Writing class at Stanford. This is the original with no copywriting edits.
Disclaimer: Wrote this as my last homework for my Food Writing class at Stanford. This is the original with no copywriting edits.
It glistens under the light. Its tempting aroma fills up the whole house while party guests arrive. Anthony Burdain declared it as the “best pig ever.” The lechon or roasted suckling pig from Cebu, my hometown in the Philippines, always takes the center stage at every family reunion, birthday party and just about any get-together you can think of.
Roasted to perfection, a whole pig awaits to be devoured. It sits perfectly on a shiny silver platter at the edge of a long buffet table. The hired chef skillfully takes a whack at the lechon with a butcher knife to signify the start of the glorious meal. The kids start to line up first while hungry adults patiently wait. Since I was a scrawny kid, I could fill up my large plate with mountains of rice, pancit (noodles), sweet and sour shrimps, and chopsuey (sautéed vegetables with meat) without looking like, well, a pig. Popular in Filipino food culture, the lavish buffets were probably the best training I had growing up in Cebu to be able to eat a lot while maintaining a slim frame!
Now at the end of the buffet table, I stare face-to-face with the 40-pound, hallow-eyed pig. Its ears still perky and tail slightly curled up. I point to the ribs of the lechon asking the chef clad in a white apron to chop off some for me. He puts three small, 5-inched ribs on another plate. Unsatisfied, I sheepishly point again this time at the belly’s skin. With two full plates, I walk carefully back to the table where my siblings were seated.
I grab a 7-up from one of the waiters carrying different beverages and ordered for lechon sauce- a mix of soy sauce, vinegar, garlic and small red chilies. Using my bare hands, I start crunching on the lechon skin- fat included. The juicy pig fat is pure bliss. Like firecrackers inside my mouth, the crackling skin is also the perfect combination of garlic and brine. Next, the succulent meat of the ribs dipped in the sauce that the waiter brought over oozes with flavors of lemongrass and bay leaves. It was finger licking good, especially since the oil is really tough to take off my fingers.
As I pace myself, I look around. Some adults were toasting the local San Miguel beer or busy scraping the fat off the lechon skin worried about the cholesterol they would soon ingest. Being a kid has its benefits- I don’t have to be health conscious.
A few hours later and on my third round to the buffet table, three-fourths of the lechon is exposed, showing the stomach cavity filled with lemongrass and spices. The innards have already been served on the table through the form of a dinuguan or pork blood stew that also came with the lechon. Made of meat and offal, such as lungs, kidneys, intestines, ears, heart and snout, the dinuguan is a rich, spicy dark gravy of pig blood with garlic, chili, and vinegar. I grimace at the thought of dinuguan and have never gotten the courage to try it.
When I turned 14 years old, I stopped eating beef and pork for no particular reason other than following my sister’s diet then. The lechon was the last one I ever gave up. Even though I still stare at the lechon in every party in Cebu, there is no more temptation. Yet, I find myself continuing to eat platefuls of food.
For your information, here’s a recipe of a Cebu lechon. Please don’t do this at home.
- 1 whole native pig (live weight about 40 lbs)
- salt and black pepper to taste
- soy sauce
For the glaze:
- 1 liter of Sprite or 7-up
For the stuffing:
- 10 bundles lemongrass (tanglad)
- 1/4 cup star anise
- 6 pieces of laurel or bay leaves (cut into small parts)
- 5 cups of crushed garlic
- 4.4 lbs green onion leave
- 8 pieces of halved saba bananas (half-cooked through boiling)
Instructions:
- First, shave hair follicles of the pig and remove the innards. Rinse the pig and make sure there are no more lumps of blood inside the stomach.
- Then rub the insides with salt and pepper including the body.
- Rub a little soy sauce on the inside belly of the pig.
- Stuff the belly with saba bananas, anise, green onion leaves, crushed garlic and laurel leaves.
- Next, stack the lemongrass inside the center stomach, and stitch the belly, making sure that no ingredients slip out.
- Skewer the pig with a mid-size bamboo and split roast over hot charcoal. Do not put the charcoal directly underneath the belly of the pig but over both sides, slowly churning the pig roast.
- While slowly roasting the pig, glaze it from time to time with Sprite using a sponge. This will make the skin extra crispy.
- Roast for a couple of hours until the meat is tender. Do not overcook.
Source: http://bizbuddies.hubpages.com
chicken tikka rice plate @ Kasa Indian |
This is the first of a blog series, Food Trucks. I finally tried Kasa Indian last Sunday at the (very small) North Beach farmer's market after seeing the purple truck for a couple times in the city. I last saw them during the Off-the-Grid one chilly Friday night.
I have high hopes for San Francisco's food truck scene, especially when they serve gourmet-ish fresh meals. Kasa Indian's chicken tikka masala is a bit of a pretentious Indian food. I can see the cardamon used in many Indian cuisines, but the authentic Indian taste is just not there. For $8 a rice plate served in a compostable take-out box, the food ain't worth that much. I'd rather go spend my dollars in hole-in-the-wall Indian restos, such as Shalimar, that serve cheaper and real Indian grub.
From the brains of
Bourbon and Branch, Rickhouse delivers prohibition drinks at a cheaper price. No
gin and tonic here. If you really want to drink good quality cocktails, come to Rickhouse and enjoy the live band. Located in between Chinatown and Financial District of San Francisco, the surprisingly tiny place (i.e. good luck if you can find a seat!) is compensated with drinks made out of fresh ingredients.
Disclaimer: Submitted this for my Food Writing class at Stanford. This is the original with no copywriting edits made. Grade: A
Death of elBulli: The Ruthless Business of Food
Ferran Adria presenting one of their creations at elBulli. San Francisco, 2011 |
Death of elBulli: The Ruthless Business of Food
In
2009, I submitted my recommendation report for my Advanced Marketing elBulli
case study for my final exam in business school at Rotterdam School of
Management in the Netherlands. At that time, elBulli, located in Catalonia,
Spain, was heralded as the “World’s Best Restaurant.” My classmates and I
discussed its promising future and planned when we could enjoy elBulli’s
30-course “last supper” as we fondly called it.
Two years later,
however, elBulli shocked the world when its chef/owner, Ferran Adrià , a culinary
genius, announced that the restaurant was going to shut down. The Economist
reported that elBulli made losses of approximately $700,000 per year[1]. For Fortune 500
companies, this might not sound like a huge loss. Nevertheless for a restaurant with
elBulli’s stature- exclusive, always full-house, Michelin 3-star, best
restaurant of the world year over year - this amount is very surprising and
undoubtedly frustrating for Chef Adrià despite having earned the accolade as Chef of the
Decade in 2010[2].
It boiled down
to lackluster financials. With 2 million requests for one of the 8,000 dining
seats per season in which elBulli is open for just 6 months a year and an
average meal costing $325, elBulli was still not able to offset operating
costs. Evidently, The Guardian best sums up elBulli’s problems in an article
entitled “If the World’s Greatest Chef Cooked for a Living, He'd Starve,”
stating that the restaurant was operating at a loss since 2000[3].
Not only is the
restaurant industry plagued with the notion that 60% of restaurants fail in the
first year of business, but also the death of elBulli is a perfect example that
regardless of its world renowned culinary experience, great customer service
and top ratings and awards, achieving a profitable restaurant business is
difficult to do. Therefore, if you’re thinking about opening a restaurant as a
business or as an investment, think again. Comparatively, you might be better
off investing in or creating a startup where unprofitable yet popular, young
companies, such as Instagram and Groupon, are acquired in billions of dollars
or go public, rewarding early staged investors and founders.
Moving forward,
Chef Adrià publicized
last year during his book tour in San Francisco, California their plans for
recreating the defunct restaurant space into the elBulli Foundation, a culinary
think-tank of sustainability and creativity set to open in 2014. The elBulli
Foundation has tapped large corporations as investors and partnered with top
MBA schools in Europe and the U.S. for students to work on a case study
competition about elBulli Foundation’s long-term strategy; now, Chef Adrià and his team are
taking a different, business-focused approach for their new endeavor.
[1] M.S, Creativity and business studies: From liquid raviolis to illiquid businesses. http://www.economist.com/whichmba/creativity-and-business-studies-liquid-raviolis-illiquid-businesses (Oct 2011).
[2] My Secret Life: Ferran Adria.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/my-secret-life-ferran-adria-chef-49-2282461.html
(May 2011).
[3] If the World’s Greatest Chef
Cooked for a Living, He’d Starve, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/foodmonthly/futureoffood/story/0,,1969713,00.html
(2007).