Award-winning Burgers

One last food stop in Seattle was to Red Mill Burgers, also featured on Man vs. Food. I'm not sure why it was featured on a Man vs. Food (there didn't appear to be any food challenges that I could tell) but supposedly the burgers have been listed as Oprah and GQ's "20 Hamburgers you MUST eat before you DIE!", and their onion rings, according to GQ is one of the BEST.

 

Verdict? It was tasty, but I don't know if you HAVE to have it before you die...

The Ultimate Omelette

While in Seattle, I definitely wanted to go to Beth's Cafe after having seen the episode with the omelette on Man vs. Food. And I am so glad we did!

We decided to swing by for dinner. We parked right on the street and walked into a really laid-back cafe. It was a little old looking but that was part of the appeal, it wouldn't have worked if the place was all glitzy. The walls were all lined with letter-sized papers covered in drawings by customers - it was great!

This one was my favorite:

And then our 12-egg Makin' Bacon omelette came out...

...that silver plate? That's a pizza pan. Yes, it's that large. The pizza pan is covered with a thick layer of all-you-can-eat hashbrowns topped with the omelette, with a side of double-thick egg bread...

The 12-egg mixture is cooked all large and flat on the griddle and in the case of the Makin' Bacon, is topped with bacon, tomatoes, swiss cheese and some sour cream, and then folded over and over until it can fit onto the top of the hashbrowns... We had split this omelette and was able to finish only about half of it for dinner. We finished the rest for breakfast the next morning... so good. So so good.

I think I just drooled a little bit there.

Welcome aboard the Taco Bus

It was actually sunny when we headed into Seattle, and so took the opportunity to check out the Space Needle and Pike Place Market before it started raining again. Which it did. Heading to our hotel, we passed by a McDonald's with a banner saying that the 6-piece Chicken McNuggets was only a buck... so we decided to turn around.

And then we saw this:

A bus taqueria!

And had to go check it out. At first we thought you ordered from the window...

But wait... the door opens and... "Come in," the guy says.

...and we did. The yellow school bus, with all the seats taken out, was quite a taco shop! Metal counters lined the windows with permanent stools fixed to the floor, and the rear of the bus was sectioned off as the kitchen. There was a TV placed at the front where they were watching some telenovela on. And the trash can placed on the driver's seat. It was great!

And the tacos were tasty too! Really hit the spot.

JapaDog!

Anthony Bourdain went here, so why not?

While in Vancouver, we had to swing by this hot dog stand place that was featured on No Reservations. Driving around downtown, we  spotted hot dog stands on nearly every corner (I was particularly interested in the MexiDog stand, that sounded good), but didn't stop until we found it. And there it was, in front of the Sutton Place Hotel, like they said.  Japa Dog!

 

We found it! Their digs. Are there health inspections for these stands?

What will it be?

The Terimayo for the hubster (topped with... pickled veggies, seaweed and sweet pickles?), and the Oroshi for me (topped with radish, soy sauce and green onions)

Was it the best hot dog I've ever had? Well, I don't know how you can go wrong with a hot dog... but I gotta say, I tend to lean towards the bacon-wrapped ones, especially when leaving the Coliseum full of energy and victory in the chilly night air, surrounded by bacon-wrapped hot dogs being grilled in every direction you turn... oh yeah. That's the stuff.

Sorry about that. Back to Japa Dog. Was I glad I tried it? Yes, why not? Would I try it again? Not necessarily. But if I'm ever back on those streets, I'm looking for the MexiDog stand. "Can I get carne asada on top of that hot dog?"

Richmond Summer Night Market

Late last summer, the hubster and I, and our little furry kido Jasper, took a road trip up the Pacific Coast. We only had 1 week to hit as many places as we could, but ultimately decided to take it easy. So the first day and a half, we booked it from Orange County up to Vancouver, and made it Sunday night to Richmond before the Night Market closed. Kyle's goal was food:

     

  

(night market, kyle getting some dim sum, dumplings, fish-shaped waffles, potstickers, some tentacles, potato twister -this one rolled in cheese powder, candied fruits, the vendors calling everything down to $1 due to the closing hour, deep fried ice cream, lamb skewers with tofu skewers in the background, dessert mousse, corn on the cob, sweet rice goodies wrapped in leaves, meat and seafood balls, the OMG donut!... I should have tried it)

Table-top grilling

One of the easiest dinners to prepare is the grill. Well, it's really one of those electric griddles, but same thing. This is a form of the popular "cook and roll as you eat" dining concept in Vietnamese cuisine, and probably most other Asian countries as well (Korean comes to mind). What are we serving up tonight? Well, we aren't using rice paper (which is odd because my sister absolutely loves rice paper; she will roll a spring roll and give it a good satisfying sniff before eating it) tonight. On the grill will be the meats of pre-sliced beef, pre-sliced lamb, shrimp and squid (at the hubster's request of course). Alongside these meats we'll also be grilling regular onion, green onion and some dill. 

(my sister thoughtfully separated the beef from the others with the onions for me)

How to eat: grab a lettuce leaf. Add some herbs (tonight we were using only basil in addition to the lettuce... at least that's the only other thing I was using). Add some of the banh hoi (super thin rice noodles) if  you'd like. Add the meat (or shrimp or squid... not me!) and some of the grilled onions. Add a sliced cucumber. Roll it all up as best as you can (the lettuce leaf serves as the "paper"), and dip into prepared fish sauce. It may get messy, but it is tasty.

Chicken n Rice, Hainan style

Saturday morning, we went up to my sister's place so I could help her finish out her baby registry (4 weeks till due date!), and started the day off with an early lunch at Savoy Kitchen in Alhambra, which my sister loves loves loves. My sister, brother-in-law and I all ordered the Hainan Chicken (6.75) which is pretty tasty. It's chicken pieces (I'm assuming steamed) with rice (I'm assuming cooked in chicken broth as it was quite tasty and moist), with some soy sauce, crushed ginger in oil sauce and a chili sauce. I can only eat so much chicken, but I love the rice. Even by itself. Okay, and mixed with a little of the chili sauce.

Hubster decided to change it up and ordered the Beef Brisket dish (6.75) which was Saturday's daily lunch special. It was beef brisket, potato and carrots cooked in a slightly creamy green mustard sauce (reminded me of a very brothy and buttery cream of broccoli or spinach), served with (regular steamed) white rice. The sauce was good.

And to drink, iced tea. Which they were constantly filling up, and once we were ready to go, they offered us lids for our plastic cups to take away. Nice.

Noodle soup weather

Did I mention the hubster loves a mean bowl of Pho? And basically all things noodle soup. Seeing as how it was still cold and rainy here in Southern California, I decided to oblige and make a noodle soup - it wasn't going to be Pho, as I would like a good 2-4 hours at least for that, I went with Banh Canh (which I would literally translate as dough soup, or in this case, noodle soup). 

Prep and cooking time: roughly 1 hour

We are going with a pork-based broth. I picked up about 2 pounds of pork neck bones (since it's pretty cheap and has enough meat and bone to get a decent pork stock) and a pound of pork butt (again because it was cheap... what can I say - economy). I had the butcher guy cut up the neck bone and added all of it to a pot of water. While the bone and the broth was doing it's thing, I chopped up the pork butt into bite-size pieces (easier to do it now than later, plus it saves some cooking time)... yes, after a moment I realized that I seriously needed to trim the fat off the meat. Don't worry, I did... well... most of it, anyway.

 After about 20 minutes, I decided to add the meat and onions to the pot. The meat off the neck bones should be cooked at this point, so while the other meat and the onions were cooking, it would give time for the neck bone meat to become more tender. Don't forget to continually scoop out the yucky foamy stuff that accumulates at the top of the pot.  

After you know the meat is fully cooked (about another 15 minutes should be good), taste the broth. Hopefully it is porky. At this point, I start seasoning to taste. Which for this particular noodle soup for me will consist of fish sauce and some black pepper. How much fish sauce I put in, I'm not sure. I just start dousing the pot with it and taste as I go along. If fish sauce isn't up your alley, salt's the same thing. I'm strangely Vietnamese when it comes to using fish sauce (which is also ironic because I don't eat fish). As far as brand, I'm not tied to any in particular, but I typically choose one that has the words "phu quoc" on it. I don't know why.

Make sure the broth is a little bit stronger than you care for, because when you add the noodles, it will bland it out just a bit. So meat's all ready and broth is to your liking? Fresh noodles is always best but since it was after work and getting pretty late, I just bought pre-made noodles.

 

After the noodles soften, it's ready. Maybe 5-10 minutes. Scoop the noodles, meat and broth into your bowl...

And garnish with bean sprouts, chopped green onions and cilantro, and add extra flavor with dried chili in oil... to your taste of course!

Rib night at Ikea!

Olivia was recently at Ikea and spotted their sign advertising Wednesday night Ribs (and all of their other daily specials), so that's where Anna and I met her for dinner... at Ikea! Some dinner and shopping, how can that be wrong?

Except I'm totally bummed that I forgot to take a photo of my plate... but I snagged one off of their website... but my plate didn't quite looked like the picture, it actually looked better!

Half rack of tender meat-falling-off-the-ribs, crispy (with a battered texture) fries and a piece of soft-and-crumbly-on-the-inside-yet-yummily-crispy-on-the-outside cornbread. 

And then after some shopping, we each grabbed a $1 soft serve cone at the store exit.

Thank you, Ikea, you're awesome :)

Sauce wanted!

Want some Nem Nuong rolls but Brodard is closed? No problem! Here is my quick fix for that craving:

First, grab the veggies: I like to keep it simple and use green leaf lettuce, some mints, mint's cousins (today I am using what in Vietnamese is called rau ram), cucumbers (I prefer the Persian cucumbers as they are less soft than regular/pickling cucumbers) and bean sprouts.

Chop it all up, as fine as you want. 

Mix your veggies all together... it just makes it easier later.

Next, grab some egg roll (or as the rest of the world calls it, spring roll) wrappers. You won't need much, depending on the size of sheets you get, you can probably use one or half a sheet per roll. Don't get the frozen ones like I just happened to have here... fresh is much easier. Brand doesn't matter to me.

Chop up some green onions and roll a bit with a piece of the egg roll wrapper. These are about 4-5" long just because that's usually the size my spring rolls end up, and I like to have a bit of these wrapped onions with every bite... it's what makes the roll for me!

Deep fry the little suckers until golden and crispy. It'll take maybe a minute or two for that. 

Next, grab your rice paper spring roll wrappers (see, they like to confuse people by calling the other sheets "spring roll wrappers" as well... but to me, THESE are spring roll wrappers, and the previous ones are egg roll wrappers. I suppose the easiest thing is to just call this rice paper). Wet each sheet at a time; most people like to have a plate/bowl filled with warm water that they can quickly submerge the sheets in, but since I'm working right next to the sink, I'll just quickly run each sheet under the faucet to get both sides just wet enough, and then hang it over the side of a colander for a minute while I make a couple of others... work quickly because once it softens, it will stick to everything and especially to itself. And for this, I like this brand, and make sure it says "Good For Restaurant" (under the parrot logo) and not "Thin". There's no point in using thin rice paper if you're going to fight it more than roll it.

I suppose most people would make the meat (called nem nuong, which is a pork meat mixture that you shape and grill... regular nem -- not nem "nuong" which means cooked/grilled -- is pickled pork meat) but I wanted a quick fix, right? So I went out to our nearby Vietnamese food-to-go place (convenience of living in Westminster) and picked up some of these meats. Each one I sliced into thirds.

So now there's a really sticky sheet of soft rice paper laid out on the cutting board... at one end I spread out the veggie mixture a length of about 5", top the veggies with the crispy roll and a slice of the nem nuong...

...and then roll it up! I typically fold the two ends in first (so the veggies don't spill out) and then roll the rest up, but everyone has their own technique. Try to roll it as tightly as possible... it makes eating much much easier.

Now here's the tricky part. What the heck is in Brodard's dipping sauce??? One day, I will figure it out... or at least try to come close enough that I would be satisfied. But until then, I was going to go with the other typical spring roll dipping sauce of 1 part hoisin sauce, 1 part peanut butter and some water (I also like to add some prepared fish sauce for extra flavor) BUT someone stole my jar of peanut butter! So I had to settle for the third type of spring roll dipping sauce: the universal fish sauce. But not straight from the bottle - prepared fish sauce, which is part fish sauce (from the bottle), part hot water, part sugar, part lime/lemon/vinegar, part chopped and crushed garlic, part red chili... and it's totally made to taste. My version usually ends up more sugar and lime than Kyle's version which is usually more fish sauce and chili.

So... enjoy!

Oh yeah, and this goes for basically any type of spring roll you want. Roll it all up, whatever you want! Most have veggies and a type of meat. 

There's the typical spring roll version of lettuce/veggies, vermicelli noodles and sliced pork (just boiled pork and sliced), and sliced cooked shrimp. This usually dips with the fish sauce.

Then there's my other favorite called bo bia, that contains sauteed shredded carrot and jicama, basil leaves, sliced cooked egg (like omelette style) and sliced chinese sausages. I like this with the hoisin/peanut butter sauce.

And there is probably a million other varieties of veggies and meat that you can imagine. Remember, to taste. You can't go wrong!