Things I love about Vancouver (and Whistler)

For the past 5 plus years I have been dying to visit the Pacific Northwest.  I hear such amazing things (including lots of great things about the restaurant scenes) about Portland, Seattle and Vancouver.  Luckily my mom decided we were going to go skiing in Whistler this year, which meant that we could spend a few days in Vancouver before or after the trip.  Our only real goals for Vancouver were to wander around the city and eat some really good food.  Alex's cousins Rachel and Jacob recommended a restaurant called Salt Tasting Room for meats, cheese and wine (pictured above) so I made reservations there for our first meal in the city.  After that I wanted Asian food and seafood.  I knew that the Asian food in Vancouver was supposed to be some of the best Asian food outside of Asia, but I had no idea just how true that was until we got there.  We had three Asian meals while in Vancouver - two upscale Chinese meals and one more low key Vietnamese meal at a restaurant across the street from our hotel.  We also tried one night to eat at a Cambodian/Vietnamese restaurant called Phnom Penh, but we gave up once we arrived and saw the line of people waiting for a table.  I'm a little bummed that we didn't get to try Phnom Penh because all of the reviews sounded pretty fantastic, but our meals at Bao Bei Chinese Brasserie and Dinesty Dumpling House were also pretty fantastic so I can't complain too much. Our random Vietnamese meal at Ha Long Bay in Downtown Vancouver was also surprisingly good.  New York has surprisingly mediocre Vietnamese food (or maybe I am just spoiled after growing up in Maryland where good pho is relatively common and really good Vietnamese food is just over the border in northern Virginia).  All things considered I would totally recommend all of the restaurants we ate at.  The meats, cheeses and wine at Salt were delicious.  For the four of us (me, Alex and my parents), we ordered three tasting plates of meats and cheese, two salads (a kale caesar that I loved and a spinach, roasted beet and goat cheese salad), two goat cheese cheesecakes in adorable little mason jars and a bunch of wine.  I loved the option to pick a flight of their wines available by the glass - I wish more restaurants allowed you to do wine flights.  Then at Bao Bei we had some of the best upscale Chinese fusion (it's not really fusion but I don't really know what else to call it) I have ever had.  This is what I wish PF Changs was - great flavors, great food, but innovative takes on more traditional Chinese dishes.  All four of us loved the steamed ling cod with mushrooms in a really delicious broth and the "kickass house fried rice" with duck breast.  I also thought the dessert of Chinese donuts (that are called youtiao and are typically served at dim sum with congee or soy milk to dip them in) with a white chocolate ganache and sesame dipping sauce was really good.  Then we went to Dinesty, which was far more traditional.  They had really good pork and crab soup dumplings, camphor-smoked duck (with serious smoky flavor and crisp skin served with steamed buns that they decorated to look like adorable little clam shells) and a fantastic Hakka stir-fry with pork, tofu and squid (all pictured below).  I was a little worried when we walked into Dinesty because it was this fairly fancy Chinese restaurant in a huge mall, but by 5:15 pm the restaurant was jam packed with Chinese friends, couples and families out for dinner so I figured we had to be in good hands.  At one point we looked around the large dining room and Alex and my dad were the only white people there, which is usually a good sign when you are looking for legit Asian food.

More (including more pictures) after the jump!

Restaurants to Try for 2014 and My Favorite Restaurants of 2013

My restaurants that I am dying to try in 2013 (in no particular order, except that restaurants that have been on the list since last year are at the top) are:

1. Brooklyn Fare (still dying to go - maybe one day) 
2. Parm and Carbone (we made it to Torrisi Italian Specialties and it was amazing) 
3. Empellon Cocina
4. Pok Pok NY (we really enjoyed Pok Pok Phat Thai) 
5. Roberta's and Blanca
6. Fung Tu (I love Nom Wah so why wouldn't I love this upscale version?)
7. Alder (I have made and canceled reservations at Alder 3-4 times now but I am determined to go by the end of February) 
8. Mission Cantina (Alex went but I didn't get to go) 
9. Pearl & Ash
10. Estela 

Runners Up:  M. Wells Dinette, Sripraphai, Perla, Charlie Bird, Toro, Betony, Sushi Nazakawa, The Cecil, Contra

More after the jump!

Aloha! And reasons I love Maui...

 

If I had my way, we would visit Hawaii every other year for vacation.  Unfortunately, Hawaii is rather far away and rather expensive.  And don't get me started on the flight there.  Luckily, Hawaiian Airlines now has direct flights from JFK to Oahu but the flight is still roughly 11 hours on the way there.  It's a long flight but I think it's totally worth it.  Just look at that picture above of the black sand beach at Waianapanapa State Park.  I was playing with the various settings and filters on my camera a bit, but it really is that gorgeous.  Waianapanapa State Park is on the road to Hana, which (if you haven't done it before) is one of the craziest drives I have ever done.  The road itself is a tiny little 2 lane-road that has 54 one-lane bridges and something like 600+ hairpin curves.  The drive is about 50 miles from one end to another, but it takes 3 hours to drive those 50 miles.  And then you have to turn around and go back.  The day we drove the road to Hana we left our hotel just before 6:00 am and didn't return until after 7:00 pm.  We were staying on the other side of the island from Paia (which is where the trip really kicks off) so it took us an hour and a half or so to get there, but we were still out and about for 13 hours.  And we didn't stop at half of the stops.  Some people split the drive up over a number of days, which is what you really have to do if you want to enjoy each stop along the way, but we packed it all into one.  If you ever think about heading to Maui I highly recommend the drive.  Bring tennis shoes and a water bottle because there is a fair bit of hiking, along with a good camera to catch some pictures of beautiful beaches, waterfalls and other scenery along the way.  And don't forget your swim suit.  If you want a more relaxing day in Maui you can always hit Kaanapali Beach (picture below).  It's so pretty.  

More (including more pictures) after the jump!

Europe 2013: Spring versus Volta

It seems a little odd to mention these two restaurants (and pit them against each other) in one post but the comparisons were inevitable.  For our Europe trip, I wanted to play things by ear for the most part, but I did want to try to plan two nice dinners - one in Paris (obviously) and one in Belgium.  I left Alex to make the plans for Belgium (picking the restaurant, making the reservations, etc.) and I took care of Paris.  I had the choice narrowed down to a few different restaurants in Paris (Spring and Septime were the frontrunners) and Alex found a trio of restaurants in Ghent that looked interesting (Volta, De Vitrine and Jef).  I ended up picking Spring and Alex went with Volta.  Both restaurants do a tasting menu and both are comparable in terms of price, so it was natural to compare the two, even if they serve very different food.  Both of these meals were incredibly memorable.  Both were delicious.  But the experiences couldn't have been more different for a number of reasons that I will go into in more detail below.  

If you held a gun to my head and made me choose which restaurant I had to go back to, I think I would pick Spring.  But if you made me pick which overall experience I preferred, I would pick Volta.  In a head-to-head taste off I thought the rankings were as follows:

• Spring won the amuse-bouches.
• Spring and Volta tied for the red mullet versus the eel - the eel at Volta was more interesting, but I would be more likely to order the red mullet from Spring again.  I might give a slight edge to Volta because it really was tasty and memorable (as well as interesting).
• Volta won for the ham (and we can include the fish since there were an uneven number of courses, but it would have won on the ham alone) over the lobster and asparagus dish from Spring.
• Spring won on the lamb versus the turkey leg.
• Spring won on the desserts for me, although I much preferred the little cake at Volta to the chocolate tart at Spring.  In the spirit of full disclosure, Alex preferred his cheese plate and the cake at Volta to anything we had at Spring.

More details and pictures after the jump!

Europe 2013: Le Comptoir, L'Avant Comptoir and L'Office in Paris...

When we arrived in Paris I was starving.  I really needed some serious food and a glass of wine.  Traveling does that to me sometimes.  Alex was in even worse shape - not eating enough tends to leave him vaguely nauseous.  I just get cranky.  And I get progressively worse until I am fed.  You don't have to point it out - I am well aware that I'm rather like a 3 year old in that respect.  Unfortunately we arrived the afternoon of the same sex marriage protest and it was nearly impossible to get around.  Luckily our hotel happened to be located near one of the restaurants that we wanted to try.  We got a little lost on the way there but after about 10-15 minutes of walking/wandering we found Le Comptoir.  Only there was a wait for a table.  And we were too hungry to wait.  So we decided to belly up to the counter at L'Avant Comptoir for some wine and snacks.  Alex let me do the ordering while he polished off a crepe from their walk-up window outside.  Actually, Alex let me do the ordering throughout our trip since I speak French and he doesn't.  There were a few mistakes along the way, but I think my French served us remarkably well considering it has been years since I practiced.

Anyway, as soon as I looked at the menu cards dangling from the ceiling I couldn't resist ordering the pate (I have always had a weakness for pate), the pig ears (pate and pigs ears pictured below) and some sardines (pictured above).  I also wanted to order the croquettes, but I wanted to see how big the other dishes were first.  And then I forgot.  I probably ate more pate than you should safely eat in a year but I have no regrets.  It was deliciously porky and fattening.  Strangely enough, the sardines were my favorite of the dishes.  They were buttery, fresh and delicious.  And the butter they used in the sauce wasn't just regular butter but Bordier's salted butter, which is absolutely fantastic.  I loved those sardines.  And I dredged the bread all through the sauce because you really can't waste the butter.  It made me so happy.  Oh and I can't talk about dining in Paris without mentioning the wine.  I had a blast trying a bunch of different wines by the glass.  At L'Avant Comptoir we tried two different reds by the glass, but as the trip wore on we became far bolder about ordering lots of different wines by the glass.  If only the wines in the United States were as wonderfully plentiful, tasty and cheap by the glass.  Or by the carafe.  Being able to buy quality wine by the bottle, large carafe, small carafe and by the glass is amazing.  

More after the jump!

Europe 2013: Second Stop, Paris...

Before I get started I have to give Alex credit for the picture above.  While we were wandering around the Louvre our first day in Paris Alex decided to start messing with the settings on our camera.  Some of the pictures (like the one above) turned out really nicely.  Others were a little more whacky.  But since this photo turned out to be one of my favorites from Paris I'm considering it a photography win.  Sadly we have had our camera for almost 2 years now and this is the first time we have really experimented with some of the settings.  Oops.

Ok, now back to Paris.  Given the number of pictures we took and the amount of amazing food we ate, I am going to have to split Paris into several posts.  This post is going to be about the city in general and will touch briefly on the food, but won't go into a lot of detail about the individual meals we had.  I'll try to post about some of the restaurants we visited in Paris later this week (or over the weekend).  I have TONS of food pictures (what else is new), so that post should be a fun one.  Then again, as far as I am concerned, any post about Paris is a fun one.

More after the jump!

Europe 2013: First Stop, Belgium...

I have been dying (and I do mean dying) to go back to Europe for years.  Alex and I had originally planned to go to the Netherlands and France back in fall 2010, but once I started work that was clearly not going to happen.  And we kept saying that we would go, but a few years went by and it didn't happen.  It's not that we didn't travel from 2010 until now, it's just that we had so many weddings and family vacations to go on which used up all of our vacation time.  Sometime last fall I had finally had enough and I bought us plane tickets to Brussels.  After some negotiation Alex and I decided that we would go to Belgium (his choice) and France (mine).  I am firmly of the belief that Paris is one of the best cities on Earth.  When I studied abroad in college I was in the south of France, but I couldn't get over how much I loved Paris.  I love the food, I love the museums, I love the parks, I love the city...  I just love every single thing about it.  If it were up to me we would have spent the entire 10 days in France, but Alex wanted to go somewhere new.  After some discussion we decided on Belgium.  And then we started researching three things - chocolate, beer and mussels.  Let's be honest, I focused on the chocolate and to a lesser degree, the mussels.  Alex focused on the beer. 

More after the jump!

Back from Europe!

Hi everyone.  I feel like there have been an inordinate number of apologies on here lately, but I owe you another one.   Before we left for Europe I had grand intentions of posting a few recipes and posting a teaser of our trip to come.  And then life (mostly work) got in the way.  Apparently the road to Europe is paved with good intentions just as much as the one to hell.  Luckily neither work nor life interfered with our trip to Belgium and France!  I promise that this weekend I will sort through our pictures and everything from Europe and put up a few posts.  Until then, this picture of the sun setting over the Seine in Paris will have to do.

Things I love about Austin, Texas - Take 2...

Alex and I just got back from another trip to Austin, Texas and I have to admit - I really like Austin.  I'm not sure if I would want to live there, but the city has a great food scene (you can eat everything from BBQ to fine dining), nice weather, etc.  It's just a really fun city.  We happened to be in Texas for a wedding, but I planned out our free time (particularly the meals) weeks in advance.  There was one restaurant that I knew we had to hit.  The last time we were in Austin we tried the Salt Lick and went on a BBQ pilgrimage to Lockhart, Texas.  You can read more about our last visit here.  But we didn't make it to Franklin Barbeque.  And it is probably for the best because I was already just about barbeque-d out.  Franklin has been getting a lot of hype since it opened in 2009 and I was really curious to see if it lived up to its reputation.  Coincidentally, I picked up the current issue of Bon Appetit at the airport and flipped it open and not only did it have a short article on Austin, it also named Franklin Barbeque as one of The 20 Most Important Restaurants in America.  So I knew we had to go.  And I knew we were going to to go Paul Qui's East Side Kings at Hole in the Wall for lunch on Friday.  Our plan was to get off the plane, pick up our rental car and go straight to Hole in the Wall.  I even knew exactly what dishes I was planning on ordering.  That's how prepared I was.  

I had a few other restaurants that I was tempted to try for dinner on Friday.  I wanted to go to Uchi because we tried Uchiko during our last visit and were blown away by how tasty it was.  And I thought sushi would be a nice counterpoint to the BBQ we were already planning on eating.  Another coincidence - Bon Appetit also included Uchi/Uchiko as one of the 20 most important restaurants in America.  But Uchi didn't have any reservations available for Friday night.  I also wanted to try Barley Swine because I saw it on No Reservations and it looked and sounded amazing.  But I was worried that Barley Swine wouldn't fit into our weekend.  They don't take reservations and we weren't sure that waiting 2 hours for dinner on Friday night really fit into our agenda.  And to be honest, I have a limited amount of patience for waiting in lines.  We already knew we would be waiting 2-3 hours for Franklin Barbeque so waiting another 2 hours for Barley Swine just seemed excessive.  Alex came up with a counter proposal - Second Kitchen and Bar, which sounded good, but I was worried the food would be too heavy.  I didn't make reservations anywhere for Friday night and figured that we would play it by ear.  We didn't end up eating lunch on Friday until about 2:30 pm (and we totally overate so we were still pretty stuffed around 6:00 pm), so we gave up on the idea of trying to get int Uchi or Barley Swine.  So we had to come up with a back up plan.  Luckily, the Bon Appetit magazine came to the rescue.  I remembered that when I flipped through the magazine during the flight there was a blurb about a Thai restaurant called Sway and Mexican restaurant called La Condesa with the same owners.  It turned out that La Condesa was close to our hotel so we decided to go with that. 

More after the jump!

Lake Tahoe

Hey look, we're back!  Skiing in Tahoe with the family was wonderful, but it's really nice to be home.  I'm looking forward to some home-cooked meals and my own bed for a few nights before we are off to Austin, Texas next weekend.  Don't get me wrong - I love traveling, but this much traveling is exhausting.  We did have a few nice meals in Tahoe, but after eating lunch on the mountain every day and dinner at a restaurant, all I want are simple, homemade meals.  But if any of you find yourself in South Lake Tahoe anytime in the near future, definitely try Artemis Mediterranean Grill.  The food is great and relatively inexpensive.  We ate dinner there twice because after our first meal there my father (whose typical review of any meal is that it was "fine") declared that if Artemis existed in Maryland it would be on his regular rotation.  That is HUGE praise for my father.  And I can't say that I disagreed - the shrimp souvlaki platter was really nice (with nicely cooked shrimp, tasty homemade tabbouleh and garlicky, creamy skordalia), the lamb gyro pita was fabulously lamby, the Artemis fries were crispy and tasty, the chocolate galaktoboureko was delicious....  I would go on but I think you get the point.  It was a really nice dinner option.  Another option for cheap, tasty Mexican is Jalisco Grill.  But beware - it is closed on Sundays.  On that note, I think it is time to hit the grocery store and re-stock our kitchen.  The fridge is pretty much empty right now and if we are planning on cooking dinner tonight and tomorrow it's time for some groceries.

Eden Center - Huong Viet and Song Que

One of my favorite thingns about visiting my family in Maryland is the opportunity to eat good Vietnamese food.  I don't know why Vietnamese food is sub-par in New York City (or if that is even a fair characterization, but Northern Virginia has a huge Vietnamese population and I grew up eating amazing Vietnamese food so I may be a little spoiled), but nothing in NYC can compare to what I can get in Maryland or Virginia.  I mean, look at the quail in the picture at the top.  And then the assortment of Asian fruits and desserts in the picturese below.  You just can't find some of this stuff in NYC since there is only one Vietnamese grocery store and only a few Vietnamese restaurants in the city.  This past weekend I went down to Falls Church with my mom and visited a shopping center called Eden Center.  For those of you who know the area, Eden Center is essentially little Vietnam.  The shopping center is full of Vietnamese restaurants, banh mi shops, bakeries, bars, jewelry stores, etc.  And every little strip mall in a 2 mile vicinity has even more resetaurants, bakeries and banh mi shops.  When Alex and I got married we had a small wedding banquet of sorts in a Vietnamese restaurant near Eden Center called Present.  And we have tried a number of other restaurants, bakeries and banh mi shops in the area.  Our favorites are Present, Huong Viet, Viet Royale, Song Que and Ba Le.  Of those five, Huong Viet, Viet Royale and Song Que are all in Eden Center.  There is a new restaurant in Eden Center called Rice Paper that the Washingtonian recommends that Mom and I will have to test out some time.  Maybe during my next visit we will give it a shot...  This visit we decided to go to Huong Viet for their quail (pictured above), lotus root salad (pictured below) and butter-fried frog legs (also pictured below - I know it sounds weird, but they are really tasty) versus Viet Royale for their banh xeo (Vietnamese crepes with shrimp and pork) and caramel fish.  After lunch we then hit up Song Que for their coconut bubble tea smoothies (they make the absolute best bubble teas) and tons of tasty Vietnamese desserts.  Song Que also makes banh mi, but we prefer the banh mi at Ba Le.  When I was little I was obsessed with these little rice cakes called banh bo (the banh bo are the little colorful cakes on the far right in the picture of all of the various saran-wrapped green desserts).  My grandmother used to hit the Asian markets and come home with little styrofoam containers of roast duck and banh bo for me and I was the happiest little half-Asian girl in the world.  For some reason they don't seem to sell banh bo in New York City (although they do sell other somewhat similar Vietnamese desserts at Tan Tin-Hung) so every time I come down to visit my family I try to get my banh bo fix.  So I guess I am still a little obsessed.

More (including more pictures) after the jump!

Brady goes to Maine

Generally my travel posts are a little more about food and a little less about the destination, but this time I think the post has to be a little more about the destination for a number of reasons.  First, I didn't really take any pictures of the food.  Actually, that's not entirely true.  I did take some pictures but none of them really turned out (including one picture of a delicious popover that looked suspiciously like a turd).  So I'm not using them.  But between Alex and I we managed to take some WONDERFUL pictures of the dog (hence the title of the post) and the scenery on Mount Desert Island.  For those of you who don't know anything about Maine (and until last week I certainly would have counted myself among you), Mount Desert Island is in the Gulf of Maine and Bar Harbor is on the island.  If you have ever seen restaurant menus talking about oysters or other seafood from Frenchman's Bay, that's right there too.  We happen to have some friends who have a place on Mount Desert Island (or MDI for short) and they invited us to come and visit.  So we booked ourselves a rental car and made the 8-9 hour drive from Manhattan to MDI this past weekend for some friends, food and fun. 

If you can't tell from the picture above, Brady had an amazing time in Maine.  During our brief visit he got to swim in a pond, a creek and the ocean/the sound.  He spent a lot of time getting wet, before drying and then getting wet all over again.  It didn't help that the first few days we were there it rained on and off the whole time so not only was he swimming, he was running around in the rain (and mud puddles) too.  Beyond his escapades in various bodies of water, Brady also got to go on a number of long walks and hikes through the woods.  He was in heaven.  Acadia State Park has 45 miles of carriage roads, which you can hike, bike or ride horses on.  There is also one section of the carriage roads that is privately owned by the Rockefellers near the park and it is dog friendly - which means no leash 24/7. Brady had a blast wandering around in there.  Alex declared our trip Brady's best vacation ever and I am pretty sure he was right.  Just look how happy he is in the picture after the jump!

More after the jump!

Hoe Cakes (and our visit to Cincinnati)

I would jump right into describing how much I enjoyed these hoe cakes, but there is a bit of a backstory that needs to be discussed first.  A few weekends ago Alex and I went to Kentucky/Cincinnati to visit his family.  We did a lot of things when we were there - we visited with family, saw some fireworks, made about a billion gallons of chili (vegetarian and beef in case you were curious), ate some really delicious upscale Mexican food at Nada in downtown Cincinnati, took lots of pictures of the pig statues that are all over downtown Cincinnati (see below - I was a little obsessed), sampled Graeter's ice cream and also visited a town in Kentucky called (I kid you not) Rabbit Hash.  We happened to visit Rabbit Hash during their Old Timers Festival.  There was live music and food, plus there was this guy with a hundred year old corn/grain mill selling freshly ground cornmeal and grits.  I couldn't resist - I bought two big bags (one of yellow cornmeal and one of grits).  Along with his cornmeal he offered two recipes, one for cornbread and one for hoe cakes.  Now I wasn't born and raised a good Southern girl like Paula Deen so I had never tried a hoe cake before, but I decided to give it a shot.  And they were awesome.  Speaking of Paula Deen, she has a whole post about hoe cakes (including several recipes) on her website.  Anyway, I  liked that the hoe cakes were texturally a cross between a pancake and cornbread.  I also liked that they were just slightly sweet and somehow manage to avoid the heaviness and sleepiness that pancakes always evoke.

While in Cincinnati I also shocked Alex's family members with my ability to eat spicy food by accidentally dumping a heaping amount of dried chili on a pizza and then eating it all.  Incidentally, my tolerance for spicy food can be blamed on my mother, although it really took living in China for me to embrace truly spicy food.  I grew up with hot sauce on the Thanksgiving table to be served with the turkey and a planter of Thai chilis in the backyard (which was discarded after my parents learned that having kids near Thai chilis when they can touch the chilis and then rub their eyes is a terrible idea - many tears ensued).  Alex's uncle John grows his own hot peppers and makes his own wonderful dried chili powders (we are currently in possession of tiny apothecary-esque bottles of dried Hungarian wax, hot and medium banana peppers, habanero, cayenne, jalapeno and a spicy blend of several different chili varieties.  We haven't figured out exactly what we are going to use them for (although we have a couple of ideas), so stay tuned for some spicy recipes in the near-ish future!  Thanks John!

Recipe and more pictures after the jump!

Chicago

In case you haven't noticed, there haven't been very many posts on the blog lately.  Sometimes the blog suffers from neglect because I am busy with work and sometimes it happens because I am traveling too much.  This quiet patch was due to the fact that we haven't had a quiet weekend in NYC in quiet some time.  Two weekends ago (Labor Day) we were in Cincinnati for Riverfest (which, incidentally included the most impressive fireworks display I have seen in quite some time) and last weekend we were in Chicago.  Thankfully we were in town this weekend and I carved out a few hours today to cook breakfast, post about our travels and to tee up some posts about the relatively few meals we have made recently. 

I had a large to-do list for our trip to Chicago and we somehow managed to do check quite a few things off our list.  We saw the Bean (pictured above) in Grant Park (which was pretty spectacular), we visited the Art Institute of Chicago and Navy Pier, we did the Chicago River architecture tour, we laughed our way through Second City, visited the Chicago beach at Lake Michigan and then we ate and drank a whole bunch.  We probably walked a good 10 miles over the course of the weekend.  I really wanted to go to The Girl and the Goat during our visit, but it was impossible to get reservations and we were only there for a short period of time so we skipped it.  But I checked out the Eater 38 for Chicago and added a few other restaurants to my list - two of which we managed to hit while we were there.  There was one other restaurant from the Eater 38 that I really wanted to visit while we were there, but it was kind of far away and given the time constraints we didn't make it there.  But the next time I visit Chicago I am hitting Urban Belly because the menu just looked so phenomenal and I will be making reservations at The Girl and the Goat insanely far in advance just to make sure that I get to eat there.

More pictures, etc. after the jump!

Things I love about Austin, Texas...

Alex and I recently made our first ever trip to Austin, Texas with a group of friends.  Having never been to Texas before (or at least never having stepped foot outside of the airports in Houston and Dallas Fort Worth) I wasn't really sure what to expect except that I had been warned that we would be eating a LOT of barbeque and drinking a lot of beer over the course of our long weekend.  But I didn't realize that in addition to the barbeque (and more on the bbq later because we had a TON of it), Austin actually has a really good overall food scene.  We had really great ice cream at Amy's Ice Creams and a phenomenal meal at Uchiko.  For those of you who aren't Top Chef fans or just haven't been watching closely this season, Paul Qui (my favorite contestant) is the executive chef at Uchiko.  The meal we had there was better than anything I have had recently in New York City.  That's how good it was.  We did the 10 course tasting menu and there were a few courses that just blew me away - the jar jar duck (duck confit and crispy duck skin in a jar with candied kumquats, endive and rosemary smoke), the uchi salad (baby romaine leaves crusted with a bit of sea salt, served with an edamame-based dipping sauce/dressing) and the fried milk dessert (pictured below).  I wish Uchiko were in New York so we could go all the time.

More (including pictures) after the jump!

Things I love about Colorado...

Ever since I was a little girl my parents have taken me skiing out West every winter.  We took a few years off while I was in college and law school, but the tradition is once again going strong.  This year we packed our bags and went to Copper Mountain and Breckenridge (both about an hour to an hour and a half outside of Denver).  Now our trips to Colorado are definitely not food-based or food-motivated in any way.  We are there for the skiing and if we happen upon good food, so be it.  This year we happened to stumble on a few good restaurants that I thought bore mentioning.

More after the jump!

Things I love about Hawaii...

My family has been going to Hawaii every few years since I was a junior in college.  There have been a few trips that I haven't made with them, but I think this trip marked my fourth and my parents' seventh trip.  So we have been there a few times and we have our old favorites (Matsumoto's and Fatty's among them), but every time we go we discover new and wonderful places.  This list includes a few of my favorites on Oahu, including Waikiki, Kailua and North Shore.

List (and more pictures) after the break!

Napa Valley

During our trip to San Francisco, one of the only non-negotiables for me was a trip to Napa.  I have always wanted to go to Napa and this seemed like the perfect opportunity for Alex and I to go.  So I got on Google and started looking up different wineries and restaurants to hit during our trip.  At first I came up with a list of 6 wineries that sounded interesting, but quickly realized there was no way that we could do 6 wineries in one day.  I suppose if you have a designated driver and only want to do tastings, rather than tours, you could realistically hit 6 wineries in one day, but I really wanted to be able to do some tours and take my time.  So in the end I settled on a tour at Frog's Leap, a tasting at Honig Vineyard and Winery, and a tour at Domaine Chandon.  For the record, the wineries I decided not to visit were Cakebread Cellars, Grgich Hills Estate, and Sterling Vineyards (which I really wish we had been able to visit because I have heard so many wonderful reviews of Sterling, but it was just too far).   So we rented a Zipcar, printed out some directions, and were on our way!

More after the jump!

San Francisco

So Alex and I just returned from San Francisco this weekend and the sad thing is (as exhausted as I was by the 6 hour flight), all I can think about is going back.  The food was AMAZING.  I don't know how you all feel about sourdough, but the sourdough at Boudin (pictured above and below) is justifiably famous.  It had a tang to it that you just don't get when you buy a loaf of sourdough at the grocery store or local bakery.  And not only was it delicious, it was also adorable.  The bakers at Boudin also make sourdough teddy bears, alligators, crabs, etc.  If you look at the next picture you can see the sourdough teddy bears and a crab, plus the head of an alligator on the top of the rack full of delicious bread.  Yum.



And then there is the produce.  We wandered around the farmer's market at the Ferry Building on Saturday morning and the produce there was unbelievable.  They had all sorts of stone fruits, pears, lettuces, radishes, mushrooms (my god those lobster mushrooms were unreal), etc.  I could have wandered around there forever.  And not only was the produce at the farmer's market good, they also had food stalls, including one that served the absolute BEST chilaquiles (pictured below) that I have ever had.  They were spicy, but not too spicy - actually, I would say the level of heat was perfect.  The homemade tortilla chips (they made their own tortillas by hand with an old-school tortilla press, griddled them, and then made them into chips), slathered in the spicy red sauce had just the right amount of sauce so moisten them without turning them mushy.  Then they were topped with onions, crema, and avocado, and served with a side of homemade refried beans and scrambled eggs.  My god I could eat those for breakfast every day.  Alex had a Japanese okonomiyaki pancake (pictured below) topped with sweet soy and a gently (and barely) poached egg, which was also good, but nothing could touch my chilaquiles.  Actually, our friend had a dungeness crabcake sandwich that I would say ran a close second to mine - the crab was sweet and the crabcake had a fabulous consistency, plus the bread they served it on was amazing.  Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of hers.  Oh well.  Also at the Ferry Building I had a chance to try the nduja salami from Boccalone Salumeria (whose sign reads "tasty salted pig parts") and a variety of olive oils from Stonehouse California Olive Oil.  For the record, their Lisbon Lemon evoo was so amazing that I couldn't resist buying a bottle and have already used it to make a wonderful salad dressing.

We also took a trip to Napa to visit several wineries, but more on that later!

More pictures after the jump!