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tuftearsContinuing my exploration of food that I didn't cook myself... One from the 'Store-bought Foods' category, "Bamboo Bundles"; several delicious pastries (and one not so delicious) from bakeries, and a picture of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tugrik's famous (or it should be) smoked brisket!
First off, let's take a look at Bamboo Bundles, which I found in the frozen foods section at Whole Foods Market. I was led from the package picture to imagine that they'd resemble zongzi, some of which you may recall I cooked a long while ago. In other words, you have a fairly solid center of filling, wrapped with delicious sticky rice.
The result? Not so much.
This was what happened when I boiled the bundles. I also tried microwaving them in wet paper towels, with similar results. Basically, what you have is very small bits of chicken in kung pao sauce, mixed throughly with sticky rice, then sealed into bamboo leaves. They taste okay and are good if you want a moderately spicy snack-sized portion of rice, but they really don't capture the zongi experience. Not really recommended.
Next up, we have a couple of bakeries whose pastries I have tasted.
Cafe Panotiq is a bakery/cafe that opened up next to Bookbuyers, so I figured I'd give it a try. Their apple turnover, sadly, didn't really live up to my preferences; the inside was apple compote, which is to say, more or less applesauce, whereas I prefer apple turnovers to have solid pieces of apples in them.
We visited Keewah Bakery after Curry House, but since I'm covering baked goods, this is a bit out of order. This coffee-flavored chiffon cake (and a scoop of Trader Joe's mint chocolate ice cream) was pretty good! I also salivated at the various meat-filled savory rolls they had; if we hadn't just had a very delicious and filling lunch, I would have definitely tried the pork buns.
On the other paw, their 'Green Tea Chiffon Cake' wasn't very flavorful; I wouldn't recommend it unless you want a really mild cake experience.
Did I mention that Muracci's, the Japanese curry placedracosphynx and I used to go to closed? At least the Los Altos branch did. So we needed to find a replacement yesterday for lunch before anime-watching. Curry House was well reviewed, so we traipsed over there.
Behold! This is Curry House's May 2015 special. It's a beef/pork 'hamburger steak' drizzled in a cheese/gravy sauce, served with white rice topped with crispy fried onion pieces and bean sprouts, and tasty curry sauce on the side. Delicious! I should have improved the healthiness a bit by asking for brown rice instead of white, but I forgot. Something to keep in mind next time!
What I had actually wanted to try were their 'stone bowl' curries, but sadly they don't serve those for lunch, only dinner. Maybe some other time!
Finally, the other week I visitedtugrik for his BBQ. It was great!
I didn't take pictures of each of the individual entrees; this is just a few of the entrees there. 18-hour smoked brisket per Tugrik's special recipe, corn bread (from a box mix, I'm told, but it tasted pretty good), and corn. He also had 16-hour sous vide tritip steak, seared over the grill to perfection, 'burnt ends', made from the overdone tips of the brisket into what was a saucy-sort of 'beef jerky', vegetable kebabs, baked beans, and there were a plenitude of sides like chips and salsa.
I spent a few hours making fried spinach/ground turkey wontons. They weren't quite as spicy as I wanted, so I needed to stop by Trader Joe's and pick up some sauces-- I settled on the 'sweet chili' sauce and the 'gyoza' sauce. They're perfect with the sweet chili sauce, IMO!
Anyway, that covers most of the food I've eaten over the past few weeks that I didn't actually make myself. Next up, stuff I cooked!
tugrik's famous (or it should be) smoked brisket!First off, let's take a look at Bamboo Bundles, which I found in the frozen foods section at Whole Foods Market. I was led from the package picture to imagine that they'd resemble zongzi, some of which you may recall I cooked a long while ago. In other words, you have a fairly solid center of filling, wrapped with delicious sticky rice.
The result? Not so much.
This was what happened when I boiled the bundles. I also tried microwaving them in wet paper towels, with similar results. Basically, what you have is very small bits of chicken in kung pao sauce, mixed throughly with sticky rice, then sealed into bamboo leaves. They taste okay and are good if you want a moderately spicy snack-sized portion of rice, but they really don't capture the zongi experience. Not really recommended.
Next up, we have a couple of bakeries whose pastries I have tasted.
Cafe Panotiq is a bakery/cafe that opened up next to Bookbuyers, so I figured I'd give it a try. Their apple turnover, sadly, didn't really live up to my preferences; the inside was apple compote, which is to say, more or less applesauce, whereas I prefer apple turnovers to have solid pieces of apples in them.
We visited Keewah Bakery after Curry House, but since I'm covering baked goods, this is a bit out of order. This coffee-flavored chiffon cake (and a scoop of Trader Joe's mint chocolate ice cream) was pretty good! I also salivated at the various meat-filled savory rolls they had; if we hadn't just had a very delicious and filling lunch, I would have definitely tried the pork buns.
On the other paw, their 'Green Tea Chiffon Cake' wasn't very flavorful; I wouldn't recommend it unless you want a really mild cake experience.
Did I mention that Muracci's, the Japanese curry place
dracosphynx and I used to go to closed? At least the Los Altos branch did. So we needed to find a replacement yesterday for lunch before anime-watching. Curry House was well reviewed, so we traipsed over there.Behold! This is Curry House's May 2015 special. It's a beef/pork 'hamburger steak' drizzled in a cheese/gravy sauce, served with white rice topped with crispy fried onion pieces and bean sprouts, and tasty curry sauce on the side. Delicious! I should have improved the healthiness a bit by asking for brown rice instead of white, but I forgot. Something to keep in mind next time!
What I had actually wanted to try were their 'stone bowl' curries, but sadly they don't serve those for lunch, only dinner. Maybe some other time!
Finally, the other week I visited
tugrik for his BBQ. It was great!I didn't take pictures of each of the individual entrees; this is just a few of the entrees there. 18-hour smoked brisket per Tugrik's special recipe, corn bread (from a box mix, I'm told, but it tasted pretty good), and corn. He also had 16-hour sous vide tritip steak, seared over the grill to perfection, 'burnt ends', made from the overdone tips of the brisket into what was a saucy-sort of 'beef jerky', vegetable kebabs, baked beans, and there were a plenitude of sides like chips and salsa.
I spent a few hours making fried spinach/ground turkey wontons. They weren't quite as spicy as I wanted, so I needed to stop by Trader Joe's and pick up some sauces-- I settled on the 'sweet chili' sauce and the 'gyoza' sauce. They're perfect with the sweet chili sauce, IMO!
Anyway, that covers most of the food I've eaten over the past few weeks that I didn't actually make myself. Next up, stuff I cooked!
