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tuftearsLet me lead off with the one you're probably going to find the most interesting: science has perfected a vegetarian burger that looks and tastes very much like the real thing! This is the Impossible Burger. Unfortunately it's only available at a handful of restaurants, and apparently not yet commercially purchasable.
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dracosphynx.livejournal.com mentioned Vina Enoteca, a restaurant down around my part of the Bay Area, was serving this strange-sounding burger, so I figured I'd tag along. However, surprisingly it was only available from their bar, during 5-9 PM - dinner rather than lunch.
They brought by some free bread and olive oil. It was very tasty bread, but despite the appearance of mixed bread types, they were all white. Very tasty though, a soft spongey crumb and a nice crunchy crust.
And then... The burgers themselves! They are presented as sliders, and there are no options. The "fries" are chickpea panelles; they tasted a lot like cornbread sticks to me, fried crisp.
So how were the burgers? Surprisingly tasty! They nailed the char and the general mouth-feel of the burger. They didn't attempt to hide the taste of the burger by drowning it in spicy sauces or anything like that, so it feels like they're being pretty honest. If we had been served these without being told what was in them, we probably wouldn't have noticed anything different.
Next up, we have some Mandarin Gourmet restaurant food, since my relatives and I are finally well enough to be out and about:
For an appetizer we had mushu pork. I'm really not fond of the tortilla wrapper; it just doesn't feel right. Also, they weren't closed properly so I had to resort to fork-cutting and eating this, which kind of detracts from the whole hand-held eating experience. Still tasty filling though.
Yeah, it's a very white picture. That does seem off-putting as well.
Fortunately the rest of the dinner was much better. From bottom left and going clockwise: Jade chicken (chicken with Chinese broccoli), tangerine beef, honey walnut chicken (normally honey walnut prawns but my aunt asked for a substitution), and dry-sauteed string beans. Pretty good stuff!
Since I bought a spiralizer the other while, I figured I should actually try making something with zucchini noodles, something that features the noodles as a main part of the dish. Then it hit me-- why not chicken chow mein?
Well... I tried it. It turns out that the zucchini noodles release a *lot* of moisture, so the whole thing ends up soupier than it should; also perhaps I should use thicker noodles because the width I used seemed rather... stringy.
When I reheated the extra servings of these, I boiled some water and made ramen-- turns out I only needed half a packet of ramen noodles per serving to make a nice meal of zucchini chicken chow mein noodles.
After the Mandarin Gourmet dinner, I figured I'd try making the jade chicken-- it was actually pretty similar to how I'd made the chicken for the chicken chow mein, after all. I used spinach as the green vegetable. It came out pretty well, IMO. The beef is Trader Joe's beef-and-broccoli, since I thought it'd need another flavor -- not a bad choice, but I'm not fond of Trader Joe's decision to bread their beef.
And that's a wrap for this batch of food pictures!
dracosphynx.livejournal.com mentioned Vina Enoteca, a restaurant down around my part of the Bay Area, was serving this strange-sounding burger, so I figured I'd tag along. However, surprisingly it was only available from their bar, during 5-9 PM - dinner rather than lunch.They brought by some free bread and olive oil. It was very tasty bread, but despite the appearance of mixed bread types, they were all white. Very tasty though, a soft spongey crumb and a nice crunchy crust.
And then... The burgers themselves! They are presented as sliders, and there are no options. The "fries" are chickpea panelles; they tasted a lot like cornbread sticks to me, fried crisp.
So how were the burgers? Surprisingly tasty! They nailed the char and the general mouth-feel of the burger. They didn't attempt to hide the taste of the burger by drowning it in spicy sauces or anything like that, so it feels like they're being pretty honest. If we had been served these without being told what was in them, we probably wouldn't have noticed anything different.
Next up, we have some Mandarin Gourmet restaurant food, since my relatives and I are finally well enough to be out and about:
For an appetizer we had mushu pork. I'm really not fond of the tortilla wrapper; it just doesn't feel right. Also, they weren't closed properly so I had to resort to fork-cutting and eating this, which kind of detracts from the whole hand-held eating experience. Still tasty filling though.
Yeah, it's a very white picture. That does seem off-putting as well.
Fortunately the rest of the dinner was much better. From bottom left and going clockwise: Jade chicken (chicken with Chinese broccoli), tangerine beef, honey walnut chicken (normally honey walnut prawns but my aunt asked for a substitution), and dry-sauteed string beans. Pretty good stuff!
Since I bought a spiralizer the other while, I figured I should actually try making something with zucchini noodles, something that features the noodles as a main part of the dish. Then it hit me-- why not chicken chow mein?
Well... I tried it. It turns out that the zucchini noodles release a *lot* of moisture, so the whole thing ends up soupier than it should; also perhaps I should use thicker noodles because the width I used seemed rather... stringy.
When I reheated the extra servings of these, I boiled some water and made ramen-- turns out I only needed half a packet of ramen noodles per serving to make a nice meal of zucchini chicken chow mein noodles.
After the Mandarin Gourmet dinner, I figured I'd try making the jade chicken-- it was actually pretty similar to how I'd made the chicken for the chicken chow mein, after all. I used spinach as the green vegetable. It came out pretty well, IMO. The beef is Trader Joe's beef-and-broccoli, since I thought it'd need another flavor -- not a bad choice, but I'm not fond of Trader Joe's decision to bread their beef.
And that's a wrap for this batch of food pictures!
