Kentucky Eatin'

Hello again! Didn’t think I’d be posting so soon, didja? Well, this a special treat seeing that I am trying to pass the time before I head off to Cardiff for grad school. Also, this is a special entry because it’s a travel and food blog entry! I recently had the pleasure of visiting my sister and her husband in Kentucky and got some fun and fine dining out of the trip. Well let’s not dilly-dally! Let’s get to it!

First off, I’d like to welcome you to Tom + Chee. This little gem serves sooooo many different kinds of grilled cheeses with classic tomato soup (hence the name). However, I couldn’t help but order the Grilled Cheese Donut. That’s right. Grilled cheese slapped between two toasted glazed donuts. Now, this sandwich didn’t sound particularly appealing to me, but when someone comes up with something that just might make your arteries scream, well... I can’t help but be curious. Overall the Grilled Cheese Donut wasn’t too bad. The cheese was melted just right and the sandwich didn’t feel heavy. It was smooth and gooey and soft. Nevertheless, it just tasted like a donut with melted cheddar cheese. Did I love it? No. Hate it? No. There is a baker’s dozen challenge with the Grilled Cheese Donuts and I think it’s totally doable, though I think you’d want to detox after consuming probably a week’s worth of calories in one sitting. If I lived in Louisville, I’d definitely frequent this place to taste all their different grilled cheese combos (but thank goodness I don’t ‘cause otherwise I’d probably have to run everyday).

As cliche and touristy as it is... I did have fried chicken in Kentucky, granted it wasn’t from KFC. My dad was pretty adamant about having Kentucky fried chicken so after a morning of picking fresh fruit and veg at Huber’s Orchard and Winery, my family and I popped into the orchard’s mom and pop restaurant and got some fried chicken with plenty of starchy and filling sides. The fried chicken was pretty good. The batter and skin never slid off the chicken and the mashed potatoes were lovely and smooth. The meal also came with free fried biscuits and apple butter. However, nothing was particularly amazing. I love spices, so I would have liked a more flavorful batter, but that’s just me. The moral of the story is: just because there’s a worldwide fast food chain called, “Kentucky Fried Chicken” doesn’t mean that Kentucky is the land of the best fried chicken. 

Last on our restaurant tour was Seviche--a pretty snazzy restaurant with great seafood. Everything was so fresh and tasty. The menu is continually modified based upon which fresh ingredients are available and the chef seasons everything perfectly. I had the scallops and they were impeccable. Great crust and perfectly cooked. Gordon Ramsay would be proud. They also have a great selection of desserts and I melted when I took a bite out of their Tres Leche Cake. Genius idea of putting crushed macadamia nuts in it. My parents had the Avocado Ice Cream, which was quite fun and tasty. Very smooth and clever (the ice cream rested in a dark chocolate shell and had a bourbon ball in it to represent an avocado seed). The restaurant is a bit pricey, so I only recommend it for very special occasions. Oh, and the presentation of the food was spot on. I mean, look at these photos!

I also had the pleasure of going to the Bourbon Trail (which I soon learned was not really a trail but a name given to an area where a lot of distilleries were located). My family and I toured the Wild Turkey Distillery and afterwards we had a bourbon tasting. Since my sister and her hubby are seminary students at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, they couldn’t join in on the tasting. More for me then! Although we’re only allowed to taste two different bourbons (two cups per person), I got to take my sister and her husband’s glasses and try six different bourbons and could actually taste the difference between each one (whiskey typically just tastes like fire to me, so it was really nice to be able to identify different flavors in each one). 

And lastly, but definitely not least (How many times have I used this transition phrase?!), here are pictures of the beautiful food my sister cooked at home. She made a really tasty pork noodle dish and mushroom bourguignon. Serious props.

The next time I’ll post I’ll probably be in the UK. I’m so excited to start this new chapter in my life at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama (if this is your first time tuning in, I’m getting my Masters in Theatre Design at RWCMD)! I probably won’t have much time to post this next year because of my work load. I apologize to the handful of people who follow my blog in advance (thanks for following at all). Nevertheless, I will probably update my personal blog more often. So if you like my writing or just me, you can follow this blog.

Still Here! Just been a little busy...

It’s been way too long. Ridiculously long in fact. No, I did not abandon my food blog, but life has gotten a bit crazy and writing about food hasn’t been on the forefront of my mind. What has been on the forefront of my mind is grad school. I spent the last year applying to UK theatre conservatories for an MA in Theatre Design and then spent a month in the UK in the summer interviewing with the schools. However my crazy schedule hasn’t stopped me from eating at great places! So... Please prepare yourself for a super long entry with lots of photos (what else is new?)!

Let’s first talk about Komodo. For those of you who haven’t stepped into this wonderful restaurant or laid eyes on its black food truck, Komodo serves Californian and Asian fusion dishes (that’s a mouthful!). I’m talking Asian spices with familiar SoCal ingredients like guacamole and fresh veggies. Needless to say, I love their food (being Taiwanese and born and raised in SoCal might play a huge factor). I got to try this gem’s truck first, but I got to say I like their restaurant a lot more. There’s more choices AND their fountain drinks are PHENOMENAL. I adore the Lychee Lemonade, but the Passion Fruit Green Tea and Mango Citrus are also great. I had the MP3, which is a burrito filled with top sirloin, seared quail eggs, tater tots and garlic aioli. I was really craving comfort food that night and so this really hit the spot. I also shared truffle fries with a friend. I’m more of a thick-cut fries kind of girl, but I can’t complain with this side’s flavors. 

Moving on to Top Round, I really wanted to try this little joint because LAist had an article about their shakes (I love pistachio ice cream and they have a shake version). Funny enough, I didn’t have a shake when I got there (the food is pretty heavy by itself). What I did have was the Bar-B-Cue sandwich (provel cheese, friend onion, jalapeño straws, bar-b-cue sauce, all between onion buns) and Dirty Fries (fries with gravy, provel cheese, carmelized onions and Round sauce). Sad to say, I was a bit disappointed. I hoped that the Bar-B-Cue sandwich would have some kind of kick to it because of the jalapeños, but it all kind of melted together into one goopy mess. The dirty fries were also a bit disappointing because the fries were all super thin and crispy (again, I’m a thick-cut fries gal) and it all quickly cooled, making the whole thing a ball of cheese and gravy. The restaurant is cute and I was with great company, but I’ll probably be back only to try the pistachio shake.

Tea Rose Garden is a cute high tea spot in Pasadena that my friend Melissa introduced to me. Nestled on a little street of shops, you would hardly notice it. However, when you walk in, you’re presented with a kind of gaudy, but quirky and lovely cafe. The owners try to make the inside look like the outside by installing a fountain in the middle of room and painting the ceiling sky blue. Tea Rose Garden feels like your grandma invited you over for tea because all the cups and saucers are mismatched and there is wonderful clutter of flowery decor everywhere you look. I expect that when I’m 80, this is what my house will look like. I personally like places like this, places with personality bursting out its seams. The food was also pretty good and loved how they gave us PLENTY of Double Devon Cream. You can never have enough cream with an English scone.   

And lastly, let me introduce you to BLD. One of my friends treated me to this swanky restaurant and you can definitely sense how high-end this place is by the price on its menus and the celebrities that line up to eat there (spotted Minka Kelly there and yes, she’s just as pretty as she looks on TV). I had a chorizo tortilla española, which is a Spanish omelette filled with chorizo. Not only was the omelette delicious, but the roasted potatoes were FANTASTIC. I would eat a plate of just those potatoes if I could. Everything was seasoned just right and I can understand why such a long line forms every morning.

When I was in the UK this summer, I didn’t go on any new food excursions, but I revisited my favorite markets and restaurants and got to cook a bit when I was WWOOF-ing in Wales (WWOOF stands for Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms and it’s a program where volunteers work on a farm and are housed and fed in return). However, I did get to see Yotam Ottolenghi! Ottolenghi is a celebrity chef in the UK, who’s dishes are inspired by Middle-Eastern and Mediterranean flavors. I got to eat at one of his restaurants last year with a friend and was quite impressed by his flavor combinations. I was just wandering around London one evening and decided to stop by the new Foyles bookshop. Just so happened that Ottolenghi was opening the cookery section that night, so I got to hear him give a little speech and snap a few photos. Pretty cool, eh?

Oh! And I forgot to tell you that I did in fact get into grad school! I’ll be attending the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama for MA Theatre Design (Scenography). School starts in September and I don’t know if I’ll have any time to blog to be honest. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll pop back to write about some traditional Welsh food!

Spice Up Your Life!

To be honest, this isn’t that spicy of an entry. Spices are involved, but not to the extent where I think it does the title justice. I’ll probably end up writing another post in the future about spicy food and wishing I didn’t already use such a great title that makes people nostalgic for 90’s Brit pop. But alas, life and blog writing isn’t about what if’s and anticipation of future entries. So let’s get down to it. 

I baked and cooked this week! After a two weeks of pretty unhealthy restaurant and fast food eating, I decided to go on a juice cleanse for a day and then... Go back to unhealthy eating! I’m tryin’--not real hard--but I’m tryin’. At least this time around I’m baking and cooking my own food. That’s healthier than eating out, right? Maybe not ‘cause I baked pumpkin cream cheese muffins and harissa chicken thighs with buttermilk, but at least I know exactly what I’m putting into my body!

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Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

Ever since I had a pumpkin cream cheese muffin at Whole Foods in November, I’ve been wanting to replicate it. Now, the recipe I used didn’t replicate the look (the one from Whole Foods was huge and had a lovely mushroom-like muffin shape), but the taste was pretty spot on... Maybe even better because it was more moist. 

In the past, I used to use Punchfork to look up recipes and see how people would rate them to decide whether or not I would try a recipe out. Sadly, Pinterest--which I adore except for the fact that the company took away one of the most useful and awesome recipe sites gifted to the Internet--bought Punchfork and absorbed it into their site. Except, they didn’t really incorporate Punchfork with all its rating glory. All you can do on Pinterest concerning food is pin great photos of food. For all you know, it might taste horrible.

The point to my rant (LONG LIVE PUNCHFORK) is that I had to find a recipe online blindly. Sure, some sites have comments and people can rate on the site directly, but how honest can it be if it’s on their own site? Websites are free to delete or write their own comments. I digress. I ended up picking Crazy for Crust’s recipe and am pretty happy with it. 

Now why did I decide to bake these Fall/Winter friendly muffins when Spring is around the corner you might ask? Well... There was a sale on pumpkin puree at Ralphs. I got too excited and bought three huge cans. I had no clue that I would only use 3/4 of a can for 36 muffins (that’s right, I made 36 muffins--for no reason other than to share), so I’ll be eating a lot of pumpkin-flavored goods for the next month or two. I CAN’T WAIT. 

I’d now like to give a little shout out to my sister and her husband for gifting me these lovely silicon spatulas that were extremely handy in this whole baking process. They gave them to me for Christmas and had them specially engraved with the most British sentence they could think of...

Back to baking, the recipe online is pretty self-explanatory. I didn’t change the recipe.  My only “complaint” is that there was too much cheesecake filling leftover. I put complaint in quotations because it’s not really a problem because I ate the rest of the filling. Problem solved! You probably only need about 10 oz of cream cheese or maybe you can get even get away with using 8 oz and save yourself from buying an extra box. Oh, another thing is that I would recommend you leaving the muffins in the oven for an extra 2 minutes. I think my muffins came out a little undercooked. Eh... They were still yummy. And to tie in the spice theme... Pumpkin spice is in the recipe! See... The title does work.

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Harissa Chicken Thighs

Now these little puppies were a lot of work. I recently went to the LA Art Book Fair and stumbled upon an adorable, mini cook book published by Short Stack. I bought the Buttermilk edition by Angie Masier (there are other editions highlighting other ingredients) because I don’t have much experience using buttermilk (I remember the first time I bought it and was surprised it was tart!). 

There are plenty of other recipes that I’ll be getting to later on this year, but I decided to try the harissa chicken recipe because it looked relatively simple and incorporated interesting flavors. Little did I know Ralphs didn’t carry harissa paste and I would have to make it from scratch. I’m sure World Market or some other market in LA has harissa paste (a Tunisian hot chilli pepper paste), but I don’t have time to scour Los Angeles for it. I ended up finding a simple recipe for the paste on good ol’ About.com and adapting it to what I could get my hands on. For instance, I didn’t have coriander or caraway seeds, so I used rosemary instead. I also doubled the amount of everything in the recipe because it didn’t seem like enough for amount of chicken and veg I was cooking. The recipe on About.com also doesn’t specify what type of red peppers you should use, so I went for the standard thin red ones (please excuse my lack of knowledge of red pepper names). 

To respect the publishers and writer of Short Stack’s Buttermilk, I will not be posting their recipe online. However, if you ask my personally I will email you the recipe with my notes. 

During my prep, I had to de-seed 24 peppers, which took awhile and left me with stinging fingertips. Let me tell you, the acidity of spices quickly uncovers where you have cuts. Oh, and I don’t advise rubbing your eyes or really touching any part of your body while working with peppers. Seriously. 

I ended up using my mini blender (similar to a Magic Bullet) to blend all the spices and herbs together instead of using a food processor (‘cause I don’t have one). A mortar and pestle would probably give you the best results though.

The end result was so tasty! I love the sauce, especially with the baked sweet potatoes and red onions. I wish I bought leaner and thinner cuts of chicken thigh, but it’s not a huge deal. If you want to attempt to make this, I would set aside at least four to five hours to prep and bake. Not only does make the paste take time because of all the de-seeding, but the chicken needs to marinate for 30 minutes in the fridge and 30 minutes at room temperature. The vegetables also have to bake for 20 minutes before you place the marinated chicken on top. And lastly, the bake time is about an hour (or at least it took me that long because my chicken thighs were pretty thick). Nevertheless, the labor was worth it and now I can enjoy this dish for the next three to four days!

Why is it so hard to cook for one?