December 2019 Rundown

[beefnoguy]

Tak Kee Lee (SF) Hong Kong cafe, pickled mustard greens and pork strip rice noodle soup, with a hot milk tea & coffee with condensed milk. Lazy weekend brunch

Highlights from Sushi Yoshizumi:

Smoked and seared baby bluefin (katsuo style prep). That is one fat baby

Hokkaido kinki (aged, salt cured and grilled). So much fat it turned to gelatin

Medium rare karasumi (miso cured first then dried across three weeks)

Bold, powerful, structured, masculine, and a fine balance between rice and sake lees vinegar sourness, acidity, with the perfect pitch of umami, along with the sweetness coming from the fat of this great pieces of kohada from Amakusa

Aged winter buri

Sogen Junmai (Ishikawa Prefecture) by San Francisco Japantown

Tasting a pour of Tokugawa Ieyasu Daiginjo (Aichi prefecture) with a very interesting savory character prior to the finish in the vein of an aged Alsace Grand Cru Riesling

Roasted Dungeness Crab with garlic noodles at Le Soleil (SF) on Christmas night

Enjoying one last meal at Cafe Salina, the unsung hero of Cantonese dim sum (the owner let the old master dim sum chef go and is repurposing to do something else). Here are some steadfast classics this 76 year old master tried to keep alive: multi layered crispy puff pastry crust mini egg tarlets, glutinous rice rolls, black sesame rolls (the Cantonese nickname for this was analog camera film), and a super labor intensive “thousand layer cake” (sweet salted duck egg yolk, winter melon)…nobody else knows how to do this anymore.

Japanese style drinking party to celebrate the end of the year (or rather “forgetting the bad parts of the year”) Lots of special sake, 3 bottles of note:

Annual Asian Chefs Association Dinner at Le Soleil, BYOB so I brought Alsace Grand Cru Riesling and a Junmai sake from Fukushima prefecture. Fun pairings with Vietnamese fusion! The pairings were super crazy with the pork belly claypot (strong nuoc mam presence) and the Riesling held up to the coconut curry crab!

[moonboy403]

@beefnoguy

black sesame rolls (the Cantonese nickname for this was analog camera film)

you don’t see “fei lum” anywhere anymore

@beefnoguy

“thousand layer cake” (sweet salted duck egg yolk, winter melon)

never seen this before!

[beefnoguy]

The sad part is this… this dim sum chef came to SF in the 1990s, made one restaurant legendary, moved to another restaurant or two, went into retirement then got hired by this HK cafe to do more casual everyday dim sum. This was 3 years ago, and he really did make dim sum great again. Unfortunately due to inconsistency and the fact that during dinner it’s super quiet to ghost town, this eventually became unsustainable. While Dragon Beaux is nice, it is gems like these that not everyone appreciates…and so it fades out of existence, and does anyone else care at that point except for us hard core fans. And who wants to learn from the master to do things old school, make very little money and only appreciated by the food geeks?

[js76wisco]

When you don’t want to wait 4 hours at Howlin Rays. Mrs Knott’s Chicken is ok. Fine if you’re already here but definitely not crave worthy. In the OC I’d prefer Crack Shack, Buttermilk Fried Chicken, BBQ chicken BB wings and the broasted chicken at Chicken Box.

[joy]

Went to Goto@Silog again. They’re shortening their hours and closing at 3pm after the New Year

Got the same thing again, arroz caldo and sisig. While the arroz caldo is great, the sisig is just the best. We will probably just get two plates of that next time and I’m sure they’ll look at us funny. Need to find more people to go with so we can try the crispy pata and bulalo.

Originally we wanted to do a dessert bang bang with D’New Aristocrat’s banana turon and Jollibee’s peach mango pie, but we woke up too late. So we just got the pie.

Bo Luc Lac from Garlic and Chives. Objectively not the best bo luc lac but personally I love it, the sauce is what makes it.

[JeetKuneBao]

Garlic and Chives and Newport Seafood is kinda known for their bo luc lac but just down the street Khoi Hung has the best in Little Saigon and possibly in the So Cal area…the sweetness is balanced out with tons of garlic, served with arugula and red rice. I have yet to find a better version than Khoi Hung. I know you guys are fans of both G&C and Newport but their bo luc lac is not as good

[JeetKuneBao]

Hong Kong Cafe

HK Milk Tea
Pineapple Bun
Old Fire Soup (free with entree)
Egg Sandwich…I was looking at pics of Australia Dairy Co lol
Scrambled Egg and Tomatoes

They ran out of rice rolls!!! Aahjcjrocjkkkkkllldncjs!!!

@beefnoguy this place is to SGV as Tak Kee Lee is to SF. Next time you are down here you gotta try the rice rolls and milk tea! And I gotta try the lemon tea and chicken wings

[beefnoguy]

That soup is so fecking legit

Had something similar at Harborview SF (good part of the crew came from R&G Lounge v1.0) for Thanksgiving but in banquet style size

The green veg is I believed preserved/salt cured and dried/pickled. 菜干 (tsai gan/ choy gon), carrots to counter with sweetness (green turnips could be added for more complexity), pork neck bones. Though when you eat the veg it doesn’t taste pickled/cured from rehydration due to cooking.

[attran99]

I The Chicken Box!

[moonboy403]

tire shop taqueria - iki ramen - petit trois bang bang bang

carne asada and chorizo tacos are outta control!

[paranoidgarliclover]

@beefnoguy

black sesame rolls

Damnit, now even more annoyed that I didn’t make it out there while was in SF! Argh.

[Ns1]

@JeetKuneBao

Scrambled Egg and Tomatoes

Wow that looks incredible O_O

[JeetKuneBao]

It needs a little more egg…

But it’s Tomatoes and Scrambled Eggs…

Hands down the most popular homestyle Chinese dish (Han Chinese btw). Us Chinese may disagree passionately about politics but every single Chinese knows this dish and knows how to cook it. Whether you are Chinese from Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Vancouver, SF Bay Area, SGV, and everything in between. There is infinite ways to cook this! I been experimenting with using Bianco Tomatoes lately. It’s also so simple and basic that this is easily the first dish one learns to make! It’s also so simple and basic that many restaurants do not have it on their menus. But I am sure it can be made upon request. Which brings me to something I been thinking about…what if I go to all my favorite SGV places and ask them to make me Tomatoes and Scrambled Eggs, BUT only the way they make it for their family or the way their mom/grandma made it.

Tomatoes and Scrambled Eggs, I absolutely love this dish ever since I was a kid.

[js76wisco]

My last bites of 2019. Happy New Year everybody.

Patisserie Chantilly. From top right clockwise.
Lemon meringue - ruined all future lemon desserts for me
Fuji apple tart - the best apple pie of all time in a tart. Love the use of Fuji apples
Chestnut cake - yum. I mean if you like chestnuts this is an absolute must

Chaser

[Chowseeker1999]

Hi @js76wisco,

Yes! Love Patisserie Chantilly’s Mont Blanc!

But wait… where are your Choux aux Sésames (Black Sesame Cream Puffs)?!

[JeetKuneBao]

I wax poetic about tomatoes and scrambled eggs let me do the same for Cantonese soups lol

For the most part here in California/West/foodie media/etc, soup in Cantonese food culture has largely been ignored. Dim sum, roasties, and cafes are what comes to mind when thinking of Cantonese food. Soup is so important and fundamental to the Cantonese from everyday food to when one is ill to large celebrations at fancy seafood restaurants. It really is not a meal unless there is soup! My maternal grandfather was from Guangdong, one of his favorite thing to eat was soup. For me a small way to connect with him since he is gone is to make some soup (made some chicken bones/carcass and ginger soup the other day). In SGV back in the day I remember almost all the lunches/dinner had free soup to start, I don’t think that is the case now! (I need to remind myself to take a pic of Sea Harbours soup offerings to show you). Some cha chaan tengs also offer it when you buy a “over rice” plate or a main. Looks like Tak Kee Lee in SF does, and that place is on my to do list. I am rambling so I’ll stop.

I didn’t know that was tsai gan! I always just used mustard greens no wonder my soups aren’t as good.

[js76wisco]

@Chowseeker1999 you got me. We ate a few in the store before we could take pictures. Those cream puffs are so good. My 7 year old inhaled one.

[beefnoguy]

@JeetKuneBao

I wax poetic about tomatoes and scrambled eggs let me do the same for Cantonese soups lol

For the most part here in California/West/foodie media/etc, soup in Cantonese food culture has largely been ignored. Dim sum, roasties, and cafes are what comes to mind when thinking of Cantonese food. Soup is so important and fundamental to the Cantonese from everyday food to when one is ill to large celebrations at fancy seafood restaurants. It really is not a meal unless there is soup! My maternal grandfather was from Guangdong, one of his favorite thing to eat was soup. For me a small way to connect with him since he is gone is to make some soup (made some chicken bones/carcass and ginger soup the other day). In SGV back in the day I remember almost all the lunches/dinner had free soup to start, I don’t think that is the case now! (I need to remind myself to take a pic of Sea Harbours soup offerings to show you). Some cha chaan tengs also offer it when you buy a “over rice” plate or a main. Looks like Tak Kee Lee in SF does, and that place is on my to do list. I am rambling so I’ll stop.

I didn’t know that was tsai gan! I always just used mustard greens no wonder my soups aren’t as good.

I’ve seen some of double boiled soups menu pictures at Sea Harbor (kevineats). Very large sized and quite expensive, although there are a couple that may be interesting (conch, chicken, matsutake, and hairy gourd, dried scallop, bamboo pith, pork). The stock needs to be solid though for it to work, and the ingredients need to make sense (this is an area that’s a bit tough to understand unless you know also the effects of them overall, not all combinations are logical or correct). One of the absolute best double boiled soups from the original Yum’s Bistro was watercress, dried duck gizzard with a chicken stock as a base but is enhanced with many other ingredients…I think there were also dried scallops, red dates, chicken feet at the very least. This probably beats whatever Sea Harbor has on their menu although I’m sure with enough advanced notice SH could whip that same soup out.

Tak Kee Lee’s house soup is included in the meal sets that include a drink of your choice. It’s typically just a lighter bodied soup with carrot, green turnip, chicken and/or pork neck, ginger and some salt. It’s not bistro/seafood restaurant kind of house soup, but more homey. It’s much less complex compared to yours at Hong Kong Cafe but still hits the spot.

[js76wisco]

NYT article on Armenian flatbread. Shout out to zhengyalov hatz

These Armenian Flatbreads Stuffed With Greens Are the Perfect Snack...

[Ns1]

I’m convinced the food writer for NYTofLA is just trying to score as many free trips to LA as possible