uclagee's Xanga

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 23:46:36 GMT

Personal Rate of Return from 01/01/2008 to 11/20/2008 is -46.7%*

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 22:05:08 GMT

sadly, after eating the most spectacular meal i have had at manresa, within a week, i have outdone myself and had an even more spectacular meal, this time in good ole southern california:
melisse - santa monica,ca
"carte blanche" menu, master chef/owner josiah citrin even decided to stop by our table to say hello.. awesomeness

follow the pics for:
oyster shooter - horseradish granite, tabasco pearls, japanese tomato consomme
fennel flan - orange gelee, cashew
sweet pea soup - mushroom and leek hash, almond butter
egg caviar - lemon creme fraiche and american osetra caviar
trio of melisse foie gras - date confiture, heirloom carrots, blood orange, apple marmalade
santa barbara spot prawn - abalone, asparagus, morels, shellfish lemongrass nage
crispy golden snapper - laratte potato, fennel, tomato herb jus
sonoma duck breast - swiss chard, porcini, duck jus
roasted venison loin - chantarelle mushrooms, cabbage, chestunt, sauce poivre
fromage
vanilla yogurt - strawberry sorbet
frozen passion fruit parfait - pistachio, coconut, lemongrass broth
chocolate, chocolate, coffee - chocolate souffle, chocolate peanut butter crunch, coffee and mascarpone

see the pics:

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:15:24 GMT

eating adventure this weekend:

perhaps the most spectacular meal i have had in my life (certainly the most expensive!)
MANRESA - Los Gatos, CA

Tasting Menu as best as I can remember, since it was so complex I may have misconstrued a few of the items:
- olive madeleine & red pepper gelee
- croquette with some hot liquid pistachio stuff?
- oyster with celery ice
- arpege egg
- butter with sea salt (no pics of the bread, which was french, wheat, and olive)
- mussel, crab, clam, kelp
- prawns with indian spice
- garden dish - mix of vegetables/flowers from their garden
- abalone & foie gras in a bonito broth
- cod a la plancha in a red bell pepper broth ?
- roast squab and squab confit, grapes, touch of bacon
- spring lamb, peas, wheatberries, kelp
- black tea with some ice cream, crispy rice
- custard in white chocolate, and ice cream with pea leaf
- chocolate fondant, salty cracker, sourdough ice cream
- chocolate madeleine, strawberry gelee

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 06:21:14 GMT

another napa/sonoma trip last last weekend but i'm lagging behind in my posts:

here's the photo collage:
going by row from the top:

oxbow public market , annette's chocolate factory , bistro jeanty , crusty bread
bone marrow appetizer , cream of tomato soup in puff pastry, seafood risotto, pomme frittes
steak tartare, steak tartare with the yolk dumped on (and a few nibbles by me), banana cream pie, some salad
chicken pot pie, sundae, breakfast food, more breakfast food

synopsis:
oxbow = bad version of SF ferry building, annette's chocolates was pretty tasty though

lunch @ bistro jeanty = great bistro, bone marrow appetizer was super, steak tartare is a bit too much for an entree (got sa little tiring eating all that raw beef).. i'll remember to order it as an entree from now on, banana creme pie was good, but still not as good as the one i had at emeril's in atlanta.... mmm memories.

dinner @ starlight wine bar = good and unique chicken pot pie.. basically all the stuff with a pastry on top. salad was good because there were really thick pieces of fatty bacon chopped up in it

dessert @ screaming mimi's = learned my lesson, will try not to order sundaes anymore, all the hot fudge/sauce/whatever just ends up melting the ice cream and you end up with a big mess... and i just like the ice cream by itself the most, so must tell myself not to order these ridiculous sundaes anymore!

breakfast @ two niner diner = diner at petaluma airport, was a second choice as many restaurants were closed on easter. it was good enough food, typical greasy spoon fare. nothing to complain about.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:19:11 GMT

took a weekend trip up to wine country... mainly to relax, eat, taste some wine, and get away...

using the trusty michelin guide, picked 3 restaurants to dine at:

descriptions will be short, because it's late and i'm tired, but pictures for all to see and drool over

saturday lunch:
bouchon (of thomas keller fame), yountville, ca, 1 michelin star
main entree was the cote de boeuf for two, it was awesome, they brought it out before the chef sliced it and diced it, and i wish i really took a pic of it, but oh well, i forgot to.. sadness... anyways, had parsnip puree soup, mussels, the cote de boeuf (22-24 oz ribeye, served with creamed spinach, bone marrow bread pudding, and forest mushrooms)... was too full for dessert, but picked up some goodies from the next door bouchon bakery...

afternoon: wine tasting
really only went to two wineries, tried to go to another one, but it was by appt only:
pictured are plumpjack & sterling
plumpjack is really small, just a small tasting bar and gift shop, but we ended up picking up a bottle of their cade sauvignon blanc as it was really good... sterling is much more grand, a full fledged self guided walking tour throughout the winery, you need to take a tram up as well, which provides beautiful views, and included with the tram ticket/wine tour, they give you a taste of 5 wines... and also gave us some chocolate truffle samples

dinner:
k&l bistro, sebastopol, ca, another 1 michelin star rated restaurant
let me try to recant: fritto misto, french onion soup, tomato bisque, goat cheese salad, skate
no dessert, because we were too stuffed

sunday brunch:
el dorado kitchen , sonoma, ca, michelin rated, but no stars (hey it's hard enough just to get in the guide)
meal was: schramsberg brut rose (had to order since i was denied the tour of the schramsberg winery), truffle fries, curry fritto misto, fried egg pizza, beef hash & poached eggs, once again, skipped dessert as we were way too stuffed (see the trend).

that about rounds up my epicurean endeavors, but to sum it up:
bouchon was awesome, best steak (that had sauce poured all over it) i ever had, pricey, but worth the experience i suppose
k&l bistro was good, but nothing too spectacular (maybe we were too full), prices are very reasonable here
el dorado kitchen, excellent brunch, truffle fries are perhaps the best french fries i ever had.. tastes like they're fried in truffle oil with parmesan sprinkled on top. yum yum yum. the rest of the food was great too , but after we got through the fries & curry fritto misto, it was really hard to put down the rest of our meals, but still grrrrreat. sonoma is a cute little town too, it's right on the downtown square, lots of shopping and other restaurants and such to explore

and as for wine tasting, i still am trying to learn how to appreciate it... i guess i'm just not that hardcore, and i like the tamer stuff.. i.e. i think the sauvignon blanc is better than a chardonnay, and prefer the cabernet vs the merlot... or perhaps the explanation is i'm just weak sauce

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 03:46:49 GMT

this weekend's eating:

old port lobster shack, redwood city, ca
fried calamari
the maine lobster roll
old fashioned hot dog
old port red clam "chowdah"
steamers
the naked lobster roll

the last two pics are from satura cakes, los altos, ca
blueberry muffin bar
fruit iced tea

the red crane, cupertino,ca

karaage calamari
snow crab and banana blossom salad
red crane sashimi
char siu marinated alaskan black cod
d-pesto roll
ahi tuna tasting
shaking beef tenderloin
(2 repeated pics because you have to do these collages in squares)

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 02:24:21 GMT

by request, more foodie pics:

olio campbell
http://www.yelp.com/biz/olio-campbell

tortellini was meh
scallops was awesome
paella was pretty good and a huge serving
bread pudding was very good for bread pudding (i'm not a fan of bread pudding in general)

i would give it 3.5 *'s

Ricotta and Sage Tortellini
sweet dumpling squash puree, brown butter chestnuts

Pan Seared Dayboat Scallops
sunchoke and yukon gold potato puree, sauteed toybox mushrooms, melted leeks

Paella Valencia
prawns, clams, mussels, Portuguese sausage, free range chicken, saffron rice

Banana Brioche Bread Pudding
caramelized banana, white chocolate, toasted walnuts, zabiglione gelato

Monday, February 04, 2008

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 05:40:22 GMT

spent the first half of the week on the east coast...

white plains, ny
stamford, ct
greenwich, ct

enjoy my picture collage:
highlights are meal at legal seafoods... some old church in white plains, ny...... nice lunch at rowayton seafood.... downtown stamford, ct....... the hyatt in greenwich, ct.... and then some photowalking in the town of old greenwich....

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 04:29:16 GMT

stolen from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1706768,00.html?imw=Y

Work Out and Drink Up

Thursday, Jan. 24, 2008 By SANJAY GUPTA, M.D.

A new study of cardiac health has yielded a happy formula: start with moderate exercise, at least 30 min. to 1 hr. a day and add moderate alcohol consumption

Erik Isakson / Getty; Maren Caruso / Getty

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If you want to live a long and healthy life, you're probably trying to eat right, exercise regularly and get enough sleep. Good steps. Now how about adding a little alcohol to your regimen?

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That's right. It is well documented that tossing a few drinks back in a week (and that means a few: up to one a day for women, up to two for men) has potential heart benefits. But researchers in Denmark decided to look further. Could drinking alcohol have a benefit similar to that of exercise?

"If you don't want to exercise too much," asks Dr. Morten Gronbaek, epidemiologist with Denmark's National Institute of Public Health, "can you trade it for one to two drinks per day and be fine?" A study Gronbaek and colleagues just published in the European Heart Journal suggests the answer just may be yes. That finding, not surprisingly, has proved to be a crowd-pleaser.

There are a number of reasons a drink can be such a tonic. First, alcohol and exercise affect your heart health in similar ways. "They help increase good cholesterol, or HDL [high-density lipoproteins], and clean the circulatory system's pipes," says Dr. Arthur Klatsky, a cardiologist and researcher at Kaiser Permanente Northern California. "HDL helps remove fatty deposits, created by bad cholesterol, or LDL [low-density lipoproteins], from blood-vessel walls. The higher the HDL, the less likely vascular disease becomes. The lower the HDL, the more likely."

Gronbaek and his team surveyed 12,000 people over a 20-year period. They found that exercise and drinking alcohol each had an independent beneficial effect on the heart and a compounded effect when practiced together. The investigators got even greater insight when they separated the study participants into four categories.

People who don't drink at all and don't exercise had the highest risk of heart disease. People who drink moderately and exercise had a 50% lower risk. Teetotaling exercisers had a 30% decreased risk, as did moderately drinking couch potatoes. "There's an additional protective effect to doing both," says Gronbaek. "That's the new finding."

This study is part of a growing body of work that makes a medical virtue out of what was once seen as a vice. There is evidence that alcohol in combination with caffeine can limit the damage to your brain after a stroke, even though it may not lower your risk of having a stroke in the first place. Other possible benefits include lowering your risk of diabetes, improving insulin sensitivity in postmenopausal women and decreasing dementia rates in older adults who had been consuming one to six drinks per week.

Before you rush off to hit the bar after your workout, keep in mind that your age matters. Alcohol may do you no coronary good until you reach the age at which heart disease becomes an appreciable risk. "You wouldn't advise everyone to drink," says Gronbaek. "You shouldn't even think about doing it until age 45 or 50. There's absolutely no proof of a preventative and protective effect before age 45." Also, younger women who have a higher risk of breast cancer and anyone who has a family history of alcoholism should pass on the pint and order a soda.

And remember, moderation is everything. Gronbaek's study, like most, stuck to the one-drink-a-day standard for women and up to two a day for men. It did not distinguish between type (wine vs. beer) or size (pint vs. shot). But here common sense must rule. A 10-oz. martini is a lot more than a 6-oz. serving of wine, even if they each fit in one glass. And it goes without saying that you should never drink your weekly allotment all at once.

With reporting by A. Chris Gajilan/New York

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Sun, 27 Jan 2008 19:25:27 GMT

to my faithful xanga readers;

i offer a xanga giveaway, consisting of a FREE* shutterfly 12-month calendar... first come first serve, code is below, i believe its transferrable... i got this from buying a camera on amazon. $19.95 value free courtesy of your favorite blogger! if you do find a use for this, please have the decency of leaving a comment saying the code is taken, so you don't waste someone elses time... even if you randomly stumbled upon this and i don't know you and you use the code, just let us know it's gone! only a few days left to act..

http://amazon.shutterfly.com/amazon/calendarfree?cid=AMZGY1ALL01

Description:Congratulations on your qualifying purchase! Use your code for a free 12-month photo calendar from Shutterfly--a $19.99 value. (Limit: One per customer.)

Expires:January 31, 2008

Your Code:AM4R-DM9E-4M1D-E3XR8B

*Taxes, shipping and handling charges will apply to your order.