eating is easier than writing

I was recommending restaurants to a friend today and realized there were at least recent two food outings that I had failed to blog. I think when I take a lot of photos I get overwhelmed by the thought of uploading and writing about all of them, so I procrastinate so long that eventually I forget. Anyway, without further ado, here are some catch-up reviews...

Last December, I picked COI for my birthday dinner. They serve an eleven-course set menu with a few choices along the way:


The amuse was a milk and honey bubble, served on a silver spoon:


The first course was entitled "pink grapefruit" and it was a kind of sorbet, with a dab of perfume on the plate. The waiter explained we were supposed to put the perfume on our wrists so we could smell it while eating. Hmm.


Next up was a trio of tiny beets. I usually dislike beets but these ones were extremely well done and this was one of my favorite courses:


I chose a fromage tart as my next course. It was a bit disappointing; too gooey and not flavorful enough:


The other option was "oysters under glass". The "glass" part was made of yuzu, radish, and apple. I'm so-so about oysters (I refuse to eat cooked ones at all) which is why I chose the fromage tart, but this particular dish looked pretty interesting and I think I might have preferred it:


The soup course was a squash puree with asian pear, pomegranate, chili flakes, and mint. I actually don't remember this course that well except that I liked the hint of chili. It was rather a boring presentation, though, as you can see:


The next course offered a choice between an "abstraction of garden in early winter" and a crab melt. I chose crab, of course. The crab itself was good but whatever was on top of it was too gooey for my taste, and it didn't taste like cheese, either (which I think would have been an improvement):


I saw some people at the next table with the "garden" option and it certainly looked a lot more interesting than my dish, but I didn't ask them how it tasted.

Following that was an "earth and sea" dish which had tofu, mushrooms, and seaweed. It was very Japanese in flavor and I liked it pretty well but wasn't blown away:


I think by this time I was ready for some real meat, but no, my next dish was matsutake, "grilled on the plancha". I have no idea what that means. The matsutake was again, fine but not amazing:


The other option would have been abalone, with a caper berry vinaigrette. I had a bite, and decided I liked Chinese-style abalone better:


I finally got some beef at this point. The beef loin was cooked with marrow and wild mushroom. The chunk of marrow was huge, and really nicely cooked, and I liked the wild mushroom garnish very much as well. I guess it's not surprising that this was one of my favorites:


The cheese plate came with a single slice of cheese, watercress, persimmon, and walnut. The cheese itself was yummy but I guess I'm still not a big fan of persimmon. Also, at this point, I was kind of thinking that there hadn't been all that much food, and we were already on dessert, so I was a bit disappointed there wasn't more cheese:


The palate cleanser was cute and I vaguely remember liking it. It had melon, berry, and mint in it:


Then, on to dessert! This quince and huckleberry parfait doesn't look like much (especially because I failed to focus on it properly) but it was delicious. In fact, it was my favorite course of the evening:


The chocolate mesquite cake was quite good as well but I think it was a letdown after the parfait, and I wasn't fond of the accompanying squash sherbert:


My overall opinion was that there were a lot of creative ideas but the execution was a bit uneven and the amount of food, while okay for me, would have been definitely not enough for many people, even though there were eleven (!) courses. I am glad that I tried it once, just for the experience, but I don't think I'll make a special effort to go back.

On to even better things!

I'd been hearing great things about Cyrus for awhile now, but up until this year I'd been too lazy to make it all the way up to Healdsburg to try it. Big mistake.

About a month ago, I finally secured a Saturday reservation for dinner at 8pm. After running some errands in the city, we got on the road a little before 6pm. We actually arrived around 7:30pm, and normally I think I'd have enjoyed walking around Healdsburg a bit, but somehow the combination of running around all day and the long drive had made me feel sick. Luckily, D recognized my symptoms as dehydration, and after chugging a full bottle of water in about 30 seconds, I recovered in time to enjoy my long-anticipated meal.

The menu offered a five-course option and an eight-course option, and of course we chose the eight courses:


We started with an assortment of canapes, each representing one of the five tastes:


The sweet (cardamom custard) and sour (citrus & wasabi) were on the top, with the bitter (rutabaga & cranberry) and savory (mushroom & black sesame) in the middle, and the salty (pickled cucumber) at the bottom.

After the canapes came the amuse, which was kampachi with sakura shrimp and pickled veggies. I love kampachi (the waitress stopped explaining what it was when I exclaimed, "kampachi!!") and this preparation did not disappoint:


Following that was a lobster salad with avocado, mango, and heart of palm. We were told this was the chef's special, and it was very good, even with the avocado removed:


Next we had a choice between a foie gras and a gnocchi dish. I chose the gnocchi (served with brussel sprouts, parsley root, and black truffle):


The gnocchi was alright, but I actually liked some of the other things on the plate more, including (surprisingly) the brussel sprouts.

The foie gras was served flambe-ed, with pineapple and star anise-ginger broth. I was kind of proud of this photo:


I didn't eat any of this black bass (with bacon braised cabbage) but it looked good and crunchy:


Instead I skipped right to this delicious duck breast, served with ginger rice cake and maitake mushroom. The mushroom was yummy too, but the rice cake was a little dry:


Then, onto my favorite course of the evening, the Wagyu beef with burdock, lotus and oxtail umeshu consomme. The beef itself was practically rare and was really good that way:


The other alternative was a lamb dish with celery root, parsnip, and turnip. The lamb itself was disappointingly game-y. I only had a bite but it was still my least favorite dish:


On to dessert! We started with an amazingly generous cheese plate. I don't remember all the cheese but there were two sheep's milk cheeses, one roquefort, and one hard cheese, which I actually ended up liking best:


The person who came to remove our plate told us it was the cleanest cheese plate she'd ever seen. I'm sure she was exaggerating, but we did enjoy the cheese very much.

Next we had a verjus sorbet in blood orange riesling soup:


The sorbet reminded me a bit of the raspberry Zinfandel sorbet that we'd had at Alexander's, which I had also liked. The crunchy part was made with crystallized picholine olives. It was a little too weird for me.

Finally, we had a choice between a tiramisu and a layer cake. I chose the tiramisu because it came with a cappuccino "spoon" and espresso gelato:


It was good, but I ended up liking the cake better, partially because it came with basil-coconut milk gelato, and bits of passionfruit:


Of course, we had lots of mignardises, about which I remember nothing:


We were also sent home with a brownie apiece:


I thought the box was really cleverly constructed. The brownie (which I ate the very next day) turned out to be somewhat ordinary.

In the end, I liked Cyrus much more than Coi. Part of it was that the portions were better; although the bread at Cyrus was excellent, I tried not to eat too much of it because I was afraid of getting full. There was no such issue at Coi. And, although both menus were creative, I felt like at Cyrus I had fewer "hmm..." moments (really only once, with the lamb). Also, Cyrus seemed to have a stronger Asian flavor, which I enjoyed very much. In fact, given the choice, I think I'd rather revisit Cyrus than even French Laundry, especially given the price differential.

chocolate goes with everything!

I've written before about my obsession with spicy chocolates. I think it's evolved, and now I like all kinds of interestingly flavored chocolates.

Over the holidays, a family friend brought my mom a box of Vosges exotic truffles, and I quite enjoyed "Absinthe" (Chinese star anise, fennel, pastis), "Naga" (sweet Indian curry powder, coconut), and "Budapest" (sweet Hungarian paprika).

Last month, I discovered a box of Choxie chocolates (from Target) in my fridge. Although they were a bit pasty and/or waxy (perhaps due to age?), there were some interesting flavors, such as eggnog, peppermint, champagne, pecan pie, gingerbread (my favorite!), and others.

Last week at work, I got to taste test the four flavors of TCHO chocolates: nutty, fruity, citrus-y, and chocolate-y. I loved the texture and appreciated the concept, but decided that I only really liked the citrus-y one, flavor-wise.

Over the weekend, in belated honor of St. Patrick's Day, I made two Guinness chocolate cakes with cream cheese frosting. They turned out quite well, even though I ran out of superfine sugar and had to use the raw stuff I'd bought in Jamaica for the second one. I thought the Guinness gave the cakes a nice rich flavor, and it also kept them good and moist for several days. I hear there is a "Bittersweet Chocolate Irish Whisky Cake" recipe somewhere; maybe I'll try that next year.

On Sunday, I finally made it to Bi-Rite Creamery, where I was prepared to try their "Chai Spiced Milk Chocolate" ice cream, but they didn't have it that day, so I ended up eating "Salted Caramel" and "Coffee Toffee" instead. The "Salted Caramel" was less flavorful than I had envisioned, but the "Coffee Toffee" was delicious. In fact, I was even inspired to buy a bag of toffee chip cookies to go. Yum!

man vs nature

One of my coworkers organizes "Photo Fridays" every week, where we all bring our DSLRs and he teaches us stuff about photography. Most of the people who come are way better than me and have nicer cameras, but I like going anyway because it's fun.

Last Friday, another coworker arranged to have the group of us get into the nearby Computer History Museum after hours, to shoot some photos of the artifacts. It was harder than I expected; I took a bunch of photos but I wasn't all that happy with any of them.

Here are two of the "better" ones:



Then, on the way back, I took this photo while walking past a tree. I liked it best of all the photos I took that day:


Maybe I just like shooting outdoor photos best.

stupidity and stubbornness

I was pretty freaked out yesterday reading articles about Natasha Richardson's death. It sounds like she took a normal fall on a beginner slope and somehow that led to a brain injury causing death. How does that happen?

I had mixed feelings when I heard the report of her not wearing a helmet. On the one hand, I do have a ski helmet, and I wear it all the time now. On the other hand, I skied my whole life sans helmet up until two years ago. It felt weird to me to wear a helmet, and I generally can tell when I'm going to fall, so I've yet to hit my head falling while skiing, knock on wood. (Snowboarding is a completely different story; I quit snowboarding after a particularly bad fall involving head-to-slope impact.)

I was stupidly stubborn on the helmet issue until I got demolished by an out-of-control boarder one day while standing completely still. At that point I realized that even if I knew what I was doing, it was entirely possible for me to get screwed by someone else who didn't. Two weeks later I was at Sports Basement looking for end-of-season sales on helmets.

I still don't wear a helmet when I use the public bikes around campus at work. I think I'm too lazy to hunt down a helmet and then wear it, for just a few minutes of riding. Maybe that's stupid too. Bleah.

a very Japanese week

On Tuesday, I headed up to Japantown after work. Amazingly, I was eating dinner at Kushi Tsuru by 7:30pm (maybe the bad economy is finally affecting traffic?). I topped off my yummy katsu-don with dessert at Sophie's Crepes: half of a "Japanese" crepe (red bean w/ green tea gelato) and half of a scoop of black sesame gelato. I finished in plenty of time to get into line at the Kabuki for the 9pm showing of Gururi no koto (aka "All Around Us"), one of the films from this year's Asian American Film Festival.

Yesterday on my way home, I stopped at Nijiya to pick up groceries for dinner. In addition to the items on my list, I also bought frozen edamame (product of Japan), potato "croquettes", and Japanese salad dressing. For dinner with friends, I made udon with sliced beef, nappa, shiitake mushroom, and kamaboko (fish cake), and heated some ready-made taiyaki for dessert.

If only Japan weren't so expensive, I think I'd go more often. Sigh.

actually enjoying moguls

I learned to ski when I was about ten years old. By high school I was fine with all blue runs and the occasional black run. After college (when I didn't ski much) I became comfortable with flat black runs and the occasional double black, but I still did horribly with moguls and with ungroomed powder.

I don't know what happened, but last weekend at Northstar, it was like a switch flipped, and I all of a sudden decided that mogul runs were fun. A friend of mine had rented a ski-in ski-out condo for a few weeks (so awesome!) and a bunch of us were crashing with him for the weekend. One person (who had noticeably better technique than me) would often suggest mogul runs, while another (not quite as good technique-wise but with no fear whatsoever) would always agree to them. Somehow this setup was conducive to me agreeing to try several light mogul runs. The Rapids (down the lift line on Backside) proved to be too long for me, and I cut out to Lower Burnout, but I quite enjoyed Jiboom and the bumpier parts of the Plunge. In fact, it was me who suggested a repeat of Jiboom as the last run of the day on Sunday afternoon. Fun!

new best time!

I ran today's St. Patrick's Day Fun Run in 27:20. I was really impressed with myself at first, because the run was advertised as 3.5 miles long, which would have meant sub-8-minute miles. Unfortunately, after talking to some coworkers with foot pods, we concluded the run was actually only about 3.2 miles. Ah well, even 8:54 per mile is a new personal best for me (for distances over 2 miles).

congrats!

I heard yesterday that MIT professor Barbara Liskov won a Turing Award. Professor Liskov supervised my first undergraduate research project at MIT, the summer after my freshman year. I was totally clueless and probably useless but she was quietly encouraging and gave me a chance, and eventually I got some small amount of work done (maybe). Anyway, it was nice to hear the news.

Sunday brunch at home

Last weekend some friends came over for lunch on Sunday. I decided it had been too long since I'd had proper breakfast/brunch food, so I made some:


On the menu:
- garlic & black pepper ham
- sourdough French toast
- Jamaican festivals (not visible, made from the mix I bought in Jamaica last year)
- home fried potatoes w/ basil
- veggie scramble w/ mushrooms, peppers, onions, and tomatoes
- fresh berries

new old sweater

I was at City Hall yesterday getting some forms. The guy behind me overheard me telling the clerk my street address.

guy:	I live right next to you! I live on <nearby street>.
me:	Wow. Actually I have some friends that live even closer to you, on <another street>.
guy:	Cool. So, do your kids go to Fox Elementary?
me:	(inwardly) WTF!!!
me:	(outwardly, smiling politely) No, no kids.

I went home and decided it must have been my new Old Navy sweater making me look old, that made him ask that:


I'm now calling it my "old" sweater. (When I say this, the emphasis is totally different from when I say "old sweater".)

sufficient postage?

I just mailed a large envelope with 82 sheets of paper in it, to my CPA.

I didn't want to have to drive to the post office, and I don't have access to a letter scale in my building, so I looked online and found estimates ranging from 5.5 to 6.0 sheets of printer paper per ounce.

I then went to the USPS website and found that they charge 17 cents per ounce after the first ounce. 82 / 5.5 = 14.9 ounces, so rounding up to 15 ounces, that would seem to imply needing $3.21 worth of postage.

I looked up the current price of first class postage (turns out it's 42 cents) and calculated that I would need 8 stamps x 42 cents = $3.36 to exceed $3.21. I had exactly 8 stamps in my wallet. If only things always worked out so well!

Now I'm just hoping that all those estimates and calculations were at least good enough to get my letter to its destination. I guess we'll see!

the weekend, in short

(I spent the weekend visiting family in Houston and Galveston.)

Things that sucked:
- visiting a not-yet-repaired Hurricane Ike-damaged home and discovering a break-in
- encountering a flat tire due to demolition debris
- accidentally breaking IE while installing a Windows Update on someone else's computer
- landing at SFO in rain that was blowing sideways

Things that didn't suck:
- filing a police report for said break-in with a really sympathetic cop
- helping to celebrate a 61st birthday with food, friends, family, and ice cream cake
- hearing about $130,000 worth of poker winnings
- eating surprisingly delicious homemade gua bao
- teaching people to use Firefox and Chrome (albeit out of necessity, due to broken IE)
- catching up with a happily expecting couple over cheap and yummy Tex-Mex

work-life balance

Overheard yesterday night while working late:
"I was bugging <engineer> yesterday about her fix for the P1 blocking bug; she finally sent out an email with a changelist late last night saying that it was done but she was in advanced labor and had to go to the hospital, so someone else would have to patch it in and submit..."

being well-prepared

My dad is a CPA, so both he and my mom educated all of their children about personal finance starting from a very young age.

I remember going to the bank with my mom when I was maybe three or four years old to deposit tiny sums of money into my own bank account. Afterwards, she would show me the numbers in the passbook and I would be happy that they were bigger than before. At some point she even explained to me what "interest" was; that money in the bank would make more money, all by itself. (She left out the part about inflation, at least for awhile.)

When I was in college and making slightly larger (but still measly) sums of money at my undergraduate research job, my dad insisted that I max out my Roth IRA "while I still could", and I somewhat blindly followed that advice. It was only later that I realized that it had been totally the right thing to do.

I also remember being taught about income taxes (as Dad complained about the government taking his hard-earned money away), property taxes (while he explained the costs of running rental properties), and estate taxes (when depositing money into custodial accounts for us, every year or so).

Being the well-prepared people that they were, of course my parents had made out a will early on, but it wasn't until I was about eight or nine years old that they sat the three of us down for a very special discussion. The question at hand: "If we die, which aunt/uncle/grandparent do you want to live with?"

As you can imagine, my 4-year-old sister was horrified. I think my 2-year-old brother was merely confused. Eventually, after several minutes of reassuring us that no one was in imminent danger of death, we managed to come to a consensus quite expediently, and the appropriate documents were updated accordingly.

Last week I found myself at a lawyer's office making some rather morbid arrangements myself. "Who inherits your condo if you die, your sister dies, *and* your brother dies?" is not the kind of question that I answer every day, but I guess I do feel better having done it. I tend to have very little faith in courts and other government processes.

new vocab words

I've been following political news a bit more closely this year. I think it's because I'm not so depressed about the state of our government anymore. As a result, I've learned two new words recently.

• cloture - the closing or limitation of debate in a legislative body especially by calling for a vote
  
  This is apparently what happened in the Senate with the stimulus bill; they were able to avoid a filibuster because a few Republican Senators joined with the Democratic majority to force cloture.
  
  
• probity - adherence to the highest principles and ideals
  
  The Economist published an article this morning deriding California as the ungovernable state. In the subtitle, they claimed that "California makes Washington, DC, look like a model of fiscal probity". I kind of figured out what it meant from the context but looked up a formal definition anyway.
  
  I'm not sure whether I agree with the article, but I found this part interesting: "In 2006 the top 1% of earners paid 48% of all income taxes. Since the wealthy derive much of their income from bonuses, capital gains and stock options, the state’s fortunes rise and fall with the markets..."
  
  To me, that just means that the state forgot how progressive our income taxes are, and thus did a poor job of forecasting future revenue. The article seems to imply that California's current budget crisis proves that extremely progressive taxation is bad. I'm not sure that one logically follows from the other.

Anyway, I'm happy to have gained some new vocabulary. Usually I feel like my English skills are only deteriorating over time, since I write code and not prose every day.

more online shopping!

I just heard about AmazonFresh and I'm jealous. (It's only available in the Seattle area so far.)

I used to love ordering from HomeRuns back when I lived in Cambridge...until they went out of business. Safeway supposedly offers grocery delivery but it costs money and I hear they have horrible customer service and a sucky website, whereas Amazon is just awesomeness wrapped up in a big shiny bow.

Hey Amazon! We need free grocery delivery here in the Bay Area too!

dual purpose

This conversation took place at work awhile ago, but I'd forgotten about it until tonight, when I heard an infant screaming somewhere downstairs, around dinnertime.

me:	Dude, I just saw a woman in the hallway feeding her baby.
coworker:	With her boobs??
me:	Duh, I wouldn't have mentioned it if she'd been using a bottle.
coworker:	It's so funny that boobs are like, for food, too.
me:	Um...yeah.

yay power tools

Late last week, I was sitting at my desk typing, when the keyboard tray suddenly ripped out of my desk and fell to the ground, along with my fancy Kinesis keyboard, mouse, and Ratpadz GS. I guess I was lucky that I was sitting cross-legged so the tray didn't fall on my feet. (It's quite heavy and the corners are very sharp.)

Yesterday night, my wrists finally started to hurt enough that I decided to see what I could do about fixing it. I got out my handy power drill, charged it just enough to poke three new holes in the attachment part of the table, and screwed on the tray. Voila, back to normal. I do like power tools.

French Laundry, take 2

I am not a fan of Valentine's Day. It seems like the most Hallmark-y of all Hallmark holidays. Everything is pink and red and covered in lace, perfectly reasonable people are reduced to rampant sexism, and everyone seems to think it's their business to ask you what you're doing to celebrate. It almost seems like a massive national (global?) conspiracy to make single people feel broken and/or desperate. I much prefer Halloween, when everyone gets to eat candy, dress up in weird costumes, and throw eggs at mean people('s houses).

On the day itself, I tend to avoid restaurants like the plague; the food is generally overpriced, the waitstaff overworked, and people are spending money at upscale restaurants not because they appreciate the food, but because they're out to prove how "romantic" they are.

So then, this year, how did I find myself eating at a very nice restaurant on Valentine's Day?

My dad's birthday is in late February, and my sister's birthday is in early March. A few weeks ago, my mom and I started to look for a suitable venue for us to celebrate their birthdays jointly, since my sister is going back to Taiwan in a week or so. We debated a variety of restaurants, and settled on Michael Mina, since my sister had never been there before. Unfortunately, it turned out that Michael Mina was closed on Sundays, as were several of the other restaurants that we had been contemplating. Between my schedule and my sister's schedule and my parents' schedule, we were having a terrible time finding a reservation at a time that everyone could make. Finally I did an enormously broad OpenTable search on all of the proposed dates, and amazingly, I turned up a Saturday lunchtime reservation at French Laundry! I quickly sent an email to my parents and sister asking them to confirm their availability for lunch on February 14th, and never thought twice about the date.

Later, when we realized what day that was, my sister was enormously amused that I had managed to get a reservation at French Laundry for Valentine's Day. We speculated that perhaps tables for more than two people were not in high demand that day, or that the down economy had affected their business more severely than other restaurants. We finally decided to go anyway, figuring that the price and menu would be just the same as usual, and the service couldn't be worse, given that there are a finite number of tables and they are used to serving a full house.

In the end, we had a great meal, and even had time to stop by the Bouchon Bakery afterwards for baguettes and French macaroons to go. In fact, I quite enjoyed seeing Yountville by daylight. Also, my food photos came out much better than last time; the camera quality really does make a huge difference.

The day's menu (with no repeats from last time):


My favorite salmon cones (a repeat, but not on the menu, and well worth repeating):


A very excellent half-bottle ordered by my dad:


(Skipping the caviar on cauliflower panna cotta, which was delicious but not that interesting visually...)

A beautifully presented artichoke salad:


The other starter, foie gras "au torchon" with oranges:


I chose the tuna tartare fish course (of course):


My mother had the Atlantic striped bass:


Everyone had butter poached lobster (with brussel sprouts and apples):


Onto the meat! I had the duck breast (with a couple bits of candied garlic, and some other veggies):


I was skeptical of the "confit de coeur veau" and had to verify with the waiter that it was in fact, veal heart, but the bit that I tried was actually quite good:


Although it didn't sound all that exciting, the ribeye turned out to be one of my favorites:


The Idiazabel cheese was quite sharp (or "tasty", as the Kiwis say). I enjoyed it until several people tried to give me their portions too:


The sorbet and scone dish that we had as a palate cleanser was kind of bland, even with the kumquat in there, but I suppose that was the point:


My dessert included bits of roasted pineapple, spiced rice beignets, and pepper sherbert:


I also got to try a bite of the chocolate mousse with banana ice cream (but decided I liked my own dessert better):


There were only supposed to be two dessert options, but my sister cleverly asked for one of the desserts from the vegetarian menu. Hers was a piece of Fuji apple with a bit of pastry:


Of course, we wound up the meal with lots of sweets:



We took some goodies home, too. In addition to the normal shortbread cookies, our waiter was kind enough to let us take the leftover chocolates that we hadn't been able to finish. He also gave the birthday people little bags of chocolate bars, and then he distributed special chocolate heart boxes to all of the women, in honor of Valentine's Day. Sigh. It's just too hard to say no to sexism when it's waving large amounts of free chocolate in your face. (They were huge; I ate maybe a fourth of one for breakfast with part of a baguette. It was delicious.)