Archive for the 'Food/Wine' Category
I belong to a Chinese dialect group called Hakka. Some prominent and well-known Hakka Chinese included former Chinese premier Deng Xiaoping, former Singaporean premier Lee Kuan Yew, former Taiwanese President Lee Teng-Hui, actor Chow Yun-Fat, etc.
Hakka noodles with a not so original design.
Imagine my surprise when i saw packets of instant noodles called Hakka Noodles at Mayuri, an Indian grocery store situated in Redmond. But the thing that actually caught my eyes was the Chinese character 辛 (pronounced like “sin”), which when use with other characters, can mean tired or spicy. I have been eating Nong Shim’s Shinramyun spicy Korean instant noodles since the early 90s so i am very familiar with its packaging material. The character 辛 on the Indian Hakka noodles packaging material looked awfully similar to the Korean one.
The original Shinramyun.
On closer inspection, not only did Hakka noodles copied the 辛 character verbatim, the background with Chinese characters matches exactly like Nong Shim’s Shinramyun.
Hakka noodles made in Mumbai.
So what we have here is a Chinese(Hakka)-style instant noodles packaged in a Korean-”inspired” bag and made in India (Mumbai)!
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I didn’t do grocery shopping this past weekend so i had nothing to cook last night. Smelly and i decided to try one of the restaurants near the Alaska Junction. I suggested Garlic Jim’s Famous Gourmet Pizza since Smelly loves garlic and i was out of idea what to eat for dinner.
The Garlic Jim’s near the Alaska Junction was quite empty when we arrived there. In fact, only one table was occupied when we stepped foot into the restaurant. That was one clear ominous sign that i wish i had not ignored.
We ordered some garlic wings and a garlic chicken pizza. The chicken wings showed up like it had just been swimming in a pool of grease. When the garlic chicken pizza was brought to our table, i realized that i forgot to tell the waitress that we wanted the thin-crust version of it. In fact, i think the waitress should have told us the options available, just like what she did for the wings. I am not a big fan of thick-crust pizza. It was not the worst pizza i ever had but it was close. The honor for the worst pizza goes to Pizza Hut. Both the garlic wings and garlic chicken pizza had absolutely no trace of garlic! Normally i will be burping like there is no tomorrow when i eat something with garlic. Trust me, you don’t want to be anywhere near me after i have consumed the garlic-potent Shish Tawook at the Mediterranean Kitchen in Bellevue. After the supposedly garlicky meal last night, i had one burp. Yes, only one stinky - not literally - burp.
If the name of your franchise includes the word “garlic”, your menu better have something that taste garlicky. Unfortunately, the only thing garlicky about Garlic Jim’s entrees are their names. Gourmet pizza? Not even close.
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I received a summon for jury duty about a month ago. According to the summon, i “have been randomly selected to serve as a trial juror in the Municipal Court of Seattle.” I had to get up way earlier than my usual time in order to arrive at the Municipal Court before 0830. The daily compensation for each day of service is $10. That’s barely enough for lunch. When i signed in on arrival, i decided to donate the $10 to Childcare Services of Seattle.
Seattle Municipal Court.
After watching an 18-minute video on a juror’s duty, one of the two ladies explained that the length of the Jury Service is Tuesday through Thursday. What ??!!! I initially thought it was a one-day deal. RTFM, it was printed in bold on the summon, right under the huge title “INSTRUCTIONS - READ CAREFULLY.
Basically, i am in a pool of about 30 jurors. Each time, they will randomly call a group of about 10 jurors. The bailiff will lead this group of jurors to the judge. The judge will tell them about the case and introduce the jurors to the lawyers and others who are involved in it. After taking an oath to answer all questions truthfully, the judge and the lawyers will question the panel to find out if the jurors have any knowledge of the case and things that may make it hard for the jurors to be impartial.
No one was called up before lunch so everyone was let out at around 1130 for a two-hour lunch. Since i had so much time, i decided to walk over to Salumi, a restaurant owned by Armandino Batali, father of celeb chef Mario Batali.
Long line of lunch crowd waiting outside Salumi.
There was a long line waiting outside Salumi, about 30-people deep. I must have waited in line for at least 45 minutes before i was able to make my order. I ordered the special of the day, Marco Polo, an East meet West sandwich with a prosciutto-wrapped chicken marinated in Wasabi sauce, loaded with Wasabi dressing and hot peppers. It was a huge and delicious sandwich.
I spent the whole afternoon in the jury assembly room, waiting to be called up. Four groups of jurors were called up and i was not among them. I fell asleep several times during the afternoon. By 1530, they let everyone who was not called go home.
Two more days of this to go.
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Ever since we discovered that Ho Ho seafood restaurant in Seattle serves live Spot shrimps, Smelly and i have been going there several times the past two months. The last time we went there prior to Smelly’s trip to Europe, the hostess working there suggested eating the Spot shrimps sashimi-style, with the heads of the shrimps deep-fried and then stir-fried in hot pepper and salt.
Last night, Smelly and i did what the hostess suggested.
Live Spot shrimps in tank at Ho Ho Seafood Restaurant
Not long after we placed the order, a waitress brought a serving plate with headless Spot shrimps. When i was busy taking a picture of the shrimps with my iPhone, one of the shrimps jumped out of the plate, onto the table. One of the shrimps even wiggled in Smelly’s mouth as she was about the eat it, freaking her out. You can’t get them any fresher than that!
Spot shrimps served in sashimi-style
Each of us was given a sauce dish with a mount full of rather bland Wasabi, or fake Wasabi. After dipping the first few shrimps in the sauce dish, i decided to try them just as they were. That was the right decision. The Spot shrimps tasted sweet, without any of those over-powering smell of frozen shrimps. Peeling the shells off the shrimps was not easy but i didn’t mind doing some work in getting to the tasty flesh.
Spot shrimp heads deep-fried and then stir-fried with hot pepper and salt
The waitress then brought us a plate full of the heads of Spot shrimps, deep-fried and then stir-fried in hot pepper, garlic and salt. It was delicious!
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My usual order at Pho Cyclo: #13 with extra meat balls. I also added some of my backyard grown red pepper.
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I rescheduled my flight to Providence to leave a day earlier instead of Monday. Since i was not able to get a cheaper flight on Northwest Airlines, i decided to fly out on Continental. As i was walking toward the connecting gate for the flight to Providence after arriving in Newark, i noticed this:
I have not had an authentic Nathan’s hot dog for at least two years. OK, the concession stand in Lincoln Square movie theater sells Nathan’s hot dog but it’s just not the same. The skin of hot dogs at the concession stand are not grilled to the same crispiness as a real Nathan’s hot dog store. This is a picture of the mouth-watering two-hot dog meal i bought:
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Rambutan, a hairy fruit with sweet translucent fresh, is a common fruit in Southeast Asia. About a month ago, i was grocery shopping in Uwajimaya and i noticed packets with each containing two Rambutan fruits. It cost $2.38 for two freaking Rambutan! In Southeast Asia, you can probably buy more than a kilo of Rambutan with $2.
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Kanpai is Japanese for “Cheers”. Unfortunately, there is really nothing to cheer for eating at Kanpai Sushi. The meal i had about an hour ago was probably one of the worst Japanese meals i ever had in a very long time. I am not a picky eater by any mean and it is really easy to satisfy me. If the food is at least halfway decent, it is a good meal for me in my book.
Too lazy to think of what to eat for dinner after dropping off a package at a UPS store, i decided to head over to Kanpai Sushi located in the same mall. May be i should have heeded the “DO NOT EAT HERE” alarm that went off in my head when i entered the restaurant not seeing any Asian faces other than those that were working there. I ordered the Chirashi Sushi dinner which came with a bowl of miso soup and salad. I also ordered a glass of green tea. Green tea is supposed to be green. Whatever “green tea” they were serving, it was definitely not green. It was more like brown tea than green tea. The miso soup was extremely watered down. The dressing on the salad looked and tasted like soy sauce. If i wanted soy sauce in my salad, i would have added it on my own. The Chirashi Sushi came with generous portions of fish. Sushi is definitely something that quality matters more than quantity. Even though my bowl was loaded with raw fish, most of them tasted really bland. At the Sushi bar, there was a piece of fish in the fish refrigerator that looked like it had been there for weeks. It is not often that i say this but i actually wished that the chef had not been so generous with raw fish. When i was eating, i really wanted to get it over with and get my ass out of there.
If you are in the Livermore area and you have a craving for Sushi, Kanpai Sushi is not the place to go.
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