serene’s posterous

We haven't been to Bangkok Cuisine in years.  It is entirely possible that the last time we went, we were still undergraduates.  We sat out back in the patio and it was nice and cool despite the steamy hot weather.  We even saw a hummingbird flying around us as we waited for our friends.  The food was good.  We had Thai iced tea, and between the four of us, shared fresh spring rolls, som tam, panang curry, sweet basil chicken, a fried noodle dish and a rock cod dish.  I liked the spring rolls, but the sauce is a bit too weak.  The iced tea was a little too sweet too.  But overall we had fun chatting with friends and enjoying the good food in a pleasant environment.

I guess it is a little weird to like canned sardines.  My mom used to make sardine sandwiches for me with canned sardines in tomato sauce, plus onions and a dash of freshly squeezed lime. 

I usually just fry up some onions with the sardines and add some chopped thai chilies, and marinara sauce (mixed with a bit of Sriracha).  And I would squeeze some lime juice over everything to cut out any fishy taste.  This time, I stir fried some broccoli and added cherry tomatoes as well to make it a balanced meal.

Via the Stanford Daily

Last day of operations is 7 Aug 09.  It is unclear if or when the Thai Cafe will reopen.  I had lunch there Thursday and Friday this week, and made plans to eat there with another friend on Monday next week.  Got to get my fill of the peanut salads, chicken sautes and curries before it is too late.  I had a great peanut salad on Thursday - far better than my last experience in November and the tasty chicken saute (with green beans and mushrooms) on Friday, washed down with a can of Thai iced tea. 

The lady at the counter seemed strangely nice and friendly too...not yelling at my friend for not being ready to order at the front of the line, and not paying immediately.  I will miss this Stanford institution.

I baked these last minute for a friend's bake sale, so I had to make do with whatever ingredients I had at home.  I tried to make the cookies vegetarian (butter OK, but no eggs), so I roughly used this recipe, with some changes.  I used 1/2 cup of butter, doubled all the spices and fresh ginger, used 3/4 cup brown sugar, replaced the molasses with honey, skipped the raisins, and instead of rolling the dough balls in sugar, I just sprinkled some turbinado cane sugar over the flattened dough balls before baking.

I am currently a little obsessed with roasting cauliflower.  It is probably a little warm these days to be firing up the oven, but I haven't been able to resist.  I have been mostly tossing the chopped up cauliflower with smashed garlic cloves, a little salt and pepper, olive oil and curry or chili powder.  And then baking in the oven for about 20min at 400°C.  I just love how the cauliflower gets brown on the edges.

I had some frozen Coho salmon fillets from Trader Joe's in the freezer, so I decided to make Teriyaki Salmon.  I had some Kikkoman Kotterin Mirin in the fridge, so I mixed that with some soy sauce and a few drops of sesame oil, and marinated the salmon with this mixture.  I added some garlic cloves and sliced ginger to the mix too.  Broiled the salmon for about 5-10min, until the salmon was cooked, and then sprinkled some chopped scallions over. 

Next time, I may want to sprinkle some sugar over the salmon, and broil a little longer to get a sugar crust.

Saw this.

I don't eat beef.  It was therefore somewhat disconcerting to realize that there is beef flavoring in KFC's grilled chicken.  At least I don't eat fast food often, and I haven't tried this new grilled chicken from KFC.  I guess on the grand scheme of things, KFC isn't doing anything really wrong, since they did declare the beef ingredients on "Page 14 of a 37-page ingredient document on its website".  And it is possible that there is beef flavoring on the chicken items of other fast food brands.  It is just that I haven't bothered to look it up yet.

This is probably also less terrible than realizing that in the US, McDonald's fries has beef flavoring (labeled as natural flavor before the complaints/lawsuits).  McDonald's had touted that their fries are fried in pure vegetable oil, which caused people to mistakenly think that the fries are actually vegetarian.

Had dinner with 2 friends from way back (we met in elementary school over 20 years ago!) on Friday night.  It was fun catching up and doing the girl talk thing.  The food at Sushi Kuni was great.  The restaurant was tiny so we had to wait a long time for a table.  But it was well worth the wait.  We got a variety of dishes to share - ordering some from the "special menu".  We had the seaweed salad, assorted sashimi, grilled squid, fried eggplant (my favorite dish), and cold soba with tempura.  Admittedly, the tempura was a little soggy (maybe we waited too long before eating it?) but other than that we enjoyed every bite.

Fraiche frozen yogurt is usually very tasty.  But a large serving of the frozen yogurt in the natural flavor, with 3 toppings (mochi, chocolate shavings and mango) was just too much.  Particularly at 6.30pm in the evening before dinnertime.  I thought since I always wanted a little more after eating a regular serving, a large serving of yogurt would be fine.

For some reason, the frozen yogurt was also not as good as I remembered.  It wasn't as smooth and had some lumpy ice crystals.  At least the toppings - particularly the mochi - were tasty.  But it would be back to making my own frozen yogurt.

Tasty lunch on Sunday.  We redeemed all our deli coupons (given for purchases above $30) from Marina Food at San Mateo and obtained about a pound of BBQ Pork (Char Siew) and half a roast duck for practically free.  Eu-Jin then stir fried bean sprouts for the veggie part of our meal.  Pictured is a small portion of the duck and char siew, and lots of bean sprouts over rice in the bowl.