That $&@# Kray!

Rockin the faux fur to work today. Ready for tonight's Jay-Z and Kanye concert!

Albondigas

 I'm a total soup kid and when the weather started getting chilly around here I jumped at the opportunity to make something comforting and warm. So, I found this on Allrecipes (but slightly modified it) and am glad I did. It's really easy and yummy. I'll definitely make it again!

 If you're not familar with Albondigas, it's a Mexican soup dish :)  

 

 Ingredients

• 1 quart water
• 4 carrots, sliced
• 2 small potatoes, peeled and diced
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 1 1/2 cups salsa, medium or hot
• 2 beef bouillon cubes
• 1 1/2 pounds ground beef (I combined ground pork and ground beef)
• 1/3 cup seasoned dry bread crumbs
• 1/3 cup milk
• chopped fresh cilantro (I didn't have cilantro, but I added watercress instead)

Directions

1. In a large stock pot, bring water, carrots, potatoes, onion, salsa, and bouillon cubes to a boil. Reduce to a medium simmer, stirring occasionally, approximately 10 minutes.
2. Mix the beef, breadcrumbs, and milk together in a bowl. Form into 1-inch meatballs, and drop into boiling broth. Once soup returns to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low.
3. Cover and cook 20 minutes, or until meatballs are no longer pink in center and vegetables are tender. Serve with sprinkled cilantro for garnish.

Muracci's Japanese Grill: Katsu Curry

#16 Katsu Curry from Muracci's Japanese Grill
7x7 The Big Eat SF: 100 Things to Try Before You Die in SF 2011
Financial District

The Katsu Curry here at Muracci's is definitely good, but I think my expectations were a bit high going in. I blame that on the hundreds of 4-5 star reviews on Yelp and the line outside the door when I arrived. Luckily, we called ahead so we just walked right in to pick up our order.

Overall, I really enjoyed the curry (you can have it spicy or mild - of course I went spicy), but the chicken was a bit dry for my taste. Also, I love anything pickled, but their side of pickled cabbage and radish had a strange bitter taste to it that I could live without. The verdict: I would eat it again, but I probably wouldn't crave for it. Overhyped.

Red Lobster Style Cheese Biscuits

Worked off of this recipe and it was pretty delicious: HERE.

This makes 12 biscuits:

1 pack buttermilk biscuit mix (I used Bisquick, about 1 1/2cups)
1 1/2cups shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup milk
2 tbsp butter
1 tbsp oregano
3/4 tsp garlic salt (use slightly less than this - i found it to be slightly salty with this amount)

1. Preheat oven to 400F. Spray cooking sheet with non-stick spray.

2. Put biscuit mix, cheese and milk in a bowl and mix well to form a sticky dough.

3. Using spoon, drop lumps of dough onto cookie sheets 1.5in apart. Bake for 10min.

4. In a bowl, melt butter and mix with oregano and garlic salt.

5. When the timer goes off, take them out and brush with butter mixture and bake 5min at 400F and another 5-6min at 350F.

6. Transfer into a plate and serves immediately.

Warriors, prepare for battle!

There were a lot of "firsts" experienced this day. The first time I swam through mud, jumped over fire, walked a tight rope, went through a legit obstacle course and took an ice cold shower with hundreds of people. The dirtiest I've ever been in my entire life - hands down. Everyone should do something like this at least once.

Pucker Up!

Look at whose lips are featured on the Sephora blog!

Zipping Down the Embarcadero

Ziptrek tours are still in SF at the Embarcadero. They extended til the end of the month so go while you still can. It goes by quick and it's only one line so their full price may not be worth it to you, but if you can score a half price voucher from a deal site like I did, it's definitely worth that amount.

Eat Real

It's our annual visit (starting last year) and thankfully, this year it was less crowded and the weather was a lot cooler. I love this festival. It's filled with workshops, performances, cooking shows and so much delicious food. Today, I tried everything from chicken masala filled naan wraps to Numi jasmine popsicles. Here's what today looked like.

NY Eats

As with every visit to New York, there's never enough time to rest. Between wedding festivities for the bride & groom and hanging out with NY'er friends, we tried to squeeze in as many food spots as possible. This city never disappoints on the food front so I have a few places to share for next time you're in the Big Apple.

Ippudo

This place deserved it's own post, so you'll find that by clicking here.

Grimaldi's Pizza

 Thankful that there is now a 2nd location (the first being at the Brooklyn Bridge) because the wait at their famous original location can sometimes take 2 hours. Here, we didn't have to wait at all. I actually wanted to try Lucali in Brooklyn instead (all of my NY'er buddies say this is actually the best pizza), but they're only open for dinner each night which didn't work out with our schedule. The pizza here has such tasty cuts of meat and perfectly thin with a slight crisp. Definitely a must-try.

Shakeshack

Basically the In-N-Out Burger of NY. My Cali folks may hate me for saying this, but I would take a Shake Burger over In-N-Out any day. To me, the bun and meat here is far better than that of my hometown joint. Plus, they serve frozen custard. Yum.

I didn't go during this visit, but I have to give some love to Peter Luger. If you are a steak lover, this is a must-try.

SF Street Food Festival

It's festival season in San Francisco! Today, we headed out to the Eat Real festival in Oakland but, that's not what I'm going to talk about. Instead, here's a snapshot of our time at the SF Street Food festival that happened a few weeks ago. It's a great food festival, but not my favorite. MANY vendors were not equipped to feed the masses all day. The best places sold out super quick so I wasn't a happy camper getting there hours after it began. Highlights of the day, watching the Mr. eat Don Bugito's moth larvae tacos and food from the Kasa truck (twice).

Chairman Bao: Steamed Bao with Pork Belly & Pickled Daikon

#32 Steamed Bao with Pork Belly & Pickled Daikon at the Chairman Bao truck
7x7 The Big Eat SF: 100 Things to Try Before You Die in SF 2011

Due to all of the hype, I have been following Chairman Bao on Twitter even before I tried their famous buns. At all of the food festivals, they always have the longest line. Just recently they made it onto the Zagat. I was pleased to find out that they were making an appearance at the Truck Stop (an area by my work that features about 3 food trucks per day). The line was long, but not as long and unbearable as the festival lines. So, I waited patiently and am so glad I did. Definitely the BEST food truck vendor at least in the Bay Area. I had the pork belly bun as well as the sesame chicken and they both met and exceeded my expectations. I could eat 20 of these in one sitting - that's how good they are.

Soul Train's 40th Anniversary

While spending some time at Millenium Park taking pictures at the Cloud Gate (aka The Bean), we couldn't help but notice an enormous crowd of people in one area equipped with a DJ blasting jams from earlier time periods. Our initial thought was that crowds were likely surrounding street performers, but when we walked through the crowd it was actually a massive dance party in celebration of Soul Train's 40th anniversary.

I spent a few minutes as a spectator and the music put me right into my happy place - so much that I had to join the diverse crowd which, btw, was filled with people of all ages. Not only did we join forces to create the biggest Soul Train line in history, we even danced the electric slide as a group also. This is probably the closest I'll ever get to my dream of being part of a flash mob so I had a blast and enjoyed every single moment. 

Later that evening, we attended a free concert at Jay Pritzker Pavillion for the same celebration. We stood among the people of Chicago, visitors, performers like the Chi-Lites and Impressions - even Don Cornelius made an appearance and said a few words. We really just stumbled on both of these events and it was such a nice surprise.