In the spirit of Tony Bourdain, food as adventure. Try everything twice in case it was made wrong the first time. Eat without fear or prejudice.
We went to the Bi-Rite Creamery in San Francisco for some seriously good ice cream made from local and organic ingredients. We tried a few flavors, coffee toffee, balsamic strawberry, and honey lavender. I don't go for strawberry ice cream normally, but theirs was delicious.
Fougoo and I went to Pancho Villa Tacqueria in the Embarcadero neighborhood of San Francisco. I knew I had to try their lengua taco as well as a carnitas taco. Both were delicious and chock full of meat.
Fougoo ordered a nice tamale.
We had heard that some of the famous (or infamous) Red Hook food vendors had also set up shop at the Brooklyn Flea market in Fort Greene.
We ended up trying a huarache with pork in enchilada sauce -- this was huge - overflowing from a full-size paper dinner plate. The pork was spicy, juicy and amazing. We also got a few different pupusas and a tamale. The masa in the tamale was soft and light, but it had some strange fillings in it -- in addition to chicken it had chick peas, corn, and diced carrots. We also got the always delicious grilled corn, dipped in crema and covered in white cheese, chili powder, and lime.
For our last girls cooking night we decided on seafood as a theme. It ended up being a great summer meal, with mostly cold dishes. We thought that we should probably try the theme again during a winter month and see how different it turned out.
I had these great lobster mango skewers at a wedding I went to at the Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay, so I recreated them. Such a simple yet great combination. I made a dipping sauce -- creme fraiche with basil and dill. They were good with the sauce, but I don't even think they needed it.
Marian made fish tacos with orange roughy just sauteed on the grill pan, accompanied by guac, a fiery red sauce, and a killer mango salsa.
Last time I was out in San Fran, I tried to go to the famous Ferry Building Market but it was closing - at 6 pm on a Saturday! This time we head there in the morning to make sure. The Ferry Building Market calls itself a "people's marketplace," but it sure isn't like most of the city markets I've been to, Reading Terminal Market (Philadelphia) or Lexington Market (Baltimore) or the Marche Jean Talon (Montreal). Don't expect to do your daily shopping here - the Ferry Building is gourmet, gourmet, gourmet.
At Lulu Petite we got a Baked Egg and Sausage sandwich with Fontina Cheese, and Lulu's Twice Baked Brioche with Meyer Lemon Marmalade, Mascarpone Cheese and Lavender Honey.
At I Preferiti di Boriana, we got this Italian version of redneckhunter's beloved malasada.
The other week I went to Dinosaur Bar-B-Que in Harlem, a branch of a Syracuse NY bbq joint that opened in NYC 2004. It was a mini-trip down memory lane as I walked up to lower Harlem where I used to live way back in 1996. A French bakery near 120th Street made me worry that NYC's gentrification had made it all the way up to my old neighborhood. But I was happy to see that my block between LaSalle and Tiemann Place hadn't changed with the exception of one new restaurant where the hostess stood outside on the sidewalk trying to encourage Columbia University-types to stop in for dinner. The Chinese take-out, the African restaurant, and most importantly the Bubbles laundromat above which I used to live were all still there.
Dinosaur on 131st Street, though, is a sign of the encroachment. Despite it's street address, it's clientele, like that of the Fairway supermarket across the street, was almost 100% white.
This is no summer for Paris. The dollar scraped at it lowest value next to the Euro in July, killing the usual American summer European trekking, and coining a new, tacky line- "the American Peso." For myself and Mrs. LBT, the pull to Paris was two-fold, as we were visiting family, and taking advantage of our lighter summer schedule (the school calendar does have its advantages).
Small, modest pub-like atmospheres feature foams and terrines as if they were mayonnaise with your steak frites and fries, and priced to continue this illusion. Another feature of the gastro-bistro is extremely limited seating; on our weekday visit to Le Comptoir du Relais, the food patrons waited patiently with copies of Le Monde or the Herald-Tribune until the host nodded everyone in at the stroke of noon. Sure enough, even the few outdoor tables filled up on the rainy afternoon within minutes.
the Mrs and I both ordered chicken, but the contrast between the two only illuminated the great extension that a good French chef can confound the bird.
For dessert, we opted for a walk around Saint Germain, and then a visit to Crêpe du Jour, the latest addition to Le Comptoir's empire on the block, which also includes a hotel.
So after an afternoon of shopping, we made it back to Caracas Arepa bar for an early dinner. I ate here once years ago, but petiteseour saw them recently kick Bobby Flay's butt on Food Network Throwdown. We tried 2 arepas: above is La Surena - g (as Caracas describes it a "
We also got an Arepa De Pabellon -- s.