arnold g.'s Profile

Missed Ici at Slow Food Nation (where were they?) so we stopped by  today on our way to Bakesale Betty. Yes...dessert before lunch.

We got six scoops between the three of us, and got to sample a wide range of flavors. I don't think all the flavors necessarily work, but you have to appreciate the care and the commitment that goes into every batch of ice cream.

Chipotle Chocolate Chip - good, but the heat from the chipotle threw me off. I wished it was chipotle, chocolate chocolate chip. I think a chocolate ice cream would have gone perfectly with the heat of the chipotle.
Malted Vanilla - good...mild vanilla flavor
Lemon - loved it...sour at first but I like how it mellowed out.
Fresh Peppermint - good minty flavor...not overbearing.
Saffron/Orange Blossom - I thought it tasted like Indian food (I know that sounds odd) and my wife was trying to figure out what orange blossom actually tastes like. She liked it though.
Peach/Habanero Sorbet - i didn't think this one worked at all.

I also did a basil one as a taster and thought it was interesting. Don't know if I'd want a whole scoop of it.

Flavors change daily and I'd like to go back and try some more of their stuff, but I hesitate to call it "best in the Bay," especially when I didn't think any of the flavors we tried topped Bi-Rite's salted caramel (and I'm not even a caramel fan) or Three Twins' Milk and Cookies or Orange Sherbet.

I'm not feeling it anymore. I think it's because since my original review, I've had Italian food and pizza at some of the best places in the country and Terra Mia doesn't even come close.

Last time I was there, the pizza had a manufactured quality to it (as opposed to something more rustic) and compared to some of the truly great pizzas I've had recently (Pizzeria Mozza, Pizzaiolo and Pizzeria Picco), it just doesn't compare.

Three stars because it's still the best Italian place in Livermore.

Like many people who eventually end up at Mandalay, we were headed over to Burma Super Star but when we got there, the line was too long and parking was ridiculous. Now I don't know if I'll ever go over to BS because Mandalay is just easier. The food is really good and the service is friendly, attentive, and helpful.

Bottom line, Mandalay is the place to be, especially if you don't want to deal with BS.

Is 15 visits in 13 months excessive?
http://flickr.com/phot...

We've celebrated anniversaries and birthdays here. Hell, we might even celebrate tomorrow there! When friends and family come to town, we're taking them to Ad Hoc. Mostly great, sometimes good, but never bad, and it's never the same meal twice.

If you want to see the different menus Ad Hoc serves, I publish the Ad Hoc Menu Archive, along with the Fried Chicken Night schedule, on my blog:
http://www.inuyaki.com...

Oh yeah, we're going back again in August.

Any place whose tagline is "Tasty Salted Pig Parts" is going to get my attention, especially when they're serving up housemade cured Italian meats.

We wanted the hot Italian sausage sandwich, but they didn't have any available at that moment, which was a disappointment, so we tried the Capoccolo with plums and arugula. It's the perfect size...a nice balance of bread and meat, not a gluttonous mess like you'd find at "mainstream" sandwich shops, and the Capoccolo is really tasty.

We paired it with the salumi platter for one, which featured the Capoccolo, their special Lonza, and Paté di Campagna, all served with a little side of olives. My wife ate the olives (I'm not a fan) and we shared the meats. The paté, a combination of coarsely ground pork meat plus tongue, liver, kidney, blood and herb spicing, was really good, but I was digging the Lonzo, which is like prosciuitto. The slices we had had a pretty thick ribbon of fat in it that just melted in my mouth.

I also loved the refrigerated section with the fresh cured meats. It was just too bad that I wasn't going home right away (or that I don't have some kind of refrigerated backpack), but it's nice to know there's an easily accessible salumeria around. I can already see myself BARTing in from Fremont just to pick up some pancetta or guanciale.

The fried chicken sandwiches are really great. A little too much slaw, so it's messy, but the slaw is really good. Egg salad sandwiches are pretty good, too. We also tried a blueberry pie, and you can really tell the difference between a fresh pie and overly sweet mass-produced pies you normally find.

Whenever we're in the area, side trips to Betty's seem to always be in order.

When I'm home in SoCal, heading out to Eagle Rock isn't normally on the agenda, especially for food. But when some friends told me about The Oinkster's house-cured pastrami sandwiches and ube milk shakes, Eagle Rock started sounding mighty nice.

The Oinkster is the brainchild of Andre Guerrero, a Filipino American chef who's a veteran of the Southern California restaurant scene. His other restaurant, Max in Sherman Oaks, offers contemporary Pan-Asian fine dining that's a stark contrast to The Oinkster's laid-back, order-at-the-counter vibe. (We also took my parents to Max for a Mother's/Father's Day dinner, so basically it was an Andre Guerrero weekend.) We ended up going to Oinkster twice in four days and were able to try a good cross section of the menu.

The Oinkster Pastrami sandwich is a thing of beauty--pastrami with Gruyere and a red cabbage slaw. The pastrami is cured for two weeks (the old-fashioned way) according to a recipe Guerrero developed over a period of two years. It's not a melt-in-your-mouth pastrami like they have at Katz's in New York, but it's definitely the some of best pastrami I've had on the West Coast.

Aside from the sandwiches, the pastrami also tops the Royale burger, and it's also featured in their excellent chili. If you're from Southern California, you've likely had a chiliburger at one of the many Original Tommy's hamburger stands that are down here. Tommy's chili is legendary in L.A., so it may be blasphemous of me to say this, but...The Oink's chili is so much better. In fact, I don't know what I really saw in Tommy's chili other than the novelty of it. I went back to Tommy's with my wife a few months ago and on its own, the chili reminded me of dog food. It really needs to be paired with fries or a burger. The Oink's chili can definitely stand on it's own, and it has a freshness that you'll never get from Tommy's chili.

The BBQ Pulled Pork sandwich features soy/honey-brined pork that's slow roasted and smoked and topped with red cabbage slaw and caramelized onions. The pork is nice and tender on its own, but my wife said it's like Kalua pig without the salt. When you pair it with The Oink's own vinegary Carolina BBQ sauce, it's just about perfect. Make sure you get some at the counter when you're getting your other condiments...the first time we went, we forgot the sauce because we didn't know it was on the counter and the bottles weren't labeled very well. Instead, we used the house-made Oinkster Mustard as a substitute, which was fine, but not as good as the Carolina sauce.

Guerrero prides himself on using Kennebec Potatoes for his Belgian Fries, which he says are the same potatoes used at In-N-Out. I know many people who don't like In-N-Out's fries, but I'm definitely a fan, and I liked The Oink's fries a lot. They use the traditional Belgian double-fry method to keep the fries crispy and fluffy, and they pair up nicely with The Oink's chipotle ketchup and garlic aioli, and of course, it goes great with the aforementioned chili. The rotisserie chicken was really good, but I like my birds to have a crispier skin a la Zankou Chicken.

There's a wide selection of other desserts all baked by Guerrero's pastry chef girlfriend, Jan Purdy. They include the excellent peanut butter and jelly cupcake, a very popular item so snap one up if they're in the dessert case, and a nice carrot cupcake. Next time, i'm going to try the brownies and the lemon bars.

But if it's your first trip to The Oink, you must christen the occasion with an ube shake. Ube's going to sound weird to most people because it's a purple yam native to the Philippines, but it's actually very popular in desserts, especially ube ice cream. The ube shake is rich and creamy and is a beautiful shade of light purple. If you're not very hungry, I think the ube shake could actually serve as a meal replacement instead of dessert. Think of it as a Filipino Jamba Juice.

I'm going back to SoCal in July for a wedding at Occidental College which is very close to The Oinkster. Sounds like I'll need an ube shake to cool off just before wedding.

Quck bites at Disneyland are usually ridiculously expensive for the mediocre food that they serve, but there are bargains to be found at Redd Rockett's in Tomorrowland.

For $9, the pastas are an incredible deal. We had the Solar Flare Sausage Pasta, a good-sized plate of spaghetti with spicy sausage marinara, that my wife and I were able to split and feel satisfied. The sauce had a nice spicy kick to it and amazingly, the noodles weren't overcooked, which you'd expect from assembly-line cafeteria food. I tried my niece's Countdown Chicken Fusili (fusilli tossed with seasoned grilled chicken, sun-dried tomatoes, garlic and Parmesan cream sauce with a touch of fresh basil), and it was pretty good, too...and I'm not really a fan of white sauces.

If you're trying to eat healthier or just need some roughage, they have a wide selection of salads that looked pretty good.

I'd stay away from the pizzas though...unless you like overly bready pizza crust. I knew on first glance that it was going to be bad and the bite took from my nephew's pizza wasn't impressive all. Plus, I'd eaten at Pizzeria Mozza the night before, so there's no way this pizza was going to make an impression. :-)

Special occasions call for special restaurants, and when a friend and former coworker decided he was going to pack it up and move back home to the ATL, it was the perfect time for some old friends to get together, reminisce about the good old days and send him off in style. We quickly came to a consensus on Alexander's Steakhouse in Cupertino, a modern American steakhouse with Japanese influences that does some pretty amazing things with meat.

The first thing you notice when you walk into the restaurant is the meat locker on the left that contains huge slabs of dry-aged beef. It's always nice to know when a restaurant is aging its own beef, and as a meat lover, it's really a sight to behold.

We were presented with a really nice ahi tartare amuse bouche to kick off the meal. A few of us decided to try the Hamachi Shot off the small plates menu, one of Alexander's most popular appetizers (it's also the cheapest at $4). It's a shot glass filled with hamachi, red chili, frizzled ginger, avocado, and truffled ponzu, and you simply stir it up a bit and then shoot it. It's quite a rush, and I loved the slight kick you get from the chili.

Salads quickly followed, including my Baby Lettuce salad with yuzu vinaigrette, red radish, ten kasu, and the optional bacon lardons (of course!). The Iceberg Lettuce salad featured living watercress, point reyes blue cheese, and apples and was plated beautifully. Before our main courses arrived, we cleansed our palates with an intermezzo -- a refreshing shot of mango juice and chopped strawberries.

Between the eight of us, only three different entrees were ordered -- five orders of the 10 oz. filet mignon, two orders of the Melange a Trois (including mine) and one Misoyaki Sea Bass. The filets were excellent and topped with shiitakes and candied bacon. The sea bass was served with sansho crispy squid, tempura green beans, curried trout roe, beurre noir, and their crunchiness was a nice contrast to the buttery, melt-in-your-mouth fish.

The guest of honor and I both ordered the Melange for its variety -- Prime Rib in Natural Jus, Braised Shortrib with Brie en Cocette, and Bavette Steak with Green Olives and Bleu Cheese. I also added a piece of Seared Foie Gras to "round out" the meal. :-)

I really liked the prime rib with its smooth, buttery texture and the natural jus was delicious. The shortrib/brie combo was topped with puff pastry, so it was like a really beefy and cheesy pot pie. The Bavette was really good on its own, and seeing it topped with a slice of seared foie gras made it even more decadent. I have to say despite all the hype foie gras gets from foodies, it doesn't get me all that excited. I think it's good, but it's nothing really mind blowing either.

We had a pretty good assortment of sides with our meal, including the Mac and Cheese with Truffle Oil (didn't need the truffle oil), Mashed Potatoes (creamy, perfect), Creamed Spinach (excellent), Asparagus with Bernaise (good), and Haricot Vert with Bacon (too full to appreciate). Of these, the creamed spinach was a standout because of the crispy filo strands (I like things that make food crunchy).

For a steakhouse, Alexander's does some really creative things with sweets, and luckily, most of us managed to save some space for dessert. Around the table we had the aptly named Divinity (chocolate souffle with creme anglaise), Ooh! (chocolate sphere filled with fudge, chocolate black olive ice cream and black velvet cake), Blush (mango panna cotta with passion fruit sorbet and honey gelee), and Velvet Ropes (blueberry lavender creme brulee with maple ice cream). The chocolate decadence of the Ooh! was my favorite of these, but I also liked the mango panna cotta. The souffle was also really good, but I wasn't really into the hints of lavender in the creme brulee.

If you're too full and choose not to order dessert, you'll still get a glimpse of where they're coming from when they bring the cotton candy to the table. On previous visits, the cotton candy was much smaller and part of a petit fours that concluded the meal. (Can you say "whimsical" boys and girls? I knew you could) Now, you'll see carnival-sized helpings of cotton candy being delivered to tables while you eat. I don't know if they change the flavors of their cotton candy, but last night's was grape, and it was awesome. (I also love grape-flavored things, like Kool-Aid, Jolly Ranchers and Dimetapp.)

Aside from the excellent food, the service at Alexander's is top notch. They were great at explaining all the dishes and taking care of anything we needed. As we get older and our schedules get more complicated (kids, work, etc.), it gets harder for friends to go out and enjoy each other's company while having an amazing meal. Luckily, when we do find the time to get together, there are places like Alexander's that can take away the stress so you can just relax and have a good time.

pictures here: http://www.inuyaki.com...