Good morning banana crepes

Good morning banana crepes
Icky and grey autumn weekend means waking up and craving a warm, hearty breakfast – of the special, prepared variety. In other words, not your typical slice of toast with cream cheese, instant oatmeal from a bag, or cereal from a box, work-week fare. The problem with having to prepare any fancier a breakfast is that [...]

Spicy Udon with Chicken and Garlic Sprouts

Spelt Udon
I came across these organic Spelt noodles from Sobaya at a specialty food store. They call it Spelt “udon”, but these aren’t thick like udon. They’re more like linguine to me. (In addition to udon, Sobaya also makes Spelt or Kamut ramen, which also contain buckwheat flour.) Anyway, I decided to cook some for lunch.
I used [...]

Kabocha Squash 101: Dissection

Fall – the season of pumpkins and squashes. Many people are turned off from buying whole squashes because they either don’t know what to do with them, or think it’s too much trouble. Unfortunately they then end up buying pre-cut slices of pumpkin wrapped in plastic, or not at all. Whole squashes are much cheaper and a lot [...]

中秋節 Mid-Autumn Festival

迷你冰皮月餅 Mini Snow-skin Mooncakes
Ah, the mooncake. The mooncake is to Mid-Autumn Festival as the turkey is to Thanksgiving. In other words, mooncake is not only the representative festival food, but it is also so substantial it is the festival meal. Traditional mooncakes are large, square pastries with a thin chewy crust made from a lot of [...]

Tried-and-true: Teriyaki Ginger Salmon

 
Teriyaki Ginger Salmon
 
I eat a lot of salmon - at least once, but often several times a week. This was for dinner – one of my tried-and-true, regularly-used recipes, because it is both easy and yummy. I typically don’t like to overpower the naturally rich flavor of salmon with heavy sauces. Depending on how I eat it, sometimes [...]

Weekend Bread Project: Raisin Bread

Raisin Bread (Yeasted)
 
No time to research or make anything fancier for this weekend’s bread project, so I tried something simple that could come into good use during the week. As I didn’t have the perfect sized loaf pan for the amount of flour I used, this was a flatter looking loaf than I had intended (more a quick bread [...]

Jang Mo Jib (外母屋) @ Aberdeen

Boo… Kimchee soon doo boo
 
This is a rarity – a food court post. I don’t do food courts. It’s gross, and fast food is not really food. But on the rare occasion, maybe you feel cheap. Maybe you feel like having that not-really-food food, and enjoying the frenzied food court ambience with your plastic tray, on [...]

The Center of Gravity: An “Eggs-periment”

I am currently reading Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking – The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. This is an excellent book (textbook, perhaps) – very comprehensive, covering everything from meat to veggies to bread, from the chemical structure of cinnamon to how Chinese preserved duck eggs are made. There are sections devoted to [...]

The perfect Pineapple Bun

The perfect 菠蘿包 “Bor Lor Bau” (Pineapple Bun)
10 Requirements for the perfect Bor Lor Bau.
(modeled after the Happy Date pineapple bun, which currently sits at #1)
1. Overall presentation: Expert craftmanship. Artisan, no two buns look the same. Large crust had a very natural look of being oven-baked with precision timing: a golden-yellow that isn’t too pale, or [...]

生日菠蘿包 Birthday Pineapple Buns

Birthday 菠蘿包 ”Bor Lor Bau” (Pineapple bun) #1
Oh Pineapple Bun, just how much do I love thee?
There used to be a time when I had a pineapple bun every night as dessert. That’s a bun of sugar and lard a night, every night. (Did I know that back then? Nope. Would I have cared if i did? Surely [...]

Stonegrill

New York steak, Stonegrill
Few days ago we went to the Stonegrill for lunch. It was a beautiful sunny day, perfect as they have a 180° view of False Creek and Granville Island:

 
They had really good, piping hot sourdough rolls. (But it is not always sourdough. Sometimes you just get a French roll.) There wasn’t much in the [...]

Steamed, not baked: Steamed Buns (Shitake-Cabbage Bao 素菜包 and Pumpkin Paste Bao 南瓜包)

 
Steamed shitake-cabbage buns
 

Aside from rice and noodles, steamed buns are a mainstay of Chinese cuisine. And various types exist. The simplest of steamed buns is the mantou (饅頭) - which I have always associated with northern Chinese cuisine. The mantou is a plain bun without filling. Built from similar ingredients, they are like a steamed version [...]

Good dashi @ Ichiro

Ichiro again. Trying to spread the word. From J’s recent recommendation, I tried their vegetables in soup. It was nice: Enoki, cabbage, spinach, leeks, two giant slabs of tofu, in a nice pot of dashi soup. This also looked better than the picture they had on their menu. A decent size at $6.95, but of course [...]

Miso Halibut Steaks

Miso halibut is one of my all-time favorite fish dishes. So when Favorite Fish Monger (a fast talking, fast acting, black rubber boot wearing Mrs. W) was selling fresh halibut steaks ($8.99/lb), passing it up would be a crime.
No other fish is a better canvas for miso (salmon comes close, but halibut is definitely better), and no other [...]

A sunny day down at the Wharf

Had lunch with Mom today, it was sunny out and we drove down to Steveston, walked around, and had lunch at the Charthouse.
Whether you like their food or not, no other restaurant has a better view of Steveston’s little Fisherman’s Wharf than the Charthouse, especially on a beautiful September day like this:

 There are plenty of [...]