let it burn

I was lucky enough to score tickets to the Third Annual Burning Beast in Arlington, WA - just a quick drive from Seattle.

I'm a little disappointed in myself because I only heard about this magical food fest this year.. Not to worry though, I redeemed myself by eating 3 years worth of deliciousness, so all is forgiven.

For those of you not in-the-know, 10 Seattle chefs come together and get their grill on with local, sustainably raised animals during this event.

which way did he go?

the mascot (not me.. the wooden beast behind me!)

Robin from Top Chef

oysters!



moooooo!

what the cluck??


pork belly served on a steamed bun a la Peking duck
(I missed taking a photo of the "pork" station - not to worry, I didn't miss eating it! served with white beans cooked with what else? BACON!)




a little bit spicy and a lotta bit delicious - and cornbread... served with choice of jalapeno, honey or truffle butters (I had 5 pieces!)

he asked me if i wanted skin.. silly question

sadly, they ran out of their bison tacos before I could try it, but I snagged a bit of their bison sausage.

amazing lamb tacos

my kind of rack of lamb

sliced leg of bison was sooo moist!

Skillet's version of lamb

my first encounter with moose - farro with blueberries and english peas topped with moose confit and a side of moose with english pea and fennel puree.

gentleman from Coastal Rovers informed me that the sardines he was cleaning were freshly caught on Saturday. he drove all night from the coast to get them to the Beast! I thanked him for his efforts.

rabbit stuffed with rabbit sausage by Seth Caswell served with a tomato/sour-cherry/arugula salad by Robin from Top Chef!

goat served with white beans

(there was another goat station that i neglected to take a photo of... theirs was completely unadorned, just a hunk of meat. it looked dry and boring compared to the rest but i ate my words as soon as i ate that goat! it was so moist and tender and perfectly seasoned. beyond wonderful!)

and finally, the beast burns....

Who's coming with me next year??

...and all i got was crabs.... part deux

To end our culinary tour of San Francisco, we made reservations at PPQ Dungeness Island.

• Garlic Noodles
• Crab Meat Fried Rice
• Roasted Crab

With our bibs on and our fingers at the ready, we scarfed two orders of everything in a mere 45 minutes.

*burp*

...and all i got was crabs..

Spent a quick weekend in San Francisco with a few of the girls. Nothing was on sale so we pretty much just ate our way around town. Actually, we didn't even make it that far.. We ate at Michael Mina, which was in The Westin St. Francis where we stayed! Made it easier for the bell staff to roll us back to our room.

We started with a complimentary appetizer trio, nearly everything was served as a trio! (My apologies for the photo quality. I just used my iPhone... Didn't want to be a complete dorkus-malorkus and disturb the others enjoying their dinner!)

shrimp, a fish fritter and a stacked tuna nicoise salad bite

Dungeness Crab ~ Local and Seasonal
• Poached Claws, Endive, Aïoli
• Roasted Whole Leg, Beurre Blanc, Espelette
• Cioppino, Backfin Meat, Roasted Peppers

I was pretty much full at this point and we were barely even into the meal! The crab was so heavenly. There were three poached claws, each topped with a different aioli. A trio in a trio!

Pasta ~ Braise and Confit
• Fettuccini, Rabbit, English Peas
• Ravioli, Duck Leg, Radicchio
• Orecchiette, Pork Short Rib, Fava Beans

The pork short rib was melt in your mouth good.

Brandt Farm Beef ~ Spring Vegetables
• Filet Mignon, Sacramento Delta Green Asparagus, Sauce
Béarnaise
• Dry Aged Rib Eye, Wilted Spinach, Morel Jus
• Braised Trio, Young Leeks, Horseradish Vinaigrette

The Béarnaise sauce was dreamy. And the rib eye? Fuhgettaboutit. I heart morels! And what's this? Another trio? Count me in. This time it was tongue, cheek and... something else delicious. I can't remember!

Maine Lobster Pot Pie
• Brandied Lobster Cream, Seasonal Vegetables

Ah-mazing. Whole lobster with the creamiest, silkiest sauce. I could've bathed in it. Seriously. I want to. Getting naked now.

California Squab ~ “Peking” and Citrus
• Smoked Breast, Pixie Tangerine, Pea Leaves
• Consommé, Poached Breast, Shiitake Dumpling
• Foie Gras, Steamed Buns, Pickled Tokyo Turnips

Mmm... What's not to love about little birds? I could've eaten that foie gras all night, while sitting in a tub of lobster sauce.

Cheeses ~ Goat, Sheep, Cow
• Minuet, Pear Purée, Hazelnuts
• Pecorino Ginepro, Port Cherries, Juniper Balsamic Vinegar
• Pianoforte, Porcini Syrup, Puffed Wild Rice

I was soooo stuffed by this point, I could barely eat the cheese. The waitress mentioned that they were all local cheese made by an artisan near Napa. And then something about them being named after musical terms and being available at some rainbow grocer's.

Citrus ~ Herbs
• Meyer Lemon Marmalade, Basil Financier, Huckleberry
• Lime Curd, Shiso Meringue, Sablé Breton
• Grapefruit Gelée, Tarragon Ice Cream, Masago Arame

This was the only thing we didn't really care for. I guess our palates aren't so sophisticated because the combination of herb and citrus flavors weren't exactly harmonious.

Chocolate ~ Exotic
• White Chocolate Panna Cotta, Passion Fruit, Almond Crumble
• German Chocolate, Coconut Espuma, Candied Pecans
• Bittersweet Chocolate Cream, Rum Bananas, Macadamia Nut

Rich, dark, bitter.. Just how I like my men.

Our only real complaint about the evening was that the sommolier was not very helpful. He didn't ask what we were eating, which is totally weird right? All he asked was what we liked to drink and then he proceeded to point to random wines in the wine list and just say, "This one is good... I like this one.. Or you could just get this one.."

He didn't once mention the flavors of the wine or anything!

Anyway, I just chose something and it was good.

Twelve hours later...

French toast with sliced strawberries and coconut cream

Stay tuned for more crab.

seafeast

Ever since Crawfish King opened last month, Hunny Bunny has been obsessed with those little mudbugs. He just can't seem to get enough!

We started with a mere four pounds (!) of spicy deliciousness..

I guess the season for crawfish season just barely started so they're not that big and juicy. But that's okay. We still got our grub on!

Can you believe we two hungry monkeys ate it all?

Savages.


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long weekend part iv - you win some, then you dim sum

Monday:

Woke up pretty early to start the long ride home. Got to Richmond just in time for lunch!

It's not a trip to B.C. if I don't get to stop at my favorite joint, Fisherman's Terrace. I always get a little overzealous when it comes to ordering dim sum - eyes are definitely bigger than my stomach!

At the top of the list was soup dumplings - filled with pork, fresh scallop and shark's fin in a rich and flavorful broth. I can eat these all m*thaf*ckin' day! They're so good they make me cuss.

And you can't have dim sum without have at least one variation of the shrimp dumpling - we had two! One had chives in it and the other had scallop with shrimp. Mmmmm...

Hunny Bunny and I ate a whole bunch of other stuff but I was too busy crammin' my face to bother taking any more pictures.

P.S. Will the lo fans please stop dousing everything in soy sauce?? Dim sum is not meant to be dipped in soy sauce. It's tasty enough as is. That is all.

long weekend part ii - valentine's day

Saturday:
HB is not exactly known for his romantic gestures. This Valentine's Day was no different. Spent the early part of the day attempting to revive my inner shred Betty. Not so much. I'm just thankful that I'm not quite back to square one. In fact, I'm definitely back to where I ended the last time I rode. Muscle memory? Perhaps. Refusing to let HB doubt my mad skills? Heck yeah.

Anyway, after several runs I wasn't falling. That much. Anymore. And by then HB was only yelling at me a little bit.

Not to be outdone by the morning's festivities, the rest of the day proved to be even more wondrous. During our stroll through Whistler Village, HB treated me to an artery clogging treat - poutine!

This mouthwatering load of smothered and covered goodness has truly mystical powers - I was in a daze after making mouth-love to fries covered in cheese curds and gravy and hot sauce.

Dinner was mostly uneventful. Because of V-day, all the Village restaurants were booked so we decided to stay in and make dinner in our condo. HB's bff's non-gf made a lovely roast that HB stole from me after I barely ate half.

All this was followed by a rousing game of Texas hold 'em. And lots and lots of drinking. Which led to this:

Not exactly HB's crowning moment.

He'll probably kill me after he realizes that I've exposed his weakest moment. D'oh! Not that he doesn't deserve to feel a little chagrin.. It's not like he didn't go barfing over the balcony. To be honest, I've never seen him that trashed before. And I never want to see it again. Icky.

P.S. At least he finally got his hair cut. I have no idea what his latest obsession with hobos is all about.

eatrichbitch

For those hungry folks in the Seattle area, now's your chance to get your grub on!

The Met is one of my faves.

heading south-ish

Mango and I are heading down to Portland, OR for a day of tax-free shopping this weekend. We've been scopin' out restaurants for the past couple days and have settled on two.

The Oregonian recommended Belly Timber so we're going to try it for brunch. Their Belly Benedict sounds scrumptious with poached eggs, roasted pork belly and hollandaise. Anything with pork belly is divine!

...shop..shop..shop...

And finally, since we don't want to drive home too late, we decided we'll eat supper some where in between Seattle and Portland. A quick search for diners along Interstate 5 came up with the Country Cousin in Centralia.

My brother Jack is somewhat concerned for our safety since we'll be two Asian girls in a predominately er... non-Asian area. I told him not to worry because I plan to wear my Obama shirt that day. D'oh. I joke, I joke.

From pork belly to greasy spoon. I hope I don't die of a heart attack on the way home. *burp*

so i didn't totally hate it

Got back from Spo-Compton, as my hb so lovingly calls it, yesterday afternoon. It was an even longer drive because of the traffic between Cle Elum and Easton. At least my left arm is darker than my right arm now, since I was driving.

Thank goodness we left Momma and Papa Bunny's house pretty early. I wanted to make it home in time for my brother's yummy barbecue - steak, chicken wings, oysters, roast veg and shrimp! Delish! My contribution was a chimichurri sauce for the grilled meats. Super duper easy! You should try it:

1 small shallot
1 lemon (I had to add some white vinegar - my lemon was a tad bitter)
couple cloves of minced garlic
bunch of italian parsley
bunch of cilantro
evoo
red pepper flakes
salt/pepper

Pretty much just dump everything into a food processor and grind it up! Voila! Tasty steaky!

Anyway, back to Spokane (hopefully not for a long time!)

This time we decided to bring the little one - my family's doggy Napolean. This was his first trip away from home for so long. He was definitely homesick. But we had fun anyway! I took him for a long walk in the morning since for some reason I've been an early bird.

When HB finally woke up, we headed downtown and toured a park that has this humungous Radio Flyer red wagon. I've always wanted to climb on it, but HB hates looking like a tourist in his hometown. I'm like, uhh.. I AM a tourist! Hater. (I'll have to post the pix later.)

Nap-nap had such a good time at the park! He was running around like mad! And then we went and ruined the fun by leaving him at home with Momma Bunny. Poor little guy was so traumatized! He stayed on his bed (we brought it from home) and didn't come out of our room.

HB and I decided to go to the driving range and hit some balls. I swear, time goes by sooooo slowly in Spokane. It took less than an hour! So then we decided to play 9-holes at the local par-3. That usually takes a couple hours right? Nope. Spokane has this time warp where you try to find stuff to do to kill time and like only 30 minutes pass. I guess it doesn't help when I wake up at 7 am. Phooey.

And my back is kinda sore from the golfing because 1) I haven't played since last summer and 2) I'm just totally out of shape.

After golf, we hit up Northtown Mall. It's probably the lamest mall on the planet. I couldn't even bring myself to buy anything, and I LOOOOOVE buying things. Geez, can we finally get out of this god-forsaken mall? I wasn't even motivated enough to go into the Rack for fear that I'd be superbly disappointed with the lack of designer markdowns.

Ooooh, but good thing Momma Bunny was making dinner at home! She made a feast of salt/pepper crab! Oh my! I was sooooo tired after dinner. Who knew how exhausting eating crab could be?! It's too much work for too little meat.

Sadly, it was only like 7:30 pm and doggy seemed too traumatized from being abandoned in a stranger's house that it didn't look like we could sneak out and catch a movie as planned. We wound up watching PBS with Papa Bunny. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

I went to bed at about 10:30 pm and woke up before 7 am. *sigh* Momma Bunny made up for it by having chow mein ready for an early lunch before our early departure! Yay!

i scream

Ooooh. I totally love this event. LOL. Did you know you can get as many scoops as you want!? That's crazy talk!

My first summer job was at Baskin Robbins. Oh the memories. Hehehe. I don't recommend getting the chocolate waffle cones... Whenever I would burn a regular waffle cone, I would totally put it in the chocolate basket.

HAHAHAHAHAHA. *ahem*

Then again, I don't think they make their own waffle cones in the stores any more so you probably don't have to worry about it.

Oh and my boss was soooo schiesty. She would make me cut the cherries in half and then she'd get mad at me if I gave people a full ladle of syrup for the sundaes.

Anyway, it's on April 30, from 5-10 pm at participating stores.

please pass the... nevermind

I feel bloated just thinking about the food in Prague and Budapest. I don't think I'll look at slow cooked food in quite the same way ever again. Don't get me wrong, I love my gramma's beef brisket, but some how those Czechs and Hungarians make the food taste so unfresh. It's like they made it months ago and just heat up when you asked for it. Blech.

And what's up with the dumplings? Maybe cos I'm Asian but the dumplings I'm used to are delicious, tender little bites - with or without meat in them. Potato dumplings are these massive loaves that are sliced and taste/feel NOTHING like potato gnocchi. And bread dumplings? Don't even get me started on those. How is bread a dumpling? Isn't that just, you know.. BREAD?

I get the impression that their M.O. with food is just that it fills you up for hours and leaves you constipated and that it's not something to be enjoyed.

We ended up at Pizza Hut on our fifth night. I couldn't stand another plate of goulash. I mean, the least they could do is name it something more appetizing. Goulash just sounds like someone vomiting - much like appeler Raoul. But that's neither here nor there.

By the time we arrived in Vienna, we were so ready for some schnitzel. Pass the tonkatsu sauce because deep fried meat is good anytime.

me so hungy...

Do you ever have those days where everything food related is working against you? That was me last Friday. It started out as a normal morning, you might even call it good - we got free bagels at work and I had half a bagel. I usually have yoga during lunch on Fridays so I planned on picking up a little something afterwards. But I ended up so effing busy, all I had was one of the humbows I had made a couple days before.

That filled me up for awhile but by the end of the day I was hangry. (Hangry = hungry + angry.) But unfortunately, I had an appointment that I was already late for so I didn't have time to get anything to eat. By the time I was done with my appointment, it was past 7 pm so my bf and I went out to eat. Nothing sounded good... All I knew was that I wanted to cram my face with something satisfying.

After driving around my bf suggested we try this place nearby for good/bad Chinese food. You know the kind I'm talking about... It's not exactly authentic, but you still love the moo goo gai pan. Anyway, it was my bad for not sticking with the plan. I should've just ordered the orange chicken but nooooooo... I read the menu and decided to try one of the Hometown Specialities. I mean, you'd think if it's the speciality of the town, it'd be kinda good but apparently their hometown was a landfill because they served me a plate of hot fried garbage. Yep. It was a pile of gray meat and shredded carrots.

I took a couple bites but it was just foul. I left completely upset and on the verge of tears. Across the street from the "restaurant" was a Taco Bell and my bf tried to be nice and said we'd pick something up from there. I guess the intercom at the drive-thru was malfunctioning because my bf couldn't understand a single thing he was saying. The poor guy kept telling him to "pull up to the window" and my butthead bf kept yelling "I don't want a potato burrito!" WTH??

Anyway, we finally get up to the window and order a crunchwrap supreme. You know what happens next??? My bf pays for the thing then effing drives off before we get the food!!! I'm so on edge that I burst out crying in the car because there's no food for me!

There I am, sobbing in the parking lot of Taco Bell as my bf runs in and grabs the food. And then he forgets the hot sauce. WAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Note to self: Buy some emergency food for my bag and car.

nuthin' about nuthin'

This has nothing to do with shopping, clothes, sales or makeup. I just felt like publicizing my recent domestic accomplishment. And this is my blog so I can do whatever I feel like! So THERE.

I spent the day making humbows from scratch, including the bread! I made about 60 of them and it took effing 4 1/2 hours! Holy crap. I need to get a life... After I eat one of my delicious buns of porky goodness.