San Francisco Lamb Jam 2015

Thanks to my friend, me and my boyfriend got to experience a different culinary adventure on Sunday. She invited us to go with her and her husband to this Lamb Jam event, which is apparently an annual thing hosted by American Lamb. The Lamb Jam is a tasting  event and competition of talented chefs in the city (they have 5 tour cities total) to incorporate their skills and lambs. They have 16 chefs compete, and we got to taste 16 different lamb dishes, plus drinks and desserts. 

We had so many dishes served in small plates, but we were full and satisfied. Not everything was my favorite, but it was overall an exciting experience. I can't remember for the life of me which one is what, but I could show you some of the pictures of the food I tasted. Even though it was supposed to be a tasting event, the portion was pretty generous and filling. 

Brussels Sprouts with Bacon

If there's one thing that I've been eating without getting sick of it, it is this brussels sprouts with bacon! My friend cooked this on thanksgiving, and I still can't shut up about it. I never knew brussels sprouts could be that tasty! Even without the bacon, I could eat the brussels sprouts for lunch and dinner and repeat!

I've asked my friend how she cooked it, and I've been making it myself for several times now since thanksgiving. I'm in no way a trained cook. I rarely follow recipes 100%, and I always use my judgment when it comes to measurement. This is a pretty easy dish to try, so if you're doubtful, just go light on the balsamic vinegar and you can always add more later. 

Ingredients:

-brussels sprouts

-bacon

-olive oil

-balsamic vinegar (i use worcestershire sauce)

-salt

-pepper

-red pepper flakes (optional)

Here's how I cook it:

1. Pre-heat oven for 380F. 

2. Wash and cut brussels sprouts in halves, and put it in a mixing bowl. You can also use the ones that are already pre-washed and pre-cut. 

3. Add olive oil, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, and balsamic vinegar and mix everything in the bowl.

4. Lay the halves on a single layer on a baking sheet.

5. When the oven is pre-heated, put in the brussels sprouts for about 15-20 minutes or the way I like it, until they're a bit burned. 

6. Take it out, put in a serving plate/bowl, or because I'm lazy to do dishes, I just put them back into the mixing bowl I used earlier.

7. Bake/pan-fry bacon as the condiments. After they're cooked cut them into small pieces, or what I do, I just cut them with scissors and put in in the bowl with the brussels sprouts.

8. Ready to serve!

Hope you guys enjoy the dish!

Casual Saturday | Boyfriend Shirt and Seafood Pasta in Pink Sauce

Hi everyone! 

Hope you had a great weekend. I wish weekends could last longer. It feels like they just go by faster and faster. I visited the city a couple of weeks ago. I bought a swivel chair for my desk via craigslist, so we picked it up at the owner's house in San Francisco. The chair was almost brand new since he never really used it. It retails for $149, and I got it for $60. What a steal! 

We tried out an Italian restaurant called Sotto Mare based on my friend's recommendation, who is an exclusive yelper. She told me to order Seafood Linguine in pink sauce, which is white and red sauce mixed. It's not on the regular menu. The portion is big and we shared the pasta along with a bowl of clam chowder. The pasta was really good. They were generous with their seafood which made my boyfriend really happy. 

When in St. Louis | Brunch, Missouri Botanical Garden, Old Town, Peruvian Dinner

Hello! 

I'm grateful I got visit family and attend a wedding last weekend. We took advantage the opportunity to do a little travel the next day. Here's my Sunday in pictures. 

Saturday in the City | Pilpres, Korean Mexican, and Chinese Italian Food

This Saturday, we drove to Indonesian Embassy at San Francisco for our presidential election, or what we call "PilPres" which is short for "Pemilihan Presiden". I've registered online to vote by mail, but I didn't receive it until today. I went there this morning I could vote in person without worrying whether the ballot would ever come in the mail. Attempt failed. They told me to wait patiently instead. Fortunately, it did come in the mail. 

It turned out to be an eventful saturday. Many of my friends went along for casting their votes, and we got to have a nice trip to the city. We tried out new places to eat. They were interesting. My lunch and dinner were both very culturally mixed. 

For lunch we went to HRD Coffee Shop, a small Korean fusion eating place with just enough seats. It doesn't look anything like a coffee shop, but more like an old Korean Chipotle. I ordered this Smothered Burrito with fried oysters inside. My boyfriend ordered Curry rice with chicken katsu. Both dishes have curry in them which is a bit spicy to my liking. The fried oysters inside the burrito gave a very interesting twist. The portion was big enough for me, even enough for 2 people. 

Smothered Burrito

Blogmas 23, 2013 ❄ Reconnecting with Home - Jakartan Traffic and Village Food

Today was full of reenacting the routine of my parents. The jetlag got the best of me, I woke up at 3.30 am and couldn't go back to sleep for a while. I spent the early morning catching up with youtube videos and studying. My dad and mom were awake for a bit because of me. The kindly offered me something to eat, but I just told them to go back to sleep. Living at home can turn me back to a spoiled kid I once was. Wait. Scratch that. I still am, but I was way more. 

Anyway, I took some shots on my way to take my mom to the office with my dad. The traffic wasn't as bad. Jakarta is notorious for its really really bad traffic. If you're living in big cities, like New York City or Los Angeles, and if you think the traffic is bad there, try going to Jakarta. You'll learn to appreciate the traffic. I might make Jakarta sound horrible, but it's actually not. Of course, every place has its ups and downs. For Jakarta, it's its traffic for one and other things that I cannot care less about. I love the city no matter what people say. 

Blogmas 14, 2013 ❄ Crab Fest!

It's official. I failed blogging every single day during blogmas again this year. It is hard to keep up. 

Oh well.  

I agreed to cook for our annual crab fest this year. This was my first time cooking crabs, but I did take few pointers on our last crab fest. There were 10 people coming and I bought 15 large crabs assuming that one people would eat 1.5 crabs. I was wrong. The crabs were huge and we did have a lot of leftovers afterwards, but boy were they delicious. *brush shoulders* =p

I couldn't do it on my own in that short amount of time. Thankfully I have great assistants ready to help me. We started cooking at 4 pm finished at around 7 pm. We managed to fit 6 people in my boyfriend's tiny kitchen. It was really fun, although we all smelled like crab at the end. lol

We cooked half of the crabs with oyster sauce, and the other halves with ketchup. I guess this is asian style, seafood with lots of tasty sauce. I find that western-style cooking of seafood is bland for my taste. I list all the ingredients I used below and tried my best to replicate the measurements. I tasted as I cooked, and i I didn't really pay attention of the measurements. Haha. Hope you guys feel inspired to try these. They're really good!

Add caption

I forgot to take a close-up picture of the final product. =/

Sweet and Sour Crab

Ingredients:

Eggs - beaten

Yellow onion - sliced

garlic - chopped

spring onion - chopped

soy sauce

oyster sauce

ketchup

sugar

chicken stock powder (I substituted with vegetable stock) 

tapioca flour - to thicken the sauce
water

The Crab:
1. Clean and chop the crabs into 4 parts. (I usually asked the people in the store to do it for me)
2. Dip the crab in the beaten egg and pan fry until the color change to red and then set aside

The sauce:
1. In the wok, stir fry onion and garlic
2. Add in soy sauce, oyster sauce and ketchup
3. Add water, bring to boil
4. Add in sugar, and the stock powder
5. Taste and adjust accordingly
6. Add back the crabs
7. Add in the tapioca flour to thicken the sauce
8. Add spring onion
9. This step is optional: I put everything in the oven and let it heated up for about 20 minutes to make sure everything is cooked.

Crab with Oyster Sauce

Ingredients: 

Cooking oil

garlic - chopped

ginger - smashed

yellow onion - chopped

spring onion - chopped

soy sauce

sweet soy sauce

oyster sauce

cooking wine

water

tapioca flour (to thicken the sauce)

How to cook:

1. Clean and chop the crabs into 4 parts. 

2. Heat up the oil in the wok and sautee the garlic, ginger, and yellow onion. You will need a wok, which is deeper than a frying pan because you will need to put the crabs in it.

3. Add soy sauce, sweet soy sauce, oyster sauce, cooking wine, black pepper and spring onion into the wok

4. Add in the crabs - try cooking in batches if you have limited space like I did - and stir fry them with the other ingredients until they're half way cooked

5. Add in water ( depending on how many crabs you're cooking - I'd say about a cup for every 4 crabs or as much as sauce as you want) and let it to boil until everything's cooked.

6. Add in tapioca flour with water to thicken the sauce

7. Taste and adjust accordingly

8. Same with the above, I also put the it in the oven for 20 minutes. Ready to serve!