Sliderbar Cafe

Sliderbar Café's "classic."

Sliders have always struck a chord with me. The very fact that they are hamburgers is a plus, that’s for sure. And the fact that sliders are mini burgers makes it less disgusting if you eat more than three of them. Sliders’ smaller size also makes them more visually appealing and gourmet because they can be dressed up with multiple ingredients.

When I visited Sliderbar Cafe, a relatively new eatery in downtown Palo Alto, I was torn between my carnal desire to consume as many sliders as possible, with my more refined, critical side.

I ordered three sliders, the “classic,” “chicken” and “mediterranean” slider.” The classic was my favorite because of its simplicity and the added crunchiness that pickles contributed. I didn’t order one, but I heard the “kobe beef” slider was the best. Definitely want to try that one next time.

The main problem with the sliders was their lack of “gourmetness.” All were lathered with a tasty, but undoubtedly heavy and generic, white hamburger sauce. Think the sauce that the Dutch Goose puts on its burgers; it works for the Goose, but not a more upscale burger place.

But, ultimately, sliders are sliders, and burgers will always taste good. So, the final word.

Concept is good, execution, could be better, but everyone loves burgers.

Great ambiance at the Sliderbar Cafe.

Joanie’s Cafe

This morning I went to Joanie’s Cafe with my mom for a little breakfast over Ski Week. Joanie’s Cafe is located on California Avenue in south Palo Alto right next to Cafe Brioche. What I like about Joanie’s is that it’s above average food with an unpretentious atmosphere. I appreciate that it doesn’t pretend like it’s some fancy establishment and jack up the prices; I would much rather eat average food at an average place than have a fancy restaurant let me down with average food. I also like places that serve breakfast, lunch and dinner because it gives the restaurant a more laid back vibe to it, think Joanie’s, University Cafe and Calafia.

For my meal I had the daily special, a scramble with ham, tomatoes, spinach and feta cheese with a side of hash browns, a homemade banana muffin and a glass of orange juice. When I eat scrambled eggs I like the eggs to be the base, but not necessarily the focal point of the meal. The ham added a hearty aspect to the scramble which was nicely balanced by the spinach and feta cheese. The hash browns had just the right amount of crunch on the outside with soft on the inside; I hate it when hash browns are soft all the way through.

Joanie's Cafe, located in south Palo Alto on California Ave.

Marvelous Meringues

Similar to life, during the process of cooking people experience problems. One of the problems that we can across when cooking was that we did not have time to do everything that we could for a certain recipe. Taking the ingredients into account, Ms. Pugliese gave us the idea that we could cook meringues. When thinking of a meringue, I thought that it would be very difficult. It turns out that they are fairly simple. All that is in a meringue is egg whites and lots of sugar. The most important thing about meringues is the whisking, which in fact is very tiring.

Meringues were first invented by an Italian chef in Switzerland. Meringues were first referred to as “white biskit bread” or “pets” and slowly adapted the name of meringue. Because of their background, there are many different types of meringues. There are French Meringues, Italian Meringues, Swiss Meringues and many others as well. Meringues can also come in various different flavors. There are chocolate, lemon, almond, and many others. Because meringues started becoming so popular, soon other things with meringues were created such as lemon meringue pie.

The history of meringues is very interesting and crazy to think that all it is made of is sugar and egg whites. The “mini meringues” (I like to call them that) that we made were very tasty and I learned some great things in the process. One of the most important things to know is that when making meringues count that as your exercise for the day because whisking is very tiring and a great arm exercise. The meringues were very scrumptious and I would and will definitely make them again!

Dumplings Galore!

After attending a Korean Market, we continued our theme by going for Korean food for lunch. At the restaurant at lunch I chose to have King Sized Dumplings, which were in fact king sized! They were filled with all sorts of things, from vegetables to pork to a special sauce, and I loved them! I would definitely go back and have them again because they were so good. They were very filling, but they were very good.

This inspired a few people and I to try and make dumplings, but not king size. To make the dumplings we bought all the ingredients and started by making the dumpling filling. In our filling we had mainly leeks and pork (with some other stuff as well). We then put this into wanton wrappers that we bought and folded the sides so that it stays inside. Then we boiled water, and cooked the dumplings for a few minutes until they were finished. We also made sauce for the dumplings that was made up of mainly soy sauce, roasted sesame oil, but with a few other ingredients as well. The dumplings turned out very well. Although they were not king size like the other ones, they were even better!

Chocolate Mousse Pie

One of the greatest things on earth is chocolate. Being a chocolate lover, I knew I had to incorporate chocolate somehow into the foods that we make. When debating what to make with chocolate, I thought back to some of the most delicious chocolate I have had in my life. I remembered the wonderful chocolate mousse pie that I had over the summer. So, I decided to become adventurous and try to conquer this luscious dish.

Ingredients and Directions

Crust

• 21 chocolate sandwich cookies (such as Oreos)
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, cut into pieces, room temperature

Mousse

• 12 ounces semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Pinch of salt
• 3 3/4 cups chilled whipping cream
• 1/4 cup sugar

• Chocolate shavings (optional)

The hardest part about this dish, is making the mousse both look and taste like it should. I learned that it took a lot of stirring until it finally go to be how it should, so be patient. Another important note is if you want to have the Oreo crust to cover the sides of the pie as well as the bottom, you need to add more than 21 Oreos.

 

This dish turned out to be very successful and I am glad that we chose to follow through and make this. I even decided to go home and make it for my family so they could both see and taste a little part of what I learned this week. Chocolate mousse pie with Oreo crust is a great dessert and I really recommend making it!

¡Buongiorno Gnocchi!

I am not sure what compelled me to make gnocchi as our final dish, but I love Italian food and this is a traditional Italian dish dating back until Roman times (earliest mention is in 14th century Italian cookery manuscripts). Though the use of potato is a more recent addition.

The word gnocchi comes from the Italian word “Nocchio” meaning a knot. They are specifically found in Northern Italy, though all over Europe different places and cultures have created their own spin off. I found out the gnoochi is apparently popular in South American after Italian immigrants introduced it in the early 20th century. In fact, in Argentina the 29th day of every month has been dedicated to “Dia de Ñoquis” (Gnocchi Day)….Who knew?!

Gnocchi goes great with a multitude of sauces and flavors which is one of the reasons it’s so popular. I decided to use sweet potatoe in the dough base to shake it up and add some flavor. I then made a pinenut addition with olive oil, garlic, basil, onion, and other very Italian things that I like to give it some flavor. It was a very hard to dish to make, considering it took me a good 2 hours just to get the potatoe mush into workable dough. But very fun and I was pleased with the outcome.

Ciao

Berkley Bowl/San Fran

Walking into Berkley bowl is like walking into Trader Joes on steroids. I had never seen that much amazing organic awesome food. I was drawn to the giant produce section where there were the largest apples I had ever seen to some vegetables I had never seen. Everything was so beautiful and unique and you could just tell the freshness. Where else would there be 10 different types and colors of fresh sweet potatoes. There were rows of granola (I got a small bad og acai-apple flaxseed granola…fabulous). I successfully got all the ingridents for my soon to be made gnocchi, and much more.

I was already having a small food baby from the amount of samples I had consumed, but I had to push past it when I saw the meats at the cute little artisan meat shop. It was cool seeing all the different types of meat in the wndow, and truely a unique experience when I was biting into my amazing panini and someone ran in with an entire lamb. Lost my appetite for a second, but those paninis were too good.

Farmville

On wednesday we were lucky enough to see the behind the scenes workings of a farm. Though the weather was chilly, no weather can stop the fun of hand picking fresh vegetables. From dikon to carrots, we all got in touch with our farm sides and were able to take some amzing produce home.

It was fascinating to hear and first-handedly experience the work that goes into the upkeep of a farm. I never appreciated that as my mom comes home with beatuiful farmers market food.

The sandwhiches were definately a highlight, as I have purchased some squash and plan on maing my own replica at home.

My favorite thing was hearing about the tomatoe breeding. I never realized that you could “mate” different colors, shapes, and tasting tomatoes abd be able to control the outcome. I will be on the look out for some pink heart shaped ones from now on.

Fun Site

http://brokeassgourmet.com/

Saw this on facebook and it is a perfect side for people like me, who enjoy great food but are extremely lazy when it come to prep time. The gnocchi crossed my cook time limit…

What the Pho…?

For our final meal of the week, James and I decided to tackle one of our mutual favorite dishes, Pho.  For those who do  not know, Pho is a Vietnamese dish that was thought to have originated about 150 years ago in Hanoi.  It was used as a way to satisfy the Vietnamese public with rice noodles, as well as satisfy the frequent French visitors with the beef broth/meat.  Otherwise known as Vietnamese Beef Noodle Dish, it is a scrumptious dish that we thought would be a wonderful way to end the week.  It may not have ended as well as I would have wanted, but I am glad I made it nonetheless.

We started our dish by gathering materials at the expansive Berkeley Bowl Market.  Known as one of the greatest, most diverse markets in the Bay Area, the Berkeley Bowl had everything we needed, and more!  We shopped around for the first half-hour, not even looking for our materials, but instead marveling at the vast array of vegetables, fruits, nuts, dairy products, etc.  How could life get any better when we are surrounded by such great food?

We finished up our observing and got down to business.  We had to search out parsnips, green onions, yellow onions, and cilantro from the organic section, along with 5 Star Anise from the herb section.  Running down the “ethnic foods” section, we grabbed a bottle of fish sauce, two pounds of rice vermicelli noodles, and rice vinegar.  After we had found all we needed, we got in the car and headed to Avegandro’s, an old-style butcher shop.  With the money we had left over, we were able to purchase the most expensive cut of beef tenderloin, as well as a tasty panini with goat meat inside (sounds strange, but it was delicious!).

We started our work at Carla’s apartment, and to cut a long story short, we used our yellow onions, parsnips, garlic, anise, and beef marrow bones to get started on the broth.  Letting it boil overnight, the broth was able to achieve a fuller taste.  When we started work on it again later the next day, we strained it, added fish sauce and vinegar, and prepared our meat for grilling and noodles for cooking.

The final production at school was exciting, as we all shared (and horded) our wonderful creations.  We finished our dish off by boiling the noodles in the soup, grilling the beef tenderloin (now in thin, long strips), and plopping them in our dishes.  Personally, I did not enjoy the taste greatly (I think we bought a low-quality/tasting version of fish sauce) but others seemed to enjoy it.  All in all, it was a successful adventure, a fantastic way to end the week, and we were able to create our very own Pho.