Palisades Club: Hong Kong, 12/25/07

Today we had lunch at Palisades Club, a restaurant open for only Pacific Palisades residents. This is a place with decent food priced moderately, and also very close for the residents; I heard that my sisters have been eating here when mom didn't want to cook, so my whole family gave it a try this time.

Most of the entrees, small enough for one person with the exception of rice and noodles, were priced between 40HKD-80HKD (5USD-10USD), mostly because it is offered as a service for the residents. So here is what five people ate:

Shrimp with broccoli

Noodles with seafood

Fried Rice with shrimp

A tofu dish

Sweet and Sour Pork

I enjoyed this meal, and for its price (40USD for five people), it was amazing! The food was not cooked with too much oil, in general quite light. The fried rice did not have much flavor if you wanted to enjoy it just by itself, but it went very well with other dish, especially the tofu.

In the end we ordered another small dish of sweet and sour pork, which was fried just right; the pork was very chewy too. The nice part is that it is a little lighter than typical Chinese food, perhaps because many customers are foreigners.

Buca di Beppo: Birmingham, MI 12/14/07

So this was the first time I went to Buca di Beppo chain. We had a crowd of 6, including Linna and Owen(!). He probably joined because he like pizza. Anyway, the interior had quite interesting decorations and photos such as a bride in a wedding dressing playing with a soccer ball.

The garlic bread was served in a mini pizza format.

"Small" Antipasto salad that was enough to serve four people.

Holiday Special: Penne Cardinale

Chicken breast, artichoke hearts and white wine cream sauce. It was quite spicy and garlicky, which I liked. but the sauce is rather light in its texture and therfore often lost when tried with other dish: for instance, the Chicken Glorioso that we ordered.

Holiday Special: Chicken Glorioso

Chicken breast in romano cream sauce, garlic and mozzarella cheese- in the description there were sun-dried tomatoes but I am not sure it was worthy enough to be used to describe this dish. It was very rich and rather salty but otherwise okay- yes, the food here is rather salty in general. We enjoyed the cheese though.

These two probably shouldn't go together; the chicken glorioso's richness(and saltyness) overpowers the penne(except the spicyness). But I still liked it. The problem here is that the serving size is quite inconsistent; the small penne can definitely feed three people if not more, but the small chicken glorioso can be finished by a person or two at the most.

Half cheese, Half Arrabiata pizza that had to be made twice because of ordere errors. The service was really bad this day, I should say. Two servers consistently came right after the other already took an order- could be frustrating in middle of a conversation of six. Some of the servers looked clueless about what they were suppossed to do. Salt should be held a little, but the food in general was okay.

Chicken & Sausage with Lemon -2-

So we had Linna, my roommate for the past two years and suitemate for this year, over at my host family's! The menu was one of my new favorites, chicken and sausage with lemon and sage. This time, unlike the last time when we only had legs, we had a whole chicken- chickens.

Yum, dark meat. I still think about the truth-based-joke: an Asian thought that dark meat means overcooked and always ordered white meat, and wondered, "Gee, why do they never give me chicken thighs? They must be racist!"

The potatos were a little hard unlike last time but with sausage it is bearable. Linna loved chicken with light lemony flavor-Lizz did not even remember if there was lemon in it. She is a tiny person and usually does not eat much with the exception of good dessert, but she finished that big piece of chicken breast.


And here is the chocolate lava cake with caramel. A little overdone? Still good!

Last time we had it, just about month and a half ago?: 10/28/07

Chicken with Tomato Cream Sauce / Lamb Chops

So, interestingly enough, for this one dinner I am invited over, I see a recipe that I added in my Epicurious recipe box. So here we go: chicken with sundried tomato cream sauce.

I liked it, though as Linnea said, it wasn't the greatest thing ever. Maybe if the sauce was thicker? I tried the leftovers the next day and the sauce that was inevitably more thickened the night before actually tasted better, I thought.

Here is yesterday's dinner:

lemony risotto

lamb chops

The lamb chops were done in the oven instead of the outdoor grill due to unpleasant weather, but was still good. Perhaps it was a little too well done for my taste but I am not very picky about temperature for lamb for some reason. Though some did not like the slightly citric flavor of the risotto(hey, it's lemon based!), I did. No, it is not my favorite kind of risotto but as a side it was refreshing.


Chocolate chip cookies, Lemon Poppyseed cookies, and mocha-orange cookies. My favorite was the last one, though others were all good, mainly because of the texture? Well, anyways, another lovely dinner.

Frontera Grill: Chicago, IL 11/23/07

Margarita!

Well, here comes the Friday of Thanksgiving week again. This is Rick & Linnea's tradition to go to Frontera Grill for lunch, and I totally agree that it is an amazing idea!

I usually don't drink anything other than water, milk, and coffee drinks(I consider milkshake a meal so I am leaving that one out). I don't drink tea, soda, or lemonade. But the limeade here is pretty refreshing.

So here is how Frontera Grill looks like inside.

The bar and also the waiting place when the restaurant's full.

The cute decorations I like

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So, let's start with the appetizers!

All time favorite Guacamole

Sopes Rancheros

The new thing we tried this year: Queso Fundido

Last time the Jack Cheese in the turnover quesadillas was very good, so we tried something new with the same cheese. Garlicky roasted peppers, chorizo sausage and cheese. How can it go bad? I loved it.

Great Appetizers!Too bad the "enlightened" vegetarians couldn't fully enjoy the feast of the "ignorant"! (inside joke)

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Then let's go to the delightful lunch main.

Kim ordered the classic Taco al Carbon with skirt steak. I had this my sophomore year, I think. I really liked it; the other taco al carbon I tried was one with red chile-marinated pork, and I did not particularly like it because it was rather lacking in flavor-not the meat but the marinade. But with steak it was very good.

Three people ordered Quesadillas: Owen with duck, Mirelle and Lizz with chicken. I was thinking shrimp with spicy peppers will go well with it too and was tempted to try it, but got something else eventually.


So this is what I got, Milanesa de Puerco. This was the very first dish I tried at Frontera Grill four years ago as a freshman in high school. Not knowing what to choose from the unfamiliar menu, I picked this and liked it. I like the roasted tomato sauce but maybe there should be a little more. The crunchy coated pork was a lot more than it seemed. I guess Frontera started to care about how the dish looks more over the past few years, because from what I remember, this same dish was served quite roughly without any decoration.


So here is what Bev and Linnea ordered: the day's special fish, salmon with Green Pipian sauce. This sesame based sauce is one of Linnea's favorite, and from having a bite of hers as always, the the salmon was good. I think the sauce goes better with salmon than mahi mahi, though I admit the potentia bias.


Rick, I believe, got the daily special pork tamales. Their tamales are good too. I think the only time I did not like something served here was the scallops, which was not very impressive and rather too fishy. That was the only disappointment ever and I think ten years later I will still be talking about it, just because it was such a sharp contrast to my other experiences here.


Jim's dish which he claimed to be photogenic. Looks good, but I have to admire vegetarians!

Angela ordered Tamal Azteca. Tortillas layered with butternuts, huitlacoche(ooh, the scary inky thing), beets, chiles, tomatoes and cheese. As it said in the menu, almost like lasagne in its form.

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Here is what made this year's visit special: the desserts.

This icecream is made of peach sour cream, apples and apple brandy. The texture is homemade icecream but the flavor was almost sorbet-like with its fruit flavor. I really liked it because it is just inbetween the creamy richness of icecream and the refreshing sharpness of sorbet. When something is too leaned to one of the two you get tired of it easily, but this icecream was interesting. Angela's was served with cajeta, goat milk caramel, which was also quite different.


I got the same ice cream with the other option, fudge made with Oaxacan chocolate. The bittersweet chocolate with peach-apple flavored icecream was really, "interesting." I enjoyed it.


Then Angela's pick for Jim was Budin de Persimo, a persimmon pudding with walnuts and cinnamon cream. This was a bigger hit for Kim and Linnea rather than Jim himself, it seemed. Just like the ice cream, it was quite "different" from regular desserts.

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So thanks to Rick and Linnea, nine of us had a wonderful lunch. It was also amusing to take photos of so many people's food. From the appetizers, main dish, and the dessert, I fully enjoyed the meal and it was the best time in Frontera Grill ever. And Juan, our same waiter, is Lizz's favorite part of our visits too, I guess!

Previous Visits:
05/26/07