Blog Event: WBB #9 - Eggstra-Ordinary Breakfast

Filed Under Blog Events | 10 Comments

Deadline: March 25th

Hey fellow foodies, this is my very first attempt at a food blogging event!

WBB - Weekend Breakfast Blogging - was started by the beautiful and ever so helpful Nandita from Saffron Trail to popularize breakfast among food bloggers. This month it is my turn to host this wonderful event, and the first thing that came to my mind while I thought about the theme is - Eggs!

For this WBB, I’m challenging all the bloggers to come up with a new twist on eggs.  Just add your own special touch to make a special breakfast/brunch dish with eggs.

The main criteria for this event are

• The dish should have eggs as a main ingredient. You can use any type of egg - chicken, duck, goose, quail, ostrich… Heck, you can even use caviar or roe!
• It should be a breakfast/brunch dish

But other than that, let your creative juices flow! Take a recipe and make it your own by adding that special ingredient! Or come up with a completely new recipe! Sky is the limit! Presentation is the key, make it look good!  I’ve seen the eggcellent work all you foodies have created out there, so this should be so simple a task for all of you!

As an added bonus, if you make a dish that reminds you of something, may be a favorite vacation spot (Spanish omelette to remind you of that special trip to Madrid) or a special day (the first time your sweetie made you breakfast in bed) , do include that story, we would love to hear that!

1. Post your WBB Eggstra-Ordinary Breakfast entry before March 25th. Add a link to this post.
2. If you use Technorati tags, tag this entry as WBB9, not a requirement.
3. Send me an e-mail at MailLiveToEat@gmail.com with your name, a link to your post and a 150×150 pixel thumbnail of your dish. Make sure your subject line starts with WBB-
4. I will publish the round up on March 31st, just in time for a special breakfast on Sunday, April 1st.

I’m so eggcited to host a blog event! Let me know what you think of the theme. Any suggestions for improvement are welcome. Spread the word!

If you are newbie to this event, check out the previous WBB line-ups here http://saffrontrail.blogspot.com/search/label/WBB.

If you are new to food blog events in general, get some more background here. http://www.ismyblogburning.com/beginners-guide/

I’ve started blogging just two months ago, and I’m hooked! I’ve been lurking on all the great foodie blogs out there, and I’m so proud of all you foodies, you all have done such a wonderful job! Keep up the good work!

Technorati tags: WBB, WBB9, Breakfast recipes, Food blog event, Weekend Breakfast Blogging

Oscar Night at the 0/8 Seafood Bar and Grill

Filed Under Bellevue, Northwest, Seafood | Leave a Comment

0/8 Seafood bar and grill is the new restaurant that opened at the Bellevue Hyatt Regency Hotel late last year. I was recently checking out their website, and saw the following blurb:

“Watch the Oscars in the Twisted Cork lounge.  Enjoy herb buttered popcorn and Oscar night games and give-aways.  February 25th starting at 5PM.”

So when I was talking to some of my girlfriends about the Oscar night plans, we thought it will be fun to go out to watch the Oscars this year. Since most of my friends are in the eastside, we picked 0/8 as the venue, and I think it was a great choice as far as the food and drink selection goes, but not so great for watching the Oscars. First of all, there weren’t many people there watching the Oscars, so it wasn’t as much fun as we thought. Secondly, the big screen was not so clear, and the sound system was even worse, we could hardly see the details of the dresses and the make-up (the best attraction of Oscar) and couldn’t hear anything, even after they turned up the volume.  But we did have a lot of fun anyway. We had to  fill in a sheet with our Oscar picks; those with the most number of guesses right win $75 , $50 and $25  respectively. Even though they told us there were 8 more entry forms other than ours, we really didn’t see anyone else filling any forms, so we are assuming that our table is going to get all the three prizes, if anyone from 0/8 is reading this, we are still waiting for your call, you know who we are

But apart from the fact that we couldn’t really watch the Oscar, the food was great, well most of it anyway. We were there in time for the happy hour (4-6), and ordered most of the menu items.  I got their house Cosmo, which was on the happy hour list ($2 off regular price) a white cranberry Cosmo which was pretty good.   

Dungeness Crab Cake With Fuji Apple and Watercress Salad, Curry Aioli - This was pretty good. Really fresh crab meat, and the Curry in the aioli was a nice twist.

Cedar Planked Salmon With Fennel Salad and Chive Vinaigrette - I liked this one too, again really fresh salmon and very mild flavors.

Seared Calamari With Lemon Grass, Ginger, Cashews - Everyone loved it, this was one of the favorites. We thought it was a little too much soy sauce though.

Tempura Prawns and Asparagus - This was a big disappointment. As you can see from the picture, this was way too oily and deep fried for our taste.
 

Manila Clams and Penn Cove Mussels in Steamed in Coconut-Red Curry Broth - This was not too bad, but not all that great either. Someone thought the bread wasn’t cooked enough. I thought the curry broth was missing some flavors, just a little too mild.

Seared Baja Scallop Seaweed Salad with Crispy Salmon Bacon, Balsamic Syrup - I loved it, the scallops were fresh and tender, and the wee bit seaweed salad that comes with it made a nice combo. (Below picture is half-eaten, forgot to click before :-), a plate comes with two scallops)

Pumpkin Ravioli With Browned Butter, Toasted Pumpkin Seeds -  I hated this one, it was a little too “pumpkini” for me. .

Tea Smoked Duck Breast Chive Pancake, Currant Marmalade, Frisee Salad - This was really good.

Farmer’s Cheeses and Cured Meat Platter with Toasted Baguette, Marinated Vegetables - This was just a filler, nothing special about this dish.

As you can see, we ate a lot between the 4 of us, and some of these dishes we got multiples, but we were there for more than three hours. Oh, in addition to this, they gave us complimentary buttered popcorn as the Oscar special, but it was more like “popcorned butter” as someone put it, it was just dripping of butter. Anyway, we were quite full by the end of it and decided to split two desserts, and both were amazing!

The main theme for the food at 0/8 are the fresh ingredients and really mild flavors. While the mild flavors works great for some dishes, I thought it was the biggest negative in some other dishes. But overall, food is not disappointing, if you choose wisely. I’m definitely going back again to try the main courses. Also, they have weekend brunch on Saturdays and Sundays, there aren’t that many great brunch options in Bellevue, it will be definitely worth a try if you live in Bellevue. More than the food, I loved the ambiance, the Twisted Cork Wine bar is pretty spacious, and will be perfect for a big group. The happy hour deal is pretty cool, all the appetizers are half off.

Finally, here we are, the girls - Hema, Mareen, Suneeta and Sigma - three of us are going to win that contest , still waiting for that phone call. :-).

Technorati tags: Seattle Restaurants, Bellevue Restaurants, Happy Hour

Le Pichet - A Real French Restaurant in Seattle

Filed Under Downtown, French | 2 Comments

We had brunch at the Le Pichet on Saturday, a tiny French cafe in Belltown, with a true Parisian vibe. The menu is real French, not the French influenced fare you find in most other French restaurants around here. Don’t get me wrong, I very much enjoy the French influenced northwestern cuisine, but Le Pichet is pleasantly different, and is guaranteed to remind you of Paris, if you have been there.

The brunch menu has some very interesting choices. If you go here, don’t be scared and just go with the safe choice of broiled eggs with ham and cheese, which was my first inclination. Be bold and order something you’ve never tasted, and you might just like it. With the dishes being so cheap, most everything is under $10, you can’t go really wrong.

This time I decided to go for the grilled half quail served on a watercress and avocado salad with creamy almond vinaigrette dressing. It was so nice, the quail was marinated in some kind of a sour sauce and the salad went so nice with it. The dish is pretty tiny, I could have gone for one more dish, but decided against it at the end since I’m supposed to be watching my diet

Siv ordered the crisp pork belly confit on roasted beets dressed with capers, parsley and creme fraiche. I liked this better than my quail, the pork belly was so crispy and tasty, and even the beets tasted great!

http://www.lepichetseattle.com/

Twist - The Best Happy Hour Deal in Belltown

Filed Under American, Bar, Belltown | Leave a Comment

Twist bar and lounge is in the heart of Belltown, in the same building as our condo. It is one of the most happening places in Belltown, packed with young dressed up eye candy on weekend nights. The decor is hip and contemporary, there is a sports bar in the front of the restaurant as soon as you enter in, but the main attraction is the lounge in the back. The lounge is painted a vibrant red, and the seating is mainly comfy couches and contemporary chairs. The disco ball in the shape of a pig is pretty cool!

The best thing about the lounge is the amazing views of the Puget sound and Elliot bay. Well, they have the same views as we have from our living room, the below shots are taken from our condo, just imagine this view from 2 stories down, and you have the view from Twist. The sunset is breathtaking!

Friday night, we had tickets for the Jamie Fox Unpredictable Tour at the Key Arena. Before the concert, we decided to grab some drinks and appetizers at Twist. Their happy hour is from 4:00 PM - 7:00 PM every night, and they even have a late night happy hour on week days. They recently started a new happy hour deal, “20 for $2.50″, 10 drinks and 10 appetizers for $2.50 each! What a deal!

We ordered 9 out of 10 appetizers from the happy hour menu.

1. twist. spreads – pita with hummus, kalamata, tzatsiki, or roasted pepper - Tried this with roasted pepper and hummus , nothing special, nice soft pita bread and the roasted pepper was better than the hummus.

2. jalapeno wontons - This was awesome! Pretty spicy creamy jalapeno fillings, we went for seconds

3. thai chilli chicken wings - These were pretty good, kind of sweet and spicy

4. tempura prawns - Real nice

5. chicken potstickers - Really good

6. salmon cakes - These are a big disappointment this time, overcooked and deep fried, you couldn’t even tell it was Salmon! But I’ve had it before and it was really yummy last time, may be just a one night screw-up!

7. oyster shooters - One of my favorites, they serve the oysters in a shot glass layered with cocktail sauce and topped with a lemon wedge, you just mix it up and shoot it down, and it is yummy! Two shots in one plate.

8. szechuan green beans - Being huge carnivores, we didn’t order this at first, but after going through most of the items, we decided to give this a try. I’m glad we did it, since these were so good! Green beans deep fried and served with spicy szechuan sauce, real yummy.

9. masaman pork - This was the best dish! Succulent pork cooked to perfection in a nice savoury sauce served in lettuce leaves. We got multiple orders of these.

10. mini caesar salad - Only dish we didn’t get.

The $2.50 drink menu looked good too, but we only tried the Pineapple Kazi! Twist infuses their own vodkas with different flavors, and this drink was a Kamikaze made with pineapple infused vodka. The drink was amazing, not too sweet.

The final tab for 4 of us after 13 pineapple kazis , 1 white wine and countless number of appetizers, $70!!! Can you believe that? If you are on a budget and still want to hang out at the one of the hippest spots in Belltown, Twist is your place!

The lounges in the back are perfect to host a private party. The crowd after 11:00 PM is normally young, and way too dressed up, and it looks like a proper meat market. If you are not in your twenties, you are better off going before 10:00, when the crowd is still pretty nice, but not as loud and obnoxious.

http://www.twistbelltown.com

Technorati tags: Seattle Restaurants, Belltown restaurants

Guys’ night in the kitchen

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Last saturday night was a true gourmet night for us, when three guys decided to - read “were forced into” - join together and cook up a delicious spread for their lovely wives in the spirit of Valentine’s day. The 6 course menu was perfectly paired with a flight of wine, and turned out better than any tasting menu we have ever had!

Cream of Wild Mushroom Soup

The scrumptious feast started with this cream of wild mushroom soup by Siv, adapted from this Emeril recipe : http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_18141,00.html. He skipped the garlic croutons and garnished this with some roasted walnuts instead, it was delicious! The cognac in the soup gave a nice little kick to the taste.

Crab Cakes with Lemon Dill Sauce

Next in line was this delicious crab cake by Sudhakar. This recipe is from the food network show Paula’s Home Cooking , and can be found here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_22842,00.html. The crab cakes were just so yummy, it was crispy on the outside, yet so moist and soft inside, and the lemon dill sauce was so flavorful! This dish was paired with a nice Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc.

Pan Sauteed Halibut with Curried Corn Sauce and Tomato Chutney

We took a break after the crab cakes, and then Siv served this halibut dish, which was my favorite for the night (okay I am a little biased :)). This is another food network recipe by Bobby Flay. http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_10524,00.html. The curry powder used in this recipe uses ancho Chile powder, made from dried poblano peppers, it is used in a lot of Mexican dishes. I love the sweet spicy flavor of this chile powder, and the curry powder was very distinctly flavorful. I’m glad he made extra curry powder, I have to come up with a recipe to use this.

The halibut went nicely with the 2004 Santa Margharita Pinot Grigio.

Roasted Chicken Breast with Green Spice Paste

The fourth dish in the line up was this awesome chicken dish by Sudhakar, his own recipe. Okay, this dish did not photograph well, but don’t let that fool you, this was just so yummy! In my opinion, chicken is one of the toughest meat to get right, since the meat is so bland, you have to make it better with the ingredients used. This dish was just perfect, chicken was so tender and moist and the perfect size, and the spice paste (made of onions, green chilies, cilantro leaves, cashew nuts and almonds) served over the chicken was just wow! The mild spices in this dish was paired well with a nice local Merlot.

Scallops With Pasta

Finally, last dish in this gourmet line-up were these pan seared scallops and pasta in a red sauce by Deepak. He wasn’t feeling well all evening, still this had turned out so great, just imagine what this would have tasted like if he was in perfect health! Scallops were so tender, and well marinated in the sauce, and the combination of the pasta and the red sauce was just perfect! It’s been a few days, so I just can’t remember what the sauces were made of :-(. Since this was the only dish with carbs and hence the most filling, it was perfect to serve at the end.

We finished off the meal with a nice store brought Tiramisu and a Tawny port wine. The guys had really done an amazing job of coming up with the perfect order and the timing between dishes, and the wine selections were amazing! Now if we can just get them to do this more often!

Meet the chefs - Siv, Deepak, Sudhakar, and their lucky wives - Sigma, Hema, Suneeta

Cascadia - Best Mini-Burgers in Belltown

Filed Under American, Belltown, Northwest | Leave a Comment

Living in the middle of Belltown, we always get confused about which bar to pick on any given night, too many choices! But more often that not, we get back to Cascadia, just because of their mini burgers, exactly where we ended up this Friday night. The fact that they are just across the street from us is just a big bonus.

At $3 each, you can select between beef hanger steak, wild king salmon and veggie mini burgers. These are served with tomato, lettuce and pickles, but you can choose from a bunch of condiments and options from $.25 (Dijon mustard) , all the way up to $4 (barbequed lobster) to perk up your burger.

A Stack of mini burgers, and some assorted sides:

We normally get 2 burgers each with a bunch of toppings, split a cone of French fries and an appetizer, and make it a meal. It is a pretty cheap dinner for a Belltown bar with such great ambiance! The lounge menu has a pretty good selection. This Friday night our filler was the Grilled Fish and Chips (Grilled salmon and rosemary French fries). The salmon was fresh and cooked to perfection, and the rosemary fries were amazing.

Grilled Fish and Chips

Don’t get me wrong, the non-lounge food part of the menu is pretty good too, and they have a three course prix-fix menu for about $35 per person that changes monthly, which is a great deal; the entrees typically cost about $30. But you really can’t beat the prices on these mini burgers.

BTW, the happy hour at Cascadia is from 5:00 to 7:00 PM, the beef hanger steak burgers are just $1 each during this time; it is the best happy hour deal in Belltown.

http://www.cascadiarestaurant.com

Technorati tags: Seattle Restaurants, Belltown restaurants, Belltown, Mini burgers

Brasserie Margaux - A disastrous Valentine’s day dinner

Filed Under Belltown, French, Northwest | Leave a Comment

For valentine’s day, Siv knew I wanted to go to a place we haven’t been to before, so he made reservations at the Brasserie Margaux in Belltown, the “French” restaurant at the Warwick hotel. I have French in quotes because they have Brasserie in the name, so they are aspiring to be French, but the cuisine is very Northwest!

Anyway, let me start with the service — HORRIBLE! We had an 8:00 PM reservation, showed up at 8:00 and were told that there is a 15 minutes wait. Totally fine, it is Valentine’s day, sometimes people spent a little more time than usual at the tables. There were lots of couples waiting at the bar for a table.  5 minutes through I suddenly got the feeling that I had left my straightening iron on at home, I knew it was going to bother me through the dinner, so we asked them if we have time to get out for 10 minutes, hostess checked the list and said, yeah it is going to be at least another 15 minutes before we can be seated. So we walked home, 7 minutes from the restaurant, my iron was plugged in and was really hot , lucky I remembered. Got back at the restaurant at 8:20; we were still 4th in the list! Went to the bar, had a wine. Around 9:00 when we saw they were seating people who showed up after us, Siv went over to check on the status. After we asked, they found a table for us at 9:05 finally! So, what was the idea there, we are already dissatisfied customers, so they didn’t care anymore? After we were seated, got our glasses of water at 9:20. If it was any other day, we would have left a long time ago, but on valentine’s day our only option would have been to go to McDonald’s down the street!

Now to the food. Their V-day special is a 6 course menu, $85 per person without wine pairing. It is prix-fix no changes, substitutions allowed.  That was fine with us, since the menu looked really good. Well, writing a creative menu is easy; it is the delivery that gets tough.

Amuse Bouche : 

North sound Judd Cove Oysters on the half shell with paddlefish caviar and champagne mignonette.  

I have never had row oysters served at room temperature before, row oysters are almost always served on ice.  These had been obviously sitting outside for a while. And serving oysters on the shell on a salad? Who will eat those leaves? What a disaster!

Starters:

Warm wilted Spinach with dry cherries, toasted pecans, goat cheese and pinot noir vinaigrette.  nothing special at all, very blah… 

Crispy Salmon and Dungeness crab roulade with sauteed mushrooms, grilled radicchio and rock shrimp ragout.  

This dish was so oily, deep fried to death, and the ragout was just plain bad. The sauce was okay, but who cares. And the dish was huge, this is supposed to be an appetizer. I could only eat half of this.

Interlude

Pear Champagne sorbet - The whole idea of an interlude sorbet is to clear your palette, so why put so much sugar in it?

Main

Surf & Turf - Broiled 6 oz Lobster tail with smoked paprika and truffle cream, grilled 6 oz filet mignon with port wine demi glaze with a side of braised escarole and dauphiniose potatoes. 

First of all, serving a 6 oz steak and a 6 oz lobster as part of a six course meal is just plain wrong! They didn’t ask us how we wanted our steak cooked, they just brought it medium well, and it was lukewarm. Also, I think my steak was at least 8 oz.  Oh, and the port wine demi glaze really tasted like a BBQ sauce out of a bottle. The lobster was not bad, but the potatoes were the best part of this dish.  

Dessert

Dark chocolate mousse filled with drunken strawberries surrounded by white chocolate and served with grand marnier and chambord strawberry coulis.  

This was pretty good actually, but on keeping up with the theme of the meal this was huge as well.  The nice touch was the writings on the white chocolate, “I love you” written in different languages.

All in all the most disastrous dinner we’ve  had at a supposedly fine restaurant.  What were they thinking? First of all this whole valentine’s day theme was just a money making endeavor for them,  overbooking the tables, bringing out mass produced dishes under the pretense of fine food, not even letting us breath between courses! Did they even care if anyone showed up again? Now I wish we had gone to McDonald’s instead! I have no idea if a regular dinner here is any better, but I am not going to find out.

We did have a great time though, making fun of the food. :), we were so hungry and annoyed initially, the whole thing started sounding so funny after a while, we were just laughing so hard, everyone thought we had gone crazy! Also, Sivv

u I know your heart was in the right place, so sorry if I acted like a beeyatch, I love you so much…happy valentine’s day baby…

http://www.margauxseattle.com

Technorati tags: Seattle Restaurants, Brasserie Margaux, Worst restaurants in Seattle

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Filed Under Random Musings | Leave a Comment

Saving Face - A romantic comedy

Filed Under Random Musings | 2 Comments

“It is never too late to fall in love for the first time!”

I watched this movie over the weekend, it was released in 2005, but somehow I missed it. A very refreshing romantic comedy set in the New York Chinese-American community. This could very well have been an Indo-American romantic comedy, I could draw so many parallels between the two cultures!

Plot

Wilhemina- Wil- is a young Chinese American surgeon on the fast track, her boss says she will make the chief surgeon before she is 40. Her widowed mom (who knows that Wil is a lesbian, but chooses to ignore the fact) keeps trying to set her up with a nice Chinese “boy” at the monthly Chinese dance event. Wil meets a young dancer Vivian at one of these dances and starts a secret relationship. In the mean time her mom gets pregnant and gets thrown out of the house by her parents and is ridiculed by the Chinese community. Mom moves in with Wil, she doesn’t want to talk about the father of her unborn child. Wil has to juggle her job, her mom and her budding love for Vivian. To complicate matters, Vivian is Wil’s boss’s daughter. 

It is a well made movie, not the regular intense Sundance kind , but a very light hearted romantic comedy.

(Image courtesy of Wikipedia. More movie details at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saving_Face)

Goat Curry -A quick and easy recipe

Filed Under India - Kerala, Lamb or Goat, Mains, Recipes | 4 Comments

This is my short-cut way of making goat curry, it really looks and tastes like it took some time and effort to make, but it is too darn easy! The best thing I like about this recipe is that there is no grinding involved, no mixer jars to clean, but the gravy still has that nice thick texture. I use the store bought ginger paste and garlic paste, but if you don’t have the pastes, chop up some ginger and garlic real small, you don’t have to grind those. The idea is to keep the recipe simple.

Ingredients

1. 2 lb Goat 
2. 1 1/2 Red Onions, diced
3. 2 Tomatoes, diced
4. 1 tbsp Ginger paste
5. 1 tbsp Garlic paste
6. 2 tbsp Yogurt
7. 2 tbsp Red chili powder
8. 4 tbsp Coriander powder
9. 1/4 tsp Turmeric powder
10. 1/2 tsp Garam masala
11. 1/2 tsp Black pepper powder
12. salt for taste
13. 5 Cardamom pods
14. 1 Star anise
15. 1/2 Red onion, sliced
16. 5 Green chilies, slit
17. a few Curry leaves
18. 2 tbsp oil

METHOD

Cut goat into small pieces. Combine the goat pieces, the diced onions, tomatoes and ingredients 3 to 12  in a pressure cooker. Add half a cup of water and cook for 6-8 minutes in the cooker after the first whistle.

Heat the oil in a deep frying pan. Add cardamom and star anise and stir for 30 seconds. Add the sliced onions and green chilies and curry leaves to the pan and saute for a while. Remove the goat pieces from the gravy using a slotted spoon and add to the pan. Fry the goat pieces till brown. Now add the gravy from the pressure cooker to the pan, delicious goat curry is ready. 

Technorati tags: Recipe, Goat Curry, Kerala Recipes