Traveling Eater Series: Reno

This weekend has been a blur. My friend and I decided to take a last-minute weekend trip out of San Francisco to Reno, so that we could gamble like low-rollers in a small-time poker tournament, gorge ourselves on monstrous buffets, and relax in the warming Nevada sun. My primary culinary goal for our trip to Reno? To do great meals in Reno the Rachael Ray way, for under $40 a day. Also, my friend planned our trip to coincide with Reno's Italian Festival, where we could participate as audience judges in the Italian Tomato Sauce Cook-Off.

Day One:
On our way out of San Francisco, we stopped in Berkeley to grab a taste-bud scorching meal at the spicy Vik's Chaat Corner.

We started with two golden-brown, pyramid-shaped samosas filled with a spicy potato mixture, and accompanied by a chunky dipping stew replete with bulbous chickpeas, minced onions, and a verdant nest of cilantro to garnish.

If that wasn't filling enough, my friend and I also ordered the Indian-style plate lunches. I ordered the shahjahani sea bass curry and my friend ordered the mangalore chicken curry with coconut milk. Each lunch plate came with a fork-fluffed scoop basmati rice, an ample ladleful of dal (lentils), unleavened tortilla-like round of chappati bread, a wafer-crisp pappadum cracker, cooling cucumber and yogurt raita, and strong-flavored pickled achar with tamarind essence.

The sea bass was stewed in a chocolate-colored curry gravy.

And the hunks of chicken breast was similarly stewed in a golden curry sauce.

We avoided dessert although we were seriously tempted by the bakery glass display-case that showcased the extensive dessert selection.

Grand total for our lunch? Around $20.00.

Once we arrived in Reno we hightailed it to the best sushi place in Reno (and arguably better than the majority of sushi joints in the Bay Area), Sushi Pier. The moment we strolled in the restaurant, we were overtaken by the friendliness of Reno natives. We ordered the all-you-can-eat-sushi dinner, and it was an extravagant affair. Once the waitstaff and sushi chef discovered that we were "tourists," they gave us extra special treatment, made us dishes that were off-the-menu, and giving us many "secret tips while staying in Reno." Before even ordering, the sushi chef laid multiple multi-colored and multi-flavored dishes before us. My favorites included a fresh mussels topped with a chilled seafood puree, salmon roe, and scallion ringlets;

Shrimp carved into boat-shaped vessels, and topped with hand-molded sushi rice, and a cool seafood salad made with scallops and shrimp;

A tempura-battered and deep-fried sushi roll stuffed with unagi and cream cheese and topped with toasted black and white sesame seeds and scallions sliced on a bias;

And finally, a tremendous roll of sushi layered with creamy sheets of avocado, fresh and vibrant slices of tuna, and stuffed with a chilled sushi rice which coddled elongated shrimps wrapped within the roll.

The total at Sushi Pier (plus tax and tip) was $50.00 for both my friend and I, making the grand total for Day One to be $70.00. So at $35.00 for Day One (my half of the $70.00), I made it well below Rachael Ray's $40.00 a day! Okay, I didn't have breakfast, but on to Day Two...

Day Two:

After a quick breakfast of a banana and strawberry yogurt purchased from the convenience store downstairs near the casino lobby, we headed off to check out the automobiles at the National Automobile Museum. My favorite vehicle in the complex? I was impressed by the 14-carat gold plated 1981 DeLorean. That ride is pimped.

Walking around the museum definitely revved up our appetites, so we quickly stopped for lunch nearby in downtown Reno at Silver Peak. My friend ordered the prime rib sandwich which came with a glass dish filled with a soy sauce-based au jus, and huge circles of crunchy onion rings.

Thankfully, I selected the "healthier option" of an ahi tuna burger stuffed with thin slices of pickled ginger and a refreshing Asian slaw made with a sweetened rice wine vinegar dressing.

With my breakfast totaling a mere $3.00, and lunch totaling $20.00 for the two of us, we were well on our way of reaching our goal of eating in Reno for only $40 a day.

After lunch, we decided to check out the old mining ghost town of Virginia City, where we perused the Civil War era exhibits in the Fourth Ward School Museum and did some tourist sightseeing on the main street in the town.

My friend and I decided rustle up some grub at Ruby River Steakhouse, a Western-themed chain with country music blaring from the restaurant speakers. As soon as we sat down in our darkened booth, our waitress plopped a metal pail filled with salted peanuts before us.

I think I was overcome by the moment, because I decided to order the appetizer sampler, which was an overdose of deep-fried and greasy carbs. The sampler came with a deep-fried onion blossom, breaded and battered jalapeno peppers stuffed with melted and stringy mozzarella cheese, buffalo wings, and an oily and heavy slice of bread blanketed with a melted cheese and scallions. Although the sampler was calorie-laden enough, I just "had" to dip my sampler items in the thousand island dressing, the blue cheese dressing, and the mint jelly that came with the appetizer. Whoa, I am full just talking about it.

My friend's order came with a fresh garden salad,

And a side of vegetables.

He ordered prime rib (again) with a shredded mound of sinus-clearing horseradish and a dark beef broth of au jus.

Although I was already full at this point, my order also came with a salad, and I chose Caesar salad because I love cheese.

Although I already had my share of fried foods from our appetizer, I was surprised to see the battered and deep-fried potato that came with my order. (Sadly, I ate it all, chives, sour cream, potato, and deep-fried batter.)

I ordered the barbequed chicken and pork ribs combo plate. (Yes, I ate all of this too.)

When the bill came out, I realized that I overshot for that day. The bill was $60.00 plus tax and tip, meaning that our combined total for the day was $80.00 plus my $3.00 from breakfast. I had spent $43.00! Okay Rachael, you won this one, but I'll show you that I can make it under $40 a day on my last day in Reno!

Day Three:

In the morning, I was a little tired of overeating, which I had been doing for the past two days. But, I wasn't "completely" tired of overeating, so my friend and I visited the breakfast buffet at the El Dorado, where helped myself to eggs, eggs, and more eggs.

My total for breakfast? Free! I used a coupon my friend and I found online which we were able to redeem since we stayed at the El Dorado Casino.

In the afternoon, we hit the bustling streets to visit the food booths and take part in the competitions during Reno's Annual Italian Festival. We were very impressed by the huge vat of risotto--which is the largest risotto pot in the world, according to the Guinness's Book of World Records.

My friend and I also got to mingle with the winners of last year's Italian Tomato Pasta Sauce Cook-Off in Reno, and paid only $1.00 for a bowl of plain spaghetti. We slathered our soggy (not at all al dente) spaghetti noodles with multiple ladles of Italian sauces from the Italian Sauce Cook-Off comeptitors, which we obtained by by visiting the individual sampling booths. After tasting the competing sauces, we then voted for who we thought was Number One.

Just look at the different sauce consistencies and different shades of red between these two cook-off competitors alone:

Pretty intense difference huh?

Lunch was only $1.00! Breakfast was free! Okay Rachael, I think I'm doing pretty well on Day Three of my trip! Given that the main part of my lunch was only $1.00, my friend and I realized we could get something to drink and some gelato for dessert, and still be pretty darn good for our $40 a day objective.

Miss Spaghetti USA would have been proud of my cheapness, as breakfast and lunch cost me less than $5.00!

My friend and I decided to splurge in the evening on the seafood buffet at Toucan Charlie's Buffet in the Atlantis Casino. The cost? $50.00 for the both of us, and we got to stuff ourselves silly with crab legs, shrimp;

Lobster cakes, breaded and baked scallops, oysters rockefeller;

Raw oysters, and mussels cooked in cream.

Who prevailed? Whose cuisine reigns supreme? (Oh wait, that is from Iron Chef.) Well, the total for Day Three was only $30.00! I successfully ate in Reno for $40 a day (on average)! Hope this post gave you some ideas for eating on the cheap but eating quality food, in massive fried amounts!

The Food Blogger's Guide to the Globe Meme

Cookie Crumb from I'm Mad and I Eat, you are awesome! Thank you for tagging me for the Traveler's Lunchbox meme, "Five Things to Eat Before You Die." I've been patiently waiting for a tag so that I could get postin'. Here goes!

1. Regional Foods from their Authentic Locations

Let me give you some context about my #1 choice, I'd like to eat any famous food in a place I haven't been before, but it has to be authentic and from the "best" source out there. Thus, for example, I'd want to eat real New York pizza from the oldest pizzeria in New York City (meaning, the classic thin crust with the perfect "tensile elasticity,"), a Maine lobster roll overflowing with meaty nuggets of fresh lobster from a beachside stand, an authentic Philly cheesesteak sandwich with neon orange 'whiz (Cheese Whiz) oozing over the oily scraps chopped beef, a Phillipine mango straight off the tree, or even freshly brewed black coffee in Columbia (or Seattle).

Although these pictures are (of basmati rice, naan, chicken tikka masala, and palak paneer) are from my neighborhood Pakistani restaurant, Indus Village Pakistani Cuisine, I love this place, and if it tastes anything like the authentic thing, I can't wait to go to Pakistan to get the real deal!

2. A Dish with Black and White Truffles (Together)

Hey, I only get to live once. I've only had tissue paper-thin shavings of white truffles before (at Lulu's Restaurant in the city), and they were so fine and the taste was so subtle, that I didn't even know that I ate them. They literally melted on my tongue like air. I would love to try both varieties of truffles side-by-side, to taste the difference and finally understand what makes a truffle so valuable and why. This time, I want to chew on the whole truffle, just like how I used to chew on wads of bubble gum during softball season.

Oh, and also, if you can incorporate saffron and beluga caviar into the dish and not have one flavor monopolize the dish, then I'd really want to try that. Send the bill to the beau please.

3. A Dinner Hand-Prepared By a Celebrity Chef

Hi Wolfgang. I eat your frozen California-style pizzas and canned soups all the time. But Wolfie, I'd love to eat something you (not a machine or a sous chef) have made especially for me.

4. Nachos Similar to Those I Had at the Phoenix Suns Game Back in 1996

Those nachos (with the canned and processed cheese and black olive rings) were really good. I don't remember if it was because I was really hungry or what, but I will never forget those nachos.

5. As Many Meals I Can with My Family

It is hard to get the entire gang together--the siblings, Mom, Pops, and the beau. Eating with them makes everything taste so much better, because I love them so much. That is why I want to eat meals with them, as many times as I can before I die.

Okay, I'd like to tag:
1. Kirk of Mmm-Yoso!!!
2. Elmo Monster of Monster Munching (check out his great list here)
3. J Haw or Katimugambalon of The Jesuit Gourmet (check out their great lists here)
4. TFP of The Food Pornographer
5. Pink Nest of Pinknest
6. Bee Yinn Low from Rasa Malaysia (check out her great list here)

Also, if you'd like to participate, let me know, and I'll tag you too!

Epicuriousity Killed the Cat

I have a love-hate relationship the upturned gourmet noses of Berkeley residents. In Berkeley, I love that I can buy the freshest and best organic produce in California. However, I can do without the "uppidy" nature of some of the foodies or food servers.

Last month, as my friend and I strolled through the streets of Berkeley, we decided on a whim to sample the various restaurants the foodie-complex known as Epicurious Garden. Epicurious Garden is a commercial center that is home to gourmet take-out restaurants, a wine bar, a cooking school, and a tea house. In addition, nestled within the complex is a lovely, airy, garden area with simple wood benches, trees with wispy, willowy branches swaying to and fro in the Bay Area wind, and a flowing man-made stream that bubbles and gurgles into a gentle waterfall.

Our first stop was the Taste Wine Bar and Restaurant. Although we arrived during the weekend lunch hour, the restaurant looked like a barren wasteland with empty tables and an oily macaroni and cheese sitting forlornly in the display case under the glowing heat lamps. In terms of décor, of note was the sizeable cylindrical pipe that nearly extended to the ceiling with spouts that concentrically surrounding the pipe. From the pipe flowed their wine bar selections, but it wasn't being used when we strolled in. As we were admiring the interior décor, one of the bored chefs peered out of the kitchen, looked at us, and scornfully made a remark about the casual dress we were wearing. Thankfully, we chose to ignore him.

Hey man, you need all the business you can get, don’t alienate potential customers with your attitude problem.

Because the server and the chef-guy were acting up, we decided not to eat a full lunch there, but to only sample a few of the menu items. We ordered an appetizer and a side dish.

First was the side dish of fontina bread. When the dish arrived, I was impressed by the artistic presentation. The presentation of the bread reminded me of staggered Lincoln Logs or fallen Jenga blocks that protruded and jutted outward forebodingly from the center of the plate. The bread was covered in a melted sheet of fontina cheese that stretched off into wisps when you crunched off bites of the crumbly, crusty bread. The bread was so saturated with butter, that it refracted golden light through its translucent edges. It was a glorified, upscale version of cheese bread from Sizzlers, indeed.

Second was the appetizer of crab cakes. We ordered Maine peeky toe crab cakes which came with segments of ruby red grapefruit, cara cara orange, and lime that had been hand-carved away from the bitter pith and stringy citrus fibers. The segments were plumped and bursting with sweet citrus juice as if they were little water balloons.


The soft threads of crab within the crab cakes weren’t comparable to the marshmallow-sized chunks of crab at Faidley's, but they were relatively moist and tender. The crab dish included a decorative salad of frissee leaves that spiraled and twirled into gnarled strands and jiggly cubes of chilled mint gelatin that were plopped randomly across the rectangular plate. The interesting flavor of the gelatin was admittedly refreshing.

Given that we had just sampled an appetizer and side dish at Taste and were not yet full, our next stop was the take-out restaurant, Socca Oven, which was also within the Epicurious Garden center. There, we ordered a socca pizza with a crust made from a pressed paste of ground chickpeas. The socca crust was the thickness of a baked matzo cracker and was moist enough to reveal a rustic, gritty texture. The tiny beads of ground chickpeas and the coarse consistency of crushed meal mirrored the consistency of morning grits or polenta. Crisp blackened patches of the crust were charred from red flames that had danced and licked at the socca's surface.

From the way the open kitchen was structured, we were allowed to watch the socca-assembly process. The server layered the socca with v-shaped strips of braised Mediterranean fennel, which had the fibrous texture of celery and the essence of licorice and anise. The cook used a restaurant-style squeeze bottle to squirt an interlaced design of sauce onto the surface of the socca and dotted the socca with bay scallops that gleamed like pearls as they perched atop the chickpea crust. The scallops were chewy and rotund, and permeated with the fishy essence of the sea.

Overall, the food at Epicurious Garden was okay, but I was pretty miffed with the way that my friend and I were received. So in concluding, I feel that Taste left a bad taste in my mouth, and was overpriced for their haughty swagger and the "I'm-too-good-for-tee-shirt wearers" parade they put on.

Because there is no picture of the socca or cheese bread, here, I included additional photos of my friend's outing to Taste including a hamburger (or as I call it, a "lamburger") with lamb bred at Niman Ranch with Acme baguette bread, New York white cheddar, Spanish onions; thinly-julienned pomme frites with a small dish of thousand island dressing; and an allegedly "tasteless" salade nicoise (also from Taste).

Deliciously Dangerous Liaisons

This past Friday, a close friend of mine bought me surprise tickets to see Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, with performances by the Russian Troupe of the Tchaikovsky Perm Ballet and Orchestra. The performances (particularly that of Odette / Odile by Natalia Moiseeva) were breathtaking.

No offense to you ballet-junkies out there, but although the ballet was eyeball-poppingly spectacular (yes, there were gasps, oohs, and aahs throughout the entire affair), our pre-show dining festivities at Liaison Bistro stole the evening. At the show, we sat through three acts of absolute talent. At the bistro, we sat through four courses of "good god, I'm speechless" talent. See the difference?

Still reeling from my drunken stupor from my eating fest at the pricey Jardiniere (the restaurant of choice for ballet and symphony-goers), my friend and I decided to dine at a more economically reasonable, but still pre-show worthy restaurant. Our inquisitive Google-searching led us to Liaison Bistro or Bistro Liaison, whose owner and head chef is alumni of the prestigious Culinary Institute of America.

We started with classic French onion soup, or soupe à l’oignon as the fancy-pants français like to call it.

The individually-sized soup ramekin arrived, covered in a bubbling and blistered blanket of emmenthal cheese gratiné. As soon as my soup spoon penetrated the outer layer, a volcano of steam erupted out of the opening. Within, I found a spongy slice of baguette, that was fully saturated with the thickened and reduced soup. The soup itself had powerful overtones or rich red wine and was counterbalanced with a deep, husky beef flavor.

However, the cheese was a little creepy. It smelled of burnt and frizzled hair, and the cheese was far too chewy. I would have actually preferred more "sticky" and "gooey," than "chewy." The cheese lodged in my throat, almost like a thick wad of chewed Bubbalicious or Bubble Yum gum. The longer I chewed, the more it remained a resistant, immobile, and solid mass, not disintegrating at all with each vigorous crush of my jaws. Even when I tried to swallow that mo', I still couldn't get it down without gagging.

Although the French onion soup left more to be desired, I don't attribute any of its shortcomings to the chef, but to my own underdeveloped and immature tastebuds.

Next up, was the salade niçoise, which was fantabulous. The texture of every element was right on the money. The salad came with perfectly cooked light-skinned potatoes marinated in a herb-infused extra virgin olive oil; slices of creamy, ripened avocado; sweet flaps of sliced and roasted red peppers; and hard-boiled eggs with yolks that had reached the "perfect in-between"--the yolks weren't a runny, viscous fluid, nor were they an overcooked powdery mess. Rather, the yolks were creamy, sensual, and soft.

The star of the salad was the seared tuna, which was perfectly rare within. The outside was flaky, just like a good-quality, $2.50 can of albacore tuna. The inside was moist, cool, and tender, like the sashimi you've ever bitten into. The tuna was nestled in a dainty pile of salty and concentrated tapenade made with capers and niçoise olives.

Thinking that nothing could beat the salad, our next course was delivered to our table. I ordered my main dish "off the menu," and it was the daily special of lamb shanks braised in wine and served with couscous, dried cherries, and dried currants.

Braised lamb shanks had the tender (not tough or stringy), fall-off-the-bone texture, even though there was no bone. Also, the nutty grains of couscous were distinct and not cooked into a mushy, sloppy porridge akin to bad polenta. Dried cherries and currants highlighted the sensational sweetness of the wine and were a bright contrast to the well-seasoned and savory lamb shanks.

Although we had already unzipped our pants at this point, we "had to" get dessert. Because we were already busting at the seams and overloaded with food, we ordered the crème brûlée à l'orange.

For lack of a better description, the crème brûlée was unfriggin'-believable.

Light tapping on the surface of the crème brûlée cracked open the hard candy ceiling. I felt almost like an Alaskan fisherman, breaking open the solid surface to delight in the treasure underneath.

The hardened candy brûlée was delicate enough to instantly melt away on impact to my tongue, but resistant enough to provide a brittle bite. It wasn't like one of those bad crème brûlées with thick shards of caramelized rock candy that fill the crevices of your teeth with hard and sticky fillings as you try to crunch them down.

I was at first reluctant to order the crème brûlée à l'orange, because I was afraid that the orangy flavor would overpower the crème brûlée. But the orange flavor was subtle and refined, and almost undetectable. It wasn't at all like those desserts that are reminiscent of orange-scented car deodorizers, air fresheners, or a can of syrupy and highly carbonated orange soda. Neither was it the orange color of traffic cones.

Naturally, every crème portion of a crème brûlée has a creamy, gelatin-like resistance, so that if you lightly press your finger to the surface of the custard, it will spring back up and leave no depression. However, this stuff was infinitely better. It was sooooo soft. The delicate pudding caressed and danced upon my lips, and was so silky, and creamy, that even high-quality Whole Foods organic yogurt pales in comparison.

As I scraped the last of the remaining custard out from the crevices of the ramekin, I sat back and exhaled. Dee-licious! Given that I ate myself into a paralytic coma, I didn't even have the ability to give the chef a standing ovation, but he sure as heck deserved one.