Liberating My Waistband at Liborio's

Of the large "melting pot" cities of America, it is commonly known that New Orleans is one of the most diverse and unique when it comes to cuisine. One of the restaurants that I would like to highlight as being demonstrative of this diversity, is Liborio's, a Cuban restaurant located right in the middle of the City's Central Business District.

Perhaps their most famous dish, is "old clothes," or ropa vieja. The taste of the meat in the dish is reminiscent of the slow-cooked pot roast that Grandma started cooking before church and would serve for Sunday supper. Every tangled string of beef is richly saturated with flavors of fine red wine, hearty tomato sauce, minced garlic, and red bell peppers. Think of a delectable and amazingly tender beef brisket, in pulled pork form.

Although I have never tried the dish myself, I have heard only positive things about their moist baked chicken breast, which is stuffed with peaches and cooked in a peach and rosemary seasoned broth.

All of Liborio's dishes are rounded out with a serving of (1) steamed long-grain white rice, (2) a cup full of spice-infused black beans, and (3) sticky plantains, sugared and fried until pillowy soft, slightly gummy, and yet cloyingly delicious.

Finally, my personal favorite, is the ubiquitous Cuban sandwich, which consists of two crusty halves of French bread which are coated with a slick spread of mayonnaise and interlayered with tart pickle slices, and thin cuts of alternating ham and roasted pork. The sandwich is adhered together with melted Swiss cheese and warmed in a heated sandwich press.

I hope this brief post inspired you to out there and enjoy some Cuban food, or at least to take advantage of your local (and diverse) lunch time offerings!

Café Tiramisu at Belden Place

Disclaimer, preface (or whatever you would like to call it): This is the absolute last of my pre-NOLA San Francisco posts. It will be New Orleans restaurants from now on. Promise. Like cross-your-heart-hope-to-die-or-stick-a-needle-in-your-eye promise.

I’ve expounded at length about how I absolutely adore the little alleyway hidden near San Francisco’s Financial District endearingly named, Belden Place. (See my previous posts regarding the Spanish restaurant, B44 and the French restaurant, Café Bastille.) As I’ve said before, Belden Place offers San Francisco locals a taste of Europe, and now, with today’s exchange rate, it does so at a much more affordable price.

Just to give you a flavor of how Belden Place really is a bit of Euro-utopia in a crazed U.S. city, according to its website, the investors and proprietors of Belden Place converted an ubiquitous urban alleyway in San Francisco (once chockfull of dumpsters, litter, and probably, the smell of urine) into a successful and fledging real estate enterprise consisting of multiple Italian, French, and Spanish-themed restaurants.

Any visitor to Belden Place will be enraptured with the restaurant storefronts, the glowing metallic heat lambs, the dangling web of outdoor string lights, the summery outdoor umbrellas, and the overall European flair unique to Belden Place. Sitting on the outside terrace at any of their restaurants, you could easily get lost in your imagination, and envision yourself sitting in an outdoor bistro and gazing wistfully at impressive and intricate architectural details unique to Europe. Unfortunately, if you crane your neck, open your eyes and direct them upwards, you will inevitably be greeted with a cold, harsh reminder you are still in San Francisco. Cold concrete skyscrapers tower overhead and smoky billows of fog obscure and blanket the skies.

Knowing how I love the pleasant Euro-vibe at Belden Place, my beau decided to take me to celebrate my last birthday in San Francisco at Café Tiramisu, an Italian restaurant at Belden Place.

For our starting course at Cafe Tiramisu, my beau and I shared two hearty appetizers, the first being steamed black mussels marinating in a shimmering saffron-fennel broth. The soup was liquid heaven, for it was both light and free from impurities, but also laced with invigorating and powerful licorice and turmeric-like flavors. The mussels were stripped of their tangled beards and sat in open shells in a shallow bowl, alongside jutting slices of bread, artfully drizzled with sharp scribbles of herb-infused olive oil. The entire entrée made for a beautiful presentation.

Next, we also shared chewy Monterey calamari. The rubbery squid bodies were stuffed taut like swollen balloons with a simple mashed potato and crab mixture, and served over a crusty slice of potent garlic bread. The bruschetta-like bread had been moistened with herbed olive oil and what tasted like a rich tomato or roasted sweet red bell pepper sauce.

For our entrees, the beau ordered ahi tuna encrusted with fresh black pepper, and served over a spicy shrimp risotto. While the tuna was well-prepared and executed, the gluey risotto was saturated in an overly concentrated sauce, which, I daresay, had an overpowering shrimp essence. The excessively shrimpy taste redirected the entire focus of the entrée from the subtle tuna flavors and the elegant simplicity of crushed peppercorn crust, to the almost putrid shrimp flavor.

Unlike the tuna and risotto dish, my entrée was a resounding success. I ordered thick and chewy sheets of gummy gnocchi, which were served with a chorus line of diminutive pork meatballs, and a jellied, custard-like goat cheese zabaglione. The density of the potato pasta squares were so hearty and substantial, I originally thought that our server accidentally served us ravioli instead.

Finally, the server brought out one last treat to end our evening: a lone slice of tiramisu with a flickering candle on the top. The chocolate, the coffee, and the dense ladyfinger cookies all came together as one deliciously moist cake, which made my birthday ever the sweeter.

Thank you for the birthday wishes, beau. Here’s to many more birthdays together (hopefully at the restaurants in Belden Place)!

New Goals for Life

#1 Get back into blogging.

#2 Blog much more about the amazing city that is New Orleans.

#3 Eat a lot of cheese bread now that the (quasi) diet is over. The goal is just geared towards cheese bread. Not wholegrain wheat, not rye, not pumpernickel, and even not potato bread. Just cheese bread, so astounding and simple. (I'm married now, I don't have to keep my body up anymore!)

#4 Make sure that the cheese bread has tremendous caverns (or at least, substantial pockets) filled with melty cheese. And note the distinction between "melted" and "melty." There is a huge difference.

#5 Put cheese on inappropriate items at each meal, like on clams cooked in wine sauce.

The Public, Apology, That Is

In the past, I've briefly referenced a contemporary, fascinating, and trend-setting restaurant in San Francisco managed by a hipster friend. I previously told you that I would write a glowing (and well-deserved) review of his restaurant shortly after I left San Francisco. Well, just to give you an idea of how "behind" I am in posting, its been almost one year since I left the Bay Area, and I am just getting around to writing the "long-promised" review.

To make matters infinitely worse, that restaurant, The Public, has actually long since closed (not for lack of business, but so that the investors and managers move onto the next stage of their careers). Despite this, I recently decided resurrect my overexposed images of half-eaten food (it was my last week in San Francisco, and food blogging was the last thing on my mind) and outdated scribblings from the hollowed recesses of my hard drive, and slowly begin posting again to this blog, and first starting with The Public, a self-proclaimed resto-lounge. Note: All non-food pictures are taken from The Public's now out-of-commission website.

I am sure you are asking, "Why post on a non-existent restaurant?" Well, this significantly belated post will serve as a "thank you" to my generous friends who took me out to this dinner and a "congratulations" to my always admirable restaurant manager/friend. You could say that the primary purpose of this post is to pat him on the back for a job tremendously well done.

The moment that you stride through the entryway at The Public, you will notice that everything about this resto-lounge is saturated in trendiness. Everything. The glamorous Asian-fusion inspired cocktails, the svelte metrosexual waiters, the warehouse-era walls built with staggered clay bricks, the Jackson Pollack-esque paintings strung from the walls, and the uplit lucite lettered signage. Yes, everything.

At a place with a hip, yet relaxing atmosphere like The Public's, you will almost assuredly have high expectations for the food.

And I am happy to say, that in my experience, the food at The Public is beyond all expectation.

As for my last meal at The Public, I recall ordering the pan-roasted Atlantic salmon. I distinctly remember that the fish was cooked immaculately, possessing a delicate and sweet resistance to the tongue. A fresh and full-bodied fish flavor permeated throughout the meat of the salmon, and the salmon itself was served with a tangy herb relish made of sweet white corn, blue lake beans, symmetric squares of roasted red beets, and a grain mustard vinaigrette. One aspect that I especially appreciated about the dish, was that the chef added another dimension of texture and temperature to the entree by including a chilled shaved fennel and frisee salad, to top the dish.

I also enjoyed The Public's grilled Angus rib eye steak, which I recall as being as supple and as toothsome as filet mignon. The accompaniments were classic and comforting, yet exhibited a chic flair. Just the way I liked it. Particularly, the steak came with king trumpet mushrooms softened in a balsamic red wine reduction. The mushrooms tasted as if they had been painstakingly braised to perfection, and the dish also included a classic creamy potato gratin and several spears of fresh, palate-pleasing brocollini.

Finally, the desserts at The Public deserve both mention and honor. The flamboyant desserts and ambitious Asian-fusion cocktails at The Public epitomize its resto-lounge signature. One especially mouthwatering dessert option is The Public's trembling vanilla buttermilk panna cotta, which is supple and luxurious. The milky panna cotta was decorated with a sprinkling of ripened and freshly diced mango squares and a slightly acidic and tastebud-provoking raspberry-passionfruit coulis.

Though now closed, thanks to great memories and based on its unique style, ambiance, and cuisine, The Public will live on forever in the hearts and minds of its fans.

The Mangosteen

One touch of a mangosteen segment to your lips, and you will understand what manna tasted like.

After you carefully cut an opening into its thick, fibrous rind, you will find a supple treasure within this tropical fruit. A mangosteen is divided into segments, just like a tangerine, and has one (or two) medium-sized seeds inside each segment. The fruit flesh of a mangosteen will melt on your tongue, releasing its abundant, honeyed juices in a flood of deliciousness. The flavor of a mangosteen is subtle, and less concentrated than a dragon eye (longan fruit). I would say that its texture and taste is almost like a cross between a juice-filled loquat or lychee, and with the finish of a soft, ripe (but not overripe) banana or a very ripe and non-gritty pear.

Confusing enough?

If I had to compare a mangosteen to our everyday fruits as available in the local produce market, I would say, imagine a slickly lubricious, non-fibrous, and incredibly juicy citrus fruit with a soft, melt-in-your-mouth banana-like interior. But way, way better.

I hope that "the Mangosteen" has encouraged you to be more adventurous at your local farmers market or while inspecting the exotic area of your supermarket's produce section. You never know what treasure you will find there.

Why I Love Vietnamese Grandmothers

Because after a long day at work, you will "mysteriously" discover a tray full of crackly, golden, and freshly-fried cha gio sitting on the kitchen table. And what do you know? They are just waiting for you to eat them.

You Must Take This Quiz

I just took this test, and it was brought a smile to my face.

70%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?
If you are a blogger, this is the ONE quiz that you need to take. It will either humiliatingly expose your addiction (for which you need help for) or confirm what you knew all along: that you need to get off the computer, you fool! Though I am technically a "blogger," even despite my lengthy hiatus, the quiz still asserts that I am addicted to blogging. Lately, I've been addicted to surfing through and reading other people's blogs, which I love doing with all of the great content and ideas out there.

I have to admit, I am both relieved and stressed to be back to the blogging world. And I have to qualify my return: my reentry will be a little slow and painful. I plan on just posting about how I am going to gain back those five pounds (and then some, preferably, ten to fifteen additional) that I lost for the wedding! Bring on a carb lollapalooza, the po' boys, the pizza, and the fried chicken! (Or bring on the below images! . . . Can you tell that I am purging my hard drive of old food pictures? No? Okay, thanks.)

Now Mrs. Passionate Eater

Finally, the wedding is OVER and I can go back to passionate eating!

The bad thing is, I couldn't take pictures of the food and hardly ate at all because I was busy visiting the guests and going over other wedding details. So instead, I just wanted to show you all these pictures of the tasting menu, of what we ended up ordering for our buffet dinner. We had a sushi buffet station (as seen above), a French station, and an Asian fusion station.

At the French station, we ordered a salad made with wine country organic mixed greens with Napa Valley goat cheese, slices of Asian pear, toasted pecans, and Chardonnay verjus dressing.

For the appetizers, we enjoyed (1) ahi tuna fire spiced on crispy lotus root topped with wasabi aioli, (2) succulent Washington oysters served on the half shell with Chardonnay verjus dressing, and (3) mini dungeness crab cakes with a Spanish romesco sauce. We also ordered other items, not listed here in the tasting menu.

We also ordered grilled Colorado filet of beef tenderloin marinated with herbs de provence with a Cabernet roasted garlic sauce with a gratin of horseradish potatoes and a bundle of seasonal vegetables.

For the Asian fusion themed buffet station, we ordered teriyaki glazed salmon cooled on cedar planks and garnished with grilled pineapple and crispy fried spring onions and served with a mushroom mango risotto and saute of vegetables.

And I DO have pictures of the cake:

Now back to posting regularly! I missed everyone a lot, and am happy to announce that the stress is over!

Almost all images (with the exception of the "tasting menu" shots) are credit of their respective photographers (friends and professionals) and not Passionate Eater

Hilarious Article About Food Translation In China

I have wedding on the brain and just had two (minor, but emergency) surgeries, so I really have been M.I.A. here on the blog. I will update soon after the impending nuptials. Just wanted to post the link and article for this hilarious news story I read today.

(I just added some leftover pictures of a Mainland China-inspired restaurant I ate at before I left the Bay Area, to give you an idea of the food-translation problems that we Chinese-Americans encounter on a daily basis. The pictures include "classic" mainland foods, including 1000-year-old egg, a.k.a. the century egg, with cold silken tofu; fermented vegetables in a hot chili soup; and delicious pig ear. If that didn't get your salivary glands running, then I don't know what will!)

Miss you and love you all!

'Kung pao chicken' on menus for Olympics

Appealing menus advised, not 'bean curd made by a pock-marked woman'

Reuters

updated 2:13 p.m. CT, Wed., June. 18, 2008

BEIJING - It's official. Hungry foreign hordes craving a fix of diced chicken fried with chili and peanuts during the Beijing Olympics will be able to shout "kung pao chicken!" and have some hope of getting just that.

As it readies for an influx of visitors for the August Games, the Chinese capital has offered restaurants an official English translation of local dishes whose exotic names and alarming translations can leave foreign visitors frustrated and famished.

If officials have their way, local newspapers reported on Wednesday, English-speaking visitors will be able to order "beef and ox tripe in chili sauce," an appetizer, rather than "husband and wife's lung slice."

Other favorites have also received a linguistic makeover.

"Bean curd made by a pock-marked woman," as the Beijing Youth Daily rendered the spicy Sichuanese dish, is now "Mapo tofu." And "chicken without sexual life" becomes mere "steamed pullet."

According to one widely repeated story, the Chinese name of "kung pao chicken" comes from the name of an imperial official who was fed the dish during an inspection tour.

With the Beijing Olympics just weeks away, a notice on the city tourism bureau Web site told restaurants to come and pick up a book with the suggested translations.

In China, where meetings are almost as popular as banquets, agreeing on the English-language menu has taken many rounds of discussions over previous drafts since last year.

Just as predictably in this country where nationalism and the Internet make a potent brew, controversy has already broken out over the blander new translations.

"I don't like this new naming method, it's abandoning Chinese tradition," one Internet comment declared. "There are many stories in the names of these dishes."

Copyright 2008 Reuters. Click for restrictions.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25246774/