Din Tai Fung Dumplings!

 

On our recent trip to Taipei and Hong Kong, Bob and I rediscovered our love for this Taiwanese chain, Din Tai Fung.  We'd forgotten how amazingly delicious their xialongbao was, but don't worry, we ate there three times in our 8 day trip so we got plenty of dumplings.  

We tried the original pork xiaolongbao (tiny soup dumplings), chicken dumplings, and a crab and roe combo.  Our favorite is definitely the original pork dumplings, they're just perfect and mouth-wateringly delicious.  In later trips to the restaurant we'd only order these dumplings as they're our favorite and we wanted to stuff ourselves with as many as we possibly could.

To go with our pork dumplings we also ordered some greens.  (One thing I really love about Asia in general is the huge assortment of vegetables that are available, as well as all the different ways these vegetables can be prepared.)  So we ordered the cucumbers in chili-vinegar sauce, yum!  And water spinach sautéed with garlic.

We thought about ordering more "healthy" options, but ended up just stuffing our faces with the dumplings.  Who were we kidding, porky- meaty delicious dumplings were what we really wanted.

We only had to wait for a table for a little amount of time, as this place is super efficient.  All the wait staff is really helpful and friendly, and a friend of ours told us that in order to work there you must speak at least two languages to assist customers.  I never lacked for my tea to be refilled, and they brought out a covering for my purse so it wouldn't get grease on it.  Great service and delicious food, really it's a dream come true.

The other great thing about Din Tai Fung is that if you're not familiar with eating xiaolongbao they have these cute little instruction cards that they place on all the tables so you can figure it out.  Bob and I like to dip our dumplings in vinegar with a little bit of ginger with each bite.  Heavenly!  

And finally, because we're of course in Asia it's ridiculously cheap.  We spent $30USD for lunch and we each ate 10 pork dumplings, split cucumbers and water spinach and enjoyed 6 dessert bao, stuffed with taro and red bean.  We were completely satisfied customers.  

There are a few US locations of Din Tai Fung, and I plan on always eating dumplings if I'm ever in a city that this restaurant exists.  If you've never been before I suggest you add it to your list of great eats!

:)M

Fondue Cowboy - Fondue Deliciousness in San Francisco's SOMA

I'd heard about Fondue Cowboy opening up in the city, and as soon as the word fondue was mentioned I knew I'd have to eat there.  I just can't understand why it took me so long.  (I do know, it's because sometimes when you want to go eat and that place isn't far away you still think it is because you live on huge hill in SF and don't want to walk home after a giant meal of cheese.)  Anyway, I finally made it to Fondue Cowboy and I'm pleased to announce it was everything I hoped for and more.

Now, before you "Melting Pot" lovers jump out of your seats and head to Fondue Cowboy let me first tell you that their menu is limited.  This to me is not necessarily a bad thing.  I see a limited menu as a way to show patrons the restaurant is focusing on making a few items awesome rather than many items okay.  There are five cheesy fondue choices and three chocolatey delicious dessert choices.  There are not hot oil, boiling meat choices - go for shabu shabu if you want that.  The other issue I'd like to go ahead and nip in the bud, is the complaint I saw on Yelp about how the portions are small.  Do you really need to be eating more than 5oz of cheese in one meal?  I thought not.

Okay, onto my awesome evening...

I made reservations on OpenTable just in case the place was super hoppin' on a Wednesday night.  Bob and I met up with Jay and Staci for a long-time-no-see dinner, so of course we ended up order two bottles of cabernet throughout dinner, delish.  We ordered two cheese fondues for the table: The Outlaw (Aged Cheddar, Beer, Slow Roasted Tomatoes, Roasted Garlic, Roasted Jalapeno, Cilantro) and The Rawhide (Italian Dolce Gorgonzola, Emmenthaler, White Wine, Bacon, Roasted Garlic).  Both fondues were good, but the Rawhide definitely stood out in my mind because of how rich and creamy it was, plus there was bacon.  Each cheese fondue arrives with dippers like: bread, potatoes, broccoli, olives, granny smith apples and gherkins.  We went all out and also ordered the cured meats plate (comes with honeydew and cantaloupe), the tenderloin plate, and the sausage plate.  It was a meat and cheese extravaganza at our table. 

I thought all the dippers for the cheese fondue were great, but I was especially glad we ordered the sausage plate because that night it was Louisiana Hot Links.  The combination of the hot links with the Rawhide was heavenly, the perfect complements.  

After we'd devoured all our food, and painstakingly scrapped the bottom of the fondue pots to soak up every last bit of cheese, it was time for dessert.  We went with the Happy Trails (Dark Chocolate with Cayenne).  The dessert fondues come with strawberries, kiwi, banana, pineapple, brownie chunks, marshmallows, and spongy-bready-cookie things.  The one dessert pot was perfect for us, and a couple of us enjoyed a nice French Press coffee to go with our dessert.  

Total came out to about $200, and about $100 of it was the wine, so really we're looking at about $25 a person for delicious cheesy, meaty, chocolatey fondue.  The place is cute and intimate, and the service was great.  I had an overall wonderful evening and can hardly wait to return!

Say giddy-up cowboy and gallop over now!

:)Margaret

Garlic Chicken with butternut squash and greek salad

I've spoken about it before and I'll do it again, I'm trying to eat healthier.  This dinner is delicious and only (according to myfitnesspal.com) 440 calories.  

What you'll need:

1 4oz chicken breast per person

1/4 cup onion chopped

2-3 garlic cloves chopped chunky

2 tsps butter

5oz of butternut squash per person

1 cucumber

1 tomato

Crumbled Goat Cheese

1/2 tsp olive oil

Oregano

Angelo's Gourmet Seasoning

2 tsps Habanero sauce, or some other kind of spicy sauce (I personally like Mateo Granados' Ahumado)

2 oven safe baking dishes

Aluminum foil

Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees while you prep your food.  First use 1tsp of butter to grease each baking dish. Coat your chicken breasts in the habanero sauce and Angelo's Gourmet Seasoning.  (I like to use a sandwich bag to do this, so I can rub the chicken really good with the sauce and seasoning.  Place the chicken in one baking dish and cover with chopped onions and garlic.  Put your butternut squash chunks (I'm lazy and buy mine pre-cut at the store) in the other backing dish.  Cover both baking dishes and place them in the oven for 1 hour.

Clean up your work area.

45 minutes later, or 15 minutes until your chicken and butternut squash is done chop up your cucumber and tomato.  Place both in a bowl (together) and add oregano and pepper.  Cover with your olive oil and some goat cheese and then toss it around so everything is nicely coated.  Clean up your work area again, and voila everything is ready for dinner and your kitchen is clean.

I love baking things in the over with garlic and onions, it's always delicious and moist.  Enjoy your dinner!

:)M

 

 

 

 

 

Spicy Pumpkin Gingerbread Muffins

I love pumpkins, they're delicious and apparently a "super food."  I want to have more pumpkin in my life, so rather than bake a pie or make soup I decided I needed pumpkin muffins.  While perusing the internets for pumpkin muffin recipes I found an excellent recipe that required very little work on my part, which is always a bonus.  "Easy Pumpkin Muffins" is a great starter recipe, but I felt like I could better.

The original recipe tells you to use a package or yellow cake mix.  Meh, that's okay if you want boring pumpkin muffins.  I saw someone had commented saying they'd used a spice cake mix and it turned out great and that got me thinking, I could do anything and so I did.  I bought the Betty Crocker Gingerbread Cake & Cookie Mix and used it, along with a can of 100% pumpkin puree, a fair amount of cinnamon, and a dash of Ghost Pepper Powder to kick these muffins into deliciousness!  Oh man, they are really good.  I'm eating one right now, and I'm quite pleased.  The ghost pepper adds excellent kick, but not too much.  The only thing that would make them better would be to add some candied walnuts on top.  My next batch will be chocolate pumpkin with cayenne pepper.

You know you want them, and now you know they're super easy to make, so what are you waiting for? Do it!!!

:)M

Drawings of Food: Oysters

Oysters taste good.

Mandu - Korean Food - DC

My friend Holly originally introduced me to Mandu when I was living in DC.  I have a great love for Korean food, especially bibimbap, it's delicious.

What is bibimbap you ask?  Well I'm glad you did, because you're going to want to run out to your closest Korean  restaurant and try it out.  Bibimbap is a bowl of rice with veggies, beef, and a raw egg cracked on top.  The dish is served with a hot sauce that you pour over the top and then stir everything around.  The hot food helps to cook the egg as you stir it around creating a kind of fried rice like dish.  

What I love about Mandu is that I can get a Dolsot Bibimbap which means they serve my bibimbap in a hot stone bowl.  This means that my rice is getting crispy on the bottom and it typically keeps everything a lot warmer for the entire time you're enjoying your meal.  You also get a side of a collection of Korean appetizers, accompaniments to your meal like: kimchee, spicy zucchini, bean sprouts, and a potato/bean combo.  The kimchee at Mandu is pretty good, not as spicy as I would have liked, but still delicious.

The restaurant is small, with a few tables outside so you can enjoy the weather when it's great.  (It was really hot and muggy while I was in DC, so I sat inside with the AC.)  The service is good, and the price is reasonable.  

If you're going to be up near Dupont Circle in DC you should definitely check out Mandu.  Get everything extra spicy, it'll clear your sinuses.

:)M

Eating Better, Pedometers and the all amazing FitDesk

So, in case you haven't noticed yet, I've been trying to eat better.  And by better I just mean that I'm not stuffing myself until I'm so full that I need to take a nap to recover from the amount of food I've consumed.  (Although I still can't help myself when it comes to Indian food - I absolutely must always eat the entire garlic naan, it's too good to waste.)  Anyway, the point is I'm eating proportionally-ish, so I've been using a food diary, MyFitnessPal.  

I'm not trying to lose weight per-sey, but I could definitely stand to fit into some of my clothes that are becoming a bit snug.  I bring this up because I looked at a couple of different options when it came to recording my daily intake of food.  I tried out the WeightWatchers app, but to be honest I found it rather confusing and not very user friendly.  A points system doesn't make sense to me, especially when I cook at home a lot and need to add my own recipes.  I also checked out the food diary on my FitBit (more on the actual FitBit later).  The FitBit has a nice selection of foods, but doesn't quite have everything I need.  I've found that MyFitnessPal is easy to use on both my iPhone and in a browser, has a large database of food, and has an easy to add food item option.  Not to mention I can store and save my recipes which is super handy.  You can also use the app offline, and it'll sync everything the next time you have an internet connection.  I'm currently using the "lose a pound a week" option on MyFitnessPal, but you can use it to maintain or to watch your intake of carbs, fats, etc.  I'm mostly using it to stay within a normal calorie range.

To go with MyFitnessPal I purchased a nice little food scale.  It's just little and only measures up to about 12 pounds.  It's got multiple measurement options, and is about the size of small plate.  It's battery operated, and super easy to use.  I've been measuring out my healthy snacks, and all my recipes ingredients.  Having the food scale has also shown me what supposedly normal portions look like - I don't know about you but this has always been a mystery for me.  I've read that your fist is roughly the size of what you'd want as far as meat/poultry goes, but everyone has different sized fists, what if mine are abnormally large or small?  I bought the Ozeri Pro Digital Scale on Amazon.

And finally, I have a FitBit. It's a little pedometer thing that tracks your steps, distance, stairs you've walked and the calories you've burnt.  There's also this "active" number but to be honest I'm not really sure what that is and I don't use it for anything.  I did some research and while the FitBit is not 100% accurate it gives me a good idea of how active I've been.  It unfortunately does not track bike riding, but there is a handy little timer on it so you can record how long you performed and activity and then add it later.  Both the iPhone app and the online system work great.  There's a number of activities already in the database so I can easily ride my stationary bike for an hour and plug in my activity.  AND the FitBit syncs with MyFitnessPal which is awesome because it'll let me know if I've burned extra calories so I can eat more! (Or not, but typically I go ahead and eat more.)  The FitBit comes with a usb dock that you hook up to your laptop and every time you're within about 10ft it will automatically sync, you can also use the little dock to charge your FitBit.  In my experience the FitBit can go for about 5 to 6 days with out being charged.  

Lastly, Bob bought me an awesome stationary bike.  It's called the FitDesk.  And as ridiculous as it sounds and looks, it's pretty awesome. I've used my laptop while riding a couple of times, but really it's just a nice quiet stationary bike.  I have used the desk bit to hold my knitting while I work on it.  It's easy to wheel around in the house and folds up flat.  I will sometimes move the FitDesk out to the back porch and look out at the city while I enjoy a little ride.  Before you say anything, yes, I know I could just ride my bike, but (and honestly I'm a total wuss about this) there are hills everywhere!  I love riding my bike, but just thinking about having to go home up the gigantic hill in front of my house makes me want to take a nap.  The FitDesk is great because I can ride it any time, day or night, and it has an adjustable pressure gauge to make me work harder.  The distance counter that came with it doesn't work, but I haven't tried to fix it because really as long as I'm using the FitDesk I feel like I'm doing pretty good.  (You can check out an awesome video of my sister showing off the FitDesk here.)

There you have it, it's not a huge step towards living a healthy life, but it's something.

If anyone is wondering, I kicked off my health extravaganza with a lovely bout of food poisoning.  On our last night in Moscow Bob and I ate at the Hotel National on Red Square and the next morning was wretched.  We were sick for a week and I lost 7 pounds.  I figured it was a good way to kick-start me being in better shape and eating like a normal person.  It also helped that some of my pants fit me better. 

:)M