option8 eats

This is an appetizer which, every time I make it for a party, disappears before I get to have any.

1. Take frozen premade phyllo cups.

2. Cube a brie cheese wheel.

3. Pop the brie into the cups, bake @ 350 F for about 10 minutes or watch to ensure the cheese melts.

4. Spoon a bit of red pepper jelly preserve onto the top of each cup.

5. Add some toasted almond slices on the top as a garnish.

This is an incredibly easy appetizer to make. I pre-make the cups and then heat 'em up at the party. You'll only be in the kitchen for about 5 minutes making these so you can get back to the important things, like drinking and socializing. And drinking.

Shark tastes very similar to tuna, and I think tuna's one of the more delicious kind of fishes. It's also a bit cheaper: when you go to buy a tuna steak, often the shark steaks are beside them and about three quarters of the price. I picked up a fresh shark steak from Urban Fare, then brought it to a barbeque for people to try.

1. First, take your shark steak and marinade it in soy sauce for an hour or so.

2. Then, take one grinder each for sea salt and peppercorn variety mix*, and coat one side of the steak in the pepper/salt mix.

3. Sear it on the barbeque until it will flake with a fork. If you want to be fancy, slice it on a diagonal and plate it in a fan.

Easy, and you can impress everyone around you with "this is shark."

*This is a cheap and easy way to have fancy peppercorns, and they do taste fresh and nice. Remember that berries and some other fancy peppercorns will actually destroy your grinder (I wrecked a nice wooden one with Schezuan peppercorns), so buying them already in a grinder makes sense.

Em Dash and I tried The New Bohemian for Dine Out Vancouver 2009.

The service was agreeable, not amazing, but efficient enough.

The atmosphere of the restaurant is somewhat trendy with its mirrors, damask wallpapers, and giant illustrated girl along the bar wall, but it still manages to feel comfortable, not stuffy.

For starters, I had the split-pea soup (very satisfying for a cold night, but not extraordinary) and the macadamia & coconut prawns - which were okay, but the sweet chili coconut sauce was too bland (and rather runny). As a main course, I ordered the eggplant lasagna: loved it; devoured it all. The flourless chocolate torte dessert was a bit dry for me, but at this point, I was quite full already. Generally, a good meal, and I would definitely return.


photo courtesy New Bohemian website

a tad late in posting, yes, but for christmas, i attempted to make some "christmas care packages".

earlier in the year, i'd come across a marshmallow recipe. (click here for a cute video by lauren & derek, owners of the curiosity shoppe.)

my results:
i wish i could say i aced it... i made 3 attempts. the sugar mixture completely burnt on my first try as i was focusing on the temperature on the candy thermometer instead of my sugar. the sugar mixture started to brown a bit on my 2nd try, so some of it tasted burnt. fail. my 3rd batch almost made the cut, but because we (my dad joined in the candy experimentation) were paranoid of burning the sugar again (at this point, i'd given up on the candy thermometer; it seemed to read too slow compared to the rate of my sugar mixture actually cooking), we probably took it off the heat too soon. the resulting marshmallows were not as fluffy and light as they ought to be, but tasted good enough.
i'm not really one to give up, so i will try again this christmas, but i'll probably give myself some more time instead of trying to churn out enough gifts for 15+ people within 5 days.

ps - something that was not noted in the recipe that i find rather crucial, is constantly stirring the sugar mixture while it is cooking!

in the mood to bake for family and friends, i decided to look for something chocolatey, and found this.

here is my take on the recipe based on what i had at home:

• 1/2 cup (125 ml) salted butter, cut into smaller pieces
  
• 6 oz (185 g) Baker's semi-sweet chocolate squares, chopped
  
• 3/4 cup (175 ml) flour
  
• 1/2 cup (125 ml) cocoa powder
  
• 1/4 tsp (1 ml) salt
  
• 3 1/2 oz (100 g) Lindt white chocolate bar, chopped
  
• 4 medium eggs
• 1 tsp (5 ml) pure vanilla extract
  
• 1 cup (250 ml) white sugar
  

instructions as per original recipe.

i am happy to report that the reception has been quite enthusiastic! (photos are of the last bit of the brownies! and yes, i did cut them to bite size.)

Cooking should be creative; recipes should only be a starting point. That said, here's what I made tonight. It all started with a $3.50 chunk of wild salmon. I take no responsibility for how your meal might taste if you follow this recipe, because I measured nothing and probably forgot to include stuff.

1 piece wild salmon
3 tbsp butter
2 mandarin oranges
1 bunch fresh dill
1/2 shallot
flour
cream

1. Melt 2 tbsp of butter in a saucepan on low heat. If you feel guilty about eating butter at this point, quit while you're ahead and make a salad instead.

2. Juice 1 orange and pick out all the gross pulp. Combine with the melted butter.

3. Add flour SLOWLY, stirring the entire time, to the butter/orange mixture. Add until the flour is absorbing the butter/orange mixture. This will form a yellowy paste, called a roux if you're feeling fancy. I don't know how to pronounce French, so I'm just going to call it a paste and feel low-class.

4. Let the paste simmer a little bit, but stir it occasionally so it doesn't burn. Meanwhile, get a skillet and melt the other tablespoon of butter.

5. Add half a chopped shallot. Mmm, shallots. Shallots are like onions that don't suck.

6. Go back to the now-sizzling paste. Add in cream SLOWLY. You should use milk. I should have used milk. I just had a lot of cream left over and wanted to use it up. Break up the lumps (wooden spoon is good for this.) Keep this on low heat – all these ingredients burn fairly easily.

7. Slice up half the remaining orange into rounds. Plop the salmon down in the skillet on top of the shallots and sliced orange. Cover.

8. Go back to the basic cream sauce. Add a lot of chopped, fresh dill, and some more orange juice from the last half if it doesn't seem orangey enough. If someone else is sharing this meal, you can sneak in a drop of food colouring at this point, as the sauce will stay a buttery yellow no matter how much orange juice you add. Throw in some fresh cracked pepper while you're at it.

9. Flip the fish at some point. The sliced oranges and shallots will have carmelized together into deliciousness.

10. The fish is ready when it flakes with a fork. Plate it with the orange slices up and sauce on top, or on the side if you like it that way. A fruit wine would be nice with this. I like IL Moscato myself.

11. Be sad you're single and no one else got to taste your delicious meal, and blog it. I didn't take a photo 'cos I was too busy eating.

Serves one.

welcome aboard option8 eats, em dash!

evidently, i'm not very efficient about photo-documenting my eating excursions, but i will still make the effort to write some reviews.

uncle fatih's
i am of the opinion that uncle fatih's serves some of the best single slice pizza in town. however, on a recent cold, rainy day when i really craved uncle fatih's, i was left very unsatisfied. the slice i'd ordered had likely been sitting around for a bit too long, so it does pay to observe which slices look the freshest before ordering. also, the blue cheese sauce is a must.

megabite pizza
very close to uncle fatih's (i've not visited their other locations) is megabite, which i'd also rate high on my list of good pizza-by-the-slice places. (i suspect it's all about the blue cheese sauce.) i've not had any non-fresh-pizza experiences at megabite, but one time the blue cheese sauce was runny (gross).

tomokazu
i stopped having all-you-can-eat sushi a few years ago. i've never been a real fan. i hate ordering too much and wasting food, and i hate stuffing myself to the point of feeling sick. but, i've learned how to order safely for all-you-can-eat. i don't like ordering too much of one item or things that would fill me up quickly. and i'd much rather go for a second round than order too much at once. it's all about pacing.
anyway, tomokazu on west broadway is okay (i've become a sushi snob ever since my trip to japan). things that stood out (for good or bad): the toro sashimi wasn't good - didn't taste fresh - and we ended up wasting it. the goma-ae was nice though, not too much sauce. they also have a portugese seafood motoyaki, which was interesting (not horrid; not amazing either). the rest of the food was passable. one of our servers (male) had a lot of attitude, but the female servers were all quite nice. (it is never a surprise when you get poor service from a chinese-owned restaurant though. i'm not being racist; i'm chinese.)
i won't go out of my way to visit again, but it is one of the better all-you-can-eat japanese spots in town. (the worst is probably sui sha ya.)

denny's on burrard
after drinking and dancing at galaxion (an awesome 80s night with arcade games held at club 23 west about once a month) we headed to denny's for some food. it seems that ordering anything without meat at denny's is rather difficult. anyway, i tried their cheese smothered fries, which really ought to be called cheese "smothered" fries, because my idea of smothered is not a drizzling of cheese. my idea of smothered is fries practically drowning in cheese. at least the bacon was good. i also made the mistake of ordering a strawberry milkshake - it tastes too artificial (i doubt anyone can hold a light to sophie's for best milkshakes in town though). for a drunken meal, i won't complain too much, but going to denny's sober is not an option. ...unless it's not in canada. (the denny's in japan was good. and my experience with denny's in the states has also been good.)

last night, a friend's tiny kitchen was the stage for a night of cooking and alcohol-infused laughs.

the food menu consisted of smoked salmon spread with crackers, ravioli with white sauce, a lobster salad, mushrooms in cream pastry, and molten chocolate cake.

i left the cake (pictured above) in the oven for a couple minutes too long, so the center wasn't as soft as it could be, and instead of créme anglais, we used whipped cream.

the drink menu included pink lemonade with gin, shots of baja rose, lemon drop martini, and dr. l riesling to sip during dinner.

and here is leeloo, who, along with godiva, provided a lot of kitty amusement for the night.

another hockey game, another pub. tuesday was a friend's birthday, so we met up for some drinks, food, and the game at tobys pub & grill. (the game was disappointing, so let's not relive the pain.)

i actually wasn't hungry, but ordered some yam fries to nibble on. i love yam fries and have definitely tasted very mediocre ones in my time. tobys yam fries come with a watercress dip, which is a refreshing change from the usual garlic, and i am willing to rank their fries near the top of my list for being a thinner cut, not soggy, nor burnt.

the black cat cocktail - vodka, blackberry liqueur, cranberry juice, and coke - was yummy enough for a second round, and i was sufficiently indecisive about what to order to want to go back and try their other cocktails and martinis. (though the game-night atmosphere is probably enough to bring me back. i couldn't even count the number of tvs in the two-floor pub. there's not a bad seat in the house!)

lastly, my apologies for the lack of photos. i will get in the habit of bringing a proper camera!