Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Fresh Seafood, Preserved Eggs

Our current seafood restaurant in our hometown (Surabaya): Layar Seafood.

They have tanks and ice trays filled with live seafood right as you are walking in. Lobsters, crabs, fishes, clams, frogs. You name it. When you order, you just tell them how big a fish/crab/lobster you want. We've been going there every time I've been home (which is only once a year).

This time, we started with some frog legs :)
The frog legs here are nothing like what I've had in North America. Much more tender and flavorful here! Not like chicken at all. This particular one is made with some nice sweet soy-based sauce.

Then we went to their signature dish, "Kepiting Telur Asin" - which means "Salted Egg Crab"
As the name suggests, the sauce on the crab is made from Salted Duck Eggs (aka. Telur Asin). The salting is a method of preserving the eggs by soaking them in either brine or salted charcoal.
I thought loading the fresh crab with preserved eggs was somewhat ironic - but it is soo delicious so who cares!
A yummy savoriness filled my mouth with each sauce-laden bite of crab.

We also got some boiled crab with garlic broth
Good, and the freshness of the crab definitely stands out here. But flavor wise is a lot more subtle than the salted egg one, so we definitely liked the other one better, especially since we ate it first. This one tasted rather bland after eating the other. Should've started with this first.

I also have trouble finding good watercrest (Kangkung) dish in the US, so I ordered some here:
Sauteed watercrest/kangkung and shrimp in slightly spicy sauce.

A great meal throughout! Their ingredients are fresh and we can't seem to go wrong with any of the offerings here. Hopefully it will stay open next year as I plan to come back again and again. The Crab with "Telur Asin" is their unique dish and it would be such a shame if I can never eat it again!!

Layar Seafood
Jl. Raya Bukit Mas 109 Surabaya
Phone: 031 5683716

Monday, September 29, 2008

Bar Tartine Brunch - Order Wisely

Out of town foodie, trying to find brunch in SF, where to go?
I've been to Tartine before and loved it, so when someone suggested Bar Tartine (after telling me how great the uni there was), I accepted it.

Although I was worried there might be a long line, it actually was not bad. My friends arrived first and they managed to get a table by the time I got there. We asked the server for suggestions, and he mentioned the duck confit sandwich, the pork belly sandwich ....
But I saw sweet corn + scrambled eggs and I didn't listen to him ... Bad mistake.
The sweet corn was pretty good, but there wasn't quite enough of it to make the dish work. The eggs in particular were terrible. Bland and watery ... come on, can't they pick a good egg? Free range perhaps, for the price I'm paying?
Didn't finish this dish - didn't want to :/

I did try my friend's duck confit sandwich, which was Excellent. I'll probably come back, for the duck confit, but I will definitely be wary of what to order ...
Listen to the waiter's suggestions ... and perhaps nothing else.

Bar Tartine
561 Valencia Street (between 16th & 17th streets)
San Francisco, CA 94110
p. 415.487.1600
http://www.tartinebakery.com/barTartine

Bar Tartine on Urbanspoon

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Slanted Door, Slight Disappointment

I finally went to the lauded Slanted Door and was really looking forward to it. Got a lunch reservation and headed there straight from SFO. We didn't want to eat much since a lot of food-ing was coming up, so we decided to share 2 appetizers.

First we got some steamed clams, with garlic+basil.The clams were good and the broth was very tasty. A little spice and heat and a lot of flavor. Liked it quite a bit although we thought it was pretty standard. I can get this at a lot of Asian places for cheaper and it would be just as good.

Next we got some Niman Ranch ribs - I wanted some meat!
This turned out to be not that great. The ribs were kind of tough, and they weren't that flavorful. The Niman Ranch ribs I bought at Trader Joe's and cooked myself at home were better, IMHO!
So this really disappointed us.

We thought the Slanted Door was hyped up way too much and the food we had didn't quite justify all the hype. Did we order wrong? If so, please tell me. What should I get? Why all the hype? Is it worth another try?

Slanted Door
1 Ferry Building #3
San Francisco, CA
4158618032

Slanted Door on Urbanspoon

Monday, August 4, 2008

puccho (japanese candy) cupcakes!!!

My friend sent me this picture. Aren't they the cuuuutest cupcakes EVER?

I want them I want them!