My Life Was So Different A Week Ago

What I do now:

Study, Eat, Poop, Sleep

What I did last week (including really quick reviews!):

Went to Jason’s Deli because they are delicious, make (fake) po’boys, and remind of Sweet Tomatoes (my favorite!).

The next morning I went to Noshville for brunch with Yash. Surprisingly, lox and scrambled eggs is a tasty combo. If the creative juices were really flowing, I would’ve put the eggs, lox, latkes, and cream cheese on the bagel, and had a bagel that could’ve easily obtained ultimate-status. Note to self: do that next time.

Went to Goten for Zack’s birthday dinner. Goten is a sorry excuse for a teppanyaki restaurant; even the ones in Fresno (particularly Edo-ya) are leagues ahead in terms of show, taste, and value.

Salt water and mushrooms = soup? No, it = fail.

Hooray for volcanoes!

This chicken contains pineapple. Pineapples are filler for what could’ve been more chicken. I want meat, dammit! Also of note, the dipping sauces are ketchup and terriyaki sauce. KETCHUP. Let that sink in. I’ll remind you that this is a Japanese establishment. Ok. Time to move on. TIME FOR PICTURES OF MAH FRENZ!

They were dressed the same.

This is a cute accessory.

How can you not love this face?

The birthday boy and his pinata. It was a one-shot decapitation; this is the strength that comes with going to the gym. Weight room!

I sorta stopped remembering things at this point. Or wait…it might’ve been the liquid cocaines. Yeeah, I probably stopped remembering stuff after having four of them. I might not be able to return to Hollywood Disco–not because I could’ve been banned, but because if I go I’ll be tempted to get more liquid cocaines. And frankly, after that weekend, I need to grow up.

And so, I’ve adopted this grown-up schedule: study, eat, poop, sleep.

It feels good to be a mature adult.

I’ve Become A Sellout!

It’s official: I’m a tool. I’ve fallen for The Man’s tricks.

I received a package from Foodbuzz containing a new product from Quaker Oats, a fancy schmancy cereal bar, and…I liked it! How could this have happened? I initially thought it would just be great to get free food, and I would laugh when my plan to swindle the corporations into giving me free food succeeded. But now, the tables have turned, and I may actually consider buying these cereal bars when they come out (given a situation where I have money to buy them). I guess that plan blew up in my face. It could’ve been due to the nice paper-like wrapper that reminded me of all expensive food products. Or it could’ve been my surprise at how the banana coconut (WTF?) bar was actually tasty. Somewhere, I had let my guard down and been taken in by the corportations.

And now I’ve lost all hipster credibility! All those years of listening to indie music, supporting mom-and-pop hole-in-the-wall restaurants, wearing American Apparel, buying Apple products–they’re worthless! I’m no longer a unique individual like the legions of hipsters who make the world a better place, one free-trade coffee at a time.

I hang my head in shame. But you know what? In 15 or 20 years, if (or when!) I’m accepting vacations to Hawaii and the Bahamas courtesy of big pharma, this instance of selling out to Quaker won’t be so bad.

Prefeasting – Noshville

Thanksgiving is an event, like a marathon, or going out: you have to prepare beforehand or expect to suffer some consequences, say, pulling your hamstrings after 3 miles or pulling out way too much money to get a good buzz. Try to tackle Thanksgiving without the proper preparation, and you will be in a world of hurt after your second plate of food. That’s why I prefeast: my Thanksgiving version of pregaming. While technically, Noi’s Thanksgiving potluck would be the actual prefeast event, eating breakfast at Noshville was closer temporally to the actual day of destruction. Therefore, I prefeasted with a couple buddies at Noshville Wednesday morning, after a morning filled with not going to class and sleeping in–quite a busy morning, indeed.

I actually heard about Noshville long before I’d even arrived in Nashville, but hadn’t had the opportunity to try it until last Wednesday. It was also my first time trying Jewish deli cuisine. At this time, I would normally try to make some exclamation of delight in the vein of some Jewish outburst, but I’ll try to avoid being offensive. So instead, HUZZAH for potato pancakes!

There was a good mix of familiar and unfamiliar items on the menu. From what I hear, Noshville is pretty good for its kind of cuisine, which is much better than the Nashville ethnic food standard of “I guess it’s satisfactory considering we’re in the South.“

Corned beef hash with scrambled eggs, potato pancakes, and toasted bagel. Surprisingly, in all my brunch-loving years, I had never tried corned beef hash; I even had to ask my friends what it was exactly (I’m usually an omelette person). And you know what? Even though I’ve never had a single bite of corned beef hash in my life, I thought it was delicious! I’m not so sure about the pickling beef business, but it was a mix of potatos, onions, and shredded and lightly sauteed/fried beef–the most winningest combination ever. It was only ever so slightly vinegary, probably more salted, but it tasted like breakfast. Not something you grab and go, but sit-down breakfast, the best kind of breakfast. Potato pancakes, which I’ve also never had, reminded me of herbed hash brown patties, except it wasn’t an amalgamation of individual fried potato strips, more like a fried potato patty. Each dollar coin-sized patty was crisped, not oily, and tasted good with or without ketchup.

After eating all that and the eggs, I didn’t have the room to finish the bagel. This would be the equivalent of pregaming and then blacking out before stepping out of the apartment. Prefeast Fail. Breakfast was probably more like training, a meal that acclimated my stomach to stretching way beyond its normal boundaries. If I ever wake up and muster up some buddies, I’d walk to Noshville more often. Oh yeah, I’d also need rich buddies to pay for me, too, because it’s a little pricey. I’ll have a future post about looking for a sugar momma.

Noshville Delicatessen

1918 Broadway

Nashville, TN‎

(615) 329-6674‎

Nashville Brunch Extravaganza

I’ve had quite a bit of brunch (aka greatest meal ever) in the past week.

Jackson’s

It takes a certain amount of skill to become a chef. One of those skills is probably the ability to not undercook and overcook food. Anyone can serve something raw or something overcooked. It’s that fine line in between, that state of “just right,” that is the domain of real chefs. It’s something that Jackson’s lacks.

I ordered an omelette with garlic, potatoes, and cheese. As you can probably tell from the photo, the egg is grossly overcooked. Omelettes are usually paper thin and light; this one was thick, which I don’t really mind, but it was also burnt, as indicated by the numerous brown crusts on the egg. I could’ve burnt my own eggs and paid myself 9 dollars.

The same thing happened to the “hash browns” I ordered. The dish was a disaster: the description said “hash browns covered in cheese and onions”–a clear winner in the realm of breakfast foods–but the hash browns were giant pieces of potatoes and were covered by burnt and crusty cheese and onions. Everything that could’ve gone wrong had gone wrong. No crunchy potato pieces, no melty cheese, and no sweet grilled onions. I still regret paying three dollars for the dish even now. Add in the fact that the patio was a smoking area, and this place becomes the last place I would ever go for brunch. And lunch. And dinner.

Le Peep

The skillet dish here was pretty standard, probably the same as the skillets I could get at Denny’s, except that Denny’s is cheaper and comes with more stuff i.e. pancakes, hash browns, etc. It’s good, but not good enough to warrant a trip out there.

Amerigo

Although I’ve heard that dinner here isn’t worth it, I think the brunch here has arguably the best brunch in Nashville. The food is super tasty and pretty cheap. It’s a much better choice than going to Jackson’s; whereas you get a single burnt omelette for $9 at Jackson’s, you can get a nice pork chop meal with julienned veggies and cheesy mashed potatoes for the same price.

The pork chop was a thick cut, but wasn’t dry as I thought it would be. The pineapple glaze wasn’t overly sweet, but I prefer the pork by itself. The potatoes were nice and toasty on the outside, but cheesy, leeky, and soft on the inside. All I can say is that if I were to recommend a place in Nashville, and it’s rare that I do, it would be Amerigo for brunch. Dinner and lunch are another story, but I prefer to not taint my opinion of the place with a (rumor has it) subpar and/or overpriced dinner.

So in conclusion:

Amerigo’s >> Le Peep > >Jackson’s

Jackson’s Bar and Bistro

1800 21st Ave S

Nashville, TN

(615) 385-9968‎

Le Peep

5133 Harding Pike # B6

Nashville, TN

(615) 353-0030

Amerigo

1920 W End Ave

Nashville, TN

(615) 320-1740‎

A Bay Area Diversion

Summer ends too quickly. It’s especially quick when it’s the last summer you’ll ever have. Next summer, I’ll be spending the first six weeks studying in the library because my life depends on it, and then I’ll follow that up by spending the rest of my life working in a hospital. So how did I spend my last week in California? I stuffed my face silly during a short trip to San Francisco.

I don’t think my digestive system has been the same ever since.

The problem I face every time I go to Los Angeles or San Francisco is this: I only visit for a couple of days every so often, and there are only a limited amount of meals that can be eaten during the day–that amount being governed by how much I pain and discomfort I can tolerate from overstuffing my stomach. So the real problem is: deciding if I should stick to the restaurants I know will meet my expectations of deliciousness, or if I should venture out and try new restaurants? This was especially problematic this time around since I knew it would be a long time before I would return to San Francisco. It should’ve been an easy decision to revisit my old favorites one last time before the rest of my life began, but for some reason, I chose to explore what the city by the bay had to offer. Unfortunately, that meant I had some bland meals, which amounted to tasteless calories. But on the upside, I discovered Mamacita’s, which has now become one of my favorite places—if not THE favorite—to eat. And that was after tasting just four of their dishes.

I’ll save Mamacita’s for its own post later. It needs a post of its own.

So for now, I’ll just post more food porn with very little description—the best kind of post, right?

My first meal had to be something familiar. I needed some good food that I couldn’t get in Fresno, so we went to King of Thai for some beef noodle soup, pumpkin curry, and pad thai.

The noodle soup was saltier and darker in color than Vietnamese pho, but is more similar to pho than it is to ramen or Taiwanese beef noodle soup. This bowl came with some cuts of beef flank (I think) and beef balls. And I’m pretty sure there was some MSG in there. Noodle soups just aren’t fantastic without MSG. Note: they can be good—even great—without MSG, but they’ll never be fantastic.

The pumpkin curry was made with kabocha, and had only a subtle pumpkin flavor. I don’t know how to intensify pumpkin flavor with anything other than cinnamon. I can’t remember if it was spicy, but I’m sure it can be modified.

Pad thai. Good.

The next morning I went to Crepes A Go Go, a chain with multiple locations in the bay area. Out of all the crepe places I’ve tried, this place has the best crepes in my opinion because the majority of the crepe is firm, yet soft, and the outside edges are crispy. That crispiness is what separates crepes from rolled-up giant thin pancakes in my opinion. This particular crepe was filled with egg, turkey, and jack cheese–a pretty standard combination of foods.

This breakfast was followed by some really bland meals at restaurants I would rather forget, but I won’t because I need to remember not to go there because I don’t like meals that have no flavor. Unless I’m sick and I need to eat bland foods, that is.

That Takes The Cake is a small cupcake shop on Union by Steiner. I’ve been here a couple times, and enjoyed their cupcakes, but mostly the cake part; I hate frosting. Fortunately, That Takes The Cake doesn’t go overboard with frosting, unlike other places that I’ve seen. These remind me of cupcakes you buy at grocery stores because they don’t look too outlandish, but their flavors are quite unique, like the flavors I got that day: red velvet, key lime, and carrot cake. Their version of red velvet was the very first time I’ve ever tried red velvet, which I think is unusual since it’s a Southern specialty that I seemed to have avoided eating in this last year I’ve lived in Nashville. I’ll be on the prowl for some real red velvet (which is made with cocoa that turns red when oxidized, not with spoonfuls of red dye) when I’m in Nashville this time around.

My stomach was pretty satisfied by the end of the trip; I’d filled it with Thai food, crepes, and cupcakes, a fairly representative sample of foods that I wouldn’t find or willingly eat in Fresno for lack of quality. Until I return, I can say that I left my stomach in San Francisco.

That Takes The Cake

2271 Union St

San Francisco, CA

(415) 567-8050‎

Crepes A Go Go

2165 Union St

San Francisco, CA

(415) 928-1919‎

King of Thai Noodle House

639 Clement St
San Francisco, CA

(415) 752-5198‎

Bekause Kowboys Are Kool – BJ’s Kountry Kitchen

Since when did K become cooler than C? Was it because of Kool-Aid? Mortal Kombat? Or perhaps it’s just cute to see a kountry kitchen, and not a country citchen.

It was 1pm on a Sunday afternoon, and we were looking for a brunch place. My original idea was to go to Fresno Breakfast House, but I realized that by the time we got there, it would probably be past 1:30, and the place closes at 2. So we opted for somewhere closer for brunch, and I figured that BJ’s Kountry Kitchen, which is much closer, would serve brunch as well. Even though we go there around 1:15, I didn’t know that they had the same hours as Fresno Breakfast House: 6am – 2pm. I guess these are universal brunch hours. I’ll have to look at Country Waffles to test out my hypothesis.

Walking in, it felt like I was transported back to the South again; there was country music playing and lots of knick knacks decorating the place. But was this really Southern food or country ( aka cowboy) food? There were biscuits and gravy, but I guess that’s where the similarities end. I didn’t see any other Southern staples, like grits, but I was still expecting some hearty biscuits and gravy.

I ordered a chile verde omelette, which was topped with jack cheese, chile verde sauce, and chunks of pork. It came with hash browns and biscuits and gravy. For about $10, it’s a lot of food–enough to feed at least two people, even more if they’re watching their heart health. The omelette didn’t look like an omelette; I don’t think they folded it in half because I found out that the eggs were just one large circle covered in sauce, cheese, and meat (the hash browns covered the other half of the omelette). It wasn’t anything special, but I guess it did taste good. Then again, eggs covered in pork and cheese can’t ever taste bad.

The biscuits and gravy, though, didn’t have any flavor at all. It might be hard to distinguish gravy from biscuit in the picture, but that’s how I felt tastewise. The only difference was that one was creamy while the other was powdery. There wasn’t any meaty flavor in the gravy, and the biscuit-to-gravy ratio was unbalanced, so there wasn’t enough gravy do coat each bite of biscuit.

We also ordered some strawberry french toast, which was also unremarkable. We were expecting fresh strawberries on top of the french toast (that’s what we usually expect when you have to pay and extra $3 for strawberries), but we were given the same strawberries used to top ice cream sundaes–mushy, old, and drenched in strawberry syrup.

For the prices here, I was hoping for quality, but all we got was quantity. Or should I say kuantity? Ha! (pats self on back for being clever)

BJ’s Kountry Kitchen

6700 N Cedar Ave

Fresno, CA

(559) 298-5456‎