Munch, munch, munch

Still blogging Costa Rica with exceeding slowness, too much detail, and a rapidly declining memory. In the meantime, some SF eats.

Last week, I tried making Chicken Stew with Coconut Milk (I need to get off this coconut kick). It turned out all right - kind of tasted like a standard chicken curry, actually, the type you get if you buy the Golden Curry mild flavor at an Asian grocery store. The curry sauce/stew itself was fairly easy to make - curry powder, cumin, chicken broth, and coconut milk being the primary components - so I don't really see a reason to get the prefabricated grease blocks of curry anymore. I made too much, though, since the only chicken breasts I had in the freezer came in packs of 3 (ie 1.75 lbs), so I had to up the amount of everything else I put in (plus I put in a bell pepper for the hell of it, and used frozen peas instead of lima beans), and we ended up eating it for like 4.5 days. Oh, and I *didn't* use the microwave like the recipe says. I did it stovetop - pre-cooked the chicken slightly (not sure if I needed to do this) by tossing it around the pot until the outsides were white, brought everything to a boil, and then simmered for an hour. That was all approximated from some beef stew recipes I saw that *didn't* require a slowcooker. Don't know if it was the best way to do it, but everything got cooked and it tasted reasonable.

I also tried making fried plantains to supplement the 1/2 portion we had left the last day, but that kind of failed. I got a green plantain without realizing that to make *sweet* fried plantain, you need an almost overripe (yellow with brown spots) plantain. Puerto Ricans (the recipes I was seeing on Allrecipes) seem to use the green plantain to make a savory starchy side dish, like potatoes or cassava root, rather than a sweet side dish. I tried to approximate sweet fried plantains by combining directions from Sauteed Sweet Plantains (specifically the butter + oil, though I used canola, and the brown sugar) with Puerto Rican Tostones (Fried Plantains) (minus the cold water step, or the salt). A couple recipes and comments had said with green plantains, you need to smush them halfway through and then refry, so I made sure to do that, but I tried using the brown sugar + butter to make them taste better. The experiment didn't work out right for a few reasons - aside from having the wrong plantains, I cut them in wedges instead of slices for some reason, so they weren't shaped right, and the final product ended up being starchy and bland on the inside with an overly sticky, crunchy sweet shell. I thought they were ok, my bf thought they were nasty. If I try that again, I guess I'll try ripening the plantain first!

On the restaurant front, we've tried a few places in the last couple days after our curry finally ran out. On Tuesday, we hit the 2223 Restaurant at 2223 Market St (between Noe and Sanchez) for their $12 Tuesdays. On Tuesdays they have a special menu with $6 appetizers and $12 entrees, and we'd been meaning to try it out. We both ended up getting both an appetizer and entree (b/c I'm a pig these days). My bf got the tomato soup, which was surprisingly spicy but good, while I got the smoked salmon flatbread, which was super yummy, but came in a larger portion than I'd been anticipating. It was smoked salmon on top of a delicious flatbread with I think sour cream and chives (or cream cheese and chives?) layered in between. Then for our entrees, I got the crimini mushroom risotto, while he got a Salvadorian style braised pork shoulder dish. I think my expectations of risotto don't fit what a lot of restaurants do - I expect something creamy, I often get what seems like soft rice in broth. The risotto was decent, though a bit overly salty and peppered, and there was some flavor in there I wasn't fond of (but keep in mind - I hate cilantro, basil, and a lot of strong tasting herbs). The risotto had chicken, mushrooms, a green leafy vegetable that might have been spinach, butternut squash chunks, and possibly some other stuff. My bf's pork was interesting but when I saw it on the menu, I didn't think he'd like it. Pork is more my style than his. The pork was tasty - actually quite strongly flavored - though not as spicy as billed, with a spicy slaw piled on top (which I didn't try), and sitting on a sort of corn mush cake thing, surrounded by black beans. My bf doesn't like black beans or corn mush, and often doesn't like Latin flavors, so I don't think he liked it as much as he'd hoped. The bite I tried seemed decent. My overall assessment of what I tried there was the food was interesting and decent, but a bit overflavored. The restaurant was cute, and the service was very good. The restaurant gets really good reviews, especially for brunch - would be interesting to try something off the main menu.

On Wednesday we did our first Dine About Town restaurant, deciding to hit Namu, an Asian (Japanese/Korean) fusion restaurant in Richmond, at 439 Balboa between 5th and 6th. They had a slightly odd DAT policy - if both people were ordering off the DAT menu, they had to get the same items. Something about their plating being unique and time-consuming, and having a small kitchen, and wanting to get the food out in a timely manner for everyone. This was odd, considering they usually suggest 2 people get 4-6 dishes total anyway (DAT = 6 dishes total), but whatever. Not really an issue because we wanted to order the same items for the most part anyway. We were allowed to have one person order DAT and one person order off the regular menu which, again, made little sense, but I digress. For our first course, we got the albacore tuna tataki, which was served 6 pieces on one long plate for the 2 of us to share. This was all right - I didn't find the fish particularly flavorful, despite my love of albacore, though the texture was good. This was followed by the vegetable tempura (the other choice was shiitake dumplings, and my bf hates mushrooms) - a nice heaping plate of lightly breaded and fried zucchini, kabocha squash, broccoli, onions (onion rings!), and..I think that's it? with a delicious dipping sauce. Good tempura. The last course took a little longer to come out but we both got a plate of kobe skirt steak - kobe-style skirt steak with a kalbi-style sauce, cooked medium rare. We've concluded that I probably shouldn't order medium rare b/c I have enough difficulty chewing meat. At any rate, this was decent - definitely not the most delicious meat I've ever had, just pretty good, nice texture, decent but inadequate sauce. We decided to get a dessert despite it not being on the DAT menu, because I *thought* they looked good. One was a little odd - a coconut custard baked in a kabocha squash with browned coconut milk and ginger reduction - I thought it looked interesting but my bf was anti-squash, so we skipped that one. The other I thought would be good - melted belgian chocolate, brioche, nigori sake strawberry sauce and fresh strawberries. Of course, the words "belgian chocolate" make me irrational, but it sounded good. It ended up being very disappointing though. Tasted like bread (that would be the brioche) with slightly chocolate overtones, the strawberry sauce was decent but a bit too alcoholic and the "fresh strawberries" were like 3 thin slivers stuck into the whipped cream on top. Not what I was hoping for. Overall I'd rate the experience as, I dunno, 6.5 out of 10. It was pretty good but not spectacular, the service was good until they failed to give us our bill for a ridiculously long time (and took forever to get us our dessert even though there wasn't much kitchen activity left at that point), the ambiance was decent except that we were sitting right by the door which kept getting stuck open... they were playing Princess Mononoke (I think) on repeat over the bar, though without sound or subtitles, so I guess it was just for the ambiance as well. Overall I'd say the restaurant probably is pretty good, but it's not spectacular.

On a non-food note, on Sunday my bf and I decided to take a stroll around Golden Gate Park because it was a beautiful day and he'd been sick and cooped inside for a few days. We ended up walking all the way to Stow Lake and up the hill in the middle (which I've never done before). There's a nice view, obstructed somewhat by trees, from the top of the hill. On one side you can see the GG bridge and Richmond, and all the way to downtown on the east. On the other, you can look over all of Sunset to the ocean. That was pretty neat. I was amused because on the way down, we ran into two segway tours. I guess you can go on these tours, each person gets on a segway, and they follow a guide around. Those segways were doing pretty well on the unpaved dirt paths up the hill.