Bears, BEETS, Battlestar Galactica

Liquid Nitrogen 101

Playing with liquid nitro


Working


Playing

Making Spheres 101

Made a rum solution with molasses, rum, water, and calcium lactate


Agitate in sodium alginate




Let it defrost in solution

Meyer lemon and Yuzu macarons

Crillon egg... white

Tried out a recipe from the Crillon cookbook (my last gig in Paris before coming back home).







White truffle oil...

Koryori @ Kappa Restaurant, San Francisco

After a chill day in Pebble Beach, Matt and I decided to spontaneously eat at Kappa Restaurant in SF. It's a complete hole-in-the-wall authentic Japanese restaurant - koryori style. It's so hidden (not to mention, tiny) that you really can't find the door. It's unmarked and behind another glass door next to a Korean karaoke bar in Japantown. Lucky that Matt knew where it was.

There are only two people working there - the chef and waitress. We had the following:







I love mentaiko...




Monkfish liver! It was quite good. The one I tried in France was gross and completely didn't taste like this.




I've only had this kind of miso soup in Japan. =)


Of course, onigiri


Fabulous and fresh. It was great to have a piece of Japan here in Cali.

Kappa Restaurant
1700 Post St., Suite K
San Francisco, CA 94115
Phone: (415) 673-6004

Pebble Beach Food & Wine Festival

Finally found an awesome job even in this bad economy. Went to the Pebble Beach Food & Wine Festival with the new boss with intentions of working; however, due to the weather being too good and me catching my nephew's horrible cold (let's just blame it on me being sick), we decided to chill out a bit.



Jacques Pépin! I watched him on PBS as a child so I gotta give him credit for influencing my decision to change careers.


Iron Chef Morimoto !


Ran into David and Pim there too. Hung out with Miss Pim for a bit. (Me, Pim, and the new boss, Matt)


I didn't take too many pictures because the lighting with my camera wasn't so great. But just a few guests on this events list that I saw:

Chef Tom Collichio (+ Gail, Stefan, Jamie from last season's Top Chef)
Chef Thomas Keller (and his bro Joseph)
Chef Eric Ripert
Chef Chris Cosentino
Chef Michael Mina
Ted Allen

And the list goes on. Was a really cool event and I'm glad I was able to see/meet some great chefs. It's too bad I didn't get a pic with Eric Ripert.

Shanghai Maglev love

SO easy to use and CHEAP for Americans ! ($5+) I'm never taking the crazy Chinese bus again! hahaha.


It goes faster later in the day






Zaijian, Shanghai. Until next time.

Dynasty dinner

The last dinner before I go back home. We dined at...


kidding!


Fancy schmancy


We are on the reservation list!


I liked this statue


My mother ordering Shanghainese delicacies




Tofu skin + veg


Delicious squid


River shrimp - very famous here, very tasty


This chicken was so good!!! I wish I knew what the sauce was.


I LOVE this dish


These are noodles with special type of Chinese mushrooms.


Fish


Niangao or rice cake, also something very Shanghainese.




Those aren't worms, it's a type of vegetable. haha


Shanghainese noodle soup


Pumpkin rice cake with red bean


Good stuff


My aunt and cousin were there too but I didn't take enough pictures of people (as usual).

Me and mom


Jojo and mom =)


Thanks mom for the wonderful hospitality and last meal!

An eventful family day

Stopped by to lunch with my grandma and grandpa. Despite a heavy breakfast of dianxing, we managed to munch on some goodies that their maid cooked up.



Afterwards, we went to the American Embassy. This was really important to my mom because it was the house of her great grandpa. She used to go there as a child.

Well guess what, the Chinese guards were really rude to us and told us we weren't allowed even with our American passports. They even yelled at Raf for trying to take a photo. Raf yelled back "I'M AMERICAN."

We saw a bunch of people in there and the guards lied and said they were workers. It was all BS because they looked like a tour group. They gave us the address of another visa office for Americans to "schedule a tour." Gotta love communist China running the embassies.

Now I know that if we are in any kind of trouble in Shanghai, the Chinese won't let us into the American Embassy. Raf took a quick snap of the place when we were in the taxi. hahah.


We went to the other office - the Chinese guy there was really nice and helpful - wasn't sure if he was American but he was working for the American visa office and sporting American uniform. He called the other place and received mixed messages and really wasn't sure what the heck was going on with them. Oh well, no access to the American embassy.

In other news, stopped by my mom's grandpa's brothers house. It is now a historical site.


A brief history about them - businessmen of flour/cotton, considered the biggest Chinese capitalists before the communists took over. I wish I could have seen what it was like here before communism.