Hm, I'm officially 28

A lovely flan from my favorite restaurant Bar Jules

Trying out Flock

A browser that brings all your social networking thingymadjigs together. I am a bit tired of having to click through each thing one by one so I wanted to see if this would solve some of my annoyances.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Smelt Avocado Pain Grillé

"Pain Grillé" in French means "Toast", but literally means "Grilled Bread" and that is exactly what we did!

This was a creation by Chris and I after having tasted something similar at Bar Jules a lovely restaurant in Hayes Valley. We were so enthralled by it during our dinner there that we decided we had to try to re-create it for his birthday party this June 4th. At Bar Jules they were made with fresh anchovies, but since we could not find fresh anchovies anywhere in town, we settled for something very similar, Smelt.

Smelt is usually fried and eaten whole but this dish required something more refined and dainty. I personally filleted 22 smelts for this dish, a task I had little to no experience with yet took on with great confidence.

All photos below depicting the process were taken by Chris' cousin Sherman and Chris' friend Ninh.


The second little fishie to suffer his fate.


Almost done, that's a lot of heads... The process is very meticulous and intricate.
These are very small fishes.


All done! They look so sweet and fresh!


How many are there? 22? Actually they short-changed me.... there are only 21.


I'm quite proud of myself.


Grilling the bread. We used Pain au Levain, which is perfect for this dish.


Chris lightly pan frying the fishies. They only took about a minute or less
to cook as they just melt like butter! Before frying we seasoned the smelt
lightly with salt and pepper.


The grilled bread got rubbed with fresh garlic cloves and then sliced avocado
seasoned with lemon and salt and pepper. Then topped with the freshly fried
smelt. Everyone contributed to the stacking process. It was like an assembly line!


The final moment, before disappearing into thin air! They were as good if not
tastier than they look, which says a lot, since they looked quite lovely. We
were all very proud of ourselves, as everyone contributed to making this such a success.

Funk Divine at Mezzanine

Funk Divine attends Chillin Productions 10 year anniversary at Mezzanine on Saturday May 10th, 2008.


A happy customer, wearing her new cream-colored bird shirt and Crystal Sylver of Funk Divine.




Hard to see in this photo, but this is the FD Scarab all-over print! It looked awesome. I want one.

Birthday Bro!

May 4th is my brother's birthday. This year we spent a most lovely day together and celebrated to the fullest. We rented a car in the morning and drove out to Half Moon Bay. As the birthday bro gets to do things his way for the day, he requested we take Theo (cat) with us on the trip and also requested to do the driving!

We spent the day in the small beach town, first checking out the beach itself with Theo on the leash (he was hating it) and us dragging him around (we were loving it). Then we went into town, leaving Theo in the parked car, and strolled through the main street in search for the b-day dinner meal. We opted for the ever delicious Pasta Moon, a famous local Italian restaurant. It was rather amazing actually. The food was so good, and the service was impeccable, if not generous. We tasted several wines before opting for a unique wine from the Mount Vesuvius volcanic region. The wine, which I forget the name (good for me!) really captured the terroir since it had striking elements of ash and earth, in addition to smoky elements such as tobacco. It was a very full bodied wine and very soft and smooth.

After dinner, we drove back home where I had a little surprise for him. A rich strawberry/raspberry birthday tart dotted with gold leaf, and a little assortment of prezzies.

Here are some photos from the eve:

How fast can you type?

Test yourself and see where you score! My score was pretty lame, but its certainly an improvement over my high-school days when I was stuck in typing class unable to type without looking at where my fingers were going...

Here is my score:

Little Biscuits!

Made them this morning on a whim as I ran out of bread at home and could not accept skipping breakfast.

They are made of 1 cup of Trader Joe's Multigrain Pancake Mix, 1/2 cup of soy milk, and 1 1/2 tbsps of olive oil.

Anyhoo I mixed it all up, kneaded it several times, patted it into a square 1/2 inch thick and then took a sharp knife and cut down the middle from top to bottom and then across, to form 4 little squares. Put the 4 squares on a lightly floured baking paper and baked it for 9 minutes at 425 Fahrenheit.

This is how they turned out:



They were really good straight out of the oven and dabbed with butter and a little fig jam. Mmmmm!

Funk Divine at 111 Minna

Hey, one of my clients, Funk Divine, attended Chillin Productions at 111 Minna on April 5th.

We had loads of fun, bumped into some old faces and in general saw some interesting things being done by the locals...

Here are some photos from the night.

Favorite Foods of Santa Fe, NM

Bert's Burger Bowl's Green Chile and Cheese Veggie Burger


Counter Culture Pictured here is the Grilled Salmon Sandwich with Shoestring Fries, a delicious Soy Mocha and below is their prized Salmon Thai Coconut Soup and a tasty Arnold Palmer.





Chow's Old Lady Tofu


Counter Culture, Again... Here is their Smothered Breakfast Burrito. New Mexico is the official birth place of the breakfast burrito. They entail 2 scrambled eggs, potatoes, lots of cheddar and jack cheese, and the most important ingredient, green chile.


San Francisco Bar & Grill is always a delicious place to go. My and my sister's favorite is the Grilled Cheese Pesto Sandwich on black bread.


Ecco Gelato Pictured is their hazel nut and chocolate gelatos in a small cup.