Food Maker, Chef, and Traveling Diner
Pressed under an apartment building high-rise in Little Tokyo is Aburiya Toranoko, a Japanese restaurant scattered amongst countless others in the downtown L.A. region. I hadn’t heard much about this place before my sister gave me a bloomspot certificate for my Christmas present—she saw the …
The year flew by and I hope each and everyone of you had a great set of holidays. I’ll be catching up on my blogging in the next week so please stay tuned. Thank you for your support and a healthy and happy 2013 to …
Early this month, I had the pleasure of eating at Fogo de Chão with Brandon for his birthday. Fogo de Chão is a Brazilian steakhouse known as churrascaria in Portuguese. Churrasco is roughly translated into barbeque in Portuguese and comes from the South American traditions that resemble rotisserie cooking. Meat is placed on large skewers and cooked to perfection over hot flames.
Fogo de Chão has multiple locations all over the United States and in Brazil. The décor is loud and striking with purpose and refinement, but the main attraction is the servers carving large or small portion of about 15 different styles of meat from various succulent cuts of beef, lamb, chicken, pork and some sausage. When we arrived for our 8 p.m. reservation the bustling dinner service was already in full force. The very large dining room was filled with Los Angeles’ various groups of people—from the large table of business men, to the medium table of birthday celebrators, and the small two-top enjoying a comfortable couple’s evening out. As we were greeted by our waiter, he informed us that we were to start at the buffet, which included many different side dishes, some cured meats, cheeses, vegetables, and various other items to snack on and accompany the rest of the meal. After we helped ourselves, we were then to flip a small circle of paper that had green or red on it—the green was to inform the servers that they could bring around meat at their leisure and the red would indicate that we were finished.
From the filet mignon, ribeye, fraldinha (skirt steak) and picanha (top sirloin), to the cordeiro (lamb), everything was prepared well and very delicious. The key to this type of eating is to pace yourself and eat what you really like. So I stayed more in the prime beef cuts and the lamb, rather than going to chicken and pork, which can sometimes be dry with this type of cooking style. The theatrics of the gaucho style servers is really part of the fun and charm of Fogo de Chão. The meat is delicious and the other bits and pieces make for a delicious hearty meal. Come hungry for good meat and you’ll leave very happy. I had an amazing meal with my very dearest love on his birthday, you can’t beat that.
cheers
-Unrivaledkitch
On our way home from Mammoth we have some mandatory stops to make. Most of the time we have to get gas for the ride home, so we stop at an Indian reservation that has a casino on its land and a gas station to …
One afternoon this month, a bunch of friends gathered together to share some food and fun for Jabari’s birthday. Jabari is the author of realtalkonsports.com and has been a family friend for ages. I’m so happy and honored to know someone with as much passion …
During another evening around Santa Barbara, Brandon and I decided to break his boycott on Mexican food. After working a year and a half in a Mexican restaurant you need a little break from it, but we decided it was time to find some delicious Mexican in Santa Barbara, so we stopped by Los Agaves. A lovely little place on Milpas, the whole restaurant was buzzing with so many people deciding to have dinner here on a weekday evening. There’s something interesting and unique about Los Agaves, as you walk in, a line of people is generally standing, perusing the overhead chalk board specials and the printed menu. Everyone is searching for a seat-yourself table as they are hard to come by in the peak hours of the evening. As we watched for a table while deciding on what we should eat, the choices of delicious items seemed to overwhelm me. After ordering, you can find your way to the wonderful plethora of fresh salsas and at your table, a bowl of freshly fried corn chips arrives. We ordered a side of guacamole, which was delicious and very creamy.
I wanted everything, but we eventually decided on Cochinita Pibil (slow-roasted Mexican pork in banana leaves), which was served with pinto beans, a very spicy habanero salad and freshly made corn tortillas. The pork was tender and wonderfully prepared. You could taste the slow-cooking spices and fragrant banana leaves essence. I ordered the Mole Enchiladas, which were served with rice and pinto beans. The mole was prepared skillfully; it had the strong chocolatey, spicy, deeply earthy flavors of slow-cooking and years of experience. The chicken in the enchiladas was mouth-watering, seated in tender tortillas and smothered in mole. Small amount of toasted sesame seeds finished the plate and added another depth of flavor.
Overall, the meal was fantastic and the service was wonderful and pleasant. From the open kitchen you could see how hard every person in that small space was working to make all this amazing food for so many people to enjoy. I’m really glad we broke the boycott with such an amazing meal.
cheers
-Unrivaledkitch
My niece, Maleeya, just recently turned one on Easter, which was April 8th, so we decided that it would be a good idea to celebrate Easter with our family, including a small birthday celebration for her and then, the following Sunday, have her huge birthday …
My sister-in-law, Viet Linh’s, birthday is just one day before my sister’s birthday. I’m always exhausted and super busy during March, but it’s always fun. For Viet-Linh’s birthday I was happily invited to dinner at a beautiful restaurant called Raphael. It’s located in the very …
If you haven’t had pork belly, you should eat it right away. Pork belly is brilliant, fatty, decadent and delicious. The sweetness and tartness of the tangerine is a really nice combination with sort of Spanish flavors. I love balsamic marinated steaks. They give that luxurious feeling of tartness and the char that you get when vinegar is grilled is something that is an unlikely flavor combination. I can’t really say anything more about sausage and Swiss chard. It’s probably one of my favorite combinations, though I do love a little rapini as well. But the Swiss chard gives a little bitterness and crunch to the polenta, along with sweet red onions and spicy pork sausage with fennel and other Italian seasonings, you honestly can’t go wrong. If you took the sausage out, and made spicy red onion marmalade with Swiss chard and rapini, that would be delicious as well.
Menu
Balsamic, Honey, Garlic, Parsley and Worcestershire Sauce Marinated and Grilled Skirt Steak
Tangerine, Cumin, Coriander, White Wine and Cilantro Marinated Pork Belly Slow-Braised Then Seared
Spicy Italian Sausage Polenta with Swiss Chard and Red Onion
Grilled Asparagus and Grilled Zucchini
It’s unlikely that you’ve cooked with me, unless we worked together. I have to be in the right mood to cook with others, and since I’ve mostly cooked on my own for the last year and a half, it’s a learning experience to cook with someone else in the kitchen. I love teaching and showing people how to cook something new, but I think it’s a mindset; you need to be in that mode of thinking. If I’m just creating from a space of freedom, it’s harder for me to vocalize exactly what needs to be done. Lucky for me, I have Bistecca who already pretty much knows what I’m thinking anyway and if I have my moments of insanity, he already knows how to deal with them. Like the occasional, “Hey don’t burn my stuff!” Even though he’s cooked a million steaks and grilled a billion vegetables before. I can be quite the kitchen tyrant at times; it’s a territorial thing. He got a pretty amazing meal out of it, so I think it was worth it. I’m sure you’ll see many a brilliant meal from the two of us in the future, but this one was pretty phenomenal.
cheers
-Unrivaledkitch
Hidden amongst eateries of all sorts, though not known for its culinary successes, Mammoth plays host to a few gems along the way; one of these fine places is Roberto’s Cafe. I’ve written about this Mexican food before, but I figured a couple more pictures …