Fish Bowl Poké

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Fish Bowl Poké is the new offering from the creators of Ramen Kazama. It’s set up as a Chipotle style “pick from a category“ lunch line. The interior is spartan but comfortable and heavily dominated by the menu board. The initial gauntlet of choices and terminology was daunting, but I wasn’t having to much trouble.  Ironically, my biggest challenge was that the manager was very excited to explain the system while I was trying to read the board and it just made me confused.

I chose the Rock-N-Roll offering with Tuna as my protein in a large bowl. It needs to be noted that there is, much like any bibimbap or rice bowl, a lot of rice in this thing. I could have easily gone with the small or medium bowl. That said, it's a great sharing size. One of my favorite things in life is fresh cool veggies on warm rice and this delivered. The cucumber, tomato, and edamame were great and the sauce was flavorful but not overwhelming. It's a great summer cooler of a bowl and, if I were to offer any suggestion, could only have been improved with an egg.

Wishing them success - 7.9/10

Breakfast Rice

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Weekend breakfast is normally my domain but this day she grabbed the reins and shoved me aside.

And killed it. 

Smoked salmon and spring onion tossed in day old rice with scrambled eggs that are just barely seasoned with fish sauce. She calls it “Poor Man’s Breakfast”, I call it delicious. Actually the rice is normally plain and the cucumbers are a rare addition; so this was more like “Deluxe Breakfast”.

Any variant of this - 10/10

Bánh Xèo

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Dinner and a movie, and a cat.

We had homemade Bánh Xèo in her continuing quest to perfect the family recipe. She struggled a little with the ratio of rice starch to rice flour, but in the end it came together. The usual assortment of greens and fish sauce were, of course, on hand. We also had some grilled lamb ribs and hot sauce; because grilled lamb ribs and hot sauce.

7.5/10 - Next time will be a home run!

Mussels in Pernod Sauce

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Took inspiration from “Cheers to the Publican: repast and present” Mussels in Sour Beer recipe. We were sans sour beer so I punted with Pernod (I have been looking for reasons to experiment with this liqueur) and dry Vermouth,  garnished with Meyer lemons from our neighbor down the street who is lucky enough to be resupplied annually from her father living in the Bay Area. A tasty recipe I would make variations on to suit my ever fickle food fancies. Our take on Surf & Turf night—I am surf, he is turf (except when in Peru).

Hot Sauce Taste Test

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I did a taste test of the Hot Ones Last Dab sauces this morning. Hot Ones sells them through an online store called Heatonist out of Brooklyn, NY. I have the Moruga Scorpion (left) and the Carolina Reaper (right) versions. I also have their Feiry Chipotle and it’s exceptional. I boiled up some eggs in my usual 7 minute way that leaves the yolk runny but warm. Each got a small dab of the sauce and then was topped with salt, crushed cardamom seads, radish, and chopped spring onions.

At an advertised 2,000,000+ scovile units (as a rule I don’t believe the accuracy of those numbers) it’s an understatement to call them hot. Torture might be more like it. But, the folks at Hot Ones seem to care about flavor as much as heat and these were actually quite flavorful. Both varieties use the same base recipe of distilled vinegar, ginger root, turmeric, coriander, cumin, and dried mustard giving the opportunity to taste the difference in the peppers. The Scorpion pepper had the distinct vinegar flavor that often comes from sauces that about heat not flavor which was a little disappointing. The Reaper on the other had is nicely balanced and has the distinct pepper sweetness and flavor that you might expect from a bell pepper. Oh and pain, they both had pain.

As sauces I give them: 

  • Reaper 9.5/10
  • Scorpion 7.2/10

Miyabi

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We received a gift card from my parents at Christmas for Miyabi Sushi in Excelsior. We're always looking for good Sushi around town and were excited to try it out. I ordered my usual assortment of Nigiri with a tobiko, or two, for desert. I also thought I would get a roll this time and went for the salmon. She, always surprising me, went with the Calamari Dragon roll that's stuffed with bbq eel, seaweed salad, avocado, and cucumber. It's topped with eel sauce, mango salsa, spicy aioli, tobiko, and scalion. I don't really like squid all that much but had to acknowledge that presentation here is incredible.

In general, we enjoyed it, and the trip out to Excelsior. Specifically, neither of us felt that the flavor or service was enough to get us to make the trip again. Maybe we'll stop if we're in the neighborhood, but definitely no special trips.

6.8/10