Foodies Tuesdays: Chinese Noodles, Part 2: Specialties

Noodle specialty dishes: 
  • Hokkien (Fujian) ban mian, hand-rolled egg noodles served in sesame butter sauce and soup, sometimes w/ fried anchovies.
  • Traditional Sichuan dan dan mian: Consists of a spicy sauce containing preserved vegetables, chili oil, Sichuan peppers, pork, and scallions served over noodles.
  • Re gan mian: breakfast fare from Hubei province. Hand-pulled wheat-based noodles over which a mixture of soy sauce, sesame paste, pickled vegetables, chopped garlic chives, and rice vinegar is poured.
  • And many peoples' favorite, zhajiang mian (more info), a Beijing-style dish with thick wheat noodles and a mixture of ground pork stir-fried with fermented soybean paste.

My first attempt at green curry pork.

I didn't take a picture.  But here's what I did:
  • Browned diced onion and minced garlic in a pan w/ oil.
  • Added small chunks of pork
  • Added diced Chinese eggplant (the long kind, not the nasty fat kind).  Next time, I will slice them on a bias instead.
  • Added coconut milk (between 1-2c.)
  • Added 2-3 generous spoonfuls of green curry paste that I bought at 99 ranch
  • It was a bit salty, so added a helping of frozen veggies at the last minute (peas, carrots, corn, beans)
Probably my favorite Thai dish!  Delish!

@Google Talks

Something of which I could not take much advantage once I moved to a different building were the @Google Talks held almost every day on the Google campus.  This is truly one of the best perks the company offers--exposure to great thinkers, experts, and all-around amazing people you would normally have to be attending a university to maybe, perhaps, if you're lucky, get to see.

I'm not sharing this to rub it in your faces--I was sad about leaving the company if it meant I wouldn't be able to see these talks anymore.  BUT, to my delight, I discovered that most @Google Talks are posted, in their entirety, right on YouTube.  You can find the full listing of talks here.

Some of the most amazing people I saw in person were:

Back in SF: Clement St., Inner Richmond

Went to Ka-Mei Restaurant Supply last week for some dirt-cheap kitchen stuff.  Got a cleaver, bread knife, 2 other kitchen knives, egg slicer, tea infuser, citrus juicer, honey wand, and a bunch of other stuff.

Stopped into Good Luck for some really fresh and tasty dim sum items (har gow, egg tart, shu mai, turnip cakes, dumplings, wu kok, and ham swe kok), as well as some place that had happy hour specials (veggies for $4, pork and thousand-year-old egg congee for $2.75, and honey walnut shrimp for $4).

Other LA Stuff: Porto's Bakery!

This is a must-visit every time I take a trip to the LA area.  One of my favorite bakeries--Porto's Bakery, in Burbank & Glendale, a Cuban bakery that serves up generous helpings of sweets, snacks, and sandwiches for a beautifully low price.  I got 14 guava-cheese strudels (the BEST thing they make!), 2 apple strudels, 3 potato balls, and a cubano sandwich for something like $18.

Strudels: guava jam and cream cheese in a puff pastry shell.
Balls: minced spiced meat wrapped in mashed potatoes, breaded and fried
Sandwich: slow-roasted pork, ham, cheese, butter, and pickles on flaky white bread