Afternoon Tea in San Francisco, Japanese Style!

My favourite photo of the Japanese Tea Garden

Among many food adventures with my father, we included a trip to the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. It was rumoured that they offered tea tasting, but to our disappointment, the menu only offered some tea sets, sweets and a small selection of entrées. We decided to stay for a spot of "afternoon tea" despite the limited menu and this is what we ate...

We ordered a Jasmine Tea Set each, one with mochi cakes and one with salty rice crackers.

Jasmine tea with mochi cakes and salty rice crackers

Mochi cakes split in half to share

The bottom of my Jasmine tea cup

We still felt peckish after these bites and it was almost lunchtime so we decided to order a couple of larger dishes to share. We were very intrigued by the sound of the Green tea soup (Nori Ochazuke) and we also ordered the Japanese noodle soup (Udon).

Nori Ochazuke, Green tea seaweed rice soup

Pouring the tea into the rice

The dish is ready to eat!

The Nori Ochazuke arrived in two pieces: the tea in a teapot and the rice, puffed rice kernals and seaweed in an accompanying bowl. We absolutely loved the variety of textures in this dish; crunchy rice kernals, chewy seaweed strips, bouncy boiled rice and a delicately flavoured watery broth.

Udon, Japanese wide noodles in a fish broth

The Udon was served with a fishcake and some sliced spring onions on top. We enjoyed the bouncy texture of the wide noodles but did not find it as exciting as the Nori Ochazuke.

The Tea House inside the Japanese Tea Garden

Iris in the Japanese Tea Garden

Although the menu is limited, the gardens are stunning. It was a great place to play with my camera! I highly recommend a visit here if ever one is in the area.

The Glamorous Life Of An Intern: Part Two

Concannon wine glass

Over the past few weeks I have been participating in an internship with The Perishable Foods Council of Northern California, as well as the internship with Culture Magazine. With the PFC I experienced tours of many different areas of the food industry across Northern California. The sites we visited included Fiscalini Cheese in Modesto, Tony's Fine Foods in Sacramento, Nugget Markets in Sacramento, Fresh Choice in Sacramento, Taylor Farms in Tracy, Safeway Research and Development in Walnut Creek, Foster Farms in Modesto, Acosta Brokers in Pleasanton and we finished off with Concannon Winery in Livermore.

Inside Concannon Winery

We were generously given an exclusive tour of the winery, as well as a laboratory experience where we performed various experiments on wines.

Myself in the lab

We finished our day at Concannon with an Italian potluck (I baked my Thyme, Orange, Almond and Chocolate Biscotti!) and a private wine tasting with the charming Estate Manager, Jim Ryan.

The gardens and vineyards at Concannon

The dinner and wine tasting were held in the stunning Wine Library with Jim and it was a fabulous end to a very enjoyable and successful internship.

The beautiful Wine Library

Unfortunately, the end of my California experience is creeping up on me. I wish it could last forever! My internship with the PFC has not only enhanced my CV, but it has given me a great insight into the potential life as a Food Scientist in Northern California. Perhaps this is not the end of my California experience, but the beginning...?!

The Stinking Rose - San Francisco, CA

A candle inside The Stinking Rose

From the moment that I heard of the "We season our garlic with food" restaurant, The Stinking Rose, I knew it was somewhere that I had to go with my father.

My father is one of those people who could sit in baths of garlic and still not get enough of it. I commonly find myself pinching one of his crisps, only to find (to my horror) that it was covered with garlic granules!

Garlic and empty wine bottles hanging from the ceiling inside the restaurant

Due to my sensitive palate, I frequently suffer from garlic "hangovers". I believe them to be worse than those caused by alcohol. Sometimes, my mouth suffers for over twenty four hours, polluting everything that I eat in that time with garlic.

My father had flown over from England to visit me. Although I have this huge potential for garlic hangovers, I felt that I couldn't not visit The Stinking Rose during my Study Abroad Year (here in California), especially when my father (AKA Garlic Lover) was here.

The ceiling of empty wine bottles

The restaurant had rich red walls smothered with photos and candlesticks, a ceiling with hundreds upon hundreds of empty wine bottles and a warm and lively atmosphere.

Freshly baked fococcia

With family and close friends, it goes without saying that we share everything we order. We started with the "garlic soaking in a hot tub": garlic cloves, oven roasted with extra virgin olive oil and butter with a hint of anchovy, served on an iron skillet. This had a surprisingly low pungency, that I enjoyed. It was the perfect accompaniment for the freshly baked fococcia bread that arrived on our table within seconds of sitting down.

"Garlic in a hot tub"

For mains, my father ordered the Double Mussels and Crab Sizzling Iron Skillet and I ordered the The Silence of the Lamb Shank with Chianti Glaze, Fava Beans and Garlic Yukon Gold Mashed Potatoes.

Double Mussels and Crab on a Sizzling Skillet

The seafood was covered in this suspicious-looking but rather delicious grey sauce. Even with the bulk of the dish being shells rather than edible food, we still didn't manage to finish it!

The lamb fell off of the bone and melted in the mouth. The Chianti glaze was divine with the succulent meat, and the garlic was not overpowering. I struggled to save enough of it to share with my father.

Silence of the Lamb Shank

We were very keen to try the garlic ice cream, however, to our dismay, there was no room left for a dessert (I'm sure that the two bottles of delectable Chianti contributed to making us both replete).

Our evening at The Stinking Rose was a fabulous experience and I would recommend that everyone go and enjoy it for themselves. I had feared a horrific garlic hangover (wouldn't even a non-sensitive palate predict a garlic hangover after dining at a restaurant where they "season their garlic with food"?!) I was, however, pleasantly surprised, the next morning, to experience only a very subtle garlic hangover.

Ice Cream Sandwiches in Berkeley, CA

My latest addiction: ice cream sandwiches. I am still drinking boba tea but these have taken over.

Summer has now arrived and much of my time is spent outside, whether I am studying by the pool, "chilling" in the hot tub or enjoying a barbeque with my friends. The sunny weather is the perfect excuse for an ice cream sandwich!

As with every visit I make to a city, I always look for the best places to eat. One absolute must, when visiting Berkeley, is C.R.E.A.M (Cookies Rule Everything Around Me). One great sign of C.R.E.A.M is that I've always seen huge queues outside of the shop.

The cookies are always freshly baked and warm and there are many ice cream choices to make one's perfect ice cream sandwich. One Sunday afternoon in Berkeley, I visited C.R.E.A.M with a friend. We ordered a Turtle Cookie with Coffee Almond Fudge ice cream and a White Chocolate and Macadamia Nut Cookie with Old Fashioned Cherry Vanilla ice cream. These were two divine pairings.

Initially, we decided to share the sandwiches, but I was so overwhelmed by the Turtle cookie that I could only bear to share one bite... (I am mean!) As if they were only $2 each?!

Homemade Boba Tea

Boba, bubble, tapioca. Whatever it's called, I love it and it's my latest addiction!

There seems to be something satisfying about slurping up a boba through the chunky straw and playing a mini game of oral-squash with your tongue, whilst drenching your taste buds with delicious ice-cold milky tea.

In my search for tapioca pearls, I came across some plain ones in the local Asian market, as well as some dark ones, of which, the packaging stated clearly that their use was for boba drinks, unlike the plain.

I first experimented with the plain large tapioca pearls. I found various recipes on the internet but ended up going along with my own... I boiled the pearls in water with a 1:7 ratio for about 30 minutes. The water became incredibly starchy, so I rinsed the pearls with cold water and boiled them up again, as they were still fairly firm and had formed only a thin translucent layer, which indicated that they were not cooked all the way through. I boiled the pearls for the second time for around 20 minutes.

The water became fairly starchy again, so I rinsed them again with cold water. Although they still had a white opaque inside, they were chewy throughout. They were significantly smaller than the tapioca pearls that I am used to consuming in the teas that I have bought. They also had a soft non-bouncy texture (perhaps overcooked). I stored them over night in a sugar syrup. The following day the texture of the pearls had changed dramatically. They literally disintregrated in the mouth leaving a rather disgusting soggy, grainy texture - fairly unpleasant!

I decided to try the dark pearls that were specifically for the use of boba teas. These were advertised that they "only take 5 minutes". I boiled these for the 5 minutes and rinsed the starchy residues with cold water. These were much more bouncy and chewy and had the consistency that I was looking for! Hurrah!

I am not entirely sure what the recipe should look like for Boba Tea. I made mine up as I went along and it proved to be quite a success!

I brewed one chai tea bag in half a mug of hot water, sweetened it with two teaspoons of honey and set it aside to cool. I then boiled the tapioca pearls for a good half an hour and rinsed them with cold water once they had finished cooking. I combined a generous helping of tapioca pearls with the tea and topped up the glass with ice and almond milk. After a quick stir it was ready to consume!

Most restaurants that serve Boba teas have a vast selection to choose from, with milks ranging from almond to coconut, and teas from black with spiced apple to green with rose. Most restaurants that I have visited also offer many "slushies" to go with the tapioca pearls also. My current restaurant-favourite is probably green tea with rose and coconut milk, but, as with all things in my life, I love variety, so my "favourite" changes frequently.

The beauty of following this simple recipe at home is that you can create it to comply whatever your specifications may be. I wonder what yours would be? Earl Grey tea with lavender, almond milk and honey? Green tea with molasses and coconut milk? Or, perhaps, a coffee with hazelnut syrup and regular milk? And, who says you can't add a drop or two of Baileys to it?! :)

Schlurrrrrrrrrrrrrp!

Happy 1st Birthday to Chicken in a Cherry Sauce!

Pooof! A year has magically gone by in a flash and the day of my blog's first birthday has arrived!

This time last year, I wrote my very first post during my Easter holidays on some chai cupcakes that I had made for a cupcake party. I was impressed with the photos that I had taken of the cupcakes, and I had also seen a few food blogs before. So, with the encouragement of my friend Harriet (a Fashion Journalist student who also has a blog, Sugar Lips) I decided to start my food blog.

Over the year, I have been completely overwhelmed with each new blog that I have discovered. I think that the food blogging world is extraodinarily inspirational and I feel very priviledged to be part of it. Thank you to every blogger that has inspired me.

Please forgive my "cheesiness", but I would like to thank everyone who has read my blog. To be honest, I am not entirely sure who actually reads it! But thank you, oh so much, to those that do. Also, I would like to give a special thank you to those who communicate with me about my blog via comments. I have felt truly touched by some extremely kind and generous comments that you have left me. It has been such an absolute pleasure to hear that people enjoy reading my blog. I remember how excited I was to receive my first comment from a friend, and then to receive my first comment from a fellow food blogger. What a wonderful experience this past year has been. I never knew such happiness could stem from blogging!

Sometimes I have felt sorry for Chicken in a Cherry Sauce, as, at times, I have been so busy that I have neglected the blog a little. I hope that I will manage to continue and develop this blog in the future. I also hope that you, my lovely readers, will be patient and continue the great support that you have given me through my blog thus far.

I like to think of all of you, who communicate with me through my blog, as my friends.

I look forward to the next year and hope to keep up as life gets busier!

California's Artisan Cheese Festival

California's Artisan Cheese Festival wine glass

After a rather lively and exceedingly enjoyable week in beautiful Mexico (and after a night of 3 hours sleep!), I went to my second event with Culture Magazine - California's Artisan Cheese Festival in Petaluma, North California.

As we were setting up our stand, we spoke with the girls next to us from Clover Stornetta Farms, Petaluma. They had a collection of different butters with them. We were given a personal demonstration of hand-butter churning before our eyes. Within a few minutes of shaking this pot of cream, it had transformed into beautiful crystals of butter and buttermilk.

The girls from Clover Stornetta Farms churning their butter

The girls with their butter

Butter crystals and buttermilk

Cinnamon sugar butter and thyme butter from Clover Stornetta Farms

Not only was the event filled with countless samples of cheese including towering cliffs of delicious blue from Point Reyes and lavender and espresso dusted Beehive Cheese... I discovered many new and exciting products of the food world.

Espresso and lavender dusted Beehive Cheese

Towering cliffs of delicious blue from Point Reyes

Goat milk fudge

Goat milk fudge stand

Some of these splendiferous discoveries included goat milk fudge, wine infused cookies, olive oil chocolate, peanut butter sandwich cookies, mini lemon meringue pies, exclusive olive oils, bacon bread, a rather interesting new product named “glop” (made from a selection of oils and cheeses), and I was thrilled about bumping into a familiar item that I fell in love with at Cochon 555 – my beloved toffee bacon lollipop! What a delight! I bagged myself three of these beauties.

Toffee bacon lollipop!

Samples of "glop" on crackers

Mini lemon meringue pies from Viola

Peanut butter sandwich cookies from Viola

Croque monsieur from Viola

Wine-infused cookies

Wine-infused cookie samples

Olive oil samples

And, of course, you can see that there was so much more to offer. How fabulous!

Piccante samples

Grape sodas

Le Merle from North Coast Brewing Company

Cheese samples to go with beer from North Coast Brewing Company

Endive dipped into blue with toasted pecans

Cheese and bacon corn bread

Needless to say, my eyes and palate were completely overwhelmed by the sheer variety and quality of the samples on offer. The numerous glasses of delectable wines and intriguing beers certainly helped all this food go down!

P.S. Please excuse the lateness of this post, this past week I've barely found time to sleep!