Veggie Monologues

Black-eyed peas with Daikon Radish

2012-01-15T20:23:00.000-08:00

Since last year, V and I have been trying to follow some basic rules to eat healthy, one of which is to prepare soups, stews, kormas or curries with a variety of beans or lentils as one of our staple meals for the week. We cook over the weekend and make enough to last us at least till Thursday.

When we make beans (black-eyed peas, garbanzo beans, red kidney beans, adzuki, etc.), we soak them in slightly warm water overnight, discard the water and then pressure cook it with a pinch of turmeric. It is important to soak the beans before cooking to neutralize the anti-nutrients they contain. For soups or stews, it is good to throw in a piece of kombu in the soaking water but that doesn't work too well for Indian dishes. The same applies for brown rice which has replaced white rice and wheat at our place - we soak it for a whole day in warmish water, discard the water and then pressure cook. Apparently it is beneficial to add a tablespoon of fermented yogurt during the soaking process, but we keep forgetting to do this.

Coming to today's recipe, V and I fell in love with the "koottu" that amma had made during her visit with black-eyed peas and white pumpkin (ashgourd). Koottu is a South Indian stew made with any type of lentils and vegetables and is usually eaten with rice. Most often it is made with split dehusked moong daal (payatham paruppu). I have since then re-created amma's recipe with other vegetables like chayote squash and it turns out equally delicious.

Yesterday, I soaked a cup of black-eyed peas at night without giving it too much thought, fully intending to use amma's recipe again with the wonderful fresh daikon that I had in the fridge. However, V changed my game plan and found a new recipe in one of our favorite cookbooks. Cooking at home with Pedatha is one of those cookbooks that is a pleasure to use, since it has gorgeous pictures and recipes that produce consistently good results. We always turn to this book if we want a slight variation from our regular Tamilian cooking. Pedatha recipes are from Andhra (a neighboring state in Southern India) and believe it or not, the subtle differences in the preparation of the same basic dishes result in a huge difference to the palate!

I adapted the recipe titled "Brinjal Pasty Vegetable" and substituted the brinjal with daikon radish, but mostly followed the original recipe otherwise.

Recipe for Black-eyed peas with Daikon Radish
Recipe adapted from "Cooking at Home with Pedatha" by Jigyasa Giri and Pratibha Jain

Ingredients:
1 cup black-eyed peas
1 medium daikon radish, chopped in to medium-sized cubes
Ginger, 1 inch piece grated
Green chilies, 3-4 slit
1 Tbsp Safflower / Canola Oil
Salt to taste
Chopped cilantro for garnish
Pinch Turmeric

For tempering:
1 tsp mustard seeds
3 tsps urad daal (split black gram)
2 dry red chilies
Pinch asafoetida (hing / perungaayam)
1 sprig Curry leaves

Method:

Soak the black-eyed peas overnight in 2-3 cups of water. Drain the water. Add about a cup of water, and the turmeric and pressure cook.
In a pan, heat the oil. Add the mustard seeds. When they sputter, add the urad daal and red chilies. When the urad daal is golden brown, add the asafoetida, red chilies and curry leaves. Finally add the split green chilies.
Add the cubed daikon, sprinkle about 4 Tbsps of water, add a pinch of turmeric, cover and cook on low until it is soft. Coarsely mash if desired.
Add the cooked black-eyed peas, grated ginger and salt and bring to a boil, then reduce heat and cook for 5 minutes. (Add more water with the black-eyed peas if it is too thick for your taste.)
Garnish with cilantro and serve with brown rice or rotis.

This is my entry for the January challenge at Lisa's Vegetarian Kitchen, a wonderful blog with great Indian vegetarian recipes.

Veggie Monologues recipe is picked up by examiner.com

2012-01-09T11:57:00.000-08:00

My original recipe for Stuffed Acorn Squash has been picked up by Examiner.com as the "go-to vegetarian main dish on Thanksgiving". Thanks examiner.com! It is a healthy, and delicious main dish which can be prepared quite easily.

http://www.examiner.com/healthy-food-in-knoxville/8-best-acorn-squash-recipes-cooking-fall-s-versatile-veggie

A Vegetarian in New York City

2012-01-09T00:04:00.000-08:00

Christmas in New York City! What a lovely time to visit the Big Apple. The place is absolutely packed, but glittering, exciting and totally happening! Luckily for us, there was no snow this year, although it was bitterly chilly. We were able to walk pretty much every where in Manhattan and we did end up clocking 6 to 10 miles every day!

As for food, it is not hard for a vegetarian in NYC. Vegetarian choices abound in restaurants and even on street corner trucks. As a fall-back option, there is always the famous New York thin crust pizza with tons of toppings.

My last trip to NYC was almost 5 years back over a weekend, although V has been back several times. Our exclusive vegetarian restaurant choices last time were Red Bamboo in Greenwich Village, and Zen Palate near Times Square, both of which are still around and still highly rated. This time, we did not hunt down exclusively vegetarian places (except for one in China Town) and decided to keep it fairly flexible since a lot of places might be closed on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Part I: Empanadas before and after theatre
Of course the first place V took me to is his favorite haunt in Hells Kitchen - Empanada Mama. This is where he grabs a quick takeout when he is working late, since they are open 24 hours a day and are a quick walk from hotels in Mid Town. Empanadas are stuffed pastries made with wheat or corn flour and served as appetizers or even as a main dish in many Latin American countries. V is so fond of this food that on the last day of the hike in Machu Picchu when every one was pretty much wiped out, V went on an expedition to hunt down empanadas for dinner! Empanada Mama has several vegetarian options and also ones made with corn flour which made it easy for us to get a filling meal (since I am off wheat).

We started off with the avocado salad, made with really fresh cucumbers, avocado and romaine, and topped with a cumin lemon dressing. Then we ordered several empanadas - ‘Spinach and Cheese’, ‘Veggie’, ‘Broccoli and Cheese’ & ‘Rice and Beans’. The ‘Veggie’ made with potatoes, carrots and lima beans and the ‘Rice and Beans’ were our favorites. In fact, we again did a take out of the same on Christmas day when it was one of the few places that was open. This place is a must-try for any visitor in New York who wants to grab a quick ethnic bite!

Part II: Another quick (veggie) bite
Another favorite haunt of V’s to grab a quick veggie bite is Maoz, an all-vegetarian falafel place that has branches all over the City. Interestingly, Maoz was started in Amsterdam! The food is okay, nothing different from the usual falafel wrap places, but the convenience is unbeatable. They also have an extensive salad bar, and quick service. Most of their locations have very limited seating.

Part III: Christmas Eve in NYC
Probably the only day when the crowds really got to us. We were so completely mobbed out that we needed a quiet place to grab a cup of coffee. To our dismay, a lot of the places that were not in our near the shopping were closed. Finally we chanced upon a lovely little cafe displaying colorful macaroons tucked away in a side street not too far from the shops in Midtown West. We walked in to Macaron Cafe with a sigh of relief and ordered fresh french-pressed coffee and a macaroon each. There is not too much seating inside but we found the couch empty. The shop had a steady stream of visitors but most of them were picking up boxes of macaroons, presumably for their Christmas gifts.

For dinner that night, we ended up doing a pizza takeout. How could we come to New York and not have the famous thin-crust pizza? The pizza from a place right below our hotel in Times Square was pretty good and loaded with toppings.

Part IV: There is such a thing as vegetarian dimsum!
On Christmas Day, we decided to walk across Brooklyn Bridge and then explore China Town and Little Italy neighborhoods. V picked out a vegetarian dimsum place in China Town. When he called to confirm around 10 whether they would be open for lunch, pat came the answer “Why else would I be here answering the phone”, said in a good-humored way. We were quite ravished when we reached Buddha Bodai, and were amazed to find a huge mob outside the restaurant and also huddled in the small opening near the counter inside. We felt sorry for the family of four whose table unfortunately was mobbed by the crowds near the door and decided to wait outside. It wasn’t a long wait, but we were asked if we could share a table with another party of two. We had no problems doing so and ended up sitting across from a Chinese lady and her mom who was in her eighties, who were very obliging with their help with the menu.

Service was friendly, albeit a little frantic. The same man who had joked with V on the phone, took our order and was just as jovial. We ticked off a bunch of items from the dimsum menu with the help of the Chinese lady and then V ordered the “Veggie Chicken in Black Pepper Sauce” and I ordered the “Sauteed Rice Noodle Thailand Style”. Although the two main dishes were good, we really enjoyed the dimsum items a lot. It is not usual to find vegetarian choices in dimsum restaurants, so this was a special treat! I cannot even tell you what we ordered, couple of them were steamed and had taro filling, and sweet lotus seed filling. One of them was fried peppers stuffed with some tasty filling. One of them was a flaky pastry with daikon. All were yummy!

After lunch we walked around China Town and came across the famous “China Town Icecream Factory” but were too full to get any dessert.

Part V: Dosa and Deja Vu
On our last day in New York, we walked Central Park just for the nostalgia. It was bitterly cold, even with the sunshine but starkly scenic. Wollman Rink was packed with skaters. After a walk around the reservoir, we crossed over to Upper West Side to grab a late lunch. We had planned on going to “Peacefood Cafe”, but when we got there we were intrigued by the place next door called “Hampton Chutney Co. ”. The place served the South Indian speciality called dosai which is a rice and lentil crepe, traditionally served with coconut chutney and sambar. Hampton had a made the ordinary dosa interesting by making up a variety of filling, be warned that just a few of them were vegetarian. V ordered the dosa with “seasonal butternut squash and goat cheese” filling, and I ordered the “spinach & mushroom” one. Both were fresh, and good, but not rave-worthy. The chutneys came in very small plastic cups, and were just okay as well. The place was not at all crowded despite the fact that they served meat.

After our lunch, we did end up walking next door to Peacefood Cafe. Something must have drawn us in, because we ended up spending the next two hours in the cafe, sipping our Brazil Nut chai (made from scratch) with delicious vegan baked treats. The cafe has a great bakery display when you enter, and most of their pastries are vegan. They have plenty of seating inside but it did take us around 15 minutes to get a table. We got seated close to a huge bookshelf where the owner had proudly displayed his vegetarian cookbook collection, which is what ended up keeping us busy for the next couple of hours!! V found a great Chinese vegetarian cookbook, which was mostly written in Chinese but had some English translation. The owner seemed to recognize us from a previous birth, and enquired why we had not come in a long time, but refused to part with his Chinese cookbook which he said was a rare find!

We left New York gastronomically satisfied, having tried a variety of ethnic cuisines that the City promises! If there are a few places that we would recommend from our trip, they would be “Empanada Mama”, “Buddha Bodai” and “Peacefood Cafe”.

Pachcha Thakkali Thokku (Raw tomato pickle)

2011-11-25T19:54:00.000-08:00

I waited for the last tomatoes of summer in the garden to ripen to no avail. The days are getting colder and the nights are getting frostier, and I would probably end up losing all of them to blight. So I decided to pick them, and then promptly called amma to ask her what to do with them. Appa who picked up the phone said "it is quite elementary, just make koottu". I did and it was quite yummy, but I had a more tomatoes left over. So I went hunting for recipes online.

I was lucky to find a recipe for thokku on pachakam.com. I immediately sent it to amma, who totally approved of it. She makes a wonderful thokku with ripe tomatoes, and we both were curious to see what raw tomato thokku would taste like. I followed the recipe pretty faithfully for the most part, except change the order of things a bit. When amma makes ripe tomato thokku, she add tamarind (puLi) for a little sour twinge, but this ingredient was missing from the raw tomato thokku recipe that I found, although pretty much all the other ingredients are the same.

Ingredients:

Raw tomatoes, around 10, cut in to small pieces
Sesame oil - 1/2 cup
Chili powder - 2-3 Tbsp
Powdered fenugreek (vendhaya podi) - 1 tsp
Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1 Tbsp
Asafoetida powdered (Hing / Perungayam) - 1 tsp
Salt to taste - around 1.5 to 2 Tbsp

Method:

Heat 1/4th cup of sesame oil
Add mustard seeds and asafoetida
When the mustard seeds sputter, add the chopped green tomatoes and turmeric powder
After 5 mins, lower heat and cook for around 1 hour stirring occassionally
Half-way through, add the remaining 1/4th cup of sesame oil (The pickle should be of jam consistency when fully done)
Just a couple of minutes before switching off the heat, add the salt, fenugreek powder and chili powder and mix
Bottle and enjoy for up to 2 weeks

The recipe is a super hit at our place. V, who is generally not a oorugaai or thokku person, is enjoying it quite a bit with his thayir saadham.

I told amma to procure raw tomatoes whenever she can find it in Madras and give it a try!

Cabbage with Peas

2011-11-20T15:35:00.000-08:00

Today V made his second vegetable dish from Sumana Ray's "Indian Vegetarian Cooking". The last one from the same book "Mushroom with Potatoes and Onions" was probably one of my favorite creations by V. The cabbage with peas was not only healthy but also quite delicious. Phulkas (with ghee of course), this cabbage curry and a simple daal would have been my dream meal, but I am off wheat now, so I had it with brown rice instead.

Ingredients:

3 Tbsp oil

2 bay leaves

3/4 tsp whole cumin seeds (jeera/ jeeragam)

1 1/2 lb cabbage finely shredded

1 tsp turmeric powder

1/2 tsp chili powder

1 1/2 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

2 tomatoes, chopped

3/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp sugar

4 oz shelled peas

Method:

Heat the oil in a wok. Add the bay leaves and whole jeeragam and let it sizzle
Add the cabbage and stir for 2-3 mins
Add the turmeric, chili powder, cumin powder, coriander powder, salt, sugar and tomatoes and mix
Lower the heat, cover and cook for 15 mins
Add the peas, cover and cook again for 15 mins occasionally stirring
Remove the cover. Turn heat up to medium high and cook until dry stirring continuously

I ground up fresh cumin powder, coriander powder and chili powder on V's request. It was a good idea since the aroma was unbeatable!

V also used the new light-weight Joyce Chen Carbon Steel wok that we had bought just earlier today. It worked out extremely well. I helped V to season the pan before use and also to clean it after use. I believe Carbon Steel woks rust easily. I have to wait and see how this one fares. My Lodge cast iron pan also needs seasoning after each use, but V hates to use it since it is so heavy and does not really suit Chinese stir-fry cooking which V likes to do a lot of.

We also did a fun exercise while V was cooking, which is a tasting test of different brands of coconut water from "Whole Foods". A separate post will be made with the results of the test!

All in all, V had fun cooking and I had fun being "Kitchen Director" although V insisted on calling me his assistant. (He is jealous because I do the bulk of the cooking at home and he is usually the assistant!) A sumptuous and healthy lunch was had with the cabbage curry, "tomato thokku", brown rice and yogurt.

Malabar - An all-vegetarian restaurant in Santa Cruz

2011-11-05T15:43:00.001-07:00

Santa Cruz, CA is a beautiful city in coastal California, home to the famous beach boardwalk and the University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC). As V has been promising me for a while, we took off work on a beautiful fall day to explore UCSC. The campus is really quite unique, nestled among coastal redwoods and overlooking the Pacific ocean. There are several miles of walking trails in the redwoods where one can easily get lost. The campus also has famous arboretum which is where we started our day. We ate a packed picnic lunch at the arboretum, where the sun peeked out once in a while to warm us from the chilly ocean breeze.

After walking for a couple of hours, we started thinking about dinner. So from the campus, we drove to the downtown area where we walked around and got a "Pumpkin Spice Latte" (our favorite fall treat) at the Santa Cruz Roasting Company.

We had already picked out Malabar, an all-vegetarian restaurant, for our dinner. Other than being an all-vegetarian restaurant, it also had rave reviews both on yelp and tripadvisor.com. Actually we tried to have lunch at Malabar the last time we were in Santa Cruz, but unfortunately they were not open. It seems that they might be open for lunch as well now. But just to be sure, it would be better to call them in advance to make sure they are open.

The first thing I noticed about Malabar is the pleasant ambience. The lighting is muted and the hand-painted Buddhist-themed murals on the walls are tasteful and zen, as are the big copper vessels with fresh flowers. We found out from our waiter (actually one of the owners) that the mural paintings are actually done by his wife.

The menu is extensive and surprisingly creative, deriving from Indian, and Southeast Asian cuisines. The owners are from Srilanka (or Ceylon as the British called this tear-shapedisland in the Indian Ocean to the south of India). Malabar seems to be entirely a family-run business with 3 brothers running around doing all the work, while the father (I assumed) taking care of the till. Other than the mother, no one even smiled, but that did not mean they were not helpful.

In fact, our waiter was very helpful in suggesting dishes that our spicy palate would enjoy. He recommended the Jalapeno Pakoras for starters, an excellent choice and we devoured every last bit of it with the delicious mint-coconut chutney.

For the main course, again with our waiter's help, we ordered the "Black Pumpkin curry" and the "Kofta India" with brown rice. Between the two, we definitely enjoyed the Kofta India much more than the curry which was on the sweeter side. The Kofta India had green pea and cashew koftas and other vegetables in a spicy coconut milk tomato curry sauce. With the cashews, peas and coconut milk being on the sweeter side, I was afraid the dish would be too sweet, but in fact it spiced just right, and the koftas were just delicious. The Black Pumpkin curry had huge pieces of kabocha squash (my favorite winter squash) in a curry sauce, garnished with delicious pieces of coconut grilled with ghee.

The portions were fairly generous and we actually brought back some leftovers, mostly the curry. They do not serve dessert unless you call ahead. The waiter said that his wife makes delicious homemade ice cream with honey. We promised him that we would be back with friends and definitely call ahead for the ice cream! We found the service to be fairly attentive and friendly.

The bill came out to around $36 with tips which is not too much if you consider what the other upscale exclusive vegetarian restaurants like "Cafe Millennium" in the City charge. We would have loved to try their interesting drinks (like the Banana Saffron Lassi and Hibiscus cooler), but were not in the mood after the full cups of pumpkin spice latte. We are so excited about our new all-vegetarian restaurant find that we are definitely going to be back soon with friends to try their other dishes... and their drinks!

How to tackle a kabocha squash

2011-10-26T15:15:00.000-07:00

It's autumn!! Although Spring is my favorite time of the year in California, I have fond memories of fall on the east coast during my school years. The good thing about fall in California though is the coming of pumpkins and winter squashes in the markets. I have already tackled two kabocha squashes this season and one butternut squash. These will keep for a long time in a cool dark pantry, so it is not a bad idea to stock up.

The first time I tackled my kabocha squash, I used a lot of force and just cut it in to 2 halves with my Global chef's knife. Then placed them cut-side down in a baking dish with a little bit of water and baked at 400C for around 45 mins covered with foil.

Tough guy!

The second time around, my Global just refused to go through the kabocha. Maybe it was having an off day! So after struggling for a few minutes, I decided to bake it whole and see what happened. This is what I did:

Put a little water at the bottom of the baking dish
Prick the squash a few times with a fork
Place the squash in the baking dish and cover with aluminum foil
Bake at 400C for around 40 minutes

When I took the squash out, my knife went through it pretty easily. I cut it in to 4 pieces and placed it back in the over covered for another 10 minutes. I let it sit in the oven while it cooled.

After taking the squash out, I removed the seeds with my fingers and then cut it up in to pieces. Now it was ready for any recipe or to eat as is!!

The skin of the kabocha is very flavorful, and nutty. Though I sometimes remove the skin of butternut squash, I never do it for kabocha.

Here's my recipe for kabocha squash with lentils.

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp butter
Cumin seeds (jeeragam) and Fennel seeds (sombu) for tempering
5-6 cloves of minced garlic
2-3 thai green chilies sliced in to half (depends on how hot you want it to be)
1 inch piece of ginger grated
3 large ripe tomatoes diced
1 cup chana daal (yellow split peas) soaked and cooked until very soft
1 large kabocha squash prepared as mentioned above
A few springs of cilantro finely chopped for garnish
salt to taste

Heat the butter and add the cumin and fennel seeds. Then add the garlic and after a minute, add the green chilies. Now add the diced tomatoes, cover and let it cook. When the tomatoes have cooked, add the grated ginger, stir and add the lentils and squash. Add salt to taste and let it simmer for a few minutes. Switch off the heat and garnish with chopped cilantro.

A wonderful salad dressing for steamed vegetables

2011-10-23T18:39:00.000-07:00

V has been craving steamed vegetables and salads these days and when I failed to oblige, he seized the knife (metaphorically speaking) and has been delivering delicious results. Today's "Orange Peanut dressing" for steamed broccoli took the cake! I was moved enough to make a posting about it on our blog after a 3 month hiatus.

The recipe is adapted from Book 2 of "Eat for Health" which is a follow up two-series set of Dr. Joel Fuhrman's "Eat to Live" nutrition book. The "Eat to Live" philosophy focuses on eating atleast a pound of salad before every meal, and cutting out all salt and sugar. V and I started following it at the beginning of the year and got interrupted when I handed over the aforementioned metaphorical knife to Amma during my parents' visit. Now we are trying to get back to it again!

So, here is the recipe for the wonderful dressing made by V:

Ingredients:
2 oranges squeezed
1 Tbsp rice vinegar
1 Tbsp Braggs Liquid Aminos
2 Tbsps dry-roasted peanuts
1 Tbsp almond butter
1 inch ginger peeled and sliced
2 cloves garlic
1 Tsp veggie salt
2 dried red chilies

Place all the ingredients in a blender till thoroughly blended. We use Tribest for making dressings, chutneys and our morning smoothies.

Drizzle over steamed broccoli and enjoy!

Ghiya / Lauki Kofta balls in Tomato gravy

2011-07-24T15:05:00.001-07:00

After a busy Saturday, we decided to stay home-bound on Sunday. I have been promising appa that I would make "Paneer parathas" for him and amma has been promising V that she would make her koftas. So we "girls" dedicated the morning for cooking the desired items and of course at the end of it, we left the cleaning to the "boys".

Amma's kofta recipe was an instant hit. She uses "Ghiya" (also called "lauki" or "dhoodhi" in Hindi, "Sorakkai" in Tamil and bottle gourd in English). Bottle gourd is abundantly available in India during summer time (like zucchini in the US) and is supposed to be cooling for the body, in addition to having a ton of other health benefits.

The paneer parathas, which I made, were just okay - Appa declared that he would like it to be more stuffed.

So here's the recipe for just the kofta.

Ingredients:

For kofta balls:

1 medium Ghiya, seeded and grated

2 medium potatoes

4 Tbsp besan (gram flour)

1 medium size carrot - grated

1 tsp chili powder

1 Tbsp garam masala

2 tsp dhania powder (coriander seeds powder)

1 green chilies - very finely minced

1 pinch turmeric

salt to taste

3 Tbsp oil + Oil for frying

Gravy:

1 medium onion

3 large tomatoes

1/2 inch piece ginger

2 green chilies

garlic is optional but we did not use it

1 pinch turmeric

1 pinch chili powder

1 Tbsp garam masala

1 tsp cumin seeds

salt to taste

finely chopped cilantro for garnish

Method:

Making the kofta balls

1. After grating the bottle gourd, let it sit on a colander for the water to drain

2. Boil and mash the potatoes

3. Heat the pan, add the besan and dry roast for few minutes and set aside

4. Heat oil in a pan, add cumin seeds and then add the green chilies

5. Then add the mashed potatoes and a few minutes later, add grated carrots and cook

6. Then add the grated bottle gourd

7. Add all the spices and cook for 10-15 minutes on low heat

8. Then sprinkle the roasted besan slowly and mix

9. Let it cook

10. Make balls with the mixture and set aside. We got around 25 balls with the above ingredients.

11. Heat oil in a deep pan. Add the kofta balls and fry till golden brown. Drain on paper towels and keep aside

Making the gravy

1. Puree the tomatoes, onion, ginger, green chilies (and garlic if using) and keep aside

2. Heat oil in a pan and add cumin seeds

3. Add the ground puree, turmeric, chili powder, coriander powder, salt and let it simmer for 20 minutes till it becomes slightly thick

4. Garnish with chopped cilantro

Right before serving, place gravy in serving cup and drop 2-3 kofta balls into it. Enjoy with chapatis or parathas.

Is Whole Foods evil?

2011-07-18T15:40:00.000-07:00

The "largest" Whole Foods market in the west is almost within walking distance from our place. Still I am not a big fan of shopping there except for a few special items mainly because it drains my wallet quickly. Besides we love to shop at the local Farmer's Market for produce. V, on the other hand, really enjoys the whole shopping experience at "Whole Foods" and also took amma/appa there several times to extol its virtues. Today Slate has an article on the ethics of Whole Foods when it comes to selecting the produce it sells.

http://www.slate.com/id/2138176/

Very informative and balanced, in my opinion. We will continue to purchase our produce at the local Farmer's Market. Whole Foods will remain an special "outing" as it has always been.

Paneer tikki with grated cauliflower

2011-07-17T21:34:00.000-07:00

Preparing a vegetarian meal for meat-eaters is tough, but for me, it is an inspiring challenge. I love to showcase how versatile and tasty a full vegetarian meal can be. Yesterday we had 3 meat-eaters and one vegetarian in our invited group of guests for lunch. We had the additional challenge that one of the guests would tolerate absolutely no spices whatsoever. Happy to say that the entire meal was a huge hit, and so was the conversation and the company.

Going back to the meal, my experimental dish was "Paneer tikki". The rest of the menu included "Mint peas pulao" with "Beetroot raita" and "Green gram sprouts salad with apples and tomatoes", all of which amma made. I wanted something chewy to go with the rice and salad. So decided to make the tikkis. Amma and I pretty much made up the recipe on our own as we went along. Here goes.

Ingredients:

2 cups grated paneer

2 cups grated cauliflower

1 tsp salt (more to taste if needed)

1 tsp chili powder (I toned it down to keep it mellow)

1 tsp garam masala

1 Tbsp corn starch

2-3 Tbsp cold milk

1 cup Bread crumbs

Oil for shallow frying

Method:

1. Mix grated paneer and cauliflower, salt and spices together

(At this point, amma and I realized that we could not make patties out of this mixture as it kept falling apart and so we added step 2.)

2. Mix corn starch in cold milk and slowly add to the mixture until it is slightly wet and can be rolled into balls

3. Make 10 balls, roll in bread crumbs to thoroughly coat and flatten out on to a sheet of wax paper

4. Add oil to a pan and heat (I prefer to use my Lodge cast iron pan as it gets really hot and is great for shallow frying. See below for reasons.)

5. Add three or four tikkis at a time and fry till golden on both sides

6. Remove and serve hot with a sauce of your choice

The tikkis were an unexpected hit. I did not expect them to turn out well considering the minimal spices and especially the untested recipe. We made an onion-tomato chutney to go with it. Will post the other tried-and-tested recipes from the lunch soon.

Going back to my Lodge cast-iron pan, I think it merits a brief discussion. Even though I have never owned any non-stick pans, I inherited some when V and I got married. I quickly devised a plan to phase them out. When I started researching the alternatives, cast-iron pans seemed like a healthy choice. Here are some tips:

Some brands of cast-iron pans can be quite expensive, but "Lodge" sells very affordable cast-iron cookware made in America. I ordered a couple of different pans and pots. I use the flat pan for making dosas or chapatis, and the deep one for making south-indian style vegetable stir-fries (poriyals). (Never use cast-iron with acidic ingredients like tomatoes or tamarind.)
It is a pain to clean and maintain the cast-iron pan. It requires me to wash the pan immediately after I finish cooking and dry it with a towel so that it does not rust. And it will rust if you let it!
It takes a long time to heat up, but it gets very hot and retains the heat for healthy wok-style cooking, especially for stir-fry vegetables.
It needs to be seasoned regularly which also is time-consuming.
Le Creuset sells "Enameled" cast-iron cookware at a considerably higher price. And supposedly the porcelain enamel coating will prevent the cookware from rusting, but I am not sure of the health impacts of the enameling process.
In conclusion I definitely think that bare cast-iron cookware is a healthier option. It introduces tiny amounts of iron in to our food and does not introduce any harmful chemicals.

Finally a quote I read in the San Francisco Chronicle: "We recommend that people phase out the use of Teflon cookware in their home," says Lauren Sucher of the Environmental Working Group, a Washington, D. C., organization that compiles data on toxicology.

Pooshanikkai Kaaramani Koottu

2011-06-27T13:59:00.000-07:00

For a whole month and a half now, I have been off kitchen duty since amma is visiting. She has completely taken over the kitchen, and I am not sure if I will be able to find my way around the pantry when she leaves! However, it has truly been a delight having her cook fresh meals for us every day. I am still amazed at how varied and interesting she keeps it.

One evening over dinner we were discussing dishes with white pumpkin ("pooshanikkai") and appa mentioned that amma "sometimes" makes a delicious "koottu" with black-eyed peas (kaaraamani). Most often he said, she simply makes "mor kozhambu" with the pooshanikkai. Amma said that is not quite so. V got quite excited and decided he had to have it pretty soon. So we promptly bought pumpkin and black-eyed peas on our next trip to the Indian store.

We were not disappointed! It was a delicious koottu that went well with both rice and with chapatis. Yum! Plus it has all the protein and nutrients we needed. It is going to be one of our staples from now on. Here is the recipe.

Ingredients:

1 cup Black-eyed peas (Kaaraamani)

White pumpkin (or ashgourd) - 2 cups peeled and cubed

2 Tbsp Grated Coconut

3-4 green chilies

2 Tbsp sambar powder

1 Tbsp Jaggery

1 small marble-sized tamarind - soaked and squeezed

Pinch Turmeric

Pinch asafoetida (hing)

Mustard seeds, urad dal, curry leaves and 1 tsp oil for tempering

Salt to taste

Method of preparation:

1. Soak black-eyed peas overnight and cook with pumpkin and a pinch turmeric in pressure cooker (or until soft)

2. Grind together grated coconut and green chilies to a paste

3. Heat tamarind water in a pot. Add sambar powder and salt and bring to boil until raw smell of sambar powder is gone

4. Add the cooked pumpkin and black-eyed peas and bring to boil again

5. Add coconut paste and jaggery and heat through until it comes to a koottu consistency

6. Heat 1 tsp oil in a small pan. Add mustard seeds and when they sputter, add urad dal, hing and curry leaves.

7. Add tempering mix to koottu and serve

Enjoy hot with rice or with chapatis. More of amma's recipes are on the way!

All Spice in San Mateo

2011-04-06T16:59:00.000-07:00

All Spice

1602 S El Camino Real
San Mateo, CA 94402

(650) 627-4303

www.allspicerestaurant.com

Our wedding anniversary fell on a week day again this year and I could not take any time off. My V took the day off to plan a row of wonderful surprises for the evening, not the least of which was the dinner event at All Spice, a new restaurant in the Peninsula.

All Spice is located in a cute little Victorian house. There is some parking next to the house and also on the street behind. If it hadn't been for the maitre'd receiving us at the foyer, I would have assumed I was walking in to someone's home for dinner. Every room in the small house is tastefully decorated and has either 2 or 3 tables seating small groups. V had made reservations for us, but they were not too busy since it was a weekday.

The menu is seasonal, and they still had their "Winter menu" which is appropriate considering the especially cool, rainy spring we have been having. Interestingly, the menu had a lot of dishes which included mushrooms. There are ample choices for vegetarians, which is always a big bonus in our eyes. Coming to the type of cuisine, I would describe it as being Indian-inspired. The chef has taken popular dishes from all over India, and tried to get really creative with it. On their website, they call themselves "Contemporary Indian Cuisine". May be so, neither of us have eaten out in India that much in the last several years.

We started off by ordering the "Mint Passion Fruit Lassi" - a sweet lassi with crushed fresh mint leaves and passion fruit juice.

Our first appetizer of choice was "Ma Mere" which literally translates to "Mother mine", described on the menu as Indian bread fritter stuffed with mushrooms, potatoes and ciligini, served over stewed chickpeas. (Did not know what ciligini was until I looked it up. It is a special variety of tomato grown in Sicily.) This dish is inspired by the "Samosa chaat" sold on the streets of Bombay - the samosas have been replaced with flavorful mushroom fritters but the chole was just like something you would get at a standard Indian restaurant.

The other appetizer we ordered was the "Warm Winter Sambar". This is inspired by the South Indian lentil stew called sambar which typically has a very distinct flavor due to the tamarind and south Indian spices (sambar podi) that go in it. Sambar is most often made with "thaan" or chunky vegetables like potatoes, pumpkin, squashes, radish, etc. Being an authentic South Indian, I can attest to the fact that the flavor of the sambar at our dinner table was very authentic. It also contained crunchy lentil dumplings and assorted vegetables as "thaan". The lentil dumplings in sambar is also quite traditional.

For the main course, V ordered the "Pumpkin Dosa" and I vacillated between the "Khaman chickpea flour pasta" and "Hara Kabab" and finally decided to go with the "Khaman".

The "Pumpkin dosa" is obviously inspired by the popular South Indian tiffin dish called "masala dosa". The "dosa" (crepe) itself was perfectly crisp and paper thin, and not oozing oil. The stuffing, a variation of the traditional masala, contained pumpkin curry seasoned with kalonji and goat cheese. This was served with a tomato chutney. V did not even touch the chutney, as he was totally in to savoring his dosa with the pumpkin masala.

My "khaman" was inspired by khandvi, a common Gujarati tea-time snack. However the chef got creative with it and made a ginger and shiitake mushroom broth to go over it. I have never had khandvi like this before! The only issue I had with this dish was that it tasted a bit salty.

The final course, the tour de force was the dessert. Since we were already pretty full, we ordered one dessert to share and that was a good thing because the "Dark chocolate kulfi" that we ordered was quite rich and creamy. It came with macadamia nut brittle flavored with tandoori spices (yum!). It was not much like kulfi, but was more like a rich mousse. Needless to say, it was absolutely delicious and we savored every bite.

The restaurant is upscale and pricey, however we would definitely go back there for special occasions. Looking forward to their summer menu!

Recipe for V's Mushrooms with Potatoes & Onions

2011-01-31T21:04:00.000-08:00

Here is the recipe for V's Mushroom with Potatoes & Onions from Sumana Ray's "Indian Vegetarian Cooking" as promised in the previous post.

Ingredients:
5 tbsp oil
1 large potato, diced into 3/4 inch pcs
4 cardamoms
1 inch stick cinnamon
2 bay leaves
1 large onion, finely sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
3/4 in ginger, grated
1 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp salt
a big pinch sugar
1 1/2 tsp white vinegar
8 oz mushrooms quartered

Method:

Heat oil in a kadai over medium high heat. Add the potatoes & fry for 2-3 mins until light golden in color. Remove and set aside
Add the cardamoms, cinnamon and bay leaves and let sizzle for a minute
Add the onions, garlic, and ginger and fry for 4-5 mins
Add the turmeric, chili, salt, sugar, and vinegar and fry, stirring continuously for another minute
Add the mushrooms and potatoes to the spice mixture and mix
Lower heat and cook for about 15 minutes until the potatoes are tender

V follows the recipe to the T using teaspoons and tablespoons for measurements, whereas I just eye-ball the proportions.

Another recipe of interest in the same book is "Masala Kaddu / Pumpkin with spices" which V has promised to make some other time.

Mushroom Potato curry

2011-01-17T21:31:00.000-08:00

V made an absolutely lip-smackingly yummy Bengali-style "Mushroom Potato curry with onions" from Sumana Ray's "Indian Vegetarian Cooking". He has had a really good streak with cooking, and he has been experimenting quite a bit. I think the trick is that he follows recipes to a T and would run to the store even if one ingredient was missing. The underused cookbooks on our shelves are finally getting some use! It has been a tough week at work, but I wanted to post a blurb about this wonderful curry; will follow up with a recipe soon!

Watercress salad with peppers and radish

2011-01-06T15:00:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to everyone! We have been silent for a while, just lying low for the holidays and staying close to home for a change. V did a lot of creative cooking during the break (yum!) and I have to post the recipes sometime soon. I did my holiday baking - Russian Tea cookies and Chocolate-raisin-banana bread to share with friends and neighbors. It was a good holiday, food-wise, and we rarely ate out!

To start off the new year right, here's a salad recipe. It started when we picked up 2 bunches of watercress from the local Chinese grocery store. We were not too hungry, so we whipped up this salad last evening for dinner. Because it was a chilly evening, I turned on the stove to make a warm dressing - the aroma of the dressing was the best part of the meal.

2 bunches watercress - washed and picked
A medium radish -grated
Sweet peppers (red and orange) thinly julienned (bell peppers would work)

For the dressing:
1 tablespoon peanut oil
2 cloves garlic thinly sliced
Red pepper flakes - 1 tsp
Balsamic vinegar - 2 Tbsp

Heat the oil and add the garlic and red pepper flakes. The aroma should be making you hungry by now. Whisk in the Balsamic vinegar.

Assemble the veggies and pour the salad dressing on top and toss. Dig in with a fork & enjoy!

Belizean Papaya Smoothie

2010-12-08T14:35:00.000-08:00

V made a delicious papaya smoothie on our recent vacation in Belize. It was super-easy to make and super great. The hardest part of the not-so-hard process was to peel, cut and core the papaya (which I did!) and ofcourse washing the blender (which we didn't have to do!).

1 medium papaya

1 ripe banana

1 cup ice

(variation: 1 Tbsp of unsweetened cocoa)

Throw everything in to a powerful blender and puree until smooth. Pour in to glasses and enjoy immediately.

A Vegetarian in Singapore

2010-11-21T21:10:00.000-08:00

Singapore is the melting pot of three different cultures, Chinese, Malay and Indian. There are distinct towns that celebrate all the cultures, Chinatown, Little Malay and Little India. One can experience the best of the each of these cultures - both the food, arts and shopping - in these areas. But we are suckers for a new concept - all-vegetarian fine-dining restaurants. And, we did find one that sets a very high bar for fine-dining with a Chinese milieu.

Ling Zhi (http://www.lingzhivegetarian.com), at Orchard Road, Singapore, is on the 5th floor of a non-descript commercial building next to a shopping mall that includes a high-end Hermes store and such. This restaurant does not rely on the tried and tired idea of using wheat gluten and tofu in lieu of meat in all their dishes; instead, they use vegetables in their most natural form in creative dishes. The results are wonderful. This is one of the finest vegetarian restaurants that we have dined at.

Ambience: The restaurant has ample seating, with a takeaway counter that looks more low-end than the rest of the seating area. They definitely recommend reservations - as anyone who has eaten in Singapore, Hong Kong and China would have observed, dining out is a communal activity, and so, each table usually has 5+ people in the evenings.

Once seated, there are couple of interesting things to observe. They have a small plate with boiled peanuts, in addition to soy and chilli sauce for fine-tuning the taste for each palate. The waiters are extremely friendly - the lack of English-speaking skills compensated by their attitude. The menu catalog has some great eye candy photos of their dishes, which unfortunately their website does not reproduce.

We ordered fresh young cocunut water as our starter drink and it was really refreshing for a humid day. For the first course, we ordered the braised spinach soupe with the bamboo fungus. The presentation was outstanding in a real bamboo tumbler and the taste was very simple but delicious in a home-cooked meal kind of way. The waiter was very friendly and told me not to order more than 2 dishes since he said we will get "very full". That honesty really appealed to us. Since we are doing the "Eat for Health: diet, we had to beef up on the greens and this was an easy way to do it.

As you know by now, I am a die-hard fan of Kung Pao, and ordered it at every Chinese restaurant much to V's consternation. So, ofcourse, we got Kung Pao; and as the second entree, we got the Sautéed Monkey Head Mushrooms with Dried Chilli.

The Kung Pao was presented on bed of celery and deep-fried mushrooms - the chilis brought out some kick-ass flavor. I would probably venture to say that was better than the standard tofu Kung Pao that you have in other Chinese Vegetarian restaurants.

The rates were reasonable and well below the norm for fine-dining restaurants in the area. Once again, if you are in Singapore, please don't miss this gem. Well worth the experience. They have been in business since 1991 and we are hoping we can visit them during their 20th anniversary next year. More power to them and the kind of food they serve.

Acorn Jelly Salad

2010-10-22T17:13:00.000-07:00

Can someone please, please let me know what ingredients goes in to this wonderful salad and how to prepare it? Every time I visit Seoul, I go to my favorite "Jeonju Bibimbap" restaurant on the evening I land and order this salad. I think I like the leaves and the dressing more than the jelly itself.

A Shojin Vegetarian in New York - Kajitsu

2010-10-10T20:42:00.000-07:00

Masato-san is the Executive Chef at the new Shojin restaurant in New York City. His wife is the Maitre-de and this is their maiden attempt at a Shojin restaurant.

To get the basics out first, their web site is at http://www.kajitsunyc.com/information.html. They are near Tomkins Square Park and usually need advance reservations. Better to call ahead.

Shojin is a type of vegetarian cooking (Shojin ryori) that originates in Zen Buddhism. As an avid fan of Japanese cooking and being a vegetarian, Shojin cooking is our version of Carnegie Hall.

Once I arrived, I was seated in the “bar” area in the restaurant, which has nearly 8 tables facing Masato-san. The service, which was very attentive, didn’t waste time taking my order for the 5-course meal without any alcohol.

The first course started with Taro Dumplings with Black Daikon Chive shoots, Soy sauce, and ginger. The presentation was outstanding and the texture of the taro dumplings was exquisite. A great start and it made me wait anxiously for the 2^nd and 3^rd courses. It didn’t disappoint.

The next course was clear soup with tofu shaped as Chrysanthemum and taro tempura. I almost didn’t want to eat the tofu and just enjoy the tofu creation for its beauty. This was the highlight of the day for me.

The third course was vegetable medley, plated on very unique plates; I enjoyed the plates more than the food. The lack of spice on the vegetables made it quite bland and not a highlight.

The last course was Gomoku rice with rice flakes on the side and daikon, and other assorted vegetables. Again, this was nothing to write home about. I didn’t order the dessert as I personally believe Japanese dessert is an oxymoron and besides, I am trying to be on a low-sugar diet.

As a fan of Japanese simplicty, I would like to say that the chef’s table was cleaner than the Tokyo railway station. This display was worth the price of entry to see how Japanese think about food and plating them. The food was not as tasty as I have had in other Shojin restaurants, but I am hoping the new Chef will get his gear going in the future.

(This was a post by V. I am glad he has taken to trying new vegetarian restaurants every time he visits the Big Apple!)

A Vegetarian in Santa Fe

2010-10-10T20:07:00.001-07:00

I often say to V (half-jokingly) that we broke our streak of exciting vacations with our trip to Santa Fe in May. V liked it more than I did and he never fails to remind me of the great food that I was enthusiastically chowing down while we were there. True, Santa Fe is a great destination for food lovers, especially those who are in search of authentic New Mexican, Mexican and Spanish cuisine. We were not disappointed in a single place we dined at, ranging from the high-end to the hole-in-the-wall digs. Incidentally, Santa Fe is also a great destination for art lovers; my personal satisfaction came from seeing the Georgia O’ Keefe museum, a long-awaited event.

Let me start by saying that we did not go in search of exclusive vegetarian restaurants on this trip as we usually do, mainly because the local cuisine included a number of choices for vegetarians. We also noticed that everyone was very hospitable and enthusiastic about their food; more than once we were surprised with a complimentary dish from the kitchen, and that just made our day. One last general comment - the good restaurants do fill up quickly so we didn’t get to go to some of the restaurants on our list (such as “The Shed” in the main plaza). No regrets though; it was all good!

Part I: A fancy dinner in the plaza

For our first evening out, we wandered through the heart of Santa Fe taking in the shops and ambience and ended up at the beautiful Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assissi. A block from the Cathedral is “La Plazuela”, part of the La Honda hotel, where we had our dinner reservation. We dressed up for this one, and were glad we did when we saw the beautiful restaurant setting. The tables are laid out in a courtyard around a fountain and the tall glass ceiling gave the feeling of dining al fresco. The decorations and tableware are very tasteful and complementary to the ambience.

The highlight of the evening was the guacamole that is prepared at the table based on the diners’ taste. Your waiter arrives at your table with a couple of avocados and an array of other ingredients (minced onion, minced garlic, diced tomatoes, chopped cilantro, diced green chilies, salt and fresh limes for juice). On demand he swiftly and deftly mixes up all the ingredients to make up possibly the best guacamole we have ever tasted.

The other dish of note was the Squash Blossom fries served as an appetizer. The delicate yellow squash flowers were battered and deep fried, and served with a spicy tomato sauce. We also enjoyed the melon soup (like a gazpacho) which was delicately sweet. The main entrees were nothing to write home about. In fact, I don’t think I even remember what they were, except that we had a very pleasant evening. The prices were a little high which was to be expected based on the ambience and the service. As mentioned before, reservations are recommended for this restaurant (as well as other popular ones) in Santa Fe.

Part II: A sweet tea-time
The next day we ambled down Canyon Road, lined on both sides with art galleries of all kinds. Unique sculptures and art pieces displayed outside the galleries made our walk enjoyable, and we walked into a couple of galleries that particularly caught our attention. At the tail-end of the street, we decided to break for a drink at “The Teahouse”, a quaint outdoor café in a garden setting. V walked in to order some drinks for us while I grabbed our seat in a prime spot in the garden.

There were very few people as it was almost closing time. V came out twice to ask me if I wanted the “Strawberry Short Cake” with real strawberries (“It looks really good”, he said) but I wanted to wait for dinner. We sat with the drinks enjoying the cool breeze, the ambience and a nice chat, and here comes our waiter with the “Strawberry Shortcake”!! He said it was on the house. Since they were closing soon, he didn’t want us to change our minds too late and not be able to have it. How awfully nice of him! We devoured the cake and enjoyed it to the last crumb.

Part III: Cheap Eats at the Blue Corn Cafe'

That evening, we decided to try something less fancy for dinner. After walking up and down the plaza, we ended up at the Blue Corn Café which is located on the second floor of a shopping building. We sat at the window with a view of the main plaza. The big bowl of corn chowder and the enchilada plate we ordered made for a very filling, and very comforting meal. The corn chowder was served with wonderful fresh tortilla chips. The enchilada was basic but very tasty. It was definitely cheap eats at less than $20.

Part IV: Sopaipillas at La Choza
Another cheap eats, where we thoroughly enjoyed the food is La Choza, which is a little further away, about a 10 minute drive, from the main plaza. La Choza (Spanish for “The Shed”) is a sister restaurant of “The Shed” in the plaza, where the prices are steeper than at its poor cousin’s. It’s easy to miss La Choza, which in a rather non-descript neighborhood on the other side of the tracks, but they do have plenty of signs to make sure one doesn’t.

The restaurant, housed in a little colorful adobe building, has both indoor and outdoor seating.

It is very vegetarian-friendly, the service is great and the food is cheap and excellent. We ordered vegetarian enchiladas and one other dish and were asking our waiter what was meant by “sopaipillas”. To our surprise, he brought out a couple of sopaipillas at the end of our meal with some local honey! A sweet ending to our meal.

Final comments: Santa Fe is definitely a food-lover's mecca. Our biggest tip would be to be bold, talk to the friendly waiters, learn about New Mexican food and try something new. At the low prices at some of the hole-in-the-wall restaurants, one can definitely afford to fall in love with something new!

Blue Mango

2010-10-07T13:56:00.000-07:00

Blue Mango
4996 Stevens Creek Blvd
San Jose, CA 95129
(408) 248-7191
http://www.bluemangocuisine.com/

After a long hiatus, V and I got the opportunity to go to Blue Mango again last night when our friend, D, decided to treat us and a couple of her other friends to dinner; the common interest being that we were all theatre lovers. It all started with free tickets to see “Black Pearl Sings” at the San Jose Repertory Theatre from Davia’s friend, whom we had never met. V and I thoroughly enjoyed the unique production, which had wonderful singing on top of a great story. The dinner gave us a chance to meet our generous benefactor!

D had reservations for us at 7 PM. The place tends to be quite popular, especially with Indians, since they have a separate full fledged vegetarian menu in addition to a regular menu. Now that is the kind of place we like!! We were seated immediately.

D ordered the appetizer platter and also the sweet potato fries to kick off dinner. The appetizer platter came with three vegetarian choices - the edamame beans, wontons, and vegetarian spring rolls. The fries were too oily and flavorless. The spring rolls were a hit, eventhough they were deep-fried. I didn’t get to try the wontons, but they looked pretty good as well. The edamame was very good - in addition to steaming the edamame in the pod, they had marinated the pods a garlicy, spicy paste. I snapped the picture too late, when everything except the wontons and a little bit of the edamame were gone.

For the main course, V ordered his standard “Dried chili and cashew curry” and I got the Panang curry, both extra spicy. V felt that they have changed the recipe of his favorite dish and it has lot its sting, so he might try something new next time! (Hallelujah!) V also got coconut juice to cool off the heat. Their presentation of the juice in a real coconut was unique. The inside secret as well as in any other Thai restaurant is to ask for Thai hot when you really want it hot. It still was not very hot for D's friends.

In addition D ordered a bunch of vegetarian dishes to share - Mushroom mountain, spicy fried rice and some vegetarian noodles. There definitely was plenty of food to go around!

After all this food, we simply didn’t have any space left for dessert eventhough their dessert menu looked fabulous! Well, there’s always a next time.

Dishes were priced between $10 and $14 per entree and the appetizers were around $5 -$6. Service was great. Still my favorite (vegetarian) Thai place close to home although V swears by Thai Peppers in Sunnyvale.

Couple of pointers,

- Get there before 7pm, because it is packed like Thai sardines
- Plenty of parking in the back
- They are expanding and are going to take over the adjoining store. So, wait times should come down
- Ask for the vegetarian menu, they don't give it without asking for it

Enjoy the simplicity of Thai cooking...

Our summer harvest!

2010-09-07T23:58:00.000-07:00

It has been an unusually cool summer here in the Bay area with freezing nights, and our tomato and bell pepper plants have been languishing. We got exactly one bell pepper so far and the plant has been dormant since. The tomatoes have proven to be much hardier. While we were gone on vacation for 2 weeks, it must have been quite warm. We came back to an unexpected surprise! A bountiful harvest of gorgeous tomatoes. Ahh... felt good to be back in sunny CA!

A Vegetarian in Toronto, Canada

2010-07-18T16:57:00.001-07:00

Fresh restaurants in Toronto
http://www.freshrestaurants.ca/

Before I left on a business trip to Toronto recently, V did some research for me and saw rave reviews for "Fresh restaurants", a vegetarian chain in Toronto. Toronto has a lot of ethnic restaurants and finding vegetarian food would not have been a big problem, however, V and I love to ferret out the exclusive vegetarian restaurants whereever we go. There are three "Fresh" locations in Toronto, but if you are a tourist, you would want to take in the sights at the Harbor Front, gawk at the CN Tower, and then walk over to the Fresh on Spadina (at the intersection of Queen).

Taking a slight detour from my intended post, the revolving restaurant called 360 at the top floor of the CN Tower is worth it just for the view. They have a separate vegetarian menu. Agreed, it is rather uninspired, and the prices are very steep. However you get a free ride to the top (ticket price of $20) with the purchase of one entree (around $30). The restaurant makes a full rotation in about 70 mins offering gorgeous views of the bay, the small airstrip and the entire downtown.

Back to Fresh - the restaurant is rather low-key. Appetizers cost around $7 and entrees cost around $12. There is seating inside as well on the sidewalk. Fresh was started by Ruth Tal, primarily as a juice stand. It has since evolved in to a full-fledged restaurant serving an eclectic menu consisting of salads, wraps, burgers and fresh bowls. The burgers are supposed to be very good as per the reviews we read, and the sweet potato fries that come with the burgers are to die for, apparently. This time, though, I did not get the burger.

Curious to try what they call "dosas", I opted to get the "Avocado White Bean Dosa" from their starter menu. The dosa was not bad at all, it was filled with an avocado - white bean filling instead of the regular masala that is served at South Indian restaurants. It would have been great to have some chutneys on the side though.

My entree of choice was the Baby Buddha bowl - a mix of marinated tofu, sprouts, and fresh vegetables dressed with Thai peanut sauce, served over brown rice. A full Buddha bowl or any other variety (around $12) would make a very satisfying and filling meal all by itself, since the baby Buddha bowl itself was quite big.

I got the food "to-go" and it was ready in 10 minutes. While I was waiting I browsed the two cookbooks written by the founder, Ruth Tal and her partner Jennifer Houston. The cookbooks seemed interesting, and started from the basics of preparing vegetarian food. I need to check them out at the library. Service was very pleasant. The bill came to around $20 for the two items. I would like to try the burger if I go back to Fresh.

Jyun Kang in the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas

2010-07-07T13:52:00.000-07:00

Jyun Kang restaurant
City of 10,000 Buddhas
Talmage, CA
http://www.cttbusa.org/jyunkang/jk.asp

Located in the beautiful hills of Mendocino County, a couple of hours north of San Francisco, “The Sagely City of 10,000 Buddhas” is a large Buddhist monastery, that includes schools, prayer halls, and a vegetarian restaurant. Upon entering the city, visitors are required to register first in the visitor center before wandering the grounds.

Since it was a warm day, V and I registered at the visitor center, and then headed straight to the restaurant via the Buddha Hall. We went into the Buddha hall and sat down for a few minutes of quiet meditation. Outside, we were amazed to see peacocks and peahens wandering the grounds freely, and making quite a bit of noise disrupting the silence in the sleepy afternoon. Some of them decided to show off their plumage for us. (We were later looking up peafowl factoids, and one of the interesting things is that they need a rather stress-free environment to survive. They are certainly in the right place!).

The restaurant is in a separate nondescript building, and is open from 12 noon to 3 PM every day. Jyun Kang, apparently means “to your health” and this health-restaurant does not use any garlic, onions, eggs or dairy in their preparations. We got there a little before closing time, and were seated immediately. The inside is quite pleasant with about 10 tables. Service was friendly and the food arrived very quickly.

The cuisine is mainly Chinese-inspired. We ordered steamed dumplings as an appetizer and one entree each. V ordered one of the house specialities - the “Seaweed rolls”, and I decided to try something new and got the “Veggies with Gingko nuts”. The dumplings had mushroom filling and were truly out of the world. We gobbled up the 6 pieces very quickly. As for the entrees, V’s choice was definitely better than mine. The seaweed roll in spicy sauce (which tasted closer to Thai curry) topped with shredded mango and carrots was very flavorful and in contrast, my dish was rather bland. Not that I hated it. The Gingko nuts (yellowish in the picture below) had a slightly bitter taste.

It was a very filling meal and we cleaned it up quickly. The bill came to $25 with tax and tip. It would be nice to go back on a cool day and take a nice walk in the grounds before lunch.

Bay Area vegan restaurants

2010-05-24T10:40:00.000-07:00

SF Gate reviews the vegan options in the Bay area.

"After opening in Taiwan two years ago, the vegan restaurant chain Loving Hut now has 159 locations around the world, including five in the Bay Area; a new one in San Francisco's Westfield Mall is the vegan answer to Panda Express. Gracias Madre opened in San Francisco's Mission District late last year, with an organic, vegan Mexican menu, and Encuentro, a new wine bar in Oakland, offers vegetarian and vegan tapas exclusively."

Read more:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/05/23/FD7L1DF1C7.DTL

V and I have been to Loving Hut in Milpitas, and know of the one in Palo Alto, but didn't know that there are so many other branches. Also, among those mentioned in the article, we have tried and liked "Cafe Millenium" on Geary, and loved "Lucky Creation" in China Town. Very curious to try "Gracias Madre" in Mission.

Dirt Candy - High Priestess’ Offering to Vegetarian Gods in NYC

2010-05-20T18:10:00.000-07:00

Dirt Candy
430 e. 9th stNY, NY 10009
http://www.dirtcandynyc.com/

Amanda Cohen is not a vegetarian, she eats sea food, but definitely knows how to cook vegetarian food. Her profile is at http://www.dirtcandynyc.com/?page_id=31. She also maintains an interesting blog at her site.

Dirt Candy is a 20-seat vegetarian restaurant in New York City dedicated to disproving people’s perceptions that vegetarian food is boring. Getting to this East Village newcomer is a cinch. It is at 9^th street and 1^st avenue. Make reservations because they have only 20 seats and it gets very crowded very quickly, after 9pm reservations are easier. The first impression once you enter the place is that it is tiny. There is one waiter and Amanda and two line chefs in the kitchen.

Amanda offers a menu that is inspired from vegetables and starts with a bang with the Jalapeno Hush Puppies served with maple butter. Once you pop one of these into your mouth, you are transported to the world where pleasure rules. I had to restrict my inner six-year old and not order a encore of these puppies.

I ordered an appetizer/salad that was a seaweed creation with a base of greens and deep fried cheese balls. This salad was tasty and filling.

The main entrée was corn, stone ground grits, corn cream and a tempura poached egg on the top. Out of the world. There is something earthy about eating grits with eggs. It is greasy alright, but the taste is out of the world with the right combination of cream and pickled shitake mushrooms.

Service was attentive, my water glass was refilled without prompting and were courteous in explaining the ingredients and choices. Prices were on the steep side but you expect that with any niche restaurant.

We wish Amanda great success in making this Candy not only a guilty pleasure outing but a outing choice that is well qualified by its food and not qualified by its vegetarianism.

Top 100 Bay Area restaurants

2010-05-19T12:34:00.001-07:00

San Francisco Chronicle has published their yearly Top-100 restaurant review:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/food/top100/2010cuisine

Only one all-vegetarian? :-(

BTW does anyone know if there is anything that a vegetarian could eat in a Peruvian restaurant?

Falafels Drive-in

2010-04-26T12:36:00.001-07:00

Falafel's Drive-in
2301 Stevens Creek Blvd
San Jose, CA 95128
(408) 294-7886

www.falafelsdrivein.com

The huge lighted Falafel's Drive-in marquee on Steven's Creek Blvd has become somewhat of a landmark, since it has been around for a long time. Despite being called a drive-in, it has very few spots and parking can be a problem. The best bet is to park in the neighborhood behind Falafel's. However it is a great place to grab a cheap bite. I wouldn't call it a quick bite because the line can be pretty long!

It is a popular place on days when the weather is great, and we happened to go there on one such warm sunny day (amidst all the rain we have been having). The line was about 20 deep, but it moved quickly. There is plenty of seating, all of it "al fresco".

The menu has all the typical middle-eastern favorites - hummus, baba ghanouj, foul meddames, and falafel, as well as pita chips which V claims are great! However the best choice for a vegetarian is the Falafel sandwich. Also, on a warm day, the drink of choice would be the mint-flavored yogurt drink which comes in a plastic bottle. We placed our orders and grabbed a seat in the shady side and opened up our newspapers while waiting for our order.

Our order came quicker than we expected with a side of hot sauce. The sandwich is quite messy but very filling and delicious! I think each sandwich has 4 falafels stuffed in pita pockets, which is quite filling. Not a meal for everyday but a good one for those weekend days when an extra-long workout makes you extra hungry! Also, it is the kind of place you won't feel bad going to in your grungy workout clothes. The tab came to around $25 with tax.

Mingalaba - Burmese restaurant in Burlingame

2010-04-22T14:58:00.001-07:00

Mingalaba Restaurant
1213 Burlingame Avenue,
Burlingame, CA
http://www.mingalabarestaurant.com/

I had a planned a surprise day in the City for V last weekend. It started off with a stroll, and a picnic lunch at the beach at Crissy Field followed by a play at Union Square. Although it has been an unusually chilly late-April, the weather cooperated with us through the day and we had a wonderful time. Dinner venue of my picking was Minako Organic Japanese restaurant in Mission. We have not been there, although we have been to the nearby Cha-Ya, another Japanese vegetarian restaurant in Mission. However V decided that it was his turn to surprise me and asked me to allow him to drive us to the dinner venue. We landed up at Mingalaba in downtown Burlingame around 6 in the evening. V has been here for lunch, but I have not been here before. He promised that I would like it even better than Burma Superstar (BSS) in the city that was recommended by our friends, P&V.

The wait wasn't too bad. We put our names on the wait list, strolled around the downtown shops, and the table was ready for us by the time we decided it was getting too chilly to walk around. The line grew longer as the evening progressed and smiling waiters carried out trays of drinks to folks waiting outside - nice touch! The interior is tightly packed, but pleasant, and the service is really outstanding. Eventhough they were pretty busy, each table got a lot of attention from the smiling waiters.

Food-wise, yes, it was better than BSS! We ordered the tea-leaf salad to start with. Just this alone convinced me of V's claim. Tea-leaf salad has a variety of delicious ingredients tossed at the table by your waiter. The ingredients are fermented tea-leaves (may prove difficult to find at the stores here), chopped tomatoes, fried garlic slivers, fried peanuts, fried lentils, and shredded greens like cabbage or lettuce, oil and lime juice. The crunchy texture of fried peanuts mixed with the slightly sour tea leaves is unbeatable. Apparently this is a signature dish at all Burmese restaurants.

We also ordered the samusa soup which again hit the spot. Samusas, a variant of Indian samosas, are fried pastries with vegetable filling. This spicy soup has broken-up samusas, falafel (lentil dumplings), and green chilies. It was infact quite filling and we were almost going to call it a day when the main course of "Burmese-style curry" with the side of rice arrived at the table. This is made of lentils and a number of vegetables like squash, eggplant, cauliflower, and so on. Reminded us of South-Indian "sambar", especially when eaten with rice but I don't think this has tamarind which is a major ingredient in sambar.

We left quite happy. Portion sizes are pretty average, not too big, but we did take home some leftovers. Service, as mentioned before, is outstanding. The bill came to around $35 with tax and tip for the two of us. We must go back with P&V.

Burmese Spinach - Mushroom Stirfry

2010-03-14T23:33:00.001-07:00

V and I spotted an interesting cookbook called "The Asian Vegan" by Hema Parekh when we were browsing in a local used bookstore and decided to get it on a whim. Turned out to be a really good buy with easy-to-follow recipes. Pretty much everything we have tried out has come out well. The book is divided in to sections for each country and region - such as India, Japan, Korea, China, Burma, Indonesia, Korea and so on.

Coincidentally on one of our produce-shopping trips at the local Chinese grocery stores, I got some enoki mushrooms and spinach. Leafing through the book looking for a recipe, I landed on the perfect one using both these vegetables! Here's the recipe pretty much reproduced verbatim from the Burma section of the book.

11 oz spinach
7 oz enoki mushrooms
2 tsp vegetable oil
1/2 medium onion finely sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 red bell pepper, finely sliced
1 tsp soy sauce
Salt to taste
1/4 tsp black pepper
White sesame seeds, toasted - for garnish

Wash the spinach and chop roughly
Wash and trim the base of the mushroom and separate
Heat the oil. Add the garlic and onions and saute for a few minutes
Add the red bell pepper and saute
Add the enoki mushrooms for briefly stir
Add the spinach and mix
Add the soy sauce, salt and pepper and stir over high heat for couple of minutes. Then lower the heat, cover and let the spinach wilt, maybe 3-4 minutes
Transfer to a serving dish and sprinkle toasted sesame seeds

This recipe goes to "Healing Foods - Spinach" event at Dil Se. The Healing Foods event was started at Siri's Corner.

A Vegetarian Road Trip to Death Valley National Park

2010-02-17T15:48:00.003-08:00

V and I love going on road trips on 3-day weekends to visit different places in the vastly diverse landscape of California. Death Valley has been on our list for a long time. During the spring of 2005, Death Valley National Park had an amazing display of wildflowers due to the above-average rainfall. Since then, every spring, enthusiasts hold their breath, but there has not been such a spectacular repeat performance yet. This year, although there was some rain in February, there was absolutely no rain in September and October and that did not bode well for wildflowers. We can certainly vouch for that: Death Valley this year was as barren and arid as any respectable desert should be! It reminded us of the "Valley of the Kings" in Egyptian Sahara where the pharaohs' tombs are well-preserved thousands of years later by the arid climate. However the tall snow-laden Sierra peaks surrounding Death Valley makes the landscape quite different.

Coming back to the road trip - we figured during our research that there are not that many places inside Death Valley to grab a bite, especially a vegetarian bite. So V and I decided to pack as many meals as we could carry with us. In one way, it was sort of an experiment to see what would last and what would not. There aren't many vegetarian resources about this online, so here is our compilation of tips for a vegetarian road trip.

General tips:

We loaded two cloth satchels and one icebox with food. Also, we filled 5 Kleen Kanteen bottles with water. We would refill these whereever potable water was available.
Bag #1 was packed with easy-to-snack items and fruits. This bag and one bottle of water was kept within reach of the person sitting in the passenger seat, whose job it is to attend to every whim of the driver.
Bag #2 was packed with lunch / dinner items that did not need to be refrigerated - such as pita bread and sprouted whole wheat bread from Trader Joes, theplas that I had prepared and so on.
The icebox contained perishable items and vegetables. We got new ice on the way in gas stations.
We tried to eat the items which would perish sooner first.
We kept a paper bag in the car to throw trash in and several cloth napkins within reach. I know some people have a rule about not eating in their car, which is very commendable, but V and I find that difficult to follow, so we try not to make too much of a mess.
We also packed two plates, spoons, paper napkins (which we used sparingly), wetwipes (again sparingly used) and couple of kitchen towels. We are guilty of taking along some plastic knifes - we try to avoid plastic in general.

Need salt? (Salt at Badwater Basin)

What we packed for breakfast, lunch & dinner. What worked and what did not:

Aussie bites (from Costco although there is a recipe here which I should try sometime) and Blueberry scones - This worked very well for a quick breakfast in the morning.
Soy milk - icebox

We had this at breakfast. We packed 1 carton of Plain soy milk and 1 carton of Green Tea soy milk. V thinks the Green Tea soy milk upset his stomach, but I am not sure that was the reason. The "fossilized snake snacks" may have been the reason (see below).

Roasted walnuts and almonds

They taste pretty good when roasted at 350C for 10 mins in the oven, even though apparently some nutrients are lost. We did not make our trademark aval-pori hiking snack since we ran out of time, but that is usually a staple of ours.

Apples, Pears and Tangerines

Washed and ready to eat, this makes a great snack for those times when lunch gets delayed for one reason or other.

Sprouted whole wheat bread (from Trader Joes)

For sandwiches. We made sandwiches using marinated tofu, but also ate it with Laughing Cow cheese for breakfast.

Whole wheat Pita bread (from Trader Joes)

For sandwiches. We made sandwiches with the nutburger and a little hummus and few thinly sliced bell pepper.

Hummus - icebox

For sandwiches and as a dip for veggies

Laughing cow cheese wedges - icebox

For sandwiches or as a snack on its own

Red and Green Bell peppers - icebox

This was the star of the trip. We sliced them in finger size strips and packed them in a ziploc bag. We munched on it as a snack either by itself or dipping it in hummus. Not much pre-work. Other veggies like celery, carrots, etc. would work too.

Marinated Tofu slices - icebox

For sandwiches. Will post the marinade recipe some other time, but it is fairly simple.

Grilled nutburgers

We get these frozen patties from our favorite restaurant in Sacramento called Sunflower. We grilled these on the stove and didn't pack this in the icebox, but fortunately it didn't go bad. We had a wonderful lunch of pita sandwiches with nutburger, bell pepper and hummus after we hiked the Golden Canyon.

Sundal

This was a bust! We didn't pack it in the icebox and it went bad. Oh, my heart broke when we had to throw it all out! I thought it would stay fresh since I didn't add coconut but I was wrong.

Thepla with Potato roast

Theplas are known for being a staple road trip, or rather, train journey food from Gujarat in India. For the first time, my theplas turned out well - soft, flavorful, and great to eat even on their own. I need to find that recipe I used! I made potato roast (with Indian spices) to go with it. The roast would not have made it past 1 day, so we had it for dinner on the first day.

Puliyodarai

This was the second most popular dish of the trip. Puliyodarai is from Tamilnadu, a Southern state in India and is a spiced tamarind rice dish. I used the recipe in Dakshin - Chandra Padmanabhan's quintessential South Indian cookbook and it turned out awesome. We had it with Kettle chips (I know- bad! bad! but oh, it was so good!) with our first view of snow-laden peaks and felt like we were in heaven.

Khaman Dhokla

Dhokla is a snack food from Gujarat. This ranked #3 on the trip. The steamed buns are easy to carry and easy to eat and stayed fresh atleast for the first 2 days.

Other snacks like our favorite almond cookies and "fossilized snake snacks" (murukku and ribbon pakoda) from the Indian store.

We got pizza one night at the Corkscrew Saloon with Badwater Ale while watching the Olympics figure skating. V was very impressed with the Badwater Ale made locally at nearby Indian Wells.

A rather successful vegetarian road trip, I would say. Oh, V prepared the musical menu for our drive, and that was a rocking hit too. Jai Ho!

Cabbage-Cilantro salad with lemony dressing

2010-02-04T20:45:00.003-08:00

V and I have a New Year's resolution to do more salads this year. Salads are so much fun (done creatively), and so little work that I wonder why we don't do it more often. Many of our friends claim they now pack a salad for lunch, but I am yet to find out how that would work - wouldn't it get soggy?

Last evening, we had run through all our leftovers from the weekend and were too tired to cook anything new. And since I had just been browsing this recipe with beautiful pictures, I decided to put together a cabbage salad. A while back I had read somewhere that it is not a good idea to eat fruits and vegetables at the same time as per Ayurveda principles since they have different digestion rates. Since then, I am reluctant to mix fruits in to my salads. Except maybe spinach salad with pears sometimes, since it is so good!

Here's the recipe for the cabbage salad I put together yesterday with some random vegetables in the refrigerator. One of our friends recently introduced us to "Baked Tofu" available in Asian grocery stores in our area. It has a very firm texture and doesn't fall apart like the tofu that is packed in tubs with water.

Cabbage - quarter of a small one shredded fine (1 cup)
Cilantro - about 1/2 cup shredded fine
Daikon radish - half of a medium one shredded on a grater
1 cube of tofu - cut in to about 16 bite size chunks
Red onion - half of a small one minced fine
Ginger - half inch piece grated

Dressing:
Lemon juice - 2 Tbsp
Olive oil - 4 Tbsp
Rice vinegar - 1 Tbsp
Pinch salt + black pepper
Whisk all the above together well with a whisk or fork.

Toasted sunflower seeds and walnuts for garnish
To prepare the nuts: Heat oven to 375C. Spread sunflower seeds and walnuts on separate cookie sheets and toast for 10 minutes.

Mix all ingredients except the sunflower seeds and nuts. Toss together with the dressing. (The longer this salad sits, the better it gets.) Sprinkle nuts on top just before serving.

This recipe is for The Salad Carnival at "Cook like a Bong", as well as Show me your salad at "Dil se".

How to organize a South Indian pantry?

2010-01-14T11:27:00.000-08:00

My first project for the new year is pantry reorganization. You see, V is quite frustrated with my mental labeling of items, especially since some of the containers are not transparent. How is V to know that "sambar podi" is stored in the cute stainless steel dabba that Amma gave me?

We do not have a large pantry. Just a small space underneath the stairs with few narrow wooden shelves. Even so, I found it to be a daunting task. Any tips on organizing a pantry - specifically an Indian pantry - and more specifically, a South-Indian pantry would be great!

Here's what I have done so far:

1. I used the V's handy label-maker, and typed away kokum, karamadhu podi and kalonji to my heart's content. My bottles and jars look very professional now!

2. I procured some new transparent containers - not very expensive but they do the job nicely.

3. I organized the shelves logically: All the things that I use the most are at eye-level (for me, that is. V's would be one level up). All the daals that I refill in to jars on my kitchen counter are kept at a lower level. Sambar podi, rasapodi etc. are together. Spices (garam masala, chili powder, dhania powder, etc.) are together. Baking items (baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg, star anise, cloves, powdered sugar, molasses, etc.) are together but at a lower level since I don't bake every day. Ready-to-cook stuff like soba noodles, cream of wheat, rava idli mix, ready sevai, etc. are together.

4. All the appliances that I use often are in the kitchen cupboard, but the ones that I don't use everyday such as juicer, slow cooker, etc. are in the pantry on one of the two big shelves.

5. I needed to make sure we were using up food items in a timely manner (so that the pack of cous-cous doesn't sit in the pantry for 3 years). (Which reminds me that we need to do a pantry-purge soon!) I have kept things that I mean to use up soon within eye-sight, nicely labeled.

So far, it seems to be working. But... there is room for improvement! More ideas welcome!!

Vegetarian strongman dies at 104

2010-01-13T11:33:00.000-08:00

What a sad ending to a remarkable life! V and I were surprised when we read that he was a vegetarian, the fact is buried in the article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/nyregion/12ironman.html?em

At a Mighty 104, Gone While Still Going Strong
People called him the Great Joe Rollino, the Mighty Joe Rollino and even the World’s Strongest Man, and what did it matter if at least one of those people was Mr. Rollino himself.
<................>
Mr. Rollino stayed away from meat. And cigarettes. And alcohol. He said he walked five miles every morning, rain or shine.

Sanjeevanam in Chennai, India - Ayurvedic vegetarian food

2009-12-29T17:35:00.001-08:00

Sanjeevanam Vegetarian Health restaurant
Nungambakkam High road @ Sterling road
Nungambakkam, Chennai
http://www.cholayilsanjeevanam.com/health_res.htm

V and I are back from our world travels - Singapore, Cambodia and India. Every single time, my eyes moisten as the wheels of the plane touch down on beloved Maatrubhoomi, but the nostalgia gets a cold water douse as soon as I witness the utter madness and chaos at the Chennai airport. Maneuvering a successful pickup at the airport is a Herculean task; kudos to you if you have ever done it without losing your luggage, your dupatta, your kid (if you have one), or your temper!

There is a lot to talk about food-wise in our trip, but more about food in Cambodia and Munnar (Kerala) in a later post. Will focus on Madras (as Chennai was formerly known) in this one.

In summary, food in Madras was awesome as far as Amma's kitchen was concerned. This time, she even outdid her normally superlative gotsu, kathrikkaai saadam, vaazhakkaai podimaas, and Iyengar mor-kozhambu. However, regarding food outside Amma's kitchen, the lesser said the better. Madras' restaurant scene hasn't grown up at all. Could this be because the average Madrasi would choose to eat plain and simple thayir saadam at home anyday, rather than seek out a new trendy chaat place like a Delhi-ite might? Or did we just not have access to information? I don't beleive that since we read both the Hindu and the Times of India religiously and even tapped our young cousins working at Infosys for pointers. If someone has better ideas, we would love to hear about it before our next visit to Madras.

However, on the cultural front, Madras filled our hearts to the brim. Since our pilgrimage fell bang in the middle of "katcheri" season (annual Classical music festival), we got to pick two singers we were dying to hear live - Bombay Jayashri and TM Krishna. Apparently Indra Nooyi enjoys her curd rice and katcheri too! Also, V took me to his favorite "Kapaaleeswarar" kovil in Mylapore, which is the center of the world to V. What a glorious temple, bang in the middle of a buzzling city?! I was humbled at first glance.

Coming back to food - after reading about it in Chetan Bhagat's "Two states- the story of my marriage", V recommended that we swing by "Amethyst" for lunch one day. We were quite impressed by the setting - a well-preserved heritage house converted in to a casual restaurant. We only saw foreigners when we walked in and soon discovered why. The rather sparse and uninspired menu items had outrageous prices attached to them. We walked out quickly and went to the Chinese restaurant at the food court at Spencers which also sucked big-time. (The trip wasn't wasted though - we picked up Chandra Padmanabhan's new vegetarian cookbook "Simply South" at Landmark bookstore at Spencers.) One other day, V and I went to "Mathura" on Mount road after a concert, and decided that we wouldn't wish that experience even on our worst enemy.

After all these horrible experiences, finally a day before our return, V and I finally had our first positive restaurant experience. V had already been to Sanjeevanam before, but it was my first time and my parents' too. It was funny how Appa was quite reluctant to try the restaurant because it touts itself as a "health restaurant". He protested that he didn't want to pay someone to feed him diet food since Amma forces him to eat it at home anyway. Besides, he said, who could make diet food taste as good as Amma did - hmmm, was that a compliment? Despite this, we did go and all of us, including dad thoroughly enjoyed the food.

Food at Sanjeevanam is prepared naturally in earthen, copper and bronze vessels using fresh ingredients. Salt and spices are used sparsely, allowing the natural flavors of the vegetables to come through. Attention is paid to the order in which food is served; water is served only at the very end. Food is served on a banana leaf, considered to both enhance the flavors as well as the nutrition in the food, and eaten with bare fingers.

The first course consisted of five types of juices served in shot glasses, meant to be consumed in this order - Dates juice, Nuts milk, Vegetable clear soup, Buttermilk, Bran rice water.

After this came a row of uncooked vegetables (sprouted green gram, cucumber, carrots and beets). Following this was a row of partially cooked vegetables (banana flower, green chutney, and others) and finally came a row of cooked vegetables (bitter gourd, okra, and others). Coconut was used liberally as a garnish for some vegetables. One could ask for as many servings of these vegetables as one could handle. My dad really liked the "oorugaai" - which was a rather interesting concoction of minced raw mango, raw beet and carrots. I loved the banana flower curry, which is impossible to find in the US anyway. For the main course, first some red rice was served with cooked daal. Then regular steamed white rice was served with sambar, mor-kozhambu, rasam, and buttermilk. Dessert was a cup of paayasam. Finally you held your palm out for a dollop of honey which is supposed to aid in digestion.

We all left quite happy and light from Sanjeevanam. I don't remember how much it cost, but I am sure it was not more than Rs. 150 (less than $4) per person. We got there around 12:15pm for lunch, and were able to get a table of our choice, but it got very crowded just a few minutes later. Service was slow but we let it slide since it was Christmas day and they only had two people to wait on all the tables.

On our way out, we stopped at their store and stocked up on some natural soaps, health drink mixes, turmeric, ginger tea and other natural products. Sanjeevanam also offers ayurvedic massages - something to consider when we go next time!

At Cannery Row in Monterey - C restaurant + bar

2009-12-01T22:11:00.001-08:00

Ah! The California coast! With the state in dire financial crisis, we Californians atleast have these breath-taking places to retreat to and hide. We do not have to spend too much of our heavily-taxed hard-earned dollars on vacation travel, as these exotic locations are right here in our backyard! With our annual family visit coming up soon, V and I decided on a quiet Thanksgiving this year with just the two of us. Monterey on the Pacific coast, known for its famous aquarium, is less than 2 hours from us. We were rewarded with glorious views on our drive. We stopped on the way at Moss Landing beach to have a picnic lunch and saw an amazing variety of coastal birds, all of whom we later identified in our bird book.

When we got to Monterey, we spent a couple of hours walking around and window-shopping in Cannery Row. We were later reminded by a friend that we missed the obligatory photo-op next to the bust of John Steinbeck, famous for his novels set in Monterey. (Apparently the water-front street was named after Steinbeck's novel, and not the other way around!)

We had reservations for dinner at the "C restaurant" in the Intercontinental hotel located right next to the aquarium. We dressed up for a change - V looked quite spiffy in a gray suit! We were seated with a view of the water and even though the ocean was a deep dark inky abyss by dinner time, we could hear the waves crashing and see the occassional one breaking against the walls. V and I rarely drink (alcoholic beverages, that is), but again, for a change, we ordered the "New World Flight" sparkling wine sampler from the special Thanksgiving menu to kick off a fabulous dinner.

We were pleased that the special 4-course Thanksgiving menu had quite a few choices for vegetarians. Dinner started with "Deviled Glaum Ranch Farm Egg" - the green filling where the yolk had been was flavorful, but we couldn't figure out what went in it.

From the appetizer course, V ordered the "Sweet Potato and Arugula Salad" and I ordered the "Potato Gnocchi". We both unanimously agreed that the gnocchi was the best we had ever had. I am not a gnocchi person but the description sounded so good with roasted butternut squash, brown butter, and sage leaves that I had to try it. The salad with fresh arugula and roasted sweet potato had an delicate "vanilla bean vinagarette" dressing, which neither of us had tasted before. We were off to a good start.

The main course was "Wild Mushroom Risotto" prepared with chanterelles and porcini mushrooms that I could individually taste, i.e. it was not a mushy mess. It also had a lot of sweet caramelized onions and a mushroom sauce on top.

Dessert was a delicious finale to an excellent meal. V got the "Ginger Spice Cake" and I got the "Pecan Tartlet with Vanilla Gelato". V gobbled up the chocolate toffee that came on top of the Spiced Cake. The cake was very light and had a lot of ginger flavor to it, and was not overly sweet. It made a good counterfoil to the sweet Vanilla gelato on top of the pecan tartlet. The tartlet itself made a great sweet, crunchy and nutty ending to our dessert and our overall meal!

Dinner was nice relaxing event, and service was impeccable. We gave thanks for our great friends and family, all the wonderful getaways we were able to enjoy this year and most of all, our health. The C restaurant + bar, is a bit pricey, but a great place to sit and have a drink or a bite to eat in Monterey.

Dosa in Mission, San Francisco

2009-10-24T22:39:00.001-07:00

Dosa
995 Valencia (@ 21 St)
San Francisco
(415) 642 3672
http://www.dosasf.com/

V has been promising me a day in the Mission district in San Francisco, ending with a meal at Dosa. Even though there are a number of dosa places in the South Bay, V feels that Dosa, which is slightly more expensive than other dosa joints, is still worth a visit. I have written about dosas and how they form a quintessential part of a South Indian meal in earlier posts, so I will skip the explanation here. Dosa is right next to Herbivore, one of our favorite vegetarian joints in the City.

It was a perfect day. We started in Mission and went all the way to Alamo Square to see the "Painted Ladies" of San Francisco and from there up to Twin Peaks to catch a panoramic view of the City on this perfect fog-free October day. On the way there, we had light lunch at another branch of Herbivore on Divisadero,which we were happy to chance upon.

The hike up Twin Peaks and back down and all the way back to Mission again made us fairly hungry and ready for Dosa. On the way, V showed off the cafe' where he used to hang out in his single days. He raves about the coffee at Ritual Cafe' but we didn't get a chance to try it today. Just across the street from Ritual Cafe' is another dosa place, Udupi Palace, which has a branch in South Bay as well.

Back to Dosa, we had a reservation for 5:30pm which is their opening time. For an esoteric menu like dosa, we were surprised to see that it started filling up fairly quickly. Dosa has a good tasting menu which I beleive is $39 and comes with wines paired with the meal. The main menu is fairly simple. First, there are a number of South Indian style starters like Thayir vada (or Dahi vada), Idli-sambar, Onion pakoras, and so on. Then there is a main dosa section with a variety of masala dosas, rava dosa, moong dosa and so on. Then there is a uthappam section with a variety of uthappams. The dosas and uthappams are around $10 - $12 each. The menu is primarily vegetarian, though there are a couple of fish and chicken dishes.

We ordered the Thayir vada to start our meal to cool down from our long walk. We were very pleased with both the presentation and the taste, and in addition, it came to the table very fast.

For the main course, V ordered the "Habanero Mango Masala Dosa" and I ordered the "Chili Cilantro Uthappam". The Habanero, as our waitress warned us, was ultra spicy and V was sweating after a few bites. He wished we had saved some of the Thayir vada! The uthappam was very nicely done (the downfall of uthappam typically is that it is very easy to under-cook it and leave it doughy). It was just spicy enough but not overly so. The sambar, and chutneys that came with both dishes were sub-par, nothing to write home about.

All in all, it was an enjoyable meal. The bill came to $40 for the two of us with tax and tip. San Francisco now has an additional "Health" tax of some sort, not sure if it has always been there! I don't know if we will go back to Dosa. It was a good one-time experience. Like my dad says, it is outrageous to pay $10 for a dosa which can be enjoyed on the streets of Madras (Chennai) for Rs.50 (approx. $1)!

Food as it relates to Climate Change (Blog Action Day 2009)

2009-10-14T17:45:00.001-07:00

Growing up in an over-crowded Indian city, conservation was instilled in me in day-to-day life. We bought local fresh produce almost every day to cook our meals, rarely ate out, and seldom bought foods packaged in fancy cardboard, plastic and foil wrap. Rice, lentils, sugar, rock salt and other groceries were purchased from the local grocer's bulk bins, and packed in old newspapers tied up with recycled jute threads. I grew up in a vegetarian family, but even my friends who ate meat did so only once or twice a week. Water was a scarce and sacred commodity and wasting water was akin to frittering away our wealth. We generated very little trash. And finally, we walked, did not drive, not only to the grocer but pretty much everywhere (or used public transportation).

Globalization has changed India drastically. Eating out in restaurants and eating meat almost every day at McDonalds and Pizza Hut is quite common. The menace of plastic bags has arrived in India with full force and even the little vendor with her push-cart uses them. Even my kind-hearted mom, who patronizes the small vegetable/fruit vendor with her pushcart (to help her make a living), gets excited about the brand new supermarket selling exotic fruits neatly packaged in plastic wrap.

But I would be a hypocrite if I whined about it. We in the US still consume much more than the rest of the world. In the US, I find myself slipping into over-consumption mode without thinking too much; sometimes for convenience, sometimes due to lack of time, and sometimes due to lack of resources (like proper public transportation). Still, V and I have some fundamental rules that we follow more often than not. Some of them have become immutable habits, others we are still working on!

Eat vegetarian - This one is a no-brainer. We were both brought up vegetarian and find it rather easy to remain so. Despite what other vegetarians say, I have never felt annoyed by questions about why I am a vegetarian, and whether I miss eating meat (of course not, how can I miss something I have never had?), and how I get proper nutrition. And usually I am patient in explaining to the misguided waiter that chicken or fish dishes are not vegetarian. Also, V and I usually dig up atleast one exclusively vegetarian restaurant to patronize when we travel.

Farmers market / Local produce - Last weekend, as we were walking with bags laden with fresh pomegranates, carrots, and end-of-the-season eggplant, V proclaimed "I love the Saturday morning farmer market routine". Indeed, it has become a favorite part of our weekend. We are lucky that our local market is open throughout the year. Our friends P&V introduced us to the wonderful local CSA vegetable box delivery, but with both of us traveling, it quickly became tiring for us to deal with all that roughage! I was pretty enthusiastic in the beginning - spent evenings sorting, trimming, cleaning, cutting and making vegetable broth with the tons of inedible greens and stalks, and freezing the rest. Oooof, it was quite a chore! So we switched back to our farmer's market routine and we are happy again! Whatever works, right?

Fasting - As I already pointed out, Americans eat a lot more than people in other parts of the world. It is heart-breaking to find out that in this era of industrial agriculture and industrial meat-production, people are still dying of hunger! Fasting is a part of Hindu culture in which one abstains from food on a particular day. Sometimes it is abstinence from all food, and at other times it could mean giving up certain foods, such as, cooked foods (eating just fruits and nuts), or salted, or sour foods. V and I try to abstain from cooked foods once a week.

Not buying it - I just finished reading this book called "Not buying it - My year without shopping" and I became intrigued by the concept and impressed by the author's perseverance in the face of temptation. V and I sometimes try this on a small scale for up to 3 months, by not buying any packaged, processed foods for our pantry. Our food shopping consists only of fresh fruits, vegetables, yogurt, milk and eggs. No rice? Hey, let's use up that box of cous cous hiding in the pantry! It is a rather cathartic experiment (sorry for the pun) - the pantry gets cleaned out and our body thanks us for not putting any (new) junk in.

No plastic bags - V and I always keep a few big cloth bags in our car so that we do not bring hoards of those dreaded plastic grocery bags in to our home. We also reuse the bags from the farmer's market in which we put our produce in for subsequent shopping trips. It saddens me to walk in to a grocery store and see people walking out with 10 plastic bags filled with groceries, not to mention, two kids in tow. People, it's the earth you are going to leave to those two kids in tow, why do you want to litter it up with plastic bags? Is it so difficult to bring beautiful, convenient, strong and large cloth bags? Plastic bags are ugly, they are inconvenient and they are a menace to everyone. BYOB! Okay, sorry for getting a bit preachy.

Other stuff - And then there are other things. We are trying to not eat out so much. We minimize driving and finish our grocery shopping on the way back from work. We are trying to grow a few things in our yard like tomatoes, basil and cucumber. We try to take our own containers for doggy-bagging left-overs at the restaurant - need to get better at this. We always recycle our egg and milk cartons.

Every small thing makes a difference, this much I believe firmly. So please do share your ideas!

This was a special post for the Blog Action Day happening on Oct. 15, 2009 on the topic of Climate Change.

Blog Action Day - Climate Change

2009-10-14T13:19:00.000-07:00

I have signed up to post something about Climate Change for the Blog Action Day on Oct 15th. So many thoughts swirl in my head, and in fact I am passionate about the subject itself, but I don't know what I am going to write yet. Could end up being a mish-mash of my thoughts.

In the meantime, please browse around the BAD website for some wonderful links and topics.

Stir-fry vegetables and tofu recipe

2009-09-23T12:24:00.001-07:00

V has been into stir-fries recently, so when I saw this recipe in the NY Times, it made me miss him even more as he is traveling this week.

It was late in the evening, however on an impulse, I decided to give the recipe a try, of course with variations of my own. I went to the local Korean & Japanese grocery store to pick up the necessary produce. I love exploring the local Korean grocery stores. There are three of them within 3-4 miles of where we live. The produce is excellent and they have unique teas, spices and sauces that we love to browse. We also pick up "Pearl Barley" which we use in lieu of rice for Indian/Asian meals. Barley has lower glycemic index than rice. I sometimes mix barley and brown rice and cook them together.

Here's the recipe for my version of the colorful stir-fry:

Ingredients:
1 red bell pepper diced
1 green bell pepper diced
2 carrots diced
1 onion diced
1 package firm tofu squeezed out and diced
4-5 sprigs of scallion (spring/green onion)
4-5 pods garlic - minced
1 inch piece ginger - grated
few dried red chilies, broken
2-3 Tbsps vegetable oil
2-3 Tbsps soy sauce
2-3 Tbsps white vinegar
2 tsp toasted sesame oil

Method:

Separate the green portion and white portion of the scallions, to add them at different times during the cooking. Dice.
Heat oil in a wok, and add the dried red chilies
Add the diced onions, red and bell peppers. When soft add the white portion of the scallions, garlic and ginger and stir
After a few minutes add the diced carrots.
Add soy sauce and vinegar. Close the lid and let the carrots soften a bit
Add the tofu and stir for a few minutes and then add the green portion of the scallions
Switch off the heat and finish with a drizzle of toasted sesame oil

As I mentioned in an earlier write-up, we bought a cast-iron Lodge pan since we are worried about using non-stick pans. It is heavy but is awesome to prepare stir-fries because the pan gets so wonderfully hot in just a few minutes! I am in love with it now!

Here's the delicious meal, waiting for V when he gets back.

P.S.
The only spice used in this recipe is "red chilies". Hence I submit this recipe to the "Think Red Chilies" event at the Think Spice blog. Enjoy!

A Vegetarian in Napa - Ubuntu [2]

2009-09-10T21:39:00.001-07:00

Avid followers of our blog (hello amma!) will recall that V and I had a wonderful trip to Napa in February, the highlight of which was dinner at Ubuntu. Since then, we have been plotting our return, and a couple of weekends back after dropping a visiting friend at the Oakland airport, we continued on to Napa for lunch at Ubuntu.

It was searingly hot in the valley (over 100F, I am sure). We parked the car across from Ubuntu in the scant shade of a sapling tree and ducked in to the cool interior of the restaurant. V enquired whether Chef Jeremy was around but unfortunately for us, he was not in that morning.

Even on such a hot day, the restaurant was pretty full. We got a comfortable 2-person table near the window with a view of the sidewalk. They have some seating outside by the creek at the back of the restaurant, but on a day like this it is for those few who like their food and themselves to be slowly roasted by the sun.

The menu was completely different from what we had in February since Chef Jeremy Fox likes to cook with seasonal ingredients, most of which come from their own farms. Here are a few snapshots of the menu.

We had quite a tough time deciding what to order but our waitress was quite helpful and rather poetic in her description of the items. As I had mentioned in the previous blog post, Ubuntu serves small tapa-style items meant to be shared. Going in a large group is nice, since more items can be sampled. However since it was just V and me, we decided to order one appetizer item, and 3 main course items. We were going to save some space for dessert too!

I paired my meal with an "Anchor Steam" beer and V paired his with freshly squeezed lemonade. Here's what we had.

1. chickpea clusters crisped in napa smith ale, ROSEMARY, romesco $7

2. cool "crimson sweet" MELON & LEMONGRASS "chowder"
'mexican sour' GHERKIN "whipped" coconut milk, basil seed "caviar" $11

3. crispy garden fritters with the "nasty bits", horseradish crema
BEETBERRY... aka "strawberry spinach", AMARANTH, trail mix $12.50

4. "southern breakfast": a soft farm egg and smoked trumpet "bacon"
organic grits from arbuckle, green TOMATO jam blis bourbon maple $16

Pictures are in the same order order below. Whatever is in caps in the menu are grown on their own farms.

Of the four items, the one that truly took it to new heights was the MELON and LEMONGRASS "chowder". Not only was the presentation beautiful but it really hit us with a pow!! when we took the first taste. After that, we took each spoonful carefully, licking and savoring and never wanting it to end.

The chickpea clusters were presented on a rustic plate and reminded us very strongly of the savory "bakshanam" made for special occassions in southern India. It has the same taste and smell.

The horseradish crema made the garden fritters more interesting than it would have been otherwise.

And lastly, the southern breakfast was my least favorite, though V seemed to enjoy every bite of it. The warm grits were served with a soft egg inside, some grated parmesan cheese on top and roasted trumpet mushroom. I loved the mushroom part, but did not like the grits part since I don't like partially cooked egg very much.

After such as scrumptious meal, we could nevertheless not resist looking at the dessert menu. Usually I dislike cheesecake but somehow the description of the "cheesecake in a jar" was so intriguing (esp. the blueberry part) that I had to try it. V on the other hand chose the carrot cupcakes, which I thought was a rather pedestrian selection, atleast until I tasted it!

vanilla bean "cheesecake" in a jar
chamomile-scented blueberries, teecchino nut crumble $9
mini vegan carrot cupcakes
"cream cheese" frosting, tiny candied 'purple haze' CARROTS $6

Both desserts were out of this world. I didn't think carrot cake could be so delicious but it was. The frosting was not overpowering but just delicately enhanced the cake. The tiny carrots were fun. The cheesecake was more like a layered "falooda" - with the crunchy nut crumble and the blueberries complimenting the sweet creamy part very elegantly. A beautiful ending to the meal in Napa on a hot day! The bill came to around $80 for the two of us with tax and tip.

A Vegetarian in Stockholm

2009-08-30T20:02:00.001-07:00

Hermans Restaurant, Stockholm

I was on a business trip to Stockholm, the city that my current favorite thriller author, Steig Larsson, used to call home before he passed away few years back (http://www.stieglarsson.com/). Sweden has marked its presence in the world with its Viking history, IKEA design, ABBA music and Ericson phones. But the question that we wanted to examine was, "Are there Swedish vegetarian restaurants worth visiting when you are in Stockhom"? The answer is an resounding "yes". Hermans Restaurant in Stockholm provides a world-class vegetarian buffet, outstanding views of the Stockholm Gamma Stan (old town) and the water, excellent service and great ambience and energy with all the young college students gathering for their dose of vegetarian energy.

To get the logistics out of the way, Hermans web site is at http://hermans.gastrogate.com/page/8 and can be reached easily from wherever you are searching at Google Maps (maps.google.com)

Once you enter the restaurant you will have to walk down a winding stairs to the entrance area where your healthy eating muscles will be tested by how you react to the panoply of mouth watering desserts that are displayed. You have to decide if you want to select a dinner option with or without dessert, any sugar dependent human being would decide to pay ~20Kronors for the dessert option on top of the ~Kr190 full menu option. I got lucky as the barbeque was on that day and had to pay a little extra for partaking their bbq options.

Once you pay up, you walk into another room which has 30+ dishes that have been inspired by fine vegetarian cooking all over the world, Indian, Chinese, Middle-Eastern, Tex-Mex, and Scandinavian. My favorites were the salads that were made from summer fresh Swedish vegetables and tofu curries. Each individual dishes were not a 9 or 10 but the entire spread reflected the Olympic spirits of world Vegetarian cooking not ignoring any major cuisine (except African for some reason – Ethiopian, anyone?). The taste was very well balanced and quite inspired taking the basic recipe and adapting to Scandinavian penchant for understatement.

Couple of tips,

Get a seating outside in the topmost patio if available, the best view
Try their outstanding tea collection, my favorite is their white tea
Definitely try their dessert option, not worth missing
They have great hot sauce, ask them if it is not available outside
Enjoy sunset with a drink of your choice from their window seating and you will get a very different view of Stockholm

All in all, not worth missing Hermans, any time you are in Stockholm. Some people may say you should include Hermans as a destination must-see in addition to all the tourist to-dos. I tend to agree with them.

Mezze for a party

2009-08-13T18:21:00.001-07:00

This writeup is a bit overdue as usual but better late than never, right?

V and I were invited to a fun evening of music and food at our friend's recently, and we all decided to make it a potluck to make it even more fun! Since P & V were leaning towards kind of a Middle Eastern/Levantine menu, we decided to add to their mezze plate. When V and I travelled in Egypt, one of our favorite meals consisted of a basket of fresh bread (aish baladi) with an array of mezze like hummus, baba ghanouj, muhammara, and so on.

A quick Google blog search helped us identify recipes for two of our favorite mezze dishes - Muhammara and Mutabal (as Baba Ghanouj is referred to in Syria). Unfortunately we didn't save the links to the recipes, but here I have tried to recreate the recipes as we made them.

I blasted the oven to 400F and got both my red bell pepper and egg plant done at the same time.

Prep work:

Preheat oven to 400F.
Cut 2-3 red bell pepper in to halves. Lay cut side down on a baking sheet.
Poke 1 large (or 2 small) eggplant several times with a fork and place in oven
Check after 20 mins. The bell pepper may be done, which means the skin will be shiny and curling away from the flesh. If so, take it out.
The eggplant may take 20 more minutes. Insert a knife in the eggplant to check if it is nice and smooshy inside.
Place both the eggplant and bell pepper under the broiler for a minute or so to get it a bit charred if desired.
Put them in a brown paper bag and place it on a plate (it may leak).
After about half an hour, open the paper bag. The skin should come off easily for both the eggplant and bell pepper
Peel skin and chop roughly

After this, all that is required is a food processor.

Ingredients for muhammara:

Roasted Bell pepper
1/4 cup panko (bread crumbs)
1/4 cup walnuts
2-3 cloves garlic
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp red pepper
1/4 cup olive oil
2 Tbsps Pomegranate molasses (we skipped this since we did not have it in our pantry)
salt to taste

Throw the ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth.

Ingredients for Mutabal:

Roasted and chopped eggplant
1/4 cup tahini sauce
1/4 cup lemon juice
2-3 cloves garlic
1 pinch cumin powder
salt to taste
1-2 sprigs mint and a dash of olive oil for garnish

Throw the ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth.
Garnish with mint and olive oil and serve.

P & V had made dolmas with red chard leaves, which were absolutely delicious (Nothing like fresh dolmas, I can't stand the briny ones you get at the grocery stores). They also had 2 different kinds of hummus and had made a wonderful tsatsiki. They warmed up some pita bread with olive oil in the oven, and we all sat around the mezze table and dug in to an awesome meal!

A Vegetarian in Seoul, Korea

2009-08-04T23:10:00.001-07:00

Armed with a copy of the Lonely Planet Guide to Seoul (and hoping to find a few English-speaking people in this big metropolis), this lone vegetarian set out to brave a week in Seoul, Korea. I was staying in the Gangnam district known for being one of posh areas in the city. Right below my hotel is a major subway station and the hotel is attached to a huge department store with a food court on the top floor and a food market in the basement. Seoul has a very intuitive subway system and the fact that I did not speak Korean did not hamper me one bit in getting around. Besides, it is cheap, at around 1000 won per ride.

1. Coffee, tea & him
I had a pretty decent experience, food-wise, considering this is a country where they use a lot of vegetables, yet do not understand the concept of being a vegetarian. Let me begin with the coffee here - it is just great. Or is it just that coffee is better anywhere outside the US? Everyday I stopped at the "The Coffee Bean and The Tea Leaf" (which I realize is a US chain) for my morning cappuccino. One day, I ventured in to a local coffee chain called "Tea.us". The coffee was okay, and I thought this caption on their wall was quite weird.

2. Bibimbap and a wobbly salad
I learnt that one of the best Bibimbap joints in Seoul was right on the top floor of the Shinsagae department store attached to my hotel. Bibimbap is probably the one of the best known Korean dishes made with a variety of sauteed vegetables and rice mixed together with some "gochujang" or chili paste. V and I love to have this dish at home during the summer months. A version of bibimbap exists which is made in a hot pot which would be nice for the winter time.

I made my way to the Jeonju bibimbap restaurant for dinner one evening. Using the Korean phrase guide in my Lonely Planet, I told the waitress "No meat". Then we entered the domain of sign language. Pointing at my glass of water and making swimming gestures, she asked me if fish was okay. (I was thankful she bothered to check. Most Korean dishes, especially Kimchi, usually contains shrimp or some fish). When I gestured 'no', she pointed to the "Bibimbap with Mountain vegetable" and whisked the menu away. At 8000 won, it was a very affordable and filling meal.

Since I thoroughly enjoyed the bibimbap, I went back to this restaurant a second time with some Korean friends. This time too, I got the same main entree (which apparently is the only all-vegetarian main dish) but they ordered a side of "Acorn Jelly Salad", which was out of this world! The salad was made of Acorn Jelly, shredded sesame leaves (which have a very strong flavor), some grated cucumber and carrots topped with a dressing made of sesame oil and red pepper and other stuff. I plan to recreate this dish at home, and success will partly depend on finding the right ingredients at the local Korean store. My Korean friends told me that there are at least 2 kinds of sesame oil.

3. Satisfying my sweet tooth

The department store food market in the basement was an experience in itself. The place was always packed with people who were reaching for the free food samples and walking around with icecream waffle cones in hand. Actually one could fill up on the free samples which included even beer samples! There were several Korean sweet shops where the sweet was being made right there, and several fancy western-style bakeries as well. I refrained from trying out the food samples - not being quite sure what was vegetarian and what was not. But it was fun to walk around with my own gelato waffle cone in hand.

Being a gelato connoisseur, I was thrilled to discover a new flavor here. Now, this is going to sound weird but you have to take my word that it was absolutely delicious and somehow hit the spot in the hot and humid weather there this time of year. The "rice" gelato or "Riso" has some crunchy flakes of rice but is otherwise quite smooth and very mild. My Korean friend told me that riso flavor is good only at this one gelato chain called "Gusstimo". Three scoops cost 5000 won. My friend said she gets one scoop of riso (mild), one scoop of dark chocolate (bitter) and one scoop of berry yogurt (a little sour). I stuck with just the riso in a waffle cone.

4. Insadong - An oasis for vegetarians
Insadong is a must-visit for any vegetarian tourist in Seoul. Not only is it a great place to shop for Korean traditional handicrafts and art, it is also close to both the big palaces on the tourist circuit and a major Buddhist temple. Maybe because of the proximity to the Buddhist temple, there is a preponderance of vegetarian restaurants in this area. I tried "Sanchon" based on the recommendation from Lonely Planet. The book says that the restaurant was founded by a former monk who loved temple food and wanted to introduce it to the world. It is a bit difficult to find the place since it is tucked away in a small alley off the main shopping street. When I did manage to find it, I walked in from the sweltering heat into to a dark, cool room and found an old couple bagging tea leaves into neat little pouches. They did not pay me any heed. On the other side is the restaurant. One is not allowed to wear shoes inside. Fortunately my waitress spoke a little English and I was able to ask her for some cool water after squatting on the mat in front of my wooden dining table. The set menu cost 22000 won for lunch and came with an array of very simply prepared vegetables in addition to some rice, some tempura, and soup. It is definitely worth experiencing this dining style at least once. A great writeup about the food, and more pictures are here:
http://www.seriouseats.com/2009/06/snapshots-from-south-korea-vegetarian-temple-food-at-sanchon-seoul.html

5. Street food
Seoul does not sleep till midnight or even later. In fact there are some markets which are open through the night. The open air markets are fun to hang out in. One can watch people haggling with hawkers selling umbrellas, socks, cheap jewelry, t-shirts, toys and of course food! The food carts are always busy. It was fun to watch this one vendor make some kind of caramelized sweet on a stick that were selling like, pardon the pun, hot cakes. She burnt some sugar in a little cup, spread it out, stamped a pattern on it, and inserted a stick in it.

There were machines dispensing green tea frozen yogurt which seemed quite popular. There was also roasted sweet corn and fried potato and lot of other sweet stuff. I decided to try the roasted chestnuts based on the recommendation in my guidebook. I believe this is a winter thing, but somehow I was lucky enough to spot it. I got a small paper bag-full for 5000 won and they smelled so good that I gobbled them all up before clicking a picture!

6. In conclusion....
It is not difficult for a vegetarian to survive in Seoul. One could just live on bibimbap (minus the meat), some great roasted chestnuts from your friendly street vendor and a cup of nice hot tea to wash it down. And if you go to Insadong, you will have quite a few vegetarian places to choose from - just ask the next monk that walks past you. Whatever you do, just don't settle for Indian food or Italian food here. I can vouch that both are quite terrible in Seoul.

Dandelion Vegetarian Cafe & Vegetarian House in San Jose

2009-06-22T21:27:00.001-07:00

Dandelion Vegetarian Cafe
390 E Santa Clara St # 3, San Jose, CA‎
(408) 288-6788‎
http://www.dandelionvegetariancafe.com/

Vegetarian House

520 E. Santa Clara St, San Jose, CA‎

(408) 292-3798‎

http://www.vegetarianhouse.us/

There seems to be a portion of E. Santa Clara street in downtown San Jose which is the vegetarian corridor. This month, we went to two vegetarian places located within blocks of each other. Dandelion Vegetarian Cafe is an inexpensive, small cafe type place, more suited for lunch than dinner. Vegetarian House is more fancy and better suited for dinner. In close proximity is another vegetarian restaurant - Tofoo Com Chay, which we have not tried yet.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dandelion has a small but sunny interior with flowers painted on the walls. The menus are also very colorful. The first time I went there, I tried the spring noodle soup from the menu. My friend got the spicy udon noodle soup. We both really liked the noodles and especially the "tea egg" which was in there. Apparently tea egg is just a hard boiled egg which has been soaked in black tea. The flavor was pretty interesting and the egginess was fully gone. The bill came to around $9 per person including tip.

The second time I went with V, we ordered the pre-made dishes with rice. It is pretty cheap at $5.99 for rice + 3 items. The dishes vary every day and V was very disappointed than they did not have the kung pao chicken on the day that we went. (How can they not have kung pao on a Friday, he lamented!) As a result he did not really enjoy his lunch. I quite liked it for the price and the quality. We both got stir fried pea shoots, veggie beef with broccoli and veggie sweet and sour pork. Again the bill came to $9 per person including tip. I would recommend ordering off the menu if you have the time. The pre-made items are convenient for a quick take-away though.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Vegetarian House is part of a chain of restaurants that are affiliated with the "Supreme Master Tsing Tao". Inside the restaurant, there is a bunch of material promoting her philosophy and teachings. Other restaurants that are affiliated are Loving Hut in Palo Alto and Milpitas, and Merit Vegetarian in Sunnyvale. The food is pretty good at all these places whether or not you want to have anything to do with the Supreme Master!

V and I have been to Vegetarian House almost 2 years back and I have been wanting to go back ever since. We went there this time with our friend D, who always cracks up at the mention of the Supreme Master! :-) Interestingly, on one of my trips to Seoul, I walked into a vegetarian restaurant, and there was this picture of the Supreme Master Tsing Tao smiling down at me! She is everywhere!

The interior of Vegetarian House is nicely done with walls made of colored glass. We decided to order family style. D had her heart set on the "Spicy Cha Cha" and she even pronounced it correctly with her limited knowledge of Chinese. V and I ordered the Dancing Asparagus and Szechuan Strips. Of the three, we liked the Szechuan strips the best for the flavor, although all three were good. The Szechuan Strips had a very tasty sauce and wonderful crisp veggies. V disliked the Asparagus for some reason. The Spicy Cha Cha has crescent-shaped yam flour, which resembled shrimp. I quite liked it, and so did D. V was ambivalent again.

Dancing Asparagus

Szechuan Strips

Spicy Cha Cha

The bill came to $50 with tax and tips for the three of us. Although on the pricey side, we would definitely go back there to try their kung pao which our waiter raved about!

Dosa Place in Santa Clara

2009-06-07T21:24:00.001-07:00

Dosa Place
2665 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA‎
(408) 243-3672‎

This place dishes up comfort food for any true-blooded South Indian. Dosas are basically thin crepes made from rice & lentils eaten in Southern India (Tamil Nadu and other states) for breakfast or a mini-meal in the evenings. It is meant to be eaten hot off the griddle, so usually one person of the household is dishing it out, while the others are at the table. The trouble is that it is so hard to stop eating dosas, that the person in the kitchen could be stuck there for a very long time!

Variations of the standard dosa exist, making it a very versatile item. Infact "Dosa Place" boasts of atleast 50 varieties. The "DP Speciality Dosa" section in the menu is the one to focus on if you are visiting there for the first time.

We would heartily recommend the DP Special Rava Masala Dosa. Thin and crispy and served with three chutneys and sambar, it is truly delicious and disappears in no time. Yesterday I got this (pictured below with our crossword puzzle which we quickly abandoned when the dosa arrived), and they got it just right. V ordered the "Adai Avial". The avial was awesome, but the adai felt like it was microwaved.

We have been to Dosa Place several times in the past including with some guests visiting from Germany. One guest skipped over the dosas in the menu and ordered the Gobi Manchurian from the "Indo Chinese" section, and surprisingly it turned out to be a good choice - not too spicy for her palate. Our other guest ordered the "Kal Dosa" which is soft and thick and very filling.

Yesterday our bill came out to around $16 with tax. They give a 5% discount for paying by cash.

Camping Bhelpuri with Fava beans

2009-05-27T16:59:00.001-07:00

Last week in our box of CSA vegetables, we got a bag full of fava beans. Fava beans are actually a pain to deal with. First you have to peel the pod and take out the beans. Then you blanch the beans in boiling water for 5 minutes and drain the water. After that it is a painstaking process of peeling off the outer unedible skin and getting to the delicious inside. V and I peeled the fava beans over an episode of Inspector Frost. (I think I peeled 5 for every one of V's :-))

The effort paid off. On our recent camping trip, we prepared a simple snack of bhelpuri with fava beans.

Here's the recipe:

1 pack Haldiram's ready-to-eat bhel puri
1 cup fava beans blanched and peeled
1/2 cup red onion diced fine
1/2 cup red bell pepper diced fine
1/2 cucumber diced fine
half a lemon/lime
pinch salt if required

Mix all ingredients including the sauce packets in the bhelpuri mix. Squeeze half a lemon/lime and mix again and eat.

(Disclaimer: This snack tastes best if enjoyed in the outdoors under towering redwood trees amidst bright green fern growing alongside a gurgling creek.)

Submitted this concoction to "Sunday Snacks - Chaats" event at All Thingz Yummy blog. Hope it doesn't get disqualified for taking a shortcut and using ready-made bhel.

Greens in San Francisco

2009-05-23T00:28:00.001-07:00

Greens restaurant
Building A, Fort Mason Center
San Francisco, CA 94123
415-771-6222
http://www.greensrestaurant.com/

San Francisco, a mere 40 minutes away, is our haven during the few unbearably warm summer days in the South Bay. Yesterday, when the mercury hit 90 degree F, we headed in to the City with jackets in hand, but it was a warm 84F even there.

Greens restaurant located in the Fort Mason Center (future site of Starfleet Academy in the new Star Trek movie?) is one of the premier vegetarian restaurants in the City and has an unbeatable location with a view of the Bay. I was in heaven because we were lucky to get a table with a view of the Golden Gate bridge - one of my favorite sites in the world. Sailboats in various colors congregated under the Golden Gate bridge and took off. A duck was paddling around lazily in the water below us and we could see its feet in the water. All in all, a very idyllic brunch! And the food was great too!

Greens serves only their brunch menu on Sundays. V and our friend D got the Pinnacles Scramble - scrambled eggs with a southwestern flavor. The eggs were done just right, and warm tortillas made the meal pretty filling. V also got their cauliflower curried soup which he generously shared with D and me. The pureed soup had a nice hearty flavor. I got their Spinach filo. It was a delicate dish, that came with a side of lentils and artichokes.

The best part of the meal was yet to come. We caved in to the Greens dessert menu. D got the Meyer Lemon tartlet. V and I shared a Strawberry Rhubarb Pie. A perfect ending to the meal on the bay.

The bill came to $90 with tax and I am not sure how much the total ended up being, but D is a generous tipper!

Greens also has a to-go counter from where we have picked up sandwiches in the past for a picnic lunch in Angel Island. Greens To-go also serves coffee and muffins and such, for a quick snack after a performance in the Fort Mason Center.

Gelato Classico in Mountain View

2009-05-13T22:21:00.001-07:00

Gelato Classico Italian Icecream
241 Castro St
Mountain View, CA
(650) 969-2900

V has been promising to take me to this famous gelato establishment for the longest time, since he knows my weakness for icecreams and gelatos, but for some reason, we were not able to make it all this time. Finally, our friend Ken's birthday gave us the perfect excuse to indulge! After a so-so dinner at Hangen Szechuan restaurant on Castro street in downtown Mountain View, we strolled over to Gelato Classico for just a peek. But we were hooked when we looked at the variety!

We each got a small cup with different flavors. Ken got the Mocha Almond Fudge and seemed to enjoy it. I got the Burgundy Cherry because it looked so pink and irresistible. V went for the unusual flavor of Honey Lavender. V and I traded a couple of times to savor both flavors equally, but to tell the truth, V's selection was unbeatable. It had a mellow fragrance of lavender and just pure honey sweetness. We sat outside to enjoy both our gelato and the cool Bay area evening as we watched the crowds on Castro.

The price is quite reasonable at $2.95 for the small cup, which is plenty for an after-dinner dessert. (I do plan to skip dinner one day and come back here and make a meal of the different flavors!! )

Burma Superstar

2009-05-11T16:14:00.001-07:00

Burma Superstar
309 Clement St, San Francisco, CA‎
(415) 387-2147‎

www.burmasuperstar.com

This was a day for V and me to experience the smaller and lesser known Indo-Chinese cultures! After an early hike in Mt. Tamalpais north of the City, we drove in to the City to catch the Bhutan exhibition at the Asian Art Museum. We were kind of in a trance when we left the place from staring at too many mandalas, and eventhough our souls were brimming, our stomachs were growling with hunger. We had already planned our dinner venue based on a recommendation from our friends, P & V, and looked forward to that - Burma Superstar did not disappoint!

BSS opens for dinner at 5pm and when we got there around 5:30pm, there already were several people waiting outside. The hostess told us that it would be a 90 minute wait. Undaunted, we decided to hang on. I walked over a couple of blocks to a smaller cafe' type restaurant, called B*Star, owned by the same people. There was absolutely no one at that place. Looking at the menu, I realized it was more of a generic menu with just 1 or 2 Burmese dishes. Our waitress later told us that there is now a branch in Oakland with the Burmese menu . (Burma, for those who are wondering, is now known as Myanmar and is the largest Southeast Asian country area-wise.)

Fortunately our wait proved to be just around 20 minutes - apparently they had opened up a communal table. (The hostess was still throwing wild numbers like 80 minutes to 2 hours at new comers!) The seating inside is limited and it is closely packed, but we were there for the food, not the ambience.

Service was quick and very pleasant. We ordered the signature item on their menu, which is the tea-leaf salad. The special ingredient is "tea leaves", which is mixed with lettuce, tomatoes, roasted lentils, peanuts and other stuff and has a lemon dressing. We loved the unique flavor the tea leaves imparted to the salad, not sure how I can describe it except to say it was yummy.

We also ordered the "samusa" which is kind of like Indian samosas, but with a thinner deep-fried outer crust. The samusa was good but not great - I guess we could have gone for the samusa soup.

Our main entree was "Curry Vegetables", recommended by our waitress as being uniquely Burmese. The curry gravy was similar to Indian curry and the vegetables were similar, but it had a lot of mint which gave it a different taste. Instead of rice, we ordered the "Prata" similar to Indian paratha but deep-fried. (What the heck, we had afterall done a reasoanble hike that day!)
V also ordered the freshly squeezed ginger-lemon juice and really enjoyed it.

All in all, a great meal! The bill came to around $40 for the two of us with tax and tip. We will definitely go back there to try the other items on their menu. We might get the pea-shoot stir-fry (recommended by P) or vegetable stir-fry instead of the curry and order the samusa soup.

Leek, Fennel and Smallage Soup

2009-05-05T09:31:00.001-07:00

V and I haven't updated the blog in a while, shame on us. I could say we have been very busy dealing with our CSA vegetable box, but that is stretching it a bit!! However, we have been enjoying experimenting with the new vegetables in our weekly box. A few weeks back we got "Smallage", a wonderfully fragrant vegetable reminiscent of celery. I combined the stalk with baby leeks and fennel (also from the box) to make pureed soup. It was absolutely yummy!

Our farm website refers to smallage as "Soup Celery or Cutting Celery". Here's what Wikiipedia says about smallage:

The wild form of celery is known as smallage. It has a furrowed stalk with wedge-shaped leaves, the whole plant having a coarse, earthy taste, and a distinctive smell. The stalks are not usually eaten (except in soups or stews in French cuisine), but the leaves may be used in salads, and its seeds are those sold as a spice.^[9] With cultivation and blanching, the stalks lose their acidic qualities and assume the mild, sweetish, aromatic taste particular to celery as a salad plant.

Here's the recipe for my pureed soup.

Ingredients:
1 bunch smallage
1 bunch fennel
1 bunch baby leek
2-3 cups vegetable broth
Butter or vegetable oil to saute
1/4 cup Yogurt (not too sour) or cream if you prefer
2-3 cloves garlic minced
1 very small piece ginger sliced
1 pinch cumin powder
Nutmeg
Salt and pepper to taste
Chopped parsley for garnish

Method:
1. Cut off the rough portions of the leek and fennel (optionally save this for making vegetable broth). Clean thoroughly and chop
2. Cut the leaves of the smallage and save them for salad. Wash and chop the stem
3. Heat butter / oil in a pan, and add the minced garlic and ginger.
4. Add the chopped vegetables and saute till they are soft
5. Add the vegetable broth and heat through
6. Grate some nutmeg in to the pot, and add the salt, pepper and cumin powder and switch off
7. When it is cool enough, puree in a blender with the yogurt (or cream though I prefer yogurt)
8. Heat through again if desired and serve immediately with a dollop of yogurt and some chopped parsley on top

Roasted Fennel

Hmmmm.. this soup smells absolutely wonderful! We got fennel bulbs a couple of times, and got the smallage just once from the farm, and wish we had gotten these wonderfully aromatic veggies more times!

This recipe is for JFI: Fennel hosted at Siri's Corner.

Menara Moroccan Restaurant in San Jose

2009-04-07T21:34:00.001-07:00

Menara Moroccan Restaurant
41 East Gish Road

San Jose, California 95112

(408) 453-1983

http://www.menara41.com/

Moroccan restaurants usually have "set" menus of 4 or 5 kinds and there is not too much burden of choice for the diner. V and I ofcourse went for the "vegetarian" set menu at Menara and were pleasantly surprised by how good it turned out to be.

Menara is located pretty close to downtown San Jose on a somewhat unassuming street with nothing else of interest nearby. From the huge double doors we could not imagine what it would be like inside. Turned out to be a cavernous entry hall with a fountain in the middle and a bar at one end. Inside, there was a main room and two side rooms. We got one of the side rooms all to ourselves since it was weekday. In the main room there was a huge party of more than 10 people who seemed to be having fun. They got especially rowdy when the belly dancer came out! Thankfully the belly dancing and the loud music did not last for more than 30 minutes (I am guessing). V and I preferred the quiet and I have never been a huge fan of this belly dancing business in Middle Eastern restaurants (what's up with that?!).

We got 5 courses, nicely spaced, giving us just enough time to really relish the items. We also got to just sit and talk. Since we were going to eat everything with our fingers, our waiter first brought us a basin and some water to wash our hands with. Our cups of hot mint tea were kept constantly filled to the brim. In short, service was excellent.

Our first course was a spicy dip which came with French bread. After this, suddenly the gears were switched on us and we were served a semi-sweet "pastry" with powdered sugar on top, kind of like a beignet. Then we got potato dumplings with a tomato sauce. The main course was couscous with vegetables on top, served with a chickpea stew. Our dessert was two delicious pieces of baklava, served with hot cups of mint tea. This is probably the best baklava we have had in a while; just perfect, and not dripping with sweet.

The vegetarian set menu is $22 per person, and it is well worth the experience!

A Vegetarian in Seoul

2009-03-29T22:10:00.001-07:00

Being a vegetarian in South Korea is not easy. At least in Japan, there is "shojin ryori" meant for the Buddhist monks. Besides, Tokyo is teeming with Indian restaurants which invariably have vegetarian food. In Seoul, pretty much all food is likely to contain fish sauce especially if it is considered good quality.

On a recent trip to Seoul, I finally had the chance to visit an Indian restaurant (on the outskirts of Seoul in Suwon), but the experience is best forgotten. The dishes we ordered were so average, I wondered if they had watered down the vegetable korma because they were running out of it. I don't know if all Indian restaurants in Seoul are this bad, or just this one was. However this time, I also had memorable vegetarian food. I got a chance to try the vegetarian set menu in a traditional Korean restaurant called "Pulhyanggi", an experience definitely worth writing about.

Pulhyanggi has several locations in Seoul and the one I went to, located in HanNam, was a short cab ride from my hotel. The restaurant is very cozy and tastefully decorated and has both Western and Korean style of seating. The menu has several set options, including one for vegetarians. The restaurant seems to be pretty well known for it's vegetarian set menu. Even though I was pretty hungry, the full page of items in front of me seemed overwhelming!

Each dish in itself was very small and very beautifully presented. Such as one slice of grilled mushroom was presented on a small plate. The waitress who was dressed in traditional clothes pointed out the item in the menu as she set it down on the table for me. Sometimes she had a rather bemused look on her face - maybe I wasn't eating the food the right way or in the right order. But I certainly enjoyed it, every last bite! So please enjoy these pics....

This one is the crepe with 9 fillings. The waitress deftly filled the 2 small crepes and rolled it up with the chop sticks for me.

These 2 soups came first - one is a pumpkin soup and the other one is a cold vinegary radish soup.

Lone slice of mushroom and bamboo shoot grilled on their own small platters! They were quite delicious.

Sauteed Mushroom with a beautiful yellow flower. Didn't eat it, it was too pretty!

Isn't this tempura so artistically done with the small ring of chili pepper for the stem?

Even though this picture got screwed by, I had to put this in because it is my favorite Korean dish - Jab Chae. Glass noodles with sauteed vegetables. Pulhyanggi's jab chae is probably the best I have had.

These are the ingredients for bi-bim bap. The waitress was quite shocked when I just started eating them on their own, but I was too full for the "bap", which is Korean for rice. They also served burnt rice water which has a very rich flavor. I beleive this came about because Koreans used to cook rice in stoneware, and to avoid wasting the burnt rice stuck to the bottom, they would pour water in to it and drink it with the meal.

Koreans do not typically eat dessert, but they always end the meal with fresh fruit. In the summer, it is most often watermelon. I am not sure of what would be served in the winter. I got a piece of pear and rice cake. The rice cake takes some getting used to, it is very chewy and not at all sweet.

There is no tipping in Korea, and the service fee is already included in the bill. The price of the meal without the 15% service fee is 55000 Korea won. Definitely worth another visit. I need to go hungrier next time!! It sure is a lot of food! Pulhyanggi's address is here:

http://www.visitseoul.net/jsp/english_new/eat/eat01_02.jsp?template_id=136&info_id=3040100046&onloadset1_num=null&onloadset2_num=null

Oven-braised baby turnips and baby carrots

2009-03-28T18:26:00.001-07:00

We got a bunch of baby turnips in our CSA box this week and I still had the baby carrots from last time. So I started hunting around for recipes to use them up and found a rather simple but appealing recipe and decided to give it a try.

Wow! The result was just out of this world. I made a few modifications to the recipe based on what I had in hand.. it was just so mouth-wateringly delicious. So here's what I did:

Ingredients:

1 bunch baby turnips

1 bunch baby carrots

1/4 cup lemon / lime juice

2 Tbsp olive oil

salt

2-3 cloves garlic, minced

1 small pc ginger grated

4 Tbsps chopped parsley

Method:

Wash the turnips and trim the stalk so just a little bit is left at the top.
Wash the carrots and do the same. If there is still soil left on the carrots, then peel the outer skin
Whisk together remaining ingredients except the parsley
Place the turnips and carrots in an oven-proof dish and pour the braise and make sure everything is coated. There is about 1/4 inch of liquid at the bottom of the dish.
Sprinkle the parsley on top
Cover and bake in a 350F oven for 30 - 40 minutes

The carrots which were fully immersed in the braise were so lemony! The turnips were milder yet delicious. I am going to see what else I can use for this recipe.

Being part of the CSA is exhausting in a way. Just looking all those parsnips and parsley root and turnips and big bunches of escarole filling up the refrigerator makes me take a deep breath. When V and I shopped at the Farmer's Market, we had a plan in mind. If one or both of us were going to be traveling, then we could plan for it. On the other hand, the CSA forces us to be more creative and spontaneous (although so far I have no bright ideas about what to do with parsley root!). We are still weighing the benefits of the CSA to see if we want to continue.

CSA: The Locavore's Dilemma

2009-03-26T14:06:00.000-07:00

So V and I received our second box of produce yesterday from the CSA farms. We are doing this on a trial basis for a month to see how it compares to our regular Saturday morning Farmer's Market run. Pros and cons to follow later, but I noticed this article in slate.com today and it deserves a mention on this blog.

http://slate.com/id/2214524/

More pictures and recipes from this week's CSA box to follow.

Parsnips

2009-03-22T21:08:00.001-07:00

These ugly things are parsnips. They look like uncouth radishes, they are less watery than radishes, and they are also a bit on the sweet side. I got a bunch of these in my box from the farm sharing which V and I are doing on a trial basis for a month.

The recipe below is from our friends P & V who have been doing the "Community Supported Agriculture" produce delivery for a while now.

1. Wash and trim the ends and scrape the skin off the parsnips.

2. Slice them into thin rounds, toss with olive oil, salt and pepper and layer on a baking sheet.

3. Heat oven to 400F and bake for 20 minutes till crisp.

It was quite delicious and irresistible. Every time I passed by, I had to pop some in to my mouth. V didn't get any. Well, I just have to make it again next time we get it!

Soup weekend - Lentils with Garbanzo beans and Choy Sum

2009-03-09T10:35:00.001-07:00

Since both V and I have been feeling a little under the weather, we decided to do an end-of-the-(cold)season soup weekend. We usually try to cook enough to last us for atleast part of the week, so we made 3 different kinds of soups - a lemon pepper rasam (this is the Indian mom's version of chicken soup), an Indian-style lentil soup with Garbanzo beans and choy sum, and a barley mushroom soup. V made the last one with a recent recipe from the New York Times, while I made the other two. The lemon pepper rasam is from Dakshin, my trusted South Indian cookbook, and the Indian style lentil soup is my own creation. So here's the recipe.

Ingredients:

Garbanzo beans (kaabuli chana) - 1 cup
Lentils (thuvaram paruppu/toor dal) - 1 cup
1 bunch choy sum (you can use spinach instead)
1 inch piece ginger grated
4-5 pods of garlic minced
2-3 green chilies slit into halves
1-2 dried red chilies
1 yellow onion - chopped fine
salt and pepper to taste
1 pinch garam masala
cumin seeds (jeeragam) for tempering
1 Tbsp vegetable oil for tempering
chopped cilantro for garnish

Advance preparation:

Wash the garbanzo beans and soak in warm water overnight. Pressure cook (or cook on stove) till it is soft
Wash the lentils and pressure cook (or cook on stove) till it is mushy. If you are cooking it on the stove, then it is preferable to soak it in warm water for an hour or so.
Wash the choy sum, and remove the ends. Separate the green leaves from the stems. Chop them separately.

Method:

1. In a wok, heat the oil and add the cumin seeds.
2. When fragrant, add the red chilies and green chilies and stir for a few seconds
3. Add the onion and after a few minutes add the garlic and ginger and cook till the onion is translucent
4. Add just the stems of the choy sum. Sprinkle some water in the wok, cover and simmer till it is soft
5. Add the garbanzo beans and lentils, and heat through
6. Add the choy sum greens, cover and cook just for a few minutes
7. Season with salt, pepper and garam masala, heat through and switch off
8. Garnish with chopped cilantro before serving

We recently procured a Lodge cast iron pan to replace our non-stick pan (for health reasons) and we are quite excited about it. It weighs a ton however and the lid actually is heavier than the pan! Will take a little getting used to!

The above recipe goes to the vegetarian soup event at Lisa's kitchen: "No Croutons Required".

Napa Valley Bed & Breakfast

2009-03-01T01:11:00.001-08:00

Beazley House B&B
1910 First Street
Napa, CA 94559
(707) 257-1649

http://www.beazleyhouse.com/

V and I stayed at Beazley House B&B on our visit to Napa and even though this post is a little late coming, I definitely wanted to write about it. The innkeepers prepared special vegetarian breakfasts during our stay since we had informed them prior to our visit, but more about the breakfast later!

Beazley House is within walking distance to downtown Napa. It was a rainy weekend when we were there, and we were glad for the warm fire in the living room that was always tended to. There was an electric hot water kettle and a variety of great teas, and also some cream sherry just in case one was in the mood for a night cap. V took a liking to the "Masala chai" and I fell in love with the "Raspberry Rooibos" tea. (V declared that any tea with berry in it was too girly for him!) We had numerous cups of the tea in the cold evenings in pot-bellied Beazley House mugs. In fact, we bought one of the hand-made mugs to bring home with us; it does seem to keep the water warm for a longer time.

We did not see Jim & Carol, the owners of the inn on the first morning at breakfast, but we got to meet them on the second day. They are a very warm couple and seem to genuinely enjoy being innkeepers. Jim asked us about our experience at Ubuntu, to make sure he was recommending the right thing to his future vegetarian guests.

Now getting to the breakfasts at Beazley, they were simple, elegant and healthy affairs. Carol, apparently used to be a nurse before she became an innkeeper and hence she always modifies her recipes to make them more healthy. Yet, the main dishes on both days were very flavorful and filling. There was always fruit and cheese, fresh coffee, orange juice and yogurt.

On the first day, we had scrambled eggs with red bell peppers and bread pudding with berries. On the second day, Carol made great quiche (flan) with mushrooms and we also got a fruit cup with berries and other fruit. She apparently substituted the cream in the flan with yogurt, and it tasted just wonderful.

Beazley House, being in Napa, is at the southern tip of the wine country. This could be a good starting point from where to head north to wineries at Oakville, St Helena and Rutherford and other places. V and I did enjoy our stay here, and would consider it if we were visiting the area again.

Sunnyvale Farmer's Market - Romanesco Broccoli & Choy Sum

2009-02-28T23:05:00.001-08:00

I did the weekly run to the Farmer's Market alone today since V is feeling a little under the weather. It was beautiful weather outside however and the market was absolutely buzzling with crowds.

The Farmer's Market helps us keep it both healthy and affordable. We pick up everything we need for the week, both fruits and vegetables for anywhere between $20 to $30, and we don't have to go anywhere else. Well, the only other stuff we pick up at the grocery store are green chilies, ginger, cilantro (if I cannot find it in the market), milk and eggs.

Today with a 20 dollar bill, I picked up around 3 lbs of mandarin oranges, couple of daikon radishes, 1 head of cabbage, yams, garlic, yellow onions, 2 bunches of some chinese greens, and 2 heads of "romanesco" broccoli.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanesco_broccoli

A quick google search told me that the Chinese greens are called "Choy Sum".

http://chinesefood.about.com/library/blphotochoysum.htm

Pictures below of the romanesco broccoli and choy sum are mine:

We love the market because it happens right in downtown, and we can sit down in one of the cafe's and get a bite to eat (or even brunch) if we feel like it.

(Our previous Farmer's Market post here has a picture of the market.)

Borobudur near Union Square

2009-02-27T15:41:00.001-08:00

Borobudur restaurant
700 Post St
San Francisco, CA 94109
(415) 775-1512

www.borobudursf.com

V and I had noticed Borobudur several times walking in the Union Square neighborhood. The name stuck in my head because of the architectural monument of the same name in Indonesia, which we had studied about in history. Borobudur is an ancient Buddhist temple and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. More about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borobudur

The pictures of Borobudur look impressive, we hope to visit there some time in the future! Borobudur, the restaurant, on the other hand, did not impress us very much.

After spending a few hours on our feet at the Asian Art Museum, we were ready to sit down for a good lunch. Reluctant to move our car from a great parking spot we had snagged, we decided to walk over to Borobudur.

A few other tables were occupied in the restaurant, but it wasn't very crowded. A little while after we got there, a large group of Indonesian women arrived dressed in their Sunday best. There was just one harried waitress handling all these tables. Eventhough she was doing her best, service was slow.

We ordered Bakwan Jagung (corn fritters) to start with, it was reasonably good but nothing to write home about. For the main course, we ordered the Fuyunghai (Vegetable Egg Foo Young) and a Vegetable Tempeh Stir Fry. The stir fry was okay, but the Foo Young totally spoiled the taste for us. It was too oily and smelled a little like fish. When we walked out of the restaurant we didn't feel too good because of all that oil, and I was screaming for a coke to wash away all the oil and fishiness.

We picked the restaurant because of favorable reviews and maybe their meat dishes are great, but we wouldn't go back there. V and I agreed that it is not a great pick for vegetarians.

The bill came to around $30 for the two of us with tax and tip.

Krishna restaurant in Fremont

2009-02-24T21:53:00.001-08:00

Krishna Restaurant
40645 Fremont Blvd # 1,
Fremont, CA‎
(510) 656-2336

There are difficult hikes and then there are dreaded ones. Mission Peak in Fremont is one of those dreaded ones, V feels so more than I do. We hiked with our friends, P & V. P seems to agree with that view, whereas V calls it a "moderately difficult hike". On paper, the specs look fairly benign (~2000 ft ascent in 3 miles) and we have done more difficult hikes, but Mission Peak always seems daunting.

We wouldn't have kept our steadfast pace up and down the mountain if we didn't have visions of Krishna's Gujarati thali floating in front of our eyes. The two guys declared the day before that the hike was worth doing only for the reward of the post-hike lunch at Krishna.

We finished our hike with perfect timing, a little before 11:30, which is when Krishna opens its doors for lunch on Saturdays. There was no one else at the restaurant when we arrived. V says in the halcyon days of silicon valley, there would be a line of people waiting to get in to Krishna when it opened.

We went inside to wash our hands at the sink and I was pleased to see how clean the kitchen was maintained. We each ordered the lunch thali, but to start off, we ordered a couple of appetizers - the "khaman dhokla" and the "kachori". We all loved the spongy "khaman dhokla" which came with a green chutney. I wasn't too sure of the "kachori" stuffed with green peas, which came with a sweet tamarind chutney, but everyone else seemed to dig it.

The lunch thali ($5.50 on weekends) contained white dhokla with mint chutney, carrot pickles, rice, roti and a choice of one of two curries of the day, which was chana masala or aloo mutter that day. (V had the rice on his plate swapped out for more roti.) We also got a cup of daal each, which we all relished thoroughly. Gujarati daal tends to be a little sweet, but this was just right. I thought the two curries were okay, but somehow they were satisfying like only a home-cooked meal can be. Our dessert was one piece of besan barfi each. (Ofcourse I got V's share being the one in the family with the sweet tooth). Even with all these items, portions are pretty small at Krishna, and one has to order a couple of side orders of snacks if you are really hungry.

Krishna is an all-vegetarian restaurant. The bill came to $8 per person - definitely cheap eats! However V was still hungry when we left the restaurant - guess the meal didn't make up for all the calories we burnt at Mission Peak.

A Vegetarian in Napa - Ubuntu

2009-02-19T14:11:00.001-08:00

Ubuntu Restaurant and Yoga Studio
1140 Main St
Napa, CA 94559
(707) 251-5656
http://www.ubuntunapa.com/

If you are visiting the Napa valley wine country, then Ubuntu is a must-visit whether you are a die-hard vegetarian, a conscious eater, a serious epicure, or just someone who loves good food. It is also extremely popular, so make sure you plan in advance and make reservations. February is low-season for the wineries, even so, we had to make our reservations almost 3 weeks in advance.

As soon as we made plans to go to Napa, V had his heart set on going to Ubuntu and wouldn't stop talking about it. I was totally intrigued by the name - Yoga studio & restaurant?! Isn't that totally hippie? Still Ubuntu does not claim to be a raw food mecca or an ayurvedic prescription diet place, it simply claims to serve healthy food made from locally grown vegetables. In fact most of the vegetables and herbs are grown in their own gardens. Chef Jeremy Fox calls it a vegetable restaurant rather than a vegetarian restaurant. He and his wife Deanie Fox, who is the pastry chef at Ubuntu, have finally figured out a way to make vegetarian dining upscale and interesting.
Ubuntu is located in downtown Napa on Main street and there is a parking lot right across the street. However, V and I walked from our B&B despite the rain, perhaps to salute Ubuntu's commitment to reduce their carbon footprint. (You can read about their efforts in that area on their website, it is rather amazing.)

The restaurant is a huge high-ceilinged place with wooden floors and a bar on one side. There is a long wooden table down the middle of the hall, for community dining. The bar side also displayed three life-size stone sculptures of nudes, rather intriguing. The yoga studio I beleive is upstairs. The kitchen is open (or maybe partially so), and we saw Chef Jeremy Fox standing at the counter outside the kitchen putting his finishing touches to all the dishes going to the tables.

At the end of the meal, V walked over to chat with Jeremy Fox. I was skeptical because it was an extremely busy time, but V was gone for a good 10 minutes and from the table it seemed like they were chatting away like old friends. (V has to write about what they talked about). V also managed to click a picture (above).

We were offered an intimate 2-person table. The menu varies depending on the season (also I guess the chef's mood) and it is tapa-style. Our waiter recommended that we order about 5 to 6 dishes and share. In that sense, Ubuntu would be great to visit with a large group of friends. (V found in his recent reading that hanging out with friends at meals eating and talking is a key contributor to happiness.)

We ordered the following (pictures below in same order)

chickpea fries with HERBS romesco sauce

warm sunchoke carpaccio (coated with black trumpets, shaved FLORENCE FENNEL, "bordelaise")

rustic rancho gordo 'yellow eye' bean stew (torn bread, ROSEMARY, chili & braised SPIGARELLO)

local yellow corn grits, smoked with hickory (fried brussel sprouts with parsley & lemon, APPLE bbq, RED SORREL)

cauliflower in a cast iron pot (roast-puree-raw-"couscous", our vadouvan, CORIANDER toast)

All were delicious and served beautifully in unique serving dishes which enhanced their exoticity. I am not sure I can even pick favorites among the above, but sunchoke carpaccio was definitely unique and bold. V loved the corn grits. (Only one item that we ordered was not to our liking, the sauerkraut and emmental pizza which our waiter was nice enough to take back immediately).

We ended this superlative meal with a delicate dessert - meyer lemon and white chocolate parfait. It looked so pretty on the plate that we almost didn't want to touch it.

The check came to $80 with tax and tip. Next time, we will plan to visit with friends so that we can share more items.

Update from V:

This restaurant proves that there is serious money to be made in high-end vegetarian cuisine. Cyrus and Tom Keller's French Laundry have both started full vegetarian courses. But, Jeremy a native San Jose son, shows that his finer touches to "vegetable" food have not been unnoticed by the illuminati of the food world. The presentation really wins the gold medal for this place, the ambiance, service and taste make a gallant attempt in securing other medals.

As V mentioned I decided to meet the great Jeremy Fox. He is really very easy to approach and to converse with. The kind of guy we hope to see as a judge in Top Chef (Hint hint, Top Chef Producers). We spoke about his background, his passions and above all how well the restaurant is doing. The quick answer is very well. It made my day when Jeremy said he will go out and visit our blog site, and we were especially thrilled when he said the name of our blog was really "cool".

We have started saving our nickels and dimes to make sure we can do our next Ubuntu run sooner than later. Over and out, outstanding scrambled eggs are calling my name, as prepared exquisitely by my own Top Chef.

Lucky Creation in San Francisco

2009-02-12T16:12:00.001-08:00

Lucky Creation Vegetarian
854 Washington St,
San Francisco, CA‎
(415) 989-0818‎

It was glorious and sunny in San Francisco on the day of the Chinese New Year parade. Quite lucky, considering that it rained the days before and after the parade. Having gotten there early, V and I walked up Telegraph Hill to Coit Tower, where we ate our sandwiches. Then we walked up and down Crooked Street (Larkin) and over to North Beach until we found a nice little cafe' to park ourselves. Around 6 pm, we headed over to China Town hoping to find a good spot to watch the parade, but the street was totally packed. After standing around for an hour and a half with people leaving, V and I found ourselves in the front with a grand view of the dragons, lions and marching bands. It was nice!

By 8:30 pm we got hungry but luckily for us, V had looked up a great little vegetarian restaurant just a block up from the parade on Washington at the intersection of Waverly. It is not difficult to find cheap eats in China Town, but that usually means nothing to a vegetarian. So I did not expect to find this little hole in the wall in the middle of China Town serving vegetarian food exclusively. It must be popular; we saw several people waiting outside in the shivering cold. We too put our name on the list and stood outside in the cold. Again luckily, it wasn't a long wait.

The place is very unassuming and the service is brusque. We placed our order of 2 entrees from the "Specials" menu. Our choices were "Sauteed Mushroom with Gluten Puff and String Bean" and "Vegetarian shirmp and vegetables in spicy sauce"... atleast I think that is what they were called... the descriptions pretty much matched the dishes.

Apparently the speciality at Lucky is the "Wheat Gluten Puff". In fact they sell it by the pound ($4.50/lb) at the front of the store. We did find it quite tasty. The mushroom - string bean - gluten dish was out of this world, and the shrimp dish was quite good. V liked the latter better than I did.

Only cash is accepted, no cards. The dinner bill came to $24 for both of us with tax and tip. I think we were in and out of there in 30 mins! Definitely cheap eats which we are in the lookout for in this economy. V pointed out that eventhough we had been to several vegetarian "faux meat" places, we had never been to a Chinese vegetarian place. He may be right. Most of the places in the South Bay are Vietnamese.

Ginger Cafe in Sunnyvale

2009-02-09T21:52:00.001-08:00

Ginger Cafe

398 W. El Camino Real, #114,
Sunnyvale, CA‎
(408) 736-2828‎

http://www.gingercafe.net/index.html

As part of V's LARP, we decided to try out another local restaurant at the busy intersection of Mathilda and El Camino. Ginger Cafe' identifies itself a "Asia Pacific Rim Chinese cuisine" restaurant. For some reason, I imagined it to be a Thai restaurant. Also, though unassuming from the outside, it is copious inside and nicely decorated.

On a Friday evening at 7 pm, the restaurant was very sparsely populated. Our friends, J & S joined us and we were seated at a booth near the window from where we could see the rain coming down incessantly. We were happy for this since the dry weather in January had worried us.

The menu is quite elaborate and they have a vegetarian section. Our friends J & S decided to go separately from us and order non-vegetarian dishes. V and I started off with the steamed veggie dumplings from the Dim Sum menu. The dumplings turned out to be too sticky and we had quite a time separating the paper from the bottom of the dumpling and finally gave up with the last one! Must say it tasted pretty good though.

For the main course, V was his predictable self and ordered Kung Pao Vegetarian Chicken with a side of extra peanuts. The Kung Pao was excellent, probably the best I have tasted in this area. V liked it quite a bit too and thought it was less oily than elsewhere.

I ordered the Thai Curry Vegetarian Duck which was mouth-smackingly delicious. Truly. We took some leftovers back home and had it the next day.

Service was attentive, and we will definitely be back here. Ginger Cafe seems to have a very good lunch menu too at reasonable prices. The bill came to $30 with tax & tips. Not cheap eats, but not bad either.

Rok Bistro in Sunnyvale

2009-02-03T22:56:00.001-08:00

Rok Bistro
124 S Murphy Ave
Sunnyvale, CA 95133
(408) 733-7651
http://www.rokbistro.com/

V2 and I were on our way back from the City and the traffic was unusually heavy because of a popular concert in Shoreline Theatre. The weather was very cold and our wallet was leaking, thanks to our friends in Wall Street. While driving down 101 and contemplating all these factors, we came up with the idea to revive our approach to help our hometown economy. LARP, Local Area Revitalization Program - our answer to Paulson's TARP.

As part of this grand LARP, we decided to eat out at a new fusion restaurant in downtown Sunnyvale. The restaurant serves Swiss Fondue with barbecue-inspired rock cuisine. For a vegetarian, this idea looks much better in paper than in practice.

The ambiance is high-end, but not quite white-linen. The maitre'd was friendly and gave us a nice booth at the kitchen end of the restaurant. A group of young professional women sitting on the table next to us made it clear that high-volume sound is the background motif in which good food is usually served. Incidentally, our waiter informed us that is how the Swiss like to eat their fondue, potluck style, a lot of people, a lot of noise and a lot of good cheese and wine.

We started with the avocado salad which had baby spinach leaves topped with sliced avocado, cheese and nuts. We loved it, and were off to a good start.

Next came the fondue. We tried the special of the day, which was "Pesto" cheese fondue. V2 tells me it came with Swiss and Gruyere cheese (she knows these things better). Our waiter turned on the burner at the table, placed the hot pot on it to melt the cheese. We were given a platter with bread and assorted vegetables (carrots, cauliflower, mushroom, broccoli) to dip in it. We both enjoyed it to the last bite and dip. All, except one item, on their regular fondue menu is vegetarian.

The main feature of Rok Bistro is the "Hot Volcanic Rock" entree. The food is cooked at the table on a rock that has been pre-heated for a number of hours. Since we are suckers for the house specials, we had to try it. However, for vegetarians, it is a poor choice between Grilled Portabella and the Vegetarian Platter. I, for one, am not a big fan of mushroom. except for the ones with medicinal powers, so we went with the Vegetarian Platter. The entree was not as satisfying as the previous courses. The owners apparently are still figuring out the right selection for the vegetarian stuff, as tofu roks have been quite a bomb.

We ended the 3-course meal with a gelato on a cold rock. The gelato was nothing to write home but did it's part in a journeyman way. (Must point out though that V2 loved it, as she does anything sweet, and especially loved the novelty of the cold rok).

All in all, this place is really a unique experience, a must-try, but somewhat geared for the meat-heads. In fact, we had to point out the right spelling for "vegetarian" on their fliers, but they gave us a 10% discount for that service. Cool!!! The bill came to approximately $60 with tax and tip.

(This post was written by V! Glad he is becoming active again.)

Layang Layang in San Jose

2009-02-03T10:31:00.001-08:00

Who are these people who don't beleive in global warming? They should have visited the bay area last weekend. It was unseasonably warm and V and I were lamenting just that when we stepped outside for a workout. We talked about the drought conditions in the state, and whether this year's spring flower season will be as brilliant as last year's.

By the time we got to Layang Layang (technically in San Jose, but close to Cupertino) for lunch, we were quite warm. The restaurant is in a non-descript building by itself on a busy road. We had been here before around 2 years back and remembered it was quite good. We were not disappointed this time either. They have a separate vegetarian section in the menu which always pleases us.
http://www.layanglayang.us/

Usually we order the "Roti Canai" (see review of Rasa Malaysia) for appetizer, but this time we decided to try something different and ordered the Roti Buddhist. This came with the same dipping sauce as the Roti Canai but the roti itself was stuffed with egg and vegetables. We didn't hate it, but we will stick with the Roti Canai next time. Service was excellent. We asked for some more curry sauce and it arrived very promptly at the table.

For the main course, I had to order "Kang Kung" or Chinese water spinach. It was simply stir fried in a garlic sauce, and was delicious.

V ordered the Sarang Veggie - the menu had a suggestive note "It's a must" - how could we not order it! The dish came in a "taro root nest" and was filled with vegetables and cashews. The outer shell (fried taro) was quite delicious, although not sure how healthy.

The bill came to $36 for the two of us with tax and tip, which we felt was a bit steep for lunch. Otherwise, in terms of service and food, the place was great.

Tomatillo Cilantro Peanut chutney

2009-01-31T15:50:00.001-08:00

Whenever I propose Upma for dinner, V invariably asks me "What are you making to go with it?". Growing up, upma was generally eaten with "oorugaai" (pickle) so I am never sure how to answer this question. When we were visiting my parents recently, amma had just made some fresh delicious "thakkali thokku" (tomato chutney) and we ate it with everything including upma at breakfast.

So yesterday, since I had some tomatillos at hand, I decided to make some chutney with it, also using one of V's favorite ingredients - peanuts! So here's the recipe.

Ingredients:

5 medium sized tomatilloes - dehusked, washed & chopped
1/2 cup peanuts
1/2 inch pc ginger chopped
2-3 green chillies chopped
1 cup of chopped cilantro (including stem is fine)
1 tsp Jeeragam (Cumin seeds)
1 Tbsp kadalai paruppu (chana daal)
1 Tbsp canola oil
salt to taste

For tempering:
1 tsp oil
1 tsp mustard seeds
pinch perungaayam (asafoetida)

Method:

Heat oil in a pan
Add the jeeragam and kadalai paruppu
When golden, add the peanuts and roast for 5 mins
Add the green chilies and ginger
After one minute, add the tomatilloes, and salt, and cook for 5-10 mins till the raw smell of the tomatilloes is gone
Let cool, place in blender along with chopped cilantro and make in to a smooth chutney and scoop out into a serving dish
Heat oil, add the tempering ingredients, and pour on top of the chutney

This chutney is a little sour because of the tomatilloes but it paired the upma beautifully. More importantly, V gave it a thumbs up.

I submitted this recipe to the "Let's go Nuts" event hosted at "Served with Love".

More Squash love - Recipe for Stuffed Baked Acorn Squash

2009-01-25T20:44:00.001-08:00

V and I had friends staying with us this weekend and since they had already been driving for a while to get to our place, I decided to put together a nice dinner for them when they arrived so that we wouldn't have to go out. When it is cold and rainy outside, I just need an excuse to turn on the oven.

The acorn squashes I got from the market were called "White Acorn Squash" and were actually yellow in color as opposed to the green-golden ones I usually get. Somehow I found them to be quite bland and would go back to the regular ones. I had made Acorn Squash bread earlier this season with the green - gold ones and the aroma was more "squash-like".

I cooked the squash exactly the way I did for the bread, and stuffed it with a nutty rice filling and baked it in the oven. Here's the recipe.

Ingredients:
2 acorn squash
Cooked brown rice - 1 cup
1 large carrot, peeled and diced
1 large onion, peeled and diced
1 large bell pepper, diced
2-3 celery stalks, diced
2-3 cloves garlic minced
2-3 stalks of green onion chopped
salt and pepper to taste
1 pinch cinnamon
1 tsp cumin seeds
2-3 tbsp olive oil or butter
1/2 cup roasted pecans or walnuts

Method:

To prepare acorn squash:

1. Wash and microwave the acorn squash whole for 1 min
2. Cut into 2 halves and remove the seeds. Slice off the end a bit to make them stand.
3. Lay cut side down in a microwavable dish with 1/4" of water
4. Microwave on high for 8 - 10 mins, the pulp should be soft now.

To prepare filling:

Heat the oil / butter in a wok.

Roast the nuts if needed and set aside

Then add the cumin seeds and cinnamon

Add the onion, bell pepper and garlic

When the onion is translucent and cooked, add the carrots and celery. Sprinkle some water, close and let cook

Add brown rice, salt and pepper and mix and heat through

Switch off the heat and mix in the green onion & roasted nuts

Finishing touches:
Scoop the nutty rice mixture in to the acorn squash shells
Set in a baking pan and pop into a oven pre-heated to 350C for 10 mins just before serving

I served this with a side of "Spinach - Roasted beet salad" and entire meal was very filling. V and K's husband ate the acorn squash skin too and thought it was just fine, but K and I were very lady-like and peeled off the skin with our fork and knife before eating. We finished the evening with some Scottish cookies, a hot cup of chai and a great movie!

This recipe goes to Sunshine Mom's blog for the Food in Color - Yellow event and the Festival of Rice event.

San Francisco Chronicle's Best of Baylist

2009-01-24T23:03:00.000-08:00

Vote for the best vegetarian place here:
http://baylist.sfgate.com/contests/best-of-the-baylist/3957/great-meals/vegetarian

Super Kyo-po market in Santa Clara

2009-01-20T21:04:00.001-08:00

V and I love to explore new cuisines, not only in restaurants, but we also love to do it in our own kitchen. So living in multi-cultural California is really a boon. There are 3 Korean supermarkets in the valley and according to the Korean chef at work, the newest one, Super Kyo-po on Homestead in Santa Clara is the best as far as value for money goes.

So last Sunday V and I wandered in there and tried to figure out what is what. I wish I could do a comprehensive review, but that would take someone who eats meat and fish. The fresh vegetable and fruit section was great - we got some wonderful pears, and satsuma mandarin oranges. From there we wandered into the tea aisle. Wow! What an array of teas. We picked up our favorite genmai cha (brown rice tea with matcha powder).

In the frozen section, they had Azuki bean (red bean) icecream (Japanese not Korean) and I had to tear myself away. In the soju section, they had Chum Churrum, the only soju I recognize from Korea. Ofcourse they had kimchi galore by the tubs and trays and packages, but kimchi usually contains fish sauce - so it's not for us. In the final section, we picked up some refrigerated lotus root which I will add to a vegetable stir-fry. Next time, I plan to get Korean seaweed (miyuk) to make soup. I beleive this is a traditional soup which is made on birthdays.

Butternut Squash - Lentil curry

2009-01-19T22:51:00.001-08:00

V and I are welcoming this new year as always with old & new resolutions about health and food. One of them is a good old one of cooking seasonally as much as possible. In that vein, we picked up a large Butternut Squash from the friendly neighborhood farmer's market a couple of Saturdays back. Butternut squash keeps well if stored like sweet potatoes and potatoes in a cool place). I used half of it to make a lentil curry to go with rotis (could be used with rice too) based on an idea I got from another butternut squash lover at Zaayeka blog. The other half, I will bake and add to a roasted vegetable salad. So here's the recipe for my version of the butternut squash - lentil curry.

Ingredients:

Half of a large butternut squash - peeled, and cubed
1 cup of lentils - I used a mixture of toor dal, moong dal and chana dal. Chana dal adds more of a bite to it, and the other dals make the gravy
1 pinch turmeric
1/2 inch piece ginger grated
4-5 green chilies slit in the middle (more if you want it to be more spicy)
3 cloves garlic minced
salt to taste
1 tsp garam masala
chopped cilantro for garnish

For tempering:
One tablespoon of vegetable oil
cumin seeds (jeeragam) - 1 tsp
carom seeds (omam/ajwain) - 1/2 tsp (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajwain - aids in digestion)
fennel seeds (sombu / sonph) - 1/2 tsp
2 red chilies broken

Method:
1. Cook the lentils, preferably in a pressure cooker with a pinch of turmeric until very soft and mushy

2. In a wok, heat the oil and add the ingredients for tempering

3. When golden, add the green chilies and garlic

4. Within few seconds, add the butternut squash cubes and grated ginger. Sprinkle some water on the squash and reduce the heat. Close the lid and let the squash cook.

5. After the squash has cooked, add the cooked lentils, salt, and garam masala and heat through.

6. Switch off the heat and add the chopped cilantro

I am submitting this recipe to "My Legume Love Affair" hosted at "Cooking 4 All Seasons". The love affair began at "The Well-Seasoned Cook", where there is an astonishing round up of recipes!

Stuff-free holidays

2008-12-09T14:31:00.000-08:00

Holiday gift giving is a pet peeve of mine. People have way too much "stuff" - useful stuff, useless stuff, stuff to create an entire island in case we lose Florida due to climate change (I learnt this is the correct scientific term for global warming). During the holidays, it is important to realize that it is okay to not give/receive gifts, especially considering these hard economic times. Just say no.

http://www.grist.org/advice/how/2008/12/09/index.html
http://www.grist.org/feature/2007/11/20/say-no/

After all, isn't it better to relax, and spend time with friends and family than to run around like crazy from store to store, mall to mall, buying and returning stuff?

I know I sound like the grinch, but I hate the holiday season. I hate the fact that it gets dark so early. I hate the excess eating and drinking. I hate the excess consumerism. I hate the fact that people are so stressed out... I hate the fact that people drive like maniacs in parking lots.... okay, let me stop there before I get a pie thrown in my face. Let me end on a positive note.. I love the fact that this is the time of the year to reach out to friends that we normally lose touch with through the year... And who doesn't love the days off from work? And finally, I do have a soft spot for holiday lighting eventhough it is energy-wasteful.

I hope V will write an article about saving prudently for the future and what learnings we should keep past this economic downturn. He is good at pragmatic stuff like that, unlike me, who gets riled up over things.

Madras Filter Coffee!

2008-12-07T19:04:00.001-08:00

Like typical Madrasis, my parents cannot function in the morning without their cup of filter kaapi. And I feel nostalgic just thinking about the wonderful aroma, the sounds of the sizzling hot water poured into the filter and of the milk boiling over.

Amma has bequeathed me with a small filter that I do use occassionally, but it gets used mostly when my parents visit me. I still have to treat V one of these days to a hot cup of filter kaapi, since he has asked me many times already.

For those who don't know, Madras filter kaapi is a special type of latte. It is 3/4th volume hot milk, and 1/4th volume coffee decoction made with the filter shown below, and sweetened with sugar. To get the full experience, one must drink it as hot as one can handle it. So, it is typically served in a "dabara-tumbler" (stainless steel cup & saucer). One pours it from the cup to the saucer to cool it just enough to make it drinkable, and this process also creates a delicious frothy foam on top.

So here's the main implement, the kaapi filter.

To make the coffee decoction - use Turkish ground (fine-ground) coffee, and stuff it in the top section and pound it down with the sieve-like cover with the handle. Place the top section on the bottom section. Pour hot water over the sieve and close the lid. Wait 5 - 10 mins for the decoction to brew and collect in the bottom section.

I submitted this post to Chitra Amma's Kitchen which is hosting a Kitchen Treasure Hunt event! What a wonderful idea!

Koh Samui and The Monkey

2008-12-04T21:59:00.001-08:00

We love to go into the City whenever we get a chance. This year, since we were in town for Thanksgiving, we decided to drive in to the City for dinner. After pondering over several choices, we voted for Koh Samui and the Monkey in SOMA/South Beach. We made an appointment for 6:30 PM, but we got there at 5 PM itself since we got there straight from watching the Bond movie. However, we got a table with no problems. What sweetened the evening even more was that we found free parking on the street right in front of the restaurant! The inside of the restaurant is nicely done with some quirky and some beautiful antique items from Thailand. From what I understand Koh Samui is an island in Thailand, in which there is a world-famous monkey theatre.

Service was very good, and we got good guidance on the menu. The menu was vast, and quite interesting, and also, they were willing to make a vegetarian version of any item on the menu. We ordered 2 appetizers - the fresh spring rolls, and fried sweet corn patties. Both of them were exceptional in presentation and taste. Just look at these corn fritters in the little baskets.

Our tea was served in tiny cute elephant cups that I immediately wanted to take home with me. However V pointed out that they were not that ergonomic since the wide brim made the tea go cold very fast. Besides they cost around $14 per mug!! Oh but they were so cute!

Our friend, D, decided to go vegetarian, as she often does when she is with us. For the main course, between us we ordered the Pad Thai vegetarian, the Pumpkin Curry (in keeping with the Thanksgiving theme) and Spicy Tofu stir-fry. We got a side of brown rice to go with it.

My favorite was the Pumpkin curry (V had his side of cashews as usual), which came inside a pumpkin and had chunks of pumpkin in it as well. V really liked the Spicy tofu vegetarian stir fry since it had a lot of basil. The pad thai was okay, but we still cleaned it up.

Well, after all this, you wouldn't think we had space for anything else! But the dessert menu looked so alluring that we had to get something. D got the Chocolate Mousse cake since she likes it rich and chocolatety! V and I decided to split the flaming banana dessert that came with a side of coconut icecream. Yum! All in all, a very satisfying evening. We probably stayed there for a good 2 hours, chatting with D whom we hadn't seen in a while. We gave thanks for the good friends we have in our lives.

Acorn Squash - Raisin bread recipe

2008-12-02T16:19:00.001-08:00

What's a holiday dinner without a Winter Squash delicacy on the menu? Even though we had Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant, but I still baked some goodies to share with friends and neighbors. While I was rifling through my recipes, I spotted the old, tattered and stained sheet in which resides my banana-walnut bread recipe. A friend gave it to me several years back and since then I have made it countless times, always with great success. Whenever V and I find the bananas we bought are too icky ripe to eat, I throw them in the freezer and use them later for banana bread. Trust me, it makes the best banana bread.

This time, I decided to make a slight variation to this time-tested recipe. Okay, maybe not so "slight", considering the variation was the main ingredient, i.e. the bananas. I swapped the bananas out with acorn squash flesh. Ooh, the beautiful peachy color of the dough and finally the bread itself was so enticing. The baked squash aroma and the taste were also out of this world. V and I had this for breakfast almost for a whole week. So here's the recipe for Acorn Squash - Raisin bread, it makes 2 loaves.

Dry ingredients:

1 cup white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
Pinch salt
1/2 cup raisins

Wet ingredients:

1 medium sized acorn squash
2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 buttermilk or yogurt
1 tsp vanilla

Method:

To prepare acorn squash:

1. Wash and microwave the acorn squash whole for 1 min
2. Cut into 2 halves and remove the seeds
3. Lay cut side down in a microwavable dish with 1/4" of water
4. Microwave on high for 8 - 10 mins
5. Let cool. Scoop out the flesh. You will have around 2 1/2 cups
6. You will need only 2 cups for the recipe. Sprinkle some brown sugar on the rest and enjoy with a spoon!)

Make the bread:

Pre-heat oven to 350C
Mix all dry ingredients except raisins in a large bowl
Add the wet ingredients including 2 cups of acorn squash flesh
Mix with an electric hand mixer
Add the raisins and mix
Butter and dust 2 loaf pans with flour
Divide dough into the 2 loaf pans and bake for 1 hour until a knife inserted comes out clean

See WHFoods website for the benefits of eating Acorn squash and other winter squashes.

Recipe for Russian Tea Cookies

2008-11-27T21:47:00.001-08:00

The baking bug bit me this year! There I was pulling out and rifling through my recipes! V, who usually doesn't indulge in desserts, loves my Russian Tea Cookies. So I knew I had to make those. I also made Acorn Squash - Raisin bread (my own new creation) and Pecan bars. Later on those.

Here's the recipe for Russian Tea cookies. I have also heard them referred to as Mexican Wedding cookies. I am not sure if there is a difference between the two. Maybe the Mexican Wedding cookies have some spices, like cinnamon?

Ingredients:
1 cup butter softened
1/2 cup powdered sugar for dough + 1/2 cup for rolling
1+1/2 tsp Vanilla
2 cups Flour
1 dash salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup finely chopped pecans or walnuts

1. In a bowl, beat together the butter and 1/2 cup powdered sugar and vanilla until smooth and creamy
2. Mix together flour, salt, baking powder. Add to bowl and mix until blended well.
3. Add chopped nuts and mix well
4. Using hand, knead and roll the dough out into 2 balls.
5. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and chill in refrigerator for atleast 1 hour

6. Take balls out of refrigerator and flatten out and cut into approximately 20 equal sized pieces to get total of 40 cookies
7. Shape into marble-sized balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet
8. Bake at 375C for 10 mins until firm but not browned. (The bottoms inevitably become little browned but that is okay)
9. Roll in powdered sugar when still warm

10. Let cool and roll in powdered sugar again

These eminently poppable cookies are totally irresistible and I had to hide some away from V to give to neighbors and friends.

I submitted this entry to "Click - the photo event" hosted by Jugalbandhi where the current theme is "red".

Yum!

2008-11-26T11:11:00.001-08:00

Pecan Bar - turned out a bit too sweet... maybe I over did the chocolate chips

Acorn Squash Raisin bread - turned out okay... a bit over-baked perhaps.

Russian Tea cookies - just perfect!!

The Holiday Season Baking Bug

2008-11-25T13:49:00.000-08:00

Every holiday season, my friend K organizes a huge baking party at her place. She designed and practically built the kitchen herself, and it is a pleasure to hang out there with friends. Fond memories! Having moved away, unfortunately I missed the baking gathering last year. When I met K last weekend during our visit to the Sacramento area, she handed me a recipe for lemon bars. That did it! I am picking up the pieces and going solo this year!

V hangs out with me in the kitchen rushing to help whenever something heavy or hot needs to be lifted. But otherwise he has decided not to interfere in my baking sessions, ever since he broke my 12-year old hand mixer the very first time he tried to use it.

Last night I made Acorn Squash-raisin bread and Russian Tea Cookies. Today I plan to make Pecan bars and maybe K's lemon bars if I can find where I put the recipe.

Recipe for Crockpot Bean curry

2008-11-23T17:38:00.001-08:00

V had to work this weekend and so I decided to cook something quick since he wasn't around to help. We are trying to avoid canned foods since the BPA scare, and find crockpot extremely handy for cooking dry beans.

Today I used Black-eyed Peas (available at any grocery store) and Red Pinto beans (which I got from the bin at a Mexican grocery store). The red pinto beans cook easily and become really mushy and provide enough gravy for the curry. So here's the recipe for Crockpot bean curry.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup black-eyed peas
1 cup Red pinto beans
3 small potatoes peeled and cubed
oil for tempering
1/2 inch piece ginger grated
4-5 garlic cloves minced
1 onion chopped fine2-3 green chilies
1 tsp cumin seeds

Wash the beans and throw them the crockpot with 2 1/2 cups of water.
Add the potatoes also to the crockpot.
Depending on your crockpot, it may take 2-3 hours to cook. The pinto beans will be mushy and the black-eyed peas will be soft. Check on it a couple of times and add more water if required.
Heat oil in a pan. Add the cumin seeds. When golden, add green chilies, ginger, garlic and onion and cook for 5 mins.
Add the cooked beans and potatoes and heat through.
Garnish with chopped cilantro and serve

Potato podimaas recipe

2008-11-19T17:24:00.001-08:00

If you are looking for something less oil-laden to go with your sambar and rasam rice than "Urulai-kizhangu (potato) Roast", try "Urulai-kizhangu (potato) Podimaas". I think "podimaas" means something like "crumbled" or "mashed". Although V prefers the roast, he gets it only on occassion. This time, when we had some guests over, there was a special request for the podimaas. So the whole menu was worked out around the podimaas. V, who initially said he did not like podimaas, ate it gladly. Infact, the next day, with the leftovers, we made adais stuffed with podimaas (a la masala dosa).

Here's the recipe for "Urulai-kizhangu Podimaas".

Ingredients:

White/Yellow Potatoes - 4 or 5 large
1/2 cup frozen shelled green peas (I don't think this is used traditionally)
1/2 inch pc. ginger grated or sliced fine
4-5 green chilies slit open or chopped fine
shredded coconut - 2 Tbsp
Lemon/Lime juice - 2 Tbsp
salt to taste

For tempering:
1 tbsp oil
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Perungaayam (Asafoetida) - pinch
ulutham paruppu (urad daal) - 1 tsp
kadalai paruppu (chana daal) - 1 tsp
red chilies - 2 broken up

Chopped cilantro for garnish

Method:
1. Wash, and cut the potatoes into halves

2. Pressure cook them or cook them on the stove until soft

3. Peel the skins off the potatoes and crumble them with your fingers when cool enough to touch

4. Heat the oil in a wok and add the mustard seeds. When they start sputtering, lower the heat and add the other tempering ingredients

5. When the paruppu is golden brown, add the green chilies and the grated ginger

6. Add the shredded coconut and stir

7. Add the crumbled potatoes, green peas, and increase the heat to medium

8. Add the salt, adjust to taste

9. When heated through, switch off the heat and sprinkle the lime juice and cilantro

My mom also makes podimaas with "Vaazhai kaai" or raw banana. The method stays the same!

Recipe for Carrot Kosmari (Salad)

2008-11-16T23:43:00.001-08:00

In traditional Indian cooking, salads are simple affairs usually featuring raw vegetables such as carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes and onions sliced and arranged on a plate and drizzled with lemon juice. However "Carrot Kosmari" kicks it up a notch. It is typically made in Tamil cooking to go with "Thogayals" and "kozhambus" to provide a sweet contrast to the strong tastes. (More on thogayal and kozhambu in later posts!) It is easy to make, looks pretty and is healthy to boot. So here's the recipe for carrot kosmari.

Ingredients:

2 large carrots
1/2 cup lentils - payatham paruppu (called moong dal in Hindi)
juice of half a lime/lemon
salt to taste
3-4 green chilies slit
1 tsp oil, 1/2 tsp mustard seeds and a pinch perungaayam (hing) for tempering
chopped cilantro for garnish

1. Soak the lentils (paruppu) in warm water for 1/2 hour. Drain. It will be soft enough to munch on. It will get softer with the juices in the carrot.

2. Grate the carrot

3. Mix the carrot, paruppu, salt and lime/lemon juice

4. Heat the oil. Add the mustard seeds. When they start sputtering, add the perungaayam and green chilies, and switch off heat.

5. Add the tempering to the salad and mix

6. Garnish with freshly chopped cilantro

Enjoy with your Tamil meal! Chandra Padmanabhan's Dakshin is a great resource for preparing a Tamil meal.

I am submitted this recipe to the Vegetarian Thankgiving Recipe Carnival where you can get more ideas!!

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Tandoori Cafe in Santa Clara

2008-11-11T22:15:00.001-08:00

After a 11-mile hike at Henry Coe, we got back into town only around 3 PM. Looking for a place to grab a quick lunch, we decided on Tandoori Cafe' at the intersection of Stevens Creek and Lawrence Expwy, since it had been on our list for some time. It is a dhaba-type place which reminded me a lot of the "Chaat Cafe" chain. Food is ordered at the counter and delivered to the table. The menu items are also similar - wraps, naan with different curries and so on. The best part however is the unlimited free chai!

We ordered the bhel puri first because we were quite hungry and thought it would arrive quicker than the other items. The bhel puri was so-so - very oily and not very fresh. However Tandoori Cafe redeemed itself with the wraps. V ordered the veggie wrap, and I ordered the paneer wrap. The bread was fresh and crisp and the fillings and sauce were quite tasty.

The bill came to $17 for the two of us with tax. In addition, a tip of a few dollars were left in the jar at the counter for "good karma".

Rasa Malaysia near San Jose airport

2008-11-10T14:14:00.001-08:00

Rasa Malaysia is situated conveniently close to the airport and kitty corner from the Costco in Santa Clara. Apparently it used to be called "Penang Village" and the sign out front hasn't been changed yet.

While V and I were waiting for our friend D to join us, we decided to go ahead and try the "Onion Roti". This is usually called "Roti Canai" and is a staple at all Malaysian restaurants. We love this appetizer at "Banana Leaf", the popular Malaysian haunt in Milpitas. According to Wikipedia...

Roti canai (pronounced "chanai," not "kanai") is a type of flatbread found in Malaysia, often sold in Mamak stalls. It is known as roti prata in Singapore, and is a close escendant of Kerala porotta.

It goes on to say about the origin of the word "Roti canai"...

Roti means bread in Hindi, Urdu, most other North Indian languages, and Malay. The term "canai" derives either from:

Chennai, a city in India which is formerly known as Madras. Roti canai is presumed to have been introduced by immigrant labour from the Madras region where a similar combination of parotta and dalcha - the accompanying lentil curry - is served. ^[1]
"Channa", a mixture of boiled chickpeas in a spicy gravy from Northern India which it was traditionally served with.

Back to the food, the Roti Canai at Rasa was very good and has specks of green onion in the bread. We were off to a promising start.

D arrived and decided to go vegetarian for the day. Between us, we ordered the "Mango Vegetables with Tofu", "Kang Kung" and "Hot Pot Curry Vegetables with Tofu" with a side of jasmine rice. To summarize, all the dishes were wonderful and we were especially fond of the Kang Kung. Kang kung is water spinach and it was stir-fried in a spicy garlic sauce.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipomoea_aquatica

The bill came to ~ $60 with tax and tip for the 3 of us. The price is on the high side for the portion size, but Rasa Malaysia is a great stop close to the airport.

Saravana Bhavan in Sunnyvale

2008-11-05T21:30:00.001-08:00

Saravana Bhavan is a world-wide chain of South-Indian vegetarian restaurants that has become a household name with Indians everywhere. The restaurant has evolved over time, though it has maintained the same great quality and service. In its birthplace, Chennai, there are several branches, some specializing in Rajasthani food exclusively, some serving buffets all the time, and so on. Still, what Saravana Bhavan is famous for is good South-Indian fare like dosas, idlis, vadas, and full-course meals called "saappaadu".

The above logo in Tamil says "`Otel Saravana Bhavan (Uyarthara saiva uNavagam)", meaning, "Hotel Saravana Bhavan (High class vegetarian restaurant)". In India, sometimes, "hotel" is used interchangeably with "restaurant".

http://www.saravanabhavan.com/

When the yen for dosa strikes us, we usually prefer to go to Dosai Place in Santa Clara. It is mainly because of the never-ending crowds that swarm to Saravana Bhavan no matter when you go. It is also slightly more expensive than Dosai Place. However yesterday we headed over to SB to get our dosa fix.

We ordered the "Veggie pakodas" for starters. They arrived fairly quickly and even though they were a bit soggy, they tasted pretty good with the hot sauce.

For the main meal, V ordered the "Dry Fruit Rava Masala Dosa" and I ordered the "Tomato Onion Uthappam". V's "Dry Fruit Rava Masala Dosa" arrived sans masala but the waiter quickly brought us a dish of masala. It was very nutty with a lot of cashews and raisins. My "Tomato Chili Uthappam" was just okay - not as flavorful as I thought it would be.

We finished off with a cup of hot Madras coffee which is a special kind of latte with frothy foam on top served in a stainless steel cup & saucer. Hmm... that just hit the spot!!

The bill came to around $30 with tax and tip. I would go back again despite the crowds just for the coffee!

Fragrance Land in Cupertino again

2008-11-03T17:01:00.001-08:00

Aug 2009 update: Much to our dismay Fragrance Land was shut down earlier this year.

Fragrance Land made the top 10 list on the Bay Area Vegetarians website! We have already written two posts about Fragrance Land: here & here.

Fragrance Land is one of our two favorites that we fall back on when we are too tired to ponder choices. (Dosai Place is the other - that warrants a separate blog post soon!)

So, on a lazy Sunday morning after a decent workout, when V and I didn't want to exert our brain cells too much, we went to Fragrance Land for lunch. Turned out to be a brilliant decision. (V tends to use brilliant a lot every time he comes back from London - I think it is catching!)

We ordered Scallion Pancakes for appetizer, as recommended in one of the reviews on the site. V liked it quite a bit, with the hot chili sauce. I thought it tasted like "parathas", nothing special.

For the main course, V ordered his kung pao chicken with extra peanuts as usual (see picture here), and I decided to try the Salt and Pepper Veggie Fish. Both dishes hit the spot. The kung pao was great as usual with crisp vegetables, thank goodness they didn't change anything. The Veggie Fish was very fishy and flaky and dry. It had a lot of basil and the fragrance made up for the fishy smell.

We were glad to see the place started filling up for lunch on a Sunday morning. Seems like they are doing pretty well. The bill came to around $27 with tax and tip.

A Vegetarian in London - Eat and Two Veg

2008-11-02T08:11:00.000-08:00

This place is in Maryleborne and a stone’s throw away from Hilton Paddington (a great place to stay if you want to be close to Heathrow Express and the shopping districts). This place has been recommended by multiple restaurant sites in UK (toptable.co.uk) and thought it would be fun to visit.

They have an open kitchen and have a menu that makes a carnivore believe they are still in their favorite burger place. This place is known for its burgers and drinks. I ordered the berry drink and it didn’t disappoint. I ordered the Soy burger, it came with fries and salad. Nothing exceptional about the soy burger, but our standard is very high, given that we are used to the world’s best vegetarian burger at Sunflower Restaurant in Sacramento, CA . They have comfortable booths and have attentive service.

An average restaurant that has decided to go after the carnivore and still try to be in the business. A noble objective indeed. Let’s hope they succeed.

Their menu is online...