Death by Chocolate - appropriately named...

I went to the Death by Chocolate event at COPIA in Napa this weekend, and let me tell you - this event was appropriately named. I was just coming off of a chocolate-kick from my Paris trip, where for 3 days, I constantly munched on and drank chocolatey goodness, and thought the event would be an appropriate finale in my attempt to exchange my blood for chocolate. Well, it almost did, and frankly, it wasn't as pleasurable as I thought it might be...



COPIA is an interesting ode to the culture of food and eating. I enjoyed their displays (esp. the display where you see just the vertical section of the candy bar and you have to guess what bar it is) and I would recommend the place to anyone looking for something different. I didn't have time to check out their edible gardens, but it looked nice and since they offer 60 min tours, it must be quite extensive. The chocolate event was happening in the upstairs and downstairs foyers. A number of vendors, both local and not so local, had tables set up with samples of various chocolates and chocolate themed desserts for tasting.



Most notable was the truffles by Bernard Callebaut of Oregon. They had my attention, since they were hand-rolling ganache right at the table. And their truffles had my taste buds, since they weren't too sweet. It was dark, deep, and enticing. I bet it would've gone well with an equally dark, deep, and enticing cup of coffee.



There were non-purist tasting too, and of those, Vintage Sweet Shoppe, a Napa local, took my breath away with their English Toffees. They had essentially run out by the time I got around to tasting them, and I only got some scraps. Their fudge was quite luscious, although fudge tends to be too sweet for me in general.



They had a brownie contest going on, and the winner may or may not have been the one I voted for - they had the brownies color-coded and I voted for the pink brownie... I know for sure that the pink one was not the third place brownie, but that's all I know. The pink one had a rich center with a tender moistness where the others tended to be drier. It was quite a sight - a sea of brownies on paper plates, anxiously waiting to be evaluated, trying to win your vote with their sweet scents of cocoa and sugar.

I'm a total sucker for these food festivals, and I had a really good time. My tasting lasted for all but 15 min or so before the blood chocolate content became too high for me to function normally, but what I did taste, I enjoyed. And when I couldn't taste anymore, I enjoyed being enveloped in the aroma of chocolate. As they say, the majority of what you taste comes from your smell - and if so, what better way to 'consume' chocolate than to wade in its scent with a belly full of chocolate!

And then, it was over...

I woke up with a deep hankering for a croissant on my last day in Paris. It must've been my body knowing that the days of joyous over-consumption would soon be over. I craved that buttery smell and the flaky tenderness of French croissants.

And satisfied, I was with the croissants at the Au Panetier.



This picture is currently my desktop picture because it was one of my tastiest moments in Paris. I never liked a croissant before. I always thought they were overly oily and too mushy. Boy, was I ignorant!!! Croissants may be one of the greatest breakfast joys one can experience. The trinity of buttery scent, the thin layering baked to crispy flakes even at the center of the airy croissant, and the moist tenderness hidden underneath the crispiness in each layer - boy, this stuff is GOOD! The perfect croissant is simply divine. Divine. If I could have a croissant like that and a cafe creme for breakfast every morning, I wouldn't mind running an extra mile or two, or even three, every day to work it off.

Lunch on this day was an unexciting bistrot again. I had steak tartare, which was good except for the fact that I think no raw beef can compare to the Korean steak tartare or yukke. And no, I am not afraid of mad cow disease. And no, I am not afraid of food poisoning from consuming raw anything. I deemed the place not blog-worthy, so no pictures of the steak tartare. It was basically just a block of grounded up beef, mixed with a pickle-containg cream sauce that must've been the tartare sauce. That just occurred to me as I was writing this - that was tartatre sauce!!! Wow, what a revelation. I didn't even make the connection, since the sauce at that bistrot was much lighter than what I think of when I think of tartare sauce. Shoot, I guess I should've taken a picture of it!!!

We spent the entire day at the Lovre, where I proceeded to take a 15 min nap on the benches. I shamelessly sprawled on the couch and snoozed. Hey, what's a girl supposed to do when she reaches that foie gras state of overconsmption????



After some cultural education (and a good nap), we went to the place I've been looking forward to throughout my trip: Angelina, right by the Lovre. They are famous for their Mont Blanc pastries and decadent hot cocoa. And let me tell you - decadence is the right word to describe this drink, if I can call it that. Angelina has been open for over 100 yrs, and it deserved the business it gets. The Mont Blanc you see above is found in many, many pastry stores in Japan, but there is only one Angelina Mont Blanc. The brown chestnut cream is sweet and dense, yet tenderly supported by whipped cream in the middle, and the combination adds a sense of lightness to the intensity of the chestnut cream. Underneath all the cream is a strong meringue layer that gives the two soft layers a distinct personality and texture. The trio deserves the Best Dessert title for my trip in Paris (the mille-feuille is a close second, but that is penalized by the lack of sufficient service by the Closerie des Lilas staff).



The hot cocoa was a whole other dessert on its own!!!!! I hope the picture conveys some of the viscosity of this 'drink'. I think this hot cocoa was borderline viscosity to qualify as a drink. And it was heavenly. This was chocolate melted to be consumed right away luxuriously blended with cream to produce a drink to bring decadence into our lives. There were spices added in to make sure the bitterness of the cocoa could be enjoyed for its flavors and really show its personality instead of being shoved behind the sweetness of sugar as it so often is in US. Yum.

I failed to chronicle any of my trips to the chocolatiers in Paris, but I tried a few pieces from four different chocolatiers. They all uniformly showcased the bitterness of cocoa with no hestination and I really enjoyed that. Bitterness is not even the right word - for a lack of better skills on my part ot explain it, I am resorting to bitterness. In each piece of chocolate, I tasted a sense of playfulness - pushing the envelope of how much of each flavor - the cocoa flavor, the buttery cream flavor, the various spices or liquor flavors - could co-exist with the unifying yet dictating sweetness of sugar. A complex creation it is, that chocolate. No wonder we all love it so much... More on chocolates later, since I will be reporting on the COPIA chocolate event.

I then dropped off my tired traveling partner off at the hotel and headed to Gallerie Lafayette. The place is exactly like a Japanese department store, which is nothing like an American department store. I wandered around the gourmet food section in the basement for an hour or so and indulged my senses silly. I have this habit of wandering aimlessly when there is food around - I do it at Trader Joe's, at Whole Foods, Berkeley Bowl, Dean and Deluca, Southern Season, etc, etc. I came home with nearly $75 in chocolates and macaroons. I wish I had my camera with me then. I love eating, but I also love shopping for food.

My last dinner in Paris did not disappoint - we ended up at a non-touristy place called Cinamon in a non-touristy section of town. This place made up for the poor cost performance of Closerie des Lilas from the night before. We had a three course meal for 30 Euros, which may have been the best deal of all three nights, and the food was inventive and solidly delicious. My spider senses picked up on it when I saw that they had a fish creme brulee on the menu as an apetizer. Fish creme brulee!



It was a French take on the Japanese chawan-musi, except instead of the clear Japanese dashi broth, they used a cream-based broth that added a lot more richness to the dish. This was really inventive and left me in awe. I never would've made this kind of modification to chawan-mushi. I'll definitely be making this dish sometime at home.



The crostillant of Brie was another apetizer that got my spider-senses all excited for this restaurant when we were menu browsing. I remembered the banana version from the first day and knew that the Brie version would be just as satisfying as the banana version. And it was - there were leeks and onions folded in with the Brie and they all worked well together. I would make this with Vietnamese rice papers to give it a little more crunch, though. This would make a great party dish, and I really should think about trying it one of these days...

Both main dishes were good - my roommate had a lamb stew cooked in a tagine, which tasted curiously IDENTICAL to my mom's beef stew if it weren't for the lamb, adding its slight scent to the stew. Identical. It was almost curious how identical it was. My steak au poivre was excellent with a very deep flavor and just the right blend of fat, salt, and meaty 'umami'. It was tasty enough that I hardly used the cream sauce it came with - I'm definitely a 'light-on-the-sauce' kinda diner. We then headed to Moulin Rouge, which was recommended to us by the hotel attendant. Word of caution - don't do it. It was the biggest waste of money in my recent memory and a total tourist trap.

Well, so it went, yummy to the very last meal. We finished off the trip with breakfast at Cafe Lateral, and then, my epicurean adventure in Paris was over. I learned to pay more attention to my food in France, and my senses are hightened for more flavors. I vow to pick up on subtle details and appreciate risks. And what better way to keep myself attentive than to have this forum to share with you my thoughts, visions, and tastes?!

If you're interested in my non-food pictures from Paris, check out my Flickr site!

Some more kuidaore in Paris

Okay, so here's the report from day 2 in Paris.

This was a somewhat disappointing day, considering the success of the first day. But then again, it is very likely that the first day was just such an immense success due to my hunger-ometer being so intensely negative.



Breakfast was a success, and we had miniature croissants and pain au chocolats, as well as this pastry that my roommate thought was so very familiar.



He noticed that the texture was very similar to a Vietnamese pastry, and I have to agree - the innards were quite rice flour-y instead of wheat flour-y. It had a nice firmness on the outside with a sugary coating and a moist inside that did taste distinctly Asian compared to the other pastries. I should do some more research about this...

The funny thing about breakfast was that we had it on the Champs-Elysees, since it was the closest Money Exchange place (I spent all my money on the first day, eating more than I thought possible and needed to replenish my cash). We went to a bakery called Paul, which had that 'artisan'-feel going with classy looking this and that. Turns out Paul is as ubiquitous as Au Bon Pain. Later, we proceeded to find Paul on almost every corner where there was enough foot traffic to sustain an Au Bon Pain.

We blended sight-seeing with gastronomic pleasures this day, and I've gotta say - my 'spider-sense' for tasty restaurant was only 50% successful. We were at a distinct disadvantage this day, since it was a Sunday and so many businesses are closed on Sundays. We ended up wandering around in St. Germain-des-Pres looking for a creperie that was closed on Sundays. We ended up jumping into a bistrot, which served mediocre food, although they were recommended in one of the three guidebooks we had for Paris. When we asked them to recommend something, we ended up with a luke warm French Onion soup and two salads, both of which were nothing to write home about (or I should say nothing to blog about). So, disappointed, we left the joint and went to check out the St. Chapelle stained glass, which was beautiful.



After doing the obligatory sightseeing, I felt confident again to test my spider-senses and suggested to my already-stuffed roommate that we go and have some afternoon 'tea'. Of course I didn't have tea in mind - I had a second lunch in mind! We hopped into a fancy-ish restaurant on the other side of the Seine (Les Zimmer) and ordered a soup and couscous.



I HAD to try couscous while there, since my favorite manga right now (Taishi kakka no ryouri-nin - The Ambassador's Chef) tells me the French eat couscous like the Japanese eat curry rice. I eat couscous a lot at home myself, and I was really, really curious how the French eat couscous. My thoughts after having had it? It's not that different from mine. My first reaction was - hey, this stew tastes just like something I would make! Lots of ginger and vegetables with almost no grease - very easy to eat as a second lunch. The couscous was slightly different, because it smelled heavily of olive oil. I usually make my couscous in chicken or fish broth, seasoned with soy sauce, this was made with no salt and lots of olive oil. Interesting difference, but I kinda liked mine better...



Dinner, dinner - this was an experience! We went to Closerie des Lilas, which is supposed to be where Hemingway "wrote a large chunk of The Sun Also Rises while standing at the bar" and where "Lenin and Trotsky debated politics over chess" according to my Frommer's guide. Well, the guidebook forgot to mention that in addition to these trivia, the place has serves up a mean plate of attitude! It's my policy to keep negative reviews anonymous, but since the reason why I wanted to go here is so intimately related to the trivia, I figure it's OK this time around to give my thoughts with the name. Jeez, would you expect a super high-end restaurant if the place is listed as a brasserie and it's somewhere guys played chess and wrote novels at the bar????? I thought I was going to a low-key place - and boy, was I wrong! This place was so pretentious, the menu for the ladies didn't have prices listed on them! The above photo shows the two menus we got - one for my roommate and one of me - one with the prices and one without. I thought it was kinda funny at the time, but I guess I should've known at that point that we were in for some 'tude! And, yikes, did we get some! They didn't like our casual look or our lack of French culinary knowledge - and made it clear! Never again, I swear. Never again to this place.



The saving grace was the dessert - one of the best mille-feuille I've ever had. And I've had a lot of them in Japan. I hope I spelled this right, since I got it from a Japanese website. The cream had a subtle sweetness and just enough richness to melt in my mouth and the flaky layers of crunch that gave it just the right texture to balance the smooth cream. Wonderful. I have to give it to the pastry chef - s/he saved the dinner!

And so the second night ended...

Kuidaore in Paris

Kuidaore - passing out from eating - is a Japanese word that sums up my experience in Paris...

I finally have some time to myself to write and reflect on my experiences in Paris.

My first meal (lunch) in Paris was at the cafe right by the Arc de Triumph. It was super convenient, since my hunger-ometer was at an all-time empty when we got into Paris. I was on a calorie-deficit program prior to my trip, and I had deemed the calories from the air plane food to be unworthy of fulfilling my deficit - so, yes, in other words, I was starving and kept myself starving so I could eat with reckless abandon in Paris. I was so very happy with Cafe Lateral when I finally had my duck confit and cafe creme, which is my first picture you see on the first Paris post.



My travel partner (my roommate) also loved his ginger duck - which had a sweet and savory sauce with enough duck fat melted into it to make him ooze duck essence for the rest of the day. As with any other dish with that much duck fat, the sauce was fabulous. The flavors reminded me of Japanese Worcestershire sauce (usta- sauce, which is really nothing like authentic Worcestershire sauce) and pineapples.



My travel partner and I liked this place so much that we ended up having our last meal of the trip there too. We had cafe au lait and a huge thing of 'toast', which was really a baguette with enough butter to feed all of Japan slathered in the middle. This 'toast' was eaten with apricot preserves, and it reminded me how I loved butter as a child in Japan. I used to snack on butter cubes, but I'd somehow managed to forget how much I loved butter. Perhaps it was a good thing that I forgot and not such a good thing that I am now cognizant of my long-lost love for butter... I give the cafe creme an upper hand over the cafe au lait there, because the creamy tenderness of the cafe creme enveloped me with a happiness that the cafe au lait just didn't have... But then again, it might have been because I was absolutely starving for calories on that first day in Paris.



Anyway, our first day in Paris was our most successful day for our epicurean adventure - lunch, afternoon break, and dinner were all excellent. The creme brulee and croustillant at Bistrot Victoires were both excellent. Dinner at Brasserie Wepler finished the first day off on such a wonderful note of gastronomic satisfaction. The bouillabaisse was not at all what I had before as bouillabaisse in the US, since I think what I was having as bouillabaisse was more like a cioppino than a bouillabaisse. I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I thought bouillabaisse had tomatoes in it... Well, part of traveling is learning, and learn I did. The spices in the bouillabaisse was having a lot of fun with me, since I couldn't quite make out each distinct flavor at all, but was overwhelmed by the harmony in my bowl. The smell was so mesmerizing that I ate the half of the dish in some dream-like haze before I realized that I had forgotten to take a picture of it. But my roommate was had his untouched plate, so here's a nice picture of his scallop dinner:



The scallops were very fresh and done just right, but I've gotta be honest - by this time, I'd had enough butter and fat, that I just couldn't handle the richness of the sauce... We had cheese and creme brulee to finish off dinner, though, so I guess I still had more room for creamy pleasures after all.

And off to bed we went... only to wake up and continue our training to become the best foie gras ourselves...

Parisian Debauchery - and I really mean it

Since I am still recovering from my truly epicurean debauchery that ended less than 48 hrs ago, I've got to get some sleep instead of blogging tonight. BUT, here are some pictures to wet your appetite for more in the next few days...

I'll update this section over the weekend to give some more context to the pictures here. Amazingly, I proceeded to eat at twelve cafes, bistrots, salon de the's, and restaurants in the almost exactly 72 hrs I spent in Paris. Ah, how I long for those hours of dining with reckless abandon...

My 'kick-off' meal and the out of the world, milky wonder that is cafe creme...


The menu from the afternoon snack/dessert extravagance...




My first French creme brulee which mysteriously reminded me of the high quality silken tofu from the Motherland...


My very first exposure to croustillant, which was everything I love rolled into one tasty dish. If only the banana inside was just a tad bit more ripe, this dish would have been my definition of the perfect dessert.


It was the smack middle of oyster season and I've got to say - these speciales we had were better than the best oysters I've had in Japan. I liked the fact that we could choose the size of the oyster, since I get over-oystered by the humongo-variety in Japan. These were just the right size to blend perfect texture to the sweet taste of minerals that define oysters for me with none of the 'fishy-ness' - and I mean NONE of the fishy-ness. These were consumed with such gusto I failed to snap shots before the feast began.



And we finished off here again with the second creme brulee of the day...


More to come, more to come...

Brown Rice Spaghetti

I've been on a healthy eating/exercise kick since the very last week of December, when I realized how much excess 'love' I had accumulated around my belly. I quit drinking all together, since I realized that my drinking was contributing calories in many, many ways. Yes, alcohol is empty calories, but boy, it's the friends Mr. Wine and Ms. Beer bring along to the table that really hurts me. I was eating more than I needed to and what I was eating was not the best foods to be eating in the amounts I was eating. For example, Tanto, a Japanese izakaya-style restaurant in San Jose serves up delicious fried goods. One fried treat is OK, but boy, those fried goods go so well with the chilled junmai sake, I had seconds, and thirds, and fourths... Once, my friend, John, who is over ~6 inches taller than me and ~ 80 lbs heavier than me told me we probably ate the same amount of food. And I think he was right!!!

So, back to where I was... When I noticed the excess 'love' on me, I decided it was time to change my eating and drinking habits. I switched my nightly consumption of a bottle of wine to a bottle of sparkling water, and pledge to eat more whole grain foods. Fortunately, I'd already had my lesson in learning to like vegetables - it's quite easy to do so when I can get tasty organic veggies, thanks to places like Trader Joe's. I learned to like fruit, and proceeded to live mainly on fruits as my main food source for a while.

As a part of my re-designing my food intake, I decided to give the brown rice pasta at Trader Joe's a try. And my impression is... it's interesting. It somehow reminds me of Japanese udon noodles, since it produces a lot of starchy substance as it boils. It loses its firmness very quickly, so unless one eats it very quickly, it gets kinda mushy by the end. (As part of my "re-building Alice" plan, I vowed to eat more slowly, and have been doing this successfully.) It is much more difficult to cook al dente compared to the regular spaghetti, since it seems to be too firm, too firm, too firm, and then too soft in a split second (lichty split? This is where I need Mark!! How do I spell that????). I made a quick seafood sauce, which being Japanese, I fearlessly called Pescatore. I say that I am Japanese as an excuse, because in Japan, they serve Spam on rye bread and call it a rueben, and they serve spaghetti with ketchup and call it 'Napolitan'. One time when I was a teenager in Japan, sitting in a coffee shop that served one of these Napolitan spaghetti, I asked the waitress what exactly Spaghetti Napolitan was - she told me it was a Napoli-style spaghetti. I am assuming that's Napoli as in Naples, but she had no idea. I wonder what spaghetti in Naples is like...

But I am digressing again. I am totally procrastinating - I just don't seem to want to pack for France...

Yes, so I called my dish tonight Spaghetti Pescatore. For the sauce, I used canned Trader Joe's Organic Marinara (I am all about easy cooking these days...), spiked up with olive oil-toasted garlic, celery, onion, prawns, a can of crab meat, and a can of clams. It was pretty yummy, but the noodles got gummy (heehee, I rhymed!), and I couldn't quite finish my serving... I have learned recently that when food that tastes good in the beginning starts to taste less exciting, it's time to call it a day. It'll be good again as left overs tomorrow...

But of course tomorrow, I will be on my way to Paris for more epicurean excitement! I froze the left overs and threw the dishes (I had lunch dishes too) in the dish washer, and decided it was time to pack - except that I have not packed yet. And it is almost 11:30 PM... I better get crackin'!!!

Not so epicurean tonight...

OK, I have to admit - tonight was a not so epicurean night for me. I had Costco Ravioli. Yes, Costco - that giant store which is the antithesis of anything artisan. And no, I do not have a Costco membership. My roommate does. I would never join the insanity - it stresses me out every time I am there... Anyway, back to the grub. At least it was whole wheat, but yikes, the amount of cheese per ravioli was so very skewed, I had one and felt like I had eaten enough cheese to feed all of Dublin (that is, Dublin my current residence, not Dublin, Ireland). The saving grace was the tomato-eggplant-celery stew I made to go over the ravioli.

My dining companion and I ate without comment on the food - we skirted around the issue by talking about how Kikkoman's Organic Soy Sauce tastes much less potent than other non-organic soy sauces. I should do some research on how many lbs of soy beans produce how many liters of soy sauce for the various companies. That must be one of the most measurable ways to determine if a bottle of soy sauce is likely to be flavorful or not.

I am reading "The Man Who Ate Everything" by Jeffrey Steingarten, and it is SOOOO good! It is so good that I chose to get on the funny elliptical machines at the gym instead of doing my favorite - running - because I could read a few more pages while I fit my workout in! It is SOOOO good that I am even thinking about skipping judo practice tomorrow night to go read my book at the gym! There is a very similarly themed Japanese novel series by Sadao Shoji, which I read and re-read and re-read and re-read. It's refreshing to see that there is writing of equal obsessive love and affection for food here in the US. I always thought (and actually, still do) think that the Japanese are one of the most food-obsessed people in the world. Well, maybe the French also provide competition to the Japanese for that No. 1 title...

...which is why I am going to France on Friday!!! I can't wait to devour freshly baked croissants and shower myself silly with rich hot chocolate. I've worked out three times today to prepare enough calorie deficit to enjoy a truly gluttonous vacation of epicurean debauchery. Maybe then, my title will actually reflect my posting...

Wow, first blog entry!

Wow! I guess I really have a blog now. Amazing. But it's time for yoga. More later...

It's really amazing how easy it is to get one of these set up. I use to be a little more computer-literate before I got old & lazy, but how needs to know any html or any of that junk now?????

Dinner tonight was a wonderful relaxing evening at Anne's. Anne (my yoga and gym partner) cooked up some dumplings and veggies in what may be the biggest wok I have ever seen in a non-Asian kitchen. The califlower-broccoli-carrot mix was just what I needed tonight. After a particularly rough day, there's nothing as precious as a friend who will make me dinner and listen to me whine. Amazingly, I was not affected by her cat at all, despite my usual severe allergies to all things furry. Dumplings were crispy on the outside and juicy in the inside. The best part though - dessert. Trader Joe's English Toffee - only 190 cal a bar! That's not much more than a cup of yogurt with honey & nuts! And oooooohh, so much more satisfying and decadent.

It's all been about chocolate decadence these days. That Citizen Cake Petite Gateau (one of these days, I'll learn to write French...) After Midnight Chocolate Cake I had last Friday evening really was the definition of decadence...

I am still amazed at how easy it is to have my own blog. No wonder blogging is explosively popular. I need to use my Spy Cam more and start taking pictures to post!!!