Ground lamb and spinach stuffed onions

Call me a cold and cruel baby animal killer who hates the environment and wants glaciers to melt all you like, I don’t care. Really. Because lamb is so damned tasty, it’s worth the stones. And if you haven’t yet tried lamb (you probably have, don’t forget that gyro is lamb meat) and can get past cute little fluffy animal images in your head, you’ll be singing its praises once you take a bit. If you’re counting your carbon footprint, I really can’t help you out here today, in fact, you should probably abandon this post. So ok, folks, make this an every once-in-awhile treat.

Shaking Beef: tender loving morsels of sweet, salt, and savory

Ever since moving to California, we’ve staked out a couple of extraordinary places that we come back to (mostly to take our friends) even though there is so much more out there to try. One of these places is The Slanted Door in San Francisco. Of course, being in SF, your restaurant is likely not successful unless you use organic produce and ecologically sustainable meat products, and keep it fresh and locally sourced.  Especially if you live at the Ferry Building. 

Charles Phan created an epic establishment with national acclaim, and introduced me to combinations of flavors that I’ve never imagined possible. This man is my hero. Now, I won’t claim that I know a lick about Vietnamese cuisine, and Slanted Door is very distinctively American (California) with a blend of half the world’s countries (isn’t that what America is all about?), but I will say that if the menu reflects elements of what Vietnamese food is, I should really get more involved. A gateway to a world of discovery.

Momofuku. Buy the book, and wait in line. Trust me.

Look! I do book reviews too!

I’ve been hearing about this place for just about ever. Every time I go back home, I often feel overwhelmed at the choices of new trend-setting restaurants that define the New York scene – such that, my desire to go to Momofuku Ko was outdated. Since 2008, this place was plastered in every food magazine, website, and television show for “best of” – but by the end of 2012, the chatter mostly petered out to be replaced by the-next-best-thing (and oh, there are so many…). But I didn’t forget (and thanks to a college friend who came to visit us in Sacramento to remind us about this place).