Author: My Husband

The next day in Paris saw picture perfect weather, and we spent it sauntering around the Opera district. Everything you could want to come to Paris for, you could find in the Opera/Madeleine districts. Fashion? Check. Food? Check. Culture? Check.

Paris is so pretty. Just look at this…

Cars were parked nose to tail in the Opera district, and what you’ll see in the next two photos is not an uncommon sight. The drivers are either extremely skilled, or extremely screwed.

From the Paris opera house, you will find fashion, food, and culture within the radius of a few blocks. We had already been to the places of culture on previous trips, so we focused on non-cultural activities this time around. From the opera house, it is about two blocks to the two pillars of French retail – Galeries Lafayette and Printemps.

The Paris Opera House.

The Galeries already had its Christmas decorations up, and it was very pretty. You don’t see many department stores in Canada looking like this…

After some time spent roaming the food halls of the Galeries, we headed towards Les Halles for dinner at Au Pied de Cochon. Those who have read my previous Paris trip report will recall that I ate at this restaurant the last time I was in Paris. However, Christina had never been and she really wanted to try the house specialty.

This restaurant has been in continuous operation for more than 60 years.

Tip: If you want to try this place out when you are in Paris, make a reservation; English will be fine. It is very popular with both locals and tourists alike, and there’s going to be quite a wait if you just walk in. The night we were there, there were a smattering of many different languages spoken, including English, Mandarin, Spanish, German, and of course, French.

We were presented with bread (cut up of course) and a spread that tasted like a mixture of pork fat and bits of pork. It was the first time I’ve had it, and it was different. I couldn’t decide if I liked it or not, and there was quite a bit left over after the meal was done. They also gave us two flutes of complimentary sparkling wine; I think this was given to all who made reservations.

Interesting, but we’re still undecided if we like or not.

This time, it was me who got the foie gras starter instead of my wife. A generously portioned slab of foie gras de canard, accompanied by two toast points. All for a price that was quite a bit cheaper than the equivalent dish at George V. Great deal. It should be said that the foie gras at Au Pied, being duck liver, was quite a bit milder than the George V version, which was goose liver. But I was perfectly happy with it.

Christina got the smoked salmon instead of her usual. French smoked salmon is quite a bit different than what we are used to having in Canada. The difference is all in the texture, with the French version retaining more of the elasticity of the uncooked fish. The French version is also quite a bit more oily (drizzled with olive oil after the fact perhaps) and have a milder smoked flavor. It was very good.

My main course was a pig’s knuckle braised in beer and spices, and served over a bed of choucroute. The meat was falling off the bone, and very flavorful. The rind has gotten to the point where the collagen was falling apart, which made one’s lip all sticky eating it. The choucroute provided just the right counterpoint for the pork, cutting through the fattiness/gelatinous-ness of it. Very nice, this dish.

Christina got their special – the one dish that is best associated with Au Pied de Cochon. She got… the pied de cochon – a whole pig trotter. It was a delicious mixture of rind, tendon, meat, and whatever witch’s brew went into the cooking of this dish – Christina couldn’t stop exclaiming how good it was. And I totally agree. This was the dish that made Au Pied de Cochon, and it’s easy to understand why.

Against our better judgement, we got a dessert each to finish off our meal. I got a gigantic creme brulee and Christina got a moist chocolate cake. They were very good, but we had to muster up every ounce of energy and concentration to finish it all.

Gigantic creme brulee.

Moist chocolate cake - so moist the insides were still flowing.

Au Pied de Cochon served up a grand meal, and their pork didn’t disappoint. Christina was initially concerned that the food wouldn’t live up to its reputation, but by the time we were done, she became a convert.

If you find yourself in Paris, this is a restaurant I would recommend - especially if you like pork. Remember to make a reservation!

We were so full after dinner, we had to walk some of it off. About a 15-minute walk away, on a small island in the middle of the Seine, is Notre Dame. I leave you with another two photos of Paris by night…

About to cross the bridge to get to the island that Notre Dame sits on.

Notre Dame, all lit up.

Author: My Husband

My wife and I got little sleep on the flight from Vancouver to Frankfurt. I spent several hours catching up on some recent movies, which included “Julie and Julia”. I enjoyed Meryl Streep’s turn as Julia Child (Meryl Streep isn’t that tall in real life, is she?), but I just didn’t care much about the Julie part at all. Too self-obsessed and too high maintenance, in my opinion.

After 10 hours, our plane landed at Frankfurt and we promptly checked into the Lufthansa lounge for a shower. The quick shower really helped to make us feel human again, and I highly recommend it if you have a connection after a long-haul flight. In most air hubs, you can pay several dollars for a shower, and if you plan ahead enough, you might even have a fresh change of clothes with you. (we didn’t.)

Before long, we hopped on another Lufthansa plan for the quick flight to Paris. Frankfurt is a pretty large airport, and if you have a quick connection, I highly recommend hoofing it to your departure gate asap. The airport doesn’t have many travelators, and there are mighty huge distances to cover.

This was the 733 that flew us to Paris.

We landed on a dreary day in Paris, with the weather feeling none-too-different than Vancouver. The bitingly cold drafts attacked the passengers as soon as we stepped off the plan onto the jetway, reminding us that we were travelling during winter.

Whoever designed Charles de Gaulle airport must have really had a thing for long narrow tunnels and tubes. These covered travelators connected the different arrival halls on various levels and they were designed as a series of bizarre tubes criss-crossing each other in an open atrium in the middle of the terminal.

We had pre-booked an airport transfer service to take us to the hotel, and ParisShuttle worked out pretty well for us on this trip. Taxis from Charle de Gaulle airport to Paris are pretty expensive if you are party of only one or two travellers, so airport shuttles are a more economical – and almost as convenient – way to go. We stayed at the Hilton Arc de Triomphe this trip and found it to be a good hotel. It was about a 5-min walk to the nearest Metro stop (Courcelles), and about 10 minutes to the Champs Elysees by foot. While the Hilton is a US chain, this property still showed off a good amount of Gallic design flair.

Because we hadn’t gotten any real sleep over the last two days, our plan was to have a simple dinner and then get back to the hotel right away. There wasn’t anything open in the immediate vicinity of the hotel, so we hoofed it to the Champs Elysees to see what we could find. Once there, the beautifully lit up sights made us forget about sleep, and hand-in-hand, we walked down the enchanting avenue taking in all the sights and sounds. We saw many of the restaurants that we had eaten at before, and we gave them all a pass. After walking around for some time, we happened upon the “George V” brasserie and we decided we didn’t want to walk anymore; that’s where we had dinner that evening.

Now, if you are after good food and good value in Paris, you will not want to eat on the Champs. The restaurants located along the avenue pay huge rents, and they depend on selling expensive meals to tourists to drive their profits. However, if you are already on the Champs and plan on staying for a while, then eating at one of these places will be a lot more convenient than Metro’ing elsewhere for a meal and then Metro’ing back again. In our case, we didn’t want to eat anywhere that was not within walking distance of the hotel that evening.

Here’s how the interior of the George V looked like.

Design touches abound – even in this oldish brasserie.

Because of the chill, Christina asked for some hot water and the waiter said “I’ll bring you an order of tea and you can do whatever you want with the hot water. It’s a computer thing you know… ” - riiiight. This hot water ended up costing 6 Euros, 50 cents more than what my glass of wine cost.

Christina wasn’t particularly hungry, so she only had foie gras. It was a very nice torchon of foie gras d’oie, but the portion size was pretty measly. Two thin slices of foie gras, served with a disproportionate amount of toasted bread. Even for a Champs Elysees eatery, they should have been more generous.

I was feeling a little more ravenous, so I had onion soup and Boeuf Bourguignon (thanks to the Julie and Julia movie).

The onion soup was rich and hearty. Here, they were overly generous with the gruyere – there was so much cheese that I had to leave a good amount of it in the bowl. But aside from that, this was good onion soup.

The beef bourguignon offered up chunks of tender beef that were bathed in a thick, full-bodied sauce. The seasoning of the sauce was good, and the beefy flavours were all there. However, there was a good amount of alcohol still in it – it was almost as if the cook did not leave enough time for the alcohol to cook off before serving the dish.

We both felt very full after the meal, and decided to walk some of it off before heading back to the hotel. So we popped in the Mercedes Benz showroom for a quick look. They had yet another Mercedes-McLaren SLR convertible on display. I believe this is one of the last few $300,000 roadsters that came off the production line.

And then walking up towards Etoile, the Arc de Triomphe came into view. No matter how many times you see the Arc, it still impresses you everytime.

From under the arch, here’s a snapshot of the Champs with the flame of the unknown soldier in the foreground.

From the arch, a partial view of the lit of the Eiffel Tower

Lack of sleep started to catch up with us, so we called it a night and headed back to the hotel.

More to follow – stay tuned.

The weeks leading up to our vacation were extremely busy work-wise, and we did not start packing until the night before our 4-week trip. My wife decided to pack overnight and did not finish until early in the morning. I started packing at 9:30am and finished up about an hour later – years of last-minute packing experience sorta paid off there.

We were through YVR security by 1:30 pm and plonked ourselves down in the Air Canada lounge at around 2 o’clock. It was slim pickings as far as food selection was concerned, but I made do with some soup. The bonus is of course the self-serve open bar, but it was way too early to indulge.

Here is a view of our plane from the lounge.

More to come – watch for our posts on our first stop on this trip. One our our favourite cities, and home to this:

Author: My Husband

My wife and I have been customers at Shanghai River since it opened, and we think it is the best beifang (northern Chinese) cuisine restaurant in the lower mainland. The people who own Shanghai River have seen fit to put some money into the upkeep of the restaurant, and things still look fresh and clean even after all these years.

We think they make some of the best “xiao long bao”, as well as a bevy of northern Chinese standards, in the lower mainland. As far as Chinese cuisine goes, I’m more partial to Cantonese, which I feel has a wider range. However, once in a while, when the itch for beifang food needs to be scratched, we will return to Shanghai River.

Here are some of our favourite dishes from a recent meal there:

We started with some xiao long bao.

Shanghai River has two varieties – the standard bao with just pork, or the xie fen bao with added crab roe and meat. We went for the xie fen bao, which adds a strong hint of crab roe flavour that goes very well with the pork. In Shanghai, most xiao long bao is of the xie fen variety; I think that is definitely the way to eat them. Shanghai River’s baos have a consistently thin skin, and there is a healthy dose of crab roe tinged broth that is oh so good. This is one of the must-have dishes at this restaurant.

Next up, some prawns.

These are prawns fried in soy sauce. The sweet and savory soy sauce complemented the sweetness of the prawns perfectly. The prawns were firm and fleshy – very satisfying.

Then, some crab claws.

My wife really likes this dish. Each “ball” is made by rolling crab/prawn paste into a ball around a whole crab claw, breading it, and then deep frying it. This version was good, though not that different than the many other versions we’ve tried at other quality Chinese restaurants.

And then, my favourite dish at Shanghai River.

This is a tofu hotpot with crab meat and roe. The strong flavors of the crab roe are imparted to the tofu, which is soft and smooth. The tofu, as well as the rich and complex sauce, is perfect accompaniment for simple steamed rice. We don’t usually have rice when we eat out in restaurants, but we made an exception for this dish.

And then some smoked duck.

This is another one of Christina’s favourite at Shanghai River. This ducked, smoked with black tea, is lean, yet moist and flavourful. While smoked duck can never be described at tender, Shanghai River’s version has a texture that yields readily to your bite. And the tea-smoked flavour is very strong in the meat.

And finally, a dish that we got for my mom.

Broccoli with fluffy egg white and conpoy (dried scallops). This is a simple dish, yet very comforting. The egg white and shredded conpoy is a perfect foil for the broccoli – the green-ness of the vegetable is toned down by the eggs and even I, of the vegetable averse school, ate some.

Shanghai River is one of those restaurants that have paid attention to the details and gone from strength to strength through the years. The place is always packed, so reservations are a must if you are planning to visit.

So, I had some pretty good Italian food this past week. In fact, in the past several days, everywhere I looked, I could only see Italian restaurants. And no, I’m not writing about Commercial Drive.

I’m writing about a city that is home to this lovely church…

In real life, Brunelleschi’s dome is really very imposing and impressive. I’m glad I took “Western Civilization” in high school.

… and this rather famous fella

Please accept my apologies if the photo causes any offence. However, I feel that David should be seen the way Michelangelo intended for him to be. This version is a replica that stands outside the entrance of the Palazzo Vecchio. The real Michelangelo creation has been moved to the nearby Accademia Galleria to protect it from the elements.

If the title didn’t give it away, and if you guessed Florence, you’d be right. I was there on business this past week and I tried, as best I could, to experience the artistic and gastronomic delights that were in such abundance in this city.

On a previous visit to Florence, my wife and I stayed in the historic part of the city. We did a lot of touristy stuff and ate at many restaurants that were obviously targeted at tourists. While the food wasn’t bad, we also did not see many locals eating in those places. And locals must know the best places to eat, right? Thus, on this trip, I leveraged my Italian colleagues’ experience and had them take me to eat at their regular lunch and dinner spots.

For lunch, the we mostly went to little pizzerias. In these places, you would find a coffee bar, a refrigerated display case showing sandwiches and salads, and a small blackboard showing the specials of the day. You would tell the guy behind the display case what you wanted, and he would extract it from the case or relay the order to the kitchen. After this, you find your own seat and wait for your order to arrive. A waitress would come around to take your drink orders, deliver drinks and food, take orders for coffee, and deliver your bill. After finishing up your meal, you take your bill to the cash counter and pay for your meal. It is simple and efficient (once you figure out the process), and unlike the sit down restaurants, the food at these pizzerias are pretty reasonably priced.

So what does a pizzeria meal look like? Continue reading to find out. I did not see any other people snapping pictures of their food, so in order to not look like a business-suited loony, I had to surreptitiously take the following photos with my Blackberry. The thing about snapping photos with a Blackberry is that it looks just like you’re checking email!

There’s always a selection of sliced-up breads served. And in many places, different types of breads can be found in the basket. My Italian colleagues just eat the bread plain – no butter or olive oil required. They rip the bread into chunks and just start eating. I don’t know if unfinished bread is reused or not, but it’s best to not think too much about it.

After the breads, they would deliver the sandwiches, which were lightly toasted in the salamander before being delivered to the tables. These small and simple sandwiches – the likes of which included tomato/mozza or prosciutto/mozza – were delicious, proving that you don’t have to load up sandwiches like Dagwood Bumstead to make bread taste good.

If you ordered something from the kitchen, it would be delivered after the sandwiches. Like this simple pasta for instance…

This was a simple pasta dish tossed with a tomato/basil sauce. See how the sauce sticks to the pasta? This was delicious!

Two courses would – typically - be more than enough for lunch. How about dinner? We had our dinners in full-service restaurants where meals would follow a similar format.

First, a selection of sliced breads would be served. Then drinks would be delivered. Then the first course, which could be pasta…

like this pappardelle. The above was the best dish I had during the trip. While it looks deceptively simple, the pasta sauce was out-of-this-world good.

… or cured meats.

This is a classic prosciutto/cantaloupe first course. The prosciutto was buttery, not too salty, not too gamey, and not too sinewy. It’s hard to find prosciutto this good in Canada, yet it’s just considered “normal” stuff in Italy.

After the first course, it would be on to the second, which typically involves some sort of protein.

Like fish…

Some nicely crisp and flaky sea bass served on a bed of roasted vegetables.

… or steak

An angus filet served with a truffle sauce. Incidentally, I was quite disappointed with this dish; the truffle sauce smelled heavenly, but didn’t taste like anything. This must have been the “fake” African truffles…

One night, we left the office at 11pm and even a restaurant used to serving late dinners turned us away. So I slunked back to the hotel and managed to get the bar to make something up for me. I was not really hungry (hunger had come and gone hours ago), so I made do with a typical late night “snack”…

A gran piatto of cure meats comprising salami, braseola, and prosciutto accompanied by some cheese. I would recommend trying braseola if you can find it – the cured beef is even less stringy than prosciutto!

Did I mention I have a thing for Italian coffees? I ended every meal with a caffe like this…

Many Italians finish their meals with a caffe, as did I. My drink of choice was caffe macchiato, which is a shot of espresso doused with a teeny bit of milk and foam. A demi-tasse is what caffe macchiato is supposed to be served in – not a 12 oz Starbucks cup…

Foodwise, I had no complaints about this latest trip to Florence. Eating at places where the locals did really paid dividends as I ate well without having to break the bank…

But beyond the food, Florence is a really beautiful city, especially the historic part of town. Here are some photos which I hope you enjoy…

The facade of the famed Duomo, properly known as the Basilica de Santa Maria del Fiore.

Typical narrow cobblestoned streets in the historic part of the city.

A view of the Tuscan hills from the Arno River.

Florence’s famous Ponte Vecchio. Both sides of the bridge are lined with jewelers and goldsmiths.

And finally, like in many European cities, small is considered beautiful…

Smart cars are popular, as are the really cute Fiat 500s.

And I really got a kick out of this little commuter bus. Cute!!

And as always, I’ll end this travel post with a comment or two about the airline I flew on. This time it was Lufthansa, and I’d have to say that it was a positive experience. No, they didn’t provide SIA-level of service (who does? no, not even Emirates…), but they acquitted themselves very nicely with the crew’s professional demeanor, their food offerings (very edible) and comfortable seats. Good news then, since I have another long-haul flight with them coming up in November.

Making wontons was a lot easier than I expected. To be accurate, I did waste a few pieces of wonton skin in the beginning. However, soon I learned to be humble and not over-stuff the wontons. Bearing that in mind, I was able to finish wrapping all the wontons very quickly.

This recipe makes about 80 small wontons, which would be enough to serve 4 people.

Ingredients:
- 1 bundle of yellow chives. You can find this type of chives in an Asian supermarket. They look like green chives except their colour is yellow. If you cannot find them, then skip them.
- 2 cups of minced pork. I used the type that is half fat and half lean.
- 20 tiger prawns that are 21 to 25 count in size.
- 1 stack of wonton skin. You can also find them in an Asian supermarket.

For serving the wontons:
- 1 green onion, chopped
- Soy sauce
- Sesame oil
- Chili oil
- Chili sauce. I used this Vietnamese brand:

Steps:

1. Marinate pork in the fridge for 2 hours with:
- freshly ground black pepper
- 1 tbsp of onion powder
- 1 tsp of coriander seed powder
- a few drizzle of sesame oil
- 1 tbsp of Japanese vinegar
- 2 tbsp of Japanese cooking wine
- 4 tbsp of soy sauce

2. Remove shells from prawns. Rinse. Following down the back of the prawn, slice each prawn into halves. Remove any vein. Cut each half into two pieces. Marinate the prawns with:
- a few drizzle of sesame oil
- 1 tsp of cornstarch
- 1 tsp of salt
- freshly ground black pepper

3. Rinse the yellow chives. Finely chop the chives and mix them into the pork.

4. Place a piece of wonton skin on your palm. Place a piece of prawn in the centre of the skin. Place a small amount of pork on the prawn. Wrap up the wonton by folding the diagonal corners toward each other. Apply a gentle squeeze on the opening so that the stuffing will stay inside during cooking.

In the beginning, place only a small amount of stuffing in the wonton. After making a few wontons, you will be able to put more stuffing in them.

Also note that once exposed to air, the wonton skin becomes dry very quickly. After the wontons have been wrapped, try to cook them as soon as possible.

5. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Place the wontons into the water. Very soon, the wontons will float. Once that happens, let the wontons boil for 2 more minutes and they are ready.

6. Drain the water and place the wontons into a bowl. Drizzle chili sauce, sesame oil, chili oil and soy sauce over the wontons. Sprinkle them with chopped green onion and serve.

I woke up on this Sunday morning with a craving for pancakes. After quickly scanning my fridge, I noticed a jar of condensed milk sitting by the fridge door. An idea then come to me: instead of syrup, why not serve the thick and sweet condensed milk on pancakes? To make things even more interesting, I added dollops of crunchy peanut butter and let the peanut butter melt into the warm pancakes. Because ET likes chocolate, I added some chocolate sauce on his pancakes. To me, the pancakes taste just as good with or without the chocolate sauce. I’m very happy that I tried this somewhat unconventional combination.

This recipe makes about 10 small pancakes.

Ingredients:

- 1 egg
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- Peanut butter
- Condensed milk
- Chocolate sauce (optional)
- A handful of chopped blanched, unsalted peanuts

1. Mix the egg, flour, milk, sugar, oil, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl until the batter is smooth.

2. Heat a non stick pan with 1 tsp of vegetable oil. Put in 3 tablespoons of batter for one pancake. Turn the heat to medium low.

3. When you see bubbles start to appear on the pancakes, they are ready to be flipped. Gently flip the pancakes. When the other side has turned golden brown, the pancakes are ready.

4. I assembled the pancakes into a stack by putting a dollop of peanut butter and a generous spoonful of condensed milk between each pancake. If you like chocolate, you can pour a good amount of chocolate sauce all over the stack.

5. Sprinkle a few teaspoons of chopped peanuts on the pancakes. Serve while the pancakes are warm.

This is my favourite (and only!) recipe of roast potatoes. I always try my best to find the kind of potatoes that are small, almost-perfectly-round and pink. I called them “pink nugget potatoes” since I don’t know the proper culinary term for them. These pink potatoes are very starchy and therefore they are very suitable for roasting.

To bring things up a notch, I season the potatoes with a rosemary salt that could be easily made from scratch. These potatoes have a texture like deep fried potato wedges; they have a very crispy outside and a starchy, soft inside. The key is to first boil them, season them while they are hot and finish them in a very hot oven.

Like eating chips, I cannot stop at eating just one of with these potatoes.

Ingredients

- 20 pink nugget potatoes
- 1 tbsp of rosemary
- 4 tbsp of beef fat dripping at room temperature. Use olive oil if you don’t have fat dripping.

Steps

1. Set oven to 450F.
2. Bring a big pot of water to boil.
3. Using a brush, clean the potatoes while rinsing them under water.
4. Put the potatoes and 4 tbsp of coarse salt (yes, 4 tbsp!) into the boiling water. Cook the potatoes until they are fork tender. This took about 15 minutes for me.
5. While the potatoes are being cooked, make the rosemary salt. Put equal amount of rosemary and coarse salt (that is 1 tbsp each of rosemary and salt) into a mortar and pestle. Pound the rosemary and salt until they become very fine.
6. Right after the potatoes are done cooking, remove the water. Cut the potatoes into halves or quarter them if needed.
7. While the potatoes are hot, season them with the rosemary salt and fat. Make sure each potato is coated with the seasoning. Put in freshly ground pepper.
8. Layer the potatoes in a baking dish. Make sure the potatoes are placed in only one layer. If the potatoes don’t have enough room, they won’t brown evenly.
9. Roast the potatoes in the hot oven for 1/2 hour.

You might think this is a lot of work for making just roast potatoes! There might be many steps in this recipe but each step is simple and fast. All these steps together ensure the potatoes tasting crispy and flavourful.

Thanks to Jamie Oliver and Heston Blumenthal, who inspired me to create this recipe.

Author: My Husband

While shopping at Costco several weeks ago, we saw the seafood stand selling frozen King Crab legs. The product looked nice and meaty, but the prices were jaw-dropping. Christina and I looked at each other and tacitly agreed that we wouldn’t buy any that day. We would wait for next spring - when the crabs are in season - and go to a restaurant to eat them for a fraction of the Costco price.

I’d been meaning to post some photos of a King Crab meal we had earlier this year, but didn’t get around to it until now. Better late than never I suppose…

We ordered a 9.5 lb crab to be prepared two ways. We received two plates of steamed legs and one plate of deep-fried body pieces. The meat was full of umami goodness and the freshness of the product really shone through in the taste and texture. The resultant broth was lip-smackingly good and, surpringly, did not contain much MSG.

For those who have yet to eat King Crabs, the meat’s taste and texture is a combination of lobster and dungeness crabs. It is not to be missed by crab enthusiasts.

We also had some soup. It was pretty tasty, but it had to be eaten quickly lest it cooled and the corn-starch thickening agent started breaking down.

Yi mein (乾炒伊麵) is a favorite of mine, and this was decent. It didn’t have enough wok-hei (I like them a little caramelized), but the flavours were good. A huge positive was that the noodles were not drowning in oil.

I’ve eaten at Gingeri many times and I must say the chefs do a good job of controlling oil usage. We’ve never had a meal at Gingeri where an excess of cooking oil was used, and we really appreciate that in restaurant food.

This might seem strange. Why did we have congee for dinner? Well, my wife had her wisdom teeth extracted only two days before this meal, so we ordered something that she could comfortably eat. That didn’t prevent her from braving the pain and chowing down on the crabs though. She’s a trooper, my wife.

So, looking at the photos again, spring can’t come soon enough for us. What are good places to have King Crabs? We like Kirin and Gingeri, which are places where we have consistently gotten what we paid for. Other restaurants may sell the crabs more cheaply, but caveat emptor. When we went to another restaurant for King crabs with some friends, we ordered an 11 pounder and got smaller portions that what was served at our Gingeri dinner.

It was only yesterday that I heard of chimichurri and I have never tasted it before. Once I found out what it is, I bought a rib prime rib, roasted the beef, made the sauce, and served the sauce on the beef. After all, how bad could a sauce taste if it is made with loads of minced garlic, finely chopped parsley and a drizzle of good olive oil? In Argentina, chimichurri is often eaten with grilled meat or used as a meat marinate. I don’t have any friend from Argentina, but I can safely say Argentineans surely know their meat.

Here is the recipe for the prime rib roast.

To make the chimichurri, you will need:

- 1 head of garlic (yes, and you will use all of it, make sure you have plenty of mouth wash if you are going out afterwards )
- 1 bouquet of fresh parsley
- 1 tbsp red pepper flakes
- Juice of 1/2 of a lemon
- 1/4 cup of olive oil

The garlic and parsley will need to be finely minced. You can either use a food processor or do it manually. I wanted to give my arms a workout and so I chopped everything by hands

1. Finely mince the garlic.
2. Finely mince the parsley.
3. In a bowl, mix the garlic, parsley, red pepper flakes, olive oil and lemon juice together. Add salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.
4. Serve on beef while the beef is hot.

I also made some rosemary roasted potatoes as a side dish. I’ll post the recipes of these potatoes in my next post.