Red Sauce Pasta is Totally Obsolete

I tried a couple of light tomato pasta and really liked it. Then, I realized it's incredibly easy to make, esp. considering removing the need for horrible canned tomato sauce and making everything from fresh materials. Found the recipe here.

1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
6 fresh tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped
1/2 tsp. granulated sugar
1/2 tsp. basil
1/4 cup red wine
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Directions:

Saute onion and garlic in large skillet coated with non-stick vegaetable spray. Add remaining ingredients, and simmer 15-20 minutes. Serve over hot pasta.

Dressing has 2.2 g fat per serving.

I did everything pretty much the same except I used olive oil, didn't have cooking wine, didn't add sugar, added two shrimps in there (which are amazing), used dry chopped basil instead of fresh, and didn't freshly grind pepper in there (my pepper grinder was left at friend's place during the crazy drinking night -- now I'm crippled!).

Overall meal quality- fantastic. So glad it turned out so well so we don't have rely on canned red sauce anymore. The linguine was at its perfect al dante (add bunch of salt, wait till water boils before throwing the pasta in, keep the water boiling for exact nine minutes). Too bad I don't have any freshly ground pepper and fresh basil leaves. Also, we didn't have any chilled Italian Peroni beer so I had to go with Stella (Belgian) which is equally good but hey.. it makes it not fully italian. Garlic bread is not homemade (the secret is ครก) but it's not a biggie.

P.S. Biggest improvement of Windows Mobile 6 is the ability to upload the photos right into Windows Live Spaces. I had to beam one picture at a time with WM5 which was unbelievably tedious!

Seattle's Best Thai Food - Krua Thai Kitchen

Krua Thai Kitchen

2515 NE 55th St
Seattle, WA 98105

(206) 985-4398

www.kruaseattle.com

My girlfriend and I love good authentic thai food. We've been looking hard to find anything that's close to the restaurants we usually visited back in thailand. We know a lot of thai friends some of whom serve in thai restaurants. All of them say this place is a real thing so we gave it a try.

This place is definitely our favorite Thai restaurant in Pacific Northwest. We fell in love with Krua Thai since the first time we tried it. Fish sour broth (thick orange curry with water crest omelette and shrimps) really hook us and is the dish we must order every time. For the menu... Hmm... Where should I start? It's too hard to describe all the dishes we like in detailed like my normal food review on my treo keyboard during the flight. But i'd say there's no dish we tried that's disappointing. Beside that orange curry, the top ones are clay pot prawn, pork skewer, and trout salad. I guarantee with my thai tongue that all these are authentic. Quality of their raw materials including seafood, vegetables, and duck is also second to none.

They have about seven to ten tables inside and about three tables of outdoor seatings so the back lot can accommodate everyone's parking. We've been there on random nights in the week including saturday and have never experienced any wait for the table. Two waiters are staffed at all time but they also handle to-go orders which can peak some nights so the service may be a little slow. After all, they're all efficient, attentive, polite (and sometimes hot :P).

Full marks for food, service, price, and parking. Oh... Did I tell you that the place and food are incredibly clean for the price range? I would cut half the star for not selling any alcohol but it's a no biggie.

We eat at this place so often that you are likely to run into us when you're there. If you see a geek with a treo and orange curry on the table, don't forget to say hi.

Danang Krungthep - pork leg, anyone?

DaNang KrungThep Restaurant
905 San Pablo Avenue
(between Buchanan St & Solano Ave)
Albany, CA 94706
(510) 524-6837




I'm on the run again - now to Richmond, CA, a little town just a bit north from glamorous Bay Area (sayonara Kansas City, I won't miss you!). Great food, lots of night lives, tons of Thai friends.

Seems to me things are not that simple in consulting. For the first two weeks of the project, I have been carpooling with my manager to the client site at 7.15, attending back-to-back meetings till 7 in the evening, feed myself with crappy cold food at the hotel room, and work a few more hours before spending valuable time on recharging sleep. The cycle has been like this three to four days a week.

I rang a good Thai friend who went to Stanford for two full years, asking what she recommended around the area close to my hotel. The first and only thing she could think of is this place - Danang Krungthep. With all the steam I accumulated during the work hours, I know it's the time to give myself good Thai food and a bottle of Singha. DaNang is the forth largest city in Vietnam while KrungThep is the Thai name for Bangkok. So, we expected the balanced mix between Thai and Vietnamese menu from this place. (be careful of another place called Thep or KrungThep down the same street - it's not the same restaurant)

I was impressed with Danang Krungthep. The place, though not highly decorated, is spacious, clean, and well ventilated. At the time we arrived (7-ish Tuesday night), the place was less than half full. Parking is just in the convenient back lot. We were seated right away. The menu is huge. And, most importantly, they had the unlimited supply of Singha... Ahhh....

We spent about ten full minutes to go through the hundred-page menu. I decided without thinking to go with the pork leg (it's chinese/thai stew style with pickled cabbage). Seriously, most Thai restaurant just stick with perfecting their spices for stirred fry and sauces, and don't bother to buy the whole pig legs and make this rare dish from scratch. It comes with appropriate amount of skin. The meat is tender. Pickled cabbage is mellow. The dish and Singha just go really well together. We also had fried spring roll as appetizer. You know how good Vietnamese spring rolls are so it's not a disappointment either.

Full five stars for great food, parking without hassle, good service, willingness to go above-and-beyond on food, and supply of Singha.

I guess I have 412 more items to try at this place.

Chocovic Guaranda

I just blogged a couple of days ago about the the amazing dark chocolate I found at Trader Joe's. As promised, I gave the sister bar with cocoa from Ecuador "Guaranda"a try. Although it's more fruity, mellow, and easy to enjoy, I like the strong cocoa flavor of the Ocumare better. Give both a try and let me know how you like them.

Dark Bar of the Month - Chocovic Ocumare

I incidentally found this bar when I was doing my Monday project night drill, picking up water at Trader Joe's in Emeryville. There are several selections of dark chocolate at the register but the one with the tag "Unique Origin - Ocumare" offers specific sources of cocoa. Interesting idea, I think, so I gave it a try on the one from Venezuela.

My girlfriend and I agreed that it's the best dark chocolate we can find so far. Strong but not too bitter. Not at all any sour smell like what Lindt and Hershey's always screw their dark with. Absolutely right level of chewiness and sweetness. And it's just $1.99 per standard-sized bar. Great deal...

After a little more research, I found that the brand is Chocovic from Spain (so amazing that they don't really put their brands on the label; want the product to sell itself? Weird marketing tactic for chocolate bar). The one I tried was the Ocumare with the cocoa from Venezuela. Will try the one from Ecuador this Monday and will let you know.

Big thanks Trader Joe's for this dark sweet find.



If you don't have any Trader Joe's around your area, you can get it from Amazon below:

Deloitte Films Available to Public

Following my prior blog post about Deloitte Film Festival, now all the movies are posted on YouTube here... and here are the top three:

Winner: Food for Thoughts


Second: The Green Dot


Third: WTBCTB (man... this is actually my favorite)

Enjoy!

Thai Tom - Greasy Hole in the Wall

Thai Tom
4543 University Way NE
Seattle, WA 98127 (206) 548-9548




My girlfriend and I are in the quest of finding an authentic Thai restaurant from where we can order something simple like basil pork with fried egg or cashew chicken like what we could from the small restaurants around the school we went to in bangkok. A friend recommended me a place around UW and, based on reviews on Yelp, I thought it must have been Thai Tom. Com'mon, it's got 4.5 starts on Yelp. Over 100 people can't be wrong. The place is small (1st criteria), looks dirty (2nd criteria), close to college (3rd criteria), and cheap (all four criteria are met!)

We arrived at the peak time at 7 something during school year. Hungry UW students were queuing up for take-out and the place to sit. We spent about 20 minutes waiting. Not that bad, I think. The waiters there were highly efficient though so it wasn't that bad.

After we were seated, I could sense the college late diner. Everything there was greasy. Nope, I'm talking just about food. The tables, floor (kitchen and dining area), and the wall are greasy. Fine, we thought. We're used to this type of place back home. Oh... Gotta mention about the music. They were playing the songs you would find in a nice night club and the old Thai rock/alternative songs we liked during our teenage years. Very cool...

The menu is made of carved piece of wood which is pretty cool. We saw only some dishes which are not Thai. I wanted to eat Tom Yum but they ran out of it so we ordered Tom Kha instead. My girlfriend and I ordered Spicy Noodle and Cashew Chicken.

When the food arrives, we couldn't believe the size of it. Huge, compared to what we have to pay. However, we were absolutely disappointed. Listen folks, no matter what anyone says, this place is NOT authentic. The Tom Kha (Coconut Soup) misses several kinds of spices and herbs while the spicy noodle was almost inedible and (and I believe Pad Thai and Pad See-you also) came with rice. Being overly sweet, unnecessarily greasy, and housed in hole in the wall doesn't mean it has to be authentic.

Bottom Line:
The food deserves just one star but I gave another for the music and services. If you want a real, nice, reasonable, authentic Thai food, go to "Krua" Thai Kitchen (55th St & 25th Ave) But if you want the Thai version of General Tso kitchen, be my guest.

Tawon Thai

Tawon Thai
3410 Fremont Ave N
Seattle, WA 98103 (206) 633-4545





I visited this place because of my mom -- she knows the owner of this place and he treated us a big meal the first time we were there. No offense to my american friends here, initially I thought this place is so americanized. Pad Thai and Tom Yum soup are too sweet for native Thai tongue of mine.

Then, I went back with my girlfriend several times when we're around the area. We discovered several dishes that make Tawon Thai the real best Thai food in the area -- and I'm not saying that because I know people there. They're really good. The best dishes we always go back to eat (sorted by order of likeness) are:

H1. Kow Soi (Curry Noodles) $8.50
Better than a lot of places even in Thailand. Spiciness and Taste of the curry noodles are just right. Salty, sweet, spicy enough to make it absolutely yummy but not overdone. Pickled cabbage and fish sauce they put in there are so high quality that you can feel it. Don't forget to ask for chilli paste to go with it.

44. Neau Yang E-San $9.95
Best thai-style grilled beef I've ever had. Sauce (jaew) is amazing. They use New York steak beef grilled it to well done (don't complain folks, that's what Thai people do for grilled beef dish) but it's not at all chewy. Highly recommended for beef lover.

H4. Gai Manow (Chicken lime) $9.95
Most people screw up this nice dish but this place doesn't. They grill the chicken instead of deep fry it so it has nice grill aroma. The sauce is made of real lime juice and low on mayo so you can have great smell of lime in there. Other places put almost pure mayo on the chicken with some fresh lemon slices with seeds and peels left on them. Ew.

A.4 Crispy Soft Tofu $6.25
The name is a little confusing itself. They use soft egg tofu and fry it to perfection. I'm sure it's not an easy dish to make since tofu can get mishaped very easily when you put it into the boiling oil. They made it so nice-not soaked with oil. I really like the flavor but my gf doesn't eat tofu so it can't make top of the list here.

The owner shipped most of the decoration, except the dining sets, from Thailand. The ceiling is really high that you'll feel it so spacious. You'll have a glimpse of the kitchen but the ventilation is great making it not stuffy. When the owner is there, he really enjoys talking to the customers over there if you want him to (I saw him sitting down with a lot of diners over there just to chat). Although they don't have full-serviced bar, they have several selection of wine, beer on tab (including Fat Tire Draught), and of course, Singha! The owner can give you bar experience if you go there alone :)

Bottom line:
4 stars out of 5.
It lost 1 star because parking is a little hard to find and the famous Thai dishes are quite americanized. However, the ambiance is nice and staff are really helpful and friendly. It's a great place for meeting with friends, dining with kids, having work lunch, and dating.

Global Warming

OMG... Can you in Bangkok just walk outside A/C room without getting sweat? Absolutely not!

..and I'm not talking about the horrible traffic, motorcycle all over the place, taxis stopping randomly next to a junction, bus dropping passengers in the middle of the road.

But it's still home after all. Thailand, I love you... and thanks for having BTS, MTA, and taxis for us. They surely save Thai people a lot of sanity.

At the end of the day, shopping here is not really that heavenly. Clothes are most of the time above my price range anywhere at the Trio (the Paragon, Central World, and the Emporium). Anyway, I still have Jatujak waiting for me this weekend. Prepared to spend a bit over there.

I'm not that fascinated the pirated stuff like in the prior visits. Maybe I'm too old for this kind of stuff (and probably because Avis has been giving me free iTunes downloads). I didn't spend much on CDs like last time either (after I realized that the sales at DJ Siam are full of sh** most of the time). Just bought only the ones I really knew and shut my ears off when they boasted about no-name people that they produced themselves.

Lastly, food here never disappoints me. ก๋วยเตี๋ยวปลาป้าหนึง (pattaya 038 428 908), รุ่งเรืองก๋วยเตี๋ยวหมู (อีกชื่อคือ เฮียฮ่อ, สุขุมวิท 26 0-2258-6746), Bei Otto (best pork knuckle and german sausages in my opinion), เลือดหมูคุณศรี are amazing.

Will update the full list after I get back then.