One of our favorite pastimes when we were in Japan was finding hilarious Engrish - which wasn't hard at all. Here are some food themed ones for an amusing Friday read.

4. Bar Soul Blood, Kobe, Japan. Now I don't know why this place was called Bar Soul Blood, but I do know it was pretty hilarious. Also awesome: the picture of Michael Jackson. I think the it was pretty much the most expensive glass of coke I've ever had though...but the ambiance was awesome!

Continuing the theme of custardy pies, this pie is ridiculously easy to make. It barely requires any baking (just the curry infused graham cracker crust, easy as pie)! I stumbled upon this recipe after getting a request for a banana cream pie. Not being a huge fan of bananas, I was looking for a twist on a standard banana cream pie and found this recipe. As a Jamaican, everything's better with rum, especially some good Appleton Estate Rum.

Blueberries...a fruit that I don't care for particularly on its own, but add them to something and they're amazing. What's great about them is that you feel no guilt when using them because they're supposed to be so good for you. I've read that they can enhance memory, reduce blood sugar, and even reduce depression! I started this blueberry experiment last summer, with fresh blueberries. It involved Blueberry Zucchini Bread (because zucchini was in season too) and Blueberry Pancakes (because I never need an excuse to eat pancakes).

From Drop Box

Champaign's best kept International food secret: World Harvest. I'm continuously amazed at the stuff I'm able to find there, surprising since sometimes when you're out in the middle of cornfields, you don't expect to find:

My adventures baking pie started in the summer, when I made my very first pie: Chocolate Pie. This was a good starter in some senses, because the crust was a simple Graham Cracker crust. Plus it has chocolate, and not only do I love chocolate, I was preparing it for the wake of my friend Dan, a budding chocolate maker. If I remember correctly I actually prepared the crust and filling the day before, since the filling needs to be refrigerated overnight.

I thought this was nifty. We consume a lot of cassava and yam in Jamaica! Click submit to see the stats for a specific country and click more for the stats broken down by food group. I tried to include a random selection of countries. On a side note, the widget builder in wolfram alpha is kinda cool: http://developer.wolframalpha.com/widgetbuilder/

Now I haven't stopped cooking just because it's summer, I just haven't been sharing as regularly. I didn't realize NYTimes had cooking videos, here's a vegetable torte recipe that I'm dying to try.



Do you have any good vegetable recipes? I made a salad (not a vegetarian one) last night that was amazing, and it's really made me appreciate how good a salad can be.

Ok, I know, my Jamaican readers (if you exist!) must be thinking really, a blog post on bun and cheese? Have you run out of things to blog about? But consider that I'm not in Jamaica, so procuring bun and cheese for Easter requires effort.

I know, I've been in a crazy baking mood. The problem is that I go online and see these yummy recipes and then I start craving the end product. That's how I ended up baking lemon bars for our movie night (2010: The Year We Make Contact).

I'm not entirely sure where I get these whims from, but for some reason (I blame it on that joyofbaking site) I've been in a baking mood. Even more arbitrary, I had this hankering to bake my own bread. I had lots of time to kill last night (I was watching the Republicans whine on C-span, yay health care!), so it seemed like a good time to try my hand at baking with yeast.

I found a great site for baking recipes, http://joyofbaking.com/, and I've been putting their recipes to good use - at least I think it's been good. So far, I've tried their biscuits and scones. I seem to have managed to not take pictures of the scones, so I'll just have to make more this weekend. But for now, biscuits!

From Randomness

From Randomness

The main trick to making biscuits is using really cold butter and not over mixing or over kneading the dough. In fact, my biggest baking tip is to bake with cold butter. If you microwave the butter or use margarine, then you've completely killed the recipe and you're better off using a mix.

I wanted to make a short little note on my Gaucho's experience. A week or so ago, some friends and I made an impromptu decision to dine at Gaucho's Grill. This, unfortunately, was not an entirely satisfactory decision. While I have no complaints about the food (their Ye Ole Fish Sandwich, a fillet of snapper sandwich), the service left something to desire. There is no exageration in saying that we were first ignored before being seated, then we waited at least 5 minutes before demanding menus, and then after that waited a good half hour before being moved to another table. After another 20 minutes, our orders were finally taken and we were finally given some glasses of water. Needless to say, they were not tipped.

Now then, this rant is more a message for the management. You have a couple of options. You can (1) hire more waiters/waitresses, because when we first arrived there were none in sight, and we were told by the hostess that the reason for our interminable wait was that the waitresses were busy bringing out food for other tables. You could also (2) reduce the number of tables, since clearly you cannot handle the current capacity. It is unforgivable to have people waiting for an hour just to be served water and to give their orders. You should also retrain your hostess, because I am really in no mood to hear any sad and sorry tales about having to serve other tables who got there first. You see without this, you'll lose customers, because as much as I enjoyed your food and your manageable prices, I'm in no mood to plan to have to wait an extra hour just to place my order.

That's all.

Why? Why would anyone even think of ruining two wonderful foods like bacon and chocolate by combining them?

Edit: I don't think there's enough anger I can express about the thought of inventing bacon chocolate. The worst part is that the back of the chocolate bar said the woman had been trying to combine bacon chocolate since she was 5 years old. Why did growing up, getting a bachelor's degree and going to cooking school in France not stop her?

I keep waiting for jetlag to set in. I am kinda tired now, at the end of the day, but I don't feel completely thrown off...maybe because I messed up my sleep schedule so much before I got here. Hehe...
Edit: Kobe is very picturesque.

We first went to the conference building to pick up our registration stuff,

and found this cute little “French” cafe.

 

I'm in Asia!! And I've had lots of Korean food, had this dish called Bibimbab twice already. This place is a century ahead of the US, my poor phone isn't advanced enough to work here (not 3G). Well, I'll edit this post later with my notes I took on the food on the plane (quite good), stay tuned, got to run.

Maybe I've had too much real Italian food and my taste buds are starting to get acclimatized... but the grilled shrimp caprese at olive garden was not all I hoped it would be. I mean it was good...the shrimp was grilled well...but it was either too garlicky or too salty or too cheesy. Or maybe all of the above. I think Olive Garden has been making their pastas too saucy, at least the one here, and this detracts from their dishes. Oh well. 

I just had an amazing 6 oz filet topped with steak butter and haricot vert at jim gould. If it weren't an etiquette dinner, I'd have taken my camera out to take a picture. Steak should always taste just like that.

I was recently introduced to Ethiopian food, so I'd already tried it once by the time I wined and dined in Washington D.C. [after the Inauguration, may I add]. So far, I haven't developed any favourites, but I did absolutely adore the honey wine I had with the food, Tej. It was exquisite, and I plan on unwinding after my qualifying exams with a well deserved glass of Tej =) [pronounced something like Tesh].

That's all I really have to say...so far, I like Ethiopian food, but nothing has stood out as my absolute favourite yet. Stay tuned.

Edit: I just noticed that when moving where my blog was hosted, I seem to have lost some files. I'm working to fix this asap! - 02/10/2011


Edit 2: Due to my file hoarding tendencies, I found a backup of all my files before I switched my blog over to blogspot, yay! - 02/10/2011


I have officially found my favourite Jamaican restaurant. Meet Crystal Edge Restaurant, around the corner from the fabulous Strawberry Hills, and adjacent to the best coffee spot (or at least one of) on the island, Cafe Blue.

It's a little bit of a drive through Irish Town, but stick it out, this place really is one of the hidden gems. We'd already heard rave reviews of their oxtail, and came just in time to get the bottom of the pot.

My dad had their Brown Stewed Fish, and my sister had some Chinese Roast Chicken along with the Oxtail. All of our meals were accompanied by a side of some amazing rice and peas.