FrogPrincesse

Gravity Heights in Mission Valley. This is their new / second location (the other location is in Sorrento Valley). They make their own beer, and have a diverse menu that pairs great with the beer. I started with the Moonlight American IPA. My notes read: acidic, resin, piney, lemon, gravel, tropical notes. 3.75/5 The pierogies are a must-order - crispy browned exterior, creamy center. I also liked the dill sour cream on the side. I had the crab-crusted halibut for my main. I love the local halibut, it's one of my favorite fish. This one was well prepared, maybe just a touch overcooked. The Caesar salad was fine (there are superior versions out there at the Fishery or Paradisea). The Demi More burger with gruyere and caramelized onions that my husband ordered was good, very rich. A small pour of the Daybreak IPA to round things off. Piney, pineapple, coconut, grass, floral. 3.75/5 At the other location I previously enjoyed the mezze platter, the oven-roasted mussels, and the pork bolognese. Their woodfired pizzas are also quite good.

I made chef Ludo's boursin omelette the other day. It was pretty rich, and I would use smaller dollops of boursin next time. Regrettably I was out of chives, so you will have to picture this with finely sliced chives on top. The center was custardy-creamy.

I made the baked shells from the newsletter. I had homemade tomato sauce on hand so it was quite easy to make the recipe (I also do not have the energy to stuff an individual shell ). I made a half batch. It turned out pretty good, slightly on the dry side so I would use a bit more tomato sauce next time. I used these as well as the surprisingly excellent fresh ricotta from Trader Joe's, TJ's mozzarella, and TJ's parmesan. Assembly The finished product. I served it with a sprinkle of parmesan on top and a rioja on the side (also TJ's).

Here is my low tech solution for juicing grapefruit: I cut it in eighths, and I press each eighth using my Hamilton citrus press. It's a bit messy but it works. Out of curiosity, what instrument do you use to measure the brix of your juice @JoNorvelleWalker?

For dessert, we went to one of my daughter's favorite places, somi somi on Convoy. They serve the Korean dessert ah-boong, which is a freshly baked fish-shaped waffle filled with ice cream and various fillings. Cookies & cream ice cream with nutella filling in the front, matcha & black sesame swirl in the back.

I was searching Yelp to look for a specific Korean dish (the search feature in Yelp works great for that purpose). The dish was jokbal, or braised pig's trotter. Only a handful of restaurant serve this dish and one of them is the recently opened Dalbam Moon Night on Convoy. This is a smaller restaurant, with only about 30 seats, which is open late, a rarity in San Diego. Menu Banchan Here is the jokbal. It was my first time having it and I really liked it (good thing as there were plenty of leftovers!). The meat was very tender. My daughter got the bulgogi - copious and delicious! My husband got the crispy pork belly which tasted nice but was too rich for me. Speaking of overly rich, the kitchen sent us this corn cheese freebie and I couldn't eat more than a spoonful.

Reporting on a couple of Korean restaurants I tried recently. I went to Yuk Dae Jang in Kearny Mesa to try their signature dish, yukgaejang, which is a spicy beef soup made with shredded brisket and served on glass (cellophane) noodles. I got their "premium" brisket and tripe version. I am not a huge fan of tripe generally but am an adventurous eater and that sounded interesting. The tripe was actually one of the best things about the dish - it was extremely tender and delicate, and its flavor was very mild. The broth itself was quite spicy, right at my tolerance level. I read that the soup is traditionally made with bracken fern but I did not distinguish any in my bowl. The menu which is fairly limited We enjoyed their banchan (side dishes), especially the napa cabbage kimchi which was very fresh-tasting, flavorful, and not very spicy despite its fiery color. Yukgaejang My husband had the much tamer sullungtang which is an ox bone broth-based soup. We had rice & purple rice on the side.

Use different types of citrus (lime, lemon, orange - use wedges to extract the juice, rather than making lemonade), other fruit/ strawberry, etc, and some mint. See Toby Maloney’s Three Seasons. Or top with ginger beer.

A few new-to-me products (organic parpardelle nests, wild-caught grilled sardines, purple garlic) and a few repeats (the mangoes and donut peaches).

Anchovy-butter chicken with chicken fat croutons This was very delicious, however the cooking instructions didn't work as written and I had to adapt them. I recommend following the online recipe as it seems to have been updated. My chicken was 4 pounds (recipe is for 3.5 - 4 lb). After massaging the chicken with a butter / anchovy / garlic mixture it is stuffed with a halved head of garlic and some herbs. Large quartered shallots are added to the pan. The chicken is first cooked at 425F for 25 - 35 min (I went with 35 min; the website recipe says 40 - 45 min), then at 350F for 25 - 30 min (I went with 30 min; website says 30 - 35 min at 325 F). Then the chicken is cut up into pieces, torn pieces of rustic bread are added to the pan to soak up the chicken juices, and the oven temp is raised up again to 425F. At that point I realized my chicken was too pale so I added them back to the pan and cooked until brown. At the end the breasts were sadly overcooked (and the garlic was very under cooked). Anyway, the chicken with all the butter and anchovies still tasted delicious so I would make it again, ensuring that the chicken is well browned before lowering the oven temperature. Probably another 10 minutes would have done it in the first step! I would recommend following the online rather than the book recipe.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8DTCscSIbu/?igsh=MWQ1ZGUxMzBkMA==

Just a few days later, I went to my friends' new bar Happy Medium and on the menu was a drink called the High Fashion that used bourbon, pineapple benedictine (!) and burlesque / angostura bitters. Another great example of benedictine working well with tropical flavors!

Interesting-looking cider. How does it taste - is it dry or on the sweet side?

Here is a link to the full recipe for those who are interested! The recipe is featured on the cover of the book.

The goat birria turned out great! It was a bit of work but totally worth it. I used the recipe from Rick Martinez's Mi Cocina but also consulted this video by Rick Bayless (next time I may try his cooking method as it is quite simple). Back to Rick Martinez's version, birria estilo Aguascalientes. He explains that this recipe uses tomatoes which results in a thicker broth. The tomatoes' acidity counterbalances the richness of the goat meat, while their sweetness tames the heat of the chiles. I got 2 goat shoulders from my local middle eastern market. Like last time, the meat was frozen, from Australia. Each shoulder was about 4.5 pounds. The shoulders were rubbed with salt, transferred to a ziplock bag, and refrigerated for a couple of days. For the sauce, tomatoes, onions, chiles (guajillo, cascabeles, moritas), garlic, raw cashews or peanuts (I used fresh peanuts I had just bought in Hawaii), peppercorns, allspice, canela, and cloves are roasted in the oven (he also calls for 1 corn tortilla but I didn't have any on hand and skipped). The herbs and spices are added (oregano, thyme, cumin, and the goat is added on a rack above the roasted vegetables. Water is added to the pan, which is covered tightly with foil, and the goat is baked for 4.5 to 5 hours (mine took about 6 hours to get tender). Once cooked, the meat is shredded into small pieces, and the liquid blended to make a smooth puree (the consommé). It's served topped with onion and cilantro, with lime wedges. salsa de chile de arbol, and tortillas. The consommé was rich and complex in flavor - absolutely delicious!

Beautiful dishes @BonVivant, thanks for sharing!

My daughter loves it! She eats it on toast.

The theme of the upcoming event of the cookbook club I belong to is Korean, and below are the books that were selected. For those of you who have these books, how do you like them? Any standout recipes you'd like to share? Koreatown by Keuki Hong & Matt Rodbard (this one has its own thread here; @Norm Matthews have you made anything else from the book?) The Korean Vegan Cookbook by Joanne Lee Molinaro Korean BBQ by Bill Kim & Chandra Ram Korean American by Eric Kim Cook Korean! A Comic Book with Recipes by Robin Ha

What some of you call “French pizzas” are Alsatian flammekueche. Very thin crispy dough, typically covered with creme fraiche, raw onions, diced bacon. Nobody in France would think of them as a pizza. I like the Trader Joe’s version (the classic one), it makes for an easy meal with a green salad on the side.

I've been playing with Morgenthaler's rhubarb syrup. I used a nut bag to filter and there was still quite a bit of solid stuff left in there, but it sedimented to the bottom of the jar so I was able to avoid it. Rum version with Paranubes agricole-style Oaxacan rhum. It was a bit too busy, the rum & rhubarb sort of fighting each other. Gin version (front) and a whiskey version in the back for my husband. I really liked the gin version. Nikka has peppery notes that worked especially well with the rhubarb syrup. The rhubarb added interesting flavors without screaming "rhubarb", and the drink looked really pretty.

I am also a huge fan of bo kho. I made Andrea Nguyen's recipe from Vietnamese Food Everyday last year, and it was wonderful. Here is a link to the recipe.

I made the very tall quiche with zucchini & greens from Alison Roman's Sweet Enough for my daughter's high school graduation party this weekend. It uses 2 pounds of zucchini and is build in a springform pan. I used chard for the greens. As zucchini are rather bland, most of the flavor is from feta cheese and a grated onion. It turned out great and I would make it again. Side note, I made the pie crust in my new food processor and it was 1) really fast to make and 2) super flaky. I also used the food processor to grate the zucchini and onion which saved a lot of time (and knuckles). Lastly, I used a nut bag to drain the salted zucchini.

Here is a bunch of ideas to make use of your grapefruit.

Saucisses de Francfort are precooked, like American style hot dogs. But they do have skin, a very nice snappy skin.