Review: Baba Neo Restaurant

Originally Posted on 02/07/07

I've been browsing a lot of foodie blogs lately and they've been keeping me occupied at work but also making me extremely hungry. One particular blog eatingasia.blogspot.com has been making me crave Southeastern Asian cuisine. This site will cause you to salivate and make jaws tingle. So anyway, after my daily dose of this particular blog, I set out on a mission to find a Malaysian restaurant local to my work.

Enter Baba Neo Restaurant. I went to their website (babaneo.com) which made it seem like a fu fu kinda place. When Justyn and I went there, it was in a somewhat ghetto looking shopping center. Inside the restaurant was a different story. The tables had white tableclothes, but it still had a somewhat humble feeling. We got seated immediately since we were first of the lunch crowd to arrive. Our menus promptly arrived and before we even decided what we wanted to order, complimentary bowls of a hot and sour soup were served.

Justyn was debating on getting something called the "Executive Lunch" which includes appetizer and some other things, but he changed his mind and got the sizzling beef platter instead which comes with rice. I ordered the Seafood Laksa noodle soup and a ginger spiced milk tea.

The complimentary soup was suprisingly good with a subtle but tasty spicy heat. It was both sour and sweet with green beans and other veggies floating around. I enjoyed the soup a lot and wish we had bigger portions.

My milk tea arrived soon after we finished the soup. It was too hot for me to try it so Justyn took first sip. He said it was good and gingery. Our entrees then arrived. My laksa came in a slanted mouthed bowl. Justyn's sizzling beef platter was served table side. They poured what looked like half cooked beef in sauce into the hot platter and put a piece of parchment paper on top to prevent splatter. That was pretty neat. We dove into our food and I tried Justyn's beef (haha). I thought it tasted really good, nice salty black bean flavor with a background hint of the bell peppers, onions & garlic. Justyn tried my laksa and thought it was OK. I started slurping away at my noodles which was really flavorful but at the sametime, somewhat bland. I lacked a saltiness, but with all the flavors in the laksa paste, it kinda made up for it.

Halfway through our meal, three more groups came in and ordered appetizers. I have to say that their appetizers looked really interesting and yummy so I regret not getting any. Overall, the food was decent, but not to the point where it'll make me want to return for seconds. Next time I want to try something else to see if it's just the laksa that's mediocre. Anyway... we give this place a 7.5 out of 10.

Baba Neo Restaurant
311 Moffett Blvd.
Mountain View, CA 94043

Superbowl Weekend

Originally Posted on 02/04/07

Friday night, Justyn had some work to finish at home so I decided to go to one of my favorite Chinese restaurants for some take-out (Hand Pull Noodles). When I called the order in, they said it would be a 20 to 25 minute wait. So in the meantime, I watched Restaurant Makeover to pass the time. Half way through the show, Justyn tells me I really need to leave. I tell him that it's probably not even close to being done. About ten minutes, later he bugs me again. I say to him "I'm going to be mad at you if it's not ready yet." and leave. When I got there the restaurant was packed with dine in customers and there was already a line for people that were checking on their take out orders. It ended up taking me 15 minutes to get my food. I got home and Justyn says "Oh, were they busy?". I just gave him a dirty look. Dinner was OK this time. I think the chef was rushing to push out as many plates as possible in a short amount of time. The hot braised shredded beef had a starchy consistency when I chewed. The braised tofu was tasteless. The only decent thing was the house pan fried crispy noodles. Oh well, note to self, don't order on a Friday night.

Later on that evening, Ken and Donoho came over for drinks. For some reason I wasn't tired at my normal time of turn in (8:00-9:00), so I ended up hanging with them until around 1:00. Justyn was exhausted so he went to bed early. Donoho left around 1:30 or so and Ken hung out until 2:35. That was a nice chill night. We watched Jackass which I haven't seen in a long time.

The next morning I woke up and decided to go shopping with my sister. We went to Bed Bath & Beyond where I got a new Rachel Ray casserole pot. I've always wanted an enamel cast iron pot to make various different stews. It was only $70 and I had $100 worth of gift cards. I also got a champagne bucket and a couple flutes for Valentine's Day (I'm making dinner for Justyn). We also went to Oakridge to go to my favorite store Metro Park. I ended up getting a scarf and a sweater. After that we went to Borders to pick up the French Laundry Cookbook since I had a $25 gift card. (I got tons of gift cards for my birthday - thanks to Angel, Wease, V, JTT & Cherie) My sister and I were supposed to go to Albertson's after that to get groceries for Superbowl, but she decided she'd go the next morning. Instead, Justyn and I went to the store and got everything we needed. That was pretty much how I spent my Saturday.

Today is Superbowl Sunday! I'm making bratwurst stewed with sauerkraut, a recipe that I saw on Food Network a long time ago. This is my third time making it. The first attemptturned out really good, the second was mediocre, so we'll see how things turn out this time. I'll post the recipe at the bottom for those of you who are interested. Right now, the whole thing's stewing for 45 minutes.

First I prepared all the ingrediants. 2 onions sliced, 3 cloves of garlic minced, 2 tbsp of dill chopped, beer & chicken stock opened.

Here's my new pot!

Sauerkraut & bratswursts

Browning

I took the brats out and added a little more oil. In go the onions and garlic. I let them caramelize before adding a bottle of New Castle beer.

Next I added the drained sauerkraut, paprika, carraway seeds, brats & chicken stock.

I set the timer for 45 minutes on the microwave.

Justyn took over for the bun part of it. He slathered the buns in a garlic butter mixture and stuck them under the broiler until they were nice and golden brown.

Serve with deli mustard and enjoy! YUMMAY!

After we ate, Donoho and I tried some Ethiopian honey wine and Korean pomegranite boozy type drink. Both were really sweet, but good. The honey wine was stronger than I had anticipated. It kinda mirrored Port wine, but it was white. Neato...

We also had some potato salad and my sister made a 7 layer chip dip for snacking. Justyn and Dan just finished their dessert which were ice cream cones. Donoho is at Road Rider to get a rainsuit and I'm about to get up for another beer. So far the game's been suprisingly interesting. It's a good Sunday...

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_18489,00.html?rsrc=search

Wine Snobbery

Originally Posted on 02/02/07

Lately, Justyn and I have been on a total wino trip. We've been to Napa twice within a couple months and have really enjoyed trying out different types of wines. Peju, Provenance, Milat, Whitehall, Sterling.. the list goes on and on. The method of storage hasn't been the best. We have been keeping all the wines in a cabinet that I got from Craigslist a while back.

Recently, I thought... why don't I get a wine fridge? I looked online and they didn't seem affordable. I wasn't looking for anything fancy really.. just something to keep the wine at a cooler temp during the summer. So I was started cruising on CL and stumbled upon the perfect fridge. Not only was it a good price ($60), but it holds up to 12 bottles of wine. Awesome! I immediately contacted the seller and today we picked it up.

Total wine snobbery at it's finest. It even fits well above the aZn looking cabinet.

Napa Weekend Take II

Originally Posted on 01/28/07

Before the weekend got started, I worked from home on Friday. I was pretty bored the entire day but it was nice to relax a bit for once. Work has been at a non-stop but steady pace and both Justyn and I had been feeling like we were in a major rut. Ken came over in the evening for drinks and hanging out. At 1:00AM, he left and Justyn and I retired for the night. In the morning, I woke up really excited...

Justyn surprised me over the weekend with a trip to Napa. We started off the trip on Saturday morning and stopped in Milpitas to eat at a Korean BBQ joint (Bamboo 260 S. Abel Street, Milpitas CA 95035 408-263-6705). We both ordered pretty much the same thing. I had Bi Bim Bap & Justyn got Dot Sol Bi Bim Bap. The only difference is that mine was served in a silver bowl & his was in a heated stone pot. It was decent, nothing really special about the food except for the burning in my mouth after a couple bites.

When we got into Napa, we hit a few wineries before checking into the hotel. The first one we visited was Peju, but the line was so long we decided to go Alpha Omega. This winery was fairly new, I believe they said it opened last year in June/July. The wines were a little on the expensive side, but decent. I ended up getting a 2005 Chardonnay. We also took a couple pictures:

Justyn asked for Alpha Omega to recommend us other wineries to visit. They gave us two complimentary tastings at Provenance & Diamond Oaks. We went to Provenance and did a $10 tasting. Their wines were not so good.. Justyn almost threw up after tasting their port. I did enjoy their Merlot so I bought a couple bottles.

After Provenance we went back to Peju. Thankfully the line had died down. The wine guide took a group of customers and us upstairs to a special tasting room. We must've tasted about 7-8 different bottles. Our favorites were the Provance, Cabernet Sauvignon & Zinfandel Port. I had a nice buzz going on after that.

For dinner, Justyn made reservations at one of my favorite restaurants, Bistro Jeanty. We got the tomato soup with puff pastry again. Sooo good. Justyn ordered the beef stew and I tried the coq au vin.

For dessert we got the rum raisin bread pudding with vanilla ice cream. I took a picture of that, but it came out over exposed.
The next morning we went to Bouchon Bakery to get breakfast and coffee. Justyn got a cream cheese muffin thing and I got a sticky bun. I don't normally like sweet things, but their pastries are delicious.

Before we left Napa, I wanted to visit one of my favorite wineries which is Milat. It's a family owned winery and the guy that runs the place is hilarious. He instantly remembered us and started the tasting right away. The last time we visited this winery I bought a Chenin Blanc & Port. We went away with the same thing.

Coq Au Vin

Originally Posted on 01/23/07

Today Justyn was feeling like he was going through a major rut, so in order to make him feel better, I decided to make Coq Au Vin. This is a dish that I had been wanting to make for a while, but for whatever reason, I just didn't get around to it. I asked Angel if she knew how to make it, but she said her mom did. So in the last 15 minutes of the work day, I decided to look up some recipes and found one on allrecipes.com. I'll post the recipe at the bottom of the page in case any of you are interested.

For some reason I had been inspired by amateurgourmet.com to cook something this week. His blog is much more along than mine, filled with a lot of delicious goodies that I would never dare to try. Well... maybe someday. I would just like to dedicate this post to him. You rock Adam!! I hope you see this!

First, I made my mise en place by chopping up an onion, carrot, 4-5 garlic cloves (reserved one whole clove for toast), and rosemary. I put these all in a bowl since they would all go into the pot at the same time per the directions. The mushrooms came pre-cleaned and sliced so that made things easier.

Then I washed the chicken and patted it dry (to ensure carmelization - a tip from AB's Good Eats). I also chopped up some peppered bacon to make lardons.

I heated up a big pot and added the bacon. I stirred it around for a bit and it looked like it was sticking too much to the pot so I added some olive oil. That helped, and soon the bacon was crispy. I took them out and put them on a paper towel for later use.

I dredged the dried chicken thighs in a mixture of flour, poultry seasoning, salt and pepper in a ziplock bag. I shook off the excess with some tongs and added them into the bacon fat.

While I was waiting for the chicken to brown up on both sides, I opened up the wine. Mmm.. OK, here's where you might think I'm weird. I recently discovered Turning Leaf Reserve Pinot Noir (2005). I absolutely love this wine. You might say that it's totally wrong to love a main stream wine, don't. Give it a try if you like Pinots. It's really good. At least in my opinion.. Given the fact that I liked Turning Leaf, Justyn grabbed a bottle of their Merlot (also 2005 reserve). I used this to deglaze the pan.

Wait.. rewind a bit. When the chicken was done browning on both sides, I took them out and added the veggies, garlic & rosemary to saute a bit. There was a lot of brown bitties on the bottom of the pot which made me happy. I knew those were gonna add tons of flavor to the Coq Au Vin. Once they sauteed for about 7 minutes, I added the chicken back to the pot and THEN I added the wine.

All the steam makes it look like it's burning huh? No worries, once I added the wine and scraped the bottom, things were looking good. In fact the smell drew Justyn out of the office from his gaming, to take a good whiff. The recipe called for some whole peeled canned tomatoes. As soon as I opened the can, I thought the recipe needed tweaking. Why add whole tomatoes versus crushed? I heard somewhere on Food Network, that whole canned tomatoes tasted better than crushed. Oh well... Into the pot they went. I stirred the mixture with a wooden spoon and scraped up all the brown stuff on the bottom. I let it come to a boil and then dropped the heat to simmer (4 on my stove). I covered the pot and set the microwave timer to 25 minutes.
Shit... I made an uh-oh here. I totally forgot about the mushrooms!! No worries, I'll just add them and stir it around.

I'm not sure if you can read the recipe, but notice I crossed out the sausage part. I prefer bacon... so yeah. It also called for dried rosemary, but I decided to use fresh.
While the chicken cooked, I sliced some bread with my new Shun bread knife. I was too lazy to break out the cutting board again (since I just washed it), so I just cut it on the recipe paper. I know... totally stupid, but I'm lazy.

I put the sliced crusty bread on a baking sheet lined with foil (easy cleanup!) and sprinkled it with salt, pepper & olive oil.

While the bread was toasting, I had some time to try the wine (more like, drink a glass). The timer counted down to the last two minutes and I got impatient and opened the pot.

Like my dirty stove? Yeah, it's a piece of crap. I can't wait till we get a new one. When I lifted the lid, I saw that the mixture was on a full boil! Oh no!!! I immediately dropped the heat to 2. "Stupid stove", I thought as I stirred the bottom of the pot to scrap up the sticky parts. The recipe tells me I have to re-season, but I tasted it and no more salt and pepper was needed. So I let it simmer uncovered for another 10 minutes. I took the toast out after a couple minutes of it being in the oven and rubbed it with the reserved garlic.

As I was waiting, I went into the office to bug Justyn about how our blue Ikea plates were insufficient to make a nice presentation. He reminded me that we had some cute Japanese rectangle plates that his mom gave us. I was reluctant, but took one out anyway.

The timer finally beeped and I was ready to plate. Here's the best picture we got from our crappy camera. The stupid flash wouldn't turn off, so it looks waaay bright.

Here's the verdict.

From a scale of 1-10, Justyn gave the flavor an 8. I beamed.
This was a first time dealio and I was very happy about the way it turned out. I hope the Amateur Gourmet tries this recipe out and posts it on his site.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Coq-au-Vin-alla-Italiana/Detail.aspx

Mini Honeymoon - Napa

Originally Posted on 11/08/06

Starting Friday (11/17), Justyn and I took the day off work to go to Napa for a "pre-honeymoon" kinda of thing. He had made reservations at the Oleander House on Highway 29. We needed some time off to spend some time together and enjoy the food and wine here in Napa. We actually stayed in Yountville, the town where Bouchon & French Laundry are based in.

Our first day here was spent relaxing at the bed & breakfast and talking to the owner.

For dinner we went to Bouchon. We got to the shopping center where Bouchon was located. It was still pretty early. I was wearing a red turtleneck, black slacks and these VERY paintful stilleto boots that Angel and I bought together before the wedding. Ouch. Let me just say that I will never wear these boots again, unless I know that we'll be sitting most of the time. Justyn and I walked around the stores (which were closed) until it was time to be seated at Bouchon.

By 7:30PM, we were seated in a very tight booth. Justyn asked if I wanted to sit in the booth to which I declined. I absolutely hate being confined in a tight space. Our table was right next to the bar. The restaurant ambiance was very loud, but not intimidating. Our waiter was nice and outgoing, but not overwhelming. We got pistachio nuts (which were fresh roasted) and bread with unsalted butter (Clover). The butter and bread were extremely good. I'd have to say that it was probably the best bread and butter I've ever had. The nuts were.... meh. I like pistachios, but there was nothing special about them.

Before I even got to Bouchon, I had read many good things about the restaurant from Tony Bourdain's book (A Cook's Tour) to general reviews about it online. My expectations were really high. I mean... come on.. it's one of Thomas Keller's restaurants. It's gotta be good. With that said, I already knew what I wanted. Gigot d'Agneau (roasted leg of lamb with yellow corn polenta & summer squash in a thyme jus). Justyn ordered the Boudin Blanc (white sausage with potato puree and sauteed prunes). I also ordered a bottle of the house Cab ($60).

While we were muching away on their delicious bread, butter & pistachios, we chatted away about mundane things and about the restaurant. Although Justyn had to squeeze in between tables to get to the booth seat, while I comfortably sat opposite to him in a chair, the ambience was nice. It is afterall, a bistro. I didn't expect a high class, stuffy kind of place. I had been told not to expect that. Expectations...

The waiter came by a couple times to replenish my wine glass with the wine that I had ordered. I kind of wish that he didn't pour so many times, so I could bring the wine back to Oleander House and enjoy it while taking a bath. Oh well.

Finally our entrees arrived. Justyn's dish looked awesome, as you can see below. Mine... hmm. Not so impressive. I expected a lot more than what is shown below. Taste wise, blah. I ordered my lamb "medium well". For you foodies out there, that was my mistake. I totally froze when the waiter asked me how I wanted my lamb to be cooked. Ideally, I would've wanted the lamb to be cooked medium rare.. Oh well, live and learn. Justyn and I swapped samples of our dishes. His was suprisingly very tasty, while mine was.... blah.

I think what happened is I overhyped Bouchon, thinking that it was going to be the best meal I ever had. Unfortunately, you can never walk into a favored restaurant with that mentality. You'll just end up being disappointed. As for French Laundry, I think you can walk in there with the highest expectations and never be disappointed. So says our wine guy at Milat winery.
I passed out after eating at Bouchon and woke up thinking I had to go to work. That pretty much ruins any chance of sleeping in. Justyn and I took a shower before breakfast was served downstairs. By the time we got ready and showered, it was already 9:00AM. The host of the house had a brulee of oatmeal with fruit on top, sausage (which tasted of apple), puff pastry with apple & fresh diced fruit. Now... I'm not much of a breakfast person, but I can tell you that the oatmeal brulee and sausage were very tasty. The fruit and puff pastry were definitely not my thing. I ate what I could as to not embaress the cook.

Justyn and I did our thing and soon we were on the road. The host of the Oleander House had highlighted some wineries that she thought would be suitable for us. The nearest one to us was called Peju, which I had gone to before. The wine tasting went OK, but I felt like the wine host treated us like clueless idiots. Thanks dude! We still bought a Cabernet Sauvignon & a Merlot from them. The next winery we hit was Whitehall. This winery is a somewhat common one so I didn't expect much. The wine hosts were very familiar with their product and treated us well. The only thing I bought from there was the dessert wine (Muscat).

The winery after that was Milat. Now, I have to say... we were pretty buzzed at this point. The owner greeted us very warmly and told us exactly what we were diving into. He also asked us about dinner the night before, which I answered, Bouchon. He gave that place an "F". I was a little shocked and dismayed at his reaction to Bouchon. I didn't think it deserved an "F", but who knows. I could be wrong. The first wine we started with was a Chenin Blanc (white) which smelled very good, and tasted good. He served us another white and a couple other reds all the while being very chatty. I loved his sense of humor and stories about the various restaurants he had tried. The last wine we tried out was a Port which was very good. I ended up buying the first and last wine we tried there.

(OK, I'm back at work now and my memory isn't serving me well)

After Milat we decided to get lunch before hitting Sterling winery. At Whitehall we were recommended to go to a local grocery store called something Sunshine. They had a bunch of deli foods to choose from. Since we were going to Bistro Jeanty for dinner, we decided on a light lunch. I had Italian Wedding soup and a puff pastry with carmelized onion and blue cheese. Justyn had a grilled cheese sammich with curried butternut squash soup. We decided to eat lunch at Sterling, unfortunately, they didn't have a license for picnics (WTF?) so we ended up eating on a bench outside of the gondolas. Lunch was pretty good although we got some dirty glares from some FOBs. Whatever.

The gondola ride cost $20, but that also included the tasting and a promise of nice views. The ride up was a little shaky and I was scared every time we hit a bump. Finally we made it to the winery which was perched on a hill overlooking Yountville. It was really pretty. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. In the tour was also a detailed look on how to make wine. That was pretty cool. Unfortunately, the wine was not so good. We walked around with our tasting glasses and ended at an outdoor patio where we finished with the last two wines. After that we walked right through the shop and back to the gondolas for the ride down.

I was a little tired at this point, so we decided to go back to the Oleander House to rest. I took a nice hot bath and read magazines until dinner time. The keeper of the house and the owner of Milat raved about Bistro Jeanty, so I was really excited. I read reviews online and nearly everyone recommended the tomato soup. OK, I know what you're thinking. Tomato soup is tomato soup. It's really nothing special. All I have to say is, don't knock it until you've tried it. We got to the restaurant which is on the same road as Bouchon. It was really cute and bistro like. We opted to sit outside under a heat lamp since it was a little chilly. Some of the reviews complained about the service, but our waiter was very prompt. I even dropped my fork and another one was placed within a second. We ordered the infamous tomato soup with a puff pastry baked on top, cassoulet (duck confit, white beans, sausage & bacon) and steak and frites (fries).

The tomato soup arrived at our table and we dove right in. HOT!! I was overly excited to try the soup and burned my tongue a bit. This is the best tomato soup I've ever had. Maybe even the best soup ever. If you ever get a chance to visit Bistro Jeanty, you've got to have the tomato soup. Mmmmm... just thinking about it makes me drool. We finished the soup and our entrees arrived about 10 minutes later. The cassoulet was good but a tad bit salty. Justyn's steak was near perfect and the fries were really good. Probably the best fries I've had to date. I kinda wish I ordered some fries at Bouchon to do a comparison since Bourdain claims that the fries there are better than what they serve at his restaurant. Oh well.

Sorry for the crappy pics...

We polished dinner off, well, I barely made a dent in mine. The portions were huge. I was stuffed and decided to end dinner with a Beautiful (cognac and Grand Marnier). I was suprised the waiter didn't even bat an eye when I told him what I wanted. With a heavy buzz and full stomach, we walked back to our car. The plan was to go see Casino Royale after dinner, but when we got to the theatre, the parking lot was horrendous. We decided not to watch the movie so instead we went back to the Oleander House. Justyn surfed teh intarweb, while I read a magazine. I don't remember passing out, but I did. I woke up about 5:30AM, needing to pee. I chugged some water and went back to bed. We woke up around 7:40AM, showered and packed.
Breakfast today was the same sausage but with a blueberry bread pudding. Yum... After breakfast we loaded the car and Justyn paid our tab. I needed to get a bottle of wine for a friend, so we went back to Peju. Justyn liked the Merlot so much that we bought another two bottles. The wine guy recognized our return and let us try a reserve Cab (I think). The bottle of wine was listed at $105 which is crazy, but there was a reason for the price. The wine was really good. After our last tasting in Napa we went to Bouchon Bakery to get a loaf of herbed ciabatta bread. I also ordered what I consider the best house coffee I've ever had. It was rich and very dark. Mmmm...

After the bakery and shopping around, we were on our way home. The traffic was really crappy due to the fog and slow stop lights. Eventually we made it home around lunch time. We decided to eat the leftover cassoulet with the bread. Leftovers really are better than the first time around. It was still salty, but the bread helped cut that.

We watched Scrubs for a while and Justyn decided to make dinner (open faced chicken sammich with pesto and tomato). I had to go to a moderator's meeting in Mountain View, so I ate some frozen foods and went on my way. The meeting was cool. We talked about current issues and stuff and at about 9:30PM, I went home. I watched some more TV and then went to bed.