I just got a message about this new Burmese cookbook: hsa*ba, Burmese cookbook. hsa*ba means "please eat" in Burmese (is that the name of the language?). I haven't seen the book, but as there aren't many books on Burmese cooking, I thought I'd mention it. The website also has some Burmese recipes.

My cooking page on Burmese food is here. I enjoyed cooking the food, as it was quite different - but comforting - from what I usually make.

Wednesday I got a shipment of mini-cheesecakes from The Confectional - a cheesecake bakery in Seattle that does mail order. They wrote to me a few weeks ago asking me if I'd like to review their cheesecakes - and after thinking about the ethics of such things - I decided to do it. I knew I'd feel bad if I had to give them a bad review, but really, how likely was that when we are talking about cheesecake?

As it turned out, the cheesecakes were great - in particular their plain cheesecake. I got 8 different kinds, and I'll review each one below. The cheesecakes are small and round, each one the size of a generous personal portion, and come in a variety of flavors.

The first cheesecake I tried was the Seattle's New York-Style cheesecake, and it was probably the best cheesecake that I've ever had. It was rich, creamy, sensual - plainly delicious. I think one of the things that made it so great was the crust. In my experience, cheesecake crusts often taste stale and are usually not very tasty. These ones would be good enough to eat by themselves - they are sweeter than your general crust and taste fresh with a vibrant, crystal flavor. Yummm.

The kids and I shared the Peanut Butter & Chocolate cheesecake - and this one wasn't as successful (but how could it be?). The main problem was the dark chocolate - I'm sure it will fully satisfy you if you like dark chocolate, but I thought it was a bit bitter and Mika (my 6 year old) found it too bitter to eat at all. I liked the peanut butter part, but more when eaten by itself rather than in combination with the dark chocolate. That said, Camila (my 4 year old) really liked it.

Later on, we had the Caramel cheesecake. We all loved it. According to Mika "It is yummy! I love it so much. You make good cheesecakes." Camila, meanwhile, says: "I like all the cheesecakes. I like them a lot and a lot." This cheesecake was sweet, though not overly so, with a definite but not overwhelming touch of caramel.

By my fourth cheesecake, the Raspberry white chocolate. I liked this cheesecake quite a bit, it was refreshing and just as creamy as the other ones - and the (chocolate?) crust was delicious as well. But I still liked the Seattle NY cheesecake better.

After that, I decided that I couldn't really wait to taste all the cheesecakes, so I took bites of all of them - sharing some with my kids.

I did not like the Coconut Cherry Chocolate cheesecake - made with lighter chocolate than the peanut butter & chocolate cheesecake. But then again, I do not like cherries. I didn't realize it was cherry when I tried it, but was unhappy when I encountered the fruit - both because of its taste and its consistency. Camila didn't like it either, which I found surprising. Mika, on the other hand, loved it and had it all for herself.

I shared the Cookies & Mint Chocolate cheesecake with everybody. Mike, a mint fan, specially liked it - though he didn't think it tasted much like a cheesecake. Camila thought it was very yummy, and I thought the mint flavor had been well incorporated into the chocolate. Mika, on the other hand, wasn't impressed - no reason why.

I'm not the biggest fan of cinnamon either, so the Pumpkin cheesecake was not my favorite. If you like pumpkin pie with a lot of spice you'll probably like it - but then again, why not eat pumpkin pie then?

And finally, if you want a real kick, you have to try the Mexican Chocolate cheesecake, sprinkled with cayenne and cinnamon. I hadn't checked which one it was before I tasted it, so the spiciness (and it is very spicy) really surprised me. I can't imagine I could eat a whole one at once, but I've gone back for other bites here and there.

And that was it. My general feelings are that these are very high quality cheesecakes, with great cookie crust, well balanced flavors and a great consistency, creamy, yet firm. I also think that they are very well priced at $32 for 9 cakes - that's less than $4 a serving - and you probably can't make a cheesecake for that price. They get even cheaper - per cheesecake - if you order more (however, I don't know how much the shipping costs are - they may make the cheesecakes significantly more expensive).

The cheesecakes look very elegant, so I think they would be a great end to a dinner party. While I personally would order a box just with plain cheesecakes (though I would like to try the quadruple chocolate and the kahlua white chocolate cheesecakes), I think for a dinner party you should order a variety (though of course, you then risk people fighting over their favorite one).

This cheesecake experience actually made me change my plans for Xmas dessert. I was going to make Frozen Grand Marnier Torte with Dark Chocolate Crust and Spiced Cranberries, but now I think I'm going to make individual cheesecakes. I'll definitely use the Maria cookies from Spain (what they use), if I can find them. I was thinking of making plain or white chocolate cheesecakes and adorning each one with a strawberry and a couple of mint leaves :-) I'll let you know how they come out.

Finally, the cheesecakes came very well packaged, with four cooling packages that were still semi-frozen when they got here. The cheesecake arrived at a perfect temperature - not too cold, but still not room temperature and had the perfect consistency right off the box.

Once again, you can find these cheesecakes at The Confectional in Seattle.

I also got an e-mail about Learn Cooking, a British website that teaches you how to make basic stuff. I took a look at it, and I found it quite useful. I use the Joy of Cooking for basic information about how to cook new stuff, but, truth be told, I do prefer online sources.

Just got an e-mail about another site for San Francisco restaurant reviews. It's Foodnut.com and it focuses on the city and the Peninsula. It provides lots of pictures of the establishment and the dishes, as well as prices and photos of the menus. You can browse restaurants by type and price.

I hadn't been to Daimo for several years, because I was disappointed in the food during my last foray there. So when Lola came to visit a few days ago, I thought we might give Daimo another chance. The results were quite mixed.

We went to Daimo for lunch, and partook of their lunch specials which include a dish of your choice (for their list), soup, salad and rice for $7 - a pretty good deal given how huge the portions are. I also ordered an appetizer of a green onion bread (I forgot what they call it) for $4 - this was a large, flaky, pancake, reminiscent texture-wise of a Malaysian roti canai - sprinkled with green onions. It was pretty good by itself, but it would have been great with some kind of dipping sauce.

Lola had the beef with tofu, and she was quite happy with the dish. It included large chunks of tofu, and very tender slices of meat in a nice, balanced sauce. She enjoyed the dish at the restaurant, and Mika enjoyed the leftovers.

I had one of the worse versions of sesame chicken I've ever had the displeasure to eat. There was very little chicken under the thick breading, and what was was there was more akin to chicken fat than flesh. The thick, glutinous sauce wasn't too sweet, but had nothing going for it either. The portion was large, but I barely ate any of it. Sesame chicken is such an easy dish, that I can't understand why they couldn't make a more palatable version.

I had a coke, Lola had water, and lunch came to $25, including tip.

I won't be hurrying back.

Daimo
1456 E. 14th Ave
San Leandro, Ca
510-351-8131
Open daily 11 am to 12 am

Original Review

San Leandro Restaurant Reviews

This week, I've made a couple of more dishes from my bible, epicurious.com. I did my usual "I have this ingredient, now let's find a recipe that uses it". In this case it was star anise, which I've had for a time, and have now used in three recipes in a week :-)

Monday night I made Vietnamese lemongrass pork. This was a dish similar to the grilled pork served at Vietnamese restaurants. It was quite good, though not really restaurant quality. I think what was missing for me was the grill flavors - I used my George foreman instead. The pork had a subtle lemongrass taste, and the accompanying sauce was very good - but perhaps had one too many tablespoons of fish sauce. I don't feel compel to make this dish again, but then again, I seldom make a dish more than once.

Last night I had Braised Lamb Shanks with Coriander, Fennel, and Star Anise. Often times recipes are the result of evolution, cooks take a dish passed on by others, modify it somewhat, until with each modification it becomes something else. This lamb dish, however, seems to be the sort of dish that has to be specially created and experimented on by a very creative cook. It uses elements from different cuisines to come up with something original.

It was also quite good. The flavors were really different, the pepper and the fennel stood out, but were mollified by the other spices. I wouldn't say that I was in love with it, and like the dish above, I probably won't make it again, but I was definitely glad I made it and ate it, and do look forward to the leftovers. Mika, my 6.5 yo, liked the meat as well.

I served the lamb with an Israeli couscous/orzo/babychickpea mixture from Trader Joe's, and I think the two went very well together.

Neither Mike nor I have been drinking much wine lately, so it was very deliberately that I opened this bottle of pinot noir to accompany dinner last night. We have the wine, we should be drinking it.

I don't know how I obtained this bottle in the first place, but I'm definitely glad I did. Drinking it by itself, before dinner, this pinot noir was close to a perfect sipping wine. It had the right proportion of fruitiness to oak, a medium body that did not leave you looking for more, and a smooth finish. It tasted very balanced, with a limited amount of acidity. I'll definitely be on the lookout for other bottles. This may very well be the first wine I have from Monterey county - yet another area I had dismissed as marginal to the California wine world - but I'll definitely try to visit the winery if I'm ever in the area.

All this said, the wine didn't go well with dinner. I made Braised Lamb Shanks with Coriander, Fennel, and Star Anise, an unusual tasting dish with bold pepper & fennel flavors, and this wine lost its smoothness, edge and oakiness in the face of such spice. I'm also not sure it'd stand up to other strong flavors. I think it'd be great with a chicken stew, some milanesas or fetuccini alfredo.

Last night I cooked one of the recipes I'd learned at my Southeast Asian cooking class the day before: beef kurmah. I thought the dish had been good, though not great, but I also wanted to give it a try - and I thought the kids might actually enjoy the mild flavors. Indeed they did, Mika even pronounced it very good, (and if Mika likes something, Camila will be willing to eat it as well), which made me quite happy.

This kurmah is interesting as the spicing is similar to those of Indian dishes, but the base is very southeast asian - and it's based on coconut milk rather than ghee or yogurt. It's fairly easy to make and requires no unusual ingredients, save for the star anise, which you can find in many an Asian store. Or you could skip it and add some anise or fennel seeds instead. Our teacher used a small pyramid shaped red chili, but she said she had quite a difficulty finding it. I substituted with a jalapeño. If you want it spicy use a few more.

My one problem with this curry was that by the time the beef was done, after 30 minutes, it was still very liquid. I solved this by boiling off the liquid, stirring occasionally, on high heat.

Beef Kurmah

• 8 small shallots or 4-5 big ones, chopped
  
• 2 cloves of garlic, sliced
  
• 1 Tbsp ginger, sliced
  
• 1 stalk lemongrass, sliced
  
• 1 red chili, sliced.
  
• 1/2 cup water
  
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
  
• 1 1/2 lb flank steak, cut into 1 1/2" chunks
  
• 1 Tbsp. ground coriander
  
• 1 Tbsp. ground cumin
  
• 2 star anise
  
• 1 cinnamon stick, broken in two
  
• 4 cloves
  
• 1 can coconut milk
  
• 1 cup chicken broth
  
• 1/2 cup peanuts, ground
  
• salt to taste

Preparation

Put shallots, garlic, ginger, lemongrass and chili in a blender or food processor. Add water. Blend until it becomes a smooth paste. Set it aside.

Heat a wok until very hot and add the oil. Stir fry the beef in batches until brown on all sides. Remove.

Add the shallot paste and fry until most of the water is boiled off, stirring often. Add the coriander, the cumin, the anise, the cinnamon and the cloves. Cook, stirring, for another minute or two.

Return beef to the wok and add the coconut milk and broth. Mix well and cook, covered, for about 30 minutes. Uncover and boil off some of the liquid. Add the peanuts and cook, stirring, until the curry is the consistency you like. Season with salt to taste. Serve with rice.

Hawaiian restaurants do not seem to last long in San Leandro - probably because at one time there were too many of them for this market - but Alohana Hawaiian Grill has the fortune of being located near Target in the Bayfair Mall. Given how atrocious the food at Target is, I'd imagine that hungry people shopping there would not mind stopping at Alohana for some food.

We went there a couple of weeks ago, after watching a movie at Cinemark Theaters, and it was a good experience. The food was good - just as good as our Hawaiian restaurant of choice, Ono - and the portions were very generous. I can't say much more than that, and that I'd definitely come back if I was hungry while shopping there.

Now, don't get there expecting any kind of ambiance. The dining room is very small, this was definitely planned as a take-out place, but it's serviceable.

Alohana Hawaiian Grill
1555 E. 14th Suite 319
San Leandro, CA
510-481-8888
http://www.alohanahawaiiangrill.com/

There will be 3 South East Asian cooking classes at San Leandro Adult School in the spring semester. They will have Vegetarian Indian/Chinese/Malaysian cooking on March 21st, Thai cooking on April 25th and Malaysian Cooking on May 9th. If there is enough interest, they could also add another class. Classes are on Saturdays from 9 AM to 1 PM, and they cost $35 each.

I've taken several, and I've enjoyed them.

A couple of weeks ago, I took a class on Sauces at the Castro Valley Adult School. We learned how to make 3 sauces, a strawberry sauce (which was just a matter of putting fresh strawberries and a bit of water in a blender and adding a little bit of sugar - what I don't remember is if we cooked the strawberries first), a white sauce and a brown sauce. None of them were particularly difficult to make. I'd never made a brown sauce before, but I think I'd be able to do it again - if I had a recipe. I've made bechamel sauces in the past, and the one here - which we turned into a cheese sauce - wasn't that different from the ones I made. In all, it was an interesting class but I don't feel it expanded my culinary horizons too much. That said, it'd be particularly useful for beginning cooks. Personally, I'd prefer to learn how to make more complicated sauces, like aiolis, hollandaise and bearnaise. Perhaps in the next class.

Just yesterday, I took a class on South East Asian cuisine at the San Leandro Adult School. This is the third such class I take, I took a class on Malaysian cooking and another one on Southeast Asian cooking with the same teacher before.

This time we cooked Beef Kurmah from Malaysia, Singaporean Fried Noodles and Bamboo shoots with chicken from Thailand. In addition to the dishes, I also learned a couple of techniques.

One is that chopsticks are very useful for turning meat when you are browning it. It's always a bit clumsy to do it with tongs or a fork, so I will try this method. Another hint is that the pan/oil needs to be *very* hot when you add the meat, let this cook through.

Malaysian food is often based on a paste of shallots, garlic, ginger, lemon grass and chilis. One thing I learned (that is often not in the recipes) is to add a little bit of water when you make the paste in a blender of food processor. I usually use the latter, but the teacher used the former and I wonder if it's better. I'll try it.

I had a pretty unsuccessful experience cooking with lemongrass a week or two ago, so now I learned to take out the tough layers of the lemongrass and then slice the rest horizontally before processing.

Finally, the teacher used a knife that looked like a cleaver. I'm thinking of looking for one to see if it works better than the knives I have (which, after a year, seem to be getting dull).

I just got this message as a response to my review of Pomegranate, a Middle Eastern restaurant in Berkeley. I haven't been there since my review, so I'm happy to hear it's still good :-)

"My husband and I went to the Pomegranate restaurant last night based upon your review (that we found by googling restaurant reviews in Berkeley) and it was every bit as good as you said it was. Thanks so much for the tip. We will definitely go back (and Jerry, our waitperson, was awesome)."
Cindy and Fred

Yesterday I went to Messob for dinner, on Piedmont Ave. in Oakland, and we happened to park just in from of Euromix Deli, a small, tidy store carrying products from all over Europe, but specializing in Eastern Europe. I've been here several times before, ever since my friends Victoria and Penelope bought me a huge assortment of food items from there, but I don't think I've blogged about the place yet. I won't now either, :-), but I promise to go back to the place and tell you more about what they carry.

One thing they do carry, and that Victoria & Penelope had included in their gift, are Russian spice mixes. They come in little green envelopes good for one meal and they have them for rice, kebabs, roasts, fish and other things I couldn't really tell what they were. I've tried the ones for the rice, the kebabs and the roasts and they are excellent.

I made a tri-tip roast in the rotisserie with the roast spice mixture for election night, and the results were great. The meat was super tender and very flavorful. I let it sit at room temperature with the rub for almost an hour before cooking, and I'd recommend you do the same. I've made the kebabs before, and they also rock. You marinate the chunks of beef or lamb in some red wine mixed with the spices and then grill. Yumm.

But I think my favorite mix is the one for the rice (pilau). I've made it a few times last year and the results are great - very satisfying.

Alas, the packages of these mixtures are in Russian, so I can't tell you even what they're call. They are distributed by West Coast Trade in Newark, and, as I said, available for sale at Euromix.

This time they didn't have the roast spice mixture, so I bought several packages of the ones for kebabs ($1.40) and rice ($1). The former consists of: sweet paprika, salt, coriander seeds, onion, MSG, garlic, red hot pepper, sugar, basil leaves, black pepper, mustard, turmeric, cumin and nutmeg. The latter includes: salt, sweet paprika, turmeric, barberry,curry,coriander seeds, cumin and ground marjoram. Of course, they smell divine.

Chicken with lemongrass sauce from epicurious. Mike liked it, I thought it was OK but I couldn't really get the lemongrass in very small chunks, even though I have a good food processor. And the little lemongrass stalks were pretty unpleasant to chew. I wouldn't make it again.

I made this roast chicken w/ rosemary orange butter recipe last night. Perhaps it would have been good with the sauce, but the vegetables burnt (my fault, I forgot to stir them), so I couldn't make it. Without the sauce the chicken was pretty tasteless. My regular rotisserie chicken is better.

As usual, I'm just recording this so if I come across the recipes again, I will know not to make them.

In the last few weeks I've been cooking ethnic food on a semi-daily basis. I would like to get through the C's by early next year, which means I need to hurry. The latest menus are:

Cantabrian (a region of Spain)
Chihuahuan (a region of Mexico)
Cowboy

I felt like baking yesterday, but I didn't have many ingredients around, so I tried this recipe for peanut butter cookies. It couldn't be any easier, and it was quite good. Really, the recipe just calls for peanut butter & sugar, so that's all what you are tasting, but lord, is that good! The original recipe said it'd made /70/ cookies - I got 18 out of it. With the modifications I made, this is the recipe:

• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup natural peanut butter
• 3 Tbsp. flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda

Preheat oven to 350F

Grease two cookie sheets

In the bowl of a mixer, lightly beat the egg. Add the sugars and mix well. Add the peanut butter and mix well. Add the flour and (yes) mix well. Add the baking soda and once again mix well.

Roll small balls of dough in your hands, place onto the cookie sheets and flatten with a fork, making a criss-cross pattern.

Bake for about 7 minutes.

How the hell do you open a coconut? I bought a peeled coconut today at an Asian market, thinking that it'd be easier to open as it didn't have the skin. Lord, was I wrong. It was too hard to cut through (I don't want to think about the damage I've done to my newish knives!). I ended up hitting it with a hammer, but could only make a smallish whole. Well, it was large enough to get my hand through it - and then I discovered that the sides were very soft! I guess it was a young coconut, but definitely they were not shredding material. I had nothing else, so I used them anyway. Let's see how dinner (coconut pork) turns out.