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Tingly Cheese

We originally bought this English blue cheese on the recommendation of a Whole Paycheck cheese counter staffer. We were looking for a nice blue to melt over a home-cooked filet mignon. Turns out this is also a great nibbling cheese, but after leaving it in the fridge for three weeks, eating it made my tongue numb, like when you go to the dentist. I hope that's not bad.

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A16 and the Kyogen of Errors

If you have some free time in the next couple of days (6/2/05 or 6/3/05), do yourself a favor and go see the the Kyogen of Errors at the Palace of the Fine Arts in San Francisco. Kyogen is Japanese comic theater and Mansaku no Kai is a troupe with one of Japan's Living National Treasures, Mansai Nomura. If you lived in Japan, you'd be lucky to get tickets. Here, you can buy tickets and get decent seats the day before the performance! If you find you like this kind of stuff, the Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco maintains a Japanese event calendar that's worth checking from time to time.

Also, if you want to feel really good at the end of the evening, give yourself enough time to stop by for a pizza at A16. If you like mediumly thin crust pizza's, you will love this place. The pizza even eclipses, in my humble opinion, Tommaso's of North Beach and South Beach Cafe, my other two favorite pizza places.

Dulcinea

Tonight, an unusual mix -- Chicken larb, a favorite family recipe that mixes chicken, peanuts, thai spices, eaten with rice inside a butter lettuce leaf. *yum*. Second on the menu, a Dulcinea "pureheart" watermelon. The watermelon is unlike any you've ever had -- it has almost no rind and it's sweet and juicy all the way to the edge. Cooking Master Boy-esque dialogue aside (i.e., "fruit of legendary perfection"??), if you want to treat yourself this late summer, try one of these. Make sure you eat it soon after buying -- we waited a week and the seedless watermelon grew a few seeds. Also, these are not genetically modified.

Risi e Bisi

Natsuko continues to amaze with her command of the kitchen. Tonight's indulgence was "risi e bisi", a Venetian risotto dish made of rice, peas, prosciutto, chicken broth, green onions, parmesan, parsley, and black pepper. Of course, a little butter and olive oil are mandatory. If you know Italian, you know that this dish is primarily about the rice (risi) and peas (bisi) -- and like a good split pea soup, the ham is the perfect salty complement to the sweetness of fresh peas. Apparently, risi e bisi is best made with arborio rice, a short grained Italian rice that releases lots of gluten during cooking. This, combined with the butter, parmesan, and chicken broth create a heavenly creaminess that keeps your taste buds jumping...

Roto Frizzante

I like drinking soda - a lot. Many years ago, I realized that I can't drink regular coke all the time because I end up on a high-fructose-corn-syrup-induced blood sugar roller coaster ride. So, I started drinking diet coke to avoid the up-n-down. That worked well for a few years, but something about it hurts my stomach now, so that went out the window too. Lately, I've been drinking San Pellegrino and that works well enough, but it lacks the punch I want in soda. Recently, I ran into Roto Frizzante at Taylor's Automatic. It's a pleasingly blended bitter soda with a hints of sour and sweet in it. It's shocking that it's not stocked in any San Francisco market - maybe a lot of people haven't tried it yet. Anyway, it's on my list now when going to wine country.

Golden Boy Pizza

Went to lunch at Golden Boy Pizza with Rob, who was up in San Francisco today. Spent the evening with Dennis and Shan Shan, who also came up from LA (on a weekend visit to Napa).

Rob and Barb at Nola

Hung out with Rob Sherwood and Barb Englehardt at NOLA in Palo Alto. Rob's attending an Ames project management course, and Barb's studying at Berkeley right now. Spent the night and Frank and Luanne's and saw their beautiful new backyard, wow!

Wasabi and Ginger

We went to Wasabi and Ginger for dinner. The great thing about this place is that the sushi is reasonably priced, there's always a crowd (e.g., full house on a Wednesday night), you can always get toro (often more than one kind) or hamachi kama, and they give you free valet parking, edamame, and dessert with dinner.

Chartreuse at Enrico's

We went to dinner at Enrico's tonight. Started with grilled asparagus with a mix of parmesan, a meyer lemon sauce, onions, finely diced hard boiled egg, and herbs. For the main course, Natsuko had lamb and I had the best vegetarian lasagna EVER. Finished up with tiramisu (they have a very nice tiramisu -- just enough mascarpone and finely grated chocolate on top -- in a bed of melted vanilla ice cream) and their rhubarb crisp. All extremely yummy. The most interesting part of the evening was the chartreuse I ordered with dessert. Everything still smells like chartreuse and a single glass has me spinning and giggling :-).

Sam Won Korean BBQ

On Junmo's recommendation, we ate at Sam Won Korean BBQ at Telegraph and 27th. Yum.