Caltech

#1

It was a farewell dinner today. The beginning of the end. Crazy to think in less than a week I’ll be back in Denver and this entire country hopping adventure will be completely over.

 

 

Justin and I went to the Balmoral Hotel. As a birthday gift I’d received a gift certificate for their restaurant, and there really wouldn’t have been any better way to use it than taking my best lad out for dinner.

 

The Balmoral’s restaurant is legitimately called “Number One”. And it’s frequently regarded as the best restaurant in Edinburgh (if not the best in Scotland). It has a Michelin Star, a tasting menu, and basically everything I’ve come to love about fine dining.

 

So let’s talk menu. The amuse bouche’s were a tasty pastry cup fish mousse, roe deer raw, and the most delicious “truffle bomb” a rice shell filled with truffly goodness.

 

Course one was an oyster from nearby.

 

Followed by my first time eating foie gras, with a delicious licorice bread (that really just tasted like gingerbread but was black)

 

Then was a scallop kedigree which is really just a fancy way of saying seared scallop on potatoes.

 

We continued with North Sea cod, served with surprisingly delightful chanterelle mushrooms and crispy chicken skin.

 

Continuing on, the main course was roe deer, chervil root, and pear. This was a delightfully tender and game-flavor-free cut of meat.

 

After this it was on to the cheese course, where we had an interesting mix of French and Scottish cheeses, served with truffled honey.

 

Finally, dessert of a sea buckthorn sherbet served with carrot puree and browned butter crust. Sea buckthorn apparently tastes like tangerine.

 

But wait! There’s more! Last up was a bramble sherbet soufflé with apple pie ice cream.

 

And we got some post-dinner sweets to go along with it. A nice bit of tablet and a pineapple candy.

 

My favorite? Strongly the last course, the soufflé. It was by far the most technically perfect baked dish I’d ever consumed. And the flavors balanced and played with each other unlike any dessert I’ve had. This meal was a stark contrast to the Michelin street food I had in Singapore, and a similar contrast to Providence in LA. This menu was united around the theme of Scotland at the holidays. Not the general theme of seafood. Or the singular dish of the hawker stalls in Singapore. And it was a perfect goodbye meal.

 

Food is love,

 

— Chandrew

Thanksgiving in SF

I spent this Thanksgiving with one of my good friends in San Francisco. My friend is an Techer alum and she currently works in asset management. Since she did not have enough of a vacation to fly down to LA to spend the long weekend with her family, and since I was free, I went up to spend with her. Needless to say, it was a very untraditional Thanksgiving. We did not have any turkey or stuffing. Instead, we went out for sushi and brunch. One thing we did do is celebrate Black Friday.

I arrived in SF around Thursday evening, and headed out for dinner right away. We went to a sushi and karaoke bar located in inner Richmond. My friend said that the restaurant is usually quite packed. However, since most people are spending Thanksgiving at home with their families, we were one of the two tables that night. We ordered, sashimi, rolls, appetizers and plenty of matcha cream puffs. Even though the food was not that heavy, we still over ate and went home in a food coma.

The next morning, we got up early for yoga at the Equinox in Marina. My friend is a member and raves about the quality of facilities. I must admit that it does not disappoint. Their showers have Kiehls branded everything, and there is an unlimited supply of clean towels. After yoga, we headed to this cute brunch spot called U Dessert Story and Vintage brunch near Fillmore. We ordered the omelette rice and a matcha lava cake to split. It was absolutely delicious.

We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring Chrissy field, a grassy area with a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge, and Ocean Beach. At one point, it started raining, but the showers quickly subsided so we did not have to drastically change our plans. The highlight of that evening was catching the sunset at Ocean Beach. The beach has such a large field of view that it felt like the end of the Earth.

 

On Saturday, it just poured. We got brunch at Jane on Fillmore and had dinner at the Italian Homemade Company. We spent the rest of the day shopping and watching movies indoors. Although it was not that eventful, it was nice to take a break.

Finally, Thanksgiving break is a trap. When I got back to campus on Sunday, I realized how behind I was on work. Luckily, I've been able to get back on track, so the vacation/procrastination was worthwhile.

Exploring Koreatown

There have been numerous high scientific studies showing that LA has the best Korean food in America. I've gone to a couple of famous spots over the past year and aggregated these reviews to share with you all. If you read my other blogs, you would probably notice that I blog about food a lot. The truth is, I derive a lot of joy from going off campus for food adventures, so these are the highlights of my week that I want to share. If you are interested in hearing about other aspects of my life at Caltech, let me know. Also, I get asked this a lot in real life -- No, I am no a Yelp Elite. I do not write any reviews on Yelp at all. I just read other people's reviews to make my bucket list restaurants.

Moving on... the best place I've visited is Majordomo in the Arts District. If you watch any food documentaries on Netflix, you probably would know of celebrity chef David Chang. Majordomo is his first venture in LA and it is a mega hit. I was on the waitlist for a good month to get a reservation for dinner at a reasonable hour. Is it worth the hype? I think so! I was starving when I got there, which may have biased my palate, but I am a huge fan of Asian fusion, and everything on the menu was up my alley. Some must haves are the bing. We got the bing with ham and spicy pineapple and it was delicious. I heard the one with egg and roe is also fantastic. As for larger dishes, we got the fried skate rice. I would highly recommend it. If I had more people in my dinner party, I would get the massive beef ribs with fondue.

 

For more homestyle cooking, I went to Myung Dong Koyja. It has the best cold noodles and dumplings. I know the concept of cold noodles sounds weird, but they freeze the broth which becomes like a shaved ice texture in the bowl. The noodles are super springy since there's no hot broth to soften it. The texture is where it's at. The dumplings are also super plump and flavorful. We original got one plate of 10 to share amongst two people, but we had to double our order because it was so good.

Some K-Town classics are Sun Nong Dan, and Hangari Kalguksu. Sun Nong Dan has the most impressive beef ribs with cheese fondue. Each order is large enough to feed a family of four. Hangari Kalguksu is known for their knife cut noodles. You know it's good when the carb is the best part of the dish. Also, both these places have over 1000 five star reviews on Yelp, so even if I don't know what I am talking about, at least one of them would.

These are just a few of the places that I really enjoyed. Of course, there are plenty more to try. I heard Genwa has some of the best kbbq around town and Dae Bu Do has amazing seafood. If any of them are worth sharing, you can read about it in a follow up post.

Christmas In… November?

*Cue bells, jolly music, and large men in red tracksuits*

It’s Christmas in Edinburgh! Take that with a grain of salt; I personally don’t believe that the holiday season starts until after Thanksgiving, regardless of what holiday (if you celebrate a holiday) in December. But the Edinburgh Christmas market did start last week, and so I had to go and visit. I joined along on a Singapore society trip but split off from them a bit early because my and I hadn’t had dinner before coming, so we had to go hunt that down.

Actually, it was an entire winter social evening. We watched the Nightmare Before Christmas, ate a few snacks, enjoyed each other’s company, and all in all had a good old wholesome evening. The Christmas market was definitely the highlight though, hence why it gets its own post. It was by far the largest Christmas market I’ve ever been to, and it was honestly more reminiscent of a carnival than it was anything else. There were 70-foot-tall rides, other amusement park specialties, and any sort of European food you could imagine. The most impressive part to me was the lights – there were as many lights as a zoo lights event or something like that. Also, the funniest thing was that we walked past the carousel playing Fairytale of New York City (which we just heard in Belfast). That was a bit of a surreal moment, but it made everything feel like it had come full circle.

For dinner, we settled on Mac N’ Cheese. It was delicious, creamy, and warm – the last of which being especially important because it was sub-zero (Celsius, hahaha). I also sprung for some real hot chocolate, delicious, made from pure chocolate, and perfect for a cold evening like this. In—terms of other crazy things we were able to find at the market, we found lobster rolls (??), churros, and oodles of other things. Just like in Belfast, there were lots of cute little shops selling ornaments and other holiday-themed goodies.

Unfortunately, though, there was one thing missing – an ice-skating rink! Edinburgh banned having an ice-skating rink just this year; apparently it was bad for the grass or something. Ice-skating has been a long-time tradition of mine at the holidays. Ever since I was little, I’ve been practically every year… And I can’t possibly break a tradition like that… but stay tuned until next week.

Hasta la macaroni,

-- Chandrew

Bakk- What?

After a long wait I finally am posting a wonderful COOKING POST! If you haven’t been able to tell, I’ve actually been cooking a lot in Edinburgh. Beyond being much healthier, I’ve been able to save a lot of money that’s gone into funding all of my other wild adventures here. I haven’t been cooking anything too elaborate though, mostly just my mom’s recipes and a few other wonderful things from home that I’ve been missing. But this weekend my friend Justin and I decided to make my favorite food from Singapore: bakkwa.

I’ve posted about bakkwa before but it’s something you can find in every shopping mall in Singapore. It’s a dried meat product, usually made with pork or chicken, and it tastes like the most delicious, sweet, Asian barbeque beef jerky that you’ll ever eat. And it turns out… It’s super easy to make too! Justin and I decided we wanted to make a lot of bakkwa, just so we’d have some to share with the rest of the Singapore society. So, we ended up with 3.2 kg of ground pork (6.4 lbs), which actually ended being a lot more than we thought it would be, and we were off.

The actual process is super simple. Yesterday we mixed the ground pork with all the spices, which include 3 types of soy sauce, brown sugar, fish sauce, oyster sauce, and basically everything else you could imagine. Then we let that sit overnight so that it had the proper time to marinate. Today was in two steps: first we put the oven at 150c to dehydrate it. This is a step that you do with the oven open, and I guess it does the basic cooking of the meat. You also flip it halfway through this, again making sure the meat is actually cooked. Then, in a much hotter (and closed) oven we crisped the pork until it was perfectly charred and delicious. This step is traditionally done over a charcoal grill, but unfortunately, we don’t exactly have one of those. Actually, the entire traditional process is usually done with charcoal, but alas it is what it is. Anyways, our bakkwa turned out delicious, and almost just as good as you could get at a Bee Cheng Hiang outlet… and for a fraction of the price too! Ours cost about $20 for 3 kilos, and during CNY, bakkwa can sell for up to $40 a kilo! Definitely a recipe I’ll be repeating soon.

Missing Singapore a bit,

--Chandrew

So… What is Scottish Food?

It’s been a month and a half in the United kingdom, a little less than that in Scotland, which means I’ve had plenty of time to try all of the local cuisine. However, what exactly does that mean? Scottish food isn’t like American food, although there are aspects of it that are reminiscent. Scottish food is very meat and bread heavy. There’s an extreme emphasis on using local Scottish grown fruits and vegetables and also local Scottish meat and dairy products. There’s lots of pork and beef, lots of cheese, and lots of ICE CREAM.

The most quintessential Scottish thing I’ve been eating since coming here has been meat pies. There’s a long history of meat pies, but they used to be eaten by workers during rough times. Nowadays there are stores that specifically focus on serving pies just like the old kinds, only with better quality ingredients and delicious, melt-in-your-mouth pie shells.

There’s another aspect of Scottish food too: the desserts. And yes, that is to say that there’s more to it than just ice cream. There are two very typical desserts: shortbread, and tablet. Shortbread is just like the shortbread you get in the U.S., but it’s often made with caramel and chocolate in a “millionaire’s shortbread” which is super delicious. Tablet is a vit different, it’s a very simple fudge. It’s made from butter, sweetened-condensed milk, and sugar. More or less it becomes caramelized sugar and then you mix it with everything and boil it into a fudge consistency.

So, about that ice cream though. I’ve eaten a whole lot of delicious ice cream since coming to Scotland, it’s fairly easy to find in every single town I’ve been in in Scotland, which is a bit amusing given that it didn’t show up in England until a couple thousand years after it was invented. They have a huge variety of flavors including tablet, IRN-Bru (a traditional Scottish soda that tastes somewhere between bubblegum and despair), mincemeat pie (a pie that contains no meat whatsoever, but has a lovely assortment of berries), and basically anything else you would want out of ice cream too.

So yeah, that’s about it for Scottish food. I mean, you also have your typical pub foods like fish and chips, chips and gravy, chips and curry, chips and… Well… you get the point. You can also get a deep-fried mars bar. So Scottish food isn’t exactly the pinnacle of fine dining, but it does have its highlights, and it is truly unique.

Eat your feelings,

--Chandrew

 

Exploring Pasta-bilities

Apologies for the bad pun, but I had to do it. I've been on a severe pasta kick lately and have been eating way too much carbs and cheese that my semi-lactose intolerant body can handle. It doesn't help that the friend I usually hangout with loves bolognese and will gladly eat it any meal and every meal. Over the past two months, I've checked out a LOT of pasta places on the west side and have now formed my own rankings of them. Just a heads up, my palate is not that sophisticated and I will gladly choose cheesy lasagna over quality cacio e pepe any day.

 

The best place I've been to so far is also the cheapest. It's called Pasta Sisters. They have been featured in several Buzzfeed Worth-It videos. I am proud to say tho, that I discovered their lasagna before those video producers did. I've tried their bolognese, their truffle pasta and their lasagna. All are pretty good, but if you only get one, get the lasagna. Small tip, you can pay a premium to get a fresh ball of burrata on top of your pasta. It transforms the pasta from good to sublime.

 

A pricier option is Osteria Mozza, in Fairfax, that has the best, fancy pasta ever. I've tried the one with duck ragu, another with sweet corn, and a their giant raviolo with brown butter. The giant raviolo is basically a fist sized ravioli with a whole egg yolk inside. It is absolutely delicious. Make sure you ask for extra bread to soak up all that brown butter. 

 

 

Two of the more forgettable options are the pastas at Margot and at the Jean Georges hotel. I guess because it's so expensive, you expected to blow you out of the water. I tried the bolognese from both those locations, and I can only consider it good, but not great. I think the same dish at Pasta Sisters tastes pretty much the same, and is only a fraction of the cost.

 

 

Over the next few weeks, I am hoping to try the pasta at Jon and Vinny's, Milo and Olive and maybe also Uovo. I don't think any of them will change my undying love for Pasta Sisters, but if any of them do blow me away, I'll let you know.

 

 

Ending on a High Note

Well, after 8 weeks of delicious food and good friends, I started having to say the first of my goodbyes in Singapore this week. I’d been hoping to catch up on blog posts this week but yikes I fell even further behind.

My best friend from fencing, Alvin, is fencing in Taiwan next week, so I won’t get to see him before I leave. And that’s very sad. I’m starting to miss Singapore already, and I’m still here for a few more days even. The last little bit is going to be very tough.

But let’s backtrack a bit. To why Alvin and I are such good friends. When I met him, he asked me to be a part of his team for a tournament two months away. I, of course, said yes. And 8 weeks later, we won! It was a close one too. I almost blew it in the final. But luckily my team pulled through for me and we ended the day on top of the podium.

So, this last outing for the two of us was a bit of a celebration of that win, and a bit of a celebration of a great summer of fencing.

As a group of me and some of Alvin’s friends, we went to a hawker Center and did a family style feast of a ton of Singaporean favorites. I got to try a few of the last things I’d needed to cross off my food list. This included prawn hokkien mee, a noodle with a light gravy, rojak, a weird fruit and vegetable medley served in a savory peanut-ish sauce, and ice kampang (honestly this was really just American shaved ice, but the syrups were a little different and there was red bean at the bottom). Of these I think my favorite was the rojak. There’s something about savory apples that’s just uncannily good. Although honestly, all the food was amazing. I don’t know how I’m going to go back to normal Western food after this.

When I came to Singapore, I hadn’t really been expecting to fence much at all - I ended up practicing more than I do in the U.S. and making tons of great friends. Sports really are a true international language.

Alvin also brought me some of his grandfather’s recipe bakkwa, a preserved pork jerky. It’s like a caramel teriyaki bacon and once you start eating a piece of it you can’t stop. It’s probably the best food that I’ve had while being in Singapore. And that’s saying a lot.

Catch you on the other side (of the piste),

— Chandrew

The Hunt For Red Chicktober

I finally did the one thing I’d been trying to do for my entire time in Singapore – got the second Michelin starred hawker stall’s food. This might not seem like a huge deal (after all, it was just chicken and rice) but I had been battling with this stall to find its food. This was my THIRD time going – seemingly every time I went it was closed. And so, I suppose it was a fitting beginning of the end for me to finally get my soya chicken rice.

However, this journey wasn’t without its own fair share of trials either. I went with Michael from Caltech (a surprise but pleasant visit!) and we ended showing up an hour and a half early. Which was fine, only unlike we thought, there was actually no line whatsoever for the chicken rice. As a result, we found ourselves taking a bit of a journey over to a kaya toast stall in a nearby hawker center (not sure if I mentioned it before, but kaya is a coconut jam). This was ranked as one of the best kaya toasts in Singapore, but honestly it was fairly forgettable. I can’t even remember the name of the place. I guess I just like a little more kaya on my toast than your typical Singaporean.

Oh yeah, and this was absurdly cheap too. $2.70 SGD for a plate, which works out to a little over $2 USD. I’d eat the chicken rice for every meal if I could get it for that price always. It was a true treat.

The details: delicious. The skin wasn’t exactly crispy, but it was bursting with flavor. The chicken was by far the best roasted chicken I think I’ve ever had. All the flavor of a typical roast chicken, but the moistness of a delicious marinated fried chicken. Somehow it was just delectable. But also, I did wait for about an hour and a half (and visit the stall 3 times) to get roast chicken. I don’t know, I think the pork noodles were better for 1 Michelin Star, but this definitely deserved it as well. I’d go again. Also, it made me realize that Howlin’ Rays was straight up robbed of a Michelin star in Los Angeles. Honestly, I’ve had a lot of food that probably could make the list if this did. Mama sol cocina, I’m looking at you.

Victory, at last.

--Chandrew

Best Japanese Food on the West Side

It turns out Little Tokyo is not the only place in LA where you can get delicious Japanese food. These past weeks, I spent a lot of time exploring Sawtelle, the other Japan town. Sawtelle is truly where it's at. The blocks are lined with ramen, shabu shabu, and even BBQ joints, to name a few. There are also way fewer tourists. The best part is that it is only a 20 minute bus ride from my summer housing, so I get to try the food around here pretty often.

One of my favorite spots thus far is Marugame Udon. I actually went there to catch up with a Techer alum when he was back in LA for a job interview. There's a Marugame in Little Tokyo as well, but that location always has a one hour wait. This one offers the same taste and quality, but has no wait. I got the udon with mentaiko and egg, and my friend got the champon udon, the one with almost everything. It's cafeteria style in that you order your udon first and can pick up more tempura as you move towards the register. After you pay, there is a sauce bar for you to load up. I would recommend you try the udon as is before adding any sauce. Either way, it will be delicious. You honestly cannot get any better for the price of a Chipotle bowl.

A more fancy spot I got to check out is a handroll joint called Kazunori. It is actually in Santa Monica, which is about 10 minutes away from Sawtelle. The restaurant itself is small and quite intimate. Everyone sits around a large wooden table with the sushi chefs in the center. There's a set menu to choose from, but you can do a la carte if you wish. The chefs prepare one roll at a time in front of you, and you eat it right away when the rice is still warm. I got the five roll combo, and everything in it is sublime. The quality of the ingredients really come through.

 

For something sweet, Matcha Cha and Cha Cha Matcha are the places to go. The names sound quite similar, but they are distinct businesses. Cha Cha Matcha is near Venice and is better for matcha drinks. I would highly recommend the latte. Matcha Cha is actually in Sawtelle and is best for matcha soft serve. When I went, they also had a vegan brown rice version. It's super refreshing without being overly sweet, so I would highly recommend it.

 

I'll continue to check out more spots around Sawtelle over the next few weeks. Hopefully, I can also explore Korea Town a bit more and share a bit about my experience there.