Bibim mandu (비빔 만두).

Bibim refers to something that is mixed and mandu is the Korean style dumpling. This is one of my favorite modern Korean dishes, that's a bit harder to find in the States. Essentially it's fried mandu that's eaten with a slaw and Korean chojang (초장) hot sauce. Chojang is also a fairly new sauce that is the traditional Korean red-pepper hot sauce go-chu jang (고추장), with vinegar (식초). The consistency is lighter and I think it just has a great flavor!

Sesame leaf (깬잎). Such an interesting flavor. It's wonderful picked, Korean style, and also a very important ingredient in many Korean dishes. To make the salad I chopped this up along with seaweed (김) and romaine lettuce.

I'm going to make mandu (Korean dumplings) soon, but didn't have time to today, so tried these.

Fried in a bit of oil.

I forgot the plate the romaine lettuce as part of the slaw! I did end up topping this with the chopped up romaine, which really helps add a nice crispness to this. The salad varies from place to place though.

Mmmm! SO GOOD! I had this with rice, of course. The actual mandu that I purchased wasn't that great--it said it was kimchi mandu, which is usually very flavorful, but this was pretty bland. Good thing I had it with the nice slaw and sauce!

Korean groceries at Kukje Super Market (국제 마켓), Daly City, CA.

Yay Kukje (pronounced gook-jeh)! This is the largest Korean grocery I've found in the SF Bay Area. The stores in SF proper are pretty small, this place has a nice cold deli section with lots of packaged ban-chan (Korean side dishes).

New (to me?) bottled makgeolli, pronounced mahk-gul-lee (막걸리)! I've never seen these before! This is so crazy because mak-gul-lee is a very traditional Korean rice alcohol that's always served in a large ceramic carafe or bowl. It's usually more milky, too! I guess since soju is a big hit, they are trying to market this, too though. I didn't get any on this trip, but will have to try one sometime.

Italians have their olive oil, we have our sesame oil. :)

I don't get the chance to come out here very often so it was a nice treat--thanks for the ride Joe! I'm SO excited to make some slammin' Korean dishes in the next few days!

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Lettuce wrap tacos, four ways.

Left to right: Fish, grilled veggies, chorizo & poato, shredded beef.

These were all taco fillings I got to-go from Tacolicious, but since I don't like tortillas, I decided to eat them with romaine leaves! This was very Korean of me, where it's called ssam (쌈). So so great! I don't get the appeal of tortillas and I feel bad saying that, but this is healthier and adds a nice crispness, while not taking away from the flavorful filling!

Ta-wei's super delicious Wiener Schnitzel.

Ta-wei Lin (Chef/owner of Three Papayas) invited me over to have a special dinner and sit-in on an interview he was doing with a documentarist. I wasn't able to stay for the interview, unfortunately, but I heard it was really fun and I can't wait to see the footage!

Ta-wei ended up reaching back to his Euro influences and whipping out a fantastic wiener schnitzel for us. Ta-wei lived in Europe for awhile where he traveled through kitchens, eating with and learning from the locals. After hearing this, I had some pretty high hopes for my wiener schnitzel--although, I'd expect no less from Ta-wei!

The fabulous Matty! I absolutely adore him. He's always so hospitable.

Wiener Schnitzel with horseradish and mint jelly, with potato salad.

Ta-wei explained how wiener schnitzel, in Austria, is strictly veal, but in Germany it can be prepared with pork or veal.

Matty, who doesn't cook, but knows his German food, compared notes with Ta-wei about how to properly make wiener schnitzel before this dinner. Ta-wei knew the correct methods, but then put his own twist on it, as he always does! And I'm so glad he did because this cutlet was absolutely perfect.

Thank you SO much, Ta-wei and Matty! As always, it was an absolute pleasure and the food was amazing!!

How to make Ta-wei's super easy Wiener Schnitzel

Ingredients:

• Pork (normal cut)
• Eggs
• Beer (Pilsners are good)
• Lemon juice
• Bread crumbs
• Panko crumbs
• Spices (Ta-wei used paprika, oregano and a couple others.)
• Oil
• Horseradish
• Mint jelly

Recipe:

1. Get normal cuts of pork and pound with a meat tenderizer until it's 1/2 inch thick.
2. Mix eggs, beer and a little lemon juice in a large bowl and let the meat marinate in them.
3. Mix bread crumbs and panko breading (this will add a nice lightness to the breading), with your spices.
4. Pour a liberal amount of oil into a fry pan and turn on high heat.
5. While the oil is heating, Take a piece of meat from the marinade and coat it with the crumb mixture.
6. Cook each side for a couple minutes, until the breading turns golden.
7. Plate and serve with some horseradish and mint jelly!

Now that I know how to make it, I can't wait to try--as you can see it's super easy!

Be sure to check out Ta-wei's amazing food at Three Papayas, his pop-up "cultural liberation brunch". Three Papaya's operates out of the Doc's Clock, where you'll see Matty taking orders, and runs every Sunday from noon - 4pm.

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Korean noodle salad with sausage.

Buckwheat noodles with a Korean dressing (that I'm also going to use to marinade some meat for Korean tacos!). Yums.

Hosting the SFS Team Outing: Three Papaya's Brunch & Screen-printing at Levi's Workshop, Mission, SF.

I hosted my first SF Station team event! It was very exciting and I want to give a special thanks to everyone who came out and made it a success!

Papaya Salad at Three Papayas. Ta-wei, Vivienne and Matty at the Three Papaya's treated us to two of these! So sweet!

One of the specials, a lotus root salad with chicken. Mmmmm.

Another one of the specials! The pig's head with Spanish rice and a fried egg. This is apparently a Filipino dish and was very interesting!

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After brunch we all headed over to the Levi's Workshop for some excellent screen-printing! I surprised the crew with a special illustration made by our current SF Station Local Artist, Charmaine Olivia! Thank you, Charmaine, for the amazing illustration! And a special thanks to Levi's Workshop and Turner PR for making this all happen!!!

My bossman, Chris, workin' the screen!

Our amazing screen-printing pro, Henrik! Thank you for everything! He is holding up the first part/color of our print.

Here is a photo of my finished t-shirt! You can see the other layer here (in gray). I LOVE what Charmaine designed for us and love how it looks screen-printed! I'm so happy with how today went and can't wait to plan more events!

Jessica's Bachelorette Part 3: Cooking Sunday brunch.

Fresh blueberries added into some coffee cake batter. Wild are more flavorful, but these plump blueberries were on sale and are used later in the yogurt parfait!

Topped with streusel and into the oven! I prepared everything else while this was baking. :)

I mixed a little brown sugar into the plain yogurt. This looks like a lot, but it was for a tub and a half of yogurt.

Brown sugar yogurt parfait with granola, mixed berries and powdered sugar. Mmmmmm!

I made two scrambles. This one was bacon with cheddar. The other one was bacon with sun-dried tomato pesto and goat cheese. I really liked both.

Peanut butter banana sandwiches.

Blueberry coffee cake!

Everyone seemed to really the food, which always makes me happy! I hadn't made brunch in ages, too, so it felt good to do that again. It's one of my favorite meals to cook and eat! ;)

Jessica's Bachelorette Part 2: Ice cream and games.

We got San Francisco's very own It's-It ice cream sandwiches! They are oatmeal cookie ice cream sandwiches, dipped in dark chocolate--and yes, they are every bit as yummy as they sound! We also got a tub of Ben & Jerry's Phish Food because it's ammmmazing. :)

Back to the It's-its though--I MUST recreate this cookie! I don't know how it remains so soft after being frozen, but they are the best oatmeal cookies ever.

The beautiful bride to be, Jessica, my soon to be sister-in-law, enjoying her ice cream!

Mmmm.. nothing like ice cream, gossip and bachelorette games! :) Thanks for a fun night, ladies!! And, more importantly, I hope you had fun, Jess!

Jessica's Bachelorette Part 1: Vietnamese at Bodega Bistro, SF.

The bachelorette crew road tripped up to SF from LA! I was excited to meet up with them and take them around a little! They wanted Vietnamese so I thought we'd try Bodega Bistro...

Vietnamese crepe. Yummy, but not the best Vietnamese crepe I've had.

Vermicelli noodle salad with pork and imperial rolls! This is one of my favorite Vietnamese dishes. I could eat this every day! This once had great, flavorful pork and nice imperial rolls, BUT they didn't have enough imperial roll. Also, they only gave fish sauce with this. I decided to use the sauce from the Vietnamese crepe dish with this and it was lovely.

Shaking beef. Definitely not my favorite shaking beef.

The bachelorette gang! Woohoo!!

The service here was pretty slow, and the prices were a little bit high, but the dirty little secret here is to order off the lunch menu, always! It'll definitely bring down your cost. ;) I shared the above three meals with two girls. Paying for those + tax & tip was $13, and for SO much food!

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Lavender mint brownies.

I got the idea to do lavender mint brownies from the Paul Mitchell Tea Tree Lavender Mint Shampoo! I LOVE the Paul Mitchell Tea Tree shampoos. If you haven't tried them, you really must! I tried crushing the lavender on a plate with this rice spatula, but it wasn't working so I decided to just put the lavender in as is.

I just made normal brownie batter and then added the lavender and mint extract!!! Sooo pretty and amazingly fragrant!

Sprinkled with lavender buds on top.

Dusted with powdered sugar!

These are definitely my new favorite treat. I'm SOO excited about them!

I'm bringing these to the SF Station team outing I'm hosting this Sunday! I'm going to share them with the fabulous crew at the Three Papaya's Brunch at the Doc's Clock, the Levi's Workshops and of course, the SF Station crew!

Hachimaki Sushi & Sake Night at Yoshi's, Lower Fillmore, SF.

Some SF food media big-shots got together with Rivera PR for an amazing Hachimaki Sushi & Sake evening at Yoshi's SF!

Yoshi's is such a beautiful space. We gathered in the swanky, glass-walled Omakase room, where we enjoyed a fun-filled, intimate dinner, with Yoshi's signature jazz playing in the background.

Hachimaki attack! Mine said, "Karate", while others read "boss", "peace" and "#1". This was such a fun idea, and was a great conversation starter to kick off our fabulous dinner.

SEA SALT CURED JAPANESE CUCUMBER

Creamy Sesame Dressing

&

KONBU SEAWEED CURED ASPARAGUS

Miso Mustard Dressing

&

FRENCH BEANS

Silken Tofu Dressing

POACHED BLACK COD

Grilled Japanese Eggplant Salsa, Shiso Oil

How beautiful is that?! I love the actual plate, too!

FRIED HIRAME & LOBSTER

Wrapped in Seaweed & Served with Tentsuyu

The seaweed-wrapped lobster was encased in battered soy-beans--yummy. I wasn't the biggest fan of the boney fish, but I did give it a try. It was certainly interesting and new to me. It wasn't bad, but I much preferred the lobster, naturally!

The tentsuyu dipping sauce.

GINGER SOY BRAISED JAPANESE RED SNAPPER

Burdock Root, Chinese Cabbage, Spinach

Everyone agreed that this was one of the stand-out dishes of the evening. The snapper was cooked to perfection. For me though, this came in as my second favorite dish, which just means there was something even better!

And, again, I can't get over these plates! They really add to presentation of the dish.

I couldn't keep track of each pairing, but our 8 courses were paired with 10 different sakes and there wasn't a single one I didn't like! Here is the first half of our sake adventures: Dewazakura "Oka"; Masumi "Yumedono"; Akitabare "Suirakuten"; Masumi "Arabashiri"; Masumi "Okuden Kantsukuri".

GRILLED DUCK BREAST

Wrapped With Mochi, Sweet Tomato & Eringi Mushroom

&

ROASTED CHICKEN TSUKUNE

Poached Egg Yolk

I love duck and was anxiously awaiting this course, but when it arrived, I was much more intrigued with the chicken tsukune and poached egg yolk! I'd never seen only the yolk poached. It was really quite lovely--third favorite for sure!

SHABU-SHABU STYLE WAGYU RIBEYE

Carmelized Onion, Mizuna

All right, this was my absolute favorite dish of the evening! Super tender. Super flavorful. Super super! I'm craving more of this already!

STEAMED KING CRAB LEG

Sea Urchin Roe, Crispy Rice, Roasted Snapper Soup

What a fun dish! I love interactive food. The tea kettle held the broth for this dish, which transformed it into...

This beautiful soup. It was a bit difficult to eat with this spoon, but it was a choice that went along nicely with the traditional setting of the dinner.

GRILLED WATERMELON, FIG & KUMQUAT PANA COTTA

Grapefruit Jelly

Very interesting. I really enjoyed the special fruits in this dish, but the Grapefruit jelly wasn't my favorite thing. I think it had something to do with the consistency being too similar to that of the pana cotta.

Unfiltered sake with editors Erica and Carleigh of 944 SF and Culinary Trends, respectively, in the background. Here is the second half of our sake adventure: Kamoizumi "KomeKome"; Kokuryu "Junmai Ginjo"; Miyasaka "Yamahai 50 Nama"; Koshi no Kanbai "Muku"; Kamoizumi "Nigori Ginjo".

Each sake was incredibly smooth. They were served in an assortment of glassware, which made it more interesting, too. The above is an unfiltered sake in a champagne glass. We had another excellent sake served in a white wine glass that tasted like apple juice! It was as delicious as it is dangerous, I'm sure! I believe that one was the Kamoizumi "KomeKome".

Execultive Chef Shotaro "Sho" Kamio, joined us at the end of our meal for well-deserved congratulations and a toast! Chef Shotaro created such a lovely menu for us--many thanks!

Seio Shimada, the Yoshi's sake expert! So kind and so fun! Just look at that smile--adorable! This is definitely the guy you want pouring your sake.

The amazing team at Rivera PR, who made this all possible, and the rockstars behind Thrillist SF and Urban Daddy SF and, of course, SF Station. Such great company for such a fantastic meal! As you can see, we were all smiles after, yes, 10 pairings of sake!

Thank you again, Rivera PR and Yoshi's SF!

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