Asian brunch at Thai Noodle Jump, Inner Richmond, SF.

Deep Fried Chicken Fried Rice?!! Whaaaat?! Out of control!

21. Tom Yum Gai Soup Hot and sour soup with chicken, shrimp, lemon grass, galangal, tomato, and mushrooms.

Mmmmmm. We ordered it with the flat vermicelli noodles.

63. Thai Hot Basil Choice of chicken, pork, or beef with bamboo strips and basil.

Yummy.

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Cooking with Arielle: Ricotta Lemon Bruschetta and Moroccan Carrot Soup.

Arielle Ring, one of the most genuinely beautiful people I know, an amazing friend and one heckuva cook! Her kitchen is tiny, but she does a great job and I was super excited to help her cook dinner! :)

Food52's Bruschetta with Ricotta, Honey and Lemon Zest.

Bon Appetit's Moroccan Carrot Soup.

The perfect lunch at Split Pea Seduction, SoMa, SF.

Split Pea has some great new artwork on the walls! A customer/artist who teaches classes at 1:AM Gallery did these ballpoint pen drawings--so fun.

Love it. This was perfect for people watching while enjoying my lunch. :)

Everything on their daily menu always sounds amazing. I opted for the vegetarian option (last one listed) with bacon! Their bacon is so good so I really had to. ;)

I was so hungry and this really hit the spot. It was heaven between bread.

The Split Pea is always amazing and I'm stunned with how they keep their soup the exact right, edible temperature. I went for the Sugar Pie Pumpkin Veg.

Ridiculous. I love soups with bread/croutons in them. So so yummy and hearty.

A special little dessert for me! Everyone should try one of their ice cream sandwiches. They're not only adorable, but absolutely delicious!

Now THIS is what lunch should be. :)

Chefs Christian and Sam--you guys rock my taste buds! Thank you both for everything! SO fabulous!

I just have to ad a quick note--Split Pea Seduction is the must-try lunch joint, but Christian also has an amazing catering company, Jersey Tomatoes, that you will not be disappointed with!

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Gettin' my French on at Garcon, Mission, SF.

french onion soup, gruyere, croutons 9

Yummy and a good size--one that you can finish! I find that a lot of times with French onion soup, it's too large and is a lot to finish.

“pate de campagne”, pork & duck liver pate, hazelnuts, green peppercorns, rosemary dijon 9

Not my favorite, but it was fine. I'm pretty picky when it comes to pate, but I'd heard so many good things about Garcon as a French restaurant so I thought it might be great here. And again, it wasn't bad, but I probably wouldn't order it again.

skillet blackened pork chop, potato-onion hash, green beans, grilled peaches, natural jus 26

The porkchop. This looked AMAZING! It was dark for a porkchop and looked more like a steak--so beautiful. :)

After our meal, we moved to the bar for some wine. The kind barman, Ryan, gave our party free shots! I'm not sure what all was in this, but it was a yummy little dessert drink. :)

After service we got to chatting with Chef Arthur Wall, who's a very cool guy. He was telling us about how the group of restaurants (mainly the Belden Place restaurants) are sort of re-branding. They've brought on Fortune PR, so I'm sure we'll see some exciting stuff soon. Chef Wall is helping by menu consulting for the various restaurants. His current sous chef at Garcon will be moving to Chouchou.

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Korean style ramen with dumplings.

Shin Ramyun with egg, green onion and dumplings. I don't like my ramen with too much broth and I don't like my noodles overcooked so I rarely go out for ramen, but I enjoy making my own. :)

It was chilly and gray out so ramen sounded SO nice after a long day at work. It definitely hit the spot. :)

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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Post Bake Sale, pre Inception sushi at Kyoto Sushi, Van Ness, SF.

Missooooo.

Cherry Blossom roll - tuna over salmon with avocado roll.

Barracuda - spicy hamachi, green onions, tempura roll.

Poki roll - cold seaweed salad over spicy tuna roll.

Sunset roll - Parmesan cheese, garlic sauce and salmon baked over California roll.

Everything was really good. I really like this place. It had been too long since I was there. The service isn't the quickest, but the food is good and reasonably priced. It was perfect because we had an hour to kill before seeing Inception at AMC Van Ness!

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Food Bloggers Luncheon at Waterbar, Embarcadero, SF.

I was invited out to Waterbar for a food bloggers lunch hosted by We Blog The World and Pearltrees.com.

Waterbar is fun little restaurant between the Ferry Building and the AT&T Ball Park. It has ana amazing view of the Bay Bridge and some lovely aquarium columns in the center of the restaurant. It was the last day of Dine About Town so we had a lovely prix fixe menu (click on the photo to read the text). I love that the menu states who caught the fish!

I enjoyed this presentation of the butter, on a granite tile, with sea salt on top.

Amuse bouche: cold soup shots.

I didn't are so much for this. I like gazpachos, but other than that, I'm not a big chilled soup fan.

Cornmeal Crusted Smelts, endive, radish, green goddess. The smelts were nice, but I didn't care much for the salad and the sauce lacked flavor.

Baby Artichoke Salad, fava beans, sweet peas, Grana Padano.

I think I should have went with this as my first course. :)

Alaskan Halibut, roasted beets, sugar snap peas, orange.

I'm afraid I didn't care mush for this dish either. The fish was cooked fine, but everything was a bit bland. I really enjoyed the texture and crunch of sugar snap peas though and the beets were fine on their own, but none of the flavors were were strong enough to bring the dish together.

Whitefish, broccoli rabe, roasted cherry tomato vinaigrette.

This dish looks more flavorful. I should have gone with this one--darn! :)

Black and White Ice Cream Cake, dulce de leche creme fraiche, bananas.

I will say right now that I 100% chose the right dessert! I loved this. The dulce de leche creme fraiche could have used more flavor, but the ice cream sandwich and fried bananas were divine!

Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble, vanilla ice cream.

I really have to be in the mood for strawberry rhubarb, so this isn't my ideal dessert, but it does look tasty.

BIG thank you, again, to We Blog The World and Pearltrees.com! Everyone, please check them out--seriously, very cool stuff!

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