Hello LilyOnTheLam.Com Readers: I love dim sum - the Chinese mini appetizers brunch - to put an American definition on it. One of my favorite places for dim sum (or yum cha, as it is also called) is East Ocean Restaurant in Sydney, Australia. However because I live in Florida, USA - it's not like I can just hop on down to Sydney whenever a dim sum craving hits. Or at least not until I win a very large lottery! So when I was traveling in San Francisco, I knew I needed to take advantage of the plethora of Asian residents and the proximity of a quality Chinatown for some authentic dim sum. I researched all of the restaurants that were located in the city center. (I was without a car and didn't want to Lyft or Uber my way to the far suburbs where some very notable dim sum restaurants are located.) I finally decided to try Great Eastern Restaurant.
When President Obama was in town, he had dim sum at Great Eastern.
And if a dim sum restaurant is good enough for President Obama, it is definitely good enough for me! The restaurant is large with good, fast, efficient service. The dim sum is ordered via paper menus like you would order sushi. I like when restaurants have the carts of dim sum and you order off the cart, but as long as the dim sum tastes good I am OK with ordering off the menu.
I am a creature of habit when it comes to dim sum. I tend to order the same things over and over again. I choose to think of this as "Classic Lily" versus "Boring Lily." I like to order hot tea, of course.
Barbecued pork buns - soft and fluffy with a sweet, zesty pork filling.
I ALWAYS order radish cakes - gelatinous slices, studded with radish or turnip or taro bits and tiny shrimp, which are pan-fried. I also usually order some kind of dumpling or shu mei. In this case, pork and chive panfried dumplings.
And I prefer soy sauce and red vinegar on my radish cakes.
In tribute to my Grandmother, I love steamed sticky rice wrapped in a leaf. It usually contains chicken or pork and egg.
On this particular occasion, my eyes were bigger than my stomach. I ordered pineapple buns - which in 97% of all cases, do NOT contain any pineapple at all. Sometimes they are custard-filled and sometimes they are plain. The name "pineapple bun" refers to the crunchy coating on top of the bun which is supposed to resemble the outside of a pineapple. I know some places actually started serving these buns stuffed with pineapple jelly because they were probably sick of people complaining that the pineapple bun had no pineapple.
In dim sum, most orders contain 2-4 items - so I did not have the option to get just one pineapple bun. My stomach surrendered and I took these 3 little darlings to go. I ate them in my hotel room later that night when my stomach was in a happier state! I very much enjoyed the dim sum at Great Eastern restaurant. I may not be the President, but the waitstaff treated me very well. It was affordable, tasty, authentic and delicious in a relaxed, lovely atmosphere. It was very much a "Chinatown experience." If you're looking for quality dim sum in Chinatown, San Francisco - check out Great Eastern!
Hello LilyOnTheLam.Com Readers: I am obsessed with good breakfast sandwiches. I remember a million years ago, a woman who will forever be known as "Little Jen" and I worked for a financial institution in St. Paul, Minnesota. Neither of us were enamored with the job, but their cafeteria made amazing breakfast sandwiches on Texas Toasts. Thank goodness no Executive ever asked me what I enjoyed about working for the company, because I would have said "The breakfast sandwiches - and nothing else." I was walking along Haight Street in San Francisco. The Haight street area has so much history and ghosts that it reminds me a lot of Bourbon Street in New Orleans. You can literally feel the ghosts of generations as you walk down the street. (Check out my run in with a ghost in New Orleans in this blog post linked here.) For another great restaurant review in the Haight-Ashbury area, check out my blog post on The Sparrow. As I walked along Haight Street, a small restaurant called "Kate's Kitchen" caught my eye. It looked laid back with a large menu. I was sold. Unfortunately I didn't realize until after I sat down that it was "cash only." The menu looked so good, I wanted to order EVERYTHING. But I'm never one to carry much cash on me, so my breakfast options would be dictated by the price. I ordered a breakfast sandwich with Kate's Kitchen's homemade sausage and hash browns with a cup of mint tea.
The service was friendly. The atmosphere was very chill. The decor laid back - a little grungy, but overall homey. And the FOOD -- ohhhh the toasted bun on the breakfast sandwich was both sweet and savory. The homemade sausage had a nice spice to it, but not overwhelming. The fresh hash browns were crispy with a nice fresh potato flavor. Win, win, win. I didn't have any specific encounters with ghosts as I had breakfast at Kate's Kitchen but I had a very good breakfast sandwich, which is tops in my book! If you're in San Francisco, check out this quaint little joint.
Hello LilyOnTheLam.Com Readers: Well, 2014 is almost over and 2015 is practically on our doorsteps. I work for a company that had a long range vision plan for the year 2015, so for years everything was punctuated with a "In 2015" intense whisper. The seriousness behind how much we were supposed to accomplish and change "by 2015" was like a heavy weight bearing on our backs. It was like we expected to have houses on Mars by then and God help the person who wasn't onboard to make the mission happen. It was very much a "success OR ELSE" feeling to me. And it gave "In 2015" this very weird, otherworldly aura. And now it's almost 2015, will a dreaded doomsday event occur? Who knows? I'm just happy to not have to hear the "terroristic inspiration" of how much we have to achieve by 2015. Ladies and Gentlemen, 2015 is here. Now let's live in it! I was recently in San Francisco, California - where I had briefly lived a million lifetimes ago. If you read my previous post: "A San Francisco State of Mind" you may recall on my last visit I was doing some walking down memory lane and inadvertent second hand smoking marijuana as I strolled down the Haight. I was already in a mood of deep contemplation and examination as I had deja vu recalling the first time I had ever been to Haight-Ashbury a million lifetimes ago. Not only was I thinking about life lessons from my youth, but l was also hungry. (Story of my life.) I walked past a restaurant called Sparrow Bar and Kitchen. The song "His Eye Is On The Sparrow" started up in my head. The lyrics from the song "His Eye Is On The Sparrow": "I sing because I'm happy. I sing because I'm free, for His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me"always moves me very deeply. I felt like this was some sort of sign. I was receiving a lot of spiritual nourishment (and second hand pot smoke) on my meditative walk along The Haight. Now this restaurant seemed like it was tailor-made for a more basic nourishment. The restaurant is adorable with a wall of reading material that has both David Chang's Lucky Peach magazine as well as a "Little Miss Trouble" kids' book. (I have the "Little Miss Bossy" t-shirt, so even though I am 900 years old I still cater to my child self.) The Sparrow Bar and Kitchen has soju cocktails. Their "Blood Orange and Thyme Paloma" screamed "drink me!" I am a sucker for herbs in my drink. Give me a fresh squeezed grapefruit juice and vodka with a salted rim and a big old piece of fresh rosemary and I am in heaven! I don't want to be cheesy and say "You could really taste the thyme!" in this blood orange and thyme paloma. BUT YOU COULD REALLY TASTE THE THYME! It was delicious and I had to physically restrain myself from ordering another.
Also can I just take a moment to give a big cheer to the San Francisco attitude? Like Portland, Oregon, there seems to be a generally relaxed air in the citizens. Which I am not sure why because the traffic and continued need to drive cars up steep hills always stresses me out, but the locals seem to be mellow. (Although maybe that aforementioned pot smoke may be the reason ...) When I entered The Sparrow Bar and Kitchen, I asked the hostess if she had a table near an outlet. I know this isn't Starbucks, it's a lovely restaurant. BUT my phone was dead and I needed to summon an Uber to take me to the airport. (I heart Uber!) The hostess didn't even blink and instead said very nicely "I have one right over here for you." In most any other city, I would have received a heavy sigh, an eye roll and a haughty look of disdain. God bless you, San Francisco. I found all of the service at The Sparrow Bar and Kitchen to be top notch. So thank you not only to the hostess but the bartender and my server as well! I had finished an intense meeting earlier in the day. It was spiritually uplifting but still emotionally taxing. And not to use food as a drug, but this really felt like a time for ... BACON. The Sparrow Bar and Kitchen serves bacon-wrapped Scotch eggs on a bed of frisee with a sauce Cheron (which is basically Hollandaise with more lemon, some tomato paste and thyme.) I love a good Scotch egg and I love anything wrapped in bacon, so I had to order it.
Now most Scotch eggs are horrifically overcooked. A traditional Scotch egg is a hard boiled egg, wrapped in sausage then dredged in bread crumbs and deep-fried. But The Sparrow Bar and Kitchen's Scotch egg was perfectly cooked. Look at the gorgeous deep yellow center. It was lovely. The sauce Cheron had a nice piquant flavor although frankly the egg was so good on its own; it didn't need a sauce. To continue with my bacon theme, I saw a "Dirty BLT" on the menu: candied bacon, goat cheese, peppercorn-spiced remoulade and romaine lettuce on Ciabatta served with hand cut Kennebec fries. Candied bacon? Goat cheese? Ciabatta? Kennebec fries? It's like The Sparrow had his eye on my stomach and created this sandwich just for me.
The Ciabatta roll was the best ciabatta bread I have ever had in my life. I could have put my shoe between the Ciabatta roll and loved every bite. To be fair the candied bacon just tasted like regular bacon to me, but with the goat cheese and the remoulade the sandwich has this custardy, velvety, smoky awesomeness that made me a very happy camper. The sandwich was very hearty. After the bacon-wrapped Scotch egg, I could only eat 1/2 the sandwich. The other half I devoured several hours later on a plane back to Tampa Bay. It held up well! (Thank you, world's best Ciabatta!) The Kennebec fries were delicious, but I couldn't eat all of them. I need a San Francisco Kennebec fries buddy! I wonder if they have a section for "Seeking Pal to Eat Part of my Potatoes" on Craigslist? The Sparrow Bar and Kitchen were top notch in my book. The decor is lovely. The atmosphere is hip but laid-back. The service is incredibly friendly, fast and responsive. The cocktails and food were amazing. Win - win - win. A great lunch in the Haight-Ashbury area. If you are in San Francisco, I highly recommend you check it out. Eating at The Sparrow Bar and Kitchen made me feel the same way I do when I hear Jennifer Holliday singing "His Eye Is On the Sparrow" - happy and uplifted!
As your 2014 comes to a close, I hope you are at peace and filled with joy ... and maybe filled with some bacon too! Thanks for reading!
Hello LilyOnTheLam.Com Readers! If you are a regular reader of "The Lam," you may notice that my posts have not been as frequent as usual. It's not that my adventures have slowed down - as I have been to Houston, NYC, Budapest (twice!), Vienna, Bratislava and San Francisco in the past 2 1/2 months; it's that I have been steering my energy to short term goals. I started a rainbow striped girlie journal back in May 2013. (The cover of the journal is so ridiculously more suited for a 6th grader than a woman of my "advanced years.") For my mental health and stress level, I do my best when I write every day - it's like an unburdening and a soul lightener. Whether it's a blog post, a heart felt note to a dear friend/loved one or a journal entry - I just do better spiritually and emotionally when I spend time writing. But since May 2013, I haven't been dedicating much time to journal entries and frankly I was tired to still be writing in the same darn rainbow striped girlie-looking journal for sooooo long. I was determined that I would have the journal completely filled before 2015. I would NOT be welcoming the new year still writing in this darn girlie journal. So I set a goal for myself to finish writing in all the pages of the "never-ending journal" before 12/31/2014. And then each day I wrote ... and wrote ... and wrote. I will admit that some of the writing occurred while I was binge watching five seasons of "Friday Night Lights." When I watched the first episode I thought "Why was this show so popular? I'm bored. I don't like football. Blah blah." But by the second show I was hooked and then the BINGE began. And on December 7, after many hours of writing and many episodes of "Friday Night Lights;" I finished that darn journal before my deadline. Mission accomplished! At the same time I was doing my "Million steps in 100 days challenge" - which I also completed and am very happy to have stay focused on my goal and met the challenge! Another mission accomplished! One more area that I have been paying more attention to is my lack of reading. I love to read but again it's another area that I have been neglecting. I set a small, achievable goal of reading 12 books in 2014. I have read 16 so far. Bam! Another goal met! I suspect the year 2015 is going to be a continuation of setting short-term goals for myself, staying focused and achieving everything I set out for myself. It may sound boring, but to me it is pretty exciting! However it means less time working on LilyOnTheLam, so forgive me my lack of blog posts lately. I have photos for about 200 blog posts but not a lot of time nor motivation to write them. Perhaps in 2015? I have had the great fortune to have spent some time in San Francisco lately for another project I am working on. It is a place near and dear to my heart. I spent a lot of time in Northern California in my early 20's due to having two relationships who lived there. Had the real estate market prices not gone through the roof, I probably would have moved to San Francisco when I turned 25. However instead I chose Los Angeles - because it was significantly cheaper and warmer. San Francisco has always held this optimistic, lovely, "young love" vibe due to the experiences I have had there in my oh so long ago youth. It's magical to arrive in the city and still feel that sensation after so many many many years. (I am 912 years old now, you know.) This week has especially been "San Francisco on my mind." I had some extra time while I was in San Francisco, so I leisurely walked around the Haight - taking it all in (and I don't mean taking in the secondhand pot smoke - which was impossible not to inhale). This store in the Haight always makes me smile when I see it ... for purely egotistical reasons.
I enjoyed remembering the first time I walked around Haight-Ashbury and how "small town Middle America" I felt. I am much more "worldly" now and yet there still is some level of touristy-commercialistic-anachronistic-otherworldly haze around the Haight that I still adore as if I still had wide, bright eyes.
I was also excited to see that one of my favorite NYC store "Kid Robot" has a store in San Francisco as well.
When I returned home to "my other city by the bay," Tampa Bay - I attended a concert featuring two of my favorite San Francisco bands-- Matt Nathanson and Train. It was a nice way to end my San Francisco trip. Mary Lambert and the East Coast Inspirational Singers also performed at the concert. A fantastic concert. I have seen Mary Lambert perform before, but it was my first time seeing East Coast Inspirational Singers - and they were FABULOUS.
All in all it's been a wonderful week. As we approach this holiday season, I wish all the best of peace, joy and happiness to you all!
My baby sister ("TR") is 17 years younger than I am. When she was maybe 5 or 6 years old, she looked at me with big brown eyes and said "Do you know Mom eats soup every single day?" Our Mother is Chinese and yes, most of the meals she tends to eat come from the meat + veg + broth formula of cooking. I thought back to the last couple days of my Mother's meals and sure enough, she had eaten soup every single day. While I do not eat soup for every meal, my Mother's influence has quite clearly permeated my culinary tastes because I do enjoy a wide variety of soups, stews, chowders... put it in a bowl, hand me a soup spoon and my taste buds are happy!
TR and I have a shared love of San Francisco and a shared love of New England style clam chowder. TR's youth is filled with weekend trips to San Francisco Fisherman's Wharf and also trips to the clam chowder stand in New Orleans Square near Disney's Haunted Mansion at Disney Land in Anaheim, CA. TR cannot say "no" to a gorgeous, lush, golden sourdough bread bowl filled with steaming clam chowder and neither can I. My love of San Francisco stemmed from an early 20-something love affair with a Bad Penny of a guy who was going to school at San Francisco State University. I ended the relationship within a year, but my love for San Francisco and its famous chowder still keeps going after all these years!
(Side Note: If you find yourself in New Orleans Square at Disney Land, head over to Blue Bayou restaurant. It's located inside the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Fantastic atmosphere and delicious food. I wish we had one at Disney World in Florida.)
TR and I took our Mother to San Francisco, CA for Thanksgiving Weekend 2010 as a belated birthday gift. We had a wonderful time sight-seeing, shopping and having a decadent, gluttonous feast of Thanksgiving Dinner at the Ritz-Carlton Nob Hill. However the part of the trip TR and I were most excited for was having a bowl of clam chowder in a sourdough breadbowl near Fisherman's Wharf.
We went to Blue Mermaid Chowder House and Bar at the Argonaut Hotel. I love the decor- nautical without looking run-down or cheesy. I chose the Blue Mermaid because they have a variety of clam chowders - Manhattan, New England, California, Shrimp and Red Pepper, Mussel and Sausage, Dungeness Crab and Clam Chowder. And you can order a sampler and try 3 different kinds. I tried the California chowder which had a swirl of pesto. It was delicious- hearty, satisfying but also with a lighter veggie feel than a traditional thick New England style clam chowder. The sourdough bread bowl was hearty and tasted great with the soup. I also ordered the Parmesan-Garlic Fries - hot, garlicky goodness. (Trivia question: Has Lily on the Lam ever met a Garlic-Parmesan fry that she didn't like? Answer: Hell no!)
I apologize for not taking a picture of the chowder itself, but once I removed the sourdough bread bowl lid my spoon plunged in and the eating commenced! Yum, yum and yum!
Although I was quite satiated by the delicious chowder and fantastic Parmesan-Garlic Fries, I did indulge with some dessert as well. The specials menu had an apple fritter a la mode. There is so much right with that statement - hot apples, deep fried dough, creamy vanilla ice cream. They need to add this to the regular dessert menu. It was tremendous!
Many people's favorite family memories revolve around food. For me, I love that my baby sister and I have a long-running shared memory of clam chowder in sourdough bread bowls. Just a few weeks ago, my sister texted me that she was craving clam chowder in a bread bowl. The text came out of the blue. And suddenly, we were sharing a mutual drool-fest over the thought of dashing off to San Francsico to indulge. I was happy that our lunch at Blue Mermaid added another wonderful moment to our shared history of chowder memories.
