Bikkuri Donkey

I needed to meet Renee in Dotonbori to pick-up Jo (her son) for an overnighter.  Jo is Luke's buddy from church.  They (Renee and kids) just moved to Australia earlier this month. It was a farewell sleep over together.  Since we were in Dotonbori, we decided to eat lunch together at Bikkuri Donkey.  This is one of my favorite restaurants in Japan!

JoAnn, I'm sure you remember this restaurant.  We used to eat there after church for lunch.  It's a chain.  Each shop has a theme to their interior.  In Sakai the theme is pirates.  In Wakayama (at the shop we ate at) the theme is Miami Vice.  (Do you remember that?)  In Dotonbori the theme is miners.  It's always a surprise and fun.

The menu in all the shops is the same--Japanese hamburg.  

I had the oroshi hamburg.  It's my favorite.  It is, basically, a hamburger patty topped with grated daikon and a ponzu/soy sauce.  It's yummy.  It comes with rice and a daikon salad.
Luke had the hamburg with cheese on top (at the very top of the photo) and Jo had the plain hamburg.  They shared a plate of french fries.
So delicious.  BTW, don't you just love the name of this restaurant--Bikkuri Donkey.  Literally translated, "surprise donkey".  As far as I know, the hamburg is made from real ground beef, not donkey.

CreoLa, San Carlos, CA

After whining about not doing anything special for Valentine's Day, Rick finally got the hint and made reservations at a Cajun/Creole restaurant called CreoLa: A New Orleans Bistro. We had gone there a couple of years back but didn't have a chance to come back until this year.

Gran-Gran (my mom) and bro babysat Emi-chan while Rick and I were gone. A diaper mishap made us a little late, but the maitre d' quickly seated us with a smile and didn't grumble. The restaurant was very dark. Probably to put the patrons in a romantic mood, but because of that, none of the pictures I took came out very well, even with a flash, hence no pictures of the food. Oh, well.

They had a 4 course Valentine's Day prix fixe tasting menu which I was a little nervous about because it was mostly seafood. For those of you who know me well, I don't do seafood very well. BUT to my surprise, I LOVED everything I had, ESPECIALLY the seafood items.

This is what we had that evening (sorry, I forgot what some of the items were called):

Rick:
Starter: BOLT deep fried oysters with bacon and ??? (Whatever was in it, they were awesome)
Second course:Fennel and crab Bisque (Yummm)
Third course: Grilled Grouper and ??? stuffing (The sauce was really rich and tasty)
Dessert: Chocolate and Peanut butter mousse with a short bread crust (So dense! So sweet! So good with coffee!)

Linda:
Starter: Dungeness crab cake (I could have licked the plate clean)
Second course: Salad with sweet vinaigrette and praline ??? (The vinaigrette was wonderful. Not too tart, not too sweet)
Third course: Shrimp and crab pie (I loved it! It was supposed to be crawdads and shrimp, but the crawdads weren't good, so the chef made a substitution)
Dessert: Beignet with fresh fruit, mango sauce, and whipped cream (I got only 2 little baby beignets. I could have eaten 5 more)

I think this is one of our favorite restaurants. The food is fantastic, the service is great. Only thing is we probably only go once a year because it isn't a cheap eats place. I think that makes it even more special.

Mini Cupcakes

Today, I visited a bakery called Chocolate Mousse in San Carlos. Once upon a time, it was called Chocolate Mousse, then Vivaldi's, then Vivaldi's Bakery and Cafe, then back to Chocolate Mousse. A little confusing. Rick and I got our wedding cake there when the bakery was called Vivaldi's. But I digress. I was specifically looking for cupcakes. When I got there, there wasn't much to in the display cases. I think I got there a little before closing. There were a few yummy looking pieces of cakes, cookies, a few pastries, and one display case full of Valentine's chocolates. After peeking around for a bit, I saw that they had a couple of trays of cute little mini cupcakes. Since I was in a bit of a hurry, I didn't ask what flavors they carried. I just picked 3 that appealed to me. And here they are:

Since I don't know what each one is called, I just called them: Choco chip, Lemon, and Pinky

I liked the lemon flavored one the best. It wasn't too sweet, nor was it too sour. The pink one was a little too sweet. The cake on all 3 were not dry. Yeah! I hate dry cake.

Here is Emi-chan eating the frosting off her cupcake. Just the frosting. She left the cake. She doesn't know what she's missing.

Chocolate Filled Malasada

I had my first malasada (Portuguese fried donut) 3 years ago at Leonard's in Honolulu. I loved it. Hot. Fluffy. Sweet. Not oily at all despite being deep fried. I probably could have had a couple more but I was full from eating (Rick and I were taken on an eating tour by some friends). Since then, I've kept an eye out for someone or someplace that carries/makes malasadas. Unfortunately, no luck.

I had practically given up on finding malasadas on my own, when one day, when I was browsing through the freezer section at Takahashi Market when I saw them! A box of frozen malasadas! And they're chocolate filled! I practically dropped Emi-chan to get into the freezer. I was ecstatic! But wary, too. I took my box up to the check out counter to ask the 2 young guys working if they had tried them. Their reaction was this: "These are awesome!" "I can eat a whole box myself." "Whoa! Check it out. We got chocolate ones. We gotta try these." And so on. I was encouraged.

Once I got the malasadas home, I had to try one. I microwaved one for a few seconds and it was still frozen. I put it back in for almost a minute and I got molten lava in the middle. I had to wait a couple of days to let my tongue heal from the burns.

Finally, I got it right. Warm. Moist. Sweet. The chocolate wasn't too sweet, but not bland, either. A little oily, but not too bad. It was good. Not as good as Leonard's, but still very satisfying. I'll have to see if they get in the regular ones and try them out.

Looks like a brown egg...

It's chocolate, no yolk!

Chambord Whipped Cream

Oh yum. I've had my whipped cream maker for, like, 5 years and I'm finally experimenting with flavored whipped cream. What, oh what, took me so long!?

Anyways, tonight it was chambord. Chambord is a raspberry liqueur that I used to be slightly obsessed with (for at least 2 Christmases, Santa brought me a bottle!). I'm not so obsessed with it now, but I do still like it.

Anyways, it's really good. Interestingly, the kahlua took just 2 teaspoons to flavor the whipped cream, but the chambord took more like 6. Honestly, I stopped counting and just started pouring until it tasted good. It gave the whipped cream a slightly fruity taste, with a kick at the end.

I will continue to experiment and keep you updated!

Bubba Gump Shrimp

The kids boat.

The shrimp linguine.

The chocolate chip cookie ice cream dessert.

For my birthday each year we eat out at a restaurant of my choice.  I always choose an "American-style" restaurant, as there are not many in the area.  This year I chose the Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant in the Osaka Universal City Walk.  It was our first time to eat there.

It proved to be a lot of fun.  The atmosphere is very "western" and it felt like we could be eating in any West Coast American restaurant.  I love shrimp, so I ate the shrimp linguine.  It was delicious and had lots of butter.  Luke chose the kids boat which was fried chicken and french fries.  Michael had the shrimp boat which was fried shrimp and french fries.  I noticed a theme--no vegetables and high cholesterol.  I guess it's good that we go there only once every couple of years.  

For dessert we decided to try the chocolate chip cookie topped with ice cream.  In our minds we imagined the yummy dessert at BJ's (pizza place).  Sorry to say, we were a bit disappointed.  But it made a nice substitute birthday cake for dessert.