Brenda's French Soul Food - San Francisco

Greetings! It has been a long while since I updated the blog. The eating and cooking has not stopped but documenting the food has slowed down. Long story short, changes happened to my schedule and the portion control diet is not faring well. Take for example, my trip to Brenda's French Soul Food in San Francisco.

I met up with Sherry, who has a beautiful blog that she doesn't share to the world *ahem*, for a popular brunch place in San Francisco. We discussed how brunch as a concept is really popular in large cities like SF and NY most likely due to the population of young city dwellers. In suburban San Jose most people spend their weekends at home with family or on outings so the market for a good brunch restaurant is not in high demand. What a pity because if brunch was always as good as Brenda's I would like to have it locally too.

($2.75) Sweet watermelon house tea. Judging by the name, this could have been a hit or miss. Luckily it was a huge hit. It tastes like sweet iced tea with shreds of dried watermelon at the bottom. I've been rummaging Pinterest like crazy looking for a satisfactory recipe.

($8.00) Crawfish beignet. Much larger than your usual dessert beignets and filled with a creamy gooey crawfish and cheddar center, surrounded by fluffy beignet dough, then the icing on the cake was the thick layer of cayenne and I'm sure there was paprika too on top. These alone are worth a visit to Brenda's.

($12.00) Shrimp and grits. This was pretty delicious also but I'm not a huge fan of grits, especially when its mixed in with mucho cheese. A few bites of cheesy goodness is enjoyable but a whole bowl isn't as manageable. The portion was large too.

($11.00) Hangtown fry. This was basically an omelet with crispy fried oysters, scallions, and bacon and a side of potatoes and a biscuit. Like the shrimp and grits, too much of this proved to be tiresome. The first 1/3 of the omelet was delicious with the crispy oyster providing a nice salty crunch and the bacon delivering its usual fatty goodness. After that first third, the magic wore off and all I could think of was oil and fat and a big hunk of the same taste.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS

I highly recommend Brenda's for the watermelon tea and the beignets. The other dishes were great too. The portions are large and perhaps if I wasn't walking around the city all day, I would have taken everything in a to go box and eaten smaller portions later. The large portions probably wore off the initial excitement from the first few bites of each dish because intense flavors need to be taken slowly especially if it's too rich, creamy, or oily. This was one example of how I couldn't manage my portion control or my eating schedule. I was walking around SF the entire day so I couldn't carry too many snacks other than trail mix. Brunch was my only meal before dinner so I overate to ensure I wouldn't get hungry later. Yup...the portion control diet is going down the pooper as the month draws to a close.

Brenda's on Yelp

Euro Grill - Santa Clara

Recently, I met up with some friends and had a chance to try Mediterranean food at Euro Grill, a new mom and pop restaurant in Santa Clara. Euro Grill is located right near campus at the corner of a residential neighborhood. The building looks like a converted apartment from the outside and the inside is cozy, clean, and bright. The restaurant connects to Euro Market which is a small supermarket owned by the same peolple.

($7.99) Gyro: The portion was huge on this one. I was very happy with my order. I've had a mundane experience with gyros before at a shop in my undergraduate college town. This gyro more than makes up for my lowly opinion of gyros. The portion was huge. The description does not say what type of meat this is. My guess would be well seasoned lamb. The meat was tender and soft. The crunchy but soft on the inside bread held a mix of the meat, tomatoes, greens, onions, and yogurt sauce. This also came with a side of fries. This dish was spectacular and I would love to have it again. I only ate about 1/3 of it (you know, the portion control and all) but Phil and I finished the rest later and it was still good.

($8.99) Sarma: cabbage rolls stuffed with beef and rice, servied with mashed potatoes. I was able to try a piece of my friend's sarma and it was also really lovely. Just as interesting in seasoning and spices. The beef on the inside was soft and I was very surprised that the cabbage leaves held together. I would totally get this next time too.

($8.99) Goulash: lamb and beef stew served with mashed potatoes on the side. Ok so I am disappointed I didn't try either friend's mashed potatoes because they look pretty delicious and creamy in these photos. I also tried a bite of this stew with the house bread and it was excellent. I love the fall off the bone type of texture in stews. Who likes a chewy stew? No one...

OVERALL IMPRESSION

Service was attentive and comforting. We were served by a man who seemed like the owner of the restaurant. He had the attitude about him that he seemed to really care about your dining experience, which I attribute to what happens when you are personally invested in the restaurant's well being. The food, well the pictures speak for themselves. Prices were decent. Portions were huge. Taste was even greater. It's always a win in my book when I can eat lamb and not hate it. I have strong suspicions that my gyro had lamb in it and I didn't mind at all. A+, highly recommend.

Euro Grill on Yelp

Winner of the Giveaway

I am pleased to announce that the winner of the OXO 5lb Food Scale is Shawn! See above for how I picked the winner using Random.org. Congratulations Shawn and thank you to everyone who participated. I hope to be able to give away more freebies in the future.

Portion Control Diet Update:

Phil has been running, doing ab work, and shooting hoops a few days a week. It's really paid off because he lost 3lbs so far! He has definitely been cutting back on the portions although following the eating every 2-3 hours plan hasn't been so easy at work. I'm just glad that he isn't eating one or two very large meals a day and there have been at least 3 regular portion sized meals each day. 

For me, I haven't stepped on the scale because I already started at a good weight and I am not concerning myself with the pounds. I've been getting back into running every weekend. The last few weekends I've been running a little under 4 miles for 2 days a week. I'm starting training for half marathon distance (13 miles). It would be really helpful if I could run every other day but with night classes, so far I run on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday back to back which is not doing so well for my knees. I am really frustrated with my busy schedule. It doesn't allow me to do the things I want when I want. On the positive side, I have become accustomed to eyeballing the correct portion sizes and the meal plans have been easy to keep up with during the work day. Packing a PB&J sandwich for class has been really helpful in keeping me from getting hungry throughout class. Recall that I used to pack salads and then get so hungry I round off the meal with a bunch of cookies. At least I don't do that anymore.

Last Call for the 5lb Food Scale Giveaway

Sunday dinner is usually when we get creative and get rid of leftovers in the fridge because trash day is on Monday morning and food that has gone bad or cannot be eaten needs to be thrown. After evaluating our fridge tonight, I made the following dishes.

Broccoli stem salad. This was made by using a vegetable peeler to peel the skin off broccoli stems and slicing them into cross sections. You're not going to get all the skin off because of the nooks and crannies but try to get as much off as possible because it tastes bitter. I added finely minced garlic then sprinkled the entire thing with plenty of sea salt. You can be heavy handed on the salt because all you need is for the salt to draw the moisture out of the broccoli and create a quick brine. Let is brine for 1 hr at least and then toss with Korean pepper powder and some lime juice.

(source) I quickly blanched a bundle of choy sum and cut the bundle into thirds.

Egg noodle soup with fish balls, shrimp, choy sum, and eggs

Directions

1 boiled egg, sliced

3 oz of shrimps

3-4 fish balls, halved

5-6 stems of choy sum, blanched and cut into thirds

Chicken stock, mine is home made but you can use canned

1. Sautee fish balls and shrimp in a little vegetable oil and garlic until halfway cooked
2. Add vegetable stock, I don't know how much but eyeball enough to fill your bowl
3. Let this broth simmer on medium-high while you prepare the next steps
4. In a separate pot of boiling water, dip your noodles in for 10 seconds then drain and rinse with cold water
5. In your bowl, put in the greens and noodles
6. Add shrimp, fish balls, and broth from step 3 to your bowl
7. Garnish with sliced eggs
8. Eat with Sriracha sauce!

 *My homemade chicken broth was already seasoned with fish sauce. If you are using canned chicken broth, you can season using a combo of fish sauce and soy sauce to taste. We did not follow any portion control rules for tonight's meal because noodle soup doesn't fall into any of the classic categories. Also the broth can get you very full but it will digest fast so eating a small portion will not be enough. Just use your own judgment when making your portion.

Sunday's noodles were actually inspired by Saturday's failed dinner attempt. 

(~$4 per bag of 2 servings) I have always been curious to try the pre-made cold noodle packets from the Korean store. Judging by their elaborate airplane food, I trust Korean instant noodles to be a complete meal and this pack just looked so interesting I had to buy it.

Inside the packet, you get enough for 2 servings. 2 packets each of soba, cold broth, mustard powder, hot pepper paste.

After cooking the soba for 1 minute in hot water, straining and rinsing with cold water, everything else was ready to be assembled. It was as easy as placing it in the bowl, adding the cold broth, pepper paste, and mustard powder. I added green onions and boiled egg. For the most part, the noodle was ok but the mustard powder was too much. I put the entire packet in and it was the equivalent of eating wasabi flavored broth. Next time, I wouldn't put any mustard powder, not even a little. Aside from the mustard powder, soba was a too chewy and the dish itself had a one dimensional taste and texture. There's only so much chewy noodles in cold broth without any meat or greens that I can eat. We gave up after less than half the bowl and went out for a journey to find popcorn chicken. We drove to 3 different Quickly boba shops before finding one with popcorn chicken. The second shop was not selling any fried snacks that day because they ran out of oil. How do you run out of oil!?! Anyway, the moral of the story is do not eat things with mustard powder.

OXO 5LB FOOD SCALE GIVEAWAY ENDS AT MIDNIGHT. LAST CHANCE TO ENTER.

Portion Control Diet - Mid-week Update

This week is all about fish, mainly salmon. Lucky sold salmon on sale for $5.99/lb so I bought a tray home and segmented it into 5oz filets, prepacked for the week. The portion size is actually 3oz but I didn't want smaller flakey pieces of salmon after it was cooked so I cut 5oz filets instead.

Directions: 

Sprinkle the salmon filet with salt and pepper

Sear on an oiled pan on high heat on belly side first for 2-3 minutes, then skin side for 2-3 minutes. Then one minute on the other sides. Remove from heat and pour on the teriyaki sauce from this recipe. I had to dilute with more water because the original recipe was too strong and imbalanced.

(Under $2) I discovered these salted seaweed stem packets from the Korean market because they were on sale. I had no clue what to make from it but started experimenting. I've never blogged about my first try but this is my second try and it was pretty tasty. 

Seaweed Salad

Directions:

1. Rinse the seaweed in water until all the salt is gone.I only soaked it for 40 mins because I didn't have time but you can soak it overnight for better results.
2. Cut the stems into small sections. They come really long so cutting it will be easier to eat.
3. Add chopped: woodear mushrooms, shitake mushrooms, rehydrated dried cucumber 
4. Add sesame oil, sesame seeds, kochookaru (Korean pepper powder), soy sauce - all to taste
5. Sautee chopped garlic and onions in sesame oil
6. When onion is translucent, add your seaweed mixture. Sautee for 10 minutes.
7. Remove from heat and toss with tomatoes and lettuce.
8. Add ponzu sauce and lemon juice to taste. Balance with more soy sauce if you need to.

I less than successfully tried the teriyaki sauce on Alaska Cod the night before. I followed the directions exactly and the sauce was too intense. Diluting with water helped when it came time to cook the salmon. The sides are shredded carrots and mushrooms steamed with chicken broth and seasoned with salt and pepper.

 My friend TP gave me a loaf of homemade wheat bread in portion friendly sizes so I could pack PB&J sandwiches for class. Yummy! This looks like a child's lunch.

Don't forget, I am drawing a winner at random for the OXO 5lb foodscale after midnight on April 15. Remember to enter by then. 

Portion Control Diet - Weekend Update

 Tonight marks the conclusion of our first week out of 4 weeks on the portion control diet. I already sense that this will become a lifestyle change after 4 weeks because I don't see us going back to eating the same large portions at odd times again. It's been a good week so far, let me show you in pictures.

 If anyone is curious about how the Korean spicy chicken turned out, here it is. I made 2 chicken tacos of about 1.5oz of chicken each for dinner in class.

Also important to note that we have switched over to brown rice. Brown rice is more nutritious and supposedly provides more calories on a smaller amount. Phil never took a liking to the wild purple rice I tried but he really likes the brown rice so I'm glad this was an easy sell to him.

Brown rice with beef marinated in oyster sauce, sesame oil, sesame seeds, corn starch, soy sauce, chilli sauce. Service with a side of steamed broccoli dipped in a soy sauce and chili garlic sauce mix.

We ended the weekend with a meal of swai fillet, a cut of fish very new to the both of us. According to Wikipedia, "Vietnamese catfish cannot be legally marketed as catfish in the US, and is subsequently referred to as swai or basa." That's crazy! If this is true, my parents eat swai all the time.

 In the discount section, Safeway sold 1lb of swai for $3.99 with 50% off so we got the tray above for about $2. I am wary of purchasing meat and seafood from the discount section but I figure if it still looks fresh and you have time to prepare it within 1-2 days, it should be ok to consume. Phil cut roughly 5oz pieces for us both. I didn't eat the whole piece. The tray will make 3 meals for us.

Phil actually took the initiative to make dinner with the fish and it was delicious. He marinated the fish for a few hours with black bean garlic sauce. Then he sauteed some zucchini and mushrooms in olive oil and more of the black bean garlic sauce. After transferring the vegetables to a separate bowl, he cooked the fillets on medium for 6-8 minutes (by his estimation but be sure to just check your fillet as its cooking). Finally he turned  the heat on high for the last 1 minute on each side. Now that we know the taste and texture of swai and that it is a catfish, I have some other ideas on how to prepare it for the future and swai will definitely be a fish to eat again.

One more week to enter for the OXO 5lb food scale giveaway. Please remember to like my page on Facebook AND fill out the form below.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Portion Control Diet Day 2 and 3

NOTE:
For the OXO 5lb food scale giveaway, liking San Jose Food Blog's Facebook page but not filling out the form below does not count as an entry. Also, filling out the form but not liking the page does not count either. Please do both. Like the page to help support me. =) And fill out the form so I can verify your entry. Not everyone who is a fan is interested in receiving the scale so I can't assume you want one just because you are a fan of the page. Thanks for all your support!


Ngoc's Diary

Day 2's lunch, dinner, and snacks. And it still wasn't enough!

Day 2 was my first day having evening class while on the diet. As expected, it was tough. The 3PM snack didn't feel like enough so I snacked intermittently between 3 and 9PM. I made healthy snack choices like fruits and veggies but by the end of class, my brain had that headache from lack of sustenance. 9PM I ate a dinner of the correct proportions and by midnight bedtime, my stomach was growling. It is already proving difficult to maintain the diet's proportions and schedule on class days.
Day 3, no class today and the proportions are ok but last night's midnight hunger is taking its toll. Gave in to a craving and had half a glazed donut at 2:30PM which is not the correct snack time but I'm ok with this proportion of sweets.Cooking and packing lunch is still such a thought process. I am now considering adding a 5th eating time which is a snack either before or after breakfast.

Phil's Diary
Day 2 and 3: I have not been so good these two days. Didn't work out much. Meals were larger than usual and I did not have snacks. (This could be due to the fact that Ngoc started school and isn't home to cook for me- as speculated by Ngoc)

Weighing Chicken
It's becoming tedious to weigh out 3oz of every protein before I cook so I've decided to weigh the entire batch, then use the total weight to determine how many meals the batch should last me.

 For visual demonstration, this is roughly 3oz of chicken thighs.

I am marinating the thighs for tomorrow's dinner. Marinade recipe (rough measurements):

 Half a cup of Korean spicy chicken & pork marinade

3 cloves of chopped garlic

1.5 teaspoon of pineapple chunks and its juice

2 shakes of garlic powder

2 teaspoons of chopped green onion

a splash of fish sauce (optional)

This weighed out to be 19oz of marinated chicken thighs. For this experiment, I will assume that raw protein and cooked protein weigh roughly the same because I do not want to weigh my cooked food. One serving of cooked chicken for me is 3oz, 6oz for him. By these assumptions, this bowl of marinated chicken should last us two meals. 

Phil: 6oz + 6oz

Ngoc: 3oz + 3oz

...with one ounce to spare, hmm who will fight for the last morsel?!?!

Portion Control Diet Day 1

Ngoc's Diary:
This is what I packed for work today.

I had a fruit and yogurt parfait with granola at 9:30PM and that was filling enough. According to Webmd, a serving size of cooked rice should be half a cup or the size of a light bulb. I accidentally packed what felt like a bit over 1 cup. A serving of chicken should be 3oz or about the size of a deck of cards. I estimated this to be one large drumstick. I managed to save myself by splitting up my lunch into two portions, eating half at 12:30PM and the other half at 3:30PM. With the new schedule, I didn't feel hungry throughout the day but I also wanted to eat more out of habit. It's an odd feeling to finish eating my lunch in 15 minutes and just twiddle my thumbs for the remainder of the time.
I did this workout this morning. It took 15 minutes.

Source: backonpointe.tumblr.com via San on Pinterest

 Phil's Diary as paraphrased by Ngoc:
Today my first meal was at 10:30AM and my last meal was dinner at 8:00PM. I had a scoop of green beans and one piece of chicken cordon bleu, scraping off the crust of the chicken. My snacks were probably larger than they should have been but I am still getting used to the new portions. For lunch I had 2 egg mcmuffins. Before dinner, I squeezed in a 20-30 minute Insanity workout which I haven't done in a while, it was good.

Tonight's Dinner:
I am finally making use of the scale to prep tonight's dinner. I've defrosted some steak and before cooking, I cut 3oz servings. I think 3oz is enough for me but as Phil is a male and much larger than me, he will get 6oz. Vegetables are measured in cups so I eyeballed a baseball size worth for me and double that for Phil. Half cup of rice for me and full cup for him. 

Can you believe 3oz is only that much? This is supposedly the size of a deck of cards. The scale is very easy to use. I wrap the top with Saran wrap, then measured out all my portions of meat and at the end just tossed the Saran wrap. Today I cooked for 4 people because my sister and her bf came over for dinner and dinner was at 8PM instead of 6PM.

This was my portion. Not all my steaks were exactly 3oz but they were close. I eyeballed a light bulb sized portion of rice and a baseball sized portion of veggies. This actually got me pretty full but I digested it quickly. Since dinner was so late, we omitted the 9PM snack. It is 11PM now and I am a little bit hungry.

Don't forget to enter below to win your own 5lb food scale!

OXO 5lb Food Scale Giveaway + Portion Control Diet

Phil and I love OXO products as you can tell from my egg beater, vegetable peelers, POP containers, salad spinner, and 15 piece kitchen tool set. I wouldn't mind a whole kitchen organized by OXO and decked out with their tools. Our latest edition to the OXO family is the 5lb food scale, courtesy of an OXO + Foodbuzz blogger giveaway.

---
PORTION CONTROL DIET CHALLENGE

Busy school and work lives lead us to eat odd quantities at odd hours. Most weeks, I cook 2-3 times a week and cook large portions that last for the rest of the week. I pack an obscene amount of food for work because it must last me for lunch and for dinner on campus. Sometimes the dinner of salad on campus is not fulfilling and I make up the stomach space with cookies or a late meal at 10PM when I get home. Phil sometimes eats only 1-2 meals a day and very large quantities during each sitting. I find that no matter how hard we work out and how much I try to stock the fridge with clean foods, our results are counteracted by portions and schedules. Another issue is budget, which has been mentioned many times before. Bad food is also cheap food.

When I received the 5lb Food Scale from OXO to review, I immediately thought this could be our first step into fixing the portion and schedule part of our diet problems. The rules of the experiment are simple:

1. Start: April 2, end: April 30
2. Eat every 2-3 hours. Suggested times are:
• 9AM: breakfast
• 12PM: lunch
• 3PM: snack
• 6PM: dinner
• 9PM: snack
3. Follow portion control guidelines from these websites. I am not strictly predetermining the rules for portion control because we eat Asian foods and will have to determine our portions on a case by case basis.
• http://www.choosemyplate.gov/
• http://www.webmd.com/diet/healthtool-portion-size-plate
• recommended servings on food packaging 
4. Exercise when we can. Realistically, for my schedule it would be 15-30 minute work outs during the weeknights and running on weekends. For Phil, the schedule is about the same but with random flexibility to do longer workouts during the weeknights.

 

Phil's starting weight: 167.7lbs

Ngoc's starting weight: 97.7lbs

We are actually happy with our current weight but not our shape. There could be more tightening and toning going on.

 ----

OXO GIVEAWAY

I received a second 5lb food scale to give away to one lucky reader. The retail value of this food scale is $29.99. It has a pull out display in case your bowl or measuring container obstructs your view of the reading. It can measure in ounces or grams. Stay tuned for my review of the food scale during the next 4 weeks. We plan to measure meat, poultry, and seafood portions. 

You can enter to win the 5lb food scale by liking San Jose Food Blog on Facebook. It's that simple! Please like my page on Facebook then enter the form below so I can verify your entry. Contest ends at midnight on April 15. Open to US entries only.