Brodard - The Past Memories - Santa Ana

While in the Santa Ana area this weekend, we had to stop by Brodard for Vietnamese spring rolls. We waited 45 minutes in line to get in but once inside, service was speedy. I've blogged about Brodard before so this will be a quick post to highlight some new items.

Hu tieu kho. This is thicker flat vermicelli, served dry with a side of tomato sauce and broth. At my favorite Vietnamese restaurant in San Jose, they make this dish really well and I was hoping for the same. Sadly, Brodard was a disappointment. Not enough tomato sauce. Wrong noodles. Maybe I just ordered wrong, who knows.

Che Sam Bo Luong - Dessert with sweetened dried medicinal herbs. Sounds gross but its my fave.

Phil's chow mein type dish. 

Banh khot. This is something new we've never had before. Banh khot is like banh xeo dough that's been fried in small half shell shapes stuffed with shrimp and green onions. It is rolled up in some greens and herbs and dipped in fish sauce. Not bad. Tastes just like banh xeo but in a different shape. Too oily though.

We met up with my friend from college, Shawn at The Past Memories, a Korean bar whose name is fitting for reliving past memories with old friends. Phil and I were already stuffed from our Brodard lunch so we just snacked and drank. The food was just ok. The strawberry soju cocktail was nice and sweet. The atmosphere was chill and perfect for small group hangouts. I've been here before and I would go back again.

Brodard on Yelp
Past Memories on Yelp

Laguna Beach Wedding and Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles - Long Beach

Happy Memorial Day! Phil and I spent the weekend in southern California to attend my college friend's wedding. We kicked off our time in Long Beach with a sexy Flex Fuel white Ford Escape. I really liked this car. It was a decently sized SUV and the white was just so nice. I've never considered a white car before, but when someone else washes and maintains it for you. it's just so shiny...

Phil has long heard of Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles in Long Beach and it was on his must-eat list. I've been before and I had my thoughts on it, mostly that it wasn't for me, but I was willing to give it another chance.

Red Rooster hot sauce tastes so good on the chicken.

($3.25) Lisa's Delight - half lemonade half iced tea. This is an Arnold Palmer. No difference. The lemonade was a bit tangier and the tea a bit sweeter but this could just be Roscoe's preference. I liked the drink anyway.

($10.70) Scoe's 1/4 chicken prepared southern style with 2 waffles. Phil chose the breast and thigh pieces, the largest ones. He was so stuffed after this. I can't tell the difference between southern style and any other fried chicken style but Roscoe's was definitely delicious. Salty and crispy skin with moist and juicy meat inside. Even the breast was moist. That's awesome.  

($7.10) Leg and waffle. My portion was a bit smaller but perfect for me. The waffle is the best part. I normally skip the butter on waffles or pancakes but you HAVE to spread the butter on a Roscoe's waffle. It just won't taste the same. Then you drench the top with maple syrup. Each bite tastes like a piece of cake. mmm yummy. Arguably the best waffle I've had. The last time I went to Roscoe's, the guys in my group dared each other to down the syrup as a shot. Please do not do this, ever. It's just a terrible idea all around.

Stuffed and satisfied! Highly recommend, definitely coming back. We went around 11AM on a Sunday and the wait was not long at all. The food is very heavy and filling so don't order too much. Portions are large.

Roscoe's in Long Beach on Yelp (there are multiple locations in SoCal)

Here are some shots of the lovely ocean view wedding. Congrats to Mr. and Mrs. M. I had a great time reconnecting with my college housemates. Apt 76 forever!!!

Chicken skewers

Stuffed mushroom caps

Spinach dip crostini

Buffet style entree: strawberry and mixed greens salad, grilled veggies, angel hair pasta, chicken penne pasta, chicken piccatta, excellent tri-tip slices with BBQ sauce.

Red Velvet cake. This was the suitcase portion of the cake. The figurines were vanilla cake, I think.

His and hers chocolate dipped strawberries

Hope you had a great Memorial Day weekend too. What did you do this weekend?

St. John's Bar and Grill - Santa Clara - and Turducken At Home

Phil's birthday weekend passed recently and we had a good time celebrating with friends and family. We went to St. John's Bar and Grill for a Saturday happy hour which featured half off burgers! Yay!All pricing below is based on happy hour pricing. Double the cost for regular price. 

(~$3.90) Mushroom 1/3 lb burger. The burger is a bit plain but with their variety of ketchups to dress it up, it becomes delicious. They offered curry ketchup, chipotle ketchup, regular ketchup, and mustard. 1/3lb is a sizable and filling amount.

(~$3.90) Cajun burger, also 1/3 lb. This thing was fantastic. The cajun seasoning was in the burger so each bite contained a spicy and smoky taste. I couldn't even finish this thing. Every burger came with a bag of chips.

($4.75) Garlic Fries. These fries were just ok. They don't beat the Gordon Biersch stadium fries at the San Jose Giants games, but garlic fries are garlic fries, you can't go wrong. I dipped these in the variety of ketchups mentioned earlier. My favorite was the chipotle ketchup and Phil's was the curry ketchup.I would definitely go back to St. John's. The atmosphere was chill for larger group hangouts and you can't beat these burger prices and options. The ketchups alone are worth a visit.

St. John's on Yelp

On Sunday for a celebration with his family, we finally cooked up the turducken in our freezer. We received this from our brother and sister in law for Christmas and haven't had a chance to cook it. Turkey is supposed to last at least 1 year in the freezer.

A turducken is duck meat stuffed inside chicken which is stuffed inside turkey. Our turducken was deboned and came in cajun seasoning.

The packaging direction said to bake at 325, covered, for 3 hours and 30 mins and then another 30 mins uncovered. I challenge that last 30 minutes cooking uncovered because our bird turned out a bit dry.

Phil really wanted to try these Annie's mac and cheese packages that were on sale. He made white cheddar and aged cheddar. I'm a bigger fan of the white cheddar but the aged cheddar disappeared faster.

Here is a plate of the carved turducken. I believe the duck was chopped up and stuffed inside the chicken. I didn't see whole duck pieces otherwise but these chunks tasted very duck-like. Other than the turkey and chicken being a little dry, it wasn't too bad. The stuffing and duck meat were really good. The gravy that our aunt made from the jus was awesome and very cajun-y.

These are the sides from left to right: aged cheddar mac and cheese, green beans with pesto sauce, roasted organic carrots, garlic mashed potatoes from the box, white cheddar mac and cheese.

It felt like Thanksgiving in May. Happy family days!

Bun Rieu

My mom's bun rieu is my favorite Vietnamese soup of all time. Yes, it trumps pho by a long shot. Bun rieu is a Vietnamese crab noodle soup served with split ong choy stalks and leaves and sometimes with escargot. Today I attempted to make bun rieu for the first time.

The pork broth was made by simmering 1lb of pork spare ribs with 4-5 cups of water, some sauteed garlic, and 4 large dried shrimp with peel on. I cooked it for about 3 hours total on medium. You only need 1.5 hours but I was hoping to draw out more of the flavor from the shrimps.

Here's the broth halfway through cooking.

Here's the broth after adding tomatoes, canned crab, and crab paste (pictured below). I also added fish sauce, sugar, and shrimp paste to taste in order to balance the flavors. 

 Here are all the ingredients named above + vermicelli for later.

I deep fried some silken tofu. It should be the firmer tofu because silken is too soft but this was all we had on hand. It holds up decently though. It takes about 10 minutes to fry a batch in vegetable oil.

 

Here's the final set up. My bowl of bun rieu with rau moung (ong choy veggie), green onions, lime wedges, and more shrimp paste. 

How did it taste? Pretty good. A very decent and noble first try. It didn't give me the sort of joy that my mom's version did but I will get there one day. I love putting in so much rau moung and then adding piping hot broth so that it cooks the stems into a soft noodle texture. I definitely need to split my rau moung into finer strands. I'm also missing bean sprouts and a handful of fresh herbs. There is something missing from my broth and seasoning. A few more experiments should help me figure it out. In the meantime, if you want a good recipe, of course, refer to the Ravenous Couple for their bun rieu recipe. Their recipe calls for a ground pork and crab ball mixture that is often served with this dish at restaurants too. That is pretty good but not needed. Since I'm not a huge fan of pork, I opted not to try making it and prefer to just load up my broth with crab meat.

Bo Luc Lac - Vietnamese cubed beef over tomatoes and watercress

Using a handful of the watercress from our watercress soup ingredients, I made this bo luc lac dish for the following night. Most people translate this to "shaken" beef because "luc lac" means the sound or movements of the cubes shaking back and forth. Let's be honest though, there's no shaking really, just stirring so let's call cubed beef what it is. It's not exactly something new as this style of marinade is my default for beef but the presentation on a bed of watercress, tomatoes, and onions in a vinaigrette gives it a refreshing spin.

Ever since the blogger platform stopped using Picnik as its photo editing tool, I lost the ability to rotate my pictures. What a shame blogger...I may migrate away from you soon...

Anyway, Phil made a quick seafood scrambled egg and we served the bo luc lac dish with brown rice and some leftover papaya salad. You can use this recipe from the Ravenous Couple for bo luc lac. They always do a good job. But if your family has a tried and true recipe that's different, it's great to learn from family too. My mom used to make this often for our family and sometimes she would use lettuce instead of watercress because some people find it too bitter. The marinade can always be tweaked and the vinaigrette can be changed too.