Coco Lounge

We decided to treat ourselves this weekend. This is hopefully the last restaurant review we'll be posting for a while, as we seem to be treating ourselves an awful lot lately. Additionally, I've decided to make a bit of a personal investment and buy myself a netbook. I'll post more on that decision later, when it arrives and I can take photos.

So, on Saturday night we went out for a nice dinner with friends. We decided to finally try Coco Lounge, a chocolate-themed French bistro that turns into three separate nightclubs after 10PM. Christine had been to the nightclub numerous times, but never to the restaurant.

 Checking out the menus.

The food was exquisite. Not everything on the menu has chocolate in it, but a lot of surprising items do. Let me start at the beginning of our meal:

The sharing appetizer.

Brandon ordered the Charcuterie to start. The meats were subtle, and a great combination with the sides: pickles, caramelized onions and a cheese that was similar to parmasean. 

Christine's appetizer.

Christine ordered pumpkin risotto with some apple-smoked pork shoulder. She let us each have a taste, the risotto was amazing. 

Being a chocolate-themed restaurant, they had a long list of chocolate martinis. I decided to order one called "The Sexual," at the recommendation of our waiter. He said it's both delicious, and super fun to describe. The description he gave had us all busting at the seams with laughter - it was slightly dirty, but still informative about the crafting of the drink, which of course was phenomenal. 

Delicious beverage.

We each decided, for our main courses, to be a little more adventurous than we normally would. When we first sat down, I was considering holding back and getting a light salad, but once I started to read the various chocolate-themed items on the menu, I couldn't pass up the experience. So, I'll take this moment to admit: we indulged. But I promise we're not going out to eat again for a looooong while!

My main course: the filet mignon.

I ordered the filet Mignon, and I ordered it rare.  It came with a bittersweet chocolate sauce, and two different types of pureed potatoes. It was... there are no words. It was quite possibly the best meal I've ever eaten. I expected the sauce to be punchy - I thought they were going to try to make a statement, but it was subtle. It worked with the natural flavor of the beef beautifully. And the steak itself was cooked to perfection. The outside was seared and peppery, the inside tender and ready to fall apart. Rory made an excellent point: when you order a steak rare, it really becomes a different dish altogether. And the potatoes were phenomenal! I don't normally worry about side dishes when reviewing a meal, but they were sweet and slightly garlicky, and not too buttery. The texture was perfect. 

Ok, I'll shut up about my meal now. I really, really enjoyed it.

Brandon's dinner: duck confit.

Brandon decided to go with the duck confit. He had already started dis-assembling his beautiful plate before I could get a photo, but all the elements are still there. Everything on the plate was seasoned lightly and simply cooked in the duck fat. With the exception of the sprig of frisee salad, which had a bacon-infused vinaigrette.  I only got a bite of his, but it was cooked perfectly: not too fatty, not too gamey, and definitely not dry. 

Christine's dinner: the lobster.

I told you were were stepping outside our comfort zones. Christine ordered the lobster, which was removed from its shell, cooked with Alaskan king crab in a dark chocolate sauce, then returned to its shell and served over pureed potatoes. I had a bite: again, the sauce was subtle, and the lobster wasn't too fishy. It was YUM. 

Rory's dinner: the chicken ballotine.

Rory opted for something simpler, yet it turned out to be remarkably well presented. The chicken was in a roulade, stuffed with autumn vegetables and seasoned simply with lemon and rosemary. I had a bite: it was moist and hearty.

Of course I can't tell you we went to a chocolate-themed restaurant and not talk about the dessert. Firstly, I want to say that we lucked out and had a phenomenal waiter. He was a huge food geek and an extremely attentive waiter. He gave recommendations only when asked, and encouraged us to explore our own pairings. He gave competent and colorful descriptions of everything served at the table, and was very fun and engaging. 

Sorry he got cut off- but the point was, he was super fun!

We ordered two desserts to share. I got the chocolate bento box (which I was immediately drawn to because I love everything bento!) which was a taster of miniaturized versions of all their best desserts.

The chocolate bento.

Clockwise from top left: A chocolate mousse cup with pieces of ginger and peppermint, A spoonful of chocolate gelato on a bed of crumbled chocolate cookie, A small piece of chocolate opera cake with real gold flakes, three perfectly sculpted little chocolate truffles with beautifully marbled designs and of course a miniature chocolate lava cake. 

I don't think I have to tell you that this was an assortment of the highest quality chocolate I've ever tasted. Brandon didn't realize at first that the truffles were edible, he thought they were decoration. I had the orange one, Rory had the mint and Brandon got the cherry. When he discovered it was edible, he was so excited, he filmed it:

Rory decided to also get the chocolate fondue for everyone to share. 

 

It came with strawberries, pineapple, little puff pasteries, house-made marshmallows and house-made mint marshmallows.

I don't know how many times I can say it: everything was awesome. It was a real treat, and it really helped us all to unwind amidst all the crazy pressure of schoolwork. We had a super fun time. Now it's time to get back to our normal schedule and buckle down. 

 

Birthday Cake

For the first time in my life, I made my own birthday cake. I only had to call my mom for advice once!

For reference, here is my mother's version from a few years ago:

I know. It looks like a stock photo. She is a wizard.

And here is my finished product:

Not too shabby, if I do say so myself!

The icing wasn't quite as fluffy as it usually is when my mom makes it, and the cake itself was slightly lopsided:

Maybe it's just a bit sleepy...

And of course the confectioner's sugar didn't turn out as nicely, but that was because I didn't chill the cake first, to firm up the icing. But Brandon and Christine were getting impatient as I was icing the cake, so I had to move quickly!

So, this was my first time ever baking a cake! I'm very happy with how it turned out. And now I have delicious cake in my fridge to last me all week, which is very exciting. ^_^

Here's a couple more shots before I go:

Yummmm.

Happy Tuesday!

Tampopo Omelette

I need to geek out for a second.

Today I was reading this entry on the Tampopo Omelette on Just Hungry, the sister blog of Just Bento, one of my favorite Bento blogs. The Tampopo omelette is a dish that was invented for the movie Tampopo, which is one of my favorite movies. It's a Japanese satire about food, and if you haven't seen it, you should. It explores our emotional connection with food through a series of vignettes about various odd and humerus characters and THEIR strange and surprising relationships with food. The main story line is about a woman named Tampopo who owns a ramen stand, and wants to improve her business.

So. The omelette. There's a video in the Just Hungry article showing the scene of the movie where it appears, but for the moment I want to just talk about the recipe itself. The omelette consists of lightly fried, lightly seasoned rice, a plain french omelette laid over top and ketchup. That's it.

I know, it sounds boring, but hear me out, because when everything is done correctly it's absolutely delicious.

Firstly, the rice. It's a Japanese film, so the rice has to be nishiki, or sticky rice. Because this rice holds more moisture than Chinese rice, it makes a very different kind of fried rice. In the film it's fried very lightly - not browned, and not dry. Then the ketchup is added and mixed in while it's still over the heat, giving the rice an orange color throughout.

Next, the egg. The cool thing about this recipe is that it requires that you make an honest-to-goodness omelette. Like, true French, Julia-Child style omelette. It's not a simple task, and it's not something many people have done. It only takes about 30 seconds, but it's extremely delicate and tricky.

In any case, the character in the movie does it expertly. He taps the handle on the frying pan, turning it lightly until it closes entirely with no seams at all, and he pulls it off the heat before the center has a chance to cook through. Then, he slices it open lengthwise to show that the center is still slightly wet. The edges are fluffy, but not brown.

So, this dish is a simple and clean celebration of the plain flavor and texture of properly cooked rice and properly cooked eggs and - oddly enough, ketchup! When was the last time you really stopped to taste ketchup on its own? This dish is plain enough to let that occur. Now, when I first saw the movie, I thought it was seasoned with tabasco sauce, not ketchup. So I decided to add a pinch of cayenne to my rice in order to give the dish a slight kick. I also seasoned it with pepper and garlic powder.

Oh - did I forget to mention that? I MADE IT. I was so excited I came right home and made it. We didn't have any day-old rice in the fridge (as you're technically supposed to use for fried rice) so I made my nishiki with slightly less water than it requires, and let it cook off a little more moisture after it had finished.

I also have never made a proper French omelette before, so it wasn't perfect. But it's closer than I've ever gotten, and I intend to keep trying. Here's a photo:

The egg-to-rice ratio is off in this photo because we later moved half the omelette to Brandon's plate, which had more rice on it.

Now, we put a few too many eggs for the size of pan I was using, so we had to cook it longer before it would turn, which means the bottom got a bit browned. But the inside was almost as gooey as I had hoped! And ohhh it was delicious.

Please, give it a try some time. It's a delightful, quirky little dish that sits directly at the intersection of Japanese, American and French fusion.

News From This Week

Hi it's Amanda. I just thought I'd pop in to let you know what's been up with us this week.

Firstly, my pet rat Glia had two surgeries: she was neutered, and she had a tumor removed. She's recovering nicely and she should be okay! It's likely that she has cancer, but now that she's spayed, it will progress much slower, so we've bought her a lot of time.

She has a little gauze tee shirt. It's sort of terribly adorable:

The surgery was only a few days ago, so right now she mostly just sleeps.

The second bit of news is that my other blog, the photo-a-day project, just ended yesterday! We completed one year of taking one photo each day. It was a really fun project, and it changed the way I use my camera: I learned that my day-to-day activities are memories worth recording.

If you haven't yet, check it out:
http://photosfromthegirls.blogspot.com/

Lastly, tomorrow is my 24th birthday! What am I doing to celebrate? Pretty much nothing. I've had a busy week, I have a lot of homework and housework, and I have the edge of a cold. My birthday landed on a Friday and I don't even want to go out. I guess I'm an old fart now. -_-

However! I will be attempting to make my Mom's traditional birthday cake recipe for the first time! So I'll be sure to take photos and let you guys know how it goes. I even have some beautiful photos of a past birthday cake for reference.

I know it's only Thursday, but have a great weekend!

Lots of love,
Amanda

P.S. I'll try to coax Brandon to update soon.

South Padre Island

Well, obviously we didn't update last month because our entire readership consists of our friends and family, most of whom we visited over the holidays. We might post a few photos from December at some point.

When we got back to Texas, however, we did have a brief adventure of our own. And we'd like to share it with you!

Let's start with a little photo-dump:

Brandon was very excited about the sheer density of palm trees.

Here I am, modeling our HUGE hotel room.

We had to check out the beach right away, or else Brandon was going to explode. Our hotel room had a private passage to the beach, which was basically just a huge fenced-in outdoor hallway.

Brandon gets very excited about the beach.

We found some weird critters there.

 They look like jellyfish, but we later found out they're Portuguese Man-o'-War.

Can you find the critter in this one?

We had dinner the first night at Amberjacks, which is on the lagoon-side of the island. The view was beautiful, and dinner was AMAZING. I was so busy enjoying my filet Mignon, I forgot to take any photos of it. But we got pictures of just about everything else:

The view from the parking lot. That's the causeway in the background.

 They missed the mark on the Gulf crab appetizer,

But Brandon's red snapper was phenomenal - perfectly seasoned and perfectly cooked.

The next day we got up bright and early.

Brandon looking very tropical.

We collected seashells on the beach for a while,

Birds.

Brandon would call this "BeachManda."

On day 2 we had pizza for lunch at a place that clearly gets a lot of business during Spring Break.

On the Juke Box list, there was a rule posted that said "No dancing on the tables before 6PM," and no indication that it was a joke.

Then, we went Dolphin-watching!

  Brandon, the seasoned Pirate, sailing the mighty seas!

The dolphin boat tour included a little biology lesson, wherein they caught some fish and talked about them. I got to hold one:

Also, dolphins!

 We followed alongside this boat for a while, since they had dolphins surfing on their bow.

 Next: Lunch from Psychadeli. Observe:

See? Psycha-deli!

We took lunch back to the hotel and watched old movies on TCM.

It was a good way to relax between activities.

Other miscellaneous stuff we did that day:

Swam in the hotel pool...

  Collected seashells on the beach...

 And ate dessert at a fancy restaurant.

The next morning, Brandon said his goodbyes to the Gulf of Mexico, 

And then we hit the road, where we discovered there was a marathon going across the causeway.

And then we were home! 

Next I think I'll post a few photos from Channukah, Christmas and New Years.

Ice Skating

Hi! Sorry it's been so long! We'll get the South Padre update up soon, I promise. It's been hectic.

Today we went ice staking with my friend Christine. She was a figure skater for 15 years, and Brandon and I have each gone ice skating, like, 3 times as adults. So, it was pretty funny.

Here's Brandon and me skating:



And here's Christine skating:



Big difference. ^_^