Starting 2010 on an Italian Note

My brother is visiting from Dallas, and we celebrated his birthday at Cannoli Joe's.  Eddie loves Italian food and filet mignon, and Cannoli Joe's is offering filet mignon in their buffet line up every evening in January! 

Entrance to the "Villagio"

Yes, the building is Las Vegas-style cheesy, but if the food here is delicious, filling, and affordable and the service is attentive and not intrusive.  I had a wonderful time exploring the various clearly categorized sections of the buffet line.

Pork Section

My brother and I went straight for the filet mignon, and we were not the least bit disappointed!  The filet was flavorful and tender, and served at the right temperature.  I love how they drizzled minced garlic, parsley, and melted butter over the meat. Although I took photos of mostly meat dishes, the buffet has a surprising amount of vegetarian dishes.  One vegetarian must is the Pizza Bianca with Feta and Spinach!

Filet Mignon

White Bean Bruschetta and Pesto Pomodoro Bruschetta

Meatballs

Pizza Bianca with Spinach and Feta

My favorite part about the dessert section is the big selection of ice cream flavors.  I had two large scoops of coffee and pistachio.  By the time I finished the ice creams, I was too full to try the cannoli and other sweet temptations.

Happy Birthday, Eddie!

Thai-style Cucumber Pineapple Mint Salad

While stalking creative recipes online, I came upon the Saveur recommended Closet Cooking's Thai Cucumber and Pineapple Salad.  I love refreshing, tart-sweet salads, and this was a perfect companion for my soft-shell crabs. 

I used sriracha instead of bird's eye chili, and left out the cilantro and peanuts for a smoother, simpler salad, though I'm sure the salad is much more exciting à la Closet Cooking.

cucumbers, pineapples, mint, green onions, and limes

Thai Cucumber Pineapple Mint Salad

Soft-shell Crab with Sparkling White Wine Butter Sauce

I bought a box of frozen softshell crabs without having actually cooked one before in early December.  I finally opened the box of goodies New Year's Eve and created one of the tastiest lunch I've ever made adapted from Emeril's Sauteed Soft-shell Crabs with Garlic and Butter. 

Here's my version. 

Ingredients

Soft-shell Crab:

6 soft-shell crabs (defrosted if frozen & trimmed of inedible parts (lungs, sacs, etc.)

1/2 cup flour

Cajun seasoning

salt & pepper

vegetable oil

Sauce:

1/2 cup sparkling white wine or champagne

juice of 1/2 a lime or lemon

capers

1 shallot (minced)

1 Tbsp melted butter

Heat a small pot (I didn't want oil to splatter all over the kitchen so I opted not to use a fry pan) on medium low heat with enough vegetable oil to cover the top of a soft-shell crab.  Mix the flour, Cajun seasoning, and pepper in a deep dish plate.  Wash the crabs and make sure to pat them dry.  Sprinkle the crabs with just a tiny bit of salt on both sides then dust each with the flour mixture. 

Washed soft-shell crabs; flour seasoned with Cajun seasoning and pepper

Dredging the crab in seasoned flour

Test the oil by throwing in a piece of minced shallot.  If the oil bubbles around it, then gently put in the first crab into the oil.  Fry for about 5 minutes on each side then put the crab on paper towel to rid the excess oil.  If you have a bigger pot, use medium high heat to cook multiple crabs together rather than one-by-one.

Frying a soft-shell crab on both sides

Heat a small sauce pan on medium low heat and pour in the melted butter.  Once the butter is heated, sauté the shallots until tender.  Add capers, stir, add wine, and cover and let simmer for 3-5 minutes.  Add lemon/lime juice and let it simmer uncovered for another 2 minutes.

Sautéing the shallots until tender; Capers added before pouring in wine

I served the soft-shell crabs on Thai mint rice (Archer Farms boxed rice from Target) and spooned the sauce over the crabs and rice with a side of Thai-style cucumber pineapple mint salad.

Soft-shell Crab with Sparkling White Wine Butter Sauce

Soft-shell Crab with Thai Mint Rice and Cucumber Pineapple Mint Salad

New Year's Eve Means Baking a New Kind of Cookie!

I spent my entire last day of 2009 cooking new foods.  And, boy, it has been a jolly good day!
Fickle Foodie once baked some delicious matcha shortbread cookies for me when I came back from my Alaskan cruise.  I never forgot how much I loved it.  Anything with green tea is bound to be a favorite with me.  I'm in love with its calming, gentle floral scent.  It is quite simply sublime. 

After baking my first cookies this month for my office cookie swap, I have been hankering for some matcha cookies.  Since I liked the mint chocolate cookie dough alot, I thought that I can concoct a green tea version (with less sugar) and replace the peppermint extract and dark chocolate with pistachios and dried cherries!  Three of my favorite things to round out 2009 and kick start 2010!

Here's my recipe for my Matcha Cookies with Pistachios and Cherries:

Ingredients

2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp matcha powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 cup packed light brown sugar

1/6 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature

1 beaten egg

1/2 cup chopped pistachio nuts (unsalted)

1/2 cup dried cherries

(the dough and directions are adapted from Une Gamine dans la Cuisine's Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies)

Ingredients

Sift the flour, baking soda, matcha powder, and salt in a bowl.

In another bowl, beat the butter, brown, and granulated sugars together until light and fluffy, and add the beaten egg on low speed.  Add the flour mixture and beat until the ingredients are well combined. 

Fold in the nuts and cherries by hand until they are evenly integrated, and chill the dough for at least an hour. 

Cherries and Pistachio Nuts Added to the Dough

Preheat the oven to 375F.  Roll dough into small balls and bake on parchment lined cookie sheets for 12-15 minutes. 

Dough in Tablespoon Size Balls

These cookies will not expand like the mint chocolate chip cookies probably because of the much harder additions of nuts and cherries (and I added more than what I have recommended here).

Matcha Cookies with Pistachio Nuts and Cherries

Matcha Cookies with Pistachio Nuts and Cherries

Sushi Robata

Sushi Robata

 Sushi Robata is the other wonderful restaurant recommended by Jessica.  This sushi joint is the real deal.  There isn't a traditional Japanese restaurant in Austin of this caliber and at these prices.  I'm definitely starting to like Dallas. 

The dishes here are honest, simple Japanese food that highlights the quality and freshness of the ingredients.  I'm going to be tacky and list prices.  I had the baby clams for $5.99 and sake cod for $6.99.  It's impossible to find these dishes at these prices at any Japanese restaurant!

The food was beautiful in presentation and taste. 

Asari Sakamushi-Steamed Baby Clams in Sake Broth

Tara Kasuzuke-Sake Flavored Cod

Mom shared a yellowtail collar, a sashimi plate B, tako, and nabeyaki udon with dad.  Yellowtail collars are usually $12.99+ and this was only $6.99!  I tried all of mom and dad's dishes and loved everything.

Hamachi Kama-Yellowtail Collar

Sashimi Plate B

Tako

Nabeyaki Udon

Green Tea Ice Cream

I'll be coming back for more.

Bistro B: Another Delicious Vietnamese Food Venue in Dallas

Bistro B

Thanks to my brother's friend's food blog, we made sure to try two highly recommended restaurants in Dallas-Bistro B and Sushi Robata. 

Bistro B has an encyclopedic menu.  We dove right into Jessica's recommendations and ordered 2 BBQ minced pork rolls, 2 BBQ minced shrimp rolls, and a plate of roasted quails.  I also ordered a catfish clay pot and a diced beef fillet with tomato rice. 

I was slobbering all over myself as I stuffed a roll in my mouth and eyed the quail as it arrived...then tore into the quail and eyed the remaining rolls.  This is not the place to pretend you're a refined diner.  The food is too damn good to waste time on maintaining self-composure.  I'm proud to say I ate with GUSTO!

These rolls are different from the standard Vietnamese spring rolls in that instead of rice noodles, the rolls have crunchy, fried egg roll skins!  These are definitely less healthy, but super tasty! The texture is amazing.  It has the sticky pull of the exterior rice wrapper, then a crunchy, flakey interior, and it's all tied together with the creamy peanut sauce.  YUM!

BBQ minced pork rolls and BBQ minced shrimp rolls with peanut sauce

Insides of the pork and shrimp rolls-crunchy fried spring roll skins instead of rice noodles!

The roasted quail is the most delicious quail I've ever tasted!  It's crispy on the outside and moist on the inside.  Its sweet and savory juices penetrate every pore of the quail. 

Roasted Quail

The catfish clay pot was good, but way to salty.  It goes well with white rice.  The diced beef was tender and flavorful, but Sunflower's shaken beef in Austin is still the best version of this dish I've had so far.

Catfish Clay Pot

Diced Beef Fillet with Tomato Rice

The only bad thing about Bistro B is that they definitely use MSG.  I was dreadfully thirsty after the glorious meal!

Medieval Times Dallas: The Cheesiest, Funniest, Christmas Dinner

Medieval Times-Dallas

My brother and I always wanted to see the dinner show at Medieval Times since we were kids.  Our parents took us on numerous roadtrips, and Medieval Times enticed us youngin's everytime we passed by its various locations on the highway.  Our fascination with medieval violence probably stems from watching Ivanhoe and rewinding and rewatching the last fight scene from elementary school to this day.  We always burst into guffaw when Front de Boeuf chooses the forbidding flail, leaving Ivanhoe on a very sad defense for the first half of the fight.

From the cheesy exterior, I expected the show to be cheesy-bad and the food to be pseudo-medieval-better-than-gruel fare.  Turns out, the show was fun and engaging and the food wasn't bad!  In fact, the apple turnover was absolutely delicious. 

Tomato Soup; Roasted Chicken, Spare Rib, Baked Potato with Herbs and Spices

Apple Turnover

We were assigned to cheer for the yellow knight.  Unfortunately, the green knight, the antagonist, picked to fight our knight first, which obviously meant that he was as good as dead.  That didn't matter, I cheered for the remaining knights and had a fantastic time being a kid again!  I'm glad I got to share this dinner show with my brother.

Jousting; Yellow Knight Losing