Philotic Web

I usually wait until after easter to stock up on my favorite easter candy, when it's half off. The Russell Stover Chocolate Marshmallow Egg; that's chocolate marshmallow covered in chocolate. It is so, so spectacularly delicious. I don't know why. But today, I saw it on sale for close to half off and usually you can only find a few after easter. So, I bought...eighteen of them. Yeah, I went a little crazy. But they will probably last me a couple months!

That is a stickless cake ball or something. Jan has made these before, I believe. My coworker brought these in to work and holy hell, I died and went to heaven. I can understand the Matrix cake-gasm now.

My girls have been building a lot of different little cake nuggets. Soo good! I've been chowing down on the best morell mushrooms I can ever remember tasting and they go so so fine with a good wheat beer!

I just discovered the ecstasy that is cream puffs. Holy. Crap. Where have these been all my life?

torrance. Did you even try one?

You know...even though I'm an adult and it is entirely my fault I didn't try one when we went to that shop, I still blame you for me not having one sooner.

I ate about a dozen here over two days. It wasn't a pretty sight but my mouth was happy.

For those wondering what I'm talking about, this is one of the places we took Alea (really we took Adam, as Renee and Alea basically opted out of eating cream puffs).

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I remember the first time I saw Chantilly's version of the Cream Puff years ago, and knew that it was in a different league than the ones I'd had before (that I could accurately remember). They're rough-hewn, rustic baked Puffs absolutely brimming with Nojima-san's signature Creme filling. I take a bite...

Smooth, silky, bright, and so creamy, this is simply leagues ahead of most Cream Puffs I've had at Asian pastry shops. It's absolutely wonderful with this delicate beauty about it with every bite. The Puff itself also tastes very fresh and homemade (not manufactured or overly synthetic). Wonderful!

yesterday I had a chicken sandwich from the ludo bites fried chicken truck. My god it was insanely great, pretty much the best chicken sandwich ever. the homemade slaw was piquant and superb, the bernaise sauce was incredibly delicious, but the chicken, my god the chicken was just mind blowing. Tender, juicy, super-flavored-deliciousness, surrounded by a perffectly fried crust that was spiced maybe with nothing more than pepper but was still a delight on it's own. this is one where you pick up every last crumb because it's so amazing.

tonight, I stopped by Animal because I figured I had to try their most famous dish before the ban goes into effect July 1. The foie-gras biscuit and gravy was just phenomenal. the only perfectly cooked foie I've ever had (it made the other dishes I had seem even more underwhelming than they were when I tried them initially) it had a crisp outside, but cut easily with a fork, it was silky and smooth and delicious inside with a pink interior, incredible flavor on its own. But the real standout was the maple sausage gravy on the biscuit (the biscuit was quite excellent as well). This is the gravy of the gods. I could be given a soup bowl full of this gravy and be VERY happy. Just insanely delicious, savory and sweet and bursting with some sort of umami powerhouse sock in the mouth, I think I just sat there stunned for much longer than necessary after first tasting it. It took all my restraint not to lick the plate at the end. And when you combined all three in a bite: foie, biscuit and gravy it was just an incredible harmony of protein, fat and starch, of salty and sweet and savory, and a harmony of subtle textural marriages. Just an absolutely incredible, incredible dish.

While it's not the best thing i've ever eaten, i've just discovered dill pickle relish! Sweet relish has always been hit or miss for me, and i've always found myself cutting up dill pickles to put in my tuna sandwiches. I feel like I want to put this stuff on everything!

I love dill pickle relish! I'd never put sweet relish on hotdogs, sausages, burgers or anything, but I will put dill relish on all of the above. Dill relish on a hot dog with ketchup and mustard is amazing.

Dill relish on a hot dog with ketchup and mustard is amazing.

This has been all i've wanted to eat for the past week! Mmmm!

speaking of, Trader Joe's new all beef jumbo hotdogs are incredible.

Not quite a mouthgasm, but very delicious, last night I made myself a burger made from Lindy & Grundy's 50/50 mix. That's 50% ground beef and 50% ground bacon. It was actually a bit much, I think a 70/30 blend in favor of beef would be better.

Also on the delicious front: Ink.sack has extremely tasty sandwiches. Their cold fried chicken doesn't come close to the transcendent joy of the Ludo Truck sandwich mentioned above, but otherwise it is incredible. Their 'reuben' is even better than the chicken, tremendously delicious homemade saurkraut, homemade thousand island, and hot 'pastrami' made from beef tongue. Very tender, delicious and flavorful, one of the best reubens out there.

We are finally getting a Trader Joe's this summer!!

it is the best store ever.

It's... really pretty awesome. Can't say anything bad about Trader Joe's.

God I want to go buy a fresh-baked loaf of garlic bread now.

I used to love the original ice cream Chipwich. You know, the one with chocolate chips all around the outside? Anyway, I don't know if they sell them anymore but I haven't seen them in years. But I just discovered that Target's Chipwich's are almost the same! So good (yet, so bad).

Oh man those look tasty. Around here we had a nearly identical product called Big Ed's. Always got them on road trips.

And now I want one.

I went to a Greek restaurant on Friday and had Skordalia with hot (fresh?) pita bread and Saganaki for the first time ever. Holy hell, those were good.

I also tried tapioca pudding for the first time this weekend and that was surprisingly tasty as well.

Tapioca for the first time ever or the first time today?

It's like I don't even know you.



(Obviously tongue-in-cheek, but, man I love tapioca. Tell me you've at least had rice pudding?)

haha, touché.

I have not had rice pudding; I know it's different than tapioca but which do you prefer of the two, if you had to choose a favorite? That is, should I be trying to have rice pudding or is tapioca a good enough representative of the pudding family?

I give a SLIGHT edge to tapioca because of texture. If the opportunity presents itself, though, try rice. If you liked tapioca, you'll probably like rice.

If the opportunity presents itself

But of course. :)

I also prefer tapioca, but I like rice pudding, too. Especially my mom's, which I can never seem to replicate.

While I prefer (and love!) rice pudding. Maybe we can find some Saturday.

Had some Beet and Goat Cheese Crostinis for lunch today. My boss made them for our work barbeque. They were surprisingly good, though I admit, never having had beets or goat cheese before, I was a little nervous to try them.

Good for you, trying new things! I love beets.

I tried beets for the first time today, too! Pickled for me.

What are the odds of that?

I made a beet and goat cheese tart a few years back which worked out really well. I think my favourite part of it was the goat cheese because mmmmmmmmmm goat cheese.

I like beets under very, very specific circumstances. Mostly I find they taste like dirt. But I have a beet borscht recipe I like, and that beet tart Rei mentioned, and possibly another beet-Thai fushion soup, but mostly they are gross.

I was never a big beet fan but we grow some every year for friends and one of them (and a great cook too) got me into baking them whole (dirt and all) and then eatin them when cooled off. The peel comes right off and I'll eat em straight with a little olive oil and s&p, freakishly good and better with a good ripe local goat cheese and pita chips and a cold negro modello.

I've always been a big Beets fan.

Jeff, I haven't clicked, but that's a link to The Beets from Doug, isn't it? Killer Tofu? I love you, man.


ETA: Oh, damn! I Need Mo Allowance! SO CLOSE.

Oh man I always forget about Killer Tofu! Probably because "I Need Mo Allowance" was kind of a family joke for a few years.

I couldn't click either but Val and I were on exactly the same page!

ZOMG

Mustard-lemon veggie dipping sauce I made with Honeycrisp apples. Holy gracious, that's good stuff.