The Love Party 2008 - The Love Train
Just as I have finally mastered wordpress, they upgraded and now I must learn the new blog program.
My annual party is on May 17, 2008. I have created a separate website for my love party. Please visit www.carlhansloveparty.com for more information.
My guest of honor, Noel Boado/Yna Nova, photo is in Outsmart Magazine. She looks fabulous. Check out Yna Nova photo by David Lewis
Outsmart Magazine
Beer and Bugs
According to my plan when I joined the gym last year, I was supposed to be hot and gorgeous with a six pack by this time of the year. Unfortunately, several blockades are always in my path and they are in the form of butter, crab legs and the mudbugs.
I truly believe that the Vietnamese favorite “foreign food” here in the south is the crawfish. There are more Cajun restaurants in Alief (SW Houston), Texas than most cities outside of Louisiana.
We celebrated my niece, Jessica’s 21st birthday with a huge crawfish boil. I made a 20 quarts pot of seafood gumbo to go along with the crawfish. We had enough guests to clean out the giant gumbo pot and 180 pounds of crawfish. YES! 180 POUNDS to go with the beer.
Here are the photos of the crawfish boil. This article is short because I am working around the clock getting ready for the big party. I will update the site once the Love Party is over.
Since I consider New Orleans as my second home, this article will have more pictures of New Orleans. However, before anything else, here is my video of Easter in New Orleans. The first song, “La Vie en Rose” is beautifully performed by one of my favorite singer, the Vietnamese legend, Bach Yen. This is her samba version of “La Vie en Rose”. The second song is also an Edith Piaf’s standard, “No Regrets”. This version is done by the European trio, Bad Boys Blue. The quality of this youtube version is no where near the original wide screen version that I created.
SO HOT AND STICKY
The Monday before Good Friday, I began to create my Easter bonnets. It was time to retire the two bonnets that Gary and I had worn for the last two years. I went to the Jumbo 99 Cents Store near my house to stock up on glue guns, glue sticks and a ton of silk flowers. I used one of the purple “pimp daddy” hat from Halloween to create Gary’s 2008 bonnet. For my bonnet, I used a Chinese fold up straw hat that I bought in San Francisco’s Chinatown for one dollar. Ian chose a regular straw hat as his base. I also made an extra bonnet using a Vietnamese rice hat.
In my tiny art studio (my computer desk)I managed to burn my left ring finger twice on the same spot with two hot sticky glob of boiling glue leaving a beautiful scar. It was quite comical sleeping with a finger encrusted in dried up glue and a huge dolop of aloe vera gel on top of it to soften the glue while I sleep. However, the beautiful bonnets made the incidents worth the pain.
THE STICKY FLOOR
Gary and I were the first of the five friends to arrive in New Orleans on Good Friday. The rest were to arrive on Saturday. Ian drove from Rock Hill, South Carolina. Lewis drove from Houston and pick up Stella in Lake Charles, LA, on the way to New Orleans.
Gary, Ian and I stayed at the Staybridge Suite located on Tchoupitoulas at Poydras. The hotel room is spacious and has a full size refrigerator, a full size microwave, a dishwasher, a stove, pots and pans, dishes and cups. Harrah’s Casino put us there for a very cheap price and that was a good thing because this place can use some cleaning up. The tile floor in the kitchen felt sticky so I used a wad of wet papertowel to clean the tiny area.
On the plus side, the hotel had complimentary breakfast every day. The spread included scramble eggs, sausages, fresh fruits, danish, waffle, cereals, milk, coffee and juice.
FOUR LEAF CLOVER
While our friends were still on the road this Saturday morning, Gary and I stopped by the Clover Grill on Bourbon Street for our obligatory hamburger platters. We always enjoyed this tiny eatery for its ambience and simplicity. Next to us at the counter was a mother and her two childrens who ordered way too much food and had to take the club sandwich to go.
If you go there for breakfast, please order the three eggs ommelette. This is the fluffiest thing I have ever seen.
THE OSCAR GOES TO …
Gary, Ian and I walked around the downtown/warehouse district and to my surprise, a street (don’t know the name) that I have walked by at least a hundred times before revealed an abandoned theatre. I looked through the metal fence and took a few pictures and was amused at the fact that despite taking at least 10 photos of this street prior to this day, this was the first time that I noticed the old Dix Theatre. My friends may recalled that for last year “Brunch” invitation, I used a picture of a small alley with a walk way connecting two buildings. The theatre is in that alley.
The three of us ate lunch and returned to the theatre later and found that the metal fence was opened and a young man was sitting in a blue pickup truck parked on the street. We asked him about the theatre and was told that it was a movie set and that he was a security guard. He let us take pictures.
THE FALL FROM GRACE and A NEW LOVE
Through out the years, I praised my favorite restaurant over and over. Cafe Masperos on Decatur was the first restaurant I went to in New Orleans and the food has always been good and cheap. This trip the food fell apart. This is one of the busiest time New Orleans has experienced since post Katrina and I think that the restaurant could not handle the extra spring-break crowd that wrapped around the block at 2:00 PM. My beloved mufalleta sandwich was dry and lacked the tanginess of the olive dressing that I had come to love in the last 18 years. Ian was born and raised in Metarie and he was craving for red beans sausage and rice. The beans had no flavor at all and needed a heavy doze of salt. The tasty sausage unfortunately was cold. The seafood platter has always been one of the best in town, but on this Saturday, the fried food was cold. To make matter worse, the price has gone up. This favorite place of mine gave me the worst food experience on this trip. I will give it one more chance when I go back to New Orleans in the next few weeks.
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I found me a new love on this trip. My new love is at the restaurant, Drago’s. This established eatery opened its new location at the Hilton Riverside a few years ago and this was my first time at this place. My new love is not the restaurant, but a dish that this restaurant created and served. The CHARBROIL oyster dish at this place put me in a trance that caused me to forget everything else (I barely remember the good fried seafood platter). Plump louisiana oysters on the half shell topped with butter, parmesan cheese, rosemary and other spice and herb and then charbroiled to perfection leaving the cheese to crust around the shell and then placed on a platter swimming in melted butter which diners use the crusty baguette to mop it all up.
Lewis’ friend, Stella, is from New Orleans and her father used to sell his oysters to the family that own Drago’s. Stella told me that beside eating the oysters, we must use a spoon to scrape out the cheese that encrusted the oyster shells to truly enjoyed this dish. I scraped it with enthusiasm. In the past, I have witnessed Lewis’ reaction to certain delicious food and it was like he was at the height of passion. This time, I know how he feels.
THE GAY EASTER PARADE
Stella and Lewis left their Hilton Hotel early Sunday morning to attend Easter service at a church on Burgundy street. Ian stumbled in our hotel around 8 AM after a night of partying. The three of us ate the free breakfast at our hotel and rested until 2 PM when we met up with Lewis to go to Cafe du Monde. Stella decided to stay at the Hilton and rest. We all showed up at her room to show off our Easter bonnets before we made our walk along the river bank.
We ate our hot beignets and drank our cafe au laits and then headed out to Bourbon Street at St. Ann to catch the parade which starts at 4:30 PM. While we waited for the parade to start, we quenched our thirst at Oz, a gay club on Bourbon Street. It was nice to see the wives and their straight husbands hanging out at the club with the rest of the revelers. We also met up with many people we see on the parade route through out the years. This included two young ladies who always show up in colorful wigs and a young couple who passed out confetti eggs and chocolate Jesus candy bars.
The parade started promply at 4:30 PM. Led by a group of motorcyclist, the 15 minutes long parade rolled from Louis Armstrong Park onto St. Ann Street and turned onto Bourbon Street. The parade was filled with drag queens in giant bonnets riding on horse-drawn carriages.
Once the parade was over, we walked along Bourbon Street and was greeted by many other revelers. A group of young Japanese students felled in love with our bonnets and asked us to pose with them for pictures.
Lewis rejoined Stella who was resting at the Hilton and headed out to their nightly jazz club adventure at Snug Harbor, a jazz bistro on 626 Frenchmen Street. Gary, Ian and I ate at the Harrah’s Buffet and spend the rest of the day in our hotel room watching TV.
A TRIP TO THE VERSAILLES
The Monday after Easter, Ian abandoned us and went to stay with his aunt in Metairie, a large suburb west of New Orleans. This is Ian’s hometown. Gary and I checked out of the Staybridge and checked in at the Hilton Riverside where Lewis and Stella were staying. Our room at the Hilton had a wonderful view of the Mississippi River and we watched all kind of boats and ships traveled up and down the river.
On Tuesday, I drove the remaining four of us to the Versailles, a small community east of New Orleans on Chef Menteur Highway. There are many Vietnamese living in this community and they were one of the first group of residence to return and rebuild the Versailles after Hurricane Katrina left the place almost completely destroyed.
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There is a bakery/restaurant there named Dong Phuong Bakery. This place makes the best lady finger cookies in the world and unfortunately, it was closed on Tuesday. I drove around and stopped at Ba Mien Restaurant (meaning Three Regions). Like many of the Vietnamese restaurants in this area, Ba Mien no longer have just Vietnamese clientelles. Since post Katrina, most of the restaurants in this area are Vietnamese and this means that people from all race, all economic levels now eat at these Vietnamese restaurants.
We ate really well with dishes ranging from Pho noodle soup to vermicelli with grilled pork and shrimp and a platter of authentic (rice paper style) Vietnamese eggrolls. Stella and Gary had Vietnamese ice coffee for “desert” and Lewis and I bought freshly fried banana fritters and Vietnamese beignets (fried sesame seed dough) at the grocery store next door to the restaurant. Ba Mien Restaurant was opened around 2000 and it suffered flood damage five feet hight (you can still see the flood line) from Hurricane Katrina in 2005. I am happy that many of these small restaurants like Ba Mien are opened and that the clientelles are diverse.
On Tuesday, between lunch and dinner, Gary and I went to a small convenient store at the corner of Royal Street and St. Phillips Street to buy gumbo to go. Adjacent to the Flanagan’s Pub, this small place is run by a young, attractive and feisty Vietnamese woman. The front of the shop has a small food stall which locals come to buy various delicious items to go. The food available this day was gumbo, baked chicken, fried catfish and boil shrimps. Our gumbo was delicious even after the long walk back to our hotel.
TRIP BACK HOME
Gary and I headed back to Houston on Wednesday but Ian, Lewis and Stella stayed in New Orleans until Friday. We are all planning for the next trip. I had to cancelled my June trip to Orlando and sell my Margaret Cho’s tickets for a concert there on ebay. This is because a few days before this article got posted, I was chosen as a delegate to the Texas Democratic Convention on June 7 and 8 in Austin. I will record and report the process of politics for all to read and see. I may make a short trip to Chicago to meet with friends coming in from Swizerland in a few weeks. I have relatives living in Chicago and if I do make it up there, I will try my best to visit.
One does not drive into Downtown New Orleans between the time of 8 AM and 1 AM during the height of Mardi Gras. Despite having years and years of Mardi Gras experience, I find myself driving Gary all over town in our big white Towncar while waiting for the street baracades to be removed on this Sunday night before Mardi Gras. We shopped at Wal-Mart; we gambled at Boomtown Casino in the West Bank; we gambled and ate late night dinner at Treasure Chest Casino in Kenner; we got stuck on St. Charles Avenue after the Bacchus Parade and drove out of the traffic through a mountain of debris. We finally arrived at the Riverside Hilton at 1:30 AM Monday morning.
Despite the exhaustion, we managed to spend one hour playing the penny slot machines at Harrah’s Casino next to the hotel.
We checked out of our complimentary Hilton and checked into the Sheraton Canal which I prepaid via priceline.com. I got this hotel for only $79 a night ($93.90 with tax and fees). This particular Sheraton sits on Canal Street and most parades roll past it or end at it. The people checked in ahead of me paid $192 a night.
We watched Orpheus rolled on Monday night right in front of our hotel and ate dinner at Cafe Masperos on Decatur Street. We were in bed early that night to get some needed sleep and be ready for Mardi Gras.
Zulu and the Society of St. Anne
Gary and I carted our complimentary collapsible Mardi Gras ice chest from Harrahs and walked to St. Charles Avenue to watch the Zulu Parade. We left before the parade ended due to hunger and ate at the Clover Grill on Bourbon Street. Gary and I headed out to the river bank and caught up with the Society of St. Anne. Anyone who dressed up can be part of this group. Since Gary and I were not in costume, we were only viewers at best. Every year, the group meets in the Bywater district and marched through the Faubourg Marigny and then to the French Quarter. Meeting and talking with the people of this group is the main reason Gary and I go to Mardi Gras each year. We will dress up next year and be a member of this society.
My Mardi Gras Video
SAN FRANCISCO ADVENTURE
OOPS! Did I do that?
I have written an article on this website teaching people how to bid for a hotel room through priceline.com. My main point is that you must becareful and that once you click buy, there will be no refund at all if the purchase goes through.
Well, one cold morning about two weeks before my trip of February 20, I decided to bid for my room. With out checking my information, I clicked buy and was elated to see that my offer of $62($73 with tax) a night for a three stars hotel was successful. Elation turned to sadness when I realized that my six night stay at the Holiday Inn was for the San Francisco Airport location, not the Fisherman’s Wharf location I thought I had picked. This was a $436 mistake that was nonrefundable. I erased it out of my mind until this article. I tried to give the room to friends and family in the San Francisco area, but no one wanted to stay there. The only consolation was that if I had booked directly with Holliday Inn, it would have cost me $115 per night.
I bid for another hotel room in the Fisherman’s Wharf area and was able to get the Holiday Inn Fisherman’s Wharf for $59 (before tax and fees) a night. This hotel and its location took away the bitterness of the other fiasco situation. The Holiday Inn Fisherman’s Wharf address is 1300 Columbus Avenue. It sits between two cable car lines and one block from the bus and two blocks from the Muni train. the Cannery is right next door and Ghiradelli Chocolate Square is two blocks away; the piers are within two blocks.
THE HOLES IN THE GREAT WALL OF CHINATOWN
Gary, my mother and I rode the 30 Stockton bus everyday to Chinatown. The bus fare was $1.50 per person with a 3 to 4 hours transfer in any direction. The ride from Fisherman’s Wharf through Little Italy to Chinatown was less then 10 minutes (with stops).
Our first point of business was to stop at a little “lotto scratch off lounge”. In the heart of Chinatown on Grant Street is a small shop that sells lotto scratch off tickets. Everyday we would purchased our $15 worth tickets and hung out at the “lounge” until we failed to win any more free tickets or money. The place was always packed and after a few days, the locals began to recognized us.
We ate at our favorite eateries and our ultimate favorite is Dol Ho on 808 Pacific Avenue. This small dim sum restaurant caters to locals. This means that it is small, sparsely decorated, intimidating to non locals and it also means that the food is GREAT!! PLEASE skip all tourist catered restaurants in Chinatown. I have eaten at most of them and they are not good! How do you know if a restaurant is for tourists? They usually have nice ladies passing out flyers or menu with “specials”. I also consider the pricey and nice looking ones tourist traps.
My mother, Gary and I ate until our belly were full and the bill was $27. However, the service here is courteous but slow. How slow? I got used to continously taking my teapot into the kitchen and filled it with hot water myself. The dim sum is much better than the overpriced City View dim sum restaurant on 662 Commercial Street.
Another restaurant we ate in Chinatown was the tiny Vietnam Restaurant on 620 Broadway that had about 14 seats. This place is crowded in the early morning hours when the nearby titty bars and dance clubs closed their doors and their patrons are left hungry for real food. My Pho noodle soup was underseasoned and needed extra star anise in the broth, but my mother’s rice with grilled pork chops and Gary’s vermiceli with grilled pork and eggroll were exellent. The two lady employees worked hard to provide the patrons a good experience. We sat on the small bar stools and watched the cook threw fresh marinated porks on the grill and produced a sizzling and fragrant smoke that filled the small place. Gary had the Vietnamese ice coffee while my mother drank hot jasmine tea from a brown plastic glass. I opted for the sweetened bean in coconut milk desert. The bill was about $25.
The fresh produce and Chinese BBQ in Chinatown are the cheapest I have ever seen in any city. Most of the fresh vegetables were 1/2 the price compared to Houston and Houston is pretty darn cheap when it comes to grocery. You can buy a whole Peking roasted duck for only $9.25 to $9.75. In Houston, a whole roasted duck is about $13. Unfortunately, if you go to a Safeway a few miles away from Chinatown, the price of fresh produce is two to three times more expensive.
During one of my mother’s shopping trip, we were very hungry and decided to walk into a BBQ joint on 1131 Grant Street. Yee’s Restaurant has a large window front which patron can look in and see all kinds of Chinese BBQ from roast pork to ducks, quails and pigeons. The three of us shared a roast pork, a roast duck plates (come with saute cabbage) and a large hot bowl of pork congee soup with “thousand year old” eggs. Hot tea was on the house! The food was delicious. The roast pork was tender and its skin was crispy. The roast duck was roasted a little more tender than other places but I like it this way. It came with a tangy/sweet sauce for dipping. The thick rice soup was steamy hot and full of pork and egg. Our bill came out to be an outrageous $15! Keep in mind that $15 buy one chicken Caesar salad in the nearby Little Italy area.
We did stopped at XOX Cafe on 754 Columbus Avenue in the North Beach area next to Little Italy. Chef Jean-Marc Gorce makes the best truffles in the world. The small morsels come in many different flavors ranging from rum to Earl Grey. They all melt in your mouth. Chef Jean-Marc also has a location in Oakland but it is the original location that I go back years after years for coffee and chocolate. The truffles are affordable and you can order them on line at www.xoxtruffles.com . Don’t be fool by the young picture of him though. As cute as he is, he has gained some weight through out the years and is actually a bear now. Our box of truffles never made it back to Houston. Gary, my mother and I ate it all!
A friend had told me that his family, when they visited San Francisco, did not eat at any restaurants in Chinatown since there were not any restaurant similar to Houston’s Ocean Palace, Kim Son etc… There are a few and one of them is China Empress. I have not been to this place, but it is very famous. However, the holes in the wall I wrote about are better than most restaurants I’ve been to. Please do not let your fear denied you a wonderful food and cultural experience.
CHINESE NEW YEAR FESTIVAL
San Franciscan celebrate Chinese New Year on the third Saturday of February each year. The big festivity kicked off the night before with the crowning of Ms. Chinatown. There is a festival on Saturday and Sunday. The big parade was on Saturday night but my mother, Gary, cousin Ann and I watched it on TV in my hotel room. The weather was cold and rainy and since we all have seen the parade before, it was much more comfortable to see the parade inside during this storm.
We did have a wonderful time Saturday morning visiting the street festival in Chinatown. We tried a wonderful street fare snack called egg puffs. The lightly sweet eggshaped waffle resembled a soft cream puff dough. The one dish that I saw on every street corner was the curried fishball stew. It must be a tradition to eat this dish on this day of celebration. A noisy and wonderful dragon dance passed by us up and down Grant Street which were full of festival booths.
CRAB ATTACK AT FISHERMAN’S WHARF
I just can’t escape from my crab indulgence. This trip was no different. My mother and I ate dungeness crab on several occasions on this trip and decided that our favorite place for crab is Nick’s Lighthouse at Pier 45. The crabs were large, meaty, hot and delicious. Gary’s crab avocado salad was also noteworthy. We did have an off experience at the nearby Pompei’s Grotto. We were not informed that the crabs served at this place was cold. The best time to enjoy cold crab is the morning after a hot crab indulgence and there were too many to eat all the night before.
THE BEAUTIES OF ASIA SF
My cousins Ann and Victor invited us three to a wonderful experience at Asia SF (201 Ninth Street), a restaurant/club where all the waitress are transgender or men in drag. Our waitress was Jackie, a beautiful lady from the Phillipine. This was my mother first time here and she loved every single minute of it. For the next two hours, Jackie was the daughter and she was “Mom”.
The food and the cocktails were great but it was the drag show that blew everyone away. Emceed by San Francisco’s Tita Aida, the perfomers take the stage every half hour and performed on the bar itself. We came here on a Thursday night and discovered that it was better to see it on a week night than the weekend and since it was not too busy on Thursday, we were able to see all three shows. We went on a Friday a few years back and was rushed out within 1 hour to accomodate other diners. Reservation is a must.
HAPPY TO DO NOTHING BUT EAT
We did not do much on this trip beside walking the Fisherman’s Wharf area and going to Chinatown. We have been to Sausalito, Tiburon, Alcatraz and Muir Woods many times before and this trip I decided to accompanied my mother as she shops in Chinatown.
My cousin Ann and Victor live in Oakland but work in San Francisco. They spent much time with us and took us to many nice restaurants.
Gary and I had to sabotage the check at my favorite Sushi restaurant, Blowfish Sushi to Die For on 2170 Bryan Street. This very hip and loud favorite hangout of the young ones serve some of the best sushi. There is no point for me to mention all the different types of sushi we ate that Friday night since I don’t remember. Compare to the many sushi joint I have eaten, the bill was appropriate.
On Sunday night while my mother was watching the Oscar at the hotel, Ann took Gary and me to an El Salvadoran restaurant, Panchita (3091 16th Street). This small but elegant restaurant is in the Mission District and is known for its pupusas which is El Salvador’s thicker version of a corn tortilla quesadillas. We ordered several different version of pupusas ranging from fish, chicharon and beef. They came cut in wedges and stacked in a circle surrounding a small bowl with a dipping sauce. They were deliciously hot and cheesy and dangerous for me since I am lactose intolerant. Gary had a combination plate of chile rellenos, chicken enchilada and El Salvador tamale. They were out of the tamale and substituded a very good crab enchilada in its place. Gary thought his meal was bland, but I tasted it and it was good. Ann had a chile rellenos since she does not eat meat. Her friend, Bryan, a photographer,(www.bryanalberstat.com) accompanied us but I do not remember what he ate. My chicken mole was not what I am used to. I like the spicy and lightly sweet version that we Texan eat and this version was on the dark, bitter side, but the chicken was perfectly cooked and it came with rice and black beans.
Cousin Ann invited all of us along with Bryan and my friend Ted, also from Oakland, for our last night dinner at The Water Front Restaurant at 7 Pier along the Embarcadero. This place is very nice and elegant and has a great view of the bay. I am gratefull to my wonderful cousin for treating us to so many places like this restaurant, but I told her that from now on, when we visit, she is only allowed to take us to one expensive place. Gary, my mother and I have eaten at many restaurants and feel that we enjoy the cheaper but much more delicious eateries than these more elegant but lacking in spice and flavor places. The non politically correct way to say is that we like the intense flavor of ethnic cuisines more than the Continental/American cuisines. The seafood was very bland and the deserts are typical like most restaurant. There are always something chocolaty with an icecream assortment. I actually was craving for Cajun/Creole or good southern cooking and flavor. Unfortunately, the only spice I taste from this restaurant was salt and pepper. The fish was supposed to be mesquite grilled, but being Texans with many years of mesquite experience, Gary and I failed to taste any hint of mesquite. The fish dishes were barely grilled and Gary’s sea bass was undercooked. One fnal note on this restaurant. The bill arrived with an extra $8.00 employee insurance tax. According to Ann, a restaurant that has more than 20 employees in San Francisco must provide insurance to the employees and this restaurant passed its expense to the customers. This and the so called “resort fees” just drive me mad.
It is true that the service at these “chic” restaurant is a thousand times better than most smaller cheaper places. But I feel more comfortable sitting in a corner with a table that has 4 uneven legs and shoveling my food from a rice bowl. I ALSO ENJOYED CARRYING MY metal teapot into the kitchen of Dol Ho and get my own hot water!
WE WILL BE BACK
We had such a wonderful and relaxing time on this trip that we are planning to go back in August to spend more time there. With this extra trip, Gary and I may do other things that we did not do on this trip.
Our next trip will be to New Orleans on March 21 for Easter Weekend. I am working on my Easter bonnets.
IMPORTANT NOTE - We did not rent a car in San Francisco. There is no need for one unless you plan to drive along the coast. Most hotels in the Downtown or Fisherman’s Wharf area charge a whopping $30 to $40 a night parking. Our Holiday Inn charges $30 a night. Use the door to door shuttle to take you from the airport to the hotels. The price range from $12 to $15 each way (Oakland airport is $15). If you pack very light, take the BART from the airport. The cost is about $3 to $4 per person each way with a small additional cost for the MUNI if your hotel is not on a BART route.
Gary and I went to Vegas for our annual vacation at the end of 2007. After two days of flight delays, we arrived in Vegas on December 27, 2007. For our first two nights, we stayed at a hotel that we had never stay before, Bally’s Las Vegas. This former MGM Grand hotel is adjacent to Paris, Las Vegas. Unfortunately, that is where the buck stops. The hotel is old, old and old. We were more than happy when we moved to the Rio Casino Hotel. Our suite at the Rio had the entire view of the strip which was beautiful when we watched the firework from our room. That is right. We decided not to dress up in our “Gay Mafia” ensembled and spend the evening eating crab legs and then hanging out in our suite instead. My friend, Leslie, had flew in from Tokyo to be with us for a week. POOR SOUL.
It’s So Creamy!
After watching the travel channel and hearing about it from Gary for a decade, I decided that we were going to visit Solvang, California. This tiny town 2 1/2 hours north of LA and 30 minutes east of Santa Barbara was founded by Danish settlers and is now considered one of the most beautiful city in America.
First we drove from Vegas to Los Angeles where we stayed at the Mariott Downtown for only $65 a night (tax included) via priceline.com
This hotel is near the famous Disney Symphoney Hall. After checking in, we walked to Little Tokyo for a mediocre but cheap dinner and then walked to the famous frozen yogurt shop, Pinkberry at the 332 E Second Street location. This frozen yogurt is not like the horrible sweet icecream impostors that American are subjected to. This was pure ecstacy. It was the best frozen treat I ever had. The flavor reminds me of the Viet/French ice yogurt, but the texture was creamy. It blew away every Asian icecream/desert place that dominates Houston, Texas.
There were many toppings to choose from, but the best is to eat the yogurt plain.
The Danish’s Schweaty Hot Balls
On the second day in LA, we left our hotel to spend an afternoon at Solvang. The drive from LA to Santa Barbara was easy and uneventful, but from Santa Barbara to Solvang, the road was mountainous and full of curves. With a thousand cars tailgaiting you, the drive can be stressful.
Solvang was beautiful and full of tourists like us. After parking, we walked and visited the many tourist shops ranging from bakeries to t-shirt stores. Samantha Brown of the Travel Channel did a piece on this city and suggested that all tourists should visit the Solvang Restaurant at 1672 Copenhagen Drive. We walked in and was quickly seated in a booth. The food items on this menu resembled an overpriced Denny’s. However, I was here to eat the famous Danish pancake, aebleskiver. The three puffy, hot and rounded pancake was served with a sprinkling of powdered sugar and sat on top a bed of raspberry jam. I was dissapointed. The pancake had a texture similar to my beloved beignet from New Orleans, but it did not have much taste and to make matter worse, I am not a fan of raspberry jam. Gary had a combo plate of Danish meatballs and sausage served with cabbage. The meat dishes had no flavor at all and if you were blind folded, you would not have known what you were eating. Leslie had a boring Danish hotdog. Neither big or long, it left the mouth wanting something else.
Gary bought a giant box of pastry from one of the many bakeries and after tasting three items of Napoleon, haystack and a bavarian cream filled donut, I declared them overly sweet and unimaginative.
The drive back to our hotel was fine until I hit traffic 5 miles before downtown. It took me almost 50 minutes to drive from an area near Hollywood Blv to Downtown LA
Jimmy HACHA!
When you have three men who are independent thinkers, there will be cat fight! As much as we love and care for each others as friends, I was guilty of doing several “DIVA EXIT” . On our final day in LA, after several of my “DIVA EXITS”, Leslie did one of his own and left me and Gary to explore the Hollywood BLVD. We decided to get free tickets to see the Jimmy Kimmel Show and Les soon rejoined us to stand in line at 5:15 PM. It was raining and very cold and we were wet from head to toes. The show was quickly taped around 7 PM and the guests that night were Ice Cube, Carrie Ann Inaba and a singer from Australia. With the exception of Ice Cube, the rest was more on the D list. Everyone looks much younger and thinner in person than on TV. After the show, we rode the wonderful subway and walked four blocks back to our hotel in the freezing rain.
The Final Stage
I drove us back to Vegas and checked in at Harrahs on January 5 and Gary and I gambled for the next few days. Gary would take Les to the various Harrahs’ casino property high roller lounges and left him there so he can drink, eat and hang out all he wants.
We mostly spend our time eating. I must have eaten a hundred pounds of crab legs during my two weeks vacation. We did take a cab to a nearby Vietnamese restaurant, Pho No. 1, on 4745 Spring Mountain Road. This place serves great Vietnamese beef noodle soup. We also had some pho soup at the Pho restaurant right inside Treasure Island Casino. The selection was few, but the soup was good. However, keep in mind that this is Vegas, not Houston or LA.
I was glad to come home. I had an uncle who was very ill and I am glad that I was able to visit him several times before he passed away. Like me, he loved to travel. His most recent trips in the past few years included Vietnam, Europe, Africa and several trips to Vegas.
October came and went fast. Gary and I went to New Orleans with my mother, baby sister and her husband. My sister and her husband treated us to a lunch at Galatoire’s. This bright restaurant in the two hundred block of Bourbon is one of the most popular restaurant in New Orleans. I have heard and read many positive reviews of this restaurant.
My experience was not positive. We sat at our table and stared at the bright dining area for at least 10 minutes before a wait staff came. I felt a slight hint of “snootiness ” from our waiter, however, after realizing that we (we were the youngest people there and the only non caucasians) were a bunch of foodies, he warmed up to us and gave us a well trained and professional service.
The $15 fois gras appetizer was very good. The tiny two pieces of rare seared goose liver shared the small plate with a small puffy brioche. It was like eating flavored fat. The escargot appetizer was boring and lacking in flavor. The soft escargots sat in a pool of clarified butter, but the dish was under seasoned. Where was the garlic? The complimentary mini baguettes and individual slab of butter was appreciated. The waiter also brought out a plate of garlic bread which was good. Bread crumbs were everywhere.
I had a cup of gumbo which was good, but my sweetbread entre was dry and flavorless from being overfried. At a price of $17, the six small pieces of fried dried thing sat on a white plate with nothing but a sprinkling of chopped chives on top. I chose not to have the optional beurre blanc sauce because this restaurant charges $5 extra for the various sauces on the menu. COME ON Galatoire’s! I have a major issue with restaurants that nickel and dime their customers.
Gary and my mother had the rib eye steaks and they were good just like the ones you get at the Outback Steakhouse. My sister, Mimi, ordered the trout almandine but had to settle for red fish almandine since the restaurant was out of trout that day. I have to say that it was one of the best “almandine” fish I have ever eaten. Usually, fish almandine is boring but Galatoire’s flavorful clarified butter (which was lost on the escargot) made this dish memorable. My brother-in-law had the grouper filet topped with clarified buttter and a generous heap of crab meat. It was very good. The crab meat was well complimented by that delicious clarified butter. Keep in mind that anything that is topped with crab meat taste real good.
Everything is a la carte so we ordered a potato lyonnaise and a creamed spinach as the side vegetable dishes. The spinach was boring and the potato lyonnaise reminded me of a potato dish that I cooked with butter and onion. OH! I have been making potato lyonnaise for a thousand years prior to my reduced carb diet, and my version taste better than this.
For desert, the waiter recommended their signature dish of banana foster bread pudding and creme caramel (flan). Our waiter thought that we did not know what caramel was and proceeded to epxlain but stopped when I blurted out the world flan. In Vietnam and most of Europe, flan is known as caramel. The texture of the bread pudding was good, but they must have ran out of rum or bourbon that day because there was not a hint of alchohol in the desert at all. With out the alchohol, the over sweetened desert tasted like it came out of a “Little Debbie’s ” box. The caramel flan had no flavor and the caramel sauce did not have that slightly bitter sweet taste that is the hallmark of a true caramel.
The lunch came out to be $50 per person before tip (no alcohol - too early to drink); at this price, it should have been much better. One good note is that there was not a hint of balsamic reduction (ballsonit sauce) on my plate.
This restaurant is and will always be popular and busy (dinner reservation for Saturday need to be booked almost a month in advance). It is part of the tradition of life here in New Orleans. For men, jacket and tie are required at dinner time and for lunch wear your Sunday’s best.
My sister summed it best when she said “I’m glad we went here though…” which means that we came, we ate and we will never come back. We all agreed that our dungeness crab buffet at Harrah’s Casino was a much better meal.
I am dissapointed at many of the pricey restaurants I have eaten through out the years. It is surprising to me that that many of these so called “food critics” give such high regards to restaurants like Galatoire’s. Am I so strict with my taste bud? If my meal cost less than $35, I would not be so harsh, but this meal cost $60 per person (including tip) for LUNCH! I had $50 meal that was worth $50. I also had $10 meals that tasted better than most $50 meals.
Hurricane in Houston
I hosted my second annual “Brunch in November” on November 3, 2007. It was held at the home of my gracious friends, Carl Mc and K Nguyen. The 30 guests feasted on a New Orleans inspired meal.
Gary helped me served the famous hurricane cocktail in virgin and regular forms. Gary had ordered beautiful plastic hurricane glasses and plastic hot pepper straws to sip it with. Recipe is at end of article.
For appetizer, I served a homemade pate, a cheese plate of brie (topped with dried cranberries) and baby blue cheese.
For the meal, I made a twenty quart pot of seafood gumbo, cooked 30 cups of rice, simmered a giant pot of red beans & sausage, stewed a pot of vegetale creole (tomato, cauliflower, cabbage cooked with butter and bacon), and peeled and deveined 25 dozen shrimps for my shrimp etoufee. I also served a platter of Holmes brand pecan smoked boudin.
For the deserts, I made two large bourbon creme caramel and a huge batch of banana foster served over Blue Bell vanilla icecream topped with a dolloped of whipped cream. I did have a wonderful box of baked lady fingers which I bought from a Vietnamese bakery in Louisana but I forgot to serve them to my guest. Gary and I ate the entire 30 counts of lady fingers after the party.
Guests brought various wines, champaign and orange juice (mimosa). A pot 100% Kona coffee was brewed and served with sugar, cream and equal.
We had a great time eating, drinking and meeting friends. I look forward to next year.
My friends and I were too busy eating and none of us took a single picture of my food. At least, the memories are in our belly and mind.
I will be going to Vegas on November 15 to celebrate my 42nd birthday. We will be staying at our favorite Vegas hotel, Paris Las Vegas. Get those penny slots ready VEGAS!
See you next time.
Carl
CARL’S HURRICANE
DRINK RECIPE
This is my version of the Hurricance. Fill a large punch bowl with 2 litre (maybe quart) Welch’s passion fruit drink, 2 litre of any tropical punch drink, about 1 litre of passion fruit cocktail (25 percent juice - I found this at the international aisle in the Fiesta Supermarket in Houston) 1 cup of orange juice and the juice of 4 limes.
Mix well and serve over ice in a hurricane glass with dark rum according to taste. The original version at Pat O’Brien in New Orleans uses equal part rum to equal part cocktail mix. This version will have enough alcohol to knock down a football player. Garnish with orange slice, maraschino cherry and a fancy straw. ENJOY!!!!
