Ultimate Foodie

I am so stoked!

I am in town for the Illuminate Conference put on by my boy Alejandro from Successfool.com and I am going to take the opportunity to hit one of my all time favorite eating spots, the House of Nanking in China Town, San Francisco.

This place is kind of unusual in that the chef could easily be compared to the “Soup Nazi” from Seinfeld.    Here’s the deal:   You are best off if you just go with an open mind, and let them know how many dishes you would like, and if there is a specific ingredient that you don’t or can’t eat.   Then trust him to do the rest.   You will be rewarded if you do.

The restaurant is small, there aren’t many tables, the lobby doubles as a storeroom for cola cans and cases of Tsing Tao (the only beer they serve.  The service is rude and pushy.    If you don’t fill up a table, you will make new friends as they will stick someone with you (new friend? )   The line during dinner rush will most likely be down the street and there may be a wait.  Reservations…. yeah right!

But the food…. ROCKS… and it’s affordable.

Last time I was in town, Jim Kukral and I hit the House for dinner on a recommendation from our concierge.   We had 3 entrees and about 6 Tsing Tao’s and the bill was less than $45.

In the words of the immortal Gary V - that is called bringing the THUNDER

Anyway… we’ll be video blogging from the House of Nanking tonight - so stay tuned.

While we were in Las Vegas for BlogWorld, Karen, Michael Buechele and I had the chance to get out for an awesome dinner at Paris Las Vegas.   We chose French Bistro Mon Ami Gabi for appies, wine, an awesome steak dinner and dessert.  Here is Karen’s reaction to the (amazing) Flourless Chocolate Cake that she had for dessert.

So Wade and I are in Vegas for BlogWorldExpo this weekend! After long trips through airports and flights where they don’t feed you even peanuts anymore, we were both starving so we made the trek to Margaritaville.

It was pretty crowded downstairs and the wait was 45 minutes for a table, but we headed up to the third floor balcony where the wait is first come first serve and the view looks out over Caesar’s Palace. We were sat in about 10 minutes and immediately ordered a couple of drinks.

Wade had a pomegranate margarita on the rocks and I had their delicious frozen Raspberry ‘Rita. For an appetizer, we had Conch Fritters with a chili cream sauce which was divine and we both ordered their Cheeseburger in Paradise which just seemed appropriate. We kinda forgot in our ravenously hungry state to take photos of the food, but I did manage to get one of my margarita before it disappeared. (Ok, ok…it was a photo of the second one, but still.)

Tonight, we head to Wolfgang Puck’s Chinois at Caesar’s which is Asian Fusion. So excited!

Today there were big goings on in bucolic Sedro-Woolley, Washington as people came out from as far as Seattle to meet, shake hands with and get pictures with Captain Phil Harris of the wildly successful Discovery Channel reality series The Deadliest Catch and his son Josh as they released their new Deadliest Brew coffee line.

The crowd was out in force at Food Pavilion as over 150 people showed up to buy and try the new coffee line featuring flavors like Midnight Sunrise (dark Italian roast), 24/7, In the Trough, The Deck Hand Blend and Greenhorn Blend. Curiously, there was a lot of Greenhorn Blend left on the shelves while the Midnight Sunrise and 24/7 blends were flying off the shelves to their fate at the hand of “sharpies” wielded by Josh and Phil.

Phil looked good - but he indicated that he definitely wasn’t feeling 100% yet.

I got the chance to try a sample of the Midnight Sunrise blend and it was definitely a dark roasted coffee. It was heavy on the richness, but with a sweet creaminess to it, with full flavor and definitely wasn’t for the Folger’s drinker. It tasted like the kind of Joe you’d make to stay awake on a 48 hour long fishing jag. I loved it.

Late addition: I just got the chance to try the “In the Trough” blend for my morning cup this morning and they have done a nice job with this. The bold taste of a dark roasted coffee, by smooth and not too acidic. It definitely packs a punch, but it’s a really nice cap.

I’m hoping to line up some time with Phil and Josh here in the next couple of weeks to chat about their new venture. I talked to Glenn, their business partner and he indicated that this wasn’t just another celebrity endorsement thing where Phil and sons are signed on to rep a product. They are actually full partners in the business and are behind the brand 100%.

They seemed like really cool guys and the entire crowd got a laugh when with about 25 minutes to go on the signing, and with about 50 people still in line, Josh stood up to ask if anyone would mind terribly if they went outside to have a smoke. I considered taking up smoking for 10 minutes so I could go out and hang with them, but I decided to pass.

You can buy Deadliest Brew Coffee in Food Pavilion stores in Washington State or you can order online at www.deadliestbrew.com

For more than three decades, maybe even four, my family has made the jaunt once or twice a year to Buscaglia’s Ristorante in Jackson, California to celebrate. Sometimes it’s a birthday, sometimes Mother’s Day, sometimes for other important family events like confirmations and baptisms. We’ve always considered it our restaurant of choice for really special family events.

Until May 11, 2008, that is.

When I was a kid, Buscaglia’s was an awesome little place…right on the road with this huge, beautiful stained glass window of roses and a light-up dance floor in the lounge, straight out of the seventies. The food was to die for, homemade minestrone, succulent pastas, and this amazing fried chicken that I swear I can still taste, even though they discontinued making it more than 15 years ago. The place was cozy and warm, the staff was always friendly and attentive and it really felt like you had gone to an old friend’s home for dinner.

Not so anymore.

The day before Mother’s Day, we made the trek to Buscaglia’s for dinner. All told, there were eleven of us, eight adults and three kids. Buscaglia’s recently built a new restaurant farther back on the hill from the original location, and although my parents and grandparents had been there since the new spot opened, my siblings and I had not. I must admit, I was saddened to see that all that was left of the old building was some brick pillars and foundations. The new building is really quite impressive, but the rubble at the foot of the hill made it seem bittersweet.

To get to the restaurant entrance, you have to enter the courtyard and walk up a short incline to the back of the building. When I arrived with my kids, my grandparents were talking to the waiter about getting a different table location, and although we were the first people there (the place opens at 5pm and we were there on the dot for our reservation) they refused to move us. Ok, no problem I thought…I wasn’t sure why my grandparents had wanted to move in the first place, but once we sat down, it became all too apparent. The main walkway from the kitchen to the outdoor seating was right along our table. With all the coming and going, you would expect that we would have received better service, but not really. Our drinks were a long time coming and our ordering even longer after that. By the time the waitress came with our soup and salad, our bread was long gone and she forgot my brother’s minestrone. We managed to get that rectified and about 7 or 8 minutes later, another waiter came by to ask us if we wanted grated cheese on our food…except that we were almost done with it at that point, so it was pretty silly. It took quite awhile longer for our dinners to arrive and in the meantime, the traffic behind my chair increased in pace and it was incredibly distracting for my three year old.

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