Eating: Lunch at Della Fattoria (11 July 2009)

Della Fattoria
141 Petaluma Blvd
Petaluma, CA 94952-2904

Eating: The Girl and the Fig in Sonoma (July 11, 2009)

With a half hour wait ahead of us, we ordered some drinks and a lovely cheese platter, which came with slices of baguette and our choice of three cheeses (I picked one each from the cow's milk, goat's milk and sheep's milk sections) as well as some homecured salami and prosciutto. A great start to the meal, washed down with some sparkling wine. The wait wasn't too long, and anyway, the waiting area was pretty nice and comfortable.

We shared a starter of mussels with garlic toast.

R picked the set dinner, which started with some smoked trout.

My mom had the duck confit.

The main part of the set dinner was seared ahi tuna.

My dad's steak. Perfectly cooked.

I ordered bouillabaisse, a nice light dinner for a change!

The dessert that was part of the set was a fig clafoutis and caramel ice-cream.

But to add to that, we ordered this "mille feuille" that had cherries, pistachios and a lemon verbana cream. It sounded different and it was. Very refreshing and a fantastic end to this birthday dinner!

Saturday in Santa Cruz Part Two

We walked off the lunch (well, at least part of it) at the beach.

And then we put it all back on again when we had a late dinner at Chocolate. This required a very patient 50-minute wait for a table, most of which I spent at the lovely Bookshop Santa Cruz next door. They had great staff recommendations all around the store (also available on their website), and a nice selection of books and magazines. I picked up the current issue of Zoetrope All Story, which has a Latin American focus.

Sesame chicken salad

Asparagus torta with salad.

'Belga' hot chocolate - like drinking nutella.

The Dessert Orgy - gelato, chocolate cream pie, coconut cream pie, cherry pie, tiramisu, a very dark and rich chocolate cake and chocolate truffles. It was a good selection, and I'm glad it wasn't all chocolate, which would've been far too sinful. Dessert was definitely the highlight of this meal and I would return again, but probably have dinner elsewhere.

Chocolate
1522 Pacific Ave
Santa Cruz, CA 95060

Saturday in Santa Cruz Part One

Saturday morning started out with a drive down some winding roads and ended up at the Mystery Spot. It's supposedly a place with some kind of gravitational anomaly. The tour involved the use of levels and a billiard ball to illustrate various things that I wasn't quite paying attention to. It was mildly entertaining but wasn't quite worth the wait nor the $5 parking fee.

It was after 1pm by the time we left, and we were all pretty hungry, which probably accounts for why a heap of appetisers were ordered at The Greek. There were garlic fries, mussels, beans, greens, sausages, tarmasalata and pita bread.

R's main - lamb gyro.

I had the moussaka, which came with more carbs - pita bread, rice and potato. Not too bad, pretty creamy and packed with eggplant. But I think I prefered the appetisers, especially the sausages and the tarmasalata.

Of course I didn't manage to finish my meal.

We ended with some baklava, which was a bit of a letdown, as it was barely buttery.

The Greek
435 Front St
Santa Cruz, CA 95060

Old Town Cafe

The trip to Dublin seems to be more about eating than about watching The Watchmen in Imax (which I thoroughly enjoyed, although I have yet to read the graphic novel. It was well-paced and had good backstories. And it did make me want to go and see what Alan Moore's version is like). After the 2 hour 40 minute movie, we emerged with tired necks (we sat a bit too close to the gigantic screen) and stomachs still full from the dim sum lunch. But since we had driven all the way out there, we figured we should at least give Singapore Old Town Cafe a try. As we waited for the servers to put together some tables for our party of seven, we noticed an award for "Best Satay". So that went on our list of things to order. Here's what else we had.

Teh Tarik (quite good actually).

Chow Hor Fun with seafood. Quite tasty. Very eggy.

Char Kway Teow. Lacked Oomph.

Beef Rendang. Beef was very tender but the gravy was quite forgettable.

I must say that the chicken satay was rather good. The beef was a bit tough. The sauce was a letdown. Where were the peanuts??

The Hokkien mee. Supposedly the most authentic dish but in the end, with all the high hopes, the most disappointing. It didn't have enough flavour in it.

The 'fish fillet mee hoon' (鱼片米粉) had a lot of giam cai (salted vegetables) in it. Tasted ok I guess.

So overall, the food was, eh, so-so. It looked authentic enough, but the taste, the flavour, it was just not quite there. It needed more oomph, more wok hei. I don't think I would head out to Dublin again (50-minutes each way, $4 toll on the return journey) for the Singapore food, but I would definitely return for the dim sum at Koi Garden!

Old Town Cafe
4288 Dublin Blvd,
Unit 109
Dublin, CA 94568
925.833.8300

Dim Sum Sunday

It was well worth the 50-minute drive to a place we've never been before for this dim sum lunch. And not to mention the 40-minute wait for a table (dim sum places here never seem to take reservations). This is Koi Garden. Now this is what dim sum is about!

Like the previous dim sum lunch we had at Hong Kong Saigon, there were ladies pushing around carts full of century egg porridge and other dim sum, but most of the dim sum purveyors here carried their wares around on red trays, as this restaurant is too crowded to be push-cart territory. The restaurant also has a list of other items that have to be ordered, as we found out when trying to get a plate of zha leung (you char kway or dough fritters wrapped in cheung fan or rice rolls). We ended up with heaps of Amazing food, but paid just $17.50 per person.

And now for the highlights:

Have no idea what this is called, although I've had it before - my dim sum knowledge is very basic lah. Please help to fill in the blanks (I'm looking at you, DSD!)

Steaming har gow, filled with plump prawns.

One of R's favourite's - Carrot cake

Something I really wanted (after staring at lucky diners from outside the restaurant) - really crisp and crunchy siu yoke or roast pork served with chewy jelly fish. Don't think I had enough of this one!

I loved the teapot in the hole in the middle of the lazy susan.

I learnt that these are called lau sah or salted egg custard baos. We also ordered the non-salted version, but these were far superior. Didn't care for the eggplant dish beside it.

Kueh lapis! And some very vegetarian beancurd skin dish, which was ok, tasty enough for a vegetarian dish, and made me think of Taiwan and all its mock meats.

Ah, the zha leung, with its incredibly crunchy you tiao!

Another must-have, the egg tarts.

But the best of the sweet stuff were the doughnuts. Very crunchy, very eggy, not as doughy as the Chinese doughnuts in Singapore. Best eaten hot. It was fantastic. In the background is the muah chee, filled with black sesame, and rolled in some crushed peanuts and coconut flakes. Not too bad, but not really the surprise star of the day.

I think the highlight of R's day was the discovery of the Kee Wah Bakery just downstairs, where we picked up Chinese sponge cakes (I just had one for breakfast and they are so much better, eggier than those I've had elsewhere. Plus Kee Wah's stuff looks so much better than Sheng Kee, which is by the Marina supermarket where we pick up groceries). Kee Wah is also in Milpitas, and we'll definitely be stopping by there soon.

Koi Garden @ Dublin
Ulferts Center
4288 Dublin Blvd Ste 213
Dublin, CA 94568
Tel: (925) 833-9090

Kee Wah Bakery
4288 Dublin Blvd. #107,
Dublin, CA 94568