Pork Chops and no soup for you!

This weekend, Costco had a $5 off coupon for porks. Naturally, I took advantage of the sale and started searching for some recipes. I was looking for something not so easy, yet not so difficult. I stumbled onto Michael Chiarello's Toasted Spice Rub Pork Chops with Apple Dressing. I had to go and purchase most of these spices since I can never find spices when I need them.

Toasted Spice Rub
1/4 cup fennel seeds
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 tablespoon peppercorns
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 cup pure California chili powder
2 tablespoons kosher salt
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

Ground them up and season them onto the dutch oven they went. I love the flavor of the fennel, I think I'll experiment with them some more. Onto the recipe, I added some caramelized onions but I did not get a chance to plate this since I had a graduation party to attend.

I was able to squeeze in another experiment while the oven was on. I baked a kabocha (japanese pumpkin). Took the inside out, added cream, cucumbers, and salt. The cucumbers were leftovers and I just diced and tossed them withouth thinking. I think I just wanted to break out my new toy, the Kitchen Aid KHB1000B Blender. The soup did not come out creamy and hearty, rather it was a creamy and funky. I will have to experiment some more next time around!

Bette's Diner -Berkeley

In between dropping off parts to a customer and waiting for the North Face outlet to open, HS and I decided to head on over to Bette's Diner in Berkeley for breakfast. If you do not have the patience to wait an hour for this place, do not bother going here.

Upon entering, you see this pie in the sky motif.
To the right of the entrance is a jukebox. It's definitely a "fun" looking place. To tiles on the floor are checkboard black and white, reminiscent of the 50s. After being almost passed out for waiting, we finally got to sit down at the counter. There, we had a view of the short cooks plating the food. It looked fast and fresh.








I had ordered the 2 eggs with their apple sausages and their cranberry lemom scone. (The scone which is probably the best on there). It was good but nothing too fancy. HS got the banana souffle pancake. (The soffle takes a while to bake.) I also got a side of salsa and a latte. The damage was about $30 with tax and tip. I think price wise, this is a tad high for breakfast. Portions were not great but the food was not bad. I've had a lot of better breakfast in the North Beach district of SF. I recommend just going next door to their to go order section and get a scone. It will save you the time and a bit of change from your wallet.

Wahibs Middle Eastern

This past Friday nite, I got a chance to have dinner with ML and SC for dinner. These are my long time friends and we wanted something close by in Alhambra yet uncommon. We had decided on Wahibs on Main. They are a middle eastern restaurant serving Lebanese food. I got a bottle of Almanza, a Lebanese beer, very crisp and refreshing with a sweet after taste. It went very well with Kabobs.



The meals here comes with Soup or Salad. Since I was able to get salad just about anywhere, I opted for the lentil soup. Now, I'm not a big fan of lentil. I've always imagined senior citizens eating lentil because it's easy to chew. But this one soup was fresh, has nutty smokey flavor
Good eats!



For the main course, I got the chicken kabobs. I think this was probably one of their most request items. I got that and shared a chicken shwarma with the guys. The chicken kabobs were one of the best but the chicken shwarma stands out! We followed the dinner with knafeh and we were so stuffed, I couldn't even get ice cream at Fossilmans down the street.

Well, another great meal and recommendation for people who wants to venture out to something different, healthy, and not to burn a hole in the pocket.