Just went to Jamaica, thought I’d share with you guys the our trip. We had a great time. Hope you enjoy our home made mix tape.

Brian & Julie Jamaica Vacation 2007 from Juejuebie and Vimeo.

I haven’t blogged for 7 months now. Everyday I think about updating it to reflect the recent changes I’ve made. Finally I’ve got around to it!! Here’s is Juejuebie’s re-instated blog, from Clinton Hill Brooklyn! Yup! I’ve moved from beautiful SoCal, to the Big Apple NYC. I’ve got lots to point out in this new neighborhood, look out for new posts in the coming days.

Last saturday night, I went to my girlfriend Caroline’s house warming party. On my way home, I realized I was going to pass one of the parking lot restaurants on my list. So I suggested to my friend Jose that we try this place out. He was all for it! Making a sharp turn into the parking lot, we go out of our car and sat down at the table (right next to our car).

I found out, after Jose translated for me, that KiKe’s Tacos has been at the same spot for 4 years now. This little taco stand is actually pretty well known! They offer 6 different tacos at $1.00 each. YUM!

So what should I order? Without knowing what is it, I decided go bold and ordered the “Buche”. At the time, my friend Jose told me that it was pork neck so i figure, oh what the heck… at least its pork right? But now, as I’m writing this blog, I did a little research and people have blogged it as pork skin, pork stomach and or cheek. Anyone know exactly what this mystery meat is?

As long as it is Pork, I’m okay.  The taco was hot, a little spciy, very tender and definately hit the spot after a night of drinkin’ and partyin’.

After partying like a rock star all night, KiKe’s is the place to go!

The taco stand will magically appear after sunset on the corner of 2^nd St. and Beaudry.

ENJOY!

A girlfriend of mine (caroline on crack) and myself have decided to plot out an adventure seeking a specific type of restaurant, we call it Parking Lot Restaurants. This type of restaurant is not fancy or expensive. The dining experience is always casual but I find that restaurants that have the “shack like look” actually have some great food!

The trick to determining if the place is a parking lot restaurant is to look at how the restaurant is built. In most cases, a parking lot restaurant has a fairly small kitchen, most, if not all of the tables are set up outside of the physical building, almost always in the parking lot. Some parking lot restaurants will have a yawning or tint built over the dining area. Others would actually piece together odd or temporary looking ceilings and walls that make the dinning area more enclosed.

I have 4 parking lot restaurants listed here that Caroline and I will check out and review. Do you know of any good tasting parking lot restaurants? Please do recommend.

1. El Camacho’s Restaurante

2019 W. Venice Blvd. LA. 90006

Tele. 323-735-6276

Site. http://www.elcamachos.com

This restaurant was referred to me. My friend told me this one is real good but looks really ghetto.

2. Netty’s

1700 Silverlake Blvd. LA. 90026

Tele. 323.665.DISH

Site. http://www.nettysrestaurant.com/

This is a east Hollywood neighborhood restaurant. It has established itself as a full restaurant although you can see that the actual restaurant is about the size of a news stand. The seating area was built after. Though it is still cute, it is very much put together.

3. Cha Cha Cha

656 N virgil Ave LA. 90004

Tele. 323-664-7723

Site. http://www.theoriginalchachacha.com/home.php

This restaurant is one of the most advanced parking lot restaurants. You almost can’t tell that it’s a parking lot restaurant any more. From the outside the restaurant looks a bit like a shack but the inside is actually quite big. This restaurant didn’t come the way it is now. It went through the parking lot restaurant evolution and is now fully established.

4. Gabby’s Midnight Café

On Venice (north side) west of motor

Go down Venice and make a u-turn at motor – it’s on the right

This restaurant is still in the works. If I had to place these restaurants in order of evolution, I would say Gabby’s haven’t fully matured. It lacks what most hip parking lot restaurants have now days which is information online. Website, directory listings, etc… The restaurant itself is real tiny. The seating area is under a huge tint and well it leaks when it rains but the restaurant serves great food!

5. name unkown

On the corner of 2^nd St. and Beaudry.

I have to find out what the real name of this place is. There is a sign but its only there when they are there. This one is still at its “ape” stage of parking lot restaurant evolution. It’s really a little stand with some tables and a light. But hey, they’ve been there for years, and if it didn’t make money, it would’ve been gone a long time ago. We have to try this place…

So here is the taste test result.  My chicken pot pie was a bit of a failure.  The curst wasn’t crispy enough and the stuffing/pie content wasn’t creamy like it should be.  In the end, I had to throw it out since it wasn’t even good enough to give it away.  Plus it’s kind of hard to give people half eaten pies.  Glad I tried it though! On to my next project!

Lately I’ve been very adventurous with my cooking. I’ve been trying new things that I would’ve never tried to cook. Last week I made my first Blueberry Pie, and this weekend, I made my first Chicken Pot Pie.

I decided to make pie last week because I bought a big box of blueberries at the grocery store. I simply wanted some blue berry pancakes, which I made, but I ended up with a bunch of blueberries. Like every Sunday, I ask myself, what should I make today? Peaking into my frig, all I can see is that big bowl of blueberries rotting in the next few days, so I decided to do something about the darn berries. Of course after making the blueberry pies, I ended up with extra crust dough, so then I made that into a chicken potpie!

Having watched so many cooking shows, I didn’t really need much of a recipe to figure out how to make a piecrust. Flour, butter and water pretty much summed it up!

I heated the blueberries in a deep pot with some Rum and sugar. Since this is my first attempt ever on a pie filling, some hiccups were expected. I over cooked the berries so it ended up looking more like a berry soup rather than a berry pie filling. To fix this, I decided to add some starch to the filling to thicken it. I then poured the gooey pie filling into small pie plans and covered it with the simple crust recipe I made. Of course I didn’t cover the pie completely all around, so while it baked, the filling boiled over and leaked out of my pie. As I waited for the piecrust to brown, I realized I forgot to glaze the piecrust so the pie didn’t get to brown.

Salvaging what I can, the pie turned out somewhat presentable. I wasn’t sure how eatable it was but my fiancé was very supportive. He swore it was great but when I brought it to work, the comments were slightly different.

As for the chicken potpie, I just made, so I haven’t tried it yet. The picture looks pretty good right? I’ll update it once the pie cools and I get to take a bite out of it.

I love to cook, but am I a hip cook? Can I cook and entertain at the same time? Can I make cooking look like a breeze while the food’s presentation and taste is just absolutely mind blowing? Oh and of course, walk out of the kitchen with not a stain is on my apron? Apparently YES!

Last week, I attended my friend Monika’s cooking class in the brewery by down town LA. The place was difficult to find if you’ve never been there but the directions on the site was clear enough to not get lost.

As I walked in, the doors of the Hip Cooks studio was drawn up by chalk like a daily special in a restaurant. I thought that was cute. To the left, as you enter, is a large rectangular dining table that seats about 15. Straight ahead is a beautiful kitchen, like something I would build in my house if I had the budget.

I decided to go for the pasta class since making your own pasta just sounds difficult and daunting. The 3 hours class was long but it made pasta making seem not so intimidating after all.

Class started promptly at 7:01pm. Our teacher for the night was a chirpy, funny Italian pastry chef, Bonny. We started mixing flour and eggs together making the batch of pasta dough we needed for the night. Everyone had a task to do. Crack the eggs, mix the flour and kneed the dough. With 12 or 14 pairs of hands, the dough got made pretty quickly!

We refrigerated most of it to let the dough rest and were left with two base ball sized pieces of dough to make the first dish on the menu, Butternut squash & Roasted Garlic Ravioli with Sage Butter and Parmesan. After making the Raviolis, we cooked it, and all sat down and ate it in about 2 minutes. As we ate the raviolis, everyone was hemming and haaing about how good the butternut squash was, and I was in total agreement!

Next we made Dill fettuccini in with salmon and a voda cream reduction.  That was VERY good too.  After the second dish, I noticed the mental and mobility slow down as the carbs started to settle in.  The wine paired with every dish didn’t really help either. We all tried really hard to make the 3rd and 4th dish which were the Ming Ricotta Caramelle, and a Mushroom and Spinach Rotolo.  That last dish, the rotolo, looked so good but everyone took only a sliver of a bite and surrendered to their almost exploding stomachs.
I had a lot of fun making pasta that night! I walked out of there clean, full and felt like I cooked for a party of 14. I got to mingle with people and learn something new.  If you ever feel like learning new reciepes or just want to do something different on a date, you should definitely try to be a hip cook for a night.

Everyone knows that San Francisco is a food town. Almost every restaurant has some sort of signature dish or drink. Well this little coffee shop, tucked away in a little garage by a furniture shop, has the absolute best coffee I’ve ever tasted. Maybe it’s the water, maybe the coffee bean, maybe both. When you taste that first sip of the latte, the flavor of the coffee with the smoothness of the milk steamed to perfection making the whole latte rich, light, creamy and sweet. MAN! That’s some good sh*t!

The Blue Bottle Coffee Co. has lots of daily regulars. People bring their own mugs, and with no words but a simple nod of “yes I’d like my regular”, the owner knows exactly what to make!

Everytime I visit San Francisco I would make it a point to stop by and get a soy latte. Unlike the immeasurable amount of choice at a Starbucks, Blue Bottle Coffee has a simple menu of a few choices. There also isn’t any non-sense like an extra 50 cents for soy instead of regular milk. Three Dollars. That’s how much every cup is no matter how you like it. On occasions, when the line isn’t so long, he’ll even take time to make a little leaf shape out of the milk foam on the top of the cups. Now that’s some real coffee!

Welcome to Iron Chef! Today’s theme is………….. FISH!!

Last Sunday I decided to make steamed fish. I got to the seafood section of my little Asian market and I looked at all the different fish I can pick from. Not knowing which one is best for steaming, I asked the fish man. He looked around and pointed at the fish tank behind him, a live one? I don’t really like to buy live fish since the killing process, I find, is a bit brutal. He insisted. So, I thought alright. After he scaled, gutted and packaged it nicely in the plastic bag, the fish was still twitching. I couldn’t really look at it when I put it in my basket.

I went home, rubbed it with some salt and let it sit in the frig for a few hours. Right before dinner, I chopped up some ginger, scallions and poured some rice wine and soysauce on top. In to the steamer it goes. I have to admit, the fish was very fresh and tender. But when you watch something gets kills just so you could eat it, it really makes me think… should I be a vegetarian?….. hum.. NAH~

So! I finally made something chocolate. I was pretty lazy about this one since the last time I tried melting chocolate I ended up burning the whole thing and it just wasn’t pretty. Then I bought heavy cream 2x and they spoiled before I got around to trying making the truffles. So, there it was, a huge chunk of chocolate sitting in my frig, about 1.5lbs pure coco, I gotta do something with it! I tried doing the truffles but just looking at the recipe made me tired. Plus I had to buy the melon ball scooper, an ice cream scooper, a thermometer, parchment paper… really starting to look expensive. Finally I found a flourless chocolate cake recipe I thought would be perfect! Prep time only 40 Min. Stick and half of butter, chocolate, sugar, eggs and a teaspoon of vanilla and I’m set! Easy enough!~

Step 1: chop chocolate in fine pieces for melting. So I’m looking at this brick of chocolate, how the hell am I supposed to chop it up into pieces? And it states here prep time was only 40 minutes, it would take me hours chiseling at this thing! All the sudden, DING! I put the brick of chocolate in a zip lock bag and walked outside with a hammer! Perfect! Finely chopped pieces it is! Still on schedule with the 40 min prep time!

Step 2: Melt chocolate with butter. Okay this was the part I had trouble with last time, but I did pretty well this time since my chocolate was in fine pieces, thanks to my genius idea, it melted quite easily.

Step 3: Mix chocolate with eggs beat on high for 5 minutes. Easy enough, especially with my SUPER DUPER Kitchen Aid Mixer!

Step 4: Fold in 2 table spoon of sugar and flour. DONE!

Step 5: Pour it in a pan, bake for 15 minutes. DING! Oven’s ready!

Total Time: 60 minutes.

I gotta say, that was pretty easy! My favorite part was probably hammering the crap out of that brick of chocolate.

I have to admit, the flourless chocolate cake didn’t come out looking too pretty and it tasted so so. Knowing that there is a stick and a half of butter in it really turned me off from eating it. It’s usually like that when I bake so, solution? Co-workers! Brought it to work, it was gone by noon! Love it! Next project!