POTD: Photo of the Day

mocha almond ice cream brownie sundae with chocolate and white chocolate fudge sauce (*yum*)

Mother's Bistro & Bar

(09.19.2009)

POTD: Photo of the Day

Strawberry Shortcake

Soluna Cafe & Lounge

San Francisco, CA

(05.31.2008)

POTD: Photo of the Day

Galaktoboureko

Traditional phyllo wrapped vanilla bean semolina custard with pistachio ice cream

Evvia Estiatorio

Palo Alto, CA

(06.19.2009)

POTD: Photo of the Day

Macaroons (Limon, Citron, Vanille, Chocolat)

Ladurée - Champs de Elysee

Paris, France

(03.22.2009)

POTD: Photo of the Day

Ile Flottante (simply amazing!)

Le Restaurant

Musee d'Orsay

Paris, France

(03.26.2009)

Cooking in the Kitchen: Chocolate

Monday night is "Gatherings @ the Azure Tower" night and most of the cooking is usually done before the actual gathering - for most of us, we actually don't cook the day of...or if we do, it's a bit rushed due to the work day...so I spend part of my weekend doing my contribution for this week's theme of "Cocoa/Chocolate"

I actually started on Saturday, since I'm doing a layered dessert for my "showcase" and things needed to be cooled/chilled...

melted dark chocolate for the base
very, very messy chocolate piping for garnish

the base layer

melted semi-sweet chocolate

sugar & water for caramelization

starting to boil

nice caramel color

caramel + semi-sweet chocolate mixture

a very temperamental dark chocolate ganache

it was an extremely hot weekend

chocolate was very difficult to work with

my 4 layered "cocoa/chocolate" themed dessert setting

Ok, so I feel guilty for posting pictures of very messy work...but I can't share the final results until after Cocoa/Chocolate night :)

4 layer caramel chocolate mousse with mocha chocolate ice cream :)

Desserts at Emporio Rulli Gran Caffe, San Francisco, CA

Saturday

06.27.2009

CJ and I headed over to the Marina on Chestnut Street to get some dessert after out outing to the beach...we were trying to decide where to go for dessert and ended up at Emporio Rulli Gran Caffe. I was thouroughly disappointed.

The service was utterly horrible: the waiter was extremely rude and did not want to tell me what the various cake slices of the day were why I asked him to clarify the menu. We did not have napkins and had to ask the hostess to get napkins becuase the waiter never came by. We started eating out desserts and were half-way finished before we even got napkins.

The tiramisu was underwhelming - I took a bite of Christina's. I had a very dry and bland cake of the day. It was chocolate cake with whipped cream and berries. It was so very disappointing.I was genuinely very unhappy with the experience.

Needless to say, the ambience was nice but the desserts were underwhleming as well as the service - but at least the company was good.

the main dining room

the dessert menu
cj's steamed milk

unimpressive tiramisu

a very dry and bland cake of the day

chocolate with whipped cream and berries

so very disappointing

POTD: Photo of the Day

The display case of one of my favorite bakeries, I definitely recommend the Framboise Foray

La Patisserie

Cupertino, CA

(06.24.2009)