I had several of these when I was at all-inclusives in the Riviera Maya and decided to make my own. Based on an online recipe, this is what I came up with:
-1/4 cup light rum
-juice from 1/2 lemon
-1 cup ice
-1 banana
-1 tsp. sugar
Put everything in blender and blend until smooth.
It’s quite good.
Author: admin (Page 37 of 51)
I’ve always wanted to have an herb garden. Herbs are impossibly expensive at the supermarket (usually around $2 for a package, and you can’t buy them in smaller units) and you don’t tend to use them that much. But I’m a terrible, neglectful gardener – or rather, I’m not a gardener at all, so I’ve just mumbled and grumbled about wanting an herb garden and never really did anything about it.
Then, a few weeks ago, my 7-year-old daughter Mika started saying she wanted to plant vegetables. I figured if she was planting, I could be planting too, so I cleared out a section of dirt by the front porch and planted some rosemary, sage, chives and basil, plus some thyme and oregano in a pot I already had. The kids, meanwhile, planted some veggies in the back yard.
We’ve been meticulous about watering them every day – and they are finally paying off. The herbs are doing beautifully and actually starting to expand. Hey, the moment may come when they fight each other off 🙂
Here are some pictures I took this morning. We’ll be cooking with our herbs all week long (tonight I’ll be making some pesto). I’ll post recipes, if warranted.
And here are some of Mika’s veggies & fruits:
And finally, some blackberries we’ve let grow:
A couple of days ago I went with my friend Mauro to lunch at Khana Peena. He likes it quite a bit, but I was not crazy about the buffet. It had many of the usual dishes: chicken tikka masala, a lamb curry, chicken tandoori, naan, rice and so forth. It was $10, including soda.
The place itself is very nice, in particular the outside patio which has benches and pillows and lots of fresh air. Inside it looks a bit more elegant than your run-of-the-mill Indian restaurant.
I wasn’t thrilled with the food, though. It was OK, but I thought the curries needed more “ummph”, not necessarily spiciness, but something to complete the flavor. The chicken tandoori also wasn’t very flavorful, but most importantly, it was quite undercooked. The rice and naan were nice.
I wouldn’t be rushing back to Khana Peena, but I won’t mind if Mauro suggests it again.
Khana Peena Indian Cuisine
5316 College Ave.
Oakland, CA
510-658-2300
Marga’s Bay Area Restaurant Reviews
Note: La Bella Italia has re-opened in the same location under the name Tuscany.
—
As I announced a couple of days ago, La Bella Italia has become “My Ultimate Tandoori”. Its old Italian menu is not changed, but it’s now complimented by an Indian menu. The new menu offers a plethora of entrees from all over India ($8-13 a la carte, $12-17 with plain naan, rice, salad and lentils), including quite a few vegetarian entrees. There are several appetizers and desserts in their take-out menu, but they were not included in the dine-in menu that we were given (after asking for it, they gave us the Italian menu by default). Appetizers in the take-out menu include vegetable (but not chicken) pakoras for $5 and chicken samosas for $6. They also have a variety of naans ($1.25 – 4), but not kabuli naan. Though not in their menu, they do serve lassis. I had a sweet lassi, which was OK. For some reason it was pink – it tasted a little bit of curd, but mostly of sugar; it was extremely sweet. I think next time I’d ask them to make it less sweet.
Dinner started with their usual rolls and butter – the rolls were warm, but a bit stale this time. They also brought us papadums, which were very crispy but too spicy for my taste. They were not served with the cilantro and sweet-sour sauces that usually accompany it at other restaurants.
For dinner we had our “staples”: chicken tikka masala ($9), lamb korma ($10), a plain naan ($1.25) and an onion kulcha ($3). I also ordered rice ($2, I think).
The tikka masala and korma sauces were quite similar – the korma being more spicy (we ordered them medium). They were thick, flavorful, without much in the way of sweetness. The tikka masala lacked any pretension of smokyness, and the korma was probably bolder and less creamy than other kormas I’ve had. I wasn’t crazy about them, but that’s probably a matter of individual taste. I did eat them all (helped by naan), I just didn’t love them. The chicken, unfortunately, was quite dry and the lamb a bit too tough.
I’m not an expert on identifying rice grains, but I can tell you that the rice served here was not basmati. The grains were pretty thick, and it was stickier than it should have been (perhaps it was a tad overcooked). It also tasted very plain, without the nutiness of basmati. Interestingly, I found that the curries were horrible when eaten together with the rice – fortunately we had the naan.
The naan and the kulcha were quite nice, and I would order them again.
Dinner came up to $40 after tax and tip – a little steep, I think. Service was good, though the waiter failed to let us know about the Indian menu, and he did not tell us what we could order off-menu (such as appetizers, desserts and lassis).
In all, we had a pleasant meal but not one we would be rushing to have again. The food at Favorite India, in Hayward, is considerably more to my linking and its entrees are a dollar or two cheaper. My Ultimate Tandoori delivers with a $30 minimum order; Favorite India does as well, but only to parts of San Leandro.
Still, I’m quite happy that Ultimate Tandoori has opened and I imagine I will go back with friends when we don’t want to have an Indian dinner in the city. I’m also planning on trying their lunch buffet ($7 without a drink – 11 AM to 3 PM daily) (see update below)
My Ultimate Tandoori
15015 East 14th St.
San Leandro, CA
510-278-5899
Daily 11 AM – 3 PM and 4 PM – 10 PM
San Leandro Restaurant Reviews
Marga’s Indian recipes:
Balti
Bengali
Update
Today I went to lunch to My Ultimate TAndoori with a couple of friends. The buffet lunch had regular salad, raita, plums (I think), vegetable pakora, chicken tandoori, a seafood curry, a lamb curry and chicken tikka masala (I think). It also had rice, some spinach dish, daal, a vegetable curry (I think) and, for dessert, gulab jamun and a rice pudding. The buffet was $7, with drink and tax it came out to $10. A hot butter naan is served at the table.
All in all I thought it was an average Indian buffet. The naan and the gulab jamun were simply delicious. The chicken tandoori was a little uneven, the first piece I got was very good and flavorful, others less so. The meat curries tasted about the same as they did the other night. They were thick and tasty, but they were missing something. Perhaps they have not simmered for long enough. Once again I found the chicken somewhat tough, and I preferred to eat the curries with the delicious naan. I didn’t try the vegetable selections. One of my friends really liked them mixed with raita – the other one didn’t do so and found them too spicy.
In all, it was an OK buffet, though not one of the best I’ve had. I expect that I’ll go there from time to time and you should give it a try too.
—
Update 12/09
We went again to My Ultimate Tandoori around Xmas time with my parents and I think we had a pretty experience. Mike and I had Indian food and my parents Italian. It’s been a while so I don’t remember what we all had, but we all liked the food. However, we all felt it was overpriced, which is why My Ultimate Tandoori is not my choice for either Indian or Italian food, despite the fact that it’s relatively close to my home.
The economic situation is being tough on San Leandro restaurants – and many of them are resorting to coupons to get people in the door. Whereas a few months ago, there were only a couple of San Leandro restaurants in restaurant.com, now you can find quite a few of them.
Restaurant.com lets you buy $10 gift certificates for $3, and $25 gift certificates for $10. There is usually a minimum purchase ($35 or $50 for the $25 gc) which may exclude alcoholic drinks. The real deal, though, is that sometimes you can get these certificates for 70-80% off (keep an eye on dealdetectives.com), so our savings can be really substantial.
The San Leandro restaurants on restaurant.com now are:
–Biggies Brazilian BBQ
-El Amigo Mexican
-Los Cabos Seafood Mexican Restaurant
–Luke’s Grill
–Porky’s Pizza Palace
–San Gaspar Restaurante
–Sweet Fingers Restaurant
–Tito’s Mexican Restaurant
–Vo’s Restaurant
There are also a bunch of new restaurants in the surrounding areas, so remember to check out restaurant.com before going to dinner anywhere.
It has happened! San Leandro has finally gotten an Indian restaurant. We’ve hoped for it, begged for it, and it’s finally here. Alas, I haven’t been there yet, so I don’t know how good it is, but it’s here.
My Ultimate Tandoori has opened in the space previously occupied by La Bella Italia. The owners of La Bella Italia are themselves Indian (from the Punjab, I’d guess, as they are Sikh) – but their true love is Italian food. Alas, La Bella Italia was not very successful in its current location, I rarely saw anyone there, so they seem to finally give in and give San Leandro what it really needs: an Indian restaurant. They’ll continue serving Italian food, however. We had desert there last month, and it was quite good, so they’ll hopefully keep that.
As for the new menu, it includes your usual North Indian dishes (they have chicken tikka masala and lamb korma, my favorites), but a bunch of others as well. Indeed, I wonder if their menu is not too ambitious. They have a daily lunch buffet for $7 (11 AM – 3 PM).
I hope I’ll get to go this week – I’ll let you know what I think.
My Ultimate Tandoori
15015 East 14th St.
San Leandro, CA
510-278-5899
Daily 11 AM – 3 PM and 4 PM – 10 PM
May 2011 Update
A couple of days ago, Mike was in the mood for sushi and I was in the mood for not cooking, so when he suggested that we go to Fat Fish Sushi, I got in the car and went with him. Clearly, we had all forgotten about our previous experience at Fat Fish Sushi – which we proceeded to replicate almost to the letter.
Fat Fish Sushi has become a very, very modest restaurant. Your order at the counter, but dishes are brought to the table. Prices don’t seem to have increased much since our last foray. Once again, Mike ordered the Lion King roll and the unagi, and once again the thought the former was unimpressive and the latter was OK. I ordered a bento box with beef teriyaki and chicken katsu. The beef teriyaki was just like the time before, bland with an overly sour sauce. The chicken katsu consisted of very small, thin strips of breaded fried chicke with an overwhelmingly sour katsu sauce. Neither was particularly tasty. Mika had a kid’s bento box with two huge breaded & fried shrimps (the breading had no flavor), a California roll, which she sort of liked, and chicken teriyaki, which had a weird consistency.
In all, a meal that should not be repeated.
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June 2009 review
I’m not a big Japanese food eater (indeed, I don’t eat sushi), but my husband and kids like it, so we go to sushi restaurants from time to time. Of the handful of sushi restaurants in San Leandro, Ozeki Sushi Teriyaki was our favorite. I even liked their teriyaki. It changed names (to Fat Fish), and probably ownership, quite a while ago – and we hadn’t gone back since. Today, however, when I agreed to have Japanese food for lunch, that’s where we headed. I’m sorry to say that the food quality has gone down considerably. Even though I’m not crazy about the other Japanese restaurants in town, I would definitely not go back to this one.
I had the beef teriyaki plate ($8). The beef was tender and lean, and the portion was quite generous, but the beef had not been salted and, in the words of my husband, it was “the blandest piece of meat I’ve ever eaten”. The teriyaki sauce tasted mostly of soy sauce (and yet, not a salty soy sauce). A little salt improved the meat considerably, but not the point of actually calling it “good”. Unless you like bland food, take my advise and skip it.
You may also want to skip the Lion King roll (a California roll with baked salmon & tobiko). Mike speculates that the salmon & tobiko had been added to the top of the pre-made roll and quickly microwaved – the roll had both hot and cold spots. Needless to say he was not impressed.
The miso soup and unagi ($1 per piece) were fine.
In all, a disappointing experience.
Fat Fish Sushi
14701 E 14th St.
San Leandro, CA
510-614-8900
M-Sat 11:30 AM – 9:30 PM
Sun: 5 – 9:30 PM
The last issue of Food & Wine magazine has an article about the “best new chefs” and a picture of 11 of them in the cover. Mika, my 7-year-old, took a quick look at it and noticed “there is only one girl”. And indeed, she’s right. There are also no noticeable minorities. Do you need to be male and white to be noticed as a chef in America? Or are only white men becoming chefs?
Top Chef, the Bravo TV reality series, seems to have little trouble finding a good number of women and minorities for its show (though most winners have been white males) – so I don’t believe that good, new women & minority chefs are not there, perhaps they are just not cooking at the “bistro”-style restaurants where many new chefs establish their reputations. Or perhaps they are cooking more ethnic cuisine.
Food & Wine Magazine has an article in its latest issue on the question of whether meats should be salted before they are cooked. There are few issues that are as controversial in the area of cooking. Some cooks are convinced that if you pre-salt meat, it will dry out. Others think that pre-salting greatly enhances the flavor. Harold McGee, the food scientist author of On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen
But that’s all theory. What’s actually the truth when you hit the skillet? Food writer Oliver Schwaner-Albright set to find out. He got some meat, salted some a day ahead, and the other right before cooking. Then he roasted chicken and pork ribs, seared steak and braised lamb shanks. The results? Inconclusive.
The pre-salted chicken was more flavorful and moist while the pre-salted ribs were awfully dry. There was no consensus on which steak was better, but the pre-seasoned lamb was definitely more delicious than the other one. So no golden rules, it seems that what works best will depend on the type of meat and preparation. Oh well, I’ll have to continue salting by instinct (or recipe) 🙂
Though I love to write about my experiences with food, I’m not much of a reader of food writing. I use cookbooks mostly for recipes (though some, like Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook
It’s probably for that reason that I did not fall in love with Food & Wine magazine when I started receiving it. It contains lots of long articles about things I care very little about, it has an altogether “posh/foodie” sort of feeling (so very 2005) and I can never find any recipes I want to make. I got the July issue today and I was just about to write lambasting it when, to my great surprise, I actually found some articles I wanted to read (e.g., one on the guy who won Top Chef). First time, I think.
Still, one good issue will not make me renew my subscription.
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