seriously?

Let me preface this post by saying I really, REALLY need a new camera.  Fo' serious.

OK, now that we have that out of the way...

So, last night I took my good friends Rheo and Nickalas to Uchi.  They watched Mister for a week while I was in California last month and I wanted to thank them with a really nice dinner on my dime.  Uchi is the best restaurant in Austin (well, besides its sister restaurant Uchiko which I actually like more).  Anyway, this ain't no TGI Friday's ok?  If there was a table of contents for "Restaurants in the Austin metroplex that are the f'ing cat's pajamas" Uchi would be II (Uchiko would be I but I didn't want to drive north).  It truly is *that* amazing.


But I digress.


Well, after all was said and done and we ordered everything off the happy hour menu and a ton of other stuff, Rheo was not blown away!  He gave it a "7."  A 7?!?!  Are you f'ing kidding me?  I mean, really?  We could have just went to Pei Wei and I'd save like $140 and he would have been happier, I think.  I just couldn't believe it.  How can one not LOVE  Uchi?  Did we just eat at the same restaurant?  I just didn't get it at all, I still don't.  Sigh. 


Well, this simply does not compute.  DOES NOT COMPUTE!  Uchi is still the shit, as far as I'm concerned, pardon my french.  I still will pick Uchi for birthday celebrations, dates (dare to dream), and just a general go-to place for amazing and innovative cuisine in Austin.  I refuse to succumb to his crazy-talk of Uchi being a 7.  No f'ing way, NO!  Beyond the fact that the food is outstanding and gorgeous, the ambiance of this restaurant is beautiful.  It ain't no gd 7!  It's a 10!  Actually, it's a 13.5!

OK, so back to the food since this is a food blog.

Hamachi nabe - This was by far, my favorite dish.  OMG.  It will knock you out, LL Cool J style.  It has chunks of tender baby yellow­tail sashimi with crispy koshi hikari rice, a raw ringger farm egg and sweet soy broth.  They cook the dish in front of you.  The flavors and textures of this dish, whoa.  I seriously could have eaten two more bowls of this by myself, that's how good it was.  What sets Uchi apart from the rest are all the magnificent flavor combinations.  My picture didn't come out but I found one online, see above.

Delicious white fish - I don't remember the name of this dish and can't find it on the Uchi menu.  So, let's just go with Delicious White Fish.  :)   The dish was a very flavorful and large delicious white fish with chunks of cucumbers and a pungent broth.  I wish I could remember what it was called because it was so stinking good.  Loved it!  Seriously, amazing dish.

Pitchfork roll - Sushi roll with wagyu beef and fresh avocado with tonburi land caviar and leek crisps.  It was ok but not my favorite thing that we ate, by far.  I've had this before and there were other things I like more.

Tempura shiki - seasonal assorted vegetable selec­tion with ten-tsuyu broth.  If you love vegetables and tempura, you will love this.  I love both so I was in heaven.  De-lish.

Brie ringo tempura fried brie - with apple chutney and crisps.  I really didn't like this dish.  I think I didn't care of it because I'm just not a fan of brie.  And I love me some cheese but brie, not so much.  A shame because I do love me some cheese and tempura and apples.  Oh well.  The picture I took turned out way too dark too.  Told ya I need a new camera.

We also ordered one other sushi roll but at this point but it also wasn't my favorite so we will just move on...

Jizake crème caramel - with brown butter sorbet & ginger consommé.  WOW.  Omg omg OMG.  It's a crime to go to Uchi and not get a dessert.  They continue to knock it out of the park with their desserts.  These desserts are a work of art, complete masterpieces.  So many creative and flawless elements to them.  The creme caramel is reminiscent of flan, texture-wise.  A little thicker though.  The brown butter sorbet, omfg.  O-M-F-G.  For serious, they are not playing around with that brown butter sorbet.  And they pour some ginger concoction over it which just heightens the flavors.  Soooo good.


So, that's it.  I really wish Rheo would have liked it more.  I love going to Uchi with people who love it as much as I do because it truly is an experience unlike no other. 


Well, that's all folks.  Toodle-loo.

get in my belly.

It's been awhile since I've posted anything on here lately.  Things have been a wee bit hectic in my world as of late.  First, I came back from San Francisco and immediately got strep throat.  It was god awful.  For the first 4 days, I was too sick to even get out of bed to go to the doctor.  Day 4 I finally managed to drive myself to an urgent care after hours facility.  Day 5 I was able to eat a little applesauce.  By Day 7 I was on the slow road to recovery.  I missed a week of work which is unheard of for me. 

So, after dealing with that hott mess, my neighbor hit my car.  So I was dealing with him and body shops and car-rental quotes for a week.  No bueno.  It all ended up working out in my favor, so yay for that.

But I digress.

Unfortunately, because of all of this crazyness, I haven't eaten many tender vittles as of late.

In fact, I've been dramatically changing my food intake because I am training for a half-marathon.  For the most part, I've been eating greens in all their splendid forms.  Less than thrilling but it makes me feel my personal best.  ;)  I've basically been vegetarian, for the most part.  I do fall off the wagon on that once in awhile (after all, I do live in Texas) but for the most part, GREENS!  Oh, and fish.  I refuse to cut out seafood and sushi.  I'd rather die.

That was my lunch yesterday. 

You know, since I've been eating mainly whole foods and avoiding processed foods, I feel 10 times better.  Go figure.  I'm also loosing weight but that could be all the running.  Either way, it's f'ing delightful.

Now that I think about it, I did have some mad tender vittles during Thanksgiving.  I went with one of my best friends to eat with her family in Dallas.  Now those crazy vietnamese can throw down in the kitchen.  For serious.  Check these vittles out...

They had the traditional turkey and spring rolls and crab asparagus soup (which was amazing, AMAZING) and much more.  That soup...I'd take a bath in  that damn soup.  It was by far my favorite thing I ate.  I mean crab and asparagus!  I didn't take a picture of it because I was too busy eating it...and eating...and eating.

Hopefully, I will consume some exciting tender vittles in the near future!

Til then, toodle-loo.

San Francisco, the cat's pajamas times 100.

Last week I visited a good friend of mine who lives in San Francisco.  James and I have been friends since we were 18.  I'm 33 now so you do the math.  Many, many years!  He has been trying to get me to come visit for Coachella the last few years.  Finally, I worked it out and stayed with him for 5 days last week. We got tickets to Florence and the Machine, who we both love. While I was there, I also saw Travis, another old friend of mine from my Club One days.  It was very good to see him!  I also met a ton of James's friends.  He seems to know everyone in San Francisco, seriously.

Let me first start off with saying: I must live here.   I REALLY am going to make this happen.  My plan is when my lease is up the end of 2011 to make a move.  This city is foodie heaven.  Everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING I ate was so f'ing delicious.  I still have a 5 pound food baby inside me that I need to abort, pronto...but I digress.  So, if anyone has any leads on sales/marketing/advertising positions or potential roommates, let me know.

Ok, back to the topic at hand, which is food.  Stars and garters, it was all so outrageous.  Where do I even begin.  I guess we will just go day-by-day, meal-by-meal.

I got there late Wednesday afternoon so we had an early dinner at Franchino.  This is a very intimate mom-and pop Italian joint.  You can maybe squeeze 20 people in there.  The husband flirts with the customers and sings to everyone while the mother and daughter attentively wait on you hand and foot.  He actually instructed everyone to leave the restaurant and he sung everyone a song in Italian to celebrate the Giants win the World Series (which was the day before). 

Oops, sorry the picture is flipped!  I'm still working on learning how to use this new camera.

For starters, we had the bruchetta.  This was, by far, the best bruchetta I've had in my life.  Super authentic.  And I would know as I have been to Italy and had bruchetta there.  Super robust flavors, bread soaking in olive-oil, it was fantastic.

James had a seafood risotto dish with a tomato cream sauce that I also tried.  Loved it!  Huge chunks of calamari, huge clams, and the risotto was divine.

I had their house carbonara.  Goodnight Irene, this dish was amazing!

Thursday, James had to work so I took the Muni to downtown and explored some of the city.  I went to Bristol Farms which is like Whole Foods on crack.  They had the best salad bar I've ever experienced.  Basically, it's $9.99 a pound and you fill it up with whatever you want and it's all so damn good.  I'm talking fresh mozzerella, chinese food, pasta, fresh organic vegetables, turkey, so much to choose from so I went to town with that shit!

Next door they had gelato.  The Andie's candy mint gelato, mmmmm!

One thing I've noticed is there is hardly any fast food in San Francisco which is great.  Instead of Mcdonalds and Jack in the Box, there are tons of farmers markets and food trailers and amazing restaurants EVERYWHERE.  I saw this on the street and thought it was cool.

Thursday night we went to Warakubune to get sushi in the Castro.  First, let me say, I have eaten my share of sushi.  As in every week.  If I could, I would eat sushi every day.  I have *never* had such delicious sushi at such a cheap price. 

At this point, everything started blurring together.  I felt like a food zombie.  I completely lost control of myself and my self-control I ate everything, all the time.  I don't even recall what I ate and when I ate it, so at this point, I'm just going to try to recount what I can remember as best that I can through the pictures that I took.

James took me to The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen.  Now, need I even say more?  For real.  I got the Mousetrap: Tillamook sharp cheddar, creamy havarti, monterey jack, on artisan sourdough...aka just kill me now. James got the same and butternut squash soup which was deeeelish.

I wanted to do some touristy stuff so James took me to the Fisherman's Wharf.  I was pleased as punch as I love seafood and you could get a ton of good seafood for cheap.

Now THAT'S a salad, my friends...

I just want to eat EVERYTHING!

Crab sandwich on sourdough, mmmmm this was sooo good.

We also went to Boudin and I got a bread bowl because I am not right in the head.  I really had no self-control whatsoever.

Clam chowder bread bowl.  I could have taken a bath in it though I suppose that coulda kinda been nast...

Where the magic went down...

James took me to get some mini-donuts.  Sugared holes, tra la la.

James looking dashing while eating mini-donuts.

Me after my sugar high from eating the mini-donuts...

As if eating sugared mini-donuts wasn't enough, I had to get a crepe from Crepes A Go Go.  I have a sickness, I really do.  Well, the crepe DID have strawberries so I had my fruit for the day ;)

The next day we had brunch at the Pork Store Cafe.  I had crab benedict which was, as James says, "amazeballs."  My pic of this decadant dish didn't turn out very well but the pic of James's lox benedict came out great:

So, the Pork Store Cafe was in the Haight-Ashbury area where I would LOVE to live.  So many super cute little places to eat and get coffee, all walking distance!

Before I left, James took me to get Ramen.  We hit up Genki Ramen.  It was here that I had this amazing baked scallop dish sizzling in a pool of butter.  Words cannot express how damn good the baked scallop dish was. 

We also got ramen and shrimp tempura and edamame and potato deliciousness and omfg someone help meeeeee...

potato goodness:

so much to choose from, so little time...

There's really so much so more but frankly, I'm tired of uploading all of the pictures ;)  So, friend request me on facebook (Jaime Safianow) to see them all!

Thanks again to James for an amazing time.  I plan to move there the end of next year, hopefully!



Maria Maria's, Hott Messes, and vegan vittles...

This weekend was the best weekend I've had in quite some time!

It started with a great meal at Maria Maria's.  This was the first time I ate there.  I must say, it was the shiz.  I have a ton of close-up food pics that I took with my fetching new teeny-tiny purple camera but, alas, no time to upload them yet!  It's on my to do list though.  For now, just trust in the fact that this place was bananas.  I'll add the close up pics later with a more detailed description of the food.

For now, though, a few not-so-close-up pics from Maria Maria's...

                                        I told you this food is bananas, wait til you see it up close!

Look at those vittles!!

Awww :)

After our meal, we hit da club. I took several pictures of hott messes but those are all posted to my  facebook.  Check them out, if ya fancy.  There seemed to be an abundance of Gagas and Snookies out and about.  I personally would have loved to go as Gaga Lobster.  If you haven't seen this, google "Gaga Lobster" - I think I could rock the shit out of a lobster, I'm just saying.

Last night for Halloween was much more low-key.  I went to my friend Becki and Nick's house and they had a nice little dinner party.  Now, granted, I had my reservations as they are hard-core vegans.  I, for one, am all about the gluten and the cheese.  I tried to just keep an open mind and I'm so glad I did!  They made an AMAZING potato soup.  It had some fake bacon but whatev, it was still damn tasty.  Big chunks of several different kinds of potatoes.  It was so stinking good, I was quite impressed.

So damn good!



Look at that peach vegan delicious-ness!

Becki and Nick aka Betty Boop and Edward Cullen

Where's Waldo and Betty Boop.  Nick had an extra outfit so I

just spontaneously threw it on. 

Hope everyone had a great Halloween!