Momofuko Noddle Bar

Momofuko Milk Bar

Ninth Street Espresso

Grumpy Coffee

Duck Donuts

Every summer many families from the mid Atlantic states travel to the outer banks of North Carolina for a week at the beach. On your way to North Carolina, everyone stops to purchase carts worth of food since their isn't much anything to purchase once you arrive at the outer banks. One deviation to this rule is Duck Donuts.

In Duck, North Carolina, a little donut shop sits inside a small strip mall. A line 20 people deep forms outside the standing room only shop and the smell of donuts frying is worth the wait. At Duck Donuts, all donuts are made fresh and are topped to order. My only challenge was which donuts to eat first? The Cinnamon Sugar or Chocolate or Maple - hmmm... it ended up being a little bit of all of them.

Ipsento Coffee House

Do you like Nutella? For me, Nutella would be in the top 10 foods that I would want to have on a desert island. I can spread it on any kind of bread, any enjoy it for any meal of the day. While in Chicago, I stumbled upon the Ipsento Coffee House. The little coffee shop in the Bucktown neighborhood make the best of both of my worlds, combining Nutella and a Latte to make the divine Nutella Latte. The hint of hazelnuts in the latte is subtle and does not take away from the fresh ground coffee or frothy milk, instead the hazelnut enhances the drink and takes it to a new dimension.

Hot Doug's

After waiting for about 1.5 hours outside of Hot Doug's, we were finally entering the "mecca" of delicious dogs! Doug greeted us took our order (he also recommended a few dogs) and gave a thumbs up on the duck fat fries. You really cant beat the duck fat fries. Out of all four dogs that were sampled, two are the most memorable:

1. The Dog. A classic Chicago-style hot dog with all the trimmings! Simply perfect.

2. The Foie Gras and sauternes duck sausage with truffle aioli, foie gras mousse and fleur de sel. You wont find this hot dog anywhere else and although it was a little on the rich side, it certainly was decadent.

Fontera Grill

Blue Bottle Coffee

Blue Bottle is one of my favorite boutique coffee shops. They are the first place to introduce single drop coffee and siphon style coffee in San Francisco. If you can visit their location on Mint Street, you need to also order some food to compliment your outstanding coffee. The poached eggs on thick Acme Toast is filling and creamy; another option is their buttermilk waffle (much better than any other waffle I have had).

Ubunto

Coming soon

Namu

Coming soon

Old Soul at Weatherstone

The Old Soul at Weatherstone is located in the midtown section of Sacramento. The cappuccinos and Lattes at Old Soul were one my first ventures into boutique coffee drinks. Each drink at old soul is made with tender love and care. Although the drinks are outstanding, the pastries are delicious and memorable (especially the pumpkin muffin or chocolate croissant).

At the end of the day, a cappuccino from Old Soul should become the daily staple for anyone who needs a daily dose of coffee to start their day.

Ad Hoc (another review)

Another BFC (Buttermilk Fried Chicken) night at Ad Hoc

more details to come soon...

Toby's Coffee Bar

In the middle of the secluded hills and grasslands of Northern California the small little town of Point Reyes rises. The town is full of small little shops that aspire to be sustainable local and organic providers. Toby's Coffee is tucked in the garage adjacent to Toby's Market, the coffee and baked goods are delicious; the service is genuine and sincere. Overall one of the best and most remote coffee destinations I have ever experienced.

Perbacco

Revisited...

under construction

Heirloom

My first fine dinning outing in Arizona was a great experience. The chef's table gave us the benefit of both getting our food with precision timing and being able to chat with the chefs throughout dinner. The multi-course meal had a lot of good highlights, the veggie and beet cucumber "roll" was very flavorful and fulfilling. Both the salmon and sea bass were cooked very well and presented beautifully.

Ad Hoc

I have wanted to try Ad Hoc‘s food since I learned about this one of a kind restaurant. Thomas Keller’s Yountville restaurant was initially supposed to be a temporary restaurant based on a prix fixe family-style menu. Today, the menu still stands, but its short-lived status does not, due to popular demand, the restaurant became a permanent fixture in the Napa restaurant scene.

Perhaps part of the reason for the restaurant’s popularity is its fried chicken, which has a cult following like none other. Fried chicken night is hard to catch (pun intended), as the chicken is made twice monthly and only on Monday nights. To date, I've been to Ad-Hoc 7-10 times and have experienced fried chicken night three times (but only once since I started writing this blog).

This night we started with a Baby Iceberg Lettuces Salad with marinated cucumbers, shaved radish, pickled red onion, haas avocado, nueske bacon crumbles, green goddess dressing. As always a great salad, it was well-balanced and light, a perfect start for the rest of the courses to follow.

But it was really nothing compared to our second course of Buttermilk Fried Chicken, which always tastes better than the last time. It is everything you ever want in fried chicken: crispy on the outside, with a substantial breading that put every other fried chicken crust to shame; moist, juicy and tender on the inside, yet cooked through and not greasy; meaty, with little to no bones; just seasoned and spicy enough and an Ad Hoc honey for dipping.

By the way, the couple next to me, finished their chicken and got a second helping. I should have done the same since it was so so so good!

After the chicken, we go our cheese plate Redwood Hill Farm’s Cameo, palladin toast, brooks cherry & red onion marmalade. As good as the cheese was, I was still thinking of the chicken (sorry cheese lovers).

We finished our amazing Ad-Hoc meal with Red Velvet with cream cheese frosting and Banana Nut with valhrona chocolate icing.

As always the best $49 per person meal you will ever enjoy (period).

8 oz Burger Bar

Chef Govind Armstrong has been a participant on Iron Chef and Top Chef Masters. Those accolades result in expectations for food quality and innovation. Unfortunately, 8oz Burger was a bit of a disappointment. Although the 8oz Burger was very good - it did not have any supporting cast members to help prop it up. The Sweet Potato Fries were so-so and the Fried Pickles lacked on flavor and texture. However, the biggest disappointment were the Mini Kobe Corn Dog appetizers - they came at the same time as the rest of the food and really tasted like plain mini corn dogs from the freezer section.

Not every restaurant needs to be amazing - its always good to know how good a place is - even it's a disappointment.

Real Food Daily

Real Food Daily is a vegetarian/vegan restaurant on Le Cienega in West Hollywood. Since I keep a "veggie 'till 6pm" lifestyle, I tend to try the veggie option in many restaurants or if I'm lucky a veggie restaurant. This time i hit the jackpot.

The restaurant's manager recommended his personal favorite - The Total Club (in a wrap) instead of the gluten-free sourdough bread. The wrap consists of seitan, tempah bacon, avocado, lettuce and tomato all wrapped up in a spinach wrap. It was delicious and very satisfying. All this was washed down with the Sweet Green juice (cucumber, celery, parsley, spinach and a 1/2 an apple).

In summary, it was damn healthy and damn satisfying.

The next day, we gave this place another spin. I never thought that you can make vegan nacho that can stand up to regular nachos. Nachos here are made with veggie black beans and cashew/jalapeño cheese - a delicious and probably a little healthier alternative to the real thing.

The Bazaar - Saam

The SLS Hotel is always an experience. If you've experienced Bazaar (see previous post) then you will definitely want to make the extra effort an try our Saam - known as the Bazaar Private Dinning Room. Saam is located behind Bar Centro in the Bazaar/SLS maze and would be hard to find if not escorted to by a Bazaar host. The menu consists of about 20 bite sized courses - all our special made for Saam or are small portions of Bazaar staples (e.g., liquid Mozzarella Balls). Jose Andres never ceases to amaze his patrons and Saam is just another example of his one of kind spectacular creations.

Our personal server and her team were one of the best I've ever had (on par with Per Se and French Laundry) and the experience was a once in a lifetime opportunity - I cant wait to go back!

Here's the list of items that we enjoyed:

1. Beet "Tumbleweed"

2. Olive Oil Bonbon

3. Bagel & Lox Steam Bun

4. Tuna Handroll 2009

5. Black Olive Ferran Adria

6. Jose's Combination

7. Boneless Coconut Thai Chicken Wing

8. Crispy Nigiri

9. Chipirones en su Tinta

10 Linguini and Clams

11. Japanese Baby Peaches

12. Hot & Cold Foie Soup with Corn

13. Norwegian Cigalas

14. Not Your Everyday Caprese

15. Kurobuta Pork Belly

16. Wagyu Pork Belly

17. Philly Cheesesteak

18. Dragon's Breath Popcorn

19. Rose Clementine

20. Lychee and Coffee

21. Sexy little Sweets