Bay Area

Brittania Arms (San Jose)

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Annie has a great taste memory of a visit to England where she had real fish and chips. The fillet of fish was so long it hung over the sides of the plate. The chips were fresh cut potatoes just out of the fryer. It was some of the best food she had there (notwithstanding the mushy peas).

Went to Brittania Arms on Almaden Expressway for some Fish n chips for Mother’s Day lunch. This being Mother’s Day, we were very surprised that there was only one other occupied table in the whole restaurant. Annie got the two-piece fish with chips. The cod fish fillets were huge! The breading was nice and light, and the tartar sauce worked well. The “chips”, though, were totally lame.


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Beef, Thai

Thai Beef Salad

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Thai food offers an alluring balance of sweet, sour, salty, and spicy. You’ve got sweet sugar, sour lime juice, salty fish sauce, and spicy chillies all melded together in a tantalizing and mouth-watering concoction. It’s hard to resist.

Annie took a top sirloin steak, seasoned it lightly with s&p then broiled for 4 mins per side. After resting, she sliced it up and marinated the beef in fish sauce, lime juice, brown sugar, shallots, chili flakes, and chopped Thai bird chiles.

The salad greens included romaine lettuce, napa cabbage, carrots, green onions, mint, Thai basil, and cilantro. She laid out the veggies, pile on the beef, and then poured the remaining dressing over everything.

This was awesome!

Aloha, Nate

Italian, Pasta, Poultry

Chicken Piccata

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We were at California Pizza Kitchen with some friends one time. One of the dishes they ordered was Chicken Piccata. We’d never eaten it before (I usually don’t like capers) but Annie sneaked a bite and pronounced, “I can make this!”

So while out shopping she picked up a bottle of capers. A little later, she found a recipe off of Epiciurious and decided to try it. It’s a pretty easy recipe calling for chicken breasts pounded flat, lightly breaded then pan fried, laid over a mound of angel hair pasta and covered with a sauce containing butter, lemon juice, capers, and various seasonings. We threw in some mushrooms for fun.

It was very very good. We served it to our friend, who pronounced it better than CPK.

Aloha, Nate

Texas

Cabela’s (Buda, TX)

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During our trip to Texas, we were planning on going out to Fredericksberg and the Texas Hill Country but the weather had other plans. It was just too rainy to be frolicking in the wildflowers. So we turned around. Then an idea hit me.

One of our friends suggested we take the kids to Cabela’s in Buda (south of Austin) to see the big aquarium. Even though it was raining outside, it was nice inside. I’ve never been in such a wonderful place before. The kids loved the aquarium and all the stuffed animals, while I drooled over all the outdoor stuff. We even had a turn at the shooting game upstairs (I got a perfect score heheheh :D).

Lunch at the cafe was beef chili with beans in a bread bowl for Annie and a buffalo burger with Provolone cheese and all the fixins for me. Both were good, although my burger was a bit more well done than I like.

Thanks, Kat for the suggestion. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves at Cabela’s. Maybe one day we’ll go out to the hill country (and Cooper’s in Llano ) when the weather’s better.

Aloha, Nate

Making you hungry for the good things in life