Paris with a bigger treat on his nose

Ranunculus

I got some ranunculus from the Mar Vista/Venice farmers market... $5 for 2 bunches

Balcony Garden!

Love my sweet lavender plants! They smells the best!! Even the leaves smell like lavender. Some of the other lavender plants actually smell like turpentine! I'm serious, this is especially true for the Fern Leaf Lavender I have checked out Goldwin Creek Lavender - it does not smell as sweet as the sweet lavender. The French lavender was not as good either. 

My mini garden include the dying basil plants on the left hand side, a new young sweet basil plants, my rosemary that is one year old but not really growing (sigh! at least it is alive!), italian parsley - they are really useful for any american/italian cookings, oregano, thyme, mint and super chillies and aloe vera! Can you imagine that aloe vera plant was like only 5" tall when I first got it, now it is like 25" long!

I got all my plants from Orchard Supply Hardware because they have a lifetime plant guarantee, even for a 4" herbs that cost $3. So if you kill the plants/herbs, you can bring it back to them with the receipt and ask for a refund/exchange. Yay! I have done it so many times say about 6 plants... :)

La Petite Creperie

Nutella and Strawberry Crepe. It's buckwheat crepe so not too sweet, it is delicious! Topped with some hazelnuts too and the server/ maybe owner is french! They close early though, 2pm during weekdays and 3pm on weekends, at least according to Yelp!

La Petite Creperie

3809 Grand View Blvd

Los Angeles, CA 90066

(310) 437-0226

http://www.lpcmarvista.com/

Chirashi sushi at Kaido

Decent chirashi rice. Something like $16 for lunch.

Kaido

2834 Santa Monica Blvd

Santa Monica, CA 90404

Neighborhood: Santa Monica

(310) 828-7582

http://www.kaido.us/

Banana Crumb Muffins Recipe

From here

This banana crumb muffins are delicious!! I have always tried to do banana bread before but these muffins are really moist! I will only use this recipe going forward, maybe I will try this recipe for a banana bread mold too.

Prep Time: 15 Minutes

Cook Time: 20 Minutes

Ready In: 35 Minutes

Servings: 10

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 bananas, mashed

3/4 cup white sugar

1 LARGE egg, lightly beaten

1 tsp vanilla

2/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/3 cup butter, melted

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon butter

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly grease 10 muffin cups, or line with muffin papers.

2. In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg, vanilla, ground cinnamon and melted butter. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.

3. In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and cinnamon. Cut in 1 tablespoon butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins.

4. Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

Superba Snack Bar in Venice

Had a chance to go to Superba Snack Bar in Venice yesterday. Some of the dishes are really good and some are just okay.

The dish on top is the uni crab and wakame pasta. It's pretty good but it's not really mind blowing. The uni taste linger at the end of the bites but I don't really taste the uni while eating the wakame pasta and the crab because the lemon flavor was a little too strong. Would have loved to taste the uni more

This is the octopus dish, it was interesting but I probably would not have ordered it again.

The brussels sprouts and dashi broth is magnifique! I love this dish..

Didn't care much about this bucatini carbonara pasta

The charcuterrie was delicious! Especially the fish (I forgot what fish), the bacon and the porchetta.

Superba Snack Bar

533 Rose Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90291

(310) 399-6400

http://superbasnackbar.com

Recipe for Kalio Chicken Curry / Ayam Kalio Padang

From here

Ingredients:

2 pounds chicken thigh with skin and bone
lime and salt
1.5 teaspoon tumeric
3 pieces kaffir lime leaves
2 lemongrass, crushed/ I cut the center white parts so that the flavour will come out
1 inch galangal, crushed / I replaced with ginger
1 ball of about 0.5" size tamarind paste (found in Asian supermarket/ Simpang Asia in LA)
400 ml coconut milk canned - fresh is preferable but who can find that in LA?
Oil

Ingredients to be grinded:
10 red chili / I used dried red chili but next time may want to do 50-50% of dried and fresh
3/4 tbs coriander whole - use less if you use ground
2 big shallots ( The shallot has to be twice the proportion of garlic cloves
4 garlic cloves
1" ginger
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cummin
5 candlenut
sugar and chicken bouillon powder to taste. I put a pinch of sugar first that I increased to 1/8 tsp later on and about 1/8 tsp chicken bouillon

1. Squeeze lime into chicken and a little bit of salt and leave it for 15 minutes
2. Put oil into a pot and sauteed the grinded spices
3. Put in kaffir lime leaf, galangal, tied-up lemongrass and tamarind paste
4. Put in chicken and half of the coconut milk and cook until chicken is cooked - about 40 minutes for my case
5. Once you see that chicken is done (you can cut one up to make sure it is not pink), add in the ground tumeric. Start with 1/2 tsp and work your way up to 1 1/2 tsp, if you'd like

OK while I think the taste is delicious, I feel like it is missing something from the authentic Kalio chicken curry that I have had in Indonesia so I will have to play around with the recipe more to test it.