Hello San Mateo
To celebrate my friend's new apartment, we had a little housewarming party in San Mateo. Instead of ordering the usual pizza, a few of us cooked.
Mari made crackers with fig and goat cheese. It was pretty good. I'm usually skeptical about goat cheese, but the flavor was mild and helped accentuate the sweet fig. She also made coconut infused quinoa with chicken. I've always wanted to try quinoa and enjoyed it very much. It's a healthy grain and I can see its potential in many dishes. The host, Genki, made some amazing karaage (Japanese style fried chicken). The chicken was extremely moist with a crispy batter. So good! One of the best karaages I've had. I definitely have to steal his recipe. Mike showed off his chops with tuna tartare and chicken liver and gizzards. I'm not a fan of offal (internal organs), but I still had to try it. Meh, still not a fan. Haha. I don't mind the chewy texture, it's just the grainy after taste I dislike. Buddy Jon made crispy lumpia (Filipino rolls) filled with meat and vegetables. We even had a special banana sauce to accompany the rolls. The sauce was tart, sweet and gave the lumpia extra flavor. Kate also brought Vietnamese sandwiches and some interesting appetizers wrapped in banana leaves. Wrapped inside the leaves were roasted barbecue pork encased in a jelly-like texture. I'm not sure what it's called and I've never had it before. It was interesting, but nothing I'd ever buy myself. The translucent jelly was mild in flavor, but the pork was a little bit sweet. My contribution was a vegetable stir fry of mushrooms and sugar snap peas. I'm glad I brought some vegetables since our assortment was filled with heavy items.Genki had this really cool non-working panel for his stove. Something about its vintage look and simplicity appealed to me. What ended up being more appealing is this Japanese powder(?) that solidifies oil! I've never used something like this before, but it's really simple. You drop a packet into cooled oil and the stuff inside the packet solidifies the oil within 15 minutes. Crazy! What an easy way to throw out a lot of oil. The night was fun - filled with eclectic food, a proposal (haha) and many games of beer pong. Thank you Genki for inviting us!EDIT: Mike pointed out that he made HEART and gizzards. Ack, they're all the same stuff that I do not touch! :X
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