Today's lunch.

I'm not hungry right now. Just finished a crunchy peanut butter (Jif), Nutella, and strawberry preserve (Smuckers Special Edition) sandwich (Milton Multi-Grain). Should have taken a picture of it. It was really good. Jif on one bread slice, Nutella on the other bread slice and strawberry preserves in between. Just waiting for the sugar crash.

KFC Double Down

Yea, I had to try it. You know I did.



That's the Colonel's Original Recipe on the left and the new Grilled version on the right. The already infamous KFC Double Down, bacon and cheese with the Colonel's "Secret Sauce" between two pieces of chicken. The KFC version of chicken cordon bleu.

I have to admit it was tasty. Very tasty. It was really salty. According to the KFC nutritional specs there is 1380 mg of sodium in the original recipe version and 1430 mg in the grilled version, each over half of the recommended amount of less than 2300 mg per day.



I have no problem of saying that I kinda liked it. I actually knew I would. Now what can be wrong about this "sandwich" taste-wise? T and I just took a slice of each version . So tasty but so salty. I saved the remaining for lunch. It was much better fresh but still really good. The meat was still moist. The cheese was a solid mass imbedded with bacon. The texture was a bit rubbery but it had bacon in it! Loving it! And there was the "secret sauce". Not sure what is in it. Kinda like a russian dressing. I'm writing this hours after eating it and I am still soooo thirsty and my stomach is not feeling so well but I have absolutely no regrets about trying the Double Down. I probably won't ever have another Double Down but I think it's something that everyone should try. :)

I'm really full of diner food today (did I say that out loud?)

Felt like all I did was eat today. It's not true. I only ate two meals today, albeit two fairly large meals. I first got a call from a good friend, N. She only had a half day of work so she suggested meeting for lunch at Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe in Emeryville. Of course I would meet her for lunch. It would be a nice break from her children for some adult conversation. Don't get me wrong, she loves her kids, and so do I, but there is always room to have some time away for herself. It was a beautiful sunny day with just a bit of a breeze. We met just about 1:00, just after the lunch rush so we were lucky and got a booth. I really don't think I've had a bad meal at Can't Fail. I usually have breakfast here, though I have had lunch here too. Today's special was Four Cheese Mac and Cheese. Tempting. I wished it was either Tuesday (Fried Chicken) or Wednesday (Meatloaf) but it was Thursday. Wasn't up for a burger. Almost had a salad but I could eat lettuce at home. I settled for a Mile High Club (triple decker toasted sourdough sandwich with smoked turkey, bacon, tomato, lettuce, mayo) with French Fries, hold the onions. N had breakfast that sounded good, 'My Own Private Eyedaho'. It is described as hash browns covered with melted cheddar topped with one egg sunny side up (N ordered the two egg version). We talked about whatever. Some of it was her work, some was movies or television. We had a good time. The food came fairly quickly. N's food looked a bit diappointing. It was just a rectangle of hash browns (pale hash browns) with a bit of melted cheese on it and two sunny side eggs on top. Looked rather lonely on the plate. It probably was only about a two inch by five inch rectangle of potato. My food on the other hand was a fairly large portion. The sandwich was cut into triangular quarters. If it were to be reassembled and set up on the place it would be about three and a half to four inches high. The fries were piping hot. They weren't fresh cut fries, they were the 'coated' sort of fries. But that didn't matter to me, I actually like that kind of fry plus they were hot. I didn't even finish (thought I pretty much did), ended up eating three of the quarters and then just the turkey and bacon from the last quarter. There were maybe seven fries left. We just sat for a while more talking until she had to leave to pick up the kids. It was a nice way for me to pretty much begin the day outside the house.

Pudley's

I had to post this picture of a burger I had at Pudley's in San Carlos.
I had just finished a nine mile walk along Sawyer Camp Trail with my cousin, D, and we were famished. It took the entire walk to decide where to eat (my fault, the indecisive Piscean I am). D recommended Pudley's. Not real cheap, it cost me about $12.00 for my burger and a soda, but it was a really good burger. I call it the Ruben Burger but the burgers at Pudley's are listed by number. You are looking at a 1/3 or 1/2 pound burger (I'm not sure what they offer) with pastrami, sauerkraut and swiss cheese. The steak cut fries were hot and crispy on the outside while tender on the inside. It was good. 'Nuff said.

Whoo Hoo, Peruvian.

The weather had been pretty dreary lately. I had to get myself out of the house to the weekly standing accupunture appointment a friend is giving me for my back. For those of you that don't know (or really didn't care), I somehow hurt my back during Thanksgiving. I don't think from overeating but who knows? I made things worse by continuing my taiko classes and then making a Costco trip and lifting things like fifty pound bags of flour and sugar. An x-ray, MRI, and script of Vicodin later I'm rehabilitating from a herniated disc (how horrible does that sound?). This back thing is affecting the sciatic nerve in my right leg. Let me tell you don't ever get this kind of injury. My life mantra is now, "Lift with your legs!" So a friend who is an accupuncturing veternarian (yes, he was trained on humans first, no wise cracks), offered some treatments to see if it would help. I had not tried accupuncture before and always wanted to but didn't find a reason to it. So now I get these little needles poked into my backside and have electricity surge through my body for thirty minutes. For those that can imagine think "Slumdog Millionaire" or for those a little further back "Lethal Weapon". Okay, it isn't that bad, though the very first treatment had my calf twitching like a dissected frog in a high school biology class. I always come out from the treatments without any muscle or sciatic tension. I wish the relief would last longer (like permanently) but I do really appreciate the help this friend is doing for me. (Have a pet that needs accupuncture? Maybe yourself? Let me know and I'll connect you with him.)

Now what does all this have to do with Random Food? What we have been doing after these late afternoon treatments is go out for dinner. The usual fare has been Asian. We've had tasty Chinese a couple of times and some really good ramen (leagues ahead of the kind I used in the Ghetto Tamale). This last time, while we were still searching for Asian food, we came across a Peruvian restaurant in downtown San Mateo. I'm always up for something different than my usual fare. There can't be that many Peruvian restaurants around so we gave it a shot. The set up was a bit strange. Though it had a separate entrance, it was located in a liquor store. We were on the other side of a six foot partition from the store itself but under the same ceiling and lights. The restaurant didn't serve alcohol but if you had an inkling a shout over the wall could bring you a nice Merlot or pint of JD (though the $10 corkage probably discourages that). The name of the restaurant is Las Americas Restaurant. Unbeknowst to us (because we're clueless), we walked in about five minutes before closing but they were accomodating and sat us anyways. There was a table of Spanish speaking people in the restaurant but it appeared that they were finished with their food and were just talking. Telemundo was playing on a television set above them. As I looked around I guess a big clue that they were ready to close was the absence of food and lack of cooking utensils in the open kitchen area. But I guess they were not in a big hurry to leave. One more table of paying customers is better than none. I'm not totally up on my Peruvian food but the menu looked good. A lot of seafood at reasonable prices. Okay, this is off the food track but I have to talk about the waitress. She looked to be half Asian (Peru has the largest Chinese and second largest Japanese populations in South America, just a statistic I keep on the top of head). She was attractive, very nice and friendly. When she spoke with a Spanish accent, whew, I swooned (do guys swoon?). Not that I was going to hit on her but her presence might have made the food taste just a little bit better. Okay, enough of that. We split a beef empanada as an appetizer. Decent crust filled with beef, egg, raisins and peas. Maybe some other things. We were also given a dish of some kind of green condiment. We asked what we were suppose to use it on. The waitress said "on anything." We asked if it was hot, she said, "Yes it is hot" (yea, like you baby. I need to stop that). She described about ten different ingredients that were in it. The list began with jalapenos and ranged from more chilies to peanut butter. It was hot and really good. For some reason the stars and planets aligned and it did not have any dreaded cilanto in it. My AF(accupuncturist friend) ordered the Pescado Fritto (boneless fried halibut fillet with rice, salad and potatoes). I asked the waitress what was good and she recommended (with her sweet, sweet Spanish inflected voice, I'm bad), the Lomo Saltado (top sirloin strips sauteed with onions, tomatoes, and fries with rice on the side, also available with chicken, mixed seafood, or a combo of chicken and beef) or, if I liked spicy, the Picante de Marisco (mixed seafood in a creamy spicy sauce with rice on the side). I ordered the Picante de Marisco thinking that more effort probably went into creating the spicy sauce. AF's dish came and was fairly pedestrian. A piece of fried fish, some rice, salad and about three fried potato slices. AF was a bit disappointed because there wasn't really any sauce with his dish. I was very happy with my dish when it arrived a bit later. It looked delicious (I made sure to state that I didn't want any cilantro). It was a decent size bowl filled with mussels, shrimp, fish, calamari, and potatoes in plenty of creamy, but not too creamy, light rose colored sauce. This made AF happy because now he had a sauce for his rice. The entire dish was delicious. I had AF try some of everything in the dish, and there was plenty of food. It was not as hot as I expected so I used more of the the green condiment to spice it up. I would definitely order it again. I complemented the green stuff so much the waitress asked me if I wanted to take the remainder home and she also said "or you can come back and we'll have more here." (as long as you're there too baby ;) I took the green stuff home, not discounting that I would ever be back. Don't know where the next food adventure will be. Let's see what happens at the next treatment.

Here's a pic of the takeout menu at Las Americas Restaurant (click on the pic for a larger view:

Pancakes as Big As Your Head

I have no problems admitting to be a fan of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. Not as much for Guy Fieri (though he a grown on me, just a bit) but for the concept of the show. I love finding the small Mom and Pop restaurants or the old time traditional diner. Good, filling, and sometimes ecclectic foods. The comfort foods that please the palate and stomach and usually a lot of it.


I have several different food buddies. They are all from different parts of my life and don't really know each other. Funny how that works out. Todays outing was with really good friends,a husband and wife, T and F. We're all into the diner cuisine and experience (as well as many other foods) . On this Saturday morning excursion we were off to Sacramento. I found a place called Jim Denny's through Yelp. A small free standing diner in the middle of downtown Sacramento that has about 10 counter seats. History from their website says the diner opened in 1934. The current owners took over in 2005. We were expecting a line out the door after reading the Yelp reviews and the four and a half star rating but we sat immediately on the last three stools. It's probably a different story during the week. There were a lot of takeout while we were having breakfast. A four by four foot flatop near the front window was where all the food was cooked. Though actually known for their hamburgers, the overwhelming reason we came to this establishment was based on a picture of the pancakes served here. The full stack consists of only two pancakes. But each these two rounds of pancake were about twelve inches in diameter and an inch thick. Pancakes here we come! "F" ordered first: eggs, bacon and a pancake. "T" ordered next. He was all for the full stack of pancakes the size of hubcaps. Unfortunately for him, the waitress was against that decision. She basically said, "No, have the short stack. The full stack is too much." To the disappointment of T, he accepted that he would only be allowed to order a short stack. I personally was ready to order breakfast #4 (two eggs, 4 slices of bacon, hash browns, and toast) PLUS a short stack of pancakes. The waitress gave me the same look as she gave T and pretty much gave me a similar talk. "No, you don't want a short stack." Now I really wanted to have one of those crazy huge pancakes. I looked her in the eyes and she looked at me. She then said she would give me a pancake instead of the toast that came with my breakfast. Sigh, I agreed. It felt like my Mom telling me what I could or couldn't eat. We sat with facination as the pancakes were put on the flatop. OMG! There must have been a quart of pancake batter for T's "short stack" I have no idea how the cook flipped that pancake, but she did it. Okay, now I was beginning to agree with the waitress about our orders when the food arrived. There was no exaggerating when I "humorously" called the short stack pancake as a "hubcap" or "as big as your head." OMFG!

Here is a picture of that short stack:

Can you see the plate under the pancake? No you can't. The pancake is hanging at least a inch over the side. Plus it must to have been an inch thick.

Here's my breakfast to give something to compare to:


Can you see the plate here? Of course you can because it's a "normal" sized pancake. The pancakes were delicious. Tender but still with a nice chewy texture. The hash browns were extra buttery or as T describes "potatoes to go with my butter." The bacon and eggs were the usual. It took T a little bit of time to finish off his "single" (probably one pound) pancake. F and I were done with our meals for quite a while before T took his last bite. Needless to say, T didn't have anything else to eat for the rest of the day except for a cup of soup. I'm surprised he even had that. All of our meals, plus coffee for F and T came out to just about $25.00 including tax and tip. The humungoid pancake (that could probably feed a small village) was only $4.00.

We will be back to Jim Denny's. They are actually known for their burgers more than their breakfasts. There are 1/3 pound, 1/2 pound and 1 full pound burger offerings. Look for our next adventure. Burp!

Ghetto Tamale

It began here.

It looked interesting. Carb loaded sodium filled fun. When I first saw this, I hate to admit it, I knew I was going to give it a try. To the left you see the key ingredients (in fact only ingredients except for hot water) for this deliciousness.

It was definitely a planned event. While visiting Mom and Dad to do my laundry, I grabbed three packages of Top Ramen from their Costco stash. On my trip home I picked up a bag of Doritos from my neighborhood corner store. I was on my way to a culinary delight, well, a culinary something or other.

The preparation is simple. (Click here if you'd rather see the video instead of reading my description) Begin boiling some water. Open a bag of Doritos (Fritos was suggested as a possible substitute. Such a flexible dish) and crush its contents. Take a package of Top Ramen (I imagine any brand of dried ramen noodles will do (e.g. Maruchan). I don't believe Frito Lay nor Nissan were sponsors of the video nor were they of my attempt) and crush the noodles. Open the package and remove the soup packet. Make sure the Doritos and ramen are fairly well crumbled. Pour the noodles into the bag of crushed Doritos and mix together. Measure one cup of boiled water and add the soup packet from the noodles. Based on my experience and the sizes of the packages I used (Doritos-2 1/8 oz, Top Ramen-3 oz) I think I would add maybe 1/8 cup more of the water, but experiment with this yourself if you desire to take this on. Pour the liquid into the bag containing the chips and noodles. Mix well and close bag into a tight package. Wrap the package in newspaper (I guess to hold in some heat?). Instructions were given to place it on plate in case the mixture leaked. After 5-8 minutes unwrap and allow the "food" to slide out of the bag on to a plate. Voila! A Ghetto Tamale. In all its starchy saltiness it actually didn't taste too bad, to my tastes anyways. This is how it ended up:

Yummy looking, dontcha think? There were also references to "jail food" on the You Tube page that I saw the video. I'm sure there are plenty of college students that have tried this "tasty morsel" too. Bon appetite!