12.27 Three favorite restaurants

Damn it, I missed posting this on the actual 27th!

inkstone asked for my top three favorite restaurants.

One of my favorite restaurants in the world is Kyoto Gogyô, the ramen restaurant in Kyoto I have raved about before. It's not especially fancy, and the food is delicious. If you go, make sure to get the tempura that's on special, and the shio ramen. It's just--really nice.

A bit closer to home, another of my favorite restaurants is the Longfellow Grill in Minneapolis, which is also the Highland Grill in St. Paul. I've been going to these restaurants (there's a third one somewhere out in the suburbs) since my freshman year of college, when my roommate and her family introduced me--they're New American, I guess, but New American diner/bar food, but really, really good. At this point I've eaten a significant chunk of the menu. The beer-battered green beans with plum sauce are amazing, and I think my favorite entree is the Peter's Burger with sweet potato fries, but the tuna melt is also really good, and they have great local beer. It's all just really good.

Believe it or not, it's actually hard to pick a number three. I could say it's the tonkatsu place in Kyoto--it's a chain of several restaurants, one in Kyoto station and two downtown--where you grind your own sesame for the tonkatsu sauce and they give you endless refills on cabbage and it's all amazingly delicious. That place is really good. I could say it's Revival in Berkeley, which has some of the best food and drinks I've had for the price anywhere; when I went to Chez Panisse on Halloween I found myself thinking that it wasn't shockingly better than Revival, which it wasn't. In New York I wind up at the Hampton Chutney Company quite a lot; they have really good dosas. There are a number of places in Philly that I like, but in the past few years I've been away so much that I'm reluctant to name any one. I have to put in a plug for Capogiro gelato in Philly--best gelato on this continent--and I do like Raw, the sushi place in the gayborhood, as it's called. (I also really like Steven Starr's Mexican place there, El Vez; not so much the one out on Chestnut.)

Anyway. I really like food.

12.28 Food year in review

littlebutfierce asked about my favorite thing I've cooked this year.

I cook a lot of food from Smitten Kitchen, and you can find just about every recipe that I've cooked and liked on starlady--I have a general recipes tag, a soup tag, a desserts tag, and a drinks tag. I do want to write up a few recipes I've been making that aren't online, but I am extremely slow at that. And I've written up the last round of recipes in my Pinboard that I haven't talked about below. You can also click my recipes tag for commentary on all the Pinboard links, more or less!

So, my favorite thing I cooked this year. This is always difficult! I cook a lot--I probably cook about 75% of my own meals, if not more, partly because it's cheaper and partly because I really like cooking. I think this year the recipes I liked best that were new to me were Burst Tomato Galette with Corn and Zucchini, which was just like the essence of summer in one forkful, and super easy, and the One Pan Farro with Tomatoes--it was so easy, and so good that I literally made it twice in a row at least twice. The Tomato and Corn Pie was very similar and also amazing. I basically lived on the Smitten Kitchen shakshuka in the spring semester, and on a very Californian note, the Date, Blood Orange, Almond and Parmesan Salad I made in February was also amazing, and I'm eagerly anticipating blood orange season so I can make it again.

# Baked Pasta with Broccoli Rabe and Sausage - Fed me for a while, was easy and delicious. Nom.

# Spicy Squash Salad with Lentils and Goat Cheese - I've made this twice now, and it hasn't actually been that spicy; you can definitely add more smoked paprika or cayenne than Deb does. But it's pretty tasty, with or without the mint.

# Miso Sweet Potato and Broccoli Bowl - OM NOM NOM this was so good, I lived on it for like four days straight. Things I've learned the hard way: you really do need rice vinegar (or rice wine vinegar in a pinch), which you will need to get in the Asian grocery aisle. NOMZ.

# Carrot Soup with Turkey Meatballs and Spinach - I just made this last weekend and it's delicious. Om nom nom. I didn't bother slicing the spinach because life is too short, and it made no difference.

# Warm Butternut Squash and Chickpea Salad - I took this to a potluck (a double batch) and everyone wanted the recipe. It's really good and really easy.

# Potato and Broccolini Fritatta - This was tasty and simple.

# Apple Slab Pie - I bought a bag of sale apples at Berkeley Bowl and made this for our Halloween party. Even though the apples weren't great and I overworked the crust, it was pretty tasty, and it fed the crowd.

# Multigrain Apple Crisp - With a little less sugar this could totally work as a breakfast item. I didn't bother with grinding the oats (lol no, life is too short), and it still worked fine.