Queenkv’s Brainpickings

Dude.

Drinking wine. Kinda sloshed. So..I’m on a pillow. Mark is in the armchair. A few ten minutes before - I asked him if he still loved me if I was a Cylon. He asked before or after….I said after..

[picture from http://www.rikksrevues.com/]

Like Sharon…Boomer…yeah, she’s a chick…and she’s a cylon chick. But a human could love her. Mark could love me.

But he said he couldn’t….’cause: “You lied to me.”

Owie.

Dude…I tried to tell Mark we need to postpone the wedding…but he laugh at me.

And he’s still laughing.

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We went to dinner at BJ’s in West Covina, just off the 10 Freeway. Typical BJ food - over-priced American pub grub. But we liked it. Our server was another matter. It took him nearly 15 minutes to take our order. It wasn’t crowded….a week night…and well…we didn’t even have drinks to sip on or water to mull over. I almost insisted on leaving. But, I wanted to give the dude a chance. After reading the waiter rant - I want to give him a chance. I was a little peeved that the waiter didn’t seemed bother about keeping us waiting. On Top of that, I remember trying to order a mint juelp. I saw BJ’s had a huge bar and I thought I’d get lucky. He said they didn’t have it. Fair enough.

After dinner, I wanted some Irish coffee. He looked at me and smoothly replied: “Oh we don’t have that.”

I looked at him. Then I looked at the huge bar….I asked him if they had Jameson and he cut me off, assuring me that BJ’s and it’s huge bar did not serve Irish coffee.

Dear reader…here’s the recipe for Irish Coffee….it’s a no brainer. I don’t even need it served in an Irish mug.
(recipe from recipes.epicurean.com)

Ingredients:
3 cups hot, freshly brewed coffee
3/4 cup Irish whiskey
2 tablespoons sugar
1 cup sweetened whipped cream
Ground coffee (optional)

Directions:
In a heated coffee server or metal pitcher, combine coffee, whiskey, and sugar. Pour mixture into warmed Irish-coffee mugs. Top with whipped cream. Sprinkle a little ground coffee on the cream, if desired. Makes 4 servings.

After the waiter left - Mark was kind enough to go up to the bartender and order my drink. The bartender was surpised our waiter wouldn’t serve me my drink. Mark said the bartender would send it over with our waiter.

A few minutes later, our waiter returned.

“This is my first Irish coffee.”

I was still annoyed. The BJ’s waiter in West Covina not only took his sweet sweet time taking our orders - he tried to smooth talk over his lack of alcohol knowledge and make me feel unreasonable for ordering a drink. A drink I knew the bartender could make.

Dude, next time don’t let your ignorance stand between me and my after-dinner drink.

OK…I’ve been worried about uploading pix to this blog after the “incident” with our baby…the cannon elph. Today - I got over that hang-up, attached the camera to my iMac with it’s USB cord and let iPhoto do it’s magic. Yeah! I got all my pictures up to my hard drive for the month of July. Yeah!

So…back to some BonVivant reviews….

First up - sushi in Covina. Yes - it’s totally possible to have decent raw fish . My dad was a bit worried about this place.

“How can you have fresh fish when it’s so far from the ocean?” he asked.

Sushi Time is on Arrow Highway. Inside, the sushi chef’s greet you - like any typical Japanese restaurant. They have specials on a dry erase board and J-Pop gently teased throught the background. They have a list of sushi pieces on their a’la’carte menu. I like going for the most bang for my buck - so I order the sushi and sashmi combo (about $14). Last night, one guy finished his meal and the bar and asked what I ordered. He was looking for the sushi and sashmi combo on the menu and couldn’t find it.

It’s hot in Cali…so, it’s perfect weather for chilled raw fish. Wash it down with some cold sake. Good stuff.

My raw fish pieces in the combo tasted fresh and filling.

Last night, my dad looked for some sushi without rice - he pointed out that the rice get’s filling. We ordered the Japanese Ceviche. Wowa! Raw fish kept chilled and cooked by the acid from the lemon and tomato pieces. I was also spicy. I needed to order a glass of water to cool down. I told our brunette waitress that they should add this special to the regular menu.

During our first visit to Sushi Time - I also ordered the ikura (salmon roe)….It was the only disappointing part of my meal. I like my ikura chilled and crispy. These were a bit cool and juicy. I was expecting that and well…I thought it tasted icky.

In any event, I think my dad was covinced - you can get good sushi a few hours away from the sea.

On my first Valentine’s with Wes (1997) - he took me to this kick-ass Japanese restuarant…in some 5-star snooty hotel. The sushi was yummy. I didn’t thing I’d ever find another place to top these raw fish offerings.

I was wrong.

We celebrated Tom’s B-day at Susan and Tom’s favorite sushi place - Hana Zen. It’s next to First Crush - in the SF theater district. Everyone who worked at the restuarant knew the couple and were thrilled to celebrate Tom’s b-day. We had a lot of sake - two types….chilled….and yummy…and well…yeah. the sake was good stuff.

Hana Zen is at the cross streets of Cyril Magnin & Ellis Street.

We had just a lot of everything. Most of the dinner consisted of a chef’s choice of sushi and Susan and Tom’s favorite dishes.

Everyone snapped up the sashimi - fresh, delicate and well, you can’t have just one. We also made fine work of some “dragon” rolls [with the fish rolled over the seaweed and rice] and other spicy tuna offerings.

I had my first taste of Yakitori - grilled appetizers of sorts. Everytime a sever brought out a Yakitori dish - he or she urged us to eat it right away - lest it get’s cold…or something like that.

For our non-raw dishes…we had:

Lamb Yaki (the lamb meat was tender and easy to pry off the bones)

Yaki Asparagus (Grilled asparagus with Japanese mayo and tobiko - I dug the mayo…so tasty and hearty)

Scallops wrapped with bacon - oh yeah, bacon makes seafood taste good. I could not stop myself from gorging on this stuff.

Ika no Maruyaki (Grilled Whole Squid with special teriyaki sauce - also good….light and smoky)

We had more than these dishes…a lot more…but remember, I had sake. It was a miracle I could hold the camera steady. I suppose some would say it was a miracle I got the pictures off the camera after it’s been through a washing machine.

OK - this was a special dish - compliments of the chef. Everyone here loves Susan and Tom - did I mention that? So, the chef created this special sushi dish - especially for Tom. It’s not available on the menu…a few minutes after it was served - it was not available on the table. We gobbled it up. Again, that fresh - delicate - yummy taste…we gobbled…could not help ourselves.

Thank heavens someone had the presence of mind to order water. Note to self - get more H2O after going through a couple big bottles of sake.

So - next time you’re in San Francisco - check out Hana Zen. You’ll love it.

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