The Ti Chef

Terra Mia

2010-09-12T16:08:00.000-07:00

There are a few casual Italian restaurants in the valley, two of which are part of national chains. Terra Mia has had to compete with these chains, and is so far doing an admirable job. They set themselves apart by streamlining the ordering process with customers filling out easy to understand menus at the front and just handing them in (a method I've never seen anywhere else yet). This gives you enough time to carefully look over the selection, but also lets you get your order in quickly if you're in a hurry.

Terra Mia achieves a relaxed environment while still maintaining the feel of a more refined dining experience. No more is this apparent than in their food. I especially appreciate the presentation of their pasta dishes. Any fool can fill up a bowl full of pasta, add a little garnish, and call it gourmet. Instead, Terra Mia presents a colorful arrangement on a square plate with garnishes that serve a function as well as being aesthetically pleasing. Every time I've been there, the sauces have been perfectly seasoned, not requiring any extra salt or pepper. Their pizzas are also well made with fresh ingredients, leaving you with the feeling if satisfaction rather than regret if you're trying to watch what you eat.

The only problem I've had on my visits to Terra Mia are some minor service slip-ups. They usually were along the lines of mixing up our order with someone elses, or including ingredients that a friend of mine had requested to be left out. It's one thing for a restaurant to make mistakes, but it's quite another to see how they handle them afterwards, and I feel that the staff understood and fixed the issues very well. None of these occurences have ever been a deal-breaker for me, and they shouldn't be for you either.

After discovering Terra Mia, I've lost any real desire to consider the established chains when eating Italian. The pricing is competitive, the plating is prettier, and the food is fantastic.

Terra Mia can be found Here

Saying Good-Bye to Summer

2010-08-28T10:25:00.000-07:00

Last week, we had some friends over to celebrate Ryans Birthday. We ended up making way too much food, with a menagerie of dishes large enough to feed an army.

I was able to get the recipe for the bbq sauce on the ribs from the July 2007 edition of Bon Appetit. Here is the recipe (slightly modified):

3 Tbsp olive oil
3 Garlic cloves, peeled, minced.
2.25 Cups ketchup
2 Cups chicken Stock
7 Tbsp soy sauce
6 Tbsp brown sugar (dark is preferred)
5 Tbsp molasses
3 Tbsp red wine vinegar
8 Tbsp chili powder
For and extra burst of flavor (and a slight kick), add 1-2 drops of ghost pepper sauce*.

Carefully place the garlic cloves into a hot pan with the oil, set aside just as the garlic starts to turn brown. Put the rest of the ingredients into a bowl and mix. For a while, it'll appear that the sauce will not be thick enough, but that will change as the ingredients are fully incorporated. Add the oil and garlic into the sauce and mix. Et voila! bbq sauce! :)

I pre-cooked the ribs for almost 3 hours ahead of time on low heat, and then just constantly brushed on the bbq sauce as they were on the grill. As soon as the sauce hit the hot steel, you could immediately smell the caramelization from the sugars. It was a huge hit.

P.S. A decent whisk makes the creating of this sauce much easier than just a large spoon.

*Oh stop your whining. The sauce is diluted well enough in the bbq mixture, everybody loved it.

Blueberry Muffins!

2010-08-14T00:33:00.000-07:00

This is a recipe that is used in the culinary school all the time. I decided to make it again today to see if it would turn out as well at home as it did in class, and I was rather pleased with the results. My apologies ahead of time, as the measurements are all done in grams. I'll convert the measurements later, so for now you'll need a scale that does metric weight.

281g Cake Flour
88g Eggs
117g Sugar
3.5g Salt
18g Baking powder
117g Butter
185g Heavy Cream
2g Lemon Zest
2g Nutmeg
180g Frozen Blueberries

Everything but the blueberries can be mixed together in a bowl with just a mixing spoon. After a consistent dough has formed, add the blueberries, and mix only until the berries are incorporated. I managed to get 12 muffins out of this recipe with just a standard ice-cream scoop.

Putting these muffins in the oven at 400 degrees for 20 minutes worked rather well. Below are the results.

These were very quick and easy, so I'll probably end up making more later. For anyone who is interested, I found the cake flour at Winco on 800N in Orem for dirt cheap.

Another Titanium Chef? In Utah?

2010-08-13T00:47:00.000-07:00

Who would have thought that there's another Titanium Chef? This guy (his name is Jamie) made his blog a few months after I did. He also has quite a few more posts than I do since then, so check it out :)

http://www.jamiethetitaniumchef.blogspot.com/

And by the way, my reason for going with titanium was from having all those titanium parts put into me during my surgeries. I guess to avoid confusion in the future, I'll just stick with calling myself the "Ti" (Tee-I) Chef.

Short PSA

2010-07-06T11:06:00.000-07:00

I have a surgery coming up, so posts will be sparse for the next 2 months or so. I have a few articles in the works, but they still need some work and polish.

Cookin' with a Hobo.

2010-06-22T18:24:00.000-07:00

I have a friend whose name is Ryan. Ryan is unique in the way that he looks like a very well kept hobo. His looks betray the fact that he is indeed not a hobo, although I'm sure he doesn't really care either way. Recently I became Ryan's newest roommate, and our kitchen has never been quite the same since.

We decided on a whim to make our own hamburgers. Ryan didn't have any experience with making them, and I myself was very limited in what I knew. All we knew however, was that I had some gorgonzola cheese in the fridge that had been calling to us ever since I got it. Here's what we put together:

2lbs Ground Beef
1/2 Onion, fine dice
1 Cup Gorgonzola cheese, broken into crumbs.
1 Egg
1 tsp Coriander
1 tbsp Paprika

We mixed these ingredients up with our hands, and shaped 6 patties out of it all. For us it seemed like they were prone to breaking apart, but our fears were allayed once we put them on the grill. We have a digital thermometer handy, and we found that an internal temperature of 150°F was our sweet spot.

Along with some roasted potatoes, here was the result:

As we started on these monsters, we had a sort of religious experience. Flame kissed home-made burgers like these made me consider whether I ever want to go to a burger joint again when making a masterpiece like this is so easy. The meat was juicy, helped along by the melted gorgonzola pockets. The onions were cooked enough, with a slight crunch still within the meat and cheese. A flame grilled aneheim pepper was the cherry on top of this cacophony of flavors assaulting us.

I highly recommend giving this a try, and you can pretty much put whatever you want in them. Just be warned, you may die of a flavor overdose (heaven alone knows what would've happened if bacon was present at the time).

Great Ethnic food on the Cheap.

2010-05-24T19:30:00.000-07:00

I should mention that the name of the restaurant itself is El Salvador, so as not to be confused with the country; it's located at 332 West Center Street in Provo, UT.

I had heard of El Salvador fairly often, most notably their pupusas. Up until going, I hadn't the faintest idea as far as what to expect. The closest reference point that I could think of would be related to Mexican food. Mexico dominates the American mind when it comes to Hispanic food, leaving little room for other central American ethnic foods to compete in. For expats, El Salvador must be a sweet reminder of times past with people they miss.

El Salvador is very blunt when it comes to their target consumers. If you like foods that you feel "safe" with, then this is not for you. Their menu has items that I guarantee you've never heard of, and some of the drink choices will make you waste a lot of time trying to decide based on color alone. I still don't know what half the items I looked at were, but I would love to try them. So if you have a sense of adventure, then you can't afford to pass this place up. One comforting factor I noticed were the Hispanic families eating there, giving the impression that the people at El Salvador know what they're doing when it comes to authentic El Salvadorian food.

In the back, I noticed an old woman who looked like she was plucked straight from an old-style home kitchen. She made the pupusas to order from scratch with what seemed like very little effort. When talking to the other workers, she smiled a lot, giving the impression that she was very happy with what she was doing, and will probably do it for the rest of her life. For me, she made a pupusa with pork and cheese along with some yucca root fries. Pupusas are a thicker version of the corn tortilla, stuffed with cheese and perhaps a meat. I'll have to look up the El Salvadorian definition of fries, because the yucca root fries were sized more like roast potatoes, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The pupusa itself was filled with pork that you could tell has been cooking slowly for a long time. The cheese gave it almost a creamy taste, balancing out the flavor of the meat and the tortilla. Surprisingly, the yucca fries tasted far better than I thought they would. They looked like they were boiled first, and then deep fried and salted. It was simple, but delicious, especially with the sauces they give you beforehand.

All in all El Salvador is a great place to eat, and at $1.60 per pupusa, you can't really go wrong. It's a great place if you want to try something different, but it isn't for everyone. One thing I was a little disappointed about is that nobody there speaks English. I realize that a high percentage of the target audience are Spanish speaking, but this is 2010, people want exposure to new tastes and different cultures. One or two English speakers (even if it's bad English) would have been helpful. With that in mind, don't let the language barrier stop you. You'd be doing yourself a disservice by not going just for that reason alone. For these reasons, El Salvador receives a rating of "satisfactory".

EDIT: I've received complaints as well as compliments for my comments on the Spanish speaking issue for El Salvador. I would like to make it clear for everyone that the intention was only to portray my experience to the readers. The honest truth is that if you decide to go there, there may be a language barrier. I think it's completely fair to bring it up, and I also think it was mentioned in a manner that isn't discriminatory at all.

It's Forking Brilliant!

2010-01-07T14:35:00.000-08:00

A lot of countries like to crack a joke or two at the expense of the U.S. That is, until someone else invades them (unless America is the one doing the invading). Americans don't really mind this sort of thing, as I've observed that a great deal of it spawns from jealousy.

Americans however, have a skill at the dinner table that is unrivaled in any country. It's not how many hotdogs they can eat (a sore topic now thanks to the Japanese). It isn't how their medium pizza is considered to be bigger than a large in any other country. It isn't even how they accept, nay, ENCOURAGE the idea of free refills.

It's how they use their forks.

When it comes to utensils, nobody can rival the Americans in the use of a single fork to eat an entire meal. Got some meat on your plate? Many will eat it as if the knife never existed. It's pretty hard to eat peas with just a fork isn't it? Well not for the Yanks. You could even give them a bowl of melted ice cream and they will STILL somehow manage to finish it using only a fork. You name it, and the average American can gracefully eat it with only a fork in the right hand.

I always get funny looks when I ask for a knife. This isn't some attempt to show how cultured I am compared to my hosts. It's just that I'm simply incapable of using only the fork. It's the exact same feeling you get when you ask for a knife and fork at an Asian restaurant when everyone else is using chopsticks. While I may technically be one of America's newest citizens, I'm afraid I can never be truly American until I have mastered this skill (and start liking John Wayne, fat chance).

I suspect that somehow this is a deeply rooted rebellion against the British, since they hold their forks with the left hand. These days the Americans are rather blase about it, and it's almost maddening. They don't acknowledge it as a skill, it's just how they eat. My advice for anyone visiting the States is to resist the almost uncontrollable urge to correct them, and just marvel at the symphony of dining before your eyes.

East and West Colliding in Utah

2009-12-14T12:38:00.000-08:00

I was asked by my uncle to do a comparative review between In-N-Out and Five guys a while ago, and my dad told me that the blog would be an excellent place to put it. So without making you read any more of this intro, here's the review :)

This is a classic case of “you get what you pay for”. In-N-Out doesn't cost nearly as much as Five Guys does, but Five Guys makes better food.

In-N-Out has a strength that can also be its weakness, and that would be the incredible popularity it enjoys. Everybody knows who they are, what they make, and where at least one is located (even if it's in another state). While this type of exposure would be great publicity for any company, the problem is that sometimes expectations can be too high. With about 50% of the people I spoke to, they said that they were a little disappointed with the hype associated with In-N-Out. I think the reasoning for this is that they are being compared to already established local burger joints (major chains not included). After digging a bit deeper, they did admit that the food was still delicious, just not quite living up the hype. This leads me to believe that marketing has done its job too well, by raising expectations to such a level that is not realistic.

Five Guys does not enjoy the same popularity in the Western US as it's a chain from the East Coast. Both In-N-Out and Five Guys expanded into Utah within 8 months of each other. The reasoning for Five Guys expanding into Utah was probably the usual. More locations mean more money, exposure, and customers. In-N-Out originally stated no intention of expanding into Utah until a lookalike chain opened to fill the void. In-N-Out subsequently took Chadders (the imitator) to court, and they only received a slap on the wrist. Since then, they have taken a different approach to deal with Chadders by expanding into Utah to directly compete with them.

Both In-N-Out and Five guys have very simple menus. If you walk into either joint for a chicken burger, then you're in the wrong place. This simplicity has gone against the general idea that more choice is better (as adopted my the major chains). In-N-Out has items that are not shown on the menu, which adds to the charm of the place. To my knowledge, Five Guys does NOT have any secret menu items, and just shows everything available on the menu. The decor of both chains is similar, but Five Guys distinguishes itself in two ways. First, they have well-organized sacks of potatoes all throughout the building. When needed, the cooks will walk out of the serving area and just grab on of these bags when needed. Second, they have a white board that says which city in Idaho these potatoes came from. The city changes from every now and then as time goes on. In-N-Out however always has a great atmosphere because everyone else who is there is normally excited and happy to be there.

The items ordered from these chains were as follows:

In-N-Out: A Double Double with onions and cheese, and standard fries (not animal style) and a drink. ($5.90 + tax)

Five Guys: A Double Cheese burger and Cajun Fries (Five guys gives you the option of standard or Cajun. For the money, it needed to stand out) and a drink. ($9.50 + tax)

The two burgers are very different. In-N-Out puts cheese, onions (if requested), shredded lettuce, tomatoes, and a secret sauce on the burger to give it its unique taste. Animal style is also an option for their burgers, which includes more sauce, more cheese, and grilled onions instead of raw. On the other hand, Five Guys puts cheese, grilled onions, shredded lettuce, pickles, tomatoes, grilled mushrooms, ketchup, and mustard with the options of relish, raw onions, jalapeno peppers, green peppers, A-1 sauce, BBQ sauce, and hot sauce available on request. The strong points of the In-N-Out burger is the roll, and the sauce. The roll is made of sponge dough and feels and tastes very fresh. The sauce also works highly in its favor by giving the burger a taste that nobody can truly replicate. The gravy trains stops right there for In-N-Out, as the Five Guys Burger clouts it better meat, toppings, size (big time), and overall taste. You feel more satisfied (or stuffed depending on your appetite) after the Five Guys burger.The Five Guys burger was also juicier, compared to what felt like a more compartmentalized taste from the In-N-Out burger.

As far as the fries go, it's a little mixed. If you're used to American fries, then you will always prefer In-N-Out over Five guys, and sadly that can only be attributed to ignorance. Five guys serves full blown CHIPS! And the sheer volume of fries they give you (a standard portion was ordered) is staggering. They give you so many that it will easily feed two people alone. In-N-Out gives you the option of Animal Style fries, but I didn't order it because it would cost extra money, whereas the Cajun fries from Five Guys didn't cost anything extra at all. It all depends on what you're in the mood for. If you want standard fries with nothing fancy, go for In-N-Out, if you want a quadrillion fries that can either be a normal salted flavor or Cajun, as well as being thicker and more flavorful, then go for Five Guys.

In the end, it all boils down to how much you want to pay. If money isn't a problem, go for Five Guys. In-N-Out makes excellent food in its own right, but it just isn't as good as Five Guys.

New Rating System (Plus a Fancy Logo!)

2009-10-12T16:33:00.000-07:00

As you can see from my incredible (or rather pitiful) HTML skills, I have a logo now! All hail the great Michele Everett and her art skills!

Also, instead of painstakingly trying to create a new number graph for my ratings, Mish was kind enough to make little chef hat smileys for me. I considered asking for a barfing chef hat for the terrible ratings, but the frowning hat will have to do :)

So without further delay:

Aren't they just amazing? Thank you so much Michele!!

An Honest Question

2009-08-20T01:26:00.001-07:00

Can anyone hear you slurping down your ice-cream in cyberspace?

It doesn't really matter, because this blog is getting a major overhaul, so stay tuned!

India Palace

2008-04-10T16:44:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has lived on earth for more than a month or so has probably read or at least been informed that there are seven days in a week. Popular consensus says that the reasoning behind it is the Bible, which says that God made the Earth in six days, and then rested on the seventh day.

So what did he do on the eighth day?

Don't you think he'd want to have a little fun after a job like that? The Bible never mentions anything about using contractors or some sort of awesome space-based machinery to fabricate planets. Don't you think he'd want to experiment with his little project? I happen to know for a fact that he DID more work on the earth on the 8th day! And that it was just omitted, because people didn't know quite how to handle this creation he made, so they must have deleted it out. This is how it should read:

Genesis 2:4-5
4: And God said, Let the Earth be blessed with Indian food, that my children may rejoice in their ability to taste, that they may spread the good news of this happiness to those their brethren. And God saw that it was good.

5: And the evening and the morning were the eighth day.

Sadly, unlike mankind, Indian food was NOT created equal. I've had some sorry excuses for curry in my lifetime, but thankfully, the Indian food from India Palace on Center Street in Provo is some of the best I've ever had in my life. I would also like to point out that there are seven days in a Hindu week. They must've omitted the day of rest, because Indians work really hard.

India Palace had a rocky start. It was originally called India Garden and was supposedly a break off from Bombay House on University Ave in Provo. While the circumstances of that separation are unknown, one thing that one can see instantly is the differences on how both restaurants operate. I'll write a comparison review another time, so for now, I'll just stick to India Palace. About a year ago, the roof collapsed from rain, closing the restaurant until repairs were made.

Whoever runs India Palace knows the people around here very well. Foods with Indian names are not well known here in Provo, so they had to tackle this problem with a tried and true method: Lunch Buffet. The lunch buffet gives you the chance to try the foods you've never heard of before. Don't like it? Try something else then. For just under 10 bucks, you can try everything they have served on that particular day, and you can have as much as you want.

The service is amazing. You're treated like royalty the second you walk in. If you're there for dinner, the waiters are very helpful with making decisions, and will make any changes to the dish that you desire (I'm keeping a certain uncle in mind here). Once they made a mistake by not including biryani with our order on accident. Within 3 minutes, a piping hot plate of fresh biryani was served to us with apologies from the staff.

Indian food can look very sloppy if it isn't done right. While it still may taste good, those who are not familiar with the food can be put off. India Palace does a wonderful job with presentation of the food. Most Indian restaurants go with the palace sort of environment. India Palace went with a more rural look with open brick walls, and decorations that weren't flashy. It was simple, but it gives you the impression that you're eating what the average Indian eats, and not some opulent edible decoration. (that's a compliment by the way)

And as far as the taste is concerned? I've never eaten anything there that was less than delectable. Ever.

Restaurant Review - Touch of Seoul.

2008-03-17T09:48:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, I was able to go to Touch of Seoul on University Ave. in Provo. It had been a while since I went to any Korean restaurant, and I was hoping that this place could fill the void. Before my mission, I was under the impression that Korean food was much like any other Asian food, but I couldn't be more wrong. I had a Korean/Hawaiian companion who helped me see the light, and I've loved Korean food ever since.

I first knew about Touch of Seoul before the mission through a girl who used to work there (she used to call it Touch of my Seoul). So being in the mood to go eat somewhere I hadn't been before, I decided to give it a try. It's located in down town Provo, where every place on a Saturday night is packed full, but not this place, which made me wonder a bit.

The seating was quick and the guy was very helpful. This was a great first impression of the service, it didn't last very long though. After we got our food, our waiter went back to chilling out with other people working there. At least he was always in sight though in case we needed to flag him down for anything. He was a nice guy and it looks like he enjoys his job.

The ambiance of the whole place was...interesting. It almost seemed like the designer was sacked half way through, and they just brought in another designer to finish the job instead of just starting over. There were lamps in between the table that resembled London in the 1800s, which I found a little confusing. If I were to make some changes, I'd get rid of anything resembling Europe, replace the flooring with bamboo floors. I would also take advantage of the very high ceiling by having dim lights hang from long cords over the seating. I could go on, but I don't want to bore anybody.

The food itself was really good. I must admit though that the amount of fat on the Kalbi (BBQ ribs) was a little much for me. We also managed to find a nice lump of silver skin on some of the shredded pork that didn't look so hot. Other than those little quirks, the presentation was done very well. I'm not a fan of anything flashy and over the top. It was simple, but a good effort was made to make it look presentable. All in all a job well done with the food considering the prices were reasonable. I'd look around for another Korean place to try before going back, but I'd certainly keep it as an option.

5 weeks early

2008-03-14T11:50:00.000-07:00

Ok so this blog was supposed to be made sometime in April. I was planning on trying my hand at designing a new template as well as planning out a few posts before starting. The problem with this is A: I've never designed anything except for game maps. and B: I'm bored and need something to make now.

This blog will involve a few things:
Recipes I've found/modified/created along with pictures and instructions. (Mostly from magazines such as Bon Appetite (sp?) and Gourmet). If the recipe was made by someone else, I'll make a note to give credit where its due.
Reviews of restaurants.
My opinion on anything related to food/hospitality.

I'm by no means an expert on this sort of thing, but it couldn't hurt to get started with at least a few bits and pieces. Life doesn't exactly go according to plan, which is another reason I'm making this blog. I started culinary school last year only to have it derailed almost instantly by medical problems (see my other blog). So this is the next best thing for me at the moment. I figured that I can still use my text books and gain at least a little bit of experience with this sort of thing. I think this will also get my brain going when it comes to thinking of what dish to make in a pinch.

Another benefit (for those who live near me), is that I'll need to test these creations on willing victims, now where could I find some of those?? hmmmmm.