The most amazing thing I've ever eaten.. EVER.

As I have become obsessed with finding the perfect Donut, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the best thing I've ever eaten in my entire life is a.. Donut!

Stan's Donut is located off of Homestead and San Tomas Expressway in San Clara, California. It all started when my brother and his fiance were going to come down and visit me for a quick breakfast. I yelped Donut shops and found.. Stan's! After consulting my executive chef (whose eyes lit up like a kid in a candy shop when I mentioned thinking about going to Stan's), I knew I found the right place to go get these delectable morning treats. I also knew that I had to wake up bright and early in the morning to get a fresh, just fried morsel.
I drove by the plaza 3 times before finding the tucked away shop. Pulling up at 7am, I saw the old Donut master, dressed as he does everyday in all white, with a white cap at his work bench through the window.
The smell of fried goodness covered in a crispy thin sweet coating of sugar wafted through the air as I got out of my car. I opened the door to the store and the smell hit me like a brick wall. Instantly my mouth began to water. Beautiful, fluffy piles of yeast dough rest on his work bench as he punched out buttermilk donuts. Looking at how elastic the dough was, I could see that these were going to be really fluffy donuts.. but would it be a pocket of air or real fluffiness?

I patiently waited as a batch of yeast Donuts were just being turned over to finish frying. I sat down at the counter and ordered a hot chocolate. The fried beauties came out of the fryer and onto the glazing station. A minute to cool and a quick glaze and the Donuts were ready to go. A piping hot Donut was placed in front of me. I quickly ripped into the Donut and found.. Heaven.
The Donut was so crisp on the outside by so fluffy in the middle. Steam billowed out of the donut as the soft, cotton candy like dough melted in my mouth. It was bliss. I instantly took another piece and and let it melt in my mouth.
I understood. I understood why when I asked JP if anything else in San Francisco was a must go eat like Stan's Donut's were and he said no. This was more then amazing. This was the best thing I've ever eaten. I bought a dozen more.

I have a confession. I bought a dozen +1. I had to have another in the car on the way home..Shhh don't tell anyone!!!

The best Donut EVER:
Stan's Donut
2628 Homestead Rd
Santa Clara, CA 95051, United States
Hours are 6am to 3pm.

Get there early. Chocolate donuts can be called in and ordered ahead of time. You will never see them sitting out on the rack. Expect to wait for yeast donuts. It is worth it it wait 15 minutes for a fresh batch up just fried donuts- I promise your expectations will not be failed.

*sigh* I want Stan's now!!!

Taiwan Street Food: Cong You Bing - 蔥油餅 Scallion Pancakes

On my walk from Chong Shiao over to Ren Ai Lu in Taipei, Taiwan, I always pass this old man who has been around for 10 years. Friendly Taiwanese chap who told me that american kids like me always stop to have his infamous Cong You Bing or Scallion (蔥) Pancake (油餅- oil cake).
His Cong You Bing are flaky and crispy, light and not overly greasy. He said that lots of wai guo rhen (foriengners) will stop and bring some frozen dough back with them!!! it's never the same though.

For the life of me, I can't figure out how that thin sheet of dough turns into such a light and fluffy pancake!!!

Taiwan street fooD (路邊攤)! Location: Between Chong Shiao and Ren Ai Lu, just past Eslite closer to Ren Ai Lu between 1pm to 5pm monday through friday. Each Pancake will run you about 25NT

Taiwan Street Food: Shao Bing You Tiao -燒餅油條 Sesame Seed Cake with Chinese Donut

Taiwan always has a nostalgic place in my heart, especially when it comes to food. The greasy smell of fried foods wafts through the air and makes your mouth water.

One of the most common things to eat for breakfast here in Taiwan is Shao Bing You Tiao(燒餅油條) with Dou Jiang (豆漿)- Scallion cookie oil stick with soy bean sauce (literal translation) or scallion pancake with chinese donut and soy bean milk.

the first pit stop the morning after arrival here to Taipei was to get a big bowl of Tien Dou Jiang (甜豆漿)(sweet soybean milk, warmed, no vanilla essence) and Shao Bing You Tiao. This paricular road side stall happens to be one of the most famous You Tiao makers in Taipei. Many of other restaurants like the one in Taipei 101 will come and buy their You Tiao because they are crispy, flaky, airy, and not overly greesy feeling You Tiaos.

Most people opt to eat the You Tiao ( if with sweet soy bean milk) wrapped in a Sao Bing or Scallion Pancake with a fried egg in between. As many calories as this breakfast was, I devoured the whole thing, savoring each crunchy flaky bite.


The salty sweet combination creates a taste known in Minnan (Taiwanese dialect) as "Gam gam"- an essential taste like salty is to western cooking and umami is to japanese cooking.

Location: Between Dun Hua North Road Section 1 , Lane 190 and Daa Ann Road, Section 1, lane 51.

Over the next few weeks, join me on my journey as I eat through Taiwan!!!

Le Donut

Recently, I've become obsessed with finding the perfect Donut (also known as a Doughnut).
Where did these tasty fried morsels come from- and why do they have that hole in the middle of them?

It is believed that the origins of the Donut came from Holland in the form of sweet dough balls fried in pork fat and called olykoeks. These fried dough balls were usually filled with some sort of dried fruit in the middle. The balls were referred to as "nuts of dough" hence where the name dough- nut comes from .

It is said that the Donut got its hole in the middle shape when a sea captain whose mother made these dough nuts with nuts in the middle of the sweet dough ball decided he didn't like the nuts in the middle and used a cutter to remove all the nuts from the middle of the fried ball of dough yielding us with the donut with the hole that we have today. Another possible theory is that the middle of the dough ball would not cook so they simply eliminated the under cooked problem but removing the middle when cooking the dough ball.

Every country has their version of a Donut- though not always in a ring form with a hole missing from the middle. Every country has a version of a starch based, fried, tasty morsel- sometimes savory and some times sweet. Some countries use a yeast starter- much like we see with krispy Kremes in America and others use a traditional cake based (egg as the levening agent).

In America, donut shops are a dime a dozen- what's the difference between a mediorce donut and an outrageously good donut? is it the frosting? is it the dough? These fried morsels are so simple but are often some of the best foods representing a country.

It's Donut hunting time!

Pandemic Really?

On a recent flight to Taipei, we had a lay over in Narita, Japan. In order to debark, each passenger was required to fill out a Quarantine survey to be given to Quarantine agents who boarded the plane and spoke with each passenger (thank god my flight was not full) and handed them the below sheet of paper once deemed safe to enter the country. Another few Quarantine agents were walking around with heat cameras to see if anyone had a temperature above normal.

I couldn't help but to laugh out loud at the word Pandemic ( followed by the flight attended passing me a mask to wear.. I think the last time I wore one was in 1999 with vick vapor rub in it)
The definition of a Pandemic can be broken down to it's greek origins-
Pan-demos or pan- all; demos- people.
From this definition- the FDA defines pandemic as a global outbreak.
This differs from an Epidemic (also in greek origins)
epi- amongt; demos- people
where the later is restricted to a certain area rather then the whole world.

So when was the last Pandemic in history? What does the swine flu look like in comparison to the last real epedemic?
After a little digging on the web, a consensus was formed that the Spanish Flu of 1918-1920 killing 80 million was the last recorded pandemic in history. Ok ok, so the swine flu is a form of a flu, i'll give you that much but Pandemic? How many people have actually died of the swine flu? Last I checked there were about 900 cases reported. That's .001% of the number of people who DIED from the last real pandemic.

Pandemic would also imply that people everywhere, every corner have the disease. 900 is hardly justifiable for the real definition of Pandemic- all people. It doesn't even fulfill the definition of epidemic...

I can't help to chuckle to myself when I see the hype spreading. The real pandemic at hand is the hype and fear of the flu.

Oyster Shucking in Tomales Bay

I had the great pleasure of going Oyster shucking at Hog Island Oyster Company the other day. I've never been up to Tomales Bay despite having lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for so long.
The drive upto Tomales is a beautiful calming drive that takes you through San Rafael, Point Reyes Station and up the coast of Tomales Bay.

I met the crew at the Hog Island Oyster Company in Marshall- population 50!!!
At Hog Island, numerous different types of Oysters can be purchased in huge sacks. You are giving a glove, a shucking knife, a tray and have at it!

We did bring our own goodies to enjoy with the oysters- bread, cheese, wine, grapes and of course Tobasco sauce.
Besides the traditional raw oysters, we also bbqed oysters

"oyster stew surf and turf" butter, lemon juice and salumi

Making Mochi

I suddenly had a craving for Mochi the other day. Mochi is a traditional rice cake made from glutinous rice ground into a paste. Nowadays, rice flour can be bought at your local asian market.
After some internet researching, I settled on making the following flavors for my Daifuku ( mochi filled balls):

Traditional Taiwanese peanut dusted street food style
Green tea with anko filling
Ube with black sesame filling
Regular with mung bean filling

The mochi dough recipe:
1 cup mochiko rice flour
2/3 cup water
1/4 cup sugar

to make green tea or ube, add about 1.5 tsp of green tea powder or Ube powder to the dough recipe before you start heating it up.

Instead of using the sugar called for the in recipe, I decided to make a "low carb" version since the rice flour itself is quite heavy in calories. I subsituted in 2.5 packs of stevia for every 1/4 cup of sugar called for in the recipe.

I used the easy microwave version- although I do believe that the glutens don't get a chance to build as much in this version. I will try next time to do it in a pot over direct heat.

A couple of tips
1. the recipe usually calles fro 1 cup of rice flour to 2/3 cup of water. I would up this ratio to about 1-1/4 cups of rice flour becuase the resulting mochi will be too soft and sticky to work with.
2. Continually stirring the mochi paste will help to develop gluten strands. Even when the mochi dough has turned opaque, if the dough is still hot, keep stirring to cool it down and develop those gluten strands for a chewier dough.
3. Instead of trying to make little perfect circles to roll your mochi up in, its easier to cover the spoon full of mochi dough with cornstarch and make an indention to put ur filling in. The result will be a more smooth, even mochi ball.

Next up- Mochi filled ice cream !!!