Bouchon Bakery - Yountville, CA

I had the pleasure of going to Napa a few months back for a friend's bachelorette party and of course, I had to make a stop at Bouchon.  I coerced my friend Jules to meet me in Napa for the day and she kindly obliged.  I had arrived earlier than expected so I decided to walk around town and explore my surroundings.  I had already made plans to stop at Bouchon Bakery after lunch, but I was shocked by the line I saw forming outside the door.  I did what every person does when faced with a potential mob scene, don't ask questions, just stand in line and follow the herd.  For all I know, the line could have led me to an edge of a cliff and I still would have been none the wiser.  

 

Mercat a la Planxa - Chicago, IL

I've been a fan of  Jose Garces on Iron Chef and especially from his food demonstration at the Chicago Gourmet this past summer. He was very approachable and down to earth. I've been itching to try his Chicago restaurant, Mercat a la Planxa, but for one reason or another, it kept eluding me.  

So number two on my list for Restaurant Week was Garces' Mercat.  I got a bunch of us together on a Friday night for some tapas.  It's a beautiful space right on Michigan Ave near the Art Institute.  Here was what was great and not so great about Mercat for Restaurant Week.

The good news: the food is excellent, it's so flavorful and everything we had was delicious

The bad news: you do not get your money's worth if you come in a big group for Restaurant Week.  Typically for Restaurant Week, you get a choice of three items as a three course meal, which usually ends up being more than enough food.  I thought it was a bit odd that the waiter encouraged us to order additional plates on top of the restaurant week menu.  We thought a few additional tapas would be enough, but even with those additions, we totally felt stiffed.  We got some items taken off the final bill, but it didn't leave us with a good impression.  


Because everything is served family style, the portions weren't adequately thought out.  We were often times presented with one dish to share among the six of us, even though we were each paying a prix fixe price.  Tables of two next to us were getting the same exact dish that we were, except they were only sharing amongst the two of them.  


I do think it's worth it if you come in pairs.  If you do decide to come with a bigger group, you're better off ordering off the regular menu instead of doing the set menu.  

Our waiter highly recommended the bacon wrapped dates stuffed with almonds.  Each order comes with 2 skewers so for the five of us, we ordered 2.5 orders.  These were amazing. If you've never had bacon wrapped dates before, you need to get on it.  

Sugar Spiced Almonds

I think there's something wrong with my appetite. I've been discussing this problem with several of my friends until Wonster was telling me about her visit to one of our friend's house recently who just had a beautiful baby girl. She was telling me about how Michelle had to wake up in the middle of the night to feed the baby every hour. Then I realized my problem, I am a full grown woman with an appetite of a newborn baby. Uh oh.

If only I could blame it on having a tiny stomach or going through a growth spurt. My constant snacking has become pretty ridiculous so one day I made a mental note of all the times I ate something and I noticed that I was drinking or eating something every hour. My friends have tried to appease me by telling me it's OK to eat small snacks frequently throughout the day, but I don't know if every hour is normal.

Part of the problem is that in an effort not to resort to the alluring food court downstairs or vending machine snacks, I've been bringing loads of snacks from home, which I end up eating all of.

Almonds are one of these snacks and they are supposed to be good for you in moderation. I get sick of eating raw ones though so I am trying to spice things up. I tried Alton Brown's Ginger Almonds, which were great, but I wanted to try to make cinnamon almonds this time.

I found this recipe on allrecipes.com, tweaked it a bit and came up with this. I saw some recipes for salty almonds and others for sweet ones. I couldn't decide between the two so I went with both.

Sugar Spiced Almonds

adapted from allrecipes.com

3 cups almonds

¼ crushed red pepper

½ teaspoon chili powder

¼ teaspoon garlic powder

¼ teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

¼ cup sugar

2 tbsp light brown sugar

1 egg white

1 teaspoon cold water

Preheat oven to 250 degrees F. Line a jellyroll pan with parchment paper. In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients.

Mix the dry ingredients together.

In a bowl, whip the egg white until frothy. Add water and beat until frothy, but not stiff.

Add the nuts and toss to coat.

Mix the dry ingredients until combined and sprinkle over the nuts. Toss to coat, and spread evenly on the prepared pan.

Bake for 1 hour in the preheated oven, stirring every 15 minutes, until golden. Allow to cool, then store nuts in airtight containers. Cool the nuts and store in an airtight container.

The combo of sweet, salty and spicy are really good with the crunchy almonds. It's hard to stop eating them, but the spicy part definitely keeps me at bay from eating the whole container. Thank goodness.

Ginger Almonds

Here's one of the recipes featured on Alton Brown's show recently.

Ginger Almonds

Alton Brown

Ingredients

1 tablespoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon kosher salt

2 teaspoons olive oil

1 teaspoon dark sesame oil

1 dried arbol chile, stemmed and broken into small pieces (I found this in the Mexican aisle of my local supermarket)

1 pound whole natural almonds

1 tablespoon less-sodium soy sauce

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

Heat the oven to 250 degrees F. Combine the ginger and salt in a large mixing bowl and set aside.

Heat the olive oil and sesame oil in a 12-inch saute pan over medium-low heat. Add the arbol chile and cook, stirring frequently, until the chile begins to give off an aroma, 30 to 45 seconds.

Add the almonds and cook, stirring frequently until lightly toasted, approximately 5 minutes. Add the soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce and cook until reduced slightly and the pan looks dry, approximately 1 minute.

Immediately remove the nuts to the large bowl and toss with the ginger mixture. Spread the coated nuts into a single layer on a half sheet pan lined with parchment paper and bake in the oven for 20 minutes.

Remove the pan to a cooling rack for at least 30 minutes or until completely cool. Store in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

So what is my final verdict? I was expecting some freaking amazing nuts so when I tasted it straight from the oven, it was a big let down. It almost tasted bland. I know, how can ginger and chile be bland, but it was. Maybe it was because I was munching on a lot of different things in the kitchen that day so the flavors felt a bit muted. However, the next day, when I brought the almonds to work to eat, the flavors decided to finally show up. I was so wrong about it being bland. If anything, they have tons of spice and crunch. I have them hidden in my drawer because the ginger is pretty pungent. haha. It was really easy to make and it's a nice change from eating raw almonds. I'm going to look into making some candied almonds next time.