Happy Hour: Garlic Jo’s – All night Tuesdays and Wednesdays

Might as well continue the garlic theme and go with Garlic Jo’s, since it’s taking us back home.  It’s just at Newport on PCH.  The happy hour menu consists of appetizers and tapas type style plates.  Prices usually range from about $3-$6, not including drinks.  Everything that I post is awesome.

Garlic cheese bread that’s so addicting.  Try not to eat too much of it before the rest of the food otherwise you’ll get full fast and kick yourself in the pants for not saving room for the other dishes you have to try.

Cream cheese jalapeno wontons with a cream sauce and chili mango sauce.  I really like the jalapeno because this is the only place I know that puts jalapeno and is key to setting it apart from amongst the hundreds of places that serve cream cheese wontons the same plain old boring way.

Baby spinach salad with diced tomatoes, bacon garlic chips, with miso dressing.  The miso dressing is really light and flavorful.  If I weren’t around people I would take a shot of it.  Just try not pick off all the bacon before you finish salad. 

The Vampire Killer is roasted whole garlic cloves and anchovy in olive oil topped with parsley and parmesan cheese.  The second picture is when it’s spread on a baguette.  I love roasted whole garlic cloves because aside from the garlic flavor itself, there’s a mild sweetness that comes through when it’s roasted.

Salmon tacos with the salmon lightly breaded and deep fried with lettuce, tomatoes, cilantro, a cream sauce on a flour tortilla and a side of a chili sauce.  The cream sauce and breading of the fish makes the texture and the taco itself different from other fish tacos and brings to a higher level, so it doesn’t feel like tacos from a fast food joint.  It feels more gourmet.

The star of the show, garlic pizza.  On a flat bread with gouda and mild cheddar cheese with slice garlic and topped with garlic and parlsey with a side of three different sauces ranging to mild to spicy, which is my opinion with not that spicy but is still good.  This pizza really amazed me because I never thought a pizza without any sauce on the pizza itself would be good.  Instead the absence of sauce allows the simplicity and strength of the flavors allows it to speak for itself.

This is Erik the bartender and he works on Wednesday nights.  Don’t worry, I got his permission to post him.  He is super nice and great to talk to.  You tell him you’re friends with Christine and the In-N-Out group.  I say In-N-Out because some the the most important people in my life work for INO. 

UPDATE:  Garlic Jo’s no long has happy hour :( LAME!  But it is still worth it if you go for dinner.

Garlic Festival: To Die For… Because you will

 

Freshly picked corn THAT day, or so it says, with garlic butter.  Garlic butter aside, the freshness of the corn is what truly makes this special.  I’ve always had frozen corn or corn from a grocery store, with who knows how long its been sitting, but never I thought anything of it.  But once you’ve had corn as fresh as this, you can really taste the difference.  The corn is perfectly sweet but not too sweet, and each bite is crisp but not like raw crisp.

Butter garlic bread, and let me tell you they loaded up the butter.  I actually got to see them making this and let me tell you it made me want to find a cardiologist.  They literally toast it then dunk it in bins full of melted herbed garlic butter.  Don’t bother ripping a piece in half because the butter will just drip off when you squeeze it.  Be prepared to sacrifice some cardiac vessels but it’s totally worth it.

I would say the star of the festival, shrimp scampi :) :) :) What’s even worse/ better, depending on how you look at it, is that dipping the garlic butter bread in the excess scampi sauce is absolutely to die for.  There something about it that oddly enough made it unique and something unlike any scampi I’ve ever eaten, yet there was also something so familiar.  I was fortunate enough to catch a demonstration of this being made and I will tell you two secret ingredients that sets this scampi apart from the rest: clam juice, and lobster butter.  The clam juice is what made it unique, yet familiar at the same time.  Not only that, but I didn’t even know lobster butter existed!  Everything about the scampi was pure genius.  If you’re allergic to shellfish, take a preemptive Zyrtec, and Claritin together, and if you go into shock anyways, you’ll pass away at your happiest moments.

Garlic Festival: The Good

 

I would say that this post is more so a feast for the eyes since everything eaten in this category is simple and doesn’t need much explanation.  But simple foods go a long way.

 

Garlic fries, definitely a staple at the garlic festival.  Fortunately when you don’t have any festivals or areas to go to in the area, you just go the Trader Joe’s frozen isle for the same garlic fries at fair quality.

Garlic ice cream and it’s free :) I believe the base flavor is vanilla and then flavored in garlic.  The garlic comes through as an aftertaste.  To those that have never tried it, it’s a concept that is difficult to imagine but trust me it works.  The portion is very small, like a little cone with a shot of ice cream, but its great for a perfect amount of sweet to offset all the savory. 

When you need a five minute break from the garlic completely, chocolate covered strawberries and cream puffs.  Now granted you can definitely make this at home with a simple chocolate sauce, but we’re six hours from home, I’ll take it!

Garlic Festival: The Whatevs

These are the dishes I’m more so neutral about, that were not that impressive.  I don’t think anything I came across I would consider bad, tasting that is, but I probably would not be upset if I didn’t came across it to begin with.

These are deep fried artichoke hearts with garlic chunks and parmesan cheese sprinkled on top.  The part that doesn’t impress me is that it’s just chunks of garlic on top.  Anybody can do that!  I don’t feel it incorporates or infuses garlic to make it seem special at all.  However, unbeknownst to  me, I did see that it does come with a special garlic sauce that you can get poured on top.  But I only found out after I saw someone else with it and the person at the booth never asked so I never knew about it.  That’s what also irks me about this, is that I see that it could have been potentially great.  But whatevs, can’t dwell on should’ve, would’ve, could’ve.

It looks, smells great, and there is definitely a generous infusion of garlic, but I should have known better.  It’s garlic chicken stir fry!  I’m Asian!  I eat this stuff all the time.  I took the first bite and realized that everything was all too familiar.  In all fairness though, for anybody that doesn’t come across Asian food often, I think it would be worth it and something you would really enjoy.  Like I said, it doesn’t taste bad, but I have had this or something similar to it a thousand times and I feel like I can get this anywhere.  So I will take credit and admit that it’s partially my fault.  The stir fry is in this category because of my own personal prejudices.  I do my best to keep an open mind, but sometimes it’s hard to when you’ve eaten stir fry your whole life and have so much to compare it against.  I realized after eating this that it’s not just about slapping some garlic on a dish for me, but if adding garlic among other things would make a dish truly stand out.

Gilroy Garlic Festival! 7.23.10

Since there is a lot to cover, I am going to it break up into posts based how good the dishes were: the whatevs, the good, and to die for (literally).  I also know the posts are getting kind of long so I’ll try to cut it down.  But sometimes it’s hard not to get carried away when you eat something that’s just that great.

Blowfish Sushi, San Jose CA 7.25.10

 

So we stumbled upon this place by accident, cause we needed a place for lunch, and I’m glad we did.  The sushi roll you see is a baked salmon which is avocado rolled in rice with slices of salmon on top, then topped with cheese and cream sauce.  It reminds me of a salmon and cream cheese roll but way better because having it baked adds a smoky, mildly charred taste that makes it unique. 

 

Then I had a bento box with tatsuta chicken, which is chicken marinated in soy sauce and ginger that is lightly breaded and deep fried, and seared albacore.  The chicken was so addicting and the albacore was probably the freshest albacore I had ever tasted to date, and I’ve eaten a lot of albacore because that is usually my go to sushi.  The sides were rice, salad and smashed potato, which I thought was weird because there were no Asian flavors in the potato what so ever, but was still good.  I managed to get a taste of my other half’s grilled salmon in his bento box, but unfortunately it had no flavor and was very bland, and considering I had nothing but good things to say for everything else. 

 

However, I was pleasantly surprised with the desserts considering most sushi places and Asian places in general do not have much as far as desserts.  You can even tell that this place has a dedicated pastry chef because of how mindful they were the desserts were plated and the fact that the desserts have swirls of sugar that looks like take skill to make, instead of some guy who slaps ice cream on top of something sweet.  The first dessert I tried was the Treasure Twenty which is a banana flambé crepe with lycee ice cream and berries, which was absolutely fantastic.  I had never had anything that was flambéed but I will have to make sure I do more often.  I do not know what liquor was used but man that was so good and really adds that something special. But the one that I actually ordered was the Chocolate Quartet consisting of a chocolate pao cake, similar to a sponge cake, a white and dark chocolate mousse and white chocolate ice cream.  It lastly came with an almond cookie, which if they sold in a store, would be the end of me.  As far as all the chocolate stuff, I have no negative comments and really I have no words to describe because those desserts were devoured like as if they were being attacked by piranhas.

Tommy's Joynt, Frisco CA 7.24.10

Pastrami Sandwich

Corned beef

The philosophy behind this sandwich and dinner plate place is simple, it's all about the meat.  Just to name a few turkey, brisket, corned beef, ham, turkey, pastrami, and roast beef are their specialties.  Did I get it all?  I feel like I missed one.  Surprisingly enough there's no chicken, but who cares, the others more than make up for it.  So the things I tried is first the pastrami sandwich.  Let me just say wow.  By the way, all the meats are cut up right in front of you on their table and there's no such thing as an industrial slicer, just good ole fashioned hand and knife.  The pastrami is sliced thick, as compared to the uniform thin slices most sandwich places will give you.  And let me just say, thicker is better (that's what she said).  For obvious reasons, thicker slices just allows you to concentrate on the meat and its flavor much better.  In addition, your sandwich does not come with anything else but mayo, mustard and bread.  No lettuce, no tomatoes, no onions, no pickles, and that's because they want you to taste the meat and boy do you!  All of that other stuff is just going to get in the way.  The other dish I had was their Saturday special, which was corned beef and vegetables.  I felt like I was in Ireland, even though I've never been, I felt that's how Ireland would taste in my imagination.  Corned beef was cooked perfectly, seasoned well, some may not like it cause its on the saltier side but I like things on the saltier side (that's what she said).  The accompaniment of cabbage and potato were great and the broth I could just drink like water.  But I would have to say the surprise stand out was their clam chowder.  And I say surprising because that's not what they're known for.  That was what my niece had, and thank god she's five and had a smaller appetite cause as soon as she was done, we were all over that thing.  Come to think of it, I don't think we even waited until she was done.  Unfortunately I can't exactly put it words what sets it apart from many clam chowders.  Maybe it's cause it tastes like it's made in house and stays away from a can.  Maybe they put a secret ingredient but what ever it may be, I'd say it's comparable to Boudin's.  Maybe even better than Boudin's because Tommy's is a mom and pop joint.  To me, I think those are the best eats.  But lets just say it's so good, I didn't even get a picture of it *gasp*

Zeni. San Jose CA 7.22.10

I would have to say that this is my first Ethiopian experience and only knew about from tripadvisor.com. I was very skeptical to come here, but luckily my sister had been to Ethiopian places before and told me the flavors are distinguished but not so much to where they are considered acquired tastes. Also, good thing about having her there was she told what to expect so I could go there with an open mind. How it works is that we were given bread that more so look and taste like sourdough pancakes, which is quite good. Then our entrees are placed onto a communal plate. We rip off piece bread, grab the meat with it, and then eat with our hands. The names of the dishes are also very cultural.

One of our entrees is called zilzil tibs, which is not far out, its beefsteak cooked in butter along with grilled onions and green peppers. But really you can’t go wrong when you cook something in butter. The meat was seasoned well and I just couldn’t keep away from those onions. The second dish we ordered was scrambled eggs and ground beef, which translates to scrambled eggs and meat. It was really nothing out of the ordinary either, pretty much tasted like breakfast food. The entrée was good but I felt like I could have gotten that at any breakfast joint. Our last entrée is more true to Ethiopian flavors, called Kei Wot. Similar to beef stew, the main flavor that shows through is turmeric, which is a little sweet with a hint of curry and weird as it sounds, it is highly addicting. It is served with a very mild cheese which doesn't taste like much when eaten by itself, but really enhances the dish when eaten with the meat. I’m glad I had this opportunity and frankly I wish SoCal had more Ethiopian populations so I could eat Ethiopian food more often. I don’t think I’ll be so open minded to where I could eat like Anthony Bourdain and consume anything crazy bull testicles or horse spinal cord, but I hope I can be open minded enough to try something unfamiliar like Zeni.

NorCal

Hopefully every few months I'll be able to eat elsewhere, outside of SoCal, depending if funds permit.  Just last weekend (July 22-25) I was able able to visit San Jose, Frisco, and the Gilroy Garlic Festival, which is now my Graceland.  So expect the next few posts to be about NorCal :)