Boar, Pork Belly, and Ragu

Meal eaten at Victoria Country Club in Riverside, California.

Every time I eat at Victoria, I start off the meal in basically the same way. I get an ice water with lemon, a caesar salad with the dressing on the side, and then we get a basket of different kinds of rolls. My favorite roll in particular happens to be the cheese one, but if you look closely in the picture below, you can see a half-eaten piece of a raisin roll. After the salad and the roll, I usually ask for the chef's special. This time was no different.

The picture is a bit messy, but the meal itself seemed to be quite well thought out. Considering the fact that even here in California it's been cold lately, heavier choices of meat make the most sense to serve when you are doing a "seasonal" dish. 

In this case, I had boar with yogurt and bourbon sauce, pork belly, and a tomato ragu. You can make out the bourbon sauce in the left part of the plate, it's sort of a brown color. It was good, however, I liked the yogurt sauce (middle of plate, yellowish color) better. It just stood out more against the boar, and I really like the contrast in texture and taste. 

The boar was good, but I liked the pork belly even better. I have eaten pork belly at Victoria before, and didn't find that I liked it so much, but this time it was really good. It was incredibly tender and juicy. 

The boar was good, the pork belly was good, can't say that the meal could get much better, but, it did. The tomato ragu, though just a mere part of the dish, ended up being the shining star for me. It was delicious. It was tomatoes, onions, and yukon gold potatoes, and it was wonderful, especially all mixed together. It certainly completed the dish for me. 

Boar is not my favorite meat, nor is pork belly, but I enjoyed eating this meal. On a cold day, it warmed me up just right. 

Four stars, I'd say. Would have been a three without the ragu!

On a more personal note, Happy New Years to everyone and I hope you all have a great 2009! I look forward to a lot of good eating, cooking, and reviewing. 

Peace, Love, and Best Dishes

Kayla

Bachi Grill

Haven't posted in a while because I was in Connecticut for an ice hockey tournament, but here is a meal I ate while I was gone at Bachi Grill in Cromwell, Connecticut.

Started off the meal with bread, and olive oil with spices and a garlic clove. It was really good, the bread had like some cheese baked into it. Super tasty. 

Then I had some caesar salad, which was good, it had a different dressing, but it was still really good. 

I got broccoli rabe and chicken sausage with tomatoes and penne pasta. It was alright. It looked fresh, but the problem with it was that it lacked any real seasoning. It didn't even have enough salt or pepper. 

Someone I was dining with had the puttanesca, and it was a lot better than mine. It actually had flavor, and good flavor at that.

This place was alright, but certainly not one of my favorites. When the highlight of the meal is the bread, and the salad instead of the entree, you know something isn't right. 

Two - two and a half stars.

Holiday Dinner

Home made

I decided that I would like to try and make a somewhat traditional holiday meal, similar to what we usually eat at Thanksgiving and Christmas. For my holiday menu, I decided on: Roasted Herb Butter Turkey, Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes, Caramelized Onion Cornbread Dressing, Green Beans with Red Onion and Lemon, and for dessert sugar cookies, and my friend made individual Strawberry Shortcakes.

Here is the table we ate, decorated for Christmas.

The turkey in the beginning, just covered in herb butter. Instead of putting stuffing inside the turkey, I stuffed it with herbs, onions, and lemon. It is in a roasting pan on top of celery, carrots, and onions which helped make some nice drippings for a good gravy.

Here's the turkey after it came out of the oven. To the left are some sugar cookies courtesy of Meaghan Schaible.

Here is what a full plate looked like:

Some turkey, green beans, crescent rolls, mashed potatoes, and stuffing.

Some sugar cookies I made. They weren't expertly decorated, but they were still pretty good. 

Strawberry Shortcake

Overall, I thought it was a success. I'm not usually a big fan of turkey, but the recipe I used helped make a juicy turkey, which was nice, as opposed to the usual dry almost cat food like taste. The herb butter also helped make the skin super crispy. The mashed potatoes were good too, although I don't think I would add as much butter or cream as it seemed a bit too rich for me. However, someone else said they would have liked more butter, so it could have gone either way. I am used to a more traditional bread stuffing, so to try cornbread stuffing was a different experience, but I ended up liking it. The caramelized onions made it even better. The green beans were good. The red onions with them were not as good as I would have liked. I cut them the day before to prep, but I think in doing so, they let out a lot of moisture, so they just didn't get as crisp as I would have liked. The strawberry shortcake was also good, but by then I was just too full to eat anymore. The sugar cookies, especially the ones made by Meaghan were great. 

Four stars

If you would like any of the recipes I used for this meal, feel free to leave a comment, or send me an email at kayla@kaylademint.com

Mexican Food

Ranchito Tacos Al Carbon at the Lincoln Plaza in Riverside, California.

Mexican food is definitely my favorite food of all time. Sometimes, I just need some good tacos. Ranchitos Tacos Al Corbon is perfect. It's in the Lincoln Plaza near my house, tucked away in the side of the center. It's also next to the Drive In/Swap Meet. It is delicious! This place is a real hidden gem. 

(Pictured Above) Three Carne Asada tacos on Corn tortillas, with mild salsa. Plus black beans, and rice. Simple, but so good. This place just hits the spot.

Four stars, easy.

Young Pigeon?

Eaten at Victoria Country Club in Riverside, California.

Yet another meal at the Country Club. The Chef usually has specials for dinner, and I usually end up picking one of them (odd as they may sound). This was no different. 

I had never heard the term "squab before" and I'm almost glad, as it turns out it means a young pigeon. You know those things in the park that poop on the benches everywhere, yep, that's them.

Anyway, pictured above is boar with ju, and a squab lasagna with a dehydrated tomato on top. The boar was excellent, moist, juicy, and cooked perfectly. However, the lasagna was nasty. The squab basically tasted like ... blah ... that's the only word that really describes it. It doesn't have a very overwhelming flavor, it's just kind of there. Mostly it taste like really gross chicken, only plainer. It is a very hard thing to describe.

Certainly not my favorite meal. Hated the squab, liked the boar. Three stars, only because the boar was so good.

Breakfast

Home made.

Haven't had a really good breakfast in a while so thought I would change that today. Basically, simple eggs and bacon. I made a red potato and egg scramble, put it between two pieces of the rosemary olive oil bread (also used in steak sandwiches), then topped it with a fried egg, some crumbled bacon, and a little parsley.

And, yes I eat on paper plates (easy to clean).

It was nice to finally have breakfast again .... Three stars.

Steak Sandwiches

Home made meal.

Had some sirloin the other day, so with the left overs we decided to make steak sandwiches. 

Basically, just grilled up the steak again in some olive oil, added a little more seasoning, and made sandwiches. The bread was a rosemary olive oil loaf that we grilled. We also added caramelized red onions and a sauce I made that was horseradish, fat free mayo, a little fresh and easy ranch, dijon mustard, and a little garlic salt and cracked black pepper. 

Sides were thinly sliced potatoes cooked in olive oil with spices, and topped with some parmesan cheese, and some antipasto salad. 

Overall, it was pretty good, though I wasn't too big of a fan of the meat either night we had it.  

One and a half to two stars, though the other people that ate it liked it much more than I did.