I’m picky when it comes to desserts. Cakes don’t to much for me and chocolate doesn’t really move me either. But tapioca? Coconut? Lychee? Delicious. When it comes to satisfying my sweet tooth, I look east. And Kowloon Tong Dessert Cafe in San Francisco’s Richmond District is perfect for that late-night sago or sesame dumpling fix.
I visited during a chilly evening so I got a the coconut milk sago. Steamy and gooey (in a good way, I swear), this was comfort in a bowl. The best part? It wasn’t too sweet: perfect for my finicky dessert palate.
Kowloon Tong has tons of other desserts I can’t wait to go back and try again. Black sticky rice? Check. Mango pudding? Please. Waffle? Of course.
Kowloon Tong is open until one or two in the morning on most nights, which leaves you with plenty of time to enjoy dinner in the Richmond beforehand. Who needs cake when you’ve got tapioca pearls?
I first fell in love with Minami Restaurant back when I was a university undergrad, living in San Francisco’s Richmond District. Smitten by the city and its seemingly endless supply of good eats, Minami was a tiny hole-in-the-wall sushi joint just a short walk from my flat. Their simple, delicious rolls quickly made Minami my favorite sushi restaurant, far away from the crowds. It was my little secret (well, mine and the entire Richmond District’s).
Fast forward to 2013 and I finally repaid Minami a visit after not having been for nearly a decade. I dropped by one evening with Karen and Anoop, eating partners in crime, and we started with Minami’s signature complimentary dish of sweet potatoes in a sweet, sticky soy glaze. This dish is no-frills but the potato is so perfectly cooked that I could happily eat ten more.
Next, we got to business. We ordered a platter of maguro, tobiko, hotate, sake, and kampyo and oh man, had I missed Minami. This place is just as good as I remember it being, and it’s not just the nostalgia talking.
Don’t go here expecting crazy rolls and you won’t be disappointed. Minami is perfect purist sushi in a no-frills setting. I’m not sure why I let nearly ten years roll by without paying my old stomping grounds a visit, but one thing is for sure: Minami has only gotten better with time.
Part Canadian, part American, I came up with this drink when I was visiting Calgary. It’s the perfect cocktail to warm up with and as fall approaches, it’s time to break out the maple syrup and return to this citrusy recipe.
Ingredients:
1/2 ounce pure maple syrup
1/2 ounce fresh orange juice
1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice
1/2 orange wheel
1/2 lemon wheel
2 ounces bourbon whiskey
Ice
1 1/2 ounces seltzer
1. In a glass, combine the maple syrup with the orange juice and lemon juice. Add the orange wheel and lemon wheel and lightly muddle. Add the bourbon and stir. Fill the glass with ice and top with the seltzer.
After two straight days of dog sledding and mountaineering, we were due for a lazy day. Nishan and I began our fourth day in Calgary at Phil & Sebastian, a minimalist-meets-hipster-in-a-good-way coffee shop in the Marda Loop neighborhood. Protip: get their pain au chocolat; it’s the best I’ve ever had. Their coffee is pretty solid, too.
Afterwards, we headed to the Calgary Farmers Market, which was a bit bare bones in the produce department (it was February, after all) but more than made up for it with meats and cheeses. Want bison? Check. Meat pies? Check. Venison? Check. Kale? Not so much.
I picked up some maple black tea at TotaliTea, then grabbed a few bison sausages at Olson’s High Country. The real treat was picking up a dozen meat pies at Simple Simon Pies. We ate a couple of their Jamaican beef curry pies for lunch at the farmers market and took the rest home to enjoy later.
We spent the rest of the day in downtown Calgary, where I learned what the +15 is (a massive indoor pedestrian skywalk system connecting downtown buildings because, well, it’s so cold in the winter) and also learned that butter chicken poutine exists. Sadly, it’s not as delicious as you might think. What good is butter chicken poutine if the butter chicken isn’t freshly cooked?
For dinner, we put the bison sausage to good use: I cooked up a sauce while Nishan cranked out some freshly-made egg pasta. The result? Tagliatelle with bison sausage and broccoli rabe.
My fifth and last day in Calgary was another happily lazy excursion to Phil and Sebastian, followed by sampling an infamous Montreal smoked meat sandwich. I probably should have tried one of these while I was in Montreal last year, but hey, better late than never.
Avenue Deli serves up Montreal-style smoked meat sandwiches and they’re not exactly light eating. These come with a side of chips, and speaking of chips, did you know that ketchup chips are a thing in Canada? They’re every bit as delicious as you imagine they are.
For dinner, we had one last pasta-esque hurrah. Nishan handmade some saffron pasta while I cooked up a sauce of wild mushrooms and lobster. You can’t really go wrong with any of these ingredients.
I woke up the next morning to a city freshly blanketed in a layer of snow. I had an early flight to catch back to SFO, and left feeling like I’d only scratched the surface of Alberta. Oh, Calgary. Who knew?
By my third day in Calgary, I still hadn’t acclimated to the cold and settled on wearing nearly all my layers of clothing before heading out with Nishan for a day at Banff National Park in the Rocky Mountains. But first we stopped at Tim Hortons for a coffee, because Canada.
The highway to Banff is fraught with elk crossing signs, a novelty for this California girl. It was beautiful here and well, California “mountains” basically look like hills to me now.
We headed to Sulphur Mountain, where a gondola took us to the Summit Upper Terminal at over 7,000 feet. I’d never seen so much snow…or mysterious animal paw prints at that. I’m not sure these were exactly Fido’s steps, if you know what I mean.
Once at the top, Nishan and I set to hiking the impeccably well-kept pathways to the historic Sanson’s Peak Meteorological Station, named after Norman Bethune Sanson. Sanson first climbed the mountain on snowshoes in 1896 in order to record weather observations for the Banff area. Kind of like broadcast television meteorologists, amirite?
It was around this time that I started to feel woozy and light-headed (think of it as a wimp’s version of high altitude sickness combined with possible hypothermia), so we took the gondola back down and headed into the super idyllic Banff town. After stopping at a cafe to warm ourselves up, we got back on the road towards Calgary, where we gorged ourselves on sushi for dinner, Alberta style. (Hint: everything is deep-fried and covered in sauce, yet strangely satisfying.)
