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Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Events / Beer Beer Dinner at Revolution Pizza & Ale House
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 10:46 AM
For the month of March, Revolution Pizza & Ale House will feature beer from North Carolina breweries as part their "Tap Takeover." All of Revolution’s 44 taps will be taken over by local breweries.
As part of the North Carolina Tap Takeover, the restaurant will be hosting a 5-course beer dinner, created by Executive Chef Meredith Smith. Each course will be paired with two different N.C. beers. (That's ten beers you get to sample!)
The beer dinner will be on Sunday, March 6th at 7:00pm. Tickets are $35.00 per person. For reservations, call Revolution Pizza & Ale House at 704-333-4440.
Click the jump to see the menu.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Smorgasbord Riedel wine tasting
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 12:01 PM
Maximilian Riedel, the CEO of wine glass company Riedel, hosted a comparative wine tasting at the Marriott Uptown on Friday, Feb. 18.
Riedel (prounounced ree-dl) was quite humorous during his 1 hour talk. He mentioned that the perfect pour is two fingers ... as in two fingers horizontal, not vertical. During the tasting Riedel explained how the shape of glassware affects the aroma and taste of wine, passed along a few wine tricks and tips, and demonstrated how to use his newest "Eve" decanter (which looks like a coiled snake).
Recipe / Priscilla Tsai / Dessert Banana pudding conquered
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 8:48 AM
If you remember, banana pudding has been the bane of my existence.
I know it's simple to make, but for some reason a good banana pudding has always eluded me. I have refused to take the easy road by using boxed mix for the vanilla pudding.
This stubbornness resulted in a nasty grainy, mess last time. (Check out my failures here and here.)
Well, I am happy to say I finally reign supreme over banana pudding. I made a creamy vanilla bean pudding from scratch and layered it with bananas and Madagascar Vanilla Wafers from Trader Joe's.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Mouthful / Priscilla Tsai Taste Test: Dessert crepes at Crepe Cellar
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 11:04 AM
Ok, fine! Twist my arm and force me to eat crepes.
Kidding. As someone with the biggest sweet tooth around, I was more than eager to take the Crepe Cellar Kitchen & Pub up on their offer to have me come by and sample a smorgasbord of dessert crepes last night.
As owner Jeff Tonidandel brought out four giant dessert crepes heaped with ice cream and whipped cream to my seat at the bar, fellow patrons gawked.
Take a gander at the goods:
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Food News / Events / wine Maximilian Riedel comes to Charlotte Feb. 18
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 2:57 PM
Maximilian Riedel, of Riedel Crystal, will be in Charlotte this Friday, Feb. 18, for a comparative wine tasting at the Marriott Uptown.
The tasting will explore how the shape, size and clarity of glassware affects how we perceive a wine's aroma, taste, balance and finish.
Maximilian is the 11th generation head of Riedel Crystal.
The cost is $125 per person. Read more about the event here.
Riedel Wine Glass Tasting
6:30 pm
Charlotte Marriott City Center
100 West Trade
Charlotte, North Carolina 28202
Monday, February 14, 2011
Priscilla Tsai French macarons for my Valentine
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 3:52 PM
Macarons, the little French meringue-like sandwich cookies (not to be confused with macaroons, the coconut cookies) are one of my boyfriend's favorite things on earth.
They've taken over food blogs and may be (or are they already?) the next food craze. Pierre Hermé and Laudrée in Paris are the masters of macarons and feature the cookies in a multitude of flavor combinations.
I've shied away from making them after reading on blogs that they are a pain in the butt to make. Every step of the recipes is portrayed as a delicate procedure and requires painstaking effort.
Well since today is Valentine's Day, I've decided to bite the bullet and try my hand at making some macarons for the boyfriend.
I followed the Martha Stewart macaron recipe I found at the blog Giver's Log, penned by a baker named AmberLee. The post gives detailed instructions, along with helpful tips and photos. I followed AmberLee's recipe to a T, and my macarons came out fabulous. Considering all the hubbub around the difficulty of macaron making, I was astonished that my macarons came out nicely my first attempt. They even had perfect little "feet" (pied in French), the little ruffled bottoms.
I made the little hearts on my macaron shells by dying a bit of reserved batter a darker pink, dropping a little blob of that batter atop of freshly piped shells, and then drawing a toothpick through the centers.
Get the recipe here.
Food News / Events Sneak peek of The Diamond
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 10:12 AM
The Diamond hosted a little preview dinner Friday evening. Check out photos from the event:
Photos by Justin Driscoll.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Food News / Mouthful Tex-Mex and tequila dinner @ Paco's Tacos
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Thu, Feb 10, 2011 at 5:30 PM
Paco's Tacos & Tequila hosted a Tex-Mex and tequila dinner with award-winning cookbook author Chef Robb Walsh last night.
The dinner event featured a cocktail hour with passed appetizer bites and a welcoming margarita, followed by four other courses ... and three other Cazadores tequila cocktails. The recipes for each course came from Walsh's books.
As guests ate shrimp and guac salad, tortilla soup, fried chicken, and tres leches cake, they were given a mini lesson on Tex-Mex cuisine and tequila's origins.
The dinner was $40 per guest, and a portion of the proceeds went to the FS Food Group Scholarship at Johnson & Wales University.
If you missed it, check out the photos below.
Mouthful Photos: Red Mango
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Thu, Feb 10, 2011 at 10:49 AM
Red Mango has rolled into Charlotte. The nonfat frozen yogurt franchise can be found off exit 25 on I-77 in Huntersville. Lucky for us, this Red Mango store happens to be self serve, which makes the experience more fun (not all stores are).
Made with all natural ingredients, their yogurts come in both tart and non tart flavors. When I visited last weekend, they had flavors like Mandarin Orange, Raspberry, White Peach, Amaretto, Blueberry, Pomegranate, and more.
In celebration of Valentine's Day, their featured flavor is the Dark Chocolate made with Ghirardelli chocolate. You can make your frozen yogurt treat even more chocolaty by adding on Ghirardelli chocolate sauces and chocolate chips that are available at the topping bar.
Other toppings include rainbow sprinkles (the one thing they unfortunately don't have at Yoforia shops), chewy mochi, granola, fruit chunks, candy and cereals.
As a big fan of Yoforia, I'd say Red Mango is also pretty good. I like the original tart flavor at Yoforia more than Red Mango's original, but Red Mango has a few tasty flavors that can't be found at Yoforia. The price is the same at both places – 39 cents per ounce.
Red Mango
NorthCross Shopping Center
9918 Knockando Ln., Suite 120
Huntersville, NC 28078
Phone: 704 896 7227
Mon-Sat: 11am-9pm
Sun: 12pm-8pm
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Recipe / Priscilla Tsai / Dessert / Cookie Chocolate Chubbies
Posted By Priscilla Tsai on Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 3:52 PM
Don't you just love the name of these cookies? Chocolate Chubbies!
Too cute.
These little chubby cookies are full of chocolate, pecans, walnuts, and more chocolate. They are like rich mini brownie nugget bites. The recipe comes from the cookbook Sarahbeth's Bakery: From My Hands to Yours.
I suggest you make these. Soon. Valentine's Day is coming up, so obviously you have the license to eat all the chocolate you want (guilt-free) from now until Feb. 15.
For these cookies, I used a honking large bar of dark chocolate from Trader Joe's, chopped into chunks, as well as semi-sweet and dark chocolate chips from Ghirardelli. Yes, it's really an overload of chocolate, but it happens to work so well in these cookies.
I plan to share these fatties with friends during my weekend ski trip, as I should really stop inhaling them myself.
Hmm... but these Chocolate Chubbies do happen be just right size to pack into the pockets of my jacket... these could make for a nice little snack on the ski lift perhaps...
Here's a photo montage of the entire process:
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Recipe: Rose Water Tea Cookies 1
Cookies, tea and shouting. In that order. Ascending order.
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Photos: Mint Museum's Allure of Flowers After Hours
A peek into a fancy foodie fundraising event that incorporated flowers into, well, everything.
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Dish on this: Charlotte-based chefs join ACF Culinary Team USA 2016
As fall approaches, local chefs prepare for a culinary battle in Germany.
