Weekend Recap: Sweltering Heat & Red Ginger Kitchen

July 24, 2006

SATURDAY

Hello heat stroke! It's been an interesting week(end), with the insanely hot temperatures and the resulting state panic about power outages. I headed down to San Jose on Saturday morning for a day with my family (new babies!).

Before I got to Angie's house, I stopped at Classic Car Wash, which is a great place to get your car beautified and waxed. They really do a fantastic job there. Unfortunately, it meant 40 minutes of standing outside in the 108 degree weather...thank goodness for bottles of water!

So, with Lavonda the Honda looking all spiffy and shiny, I made a quick stop to pick up sandwiches at Erik's Deli Cafe (the Abbot's Habit sandwich is yummy!) and then over to the house. Three big fans and a portable air-conditioning unit were in full function, and it was still pretty muggy. After lunch, Angie and I headed over to the Good Sam NICU to see baby Simon, who is still experiencing bradycardia events, most probably due to his acid reflux, common among premature babies...poor baby!

After the afternoon visit with baby Simon, we headed back to the house, with a brief stop at 7-11 for some slurpees (3 out of the 6 slurpee choices were broken...ha!). I spent the rest of the day on Charlotte duty, which was easy as can be. Terrina was also in the sweaty house and was on Olivia duty, so it worked out great.

Bath for Charlotte...

I like Jack's method for staying cool.


Charlotte was a heat machine, I might have sweated through my clothes ten times over (...ew...), but I just loved holding her. By the time I got back to SF around midnight, it was finally cooling off...

SUNDAY

I wish I could say that I was more productive and active on Sunday, but to be honest, it was too damn hot to have any ambitious ideas. I managed to fold some laundry, and tidy up a bit. Other than that, Will and I were easily swayed to watch cheesy movies on the Comedy Channel (did you know that Jake Gyllenhaal was in "Bubble Boy"???) and I did a bunch of Sudoku puzzles (so damn addictive!).

On Sunday night, Abe had invited a bunch of us (Abe, me, Will, Kenny, Key, Katharine) for dinner in El Granada, just north of Half Moon Bay, to a new restaurant called Red Ginger. Abe knew two of the owners through his job at Electronic Arts, and he had designed the website for the restaurant. Also, Kenny was taking off for a month or so back in Ottawa, so it was a good excuse for dinner before he took off.

It took quite a while to get to El Granada, with the hot weather spurring lots of folks to hit the beaches, and the closed Hwy 1 at Devil's Slide causing all sorts of traffic disasters on Hwy 92.

Black Currantini (made with Japanese Soju vodka)

The menu looked delicious and we all shared some appetizers to start:

- Five Spice Ribs: half-rack, all natural, kurubuta baby back ribs char-glazed with five spice honey soy bbq sauce

- Chicken potstickers: stuffed with free-range chicken, served with zesty apricot sauce

- Tuna Tartare: sushi-grade yellowfin tuna, with crystallized ginger and avocado, served with crispy wontons

- Crispy Imperial Spring rolls: filled with chicken, crab and vegetables, served with nuoc charn dipping sauce & daikon pickles.

The appetizers were delicious. I loved the imperial rolls and of course, the tuna tartare was as good as you get anywhere else. The five-spiced ribs were tender and came off the bone, with the spices giving a nice kick. I didn't have any potstickers, but everyone else really loved them.

For entrees, here's the breakdown of what everyone had:

Bea - Grilled lambchops with wasabi-mashed potatoes

Kenny - Chicken Tonkatsu, panko-crusted free-range Fulton Valley chicken breast with stir-fried pea shoots

Will - Grilled Strip Steak with tempura vegetables

Key - Coconut Caramel Pork, gently simmered for 3 hours in ginger-coconut sauce, with quail eggs

Abe & Katharine - Green Curry Greens with Chicken (sorry, no pic!)

We had also ordered the gingery greens on the side, which included chinese broccoli, yu choi, oyster mushrooms and fresh waterchestnuts, lightly stir-fried with ginger and soy. This was a fantastic side to all of our meals, especially because my lamb and Will's steak didn't have many veggies.

Most of us were pretty stuffed, but an ordering snafu resulted in our table getting 5 desserts (the executive chef was so nice, but maybe that's because of Abe???)

Crispy banana-marshmallow wonton with chocolate fondue (the clear dessert winner!)

Chocolate baked Alaska, charred soft meringue with chocolate ice cream & chocolate brownie with creme anglaise.

We also tried the ginger creme brulee and the pineapple carpaccio. Yum! I could barely try each one, as there was no more room in my belly. Luckily, the boys were able to finish off the desserts.

Abe & Will's after-dinner unfiltered sake drink

Overall, the dinner was wonderful. Red Ginger suffers from the usual new-restaurant growing pains of gaps in service and they're still trying to get to the well-oiled-machine state. The food is good, so I'd definitely recommend this place.

However, I would suggest that you try going after they reopen Devil's Slide on Hwy 1, because despite leaving the restaurant at 10 pm, we were on the road in stop-and-go traffic trying to get to the Hwy 92 turn-off. It took us 1.5 hours to get home...sheesh!