Food truck review: Paladar Cubano

I had heard good feedback on Paladar Cubano from my friends that had tried their food, so it's been on my To-go list for a while.

Yesterday was the perfect opportunity - the first day of spring, very warm (~70 degrees) and sunny Saturday. And I was VERY hungry.

The food truck (and a eat-in tent adjacent to it) is located right off the HWY 99 near Greenlake, which is promising because there is another food truck (el Camion )on the same street up north near Home Depot. Are those used car dealers, cheap motels and pawn shops on the Aurora ave going to be replaced with the global gourmet food vendors? Highly doubt it but everything starts with dreams :-)

Anyway, the food. I was told the service was kind of slow, but the general rule is that if you decide to get served Latin American food, you have to be ready to deal with different time zones, Cuban time, in this case. Our number was #46, when the order for #37 was called. The wait was about 30 + minutes.

Instead of eating in the tent with no sunlight coming in, we decided to drive down to the Golden Gardens to have a picnic lunch on the beach. The sandwich we ordered was Pan con Lechon (shredded roasted pork with grilled onions and green aioli(?) sauce on cuban bread) $5.50. Very tender meat with very flavorful but not overwhelming flavor and right amount of grease and fat (in my standard :-)). The green sauce (we couldn't figure out excatly what it was but some kind of green aioli I guess) was a perfect match with the meat and sauteed onions. This sandwich is probably not one of their best sellers but we loved its simple yet rich pulled pork!

The side order of ham croquettas would be ideal with ice cold beers because of its salty and creamy filling. It's my kind of food :-)

Paladar Cubano
8953 Aurora Ave North
Seattle, WA 98103
Open Mon-Sat 11:30 am to about 6:30
or when we run out of food!

Ultimate Rib Eye Steak Fried Rice

Have you ever finished a whole rib eye steak at a steakhouse? I haven't, and I love taking the leftover with me because the highlight of eating rib eye steak to me is to enjoy steak fried rice at home afterwards!

Here are my special recipes of the ultimate rib eye steak fried rice.

1. Cook one cup of short grain white rice
2. Slice 3 cloves of garlic. Mice 1/2 onion, chop 1 tablespoon of parsley.
3. Cut the leftover steak meat into half an inch cubes. Lightly coat the cubes with salt and pepper.
6. In a skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of canola oil over low heat. Add garlic and cook it until the aroma of garlic becomes distintive.
7. Put the garlic slices a side and add minced onion into the skillet, over medium - high heat. Cook until the onion gets translucent.
8. Turn up the heat to high, add steak in. Cook it to well-done.Add 1 teaspoon of soysauce over the meat and toss.
8. add rice and garlic. Add 2 tablespoons (or more if you like) of butter in. Sautee the rice well. Season with salt and pepper as desired.
8. Turn off the heat and mix in the parsley.

It's dangerously addictive. Caution: Check your cholesterol level first.

My last Bento class this year

The final Bento class ("Create your own Bento Box") was held at the Greenlake PCC last Friday. It was a full house and I think people enjoyed the class.

Actually this season was the second round of my bento classes with different menu seltion:

Miso broiled salmon
Kimpira Gobo (Sweet& Spicey burdock root)
Rolled omelet with green oninon
Salted salmon rice
Hijiki rice
Cucumber and Daikon pickles

If you're interested in the recipes drop me a line!

My next class at PCC is Japanese Vegan cuisine.

Breakfast in Shanghai

In the first morning in Shanghai, my sister, who's been living in Shanghai for 15 years, went out to get some humbaos from a street vendor nearby heated them up in a bamboo steamer and served them hot. It's a popular breakfast item in Shanghai it looks like. Both meat and veggie humbaos were tasty.

It's intriguing to compare different breakfast menus in different cultures. In the last 15 years of my life in Seattle, I have become addicted to crispy bacon strips on some weekend brunches but am still never a fan of sweet breakfast like pancakes and French toast. In Japan, a typical breakfast menu consists of plain rice & miso soup with something "salty" such as broiled salmon, fermented soybeans(natto), raw eggs with soysauce and/or vegetable pickles. How many Americans would be willing to smell like rotten soybeans when they get to work I wonder......

Recipe: Japanese Pork Stew (Buta no Kakuni)

(Wow, this is the first post in the last three years!?)

Ideally this should be "Pork Belly Stew" in traditional Japanese recipes, but it's not the end of the world if you can't find a slab of pork belly. The key to a good pork stew is "FAT". As long as tasty fat is not trimmed off the meat, other parts like pork shoulder or butt can be used.
I found a frozen pork shoulder roast in my freezer and decided to experiment with this less fatty (well, compared to a chunk of belly of cource) piece of meat. Turned out.....AMAZING!




Ingredients (serves 4)

A Pork shoulder roast 2 - 2 1/2 lb
Dashi (Japanese broth made of kombu and bonito flakes - you can use a pouch of dashi powder with no MSG) 3 cups
Green part of Negi (Japanese leek/white onion)
Soy sauce 1/2 cup
Sake 1/2 cup
Mirin 1/2 cup


1. Cut the pork roast into 2 inch square cubes.
2. In a deep pot, put in 4 5- cups of water and add the pork cubes. Add negi and heat the pot over high heat to bring it to boil. Then turn the heat down to medium and cook for a few hours. Add water if necessary.
3. Turn off the heat and let the pork sit overnight.
4. When the fat on the surface solidifies, take out the pork cubes and rinse them in hot water.
5. Discard the water in the pot and add clean water (2 cups + dashi 1 cup). Add back the pork and bring it to boil.
6. Add sake and mirin. Once the alcohol content is evaporated turd the heat down to medium/low and add soy sauce.
7. Simmer for about 1 hours until the meat is very tender (you can test itcan with chopsticks. If you break apart a piece easiliy then it's done
8. Serve hot with hot mustard paste as garnish.

Yumm!! Try it with a good full bodied red wine :-)