A friend of mine invited me to this new Thai restaurant in our valley that I had been wanting to try, and it didn't disappoint. I ordered the Hot Squid lunch special that came with tender squares of squid stir fried with basil leaves, bell pepper, mushrooms, celery, onion, carrot, and their special hot basil sauce that was dark and rich. You can order it mild, but I got the hot version, of course, and the squid had a whiff of the sea that I really enjoy. Since it was a lunch special, I got it with white rice and sweet and sour Tom Yum soup with chicken. You can also choose brown rice and salad. This hot squid dish had a nice balance of spice and sweet.
Location: Desert Thai, 68718 E Palm Canyon Drive, Cathedral City, California. Date: March 29, 2024.
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I passed this place I don't know how many times and never thought about trying it until a waiter friend of mine recommended it. When I went, I found that they had lots of seafood. I had cold shrimp, warm shrimp, shell on shrimp, oysters on the shell, mussels on the shell, crab in butter sauce, clams on the shell, and spicy crab legs. I also had a piece of corn, green beans, sweet mushrooms, hard boiled egg, and tomato with cucumber. They have a small sushi bar (not great but edible), and a grill to order bar that I didn't have room to try yet. For the price, this oriental buffet is well worth it.
Location: Emperor Buffet, 69600 Highway111, Rancho Mirage, California. Date: November 25, 2023. This southern specialty is often called breakfast shrimp. I had it at a restaurant called Petit Dejeuner, which is French for “breakfast”. The grits were buttery with little pools of melted butter, and they were cheesy with strands of yellow cheese. The four tail-on shrimp were a decent size and cooked perfectly. The dish was garnished with green onion and red and yellow bell pepper. The owners are Detroit natives, but they use family recipes from Arkansas. One of the owners came by my outdoor table, and when she saw what I was eating, she declared “It's the best part of breakfast!”
Location: Le Petit Dejeuner, 67-778 E Palm Canyon Drive, Cathedral City, California. Date: November 18, 2023. The owners of Smokin' Burgers here in Southern California are from Alaska, and they bring the best Alaskan wild salmon with them on Alaska airlines. The problem is that they only have cooks, no chef, and it's so easy to overcook salmon and make it dry. Someone told me to order it as fish and chips, because the beer batter keeps the salmon moist. The problem here is that they don't have chips, just those skinny fries. What they do have, though, is a tasty dinner salad, so I ordered the salmon with salad, instead of fries, with balsamic vinaigrette dressing. The fish came with tartar sauce and lemon wedges, but I opted for the more British malt vinegar. The beer batter was light and crispy, and the salmon inside was very moist and pink. I should have broken a piece open so you could have seen it. The salmon was not salty, which I appreciated. I love salmon raw, but if you're going to have it cooked, this is the way to have it.
Location: Smokin' Burgers, 1775 E Palm Canyon Drive, Unit 220, Palm Springs, California. Date: October 17, 2023. This pasta dish was linguine tossed with a pound (about 30) black mussels, white wine, fresh tomato, garlic, chile flakes, and Italian parsley. It was served with lemon wedges. The black mussels were small, but they packed a flavor punch. The pasta was cooked perfectly, and because of the mussels it had absorbed some nice seafood flavor.
Location: Haus of Pizza, 72795 California 111, G-2, Palm Desert, California. Date: October 7, 2023. In English this Peruvian hangover recipe would be called Tiger's Milk. It's fish ceviche marinated in lime juice with red onion, cilantro, and aji pepper. The dish is garnished with cancha and choclo corn kernels (cancha are small and crispy while choclo are large and soft). It's the addition of the corn, along with the yellow aji pepper, that makes leche de tigre Peruvian. This marinated raw fish dish is salty and sour with crunch from the small corn. It's served with hot sauce on the side. It's a refreshing dish on a hot day.
Location: Peruvian Fuego, 1751 N Sunrise Way, #F1, Palm Springs, California. Date: July 16, 2023. This cold soup isn't even on the menu yet; I saw it on the chalk board as I walked in. It's actually so much more than the name implies because it comes with a bevy of beautiful butterflied shrimp. The soup itself is watermelon juice with tomato juice added for body, and there's pico de gallo in it (finely chopped tomato, onion, and green chile) as well as chopped cucumber and sliced avocado. It had a rich but refreshing flavor, a touch sweet from the watermelon juice, there was a hint of worcestershire sauce, and a nice spicy bite. There was crunch from the cucumber and from the corn chips that were served on the side. The saltiness of the chips accentuated the sweetness from the watermelon. The soup was garnished with a large mint leaf that added its own refreshing flavor, and there was creaminess from the avocado. This gazpacho was spectacular!
Location: Low Desert, 1775 E Palm Canyon Drive, Suite 405, Palm Springs, California. Date: June 21, 2023. How this classic New Orleans dish has evaded my blog for so long is a mystery, but yesterday my friend Ann took me to an oyster bar and asked if I would share a plate of oysters rockefeller with her, and I was delighted to say yes. These are oysters that have been baked on the half shell in creamy mornay sauce with a green topping, in my case spinach and parmesan cheese. The spinach still had texture, which I appreciated, and a squeeze of lemon for acid was perfect. When it came to taste, I found these shells to be more about the topping than the oyster itself, but who can argue with perfectly cooked spinach and real parmesan cheese? These oysters were savory and cheesy. I enjoyed the oysters with an Estrella Damm, a beer I became familiar with in Barcelona, Spain, where it's made. This was the first time I saw it on a menu in the United States.
Location: Ruben & Ozzy's, 241 E Taquitz Canyon Way, Palm Springs, California. Date: June 2, 2023. Tendon is a Japanese dish that consists of rice topped with tempura. For lunch today I had this dish together with Japanese curry. The Japanese version of curry has a very rich and deep flavor, and mine came with pieces of potato and carrot (which I think is fairly traditional). The tendon part consisted of three fairly large shrimp battered and fried tempura style. Tempura batter is crispy and light. Tempura and curry are two noteworthy Japanese dishes, and I had them in the same bowl. My dish was garnished with shredded dried seaweed. I ate everything in the bowl and left it clean.
Location: Zen, 1231 W Ramsey Street, Banning, California. Date: May 20, 2023. This is a savory crepe on the menu of Crepes de Paris in Palm Springs. It comes with shrimp, red bell pepper, mozzarella and parmesan cheese, and a wine and cream sauce. There were quite a few medium size shrimp, cooked perfectly, and this seafood played nicely with the savory cheeses. The slightly sauteed pepper strips added the freshness that this rich dish needed. It was presented nicely with some shrimp, pepper strips, grated cheese, and sauce on top, and a goodly amount of these ingredients inside as well. Vive le France!
Location: Crepes de Paris, 245 S Palm Canyon Drive, Ste A-1, Palm Springs, California. Date: May 13, 2023. |
AuthorChef Roland has been a legal resident of seven countries and has travelled in over thirty, documenting food along the way. He currently resides in the desert in Southern California. Categories
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