These delectable tacos, on the traditional corn tortillas, came with perfectly cooked medium shrimp, diced grilled pineapple, tamarind-chile sauce, and a generous amount of guacamole. The pineapple came through with crunch, flavor, and sweetness. The tamarind sauce was in the background, but it provided some sourness. The tacos were garnished with chopped cilantro which added to the flavor, and the creamy avocado tied it all together. I was given two salsas, red and green. The green one was more tart and the red one more spicy. I used one salsa on each taco as you can see below. These were two of the best tacos I've had!
Location: Luchador Brewing Company, 68510 E Palm Canyon Drive #140, Cathedral City, California. Date: October 15, 2022.
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The menu calls this a cold lemony spiced mashed potato layered with avocado and topped with ceviche mixed with a touch of mayonnaise and garnished with choclo (large corn kernels). It came with red onion slices that provided crunch, and the choclo and marinated fish provided chew. There was acid from the marinade and heat from the red hot sauce that came on the side. The potato and avocado provided creaminess, and the marinade with the addition of some mayonnaise made for a tangy sauce that went well with the mashed potato. This was an excellent match of two Peruvian classics: mashed cold potato and marinated raw fish. This potato and fish dish has nothing in common with fish and chips, and it's a very refreshing dish on a warm day.
Location: Peruvian Fuego, 1751 N Sunrise Way #F1, Palm Springs, California. Date: October 8, 2022. These plump oysters are from Vancouver in Canada, and I got seven of them in a garlic cream chipotle sauce along with half a re-hydrated chipotle pepper. Before I even got my wine, I was served a small loaf of bread with lots of raw garlic and some herbs in oil for dipping. When all the garlic oil was gone, there was still a slice of bread left for soaking up the leftover chipotle sauce after I'd eaten the oysters. The chipotle sauce was spicy, creamy, a touch smokey, and addictive. The oysters were perfectly cooked, they had a great seafood flavor, and the spicy sauce enhanced the experience but didn't over-power it. I can't wait to have these oysters again!
Location: Ocean, 87555 Palm Canyon Drive, C101, Cathedral City, California. Date: October 1, 2022. When I feel a bit run down, I almost always crave raw fish, and tonight was no exception, so I went to Edoku Sushi and ordered their twelve piece assorted sashimi plate, the Yokohama. It came with four thick slices of salmon, four thin slices of izumidai (sushi grade tilapia), and four thick slices of tuna. It was served on grated daikon radish with two wedges of lemon and some kale for garnish. I'm not crazy about grated daikon, but I ate all of the kale. I enjoy raw salmon with lemon, so I used the wedges for squeezing. While there are many noteworthy sashimi plates out there, tonight this modest one is what I had, and I'm feeling better.
Location: Edoku Sushi, 69-195 Ramon Road, C-5, Cathedral City, California. Date: September 30, 2022. This interesting ceviche contains yellowtail, which is one of my favorite fish, and it's “cooked” in citrus juice and mezcal (Oaxaca's version of tequila). It is flavored with ginger and serrano chile, and it's freshened up with avocado and diced cucumber. As I began eating, it was quite sour from the citrus juice, but then the smokiness from the mezcal came through, and the spice and heat from the ginger and serrano built in my mouth. The ripe avocado provided creaminess, and the cucumber provided crunch. There was also a hint of bitterness. The dish was garnished with microgreens and served with crunchy tortilla chips. You purchase your food, and pick it up, from a food truck permanently parked inside a brewery. The food, however, is prepared in the commercial kitchen behind the truck. Very Cool!
Location: El Camión at Luchador Brewing Company, 68510 E Palm Canyon Dr #140, Cathedral City, California. Date: September 24, 2022. No, not that! This weirdly named sushi bar specialty is portobello mushroom stuffed with spicy tuna, crab meat, smelt eggs, and onion. It was deep fried and drizzled with spicy mayo and eel sauce. Basically, it's a stuffed mushroom cap tempura style. It was a little sweet and a little crunchy with nice umami mushroom flavor. But yes, it does look like brain from a split open skull.
Location: Dragon Sushi, 72261 Highway 111, Ste 131, Palm Desert, California. Date: August 20, 2022. I usually don't frequent chain restaurants, but when they advertise lobster mac & cheese, they get my attention. At the newly opened I Heart Mac and Cheese in Palm Springs, my lobster mac & cheese with white truffle oil and muenster cheese came in a heart shaped bowl. There were some nice chunks of lobster and I could taste the luxurious truffle oil. The muenster cheese was just a little funky which played well with the seafood flavor. The mac and cheese itself was nice and runny, not the dry stuff with breadcrumbs on top that passes itself off as upscale. The dish was garnished with green onion and a little tomato, and there was a sourness to the cheesy sauce that cut the richness and made me want to keep eating. Overall, this was probably the best bowl of mac and cheese I've had.
Location: I Heart Mac and Cheese, 190 South Indian Canyon Drive, Palm Springs, California. Date: August 20, 2022. For our feast, my four friends and I ordered a pound each of crawfish, shrimp, clams, and mussels. As an after thought, we ordered a pound of shrimp with head on. Our dish came with corn on the cob, potatoes, extremely delicious sausage, and hard boiled eggs, all in a wonderful house special sauce called Crazy Claw. We ordered the sauce medium hot, and it definitely packed some heat. I think it must have been tomato based, with lots of garlic, and it was delectably savory. Because of the sauce, all the other ingredients tasted similar, but I didn't care about that at all; the sauce was so good. The head on shrimp were the star for me as they packed the most meat, and the juice from the head was fabulous. The dish was served in a paella pan, and we all used our hands to reach in and take our delicious morsels. I haven't had many seafood boils, but this was the best one ever.
Location: Mr Claws, 67555 E Palm Canyon Drive, Ste F120, Cathedral City, California. Date: August 17, 2022. When I realized that my favorite Chinese restaurant was closed for summer holiday, I searched on the internet for some other interesting restaurant to blog from, and to my surprise I found Persian food right here in the Coachella Valley. The restaurant offers both Italian and Persian food and is owned, so my waitress told me, by a Turkish family from Istanbul. I ordered the grilled swordfish kabob, and it came with cubes of marinated and moist swordfish, with intense flavor and great grill marks, that lay on a bed of basmati saffron rice. The dish came with a grilled and very juicy tomato, cut in half, as well as onion, red pepper strips, and thin eggplant slices, all grilled. There was also a ramekin of hummus and another one with cucumber mint yogurt sauce. The meal was accompanied by some wedges of pita bread. There was some crunch from the onion and pepper, some creaminess from the hummus and the yogurt, and a touch of sour from the yogurt and the tomato. The rice was a bit under seasoned but that worked well with the intensely seasoned fish. This meal was savory, juicy, and memorable.
Location: Francesco's Cafe, 72047 Dina Shore, Suite C-1, Rancho Mirage, California. Date: July 23, 2022. This Korean style raw fish bowl was actually not spicy at all. What made this dish Korean was the hot dipping sauce on the side, but even that wasn't very spicy: it was a little sweet and rich in flavor. The dish as a whole was like poke but without the individual choices. It consisted of cucumber salad, seaweed salad, undressed lettuce, and small pieces of raw salmon, tuna, red snapper, and seared albacore. It was garnished with masago, which is flying fish roe, and black sesame seeds, and underneath was just the right amount of sushi rice. The menu said it would also contain gobo, which is burdock root, but alas there was none. Burdock root tastes a bit like ginseng, and I quite like it. This meal came with miso soup that contained tofu, seaweed, green onion, and mushroom. I thought the mushroom was a nice touch as it boosted the umami. This restaurant is definitely Christian. Instrumental gospel music was playing, and M 6:33 was printed on the paper covers for the chopsticks, the M obviously referring to Mathew. My meal, though, was a large, healthy, and refreshing bowl of food.
Location: Joyce's Sushi, 36101 Bob Hope Drive, Ste E-1, Rancho Mirage, California. Date: July 2, 2022. |
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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