Hainanese Chicken & Rice

Dumpling Man really likes Hainan Chicken & Rice.  It's a pretty simple dish that I usually cheat to make since I never wanted to attempt poaching my own chicken and making my own rice.  So I've used various versions of this pre-made seasoning in a jar over the years, and Dumpling Man has always been pleased.  All you do is add a couple scoops to your rice and then pop it in the rice cooker.  As for the chicken, I usually season it and slather it with some ginger and steam it. 

Anyways, I decided to hunker down and do it all from scratch.  Watching the episode of No Reservations, when Anthony Bourdain visits Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken and Rice Stand in Singapore, was the final push to try and do it.  They showed the process of poaching the chicken and using the poaching liquid to make an aromatic delicious rice.  I found an easy enough recipe at Steamy Kitchen.

So when my mom makes bun thanh, which is a kind of Vietnamese chicken noodle soup dish, she says it should be made with a free range chicken.  She's not very clear on why, but it's supposed to be better.  This recipe too, called for a free range chicken.


I have no idea how many pounds the chicken was, but by my guestimation it was at least 4 lbs?

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Joe's Burger

The argument over the "best burger" seems to be an endless debate for the ages.  Some of the more well known contenders nation wide are probably In 'N Out and Shake Shack.  Every city has its own local battle.  In LA, there's Father's Office, Golden State, Umami Burger, etc.  You can find me in the In 'N Out and Father's Office camp.  In Portland, I'm sure a battle is raging, but I'm not so "in-the-know" and I have no desire to hike all over the city trying different burgers.  I've tried Little Big Burger, which was just ok, but not worth a revisit.  Although I do pass it by on my way to workout and I cannot deny that the aroma wafting from it's doors is intoxicating, especially AFTER my workout.

More recently, I've tried Joe's Burgers, which is located at Bridgeport Village in Tigard.  Imagine the Irvine Spectrum, a highly commercialized and relatively new and shiny outdoor shopping complex in the heart of the suburbs.  There's a large movie theater & IMAX, Crate & Barrel, The Container Store, Banana Republic, etc.  It feels like a little bit of home away from home, so Dumpling Man and I find ourselves there A LOT.  Now Joe's Burger is not a restaurant or even a food cart.  It's a food kiosk, surrounded by other food kiosks like Wetzel's Pretzels, The Sweet Factory, a bakery selling overpriced gourmet cupcakes, and Portland's Kogi wannabe, Koi Fusion.  Despite being just a kiosk, it serves a burger that has come the closest to replicating In 'N Out's deliciousness.

Fries
These were delicious and fried to a golden crisp.  They really remind me of McDonald's french fries, having that perfect artificial fried potato taste very much lacking from In 'N Out's fries.

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Hong Kong Lounge

So after many wonderful meals in San Francisco (Gary Denko, Ferry Building, Bottega), the H.o.P. was honestly itching for something else.  The H.o.P always gravitates back to our one true love, the complex multi faceted cuisine of Asia.  What better way to satisfy that craving than with some good ole dim sum.  Hands down, Seafood Harbour in Rosemead has got to be THE best dim sum this side of the Pacific.  I haven't had dim sum in Hong Kong, but the rest of the H.o.P. can confirm this.  So far, my experience with dim sum in the Bay Area has been just ok.  Better than anything in Orange County, but nothing that knocks your socks off.  A true dim sum experience cannot be complete without some rude, pushy, and loud Cantos.  You know what I'm talking about.  They smell like mothballs and old closets, they squawk and squabble like wild chickens, and shoving and cutting you off comes as second nature to them.  Haha, I joke, right?  These are the people of Dumpling Man.  He says my people live 10 people to 1 room and are ghetto beyond all ghetto.  Ah, to each his own...

Xiao Long Bao
Tasty and pretty juicy.

Har Gow
Pretty large pieces of shrimp.

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Bottega

Michael Chiarello has made quite a name for himself by being one of the 3 finalists in the first season of Top Chef Masters.  Let's be honest, the first season was the only season worth mentioning.  Subsequent seasons have been pretty lackluster.  Anyways, I was pretty impressed with Chef Chiarello's mastery of Italian cuisine, so I was really looking forward to trying out Bottega during my jaunt to SF a few weekends back.  The Pouter had amazing things to say from her experience there, so the expectations were high.

Lamb & Egg "house made" lamb sausage, pepperonata, crispy soft boiled egg, red endive, smoked olive oil poached mushrooms
The Pouter recommended this dish.  It was pretty solid.  The sausage was spicy and was mellowed out by the rich runny egg yolk with its crispy exterior and then complimented by the slightly bitter and sharp endive.

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Thanksgiving 2011

So my mom has become sort of a traveling gnome these days.  She plans these elaborate trips, it's beginning to feel like every years now, with all her lady friends to quite exotic destinations.  This year it was Turkey and Sri Lanka with a short jaunt to Vietnam.  She often goes in the fall and this year she happened to be gone during Thanksgiving.  With her gone, my siblings and I were sort of at a loss of what to do.  In the end, everyone else decided to take a trip too.  Triple F and Running Man went to South America and Smooth Obturator and Triple T went to Bora Bora.  By the time I thought of going back home to spend Thanksgiving with Dumpling Man's family, plane tickets were through the roof.  So that left Dumpling Man and me, alone, in rainy Portland for Thanksgiving.  Luckily, Zhu Zhu Hamster was also in town and she brought along her friend, Little Pet.  So I took this opportunity to attempt my first Thanksgiving dinner for 4.  I didn't make all the usual things I normally eat with my family.  The only thing I really missed out on was the Oyster and Shrimp Stuffing which I have been eating with my family for as long as I could remember.  Dumpling Man very much dislikes my family's stuffing so I tried to do a more normal one this year.  All the recipes I used this year came from trusty foodtv.com.

Brined Herb-Crusted Chicken 
I adapted this recipe for a 4.5lb chicken instead of the intended 12-14lb turkey.  First of all I don't like turkey all that much.  And second of all, how can 4 people eat all that turkey?  The recipe also called for brining for 2-3 days and drying it out for another day.  Uh, who has all that time?  I brined it for 1 day and dried it out for 4 hours.  I figured, smaller bird, shorter prep time?

The recipe also called for cooking the turkey at 17 minutes per pound.  I did some cross referencing and went with the timing suggested by the roasted chicken recipe in Ad Hoc At Home.  It's a darn good thing I did that, otherwise the turkey would have ended up dry as a bone.  

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Ricotta Gnocchi with Sausage and Fennel

Making your own pasta looks so easy.  Mix some flour, water, eggs, etc and roll out the dough and presto!  I've been wanting to try it but I haven't gotten around to it.  Instead, I've tried making my own ricotta gnocchi, also known as gnudi, which apparently means "naked."  I guess these are supposed to be like the filling of a pasta but without the pasta, hence the nakedness.  My first encounter with gnudi was at Restaurant Zoe in Seattle.  In short, it was heavenly.  So I wanted to see if I could recreate a little bit of heaven in my kitchen too.  In short, I could not.

Mario Batali's recipe for ricotta gnocchi seems simple enough.  Eggs, flour, salt, nutmeg, and ricotta cheese.  He suggested goat's milk ricotta but I couldn't find that and had to settle for regular cow's milk.  I think I bought a reduced fat one by accident.  I suppose the key here is draining the ricotta through a fine sieve overnight in the fridge to drain out the excess liquid.  After a whole day in the fridge, hardly any liquid drained out.  I think I should have taken that as a bad omen.

Here is what it looks like after all the wet ingredients are mixed together.

This is how it looks after the flour gets mixed in.  The directions say to mix in more flour if the dough too wet and sticky.  I ended up putting in a whole sh*t ton of flour just so I could handle the dough to make the little balls.  It was still sticky up to that point but I didn't want leaden balls rolling around in my sauce.

After much blood, sweat, and tear, I finally had a tray full of gnocchi balls to boil.

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Ferry Building Farmer's Market

So after an awesome dinner at Gary Denko, we woke up the next morning wondering what our next food adventure might be.  We had reservations for Bottega in Napa Valley at 5pm, so we didn't want to eat anything too heavy or too filling.  Triple F suggested the Farmer's Market where we could just try some small things here and there and still have space for carbo loading later in the day at Bottega.  I had been to the Farmer's Market at the Ferry Building before, but never to eat real food.  

I remember watching Anthony Bourdain feast at Primavera.  I was having a craving for Mexican food, so I figured now was the time to see if Anthony Bourdain knew what he was talking about.  As you can see, this ain't no $1 taco stand.

Primavera Chilaquiles Guanajuato organic local scrambled eggs, refried beans, sour cream, avocado, white onions, cilantro
Everything was kinda whatever.  I think I've had better chilaquiles.  The other members of the H.o.P. could not understand what possessed me to stand in such a long line for such unimpressive eats.  I blame it on Anthony Bourdain, but maybe I shoulda had the tamales which is the more popular option here.

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Gary Danko

My apologies for my absence from the blogosphere.  After a long day of work, I usually come home and cook dinner.  Portland just doesn't have the same dining options that LA did, so its forced my hand to cook more regularly.  If anyone knows me, I don't like to cook instant or even semi-instant sh*t.   I cook the way my mom did, fresh veggies and meat.  Anyways, after that I vegetate in front of the TV and the last thing I can think of doing is blogging.  On top of that my computer is all slow because I upgraded to Lion so blogging is just difficult.  Looks like I'm only able to blog on days off, which today happens to be.  Yay for me!  Ok enough whining...

Last weekend I hit up SF to visit my sister.  It's been 3 or 4 years since I've been to SF.  I dunno why it took me so long to come back for a visit.  I'll just blame everything on my prior "overworked-ness."  Smooth Obturator really wanted to try Gary Denko, so reservations were made some time ago.  The restaurant is pretty small, so I can imagine why reservations may be hard to get.  There was actually a couple with a young child sitting at the bar enjoying dinner.  Right when I was thinking to myself, "I don't think this is the kind of place you take a little kid," the kid went and spit up his food right into mom's hand.  Thanks kid, way to ruin my appetite.

I loved the many choices available at Gary Denko.  You can make up your own tasting menu from any of the items on the menu.  They can make appetizers into entrees and vice versa.  It was just too exciting.

Roasted Tomato and Fennel Soup chives

Because we had to wait a little bit past our reservation time for our table, the chef wanted to thank us by  giving us something a little bit special.  It was certainly a teeny amount of very yummy soup.  Sweet, savory, with some tangy tomato chive topping.

This was one crazy expensive HALF bottle of wine.  I won't say how much, but it was more than I could afford.  It was a beautiful cabernet sauvignon.  Thanks to Smooth Obturator and Triple T for footing the bill on this one!

I expected a bit more something exciting for bread when it comes to a restaurant of this caliber.

Buckwheat Blini salmon, caviar, creme fraiche
I have never really had a blini with caviar that I found to be amazing.  Usually the blini is cold and hard, but this was truly a delectable bite.  The bilini was warm, soft, with a fresh crisp exterior.  The salmon was smokey and the caviar was briny.  It was delicious.

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Lemon Ricotta Cookies with Lemon Glaze

I like baking, but I've realized lately that I only like to bake 2 things, brownies and chocolate chip cookies.  So this was my attempt at stepping outside my comfort zone and doing something new and different.  I figured I could do no wrong with a highly rated recipe from Giada De Laurentiis.

The dough is a pretty standard combination of sugar, flour, butter, etc

What makes it different is the added lemon juice and zest.

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Batali's Basic Tomato Sauce

Who knew making your own tomato sauce could be so easy and tasty!  When I bought Mario Batali's cookbook, Molto Italiano, I was excited to get down and dirty with some of his recipes.  But first, I'd have to make my own sauce.  I was surprised at how such few basic ingredients could make a subtle yet tasty difference to your everyday pasta.  All you need are carrots, onions, garlic, canned whole tomatoes, olive oil, and thyme.  I found it strange that thyme was the herb of choice instead of something basil.

I've always heard about San Marzano tomatoes, but I never quite understood what made them so special.

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Du Kuh Bee

Aside from dumplings, Portland is also lacking good Korean food.  I'm sure nothing compares to LA's Koreatown except Korea itself.  It's amazing how Korean food used to be something so foreign and weird tasting to something I really love.  I guess it's cuz I have a penchant for stinky things and Korean food is full of that.  Anyways, Du Kuh Bee isn't a true Korean place, but rather a Korean-Chinese place, maybe?  I'm not sure.  They are known for these delicious fresh hand pulled noodles.  I've never seen anything like that in any Korean restaurant.  But then they serve kimchi and galbi.  And then they have mapo tofu and fried rice.  Go figure.  Du Kuh Bee is seriously like one little Korean family running a little kitchen.  Service is on the slow side because dad pulls the noodles and mom does everything else.  Don't go if you're starving.

Kimchi
Nom nom nom

Dumplings
Pretty standard.

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Din Tai Fung (Seattle)

Portland is a nice place to live.  The people are nice.  There's not much traffic.  Most everything you want is here sans tax (there's a Target and/or Trader Joe's every which way you turn!).  The very obvious thing it is lacking is great Asian food, especially good dumplings.  Lucky for us, the world famous Din Tai Fung has opened up a new outpost!........................in Seattle. 

Now we don't have to fly to get our dumpling fix!  We need only drive 2.5 hours one way, so that we can wait another 1 hour for a table, and then fight the food coma back to Portland another 2.5 hours, while maintaining a keen watch out for cops trying to stick you with a speeding ticket for going over 65mph.  No joke.  Who would attempt such a ridiculous trip?  On a whim no less?  Well, that would be Dumpling Man and his trusty sidekick, moi. 

The restaurant is located in Bellevue, which seems to be a pretty posh area of Seattle.  Din Tai Fung is in the top level of a new, modern, non-Asian, non-ethnic, All-American shopping complex with a Nordstroms, Crate & Barrel, and PF Chang's.  It's on the same floor as Lucky Strike.  Yes folks, you can bowl and get your dumpling on at the same time!

It seems like they've spared no expense at this outpost of DTF.  It's a striking contrast to the cramped quarters of DTF in Taiwan.  This one is sprawling with high ceilings and modern finishings.  It's easily double the size of the 2nd Arcadia location and even has a private room with an all glass wall and door.

The stand out feature of this location is the full stock bar where you can wait for your table or even eat.

And of course, the droves of hispanics industriously working the dumpling line.

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Picca

Oh Picca, why did you have to disappoint me so?  I had such high hopes for this place.  Blogger after blogger extoled the culinary accomplishments of the modern Peruvian fare here.  It was top on my list of "to-try" LA restaurants.  I even recommended this restaurant to my Triple F and Running Man during their visit down here, solely based on the reviews of all the bloggers.  Running Man was sorely unimpressed.  Triple F being more sunshine than dark cloud, was slightly more positive, but wasn't really crazy about the place.

Finally, I managed to get a group together for a visit.  Teety, Soprano Man, The Face Puncher, Quack Man T, and myself gathered for fun filled dinner.  We didn't really know what to order and in what quantity.  So out of our laziness, we opted for the omakase.  Maybe that wasn't the best decision.

Causa Sushi scallops, mentaiko
I would say this was probably one of the best dishes of the night.  I loved the take on "sushi."  Instead of rice, the proteins were sitting on top of little well seasoned potato cakes.  The scallops were fresh with just a bit of deliciousness fishiness from the roe.

Toro Ceviche leche de tigre
This was just the start of the leche de tigre overload in the omakase.  That stuff is incredibly tart.  A little bit goes a long way but some dishes were overwhelmed with them.  I can't even recall if the toro had that signature butteriness since there was just so much sauce.

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Vietnamese Chicken Curry

Dumpling Man likes his curries, specifically Thai yellow curries.  I'm not such a fan, but I'll eat it.  It's just a bit too creamy and sweet, but that's exactly how Dumpling Man likes it.  I prefer Vietnamese curry instead which is more fragrant from lemongrass and ginger and saltier from a good helping of fish sauce.  So my curry somehow walks the middle road, and as a result is never sweet enough for Dumpling Man.

I've made this before but with the lemongrass cut into short stalks.  This recipe from Ravenous Couple called for finely sliced lemongrass.  If you've cooked lemongrass before, you'll know that it is not something that softens as you cook.  So, all that lemongrass ended up being lost in the sauce and into my bowl and it was not fun to chew on.  Next time, I'm keeping the lemongrass in stalks so they can be fished out at the end.

Your basics.  I found these mini cans of coconut milk.  Perfect for making a serving of curry like this.  For most recipes, a mini can like this may short change you on the called for amount of coconut milk, but I'd rather have a less coconutty curry than half a can of coconut milk that will slowly mold in the back corner of my fridge.  I randomly picked this curry powder.  It's pretty darn spicy.

First you gotta marinate your meat.  I like to keep my meat in semi-large pieces so that they end up being fall apart tender after a while.  Unfortunately, it takes longer to cook that way.

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101 Noodle Express (Lu Wei Ju)

We all know Irvine is missing a solid dumpling and noodle house.  A&J makes a decent attempt, but it still leaves a big void.  I mean, if I knew how to make awesome dumplings, I would totally open up a joint in Irvine because I knew it would win big.  I'm talking lines out the door folks!!  Let's step outside my imagination for now, and talk about Irvine's newest dumpling and noodle house, 101 Noodle Express.

101 Noodle Express' original location in Alhambra has been on the SGV dumpling scene for a long time.  Unfortunately, Dumpling Man and I were not particularly impressed with anything there when we tried it many moons ago.  Somehow, transplanting the restaurant to Irvine has changed my opinion.  Maybe because there's just not many options in Irvine when it comes to noodles and dumplings.

Cold Mix of Cucumbers
We all know I love a good pickled vegetable, and cucumbers are no exception.  These were a tad on the sugary side but it was refreshing for a warm summer lunch. 

De Zhou Chicken
Apparently this dish is quite special at 101 Noodle Express.  De Zhou chicken is a special dish from the Shandong region of China.  The bird is first deep fried before it is braised in spices, soy sauce, and sugar.  The dish here was served cold with a soy dipping sauce.  It was pretty darn flavorful and moist.  Surely something I would order again.

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Cinnamon Sugar Doughnut Muffins

I don't know what inspired me to suddenly try this recipe.  I'd been in a chocolate chip cookie mode, but I just got the inspiration to finally see what all the hype was behind the "donut muffin."  I guess it's muffin that tastes like a cake donut.  How is that possible?!?! 

It seems like a pretty basic cake/muffin recipe with all your basics: flour, leavening agents, sugar, eggs, milk, etc.

I'm wondering if I should invest in a nice stand mixer, but my handy dandy hand mixer, which I've had since college and is probably the only kitchen item I've kept since that period of time, has yet to fail me.  That's gotta count for something.  Maybe I'll put it on the registry and hope someone gets it for me?  I mean, Dumpling Man and me...

The recipe calls to alternate mixing the dry ingredients and milk to the creamed butter/egg mixture.

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Galbijjim

So after discovering the deliciousness of galbijjim at Seongbukdong, I had Korean savory fall-off-the-bone tender meat on my mind.  It was never anything I thought I could recreate at home.  The Pouter and I discussed that a pressure cooker was probably involved in making such a culinary treasure.  But I actually came across a pretty manageable recipe on Manngchi.com.  So off to H Mart I went.  Yes, there is an H Mart in Portland!

I bought a family pack of short ribs because it was on sale.  The other half is in my freezer waiting for some inspiration.

There was a WHOLE LOT OF FAT that I had to trim off the meat.  Some pieces were mutilated because they were soo fatty, so after all the trimming, there wasn't much left but a big bone and some meat dangling off.

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Mom's Steak Salad

You won't usually hear me say things like, "Oh my mom makes the best..." or when I'm at a restaurant you won't hear me say "Oh my mom's version is better."  My mom isn't that kind of mom.  The type of mom who loves to be in the kitchen, perfecting recipes that have been handed down generation after generation.  That's not to say I didn't eat home cooked meals every night and liked it.  Every night my mom cooked, and I usually enjoyed the things she made.  But now that we're all grown up, it turns out my mom cooked purely out of necessity and not out of passion.  She's actually pretty lazy when it comes to cooking.  Still though, there are a handful things my mom made that have just stuck with me all these years as things that I just love to eat.  Her steak salad is one of those things.

It's totally simple, but to me it's delicious.  She would take leftover rib-eye steak, cut it up, stir fry it with some oyster sauce and throw it on top of a salad with a really simple vinaigrette.  Eaten with a side of rice, makes for a complete meal.  I think I just love the idea of meaty flavorful slices of beef mixed into a refreshing salad.  I love the Thai beef salad, yam neua.

Here I just take a cut of flank steak, sliced up into strips, marinate it in some oyster sauce and garlic.


Then, I stir fry it on very high heat with some onions and extra oyster sauce.  It's important to get some good color on the meat without overcooking it.

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Roman-Style Chicken

So after a couple days of eating rice, I got a little tired.  I wanted to mix things up and try out an Italian recipe from Giada De Laurentiis, who is turning out to be my favorite and most reliable Food Network chefs.  I've found her recipes to be pretty simple and tasty to boot.  I'm pretty picky about the food I cook and especially about the food I post about.  So you better bet that if I've gone to the effort to make a recipe and even post about, then it should be something you might like.

I don't know how chef's always say you can substitute prosciutto for bacon.  Bacon has a smokiness which I would find distracting in most dishes that call for prosciutto.  I try to make as few substitutions as possible.

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Ikko

After a very long and exhausting morning/afternoon of smiling, posing, chit chatting, and sweltering in the heat, Dumpling Man, some friends, and I headed out for some fun and entertainment at the center of all that is hip, cool, and Asian in the OC...Diamond Jamboree!  For those of you unfamiliar with Irvine, you should know that there are quite a few Asians that live there and around the area.  Combined with all the young Asians from UCI, well you have quite a large population of Asian-Americans that need to be entertained and fed in a way that only a new and modern plaza packed with shops and restaurants skewed toward satisfying the Asian "flava" can fulfill.  Dumpling Man is the target consumer for a place like Diamond Jamboree.  He loves Asian things, he loves new things, he loves clean things.  Diamond Jamboree is all these things.

Wow, I've totally digressed, because we didn't even eat at Diamond Jamboree!  We just sang and boozed it up at the karaoke lounge there, which is pretty nice I might add.  Afterward, it was just Dumpling Man, Quack Man T, The Mom, The Germanphobian (aka CMac Attack), and I who were left standing to chug down all the beer Turtle TWu had over-ordered for us before he had to hike it back to LA.  Let's just say that all the champagne from earlier in the day did not sit well with all the beer Dumpling Man and Quack Man T ended up drinking.

None of us were that hungry, but we somehow ended up at Ikko for dinner, which is not really a place you go after a day of drinking.   I would consider Ikko to be one of the best restaurants in the OC for sushi and modern Japanese fare and the price point certainly speaks to that.  The Germaphobian ditched us for cooler friends, so the four of us were left to peruse the menu, but we couldn't decide and opted for the 6 course + dessert $80 omakase.

Shrimp & Crab Ceviche yuzu tomato sorbet, white fish
The dinner started off strong with this AMAZING trio of flavors.  The ceviche was bright from the fresh seafood and tangy from the very interesting yuzu tomato sorbet.  It was lovely.  The white fish was salty with also some citrus hints and served cold.  The fried greens gave some textural contrast.  My words are falling short on how kickin' I thought this dish was.

Sashimi amberjack, sea bass, whelk clam
This was another WOWSER.  First of all, the pieces of fish were huge and soo fresh.  The meat was sweet with that fresh ocean flavor.   My favorite was the whelk clam which had that firm chewy/crunchy texture you expect from giant clam.  It was sweet and salty.  I loved it.  The sea bass and amberjack were equally impressive.

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Tori Soboro

This is definitely one of my go-to recipes for a quick easy dinner and it is easily one of Dumpling Man's favorite foods.  I like it, but he LOVES it.  You can substitute the chicken for turkey and it tastes just the same or even better.  I would avoid using ground chicken breast since it can be pretty dry.

Tori Soboro adapted from toirokitchen.com
Serves 2-4

1lb.  ground chicken (may substitute with ground turkey)

4 tbsp dashi stock, optional

3 tbsp sake

3 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp mirin

1 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp ground ginger
Sliced scallion, nori, egg for garnish

1.  In a pan, brown the ground chicken.
2.  Add the sake, soy sauce, mirin, and sugar and combine over medium-heat.  Stir frequently so that the ground chicken makes nice even crumbles.
3.  If it looks dry, add the dashi stock.  You can substitute for chicken stock or water.
4.  When the liquid in the pot is reduced down to very low (15-20 minutes after), add the ground ginger and continue to cook for another few minutes.  
5.  Serve over white rice.
6.  Garnish with thinly sliced egg, green onions, dried nori.

Seriously, an instant and delicious dinner!

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Little Big Burger

Since moving to Portland, I've had the strangest cravings for an In 'N Out burger.  It's only strange because I never crave In 'N Out.  I probably eat In 'N Out on only one occasion, on my way to Las Vegas.  I think I'm probably craving it because I know I can't have it.  In an attempt to find a delicious burger, we stopped at Little Big Burger after walking to the restaurant we actually wanted to eat at and found it closed.

The menu is simple enough, very In 'N Out-esque

Rootbeer Float tillamook vanilla ice cream, barq's rootbeer
I'm not a huge fan of rootbeer but I like ice cream, so I agreed to trying this out.  It tasted like a rootbeer float.  Enough said.

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