I’m not sure what the official Chinese or English name is for this dish, but it’s essentially sliced beef wrapped in a green onion pancake with a touch of Hoisin sauce. Absolutely delicious when shared, but the oil from the green onion pancake is a bit much if you overindulge.

YUM! Brands, Inc., which operates KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Long John Silver’s and A&W All-American Food Restaurants, is seeking to acquire a majority interest in Little Sheep. From the YUM! most-recent quarterly report:

We currently own 27% of the outstanding shares of Little Sheep Group Limited (“Little Sheep”), a Hot Pot concept headquartered in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, China. On April 26, 2011, we announced that we have submitted a preliminary proposal to Little Sheep under which we would offer to acquire all outstanding shares of Little Sheep, other than a minority interest to be held by the chairman and other founding shareholders of Little Sheep. No formal offer has been made at this stage and any such offer, should one be made, would be made only after we have obtained all necessary regulatory approvals for the transaction. There can be no assurance that the current discussions between YUM and Little Sheep regarding the proposal will ultimately lead to an offer being made or, if an offer is made, that it will result in a completed transaction.

Please don’t. I like Little Sheep just as it is.

Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot has opened another restaurant down the peninsula. For those living in the South Bay, all the deliciousness that 小肥羊 has to offer may be obtained at 19062 Stevens Creek Boulevard, Cupertino, CA.

Loree Center is located away from all the more popular Chinese retail destinations, which is a good thing. I have been to the Cupertino restaurant twice and had no problem with parking. No need to park 2-3 blocks away like when I visit the San Mateo restaurant.

In terms of decor, the restaurant matches the high-end San Mateo location, meaning that it looks nothing like any Chinese restaurant that I’ve ever been to. The food is almost the same. I thought that at the Cupertino location, the bean curd stick 腐竹 was not as soft and the Mongolian meat pie 蒙古肉饼 was not as refined. The meat pie had a little too much meat. Other than that, I was perfectly satisfied.

Like the San Mateo location, if you arrive late without reservations, expect to wait. I’ve never seen a Chinese restaurant be so consistently popular.

The Simply Ming cookbook features recipes from Season 1 of the Simply Ming television series. Since Chef Ming Tsai has all the recipes (and video!) from Season 1 on his website, you can test out the recipes online first to see if the ingredients or dishes are to your liking.

The basic premise is that the home cook can prepare a large batch of a master sauce, which then can be used to create different flavorful dishes throughout the week. I couldn’t figure out the Soy-Lime Leaf Syrup. I tried it a few times, but the sauce always came out extremely salty. And, I don’t know if there is some secret about the kecap manis, but that sauce is difficult to pour. I just noticed in Ming’s video that he already had the kecap manis out in a bowl. From my experience, the sauce is so thick that it drips slowly out of the bottle. I might have to give it another try once I can get some kaffir lime leaves again at the farmer’s market.

The one recipe that worked really well for me is the Blue Ginger Cracker Dough, which I’ve used to make scallion pancakes. This version, with bread flour and yeast, ends up thicker than the traditional green onion pancakes, but just as good. In addition to the scallion pancakes, I have also used the dough to create red bean pancakes. Instead of the sesame oil, salt, and green onions, I use Morinaga Ogura-An Sweetened Red Beans as the filling and prepare the pancakes in the same way.

Returned to Howie’s Artisan Pizza for some more good food and photos:

The delicious flatbread that accompanies the hummus and tahini appetizer. Who can resist warm, soft, puffy flatbread? Great plain or with the hummus.

The above-mentioned hummus and tahini.

Finally, I ordered the chipotle chicken sandwich just for variety. Loved everything except for the chicken breast. The pizza and flatbread are the true stars at this place. No reason to order anything else.

Whenever I want pizza, I always return to Howie’s Artisan Pizza, which is located in the Palo Alto Town & Country Village. During my last visit, I ordered the pepperoni pizza and the cherry tomato, smoked mozz’ and salami pizza, both of which are pictured below.

I’ve also enjoyed the sausage and roasted red onion pizza, sun dried tomato pesto & scallion pizza and the works during previous visits. I don’t have a favorite pizza because all of them were quite remarkable.

Previously, I was not a fan of thin crust pizza. However, this place completely changed my mind as to how a great pizza should feel and taste. The real star is the pizza crust, which is both light and tasty. I could easily enjoy several slices of pizza at one sitting without suffering from that heavy and bloated feeling that a thicker crusted pizza would present. Now, I can’t imagine pizza served any other way.

The other standout dish is the hummus and tahini appetizer, which comes with their house-made flatbread. Like the pizza crust, the flatbread is amazing. In fact, their flatbread reminds me of naan, which I can never get enough of.

After a recent trip to Beijing, I returned home to a request for 北京酸奶. Funny. No one mentioned that the yogurt tasted that great when we were over there or else I would have paid more attention. Anyways, 北京酸奶 is more of a drinking through a straw instead of an eating with a spoon type of yogurt. I did find a 北京酸奶 maker in the United States. Thank you Google! So far, I have only found their products in Northern California at Taste Good Beijing Cuisine in Milpitas. Why isn’t this being sold at 99 Ranch?

Anyways, my attempts at home-made yogurt are still works in progress.

First, heat up some milk until it just reaches a boil. For my first few attempts, I started off with 2 cups of whole milk just to make sure I was headed in the right direction. You don’t want to end up wasting a lot of milk if the recipe or technique is off.

Next, I pour the milk into a mixing bowl and cool the milk in an ice bath until it hits 115° F. Basically, the smaller mixing bowl containing the warm milk sits in a larger mixing bowl containing an ice/water mix.

Once the yogurt hits the target temperature, I add in the yogurt starter with a milk:yogurt ratio of 8:1, and whisk till smooth. Next time, I might run the batch through a blender to see if the end product will be even smoother.

At this point, I ladle the yogurt mixture into individual ceramic cups (which are really leftover French yogurt containers) and place them in the oven at 100° F for six hours. After six hours, place the containers in the refrigerator to cool.

If you do not sweeten the yogurt, it comes out pretty tart. I’ve added maple syrup to the yogurt at the time of consumption and that was pretty tasty. I’ve also added sugar (2 tsps per 2 cups of milk) while heating the milk and that works as well.

My favorite fish used to be Chilean Seabass. However, because of concerns over sustainability and mercury poisoning, I have been avoiding that delicious dish for quite a few years now. The great thing about the Chilean Seabass was that it was such a forgiving fish. Even if you slightly overcooked it, it remained juicy instead of instantly drying out.

During a recent trek to the local farmers market, I found some whole butterfish chilling in the ice bins. At about $5.00 per pound, these fresh butterfish were a deal. I have tried them steamed, deep fried and topped with home-made sweet and sour sauce, breaded with panko and served as butterfish sliders, and also broiled in a miso marinade. Since butterfish is just as forgiving to the imprecise cook as Chilean Seabass, we instantly bonded. My type of fish. However, my local farmers market comes but once a week unless I was willing to travel to different farmers markets just to procure fresh fish. I don’t have that kind of time. So, to satisfy that midweek seafood craving, I discovered the retail counter at The Fish Market. At first, The Fish Market confused me since they marketed butterfish as sablefish. But, over time, I recognized that these were interchangeable names. Butterfish may also be sold as black cod. All the same good stuff. The Fish Market sells fillets, instead of whole fish. The price used to be around $15.00 per pound, but lately had climbed to over $20.00 per pound. The butterfish is really fresh at The Fish Market. They have also thoroughly deboned the fish. When I want to make my panko-breaded butterfish sliders, I love working with the butterfish from The Fish Market because I don’t have to hunt for hidden fish bones. I have also found butterfish at Whole Foods. Again, sold as black cod or sable fish. Their fillets are not as thoroughly deboned as the ones from The Fish Market. Makes no difference if I am steaming or broiling the fish. After cooking the fish, the fish bones are really easy to spot and remove. However, for the sliders, working with deboned butterfish fillets just saves a lot of time. Price wise, Whole Foods was originally a bit more expensive than The Fish Market. However, after the Fish Market price increase, Whole Foods inched up to second place.

Anyways, broiling butterfish cannot be any easier. Previously, I was using the Grilled Miso-Crusted Butterfish with Three Caviars and Avocado recipe from the Roy’s Feasts from Hawaii cookbook. Of course, without the caviar, avocado and a few other ingredients. Really hard to stock for a Chinese, Japanese and Western kitchen. Anyways, I found a simpler recipe for Misoyaki Butterfish at Feeding My Ohana. The end result was fairly similar. I probably will have to create two marinades and run a taste test when I’m feeling more ambitious.

The lovely butterfish from Whole Foods after sleeping all night in the miso marinade.

Misoyaki Butterfish after about six minutes under the broiler. The timing in the oven is key. You have to watch the broiler closely so that the miso marinade on the fish gets caramelized, but not burnt. The crisp miso crust is the tastiest part of the fish.

Thank goodness for the photo because I could not read the Chinese and the English was utterly incomprehensible. At first, I thought the dish was named after a Chinese senator named Bao Zhikou. It could be possible, much like how Dongpo Pork 东坡肉 bears the name of 苏东坡.

From the photo, the pièce de résistance appears to be sea cucumber and Google Translate confirms my suspicions with an obtuse translation of Bao Zhi buckle Sea Cucumber.

The better translation will interpret 鲍 as abalone and 汁 as sauce. As for 扣, Google Translate offers the following possibilities. As a noun, 扣 may mean button, discount, knot or ouch. In this context, none of these are correct. As a verb, Google Translate offers buckle, button, deduct, button up, pull, detain, fasten, arrest, place, press, or take into custody. These are all wrong as well. My best guess is that 扣辽参 means steamed sea cucumber because 梅菜扣肉, which is a favorite dish, is preserved vegetables with steamed pork. So, my translation would be Sea Cucumber in Abalone Sauce.

So, where does distant senate come from? Well, 辽 could mean distant or faraway as an adjective. Senate, according to Google, is 参议院, so there you have it.

As for the related menu items, 清炖辽参 could be translated to Sea Cucumber is Clear Broth. I can see how “boils in its own broth without soy sauce” would be one way to translate clear broth. Google translates 金米烩辽参 to Golden Rice Braised Sea Cucumber. Of course, 金米 literally means Golden Rice; however, a closer translation may be available. I just haven’t found it yet. I am 100% sure that Bao Zhikou and Jin Mihui do not refer to competing senators with dishes named after them.

Not sure how 木瓜炖雪蛤 ended up as The Chinese Flowering Quince Cooks the Snow Clam Synopsis. As far as I know, 木瓜 is papaya, not the Chinese Flowering Quince. I can see how 雪 which means snow and 蛤 which means clam ended up together as snow clam, but where did synopsis come from?

Google Translate says 木瓜炖雪蛤 means Papaya Stew Hasma. I agree with the Papaya and Stew part, but I have never heard of Hasma. Wikipedia reports that Hasma is a Chinese dessert ingredient made from the dried fallopian tubes of true frogs. Ugh, on second thought, Snow Clam Synopsis sounds perfectly delicious. Talk about a missed translation. Big difference between clams and frog fallopian tubes.

As for the 木瓜, I had to reverse search the Chinese Quince on Wikipedia and it turns out that Chinese Quinces and Papayas are both referred to as 木瓜. However, based on the photo with the reddish orange fruit with green flecks, I’m betting that I’m seeing a papaya and not a Chinese flowering quince. I think Google Translate wins this round.