Tuk Tuk Me!
Tuk Tuk has really raised the bar for the suburban sprawl that is Natomas. Never before has any restaurant in the Natomas area been able to bring in an upscale quality. On Friday, I went to Tuk Tuk for the fourth time. What makes Tuk Tuk very distinctive amongst the throng of Thai restaurants is the ambiance. Many others have decorated their restaurants in classic Thai decor; warm woods, Buddha statues, old photographs, etc.
Most importantly, the food is fantastic and they have a great selection of custom cocktails. The drink that stands out the most on their menu is their Kiwi Cilantro Mojito. It is very refreshing with its use of bright green cilantro with a nice touch of tartness from the kiwi and lime. Dan hates cilantro, but loves this drink since it does not overpower it. Large, ripe pieces of kiwi are found throughout the drink and is garnished with strawberry. What is also great about this drink is that it does not give you the air of a TGIF/Chili’s/E-Bar/chain restaurant feel. I like that a lot. What is even better about this cocktail is that it helps to cool you down after you take a nice spicy bite.
Most importantly is the food — it has always been on point, great presentation and incredibly flavorful without being heavy. This time, we had ordered the Roasted Duck in Red Curry and Pad Kee Mao (think flat rice noodles). Our server was very sweet and paid just enough attention to us. (Pet peeve: Either way too much attention or not enough…most people probably feel this way) The duck was fantastic although there was just a tad bit too much duck fat (:: gasp ::) attached to the meat. Duck fat is might tasty. The medium spice level was just right, although I added more for myself.
The Pad Kee Mao was beautiful. A downside to cooking with rice noodles is that if they are not done well, you end up with a mass of rice noodles stuck together without any seasoning. The noodle would still be white if this happens versus a nice brown color from the seasoning. The veggies that were stir fried with the noodles were nice and tender with a crisp. I realize that the comment that I am about to make is completely subjective, however, I will still make it: Pad Kee Mao trumps Pad Thai.
Tuk Tuk has amazing curries. In fact, I would suggest to them to do a “stoplight flight” of curries; red, yellow and green. Each curry is distinctive and so flavorful that it would be great to experience them all together. We had the yellow curry one night and it came out with this flakey, amazing “pancake”. When the server brought it over, I thought it was a mistake at first since I have eaten a lot of yellow curry and have never seen said pancake. It was the best pancake of my life. It was very similar to filo dough with tons of flakey, buttery layers. Dipped in the yellow curry, it was heaven. Their green curry is served out of a fresh coconut shell! The curry also flavors the coconut meat which you can pretty easily scrape out and eat. Very tasty.
Last, but not least, is the Thom Kha Gai — my litmus test for any Thai restaurant. This soup is absolute heaven for me. The perfect blend of coconut, lemon grass and the ever so fun, galangal. Their TKG was very good, although my flavorite still lies with Thai Bistro in Davis. I really enjoy the tang that hits your palette. I chose to eat mine with rice because I feel that the rice is a great carrier of flavor for the soup.
This is a restaurant that everyone who loves Thai food should eat at.
Urban Family Dinner Part 2
Oy! I am so behind on posts! Urban Family Dinner #2 magically turned into a 9 person dinner party. This was our lovely menu:
Spinach Dip w/ Crusty Bread (Nick brought this)
Heirloom Tomato Caprese Salad
Lemon-y Green Beans (We love lemon apparently!)
Fall Roasted Veggies
Baked Poletna with Gorgonzola & Cremini Mushrooms
Mixed Green Salad
Chicken Parmsean
Spagetti w/ Garlic & Mushroom Sauce
Apple Pie a la Mode (Claire made this)
The Caprese salad is pretty self explanitory, easy and very delicious. The green beans were dropped in boiling water for a moment, shocked, then sauteed with lots of garlic and lemon juice topped with a bit of parm. The fall roasted veggies consisted of potatoes, carrots, turnips and the squash. They were seasoned with S&P, olive oil and a hint of cinnamon for that nice autumn touch.
My favorite part of the meal was the baked polenta with gorgonzola cheese and cremini mushrooms. Start off with a basic polenta receipe, season to taste and add in the gorgonzola cheese. Meanwhile, slice up creminis and saute in olive oil w/ S&P to taste. Personally, I like a bit of balsamic in my mushrooms, so I added just a touch for some bite. Let that reduce down for a bit. Mix in half of the mushrooms into the polenta, then pour polenta into a baking dish (I put mine in my Citrus Le Creuset “braiser” pan….) top with mushrooms and bake for about 15 minutes or so until the top gets nice and brown.
Mixed green salad was pretty much the same as last week since its an easy crowd pleaser. The chicken parm was baked in the oven since there were so many people coming! But it came out moist and not as fatty as frying which I like. What goes better with chicken parm than spagetti? Nothing!
The apple pie that Claire had made was really great because the apples came from Apple Hill. The crust wasn’t too flaky, not too thick — it was just righ. What is apple pie without ice cream? We topped the warm pie with a nice, vanilla ice cream from Dryers. (Personally, I dig Breyers, but that’s another story).
Between nine people, we pretty much ate everything and drank about 5 bottles of wine. Not too shabby.
Urban Family Dinner…Part One
Since we have so much produce, we decided to share this amongst our good friends who also live in the Sacramento area. Please welcome Shawn & Claire into the picture. Shawn is a good buddy of Dan’s from AEPi, lives in Downtown, and is a tree hugging, green friendly dude. Claire is another friend of Dan’s who is Ms. Politico Activist and a not so dirty hippie girl. These are the members of our new urban family.
Our first box of yummy, fresh organic produce was ready to be made into a delicious dinner on Friday evening. (See previous entry for contents). However, due to being busy people, we could not make dinner until Monday night for everyone. Some how, someway, this dinner turned into six people. Let’s introduce Nick & Tiffany — Nick is an AEPi (of course) whom I met on Houseboats 2007 and Tiffany is his awesome girlfriend. They have both moved to Natomas and have become more Davis Ex-Pats; Dan and I both forgot they lived in Sac b/c we always saw them in Davis.
Enough of that….on to the food!
Due to the random mix of foodstuff, how could I put it together? Since we had so many root veggies, I figured a roast was the best way to go. We made two roast chickens, stuffed with rosemary, thyme and lemons. I had seasoned the cavities with olive oil, kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper. On the outside of the bird, it was very simple — olive oil, kosher salt (okay, all of my salt is kosher) and pepper. I had made a mix of flat leaf parsley, basil, thyme and rosemary to put in between the skin and the breast meat (after seasoning of course). On a tip from Jamie Oliver who likes overcooked thigh meat, I slashed the thighs, rubbed in the seasoning and extra herbs. We preheated the oven and the roasting pan so that we could place the chicken breast side down to give it ahead start on cooking. After about 10 minutes, we switched the chickens to the other side and repeated.
Meanwhile, I cubed up all of the potatoes, carrots, onions and turnips (we bought turnips…one of the few ingredients not in the box) to go with the chicken. Seasoned liberally with olive oil, S&P, plus the same herbs to maintain flavors. After the chickens got their headstart, we lifted them out of the roasting pan, dumped the root veggies in to create a rack for the chickens to rest on top of. In the oven they went to finish.
As the chickens were in the oven, we started to make the babaganoush (this was Dan’s project of the night). Dan roasted the eggplants in the oven because that is what you do. We blended the roasted eggplant with garlic, tahini, flat leaf parsley, olive oil, salt, pepper, paprika and lemon. The flatbread was placed in the toaster oven to warm through. As a first course, it was quite a hit since everyone asked for more flatbread to finish up the ‘ganoush with.
We also had these lovely, heirloom tomatoes that we ate with a sprinkle of salt and pepper. Claire ate most of these tomatoes and Shawn was left without. Tragic.
First Urban Dinner Menu
Heirloom Tomato Salad
Mixed Greens w/ walnuts, cranberries, apple w/ a balsamic vinegrette
Herb-Lemony Roasted Chicken w/ roasted root veggies
WINE
…lots of wine! In the end, it was a fantastic evening with friends which then turned into….the monster. More to come.