I Ate Rudolph and Got Myself a Firklover

My Norwegian cousin and her friend came to visit for a few weeks. She brought me fun food from Norway!

My beloved chocolate Firklover (Four leaf clover? Really? Not hazelnut lover's?). My fiiirkloooover (Say it as Carrie did when talking about her Russian. Hehe.) is studded with chunks of crunchy hazelnuts ie. filberts (Oregon's state nut ya know!) in a smooth, creamy base. I've gravitated toward dark chocolate these days, but will always make an exception for the extra creaminess of Norwegian chocolates. The Kvikk Lunsj (quick lunch) is like a KitKat. And the FruktNott (fruit and nut) is hazelnuts and raisins.


This extra-large bar of Melkesjokolade (milk chocolate) is from my brother's trip last year but I had the photo sitting around so I thought I'd post it as well.

Lil' sis asked for a box of After Eight mint chocolates. I've mentioned receiving these chocolates as a gift after a meal of nem nuong (Vietnamese grilled pork patties).

Anyway, after parceling them out amongst my many cousins, there's only a few bars of already opened FruktNott and one Firklover left. Oh! Everyone wants a Firklover!

And because of I was thinking of ya'll, I asked my cousin to bring me some fun food. She brought me smoked salmon (I keep telling them we have salmon in the states...), brown cheese, reindeer salami, and caviar in a tube.


On her last day, I made a Spanish potato omelet and served it with the smoked salmon. She thought it was excellent.

She told me to eat the brown cheese with waffles. But I wasn't in the mood to cook. Norwegian waffles are really soft, not like the crunchy American kind. I didn't think my hemp and flax seed frozen waffles would go well with brown cheese anyway. So I grabbed some Triscuits (they're lil' sis's, I'm not a cracker person), squirted out some caviar from the tube and gave it a shot. The caviar tasted like salty salmon mousse. Not bad. I remember it tasting really fishy when I had it in Norway, but this wasn't bad at all.

Rudolph tasted like the elk meat my dad gets made into salami. A little bit gamey than normal salami, but not too pungent.

The brown cheese tasted a bit like smoked gouda.

So I piled the cheese and reindeer salami onto the caviar-topped Triscuit and ate it all together. Not bad at all.

The brown cheese will probably end up in cold cut sandwiches. My cousin says the reindeer meat is like jerky and to just snack on it. As for the caviar, I think I'll make canapes or something with it.

Anyway, thought ya'll would like seeing some of my Norwegian goodies. You know how much I love fun foods.

Banh Mi & Che Cali Restaurant - Alhambra

BaNH NH NH NH!!!


Sorry. I had to get that out of the way.

It positively drives me batty whenever I see people misspelling banh mi. (There's even a few blogs that have named themselves after banh mi but then misspell it in their title! Why would you name your blog and not even bother to check the spelling? ARGH!!!) It's always, always N before H. As far as I know of, there is no such word in the Vietnamese language that has H before N. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.) That only happens in English or Korean with words like John and Ahn (Which is where I'm assuming the confusion comes in. And I won't even get into the whole Vietnamese and Koreans are two different cultures with different alphabets...).

OK, now that I've gotten that out of the way... Great deal huh? It's an even better deal when you find out that the boba milk tea is $2, making them only $1 each!

Several months back when one of the newest branches of Banh Mi & Che Cali opened in Alhambra, I decided to check them out. I had long been going to the one in Little Saigon, namely the Banh Mi & Che CALI Bakery - Westminster location on Bolsa and Magnolia. I like their lighter, buttery bread, and the schmear of pate in each sandwich. Can't beat their 3 for $3 deals. Well, now it's 3 banh mi for $4.50. Darn inflation! Banh mi (bread) is also used to describe Vietnamese sandwiches. (Similar to how the word com (rice) is also used for all meals.) Each location is slightly different, of course. I still prefer the Bolsa/Magnolia location best for quality and nostalgia, but it's a madhouse there. You just gotta elbow your way in to place your order and keep your ear attuned to when it's ready. The Alhambra location is different from the others as it is a sit-down restaurant and not just a to-go place.

Fried Rice with Bacon, Corn, Eggs, and Green Onions

Because of my repeated ravings about the fried rice, Henry Chan's Food Videos went to Daikokuya to check it out. And he luckily managed to get a video of them spooning the ramen broth into the fried rice. So that's their secret ingredient!

Well, I haven't the time to simmer pork bones for a full day to get a milky broth to spoon into my fried rice. But I've come up with a pretty darned tasty version that uses bacon, corn, eggs, and green onions. It ranks right up there with my other fried rice standby - fried rice with Chinese sausage, mixed frozen vegetables, and eggs.

A word of warning, this fried rice is not for the faint of heart. The flavor comes from bacon and butter, so be forewarned.