Grilled chicken apple sausage

This is my favorite brunch dish in Cafe Brioche

At a Friday night, I suggested to cook something light. I said how about trying the grilled chicken apple sausage dish from Cafe Brioche? Totof and I like this dish. I order it almost every time when I have a brunch at Cafe Brioche. This dish is tasty. When it is served, you can smell something really good. This dish always comes with a slice of brioche. The brioche (see the photo) balances the dish well.

Totof said why not. So we took off for ingredients. We shopped based on our memory. We took a bag of apple chicken sausage. The small package. A red bell pepper. Some baby Spinach.

Ingredients

1. Chicken apple sausage

2. A onion

3. A bell pepper (yellow or red)

4. Baby Spinach (for 2 people)

5. Heavy cream

6. Unsalted butter

7. Bread (brioche will be the best)

We did not have a grill pan. We used a normal pan instead. Chef Totof sliced a medium size onion and chop a half of the red bell pepper. He put a tablespoon butter in the pan. Put onion slices and bell pepper slices in the pan. Cooked until golden brown. Then took them out.

The second step was to cook chicken apple sausage. This one took some time. Around 15 min. Put onion and bell pepper slices back when the sausage was half cooked. Then cut each sausage into 2. The sausage juice gave onions and bell peppers another flavor.

When the sausage was almost ready, got another pan out. This pan was for Spinach. Sliced some butter. Put the Spinach. Spinach took 2 min to cook. When the Spinach was half ready, poured 3 tablespoons heavy cream on top of the Spinach.

I sliced the bread and put the bread on the side.

When Chef Totof was done with cooking, we placed everything. The chicken apple sausage on the left, the cream Spinach on the right. The smell was just like what we remembered. It turned out this dish was as great as that from Cafe Brioche.

The preparation and cooking time was less than 30 min. The outcome was delicious.

Café Taiwan

Once a while, I crave for Taiwanese food

In Taiwan, it is common to find good food from small restaurants or just street stands. I did not appreciate how convenient it was to get tasty food until I came here. Once a while, I want to have some nice Taiwanese food. If the wish was not granted, then next time, the "want" would be advanced to another level. When I long for it, I know I need to take actions. I can find many Asian food in the Bay area since so many Asians are here. However, it is still hard to find good Taiwanese food. I can find something decent. But, not as great as what I used to have.

I found some better Taiwanese places here. One of them is Café Taiwan. I am not sure why the owner names this restaurant like this. Its Chinese name is Wan Luan Pork Knuckles (a.k.a. pork feet). Guess if the owner were to name the place like Pork Knuckle or Pork Feet, no residents would want to visit the place.

This place supplies pork knuckles of course. I am not really fond of it. But, I like its Hakka food and small dishes. You can find mi tai va (it is Taiwanese) there. Mi tai va (a.k.a. mi tai mu) looks like thicker vermicelli. Right, mi tai va is a kind of rice noodles. You can imagine the thickness of mi tai va is like that of Japanese udon. The texture is similar to Vietnamese vermicelli. Mi tai va is one of Café Taiwan signature dishes.

Another signature dish is Fuzhou style fish ball soup. You can find this soup in many Taiwanese street stands or small restaurants. But, it is hard to find a good one in the Bay area.

Another popular dish is chicken roll. It is Kao-Hsiuang style. You will appreciate it a lot since it is authentic.

Location: 181 W Calaveras Blvd, Milpitas, CA 95035

Startups or Big names?

You may have asked yourself the same question

When I was in Taiwan, I thought big names were better for college graduates than start-ups. After I came here, I saw many talented people working at start-ups or medium size companies. I started to doubt the above statement. But why people here have different thoughts? After talking to some people, I know the main reason is the entrepreneurship atmosphere. Many people here are visionaries. They embrace changes. Some of them even create changes by themselves. Many intelligent people have dreams. They want to change the world. Some of them want to initiate a revolution (to change the way people use to do things). Many people like new tech and new skills. They like to learn new things and challenge themselves. Many people want to create their own Google legend.

So, it is common to meet people who work at start-ups. These people don't care if their listeners do not know their companies. These people are quite proud of the fact that they are working at start-ups. They are passionate when they mention their companies. I visited some friends' start-ups. I paid attention on the environment and the atmosphere. I was amazed by the cozy and casual atmosphere. People were friendly to each other. It appeared to me that the environment was less fake. I also was told people at small companies had fun together after work, and they had less aggressive coworkers. Sounds like a heaven.

This kind witness gradually changes my mind. If I look for a job, I will not fear to try start-ups. But, of course, I need to make sure the company will not die within 2 years.

Hero

This song reminds me of my high school life

My high school is famous for heavy workload. I remember when I was in my last year of Senior high, I had morning quiz everyday from 7:30 to 8:00. The Monday morning was the most hectic time because we not only had a quiz but also needed to attend a school wise meeting. So, usually, everyone in my year brought the quiz paper to the meeting place and continue the quiz from there. No one in my year cared much about the meeting agenda. We did not listen to the meeting. We sit there just because we had to. We applauded when someone else did.

One Monday morning, the agenda was different. The end of the meeting was "Hero". Hero? What was this about? I did not have any clues. When the meeting approached to the end, the deputy called someone. We saw a girl in my year walked down to the middle ground and another girl walked toward the piano. Then, the first girl started to sing. She sang "Hero".

It was my first time to hear this song. I was moved by the song. I guessed the song soothed my tiring and exhausting body. A good old memory.

The Cities and Knights of Catan

It contains features taken from the Settlers of Catan. But it gives a completely different game feeling.

Who introduced me this game? A group of geeks? Perhaps.

This time, I did not mention what I remember for the first time. I am going to talk about a recent game experience. It was at Samuel's place. We had Samuel, Samual's two cousins, Antoine, Axel, and us. Samuel's apartment is nicely decorated. Quite a cozy place.

We decided to play the Cities and Knights of Catan.

How to play the Cities and Knights of Catan?

The basic game rules are similar to those in the Settlers of Catan. Five things are different: commodity card, city improvement, fight against pirates, progress card, and merchant.

1. Commodity card

Commodity card is one of the main additions in the Cities and Knights of Catan. Commodity card is the advanced card for some resources. Like resources, commodities are produced by hexes. Like resources, commodities can be stolen by robber. But, unlike resources, commodities are produced only by cities, not settlements. There are three commodities: Coin (the advanced card for rock), Paper (the advanced card for wood), and Cloth (the advanced card for sheep).

2. City improvement

You want to cultivate your city residents to have better knowledge and skills. That is why you need to have city improvements. You use commodities to improve your cities (not settlements). You will be benefited after your cities get improved. The city improvements come in five levels, and in three different categories. Each category of improvements requires a different commodity. Like reality, city improvements in Cities and Knights of Catan get harder when the level of the city improvement is higher. A higher level city improvement requires more commodity cards in that category. Whoever improves his cities to the third level will earn a special ability.

3. Fight against pirates

This part is fun. In this game, everyone needs to team up to defend pirates. Pirates attack the Catan island once a while during the game. You need to rely on others and others need to rely on you to protect the Catan island. If players fail to protect the Catan island. All players need to downgrade one of their cities. The city downgrade will return a dramatic loss. In the Cities and Knights of Catan, soldiers are replaced by knights. Unlike soldiers, knights need a consistent maintenance (you need to make sure your knights are strong). When you advance your city at some level, you will be able to acquire an ultimate knight.

4. Progress card

Progress card is another main addition in the Cities and Knights of Catan. Like commodities, progress cards are organized into three categories. Yellow progress cards are for commercial development. Green progress cards are for technological advancements. Blue progress cards are tricky. They allow for political moves or attacks. In Cities and Knights of Catan, there is a special dice called event dice. When a castle appears on the event die, progress cards of the corresponding type may be drawn depending on the value of the red die. Higher levels of city improvements increase the chance that progress cards will be drawn. When your city improvement is at the highest level, you can draw progress cards regardless of the value on the red die.

5. Merchant

Merchant works similarly as robber. But, unlike robber, merchant gives a beneficial power. Merchant meeple can only be deployed through the use of a Merchant progress card on a hex near a city or a settlement. The player with the control of the merchant can trade the resource of that type at a two-to-one rate, as if the player had a control of a corresponding two-to-one harbor. Merchant meeple gives the player 2 victory points. Merchant is a quite powerful and useful element. You will see how important merchant is and see how eager people are for merchant especially when the game approaches to the end.

At that night, I realized my skills for Cities and Knights of Catan were still at rookie level. Many advanced players were there. Axel and Antoine were quite good. They knew exactly what strategies were needed at each turn. Totof had a good card portfolio too. I think I need more practices.