isaac & agatha (richmond)

You know what my favourite food trend is?

It's not locavorism or ocean sustainability, though both are practices that I pride myself in practicing as much as I humanly can - as you should too. It's not the proliferation of $10+ desserts. It sure as hell is not smearing sauce on a plate (so let me get this straight... thick mucky sauce is a good thing now?)

No, my favourite trend is the sudden discovery and pride that opening a Filipino restaurant can actually be a viable business model. AND it doesn't have to be a dirty dingy hole in the wall (though they have their perks too)!

I recently heard about Isaac & Agatha through the blog-grapevine. It's located on the industrial strip of Bridgeport in Richmond, a bizarre paradox of eating to say the least. The Richmond Summer Night Market is close by, as well as modern Chinese restaurant, Hakka-san, practically a stone's throw away - mixed in with the McSubWendyBucks, cookie cutter office-park cafes, and even, the monolithic "Home of the 99c Rehydrated Breakfast" Ikea cafeteria nearby.

dinner - pulled pork sandwich

As good as it looks :-)


I'm having too much fun emptying out my fridge. This was the last of the pulled pork I made earlier last week, striped zuke, thick-cut heirloom tomato, spinach, Skillet bacon jam, all into whole wheat batard that I baked on Saturday.

One last taste of summer.

I know I promised my review of Roaming Dragon today, but I wasn't able to visit them over the weekend for a follow-up, so I'm going to push it off for next week. Maybe I can make a resolution to visit a new food truck every week? Hmm...

dessert - boozy bread pudding with creme anglaise

So, dessert.

Decided to try my hand at two things I'd never done before: bread pudding, and creme anglaise. I had some leftover pan de sal (Filipino butter rolls), cream that was a few days away from turning, and some eggs. I wanted to use them up. Also, with the extra custard, I could make an anglaise - so no waste!

dinner - red-wine pork ragu pappardelle with summer tomatoes

I love it when a plan comes together.

This was tonight's dinner, a red-wine pulled pork ragu on pappardelle, topped with some late summer cherry heirloom tomatoes that took 5 days to prepare.

I made the chicken and vegetable stocks on Tuesday; marinated the pork on Wednesday; slow-cooked the pork for 5 hours, pulled it, and reduced the jus on Thursday; and put it all together on Saturday. No, I didn't make the pasta myself - that would've been awesome though wouldn't it?

Result? A ragu with such a range of flavour, perfect balance of sweet and tart, and overflowing with sweet sweet porky goodness. I prepared it using Chef Pino Posteraro's signature method: I cooked the dish in 1 pan, boiling the pasta and reducing the sauce all at the same time, essentially like a pilaf, except with pasta. The intense concentration of flavour that goes into the noodle is amazing! Give it a shot if you haven't before! And you gotta use stock and wine, not water of course.

Now, dessert :-)