The 99 Cent Chef: photos

Showing posts with label photos. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

2015 Christmas GIFs & Holiday Recipe Links

Let's take care of business first. It's Christmastime and you are here looking for some holiday recipes, for sure. Well, I got your back! Just click right here to see a Santa sleigh-full. It's a link to my holiday recipes from blog posts past; everything from pies to luscious side dishes, and roast turkey to party appetizers. Happy Holidays to you, thanks for visiting, and read on.

Baked Turkey with Sage & Stuffing

What follows is my year in GIFs. It's a Christmas stocking stuffed with short animation clips I've made. A GIF is about a dozen photos,or a video clip a few seconds long, that I upload to a website to convert into a short video that lasts a few seconds. A GIF does not have sound and the clip keeps replaying.

Fettuccine Alfredo - based on one of my most popular recipes from years ago. I made a video version at the beginning of this year. As good as Olive Garden's recipe?

Corn Pudding - my latest recipe.

Rachael Ray Every Day magazine - The 99 Cent Chef gives some advice.

Fake Crab Louie

Some GIFs illustrate prep and cooking techniques.

Black Pepper Stir Fry - Panda Express Recipe

I like to make GIFs that have a beginning, middle and end.

My mom celebrated her 81st birthday last month.

A special series from a Hawaii Vacation, with Recipes.

Teriyaki Spam Musubi - Recipe

Loco Moco - Recipe

President Obama eats here.

Homemade Lau Lau - Recipe

Kalua Pig - Recipe

My traveling companion, Amy.

Fast food of choice in Hawaii.

From my Restaurant Nocturnes Series - Trois Mec uses the previous owners pizza neon sign. One of the most touted eateries in Los Angeles.

Pasta alla Genovese - Recipe

Chicken Tinga - Recipe

Bacon Wrapped Brussels Sprouts - Recipe

Of course I'll make a GIF just for the fun of it.

Split Pea Soup - Recipe

French-style Omelet - Recipe

Pozole - Recipe

I like to do time-lapse GIFs that show a recipe cooking from start to finish, so you can see the transformation, like for cheesy Chicken Parmesan and roast pork shoulder above, and a creamy Baked Artichoke Dip appetizer below.

Another Restaurant Nocturne of a new eatery located in Koreatown. The restaurant, Saint Martha, is named for the Catholic saint of cooks and maids.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Restaurant Nocturnes VIII - Sandwich Edition, VIDEO

This miserly epicurean is changing into a culinary artist this week. Sandwiches are in my price point, and I'm happy to share my nighttime exploration of LA eateries captured in the latest Restaurant Nocturnes VIII - Sandwich Edition.

My noir-loving camera captures bricks and mortars that specialize in sandwich-slinging all over Los Angeles, from the Westside, where Top Chef's tattooed winner Michael Voltaggio has opened ink.sack, to the East L.A. home of mom-and-pop Mexican Cemitas shops and Torta master builders.

Looking for the best and cheapest Cuban Sandwich in town? I've got it right here -- Porto's Bakery and Cafe in Glendale. The line may be long, but, boy is the wait worth it. A toasted bakery-fresh bread roll is loaded with succulent roasted pork, smokey ham, Swiss cheese, mayo, and sour mustard, with tangy slices of pickle -- hot-pressed and grilled, all for $4.85 (plus tax.)

In downtown L.A., there's a battle over the early 20th century origins of the French Dip Sandwich. Was a French roll first soaked in beef au jus at Philippe The Original on Alameda Boulevard, or at Cole's on 6th Street? Both claim it -- but who cares, as long as they keep making them like it's 1918. Listen in as a Cole's waitress gives this cheapest culinarian the lowdown on Cole's $5 Half Dip with Fries Happy Hour.

Any homesick transplanted Southerners out there craving smoked meat? Check out my footage of Bludso's BBQ restaurant on Long Beach Boulevard in Compton, where you get perfect Texan-style pit smoked brisket -- tender and juicy slices of beef with a red smoke ring just under the crunchy skin. Order the Sliced Brisket as a sandwich and you get about a third of a pound of beef. It's like a starkly minimalist Franz Kline expressionist masterpiece between two slices of white bread. Plain and simple for the incredibly low price of $4.50 (plus tax). Get the sauce on the side so you can drip it on like Jackson Pollock.

I wonder if L.A. first cooked up the $10+ burger? I've yet to buy one on principle, but I've made an exception here, to feature the protein patties of lauded chefs Nancy Silverton and Amy Pressman's Short Order restaurant. Located in the historic Farmers Market at Fairfax Ave. and 3rd St., this newly built shrine to ground bovine, swine and poultry is jam-packed on weekends. Too expensive for me, but if you are visiting with an expense account, it's worth checking out.

After a wallet- emptying $13 Nancy's Backyard Burger from Short Order, I finish my nighttime tour with a $2 Vietnamese Banh Mi from Buu Dien, located on Broadway Boulevard at the end of a Chinatown mini-mall. The French invaded Vietnam before we did, and the only good thing to come out of all the war-mongering is this Asian/French sandwich mash-up: the Banh Mi.(I wonder, with our fiascos in Iraq and Afghanistan, could a Falafel Burger with Cheese soon sweep through the Middle East?) A Banh Mi features improbable combinations of pate and cilantro; sweety pickled sliced veggies (carrots, daikon, cucumber) and head cheese; thin jalapeno slices and roasted pork. Try it once and you will be back, especially for two bucks a baguette!

So fasten your seat belt and let The 99 Cent Chef guide you through neon- washed L.A. to witness the sights and sounds of 13 sandwich makers captured during my night-time rambles through our storied streets. Under the video presentation below, you'll also find a list, with links, of the featured restaurants in order of appearance.

Restaurant Nocturnes - Sandwich Edition - VIDEO

Play it here. Video runs 6 minutes, 17 seconds.

To view or embed from YouTube, click here.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Restaurant Nocturnes 3 - Video

The 99 Cent Chef pulls out all the f-stops for
Restaurant Nocturnes 3.

Like turn-of-the-century photographer August Sander's "People of the 20th Century" (where he tried to record all of German society - from industrialists to circus performers) I continue to follow my taste buds in shooting my epic 21st Century Los Angeles epicureal photo/video series that's suitable for framing.

And I film almost everything: from the Valley's Bob's Big Boy Coffee Shop and Eagle Rock's 1955 landmark of Italian cuisine, Casa Bianca, to L.A.'s latest hip speakeasy The Tar Pit (from Mark Peel of Campanile) and everyone's favorite neighborhood Hollywood hang, Birds.

I record audio and capture a tasty photo/video segment of 26 local restaurants, at 10 second each, in this five-minute video serial. With more than 130 nighttime restaurant photos I've published on Twitter (click here to see the latest ones), I am just scratching L.A.'s Teflon surface of unequaled dining experiences. This time I've shot a savory and intoxicating nocturnal mix of enticing cafes, pungent dives, and exotic ethnic eateries.

As an example, I walked the short block of Little Ethiopia on Fairfax Avenue in the heart of L.A., and zeroed in on Rahel, the only all-vegetarian Ethiopian restaurant in Los Angeles? Also, of special note, I take you inside the bustling kitchen of downtown L.A.'s cool and elegant Rivera - the kitchen and appetizer bar is separated from the outside by large ceiling-to-floor windows.

Be sure to check out my clip of Breadbar (a bakery/sandwich shop in West Hollywood), that is spearheading the celebrity chef Pop-up Restaurant theme -- this month featuring a twist on the budget "Japanese Salaryman" bowls of ramen, topped with pork belly and foie gras, from Chef Kazuo Shimamura. And, I also hit Ye Old Kings Head Pub/Restaurant (one block from the ocean on Santa Monica Boulevard) on the day USA fought England to a tie in the World Cup soccer game -- be sure to check out the rowdy, wild crowd out front!