Knowlwood, now 5 restaurants strong, is scattered throughout Orange County. About fifty years ago, husband and wife Roy and Fay Knowlton, with Gene Wood started Knowlwood. The original Knowlwood, and the first one I visited, resides in Anaheim Hills.

My most recent visit was the Fullerton location with David Ronquillo and John Wu. It was of biblical proportions. The Knowlwood menu is has many variations of the hamburger. You get a choice of either 1/3 and even a 1/2lb. burger since some of us can't seem to get enough beef in our blood (e.g. David). And if you're wussing out for the day, you can get a Baby Hamburger too.

I was surprised to find fish sandwiches here too. They have fried fish, grilled mahi mahi and salmon. Isn't it great when they just sell fried "fish"? Imagine ordering "fish" sashimi, steamed "fish", or if your bagel came with smoked "fish". However, this is America, where we are used to ingesting loads of dodgy foodstuffs without question anyway.

Knowlwood's trademark is "Home of the World's Best Hamburger". Not limited to food, Americans will compete with their neighbor, cross county, or nationally then claim for themselves a world title. Classy. Knowlwood's burgers are good, but far from world's best. Luckily they let you add bacon.

I ordered a Pastrami Reuben sandwich. This one packed a punch--it's a hand-held heart-attack of pastrami, thousand island dressing, sauerkraut, and Swiss cheese, squeezed between perfectly buttered and grilled rye. Get ready to get your hands dirty. It was delightfully gooey down to the last bite.

It's a shame when fries pretty much come with everything and it isn't done right. Maybe I had old fries or something, but that's no excuse.

I'll be back for the Reuben.

Knowlwood
150 S Harbor Blvd
Fullerton, CA 92832
(714) 879-7552

Here's a dish I enjoyed a lot growing up at home. Back in the day, food was pretty mysterious to me. My parents or grandma would just throw some knives and knock some pans around and like magicians, they made delicious food appear. Everyone in the family was lucky to have good food all the time. A few years after my uncle moved out he visited asking my grandma and asked for this recipe he missed. Even incredibly simple dishes such as Dau Sot Ca remains out of reach until you can find one of those kitchen magicians for tips.

What you need:
-1lb. (0.45kg) firm tofu (okay, you can buy pre-fried tofu, but unless you live near a market or factory that pumps those things out daily, I would avoid pre-packaged fried tofu)
-5 medium, ripe, Roma tomatoes

-1 tablespoon tomato paste
-1/2 teaspoon fish sauce (optional, but you SHOULD!)
-1 teaspoon salt
-2 teaspoons sugar
-1/2 cup water
-oil for deep frying

Prep time: 35 minutes
Cook time: 30 minutes

Cut the tofu into smaller pieces and dry on paper towels or in a basket over the sink for 20-30 minutes. We want to remove the excess moisture to avoid oil splatter during frying.

I fried these in vegetable oil, keeping the temperature at 300F (148C) using my Polder Thermometer. Let the temperature hit 300F before adding. It should take 2-4 minutes until they brown. Like anyone else in a hot tub, these guys like to bunch together and stick, so move them around a little after adding to the pot.

Cut each tomato into 4 or 8 even pieces each. I'd cut them all into 4ths next time.

Add everything into the pot: tofu, tomatoes, salt, sugar, tomato paste, water, and fish sauce (optional).

Cover with a lid, bring to a boil on high heat, then reduce to 30% heat until the tomatoes are cooked. About 10 minutes total.

For this Dau Sot Ca Chua recipe, you can add a little more tomato paste for more color, or more water if you like it a bit more... saucy. As always, add extra salt or fish sauce to fit your taste. You can also stuff the tofu with meat before adding to the pot. That can wait for a future post.

Top with red chili flakes or freshly ground pepper. Serve with rice.

This thit kho recipe is a braise so the meat is going to be reeeeally tender. You can use country style pork ribs but get the one with bones if you can find it. You can also use pork belly for this for a fattier broth with skin. Personally, only crispy skin moves me.

What you need:
-2.2 lbs. (1 kg) of country style pork ribs
-6 chicken eggs

-1/2 (6 oz.) can coconut soda
-1.5 tablespoons soy sauce
-1.5 tablespoons fish sauce
-2 teaspoons salt
-4 tablespoons sugar for the nuoc mau (caramel). This is add color and a hint of sweetness. Depending on how dark your sauce gets, you may not need all of it. If you don't want to make the nuoc mau, you can replace the soy sauce used with dark soy sauce for color.

Approximate prep time: 5 minutes
Approximate cook time: 2 hours 10 minutes

Get about 2-3 quarts of water boiling on high heat. You want enough to cover the pork when it is added.

Cut the pork into about 1" x 1.5" (2.5cm x 3.8cm) pieces.

After the pot of water is at a boil, add the pork for about 1-2 minutes to clean it of impurities on high heat. We're not trying to cook it all the way through here. Then, pour out the water and clean the pork and pot under running water. Use your hands! Then, pour out all the water.

Add to the pot: 1/2 a can coconut soda, 1.5 tablespoons soy sauce, 1.5 tablespoons fish sauce, 2 teaspoons salt.

Then fill up the pot until the water just covers the meat. Return to the stove on high heat. When it hits a boil, lower to about 50% heat and set the timer for 2 hours. Make the Nuoc Mau (caramel) and add to the pot.

Next, boil the eggs.

When they are ready, remove the shells, cool, and poke the eggs all over with a fork. About 8 times on each egg.

When there are about 60 minutes left on the timer, add the eggs. Eventually we want the liquid to reduce to half of the original. So when the timer shows 15 minutes left and you have too much liquid, turn the heat up to concentrate it faster.

Serve with rice.

When I was a kid, I used to mash up the yolk and mix it with the rice, then add some broth. Well...nothing has changed except now I put loads of freshly ground pepper on top =].

A note on the seasoning for this thit kho recipe: you can tinker with the soy sauce, fish sauce, and salt after the liquid has finished reducing, adding more to fit your taste buds.

What you need:
4 tablespoons sugar (enough for my thit kho recipe)
1/2 cup of warm water
silicone spatula (I like that it's non stick, but you can use anything, really. Just don't scratch up your pan.)

What to do:
Add sugar to the pan on 50% heat. 50% is low enough to control the process, but we will jump to the caramel stage of sugar quickly, so stay on your feet!

Constantly stir the sugar so it heats evenly. It will begin to clump.

Not dark enough yet! It will start to take the color of caramel, but we want it a bit darker. For Thit Heo Kho (Vietnamese Braised Pork with Egg), we are adding this to a pot of about 1-2 quarts of water so the color will be diluted. If you are unfortunate to have an electric stove like me, you can lift the pan off the heat to slow down the cooking process a bit and continue to stir until it reaches the desired darkness. Otherwise, just turn your flame down towards the end.

When it gets darker than caramel and just starts to smoke, you are done. Add the warm water to the sugar to halt the cooking process and stir until the sugar dissolves.

I came back! and steered clear of the nigiri. Yum. See the original post.

Wafu of Japan's cozy little bar.

Baked oysters.

Dragon Balls

Baked Mussels

Crab and avocado. I love how simple this is.

Samurai Burrito. This was really good! It's essentially made of the same stuff the dragon balls are, but I like this better.

This is the only place I've had fried ice cream. An airy ice cream would be useless. Luckily, they use a rich ice cream thats still super hard once served.

*Oct. 23, 2009 update*
What can I say, I can't get enough of Wafu. Oh yeah and because the GF loves it too.

Crab and Avocado v2

Spicy Tuna Jalapeno. Stuffed into tiny peppers!

Fried Calamari

"Spicy Albacore Booster" - a nice light albacore roll. It came with a mayo sauce garnish. Yumm.

Wafu of Japan
320 Bristol St Ste G
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
(714) 641-7321