Tanaya’s Table On MasterChef’s 100th Episode Tonight!

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MasterChef red carpet 100th episode fox Tanayas Table

UPDATE on 7/2: The episode aired and it was so fun to re-live our day of filming with my peers in the LA food media scene, as well as Gordon Ramsay, Graham Elliot, Christina Tosi and standout MasterChef personalities like Leslie Gilliams, Ahran Cho and Daniel McGuffey (pictured below).

If you missed it, here’s the clip of my critique on the Blue Team’s duck.

The scenery was gorgeous, and the food was scrumptious. The black rice underneath the Moroccan spiced duck really took me back to my adventures in Bali, where I discovered my love for this delicious grain. Thanks to my wonderful family and friends for tuning in, sharing with me their excitement, and for the unconditional support you have given me throughout this journey so far. As I continue growing, I know I can do it with you guys by my side. Love you all!

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Hi all! Just a quick note, in case any of you watch MasterChef… I will be on tonight’s episode, airing at 8pm PST on FOX.

Why, you ask? I was fortunate enough to be invited as a top VIP diner in the LA food scene to taste and critique the food from the teams. I will have a few seconds of sharing my opinions on the duck, according to my friend Jonathan, who is on the East Coast and therefore saw it earlier!

Hanging out with MasterChef alum, Daniel McGuffey on set a few months ago in Palos Verdes!

Hanging out with MasterChef alum Daniel McGuffey on set a few months ago in Palos Verdes!

So grateful for the opportunity. It was such a fun experience to be in Palos Verdes, CA with Gordon Ramsay, Graham Elliot, Christina Tosi and my fellow food media friends at such a beautiful location near the famous golf club there.

Enjoy, if you get a chance to tune in… and let me know what you think. Until next time, cheers! ❤

Happy birthday, MasterChef! Cake by Momofuku Milk Bar.

Happy birthday, MasterChef! Cake by Momofuku Milk Bar.

Inside Wolfgang Puck’s Summer Grilling Soirée

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Wolfgang Puck Tanayas Table Burrata Peaches

Happy Summer Solstice, you guys! Now that summer is officially here, here’s a little something to get your appetite going for grilling season.

I recently was invited to a summer grilling preview of Wolfgang Puck’s upcoming seasonal menu. Not only were the bites and sips varied and scrumptious, but the Target Terrace at L.A. Live where the event was held really made for a stunning evening.

We enjoyed specialty cocktails and gourmet bites while overlooking the downtown L.A. skyline during sunset. It was a great escape from the rest of life for a few glorious hours! Here’s a little recap of some of the highlights of the evening:

Among small bites, the following were served:

  • Seared Scallop BLT with Pancetta, Cherry Tomato, and Micro Greens
  • Duck Rillettes with Peach Hoisin on Watermelon Radish
  • Grilled Bruschetta with Strawberries, Spinach and Almonds
  • Buffalo Chicharrónes with Buttermilk Bleu Cheese Mousse, Celery and Carrot
  • Texas Toast with Bone Marrow Butter and Pickled Onion
  • Bacon Candy with Brown Sugar and Chili Powder

From the grill, we had:

  • Prime Beef Sliders
  • Beer-Brined Whole Roasted Beer Can Chicken with Chimichurri Sauce
  • Grilled Kurobuta Pork Chops with Herb Butter and Polenta
  • Grilled Lobster with Black Garlic, Drawn Butter and Corn Puree
  • Grilled Corn on the Cob with Cilantro-Pesto Mayo, Cotija Cheese and Lime
  • Stilled Rib-Eye Steak

The sizzling sides (some my favorites were from this station!):

  • Grilled Hearts of Romaine with Rustic Croutons and Creamy Caesar
  • Grilled Peaches with Heirloom Tomatoes and Burrata (A winner!)
  • Spring Pea Agnolotti
  • Summer Corn Agnolotti (I want more. Buckets more!)
  • Grilled Vegetable Gratin
  • Duck Fat Tater Tots
Wolfgang Puck Tanayas Table Red Velvet Cones

Mini red velvet waffle cones!

For a sweet finish, the following desserts were served:

  • Red Velvet Waffle Cone with Cream Cheese Ice Cream
  • Summer Berry Pavlova Tartlets
  • Grilled Pound Cake with Cherry Compote
  • Nutella Pudding with Bruleed Banana
  • Skillet Bread Pudding with Bourbon Crème Anglaise

We washed it all down with these specialty sips:

  • Garden Collins
  • Bourbon Sweet Tea
  • Watermelon Rosemary Lemonade
  • Tarragon Sweet Tea
  • White Peach Sangria
Wolfgang Puck Tanayas Table Cocktail Sangria

White Peach Sangria, with Hotel Figueroa in the background! A perfect LA evening.

Wolfgang Puck is a must-go for summer bites, if you’ don’t feel like grilling in the heat… and if you do, hope you got some creative inspiration :). ‘Til next time, cheers!

Wolfgang Puck Tanayas Table Red Velvet Cones Dirty Chai

Dirty Chai with love.

Inside Thrillist’s Culinary Road Trip

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Ever wished you could try top places in each foodie destination across America in one epic foodie road trip, but didn’t want to (or couldn’t) actually go through the hassle?  Thanks to Thrillist, the Culinary Road Trip made a stop at Siren Studios at Orange in Hollywood to give us Angelenos a taste of notable bites around America by top purveyors.

Portland's Lardo served a Griddled Mortadella sandwich with provolone and peppers.

Portland’s Lardo served a meaty, well-balanced Griddled Mortadella sandwich with provolone and peppers.

Here’s a rundown of what was served at the media preview… check out the video above for all the tasty action!

  • Chicago’s Gino’s East served their ‘Meaty Legend’ with Canadian bacon, Italian sausage and pepperoni; the ‘Chicago Fire’ with hot & spicy Italian sausage, fire roasted red peppers and red onions; and the ‘Spinach Margherita’ with spinach, cherry tomatoes and fresh mozzarella and basil. – All pies were perfectly succulent, had great bite, and were hearty but not overly stuffed to the point of sogginess. The best deep dish I’ve tried, including when I went to Chicago!
  • DC’s Georgetown Cupcake served their Red Velvet, Salted Caramel, Peanut Butter Fudge, Lava Fudge, Cookies & Creme, Vanilla Birthday and PB Banana Fudge – Moist cupcakes with either a cream cheese or buttercream frosting. My personal favorite is a cream cheese frosting, and I love how they fill some of their cupcakes as well!
  • DC’s Sweetgreen served their ‘Rad Thai’ with organic arugula and mesclun, sprouts, carrots, shredded cabbage, spicy sunflower seeds, cucumbers, basil and spicy cashew dressing – Great flavors and textures, and best of all, this salad added a pop of light, freshness at this indulgent event.
  • New England’s Luke’s Lobster served their Maine Lobster Roll with Maine lobster in a split-top New England style bun with mayonnaise, butter, lemon and secret seasoning – Another crowd favorite for those lobster lovers out there.
  • NYC’s Black Seed Bagel served their Lox & Dill Cream Cheese and their Cucumber and Caper Salad bagels – Great crisp and chew to the bagel, and since they wood-fire their bagels, it adds great depth of flavor. Very fresh tasting!
  • Philly’s Tony Luke’s served their Cheesesteak with rib-eye steak, American cheese and Italian bread and their Roast Pork Italian with slow roasted pork, au jus, sauteed broccoli rabe, sharp provolone and Italian bread – Great layers of flavor packed into these bad boys.
  • Philly’s Insomnia Cookies served their Chocolate Chunk, M&M, Snickerdoodle and Double Chocolate Chunk cookies – Loved that they were wrapped, so I totally enjoyed this cookie later in the night… and it was just as tasty!
  • Portland’s Lardo served their Griddled Mortadella Sandwich with thinly sliced mortadella, provolone, Mama Lil’s peppers and mustard aioli – My personal favorite, with a lot of my blogger friends in agreement. Love mortadella, and the griddling just brings out the flavors. The provolone and peppers added more texture and heat, and really made the entire thing a well-balanced, hearty sandwich.
  • Nekter Juice Bar’s cold pressed juice (classic greens, advanced greens, skinny lemonade, ginger lemonade and raspberry slimmer) – Sadly, I didn’t get to try this one but I love a good cold pressed green juice. Gotta stay balanced, right? 😉
  • Stumptown Coffee of Portland served their cold brew coffee on nitro and their chocolate cold brew coffee with milk – I’m not a coffee person, but I always hear good things about the quality of their coffee.
  • Spindrift Seltzer & Soda served sparking raspberry lime seltzer, fresh pressed cucumber seltzer, fresh ginger beer, sparkling orange mango soda and sparkling grapefruit soda – Tried the cucumber seltzer and it was super refreshing… just what I needed to wash down the other bites!

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Quick Tanaya’s Table update: It’s been a bit crazy on this end lately with a lot of great opportunities coming my way (very grateful for that!), so posts had slowed down for a while… but I’ve kept my social media and content creation game going strong!

As I get back to posting more regularly and prepare for my trip to Hong Kong and India and officially launching Tanaya’s Travels, you can follow all the latest culinary adventures and get more tips on new openings, chef interviews and behind-the-scenes action over at @TanayaG on Twitter, and also on the Tanaya’s Table Instagram page.

I’m also on Periscope by the same handle, so let’s connect! Thanks for all the love and support as Tanaya’s Table continues to grow and bring you more amazing insight and scoop on the best bites, products and events around LA and beyond.

More foodie fun to come in the next few days! Cheers 🙂

VIDEO: Celebrating My 100th Episode At Ox And Son

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Unique dessertsoy

As many of you know, I’ve enjoyed working alongside Tastemade for a while now, and love being part of this ever growing community that has quickly become like family to me through the ups and downs of life.

In about 6 months of starting out, I somehow reached over 100 videos on my Tanaya’s Table channel!

I don’t know how it happened so fast, but I do know that I had a lot of fun meeting so many great chefs and fellow food lovers along the way.

I feel blessed to have tasted and shared with you so many amazing dishes — everything from street food, hidden gems and fine dining to special events, new openings and pop-up dinners.

Through the countless hours (which would add up to multiple weeks of my life!) filming, hosting, arranging, editing and getting creative with my clips, it’s been a learning process that has given me the opportunity to hone my skills in video content production.

I’m so excited to say that — with a lot of encouragement and requests from my amazing followers — I’m working on launching my Tanaya’s Table YouTube channel as well!

Without further ado… here’s how my friends Nitar and Taylor from Tastemade, and Tastemade itself, showed me some love: They took me out to a magnificent three-course meal at Ox & Son, a new modern American restaurant by FNA Hospitality Group in Santa Monica. 😀

For starters (along with some great wines), we had amazingly fluffy Uni & Eggs with truffle salt & molasses bread with caraway seeds, Kusshi Oysters harvested from fjords in glaciers (see video to hear Chef Brad’s awesome description) and Yellowtail Crudo.

I loved all of them, but the Uni & Eggs (pictured above) really blew my mind and tastebuds! It’s a definite must-try, as the moist, fluffy eggs with crème fraîche and chives go so surprisingly well with the buttery Santa Barbara uni and slightly sweet, soft, deeply flavored bread.

Uni and Eggs

As for main courses, we got the Prime Charcrust Hanger Steak with a crisp cheddar panisse, broccolini, charred onion and black garlic & miso lime béarnaise; Chicken Fried Duck Confit with shaved pickled vegetables, house kimchi slaw and red chili & local honey sauce; and Sticky Pig Cheeks with black vinegar glaze, roasted turnip, coconut black rice and charred leek.

We all sampled from one another’s plates. The Sticky Pig Cheeks that Taylor got were my favorite, with the thick, sweet-tart glaze going so well with the succulent meat. Plus, the black rice with coconut milk took me right back to my travels to Bali a couple years ago!

For dessert — not sure how we had room, but we (okay, especially Nitar and I) always have room for dessert, I suppose! — we got the rich coffee cake & butterscotch deconstructed dessert, as well as the refreshing lemon & strawberry malt deconstructed cake. Peep the one-minute video above for all the visuals and action shots!

If you’re looking for innovative American food with a touch of global flair, I definitely recommend checking out Ox & Son in Santa Monica. Thanks again to Tastemade for making me feel part of the family, and to showing me appreciation in such a delicious and special way. ‘Til next time, on the road to the next hundred videos… Cheers from Tanaya’s Table!

Tanaya’s Table On Live Bakespace Video Chat + Throwback Thursday Cookies

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UPDATE: Here is the link to our full live chat recording… hope you find our creative baking chat and tips fun and useful!

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Hey guys! Here’s a little Throwback Thursday post to gear up for my Tanaya’s Table guest speaker gig on Bakespace this Sunday, April 19 at 2pm PST.

We’ll be discussing Creative Baking with a few other awesome food bloggers and bakers on a live Google Hangout, so bring your questions, recipes and photos!

You can follow along with the #GetBaked hashtag on social media. Just tune in live right here, or just re-visit the page for the recording of the video afterwards. Here’s all the info you need:

Join me on the Bakespace #GetBaked live chat this Sunday at 2pm PST!

Join me on the Bakespace #GetBaked live chat this Sunday at 2pm PST!

I’m pretty excited to be a guest panelist on my first live Google Hangout. Looking forward to chatting with you all!

Without further ado…

Here’s that Bourbon Pecan Pie Throwback Thursday recipe. Enjoy!

Tanayas Table Bourbon Pecan Pie Cookies 1

What’s better than cookies and pie? How about cookies AND pie, wrapped up in one delicious and decadent cookie?

Pecan pie is a favorite with my family during the holidays… and really, almost any time of the year. So I thought, why not blend our favorite pie into cookie form for my first year participating in The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap for a great cause?

These Bourbon Pecan Pie Cookies are gooey, sticky and nutty with a a hint of chocolate and the aroma of vanilla and bourbon to bring it all together. I thought they would make great batches to send to three of my fellow food bloggers to whom I was assigned to send a batch of cheer, in the form of cookies.

I also baked some more of these cookies to share with my fellow Los Angeles-based food bloggers at our annual cookie swap. Last year I made red velvet gooey butter cookies, and these pecan pie cookies seemed to be just as big a hit! In fact, all my fab food blogger friends brought something irresistible to the table.

Check out this one-minute Tastemade video for some baked goods highlights!

The most delectable cookies made in L.A. all crammed into a 1-minute video!

The most delectable cookies made in L.A. all crammed into a 1-minute video!

Being especially short on time this year due to a major family emergency, instead starting from scratch in formulating this cookie-pie mashup recipe, I decided to do a little background research first. After all, reinventing the wheel is not the greatest use of time, right?

Thank goodness for this Spend With Pennies recipe, because it provided me with a solid base and allowed me more time to adapt the recipe to my taste… and to dress it up with a little bourbon love!

You can definitely modify the recipe below however you would like, depending on how much time you’ve got to do your baking this year. Hope you enjoy these as much as we did. Perhaps you can even start your own cookie swap tradition!

Tanayas Table Bourbon Pecan Pie Cookies 2

Bourbon Pecan Pie Cookies

Ingredients

    • 1 prepared pie crust (check out Crazy for Crust’s all butter from-scratch recipe here)
    • 2 tablespoons butter, melted
    • 1/2 cup pecans, lightly toasted & chopped
    • 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
    • 1/4 cup corn syrup
    • 2 tablespoons maple syrup
    • 2 large eggs, beaten (set aside 2 tablespoons for egg wash)
    • 1/2 teaspoon salt
    • 1 teaspoon vanilla
    • 1/4 cup bourbon (or more, if desired!)
    • 1/4 cup semi sweet or milk chocolate chips (optional)
    • 2 tablespoons granulated sugar (optional)

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
  2. In a large non-stick pan, combine butter, pecans, brown sugar, corn syrup, maple syrup, bourbon and salt. Over low heat, slowly stir in eggs (minus the 2 tablespoons for egg wash). Continue to slowly stir on stove over medium-low heat just until slightly thickened (just about the consistency of pudding). Stir in vanilla, remove from heat and set aside.
  3. Roll out dough and use a 3″ cookie cutter (I used the rim of a glass) to cut out circles. Gently fold the edges in, about 1/8-1/4″
  4. Brush the egg wash around the pie crust edges for a glossy finish. Sprinkle with granulated sugar for a golden brown crust, if desired.
  5. Spoon about 1 heaping teaspoon of the pecan pie filling into each circle. Top with chocolate chips, if desired.
  6. Place on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes or until filling is just set and crust is lightly golden brown. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack.
  7. Enjoy!

Speaking of cookies, check out the L.A. Cookie Con & Sweets Show & Baker CakeMaker behind-the-scenes coverage!

L.A. Cookie Con Official Blogger Badge Tanaya's Table