Plat Du Jour

Cesar in Berkeley

2005-08-16T08:17:00.000-07:00

A friend was in town visiting for one night only. A 7:10 pm arrival at the Oakland airport meant a quick pick up (gotta love the Park and Call at OAK) and then off to find some dinner. I figured we'd head over to the Gourmet Ghetto in Berkeley for surely there would be some place that would entice us, and that could seat us without a reservation. The Gourmet Ghetto, around Cedar and Shattuck in the northern part of Berekley, is home to such restaurants as Chez Panisse, Cesar, Cafe de la Paz, two Thai restaurants (I prefer Dara Thai over Cha-Am), Gregoire and Barney's for gourmet hamburgers. After looking at a couple of menus, and politely being told at Chez Panisse Cafe that they couldn't seat us, we headed to Cesar right next door for Spanish Tapas and drinks.

I've gotten a little tired of small plate joints , having recently eaten from the small plate menus at Cha Cha Cha and Tallula in San Francisco, but Cesar was fresh and exciting. We sat at the bar, and got caught up, with a Bandol Rose in hand. We ordered 4 dishes, mostly on the recommendation of the bartender. The braised monkfish with fennel was excellent, and we soaked up the juice with fresh bread. We ordered the green and yellow bean salad with a mustard dressing, light and refreshing. The patatas bravas, chunks of potatoes piled high with tomato aioli were deliciously spiced, and the salt cod, a little too salty perhaps, rounded out the meal. With just a little room for something sweet we shared the Mel i Mato - fresh ricotta salada, Frog Hollow peaches and almonds, drizzled with honey.

Cesar definitely earns it's spot in the Gourmet Ghetto, and reminds me that small plates can leave you a satisfied, and satiated, foodie.

Oh Brother!

2005-08-08T19:16:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'm still alive. Family and friends have been extremely vocal letting me know that I've let them down by not keeping up lately. It's not that I haven't had any culinary adventures as of late, rather the new job is keeping me busy. In a good way. The ability to blog at work is now non-existent and the desire to sit in front of a computer in the evening has diminished. Let's see if we can strike a good balance.....

A recent culinary adventure took me to Brothers Korean Restaurant, an authentic Korean BBQ restaurant on Geary Street. We arrived on a Wednesday night around 7:30pm, the doorway crowded with groups waiting for a table. The restaurant has 10 or 12 long tables with barbecue grills in the middle to cook up a meatfest right there at the table. There are 5 or so other tables
in the middle room sans barbecue grills that are often empty while the crowd waits for the do-it-yourself opportunity. We waited an hour for a barbecue table, all the while the sweet, smoky barbecue scents soaked into our hair, our clothes, and teased our stomachs.

We already knew what we wanted when we sat down having read the menu and spoken to the regulars waiting with us. We ordered the marinated beef and shrimp for the grill, and a noodle dish. It took no time at all for the beef and shrimp to come, and the server started our first round by putting some on our smoking grill. The meats come with 8 or 10 sides of different kimchees - pickled cabbage, fish cakes, cucumbers, other vegetables, seaweed, butter lettuce. The marinated beef and kimchees were outstanding, while the shrimp were a little dry and took a little longer to cook on the grill. Beer in hand, we finished off most of the beef, kimchees, and noodles with smiles on our faces and stomachs full. In calculating the cost of our dinner, I had to include the load of laundry that was needed to rid my clothes of the soaked in Korean bbq smells. If you go, go hungry but be prepared to wait and be sure it's close to laundry day.

Double Zuni

2005-02-04T09:13:00.000-08:00

Last Friday we met friends for dinner at Zuni Cafe, one of San Francisco's most well known, and well loved institutions, which has held a place on our top 5 restaurants in San Francisco since our first introduction. On that first visit, Zuni was like a new friend, exciting and full of surprises and at the same time familiar, an instant bond formed. Our visit on Friday was a date with that friend now part of our close community - perhaps with less surprises but familiar and comfortable, reliable and dependable.

We started with some Kumamoto and Fanny Bay oysters which were both delicious though the Fanny Bays easily won the table over. That made the Canadians at the table proud - Fanny Bays are from BC.

Nino had the roast duck on polenta; a tender juicy duck leg with creamy polenta. While the duck was good, he wasn't overly impressed with the preparation. I had the whole wheat spaghetti with yellowfin tuna, pinenuts and olive oil - a comfort dish with no surprises; it warmed and settled my stomach as intended. Should we have ordered the roast chicken with bread salad, Zuni's signature dish that had originally gotten us hooked?

I couldn't stop thinking about the roast chicken and bread salad over the weekend. I pulled out the Zuni Cafe Cookbook and read and reread the 4 pages of instructions. I could do this, I thought, it isn't that hard. Sure you could, said my nasty inner voice, but what are the odds it will turn out. Aha, a challenge!

I followed the instruction to a tee, salting the chicken for over 24 hours, roasting the chicken at very high heat in my All Clad 10 inch skillet, broiling and oiling bread with currants, pine nuts, scallions and garlic. It was definitely a feast and it was incredible. The chicken was juicy and moist, with crispy skin outside and tender perfectly cooked white and dark meat. The bread salad was as good as at Zuni, deliciously seasoned chunks of bread topped with a spoonful of pan juices thrown in right at the end. And most of all, those four pages of instructions was as if Judy Rodgers was in my kitchen and we were cooking this together.

Ah yes, the reliable, dependable friend.

Marvelous Marseille

2005-01-29T08:11:00.000-08:00

I was invited to a wonderful event this week at the California Culinary Academy. Two young chefs from Marseille, Lionel Levy and Dominique Ferard, with host Daniel Young, educated, demonstrated and teased the audience with stories and recipes from Marseille. The demonstrations and then dinner focused on the use of citrus in "la nouvelle cuisine Marseillaise". Young, author of Made in Marseille: Food and Flavors from France's Mediterranean Seaport, walked us through some of the history of the region and proceeded to test the group's knowledge of citrus by having us guess the smells of 7 different blotters dipped in different citrus essence. From grapefruit to clementine, and lime to bergamot, our senses were aroused with each smell, as were our appetites.

The chefs did two incredibly delicious demonstrations. The first was a fish crumble, inspired by fruit crumbles, or crisps. Lionel Levy used created a seabass ceviche with ginger and garlic, and lime, lemon and orange zest, and topped it with a crumble made with cream, ginger, brown sugar and garlic. It was served in slightly oversized shot glasses, and was one of the most delicious things I have ever tasted. There's a recipe in Young's book - "Crumble de Saumon", upon which this was based. The second demonstration was crab, citrus and zucchini filled spring rolls served with citrus butter sauce - another incredible blend of flavors.

Dinner was to follow soon after, and the group mingled and drank wines from Provence while we waited. The event had been sponsored in part by the Marseille Chamber of Commerce, and guests were mostly in the tourist industry focusing on France - a sales representative for Air France, chateaux owners, tour operators and tour guides, and specialized tours such as organized cooking trips. These included companies such as The International Kitchen , French Escapades, and Art du Voyage.

I now have a copy of Daniel Young's book, and though I've had just a quick chance to skim through it, it looks marvelous complete with history of the region, of la cuisine marseillaise, including a whole chapter on bouillabaisse, bringing the smells and tastes of Marseille to my home.

Hawaiian Goodies

2005-01-26T20:13:00.000-08:00

We came home from Hawaii with a stack of culinary goodies. We’re not coffee drinkers but that didn’t stop us from lugging home pounds of the stuff. It’s always nice to have some in the house to offer guests and the l00% Kona coffee certainly makes great gifts.

After I had returned home, Nino made a trip to the local honey producer and picked up some pint size tubs of local regular honey and lilikoi honey. These creamy honeys are delicious on toast, in tea, and just about anywhere. On Sunday night we made delicious honey-glazed salmon – sprinkle salt and pepper on salmon fillets, cover with honey or in our case lilikoi honey, and bake at 350degrees for about 12 minutes or until done.

For Christmas I received some Hoji Cha tea, and bought some jasmine pearl tea, all from Tiger Mama which is a division of Dragon Mama store in Hilo. These two organic green teas are delightful - the jasmine pearl being large loose rolled leaves that when steeped produce such a clean green tea flavor, and the Hoji Cha which are roasted buds providing a nutty and delicious taste.

Hawaiian rock salt lives in a little koa bowl on Jan's dining room table and we used it at almost every meal when we were there. These big orange gems are packed with a fresh salty zing. We brought some home with us, filled a beautiful clay bowl and have some at our table now too. When I saw the recipe for pan fried chicken in the SF Chronicle's Food and Wine newsletter I immediately thought to try the recipe with Hawaiian rock salt. Tara Duggan's recipe follows with braised winter greens. Both the greens and the chicken were delicious and such a quick and easy weeknight meal:

INGREDIENTS:
2 garlic cloves
1 bunch Swiss chard or other winter greens
2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
2 to 3 tablespoons pure olive oil
1/2 cup low-salt chicken broth
4 skinless boneless chicken half-breasts (4 to 5 ounces each)
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
2 teaspoons sherry vinegar or red wine vinegar

INSTRUCTIONS: Mince the garlic. Cut off the stalks of the greens, then chop the leaves width-wise into 1-inch ribbons.

Heat the extra virgin olive oil in a medium skillet (preferably nonstick) over low heat. Add the garlic and saute for a few minutes. Add the greens and increase the heat to medium. Stir until incorporated and the greens start to wilt. Add the broth and bring to a simmer. Cover and cook until the greens are tender, about 10 minutes.

Remove the tenderloin (the thin muscle loosely attached to the breast), from each half-breast and set aside for another use. Season each breast liberally with salt and pepper.
Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add 2 tablespoons oil and heat until almost smoking. Carefully add 2 of the half-breasts. Season with salt and pepper. Saute until browned and the inside has no trace of pink but is still juicy, about 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 minutes per side. Remove with a slotted spoon to a warm plate and repeat with remaining half-breasts. Stir the vinegar into the greens, and adjust the seasoning.

Tough Decisions

2005-01-16T14:41:00.000-08:00

There we were, surrounded by some really great interesting folks with similar interests, when we realized the dilemma we had gotten ourselves into. We went to meet Alder from Vinography at Bacar to help him celebrate his blog's first birthday. We were having a great time - Alder and Ruth were welcoming and great to talk to, we met Keica and Matthew who turns out works where I just started, Jen from Life Begins @ 30 , Meriko from Gastronome and Jeanne from World on a Plate . It was approaching 7pm and while the chatter, and appetizers, and Bacar's wine bible were screaming for more attention, we remembered the live dungeness crab sitting in our refrigerator. If we didn't head home to cook him now, we'd be in hot water. I would have love to stayed to meet the rest of the gang but duty called.

The event was a great idea and I hope the Bay Area bloggers, or even the Bernal bloggers, can meet up more often.

It was great to hear that some folks read my blog. I decided then and there that I needed to change the name from Karen's Food Log or K-flog as it started out. I've been mulling over names for months never able to chose one that really works for me. Being in a room of bloggers, I wanted to be proud of my blog but found that I couldn't get passed my boring title. What do you think of "Plat Du Jour"? Stay tuned!!

Ah yes, and the crab was delicious. We steamed the little guy in our bamboo steamer over the wok for about 12 minutes. With just a little bit of lemon and butter, this guy was moist and tender... just perfect. The easy side salad, warm olive bread and persimmon mango vodka drinks Nino whipped up rounded out the evening beautifully!

Merriman's and More

2005-01-14T13:43:00.000-08:00

Details of my full blown Hawaiian culinary adventure is long overdue. The start of the new year brought with it the start of a new job at Tellme. In an attempt to adapt to my job, my regularly scheduled blogging hours have dwindled.

But here it is, some of the very best the Big Island had to offer, counted down from delicious to pure joy:

10: Given that it was holiday time, there was no lack of sweets around. Some of the homemade highlights included chocolate stuffed figs (more than one fig could keep you awake for days), cranberry pistachio biscottis, double chocolate cookies from an industrial recipe that yielded 100 cookies (and they still didn't last long), italian rice cake with cherry peach compote, and Mathilda fruit cake (yes, an edible fruit cake)!

9. For Christmas dinner we roasted prime rib. This was my first attempt at prime rib, and while it didn't come out as good as say, Cruts' or Amy's, the thing to note was that it was local Hawaiian grass fed beef - leaner and tastier than other beefs.

8. Can't go to Hawaii without mentioning the macadamia nuts. We were treated by Whitey to some of the island's infamous handmade chocolate covered mac nuts and coffee beans. YUM!

7. There's always at least one outing to Cafe Pesto when we are visiting the Big Island, usually at lunch time when we need to get out of the sun at the beach. Big fresh salads and sandwiches there are always a hit. I had a green salad topped with a tender piece of ono, which is the wahoo fish. Ono also means delicious, and it was!!

6. Like butta! The avocados on the island are the very large, light skinned avocados, possibly the Bacon variety. They take quite a long time to ripen partly because when you buy them from the store they were probably just picked. When they do ripen, you are in for a treat - creamy, soft and delicious, just like butter!

5. Jan and John's place, where we stayed, has lilikoi growing all along the fence. Lilikoi are known here as passion fruit. Jan takes the juice of ripe lilikoi and freezes it in ice cube trays to be able to then grab some lilikoi juice for morning smoothies. Lilikoi's have an orangey flesh inside with many seeds, sweet with hints of lemon sour flavors. One of the cooking/baking projects when we were there was a lilikoi cheesecake!

4. No monkeying around - the bananas on the island are incredible. The apple bananas are my favorite - small bananas that have a sweetness like apples, and whose texture is firmer than regular bananas. Jan and John have 2 banana trees that didn't produce ripe fruit while we were there but we did have frozen home grown bananas from the freezer in our morning smoothies.

3. We had papayas with lime almost every morning for breakfast - locally grown juicy papaya with fresh lime juice. If you've never had these flavors together I strongly recommend it.

2. The ahi, in every shape and flavor, is always my favorite food. Ranging from $8.99 to $11.99 at the supermarkets or fish stores you can get ahi poke in different "flavors" - shoyu poke (big chunks of ahi with shoyu and seaweed), sesame poke, or sometimes as many as 5 other flavors. Poke and poi are staples for us when we go Hawaii. If we don't finish the daily poke, we fry it up the next day for breakfast or lunch. When we want something just a little lighter, we'll buy a slab of ahi at the store, bound to be some of the freshest ever, and have some ahi sashimi on rice.

1. Merriman's for New Years was incredible. We started with a salad of fresh hearts of palm simmered in coconut milk with sweet Maui onions and greens. Every bite was tender and sweet. I ordered the panko and kefir lime crusted scallops - soft, tender and delicious. Nino had the fish of the night which was a specially prepared onaga which was also excellent - so tasty and moist. Absolutely every morsel was incredible, service was wonderful and the ingredients so fresh. Basically, Peter Merriman is the Alice Waters of the Big Island, using the freshest ingredients from the locals.

I thought of you at New Year's....

2005-01-07T21:55:00.000-08:00

... as we clinked glasses from the outdoor hot tub, on the Hamakua Coast on the Big Island of Hawaii. No really, I did. I thought about how the food blogging community is so exciting and embracing, and how I was surely going to disappoint when I wouldn't remember every morsel of our New Year's dinner at Merriman's or every delicious nibble and bite from the land of fish and fruit. With each passing day of our vacation in Hawaii, staying with different members of Nino's family and a couple of days in Volcano National Park, I confronted my fear of falling so terribly behind in blogging. I did this by reaching for another piece of Mac Nut Pie, or a chocolate covered mac nut, or a lilikoi/apple banana smoothie or papaya with lime, thereby creating a vicious circle spinning completely out of control. Oh well! Happy New Year!

"Puff the Magic Pastry"...

2004-12-16T09:23:00.000-08:00

... says Alton Brown. When thinking about puff pastry, "I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down" rings in my ears. For some reason, these frozen layers of butter pastry have intimidated me. And yet, in recent months there have been a number of culinary experiences or readings that have made me want to knock out the big bad wolf with a brick, and head for the frozen section. If you need convincing, check out Heidi Swanson's Sweet Potato Pot Pie from her new cookbook Cook 1.0 , which also brings back warm, comforting memories of the pot pies at Liberty Cafe.

I was invited to a party last weekend and was asked to bring an appetizer. I rolled up my sleeves and decided to give it a shot, knowing I could fall back to the old standby of homemade hummus if it didn't turn out. With 3 types of fresh mushrooms on hand from the mushroom ladies at the Alemany Farmer's Market, I set out to create the Triple Mushroom and Leek Strudel from the Whole Foods Market Cookbook. I heeded Alton's advice: open the pastry after about 20 minutes of thawing to allow for even thawing, be sure to roll on a dry, floured surface and use a clean knife or pizza roller. I pressed the seams of the pastry together in bunches and then rolled them out to create one seamless sheet. The trouble began once I started centering the filling on the pastry - how much filling could I add but still be able to transport the strudel to the baking sheet without the bottom falling out of the strudel? The recipe produced double the amount of filling I was comfortable with.

With just two thirds the filling, and only two inches of a seam not wanting to cooperate, I put the strudel in the oven at 400degrees for 30 minutes (Alton's magic numbers). The strudel was a hit - both in appearance and taste! No one seemed to mind the rather soggy non-puffed bottom or the little seam on top with filling oozing (which I said was by design so steam could escape).

With leftover filling, the very next day, I tried again - this time letting the dough thaw even longer, and cutting it into 4 squares to bake individual turnovers. These were just as tasty, easier to work with, and I realized afterwards - a little magical.

Charmed by O Chame

2004-12-10T15:16:00.000-08:00

Last week I was at Cody's to listen to Kermit Lynch read from his new book Inspiring Thirst. The book is a collection of essays from Lynch's wine brochures. His readings were delightful, as was the wine that he served from his own winery in France. Being so focused on food in the Bay Area I asked him, in the question and answer period following his reading, where he likes to eat in the Bay Area, perhaps places where the wine lists were exciting and interesting for him. Of all the questions of the day, this one stumped him the most. "Uh, Chez Panisse", he responded, "And um...", he hesitated, "Well Chez Panisse. That's it really. They treat us well there." The crowd was silent, waiting for more. "And well, O Chame is good."

So off we went one night this week when both of us had to be in Berkeley. O Chame is a cozy Japanese restaurant with a one page simple menu that I would liken to Japanese comfort food. We started with the seared tuna sashimi with braised leeks and horseradish, followed by 2 big steaming bowls of udon. I had the grilled rock cod with mustard greens and Nino had the roasted oyster and wakame seaweed udon. Everything was incredibly fresh and tasty.

Chez Panisse it is not, but O Chame rightly deserves its spot on the Chronicle's Top100 list.

Minako Organic

2004-12-04T20:54:00.000-08:00

The day after Thanksgiving we had a wonderful date day. After sleeping late and having light breakfast and early lunch (both meals consisting of leftovers), we headed up to the Marin Headlands for a 2.5 hour hike up through the Miwok trail and down along the Coast Trail. The air was fresh and while the sky was not completely clear, it was beautiful out there. The hike entitled us to a short nap after which it was time to talk about dinner. There was no way in "H E double hockey sticks" that I was going to cook dinner - I was completely exhausted from cooking for 16 people and wanted to wait just one more day to deal with the turkey-drip laden roasting pan soaking in the sink. Off we went to Minako on Mission and 17th.

It was our first time there, though it often gets high ratings in local best of sushi lists. The restaurant uses organic ingredients wherever possible and the chef takes great care in the each item delivered to our table - in taste and presentation. The food was outstanding. We had 2 appetizers, though the Tofu Nato came with apologies after everything was served since the chef takes extra long to prepare this dish of fried tofu with scallions and a sweet and sour sauce. The 2 sushi rolls we ordered had extremely large, fresh pieces of fish, in order to be able to taste each flavor in the roll, we were told. The organic roasted barley tea was a perfect complement to the meal. There were 2 slight disappointments - I specifically ordered fresh salmon nigiri but received smoked salmon which had been on the menu. Also, the service wasn't as good as it could have been. Perhaps the post-Thanksgiving food coma had also taken the mother daughter team who runs the restaurant hostage.

And just so you know, we didn't have turkey for breakfast; we had pie.

Thanksgiving Menu

2004-11-27T14:14:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving is a day well celebrated in our house. For us, it's a day to cook and eat and drink and eat some more, and to share this over indulgence with friends and family. But both immediate families are so far (and Canadian Thanksgiving is long over), and what usually happens is we open our doors to friends, colleagues and acquaintances who want a place to spend the non-religious, family oriented, food focused holiday.

This year we had 16 people for Thanksgiving dinner - some ex-colleagues of ours, some very close friends and some classmates of Nino's. It was a great crowd and lots of fun. Highlights of the meal included the turkey, the mashed sweet potatoes with chipotle peppers, Tonia's green beans, the pumpkin cheesecake, Aaron's chocolate cake and Jen's bundt cake. We consumed about 7 bottles of wine and a bottle of Umeshu (Japanese pum wine) for dessert. Of note was the 2000 Cambria Bench Break Vineyard Pinot Noir.

Here's the entire menu:

Appetizers: Crackers and pita with curried tofu dip and butternut squash dip
Arugula, persimmon and fennel salad with olive oil and vinegar
Best way brined turkey
Chipotle mashed sweet potatoes
Baked yams
Vegetarian meatloaf
Tuscan white beans
Green beans with orange and rosemary gremolata
Dessert: pumpkin cheesecake, chocolate cake with chambord, amaretto white bundt cake, persimmon apple crisp, homemade mango ice cream, fruit tart

Giving Thanks

2004-11-27T13:49:00.000-08:00

Turkey 2004,
originally uploaded by kjkausha.

Thanksgiving has come and gone, though I'd like to take a moment to give thanks where thanks is due. I'd like to say thank you to my wonderful hu...hu...husband (oh, it's been 6 months and I still have a hard time even blogging that word!) for his love and support and for being the master of the turkey each year for Thanksgiving. With direction from the Best Way Brined Turkey recipe, Nino roasted an amazingly moist, incredibly tasty bird this year. This was a 13.75 lb Willie Bird Free Range turkey and had to be the best turkey in our 5 years doing Thanksgiving together. (Note to self: It took 2:50 to roast following brining recipe.)

Also, thank you to our wonderful family and friends, some who were with us to partake in the feast, and those that live far away who we couldn't tempt to make the cross-continent or cross-ocean flights to join us. Many of them participated in the feast without even knowing it - we wouldn't have such amazing cookware and bakeware if it weren't for great wedding gifts from everyone!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Pumpkin Cheesecake - The Winner

2004-11-27T13:35:00.000-08:00

Pumpkin Cheesecake,
originally uploaded by kjkausha.

This photo was taken during Thanksgiving dessert and is the winning recipe of the Great Pumpkin Cheesecake contest I wrote about a couple of days ago. It was a huge success! Thanks to John A. for the amazing pumpkin puree made from fresh pumpkins from his garden!

The Great Pumpkin Cheesecake, Charlie Brown

2004-11-23T10:28:00.000-08:00

On our last visit to Slow Club we indulged in an amazing mascarpone cheesecake with strawberries in balsamic vinegar, recommended by Sante. With the holiday season upon us, and the tendency and expectation of over-indulgence, we set out to revamp the plain ol' pumpkin pie and decided on the pumpkin cheesecake.

We tested 2 recipes: one from Cooking Light, with a graham cracker crust from Gourmet Cookbook and a double layer pumpkin cheesecake from allrecipes.com that I adapted. I learned my lesson with the Cooking Light recipe - the cream cheese was not at room temperature and I believe this resulted in a very dense, quite heavy cheesecake. Nonetheless, Nino brought it to school and both he and the cheesecake were very popular. I told him he should trade some cheesecake for homework favors or better grades.

The second recipe was the winner, and the one we'll be making for Thanksgiving, though I adapted it based on the reviews. I used the Gourmet Cookbook graham cracker crust in my springform pan, used fat free cream cheese (at room temperature), used 2 8-ounce blocks of cream cheese following the recipe for the bottom layer, and then 2 other 8-ounce blocks of cream cheese following the recipe and mixed with pumpkin pie filling (about 1 cup) for the top layer. The cheesecake was ready after about 1.5 hours.

Though I'm quite "cheesecaked out", we'll make the winning recipe one more time to adorn our dessert table come Thursday. Accompanied by persimmon/apple crisp and some kind of chocolate delight from a guest, you can bet I'll be saving room for dessert.

IMBB#10 Walnut Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

2004-11-21T15:57:00.000-08:00

Cookies_WalnutOatmeal
Originally uploaded by kjkausha.

This is my first time partipating in an IMBB event, a monthly online cooking event hosted by a foodblogger somewhere in the world. This month's theme is a Cookie Swap, and while I wasn't sure until just this afternoon if I would be able to participate, I've whipped up some easy, yet tasty cookies that are also quite seasonal.

With Thanksgiving around the corner, the main food activities this weekend have concentrated on putting together a menu (we're expecting 10-15 people), and doing as much of the grocery shopping as possible. I didn't shop for cookie ingredients specifically so I looked through some of the treasures found at the farmer's market yesterday to see what I could throw together. With organic walnuts from the farmer's market and cranberries with orange flavor from Trader Joe's I decided to adapt a Cooking Light Oatmeal Walnut Cookie recipe. Yep, Cooking Light. So these cookies have less fat, and a bit of a different texture than regular cookies. I also think that because I used cranberries instead of raisins, that the original recipe called for, the cookies could have done without all the sugar - they were just a little too sweet. And maybe more walnuts. For a quick, light, eye pleasing, colorful cookie, I recommend'em. Do they compare to full fat, melt in your mouth oatmeal cookies? Nah ...

Walnut Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies
1/2 cup granualted sugar (Suggestion to use less if using canberries)
1/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup regular oats
1/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup cranberries (I used Trader Joe's flavored with orange)
1/4 cup chopped toasted walnuts (I would use more)

1. Preheat oven to 350degrees.
2. Place first 5 ingredients in large bowl, beat with mixer until well blended. Add flour, salt, oats and beat well. Stir in cranberries and walnuts (don't forget to toast walnuts!)
3. Drop by tablespoon on greased baking sheet. Baked 12-15 minutes until lightly browned.

From Italy with love

2004-11-16T14:34:00.000-08:00

I'd like to say that I haven't written in 3 weeks because I've been on a wonderful trip to Italy or somewhere else full of culinary excitement. However, my excuse is nothing short of lame. While I've been turning to delicious food to get me through these weeks, I haven't had the energy or time to keep up. The past few weeks have been tough but I thought I'd spend a few moments catching up on the floggables from the past few weeks.

Raphael and Saba's visit recently landed us a dinner date at Cafe Cozzolino in our neighborhood. Raphael's grandmother lived around the corner from there and all he could talk about was the calamari. This Italian restaurant could be summed up as a "protein at 6 o'clock" kind of restaurant. Each main dish, if looked at as a clock, had your protein at 6 o'clock, in my case salmon, mashed potatoes at 2 o'clock and a steamed, unexciting green vegetable at 10 o'clock. While the cookie cutter presentation was a little disheartening, the food was not bad though I'd let some time go by before returning.

Knowing that other neighborhood restaurants could deliver such better food, we were off to Liberty Cafe some days later for some comfort food. It was Thursday night, just the two of us, had some wine and got caught up on the week's events. We had a wonderful mache, fennel and persimmon salad and Nino had the chicken pot pie while I had hake (a white fish compared to monkfish) with fresh chanterelle mushrooms. Wine, comfort food and some quality time together will most always help when I've had a bad day.

Hole in the Bone

2004-10-27T10:35:00.000-07:00

Maria and Markus, friends from Sweden, invited us for dinner Saturday night. They had brought oysters with homemade BBQ sauce to our recent California dinner; we knew that Sweden had lent California some top-notch foodies, and we were not disappointed.

We started with an excellent bottle of Reserve Pinot Noir from Cambria, received as part of their wine club, and some hummus and tomato/olive spreads. The main course was Osso Bucco, which translates to "hole in the bone" - braised veal shanks where the hollow portion of the bone holding the marrow is considered quite a delicacy. Served with asparagus and mashed potatoes, the veal was outstanding - tender and juicy, and matched perfectly with 2 more bottles of wine. You heard me, the four of us drank 3 full bottles of wine.

I sent M&M an email thanking them for dinner, implicitly excusing myself for drinking too much, or making a fool out of myself. I uttered a sigh of relief when Markus replied that they too "weren't exactly the snappiest couple in the neighborhood on Sunday". I realize I hardly even tasted dessert, individual lemon pudding cakes I made with Steve Ross' homegrown lemons, swallowing it almost hole so I could get home to bed.

Takara - Another Top 100

2004-10-24T15:12:00.000-07:00

Friday night = date night!!

Off we went to Takara in Japantown, one of San Francisco's top 100 according to the Chronicle, and one we had not yet been to. The restaurant was your average, everyday Japanese restaurant with wooden tables and fish tanks in the entrance. We started with an appetizer of cold tofu with green onions and dired bonito, and Nino had the takara chirashi and I had assorted sushi. We were impressed with the fish; Nino's was a heaping mound of fresh, assorted fish atop sushi rice, a huge plated for a reasonable price ($17). My sushi was great - thick fresh pieces of albacore, salmon and yellowtail/green onion roll. We toasted another week done with some hot sake, perfect on the cool autumn evening.

Nino asked how I rated the restaurant on a scale of 1 to Ebisu. "Doesn't come close to Ebisu", I replied. I asked him if this was really a top 100, and his answer made sense - for Japanese food, this was pretty darn good and extremely competent. He finished by saying it was nothing special, leaving me to believe that this was one restaurant we might not agree with on the list.

Banana Leaf Bonanza

2004-10-24T15:05:00.000-07:00

I met Arik for dinner at Banana Leaf, the Malaysian restaurant in Milpitas - always so nice to sit and catch up with him. I promised to flog (defn: To capture culinary adventures in a food log) our visit given we've been there half dozen times and never remember what we ordered. On this visit we had:
Gado Gado - Indonesian tofu salad with thick peanut sauce (excellent)
Roti Prata - Flatbread with curry sauce (always a good starter)
Mango Chicken - Pieces of chicken, mango and peppers in a sweet sauce (could have been tastier)
Pad Thai - Sweet and spicy sauce over noodles with thick chunks of chicken, shrimp, tofu and squid. This is one of the best pad thai's I have ever had (OK, not counting in Thailand)

Harvest Festival Part II

2004-10-19T13:46:00.000-07:00

Sunday Supper was the culmination of events for CUESA's Harvest Festival weekend. This $150 sit down dinner at the Ferry Building attracted 350 people for an evening of gourmet appetizers, first courses, entrees and desserts provided by Bay Area chefs. While I did toy with the idea of paying the money to attend the dinner as a guest, I decided instead to work for my dinner and help out behind the scenes in the hours leading up to the dinner.

About 25 chefs were on-site to cook and prepare for dinner. My duties included waiting for the 8 entree chefs to arrive and to help them unload into a makeshift kitchen set up with hot boxes, grills and ovens. Being a foodie in San Francisco, I couldn't help but get excited about meeting some of the top chefs in the city. OK, so "meeting" is not necessarily the right word - it's not like they said "Oh, nice to meet you Karen. Why don't you come by the restaurant and we can chat over coffee one day." But they were all very nice, and thanked me for helping them unload their cars. And it was great to put some faces to names and catch a glimpse of their personality. There was Annie Sommerville from Greens, who was a little frantic and running a little late, Johnny Alamilla from Alma, a laidback and scruffy kid, Arnold Wong from EOS and Bacar, pulling up in his Mercedes G-Class SUV, Traci des Jardins of Jardiniere who cooked in her kitchen at Mijita in the Ferry Building, Stuart Brioza from Rubicon, Joseph Manzare from Globe and Armando Paniagua from Rose Pistola. I also had the chance to "meet" Craig Stoll from Delfina and boy, did I want to tell him how much I love his food!

The highlight of the evening was joining the sit down dinner after our volunteer work was completed. Each chef cooked for 50 people so depending on where you were seated, you were served a first course from 1 chef and an entree from another chef, different that what others were served at different tables. I missed the first course due to volunteer duties but was lucky to be served Stuart Brioza's Fragrant Spiced Lamb Shoulder with Autumn Squash Dumplings and even got to taste some of Joseph Manzare's Wild Salmon with Nicoise Olives, Oven-dried Tomatoes and Rubycress Potatoes Braised with Garlic and Thyme. Everything was outstanding. I couldn't get over how tender the lamb was, and did not have the strong lamb taste, and the dumplings were perfection - doughy outsides with pureed squash sweetness inside. The entree was followed by a cheese course, and then dessert - big plates filled with little bite size pastries like Brown Sugar Pecan Bars from Farallon, Housemade Fig Newtons from Postrio, Chocolate Friands from Tartine, and Fruit Pastries from Frog Hollow Farm. I ate as many little bites as I could but I was stuffed!

All in all, the event was great - a wonderfully delicious way to raise money for CUESA's educational and market programs. I was glad to be a part of it.

Big on Brunch

2004-10-18T10:10:00.000-07:00

There were two themes to the weekend - Harvest Festival and brunch!

Weekend brunch is not one of our rituals and more often than not you'll find us home for breakfast on Saturday and Sunday mornings, especially with the introduction of "Sunday Double Sundays" this summer. We now receive both the SF Chronicle and New York Times on Sundays and can spend the better part of the day (even some of the following week) getting through them. Breakfast usually consists of homemade waffles or eggs and Willie Bird's turkey bacon and we feel no need to go out. Except when it's a social event "Oh let's do brunch" kinda thing. Until now.

On Saturday we went to Liberty Cafe for brunch and given that this is so close to home, this event alone may reshape the way we spend our weekends. Our meal was delicious and reasonably priced. For $8, I had a huge corned beef hash with poached eggs - corned beef, potatoes and spices topped with 2 poached eggs. It was delicious, filled my beef craving and I swear I didn't need to a thing 'til dinner. Nino had the eggs benedict with avocado which he rated as pretty much on par with Bette's (if Bette's is a 10, Liberty Cafe is 9.75). Ken, who we finally got caught up with after forever, had the homemade granola and yogurt - YUM!

Sunday was brunch number 2 at Slow Club with Trace and Robert. Perhaps it was our build up of Slow Club for dinner or that this brunch followed so soon on the heels of Liberty Cafe the day before, brunch was not out of this world amazing. Each of the meals were good - the french toast, chicken rancheros and eggs, and rare tuna on greens but if given the choice between brunch and dinner, Slow Club is where to be for dinner. Anyway, that's when Sante is there!

Harvest Festival Part I

2004-10-16T14:21:00.000-07:00

Sip and pour, pour and sip - that was my rhythm at the Organic Wine Tasting event at the Ferry Building Friday night, kicking off a weekend of activities for Harvest Festival. I worked as a volunteer for the event and from 5-8pm sold wine tickets for $5/glass before sending wine enthusiasts to one of the wine stations in the building. There were three whites and six reds to choose from.

The Ferry Building was bustling with after-work shoppers, regular ferry commuters, CUESA supporters and general wine and food enthusiasts out to support these local events. The Ferry Building Marketplace merchants sold specially made treats to the public as they sipped and walked and talked and sipped.

In the interest of being a good saleswoman, I took it upon myself to taste as many as the organic wines that I could. Particularly memorable were:
Yorkville Cellars Sauvignon Blanc
Yorkville Cellars Petit Verdot
Yorkville Cellars Richard the Lion-Heart
Frey Vineyard Organic Syrah
Ceago Biodynamic Cabernet Sauvignon

This was a wonderful event - fun, lively, laidback and people were in a wonderful mood on this fine Friday evening.

Nigella Lawson: Domestic Goddess?

2004-10-12T16:07:00.000-07:00

As much as I love to cook, I have never roasted a whole chicken in the oven - until now. There have been boneless breasts and thighs all different ways and beer-butt whole chickens on the bbq but never a chicken I had to cut myself and roast in the oven. I turned to Nigella Lawson for advice and instructions figuring her Slow Roasted Garlic and Lemon Chicken, one of her top 5 most requested recipes, was bound to be a hit.

Needless to say, the chicken came out dry. Was it me? Maybe I could blame it on the great gas oven we have or maybe it was the frozen chicken I started with. The fresh lemons from the farmer's market? The cheap white wine I used? Aha, it must be the dinky roasting pan we have, one we were hoping would be replaced with a brand new roasting pan with V rack as a wedding gift. Alas, that gift is still on our Macy's bridal registry and given that Thanksgiving is coming we will be buying it ourselves.

Karen Kaushansky: Domestic Goddess? No, but hell I'm trying!

Mum would be proud

2004-10-11T09:50:00.000-07:00

Highlights:
Asparagus and Wild Mushroom Pappardelle
Steamed Crab

I grew up hating mushrooms. The raw white button cardboard mushrooms could be found in salads and when cooked, their slimy texture overpowered any taste that may have existed. Growing up in Montreal, this is all I knew about mushrooms.

More recently, my eyes have been opened to whole new realm of mushrooms. In part I credit Moto when he used dried porcinis in a homemade tomato sauce that gave the dish such an earthy intense flavor. I was hooked. Next came the homemade gnocchi in fresh porcini sauce from Liberty Cafe. Not only was I hooked - I fell in love with mushrooms. Since then I've been using dried porcinis, chanterelles, and morels and fresh shitakes, brown criminis, wood ear, tree oysters, portobellas and straw mushrooms.

It is now wild mushroom season in California. At the Alemany farmer's market on Saturday we stopped at the mushroom man and picked out some criminis and tree oysters for a recipe just published on sfgate.com to celebrate the season. I didn't have fresh pasta and instead used gnocchi whose sweet taste balanced well with the wine based sauce.

We couldn't resist the fresh dungeness crab at the market and picked out a 1.75 pounder to steam. 10 minutes of steaming and we had sweet crab meat alongside our wild mushoom pasta and Acacia Chardonnay.

A word of advice - stay away from white button mushrooms.

Debate Party Pizza

2004-10-09T11:27:00.000-07:00

Highlights:
Fig and Goat Cheese Pizza

What's a debate party without pizza? We went over to Josh and Cate's to watch the debate and whipped up the Goat Cheese/Fig/Onion pizza that Mike and Marnie made last weekend. I'm not a fan of goat cheese so I put fresh mozzarella on one and goat cheese on the other. What makes this pizza so good are the carmelized onions used instead of sauce. Make the onions as per the recipe and then top with just about anything. Thing is with this pizza - it is a party showstopper but so easy to make. The pizza was gone before Bush could once again blame Saddam for 9/11.

Slow Club - October 7

2004-10-08T11:13:00.000-07:00

Highlights:
Slow Club

Date night at Slow Club! We haven't been out for dinner in a while and Sante (Slow Club's wonderful chef) told us that Thursdays are often the best nights to come in since he goes to the market Thursday morning in Marin so everything is fresh, fresh, fresh!!!

I can't say we had a quiet dinner given the noise level even on a Thursday night at the restaurant but we did have a great time and a chance to talk about life, the universe and everything. Well maybe not everything, but we did talk about Nino's possible thesis and had a serious conversation about his understanding of what he wants to do with his degree, as well as some serious thoughts on where I'm at and where I want to be.

Sante sent over his now infamous zucchini salad and gravlax with herbed cream cheese on toasted walnut levain. Gravlax is mild smoked salmon, the Swedish equivalent of Jewish lox. I really liked the mild flavor given that I often find lox too salty and overpowering but this was just right.

Nino ordered the king salmon with leeks, potatoes, and heirloom toy box tomatoes. The fish was a little tough but the leek/potato mixture quickly made up for that. I had the sturgeon with green beans, saffron roasted onions and grilled organic eggplant. I don't see sturgeon in restaurants very often; it was perfectly cooked and tasted almost sweet while the eggplants and onions were just as good as Sante told us.

One of the highlights was definitely dessert: Mascarpone Cheesecake with balsamic strawberries and whipped cream. Rich and creamy, yet so light with a crumbly cinnamon crust. This was incredible and while I eat cheesecake very rarely, this has to be one of the best I've had ever. We almost went for the warm apple walnut crisp but Sante steered us in the right direction again!!

Gourmet Cookbook Ordered!

2004-10-05T13:37:00.000-07:00

Highlights:
Gourment Cookbook

Ruth Reichl, editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine was supposed to be at Sur La Table in Berkeley last night to promote the new 1200 recipe tome The Gourmet Cookbook - recipes from 60 years of Gourmet magazine. Unfortunately she had a family emergency and John Willoughby, executive editor, filled in. This was a paid event to support Women Chef's and was a delightful evening.

There were perhaps 60 women at the event and as we filtered in we moved from station to station tasting some food and wine brought in from some Bay Area restaurants. Kermit Lynch donated some wine, Boulevard prepared bite size shrimp filled pastry, there was canapes of white bean puree on toasted baguette some topped with smoked salmon others with red peppers, a station serving soupe au pistou from Cinq restaurant and little mini cupcakes from Citizen Cake. John Willoughby was interviewed by Kim Severson, a food writer from the San Francisco Chronicle, who is in the process of moving to the NY Times! The conversation was informal and informative - Kim has a great sense of humor and ease with the audience. John was charming and fun as he talked about the 3 year process of putting the cookbook together, of the twice daily tastings, of choosing just 12 chocolate cakes down from 50 for the book, of the less than perfect yellow type for recipe titles. The audience asked questions about representing different ethnic foods, about the Thanksgiving issue and about "the lobster article".

I was glad to be a part of the event, and while I didn't buy the book at Sur La Table, I went home and ordered it from Amazon immediately.

October 2 - Pasta with Artichoke Sauce

2004-10-04T13:45:00.000-07:00

Highlights:
Artichoke Heart Sauce

Greg and Laurie got us an original and delicious wedding gift - a subscription to the Connaisseur's Club at igourmet which is a monthly delivery of gourmet foods. Friday night we decided to try the Artichoke Heart Sauce and pasta from our first month's delivery. We cooked up the pasta and then after draining, poured the sauce over the pasta and voila - a quick, easy, delicious meal. The sauce was outstanding - artichoke hearts blended with some oil, herbs and salt, thick and chunky ready to cling to our al dente rigatoni. This doesn't seem like it would be too hard to make with store bought artichoke hearts however we were very content to open the can and have a gourmet meal in minutes.

October 3 - California Dinner

2004-10-04T13:04:00.000-07:00

Mike and Marnie stayed with us for the night and they organized a California dinner at our house for their friends. Everyone was expected to bring something and there would be prizes for the best Californian dish. You were asked to write up a little something on the dish you brought and we voted after dinner for the winners.

We were 11 people in total and dinner worked out wonderfully - great company, and delicious California food, and a perfect mix of appetizers, main dishes and dessert. Here are some of the dishes we had:

Crab dip in sourdough bread bowl
California platter of raisins, olives, cheese and almonds
BBQ'ed oysters with homemade BBQ sauce
Smoky eggpland/red pepper spread
Goat cheese and fig pizza
Tri-tip
Sharfen Berger chocolate truffles dusted with real gold

We entered the tri-tip into the contest. These were 2 tri-tips from Costco marinated for 24 hours (48 hours is the ideal) in beer, Yoshida's Gourmet Sauce, garlic and dry mustard (optional). We BBQed the meat for a total of 19 minutes (6 minutes flip, 6 minutes flip, 5 minutes, 2 minutes). Our write up explained that these were happy California cows for the California Atkins crowd. We came in second place for best California dish, and came in first for taste!

Yom Kippur - September 24

2004-09-27T10:19:00.000-07:00

Highlights:
Lemon Thyme Chicken
Quinoa Stuffed Peppers
Apple Cake

Happy Anniversary Ruth Ann and Matt! Nino and I had a quick dinner with Ruth Ann and Matt at their house before heading to services. Matt made yummy matzoh ball soup and I made broiled chicken thighs marinated in lemon juice, honey and thyme. (Marinate for 2 hours and then broil 5 minutes per side). I also made Quinoa Stuffed Peppers, cooked quinoa sauteed with celery, carrots, pumpkin seeds, onions and spices and spooned into halved peppers covered in tomato sauce. This recipe comes from the Whole Foods Recipe Cookbook and was very tasty.

For dessert I made apple cake from Second Helpings, which was moist and yummy, and then off to services we went.

Best of Boston: September 16-18

2004-09-20T11:13:00.000-07:00

Highlights:
Lala Rokh

Rosh Hashannah in Boston: I took the train to Boston and arrived in time to join David and Erin and their friends Jen and Scott for a huge Rosh Hashannah feast for night #2. Everyone pitched in - David may turkey and meat balls (ancient family recipe), matzoh balls to have in our chicken soup and potato kugel. Scott roasted an incredible chicken, Jen made noodle kugel and asparagus and Erin made honey cake. It's never a real Jewish meal unless there is too much food! It was nice to spend some time on the holidays with them.

Lala Rokh - Boston: David and Erin put their heads together to figure out where to go for dinner on my only other night in Boston knowing it had to be flog-worthy. I also told them it had to be reasonably priced limiting some of their suggestions like Craigie Street Bistrot. Whether it was the pressure to choose a floggable restaurant or just luck, we ended up at an incredible Persian restaurant in Beacon Hill. Winner of several awards since opening in 1995, Lala Rokh served delicious food in a white tablecloth romantic setting (a romantic table for three please!).

The food was outstanding. Warm bread was served with hummus made from chickpeas and lentils laden with a smoky flavor and lots of garlic (maybe roasted garlic?). We ordered the Mirza Ghasemi appetizer, a smoky blend of roasted eggplant, tomatoes, egg and saffron. Each of the main dishes were notable. I ordered the chicken kebabs - lemon and saffron marinated chicken breasts with rice and roasted potatoes. The chicken was so tender, juicy and flavorful. Erin ordered grilled salmon with a pesto, feta sauce which she enjoyed. She did say she was happy she had ordered the sauce on the side; perhaps it was too rich atop the perfectly grilled salmon. This dish came with roasted saffron potatoes. David ordered the slow cooked lamb with basmati rice - very aromatic tender pieces of lamb that melted in your mouth. Lala Rokh had 6 or so chutneys to choose from called Torshi which complement the main meal used as a dipping sauce or like we did, on top of rice. We ordered the mango tamarind chutney - a perfect accompaniment to our dishes and delicious.

There was a little mix up when we ordered our wine but the wait staff apologized. We had a chardonnay from Burgundy, much less oaky than Californian chardonnay that helped us wash down every delicious morsel.

This restaurant was tops and reasonably priced. We paid about $33 without tip per person, including wine with no dessert. Highly recommended.

New York Minutes - September 12-16

2004-09-17T09:24:00.000-07:00

Highlights:
Minamoto Kitchoan
Florent
Kwik-Meal
Mercer Kitchen
Time Warner Center

I was in New York this past week for the SpeechTek conference. While days and some nights were taken up with conference activities, there was definitely time for some culinary adventure. With New York being a culinary mecca, I could have spent a month here (not to mention hundreds of dollars) and so I was only able to catch a glimmer of the scene. Here are some highlights:

Zen Palate - Union Square: Nino wrote up this restaurant when he was there - a cafe like restaurant serving vegetarian fare. I had the vegetarian cabbage rolls stuffed with carrot and soy, with moo shu rice rolls and brown rice - very fresh, comfort food.

Breakfast: I can't get over how many deli like restaurants there are in New York. On every block, at least in Times Square, you'll find multiple bakery/deli/food bar restaurants that serve sandwiches and prepared foods for breakfast and lunch. Always busy, there are salad bars, and sushi bars, and hot items for extremely reasonable prices. I ducked into one of these each morning to grab my tea and breakfast. Most mornings I ordered an egg on toasted english muffin ($1.25) and pondered the business case for establishments such as these. How much food do you need to prepare and sell to make money running a place like this? How many people do you need to employ to prepare piles of prepared foods?

Minamoto Kitchoan - Rockefeller Center: This high end Japanese confectionary shop is steps away from Rockefeller Center. Rebecca introduced it to me last year when in New York and I walked over 2 separate days to get a little something sweet. Most of what they sell are gift boxes of individually wrapped mochi, Japanese pound cakes filled with red bean jam and other well made pastries and sweets. While these are probably good, it's the fresh mochi that is mouth watering. Red bean paste wrapped in the freshest softest mochi or soy bean flour, all natural and incredibly delicious.

Kwik Meal - Midtown: Go Canada! Canada was playing Finland in the World Cup Hockey finals. After drinks and appetizers at the conference I went to ESPN Zone in Times Square; there was no way I was going to miss the game. The bar was equipped With 6 small screens and 2 gargantuan screens, one with the hockey game and the other showing the Yankees with the sound booming from the the hockey game. The score was tied at 1 when I arrived and I asked a guy with canada shirt who had scored. We got to talking and it turns out he was there for the conference as well. As I looked around I realized that the bar was filled with Canadians including a honeymooning couple directly off the plane from Vancouver, some Vermonters including the owner of Jay Peak, also rooting for Canada and even a couple of Finns here and there. I was starving after the first period and needed something quick to eat, but not ESPN Zone food.

If ever a city could serve gourmet food from street carts, New York wins. Yes, there are your hot dog, roasted nuts and pretzel carts but these are alongside the morning fruit and roll carts, and the schwarma, grilled meat, knish, and falafel carts. I remember seeing a Kwik Meal cart on the corner of 6th (Avenue of the Americas) and 45th decorated with awards and reviews from a multitude of sources including Gourmet magazine. I read the little blurb about Rahman, the owner and found that he was in fact Canadian and went to cooking school in Toronto. He suggested the lamb and chicken grilled meat over rice with salad, a heaping plate of incredibly flavorful meat with fresh rice and shredded cabbage with some yogurt tahini sauce on the side, all for $7!!! I ate fast but not without wondering if this was perhaps the best meal of my stay in New York; the second period had surely started.

I watched the rest of the game with my new Canadian pals. The cheers when Canada scored and the jeers when the Finns did echoed in the bar. In the last few moments of the game when the score was 3-2 for Canada, we held our breaths. With the hockey lockout looming, a win for Canada would remind us of the Canadian Pride associated with the game, even if the NHL players may not play all season. The period ended and the bar went crazy. I saw the Finns behind me crying as the bar erupted into "Oh Canada".

Florent - Meatpacking District: Happy Jewish New Year! David Binder and I met at his apartment and walked to the Meatpacking District for dinner. Large warehouses with chic new facades line the streets converted into hip new restaurants and clubs. We attempted to get a seat at Pastis, a French brasserie obviously popular even on a rainy Wednesday night. We decided not to wait the hour to get a table and David gave me the choice of going to the Spice Market, Jean-Georges Vongerichten's chi chi la la asian fusian restaurant. While the restaurant has received rave reviews, we decided on Florent instead opting for a French diner instead of the more upscale restaurant. Florent was indeed a diner with counter stools on one side of room, and wooden tables on the other with stark white walls and bright lights. David's friend Brigitte who I met last year, was working and we had fun sitting at the counter and catching up with her. After ordering a glass of the house pinot, and settling in, we both ordered the steak frites - thin cut salted french fries with a delicious steak in a mushroom red wine sauce and steamed green beans.

Dinner was fun and while I wasn't with immediate family to celebrate Rosh Hashannah it was nice to spend some time with David. We toasted each other for a happy and healthy new year. Jewish New Year is a significant holiday for me. I often find that this is the new year where I spend the time to reflect on the past year and define resolutions for the coming year. It always seems more appropriate than the December 31st holiday; Rosh Hashannah being in September after the summer with the change of seasons and the start of the school year. Besides a resolution to keep up and enhance the flog and seek out new culinary adventures, there are other resolutions that will hopefully bring about some change in the coming year.

Time Warner Center: This new center, already a culinary mecca in New York, is still opening stores and restaurants in Columbus Circle, the south west corner of Central Park. Much has already been written about the mecca given that some world reknowned chefs have opened hig profile restaurants in this upscale, modern "mall". I had to check it out. The entire bottom floor is dedicated to what I think is the largest Whole Foods store to date. An immense portion of the store is taken up with prepared foods and food bars and aisles upon aisles of Whole Foods regular fare, large cheese, seafood and meat counters and about 25 checkout counters. Impressive.

I also had to wander up to the fourth floor of the mall where these new restaurants are now located. Per Se is one of the restaurants on the fourth floor, Thomas Keller's now recently awarded 4 star restaurant by the New York Times, an award that is not earned or received lightly. Masa and V (Jean-Georges' steakhouse) also adorn the stark hallway of this upper floor of the mall. The floor was deserted save for the hostess and doorman for the restaurants guarding these 15 feet opulent doors where people can wait months for a reservation, if they are so lucky. These restaurants seem a little inaccessible to me, however, it does make me want to find a way to get to French Laundry, Thomas Keller's four star restaurant in Napa.

Mercer Kitchen - Soho: I met Rebecca, Carol Bleyle and Lisa for lunch here before heading to New York. The service and staff's snobby New York attitude balanced out all other New Yorkers I had come into contact with during my stay who were incredibly friendly and helpful. Lunch was good - a roasted chicken sandwich on grain bread with lettuces, heirloom tomatoes and avocado though the attitude left a bad taste in my mouth.
Afterword: Who knew? After writing this I found out that Jean Georges owns this restaurant!! I need to find out more about him and his restaurant empire.

Barney's - September 10

2004-09-11T22:54:00.000-07:00

Friday night = date night!!!

We walked the 2 miles up 24th past Castro to go to Barney's. The walk and fresh air gave us time to catch up and work up an appetite. Remember when we went to Taylor's Refresher and Nino made a fuss about the burgers? Well I guess I see why. We each ordered burgers - me medium and Nino medium rare. I had mine with sauteed mushrooms and Nino had the Baja burger with avocado, cheese, bacon and salsa. The burgers were hefty sizes of meat, cooked to exactly how we each ordered them. They were tasty and meaty and not greasy or skimpy. Loaded with the fixins - lettuce, pickle, red onion, tomato and ketchup - they were delicious. And filling. We were happy to walk back home and digest on the way.

Barney's is a locally owned chain. The one on Cedar in Berkeley, which is our where we get our regular Berkeley fix, has a nicer interior and better service. But this one is in walking distance.

Chez Nous - September 4

2004-09-10T13:53:00.000-07:00

Another Top 100 restaurant in SF - Chez Nous on Fillmore!

We met Ken there before heading to the movies. This restaurant is cozy and warm - has about 40 seats and an open kitchen. The menu is small meditteranean plates though our heavier dishes were certainly large enough for personal entrees. We shared the following dishes:
Tuna tartare
Grilled calamari atop green salad
Borek - filled philo dough
Duck breast with yam puree
Grilled rib eye steak with polenta
Green beans

Panic set in just a few seconds after ordering when I saw the table next to us being served quite hefty plates of food. I'm quite particular about ordering too much or too little food when sharing small plates, or ordering family style - often it is so hard to judge just how much to order. Going to restaurants with a group of people and sharing plates can stress me out. Anyhow, with just the three of us it wasn't a big deal.

The meal turned out perfect. The server just kept bringing out dish after dish, starting with the more appetizer like plates with just a few minutes in between. Before you know it we had devoured the tuna and borek - the tuna was a heaping sashimi ball with sesame chips and quite competent. The salad quickly followed and I thought that the grilled calamari was excellent - tender, juicy pieces that were not chewy as calamari tends to be. Next came the duck and steak which were the best dishes of the night. I've only recently begun eating duck, and these were neatly sliced pieces of duck breast. As Nino said to me afterwards - "I'm glad you've come over to the dark side". I corrected him "um, don't you mean the duck side?". The yam puree was incredible - pureed yams which tasted like no artificial sweetner had been added and no cream either. The steak was also excellent - perfectly grilled to medium rare and tasty.

I'm glad we tried a new restaurant. This didn't edge out any of the Nino and Karen top 5 resturants but it was a pleasant and delicious experience.

Farmer's Market - September 4

2004-09-06T13:44:00.000-07:00

I arrived at the Ferry Building before most people this morning. The market opens at 8am and at 7:30am, when the sun was shining and the city was still cool and quiet, I found the CUESA booth where I would be volunteering for a few hours. CUESA is the Center for Urban Education for Sustainable Agriculture and is the organization reponsible for bringing the farmers at the market together with the public. Their mandate is to create a forum where people can learn about food and agriculture, especially sustainable farming and its importance.

I decided to volunteer a few hours of my time, a couple of times a month to see what's it all about, to learn as much as I can, to meet people and maybe be able to hobknob with some well known chefs. Booth duty is not very glamourous but I did get to meet some really nice people and I stole away to see the chef's demonstration (Annie Sommerville of Greens). Booth duty involves validating parking, answering questions, selling water, aprons, t-shirts and bags. I also did my own shopping when I was done - fresh buffalo mozarella, baguette, basil, peaches, figs, early girl and heirloom tomatoes.

Darda Seafood - September 1

2004-09-03T13:01:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's September!

I met Arik for dinner in Milpitas tonight. He often works the late shift 2pm-10pm so we meet for dinner and he goes back to work. Neither of us seem to be too familiar with restaurants in Milpitas so we went to Darda Seafood, an Islamic Chinese restaurant, based on a recommendation from a friend.

The comany was great but the food just so-so. I guess we didn't order the right things and what we did end up ordering was quite greasy. Folks at other tables had heaping bowls of soup, and plates of yummy looking mu-shu. We ordered the shrimp rolls, beef with green onions and home made chow mein. Each dish was ok, not the boldest flavors, and all together was a little too much grease for me. This kind of goes back to the same issues I was having at the Bodega Bay festival with fried foods. For some reason I just feel gross when eating so much grease. Is it that I'm getting old? How did my diet diverge from that of so many North Americans who can eat so much crap? I think I'll save my ranting for when I write a review of Fast Food Nation .....

Turkey Burgers - August 31

2004-09-01T17:37:00.000-07:00

Highlights:
Turkey Burgers

Now that Nino is back in school, you can expect less dining out and more dining in. Tuesday night's dinner was a new turkey burger recipe from Epicurious. Our yummy turkey burger recipe that we always make (with oats and tomatoes) just won't hold up on the grill so I looked for a recipe geared towards the grill and these were great. The Worchestire gives the burgers a real meaty taste, and the tabasco and chili powder some kick. The marinade is folded into the ground meat and then used for basting on the grill and pouring over the burgs in the bun. Load it up with avocado and some ketchup and you can't go wrong. I served this with boiled artichokes and some salad.

Grilled Salmon - August 30

2004-08-31T14:22:00.000-07:00

Highlights:
Glazed Grilled Salmon

First day of school for Nino! I think we are both a little devastated that the summer is over but what can we do. Just 16 weeks to Christmas vacation!!!

I grilled delicious salmon using a recipe from epicurious. The recipe was so easy, and very tasty. I used Dijon mustard and actually poured in the rice vinegar to the entire marinade. We realized that it incorporated sweet (brown sugar), spicy (mustard), salty (soy) and sour (rice vinegar). Served it with lemon couscous and grilled asparagus.

Also bought some Fritz Chardonnay (Dutton Ranch 2001) - the one we really liked at Bodega Bay. It's currently on sale at Beverages&More, marked down from $25 to $13 because they are changing their label.

Baked Falafel - August 29

2004-08-31T14:03:00.000-07:00

Made a batch of Baked Falafel Balls, a recipe from the Whole Foods Market Cookbook. Basically, these are chickpea and bulghur balls mixed with spices, garlic and onion, formed into balls, sprayed with olive oil and baked instead of fried. They came out golden brown, crunchy on the outside but a little dry on the inside. I used the small food processor when I really should have used the big one and so I think the consistency perhaps wasn't as it should be. ( I had to do 2 batches in the small processor). They definitely needed some tahini to go with them; I used salad dressing in my pita falafel sandwich instead.

Would try again to see if consistency was better.

Bodega Bay - August 28

2004-08-28T22:31:00.000-07:00

Today was a big day for us - our fifth annual pilgrimage to the Bodega Bay Seafood Art and Wine Festival. The weather could not have been any better - hot and sunny inland, warm and sunny at the coast.... and best of all, no fog! It's finally summer in San Francisco!!

Somehow over the years, this festival, held at a ranch overlooking the coast, grew into an embodiment of our religion - fresh air with beautiful views, laid back, delicious food, great wine and some culture all combined. The past 2 years, it's also been a day of reflection signaling the end of summer and return to school.

Unfortunately, the novelty seems to have worn off and we were quite disappointed this year. Firstly, there was a huge line to get in perhaps because of the great weather (best it's been in all the years we've gone) which meant food lines were long too. While we did have some good wines (Fritz Chardonnay and a cabernet from Jakob Gerhardt who is the wine broker we deal with), the art was not inspiring or very interesting and the food was ok.

We started lunch with the festival's Key Lime Calamari. The calamari is in a key lime batter and deep fried to perfection - not chewy or greasy at all - but perfectly soft and tender. I'm having a harder and harder time eating deep fried foods and while this was good I wasn't as excited as the first time I ate it. Nino, on the other hand said "For fried calamari, this shit is da bomb". I think he liked it.

Next, we had fish tacos - battered cod, deep fried and then served on warm tortillas with cabbage and "special" sauce. These were really good but didn't fill me up; I would have gotten something else to eat but the lines were long at the booths I would have wanted something from, and all the other booths had different variations on the deep fried theme.

As the disappointment set in, we decided to leave and salvage the rest of the day. We headed to "our spot" on the Russian River for a swim and some hanging out on the beach before heading back.

Stay tuned for next year's pilgrimage. Will we go back only to be disappointed again? Do we have our own little Festival? Do we just invite everyone over for wine tasting and steamed crabs? Only time will tell....

Portland: Brunch at Bijou - August 22

2004-08-25T14:19:00.000-07:00

Woke up to more rain this morning, but at least we had our Sunday New York Times with us. We had bought it the night before at Powells on the way home.

Taking our time, we walked over to Bijou, cafe recommened for brunch by our Frommer's Guide. We had to wait a few minutes for a table but seeing the line of people waiting made me think that we must have chosen a good spot to eat. The diner-like restaurant was all hustle bustle with an open kitchen, big baskets of muffins and huge plates of food being delivered to patrons. The Bette's of Portland perhaps?

We ordered tea, and I ordered the Tofu Scramble from the specialty list on the menu, and Nino ordered the Brioche French Toast. We happily read our paper and sipped tea while we waited. As expected, my breakfast was huge! Scrambled tofu in olive oil with parsley was heaped on the plate, served with potatoes and a fig and spice muffin. The tofu was good, the texture a little mealy but the parsley gave it some freshness. The potatoes were good - not greasy, and served with what tasted like an organic or local ketchup. Nino's French Toast was perfectly done and tasted great with fresh blueberry jam. I saved the fig, spice muffin for later due to lack of stomach real estate at the time. When I did have room, it was delicious.

A great place for brunch in Portland!

Portland: Night on the town - August 21

2004-08-24T14:52:00.000-07:00

Highlights:
Bluehour
750 ml

We arrived in Portland, Oregon this afternoon after 3 nights of camping in Crater Lake and Hood River. Portland has much to offer and we tried to see (and eat) as much as possible with the time we had and given the weather; it started raining Saturday evening and rained much of Sunday. We toured the Japanese gardens, Chinese gardens, Halprin Fountains, walked through downtown, the Pearl District and the Northwest District. Also managed to spend hours between Powell's Main Store, Technical Store and Store for Cooks and Gardeners. We did do a little bit of shopping; we couldn't pass up the fact that Oregon has no sales tax!!

Our first stop on the way to dinner was a chic, but very laid back wine bar in the Pearl. 750 ml had leather lounging chairs, booths with red velvet and an industrial feel to it. We sat at the bar and conversed with the bartender and some other Portlanders while sipping a glass of Oregon Pinot Noir. The food looked tempting, including the truffle-scented pomme frites but we decided to move on and see more instead of eating there.

We had heard that Bluehour was a great restaurant and ended up there mostly because we could run from 750ml. We were also looking for some local Oregon fare and this was recommended. By this time the rain was really coming down and we didn't have an umbrella. As it turns out, our meal was incredible!

We didn't have a reservation but were seated in the bar/lounge at a 2 person table where both the bar and full menu are served. The bar area was quite large able to handle people there for happy hour drinks or full dinners. The restaurant and bar were seperated by long black curtains in a high ceiling industrial setting.

Nino ordered a Ginger Caipirinha, a very tart cocktail made with Brazilian cachaça, soda, ginger syrup and sugar and I had a glass of Pinot Blanc. For starters we shared the Heirloom Tomato salad heaped with homemade fresh mozzarella that melts in your mouth. Nino ordered the Sturgeon which was a little tough but neither of us really knew what sturgeon's texture should be. It was very tasty however and we assumed it was cooked correctly. I ordered the Grilled Free Range Chicken which topped Slow Club and Zuni. First the presentation was gorgeous - the chicken was cut in beautiful slices, with the legs bones neatly arranged, and spread out like a fan atop the potatoes. The chicken was served on sauteed radicchio - bitter salad "greens" sauteed to perfection. Here's why the chicken kicked butt: the meat was perfectly juicy and moist with amazing grilled flavor but was not salty at all! This means no brining, yet packed full of moisture and taste! I was impressed.

For dessert we couldn't pass up the panna cotta, a full heavy cream version but 3 things made it outstanding: 1) served with figs 2) served with blackberries 3) served atop a crisp ginger snap which paired excellently with the sweetness.

We had a wonderful leisurely and tasty dinner and as luck would have it, the rain had stopped when we were done.

Geranium - August 17

2004-08-24T10:33:00.000-07:00

Gavin is in town and we decide to walk to a neighborhood restaurant for dinner. In February we had gone to Liberty Cafe with him so it was time to try something new. Geranium, a new vegetarian restaurant on Cortland in Bernal Heights got decent reviews in the Chronicle and it was time to check it out ourselves.

Crisp, clean decor, with wooden tables and an open kitchen awaited us. The menu was small, perhaps just 5 main courses to choose from. We started with the wontons and then I had the All American "eat" loaf - a huge plate of bean and lentil meat loaf with garlic mashed potatoes and onion gravy. Texture was good, as was the taste but very nutty and so by halfway through I was done. It was a huge portion. Nino was extremely pleased with his lasagna - spinach, tomatoes and ricotta in a white sauce. (Mains were $11-$15)

Dessert was incredible - a vegan peach and berry cake with berry compote.

The review in the Chronicle mentioned the service as lacking polish which I would agree with. We were asked 4-5 times if everything was ok - a little much. I also heard the server tell the next table about daily specials that we were not privy to.

All in all, the dishes we had were really good but the small menu may hold me back from visiting more often.

Hummus and Eggless Egg Salad

2004-08-16T13:00:00.000-07:00

A few people (Erin and Ken) have asked for my Hummus recipe recently. Ken shared in some on the way to Yosemite as a picnic dinner to cut down on time. I have a few different recipes that I've tried and they are all easy and tasty. For picnic dinner that same night I tried a tofu spread recipe that was pretty good. In Montreal, you can get pints of tofu spreads at the local grocery made by Fontaine Sante and packages of Vegepate, two things that I can'tseem to find in California which I find somewhat bizarre.

Plain Hummus
1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 cloves minced garlic
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp sesame oil

- puree in food processor with hand mixer
- add water and/or more lemon juice for desired consistency

Spicy Hummus
1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
3 tbsp each water and lemon juice
2 cloves minced garlic
1 tbsp sesame oil or 2 tbsp tahini or 2 tbsp peanut butter
1 1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp cayenne or hot sauce
3 tbsp chopped fresh parsley or cilantro (optional)

- puree in food processor (everything except parsley/cilantro)
- if too thick add water until desired consistency
- mix with cilantro

Eggless Egg Salad (Tofu spread)
- recipe from the Mori Nu Tofu website

Chicago: Night on the town - August 13th

2004-08-16T12:53:00.000-07:00

Highlights:
Bin36
Sushi Samba
Sugar: A Dessert Bar

After the meeting was done on Friday, I moved to downtown Chicago to spend the night and check out the town since I had never been there before. Lori was in town, her last weekend before moving to Melbourne (but we'll visit her there!!). I met her and her friends Ian and Jill for drinks, dinner and dessert. We met at Bin36 which seems to be a chain of wine bars in the area (there was one in Lincolnshire!). It was a hip rather retro place with lots of space and what looked like a mix of an after work crowd and tourists. The wine list was extensive and they also offered tastings, glasses and flights of wine. We ordered a bottle of Pinot and sat around and caught up.

We moved on to our dinner spot - a japanese brazilian fusion restaurant called Sushi Samba. The place was a little too chi-chi hip for me - loud music, pretty people, hanging beads everywhere, glass doors and purple lights in the bathroom so you have no idea which is the men's and women's not to mention the bathroom attendants to open the door to your stall, and then turn on the faucet, dispense soap for you and give you a towel when you wash your hands. I'm surprised they didn't offer to wipe my ... never mind. All in all, probably over the top, trying too hard.

We ordered an assortment of dishes to share - not necessarily what I would have ordered if I was alone but some overlap. We started with Tuna Tataki and Samba Tapas. I was expecting Tuna Tataki a la Ebisu but it was basically 4 pieces of seared tuna with salad. It was ok but nothing special. The Samba Tapas were 4 small plates - queso fresca, fennel anchovy salad, stuffed chili and nori tempura. All were ok, but I think they were trying to hard with the flavors and nothing really stood out.

We ordered sushi rolls and nigiri. The soft shell crab was good, and the spicy tuna was decent. I also enjoyed my salmon and japanese snapper nigiri but they weren't over the top. I did enjoy my unfiltered sake though (thanks to Remco for introducing me to it!).

We saved room for dessert and headed to Sugar: A Dessert Bar (and not like the dessert bar at Dairy Queen or anything). Cool concept but also a little too chi-chi hip for me. Lori even said that on some days they have a cover charge. Anyhow, this was a loud, retro, chic bar playing techno music and serving dessert alcohol, mixed drinks and dessert for $13-$18 dollars a head. I didn't order a drink but ended up with one after we waited forever for dessert and the waitress told us that there was a mix up and our order was never placed. I had tasted Lori's drink and ordered one - a Muscato D'Asti - sweet dessert bubbly, one of the highlights of the evening. I ordered the Tequila Mockingbird which was a kaffir lime pudding cake, not too sweet at all and very tangy, definitely could taste the kaffir limes served with tequila sorbet (way too strong) and salty meringue sticks. Pretty good but not worth $13. I tasted Ian's panna cotta which was excellent and Lori's orange souffle which was really good.

I had a fun night - I got to see a handful of Chicago eating venues and while the Sushi Samba and Sugar were a little over the top, the experience and hanging out with friends in Chicago (a great city) was worth it!

New York, New York - August 12

2004-08-16T12:50:00.000-07:00

Highlights:
Dean and Deluca
Whole Foods at Time Warner Center
Zen Palate

Here is Nino's report from New York City:

After 17 hours of traveling (most of it in a plane going nowhere), I arrived in New York City last night to stay with my friend Ben. Though I'll try not to bore you to tears, there are culinary capers to describe, they are entwined their architectural setting.

Dean and Deluca's @ The Rockefeller Center. A rumination on the architecture, the statuary theme of the buildings is that of titans: Atlas, Prometheus, etc. It's ironic that the Rockefellers would want themselves represented as the Elder Gods, the Gods deposed by Zeus and the other Olympians... Yet the Rockefeller Dynasty, built on oil, has endured. Consider the lords of the present day - KBR, Chevron, Enron, the Bush family, the Saudi's. After more than 100 years, we are still ruled by oil. The titans endure and prosper.

The food? A turkey club sandwich was okay, but nothing special. Where's the avocado?? ;-)

Whole Foods Grocery @ The AOL Time Warner building: Beautiful new twin towers on the Columbus Circle at the SW corner of Central Park. Between the towers is an arcade of shi-shi shops, and in the basement, a gigantic Whole Foods. Descend the escalators and you are fed into the produce and grocery section; complete your shopping, and you have to pass through "the gauntlet" on your way to the checkers (35 stations in all). The Gauntlet consists of counter after counter of prepared foods: indian, sushi, chinese, pizza, chocolate, desserts, salads, etc... Assuming you succumb, once you've purchased your food, there's a seating area with long bars, and a wall of glass that cycles through all the colors of the rainbow (it's very gradual - about 45 mins/cycle). Oh yeah, would you like a Jamba-juice with that?My one piece of sushi was excellently prepared. Thumbs up. (Sorry for the small sample size, I didn't have the appetite for a full meal.)

Zen Palate @ East 16th off Union Square: The restaurant was fresh, hip, and had excellent seating outside in the warm, muggy, New York night. Vegetarian fare, with reasonably sized plates, yummy appetizers, and tasty desserts... and CHEAP! I was in heaven. I had an Artichoke/meat substitute stirfry with Basil Mu-shu rolls, Taro Spring Rolls, and a Key Lime pie. I would recommend all of them; although Ben wasn't so impressed with the artichoke dish. We walked out for just over $30.

Chicago: Bob Chinn's Crabhouse - August 12

2004-08-16T12:45:00.000-07:00

I'm in Chicago - ok, well Lincolnshire for 2 days for busines, which is 30 miles outside Chicago. Paul and Jeff (Vocent colleagues) are here too and we go for dinner on Thursday night after a full day of meetings.

Bob Chinn's is a well known 650 seat crab house restaurant that herds people in and out. They get their crab flown in daily with dailly receipts of shipments on the wall. There was a line when we go there but found out they served their full menu at the bar so we grabbed a table there. I ordered a Belgian White Beer (can't remember the name) which was really tasty. Since crab is their specialty - crab is what we got, all different kinds. The menu though was incredibly extensive, from fish done seven ways (grouper was fish of the day) to lobster, steak, salmon, surf'n turf and SO much more.

Oh, I forgot to mention that we warned we would smell like garlic for days after eating there. Sure enough, these hot rolls slathered with garlic and butter showed up at our table and were quickly devoured. We orded tiny blue crab claws as a started, served cold with dipping sauce and quite tasty. I order the stone crab claws, Paul allowed the Alaskan King Crab claws and Jeff orded the Kona Crab with shrimp. We did a bit of a taste test, having never had the opportunity to taste so many different types of crab in one sitting. They were all good, though I think Paul's were the sweetest, mine were the crabbiest (kind stringy) and Jeff's were sweet with a really different texture. I had never heard of Kona Crab before (need to check this out next time in Kona!) Everything was delicious - I ordered potatoes (with tons of garlic) and we ordered steamed asparagus for the table.

We were stuffed after the crab fest which was unfortunate because the dessert menu was extensive and only then did the waitress tell us they bake everything on site daily in their bakehouse. All the more reason to ask for the dessert menu before ordering a main! All in all, a fun delicious place for dinner!

Taylor's Automatic Refresher - August 9

2004-08-16T12:43:00.000-07:00

Nino and I met Jen Beckman at the wine bar at the Ferry Plaza after work. We hadn't seen Jen in a while and it was nice to catch up before school starts again. I'll have to ask Nino the name of the wine he had because it was the best of the few we tasted; it was a New Moon Shiraz or something like that.

Jen went off to meet friends for dinner and we wanted something quick so we could make it to REI before it closed. Ruth Ann had said that she was not impressed with Taylor's Automatic Refresher, the burger place is famous in Napa and recently opened in the Ferry Building, but we had to give a try ourselves. Taylor's decor is like an old diner, bright whites and reds and retro. We both had burgers and shared a serving of sweet potato fries. The burgers came with lettuce, tomato ("wilted" and "stingy" I think was what Nino said about them) and "special sauce". I though the burger was pretty tasty, though it was a bit weller done that it should have been given the sign on the wall that their burgers are served "pink". Nino wasn't impressed with the taste nor the serving size. I called him a Barney's snob and figured we have to go to Barney's in the next little while and do a taste comparison. (We'll also have to try Zuni's burgers but that's another story.)

The sweet potato fries were delicious - not greasy, and powdered with chili spice mixing sweet and spicy once again. Taylor's gets bonus points in my book - they have vinegar for their fries!!! FOr you Americans out there, did you know that fast food places in Canada offer packets of vinegar with your fries? Fries should be eaten with vinegar and ketchup but it seems to me that few people know that in the US!

Camping Chicken August 7

2004-08-10T09:46:00.000-07:00

Highlights:
Grilled chicken
Banana boats

Nino and I went camping with Ken for the weekend to Yosemite. We stayed in Crane Flats campground and hiked North Dome (10 miles) on Saturday and checked out Glacier Point and did a short walk to McGurk Meadon (2 miles) on Sunday. We also swam in Tenaya Lake on Saturday and the river in Yosemite Valley on Sunday.

For dinner Saturday night I had marinated chicken thighs before leaving the house. This marinade is amazing and good for chicken (marinate 24 hours) and tri-tip (marinate 48 hours or more) .

Marinade: Put chicken or beef in large ziploc. Pour beer into ziploc (I use budweiser and use between a half a can and a full can depending on how much I'm marinating). Pour in Yoshida's Gourmet Grilling sauce so it completely covers meat. Add 2-6 cloves garlic. For chicken adding ginger will give it nice flavor too.

The chicken turned out great on the grill over the open fire. We also had enough for leftovers, and it tasted great in sandwiches the next day. We also grilled corn in the husks, red peppers and portobellos that I had brushed some olive oil salad dressing with. All so tasty!

For dessert, we had s'mores with Scharfenberger chocolate and Ken's specialty - banana boats. Peel back one piece of banana skin, cut out a piece of banana and fill with chocolate and marshmallows. Replace banana and then skin, wrap in tin foil and then put on grill or fire for 10 minutes or so. The chocolate and marshmallows melt, and it's almost like a banana sundae without the ice cream. Yum!

Blue Plate August 4

2004-08-05T14:27:00.000-07:00

Highlights:
Sea scallops
Meatloaf
Kale

Jonathan and his friend Jen were visiting from Hawaii and we needed to find a restaurant for dinner. When we asked Jen and Jonathan if they had any mainland cravings Jen said MASHED POTATOES!!! So the hunt began.... OK, it wasn't so hard to find a restaurant serving mashed potatoes (but we also wanted to stay pretty local).

The first restaurant that came to mind was Liberty Cafe. Since they change their menu daily, Nino called and primed the hostess with "There may seem like a really weird question but ..." before asking if they were serving mashed potatoes that evening. No luck. Next on the list was Blue Plate, just down the hill from us and a restaurant we've been wanting to try for a long time. I found one of their old menus on the web and yeah, they had mashed potatoes. I wasn't surprised - from what I had heard, the restaurant served comfort food like meatloaf and go tasty cooking.

The restaurant is bigger than it looks on the outside, and even has a garden for seating, cool deor and not too loud. We started with Jambon Serrano with figs, Roasted Shrimp with lemon verbena and lemon cucumbers, and White Nectarine Salad with hazelnuts. All the appetizers were very tasty. I really enjoyed the shrimp with the strong lemon verbena flavors. I think Nino was hoping for grilled nectarines on the salad though they were just cut up raw nectarines.

As a main course, both Jen and Jonathan ordered the meatloaf and mashed potatoes. The meatloaf was incredibly tasty - smoky, meaty flavor that must have had bacon in it. Nino had his standard roast chicken (again his was to measure restaurant success) which was very tasty yet overdone. It came with Walla Walla onions and corn fritters - both tasty. I ordered the scallops with homemade linguine with tomatoes and pancetta. This dish was excellent - the homemade pasta stuck together a little but the scallops were done just right and eaten with the pasta and a sweet sauce (not exactly sure what it was), the flavors were incredible. We ordered a side of kale with chili flakes and garlic which was also exceptional. No room for dessert.

Blue Plate gets a high rating in my book. Definitely serving good, tasty comfort food. I would choose this over say Last Supper Club (same genre of restaurant but seemed to have a better selection on the menu), though Slow Club has'em both beat (but Blue Plate comes close). In this restaurant, however, you pay a little more than Last Supper Club, maybe $2 per main.

Jerk Chicken Skewers July 31

2004-08-02T09:30:00.000-07:00

Highlights:
BBQ Jerk Chicken Skewers with peaches
Papaya Salsa
Zucchini Bread

Charles, Jennifer and the kids came over for dinner on Saturday night. It's always great to see them and spend some time with their kids!

We marinated Jerk Chicken for 24 hours using a recipe I found on the web. Matt was the inspiration for this dish; we had something similar when we were down in Menlo Park for a BBQ. We used Jalapeno peppers instead of Scotch Bonnet, which gave the chicken mild spice. If we made this again I would use Scotch Bonnet for more spice. We used chicken thighs and let this sit for 24 hours. It was then skewered with yellow, green and red peppers, red onion, and peaches (need to be not very ripe and hard)! The chicken was tender and tasty, grilled red onions are always so good, and the peaches were the hit of the night - soft, warm and sweet!

For side dishes, we served green salad and a Sweet Potato Polenta that had some chipotle kick to it. The polenta dish took quite some time to make (and I sliced my thumb and nail pretty bad when peeling the potatoes) but it did turn out quite good. Homemade Papaya Salsa rounded out the flavors, offering some sweet relief for the chipotle kick.

Papaya Salsa
1 large very very ripe papaya
lemon juice (lots, and to taste)
serrano peppers (to taste)
1/4 cup olive oil

Let the salsa marinate for at least 1/2 hour for the lemon juice to interact with the peppers.

Sunday afternoon I made a quick Zucchini Bread that is pretty much fat free. This was super easy to make - and the bread was pretty good - quite dense but still moist and tasty. The bread has a strong nutmeg/cloves taste; after 1 or 2 pieces I couldn't eat anymore. Next time maybe less spice and add nuts. I'm sure chocolate would do well in here too.

Sushi Groove South July 29

2004-07-30T13:13:00.000-07:00

Thursday night on the town! We met for an early dinner before heading to the Asian Art Museum (5$ on Thursday nights!). We sat at the sushi bar at Sushi Groove South on Folsom between 11th and 12th. We had been there once before, for my birthday actually, and had been to Sushi Groove on Hyde street prior to that. Our dinner at the one on Hyde was incredible - rivaling Ebisu (one of our top 5's of the city) and that lead us to try Sushi Groove South because there is easier parking.

After last night's meal I think if we are going to pay $5+ for nigiri and $6 or $7 for rolls, it's worth it to go Ebisu. Or try Sushi Groove again.

Dinner was good but not mind-blowing like Ebisu. We started with chicken/scallion yakitori which came nothing close to our "Chicken on Skewers" and seaweed salad with red chili flakes that was both sweet and spicy. For sushi we ordered a Jungle Roll (yellowtail and papaya), Dynamite Roll (spicy tuna), Eggplant Nigiri, Salmon Nigiri and Bonita Nigiri. The Jungle Roll was quite bland, the salmon was decent as was the bonita and the eggplant and Dynamite Roll were the highlights.

Ruth Ann asked if we rate things like bathrooms in our restaurant reviews. While we don't always, I'll tell ya that Sushi Groove South has heated toilet seats in the women's room - one of the best parts of the entire meal!!! Hmmm, maybe that it sums it up right there!!

Incanto July 25

2004-07-27T09:22:00.000-07:00

We had been trying to arrange a time to hang out with Sarah and Sante outside of Slow Club. Sure we love seeing them at the restaurant but they are always hard at work and it is always busy, busy, busy there! What better than to meet them at a SF Chronicle top 100 restaurant that we have never been to, and where Sante knows the chef and sous-chef!!

Incanto is an italian restaurant within walking distance to our house on Church and Duncan. The restaurant is known for curing its own meat, and an extensive wine list. I think Patricia Unterman in San Francisco Food Lover's Guide described the food as Delfina-like and the wine list as Bacar-like.

We met Sarah and Sante at 8pm; the restaurant staff was anxiously awaiting the "Sante party". Chris, the chef, was not there but the sous-chef Tracy was. She came to our table to say hello and we asked her about her favorites on the menu.

Incanto offers many wines by the glass, 1/2 liter and 2.5 ounces, as well as different wine tasting flights. We decided, with the help of our waiter, to customize our own flight opting for 3 different 1/2 liters throughout the night. We started off with a white Fiano Donnaluna - very light and non-descript - perfect while we waited for appetizers.

We ordered three appetizers for the table. It was clear that we would be tasting each other's dishes all night - Sante the curious chef needing to taste as many things as possible on the menu, and the rest of us as a reward for deciding on a main dish; the decision was easier knowing we would be able to lean over to taste our second, third and fourth choices from the menu.

We started with the Grilled Beef Heart, Grilled Peach and Tuna Confit and Tracy sent over a special Antipasto platter as well. This was my first time tasting beef heart; the meat was a little tough with a very strong almost overpowering beefy, gamey flavor. It was good and well-balanced with the potato, onion, garlic "salsa" it was served with. The Grilled Peach was incredible - warm and sweet with pickled red onion served with gorgonzola. My favorite appetizer was probably the tuna which was served with red onions, nicoise olives, cherry tomatoes and borlotti beans drizzled with olive oil. This wasn't unlike the tuna white bean salad I make though the olives, cherry tomatoes and premium tuna made this a far superior tasting dish. While I would not order cured calf liver, porchetta and mortadella myself, I did try everything on the Antipasto platter. The homemade mustard, pickled carrots and greens and roasted garlic were excellent, the calf liver much too strong for me, and the porchetta and mortadella very tasty. (Don't ask what it is made of, just eat it was my motto of the night).

Wine number 2 was our favorite of the evening a juicy and medium bodied Costera. That 1/2 liter seemed to go fast and before long we were on our third wine, much richer and full-bodied, almost too much so for me. (I can't remember which one it was right now).

Nino ordered the braised chicken with mushrooms; not surprising since his test of restaurants is often judged by how well they do chicken and panna cotta, if they have it on the menu. He was disappointed and the table agreed - the chicken itself was tasty but the sauce and mushrooms were much too salty and overpowered the entire dish. Sante ordered the king salmon baked in a fig leaf with lemon cucumbers. Nino and I agree that this was the best dish - the fish was very moist and flavorful, and I enjoyed the crisp lemon cucumbers. Sarah ordered the hankerchief pasta with pork ragu and a egg on top - which I didn't try but I think she enjoyed it. I opted for the spaghetti with local squid - homemade pasta with squid ink served with borlotti beans, cherry tomatoes and garlic. I ordered this in part because it sounded so interesting and would provide more tasting choices at the table - it was very tasty.

There had been a big debate at the table over who should order the whole roasted fish, a Thai snapper. Tracy said this was her favorite, and it sounded like Sante was very interested in trying it. No one ordered it given the other choices from the menu but Tracy sent one over anyway for the table, along with sauteed heirloom eggplants. I really enjoyed the fish - white and somewhat firm served with delicious spicy Walla Walla onions. The eggplant was outstanding.

Three desserts arrived at the table - Nino's panna cotta that was the highlight of his meal, Sante and Sarah's chocolate boudini - rich, not too sweet warm chocolate pudding and a fruit crostata that was excellent.

We rolled out of there around 11pm, happy and full. Nino was less impressed with Incanto than I was. The highlights for me were the tuna appetizer, egpplant, whole fish, walla walla onions, king salmon and the fruit crostata. I would definitely recommend this restaurant - especially for wine lovers!

Farmer's Market July 24

2004-07-26T09:54:00.000-07:00

Highlights: Summer Tian

Saturday morning we were up early and decided to make a mad dash to the Bernal Heights Farmer's Market at Alemany. We were in a bit of rush because we had to be at Tonia's to carpool down to Filoli Gardens.

The market is an amazing find - I can't believe it took us a year to check it out. There was one long row of stands on either side, with heaps of fresh, cheap produce. There seemed to be less organic produce than at the Ferry Building but tons of variety, with more asian and ethnic vegetables available. Also, prices were much less than the Ferry Building. We bought Early Girl Tomatoes (75 cents/lb), okra (1.50/lb), red/green peppers (5 for $1), thai eggplant, thai chilis, japanese eggplant (5 for $1), nectarines, basil, melon ($1) and white diamond strawberries. We didn't have time to buy more but everything looked incredible - heirloom tomatoes, so many varieties of chilis and eggplants, peaches and nectarines, eggs and fish! The fish stand sells whole fish, live crab ($4/crab!!), scallops, shrimp and more. There was seabass, snapper, pompano, and fish I have never heard of and totally cheap!

We also had breakfast at the market. We grabbed hot vegetable pies from this really nice vendor who also sold us rosemary bread and cinnamon sticks. His other pastries looked good too and included sweet potato tarts. My vegetable pie was delicious - stuffed with rice, onions, mushroom and spinach. Nino's was not as good - stuffed with potatoes and carrots. We also passed some other bakery vendors, tamale cart, indian bakery items - many choices for our next visit.

The market is open on Saturday 6am-6pm!

I had offered to make dinner and bring it over to Matt and Ruth Ann's new house. With all the fresh vegetables, I found a recipe for a "Summer Tian" by Deborah Madison. The tian which is a french casserole, was layered tomatoes, zucchini (from Steve Ross' garden) and tomatoes with thin slices of garlic and lemon wedges hidden in the layers and sprinked with basil (dried and fresh), tarragon, salt, pepper and olive oil. The original recipe called for thyme and marjoram which I didn't have. The tian was cooked for about 45 minutes on 400 covered, and then 10 minutes uncovered. I basted the vegetables with their own juice a couple of times in between. When the vegetables were soft I pulled it out, poured the juice into a saucepan, boiled it down to a much thicker sauce and then poured it back over the vegetables. We ate atop the toasted rosemary bread and it was a big hit!

Steve Ross' Halibut Marinade

2004-07-21T14:47:00.000-07:00

Steve, a colleague from work, recommended this to me. Will let you know when I try it!

GRILLED HALIBUT IN LEMON MUSTARD TARRAGON
Printed from COOKS.COM
------------------------------------------------------------------------

1/2 c. fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp. minced lemon zest
1/4 c. Dijon mustard
3 tbsp. finely chopped tarragon
2 tbsp. finely chopped chives or scallions
1/4 c. olive oil
1/4 tsp. black pepper
+ salt
6 1/2 lb. halibut steaks or fillets
Garnish: lemon slices and tarragon sprigs

[Steve: I adjusted the quantities of the ingredients "to taste" and added salt. Poured some of the marinate on top of the fish after flipping it and it stayed there until serving.]

Combine the lemon juice, lemon zest, mustard, tarragon, and chives in a small mixing bowl slowly whisk in the olive oil until well blended. Add the pepper to taste for seasoning.
Arrange the fish pieces in a large, shallow glass dish. Pour the marinade over, coating all the pieces evenly. Marinate 1/2 to 2 hours.

Prepare barbecue for medium heat grilling. Grill about 3 inches from flame for 5-7 minutes per side or until done. Garnish with lemon slices and parsley. Serve immediately.

St-Donat Feasts July 16-18

2004-07-20T17:17:00.000-07:00

Nino and I headed to Montreal and then St-Donat for a weekend of relaxing, swimming, reading, drinking and surprise, surprise ... gorging!

Liane, Brenda and Carol Wiseman came over for a BBQ Friday night. Mum made chicken and shrimp brochettes with peppers marinated in a sesame vinaigrette - very tasty. Carol made Greek salad which was excellent though she claimed her oregano was dead and the taste of the salad wasn't quite right. We had white rice mixed with some curry and fresh peas too. For dessert we had angel food cake with strawberry/rhubarb sauce and Liane and Brenda brought these amazing little meditteranean cookies from Nocochi. We opened a Lake Sonoma Winery Old Vine Zinfandel that was fabulous - sweeter than most zins but just great.

Challah french toast for breakfast Saturday morning!

Lunch was famous Montreal "party sandwiches" and "flying saucers" - grilled smoked meat, turkey, salami sandwhiches on rye bread using antique Toas-Tite sandwich makers. (I just bought on EBay!!)

Dinner Saturday night was a complete feast. We bought a tomato/garlic focaccia at Boulangerie St-Donat that we ate with some salad. Dad bought 4 huge lobsters (!) and we were able to do a side by side comparison of steaming versus microwaving (!!). I had read an article in the Chronicle about microwaving lobsters and in fact, the Chronicle was right - microwaving was better! The steamed lobster was good but a little tough - perhaps steamed a little too long. The microwaved was less tough and seemed to be a little tastier. Other bonus of microwave is less mess! The lobster was good, but comparing it to the steamed crab we had a few weeks ago - I'd choose the crab. Maybe it has something to do with the freshness? For dessert we had apple cranberry pie from the Boulangerie with vanilla yogurt and some port.

Sunday lunch Mum invited a hoard of people for buffet lunch. Highlight was Mum's famous pickled salmon and great rose (don't know which one) that Gail brought us!

Sunday dinner - Carol was back this time with shrimp cocktail, and delicious grilled veggies. We had burgers, hot dogs, veal chops on the BBQ with baked potatoes. Carol's veggies were so tasty - peppers and eggplant brushed with oil and Herbes de Province. The best way to do baked potatoes is definitely in the oven (or toaster oven) - Yukon golds in 400 degrees for 40minutes to 1 hour.

Monday lunch we stopped at Santropol for a quick bite. We had suggestions from Liane and Dena for other fun places but we just didn't have time.

Honey Seared Salmon July 14

2004-07-15T09:19:00.000-07:00

Donna Milnes came over for dinner and Nino decided he needed to fulfill is salmon craving. I didn't take much to convince me since King Salmon is in season right now.

I stopped at Whole Foods and got a great looking piece of fish ($10.99/lb). Nino followed a super easy, incredibly tasty recipe from Donna Hay's "Off the Shelf". He cut the salmon into 3/4 inch slivers, soaked the fish in honey and black pepper for a few minutes and then seared the fish about 1 minute each side on high with just a little but of oil. This was so tasty - sweet from the honey and then a little spicy from the pepper.

As side dishes we had steamed asparagus, Chipotle Mashed Potatoes with Mango Salsa and some spinach salad with Cobb Dressing. I've been wanting to find a good Cobb dressing recipe since I sometimes get Cobb salad for lunch and the dressing is so good. I found a super easy, really easy recipe and the secret ingredient is .... Worchestire sauce. I'll post the recipe for it another day.

Dinner was excellent - the salsa was a great pairing with the potatoes, and Donna brought a Kendall Jackson chardonnay that went quite well with all the spice.

Chipotle Mashed Potatoes
- boil a bunch of potatoes (I used white new potatoes)
- mash when done
- add a tsp or so of adobo sauce from a can of Chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, and then chop 1/2-1 pepper. Mix in to mash - keep tasting to make sure not too spicy.
- add nonfat plain yogurt to make it creamy
- add minced garlic and salt
- balance the peppers, yogurt, garlic, salt to taste

Ananda Fuara July 12

2004-07-13T21:18:00.000-07:00

(Nino's inaugural posting :) )

Ananda Fuara is a small vegetarian restaurant on Market @ 9th St just up the street from Zuni (one of our top in SF). We had been meaning to go for many months - our wonderful "cleaning lady" Ashonka works there during the week at lunch. Finally, this Monday, Ashonka took us there for dinner as a wedding gift - she certainly knows where our hearts lie ;).

Anyway, the most important part: the food was very tasty. They offer vegetarian and vegan fare at great prices - neither the restaurant, the staff, nor the food is presumptuous. We started with their signature Simosas. Reportedly a hit with the Indian customer, they were a hit with us; deep fried, but not dripping in oil, and delicious raisins inside. The California Pizza was yummy with an assortment of veggies making up the sauce.

I had the "Neatloaf" dinner - a faux meatloaf that was hearty and light, almost souffle like. The side of mashed potatoes with a mushroom gravy had me fooled. Karen had Dahl, which, like the simosas, was true to it's roots, without all the oil. So, after all that, Ashonka convinced us to have dessert - a slice of vegan strawberry cake, mango cake, and tea. We rolled out of there very happy and very close to bursting.

A note on the restaurant itself: it's run and staffed by followers of Sri Chinmoy, an India spiritual leader and devoted athlete. The inside of the restaurant features pictures of him with various world leaders (the Pope, Gorby, and Princess Di among others), as well as pictures of him performing spectacular feats of strength. (One the many events he and his following have include a 700+ mile walk-race, which Ashonka holds the record for.)

Beer Butt Chicken July 10

2004-07-13T09:04:00.000-07:00

After David and Erin raved about Beer Butt Chicken we decided we had to give it a try. We used the Weber recipe and fired up the BBQ. I had also read a similar recipe that David and Erin sent us.

Well, this was definitely a learning experience for us. I made the rub, rubbed down the chicken and then proceeded to stick the chicken on a Budweiser beer, with some beer poured out. We set the chicken on an aluminum pan with some water in it to catch juices and put the pan on the grill on the side of the bbq where the burner was off since this was supposed to cook on indirect heat. Since our bbq doesn't really have a medium setting we had to guess as to what medium was.

The bird took longer to cook than I would have liked. The 4 pound bird was done in 2 hours and 20 minutes. We think now that the heat could have been higher all along, and it took longer because of the pan. The chicken was definitely super moist when done, but it seemed to lack flavor. The skin was tasty because of the rub, but somehow the flavors didn't carry through inside the bird.

I would make this again however I would turn the heat up from the start, and perhaps not use an aluminum pan. I'd also consider trying to add more flavor - maybe sticking garlic cloves or rosemary inside the beer can, or using the rub David and Erin sent, and even using hickory chips like D+E did on Sunday.

Slow Club July 9

2004-07-10T11:28:00.000-07:00

There's nothing better than kicking back on a Friday night with amazing food and drink at Slow Club. After a long week at work (ok, it was only 4 days this week), Sante knows how to do it up right!

For those of you who don't know, Sante is the chef at Slow Club and a friend of ours. His wife Sarah, who works there on Friday and Saturday nights, goes to school with Nino. This restaurant is tops on my list. The "kitchen" is a small open space within the restaurant which means that everything is brought in fresh daily and you can tell! The menu changes daily too. Prices are completely reasonable for this fresh California fare.

The only issue I have with the restaurant is that it isn't the place for a quiet dinner - the restaurant is always packed and often noisy. People come in for drinks at the bar, it's a cool hangout and a place to be seen, which means that it can be hard to have a conversation without having to speak loudly. This is the only drawback ...

It was great to see Sante and Sarah - they're always so nice to us when we go in there. We started our evening by ordering Mojitos - refreshing, minty drinks that we could sip like juice! Sarah brought us the Truffled Zucchini Salad to start with which she said is her favorite - thin slices of julienned zucchini, with pine nuts and ricotta salata mixed with truffle oil. Yum! I couldn't resist ordering the Summer Melon Salad too because it sounded so intersting - cantaloupe, watermelon, honeydew with kalamata olives and chili vinaigrette. The salad followed Thai cooking principles - sweet, salty, spicy, sour - all combined. It was excellent.

For our main courses, Nino ordered the Grilled King Salmon which was done just perfectly with a salsa verde served with a ratatouille that had so much flavor. I ordered the Curry Scented Skate Wing after finding out that skate is a member of the ray family and the meat comes from its wings - the taste and texture is similar to scallops. The skate was a heaping portion served atop green beans, heirloom tomatoes and fingerling potatoes and everything was completely delicious. We had a glass of Viognier with dinner that we shared.

For dessert, (yes, somehow I saved just a little room for dessert) we had a peach upside-down cake with berry compote. The cake itself was light and not too sweet, but the peaches were incredibly sweet and delicious. The entire meal start to finish was epic!

We made a date to see Sante and Sarah outside the restaurant, hopefully to check out another restaurant on the Top 100 of SF list.

Karen and Nino's Top 5 SF Restaurants

2004-07-09T12:48:00.000-07:00

OK, so if we limit the region to just San Francisco, this makes the list a little easier for us to put together since we don't have to squeeze out a restaurant to add Chez Panisse which is in Berkeley. We'll have to create another list with Top 5 BayArea, and then Top 5 International.

The list is in no particular order... I'd have to think really hard about ordering these. I wonder if Nino and I would have similar orders. Actually we'd probably have to revisit each of them to make sure we've ranked them properly

1. Gary Danko
2. Slow Club
3. Zuni Cafe
4. Delfina
5. Ebisu/Liberty Cafe

Ok, ok - we can't decide between Ebisu and Liberty Cafe. They are both wonderful neighborhood restaurants - Ebisu has the most amazing sushi (yummy tuna tataki, appetizer 2 Balls No Strike) and Liberty Cafe is just great fresh, totally reasonably priced comfort food (amazing pot pies, homemade gnocchi with fresh porcini mushrooms).

Back to the ordering, after last night's dinner (Slow Club July 9) I'm tempted to just say that Slow Club gets the number 1 spot in my books.

Fish Tacos with Mango Salsa July 9

2004-07-09T12:39:00.000-07:00

We made our standard fish tacos for dinner but spiced it up with homemade mango salsa. The fish was made with tilapia, dredged in flour, salt and cumin and then fried. Salsa recipe below. We also opened a bottle of Adobe Canyon Chardonnay which was pretty good; not as good as Belvedere Chardonnay.

Mango Salsa Recipe
2 mangoes (we used Manila)
4 tomatoes (we used yellow vine ripened this time which provided a sweeter salsa, last time we used red heirlooms - not sure which kind)
about half an onion - (we used a sweet vidalia onion)
juice of 2 limes
fresh serrano chili to taste (we used 1 pretty big red one)
cilantro to taste

Let the salsa sit and marinate for a little while so the lime juice can neutralize the chili and onion.

Banana Leaf July 7

2004-07-07T22:40:00.000-07:00

I met Arik for dinner in Milpitas before hockey. We went to Banana Leaf, a great Malaysian place that we've been to before. We started with the Roti Prata - flatbread to dip in curry sauce. We had the Mango Chicken and the Red Curry with tofu/vegetables as mains. The Mango Chicken was excellent, sweet and saucy served in a mango and mixed with chunks of mango, and red and green peppers. The Red Curry was also very tasty - tofu with green beans, potatoes, eggplant and okra. Actually the tofu was the fried spongy bean curd stuff which was probably the least appetizing item from the dish. I liked the Red Curry because it wasn't too creamy. We didn't order dessert but the waitress brought us homemade mango ice cream anyway. I haven't had a bad meal here - all the dishes are always so tasty.

Ruth and Matt's BBQ July 4th

2004-07-06T12:12:00.000-07:00

We went down to Menlo Park to hang out with Matt and Ruth Ann. Matt made really yummy "tropical" chicken kabobs on the BBQ. They were seasoned like jerk chicken or caribbean flavors and then mixed with peaches, pineapples, red onion and peppers! Really great!

Thai-tanic Dinner July 3

2004-07-05T09:16:00.000-07:00

We promised Amy and Tonia a while ago that we would show off our Thai cooking skills learned in Chiang Mai in January. (They also bought us an awesome wok for the wedding probably hoping that would get them an invitation to Thai dinner at our house all that much quicker ;-) ) Thai dinner turned into Thai extravaganza.

We started with Nino's already perfected Green Papaya Salad and Chicken Satay (done on the grill). The salad was perfect - we think what made it one of the best ever was that he used more thai chilis, balanced with the right amount of fish sauce and palm sugar. The Satay was a new recipe and turned out excellent. Marinated for 24 hours in soy, peanut butter, garlic and curry powder, we then bbq'ed them.

For main course we had Green Curry with tofu, eggplant and red pepper, fresh rice noodles stir fried with some veggies and Thai Beef Salad where we grilled the flank steak on the bbq. Curry was good. The rice noodles unfortunately were a disappointment. The noodles were bought the day before and didn't have the freshnest they needed. Because I cooked them before the guests arrived, they were a little gluey and gloppy by the time we ate them. The Beef salad was good too - probably could have sliced the beef thinner but it was very tasty ( marinated in lime juice, garlic, chili paste and mixed with tomatoes, red onions, cucumber and romaine.

For dessert, Tonia brought mango sticky rice from the Thai Kitchen recipe and it was excellent. Nino has been making this with cream, but Tonia used Lite Cocunut milk and I thought it was just perfect. She thought that next time she would cut down the sugar a little.

We had a great time hanging out with those guys and dinner was a success.

Crab night July 2

2004-07-03T23:39:00.000-07:00

Friday night dinner at home! I was planning on making some gnocchi with mushroom sauce when Nino called from Ranch 99 (shopping for Thai dinner for Saturday) saying that they have fresh crab and should he get one. Why not? He brought home a 2 lb crab.

I remembered reading about microwaving crab in the Chronicle and dug up that recipe. The comparison was between micowaving and steaming with the latter winning the taste tests. So, with our new wok (thank you Amy and Tonia) we boiled water in the bottom of the wok, put the crab in the bamboo steamer and then covered it with the wok lid. Ten minutes cooking time (water needs to be boiling when you put in the crab) and oh my god - this was amazing. Just a little bit of lemon juice and then crab was so sweet and tender.

I still made the gnocchi. The mushroom sauce consisted of fresh garlic (Cruts' garden), fresh rosemary (thank you Rebecca and Greg) and then a handful of fresh and dried mushrooms with chicken broth. I found the rosemary just a little overpowering but the dish came out pretty well. I used some fresh shitakes in there and they were great!

We opened a bottle of Cambria's Rae Chardonnay (thank you Erin and David) and it was a perfect pairing with the crab. On the scale of home cooked meals, this one was a 10!

Firefly July 1st

2004-07-02T09:16:00.000-07:00

Firefly has been on our list for a while - it's also on the SF top 100 of 2004. There's a mention of it in San Francisco magazine for best neighborhood dining. It was time to give it a try and we wanted to take full advantage so we went on a Thursday night because they have prix fixe for $29 - you get appetizer, entree, dessert, and coffee or tea for $29!! I really good deal.

Nino called to get a reservation about 5pm Thursday and got us in for 6:15. It's in a nice neighborhood on 24th 2 blocks west of Castro. I don't think there's even a sign on the restaurant just a looming, large firefly above the door. The restarant was bright, probably because of the time we were there, had a nice bar to eat at and wooden tables. There were tables for 2 and 4 with larger group tables in the middle.

Nino ordered the Hartford Pinot Noir and I had the Navarro Gewertraminer - both ok choices. For appetizers we ordered the scallop/shrimp potstickers which we one of the highlights of the meal - pan fried but not greasy, yummy crunch and good dipping sauce. We also had the Ahi napolean salad - layered greens, avocado, ahi and a fried chip. It was good but not stellar - somehow the fish didn't have enough flavor.

Nino ordered the seabass with miso on somen noodles. It was really light and tasty - I think I liked it better than mine. I had king salmon with lobster - lobster mushroom sauce - a little saucy and heavier than the seabass, tasty but the top of the salmon was a little too salty. The mushrooms were great ... what are "lobster mushrooms" anyway?

To finish a good decent meal I ordered the lemon pudding cake which was light and not too sweet - Nino called it refreshing. He ordered the strawberry shortcake which I thought was also light and not too sweet. Nicely presented too.

All in all a good meal. I would recommend it to people. I can see why it made the top 100 but I didn't make Karen and Nino's top 25.

Homemade Pizza Sauce June 28

2004-07-01T14:46:00.000-07:00

OK, homemade pizza sauce is amazing. I found this recipe in Sunset magazine and it rocks. We used Trader Joe's pizza dough but I need to go back to making my own dough for truly entirely homemade pizza (ok, so I don't make my own cheese...). We made 2 pizzas for dinner - one with turkey bacon, avocado, mushrooms, grilled red pepper and onions and the other with mushrooms, grilled red pepper, zucchini, olives and red onions. The homemade pizza sauce just gives it so much flavor!

Squat and Gobble June 27

2004-07-01T13:06:00.000-07:00

After the Gay Pride parade we walked over to the lower Haight and had lunch at Squat and Gobble. I had the tofu and veggie crepe with peanut sauce. I was hoping for something a little lighter - the crepe was greasier than I would have liked. I think of crepes as light and fluffy and this one was thicker and too greasy. The filling was tasty and quite good.

BBQ Salmon June 26th

2004-07-01T11:11:00.000-07:00

I had a craving for salmon and we planned to stay home for the night. We bbq'ed salmon - put some rosemary, cilantro and parsley over the top and sprinked with some lemon. It may have been just a tad over done. Probably should have marinated in lemon/olive oil for a while because the flavor didn't come through all that well. We also bought the Trader Joe's garlic and herb foccacia dough that we put on the bbq. It was tasty but a little too doughy - it could have been cooked just a little longer.

Bette's Oceanview Diner June 26th

2004-07-01T11:06:00.000-07:00

I can't beleive it took us this long to try Bette's. I've heard good things and have bought the pancake/waffle mix but this was the best breakfast I have had in the Bay Area ever! Nino had the special Californian - poached eggs with asparagus and prosciutto with lemon/butter sauce. I had the farmer's special - eggs, potatoes, onions, mushrooms all scrambled together. The eggs were incredible - so light and soft. Mine came with a scone too that was fresh baked.

Like I said - the best breakfast I've had in the Bay area - though I need to try Liberty cafe for brunch ....

The Last Supper Club - June 25th

2004-07-01T09:42:00.000-07:00

We walked down to The Last Supper Club for dinner. We arrived around 7pm and they had empty tables. Nino had a Bellini to drink which he said was "girlie" and I had had a Mojito (ok, not as good as Thailand but decent).

For dinner, I ordered the gnocchi with veal. I had a little trouble with the menu - it felt like every entree had something I didn't like about it. Anyhow, I ordered this dish and asked them if they could make it without the ricotta which they did. The dish was super tasty - better than I thought it would be. Nino had the mahimahi and potatoes which was decent. We ordered sides of spinach and green beans and I thought each of those was delicious.

We walked to Mitchell's for dessert - I had pear sorbet which was incredible. I would say overall a great evening!