Monthly Archives: June 2011

Wild Mushroom Crostini

Wild Mushroom Crostini

DD rambles far and wide in his search for edible wild mushrooms, but he takes every opportunity he can to find them close to home as well.  This past Saturday, he spent 8 hours up north in a rather fruitless search save for half-a-dozen or so candy caps.  On Sunday, a 90-minute ramble through the park with the puppy yielded some nice Agaricus Augustus and Agaricus Lilaceps, which he turned into some beautiful mushroom crostini.

Say what, you mumble… Agaricus what? You were expecting something with chanterelles perhaps? Continue reading →

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Trippa a la Napoletana

Tripe in the Neapolitan style

If someone wanted to ease a friend or family member into trying offal meats, tripe is probably the most logical starting point.  Properly cleaned and processed, it takes on the flavors of whatever it’s been cooked in and has great textural complexity.  If the person you’re trying to convert can somehow get over the fact that tripe is the lining of a cow’s stomach, it’s one of the tastier, somewhat more innocuous of offal meats.  When Gourmet magazine publishes an Asian tripe recipe, you know its time has come indeed.  Continue reading →

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Smith@Saison

Saison

Of late, I’ve been able to resist temporary temptations.  For over a year since it opened, I made scant little effort to get to Plum until I heard visiting Southern chef Sean Brock was coming to town and would be cooking special dinners at Coi and Daniel Patterson’s outpost in the East Bay… I hastily made sure we had a spot then.  The same applied for Saison.  In all fairness, we had been trying to get here since Chef Josh Skenes was only doing 2 dinners a week in the Stable Cafe space – we’d make reservations and then have to cancel them.  But this week, we stuck to our Wednesday 9pm timeslot for Smith@Saison – Chef Jeremy Fox’s 4-day installment while Skenes is off accepting his shiny Best New Chef award at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen. Continue reading →

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Serendipity and Green Walnuts

DD's First Batch of Nocino

DD started his first-ever Nocino a year ago, when his coworker Craig brought in some green walnuts from his neighbourhood up in Sonoma.  Over the year, the jar of walnut-steeped alcohol had sat in their offices in Silicon Valley, turning from chartreuse green to nearly black.   Using David Lebovitz’s recipe as a guide, but staggering the order in which he added the sweeteners, DD strained after a month, and added sugar after about 4 months. He finally bottled the stuff 2 weeks ago, nearly a whole year after first soaking the unripe walnuts in vodka.   Continue reading →

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Nopalito

Nopalito Signage

You’ve got to respect and honor a chef who, so entranced by the offerings of his sous for family dinners, opens up another restaurant just to highlight their cooking. Nopa’s been a favourite of ours for some time, serving great, well-executed, responsibly-sourced and sustainable food, fantastic cocktails; a bright and airy convivial space that boasts a gorgeous mural by local artist Brian Barneclo… my personal favourite is their hefty pork chop, brined just so, about an inch thick, well-marbled, hugely taking up the size of the serving platter… but that’s for another post. Continue reading →

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Mailale al Latte

Pork Braised in Milk

Marcella Hazan, in her seminal Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, wrote that of the thousands of recorded dishes that could illustrate the genius of a cuisine, Pork Braised in Milk would certainly be among the favoured few.  Her recipe is exceedingly simple – start with a pork loin roast (bone included), brown it well in some oil, add around 2 cups milk, and simmer over low heat for several hours until tender.  She also notes that, if we have access to it, and are not averse to the fact that it might fall apart in whilst carving, pork butt, or Boston shoulder, laced with a goodly amount of fat – is preferrable, but perhaps won’t be as pretty on a plate. Continue reading →

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Kichisen Take-Away

Kichisen Take-away Bag

In Europe, we knew better than to ask for take-home boxes or doggie bags if we somehow were not able to finish the food on our plates.  And in Japan, we rarely encountered a meal wherein we might have been compelled to take food home.  We were really surprised then, that at the end of our first fancy-schmancy meal at Kichisen, the chef presented us with a “take away” (their term, not mine) bag for asa-gohan (breakfast) the next day. Continue reading →

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Kiam Pung, Salty Soy Rice

Kiam Pung

I cooked my mother’s dish on mother’s day.  I was not able to make a trip to Southern California then, but loved that she had made it on the past 2 occasions when I visited last. Kiam Pung translates into Salty Rice, with “kiam” being salty in my parents’ fukienese/ fujianese dialect, which I’m told is very similar to Hokkien, or Taiwanese.  Basically I like to think of this easy dish is a Chinese Paella — it’s open to an infinite number of variations, but should always contain 3 essential ingredients (besides the rice, which is a given):

  • Soy Sauce
  • Some kind of green vegetable
  • Some kind of meat or seafood or meat substitute

Continue reading →

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Incanto: Il Quinto Quarto (1)

Incanto Interior

I grew up eating offal and love it to this day.  DD will be the first to tell you that if I see organ meats featured on a menu, they’re quickly registered on the mental shortlist of items to order.  Back in the Philippines, we never referred to offal as such, no “nasty bits” references, no euphemisms about “eating nose to tail.”  We simply ate what our kitchen, or the restaurants we frequented, produced, whether it was a platter of kidneys, a sautee of chicken liver, or simmered calfs’ brains floating in a chinese herb soup.  I grew up learning how to ask for the pigeon head for the pleasure of cracking its skull open to get at the creamy goodness within. Continue reading →

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Ichiran Ramen – Slurping in Solitude

Line outside Ichiran

Hideki had pointed out Ichiran from where we met on the Ebisubashi bridge, telling us that it was a pretty good ramen place, possibly the best, in his opinion.  So on our last night in Osaka, after drinks in the Umeda Sky Tower at Sky Lounge Stardust, we headed back to the Dotonbori to check it out.  It’s along the Dotonbori canal, near the Nihonbashi bridge, which flanks Ebisubashi.  Like Ippudo, Ichiran serves a Tonkotsu Hakata-style ramen made with pork broth. Continue reading →

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