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
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
Cucina Urbana Interior
Whenever I’m able to visit San Diego, I take the opportunity to get together with my family – my sis and her husband live there, near USD, and my parents usually make the 2-hour drive to have dinner with us as well. I have to admit that I didn’t know much about Cucina Urbana, or the Urban Kitchen Group before I decided to make a reservation here – San Diego has always been somewhat of a black hole for me in terms of dining. But, thanks to a couple of local blogs (Alice Q Foodie and Capt’n Jack’s San Diego Restaurant Reviews), UrbanSpoon, and yes, I’ll admit it — Yelp — as well as confirmation with my sis that C.U. was an establishment she and Paul had wanted to check out – I booked it for a Tuesday night dinner. Continue reading
Caldo Verde
Another old but excellent and easy one-pot standby, this hearty soup makes a regular appearance at our table every couple of months or so. As with many of these kinds of peasant soups and stews, there are an infinite number of variations. I believe at a minimum, the soup calls for some sort of green (kale, collards and cabbage are most common in the recipes I’ve seen cited); some sort of starch – usually potato; some form of allium – onion and or garlic; and finally, sausage. This time I used broccoli rabe (for the first time ever) and while it turned out delicious, perhaps sticking with sturdier greens is preferable. I also add tomato (which is not classic) since I like the acidity that comes from this component; other recipes that don’t include tomato sometimes call for the addition of a few spoonfuls of vinegar. Finally, in this last go-round I eschewed potatoes and included a cupful of pearled (fast cooking) farro. Continue reading
Pickled Quail Eggs, Alembic recipe
One of our favourite bar bites ever are the pickled quail eggs at the Alembic. If you’re starving, and find that you possibly can’t wait for the five awesome dishes you’ve just ordered to start to arrive, take heart – you’ll be grateful when these are set quickly in front of you. They arrive almost instantaneously, scooped up from a large jar behind the bar.
As DD narrates – he once (after a particularly stressful day), consumed no less than a mean dozen in a sitting, interspersed with some very good cocktails. And, characteristic of my husband in all the time I’ve known him – once he’s got his mind set on something, that thing is as good as done. Continue reading
Plum Restaurant Oakland
We’ve been meaning to check out Plum for a while. Having visited Daniel Patterson’s Coi on a couple of occasions and Il Cane Rosso for lunch several times, we were fans, but Plum remained distant, literally and figuratively. We are ridiculously lazy, and – perhaps psychologically – find it difficult to make it over to the other side of the bay. But when I heard that Sean Brock was coming to cook at Plum, I immediately booked a reservation. Chef Brock’s reputation, it seems, has been growing in leaps and bounds, first garnering accolades for taking the helm at South Carolina’s McCrady’s, bringing modern techniques (à la Ferran Adrià) to the genteel old American South, and then opening Husk which is dedicated to using historically southern ingredients:
“At McCrady’s, Brock uses exotic ingredients such as tonka beans, soy powder and liquid nitrogen. At Husk, there will be strict rules about what can be served. Every item must be grown in and have historical relevance to the South. That means no salmon, no olive oil and no balsamic vinegar, among other things. But there will be sarsaparilla-glazed pork ribs with pickled peaches, wood-smoked chicken with Rev. Taylor butterbeans and chanterelles, and breads made with antebellum flours. “I’m not trying to prove anything. I’m trying to educate,” Brock said. “But I need rules. Otherwise, I’ll be reaching for the olive oil. And if they taste olive oil, they’ll think that’s what Southern food tastes like.”
–By Jane Black, Washington Post Staff Writer, “Sean Brock re-imagines Southern cuisine.”
In 2010 Chef Brock won the James Beard award for Best Southern Chef. Continue reading
Chef Maruyama-san and Chef Yoshihiro Murata-san.
“For whatever reason, modern Japanese have maintained their deep emotional linkage with the annual shifts in climate, ingrained from ancient times whether cultivating crops or fishing on the coast. So much is this connection the heart and soul of a cuisine, that when I am asked, “What is kaiseki?” I often have a very simple answer.
“It is eating the seasons.”
— Yoshihiro Murata, Kikunoi
Roan Kikunoi, according to the 2011 Michelin Guide for Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe, was created by Chef Murata as a somewhat more affordable option for the younger set as compared to Kikunoi Honten, his flagship fine-dining restaurant that’s garnered 3 Michelin stars. His other outpost in Akasaka, Tokyo, won 2 stars and admittedly Roan Kikunoi has 2 stars for itself. Though quite a high bar, lunch here is also possibly one of the best deals for sampling kaiseki in Kyoto. Chef Yoshimi Murata has been something of an international celebrity, recently receiving accolades from Noma’s Rene Redzepi (best meal), providing consulting advice to Singapore Airlines for in-flight meals and releasing a gorgeous English cookbook that garnered him a James Beard nomination. He also appears to somewhat controversial in Kyoto, as evidenced by this discussion string on Chowhound. Continue reading
Bar Agricole Interior
Bar Agricole is on 11th street, in a somewhat seedy area largely known for its nightlife and late-night post-drunk binging from the mobile crepe truck rather than farm-to-table dining and craft cocktails. But it’s there, hidden cleverly behind a blocky slate wall, blue lettering on black hiding its identity in a smart understated industrial camouflage. If you didn’t know where to look, you’d easily miss it, and one might think Bar Agricole actually doesn’t want to be known or found. But once you step inside, you’re confronted with a lovely oasis (a bit incongruous for this area) of exposed wood, high ceilings, and striking light fixtures which hang down like cascades of frozen water. It’s a restauarant that doesn’t quite match the immediate neighbourhood. Continue reading
Nojo interior
To my delight, and cautious anticipation, we returned from Japan to a number of Izakayas opening in San Francisco. We loved these establishments in Japan, known for providing beer, sake and small noshing plates to their patrons. Roughly translated, the kanji for Izakaya 居酒屋 indicates sake-selling establishment (酒 – sake-ya). We already have Nombe in the Mission, Bushi-Tei Bistro and O Izakaya in Japantown, Halu in the Inner Richmond and Izakaya Sozai in our neighborhood, the Inner Sunset.* And perhaps because Izakayas are the New Big Thing, there appear to be a number of these bar-and-small-plates restaurants opening in our area over a fairly short span of time. And I of course want to check them all out. Kasumi is in the Outer Sunset on Ocean and has, thus far, received some somewhat tepid reviews. Chotto, in the Marina, is in a part of the city we don’t much like to frequent. So Nojo — in our old stomping grounds of Hayes Valley — won out. Chef Greg Dunmore reached the Bay Area by way of Atlanta, a graduate of the CIA in Hyde Park, NY. Dubbed a rising star chef in 2006 by the SF Chronicle, he first worked at the Michelin-starred Terra with Hiro Sone and Lissa Doumani who mentored him in Japanese cuisine. Sone soon asked him to become executive chef of Ame (Asian fusion at the St. Regis Hotel), where he stayed for 4 years and also earned a Michelin. After realizing he had a passion for Japanese yakitori and izakaya-style cooking, he’s now opened his own Izakaya-style establishment. Nōjō, the japanese word for farm (農場), brings together this passion and reflects his commitment to small farms and seasonal ingredients. It’s important to note however, that the food at Nojo seems to be distinctly Californian and heavily influenced by Japan, not the other way around. Continue reading
Excellent Fries and Beer
I’ll admit it. I’m a total beer nincompoop. Yes, there are beers I do like, though, and are high on my list of favourite beverages. Might I be called an aficionado? That seems to imply a level of knowledge and savvy that I definitely don’t possess. Beer enthusiast? I don’t drink enough beer for that. To own that I practically know nothing about beer (except that it some of it tastes good) seems a bit retarded if one is going to a place like Monk’s Kettle, where there could be as many as 28 options of draught beer alone and pages and pages and pages of different kinds and styles of the liquid, from Lambics to small beer to porters and dubbel, tripel, and quadrupel Belgians! My visit to Monk’s Kettle felt rather tantamount to casting pearls before swine, or cream-of-mushroom bean casserole before Thomas Keller, or er… something along those lines… you get the drift… Anyhow, despite all this, I will still have the temerity to say that Monk’s Kettle is currently high on my list of Happy Places (and by this I mean awesome establishments in my hometown that serve amazing food and drink). Continue reading
