Quite literally, the new (Korean) kid on the block (it opened on June 28th), Manna replaces Little Bangkok – a tiny Thai place on the corner of 10th and Irving. It’s still small inside, but looks like it received a new coat of paint and somehow feels larger than the older restaurant. (I must admit that I might have frequented Little Bangkok only once, hastily ordering a lunch from their steam table one day, and don’t quite remember the experience.)
Toyose – Outer Sunset
Toyose is way out in the Outer Sunset, Noriega and 45th to be exact. So close is it to the beach I wonder whether folks have taken their orders of Korean Fried Chicken down to the coast, perfect for an evening picnic or twilight bonfire. It didn’t hit my radar until the New York Times ran a story on late night eats in San Francisco, focusing on where folks from the restaurant industry tend to congregate after work. We live in the Inner Sunset, but it still took us 10 minutes or so – even late at night on a Sunday – to make it out to the outer avenues. It’s a Korean restaurant located in the garage of a residential building and its only distinguishing sign is the one above of a winking chicken. Cheeky and appropriate.
Nopalito
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
Kiam Pung, Salty Soy Rice
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
Ichiran Ramen – Slurping in Solitude
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
Trippa a la Napoletana
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
Incanto: Il Quinto Quarto (1)
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
Smith@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
Mailale al Latte
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
Serendipity and Green Walnuts
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