Overheard in Berkeley

I had to go to Berkeley today to move my illegally parked car (anyone want a 1997 Audi A6 Quattro for a great price, please contact me) and stopped by the French Hotel, a local hotel and coffee shop frequented by aging hippies for an espresso. The counter was manned by a man of Middle Eastern descent, who I've seen there several times.

After I'd placed my order, the man behind me, who was wearing the standard Berkeley uniform of ugly jeans, expensive fleece (Patagonia!) and sunglasses, approached the counter and the following conversation took place:

Man [in terrible Spanish accent]: Hola, un cafe para llevar por favor.
Barista: ?
Man: Necesito un cafe para llevar.
Barista: Oh, I don't speak Spanish.
Man: Well...you should.

I miss the East Coast.

A little absence

Sorry for the lack of posting. I've been busy and between jobs, and until I settle down a bit I'm taking a little break from the blogging.

Back soon.

Beardies

Beard Awards nominees were announced on Monday, and every damn blogger out there has had something to say about them...and so do I.

First of all, my culinary hero Johnny Monis got his due and is nominated for Rising Star Chef. Komi is still my favorite restaurant ever. Out of that field, he should come out on top, though he'll face some stiff competition from Gabriel Rucker and Gavin Kaysen.

Nicole Plue, of Redd, in Napa Valley, makes delicious and creative desserts, and deserves that nomination for outstanding pastry chef.

For my own culinary regions, DC and CA: Doug Keane and David Kinch are two of the best chefs in the country, not just California. They are a glimmer of hope for four-star dining out here. As for DC, Cathal Armstrong is my favorite of the bunch. I recently did a stage in his Restaurant Eve in Alexandria, which exhibits a refined rusticity coupled with restrained creativity that makes for a homey yet elegant dining experience. Eric Ziebold is strong too, and my friend Emiliano in Philly had great things to say about Jose Garces' Amada.

And yes, I know my nemesis Mark Bittman has been nominated several times. Ugh.

An alarming train of thought

Over at Apples and Bananas, a blog I only just found out about (which is too bad...they're from DC, where I used to live, and their blog is awesome), they have a post about Paula Deen's endorsement of Smithfield ham and her reaction to their less than admirable work environment.

While I generally hate the Food Network, I always had a soft spot for Deen's joie de vivre, even though she can't cook for shit. This kind of attitude is very disappointing. I try not to politicize food too much, but how can you honestly respond like this?

Taco Tours: Part I: El Tonayense

I'm poor. Not homeless, but my fine dining days are long gone. Luckily, San Francisco, my new home, has more to offer than DC did in terms of cheap eats. I currently live in the Mission, which is a predominantly Latino area being overrun by hipsters. This means that there are lots of coffee shops and taco trucks. I love coffee, but I'm more interested in the tacos. So, I'm introducing a new segment to the blog: Taco Tours. I guess one of my dream jobs is to be a culinary guide...most of my dream jobs involve getting paid to eat. In terms of finding a good source for local taquerias, I've found that a lot of website are a little too democratic, and that it can be hard to know which reviews to take seriously. Anyway, here's my attempt.


I'm starting with El Tonayense. I pass this truck all the time (I think there are actually four or five) and finally tried it the other day. The menu is pretty standard, and tacos run for about $2.75, which is a little high. However, they are absolutely stellar. I tried the carne asada and the al pastor. The carne asada wasn't dry at all, though the al pastor lacked a little seasoning. The salsa they had on top of each was phenomenal. I wasn't a huge fan of the pickled jalapeno though. Next time, I'll try their lengua, which I've heard is great. Highly recommended.


El Tonayense
Harrison at 19th
San Francisco, CA

I love Chicago

No, this isn't about Top Chef.

I've often complained about the Bay Area restaurant scene, from both a professional and diner's point of view. It's a pretty homogeneous one, and the if you're looking for something at all creative, you'll have to search pretty hard. Sometimes, I wish I lived in Chicago...or rather, that Chicago wasn't so damn cold so I'd have an incentive to move there. I almost did after my stage at Alinea. I received an email from Starchefs.com the other day with this link in it, (click on the "tasting photos" links in the left hand column) and it shows the great diversity of the Chicago restaurant scene. And before you Californians say anything, their produce looks pretty good to me.

So, can we do better California?

Morning buns

I don't know the origin of these things, but they are the things I miss the most about living in the East Bay. For some reason, I haven't been able to find morning buns in San Francisco. They are essentially croissant dough with a little extra butter, rolled around a vertical axis and baked in muffin type tins, and then coated in sugar and/or cinnamon. So good. The bottom of each one is where the butter collects and forms a rich caramel-type layer. It reminds of this Breton cake we used to eat in Brittany in the summers (where my family is from in France) called kouign amann. My favorite one is from Semifreddi's in Berkeley, but they're sold in supermarkets all over Alameda County (and beyond).

One if by land, two if by sea, three if by...air?

Lauren's aunt Sarah loves to cook, and she happens to be very good at it. AND she has a great new kitchen, with a professional Wolf range and a prep island. Fantastic. A couple of months ago, she mentioned that she'd always wanted to a dinner featuring three red meats: duck (air), beef (land), tuna (sea). I love themes as a conduit for creativity, so I was in. So was her friend John, also an enthusiastic home cook.

We met for a brainstorming session, as the idea was pretty loose at that point. I'd brought up a vague idea for using the whole duck in a dish, but that was all we had. We didn't know whether to meld all the meats together, or to have three separate dishes. I wanted to do a duet of beef and tuna tartares, and there were some other good ideas floating around, but in the end we decided to do a seared tuna with citrus salad, a slightly elevated beef banh mi, and the duck dish: seared duck breast with a scented duck consomme and duck meatballs. In the end, I think the menu was a good showcase: the tuna dish was a seasonal produce showcase, the beef dish was a fun and delicious party dish, and the duck was more for technique.

The tuna dish was quite simply seared tuna on a bed of citrus nestled in a leaf of romaine. The idea was that we would eat it by picking up the romaine leaf, though that proved a little bit tough. The salad had hearts of palm and red onion along with cara cara and navel oranges, and some grapefruit, bound with a champagne vinaigrette. The dish needed salt, but was tasty nonetheless.


The beef was the crowd-pleaser: I think they reproduced it a few nights later. Sarah bought some nice rolls from Acme, and we used John's marinade for the skirt steak. A quick grilling before serving yielded sweet and succulent meat, providing a perfect anchor for the sandwich. We also lightly pickled some carrots and daikon, and made a chipotle and cilantro mayonnaise. Add to that some fresh cilantro and lime...DELICIOUS. And easy.

The duck was a little more complicated. And by that I mean a lot more. I started two days ahead by butchering four whole ducks. My idea for this was to use the whole duck in one dish: duck breasts, duck meatballs, duck consomme, and duck gizzard and liver agnolotti. However, we were moving to the city that weekend and I figured I should drop the pasta idea for time's sake. Anyway, I saved the breasts, took the rest of the meat off the bones, and made a traditional duck stock. On the day of the dinner, I made little duck meatballs with rather traditional seasonings and started a consomme. In my raft, I put the standard egg whites, duck meat, and mirepoix, but I also added a significant amount of lemongrass and ginger. I didn't want a particularly Asian flavor in the consomme, but I wanted it to have a hint of tang to awaken the palate and not have the duck flavor be too monotonic. Now, I was doing a million things at once, and let my consomme go a little too long so that the raft broke a bit. I passed it through cheesecloth and though it wasn't the clearest thing in the world, it still passed muster: I could have gotten away with it in most restaurants...I reduced it til the flavor was at the right intensity and seasoned it with salt, and it ended up with a hint of ginger and lemongrass which somehow brought a smokiness to the rest of the dish. I sauteed some chinese ramps and shiitake mushrooms and finished the dish with uncooked ramp leaves and edible orange flowers. The duck breasts were simply pan roasted.



For dessert, Lauren's mom made a chocolate cake, and cherry tart, and one of the most amazing pies I've ever had (rhubarb). A fantastic meal.

Gioia Pizzeria

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the Cheeseboard Collective and their terrible pizza. I mentioned that, when in the East Bay, there's nothing comparable to Will Gioia's pizzas at his namesake pizzeria.

Lauren and I used to go there all the time, and I soon became addicted to their Italian ham and caramelized red onion pizza. For me, Gioia is representative of what California cuisine should be about: using the fantastic ingredients around with the techniques that the world has already established. Gioia makes NY style pizza, and it's the only good kind that I've seen around. While there's plenty of good Neapolitan pizza in the Bay Area, this kind of pizza-by-the-slice deal is still lacking decent options, Gioia being the exception. I was warned about this before moving out here (only one delusional Californian maintained that there was good pizza out here), so finding Gioia has been somewhat of a relief. When in doubt as to what to have for a quick meal, I always defer to pizza (or shwarma...).


So what makes Gioia legit? It's mostly about the crust. Everything else I've seen out here is a cardboard crust with toppings on top. Will Gioia's crust has been properly proofed and yeasted, resulting in a chewy and flavorful product that you don't need to put down once you get its edge. Why is a good crust important? Because otherwise it's needless filling crap; I could eat some tomato sauce and mozzarella without clogging my stomach with dense dough and be much better off for it. The true pizza artist cares about the entire product. Will Gioia's are elevated because he combines his childhood memories of Brooklyn pizza with the skills he honed at Oliveto and Zuni. In fact, it's that ham and onion pizza is often better than most of what I've had in New York. Good stuff.

NY Times 10 Best New Restaurants

While local fascist food critic Michael Bauer is complaining about Michelin stars and loving California "cuisine", Frank Bruni over at the New York Times continues to provide exemplary reviews and interest pieces. His latest is a countdown of the 10 best new restaurants across the country. It's obviously quite a challenge to really track down the best restaurants, and it's obvious that he made his picks by going to the major food centers of this country and picking out their best new places, but it's a good effort and a diverse and interesting list.

I've eaten at three of the ten (Central, Coi and Ubuntu). Central was a little underwhelming, but I appreciate Bruni's mention of it for Washington, DC as it has brought a surprising level of energy to the food scene there. I remember how popular it was when it opened, and how for the first time I was hearing lobbyist/lawyer/politician types actually talking about 'the food.' And they do some pretty tasty stuff. If anything, it might encourage people to go eat at Citronelle, which is an outstanding restaurant. Coi is of much more interest to me, as it's really one of the only San Francisco restaurants I find interesting. Daniel Patterson's intellectual approach to food isn't based on 'molecular gastronomy' or whatever's going on at Alinea, but instead is a sort of philosophical reflection on eating, senses, and emotions. Not everything there is perfect, but it's always interesting. Ubuntu shows that classically trained chefs with a voracious appetite for meat still make an infinitely better vegetarian/vegan meal than some hippie who treats their menu like a political manifesto. Jeremy Fox's food is generally awesome, creative, affordable, and completely vegetarian. It's what California cuisine should be: perfect ingredients, masterful technique.

As for the other places, I've heard great things about Cochon and O Ya. And I thought it was a bit unfair of him to leave out Le Pigeon. Out here, the pilgrimage to Portland to go eat at this unpretentious eatery is becoming somewhat of a tradition.