My Easter Pappardelle with Lamb

For some of you who might be new to this blog (welcome, I’m happy to see my readership growing every week!), just a reminder that I’m a single guy and I like to make quick-and-easy dishes. Being single, it also means I don’t always have really big family dinners for the holidays (my family is in Hawaii).

Easter is this Sunday, and it’s one of those holidays that sneaks up on me (and it’s especially early this year) and I often have no major plans for it. That means I’m also just eating what I normally might eat for dinner, nothing especially special or Easter-like.

So if you’re in the same boat like me where you don’t have an invitation for a big Easter dinner, then you might want to try my lamb pasta below. I thought I’d come up with a pasta dish (because they’re easy to make) and add some spring ingredients. Lamb is a given because it’s a big part of Easter dinners at most families, so I cut up some strips of lamb and tossed it with asparagus ribbons (also very spring like) and some cherry tomatoes (because they were on sale at Trader Joe’s and I think the spot of color is festive). Enjoy!

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Lamb Pappardelle with Asparagus and Cherry Tomatoes

Copyright 2008 by Cooking With The Single Guy

Ingredients:
6-8 oz. lamb leg steaks
1 bunch asparagus (thicker the better)*
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
4 to 5 crimini mushrooms, sliced
1 lb. dried pappardelle pasta
½ T fresh rosemary leaves, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
½ cup red wine
¼ cup veal or beef broth
1 cup Parmesan Reggiano cheese
salt and pepper
extra virgin olive oil (normal and good quality for drizzling)

Cook your pasta in a large pot of salted boiling water per the instructions on the package. When done, drain and set aside.

Prep your asparagus by breaking off the woody part of the stem at the end. Then with a peeler, strip a thin slice of the asparagus to create a ribbon. Leave the flower tip intact and keep everything in a bowl of cold water.

Season your lamb steaks with salt and pepper and drizzle with every day extra virgin olive oil. In a large skillet or saucepan, warm about another tablespoon of the olive oil over medium high to high heat and then add your lamb. Cook for about three to five minutes on each side (depending on how done you like your lamb). Then set aside to rest.

In the same skillet or saucepan, add some more olive oil and over medium high heat cook the garlic for just a few seconds to infuse the olive oil. Then add your asparagus tips (just the tips and not the ribbons you made) and mushrooms. Saute for about two minutes, then add red wine to deglaze your pan. Reduce your heat to medium to simmer and then add the broth, cherry tomatoes and rosemary. Let cook for about 2 to 3 minutes covered.

Get your lamb steaks and cut them into strips. Then add them along with your asparagus ribbons to the pan and mix all your ingredients together. Then add your pasta and toss everything together, letting the pasta soak some of the broth. Take the pan off the heat and add the cheese, mixing everything well.

Plate your pasta and garnish with some flat leaf parsley and grated Parmesan Reggiano and drizzle with good-quality extra virgin olive oil. Serve immediately, with garlic bread.

Makes 2 to 3 servings.

Pair with a glass of Pinot Noir (the ones from Willamette Valley in Oregon is especially nice now).

* You may not need to use all the asparagus, depending on how big your bunch is. Most bunches sold at stores are about 1 pound.

TIP: I like making the asparagus ribbons to match the pappardelle. To make them, lay the asparagus flat and run a peeler along the body to create flat ribbons. Run the peeler just on the stalk part and keep the tip whole. (But I leave the tip in the beginning because it gives me something to hold on to while peeling away, then I snap off the tip afterwards.) If you have a hand peeler like mines that has a big handle (you know, those ergonomically proper ones), it might be hard to get close to the flat asparagus. So what I do is lay the asparagus on the edge of the cutting board and then place the board on the edge of the sink. The space from the sink gives me room for the peeler handle and my hands as I run it along the cutting board and asparagus.

PAPA WHERE’S THE PAPPARDELLE? I find it’s a challenge finding pappardelle at typical groceries stores. They don’t always stock this wide flat noodle. I found mines at Trader Joe’s, or you can look for them at specialty food stores or Italian delis. If you can’t find them, then you can substitute with the pasta marked “flat wide noodles” or something similar.

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Dish on Dining: Kiss Seafood

Sushi Presented with a Delicate Touch
1700 Laguna St. (at Bush), San Francisco
Japantown
PH: 415.474.2866
Dinner Tuesday to Saturday, 5:30 to 9:30 p.m.
Major credit cards, reservations accepted

I’m not the type of guy to kiss and tell, but after eating at Kiss Seafood, I thought I had to share. ;-)

Kiss is a tiny sushi restaurant run by a husband-and-wife team off the beaten track in San Francisco’s Japantown. It’s been described as a tiny gem because it really is quite small, with only five seats at the sushi bar and three tables for two in the tiny space.

I visited recently with my older sister, who lives in Hawaii and is a connoisseur of raw fish. My sister started eating raw fish such as sushi and sashimi way before I developed the taste for it. And that says a lot since we’re Chinese Americans. (Most Chinese like their food cooked.)

We were lucky to grab one of the three tables even though we didn’t have reservations on a Friday night. (The other two tables were later taken by people who were smart enough to make reservations.) The place was sparsely decorated, almost like a gallery space but with only enough room to showcase one piece of artwork. The zen-like environment was reflective of the food to come.

The menu is very small, with a page of appetizers and then a few specials for the sushi and sashimi. But most people who come here put themselves in the hands of the chef behind the sushi bar, so we decided to do the same by ordering the omakase, or chef’s dinner.

Just a disclaimer: We ordered the $60 omakase for both of us even though it was designed for a single eater. My sister and I weren’t very hungry so we decided to share, but the hostess expressed her concern that we wouldn’t have enough to eat because, she emphasized, their plates are “Japanese style.” Which translates to mean “small but artfully presented.”

We convinced her that we understood the presentation of a Japanese omakase, but to put her mind at ease we also ordered an additional plate of the sashimi special ($30) and a plate of agedashi (deep-fried tofu) as an appetizer.

Because the omakase is very similar to a tasting menu, we had a parade of tiny dishes come to our table so I’m going to touch on each one in the order they arrived that night. Here’s a recap of our dinner at Kiss Seafood:

First came a cold starter similar to an amuse bouche. It was pickled bamboo shoots with cellophane noodles that tasted simple and light. If you ever ate any Japanese dishes cold, then this was just like that with the emphasis more on texture rather than taste, which almost bordered on bland.

Next came a trio of small appetizers: raw mackerel, cooked cold octopus and a tofu salad with green onions. Again, Japanese cold dishes are best as an art on contrasting textures rather than flavors. Everything was nice but nothing was necessarily eye-opening, although I would say the octopus was my favorite.

Two trays of sashimi came next, one was the omakase sashimi and the other was the sashimi special platter that we added on. This allowed us to savor a nice variety of fish and the hostess was very good with naming all the fishes, but she’d often give the Japanese names and it’s hard for me to remember them all. My sister helped identified some of the fish as halibut, toro, hamachi, cuttlefish and abalone. There was also this really funny fish that the hostess described as “a Japanese fish with no English name.” From then on my sister and I called it the Japanese fish with no name (although it was very similar to sardines). While all the fish was nice (I really liked the crunch of the cuttlefish) and clean, they all seemed pretty straightforward and tasted like other fish served at other good sushi places around town.

After our sashimi, we were served this clam soup with turnip and a fish ball. It was light and refreshing.

Finally we got the agedashi or deep-fried tofu. There were three pieces that were lightly fried. It was really fresh (=hot in your mouth if you’re not patient). I liked the light broth that accompanied it. This dish seemed very authentic, albeit an odd place in the order of when we received it. We felt it should have come earlier.

As an interesting twist, we got this cup of egg custard topped with a crab leg and snow pea. If you like custard, you’ll like this warm, eggy treat that’s almost like eating soft tofu, but not.

We’re nearing the end of our dinner with our sushi plate, made up of five nigiri pieces. Starting from the nearest piece, we received hamachi (nice), salmon (brilliantly orange like wild salmon), halibut (the hostess said it came with its own sauce but I could barely taste anything), toro and the Japanese fish with no name. Again, the rice and fish were presented nicely and tasted fine, but didn’t necessarily wow us. I was also disappointed in the variety because we tasted much of these fish with our sashimi plates.

I asked my sister what she thought of the fish after having the sashimi and sushi, and she said it was “fishy.” I know, I may have to rescind her sashimi connoisseur title. My thought was that while it seemed fresh and clean, it did seem that the fish weren’t as vibrant as it could be.

We ended our meal with a light broth soup, probably made of dashi, with thinly sliced mushrooms.

Of course, like most Asian dinners, we had a simple fruit for dessert. Tonight it was cantaloupe. My sister loved it only because in Hawaii they rarely get ripened fruit because everything’s shipped in (except, yum, mangoes), so even the lightest flavor in fruit makes her declare it as first-rate. I thought it was nice but felt it lacked the perfume of a truly great cantaloupe. And while it doesn’t take much preparations to serve a piece of fruit, I guess I’m going on an on because I felt Kiss Seafood could have served a more seasonal fruit like oranges.

Despite not having reservations, we didn’t feel rushed. My sister wondered how the restaurant can make money without much turnover for the night, and I proposed that they had very little overhead since it’s just the husband and the wife and that they do charge a bit more than other Japanese restaurants.

If you’re expecting a lot of sushi and possibly some unusual appetizers or izakaya, then Kiss Seafood may not be the place for you. This is a place with good sushi (not great) but presented in an intimate, delicate way with a lot of love and care. Come here for special occasions, when you’re ready to put your mind in that zen zone where balance and tempo are key ingredients to your dining experience.


Single guy rating: 3.5 stars (Well prepared and classic Japanese cuisine)

Explanation of the single guy's rating system:
1 star = perfect for college students
2 stars = perfect for new diners
3 stars = perfect for foodies
4 stars = perfect for expense accounts
5 stars = perfect for any guy's dream dinner

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The Luck of the Irish to You Finding Cabbage Today

St. Patrick’s Day always reminds me of corned beef, and even though people keep saying corned beef and cabbage is an American-made dish to celebrate the holiday (I guess along with green beer) I still love to eat this dish once a year. I mean, I am an American so it’s no skin off my back whether this is an authentic Irish dish or not.

This isn’t a dish I made from scratch. I basically visited the deli section of the Pasta Shop at the Rockridge Market Hall near my home and purchased their Niman Ranch corned beef at $19.99 a pound (O’blarney!) and I got some cabbage and steamed it instead of boiling it. I steamed it with some of the corned beef juice and did the same with the corned beef to warm it up before eating. I also served it with some roasted fingerling potatoes, of course!

I had such a hard time finding a head of cabbage that I ended up having to buy shredded cabbage in those salad pre-packs. I guess a lot of people are making corned beef and cabbage tonight! Hope you’re having a nice plate of corned beef and cabbage along with your green beer on this St. Patty’s day!

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Jamie At Home: Episode 10, Lamb

Jamie Oliver says it’s wintertime for him (almost spring for us) and it’s awful weather and his garden is slowing down. So he focuses on meat, lamb to be precise. Instead of having your own livestock (which he doesn’t have, just a garden, remember?), Jamie suggests having a relationship with someone locally (or over the Internet, which sound like online dating) so he brings his friend Daphne, who I guess is some kind of sheep rancher. She brings him a whole lamb.

So we get some education on quality lamb. Daphne says the key thing for quality lamb is a mixture of grass, wind, sun and rain. What more does Dolly want? She also says that happy animals basically taste better because when they’re stressed the meat will be tough. And who wants tensed meat? I guess that’s why the Japanese pay a premium for hand-massaged Kobe beef. Daphne also says people think pink meat is cleaner and better, but actually the darker the meat, the better the quality. Jamie chimes in that it should be a lovely maroon color with fat marbling. I love lamb.

Jamie’s in his sun room kitchen (you know, where he sits down and cook), and he’s making lamb kebabs. (Get the complete recipe here on the Food Network site.) He gets a shoulder of lamb and he cuts off the sinew part, which can be tough and stringy. Then he cuts the lamb into inch chunks and throws them into a food processor along with fresh thyme, a teaspoon of chili powder, 1/2 a teaspoon of cumin, a fancy herb called sumac (about two pinches), sea salt and pepper, and then finally some pistachio nuts. He pulses it to grind it all up together. Jamie says you don’t want a fine puree, but a bit chunky.

He gets these metal skewers that looks pretty dangerous. You can poke an eye out with them. Then he does this weird thing where he squeezes a handful of the meat along the skewer. I’ve never done that with my skewers. He says it helps to leave the skewers in the fridge for a couple of hour to let the meat set. He drizzles the skewers with olive oil and places them right onto a hot grill.

He gets a bowl of parsley leaves. Then with a hand mandolin, he thinly slices a red onion. (He says if you don’t have a mandolin you can just grate them.) Then he adds a pinch of salt and juice from half of lemon onto the onions and mixes them all together to soften the onion slices and soften the bitterness.

He checks on his kebabs, and when he turns them over he’s all excited about the grilling. What man doesn’t like fire and meat? Jamie sure does.

Jamie’s going to make a salad to go with his kebabs, so he gets some romaine, radicchio, rocket and mint. He does a simple lemon juice, olive oil and salt dressing, and tosses everything together. Then he’s going to assemble his lamb.

He starts with a flat bread (untoasted) and lays some of his salad greens on top, then some of his parsley and onions, then finally the meat off the kebab, breaking them into chunks. He sprinkles a few more chili powder, thyme and other spices onto the meat and adds a spoon of yogurt before wrapping up everything with the flat bread. He basically just made a wrap and he’s loving it. Very Greek and Indian at the same time.

Jamie’s back in his garden. It’s another education session and this time he’s chatting with his gardener, Brian. They’re talking about the winter affecting the herbs, although they’ve had a mild winter, it sounds. I didn’t really get much from this conversation and I notice Jamie’s not cooking much in the winter. This episode seems shorter than most, don’t you think?

Incredible Roasted Shoulder of Lamb

Jamie is really just going to make one other dish in this episode, and it’s a slow-roasted lamb shoulder. (Complete recipe here.) He says everyone goes for the lamb legs and rack, but he says shoulder is great, especially when you slow cook and it’s all sweet and delicious.

He begins by scoring the lamb shoulder. On a roasting tray, he adds a few cloves of garlic along with fresh rosemary. He seasons his lamb with salt and pepper (on both sides) and places it in the roasting tray, then adds more garlic cloves and rosemary. He covers the tray with tin foil and says he has his oven at “full whack” (I’m guessing 500 degrees) and puts his lamb in the oven, immediately turning down the heat to 350 degrees. He wants the initial heat to seal the meat’s exterior while keeping the interior juicy. Now he’s cooking this for four hours. No wonder he can’t make anything else this episode, it’s all about this slow-cooked lamb.

Of course, with the magic of television we get to see the lamb after the commercial break and it’s so tender that he can easily pull out this big bone from the lamb. He gets the garlic cloves and says to keep the soft garlic meat, which he’s going to use for the sauce (or gravy).

He gets rid of the rosemary and excess oil from the roasting pan, and then starts by adding some flour to create a thickening agent. He finely chops some fresh mint and then a whole bunch of capers, and all this goes into the pan along with some chicken stock. He brings this to a boil and then simmers it until it thickens.

More lamb? Nope, Jamie’s got some swede, potatoes and carrots that he boiled in a pot and then he drains out the water and he gets a hand smasher to make a mashed vegetable dish. It’s definitely more colorful than plain mashed potatoes. He adds some butter and salt for taste and he’s ready to plate up, as they say.

He adds some cider vinegar to his sauce and pours it into a gravy bowl. Then he’s also made some boiled green vegetables (he should have just steamed it to retain some of the nutrients, but I guess boiling is a British thing) and he plates that with the mashed potatoes and adds a slice of his tender roasted lamb and he’s golden. Super easy. Did he really do anything different with lamb? Who cares. Lamb is so good by itself that it’s all about the sides. LOL.

Must be a British Thing:
Just some clarification on some of the terms Jamie uses.

Tin foil=aluminum foil

Jamieisms heard in this episode:

Brilliant

LOVE-ly

Rock ‘N Roll

Jamie At Home airs on Saturday at 9:30 a.m. on the Food Network. Visit Jamie’s Web site at www.jamieoliver.com. More on the accompanying book for the series here.

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Fro-yo Across the Bay: Yogurt Harmony

I thought I'd check out the frozen yogurt craze on my side of the Bay. While on my way to the farmers market in downtown Berkeley today, I noticed this fairly new yogurt shop right on Shattuck Avenue not too far from the downtown BART station.

Yogurt Harmony has all the look and feel of the up-and-coming yogurt shops opening around the Bay Area, with its bright colors and feel-good zen-like name. The space inside, however, lacks the bright and fresh colors of most new places, although it is clean and well-kept. It reminds me more of a cafe than a yogurt shop (it also sells coffee).

They keep it pretty simple at Yogurt Harmony. Plain yogurt is sold at small, medium and large at $2.50, $3.50 and $5.50. The flavored yogurt (there's only a couple of flavors, peach and green tea when I visited) costs $3.25, $4.25 and $6.25 for the same sizes. Toppings are extra.

I ended up getting a small size of the green tea yogurt with fresh strawberry toppings. It was a nice size for the small, and they were quiet generous with the strawberries. But as for the yogurt itself, I was less than impressed. The texture of the green tea was a bit gritty, and not as creamy as the yogurt I had at places like Jubili or Icebee. The green tea flavor was very subtle. I could barely taste it when mixed with the strawberries, but on its own I could taste the definite green tea flavor.

Yogurt Harmony looks like a nice place to hangout and its a prime spot for UC Berkeley students, but at least with this one visit, the yogurt doesn't seem to be on the same level of others I've tasted in San Francisco. On my side of the Bay, I'd probably just end up getting the yogurt at Sketch in the Fourth Street area or stick with Ici ice cream.

Yogurt Harmony, 2259 Shattuck Ave. at Bancroft, Berkeley (downtown). PH: 510.848.5903. Hours: Monday to Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; and Sunday, noon to 6 p.m. Web site: www.yogurtharmony.com.

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Top Chef: Season 4, Episode 1

Don’t Add Salt to Her Wounds

Ok, so here we go. A new season of Top Chef and there’s hostess Padma looking as tasty as ever. Also looking tasty is all the sights of Chicago. I love that city, and my nephew’s studying there now. I really have to visit again, but now I don’t have to thanks to Bravo and this 2-minute clip review of the city’s sights. BTW, looks like the grand prize hasn’t really changed from last year. Still some fancy European trip, appearance at some food festival, $100,000 prize money, and yes, the title of Top Chef. Fire it up baby!

We get the same theme song and the typical shots of each cheftestant trying to dance while putting on his or her white chef’s jacket. Hey, that Jennifer girl is wearing black. WTF is that all about??

More scenes of Wrigley Field (haven’t been there yet) and first in is our homeboy Ryan from San Francisco. He says he started cooking in his parents’ restaurant when he was 11 years old. He seems pretty proud of the fact that he out-cooked some of his parents’ workers, but I’m thinking child-labor law violation myself.

Then we meet Nimma from Atlanta who doesn’t sound like she had her family support initially but now she does. It’s hard to say because the sound on her application video is crap.

We get a parade of other cheftestants and snippets of their background/video. But I’m not going to bore you with the details. When do we eat from the quickfire?

Oooh, a shot of Pizzeria Uno. Now, I know it’s a Chicago institution and all but do people really still go there for pizza? Oh, I guess we’ll find out because the cheftestants are gathering inside a Pizzeria Uno for some classic deep dish pizza. (Did you know some stupid marketing person convinced Pizzeria Uno to change its name to Uno, Chicago Grill? Stupid.) There’s Richard, who is holding up Marcel’s reputation for molecular gastronomy, so you can bet he’s going to go on and on about gels and smoke and weird shit like that.

BTW, I contemplated titling this recap “Who’s Got a Dirty Mouth?” because seems like this year there are a lot of bleeping going on around here. This group of cheftestants is made up of a lot of potty mouths. (Yeah, talking about you Erik and Andrew.)

So as the cheftestants are sizing each other up at Pizzeria Uno, Jennifer and Zoi, who are both from San Francisco and sitting next to each other, announces casually to the group that they’re, um, like a couple. What the [bleeeeep]?! Geez, it’s catchy. OK, don’t get me wrong, I think they’re cute together and such, but what? Are they competing together? Are we to believe they’re going to duke it out with much heart against each other if they both end up in the final two? Shouldn’t there be some kind of clause against two-fers? I mean, enough with the Bill and Hillary Clinton show.

The other cheftestants are just as baffled as I am, but Andrew has the funniest line when he says “Well, then they can go home together.” (BTW, after Jennifer and Zoi’s “announcement,” I have to say I probably heard the word “out” repeated like four or five times within a single minute. I get it Bravo editors, they’re a gay couple. Like we’ve never seen that before on Bravo, the gayest channel in the world?)

In walks Padma and head judge Chef Tom Collichio, looking as serious as he’s been the last three seasons. You’d think with all the money he’s making he’d crack a smile. Padma says they have to go to the Top Chef Kitchen for their quickfire challenge with a “Chicago twist.”

In the kitchen (which might as well be in a Los Angeles sound studio with its generic stainless steel appliances), we find out that each cheftestant got to bring $200 worth of their favorite ingredients and the camera points out the lockers where they can keep it. This is like the first day of school when you got your locker assignments and you were always worried about sharing space with the class clown who would then proceed to make you the butt of his jokes for the rest of the school year. Oh, wow, bad grade school flashback just now.

Padma tells them they have 90 minutes to make their own signature deep dish pizza for the guest judge, whom she never really introduced.

There’s a mad scramble, of course, as everyone’s grabbing ingredients. We learn more about some of the other cheftestants when they describe their strategy for the quickfire. (Dale, chef at New York’s trendy Buddakan is doing an Asian-inspired pizza with a squirt of hot sauce; Manuel of Dos Caminos is French and Italian trained and is doing a classic Italian pizza; Nikki from Manhattan doesn’t get the whole deep dish pizza coming from thin crust New York so she’s making a white pizza with no tomato sauce; and the Australian dude Mark is using his secret weapon, which is some jar called Marmite, which he says “can move mountains” when used properly. So I guess the assumption is that Marmite can sink ships if used incorrectly Mark?)

Early in this season it looks like the editors are pitting Andrew (who I termed “jittery” in my primer and I was pretty spot on) against Mr. Molecular, Richard. Already in the quickfire challenge Richard has taken Andrew’s deep dish pan so he could test out two pizzas (that’s not very fair I think) so Andrew has to use a skillet. But doesn’t matter, because it looks like he’s not the only one having issues with the deep dish. Some cheftestants are piling on the dough and what comes out are these huge mass of carbs that really look more like they just made a big chunk of bread.

Time’s up, and they pack up their “pizzas” into those delivery bags and head off somewhere.

It looks like it’s dinner time when they arrive at night at some Chicago home. They’re guessing it belongs to some well-to-do Chicago chef because the digs are nice. But who opens the door? None other that media whore Rocco Dispirito. What? They couldn’t find any local chef with the same caliber to be the first judge in Chicago? They had to import a New Yorker to judge deep dish pizza? This is so wrong in so many levels and not just the fact that Rocco still looks like he had his eyes done.

So Padma is there as well and she and Rocco sit at the sofa while each cheftestant brings out their pizzas for them to try. They are going to be stuffed like the sofa they’re sitting on! You know it’s the first episode of the season when the taste-testing zooms by with less than a few seconds for each person. I mean really, did we even get a sense of what they made? Some highlights that I could gather, but only thanks to the forced captioning the editors added for emphasis: Stephanie brings out a melon-tomato pizza with prosciutto and Rocco says he smells something “funky”; Padma seems to like Ryan’s grilled escarole pizza with ricotta, Nimma did a mostly mushroom pizza but Padma asked if she added salt.

The cheftestants are all in the kitchen when Rocco and Padma come in to give the verdict. Rocco calls out a bunch of names and those people stand to the right. He says these are the losers. The other group is the winner. I’m confused? So who really won? They’re really mixing things up this season on Top Chef.

Padma says these two groups will come into play during the elimination challenge tomorrow. For now, they can relax because the house they’re in is actually their home base for this season. Everyone’s all excited because they are pretty sweet digs. And Andrew is providing us with a lot of colorful descriptions, if they’re not being bleeped out. Fatness, for one, whatever that means.

They bust out the bubbly and start to settle in. All except for Nimma, who says she’s not here for socializing, nor is Dale, who’s playing pool by himself. Losers.

The next morning they’re back in the Top Chef kitchen and Padma is standing there looking like a school marm in front of a chalkboard. She tells the cheftestants from the winning group to draw knives, each with a number. That’s the order that they get to pick their partner because they’re going to go head-to-head with the other person to make the same dish from a list of classic dishes that Padma (doing her Vanna White) unveils on the back of the chalkboard.

There’s some strategy coming into play by the cheftestants as they choose which classic dish to make. But, again, at this point there are so many of them it doesn’t really mean anything until they start dropping like flies.

Commercials. That Glad commercial is so weird and 70s that it’s kind of interesting. Very retro. Rutherford Hill, why do all wine commercials have to sound so boring?

Now that they’ve been paired off in head-to-head battles, they’re at the market buying their ingredients. More scrambling, as usual. Ryan can’t find his notepad, and he’s having a hard time remembering the key characteristics of his classic dish, chicken piccata. I don’t think I’ve had this much growing up either, so I can’t help you there bud.

Back in the kitchen, they’re all busy cooking and everyone is stressing, especially Nimma. She’s really turning out to be the drama queen for this season. She’s making shrimp scampi and she’s going to make a custard or flan to go with it. I never knew that was the traditional way of serving scampi? Who knew?

Back to Andrew vs. Richard, Andrew is looking for mayonnaise but Richard tells him that there’s none in the kitchen. Andrew thought that would be an obvious staple in the pantry, but Richard says, well, I guess you’re going to have to make your own with eggs and oil. Andrew’s all, aha, thanks for giving me the recipe for mayonnaise, you loser. Then, of course, Richard brings out a jar of mayonnaise from his shopping bag because he was smart enough to buy a jar. Eventually he offers it up to Andrew, but he’s all like, forget it dude, I’m good. Awwwk-ward.

Nimma’s flan isn’t setting and with just two minutes left, she decides to make it a cauliflower scramble. This is usually my strategy. When things don’t turn out, make an omelette.

Stephanie’s hands are just shaking as she sauces her duck ala orange. Someone get this girl a valium. She’s going to have a nervous breakdown any minute, I can tell.

Commercials. Fish Eye, you can call it wine in a cask but it’s still wine in a box. And animating it still won’t make it look classy.

Judging time and in walks Padma and Tom along with Rocco and, huh, Anthony Bourdain? Where’s Ted Allen, or even Gail Simmons? I feel sorry for all the cheftestants already.

Each pair will go up one at a time and a winner and loser will be declared for each dish. The loser will be eligible for elimination. Since there are so many pairs, here are just some quick highlights:

Duck ala Orange, Australian Mark vs. Shaky Hands Stephanie. Bourdain and Rocco are turned off by Mark’s deconstructed duck and everyone loves the tastes and look (although I thought it plated sloppily) of Stephanie’s dish. She’s the winner.

Crab Cakes, Andrew vs. Richard. Andrew looks like he’s rapping when describing his dish with cilantro basil pudding, and Richard wows the judges with his cakes unveiled with smoke scented with a spice. When the smoke clears, Richard is named the winner.

Lasagna, San Francisco Jennifer vs. New Yorker Nikki. Jennifer uses autumn vegetables for her lasagna while Nikki does a classic lasagna using hand-made pasta sheets. The judges seem to like both these dishes, but eventually Nikki is declared the winner.

Shrimp Scampi, Italian Mama Antonia vs. Socially Awkward Nimma. There’s a lot of yummy sounds coming out of the judges as they taste Antonia’s shrimp scampi with pappardelle. Padma calls out Nimma about her dish being too salty and Rocco says he would send it back if he were at a restaurant. So you know Nimma loses.

Egg’s Benedict, Hardly Seen Spike vs. Generic Lisa. This is another close one with good comments for the two, but eventually they go with Lisa, who said earlier in the competition that she’s been making breakfast for years so you know she had to win this.

Steak Au Poivre, Dale I’m The Next Hung vs. Manuel I’m Not the Next Carlos. Dale has steak all over the plate, trying for something new and Rocco says it was a risk well taken. He wins over Manuel’s steak with a Mexican twist.

Chicken Piccata, Ryan vs. Valerie. The judges don’t like either dish, which they think neither remotely resembled a classic chicken piccata. Ryan is named the loser of this losing pair, and he says in his taped interview that it’ll be embarrassing to go out on the first round since he’s been cooking since age 11. Ryan, unless you were making Beef Wellington from 11, I don’t think it’s that impressive that you were being used as cheap labor by your parents, so stop bringing it up.

Final dish: Souffle, Erik vs. Zoi (the San Francisco showdown). Both soufflés sound like they were rising nicely during the cooking but something must have happened in plating because Erik’s look like a taco mess with his chips on top and Zoi covered her up with candied figs and fennel. But Zoi is named the winner and Erik, class act that he is, says “I just got my ass handed to me.”

Commercials. David Beckham is now endorsing Sharpie. We can all rest easy America.

Judgment time. Padma calls in Antonia, Nikki, Richard and Stephanie. It’s obvious they’re the winning group, and you can tell Dale is not very happy that he was looked over. He should have the word “Entitlement” branded onto his chef’s jacket.

Everyone compliments the four cheftestants, but eventually Rocco names Shaky Hands Stephanie as the winner with her duck ala ronge. I’m kind of shocked because like I said, it looked really sloppy with too much sauce. But hey, the judges said it had a lot of flavor and until someone invents taste TV that I can lick, I have to go with their word for it.

In comes Ryan, Erik, Nimma and Mark. The judges query the losing group but it’s mostly a time for them to vent. Rocco doesn’t understand why Erik’s soufflé had a mashed potato base instead of egg whites, and Tom calls out Nimma about her failed flan idea for her scampi. Australian Mark gets to hear Bourdain call him “pretentious” while everyone is all over Ryan for not really knowing what chicken piccata should be. (Hey, I don’t know either.)

The four are sent away as the judges vent some more but you can tell it’s not looking good for Nimma, whose food was described by Tom as baby food.

Commercials. Toyota Corolla. Wow, those water polo players are beefy. I’m just sayin’.

Decision time, and it’s kind of worrisome that two of the four Bay Area cheftestants are in the bottom on the first episode. Not representing guys! In the end, even though none of them really had a clear understanding of the classics, it’s Nimma who’s sent packing. She interviews that she’s going to keep on cooking (but hopefully with less salt).

This season on Top Chef: people are sweating in the kitchen (of course), there’s a lot of running, we see zoo animals and a football stadium and some bromance is stewing among a few of the guys. Oh yeah.

Top Chef aires Wednesday nights at 10 p.m. (9 p.m. Central) on Bravo TV. Check out videos and multiple blogs at the Top Chef Web site. Photos courtesy Bravo TV.

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Dish on Dining: Jack Falstaff -- CLOSED

Clean and Crisp Dishes from the Ground to the Sky
UPDATE (04/30/09): This restaurant plans to close on May 9, 2009.
598 Second St. (at Brannan), San Francisco
SOMA
PH: 415.836.9239
Open lunch, Mon.–Fri., 11:30 a.m.–2 p.m.; dinner, Mon.–Sat., 5:30–10 p.m.
Reservations, major credit cards accepted
Web site

When you look over the menu of Executive Chef Jonnatan Leiva at the handsome Jack Falstaff restaurant, you can see that Leiva has all the areas covered. His starters are broken into four areas: “from the market,” “sea,” “land” and “air.” It’s a something-for-everyone approach to dining, which helped this week because I was dining with a vegetarian friend.

This past Monday night, I visited this SOMA restaurant up the street from the Giants ballpark with my friend Susan, who was in town for a convention. (Susan and I worked together when I lived in New York.) I suggested we check out Jack Falstaff, which is part of the PlumpJack Group, because its chef, Leiva, had just been named one of the rising young chefs of 2008 by the San Francisco Chronicle.

After a few minutes looking for the entrance (it’s actually not off the street but near an alcove that looks like a passageway to the freight elevator), we entered the dark and romantic settings, walking past the bar with heated outdoor seating. We sat along a wall that wasn’t as much cozy as claustrophobic. Surrounded by pale green velour, I felt like we were in a padded cell. But I guess the padding helps muffle the noise because Jack Falstaff—at least on this night—lacked the boisterous cacophony you often get at the other loft-like restaurants in SOMA.

Going back to the menu, Leiva offers a variety of items as starters, many of which are heavy enough to be combined into entrées (such as the short ribs and quail). There are only two pasta dishes, but they can be ordered as starters or as an entrée. Then there are six main entrées to choose from, and also a list of six sides to fill out your dining experience.

There were a few unusual items on the menu, such as the Crispy Pig Trotters, which I really wanted to try until I found out it was deep-fried. Overall, while I give Leiva a nod for creativity, I thought many of his ingredients were actually fairly commonplace these days. I’m talking Kona Kampachi (love it but this has now taken over ahi tuna as the tartare of choice), diver scallops, Liberty Farms duck and grass-fed lamb. (For you bone marrow fans, I noticed bone marrow mentioned twice on the menu: once as a side with toast and another with the prime sirloin.)

We started the dinner with an amuse bouche from the chef—a panna cotta with braised fennel on top. Susan and I couldn’t get our mouths around the feeling of panna cotta at the start of a meal instead of the end, although the fennel added a nice, buttery texture to try to trick our minds.

Susan started with the Butter Lettuce and Apple Salad ($10), which came with brie, candied walnuts, slices of blood oranges, carrot, shaved fennel and walnut vinaigrette. It arrived plated as a trio of mini salad cups, which is great if you want to share it with two others at your table. It was a crunchy and clean salad, fresh and enjoyable. The petals of orchid flowers made it especially pretty.

My dinner was all about the “air” as I chose both a starter and entrée that were poultry. So I started with the Pan-Seared Sonoma Free Range Quail ($14), which was two sides of quail nicely crisp from the pan-searing and sitting on top a maple-glazed apple. Everything was topped with a foie gras emulsion.

I loved the quail for the complementary flavors of the savory skin and meat with the sweetness of the baked apple. I didn’t get any of the foie gras, though, which came sprayed on as a foam. The strong natural flavors of the quail seemed to overpower any essence of foie gras. Still, it was a tasty dish.

Next came our entrees. Susan had the Black Truffle and Ricotta Cheese Agnolotti ($15 as appetizer/$22 for entrée, but Susan opted for the appetizer size). The simple preparations of shaved parmesan cheese and olive oil made this pure comfort food, which Susan said was well done.

Continuing my fowl dinner, I had the Crispy Liberty Farms Duck Breast ($26). It came in such an unusual presentation that I thought I’d order the sirloin instead. The duck breast was cut in bigger chunks so that it could stand up in this array of duck and spicy fried cauliflower on a bed of steamed tatsoi green vegetables. It was all very elegant.

I loved the crispy texture of the duck’s skin and the cauliflower, which tasted like it was likely fried like Japanese-style tempura. But the duck itself was a little too done for my taste. I prefer it a bit tender. Still, I give Leiva props for an inventive presentation of your basic duck breast.

We ended our dinner with the Cinnamon-Sugar Donut Holes ($8), which our server said was a house favorite that’s consistently on the menu. After a night of interesting plating, I was a bit disappointed when our donut holes came out simply stacked on a plate with a side of fresh raspberries and a container of crème anglaise.

Don’t get me wrong, the donut holes were freshly made, piping hot right out of the kitchen with a fluffy interior and crispy shell (although not as strong a cinnamon taste as I would have liked). But the crème anglaise was runny and it just made this dessert rather pedestrian after all the other fashion-forward dishes that paraded to our table earlier in the evening.

Despite the thud of an ending, the dinner overall was quite entertaining and satisfying. I love chefs who spend time preparing quality ingredients and plating them in creative ways, thus allowing us diners another element of the eating experience to talk about and dissect.

As we left Jack Falstaff, I wondered about the talent of Chef Leiva and how long he’ll remain here. As part of the PlumpJack group, he could easily be moved to the flagship PlumpJack restaurant in the Cow Hollow neighborhood, which had been going through some chef changes in the past year. I do think that Leiva’s abilities require a larger showcase for his talent, so you should check out his work now while he’s at Jack Falstaff because I’m sure he’ll be moving on to bigger things fairly soon.

Single guy rating: 4.25 stars (Eat with a rising star)

Explanation of the single guy's rating system:
1 star = perfect for college students
2 stars = perfect for new diners
3 stars = perfect for foodies
4 stars = perfect for expense accounts
5 stars = perfect for any guy's dream dinner

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Bust Out The Chef Knives!

Tomorrow night is the long awaited premiere of Top Chef Chicago. (Isn’t it funny how they add the name of the city into the title now, instead of calling it Top Chef, Season 4?) Anywho, I say long-awaited because I’ve been waiting so long for these promos for Top Chef Chicago to end! Didn’t they start these promos, like, late last year?

I may regret this decision, but I decided to do recaps of Top Chef. When I was doing recaps of “The Next Food Network Star” last year, people kept asking me why I wasn’t recapping Top Chef? And that was because the two shows overlapped last season so I couldn’t do both. But doesn’t look like TNFNS is airing anytime soon (I bet the poor response to Amy’s show might have cooled the network on the franchise) so that means I can dedicated my Wednesday nights to Top Chef.

So as a primer, here’s a rundown of the contestants in Season 4. Of course, all my views on these people may change after I get a first glimpse of them in action tomorrow night. I’ll be posting my recaps on Thursday nights, so come back then to see what happens.

Andrew, 30, sous chef in New York City. First thing I think when I see Andrew is that he needs to clean up. He just seems gritty to me, you know, like leeks that needs some soaking before you cook them. Still, I like his varied background in cuisines—his bio’s says he’s interested in African, Spanish, French, Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, Latino and Indian. Andrew could be the dark horse in the competition because he seems to be very nebulous, but I don’t give him much odds in winning. He’s too jittery.




Antonia, 31, executive chef at Foxtail in L.A. Antonia’s a single Italian mama and already I think she’s too nice to win. She’s already an executive chef of a major trendy restaurant so her talent (which one can’t tell from reading the bios) will be the only way for her to gain any lead. She also focuses on comfort food (she’s going to grow up to be a nice Italian grandmother!), which I think puts her at a disadvantage for some Top Chef challenges that’ll require a lot of creativity and innovation.





Dale, 29, sous chef at New York’s Buddakan. I’ve already pegged this guy as this year’s Hung of last season. Not that I think he’s going to win, but he has that same smug confidence. Maybe it’s that smirk pasted on his bio photo. His ethnic background is Filipino (via Chicago so he might have home field advantage). I’m hoping he’ll show more about this cuisine because I know very little of Filipino cooking of all the Asian cuisines. Mabuhay!





Erik, 38, executive chef of Circa Restaurant in San Francisco. Here’s one of four contestants with Bay Area connections and I have to say I’ve never been to Circa so can’t really vouch for the food. Erik has a kick-ass attitude, and not just because he said that on his bio video, but he has major tattoos, a bald head and piercings. Need I say more?








Jennifer, 35, executive chef of Coco500 in San Francisco. Another Bay Area resident and another Bay Area restaurant I haven’t tried. (I think all the San Francisco entrants come from really fancy restaurants that I just don’t have the budget for right now.) She has a real Brooklyn attitude (where she was born) and looks like she can handle anything in the kitchen. The only weird thing is in her video she says she doesn’t like wild rice, because it’s more like grass. Um, then it would be called wild grass? I don’t get it, and now I’m nervous about what dishes she comes up with at her restaurant.



Lisa, 27, unemployed chef in New York. Lisa’s one of the yunggin’s, and I think she’s already a long shot because she wears a bandana in the kitchen. I’ve found people who wear bandanas don’t seem to go very far in kitchen competitions. Sorry, I know it’s a bias I have about bandanas but I have to be honest. Anywho, Lisa quit her last job at Public, so not sure what that’s all about. She says she favors Asian cuisine, so I give her points for that. But like Simon says, I think her personality’s forgettable.





Manuel, 33, executive chef of Dos Caminos in New York. Wow, seems like we have a lot of chefs from the Big Apple. But Manuel’s our Latino cuisine contestant so you know he’ll go for bold flavors and lots of spice. It’s hard to really get much from his personality, so again, I think he might fall in the middle of the pack. He just seems meh to me.









Mark, 29, sous chef at Public restaurant in New York. Yep, another guy from New York, and he comes from the same restaurant where Lisa just quit from. What? Did they apply together? And what’s with this restaurant Public where everyone’s so dying to leave the kitchen? Anyway, he’s originally from New Zealand so I bet he’ll have a cute accent, but I think he’s also a long shot because he’s self-taught. While that’s good for a cooking show on the Food Network, it might be tougher on Top Chef that really looks for someone with good restaurant chops. He looks like he really should be a band member with, like, Iggy Pop. I peg him as the one to be cut in the first or second week.



Nikki, 35, chef and co-owner of 24 Prince in (where else?) New York City. I think Nikki’s a ringer in this competition because why would you have someone who owns a restaurant in a competition where the top prize is to give you cash to help you start a restaurant? I think the producers fell for Nikki’s hot looks. She does look like a model, doesn’t she? But she’s pretty smart, having worked in the front and back of the house of a restaurant and being certified as a sommelier. Again, why does she need Top Chef?




Nimma, 26, chef at Repast in Atlanta, Georgia. Hey, doesn’t she look like Padma’s sister? She seems very unstructured, which could be her downfall when she might go overboard with the saffron or salt in one of the challenges. And yes, she has a bandana! (Although it is a bit more like a scarf.) My guess is she’ll be like Mark and will be eliminated either in the first or second round.








Richard, 35, chef at Element restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia. I think this guy may be among the top three contestants, mostly because he sounds like he’s creative and innovative (ala Marcel of Season 2) and because he has a faux hawk. Have you noticed that the last two winners of Top Chef (Ilan and Hung) both have faux hawks? Even though I’m so tired of the faux hawks (I tried it once in 2001), I think this guy has a chance.







Ryan, 28, formerly of Myth Café in San Francisco. Another Bay Area contestant, Ryan has been getting a lot of pre-buzz on the food blogging pages. A lot of people have been speculating about what he’s been up to since Top Chef filmed (he reportedly spent some time as a waiter, a red herring maybe?) but his last real chef gig was with the popular Myth Café, which was next door to the even more popular Myth restaurant, which is unfortunately going through a lot of changes right now and lost its famous chef (not Ryan). I think Ryan will be fun to watch because he seems to have a bit of the bad boy in him (he kind of reminds me of Sam from Season 2) and I peg him to be in the top 3. A sad trivia of his past, he’s from Los Banos in Central California, which is Spanish for The Toilet.

Spike, 27, chef de cuisine at Mai House in New York City. Spike looks just like Ryan, except he has a hat. He’s working at one of the hottest new restaurants in Manhattan’s TriBeCA neighborhood, so that’ll give him an extra boost of confidence, I think. He might be a sleeper in the competition because his style is not very clear upfront, but I bet he might surprise us.








Stephanie, 31, restaurant owner in Chicago. Another person with home field advantage is Stephanie, who most recently owned her own restaurant in Chicago called Scylla. Not sure if it was good or what, but I guess she did well enough so she could be traveling a bit before deciding what to do next. Nice gig if you can get it, huh? I don’t get the sense, though, that Stephanie has the chops to go long in this competition. My guess is she’ll be out in the mid rounds. Then she can get back to her travels.






Valerie, 32, personal chef in Chicago. Hmm, another Chicago native with home field advantage. I don’t really know what to think of Valerie. But watching her video, I get this sense that she’s going to be in some fights with other chefs in the suites. I don’t know why, she just seems scrappy.








Zoi, 30, restaurant consultant in San Francisco. The last contestant and the last of the four from the Bay Area, Zoi seems like another long shot to me. She doesn’t have any formal training nor much restaurant experience, it seems. I mean, how often are you in the kitchen when you’re consulting? Oh, I just watched her video and she says she’s the chef de cuisine at San Francisco’s Presidio Social Club. (Um, nice work updating the bios Bravo!) Anywho, Zoi still seems like a long shot because she seems young and a bit inexperienced. But who knows.





Top Chef airs on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on Bravo TV and repeats at 11 p.m. (Note: The premiere episode is 75 minutes long so if you’re taping it, be sure to add another 15 minutes to the typical one hour segment.)

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