Dish on Dining: Marzano on College

This is the second part of a two-part review of the dual restaurant concept Garibaldis and Marzano.

Fresh Pizza the Star of this Concept
5356 College Ave., Oakland
Rockridge neighborhood
PH: 510.595.4058
Open nightly for dinner (with late night happy hour from 10 p.m. to midnight)
Reservations, major credit cards accepted
Web site

Thin-crust pizza continues to trample the food competition as every new pizzeria concept opening up in this economy seems to attract major crowds. It doesn’t hurt when you put out some good pie, too.

Marzano is among the pizza restaurants that have garnered a lot of buzz. When it first opened in Oakland’s Glenview neighborhood, it drew raves. So much so that the owners squeezed a second Marzano restaurant into its established Garibaldis in the Rockridge neighborhood.

Of the two concepts, Marzano offers up the casual, family-style cuisine with an emphasis on quality ingredients. The tiny restaurant (opened up on the side of the once impressive Garibaldis bar) is packed with tiny candlelit tables and is warmed by the bright pizza oven in the back.

Whenever I visited Marzano, the restaurant was often packed soon after the doors opened at 5 p.m. Since it features pizza, Marzano is often filled with families, usually gathered around the communal table by the window.

The menu by Chef Robert Holt features nearly a dozen varieties of pizzas, but also an impressive list of antipasti, insalate and a few meaty entrées. Each item using fresh seasonal ingredients is offered up in a rustic Italian style.

On my first visit, drunk on a couple of vodka martinis, I focused on a few small bites, starting with the Maine Sweet Shrimp with Citrus ($10). This simple plate of meaty bay shrimp is served with blood oranges and simply dressed with olive oil. It was a clean and refreshing dish that spotlighted the substantial quality of the shrimp.

Thinking you can’t go wrong with meatballs in an Italian restaurant, I ordered the Wood-fire Roasted Meatballs ($10), which includes three meatballs served in a sizzling plancha plate. The meatballs, unfortunately, were dense and slightly rubbery, which pretty much throws off the entire dish despite the decent tomato sauce.

I ended with the Seasonal Chopped Salad ($11), which was a huge plate of the season’s vegetables like radish and radicchio, complemented with lots of fortina cheese chunks and crispy pancetta. The salad was dressed in a red wine vinaigrette. This was a very healthy choice, except for the overdose of fortina cheese, which I have to say is not my favorite because of its rubbery texture and mild flavor.

I had to come back to test out Marzano’s pizza, so on another night I returned sitting conveniently right in front of the wood-fire oven in the back. There’s a lot to choose from when it comes to pizza, but I settled on the Calamari ($14) pizza.

The beautiful pizza base of spicy tomato and gremolata came topped with basically a salad of celery hearts, cherry tomatoes, radicchio and pecorino. I had my reservations about the pizza because I felt many of the dishes I had in my last visit were nice but nothing spectacular. But from my first bite of the thin, crispy pizza, I was in love.

I love the burst of flavors and freshness from the spicy sauce to the fresh crunchy vegetables. This isn’t the most easy pizza to eat, and the few pieces of calamari were hidden in the vegetables, but it was a most satisfying pizza.

There’s something about having a lot of toppings on your pizza. If you like that (as I do), then you’ll fall in love with the creativity of Marzano’s pizzas. But if you like a plain simple pizza, you can still get that with the margherita and napoletana, also on the menu.

I ended the night with dessert, and Marzano’s classic Crème Fraiche Panna Cotta ($9) with seasonal citrus. The thick-yet-creamy panna cotta had a strong almond flavor that was offset by the fresh pieces of oranges strewn around the plate.

Side note: The thin bread sticks offered up when you sit down are amazingly cheesy and fun to eat. Just like the great scones offered up at brunch over on the Garibaldis side, these free starters signal a great start at Marzano.

Marzano has been embraced by the Rockridge neighborhood, even though the area already has two established pizza restaurants. Marzano does an adequate job with the various dishes but it really shines in the pizza arena (which you can also order for take out).

It's hard to say which restaurant is better? Garibaldis or Marzano. It's like when people ask me where do I like living more, San Francisco or New York? Both places are different and I like different things about the two. The same goes with Garibaldis and Marzano. They offer different experiences, and lucky for me they're both in one spot a few minutes from my home.

For my review of Garibaldis, click here.

Single guy rating: 3.5 stars (working the wood-fire pizza)

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



Other pizza reviews:
Starbelly: "Beretta Clones Itself in the Castro"
Pizzeria Pico: "Cozy Pies in North County"
Gialina Pizzeria: "The Best Pizza ... at least in Glen Park"

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Hearty Vegetables for the Season

It's going to be a wet week ahead for us in the Bay Area (what, is this Seattle?), so I took advantage of the morning sun today and headed out to the farmers market at Oakland's Grand Lake area. It was interesting to see a lot of citrus and leafy vegetables out in the stands, especially the deep, purplish vegetables like this one I noticed called "tardivo." It looks like a cousin of the treviso, which is an Italian radicchio with the dark, royal purple color. I just love how this tardivo has such dramatic curves. In fact, all the vegetables at this particular farmer's stand were pretty curly. I love curly vegetables. :)

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Dish on Dining: Garibaldis

Reduced in Size but Still Going Strong
5356 College Ave., Oakland
Rockridge neighborhood
PH: 510.535.4000
Open for weekday lunch, Sunday brunch, and dinner nightly
Reservations, major credit cards accepted
Web site

One of the early pioneers of the trend of San Francisco restaurants crossing the bridge to Oakland is Garibaldis (original location still on Presidio Avenue). More than 10 years ago, it opened its Oakland restaurant on the far end of College Avenue in the up-and-coming Rockridge neighborhood.

I used to live right around the corner from the shiny new Garibaldis Oakland and was excited to call it my neighborhood spot, where I could always get this amazing seafood paella dish with saffron. But after I moved to New York and then returned to Oakland, Garibaldis didn’t seem to be the same (and the paella dish was no longer on the menu). While it still had the impressive wood bar, the crowd seemed to be a bit older and sedate.

The owners also jumped on the artisan pizza craze and opened Marzano in Oakland’s Glenview neighborhood last year. It became so popular that they decided to bring the Marzano concept to Rockridge—in the same spot as Garibaldis.

So last fall after a complete renovation, Garibaldis reopened as a split restaurant with the old concept on one side and a Marzano concept on the side that once showcased the giant wood bar.

I visited the new restaurants recently to see how the dual restaurant concept was doing. This will actually be a two-part review as I review each restaurant separately. Today I start with the grand lady Garibaldis.

While the restaurant is smaller, it still maintains the sophisticated elegance of the original Garibaldis with a few splashy art pieces and a large communal table added for good measure. It’s the type of restaurant one would call “handsome.”

I visited first for Sunday brunch (Garibaldis is the only one opened for brunch) with my nephew Chris and his girlfriend, Mary, when they were visiting from out of town.

I started off with a Bloody Mary (because you know I only order them at brunch), and Garibaldis’ version was extra spicy with a kick.

The real treat was the complimentary bread basket that arrived after we ordered. It didn’t offer bread, but instead had a few Madeleine cakes and blueberry scones. I tried one of the blueberry scones and they were probably the best I’ve ever tasted. I would have paid top dollar for them, but these were free! The light scones had a crispy edge but were delicate and airy inside. I would go back just for them.

For our brunch, Chris and Mary both ordered the Chef’s Omelet, which was made with applewood smoked bacon, spinach, cheddar and cherry tomatoes, topped with avocado slices with a side of breakfast potatoes. But Chris got his omelet as part of the prix-fixed brunch deal ($19), which came with the omelet, a fruit cup and a glass of mimosa.

I ordered the Salmon Benedict ($15), which for some reason came with a sauce that was strikingly orange. On the menu, the sauce was called a “tomato chevre sauce” so I’m thinking maybe it was the coloring of the chevre cheese? Anywho, it made the whole dish look a bit fake. As for the taste, there was a nice smoked salmon flavor and the eggs were done just right. But I was probably still dreaming of those scones.

I returned by myself on another night to check out Garibaldis’ dinner service. The dinner menu by executive chef Scott Sasaki is a mix of California cuisine with some Spanish flair. For example, one of the interesting dishes paraded through the room was the Calamari ala Plancha, which came out sizzling on a platter. The smell of sizzling squid was amazing, but the platter looked quite big so I went another route for my selections.

I started with the Hamachi Crudo ($12), which came out beautifully plated with thinly sliced English cucumbers and topped with daikon sprouts. The hamachi was dressed with a Calabrian chile and capezzana olive oil. The fish was nice and fresh, and I got a nice kick from the chile (but it wasn’t overpowering). I gulped down this dish quite quickly.

For my main, I ordered the Yukon Gold Potato Gnocchi with chanterelle mushrooms, sunchokes, cipollini onions and black truffles ($18). What was impressive about the dish when it arrived were the thick slices of black truffles on top. I’ve had black truffles in the past, but often the low-end with just a few grated sprinkles that really tasted like nothing. I was excited that these truffle pieces were big enough for me to see, for one, and thick enough to really impart a truffle flavor, for another.

The gnocchi were big but fluffy, and they were accented nicely by the slight broth made of the mushrooms, sunchokes and onions. The black truffles gave the overall dish a nice woody flavor, almost musky but in a good way. While I felt the gnocchi texture could have been a tad more delicate, I still felt satisfied that this was a perfect winter dish.

Because I had such fond memories of the scones from brunch, I wanted to try dessert since I knew the pastry chef had just joined the new Garibaldis. So I got the Chocolate Budino ($9), which is the thick Italian chocolate pudding cake. Garibaldis’ version was huge and tasted almost like a big warm brownie. (It’s not as dense and interesting as Flour + Water’s famous chocolate budino.) The budino was served with espresso ice cream (divine) and a lot of candied nuts (maybe a bit too much). This was a huge dessert that definitely should be shared.

Side note: The restrooms are shared between the two restaurants, so if you’re at Garibaldis, you need to cross over to Marzano to use the bathroom, giving you a peek at the popular Marzano side of the restaurant.

Garibaldis has a different feel than what I remembered, but in a way the new Garibaldis seems more relevant and up-to-date. Walking by these two restaurants, I can safely say that Marzano always seem more pack than Garibaldis, which is probably benefiting from Marzano’s overflow. But Garibaldis shouldn’t be considered a backup choice because it offers a refined but approachable meal that’s worth seeking out.

Single guy rating: 3.75 stars (New Memories)

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



Click here for my review of Marzano.

Other Rockridge restaurants:
Wood Tavern: “A Year Later, It’s Still a Hot Spot in Oakland”
Oliveto Café: “Rustic Italian fare in the heart of Rockridge”
Somerset: “Miss Millie’s Takes New Form in the East Bay”

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Zinfandel Festival Tasting Ticket Giveaway -- CLOSED

Just like there are varietals of wine grapes, there are a variety of wine events and festivals in California. One coming up later this month focuses entirely on one varietal – zinfandel.

The 19th Annual Zinfandel Advocates and Producers (ZAP) Festival, “Zin in Paradise,” is a three-day event of grand tastings, pairings, silent auction and dinner in San Francisco. This year’s festival features a well-known chef from my home state of Hawaii, Beverly Gannon. Chef Gannon is creating the Hawaii-inspired menu for the Dinner With The Winemakers event on Friday, Jan. 29.

Here’s a rundown of all the ZAP Festival events:

Jan. 28: Good Eats and Zinfandel Pairing, 6 to 9 p.m. at the Fort Mason Center. Cost: $95 for ZAP members and $125 for non-members. More than 50 wineries and restaurants will be creating bites and pours to help you savor the combination of zinfandel and good food.

Jan. 29: Flights: A Showcase of Zinfandels is a seated tasting and in-depth seminar focusing on limited-produced zinfandels. Event runs from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at The InterContinental Mark Hopkins Hotel’s Peacock Court. Cost: $65 for ZAP members and $80 for non-members.

Jan. 29: Evening With the Winemakers: A Benefit Live Auction and Dinner is the grand event of the festival with a major dinner planned by Chef Gannon and zinfandel from a variety of wineries, including Cakebread Cellars, Charter Oak Winery, Dogwood Cellars, JR Wines, and St. Francis Winery. The event begins at 5 p.m. with a reception that will offer a taste for the very first time of the 2008 Heritage Vineyard Zinfandel. Cost: $210 for ZAP members and $260 for non-members.

Jan. 30: 19th Annual Grand Zinfandel Tasting at the Festival and Herbst Pavilions at Fort Mason, showing off more than 200 wineries. Go and try the wines from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Cost: $49 for ZAP members and $59 for non-members.

To learn more about the ZAP festival and ticket information, go to www.zinfandel.org.


TICKET DRAWING: The planners behind the ZAP Festival has graciously provided two pairs of tickets to its Saturday (Jan. 30) Grand Zinfandel Tasting at Fort Mason to readers of the Cooking With The Single Guy blog. You get to spend a Saturday trying zinfandel from some of the state’s zin producers.

This is how the drawing is going to work:

1. You must be able to attend the Grand Zinfandel Tasting event in San Francisco on Jan. 30, a Saturday. So even if you don’t live in San Francisco but plan on being in the city that day, feel free to enter. (Of course, all you Bay Area people should definitely enter for a day of wine drinking!)
2. There will be two winners selected. Each winner will get two tickets. (So a total of four tickets will be given out, each valued at $59.)
3. To enter, post a comment saying you want to attend the event, and correctly answer the following two questions: a) Chef Beverly Gannon is from Hawaii, but what is the name of the particular island where she’s from (it’s also where she has her famous restaurant loved by locals and tourists alike), and b) Every island in the Hawaiian chain has a nickname, what is the nickname of the island where Chef Gannon is from?
4. Post your comment with your two answers by midnight, Tuesday (Jan. 19).
5. If you answer correctly, I will add your name to a basket and then pull out two winners. Winners will be notified next Wednesday. Their names will be placed on the Will Call list, and they will need to pick up their tickets on the day of the event at Fort Mason.

UPDATE: This drawing has closed and the two winners selected from the commenters can be found in the comment section. Thanks everyone for playing!

Grape photo courtesy of Getty Images

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Spam, The Sequel: Fried Rice Recipe

Of my videos demonstrating some of my easy recipes, the one that ranks among the most viewed is my spam musubi video. I’m pretty sure it’s because people like searching for the word Spam. (47,163 views and counting on YouTube.)

So I decided to cook with Spam again, this time making fried rice, which can be a really quick and easy dinner to make. Fried rice is great because you can pretty much create your rice dish with whatever ingredients you have in the refrigerator or your pantry. Of course, you’ll need to have some pre-cooked rice, preferably leftover rice that’s been in the refrigerator for a day or two.

Just to make this Spam rice even more crazy, I added crushed pineapples just to give it a Hawaiian twist. Check out my video to see how simple it is to make fried rice and use the recipe below so you can give it a try. Enjoy!

Spam Fried Rice with Pineapples

Copyright 2010 by Cooking With The Single Guy

Ingredients
3/4 can of Spam, cut into 1/2-inch chunks
3-4 cups of cooked rice (long grain, leftover)
8 oz. frozen peas and carrots, defrosted
3 eggs, scrambled
1 small can of crushed pineapples (drained and squeezed of juice)
1/4 cup green onions, finely chopped
2-3 T soy sauce
2-3 T Xiao Hsing rice cooking wine (or sherry wine)
1 t ground white pepper
salt, if needed
Canola oil

In a non-stick wok or large skillet, warm some oil over high heat and add the eggs. Season with a pinch of salt and scramble as you cook and then remove and set aside.

In the same wok, add the Spam chunks to brown for 2 to 3 minutes, then remove from wok.

Heat some oil again and add the peas and carrots, then add the rice, making sure everything gets blended. Season your rice with white pepper, soy sauce and Xiao Hsing wine, making sure everything blends together. Then add the Spam and scrambled eggs, followed by the crushed pineapples and green onions. Since most of the items are cooked, you just want to stir-fry everything to blend well and then taste to see if you need to season it with more salt. If it tastes to your liking, plate it up and you’re ready to eat.

Makes 5 to 6 servings.

Pair with pot of hot oolong tea.

TIP: When making fried rice, it’s important to control the moisture level of the ingredients in your wok. That’s why you cook the ingredients in parts and stages to make sure it gets the chance to fully cooked and not get crowded in the wok. Be sure you squeeze out as much of the juice from the pineapples so you don’t add more liquid to the fried rice.

SPAM OR BUST?: OK, so I use Spam as the main protein but you can easily substitute it for ham or even Chinese sausage known as lap cheong.

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Power Brunch with the Dot429 Crowd

It's at the start of the year when we all have good intentions about what we'd like to do better. For me, it's networking and meeting new people. So this year I'm making more of an effort to get out and meet new people.

So that's how I ended up yesterday at a brunch event launching a new networking group for gays and lesbians in the San Francisco Bay Area. Called "dot429," the group held its first event at the Yerba Buena Gardens' Novellus Theater. BTW, I read somewhere how the group came up with its name, but I totally forgot. And there wasn't much explanation at the event or on the group's Web site. (If you visit the site, you might think the group is all about fashion and youth. Ouch.)

The Novellus Theater was a great location for the event. Most of the networking occurred in the second floor lobby, and few ventured out onto the deck, which is where my friend Joe and I spent most of our time hanging out. Networking for me has to be baby steps. At least I had a nice view, right?

The event seemed like a major success just because of the large number of people who attended. Everyone was busy chatting others up or introducing themselves to strangers. See how much buzz is occurring in the photo above? I just felt intimidated by the groups of people all locked in deep conversation. So instead I focused on what I felt comfortable with ... the food and drink.

Thank God for the open bar. I stopped here first and the bartenders had a bunch of Bloody Mary's ready and waiting for me. I love Bloody Mary's but it's funny that I only order them at brunch (or when I'm eating raw oysters).

Actually, one of the other things that attracted me to the dot429 event is that the food was being presented by out chefs Jamie Lauren and Jennifer Biesty, who some of you might remember from the "Top Chef" series on Bravo TV. They put together an amazing menu of brunch-like food served up in cocktail party sizes. And the food was so fancy, including a Salade Landaise with bacon, quail egg, fingerling potato and truffle vinaigrette; Greek Yogurt Parfait with mango, pomegranate seeds and pistachio granola; mini Hungarian coffee cakes (this was Joe's favorite, and I liked it a lot too) and Crab Toast with miso verjus dressing and celery root remoulade.

Here's Joe's plate, that also included a variety of baked goods like a blueberry scone and a lovely cinnamon roll.

Another one of my favorite was the Mini Biscuit with Sausage Gravy, just because I always think this dish is such Southern comfort food and because the sausage gravy was so tasty. (You can see I grabbed a few more of those mini coffee cakes too!)

There were also some food I didn't snap because I was focused on eating them as I tried to avoid talking to people. Things like a Duck Confit Hash with wild arugula and a roasted pepper sauce and Deviled Eggs with caviar and smoked strugeon. BTW, all the food and drink came with the $25 admission cost. Sweet!

Here's Chef Biesty, who was at the event throughout prepping food and meeting fans. Oddly enough, Chef Lauren couldn't be spotted so not sure why she was a no show (even though her food made it). Doesn't matter because Biesty kept the food area moving like clockwork with the food coming out on a regular basis, keeping everyone fed as they had their power talks.

I did actually talk to two new people, so that's a major accomplishment for me. It's still early in the year, so give me a break. :) But one thing's for sure, if they keep serving up such good food, I'll always be there to at least check out the view.

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Mini Dish: The Sunny Side Café

Casual Breakfast Served All Day
2136 Oxford St. (at Center), Berkeley
PH: 510.845.9900
Open Mon.–Fri., 7:30 a.m.–3 p.m.; Sat.–Sun., 8:30 a.m.–3 p.m.
No reservations, major credit cards accepted
www.thesunnysidecafe.com

Sunny Side Café is the perfect name for a breakfast spot, so it’s no wonder that this eco-friendly restaurant has been packing it in at its Solano Avenue spot in Albany. A few months ago, a second location opened up right near the University of California-Berkeley campus so I checked it out with my friend Mary, who studies at UC.

We arrived for brunch on a weekend, but it seemed silly calling it brunch since Sunny Side Café serves its breakfast menu all day. They serve eggs that come from cage-free chicken, and the menu notes some dishes as a “low-carbon emission choice,” which I’m guessing means the ingredients were purchased locally and not shipped in from some faraway place.

The Berkeley location seems a bit tight for this casual spot where you order first and carry your number to one of the tables downstairs or upstairs. The cash register where you order is right at the entrance, so even when there were only two people in front of us, we were already pushing ourselves out the door.

But the setting was bright and cozy, with lots of colorful wall art and warm wood furnishings. Mary and I sat in the upstairs loft waiting for our orders.

Mary got the classic Three-Egg Omelet with Ham and Mushroom. It was served with home fries and slices of toast. I didn’t try any of Mary’s omelet because I had way more of my own food.

I wanted to try something different, so I was intrigued by the “Pig-in-a-Blanket” specialty dish made up sausage and pancakes (the pancakes are wrapped around the sausage, or “pig”). I went the slightly healthier route and got the dish with chicken apple sausage, called “Chicken-in-a-Blanket” (doesn’t have the same ring to it but you get the idea).

I couldn’t see the sausage in my dish, which just looked like rolled up pancakes when it arrived. So here’s another view after I sliced up my “Chicken-in-the-Blanket” to reveal the chicken sausage inside.

After drizzling maple syrup on top, I had this odd mixture of sweet and savory. And while generally my mouth is tantalized by these two opposing taste profiles, in this situation I felt confused about what I was eating. I waffled between the savory and the sweet. The pieces didn’t seem to want to gel together. It was screaming out “I want to be a pancake” or “I want to be sausage and eggs!”

In the end I just ate it all, along with the scrambled eggs on the side.

Sunny Side Café also serves sandwiches and salads for lunch, but it’s probably known more as the breakfast joint. While the menu seems to offer some interesting options (like a few different scrambles), the food is pretty straight-forward in the end.

This is just a mini review since I don’t feel I ate enough to get the feel of the place, so I’m not giving out my normal ratings. Still, the Sunny Side Café looks like a reliable place for an inexpensive, quick breakfast but it’s not a place for a special weekend brunch experience. I’d probably go back if I were in the neighborhood and wanted breakfast, but I’m not going to gather a big group of friends and hangout.



Other brunch reviews:
Bette’s Oceanview Diner: “Crazy for Counter Food in Berkeley”
Foreign Cinema: “Now Playing an Innovative Brunch Menu”
La Note: “A Touch of Provence in Berkeley”

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Single Guy's Planner

Start off your year with some good eating, and there are a lot of opportunities for you to do just that with these upcoming food events in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Jan. 11, Monday: Triple-Sec Throwdown at Rye. This event will gather the city’s 10 best bartenders to compete in a cocktail competition using Combier triple sec. You get to taste the concoctions made by the 10 bartenders along with some small bites. Event begins at 7 p.m. RSVP to greg@ryesf.com or call 415.786.7803. UPDATE: Ooops, this was so popular and everyone blogged about it that the event is now filled. Sorry!


Jan. 12: Slow Food Dinner Club at Spork. This popular Mission neighborhood restaurant is the setting for the latest three-course dinner to support Slow Food Nation. Cost is $57, at dinner starts at 7 p.m. Spork, 1058 Valencia St., San Francisco. You need to be a member of Slow Food San Francisco to register. Go to Slow Food’s Web site here.

Jan. 15, Friday: “In a Cheesemaker’s Kitchen,” a panel discussion, tasting and book signing with Allison Hooper at The Pasta Shop in Berkeley’s Fourth Street shopping district. Hooper is from Vermont and she’ll be sharing tasting of artisan California and Vermont cheeses. Event is free.

Jan. 15-31: Dine About Town in San Francisco. Don’t forget that participating restaurants are offering prix-fixe lunches and dinners during the second half of the month. Go to the official Web site to see the list of participating restaurants and make a reservation.

Jan. 18, Monday: Camp Bacon at 18 Reasons. Who doesn’t like bacon, right? This community gathering place in San Francisco's Mission District is sponsoring an event featuring Ari Weinzweig, author of “Zingerman’s Guide to Better Bacon.” Cost is $10 and you can purchase a time slot for this meet-and-greet and bacon tasting event. (There will be two time slots that night: 6 to 7:30 p.m. or 7:30 to 9 p.m. Purchase tickets here.

Jan. 23, Saturday: Michael Pollan’s “Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual.” Resident food conscience Pollan will talk about simple ways to eat well. Expecting to draw a crowd, this event by Book Passage bookstore and Center for Urban Education About Sustainable Agriculture (CUESA) will take place on the second floor of the Ferry Building, starting at 10 a.m. Cost $20 gets you and as well as a copy of Pollan’s book. Call 415.927.0960, ext. 1, to reserve a spot.

Jan. 30, Saturday: Punch Drunk Love at Omnivore Books. If you dream of being called a mixologist, then head over to this tiny Noe Valley bookstore for its Punch Contest. Bring your punch (alcohol or non-alcohol) to compete or if you just want to try the stuff, admission is $5 at the door. For more information, go to Omnivore’s Web site.

Sweet reminder: You know the San Francisco International Chocolate Salon is a big highlight for me each year. Last year I took a break from it but this year I’m planning to get a ticket to the March 20 event at Fort Mason in the Marina district. January 31 is the deadline to purchase your early bird ticket of $17.95 (Cost for adults jumps to $25 after that, and $30 at the door.) Go to the Chocolate Salon’s Web site for more information.

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Refreshing Green Papaya Salad

One of my favorite things that I always order at Vietnamese restaurants is the green papaya salad. This crunchy, sweet-tart salad made with unripen papaya is always refreshing and tasty.

But I’ve never made it at home because 1) I don’t usually see green papayas at the market and 2) I don’t know how to shred it to those fine thin strings. I love green papaya so much that I watched a movie called “Scent of the Green Papaya” (based on the book that I always read) and saw how the main star, this young girl, used a big machete-like knife to chop a green papaya into shreds. Her masterful wielding of the knife in one hand as she held the bare papaya on the other was like watching a choreographed swordplay, but in this case the papaya couldn’t fight back.

I thought it must take years of practice to shred a green papaya like that by hand. And I like my fingers, so there was no way I was going to attempt that at home.

Then at a recent cooking class, I saw the instructor use this fancy julienne knife she got at Sur La Table. It looked like a large razor, but instead of a single blade, the head was a blade with tiny teeth that scratch against the vegetable to create thin julienne strips. Voila! I’ve found my machete-knife to cut green papayas, except in a safer, smaller package!

I bought one of these julienne knives and found a green papaya at Ranch 99 (I’ve noticed green papayas only at Asian or Mexican grocery stores) and decided to make my first green papaya at home. To fancy it up, I decided to poach a few shrimps to top it. The result is the following dish that was as refreshing as any green papaya salads I’ve had at any restaurant. Enjoy!

Other of my Vietnamese-influenced recipes:
Grilled Lamb with Baby Artichokes
Caramel Fish in Claypot
Cha Gio (spring rolls)

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Green Papaya Salad with Olive Oil-Lemongrass Poached Shrimp

Copyright 2010 by Cooking With The Single Guy

Ingredients

For shrimp
6 medium-sized shrimp, shelled and deveined
2-3 cups extra virgin olive oil
1 lemongrass, chopped
Salt for seasoning

For salad
1 medium green papaya, peeled and shredded into julienne strips (about 3-4 cups)
2 carrot sticks, shredded into julienne strips (about 1 cup)
1 T fresh mint, minced (reserve some for garnish)
1 T sesame seeds, toasted (reserve some for garnish)

For dressing
Juice from 2 to 3 limes
3 T fish sauce
2 T sugar
1 chili pepper, finely diced
2 garlic cloves, finely diced

Start by poaching your shrimp. Clean and season your shrimp pieces (retain the tail for appearance). In a small saucepan, warm the olive oil and toss in the lemongrass pieces and cook for about 5 minutes. Reduce heat to low and throw in the shrimp and cook until opaque, about 5 minutes. Remove shrimp and place on paper towels to remove excess oil and refrigerate until ready to serve.

In a large bowl, whisk all the ingredients for the dressing. Then toss in the green papaya, carrots, mint and sesame seeds. Let sit for at least 10 minutes. When ready to serve, remove ingredients from large bowl and place on plates, then top with shrimp and garnish with sesame seeds and mint.

Makes 2 to 3 servings.

Pair with a glass of Torrontes wine (white wine from Argentina).

TIP: You can prepare your shrimp earlier and refrigerate until ready to eat. Same for the salad. In fact, it helps to let the green papaya sit in the dressing to soak up the taste. But when ready to serve, shake off excess dressing. Don’t serve the salad sitting in dressing.

GREEN PAPAYA: This really is a green papaya, and you mostly find them in Chinatown or Asian or Mexican grocery stores. Be sure to peel away the green skin and then eat only the flesh (toss out the seeds in the center).

HOT OIL: I like poaching the shrimp in olive oil because I feel the oil is healthier for you than butter, for example. But oil is used to fry things so you have to be careful not to turn up the heat on the oil or else you’ll fry up your lemongrass pieces or your shrimp. A low heat is the technique for poaching. You can even warm up the oil and poach your shrimp with the oil off the heat. Use enough oil to full submerge your shrimp. To save on oil, use a really small saucepan.

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Racking Up the Miles for Ramen

SAN JOSE, Calif.
Last week I was off for the holidays, and I also had access to a car thanks to my friend David. Remember the last time I had wheels? That’s right. I drove all the way to San Mateo for a bowl of ramen.

Yep, I did it again. But this time it was even farther as I headed to San Jose to check out the four-month-old Santouka Ramen.

Santouka’s ramen has been creating a lot of buzz, mostly because of its reputation in Southern California where this Japanese chain has a few locations. My food blogger friend Foodhoe made a visit recently, and included a few clandestine photos on her blog.

I enlisted my San Jose friend Denise and her two young daughters along with my other friend Sylvia, who was visiting from New York, to meet me up for a piping hot bowl of ramen. I got there first since I didn’t know how long it would take me to find the place, but it was fairly easy since it’s right off I-280. Santouka is actually inside the Mitsuwa Marketplace, which is mostly a large Japanese grocery store.

To the left as you walk in, Santouka looks like any ramen stand at a food court with its white laminated tables and black trimmed chairs. But looking at the mix of clientele, you know a few foodies are making the trek to try the ramen, including the famous “shio” ramen.

Side note: There’s another Japanese food stand next to Santouka that sells rice bowls and I was soooo tempted to try its curry because the smell was making me hungry as I waited.

When Denise and Sylvia arrived, we got in line. Because we were early (and probably because it was a weekday), there wasn’t much of a line so we got up close to the display of plastic ramen bowls to figure out what to order. I have to say, it was a bit overwhelming. Santouka offers three types of broth: shio (salt), miso and shoyu. The ramen comes in small, medium and large, and you can put a variety of toppings like the famous toroniku (or special fatty pork) or char shiu (BBQ pork). Plus, Santouka has “setto,” or sets made up of a bowl of ramen, hard-boiled egg and a smaller bowl of rice topped with a variety of things such as salmon roe, natto (the curiously stinky beans), char shiu or green onions.

As I got closer to the front of the line, I panicked because I couldn’t decide on whether to get a set or just the special pork ramen. I didn’t know if the ramen in the sets could also be specially designed for your tastes or whether it was just a standard ramen. So in the end I ordered a regular miso ramen (I love miso) topped with the toroniku (total for my ramen and topping was $10.95).

Turns out you can get the toroniku with the ramen in the sets, which is what Sylvia ended up ordering as she got her set of toroniku ramen with a bowl of rice topped with chopped green onions.

For me, I was glad I just ordered the ramen. Not only because it was a bigger bowl than Sylvia’s, but because I got more pieces of the toroniku. While Sylvia’s toroniku ramen in the special set included maybe two pieces of toroniku, I got a whole plate of the fatty pork. As you can see, the pork and other ingredients to dress up my ramen were served on a separate plate. So the ramen looks plain but pure in just the bowl of miso broth.

Here’s how my bowl looked after I added all the toppings. Kind of messy but you get the picture. As I ate my ramen, I savored the silky taste of the miso broth, but the star was definitely the pork. On the plate, they looked a bit dry. But that’s far from the truth because when I bit into them, they were soft and tender like slices of butter. It was just as good as the pork buns I had last summer at Momofuku Ssäm Bar.

Denise and her girls got a whole bunch of ramen and rice bowls, including the shio ramen with the cute umeboshi (pickled plum) garnish in the center.

Denise and I talked a bit about the ramen because she knows I love ramen growing up in Hawaii, where I can always find a good bowl of noodles. I have to say that in trying various ramen places in the Bay Area, they all seem to be similar to the ones in Hawaii. So I’m always wary when yelpers call a place “the best ramen in the whole Bay Area.”

I wouldn’t go as far as calling Santouka the best. I would say the toroniku definitely is the best, but the ramen itself is on par with Santa Ramen and other ramen shops. (In fact, on this day I felt our ramen was more on the soft side and not the springy ramen with some pull that I generally prefer.)

It was worth making the trip to share a bowl of ramen with Denise and her girls since I rarely see them. (And you too Sylvia!) But I don’t know if it’s worth making the drive from Oakland to San Jose just for Santouka’s ramen, despite the dreamy pork. I think eaters in the South Bay are lucky to have Santouka conveniently nearby. I guess the lesson for me is to stop driving so far for ramen and start looking for a good ramen spot near Oakland.



Santouka, 675 Saratoga Ave. (inside the Mitsuwa Marketplace), San Jose. PH: 408.255.6699. Cash only, no reservations. Open daily from 11:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Web site

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