Saw this at the Grand Lake Farmers Market recently. I've never seen a big bunch of chilies like this. Usually they're all dried up and ready to be made into chili powder, never this fresh and red. Looks like the perfect decoration for Christmas huh?
This is an occasional report on return visits to restaurants that I’ve already reviewed.
Can this Neighborhood Spot Live Up to Perfection?
3870 17th St., San Francisco
Castro neighborhood
PH: 415.621.3870
Open for dinner, Tue.–Sun., 5–10 p.m. (till 10:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday)
Reservations, major credit cards accepted
($1.50 per person San Francisco health surcharge added to bill)
www.frances-sf.com
Original visit: February 2010
One of my favorite new restaurants is Chef Melissa Perello’s Frances, which has redefined dining out in the city’s Castro neighborhood. Opened for almost a year, it has garnered every major magazines’ “Best New Restaurant” accolades, and recently was awarded a Michelin star.
Frances’ popularity has made it difficult to get a reservation, often requiring a booking two months in advance. That’s exactly what I did two months ago when I randomly picked a date for a future reservation, and last Saturday my reservations finally arrived and I returned for dinner with my friend Hector.
We arrived for our 8:15 p.m. reservations and were quickly seated at our tiny table, squeezed in with others along the wall. I had forgotten how tight the space can be, and also how loud. At the peak of a Saturday night, the chatter around us was deafening, making it difficult to chat with each other.
We dove into Perello’s seasonal menu, which continues to highlight local ingredients in a few select dishes, starting with tiny starters called bouchees to just four large plates.
Unlike me, Hector has no problems eating deep-fried foods, so he started with the Applewood Smoked Bacon Beignets ($6.50), which were five golden brown balls served with a maple crème fraiche and chive dip. Hector said he enjoyed it but didn’t get much of the bacon or maple flavor. I tried a tiny bit and the beignet texture seemed dense but still light, and I felt the chive dip had more of a seaweed flavor for some reason. It was good but didn’t seem to taste like how it was advertised.
I ordered the Comice Pear Salad ($11), which was built on a plate of escarole and mustard greens. You probably can’t see the pear pieces, but they were warm and were mostly hidden under the greens. The pear was nice and sweet, but the overall salad was overdressed. Every green leaf was covered in the vinaigrette with pancetta, and it just seemed to mask the natural flavors of the various ingredients.
Chef Perello does a wonderful job of mixing textures, like the crispy shallots added to the salad, which included the unusual flavors of mustard greens. Still, nothing could save the salad from the drenching.
I should note that Chef Perello did not seem to be working on this Saturday night. She often can be seen expediting the dishes coming out from the kitchen, which means she keeps a keen eye on the quality of each plate. But without her at the gate, I think the kitchen was slacking as evident by the salad and my main course.
I went with the California Black Cod ($25), which was served with its crispy skin and placed on top of a pile of roasted red kuri squash puree and what seemed like regular mashed potatoes. The dish also had a sauce of melted leeks and some chanterelles. Again with the texture, Perello adds crispy greens (that looked like kale or spinach) as a garnish, which I thought was a nice touch.
The cod was good, but seemed a bit overcooked. And then while I enjoyed the mash of squash and potatoes underneath, it seemed like the sauce made everything soggy and slightly greasy because my stomach felt uneasy afterwards. Something about the plate was just off as my stomach was telling me all night.
Hector did fairly better with his Five Dot Ranch Bavette Steak ($26), which was cooked per his request of medium rare. It did look good and he really liked the butter beans served with the meat, but he felt the meat was a tad more medium than rare.
We ended our night with the Quince Upside-Down Cake ($7.50) just because we both liked the idea of trying this season’s quince. The cake was served with some fresh huckleberries and a chantilly cream. The cake had the consistency of a pound cake, and wasn’t super sweet, so I liked it. But the cream had an odd sour flavor that I didn’t enjoy. Hector thought it was supposed to offset the cake’s sweetness, but I just felt the two didn’t work well together on the plate.
Side note: Hector tried the house red wine, which since the restaurant opened has been served in the unique price point of $1 per ounce. A carafe of wine is brought to the table with measurements on the side. At the end of the meal, the server sees how much wine is left and charges you for the balance. Hector liked the wine but thought it had a light body. He still ended up drinking eight ounces.
On my return to Frances, I continue to be impressed by the creativity of the menu developed by Chef Perello. The charm of the restaurant’s décor still makes this one of the most comfortable and stylish spots in town. But my latest dinner – on a Saturday night no less – makes me think that there may be some chinks in Perello’s highly buzzed armor. It seems that when she’s not watching the kitchen, her staff can be a bit off, which is a shame given Frances’ young reputation.
Update experience (previously 4.25 stars): Hate to do it but I’m going to have to knock off a quarter star, giving Frances a revised 4 stars. It’s still a remarkable restaurant but needs to maintain its consistency in the execution of Perello’s dishes.
The return of the Test Kitchen feature puts to the test a recipe from New York Times food writer Mark Bittman’s new cookbook, “The Food Matters Cookbook” (Simon & Schuster, $35). The recipes are perfect for me right now because I feel like I’ve been eating a lot of rich restaurant food, and Bittman’s recipes are simple and healthy, focusing a lot on vegetables.
In the poll, it was a close race between the Baked Rigatoni (33%) and Noodles with Spicy Cabbage and Pork (35%), but as you can see the noodles dish won out. (Grilled Turkey Hash was a distant third with 16%.) The dish definitely has an Asian influence, and it was interesting how his steps are different from how I traditionally prepare my Asian dishes. But I wanted to see what happens when I follow his recipe exactly as written, so here’s what happened:
First I browned the ground pork in a wok in 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil. Typically I would marinade the meat with some soy sauce and sesame oil, but Bittman just simply wants to brown the pork with some salt. I got my ground pork from Safeway that was extra lean, so it didn’t extract that much fat or oil. And the little pieces kind of look like worms, huh?
I removed the ground pork from the wok, and then sautéed a tablespoon of minced ginger and another tablespoon of minced garlic. That sounds like a lot, right?
After about a minute I added in the 2 pounds of chopped Napa cabbage. Now, what’s odd about the recipe is Bittman says to add a 1/2 cup of water with the cabbage, which I did. But I know having cooked with Napa cabbage that this Chinese vegetable has a lot of water already. I was supposed to cook it for 15 minutes until softened and the water evaporates.
But after 15 minutes, there was a puddle of water still in the center. I actually had to take the wok off the stove top and physically pour out the excess moisture. With a vegetable with so much natural water, I wouldn’t have added the 1/2 cup of water. Also, I probably would have cooked the cabbage with a pinch of salt, but I guess Bittman was trying to keep it healthy and the seasoning was coming from the garlic and ginger, which is probably why there was so much of it.
To quickly finish up the dish, I threw in the pre-cooked soba (Japanese buckwheat noodles), the cooked pork, and 3 tablespoons of soy sauce, 1 tablespoon of sesame oil, and for the spicy just 2 teaspoons of chile oil.
Here’s the final dish, garnished with some cilantro and lime wedges. What do you think?
My tips and warnings about this recipe:
It's a rainy Sunday morning in Oakland, but luckily I've gotten lots of sleep because of daylight savings time. So I had a lot of energy and didn't want to just stay in my apartment, so I strolled down in the rain to the Temescal neighborhood and now I'm at the Remedy Coffee House on Telegraph Ave.
I've seen and heard about this place for awhile, but never really came with my laptop to check it out. In fact, it's been awhile since I took my laptop out to see the world, so it's pretty happy right now for the change in environment.
Some of my friends were skeptical of Remedy because it had that pretentious, trying-too-hard-to-be-cool interiors for a coffee house in Oakland, but you know me. I'm all about the aesthetics and I go for all the stylish, hip decor.
And apparently I'm not the only one as I entered and the place was pretty crowded, even for a rainy Sunday morning. I grabbed one of the last stools by the window (squeezing by the people on the coffee club chairs adjacent to the window) and settled down.
Remedy sells a lot of baked goods, which looks like they make themselves. But unfortunately they don't have much else like sandwiches and stuff. And it is lunch time right now for me, so I'm a bit hurting for more.
They really promote the fact that they sell Ritual coffee. Not sure if they're affiliated with Ritual in the Mission District in San Francisco but the vibe here definitely feels like any coffee house you'd find in the Mission, with Oakland's version of the hipsters.
The coffee are all brewed to order with this pretty looking drip setup.
Now about the decor, it's definitely that funky coffee house style with a real sense of Oakland, with a big Telegraph Avenue street sign above the counter. One of the more unusual statements is this Pacific Bell phone booth in the middle of the room, turned into a little cubby hole.
Here are some nice, eclectic lamps right above me by the window.
Since I'm hungry, I did get a slice of the frittata ($3.50) and a pot of Yellow Mountain oolong tea from Teance (just a reminder: I don't drink coffee, which makes me the odd man out in this crowd of Ritual coffee drinkers). The frittata was tasty, although a bit squishy. But I guess that's expected from this traditional breakfast bite. I do love the oolong tea, just nicely brewed with loose leaves instead of a tea bag. I hope they give refills because I'm going to get another pot in a bit.
Despite being so packed and the fact that someone just decided to turn up the music when Elvis came on, Remedy turns out to be a nice remedy to the dreary weather right now.
Remedy Coffee
Location: 4316 Telegraph Ave., Oakland
PH: 510.922.8455
Food: Baked goods
Coffee: Ritual
Tea: Teance
Wi-Fi: Yes, free (no password necessary, just look for "Remedy hearts you!").
Outlets: A few along the long wall
Restrooms: Yes
Seating: About 30 plus small desks, lounge areas, etc., also a garden patio in the back
Cleanliness: Good
Other coffee houses I've visited:
Haus Coffee
Gaylord's Caffe Espresso
Cafe Dejena
One of the hot ingredients of the past year seems to be Padron peppers or pimientos de Padron as they're known in Spain. These mildly hot peppers are crunchy and easy to eat, and appeared in many of the appetizer sections of restaurants in town. People say it's like playing Russian roulette when eating the peppers because they're mild and sweet, but there's always one in the bunch that will be fiery hot. So far (knock on wood), I have yet to experience a really hot Padron pepper (or maybe I'm just used to heat, not).
I found a bunch of Padron peppers at the farmers market and they are such a quick and easy snack to make. All you do is sauteed them in a really hot cast iron skillet with olive oil until they blister and brown and then they're ready to eat with a sprinkling of sea salt. It's nice to balance the heat of the peppers with fruit like apricots, peaches, or (what's currently in season) persimmons.
It's so easy you don't even need a recipe. Just these easy steps:
A New Way to Discover Filipino Cuisine
UPDATE (10/31/11): Walked by recently and noticed this place is now closed. There's a mediterranean sandwich shop in its place.
1442 Franklin St. (at 15th), Oakland
Downtown
PH: 510.444.4466
Lunch, Monday to Friday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., dinner, Monday to Saturday, 5 to 9 p.m.
No reservations, major credit cards accepted
http://www.filipinovegetarianfood.com/
Filipino food seems to be the new hot thing, or as some people have said, it’s the new Korean. I don’t know too much about Filipino food, but I was surprised to notice a new restaurant near my Oakland offices that showcased not just Filipino cuisine but vegan.
The appropriately named No Worries restaurant opened last month and is the brainchild of Chef Jay-Ar Isagani Pugao, who has run a catering business of the same name before opening the restaurant. Chef Pugao’s business model is to serve healthy food that celebrates his Filipino heritage. His ingredients are locally sourced and he operates his business to support the Oakland community.
While No Worries is open for dinner, I only visited during lunch. For the lunch menu, Chef Pugao offers a limited selection of classic Filipino cuisine as plates with the price based on the number of selections: two items, $5.95; three items, $6.95; and four items, $7.95. All plates come with a scoop of steamed white rice (you can substitute for brown rice for an additional $1).
My first time I got the Afritada and the Bistek. The Afritada is a soy chicken dish with potatoes, red bell pepper, green peas and garbanzo beans in a tomato sauce. It had a nice flavor, and reminded me of a stew. It was very comforting, and the soy chicken really did have the texture of chicken.
Side note: All the soy products are sourced from a local provider and isn’t made in the house.
The Bistek is a soy beef strips sautéed with onions and fresh string beans. This is like any other stir fry, but I felt the soy beef was a bit tough. So in a way it really mimic overcooked beef strips.
On another visit, I tried the Pancit, a traditional rice noodles dish stir-fried in vegetable broth, cabbage, celebry, carrots and thinly sliced soy chicken. I love rice noodles, but this dish seemed soupy to me because of the vegetable broth. I don’t know if that’s the texture one gets when eating Pancit, but it’s not something I would order again.
I got the Pancit with the Mungo, which was a dish with mung beans boiled in vegetable bullion and combined with tender squash, string beans and tofu. The Mungo was like eating lentil and also reminded me of another stew dish. It was tasty but the one piece of squash I got, while nice in flavor for the season, didn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the dish.
On my last visit, I decided to go with three items because I thought I’d finally try one of the most signature Filipino dish – the lumpia. If you’ve had lumpia, you’d know why I would avoid it because it’s like a deep-fried spring roll. But since this is such a classic dish, I figured I had to try it.
I order the lumpia along with Tocho and Giniling. First off, the lumpia came only as just one piece (I think you get two when you just order it on a two item plate), which probably is OK since I’m not a fan of deep-fried foods. The lumpia was nicely fried, with a thin shell and crispy texture. But I felt the filling leaned more toward the vegetables and I hardly tasted the soy ground beef.
Tocho is a soy fish dish sautéed in black beans, ginger and soy sauce with red bell pepper. The soy fish actually had a fishy taste to it, but overall the dish was pretty straight-forward. Giniling is a soy ground beef dish cooked with potatoes, carrots and peas. It had the most spice in the flavor, with something similar to five-spice. The ground beef actually did remind me of ground beef, and the overall dish was very comforting.
I want to also note that the price isn’t very high compared to other restaurants in the area, but the serving size isn’t very big either. It’s almost like the chef is practicing portion control for you, which I guess is a healthy step. But don’t expect to leave feeling full.
No Worries is an interesting concept, and even though I’m no expert on Filipino foods, I found all the dishes to have good flavor and the soy substitutes are quite convincing. The healthy aspect of everything being vegan is just an added bonus.
Single guy rating: 2.75 stars (Tasty and comforting)
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
You'll have to excuse me for this one, non-food post. But I can't help myself. WOO-HOO!! The San Francisco Giants have won the World Series for the first time since moving from New York. That's right. THE. VERY. FIRST. WORLD. SERIES. For San Francisco!
The torture is over.
While the Giants were taking care of business in Arlington, Texas, I joined thousands of fans at San Francisco Civic Center to watch the game. Mingling with total strangers all united around one team of unrecognizable, non-stars (well, except Tim "The Freak" Lincecum), you could tell everyone knew tonight would be the night.
When the game remained scoreless through six innings, people weren't panicked. They knew. It was going to happen.
Then in the 7th inning when World Series veteran Edgar Renteria hit a three-fun home run, the deal was sealed. All it took was Brian "Fear the Beard" Wilson to close it out in the 9th and destiny was met.
OK, so there were some food news. During those early innings, I got some food at several food trucks parked at the Civic Center to feed the crowds. Sure, you can get hot dogs and pretzels, but it's San Francisco so we had to have things like Chairman Bao's delectable pork belly buns along with Sam's Chowder, the Senor Sisig, and Twirl and Dip natural ice cream.
Tonight was a wild celebration to a season that never seemed like it could ever end this way. This year's San Francisco Giants are made up of several now well-publicized misfits and rejects whom other teams passed over or placed on waivers. San Francisco gave them a home, just like the city has always done. When others give up on you, it's not the end of the road. You can still be a champion. World champions.
I'm not a big hard liquor drinker, leaning more toward a nice glass of red wine on most evenings. But sometimes the "Mad Men" mystique grabs me and I want a real man's man drink. And to me, that usually means whisky.
Sometimes, a nice glass of whisky or Scotch (did you know they're the same thing?) after dinner is a nice way to help you digest your food. Maybe it's that burn going through the stomach? :)
Looking for a nice starter bottle, I dropped by the Cask liquor store in SOMA near the Financial District. I didn't think of finding a store like this in this area of town, but it's like a super fancy corner liquor store.
Cask was opened by the people behind the popular Bourbon & Branch and Rickhouse because customers kept asking them where they got their unique liquor. And that's the feel you get when you walk into this tiny shop. Everything looked special and boutique-like. The wall is filled with beautiful bottles of hard liquor.
One thing about whisky is that I totally love the amber color. It's just visually pleasing, and I admit I buy the liquor based on the color. I ended up picking up a nice highland bottle of Scotch that I've been drinking after dinner for a few days. With Scotch, a little goes a long way.
Cask is definitely a place for bartender wannabes and people who love all the ingredients of a really good drink.
Cask, 17 Third St. (at Market), San Francisco. PH: 415.424.4844. www.caskstore.com
Yesterday, the Michelin folks released the fifth edition of its restaurant guide for the San Francisco Bay Area and Wine Country, and last night they threw a party for a whole bunch of industry folks and a few of the lucky chefs who were deemed worthy of the coveted Michelin stars.
And I happened to be there, feeling kind of like the guy who sneaked in through the kitchen for a peek at the city’s fooderati. Officially, I was invited although they couldn't find my name on the list because I’m often invited as “The Single Guy” instead of my real name, and now I know how awkward it is to say “The Single Guy” out loud in line.
But I forgot all that as I walked down the corridor of a suite at the Clift Hotel and made a beeline to the bar, where several visiting bartenders from New York were mixing up some specialty drinks. I got something called the “Shanghai Maid” that was a refreshing mix of gin and cucumber juice, among other things.
While the drinks came from a cocktail group from New York, the meal was produced by several underground supper clubs from San Francisco, such as Radio Africa, Spice, Cook with James, and forageSF. The passed h’orderves included plates of goat and liver pate, mountain mushroom crostini and some kind of interesting panna cotta and cheese combo in a spoon.
It was a night out for many of the city’s best chefs who hung up their chefs’ whites and put on their civilian threads to mingle with colleagues. I was mostly going around gawking at them. Among them were Chef Mark Sullivan, a partner of Spruce (1 star); and Chef Melissa Perello of the newly inducted one-star Frances.
Looking so French chic with a San Francisco flair was Chef Dominique Crenn of Luce (1 star). She totally made my night when I introduced myself and she told me that she has actually read my blog! Yay!
The man creating much of the buzz upon his arrival was (extreme right) Chef Christopher Kostow of The Restaurant at Meadowood in St. Helena in Napa Valley. The new Michelin Guide bestowed the ultimate ranking of three stars to Chef Kostow and Meadowood, making him only the second American-born chef to receive three stars. In the center is Jean-Luc Naret of the Michelin Guide and (extreme left) Chef Thomas Keller, who was the first American-born chef to achieve three stars for The French Laundry in Napa Valley and Per Se in New York.
All the chefs seemed to get along like they were in some kind of special club, and nothing like the competitiveness you would imagine (I guess I’ve been watching too much Top Chef). Above are more chefs having a good time with each other, including (from left) Chef James Syhabout of Oakland’s Commis (the only East Bay restaurant that received a Michelin star), Chef Mourad Lahlou of Aziza (1 star) and Chef Kostow.
Of course, there was more food as the local supper clubs dished up Moroccan lamb and Zinfandel braised beef short ribs. Some of my favorite dishes were a pumpkin gazpacho with pomegranate from graffEats and a stuffed squid from “Outstanding in the Field.” 
This year’s San Francisco Michelin Guide includes 519 restaurants, a testament to the variety of stellar restaurants the Michelin inspectors found worthy in the Bay Area to include. My only question: How do I get a job as a Michelin inspector? Just putting it out there in the universe. :)
