Dish on Dining: Franklin Square Wine Bar --CLOSED

Cozy Spot Livens Up Oakland’s Uptown Neighborhood
UPDATE (2/24/10): This place closed in February 2010 for unknown reasons. Sister Luka's Taproom still open
2212 Broadway (at 22nd Street south of Grand Avenue), Oakland
Uptown neighborhood
PH: 510.251.0100
Open 11:30 a.m.–10:30 p.m., Monday–Friday, from 5:30 p.m. on Saturday
No reservations, major credit cards accepted
www.fswinebar.com

AC Transit introduced me to the new Franklin Square Wine Bar.

Let me break it down:

I work out at the gym three times a week after work, catching the No. 12 AC Transit bus from my office in Oakland’s Lake Merritt area to the Grand Lake neighborhood. The AC Transit bus is notorious for being off schedule, and often you’ll see them bunched up one after the other. But the No. 12 bus is pretty consistent so if I leave my office at the right time, I only have to wait a couple of minutes before my bus arrives.

Unless it’s Friday. For some reason, Friday’s like the beginning of the weekend for AC Transit and the schedules get tossed out the window. So after a long week, all I want to do is do my little routine at the gym and go home. What actually happens is I end up waiting for the bus and my mind goes through the internal debate about whether I should wait some more or go home already.

On a recent Friday night, going home won out. So as I headed to another bus stop to catch the AC Transit bus that takes me home, I see the Franklin Square Wine Bar, which opened just a month ago. I decided to check it out.

Franklin Square Wine Bar is by the same owners of Luka’s Taproom and Lounge at the corner of Broadway and Grand Avenue. In fact, the new wine bar is just across the street from Luka’s next to a place selling Louisiana-style fried chicken.

Franklin Square Wine Bar is like the mature, older brother to Luka’s, which is more like the rage-against-the-man younger sibling in college. Instead of stark art work, beer on tap and a lot of fried foods that you’d find at Luka’s, you get a sophisticated wine list and California-Mediterranean-inspired small plates.

The restaurant isn’t very big. You walk in and find several stools at the bar on the right and a row of small tables (more suited for two) lined up against the wall on the left. Off in the back you can see the small kitchen where Chef Jack Alioto can be seen overseeing the preparations. (On most nights you can also see Chef Alioto walking back and forth between Franklin Square and Luka’s.)

I grabbed a stool at the bar, tucked my bulky gym bag underneath and proceeded to decide on a wine for the evening. The wine list has a wide variety of offerings, including several by the half glass. The bartender/server was friendly and helpful in describing the wine and helping me select something of medium strength. I ended up with the 2003 Miramar Pinot Noir from California’s Russian River region ($7 for a half glass). It was a nice, medium-body red that gave me a lot of flexibility in matching my food choices.

For the food, the menu starts off with several cheese plates and soup and salads. Then there’s a section of sandwiches (and one tartine) that seem to be more geared toward the lunch crowd. Then there are 9 options under small plates. (Prices range from $6 to $15 but mostly hover around the $6-$7 point.)

At the top of the small plates list was the cauliflower risotto ($7), which I order immediately because I love risotto and cauliflower. For that night, the chef added the option of truffle shavings for $5. Having never tried truffles, I decided to splurge and ordered my risotto with truffles.

But first to arrive was my order of marinated squid sitting on a white bean puree spread over toasted baguettes ($6). I have to say, the squid had a pinkish-purple color that didn’t seem very appetizing. It reminded me of liver. When I ate it, the squid was tender and easy to eat, and I liked the white bean puree. But overall I felt the dish needed more seasoning.

Then came the cauliflower risotto with truffles on top. I expected to see thinly shaved truffle slices but instead saw gratings of brown over the canvas of creamy white risotto. Soon after the dish arrived and I snapped my photo, Chef Alioto came up to chat about the risotto since it was the first night offering it with the risotto. (He probably also noticed me snapping away with my camera. Busted!)

The chef asked me what I thought about the truffles, and to be honest, I could barely get any essence of truffle. All I tasted was the wonderfully comforting and extremely creamy risotto with cauliflower florets. The cauliflower flavor sang out strongly and probably overpowered the grated truffles. I told this to the chef and suggested that maybe shavings would have allowed the truffles to hold up against the risotto base. He said that his girlfriend works at the French Laundry and she told him Chef Thomas Keller grates his truffles, so he thought why question a master? Smart thinking. But either the truffles he got weren’t as powerful in aroma or the grating minimized its strength. (I noticed on a second visit that the cauliflower risotto was still offered but no longer with the truffle option.)

I actually feel that the risotto is so good on its own that it’s fine without the truffles. What’s distinguishing about the risotto (which actually didn’t have a lot of rice kernels) is the cream base that held together nicely with the risotto rice. It’s definitely my favorite dish of the night and I hope Chef Alioto makes this his signature dish for the restaurant.

OK, beyond the risotto, I also ordered the house-cured bresaola ($5), which is thinly sliced cured beef. The plate came with marinated artichoke hearts salad with parmesan. The slices of bresaola was very pretty on the plate and I loved the rich red color. The beef is mostly on the leaner side, which I prefer, but it lacked any strong flavoring, except for the freshly ground pepper on top. Still, it was enjoyable and a very nice attempt at house-cured meats.

I ended the night with the chevre cheesecake with caramel sauce and fleur de sel sprinkles ($6). (Everyone is getting into the caramel and salt trend, which is just one month away from becoming overdone, if not already.) The cheesecake had an excellent texture. (I like mines fluffy and dense at the same time like on the East Coast, as opposed to creamy and light.) While the cheesecake was nice, the fleur de sel didn’t add anything to the cheesecake. It just made my cheesecake seem more salty. I think because the fleur de sel used that evening were more fine than chunky. I think having bigger chunks of this specialty salt may have made the difference.

After a satisfying dinner that was pretty reasonably priced given all that I ate, I decided to come back to Franklin Square Wine Bar for lunch. This time I brought along my friend Lisa, who works in the same building as I.

When we arrived, the place was nearly empty except for a table of four in the back. After work and around dinner time, this place has been pretty packed.

We skipped wine and stuck with water since we both had to go back to work. But started our lunch with the baked brandade, which is like a cheese soufflé made with salted cod and cream. When it came out, it looked like another comforting dish. It was just too pretty to break into. But we did and spread the brandade on the accompanying crostinis. (The server was also nice enough to bring an extra plate of crostinis without us asking because there was just a lot of brandade in that little ramekin.)

Overall I give high points on appearance, but just a lukewarm vote of confidence for the brandade’s taste. It still had a slight fishy-ness to it that wasn’t very appetizing. Not having tried brandade in the past, I can’t say if traditional brandade is supposed to have that fishy taste and texture. But it’s not something I would try very often based on what was served for lunch.

Lisa and I each ordered a sandwich for our lunch. She settled on the tuna confit with sliced egg and black olive pesto and I got the chicken salad with tarragon and apples. Both were served in a toasted baguette and with a side of wax bean salad.

I really loved the baguette, which was nicely toasted to provide a contrast to the tender chunks of chicken. The chicken was filling and I liked the apple chunks, but the overall taste was average and didn’t create any new flavors in my mouth. Lisa was just as lukewarm about her tuna, which she said was good, but she didn’t make any ooh and ahh sounds. We both were mixed about the side bean salad. Lisa says it left an odd metallic aftertaste in her mouth and I thought it needed to be more aggressively dressed with something other than the simple vinaigrette.

Lunch was not as inspiring as dinner, and I joked with Lisa that having wine with your meal at a wine bar probably makes a difference. But given the crowds at night, Franklin Square Wine Bar definitely looks like a place people in this area are hungering for.

And it’s smart timing for owner Rick Mitchell. The wine bar provides another pre-show dinner option for those attending concerts at the Paramount Theatre (two blocks away) and for all the luxury condominiums being built on Grand Avenue in this area that the city is promoting as “Uptown.” With the addition of Franklin Square Wine Bar, things are looking up for the neighborhood.

Single guy rating: 3 stars (Did I mention the cauliflower risotto?)

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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Serving Up: Menu For Hope

When I started blogging a year ago, I noticed a few food bloggers talking about this thing called the “Menu For Hope” during the holidays. It’s an annual online fund-raiser organized by one of the more noted food bloggers, Chez Pim, who lives in the Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area. Pim started it initially as a way to help out after the devastating Southeast Asian tsunami a few years back, and continued it every year. Each year she picks a worthy food-related program to support.

So this is what I thought last year:

Chef Ben: That’s so cool. Food bloggers do more than just make recipes and eat out.

Me: You should really join in. It’s a worthy cause and you’ll be part of the food blogging community.

Chef Ben: Me? I don’t think people really know me. I’m so D-List. Plus, the holidays are right around the corner. I don’t have time to come up with a gift for people to bid on. Maybe next year.

Me: That’s what you always say. I’m still waiting for you to redesign your Web site.

Huh, I just realized I’m kind of hard on myself. Anywho, now it’s next year and of course I still don’t feel connected enough to donate a food-related gift that would be a worthy prize. So if I’m not donating a prize, I thought I should at least help promote this worthy cause.

How it works is you go and check out the list of donated food-related items and note down the ones you wouldn’t mind having. (Take down the special product code for the item.) Then you click on the donate site and you buy a raffle ticket for each item you want to possibly win. Each ticket costs $10 and you note the prize you’re hoping to win. If you want to increase your chances of winning, then like other raffles you just buy more tickets.

Some of the prizes are pretty amazing, and Pim is so known around the world that she’s gotten prizes from around the globe. (I’m not going to tell you which prize I’m bidding on because I don’t want the competition!) This year all the proceeds go to the UN World Food Programme’s special lunch program in Lesotho, Africa. Last year, Menu For Hope raised more than $60,000, also for the United Nations’ program.

So click here to browse the list of prizes and buy a raffle ticket before Dec. 21. Then check back on Jan. 9 on Chez Pim’s blog to see the list of drawings. For just $10, you’re getting a chance at some cool food prizes, but most of all you’re helping to feed people who don’t get to enjoy the wonders of food that we do in this country.

UPDATE (01/11/08): The raffle winners have been announced. Click here to go to Chez Pim's official list of winners to check if your donation won out. (Alas, a certain Single Guy Chef will not be having dinner with a certain wine critic for the New York Times. boo.) And congratulations to Chez Pim for an amazing fund-raising effort this year, raising an astonishing $91,188. That's pretty impressive for an online fund-raiser that's only a few years old. See you next year!

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Crab Whisperer: A Conversation with Fisherman Duncan MacLean

People dreaming of a crab-filled Thanksgiving got their hopes drowned in oil—heavy, bunker fuel oil to be exact. The Nov. 7 Cosco Busan spill in the San Francisco Bay, which killed or injured more than 2,000 sea birds and other marine animal, also wreaked havoc on the local crab season, which typically starts in mid-November.

Now, more than a month later and after a delayed start and a freak storm off the coast of Half Moon Bay to boot, local crab is finally finding its way to markets and the dinner table. This Sunday, the Jack London Square Farmers Market in Oakland held a crab fest to kick up interest again for the Dungeness crab.

Selling fresh Dungeness right off his boat was Half Moon Bay fisherman Duncan MacLean, who’s also the president of the Half Moon Bay Fishermen’s Marketing Association. MacLean traveled on his boat, the “Barbara Faye” named after his daughter, from his dock at Pillar Point to Jack London Square.

I sat down with him when he took a break from selling crab (and a break from an odd “crab race” for the kids) to talk about this year’s unusual crab season, how to shop for crab and how he likes to eat these succulent and sustainable shellfish.

The following are edited excerpts of our conversation:

Chef Ben: How long does the typical Dungeness crab season last in the Bay Area?

Duncan MacLean: It starts in the middle of November and goes till the end of June. But 50 percent of what’s caught for the entire year is caught in the month of November. They only grow once a year, so they don’t replenish as the year goes on. You have one set harvestable amount.

CB: When was the first time you went out this year after the oil spill and the delayed start to the season?

DM: With the oil spill and everything else I think we got out Dec. 1.

CB: What was the catch like that first time?

DM: Pretty slim.

CB: Yeah, that’s what I heard.

DM: We’re kind of like on the downside of the cycle.

CB: And do you think it’s slim because you miss that beginning of the season?

DM: Well, that didn’t help any because the crabs have a tendency to move west as the year progresses and they go off the continental shelf and then it’s beyond our depth range to catch. That’s another part of the protection plan. They have places they can hide that we can’t get to.

CB: So are those initial crabs considered lost for the season?

DM: Yeah, that and the price. November, that Thanksgiving market, is our strongest period in the entire year. And we stood to get a $3 to the boat price if we went fishing in the middle of November. We started December first and we got $2. So we lost a third of our season right there.

CB: What kind of financial effects did that cause?

DM: The money’s not there and the money doesn’t trickle through the community like it normally would. It doesn’t just hurt me to not go fishing. It hurts the entire community.

CB: What’s the difference between Dungeness crab in the Bay Area and what comes in from the Pacific Northwest?

DM: They’re basically the same thing only there’s different molting cycles along the coast. Ours molt earlier in the year than they do up there. They harvest them probably a little bit prematurely so there are a lot more soft ones and they’re not as full as they should be.

CB: So does that mean that the Dungeness crab we see later in the season are probably from the Pacific Northwest?

DM: Well, they’re like us. Half of the crabs are caught in the first two weeks of the season and up there even more so because they have a lot bigger boats with a lot bigger gear. And they serve a whole different market. The fact is that most of the crabs are harvested right away. It’s a finite resource on an annual basis because they only grow once a year. Once you’ve taken them out you can’t expect more to show up because they just aren’t there.

CB: I wanted to turn to some basic tips about buying crab. I heard you can only buy males?

DM: Yes, we only sell the males of Dungeness. Rock crab is different, they can sell females.

CB: How can you tell which one is male?

DM: On the underside of the crab, there are long, skinny little kind of appendages right in the middle. On the female, it’s round and it’s real obvious.

CB: So do you have to pick through your catch to throw back the females?

DM: The females are generally smaller, so they get out through the escape rings. There’s an escape ring in each (crab trap) that will allow all the undersized male crabs and female crabs to escape without bringing them to the surface. In fact, 17 percent of what gets out of those escape rings are legal. So it helps perpetuate the species. You don’t have to worry about catching every last one of them.

That and with the biodegradable panels that are put in there, if a trap gets lost or cut off, the panels deteriorate and the trap opens up and the crabs go right back into the wild.

CB: So what should you look for when buying crab?

DM: You want the hardest ones you can find in terms of the shell because what happens is when they molt they throw the old shell and they’ll grow ¾ of an inch, and then their shell will redevelop and get hard again.

It usually takes about a month to do that. During that process, the meat is chalky, it doesn’t have any texture and very little flavor and it’s not very good. So when you buy one, you want to take it just above the claw in the back of it, you squeeze it right there and if it’s spongy at all, don’t buy it. You want one that’s rock hard. That’s the easiest way you can tell whether or not it’s a good crab.

CB: After you take it home, should you store it in any special way if you’re not cooking it right away?

DM: You want to cook ’em as soon as you can, at least no more than five or six hours of them dying. But generally speaking you want to cook ’em while they’re still alive. They’ll stay alive if you keep ’em in a cool place, out of the wind. They’ll stay alive for 24 hours.

CB: I’ve heard some people say you can put them in a paper bag with newspaper and put them in the refrigerator. Does that work?

DM: When you put ’em into something cold like that, they have a tendency to hibernate. They just go into a dormant state, so yeah, it does help to keep them a little bit. But by the nature of the refrigeration, it also dehydrates them and it dries out the meat and makes it harder to pick out the meat, even after they’re cooked.

CB: How do you usually like to eat your crab?

DM: Bar-B-Q.

CB: Oh, I never heard of that.

DM: You got to clean ’em live. You take ’em and you pull the tips of the legs off and you break it in half and you pull the legs up and you put them on a piece of aluminum foil with a pad of butter and a clove of garlic and wrap it up really carefully so you don’t pierce the foil. And wrap it again a second time. Put it on the barbeque for about 25 minutes, and it sucks all the butter and garlic right up into the meat and it’s just killer.

CB: Mmm, that sounds good. I bet you can do that right at the beach.

DM: Uh-huh. And you can do in a campfire. Basically all you’re doing is steaming it in butter. It turns out real good.

Many thanks to Duncan for taking the time to chat with me for my blog. He says he’ll be docked at Jack London Square in Oakland for the next few Sundays, so go check out his crab catch and get your local Dungeness crabs straight from the source, our local fishermen.

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Bring On The Dungeness Crab!

There's nothing that puts me more in a crabby mood (and that's a good thing) than the local Dungeness crab. Its big, juicy meat makes the difficulty eating it just a minor complaint. My mom loves Dungeness crab, and I got her love for it later in life when I had my first, real fresh Dungeness in San Francisco. From there, I never turned back.

For those of you in the San Francisco Bay Area, you're all pretty familiar about the delayed Dungeness crab season in the bay because of the massive oil spill. Just a quick recap for those outside of the area: big tanker hits foot of Bay Bridge in fog, goof-ball captain tells Coast Guard he has a minor leak, tanker leaks tons of oil into the bay, birds die, fishing in the bay gets suspended, crab boats left tied to the pier, no crab for Thanksgiving. :(

Now nearly three weeks later, crab is finally coming to the waterfront (albeit not in the large quantities that we would have gotten in mid-November). In Oakland, the Pacific Coast Farmers Market Association decided to have a crab festival to remind people that there's still crab available. It was like Christmas morning for me, so I packed my camera and checked out the festivities at Jack London Square. Here are some shots from today:

The Jack London Farmers' Market takes place every Sunday. I actually rarely go to this market because there are so many markets these days and a few of them are within walking distance to my home. To go to the Jack London Square market, I had to take a 30-minute bus ride and then walk another 10 minutes to the waterfront. Since it's nearly winter, there weren't that many stalls (like most farmers markets these days) and of course citrus was everywhere.

They weren't kidding when they say fresh crab is here. A boat from Half Moon Bay came all the way to Oakland to sell its catch of fresh Dungeness crab. People actually had to walk down the pier to the boat to get their crab. The fisherman, Duncan MacLean, was selling his crab for $5.50 a pound. He says he'll be at Jack London Square for the next few Sundays. (Tomorrow I'll be posting my Q&A with Mr. MacLean about the crab season.)

Here's a happy camper with his fresh Dungeness crab that he just bought from Mr. McLean off his boat.
They had a cooking demonstration and the Slow Food Berkeley group prepared some fresh crab for the crowd. Here they're in the tent banging away at the freshly cooked crab to prepare them for the hungry spectators.

Tamar Adler did a cooking demonstration. Well, she actually didn't really do much cooking. She's a chef at Chez Panisse, and she said she had planned to demonstrate a crab salad recipe from the restaurant. But she said her boyfriend convinced her that the best way to eat crab is by itself with butter. So that's what she did. Instead of cooking, she spent the time showing people how to clean crab. While I agree the succulent meat of fresh crab is very sweet, it still would have been nice to see something more than just her dropping a crab into a pot of boiling water.

Here's Adler dropping a crab into a pot of boiling water. Yep, that was her cooking demonstration. She says you should cook the crab for 13 minutes.

Adler rips apart the top shell of the cooked crab as she demonstrates how to clean the crab after cooking it. In most Asian cooking, the cleaning is done before you cook the crab. So that's what I'm more used to. (Later I'm hoping to do a demo of cleaning the crab when it's fresh and live. I tried to do it last year but got injured when my crab was feisty and pinched my left index finger. I wasn't very happy.)

This is just guts of the crab. Adler basically ripped away all the unappetizing parts inside the crab such as the guts and gills, and then she snapped off the tail. Then she just dipped the crab in a pot of water to rinse it, then she was done.

To serve the crab, Adler did two dipping sauce. The first was your basic clarified butter (melted butter with the foam skimmed off). Then the second sauce was something she says she had when eating crab on the beach in Vietnam. It's a simple sauce of lime juice, lots of salt and lots of pepper.
Here she adds the pepper to the bowl of lime juice and salt for the Vietnamese-inspired dipping sauce. Yep, that was it. Very simple.

People lined up to get the free sample of crab claws and dipping sauce. I tried a bite and, yes, fresh crab is just so wonderful by itself. Too bad I just had a claw.

Another odd thing they did for the crab festival was a crab race. For all those PETA people, you might not want to read what happens next. But basically they built this rig tilted up and they dropped six crabs down the chutes and the kids pounded on the box to shake the crabs down. Most of the crabs who won were the ones that slid down on its back. Um, I think I'll stick with eating my crab.

COMING TOMORROW: I chat with crab fisherman Duncan MacLean about this year's crab season and his tips for shopping and cooking your crab. Check back Monday night for this Q&A.

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Holiday Flavors at Teacake

Can you guess what holiday flavor is in this cupcake? I got it this afternoon at Teacake Bake Shop after I got my haircut over at the Bay Street Mall in Emeryville. Pumpkin? Gingerbread? Vanilla Cranberry? Nope, it's Eggnog.
Spiced cupcakes are everywhere this holiday, and I thought it was interesting that Teacake was offering this eggnog flavor. I'm sure it was just to be different because everyone has gingerbread and pumpkin. (Actually, Teacake does have a gingerbread cupcake, along with chocolate-mint. It also has a fudge bar with peppermint crumbles on top.)

So how was it? Well, I think someone needed to spike the eggnog because it was just OK. The cake itself was a bit like a spice cake, but not super strong in flavor, which is how I usually like it. But the frosting was really sweet. For those who have a sweet tooth, you might like it. There was the slightest hint of eggnog, but mostly just sugar and the sprinkling of holiday spices of cinnamon and nutmeg. Now, who out there has fruitcake cupcake? Anyone?

Teacake Bake Shop, 5615 Bay St., Emeryville. PH: 510.655.0865

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18 Shopping Days Left

Tonight I’ll be making one last push to finish my Christmas shopping so I can start enjoying my weekends again without worrying about sending gifts off to my family in Hawaii.

After my last post of gift ideas for foodies, reader Ann asked for more suggestions in the $15 to $20 range. (I do note that my original list included one item that was under $20.) I thought it was a good idea because we all need some nice gifts for coworkers, party hosts or food bloggers (ha!) that aren’t very expensive. So here are more suggestions of food-related gifts, all under $20.

See you at Union Square!

Kara’s Holiday Cupcakes, $3.25 each, from Kara’s Cupcakes stores. Kara’s is my special occasion cupcake retailer. Just giving these little treats will make anyone feel special. For the holidays, Kara’s is selling special holiday flavors: spiced pumpkin and “peppermint twist” (chocolate cupcake with white chocolate buttercream frosting with candy cane sprinkles). Pick up half a dozen for $19.50 and you’ll have a nice holiday brunch gift. :)





Bodum Double-Walled Glass Mugs, set of 2 Espresso, $19.95 from Sur La Table. Bodum is one of the finest names in glassware, especially glassware that can take a lot of heat. I actually have a teapot from Bodum and love it. This particular pair is made for espresso. I think the clean design and practicality of it makes it a very elegant gift.


Montsarra NV Cava Brut, $15.29 from wine.com. It’s always nice to have something sparkling for the holidays, but sometimes you don’t have the budget for champagne. One of my favorite sparkling wines is Spain’s cava. I find it more drinkable than Italy’s prosecco (another alternative to Champagne). This particular bottle is described as having “lasting bubbles and a crisp finish.” Now who wouldn’t want that?


Hand-sliced Jamon Serrano (8 oz.), $16.95 from La Tienda. Next year, the food world is going to go crazy over Jamon, the Spanish ham. Well, everyone will be talking specifically about jamon iberico, which is the king of jamon and will finally be allowed to be imported into the United States for the first time. But you’ll need to spend nearly $100 to reserve a chunk of this special meat. As an alternative, give your friends an intro to jamon with serrano so they may want to start saving their money for iberico. You can start with this taste of Jamon Serrano from one of the better known Spanish online retailers, La Tienda.



Dizzy Cocktail Glass, $2.95 each, from Crate and Barrel. Doesn’t this just look perfect for a holiday party? I think Crate and Barrel has some of the most beautiful glasses at reasonable prices. At $2.95 each, you can buy a set of six (that’s $17.70 for those too lazy to add) for a nice holiday gift.







June Taylor Meyer Lemon Marmalade (8 oz.), $14, from June Taylor. Made in Berkeley, these marmalade are hand-made by June Taylor, who can be found every Saturday morning selling her jars at the Ferry Plaza farmers market. But you can get these beautiful-looking jars of marmalade online or at June Taylor’s Berkeley Still-Room, which is open during the weekends for the holidays.


Holiday Motif Box, 8 pieces (3.5 ounces), $18, from Recchiuti Chocolates. A last-minute holiday gift (and you know there’s always someone you forget) can always be found at Recchiuti Chocolates at the San Francisco Ferry Building. This particular box includes quaint winter designs that make it a very special office gift or grab bag. Again, also a nice gift for yourself. ;-)

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Dish on Dining: Spork -- CLOSED

Not Your Grandfather’s KFC
(UPDATE: This restaurant closed at the end of 2011 as the owners focus on their other projects.)
1058 Valencia St., San Francisco
Mission District
PH: 415.643.5000
Dinner Mon.–Sat., 6–10 p.m. (till 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays)
No reservations, VISA/MC accepted
http://www.sporksf.com/

I’ve actually eaten out of desperation at the tiny KFC outlet in San Francisco’s Mission District. You’d have to be desperate to do that because there are tons of restaurants and taquerias around to satisfy one’s hunger, so it was only at times when I didn’t want to wait for a table or needed a quick bite before heading home that I resorted to this fast-food option.

I don’t have to feel desperate any more as restaurant after restaurant opens up in this neighborhood. And the KFC is no more. In its spot is a funky diner serving up whimsical American classics.

Restaurateur Neil Jorgensen and Chef Bruce Binn have transformed the tiny KFC shack into a trendy Mission district restaurant, and as a nod to its former tenant they called the place Spork. (That’s the spoon-fork utensil that’s popularly used by KFC.) Recently I visited the place with my friend David for a weeknight dinner.

Jorgensen has taken advantage of the space, pushing back the previous kitchen farther behind to open up more space for tables and a huge curved bar. The heavy curtains at the door reminded me of restaurants back in New York, but the casual but stylish interior definitely had a California feel. (But I have to say, I didn’t really get the huge pop art of hands signaling numbers. It looked like a cross between Andy Warhol and Communist propaganda posters.)

Spork doesn’t take reservations (and isn’t opened on Sundays, which I annoyingly found out a few weeks earlier) so David and I got there early to ensure we got a table right away. We arrived soon after the restaurant opened at 6 p.m. and was seated by the window. By the time we were done with dinner, the place was packed with an eclectic group of diners while others lingered around the bar waiting for tables.

Chef Binn’s menu is limited to several appetizers and about five entrees, all playing on the theme of an “upscale diner.” (<--TM by David.) And despite the fact that they print out the menu every day, I doubt that the selection changes that often. I’m pretty sure, for example, that you can always get the Inside-Out Burger or the Mussels and Pork with a Spork.
We started with the rosemary dinner rolls, which are complimentary but the menu notes that you have to request them in order for them to bring them to your table. And can I just say that you should never, ever forget to request these warm, savory, Southern comfort in a bun. The rosemary infused the buns with aroma that just opens your senses for the meal ahead.

David started with the Roasted Pears and Goat Cheese Salad ($9) and I got the Griddled Calamari and Prawn Salad ($11). The pear salad was elegant and nicely cooked, while my salad was accentuated by an Asian-inspired slaw with a soy-ginger vinaigrette. All the ingredients, from the tender calamari to the meaty prawn, were perfectly cooked and blended nicely together as a starter.

For our entrees, David ordered the Alaskan Halibut ($21), which came with a bacon and lentil salad and a mix of spinach, artichokes and chicory. The dish didn’t look any different than the featured fish dish at any other fine restaurant. It was nicely cooked and seasoned.

I ordered the Mussels and Pork with a Spork ($17) because I love any kind of slow-cooked pork and mussels are always a guaranteed crowd pleaser. While the dish came out looking like some huge mass of food, the flavors from the Belgian beer in the pork to the natural juices from the mussels blended nicely.

I didn’t, however, get the purpose of the spork that came with the plate. While cute and playful for the theme of the restaurant, I kept going back and forth between using the spork to dig out my mussels to using my regular fork to get to the pork.

To end our meal, we shared the Pot Brownie ($6), which despite the name does not contain any prescription-required “grass” (in California only). This was a straightforward brownie served in a ramekin with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. The dessert was the least successful of all the dishes. The brownie didn’t taste fresh and the ice cream was a bit icy.

Despite the Pot Brownie, the meal overall was a creative approach to comfortable favorites packed with flavor. The service is also very friendly and there were nice touches from beginning to end (such as the tiny burger candy made in Japan that comes with your check). The only desperation around these parts may well be customers desperately waiting for a table at Spork.

Single guy rating: 3.5 stars (flavorful favorites)

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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Color My Cauliflower With Curry

I recently decided to make my cauliflower soup, but I was getting bored of the white cream as the end result. To spice it up, literally, I added curry. So the following is my quick and easy recipe for curry cauliflower soup. What’s nice about this soup is the slight heat from the curry really warms me up during this fall-going-into-winter season. (We’re already getting rain in the Bay Area. I know, we need it, but still. Brrrr.)

And for the holiday season, I thought it’ll be fun to dress up my curry cauliflower soup with some fresh pomegranates seeds. The pomegranate I got had a lot of juice (and yes, I had to be super careful breaking it apart because it was splashing everywhere) and the red ruby jewels looked nice against the pale yellow soup. So the photo above shows the holiday version of the soup, and the photo below is when I garnished with toasted pine nuts for the times when pomegranates are not in season. Enjoy!

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Curry Cauliflower Soup

Copyright 2007 by Cooking With The Single Guy

Ingredients:
1 head of cauliflower (about 1 lb.), cut into florets
½ sweet onion or one small onion, diced
1 stalk of celery (about ¼ cup), diced
1 T yellow curry powder
1 t cumin
3 cups chicken broth
2 cups water
½ cup heavy cream
2 T extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper

In a large saucepan, warm olive oil over medium high heat and then add onion and celery. (You might want to add some salt to season your vegetables.) Cook for about 2 to 3 minutes to soften vegetables and then add curry. Cook the curry for about a minute to release the oils in the curry, and then add cauliflower pieces and stir to coat the curry around the cauliflower. (Be careful to watch the fire because you don’t want to scorch your curry or you’ll get a bitter taste.) Add broth, water and cumin and let cook at a simmer for 20-30 minutes until cauliflower is fork tender. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Remove saucepan from heat and puree the soup with a hand blender or place small batches into a blender* and puree until smooth. Add cream and season with more salt to desired taste. Garnish with toasted pine nuts and serve warm.

Makes 3 to 4 servings. Serve with hummus crostini.

* Do not place hot liquid in blender. Let the cauliflower cool first. And never fill blender or food processor by more than half.

TIP: For a holiday flair, you can garnish the soup with pomegranate seeds instead of pine nuts. The red from the pomegranate will be a nice color contrast with the soup, and the tart flavor from the pomegranate juice will add a twist with the spicy soup.

SOUP SALT: I find when making soup, it makes a difference seasoning with sea salt instead of table salt or more refined salt. For all my soups now, I use the grey sea salt (sel marin) from Brittany. But you can use any kind of sea salt and it’ll add a lot of flavor and body to your soup.

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Online Wine in a Berkeley Brick and Mortar Home

This weekend I was shopping in the Fourth Street shopping district in Berkeley, and I made it a point to check out a new store I had read about. This wasn't another upscale, boutique store in this high-end shopping neighborhood, but it was a warehouse-type place for wine.

Wine.com, one of the largest online retailers for wine, apparently decided that the Internet isn't enough for selling wine and maybe customers want to hold a bottle of wine in their hands and get a sense of what they're about to drink. So wine.com opened its first retail store on the West Coast just a few weeks ago south of the Fourth Street shopping area between Bancroft Avenue and Allston Way. (They have another retail location in Connecticut.)

First off, I have to let you know that there was a sign outside the door before you walk in alerting buyers that you're about to be filmed and security cameras are everywhere. So despite my efforts to be the super sleuth shopper, I was only able to sneak in a few shaky camera shots. But really, when you walk in, it's not a very big retail shop. It's like the size of a corner wine shop.

In the front retail area, there are about four short aisles of wine organized by varietal, of course. But because wine.com is an online retailer, you can sit at a desk near the back and surf wine.com's site to buy wine. I know, you're thinking you can do that at home. But the selling point is that if you find a wine you like, you can ask them to retrieve that bottle from its Berkeley warehouse in the back and that way you avoid shipping and handling. (BTW, if you're at home now and you find a wine on wine.com that you want, you can also order it online and then click the option to pick it up at Berkeley, again avoiding shipping and handling costs. This is so cool for us in the Bay Area!) Having access to the online inventory means you can choose from more than 2,500 wine choices! Now that's way more that can fit in that front retail area.

Here's one of the wine sections at the Berkeley store. You're probably wondering what all those tags are on the neck of the bottles. Each bottle comes with an individual tag that has the name of the wine and some notes that you can take when you're at home after you've purchased this wine. I thought this was a neat idea because there's been many times I've drank a bottle of wine and thought I'd buy it again but forgot the name after dumping the bottle. This way you have a way to remember the wine after its gone. But it does make the display look like a sewing center, doesn't it?
This is a wide view of the retail area as I'm standing in the warehouse section. You can go to the warehouse section to check out some bargains, but there weren't anything that caught my eye. Most of the wine at wine.com's store average about $20 with some of the better wines selling for more than $80. I didn't think their prices were necessarily cheap like a discount wine shop and I didn't feel they offered anything rare and boutique like. I saw a lot of the same names I see at places like BevMo.

The one section that I did like was one called "90 under $20." This section included wine that were rated 90 points or above (based on Wine Spectator and Wine Advocate magazines) but cost less than $20 per bottle. It was at this section that I found an interesting bottle of Pinot Noir from Argentina. It's called Punto Final and cost me only $13.79. I know, this is probably more than what you spend at Trader Joe's, but I opened the bottle for dinner and it was oh so fine. It's a 2006 vintage with a lot of body, vibrancy and berry undertones. It was perfect to warm me up during this chilly weekend.Here's my bottle of Punto Final from Argentina and a close up of that neck tag that's on all the bottle. So you can note any special occasion you're drinking the wine and what you liked about it and what you think it'll go well with. My Punto Final will go well with anything, whether it's a heavy fish like salmon, a roasted chicken or some lamb. It had the complexity to match well with many dishes. So if I'm filling out this card, I'm checking "yes" under "order again."

Wine.com, 2220 Fourth St., Berkeley. PH: 510.704.8007

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Recipe to Successful Holiday Shopping

It’s the first day of December and you’re already feeling behind in your Christmas shopping, right? Well, join the party. (Hey, what are you going to bring to the party? Sigh, another thing to add to the list of things to do!)

No worries. The Single Guy Chef is here to help, at least when it comes to shopping for your food-loving friends and family. I actually have to mail most of my gifts off every year, so I have to say I’m a lazy-ass shopper and I do it all online. Well, mostly online whenever possible.

So here are a few suggestions of gift ideas based on things I’ve come to know and love. (And again, no need to send any gifts my way. Just your visiting my blog and clicking on my Google ads are enough for me. See, I’m so easy.)

Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker (red), $59.95, exclusively at Williams-Sonoma. All cooks like their gadgetries, and I just feel lately I’ve been talking a lot about artisan ice creams in the Bay Area, what with my love of Ici and Bi-Rite. So you can let someone special make his or her own creations at home. I like the smart holiday red color of this particular ice cream maker, and it comes with an extra freezer bowl so you can make multiple flavors at once. The price can’t be beat too when most electronics are over the $100 mark. Hmm, I’m already dreaming of peppermint candy ice cream with cranberries.

Cook With Jamie: My Guide to Making You a Better Cook, (Hyperion, 2007), $24.75 at Amazon.com. My cookbook recommendation for this year is one that I already have on my shelf. This latest U.S. publication from British chef Jamie Oliver aka “The Naked Chef” is a nice, hefty gift that is perfect for any starting home cook or one looking to expand his or her cooking style. I’ve always been a fan of Oliver’s simple but creative approach to combining fresh ingredients, and his conversational revelations to the basics of everyday cooking makes this an easy book to master. Added plus: just amazing photography as usual.

Cowgirl Creamery Favorite Deluxe gift package, $60, www.cowgirlcreamery.com. If you have friends who love cheese as much as I do, then treat them to some of the best in the United States, from right here in the Bay Area. Cowgirl Creamery produces award-winning cheeses and this gift package lets you choose from three of its most popular cheeses (Mount Tam, Pierce Point and Red Hawk—I’d go with the Red Hawk myself) along with a fruit nut crostini from Anjou Bakery, a cheese knife and a Cowgirl Creamery cheeseboard. It’s the perfect simple dessert for Christmas day.


Poco Dolce Bittersweet Tiles Assortment Box, 16 pieces ($34), available online at www.pocodole.com or most Whole Foods stores. I’ve mentioned before that this is my current favorite specialty chocolates produced in San Francisco. I’m still in love with the blending of bittersweet chocolate with the sea salt crystals on top. The company isn’t promoting any special gift boxes for the holidays, so I’d recommend giving the standard 16-piece assortment box, which will allow your loved one to try the many offerings and let them decide what’s their favorite.

Frog Hollow Farm Fruit Cake, $49, available at www.froghollow.com. Get a bit retro on yourself and give a fruitcake. What better way to say Merry Christmas!? Frog Hollow Farm, one of the Bay Area’s favorite fruit preserves purveyors, puts a fun twist to this holiday tradition with their moist spike cake speckled with their own preserved fruits. This package comes with seasonal fruit, which I believe should be pears. This should be one fruit cake that won’t get past 2007.

Waitress DVD, (20th Century Fox), $19.99 on Amazon. The DVD of this delightful independent film will be released on Dec. 4 just in time for the holidays. And you can forget about that other food movie starring a rat—this one was my favorite food film of 2007. Keri Russell delivers a true-but-charming performance as a diner waitress trying to get out of her hard-luck life by dreaming up crazy-named pies. Of course, I still can’t get past the sad story of how the New York filmmaker/actress Adrienne Shelly was murdered right before her film premiered, taking away one of the more innovative female film visionaries to come along in awhile. Anyway, this is a charming, quaint film with a lot of quirkiness to keep your favorite person satisfied in front of the TV.

Formaggio Kitchen Connoisseur Pantry Basket, $125, from www.formaggiokitchen.com. The online gourmet specialty store known as Formaggio Kitchen seems to have made the list of several holiday shopping guides, and with good reason because they offer some really hard-to-find gourmet spices and ingredients. It definitely has a big emphasis on cheese and Italian products, but I like as their pantry basket. First of all, it’s huge filled with a variety of jarred or canned ingredients that’ll make any foodie friend happy. If you don’t want to go with the pre-selected pantry basket, you can create your own with some of Formaggio’s unusual ingredients. (The smoked Viking sea salt from Denmark looked especially exotic.)


Heath Winter Shallow Bowl, $125, available at www.healthceramics.com. Just as important as quality ingredients to make a meal is plating! And anything would look good in this beautiful bowl from Heath Ceramics, the high quality hand-crafted pottery in Sausalito just north of San Francisco. I’ve been an admirer of the Heath brand for years, and many top restaurants use their products. I especially love the color of this special winter edition of Heath’s product line. So beautiful. Can you picture it with a persimmon sitting at your dinner table? (Or better yet, mines? ;-)

Good luck with your holiday shopping! BTW, any of the above will make nice little gifts for you as well! Merry Christmas!

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