Top Chef: Season 7, Episode 4

Serving Up for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner: Bitterness

Previously: Ed thinks Alex is a slob, and makes weird pies. Arnold wants his sous chef. And Kevin served undercooked beans. But it’s Tracey who is sent home for insulting Italians.

Prize rundown. Right, like I’ll ever get invited to the Food and Wine Classic in Aspen.

More cherry blossom shots. You know they only last for a couple of weeks, so they’re really using up those footage. Arnold is all excited about winning the last challenge, even if the grill clogged his pores. Andrea is sad to see her buddy gone, but maybe this episode the editors will give her more face time with Tracey out of the picture.

Quickfire challenge. Tom is there, and that’s never a good sign. There are lots of baby toys. Oooh, rubber duckie! (I love everything about rubber duckies, what they represent, their yellow color, their sound. LOVE. THEM. Rubber. DUCKIES.) Tom and Padma both had babies, but not together. I didn’t even realize Tom was married, but he has an 8-month old boy while Padma has a 2-month old girl. Padma says their challenge is to make food appropriate for an adult and then puree it for a baby. That’s a weird challenge because everyone will just cook for the adult and throw the dish in a blender. I’m expecting to see a lot of gray guck in baby bottles.

Several of the non-parent chefs are freaking out, like Lynne who has never met a baby because she doesn’t even know what they’re like. (Um, Lynne, they eat and then they poop. Now you know everything about babies.) Oh, and this is a high-stakes (non-Vegas) challenge, and Tom and Padma will each pick a winner that will each win $10,000. Arnold says he wants to give the money to an orphanage in Thailand (awww). Alex wants a hooker and an 8 ball. (I did not make that up. Rewind the tape.)

As everyone cooks, we get more into the chef’s business and learn that Kevin has a baby on the way, and Kenny’s wife died years ago when their daughter was really small so he had to raise her as a single parent. Dang it. Kenny, you’ve now taken all the fun in teasing you by playing the dead wife card.

Tasting. Kevin has several components missing from his roasted duck dish and he’s obviously upset. I think in the back of his mind he’s blaming Timothy who was working next to him and apparently splashed some juice on his plates, making him have to clean that off his plates. I don’t know if that’d take up so much time that all you can do is plate your duck and then that’s it.

Kenny is up first with chicken curry with mango salsa and grilled mushroom. Tom and Padma: nada.

Timonthy presented sautéed lamb with mushrooms. Tom looks like he’s chocking.

Kevin’s pan-seared duck was just that and he had to say he ran out of time.

Kelly made a roast pork loin with grilled peaches and ginger. Padma makes a weird face, and then spits out a lemon seed. Like the government says: choking hazard (and not just for babies but reality TV hosts).

Lynne did a chicken breast with sweet potato and fruit compote. She tells Tom and Padma that all her kids have four legs (get it? Pets).

Angelo has a new son and he made a fenugreek broth with poached tuna. His baby food is layered in the jar, which catches Tom’s attention.

Bringing up the rear are Alex’s seared duck with spinach basil puree and Tamesha’s salmon with vegetable chowder.

Tom names his disappointing dishes, which were Timothy’s overcooked lamb and Alex’s overly herbaceous puree (which no baby would eat because it looks like grass). Padma says she didn’t care for Kevin’s pool of blood under his duck and Kelly’s pork meat was bland (which actually is good for kids who like bland food).

Their favorites were (Tom) Lynne’s great flavors, Tamesha’s puree with some texture, (Padma) Angelo’s elegant layered baby food, and Kenny’s spicy but still kid-friendly dish. But who gets the $10,000 high-stakes win? Tom says it’s … coming up?! Darn you Ryan Seacrest!

Commercials. Dear Baskin Robbins: I don’t understand what “birthday cake” flavor tastes like, and I don’t want to buy it from a porcupine. (Wait, was I on drugs when I saw that commercial?)

Tom names Tamesha as his winner while Padma picks Kenny. They show Angelo again, just to remind viewers that Kenny doesn’t like Angelo and vice versa.

Elimination challenge. Padma welcomes Beth Scott, who is apparently some big muckety muck with Hilton Hotels. You know, the same Hilton we see every time they return to the Top Chef kitchen. (Product placement.) She’s looking for a sophisticated signature dish to serve at their restaurants for the busy traveler. Yes, this is the hotel restaurant challenge (almost like the airplane food challenge, I feel).

Hey, what’s this? A new format? Top Chef mixing it up baby. So it’s tournament style, and the cheftestants have to make breakfast, lunch, and dinner and working in teams of two the winner of each meal will be safe while the remaining cheftestants move to the next meal of the day, until dinner with the final three teams will cook it off to save their lives because TWO cheftestants will be eliminated as they both win and fail together.

And what? No knife block to pick the teams? They have to go look for their own partners? Wow, I am so confused with how things are run on this episode. Too. Much. CHANGE.

After they pair up, they go shopping at Whole Foods. That’s where we get to see a bit more about the pairs, including Timothy and Tiffany, and Tiffany is all alpha dog and taking the lead because Timothy has been on the bottom a few times. Lynne is with Arnold, and she’s alpha dog (no surprise), and Kenny and Kevin are paired up and Kenny talks about his dead wife. I have nothing.

The odd couple is Ed and Alex, because if you remember in the “previously,” Ed didn’t think highly of Alex, calling him a slob. But there they are, cooking together.

Oooh, lots of shots of the Metro tunnels around D.C. It’s been awhile since we’ve seen any D.C. scenes. I mean, this is Top Chef: D.C., right?

Back in the kitchen, the chefestants meet the judges, which is a large panel of the typical Tom, Padma and the return of Eric Ripert, along with a few former cheftestants, including Mike Isabella (Season 6), Bryan Voltaggio (Season 6, love him!), and Spike (that other season in Chicago). Oh, there’s also that Hilton woman again and for no apparent reason there’s this chef named Nora Pouilla who owns a restaurant named Nora.

Then they have 30 minutes to make breakfast. Tiffany and Timothy are making Tiffany’s idea of crab cake benedict, which sounds kind of routine to me. Not very original. But then again, this has to appear on a Hilton menu, so maybe it’s just right up their alley. Alex and Ed looks like they’re burning something, and as time runs out, they realize they haven’t put the hollandaise sauce on their plate. (I can tell there’s going to be a lot of egg dishes, like that’s the only thing we eat for breakfast?)

Commercials. I can’t believe someone thought America wants a sequel to “Cats and Dogs.” I’m a little sad for America. OK, I love that commercial where those large saffron colored fabric drapes all over monuments and stuff around the country. Have you seen it? Love the song, love the saffron color, love the impossibility of it all. Don’t love the fact that it’s an AT&T commercial, though. Oh well, I just turn away at the end.

We get our Top Chef quick ad early in this episode, and it’s all about Angelo (don’t forget he has a son) flirting with Tamesha, who’s his partner in this episode. He gets pretty risqué, and Tamesha is all like “dude, you’re totally too pale for me.” But you know she would do him.

Round 1: Breakfast.

Alex and Ed serves their dish first, a prosciutto potato cake. Spike and the Hilton lady don’t have a potato cake on their plate. They are going down.

Angelo and Tamesha is next with a slow-cooked egg (that’s 1) with bacon. Tamesha brags about how she knows how Bryan likes his eggs, so of course the editors show Bryan criticizing the egg as messy and over cooked.

Arnold and Lynne has the most creative dish, a tortilla espanola with chorizo and bacon. Ripert likes it, but Tom says the texture is off to him.

Kenny and Kevin offers up a soft poached egg (that’s 2) on an herb brioche. If I saw this on a menu, I’d be mad that the hotel plans to charge me money for putting an egg on a slice of bread. Anywho, Spike says there’s no texture, and Tom says too much is going on.

Stephen and Amanda made a poached egg (that’s 3) with pancetta. Spike and Mike like the confit bacon, saying it’s different than just serving up crispy bacon.

Kelly and Andrea made a bacon cheddar whole wheat waffle, with eggs (that’s 4) and a mango-lime-mint smoothie. Ripert says his eggs have no seasoning.

Tiffany and Timothy deliver their crab cake eggs benedict (that’s 5) Louisiana-style. Bryan says the dish is seasoned well. Tom says they didn’t need the hash and Chef Nora agrees.

All the cheftestants return, and Padma says Amanda and Stephen and Timothy and Tiffany are both safe and they have the winning dishes. The rest will have to move on and make lunch now in 45 minutes.

Kelly and Andrea are frustrated because they have no feedback, but have to go back and cook without any sense of what they did wrong. In fact, several of them are grumpy, like Kenny (no surprise) and Angelo.

Round 2: Lunch

First up is Ed and Alex and their sea scallops with ricotta gnudi (yum, I haven’t had gnudi since the brilliant dish I had at the Spotted Pig in New York). Tom likes the gnudi, and Bryan says the flavors are sharp.

Tamesha and Angelo made a beef carpaccio with a jicama-Asian pear salad. The Hilton lady asks how it will travel. I didn’t realize they had to make their dishes to go too? Hilton, you’re weird. Eric thinks there are too much onion. Tom wants it as a spring roll.

Lynne and Arnold did a take on tuna salad, but it looks like sushi. They call it a tuna cannelloni. Arnold is stressing out. Spike doesn’t see it as an easy dish. But everyone agrees the salad is refreshing.

Kevin and Kenny used the ingredients for hummus into a pasta dish. Mike likes the flavor of hummus.

Andrea and Kelly served a crispy skin red snapper and bread salad. Of course, they’re all nervous serving fish to the fish guy, Ripert (who BTW looks amazing in that silver-grey suit). Mike asks if they cooked the beans, Kelly says because of time and budget, they used canned beans. Tom took offense by that they didn’t bother to cook a bag of beans. As for the fish, Ripert didn’t look impressed.

For the lunch round, Padma says the winning teams (and thus safe) are Angelo and Tamesha and Alex and Ed (wow).

The rest go to the dinner round, making their dish in one hour. Everyone’s frustrated and bitter, which makes me think how are they supposed to be at their best when they’re all focused on the past? Only Arnold, surprisingly, has the best attitude about moving forward and cooking their best.

Both Andrea and Kelly and Kenny and Kevin are making short ribs dishes. But Andrea says the jus from the braising process is the sauce, which she calls “the business.” She feels her dish has “the business” but Kenny and Kevin’s do not. In short, their short ribs have no business.

Lynne and Arnold are making a pasta dish with mussels, and Arnold wants to start plating while Lynne doesn’t want to cook the fresh pasta yet. There’s some tension surrounding that and you know that’s going to come back and bite one of them (but in this case both since both will have to go down for their timing). Arnold is freaking out, and he throws Lynne under the bus saying he doesn’t trust her anymore.

Commercials. Reese’s is my favorite childhood candy. But I don’t understand their commercial about some kind of weekend candy. Whatevs.

Round 3: Dinner

Kenny and Kevin serve their short ribs. Bryan and Mike think all the flavors are there, although they don’t really get the crispy horseradish. Padma likes the jus, but Chef Nora says there’s not enough business.

Short ribs again from Kelly and Andrea. Tom makes a face like, “no mom, not short ribs again.” Spike says he likes the dark flavor. Mike says the polenta was stiff. Tom says both short ribs dishes were good.

Then Arnold and Lynne serves their pineapple red curry mussels with squid ink pasta. Bryan and Ripert say the pasta was not cooked, but everyone likes the red curry sauce.

The cheftestants are in the stew room, still looking bitter at having to cook three courses. Padma comes in and asks to see the three teams, which is doh.

Judge’s table. The past cheftestants are gone, and only Padma, Tom, Ripert and Chef Nora are left to judge. But Padma turns to Nora to name the winner, and she picks Kelly and Andrea. Not only will their dish appear on the Hilton menu (yeah, lots of people will be eating short ribs – such a light dish for travelers) they also win trips to either Venice or Barcelona. (Wow, that is a good prize.) Can you believe Andrea has never left the country? I’m amazed sometimes that there are people like that. Everyone should see the world, and not just on the Internet. Although passport prices are going up next week, so I can understand that being a deterrent. But still, it's the world.

They talk to the bottom two teams. Lynne says she was happy with the flavor of their dish, and she acknowledges the pasta was undercooked. Arnold says he’s surprised to hear that for the first time. Lynne seems really critical about her team. It’s like she already gave up, and just wants to stick it to Arnold.

Tom asks Kevin and Kenny about putting a glaze on their short ribs. Kenny said they did glaze but stopped before it got too salty. Then Tom gets a cheffy and technical about his questioning and then I got bored. Padma sends everyone away and they deliberate some more.

Tom says both teams weren’t consistent, and Padma is really down on squid-ink pasta, which I love. What’s wrong with black pasta? People are so particular. Back in the stew room, Amanda and Kevin get near blows talking about whether chefs should explain to guests how to eat their dishes (I think that’s pretentious of Kevin thinking he should go around telling his guests how to best eat his cooking. Kevin, buh-bye.)

Commercials. Exxon, what’s with the pixilated commercial? Trying to save money in case you have an oil spill?

Judgement. (Finally) Tom says Lynne and Arnold went out of the box, but the only flaw was the pasta was undercooked. Kenny and Kevin didn’t have enough business. Padma sends Lynne and Arnold packing. Arnold is the only one to speak. Lynne left 12 minutes ago.

You can tell Arnold feels like Lynne and her delay in cooking the pasta cost him his spot on the show. He’s not saying much to everyone else, and I don’t think he even hugged Lynne even though she’s leaving too. Lynn says she’s never letting a young chef run her kitchen again. But she loves cooking so she knows she’ll be doing more cooking, because she loves to cook. Someone really has to write better materials for their exit interviews. We get to watch two chefs pack up and leave, but separately. I’m just glad we’re down two cheftestants because we’re still only in our fourth episode and there are way too many people for me to recap. I wouldn’t be opposed to a big massacre elimination, if the editors might be playing around with that idea. ;-)

Next: They’re in teams again. Oh, help me, please. Kenny and Angelo are still bickering, and looks like they’re cooking outdoors and someone dropped a big bowl of rice. Bird feed.

Top Chef airs every Wednesday at 9 p.m. on Bravo. Check your local listings. Photos courtesy of the Bravo TV website.

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Lafitte Restaurant in San Francisco

Not Quite a Revolution but a Revelation
Pier 5 along the Embarcadero (near Broadway), San Francisco
The Embarcadero neighborhood
PH: 415.839.2134
Open daily for lunch and dinner
Reservations, major credit cards accepted
www.lafittesf.com

In the last few years, Chef Russell Jackson has been serving up his creative dishes in an underground private dining restaurant that moved from house to house. You had to email him for reservations and then he’d email you the locale and password. It was all rather cloak and dagger as he skirted normal rules of running a restaurant after years toiling away at the Black Cat in North Beach and his own Los Angeles restaurant Russell’s.

This all added to his mystique of “The Dissident Chef.”

Still trying to cling to his persona as the outsider — this time trying to create a food revolution — Jackson is now serving up his food in a very public and legitimate location along the Embarcadero in San Francisco with his new restaurant Lafitte, which opened in April.

Less than three months after it opened, Lafitte received a critical 1.5 stars (out of 4) from the Chronicle’s Michael Bauer. I was surprised by the review, not just because of the low marks but because it came when the restaurant was fairly new and still finding its way.

In the past, Bauer reviewed a restaurant after it had been open for at least six months and made at least three visits (he still does the three visits). But I think it’s a sign of the social media times when traditional food critics like Bauer feel compelled to do a review of high-profile restaurants so quickly because a buzz is already created by food bloggers and Yelpers, eagerly posting photos and declarations of their love or hate for a new restaurant.

Not letting Bauer’s review sway me, I decided to check out Lafitte with my fellow food blogger Foodhoe, who has actually been to one of the Dissident Chef’s private dinners in the past. (I never got the nerve to do it as a solo diner, not knowing where I was going or who I was dining with.)

Arriving for an early reservations, the inside dining room seemed smaller than I imagined, maybe because the center wasn’t packed with tables but instead a long communal table. The high ceilings added to the grand space, but they were also to blame for the acoustics, making it very loud even in a near-empty restaurant.

We seated ourselves near a two-top that gave us a view of the window looking out at the bay and, more importantly, a view of the open kitchen in the center of the room where we could see Chef Jackson and his supporting chefs prepping for the night’s meals. (Early on, Jackson seemed more focused on paperwork than he was on the finer details of cooking.)

One of Bauer’s criticisms was the challenge of Jackson’s daily menu, which made it difficult for his chefs to master a dish when it was off the menu the next day. Before we arrived, Foodhoe read on Jackson’s newsletter (he distributes an email newsletter, which Foodhoe of course subscribes to) that he’s making a few dishes standards. There are still changing courses based on what’s available at the market, but it appears the popular items will remain.

The menu was a mix of California cuisine with some Spanish influences. We started by sharing two appetizers, the Pan-Roasted Padrons and Apricots ($7) and the Cured Sardines with Breakfast Radish ($8).

The padrons were a visual feast in color, with the brilliant warm green color of the peppers contrasting with the deep orange of the season’s apricots. The dish was simply prepared by blistering the peppers in a pan and then tossing them with olive oil and salt, mixing the sweet juices from the apricots. The simplicity but audacity of combining these two ingredients was impressive.

The sardines were intriguing. I’m a fan of sardines for health reasons (better than salmon), but Foodhoe was wary of the tiny bones. In Lafitte’s version, the sardines are cured so the texture was like eating raw fish but it was cooked because of the curing process. One bite and I fell in love with the texture. It was like eating sashimi with the tender, fleshy meat of the fish. The thinly sliced radishes added a nice pop in color to the pleasing presentation. (Also, I thought the bones were so thin, I actually ate them without any worries.)

Now, we were headed towards our entrees, but I should note that I decided to go with the Roasted Nettle Spaghetti ($14). I thought this wouldn’t be enough for me, so I also ordered the popular Roasted Scallops ($11), which is an appetizer. For a few minutes, our server was confused because he kept thinking Foodhoe and I were going to share three appetizers, when really I wanted the scallops to come with my spaghetti so I could get a fuller entrée.

Anywho, I guess you can’t fight tradition even though all the servers’ T-shirts say “revolution.” Eating an appetizer with an entrée is too revolutionary, apparently, because my scallops came with our sardines instead of with my spaghetti.

The scallops, however, were perfectly seared and cooked just tenderly so that it was still slightly raw in the center. I could sense Foodhoe lusting over my scallops (I did give her a taste), which sat on a bed of green beans with harissa jus that was pleasant but paled in comparison to the seared scallops.

When my spaghetti arrived, it was a nice bowl of spaghetti that our server says was cooked and then pan-fried. That gave the spaghetti an interesting depth of flavor that I’ve never experienced with spaghetti. The bowl was filled with a few medallions of summer squash and fingerling potatoes, all held together with ricotta.

Foodhoe went for the grand Iberico Shoulder with broccoli rabe and fingerling potatoes ($30). Iberico is a Spanish pig known for being raised on a lovely pasture on a diet of acorns. The pig is used to make the expensive iberico jamon that’s like eating thin slices of fat, but it’s the good fat as they say.

For Foodhoe’s dish, slices of the pig’s shoulder were roasted just barely, leaving much of the center ruby red. When I tried a small piece, it tasted so good but so rich and I was worried how Foodhoe could finish her plate even though the pieces didn’t look very large. She did her best, as you can imagine.

You’d think after that we wouldn’t have room for desserts, but Foodhoe was pulled to Lafitte’s Buttermilk Panna Cotta ($7), which was served with a peach coulis. She enjoyed the milky texture of the panna cotta and deemed it one of the best she’s had.

I decided to try the Brown Turkey Fig and Plum Tart ($7), which looked beautiful when it arrived. The tart filling was a bit tart from the large juicy figs, and the pastry shell was weak, not serving as a developed vehicle for the dessert. I was hoping for some whipped cream to counter balance the tartness of the tart.

Side note: Another early review from a local magazine criticized the service, which was labeled as inattentive. It’s hard for Foodhoe and I to judge the service since we ate early when the place wasn’t super busy. From our early experience, the servers were all friendly, attentive, and helpful. (Maybe that’s a vote for eating early at Lafitte?)

Overall, I was pleasantly mesmerized by Lafitte and the menu by Chef Jackson. The fresh ingredients combined in innovative ways were a revelation. It made me believe that as time goes by, Jackson and Lafitte might surely begin a revolution. But first he has to establish and refine his cause. From the early signs I’ve tasted, however, I’m ready to sign up.

Single guy rating: 4 stars (fresh and enlightening)

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



Read Foodhoe’s review and see her luscious photos with her new camera here.

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Chicken Broccoli Stir-Fry Demo and Recipe

Many of you probably heard of beef broccoli, a popular dish at Chinese restaurants. My family ordered it often when we went out for dinner on the weekends. But I don’t eat red meat that often as an adult, so instead I make this recipe with chicken.

This is such a basic recipe that I figured it’ll be a good feature for my “Dinner Fast” series because you can pretty much get this all done in less than 30 minutes. When you watch my video, you’ll see how easy it is. Enjoy!

Chicken Broccoli Stir-Fry

Copyright 2010 by Cooking With The Single Guy

Ingredients:
1/2 lb. chicken breast, cubed
2 cups broccoli florets (from one head of broccoli)
5 to 6 crimini mushrooms, stem removed and chopped
1 t ground white pepper
1 T soy sauce, light
1 T sesame oil
1 T Xiao Hsing rice wine or cooking sherry
1 T oyster sauce
1 T minced fresh ginger
1/4 cup chicken broth
salt for seasoning
1 T cornstarch
2-3 T canola oil

Marinate the chicken by mixing it with the white pepper, soy sauce, sesame oil and Xiao Hsing rice wine. Set aside for at least 10 minutes.

In a wok or large skillet, heat 1 to 2 tablespoon of oil over high heat and then add chicken (don’t pour in the marinade with the chicken). Brown the chicken pieces, about 2 to 3 minutes, then remove from wok and set aside.

Rinse out wok or wipe away any residue chicken pieces, then warm 2 to 3 tablespoon of oil. Add ginger and mushrooms and sweat the mushrooms for about 2 minutes (you can add a pinch of salt to help in the sweating process). When the mushrooms look almost cooked, then throw in the broccoli and stir-fry for a minute. You might want to add a pinch of salt to season the broccoli. To cook the broccoli faster, add about a 1/4 cup of chicken broth and then cover to cook for about 2 to 3 minutes.

Remove cover and then add chicken back to wok, and blend everything together.

Mix cornstarch with a little bit of water to create a slurry, then add the slurry a little at a time to the wok to create a gravy. Add as much as you like, making sure the heat is high to help cook the cornstarch faster. If it looks clumpy, thin it out with some water or chicken broth. Remove wok from heat and add oyster sauce, blending well. Plate with steamed rice and garnish with toasted sesame seeds.

Makes 2 to 3 servings.

Pair with a glass of Riesling.

TIP: Have the cornstarch slurry ready before you add the chicken back into the wok, because once you add the chicken everything will move pretty fast so you want to be ready. If you take too long, then the chicken will lose some of the brown sear you created earlier because it’s mixing with the moisture from the vegetables.

THE ORIGINAL BEEF BROCCOLI: If you want to make the original inspiration for this recipe, beef broccoli, that’s no problem. Just substitute the chicken with the beef. But instead of cooking the beef first, cook the vegetables and when the vegetables are almost done, then add the beef in the middle of the wok (push the vegetables to the side). You do this because beef doesn’t have to cook as long as chicken, and some people like their beef a little on the pink side.

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Fillmore Street Jazz Festival 2010

One of my favorite July 4th traditions in the San Francisco Bay Area is the Fillmore Street Jazz Festival. This major street fair always gets the best weather of the year (it's like the San Francisco Visitors Bureau spend all its good weather chips on this weekend).

I checked out the street fair on Saturday, but if you're reading this on Sunday morning, read fast and then get out there! It should be another beautiful day to be outside. What's fun about the Fillmore fair is that the neighborhood over the last few years have boomed with destination restaurants, and many of them set up booths at the fair along with the typical BBQ chicken skewers and endless fried foods.

For example, Out The Door (from the Slanted Door empire) has a restaurant on Bush off Fillmore, but at the fair they had a booth selling their pork belly buns (top) and duck buns ($5 for both).

Sugar cane juice being made at the Saigon food booth.

BBQ shrimp and grits from 1300 Fillmore's booth for $7. The creamy grits just stick to your ribs!

Can't have a summer street fair without summer corn on the grill.

This year the festival featured a cooking demo stage (south of Geary Boulevard). Here's Chef Anthony Strong of Pizzeria Delfina on California Street demonstrating a spicy watermelon salad, or what he says the Italian calls crazy melon salad.

A guy wearing a crab hat selling beer from the window of Woodhouse Fish Co. on Fillmore.

Of course, you get to hear a lot of cool jazz musicians. Don't know the name of this guy, but he was singing off the side streets in an impromptu stage (not the official stages) and he was just jammin'. I loved it. It was a real moment listening to this guy singing his heart out.

Hope you all have a great Fourth of July!

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Another look at Dopo in Oakland

This is an occasional report on return visits to restaurants that I’ve already reviewed.

Neighborly Italian Gets Sophisticated
4293 Piedmont Ave., Oakland
Piedmont Avenue neighborhood
PH: 510.652.3676
Lunch, Mon.–Fri., 11:30 a.m.–2:30 p.m.; dinner, Mon.–Sat., 5:30–10 p.m. (till 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays); closed Sunday
Major credit cards accepted, reservations only for parties of 5 or more
Web site

Original visit: September 2006

When people talk about authentic Italian food in the Bay Area these days, more and more are mentioning the 9-year-old Dopo in Oakland’s Piedmont Avenue.

This neighborhood restaurant—which I credit as the place that kick-started Piedmont Avenue’s revitalization as a dining destination—has been busy since it was opened by Oliveto veteran Jon Smulewitz. People came early for the thin-crust pizza but now many come for so much more.

Since Dopo is just 10 minutes away from my apartment, I sometimes forget that it’s there. But I was reminded about it way back when I did my review of Adesso, the popular wine bar up the street that was opened by Dopo as a place for diners to wet their palate before dinner at Dopo.

Dopo was also one of the restaurants I reviewed after starting this blog (back when I was too afraid to take pictures inside and just gave an exterior shot — now I bet you think there are too many pictures). So it was high time that I returned.

The restaurant doubled its space since I did my last review (they no longer place tables in the tiny alley along the side wall) and I came early for a seat at the marble counter since they don’t take reservations. Within minutes, the place was filled with regulars and other people from the neighborhood.

The menu has several appetizers and pesce crudo (raw fish dishes). Dopo is also known for its charcuterie, which has really expanded since it started Adesso. The changing menu also features pasta, pizza and large plates (typically three options for each category).

The ingredients follow the California slant of what’s fresh and seasonal, but it also introduces diners to interesting traditional Italian eats.

For example, I started with the roasted pigeon ($15), which was nicely seared and cooked perfectly. It was served with a parmesan sformato, which my server explained was like a parmesan cheese soufflé. The tiny sformato looked so cute and it was an enjoyable counter-balance to the intense pigeon. Also adding nice textures to the overall dish were braised radicchio accented with drops of wonderful balsamico.

Dopo’s pizza has always been one of its best features, so I ordered the pizza with prosciutto cotto, calabrian chilies and red onions ($16). It’s been a long time since I’ve had Dopo’s pizza and so many great thin-crust pizzas are being made in the Bay Area these days, but I was so entranced by this version.

The crust was thin, but still had a slight chew to give it some texture. But the flavors of the prosciutto (“cotto” means cooked so this was basically Italian cooked ham instead of the paper-thin prosciutto you might be thinking of) blended nicely with the tomato sauce. Everything was warmed by the perfect balance of the calabrian chili, warming my insides with heat.

Eating a whole pizza (not to mention the pigeon starter) didn’t leave me room for much else, so I came back another time. (Again, I came relatively early but this time the place was already buzzing and it had only been open for 15 minutes.)

I started with the yellowtail jack crudo ($12), a beautiful meaty raw fish dish that’s cured with a chili sauce (probably calabrian, which seems to be the Italian chili of choice) and plated elegantly with cucumber, red onions and radishes.

Trying something other than pizza, I ordered the special of the night, which was a roasted rabbit loin, or rabbit saddle ($18), stuffed with currants, almonds and pecorino.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I always like trying different animals like rabbit. I also ordered a side of little gems with lemon and parmesan ($7), which turned out to be a smart move because the plate of rabbit looked a bit small when it arrived.

There were four slices of the rabbit saddle, covered in a rich brown sauce. I enjoyed the meaty rabbit with the refreshing crunch of the almonds and currants, but I don’t know if this dish necessarily played up the rabbit meat. The brown sauce had a nice flavor, but it didn’t necessarily overpower everything. Each slice of rabbit was also wrapped with pancetta, which wasn’t necessarily crispy but more chewy.

Side note: Dopo offers a primarily Italian wine list, and I have to say I’m not a fan of the wine by the glass offered at both Dopo and Adesso. They generally lean more on the tannic side, unlike the full-body California wine. I know there’s a big debate about California wine makers cheating by blending various grapes while Italian wine are more pure, but I side with the blended California wine because it is more young, vital and drinkable, IMHO.

On both return visits, I didn’t have room for desserts. (And you really don’t have to worry about getting dessert since the neighborhood has several good ice cream and frozen yogurt options, such as Lush Gelato.) Overall, I found the service more friendly and professional than in the past, but the pricing still a bit high for the serving size (except the pizzas).

Still, Dopo appears to be more vibrant and sophisticated than what I remembered, which is a big achievement because most places turn routine and tired as it ages. Not here. Dopo is still delivering great pizzas with a lot more variety to make your meal complete.

Update experience (previously 2.5 stars): I’m raising it by a full star to 3.5 stars, partly because I think I was stingy in my early reviews and because Dopo seems to be getting more sophisticated and experimental as it ages.

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Top Chef: Season 7, Episode 3

‘I could eat the a$$ out of this pig all day!’

Previously: The cheftestants went back to school and remember how you used to like the pudding at the cafeteria? Not so much when someone dumps 2 pounds of sugar, and so that means it’s goodbye to Jacqueline. And oh yeah, Arnold doesn’t like Kelly stealing all the attention.

What’s up with the music? It’s like some kind of suspense movie. Or some kind of Colonial battle scene?

Opening scenes of the townhouse, which has a string of lightbulbs in the back yard patio. They must party there every night after the shoot. Amanda is brushing her teeth on a bouncy. Not sure if that helps get her teeth any whiter, but I bet she really works out her core at the same time.

Kenny gets a card from his girlfriend, but all he can think about is Angelo. No, not in that way. He’s still jealous of Angelo and how he’s always on top and how Kenny’s always on bottom. Wait? Huh? Really, I am not talking about them as a couple. They’re rivals, according to the editors. Angelo is out in the backyard with the lightbulbs but it’s morning and he’s looking isolated and alone. I know because he says he feels isolated and alone. Recapping Top Chef is not rocket science, people!

They arrive at the Top Chef kitchen and there’s John Iuzzini. I know because he was on previous Top Chef seasons as the hunky dessert guy, who came out with this major dessert cookbook that looked like an encyclopedia. Anyway, his hair totally makes him look like Johnny Rocker, and I’m still not sure the 50s are so in right now. Oh, and Gail is there too with Padma, who introduces the fact that the two will be the host of Top Chef: Just Desserts. For some reason, that announcement prompts all the cheftestants to applaud. They’re so polite. I was at home yawning myself.

So in honor of Gail and Johnny Rocker, Padma says their quickfire challenge is to make dessert. John gives the rundown about how you have to be organized because dessert is all about precision and measurements, which is why so many cheftestants fail on desserts because they’re not allowed to look at recipes. Does anyone else see the disconnect? Anyway, it’s the pie challenge and they’re off to make a pie in two hours.

The editors continue to pit Arnold and Kelly against each other, but really, it’s mostly Arnold who’s bitching about Kelly getting under his skin. Come on, Arnold. Focus on your food, will you?

Alex is kind of weird, and is making some equally weird looking pie crust that has the shade of peanut butter. I think he said he’s making an almond crust. Ed is making a banana cream pie, which sounded yummy and delightful until he said he was going to step it up with … celery. Figs, I can see. Even zucchini. But celery? Stick it in a bloody mary, I say.

Angelo opens the oven and calls out to Tracey, and she comes to take out her pie which is way past the golden brown stage. She’s not happy with her blueberry crumble so she decided to make it again with just 30 minutes left.

Commercials. Home Depot is advertising its paint. Did you know you could spend an overnighter there waiting for them to mix your paint? I’ve experienced it first hand. Yes, I exaggerate, but not that much. Wow, Aveeno has a sunscreen that’s 100 SPF. I need that for my nose. Why is it only my nose gets burned. So frustrating. When you see me, please do not call me Rudolph.

Tasting. You know, usually I’ll “break it down” for you and list each cheftestant’s plate, but darn the editors are going by fast tonight. I think it’s because they realize they still have an ass load of cheftestants and they just want to zip through this boring cooking part and get to the drama. So I couldn’t catch everything, although I can say Kenny’s banana Fosters pie looked really well-made albeit kind of on the dark and brown side, and Kelly made an incredibly good looking chocolate tart that kind of looked like a chocolate mousse in tart form.

Some cheftestants’ pies don’t even look like pies. They just kind of look like pie filling on a plate. I really don’t think any of them actually used a recipe because I didn’t see anyone referring to a list. In fact, I didn’t see anyone busting out the measuring cups or spoons. I think for this quickfire they should have made an exception. I guess Top Chef is also a test of their memories.

You know who they haven’t featured, the two blonds Andrea and Lynne. I still don’t know what they’re all about, and Lynne always seem angry to me. She made a mango pie, which sounds oddly interesting to me because I love anything with mango but the pie doesn’t look appetizing at all.

So Gail and John talk about their least favorite slices, which included Alex’s with no texture and Tracey with a thin crust that fell apart. Ed’s pie also had too many things that didn’t tie together. The successful pies were Kelly’s chocolate tart (simple is still good) and Stephen’s, who had a surprising flavor combination. But John names Kenny’s banana fosters with five-spice as the winner because it was simple with great texture. Kenny’s all stoked that he finally won, and he has such an ego that with this one win he’s already talking about going all the way. Um, Angelo still has two wins to your one, Kenny.

Elimination challenge. Padma says they’ll be celebrating another American tradition, which is the summer picnic. They have to prepare a cookout for a group of interns at Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington. (Yay, I visited Mount Vernon when I was in D.C. last year and it is an amazing place with a great view of the Potomac. The Kennedys had a state party on the lawn there.)

Weird Alex makes an inappropriate comment about taking advantage of interns, and Arnold is worried about grilling because it’ll clog up his pores.

They go to Whole Foods to shop with their $400 budget. Kevin says right off that his wife is from Puerto Rico and he’s going to do meat, rice and beans, all the reasons I’m not a fan of Latin food because it typically revolves around meat, rice and beans. Tracey says she’s going to make her own sausage, and Amanda is running all around the store more than usual and mentions some kind of eating problem she had in her 20s but I couldn’t hear and really I don’t care.

Commercials. Yeah, panko! Oh, it’s a Kikkoman commercial. Yay, panko in a box!

The cheftestants are back in the kitchen and they start prepping. Arnold is working on lamb meatballs and he’s whining about having to shape all of them himself. If he could hide his sous chef in his closet to spring out at this time, I bet he would. Kenny is reminiscing about his dad and grilling. That is such the classic American father-son picture, right? I don’t know why men love fire and meat, but I have to say I love it too. Even though I don’t have a grill or backyard, I still like the idea of grilling so I put my little grill pan into action a lot during the summer.

Tracey is talking to herself and annoying everyone, especially Stephen. Then her grinder acts up and she doesn’t think she’ll be able to stuff her sausages in casing, so instead she punts and decides to make Italian sausage sliders.

Of course, there are a few people making ribs, including Amanda and Timothy. Angelo, who has an Asian fusion restaurant in Connecticut, is making a Vietnamese lettuce wrap.

I think the editors are trying to make Amanda the bitch for this season because she gets into a little ruckus with Alex because she “taped” her name on an oven but Alex placed his food in the oven, but she took it out because she taped her name first. Notwithstanding that nobody else tapes their names on the oven. Alex is really upset because he nearly calls her a bitch, but doesn’t because he doesn’t sound good with a high pitch beep on TV. All this happens as Tom comes in to do his rounds. He asks Amanda about it and she talks about prison rules, which goes into this really weird area of how she understands prison rules. She admits she’s never been to prison, but apparently she has a list of prison rules all set in her mind so if she is ever convicted of, let’s say, knocking someone on the head with a skillet, then she’d have these prison rules about claiming your property with tape. It’s hard to be in the mind of Amanda.

Back to the forced drama of Kelly and Arnold, Tom goes to talk to Arnold who’s all in a frenzy. Tom jokes that maybe he should leave and not chat, and the editors for some reason cut to Kelly busy working but looks up to take in Arnold and Tom. But that’s all. Kelly doesn’t say anything, but just looks, which I think anyone would do when Tom walks into the kitchen.

When the day is over, they’re back at the townhouse, and Tracey is asking Amanda about her ribs. Angelo asks if she steamed them, and she says no, dragging on a cigarette at the same time like she could cut you. Amanda apparently is very insecure because just Angelo asking her that question makes her think that everyone else think she’s inexperienced as a chef and that they don’t take her seriously. I don’t recall anyone actually saying that, although I know I heard Ed saying that earlier of Alex. Now that’s some drama that needs to be fleshed out more instead of this boring Amanda stuff.

It’s the next day and they arrive at what looks like a gloriously sunny Mount Vernon, unlike the overcast and cold summer day that greeted me. (Yes, did I tell you I was just there last year? Yep, saw Washington’s mausoleum and all, but no one knows for sure if his body is really in there. Creepy.)

The cheftestants get their grill going, but of course all the women (and Arnold) aren’t really sure how to get it going. The interns arrive and just layout on blankets enjoying their picnics.

They start serving their food and the judges arrive. Along with Padma in a yellow dress as bright as the sun, we have Tom, Gail and Jonathan Waxman, who was just on the show last week. They go to a group of four cheftestants at a time to try the food. Again, I would “break it down” and recap what each cheftestant made, but again the editor is just zipping by the descriptions that I couldn’t keep up. And it’s also getting late because I got distracted watching the Wimbledon highlights before Leno. I am so screwed this week with the recapping.

Basically, the judges seem to like the food from the first group, which included Arnold, Tamesha, Angelo and Alex. All I remember is Alex made a pork butt, which prompts him to deliver the quote of the night: “I could eat the ass out of this pig all day!”

In the second group, Timothy is plating his pork two ways when a goose flies over really low and drops a gift right on his tabletop. Jonathan Waxman tells him that’s good luck. I guess it is good luck that the drop didn’t land IN the food.

They try Amanda’s dry-rub baby back ribs, Kelly bison burger, and Kevin’s grilled flank steak with rice and beans. They like Amanda’s ribs but they feel like Kevin’s beans were undercooked.

Lynne, the cheftestant we don’t know much about, made a leg of lamb, but doesn’t matter because she’s going to be in the middle again. But the judges eat Tracey’s Italian sausage sliders and says it had too much fennel and Waxman thought it was too big for a slider.

The judges eat some more food and all the interns loved the food because, hey, it was free and interns eat anything! Angelo actually goes over to try Amanda’s ribs and he loves them, and actually tells others to try her ribs. That’s a pretty big compliment, and a lot of foreshadowing by the editors.

Commercials. eHarmony is advertising it’s matching services, but it’s funny how all the “real couples” they feature were matched back in 2006. What? No recent love connections? Oh, hands down the best commercial all night is Haagen Daz’s ad about getting quality products to make their ice creams. Just a really well shot ad, with a message I can get behind.

Top Chef quick clip (those are the short clips like a commercial): Tracey says she’s psychic, and she does a reading of Andrea, who we don’t know anything about, and she gets freaked out. I wonder if Tracey is so psychic whether she knows what’s going to happen in 15 minutes.

They’re all in the stew room, which looks bigger on this episode. Tracey asks if Stephen feels his fish dish came out well, and he’s all confident. So you know where that’s going. Padma arrives and asks for Arnold, Amanda, Angelo and Ed.

So the four are the top picnic food winners, and Arnold and Amanda are especially happy and giddy. Jonathan Waxman names Arnold as the winner, and he looks surprised, and hell I’m a little surprised too because he really doesn’t seem like he’s very focused on his food and instead is more focused on being on TV. Anywho, just another example of how people like to eat things on a stick.

So who’s on the bottom? Arnold sends in Tim, Stephen, Tracey and Kevin. At the judges’ table, Padma asks Stephen if he’s made his fish dish before, and he says not for a picnic. Tom says the bacon had no char on it, and the side dish of couscous was greasy. Then Gail says she didn’t care for Tim’s vegetable sides that were unevenly cooked (wow, they’re really focused on the sides on this episode). Padma says Kevin’s Puerto Rican dish is pretty safe, and Kevin says that’s how his relatives makes it. That fires up Gail who says she doesn’t want food his relatives can make but something a chef would make. Ouch.

Tracey says she isn’t surprised to be on the bottom. Apparently she is psychic. Gail says her patty was raw, and Tom says that “If that was Italian cooking, then it’s insulting to Italians. And I’m Italian and I’m insulted.” Wow, way to get personal Tom. Plus, the clip shows Tom turning his head with such disdain that I’m sad for Tracey.

So the judges deliberate some more and Jonathan Waxman adds salt to Tracey’s wound by saying that his 10-year-old son could make the sliders Tracey made because it was so crudely shaped. Tom didn’t like Kevin’s rice and beans, and I’m pretty sure he said he’s Puerto Rican and he’s insulted.

Judgment. Tom says they got to cook at Mount Vernon, an iconic landmark, but none of them created history. Stephen’s dish was more like a restaurant dish not fit for a picnic, Timothy’s pork and beans should have soul but it didn’t, Kevin had no inspiration, and Tracey delivered white bread instead of Italian bread. Padma tells Tracey to pack her knives and go, and this episode is the first one where they show Padma telling the exiting cheftestant “good luck.”

Tracey knows she didn’t do her best, so she’s taking leaving pretty well and says it was her time to go home, not because she doesn’t know how to cook, but just because she had a bad day. (They should play that Daniel Powter song about “bad day” like they did for the American Idol castoffs.) Bye Tracey. You can always get a job as a Rosie impersonator if things don’t work out in the kitchen. She had a bad day. She’s taking one down. She sings a sad song just to turn it around. La la la la lala lala la la. She had a bad day.

Next week: It’s a double elimination (good, lets get rid of some of the dead wood) and Lynne finally gets featured but it’s because she doesn’t want to be cooking on a team, but I don’t think they’re on teams as much as working in pairs. Eric Ripert is back and they’re serving him up fish but nervous about it. A whole bunch of past cheftestants come back too (I saw Spike and Richard).

And here's a video preview of next week's episode from the Bravo people...



Top Chef airs every Wednesday at 9 p.m. on Bravo. Check your local listings. Photos courtesy of the Bravo TV website.

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