Martin Yan (Photo courtesy of the chef).

Martin Yan Hosts An All-Star Dinner at M.Y. China

Charlie Trotter, who shuttered his famed eponymous Chicago restaurant last year, will be the special guest of honor at a  6 p.m. June 9 dinner hosted by Martin Yan at M.Y. China in San Francisco.

If that weren’t enough of a draw, the dinner will be created in part by Chef Michael Rotondo, former executive chef of Charlie Trotter’s and now chef de cuisine at Parallel 37 in the Ritz-Carlton San Francisco. Dessert will be made by Yigit Pura, the first winner of “Top Chef: Just Desserts” and now proprietor of Tout Sweet Patisserie in San Francisco. And M.Y. China’s executive chef and master noodle-puller, Tony Wu, will be on hand to show his dough-twirling prowess.

The evening will begin with appetizers and sparkling wines from Domaine Carneros. That will be followed by a seated four-course dinner with wines by the Michael Mondavi Family Estate. A live auction also will be held.

The dinner, a benefit for the James Beard Foundation and the Chef Martin Yan Scholarship, is limited to 100 people. Tickets are $200 per person or $175 per person for James Beard Foundation members. Tickets can be purchased at MyChinaSF.com or by calling (415) 580-3001.

Pastry Chef Yigit Pura. (Photo courtesy of the chef)

Dessert First!

Calling all sweet tooths: The Four Seasons Hotel in San Francisco will be the place to be 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. May 5.

That’s when 20 of the Bay Area’s best pastry chefs will ply you with all manner of signature sweets at “Dessert First!,” a benefit for Project Open Hand, which provides meals for people afflicted with breast cancer or HIV/AIDS, or are home-bound and critically ill.

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There’s a new beer joint in downtown Mountain View.

A temple to stir-frying has morphed into a bona fide beer garden in downtown Mountain View.

The former Golden Wok on Villa Street has been transformed into Steins Beer Garden & Restaurant, which opened late last month.

The large space has been broken up into several that includes a beer hall with flat screens, main dining room, two private dining rooms, a main beer garden with a glass two-way fireplace, and a private beer garden.

Owner Ted Kim has helped open Paris Baguette branches in the Bay Area. But Steins is the first restaurant Kim, a beer aficionado who even brews his own at home, has owned. Executive Chef Colby M. Reade has worked in the past at such landmark San Francisco restaurants as Square One and Hawthorne Lane.

Last month, I was invited in as a guest of the restaurant to a pre-opening dinner. Some of the dishes noted here may have been tweaked since then, as Reade said he was still fine-tuning a couple of them.

Hitachino White Ale with pickled veggies for nibbling.

House-made pretzels.

The public beer garden.

The beer list is extensive with offerings from around the world, including 30 on tap. A fun one to try is the Wells Banana Bread Beer ($7 per glass), which, yes, does smell and taste like a baked loaf of banana bread.

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For all those folks who have bemoaned the fact that every other time I’ve hosted an event at Macy’s, it’s been at the Union Square San Francisco store, this event is for you.

Yes, join me at 2 p.m. April 27 at the Macy’s Men’s and Home Store at Valley Fair Shopping Center in Santa Clara, when I host a cooking demo with the duo behind Asian Box, which has locations in Palo Alto, Mountain View and soon in Burlingame.

Chef Grace Nguyen and her husband, Culinary Director Chad Newton, will be on hand to cook up some of their Asian street-food specialties, which are all gluten-free.

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Alice Waters and Cecilia Chiang in a scene from “Soul of a Banquet.” (Still courtesy of the San Francisco Film Festival)

Mega-Benefit Banquet by the San Francisco Film Society

If you’re an aficionado of Chinese banquet galas, you will not want to miss this stellar one by the San Francisco Film Society at Yank Sing in San Francisco, 6 p.m. April 10.

Among the noted guests who will be in attendance: Bay Area culinary legends, Alice Waters and Cecilia Chiang; acclaimed food writer Ruth Reichl; and noted film director, Wayne Wang, who will be showing a sneak preview of his newest film, “Soul of a Banquet,” his tribute to Chiang, who changed the face of Chinese food in America when she opened The Mandarin in San Francisco in 1961.

The event benefits Waters’ Edible Schoolyard Project.

Tickets, which include the reception, film screening and dinner, are $288 per person. A table for 10 is $2,500.

Avant Garden Food & Art Fundraiser in San Jose

Celebrate all things local in the South Bay at the third annual “Avant Garden” event, 7 p.m. April 19 at The Armory, 240 N. 2nd St. in San Jose.

Enjoy live music, crafts, artwork and plenty of food and drink by vendors such as Little Bee Pops, Good Karma Vegan Cafe and Cafe Stritch.

Event tickets are $10 online or $12 at the door. Food and drink tickets are $3 each and available at the event site.

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Crawfish is flown in weekly from Mardi Gras time through the summer at CreoLa.

Edwin Caba may be of Dominican heritage.

But he sure knows his Big Easy cuisine.

Indeed, he’s been cooking up New Orleans-style dishes at CreoLa in San Carlos for more than 16 years.

He was hired at the restaurant as its sous chef, having trained at the owners’ other New Orleans-inflected establishment in San Diego. When they were ready to retire, Caba bought the place.

Creole-Cajun cooking is so distinctive that it often gets lost in translation when it’s transplanted elsewhere, with chefs mistakenly substituting fiery heat for complexity.

Not so here, as I found out recently, when I was invited in as a guest of the restaurant.

Caba goes the extra mile, as is evident from one taste of the seafood gumbo. There is a rich, depth of flavor you can’t miss. It’s the result of the TLC put into the roux. In fact, the gumbo roux is going on three years old, Caba says. Similar to a sourdough starter for bread, a portion of the roux is saved each time it’s made, and added to the next batch. A bowl ($8) of it is deep and dark with a few bay shrimp, chunks of crab, slivers of andouille sausage and rice at its center.

You might drive by CreoLa easily on El Camino Real. The low-slung A-frame building looks like an old time-y coffee shop or motel restaurant. Inside, it’s cozy with ceiling fans in the main dining room and friendly waiters who chat easily with regulars and newcomers.

You gotta get your hands dirty. But it’s worth it.

From March through summer, Caba flies in about 75 pounds of crawfish weekly from Louisiana. When they arrive, he sends out an email blast to regulars, who crowd in, primped to get their hands messy.

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