Category Archives: Chefs

Valentine’s Day Treats, Chocolate Dinner & More

Posted on by 6 comments

Make Valentine's Day especially sweet with these boxed macarons. (Photo courtesy of La Boulange)

La Boulange’s Valentine’s Days Offerings

From now through Feb. 15, your neighborhood La Boulange is offering three sweet treats especially for Valentine’s Day.

Choose from a box of raspberry and vanilla macarons for $12.50; a box of chocolate and raspberry macarons for $12.50; or a gorgeous heart-shaped raspberry fruit tart ($9.95).

Find them at any of the Bay Area La Boulange locations.

Chocolate hearts filled with raspberries and strawberries. (Photo courtesy of La Boulange)

Sent Sovi’s Savory Chocolate Dinner

Who says chocolate is only for dessert?

Not at Sent Sovi in Saratoga, where Chef-Proprietor Josiah Slone will be hosting his third annual “Savory Chocolate Dinner” at 7 p.m. Feb. 28.

Read more

Jamie Oliver’s Quick Portuguese Custard Tarts for the Lunar New Year

Posted on by 19 comments

Eggy, warm custard tar.ts are perfect for the Lunar New Year or any other occasion.

There are many symbolic dishes that will grace the table when folks celebrate Chinese New Year on Feb. 10.

A whole fish and whole chicken for family togetherness. Candied melon seeds as a wish for a sweet new year. And long-life noodles to foster many more years to come of such celebrations.

For me, though, it’s all about the custard tarts.

OK, custard tarts may be more associated with dim sum outings, rather than necessarily any Chinese New Year festivities.

But can you blame me for hankering for them? Who doesn’t love a warm, eggy custard tart with a crust so flaky that shards of pastry cascade all over your clothes when you bite into one?

Leave it to an Englishman to come up with a brilliant version, too.

That would be Jamie Oliver, whose cookbook, “Meals in Minutes” (Hyperion), I received a review copy of last year. The book is set up in a unique style: Recipes are grouped into complete menus that are designed to be cooked and on the table in about 30 minutes. As such, the ingredients are listed all together for all four dishes that make up each menu. And cooking directions have you moving back and forth from one dish to another, just like you would in your own kitchen when preparing a holiday meal made up of many dishes.

Read more

A Michelin-Starred-Chef Chocolate Box, New Kara’s Cupcakes Locale & More

Posted on by 7 comments

The Constellation Chocolate Collection. (Photo courtesy of IfOnly.com)

For the Discriminating Chocoholic

IfOnly.com may have created the ultimate chocolate box for big-time foodies.

The e-commerce site asked 10 Bay Area Michelin-starred chefs to create a chocolate bonbon for this special box just in time for Valentine’s Day.

Take a gander at the stellar chefs and their pastry chefs who contributed to the Constellation Chocolate Collection:

Read more

A Taste of Luxury at Spruce in San Francisco

Posted on by 6 comments

Grilled steak with duck-fat potatoes at Spruce in San Francisco.

Step inside Spruce in San Francisco to be cocooned in plushness.

Baccarat crystal chandeliers in the otherwise dimly-lit, 70-seat restaurant create an intimate ambiance of drama and mystery. So much so that the chocolate mohair walls look almost black in the evening, all the better to showcase the eye-catching, over-sized charcoal sketches of whimsical figures, including a torso draped in an Adidas sweatshirt and the the backside of a bald man clad in a natty suit.

The six-year-old restaurant, with its hammerhead banquettes and faux ostrich chairs, is all about glam. Indeed, it makes you want to have an excuse to, err, spruce up just to go there.

The glam and dramatic dining room.

Recently, I was invited to be a guest at the restaurant, part of the Bacchus Management Group of restaurants that also includes the Village Pub in Woodside, Mayfield Bakery & Cafe in Palo Alto, Cafe des Amis in San Francisco, and Pizza Antica locations throughout the Bay Area.

Chef de Cuisine John Madriaga has a deft touch with local ingredients, especially vegetables, not surprisingly since he cooked at Manresa in Los Gatos and apprenticed at Copenhagen’s famed Noma. He also has access to SMIP Ranch, the Santa Cruz Mountains farm that supplies produce to all the Bacchus restaurants.

Read more

Scenes from Chefs’ Holidays, Part II: With Lucques, Peet’s, CulinAriane and Wilshire

Posted on by 5 comments

The grand dining room at the Ahwahnee in Yosemite National Park.

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, CA — You may know that Chef Suzanne Goin of Lucques, AOC, the Tavern and the Larder, all in Los Angeles, is married to Chef David Lentz of The Hungry Cat in Los Angeles.

But you might not know exactly how the two met.

I knew part of the story, but not all of the details — until I asked Goin about it when I was the moderator for her cooking demo at the 28th annual Chefs’ Holidays event at the Ahwahnee Hotel.

Thankfully, she was a good enough sport to spill the beans before a rapt audience.

Chef Suzanne Goin of Lucques on the demo stage.

“So, Suzanne…” I asked, “David just happened to be dining at Lucques. And your sister just happened to be dining next to him that night? And the two of them just started talking?”

Goin chuckled and said, “There’s a part of the story that David doesn’t like me to tell, so don’t tell him I’m telling you all this. He thinks it makes him sound like a stalker.”

Suzanne Goin's curried cauliflower with roasted carrots and tahini yogurt.

She went on to explain that in 1999, she was named one of Food & Wine magazine’s “Best New Chefs.” She appeared on the cover with the other honored chefs. She was the only woman among them.

Read more

« Older Entries Recent Entries »