Category Archives: Chefs

Martinis, Wine, New Restaurants & More

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Go mad for martinis at this Sonoma event.

If you happen to be in Sonoma tomorrow, the hardest decision you might have to make is whether you prefer shaken or stirred.

That’s because top bartenders from 10 Sonoma restaurants and bars will be gathering in force at the Saddles Steakhouse at MacArthur Place Inn & Spa for the always popular Sonoma Valley Olive Season’s  “Martini Madness” event.

You’re invited to taste their creations and to vote for what you think is the best one. Lest you get hungry, appetizers will be available for noshing. And lest you need further inspiration, a live jazz band will entertain.

Tickets are $40 per person ($45 at the door). Dinner package deals are available for $85 per person, which includes all the fun at ”Martini Madness,” plus a three-course dinner.

Glasses of bubbly greet visitors to Saison.

Look for one of San Francisco’s most successful pop-up restaurants, Saison, to spiff up with a new and improved 3.0 version in the first half of 2010.

Who hasn’t fallen for the quirky charm of the teeny 25-seat, highly personal restaurant that turns out fine-dining dishes in a rustic, historic stable in the Mission District? What started out as a makeshift, once-a-week, dinner-only restaurant by Chef Joshua Skenes and Sommelier Mark Bright (both Michael Mina alums) has since expanded to three nights — Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

Thursday nights soon will be added to the dinner line-up. The kitchen will get a major redo, including a new gourmet stove. And the plain-Jane, garden-variety slat chairs in the dining room will be replaced by sturdier, more stylish and much more comfy ones. Skenes even has plans to add a wood-fire oven to the garden patio to bake fresh bread for the restaurant.

Celebrate the Lunar New Year in the comfort of your own home — with some stylish and delicious help.

Fork and Spoon Productions of San Francisco is teaming with my good friend, Andrea Nguyen, author of “Asian Dumplings” (Ten Speed Press), to come to your house for a dumpling demonstration and banquet meal that features the likes of baked curried chicken baos, steamed Pacific bass with young ginger, Peking duck with pancakes, and tangerine pot de creme.

You can book the team anytime between Jan. 15-Feb. 28. You need at least 10 guests for this $185 event. The hostess receives a free copy of Nguyen’s cookbook, while guests can purchase their own at a special price. To make a reservation, call (415) 552-7130.

Everybody’s favorite “Dine About Town” promotion runs this year from Jan. 15-31. A bevy of San Francisco restaurants will be offering a two-course lunch for $17.95 and/or a three-course dinner for $34.95.

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Get Your Fill — and Then Some — at Sancho’s Taqueria

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A huge, honking burrito.

Like quite a few high-end chefs these days, Adam Torres turned his back on white table cloths, waiters, sommeliers and all the other fancy accouterments that go along with fine dining.

Instead, he opted to refocus his considerable skills toward something far more casual and carefree — tacos and burritos.

But not just any run-of-the-mill tacos and burritos. We’re talking ones that will leave you swooning.

Then again, that’s not surprising when you consider they’re being made by someone who used to cook on the line at the esteemed Village Pub in Woodside.

Having been a fan of the Sancho’s in Redwood City that opened a few years ago, and the take-out Mexican food window that Torres used to run at La Tiendita Market in East Palo Alto, my husband and I were eager to try the new Sancho’s Taqueria, which opened in downtown Palo Alto late last year.

I almost always end up getting at least one fish taco ($3.95). Super crisp, fried nuggets of flaky fish are mounded high inside two small, soft corn tortillas and topped with cabbage and creamy, house-made chipotle remoulade. Sancho’s has long had a reputation for its fish tacos. After one bite, you’ll not only know why, but want to order seconds.

Fish taco on the left; Al pastore taco on the right.

I also enjoyed an al pastore (barbecue pork) super taco ($3.25), which came dressed with cheese, pico de gallo and salsa. Smoky and tender, the pork, like all of Sancho’s meats, are nicely seasoned.

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Top 10 Eats of 2009

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My Top 10 eats that make me smile. (And yes, those are coffee beans.)

Some people like to look back at the year to ponder, scrutinize and revel in their accomplishments.

I like to look back at the year to relive moments in time that I can’t forget because, well, they just tasted so darned good.

Yes, here’s my list of the top 10 dishes I had in 2009.

Oh, it was hard to narrow it down to just 10, believe me. I hemmed and hawed about which would make the cut and which wouldn’t because there were so many bites over the past 12 months that I truly savored.

In the end, I decided to limit it to the meals I ate out, rather than cooked at home. The dishes that made the list were ones that I still savor in my memory, again and again. They’re ones that I would rush out to eat once more in a heart beat. They are — in a word — unforgettable.

Here they are, in no particular order:

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Lunch With Tony? You Bet!

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Short rib sandwich with caramelized onions. Oh, yes, indeedie.

Recently, I had lunch with Tony at Lunch with Tony’s.

Uh, got that?

That would be Chef-Proprietor Tony Santos and his new breakfast-lunch cafe, named — you got it — Lunch with Tony’s. It’s located in Alviso. And if you don’t know where that is — and I’m sure many of you don’t even if you live in the Bay Area — it’s a bayside community that was once autonomous, but was annexed into San Jose in 1968.

Santos knows Alviso well. After all, he grew up just three blocks from what’s now his cafe. The building that houses Lunch with Tony’s used to be his grandfather’s bar in the 1940s. His grandfather was the elder statesman of Alviso, having been both its mayor and police chief in the 1950s. As you drive to Lunch with Tony’s, you’re bound to pass Tony P. Santos Street, which is named after Santos’ grandfather.

Have lunch at Lunch with Tony.

The simple, yet warm dining room.

Over the years, the old bar morphed into a couple of different restaurants, then fell into decline.

As Santos puts it bluntly, “It was condemnable when we took it over.”

Indeed, it took a year and a half of clean up and construction to get the family-owned building to what it is now — a cozy, casual cafe with cheerful orange walls and green columns. A corner outfitted with easy chairs and a coffee table, made of old planks from the building, invites patrons to take a load off.  During construction, Santos even found the original “Tony’s” sign that graced his grandfather’s establishment. He plans on hanging it in the patio area.

The "Tony'' of Lunch with Tony.

Ever since the 31-year-old Santos opened up his cafe on Sept. 9 (his birthday), the place has been packed. Workers from nearby Cisco Systems, Yahoo! and Sun Microsystems come in to get their fill, as does a steady stream of Santos’ cousins and old friends who still live in the neighborhood.

It’s the “Cheers” bar in sandwich joint-form.

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The Art of Hoshigaki

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Hoshigaki -- a persimmon dried in the traditional Japanese method.

As chef of Pizzeria Picco in Larkspur, Restaurant Picco in Larkspur and Bix in San Francisco, Chef Bruce Hill has a flair for creating stylish Italian and New American food.

He also has a thing for massaging fruit.

Before you raise your eyebrows too high at that, just know that it involves the ancient and quite labor-intensive Japanese tradition of preserving persimmons.

Chef Bruce Hill. (Photo courtesy of the chef)

Hill has been making the dried persimmons, known as hoshigaki, for the past four years, ever since he was inspired to give it a try by the lovely sight of all the bright orange persimmons at his local farmers market.

He doesn’t use the hoshigaki at his restaurants or sell them. He just makes them for fun to give to family and friends. And when he asked me if I would like to try some, I jumped at the chance.

Hill employs the traditional method of making them, which requires that the persimmons be peeled by hand, then hung by string for several weeks. During that time, he gives them regular massages to help break up the flesh and to help maintain their uniform shape. The rub-downs also help smooth the exterior to retard mold. After about six weeks of this pampering, a white powdery bloom naturally appears on the fruit, signaling that they’re ready to be enjoyed.

A younger version of the dried persimmon that still has its orange color.

He sent me two kinds of hoshigaki, each made of the Hachiya variety of persimmon, so that I could get an idea of the transformation process.

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