Category Archives: Chefs

Free Cupcakes, New Sushi Digs, Howard Bulka’s Pizza Joint, Gingerbread Time & More

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Kara's Cupcakes celebrates its third anniversary. (Photo courtesy of Kara's)

Kara’s Cupcakes celebrates its third anniversary Nov. 1 by giving away a free cupcake with any purchase at its original location, 3249 Scott St. in San Francisco.

The offer is good only that day, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and only at that location.

The diesel-powered “Karavan,” the cupcake bakery’s mobile van, also will be on site, 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. that day to offer samples of Blue Bottle New Orleans-style iced coffee.

For all you Peninsula types who have been waiting with hunger pains, word is that Howie’s Artisan Pizza is expected to open in November at the Town & Country Village in Palo Alto.

OK, so Chef Howard Bulka, formerly of Marche in Menlo Park, thought he’d be open by summer. You know how those things go.

When the doors open, you’ll be able to indulge in New Haven-style pizza with toppings like pancetta and egg, artisan salads, veggie pesto melts, and Straus Organic soft-serve drizzled with olive oil and fleur de sel or in a peppermint brownie sundae.

Chef Howard Bulka's new pizza joint is just weeks away from opening. (Photo courtesy of the chef)

The earth-tone interior will feature exposed timber-framed ceilings, cork walls, bamboo counters, hand-forged iron fixtures, and unusual olive oil-filled glass panels that partition the dining room.

The restaurant will be open daily, 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.

Learn more about Chef Bulka in my interview with him earlier this year.

Are you the type who likes to arrive fashionably early?

Then head to Santana Row in San Jose, where you’ll be able to enjoy a $30 three-course dinner Sundays through Wednesdays, 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. “The Fashionably Early Dining” promotion, which runs from Nov. 1 through Dec. 16, includes soup, salad or appetizer, plus a choice of entree, and dessert.

Choose from nine participating restaurants: Amber India, LB Steak, Pizza Antica, Straits Restaurant, Village California Bistro, Roux Louisiana Kitchen, Yankee Pier, Rosie McCann’s Irish Pub & Restaurant, and Thea Mediterranean.

Guests who purchase two “Fashionably Early” entrees also will receive two tickets to the holiday classic, “A Christmas Story,” playing Nov. 21-Dec. 30 at the San Jose Rep. Just present your itemized dinner receipt to the Santana Row Concierge to pick up your tickets while supplies last.

The annual “Pinot Noir & Mushroom Dinner,” Nov. 14 at Parcel 104 in Santa Clara, will serve up four courses with paired wines.

Price is $104 per person. Diners can take advantage of a special room rate at the Marriott, too, for $79.

Additionally, Parcel 104 has a new Monday-through-Friday “Happy Hour,” 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Enjoy $1 draft beers and select $4 appetizers.

As a kid growing up in San Francisco, Ebisu, 1283 Ninth Ave., was practically my neighborhood hang-out. I waited in many a long line there, and learned at an early age that the best place to set yourself down was the sushi bar. Family-run, it was always fun, boisterous, and thoroughly delicious.

Well, Ebisu is the one who’s all grown-up now. San Francisco’s Tekton Architecture has given the popular restaurant a sleek, simple yet elegant make-over.

Ebisu's new look. (Photo courtesy of Sharon Risedorph)

(Photo by Sharon Risedorph)

Bamboo, Douglas fir, sustainably harvested koa wood, recycled 125-year-old barn siding, and other sustainable materials were used to create a warm, organic vibe.

Cedar benches outside and in the foyer are available to take a load off while you wait for a table. Sorry, that part hasn’t changed. But Ebisu remains worth the wait.

To get in the sweet holiday mood, Pastry Chef Patti Dellamonica of One Market in San Francisco is hosting a cookie decorating party, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Nov. 7.

It’s part of the Lark Creek Restaurant Group’s month-long “Gingerbread Wishes” program, which benefits the Greater Bay Area Make-A-Wish Foundation.

For $20 on Nov. 7, each guest will receive a cookie decorating kit that includes three freshly baked star-shaped cookies, icing, sprinkles and candies. Guests can replenish their strength from all that cookie decorating with complimentary non-alcoholic beverages and finger sandwiches. Additional cookies are available for $5 each. All proceeds will benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

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Tea, Tofu, Fro-Yo & Lots More

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The soothing Samovar Tea Lounge. (Photo courtesy of Samovar)

Ever wanted to learn more about Fair Trade products, as well as sample a variety in one convenient place?

Then, you’re in luck.

Samovar Tea Lounge in San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center is hosting a “Fair Trade Gala,” 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Oct. 29. Speakers will explain all facets of the Fair Trade movement. Additionally, such Fair Trade-certified companies as TCHO Chocolate, Alter Eco Olive, and La Yapa Quinoa will offer samples to try. You’ll also get a chance to taste Samovar’s new line of Fair Trade teas.

Tickets are $10. They can be purchased at Samovar or by calling (415) 227-9400.

Chocoholics are in for a treat at Marché in Menlo Park tonight and Saturday, Oct. 24, when Executive Chef Guillaume Bienaimé will partner with Michael Recchiuti of Recchiuti Confections to create a five-course chocolate feast.

Dishes will include Hokkaido scallop carpaccio with coconut, vanilla, French tarragon & olive oil ganache; and Peking duck breast with green cabbage, chocolate & duck confit ravioli, cocoa nib, pink peppercorn and smoked duck crackling.

Price is $65 per person. Wine pairings will be available for an additional charge.

Award-winning San Francisco Pastry Chef Emily Luchetti of Farallon and Waterbar will be conducting cooking demos at San Jose’s Santana Row, Oct. 24 and Oct. 25, at 11 a.m., 1:30 p.m. and 4 p.m.

It’s all part of an event by Cadillac. You’ll be able to test-drive the new Cadillac SRX, along with its competition, Lexus RX350, Mercedes GLK and BMW X5. I know, you’re probably thinking, “What do luxury cars have to do with pastries?” The answer is that Cadillac has partnered with Bon Appetit and the now-shuttered Gourmet (cue the tears) magazines in this event.

Buca di Beppo is marking Oct. 26’s “World Pasta Day” (who knew?) with a pasta-rific promotion.

That day, any guest who purchases a small or large pasta or entree will receive a free serving of spaghetti with your choice of meat or marinara sauce. Guests also will receive a 16-ounce package of Rummo Italian pasta to take home.

The offer is valid for only dine-in customers, not take-out. But diners can box up their free spaghetti to take home.

Noodles made of soy. (Photo courtesy of Hodo Soy Beanery)

Enjoy a different kind of noodle from Hodo Soy Beanery, which recently opened a factory in West Oakland.

Founder and tofu master, Minh Tsai, got his start selling his soymilk and tofu at the Palo Alto farmers market. It became so successful that he quit his finance job to make tofu full-time. You can now find Hodo Soy Beanery products at 10 Bay Area farmers markets, select grocery stores, and such restaurants as Coi, Greens, and the Slanted Door, all in San Francisco.

Tsai uses organic soybeans to make his products, which also includes soy noodles, and yuba (tender tofu skin).

Starting in December, the factory will offer public tours.

Pumpkin stars at Cetrella in Half Moon Bay through October.

The restaurant offers a three-course pumpkin menu for $25 on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. through Oct. 31.

Autumn celebrations also are in the air at Foreign Cinema in San Francisco.

In honor of Oktoberfest, the restaurant will offer a special three-course dinner on Oct. 29. It includes a choice of one Oktoberfest beer, Weihenstephaner Festbier or Franziskaner Dunkelweisse, to enjoy with beet and cucumber salad; wiener schnitzel with fried potatoes; and spiced apple cake with praline and cider sauce. Dishes also are available a` la carte.

More tastes of fall are to be found at Red Mango, which is offering a special pumpkin spice fro-yo at all its locations through Dec. 31.

It is served with free graham cracker crumbs topping. A small serving has less than 100 calories.

Bar Tartine in San Francisco has reopened with Chef Chris Kronner at the helm and a new bistro menu in place.

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Michelin Guide Gears Up to Tackle the South Bay

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Jean-Luc Naret, director of the Michelin Guides. (Photo courtesy of Michelin)

As the new 2010 Michelin Guide San Francisco goes on sale today with its discriminating picks for the top Bay Area restaurants, South Bay chefs would be wise to keep their eyes peeled for those sneaky inspectors coming their way.

With the 2011 guide, Michelin plans to expand its coverage of the South Bay, according to Jean-Luc Naret, director of the guides, whom I spoke with by phone yesterday.

“To be honest, the first year of the guide we went as far as Los Gatos only because of Manresa,” Naret says of the first San Francisco guide that came out four years ago. “We want to expand that coverage. I can’t say how far south we will go yet. It all depends on the restaurants we find.”

This year, Silicon Valley was represented by Chez TJ in Mountain View, Plumed Horse in Saratoga, and the Village Pub in Woodside, each of which garnered a coveted one-star rating. Trevese in Los Gatos, also received one star, but closed a month ago.

In the new 2010 guide, which retails for $17.99, the East Bay received a closer look this time around, with the inclusion of restaurants in Walnut Creek, Emeryville and Lafayette.

All in all, there are 110 more restaurants than last year’s guide.

But some things have stayed the same. The French Laundry in Yountville remains the only three-star restaurant. It is one of only 80 three-star restaurants in the world, Naret says.

Three stars, which mean “exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey,” is the highest rating Michelin awards. Two stars mean “excellent cuisine, worth a detour.” One star is “a very good restaurant in its category.”

This year’s top-rated restaurants are:

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Burgers, Oysters, Wine & More

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Pesto burger. (Photo courtesy of Burger Bar)

San Francisco finally gets its own Burger Bar today.

Chef Hubert Keller of San Francisco’s Fleur de Lys has brought his build-your-own burger concept to Macy’s Union Square in San Francisco. It opens today at 10:30 a.m., joining its sister Burger Bar locales in Las Vegas and St. Louis.

The San Francisco flagship burger joint, on the sixth floor of Macy’s, is open daily for lunch and dinner. Find buffalo, Kobe beef, salmon, and vegetarian burger options. Fresh meat is ground daily in the in-house butcher room.

The restaurant has its own wine cellar, and 24 beers on tap. There’s also a milkshake bar, where diners can customize their shakes any way they like.

Through Oct. 21, enjoy a three-course meal for $35 at participating Silicon Valley restaurants, from Los Gatos to San Carlos. It’s all part of “Silicon Valley Restaurant Week.”

Among those participating are: Nick’s on Main in Los Gatos, Alexander’s Steakhouse in Cupertino, Crimson in Los Gatos, and Quattro in East Palo Alto. For a complete list, as well as the menus offered, click here.

Photo courtesy of Hewitson Winery.

Reserve your seat for an intimate, whimsical dinner Oct. 29 at the Fifth Floor Restaurant in San Francisco, when South Australia’s Hewitson Wines launches the U.S. release of its highly touted 2006 Mad Hatter Shiraz.

For the occasion, Chef Jennie Lorenzo will feature a multi-course dinner served amidst Mad Hatter-decor. Price is $75. To reserve a seat, email madhattertourSF@gmail.com or call (415) 348-1111.

Tonight at 6:30 p.m., Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse and Wine Bar in Palo Alto and Walnut Creek will host a walk-around wine tasting with each featuring five or six Napa Valley vintners. Paired hors d’ouevres also will be served. Price is $45.

Sip more wine at the new Affronti, which just opened in downtown Healdsburg.

Chef-Owner Jude Affronti, who ran Mario Batali’s Po for three years in New York City, serves California-Mediterranean small plates along with more than 30 wines by the glass, and inventive wine cocktails. Dishes include red trout escabeche in tangy marinade, and Sonoma smoked duck with white beans and tomato.

Live jazz is featured Thursdays and at Sunday brunch.

Oyster lovers should make a bee-line to Waterbar in San Francisco, noon to 3 p.m. Oct. 17 for “Oyster Fest 2009.”

Enjoy a hot sauce competition, a shucking challenge, and plenty of oysters and wines to sample. The fee is $50, which includes admission and five tickets, each of which can be redeemed for one drink or one small plate of food.

You can eat — and get some exercise — in the ”East Bay Foodie Bike Tour of Emeryville and Berkeley,” 11:15 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Oct. 17.

Pedal your way on a flat, 4-mile tour that will make stops for culinary refueling at such places as Charles Chocolates in Emeryville, and Vik’s Chaat Corner in Berkeley.

Price is $50. Register by clicking here.

Enjoy an “Organic Harvest Day,” 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 17 at ALBA’s Rural Development Center, 1700 Old Stage Road in Salinas, when you’ll get to pick your own crops.

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A Honey of A Time

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Rich, deep tasting sage honey.

Did you know that there are 300 varieties of honey in the United States?

That, like wine, the flavor of honey is affected by the type of soil the flowers grow in, from which the pollen is plucked? (Different minerals add different nuances, and too much rain dilutes the flavor.)

Did you know that it takes a bee a lifetime to make one drop of honey?

That worker bees live for a mere 45 days?

But that queen bees live for 2 to 3 years? Talk about girl power.

I had a honey of a time learning all about the sticky nectar last week at Perbacco restaurant in San Francisco, where Chef Staffan Terje was kind enough to showcase honey in a special dinner for invited food writers and food bloggers, including my buddies, Single Guy Chef and Foodhoe’s Foraging.

To kick off the night, Bruce Wolk of the National Honey Board walked us through “Honey 101,” with a tasting of more than a half dozen different types of honeys. Yes, they were all super sweet. But the differences, magnified when trying them side by side, was remarkable not only in their hues, but in their flavors.

A tasting of honey.

Blueberry honey — named for the blueberry blossoms that help make that particular honey, not because it actually tastes like blueberries — is found only in New Jersey. Its flavor is a little like maple syrup. Pumpkin honey, which is produced in small quantities only in California and Colorado, was a revelation with its amber color and caramel flavor. Avocado honey tasted musky, sort of like molasses. Tupelo — the only honey that doesn’t crystallize easily and is almost extinct because the shrubs needed to make it are so few in numbers now — has lovely floral and cinnamon notes.

Looking nearly like tar, buckwheat honey, nearly black in color, is one honey that Wolk said, “People either hate or love.”

I can see why. This unusual honey has the aroma of a fermented Asian sauce or perhaps a salted, dried plum. Its taste is like strong molasses or even dark, heavy Guinness.

In general, the darker colored the honey, the stronger the flavor and the higher the mineral content. Buckwheat honey has the most minerals of any honey, and therefore, the highest level of antioxidants, Wolk said.

Honey may be good for us, but most of us use it just because we love its flavor and voluptuous body.

Chef Terje sure does. His dishes that night were inspired by ones in Northern Italy that use honey.

“I’m from Sweden,” he explained. “I was the kid who stuck a spoon in the honey jar. That was my candy.”

Honey-glazed smoke trout with horseradish foam.

Dinner started with a magnificent tower of smoked trout that had been glazed with a little honey, and served with sweet, tender roasted beets and a poof of creamy horseradish foam.

Agnolotti in honey-brown butter sauce.

Agnolotti filled with sheep’s milk ricotta followed, tossed in nutty brown butter sauce laced with chestnut honey. I could have eaten seconds.

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