Category Archives: Enticing Events

Spotlighting Summer Tomatoes

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Vine-ripened heirlooms are taking center stage right now.

Find these juicy beauties in all their glory at these Bay Area restaurants:

* Saratoga’s Sent Sovi hosts its third annual “Heirloom Tomato Dinner” on Aug. 26. Chef Josiah Slone will even feature some of his own homegrown ones at this special five-course meal that starts with “Lemon Boy Sake Cocktails” with tomato bites, and winds its way through slow-cooked lamb confit with poached tomato sauce before ending with tomato and peanut tart with pomegranate sorbet.

Price is $115, and includes paired wines.

If you can’t make it that particular night, have no fear; the restaurant will feature the tomato menu in lieu of its regular tasting menu, Aug. 27-29.

* Throughout August, the Lark Creek Restaurant Group will be creating inventive new dishes with Marvel Stripe, Purple Cherokee, Goliath and other heirloom varieties.

Look for dishes such as Dungeness crab and heirloom tomato salad with yellow tomato sorbet at One Market Restaurant in San Francisco; seafood-stuffed heirloom tomato with olives, capers, basil and lemon oil at Yankee Pier at Santana Row in San Jose; and Muscovy duck with white corn, summer squash, hickory-smoked bacon and heirloom tomato relish at the Tavern at Lark Creek in Larkspur.

* Gott’s Roadside in St. Helena, Napa and San Francisco is serving up its home-grown green tomatoes, fried with spicy chili aioli ($4.99), until supplies last.

The tomatoes are from its St. Helena garden, as is the fresh basil in its pesto on the menu.

* Also in Wine Country, the Carneros Bistro & Wine Bar in Sonoma will host its fifth annual “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes,” Sept. 14-20.

Tomatoes will take over the menu at this restaurant, which harvests about 48 pounds of tomatoes from its garden every day at the height of summer. Dishes to be featured include “Menage a Tomato with Housemade Mozzarella and Watermelon Gazpacho” and a “PBLT” sandwich with pork belly.

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Scenes From SF Chefs 2010

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Didn’t make it to the SF Chefs 2010 extravaganza this past weekend at Union Square in San Francisco?

No fear. Here’s a glimpse of the opening festivities last Friday night, which featured a slew of chefs, mixologists and vintners doling out gourmet goodies under a billowing white tent on the square.

The big guns were out in force, too, including New York Chef David Burke and star restaurateur, Drew Nieporent of the Myriad Restaurant Group.

The event officially got underway with a sabering ceremony, where a bottle of bubbly was dramatically opened by using a long knife to slice off the top of it.

You can tell from the expressions of the crowd that it was quite the sight.

A bevy of chefs were in attendance, including Mourad Lahlou of Aziza in San Francisco, whose first cooking show is expected to debut on PBS in the fall of 2011. Filmed in Marrakech and the Bay Area, the show will shine the spotlight on both traditional and modern Moroccan cooking. He’s still looking for help from investors, too. So if you’ve done well in the stock market or with the Lotto lately, don’t be shy and drop him a line.

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Indian Independence Day, New Beard Papa, Chocolate Meets Tofu & More

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South Bay and Peninsula News

Revel in festivities for Indian Independence Day, Aug. 15, when Junnoon restaurant in downtown Palo Alto, features live music and a special menu.

“A Tryst with Junnoon,” starting at 5:30 p.m., salutes India’s 63rd Independence Day with a $40 three-course menu that includes chicken tikka achari, made with saffron, green mustard and garlic. Each dish represents the colors of India’s flag — deep saffron, white and dark green. The prix fixe dishes also can be enjoyed à la carte.

Celebratory cocktails also will be available, including “Soul of a Nation” (peach schnapps, mango puree and Champagne), which represents the colors of Indian summers.

Advanced reservations are recommended and can be made by calling (650) 329-9644.

Sakoon in Mountain View also will be celebrating Indian Independence Day with a brunch buffet on Aug. 15.

In addition to regular favorites, the buffet that day also will offer new items such as Goan fish curry and lamb chettinad (with tomato, onion, garlic, cumin, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom and black pepper powder).

Price is $17.95 per person and includes a free mimosa.

Another Beard Papa will open its doors in the Bay Area, this one in Milpitas at 1535 Landess Ave. in the Seasons Marketplace.

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The Most Anticipated Restaurant of the Year, Benu, Opens Today

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Expectations are through the stratosphere for Benu, which opens today in San Francisco, to unparalleled fanfare.

Discriminating diners have been salivating over every detail that has emerged over the past few months about this new restaurant from Chef Corey Lee, the esteemed former chef de cuisine of the French Laundry in Yountville.

Reservations already have been going fast on OpenTable for Lee’s first restaurant, with tables already nabbed as far out as late September.

But that’s not surprising, given Lee’s stature in the culinary world. The James Beard award-winning chef has built a restaurant, where every detail has been meticulously considered — from the specially designed porcelain plateware to the private wine lockers to the first-of-its-kind Viking cooking suite in the kitchen.

Indeed, Lee’s architect, the award-winning Richard Bloch of New York, calls this the most custom restaurant he’s ever worked on. It’s also the first restaurant that the French Laundry’s Thomas Keller has invested in that’s not one of his own.

Learn just what it took to build this elegant restaurant, housed in the former Hawthorne Lane-cum-Two restaurant space just a hop away from the W Hotel. Read all about it in my story in the September issue of Food Arts magazine.

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Rick Bayless, Alice Waters & More Chefs

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Rick Bayless to Visit Palo Alto

Meet Rick Bayless, Chicago chef extraordinaire, Mexican cuisine authority, and winner of the first season of “Top Chef Masters” on Bravo TV, in Palo Alto, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Aug. 16.

Bayless, who recently cooked for the first time for the First Family at the White House, will talk about his culinary philosophy and share a few of his delectable dishes from his new cookbook, “Fiesta at Rick’s” (W.W. Norton & Co.) at a reception at Reposado restaurant in downtown Palo Alto.

Tickets are $95 per person (which includes a copy of his cookbook) or $160 per couple (which includes one copy of the book).

Dinner with Alice Waters in Marin County

Join Alice Waters of Berkeley’s Chez Panisse in a conversation with Davia Nelson, NPR producer of “The Kitchen Sisters” and author of “Hidden Kitchens, Stories, Recipes and More From NPR’s Kitchen Sisters” (Rodale Books), 6 p.m. Aug. 7 at Toby’s Feed Barn, 11250 Highway One, Point Reyes Station.

Together, they’ll talk about how to create a “green kitchen,” which is the title of Waters’ new book, “In the Green Kitchen: Techniques to Learn by Heart” (Clarkson Potter).

A dinner buffet, created by Osteria Stellina, is included, which will feature pasture-raised goat braised in cinnamon and red wine; almond-wood grilled chicken; and berry and honey tarts.

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