You won’t believe how easy and delicious these microwaved shiitakes
This is the mushroom hack that you didn’t know you needed.
It’s a quick-as-a-wink recipe that’s perfect when you’re time-pressed.
Or in need an ideal base for a quick vegetarian meal. Or a no-brainer side dish to any Asian-influenced main.
“Steamed Shiitakes with Ginger-Garlic-Scallion Sauce” is fast, delicious, and deceptive. That’s because the “steaming” happens in about 5 minutes in your microwave.
It results in the silkiest, slipperiest, most supple mushrooms that are also plenty saucy.
This genius recipe is from “Hello, Home Cooking” (Clarkson Potter), of which I received a review copy.
The cookbook is by Ham El-Waylly, a New York City recipe developer and video creator who is chef-partner of the New Orleans-style seafood bar, Strange Delight in Brooklyn.
The 2023 Arkenstone Estate Blanc exudes complexity.
2023 Arkenstone Howell Mountain Estate Blanc
A hefty, dark bottle and a $145 price tag lets you know immediately that this white wine is unequivocally built for aging.
But with seriously warm evenings this summer plus the belief that there’s no time like now, I didn’t hesitate to uncork a bottle of the 2023 Arkenstone Howell Mountain Estate Blanc when a sample landed on my porch.
Produced by the family-owned winery in Angwin on Napa Valley’s Howell Mountain, it’s an elegant wine in the style of classic white wines of Bordeaux.
The 12-acre estate is perched on steep, rocky land with a dry climate. Its hallmark are white wines that exude minerality, and this one is no exception.
It is 93 percent Sauvignon Blanc and 7 percent Semillon that’s been aged 18 months in a concrete egg and French oak. The Semillon rounds off the sharp edges of the wine’s acidity and minerality, and adds a weightiness to make this a rather full-body wine.
When it comes to their brand of cooking, husband and wife chefs Evan and Sarah Rich have a knack for throwing you for a loop — in the best of ways.
Think you’re getting potato chips at their flagship, 14-year-old Rich Table in San Francisco? You are — but ones uncannily threaded with whole sardines.
Expecting a whole roasted cauliflower at their two RT Rotisserie locations in San Francisco? You might want to don sunglasses when it arrives blanketed in technicolor fuchsia from a dazzling red beet tahini sauce.
Hankering for shrimp Louie at their newest restaurant, RT Bistro, which just opened in January? The chilled shrimp in a creamy sauce will arrive not on a mound of lettuce, but on disks of fried eggplant that are crisp on the outside and creamy within.
The Riches call their food “New American.” In truth, it’s what Sarah and Evan most like to eat — familiar sounding dishes with deepened flavors that get playfully and imaginatively tweaked without losing any focus.
It’s proved to be a winning formula for them and General Manager-Partner Jonny Gilbert.
RT Bistro’s entrance is around the corner from Rich Table’s.
Last week, I finally had a chance to check out RT Bistro, which is actually located in the same building that houses Rich Table, with its entrance just around the corner from it.
It’s 100 percent Sauvignon Blanc but made in a Bordeaux-style, meaning it’s not only rich tasting but full-bodied.
Fermented in new oak barrels, this isn’t your racy New Zealand-style Sauvignon Blanc with searing acidity. Instead, this is a wine that lushly fragrant with grapefruit and white flowers that tastes of lemon curd, milk bread,, and melon, and boasts a flinty quality. Highly regarded, it’s been described by others as a “Sauvignon Blanc that drinks like a Chardonnay.” Though, thankfully, without being achingly oaky.
Chicken thigh and chicken meatball skewers at N/Soto — some of the juiciest chicken I’ve had in a while.
Think of Michelin-starred N/Naka as the older sister in a little black dress and diamonds with a chic persona, while N/Soto is the younger, more carefree sister in t-shirt and jeans — albeit perfectly tailor-made ones.
Both celebrated Los Angeles restaurants are owned and operated by married chefs, Niki Nakayama and Carole Iida-Nakayama. This spring, they celebrated both the 15th anniversary of N/Naka, their high-end, Japanese-meets-Californian kaiseki, and the 4th anniversary of N/Soto, their izakaya.
While “naka” in Japanese means “inside” and is a play on Nakayama’s surname, “soto” means “outside” and references the pandemic when for a time restaurants were forced to shutter, closed off from the outside world.
In fact, N/Soto originated during the pandemic as a pop-up offering to-go bentos. It proved so successful that Nakayama and Iida-Nakayama decided to go all in on a second, more casual restaurant.
Dinner at N/Naka is a 3-hour+ affair that will set you back $395 per person — that is if you can snag one of the hard-to-get reservations. In contrast, while N/Soto does offer a weekday $95 tasting menu, its main menu is strictly a la carte, meaning you can spend as little or as much as your appetite desires.
I’ve had the pleasure of dining at N/Naka twice, including earlier this month, and it remains an exquisite experience. On this particular trip to Los Angeles, I was fortunate enough to be invited in as a guest of N/Soto to try it in comparison.
The entrance to the restaurant.
The front of the restaurant is blanketed in a wall of ivy, with its noren or Japanese fabric divider providing the clue to where the entrance is located.
