Category Archives: Great Finds

Dining At Robin Menlo Park

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Halibut aquachile, the opening salvo of the omakase experience at Robin Menlo Park.
Halibut aquachile, the opening salvo of the omakase experience at Robin Menlo Park.

Once you step through the doors of Robin Menlo Park, any traffic or stress you felt getting to the restaurant on busy El Camino Real disappears immediately.

Opened last year in the Springline residential-retail-restaurant development, it is an offshoot of Robin in San Francisco, the Michelin Guide-recognized sushi restaurant opened by Chef Adam Tortosa in 2017.

Step inside and the dining room reveals itself only once you’ve stepped past a wall into its cloistered realm done up in high-contrast dark charcoal and light wood. The effect is moody yet chic, and thoroughly transportive.

Don’t come expecting a traditional omakase. Instead, this one is more like Sushi by Scratch in Healdsburg, in that it’s not afraid to break boundaries to take on a more modern approach with global influences.

The restaurant's logo.
The restaurant’s logo.
The stylish dining room.
The stylish dining room.

When you sit down, the only menu you’re given is one for beverages. Because at Robin, both in San Francisco and Menlo Park, the omakase experience starts with a conversation with your server. You determine how much you want to spend: anywhere from $109 to $209 per person, which constitutes 13 to 20 bites. The higher you pay, the more premium ingredients you will receive. At the half way point of the meal, the server will come by to see how satiated you are and inquire if you want to add to your original tab amount. Our party of four settled on spending $150 each. That turned out to be 18 bites, which included dessert.

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Summer’s Sensational Tonnato With Tomatoes

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A simple way to dress up fresh summer tomatoes spectacularly.
A simple way to dress up fresh summer tomatoes spectacularly.

Years ago, I went to a summer potluck, where the first dish to be demolished was a friend’s homegrown tomatoes, simply sliced, arranged on a pretty platter, and dressed with olive oil, and sea salt.

Not that the other dishes weren’t fabulous. It was just that tomatoes like that, ripened on the vine to let their deep, natural sweetness, tartness and mouthwatering savoriness develop to their fullest are absolutely impossible to resist.

When summer provides tomatoes that good, you don’t have to do much to them. That’s why “Tonnato with Tomatoes” is such a winning recipe.

It’s little more than an assortment of sliced tomatoes drizzled with the creamy Italian sauce of tuna, anchovies, capers, and lemon juice that’s traditionally spooned over cold slices of veal. It’s like the taste of a tuna salad sandwich with slices of fresh tomatoes inside — but turned on its bread with the tomatoes the star and the tuna a supporting yet major player.

This super easy recipe is from “Big Night” (Union Square & Co.), of which I received a review copy.

It’s by Katherine Lewin, who went from a career as a copywriter at J.Crew to a food writer and editor at The Infatuation to opening two Big Night gourmet stores in New York City.

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Spotlighting Soft Shell Crab At Boulevard

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The star attraction of Boulevard's special soft shell crab menu.
The star attraction of Boulevard’s special soft shell crab menu.

Connoisseurs of soft shell crabs know that the time is right from now through mid-summer to enjoy this specialty shellfish.

One place to savor them in exceptional style is San Francisco’s iconic Boulevard restaurant, which is offering a special soft shell crab menu every Thursday from now through Aug. 29.

The four-course prix fixe is $119 per person (or $160.83 inclusive of 6 percent SF Mandate, 8.63 percent sales tax, and 20 percent service charge). An optional wine pairing is $65.

Because only a set number of soft shell crab menus are offered each Thursday, it pays to reserve it ahead of time. Otherwise, you take your chance as to whether any are still available when you finally sit down at your table with a view of the Bay Bridge.

An icon that will celebrate 32 years in September.
An icon that will celebrate 32 years in September.
The dining room got a refresh in 2021.
The dining room got a refresh in 2021.

I was fortunate enough to be invited in last Thursday as a guest of the restaurant to try the menu spotlighting the seasonal crab that is harvested when it has outgrown and shed its hard shell but before its new shell has hardened.

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Lamb-Spice Lamb Chops That Are Kismet

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A quick spice mix gives these lamb rib chops incomparable flavor.
A quick spice mix gives these lamb rib chops incomparable flavor.

Dare I say that smoky, juicy, and flavorfully spiced little lamb rib chops are your destiny?

They definitely are if you follow this recipe from the new “Kismet” cookbook (Clarkson Potter), of which I received a review copy.

“Lamb-Spice Lamb Chops” is one of more than 100 mouthwatering recipes in this book by the chef-owners of Los Angeles restaurants, Kismet and Kismet Rotisserie. Sara Kramer and Sarah Hymanson were named among the “Best New Chefs” in 2017 by Food & Wine magazine.

You have to love a cookbook that states from the get-go: “Yes, we’re restaurant chefs. No, this isn’t a restaurant book. Why? Because we want you to actually cook these recipes.”

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Liven Up Your Cooking with The Spice Lab

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Grilled bread with cheese, tomatoes and basil that gets a generous sprinkling of The Spice Lab's Pizza Dust Seasoning.
Grilled bread with cheese, tomatoes and basil that gets a generous sprinkling of The Spice Lab’s Pizza Dust Seasoning.

How to make a simple slice of grilled bread taste like actual pizza?

Just shake on a generous amount of The Spice Lab’s Pizza Dust Seasoning.

Close your eyes, take a bite, and you’ll taste the sweetness of tomato, the pungency of garlic, a kiss of anise from fennel, a hit of warm spice from Aleppo pepper, and a subtle bread-y note from yeast flakes. In short, a close approximation to your favorite sausage pizza.

Based in Pompano Beach, FL, The Spice Lab is a family-owned business that turns out award-winning sea salts and unique seasoning blends that are all natural and kosher certified, with a good many of them gluten-free. The company, housed in a sweeping 125,000-square-foot facility, also makes custom blends, including the Nom Nom Paleo seasoning powders for best-selling cookbook author Michelle Tam.

The Spice Lab’s chef-in-residence Fiona Kennedy recently reached out to send samples for me to try.

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