Category Archives: Restaurants

Take Five with Mia Messier, Head Chef for Cirque du Soleil’s “Totem” Show

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Crew members touch up the stage for Cirque du Soleil's "Totem'' in San Jose.

Mia Messier was a hotel and restaurant chef in Montreal when she decided to run away with the circus.

Not just any circus, but the worldwide phenomenon known as Cirque du Soleil.

Who can blame her?

Now a veteran of nine years with the Montreal-based entertainment company, Messier has traveled with various Cirque shows through more than 25 countries for anywhere from six weeks to a year and a half at a time.

It’s her job to feed the hungry troupe of 52 performers from 20 countries, along with 68 other crew members, while they’re on the road.

Recently, I had a chance to visit her cafe at Cirque’s “Totem” show, now playing in San Jose through April 15.

The fanciful costumes are all hand-made.

Would you believe this got its start as a piece of white fabric?

Light-weight and stretchy.

A mold is made of each performer's head to create these intricate head-pieces.

I also got a quick peek backstage that afternoon with Cirque publicist Francis Jalbert, as crews were touching up the 2,700-pound turtle carapace that is the centerpiece of this particular show. Behind it, a hydraulic stage is flanked by what look like soaring, solid wood reeds. But would you believe they’re actually inflatable, so as to make transporting easier?

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Fighting for Foie Gras

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Foie gras and more foie gras at Lafitte. Here, with beef cheek, gigante beans and broccoli rabe.

I’m not usually met with protesters when I go out to dinner.

But such was the case last Thursday night at the “FU Foie Gras” dinner at Lafitte in San Francisco, where 10 peaceful protesters held up signs outside the restaurant, imploring people to stop eating foie gras, the luxurious fattened liver of a goose or duck.

If you’re a fan of that rich delicacy, you better enjoy it while you can. Come July 1, California will become the only state in the nation to ban the sale of foie gras.

A peaceful protester at the Lafitte dinner.

Protesters picketed for a little over an hour before leaving.

Animal welfare supporters, many of whom have been picketing restaurants that have foie on the menu, applaud the upcoming law that will stop what they believe is inhumane treatment of the birds, which are speed-fed with a tube down their throat to engorge their liver. But many chefs are rallying against the law, which they believe is unnecessary and unfair. A number of them, including Lafitte’s Chef-Proprietor Russell Jackson, have visited foie gras farms in the United States and found no such mistreatment, especially because ducks have no gag reflex, breathe through their tongue, and naturally increase their consumption when they migrate.

There are only three major producers of foie gras in the United States. Two are in New York: Hudson Valley Foie Gras and La Belle Farm. And only one is in California: Sonoma Foie Gras.

Gotta have a few skulls around when the restaurant is named for a pirate.

Since late last year, restaurants throughout the state have been hosting special foie gras dinners to educate the public and build grassroots support for the pricey ingredient that’s been produced as far back as ancient Egyptian times. Proceeds have gone to support CHEFS (Coalition for Humane and Ethical Farming Standards), a pro-foie advocacy group made up of restaurateurs and other culinary professionals.

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A Taste of French Comfort Food in San Carlos

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Roast chicken in creamy mustard sauce at Cuisinett.

Geoffroy Raby came to California a little more than a decade ago from northern France without knowing any English.

But he had the dream of recreating the simple, classic and casual bistro fare of his native land.

Last October, he did just that — opening Cuisinett in San Carlos with the assistance of Consulting Chef Guillaume Bienaime late of Marche in Menlo Park. Bienaime designed the menu, created the recipes and did all the training of the kitchen staff at Cuisinett. He’s even doing the book-keeping there. Raby makes you feel welcome immediately, chatting easily with both regulars and newcomers as if they had just stepped into his own home.

The rooster logo.

It’s a tiny place with only about 26 seats at small tables fashioned from reclaimed wood. Brick walls, exposed pipes and small arched windows just below the ceiling give the place an industrial charm. It’s already proved a hit. On Friday and Saturday nights, there’s often an hour-long wait to get in.

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SusieCakes Opens First Peninsula Location, Porchetta Time & More

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Get ready for cupcakes galore at SusieCakes in Menlo Park. (Photo courtesy of the bakery)

SusieCakes Comes to Menlo Park

SusieCakes, which started in Southern California but has spread to these northern parts, is opening its newest location at 642 Santa Cruz Ave. in downtown Menlo Park.

The bakery, know in particular for its old-fashioned cakes and cupcakes, already has two other Bay Area locations: San Francisco and Marin County.

Join in the grand opening ceremony at the Menlo Park bakery, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. March 24. Dust off your favorite poodle skirt for an old-fashioned sock hop with 50’s tunes. Best costume wins a prize. There will be plenty of cupcakes, cookies and bars to sample, too.

Get a gander at this porchetta at Brassica. (Photo by Sean Knight)

Porchetta Sundays at Brassica in the Napa Valley

After a weekend of wine tasting, there’s nothing better than a big hunk of  juicy, slow-cooked pork to go along with it.

Every Sunday night now at Chef Cindy Pawlcyn’s Brassica in St. Helena, they’re serving up porchetta — a whole loin of pork stuffed with garlic, rosemary, fennel fronds and fennel pollen, then roasted in a Caja China charcoal oven for 3 1/2 hours.

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Shabuway to Expand in the Bay Area

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The huge vegetable shabu-shabu plate at Shabuway in San Jose.

How else but in shabu-shabu-style dining can you enjoy a hot, nourishing, relatively healthful cook-it-yourself meal, and get a steam facial all at once?

If you’re as much of a fan as I am of this traditional Japanese dish of thinly sliced meats and veggies cooked tableside in a pot of  bubbling broth, you’ll be glad to hear that Shabuway, which already boasts three locations in the Bay Area, will be adding three more this spring.

Tokyo-raised Eiichi Mochizuki opened his first Shabuway in San Mateo in 2004. That was followed by another in downtown Mountain View in 2006, which has proved so popular there’s sometimes an hour wait to get in. Last year, one also opened in the parking lot of Mitsuwa Marketplace in San Jose, which is the one I recently dined at as a guest of the restaurant.

The next ones to open will be in San Francisco’s Richmond District, Union City, and in Santa Clara on El Camino Real near the ever-popular Korean fried-chicken joint, 99 Chicken.

The meat is sliced to order.

With its glossy red interior, the San Jose locale features a large U-shaped counter in the center, where lone diners or couples can sit. Behind it, wait staff man a slicer to shave Kobe-style beef slices paper thin.

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