Category Archives: Restaurants

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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Soulful Chicken and Dumplings

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Dig into a big bowl of heavenly chicken and dumplings with chanterelles.

Chicken and dumplings is like a big ol’ hug.

Like some hugs, this dish can be awkward and unsatisfying. You know the type of hugs I mean — the ones where you’re not quite sure if you should be giving or getting, and the resulting mash-up of bodies just leaves both parties scratching their heads in “What was that?” Yeah, I’ve had some chicken and dumplings like that — with dry chicken and leaden dumplings, where you take a bite and wonder, “What the heck is this? And why am I eating it?”

Then there are hugs that wrap you in a cocoon of warmth and security, that feel so right you never want to let go. New Orleans Chef John Besh’s “Chanterelles, Chicken, and Dumplings” is that kind of perfect hug.

It’s from his new cookbook, “My New Orleans: The Cookbook” (Andrews McMeel).

It’s a modern, slightly spiffed up version of this classic down-home dish that will comfort you even if you need no comforting at all.

Skinless, boneless chicken thighs are brined for an hour to ensure they’re extra juicy, so plan accordingly when making the dish.

Lovely chanterelles add a magical touch to this dish.

The chicken pieces cook on the stove-top in a broth infused with aromatic ginger, garlic, shallots, thyme and sage. A big pinch of crushed red pepper flakes adds a touch of heat that really helps warm your bones on a chilly evening. Golden chanterelle mushrooms and peas (I used frozen at this time of year) add color and depth. A knob of butter adds richness (Hey, it’s a Southern dish, after all).
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Take Five with New Orleans Chef John Besh, On Life Post-Katrina

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James Beard award-winning Chef John Besh. (Photo courtesy of John Besh)

To know and understand New Orleans Chef John Besh, all you need do is read this most telling description of him that was written two years after Hurricane Katrina laid waste to the cherished city that he has called home most of his life.

In the New York Times then, my friend and colleague, Kim Severson, summed up Besh as the “ex-Marine who rode into the flooded city with a gun, a boat and a bag of beans and fed New Orleans until it could feed itself.”

Four years after Katrina rained untold devastation upon his beloved New Orleans, Besh is still its savior. Wherever he travels, the 41-year-old chef, who exudes an irresistible Southern warmth that makes strangers feel they’ve known him all their life, can’t help but be a cheerleader for New Orleans’ past, present, and future.

When Katrina hit, Besh had just bought out his investor in his flagship Restaurant August in New Orleans. He was up to his toque in debt, and feared he would lose everything.

Like the city itself, though, he persevered, excavating himself from that murky uncertainty to a place of hope and possibility.

Now, he is poised to open his sixth restaurant in Louisiana. He’s also written a new cookbook, “My New Orleans: The Cookbook” (Andrews McMeel). A portion of the proceeds from the sale of the book will be donated to Cafe Reconcile, a New Orleans non-profit dedicated to providing at-risk youth the skills needed to enter the hospitality and restaurant industries.

You can meet Besh this week, when he’ll be in the Bay Area to sign copies of his book. He’ll appear at a free event at Omnivore Books in San Francisco, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. Oct. 14. He’ll do a cooking demo, noon to 1 p.m. Oct. 15 at the Ferry Building in San Francisco, which will be followed by a dinner event that night at Left Bank restaurant in Larkspur at 6 p.m.

I had a chance to chat with him by phone last week about the past few tumultuous, yet ultimately rejuvenating years.

Q: Your new cookbook is almost a love story about New Orleans. What compelled you to write this book in this way?

A: The last thing I wanted to do was create another chef-y cookbook. In this day and age, we’re so caught up in fancy restaurants. But the most important thing is that everyone comes from somewhere and everyone has a story. And this is my somewhere and my story.

When you understand the story and where the food comes from, you can cook it with more authenticity and soul. If we’re not careful, we will lose the last little places that have their own true cuisine. I felt that especially after Katrina, when Republicans let us down, when politicians all over let us down, and we were just left on our own. It prompted me to think more about the validity of these great traditions. New Orleans is a city of good values. It values people, it values good times, and it values tradition.

Besh's gorgeous and endearing new cookbook.

Q: You evacuated the city, then came back right after Katrina hit?

A: My family evacuated. I have a wife whom every man would dream of having. She’s smart, strong, and takes care of the family, which allowed me to be relatively independent.

They left two days before Katrina hit, and went to North Carolina. I was here, helping to get my father out of town. He’s up in age and paralyzed (after being hit by a drunk driver 32 years ago). After we made sure our employees were taken care of, it was just myself and my partner in Dominica restaurant, who came back into the city a few days later.

Q: Did your Marines training come in handy for what awaited you in New Orleans?

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Magical Masa’s

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California caviar with blini perfection.

For more than a quarter century, Masa’s in San Francisco has not only survived, but thrived at the top echelon of fine-dining in the Bay Area.

That’s quite the achievement when you consider that the restaurant has weathered the loss of its founding chef, Masataki Kobayashi, whose slaying still remains unsolved; the departure of successor Chef Julian Serrano to Picasso in Las Vegas; and the loss of Chef Ron Siegel to the Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco.

Since 2004, though, the venerable restaurant has been in good hands with Executive Chef Gregory Short, a former sous chef at the French Laundry in Yountville.

In this dire economy, with diners leery of splurging too often — if at all — Masa’s has not been immune from a drop in clientele. But as it has always done, it’s managed to roll with the times.

A new, less expensive three-course prix fixe was added this year for $65 to go along with the regular $95 five-course and $155 nine-course options. And if the recent Tuesday night when I was invited to dine with a group of other food writers is any indication, business is definitely on the upswing. On this weeknight, the dining room was almost full. And the experience was as divine as always.

No matter how much you spend, Masa’s always delivers a special experience from the moment you walk into the striking dining room with its dark brown walls, deep red drum lights, and stark white tables. You can’t help but feel ensconced in stylish, warm elegance.

Spot prawn bisque and grilled spot prawn to whet the appetite.

Short sent out two amuses: A creamy, buttery spot prawn bisque alongside a crisp, smoky grilled spot prawn. Next came a quenelle of California white sturgeon caviar with Marchall Farms creme fraiche and the lightest, tenderest tiny blini ever.

We were allowed to choose five courses from any of the menus. I started with “A Composition of Summer Figs,” which were grilled, marinated, and made into marmalade. A sliver of crisp, dehydrated fennel, and a dollop of creamy, salty Roquefort completed this edible still life.

Figs three ways.

Next, I enjoyed sweet basil agnolotti, enriched with white corn polenta with creamy mascarpone, and tossed with delicate, peeled orbs of toybox tomatoes that made me wish summer was still here.

Plump agnolotti with mascarpone and peeled toybox tomatoes.

Beeler’s Ranch Duroc pork rib-eye was meaty, dense, and rich tasting. Poached Pippin apples lent an aromatic autumn touch.

Heritage pork rib-eye.

Pastry Chef John McKee, former co-owner of La Seine Bakery in San Francisco and former executive pastry chef of Noe Valley Bread and Baking Company in San Francisco, has a most creative touch.

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Beautifull!

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Cookies that have no butter in them.

Don’t blink. That isn’t a typo. It’s the name of a new food company in San Francisco that wants to make it easier for you to eat healthful.

Beautifull! opened its flagship store/cafe in San Francisco’s Laurel Village Shopping Center this spring. More locations are planned, including one in Palo Alto early next year.

The stores make prepared foods that are free of hormones, steroids, additives, preservatives, refined sugars, refined grains, butter and cream. A team of chefs and nutritionists have come up with dishes that can be enjoyed in the store, wrapped up to-go, or delivered to your home or office in whatever amounts that suit your needs.

I know you’re thinking, “That sounds way too healthy to taste any good.” Admit it.

Heck, I thought that, too.

But I ate those words, along with some tasty samples that were delivered to my house recently.

Wonderful whole grains, along with fresh, delicious fruits and veggies are staple ingredients in the offerings.

Tea-smoked salmon ready to be toted home.

The “Tea-Smoked Salmon with Red Quinoa & Edamame Salad” (market price) is a signature dish. The salmon, house-smoked over Asian tea leaves, is moist, tender, and yes, wonderfully smoky tasting. It tops Peruvian red quinoa, buttery edamame, carrots, red peppers, and crunchy hijiki seaweed, tossed in a gingery vinaigrette. It’s a dish redolent of Japanese flavors.

The “Chinese Chicken Salad” ($9.99 as an entree salad) also is a taste of Asia, with nutty sesame oil and tangy rice wine vinegar in the Asian honey mustard dressing. The roasted chicken breast was just a tad dry, but that can happen when it’s pre-sliced ahead of time and refrigerated.

Enchiladas with zesy, spicy salsa verde and creamy feta cheese.

The “Whole Grain & Bean Enchiladas with Salsa Verde” ($7.99 as a prepacked meal) are corn tortillas filled with scrambled free-range eggs, golden quinoa, pinto beans, and yellow pepper, then topped with feta, cilantro, and spicy salsa verde. There was so much flavor going on that I didn’t miss the meat at all in this dish.

Turkey meatballs with Kamut grain.

Kids will love “Kamut Spaghetti with Turkey Meatballs” ($6.99 a pound). Parents will love how good it is for the wee ones. Lean turkey meat combines with rolled oats, spinach, Dijon mustard and herbs for big, bountiful meatballs atop spaghetti made of Kamut, a grain high in protein and minerals. It all gets tossed with a simple tomato-basil sauce.

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