Salivating already?
You’ll have to hold that hunger until 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 21 when Morton’s The Steakhouse hands out free mini prime sirloin burgers at all its locations nationwide, including San Francisco and San Jose.
It’s all to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Morton’s, which opened Dec. 21, 1978 in Chicago.
An East Bay outpost of San Francisco’s Ozumo has opened in Oakland at 2251 Broadway. Jeremy Umland, Japanese professional baseball player turned entrepreneur and Ozumo founder, has created a similar set-up to the San Francisco contemporary Japanese restaurant, with a sushi bar, sake lounge, and robata grill under one roof. Enjoy small plates to be enjoyed individually or family-style.
Executive Chef Jennifer Nguyen, who has worked with famed “Iron Chef” Masaharu Morimoto, oversees it all.
Sip more than 90 different brands of sake, while enjoying yamabuki (uni, shimiji and shiitake mushrooms in a Genmai rice risotto, $12); and slices of hamachi and avocado drizzled with warm ginger-jalapeno ponzu sauce ($18).
Culinary star and Napa Style store-proprietor Michael Chiarello has opened a new restaurant in one of Yountville’s most historic buildings.
Bottega Ristorante, 6526 Washingon St. in the V Marketplace, is all about Chiarallo’s bold, rustic flavors. The 116-seat restaurant, named for the Italian word that means “artist’s workshop,” features Venetian plaster and Murano glass chandeliers.
Look for dishes such as veal tortelli in brodo di carne with browned butter and butternut squash ($18), and goat’s milk braised lamb shank with roasted wild mushrooms ($24).
The Stanford Court Hotel in San Francisco debuted its new restaurant earlier this fall, Aurea. Dine in splendor under a Tiffany-style dome atop Nob Hill while enjoying dishes the likes of cioppino with aioli ($25), and stout-braised short rib with mashed potatoes ($26).
Meat lovers will want to check out the new Espetus Churrascaria in downtown San Mateo, a sister restaurant to the original one in San Francisco.
Skewers of meat, 12 to 14 different types, will be brought to your table and sliced onto your plate — until you say stop. Offerings include filet mignon, pork loin with Parmesan, chicken hearts, lamb, housemade sausage, and grilled prawns. Dinner is $49.95; lunch is $23.95 Monday through Friday and $32.95 on weekends.
The price includes a salad- and hot-plate bar that includes rice, beans, sushi, lasagna, and vegetarian dishes.
There are far worse ways to spend a Saturday morning than judging dozens of cookies with the likes of Eric Ripert, executive chef of New York’s four-star Le Bernardin; Dominique Crenn, executive chef of Luce in the Intercontinental San Francisco; Cindy Mushet, author of the Sur La Table cookbook, “The Art & Soul of Baking”; and Emily Luchetti, executive pastry chef of Farallon, Waterbar and Epic Roadhouse restaurants, all in San Francisco.
In fact, I can’t think of when I’ve had quite so much fun so early in the day.
The five of us braved sugar shock to help judge the 13th annual “Holiday Cookie Exchange” contest that aired live this past Saturday on “Dining Around with Gene Burns” (KGO Radio AM810).
The contest received a record number of entries. Burns, himself, spent a grueling 13 hours whittling down the 500 entries to a mere 26 finalists.
Even so, you just try tasting 26 cookies in one sitting. It was a tough job, but we five were up to the challenge.
In the end, we chose these four winners:
That’s ”00” to you.
And yes, you can shake it or stir it, but you might get very messy in the process.
Sorry about the James Bond 007 pun, but I couldn’t resist. Doppio zero flour is also known as “OO” flour. The numbers refer to the grade of flour. The “00” is the finest milled available.
I was induced to hunt it down after making the pizza dough recipe in the “A16 Food+ Wine” (Ten Speed Press) cookbook by Nate Appleman and Shelley Lindgren. The first time I made it, I used all-purpose flour. It turned out incredible. But of course, wondering if a good thing could be made even better, I was curious if “00” would produce an even more spectacular dough, since A16Â restaurant uses that regularly for its pasta and pizza doughs
While in Wine Country recently, I happened to find bags of Italian doppio zero at Sunshine Foods Market in St. Helena. I loaded up on it.
The “00” flour is very light and powdery to the touch. Following the A16 recipe, I mixed the “00” flour with a smidgen of yeast dissolved in water, olive oil, and salt. I covered the bowl and put it in the fridge for two days to ferment and slowly rise.
When I pulled out the dough, I noticed it was stickier than the one I had made with all-purpose flour. It might be that the “00” is so fine, you need more of it. But because the recipe gives the flour measurement only in cups, not in grams, it’s hard to tell.
This dough also was more elastic. Indeed, it was easy to stretch the dough very thinly so that the pizza baked up with a very crisp center.
Before putting the pizza on a baking stone in the oven, I layered on my own combination of paper-thin slivers of garlic, truffle cheese, and fresh basil leaves. When it emerged blistered and golden from the oven, I draped prosciutto over it.
It was one mighty fine pizza. I can’t say that the “00” flour imparted any more taste necessarily to the pizza. But it made the dough a pleasure to work with, and perhaps even crispier.
If you missed seeing last year’s incredible gingerbread creation by Pastry Chef Carlos Sanchez of Parcel 104 in Santa Clara, you really missed out.
His gingerbread dreamscape of the world was the stuff of sweet dreams (see photo above). But this year, he’s turning over the hard work to students at the Professional Culinary Institute in Campbell. The students are tasked with creating gingerbread houses at the school, then carefully transporting them to Parcel 104, where they will be put on display in the lobby of the Santa Clara Marriott at 5 p.m. tonight.
Let’s hope they survive the move, because 10 houses are expected to be on display. Sanchez, members of the local Chaine des Rotisseurs, and Marriott guests will get to cast votes for the best house based on creativity, festiveness, and attention to detail.
First place will win $250, second place $150, and third place $100. Winners will be announced in a ceremony later in the month at the school.
Tune into KTEH Public Television (channel 54)Â in San Jose at 7 p.m Dec. 3 to watch “KTEH Cooks with Garlic.” Nine local amateur cooks will be strutting their culinary skills live on TV as they cook with — you guessed it — garlic. The nine were selected from 40 videotapes submitted.
These recipes and others will be included in a future “KTEH Cooks with Garlic Cookbook.” To submit your own recipe for the cookbook, go to www.kteh.org/garlic.
If you prefer olives to garlic, head to historic Mission San Francisco Solano de Sonoma in Sonoma at 10 a.m. Dec. 6 for the start of a three-month long Sonoma Valley Olive Festival that kicks off with the blessing of the olives. Admission is free.
That will be followed at 10 a.m. that day by an open house and tasting at the Olive Press in Sonoma. Noon to 3 p.m., author Carol Firenze wil sign copies of her book, “The Passionate Olive — 101 Things to Do with Olive Oil.” Admission is free.