Category Archives: Restaurants

Read What Former Google Chef Charlie Ayers Is Up To

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Former Google Chef Charlie Ayers. Photo courtesy of Mr. Ayers.

It wasn’t always easy to please his big bosses at Google in Mountain View, says Chef Charlie Ayers, who was hired as employee #53.

After all, back in 1999-2004, those guys working there weren’t exactly big-time foodies. Google co-founder Larry Page had a thing for Subway sandwiches, and for some reason, a vehement dislike of jerky. Even free-range, artisan-made, bison jerky, which Ayers learned about the hard way.

Ayers once put some out in the free-snacks area, and the engineers gorged themselves on it. But the next day, Ayers found the remainder of the jerky on his desk. “Larry didn’t want me to serve it,” Ayers says. “The only thing he said was, ‘I don’t like it.’ I thought, ‘Okayyyyy….I’ll just figure that one out on my own.’ ”

Then there was the time he thought his bonus check had a mistake in it. He thought there were too many zeroes in it. Ayers’ bonus was tied directly to the number of employees who stayed on campus to eat. So Ayers asked his boss, who looked over the check and said, “This is correct. And if you keep doing what you’ve been doing, there will be plenty more where that came from.”

Ayers wasn’t the only one who was incredulous. His sous chef also thought the bonus check he had received must be wrong. He showed it to Ayers who deadpanned, “No, this is correct. And if you keep doing what you’ve been doing, there will be plenty more where that came from.”

Enjoy more fun with Ayers in my column, “A Girl’s Gotta Eat” in today’s Metro. Read all about his newest project, the eco-friendly Calafia Cafe and Market A Go Go in the Palo Alto Town & Country Village, which is expected to open in November.

(Note: Because the Metro is late in posting the column on its online site, the column also appears at the end of this FoodGal posting, right after the recipe.)

For those who want to turn up the heat while reading, here’s a fiery recipe from Ayers’ new cookbook,
“Food 2.0, Secrets From the Chef Who Fed Google” (DK Publishing).

Google Hot Sauce

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Titillating Tomatoes

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German pink tomatoes. Photograph by Victor Schrager.

When I leaf through the pages of the glorious looking new book, “The Heirloom Tomato, From Garden to Table” (Bloomsbury), I fairly blush.

I’m just going to come out and say it: This is tomato porn.

Rippling, curvy, plump, and with bodacious glistening seed sacks, tomatoes have never looked so utterly sensual as they do in this book written by gardener, seed savor and heirloom produce advocate, Amy Goldman, and photographed by the incomparable Victor Schrager, whose works have graced the Museum of Modern Art in New York.Â

Talk about tomato on tomato action; wait until you see these photos of half a dozen beefsteak tomatoes piled pyramid-style on top of one another, with each a different glorious color and size. It’s tomato as high art. It’s tomato as sex object. It’s tomato beauty you can’t stop staring at.

Thankfully, though, you don’t have to hide this book under your bed or pull it out only when nobody’s looking. This can proudly grace your coffee-table. And anybody who grows tomatoes _ even I, who can barely keep my plants alive half the time _ will lust after the beauties in this book.

Goldman produces hundreds of tomato varieties on her farm in New York’s Hudson Valley. She offers growing advice, as well as information on dozens of varieties, including what shape and color fruit they produce, what the flavor is like, what the texture is like, and what its origins are. Fifty-five recipes are included in the book, as well as more than 200 of those luscious photographs.

Cherry tomato focaccia. Photo by Victor Schrager. Recipe follows.Â

Yearning for more tomatoes? Head to Sutro’s at the Cliff House in San Francisco on Aug. 13 for a very special tomato dinner. Guest Chef Ron Siegel of the Ritz-Carlton Dining Room in San Francisco, and his pastry chef, Alexander Espiritu, will be on hand to create a four-course dinner that will showcase the organic, heirloom tomatoes grown by Cliff House General Manager Ralph Burgin on his family’s Sonoma farm. Think grilled skirt steak with tomato compote, and tomato tart tatin with yogurt mint sorbet.

The dinner is $55 a person ($80 with wine pairings). A portion of proceeds will benefit the non-profit Community Alliance with Family Farmers, which fosters family-scale agriculture.

Sutro’s Chef de Cuisine Brian O’Connor also will be featuring heirloom tomatoes in dishes on the daily summer menu in an “Ultomato” celebration.

At PlumpJack Cafe in San Francisco, Executive Chef Rick Edge gets into the tomato spirit, too, with a four-course tasting menu featuring lovely heirlooms. The tasting menu, $45 per person ($21 more with wine pairings), will run through the end of September or when the tomatoes run out. Dishes include seared day boat scallops with golden tomato vinaigrette, and tomato-braised Kurobuta pork shoulder.

Additionally, more than 52 San Francisco restaurants will be participating in “Heirloom Tomato Week” (which is actually longer than a week since it goes from Aug. 14-24). The restaurants will feature heirloom tomatoes in a la carte dishes or in tasting menus. Its their way of trying to help farmers who were impacted during the recent salmonella scare that mistakenly identified tomatoes as the culprit.

Every diner who pays with a Visa card also will receive a commemorative book with tomato recipes from the participating restaurants, which include Coi, Piperade, and Poleng Restaurant & Lounge. View a complete list here. Reservations are available on OpenTable.com.
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New Thomas Keller and Hiro Sone Books

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Thomas Keller's new book due to be released this fall

Molecular gastronomy fans will be glad to know that Thomas Keller’s long-awaited new cookbook on sous vide cooking will be published by Artisan in November. It will feature an introduction by San Francisco author and noted food scientist, Harold McGee.

“Under Pressure,” though geared for the professional cook, no doubt will provide a fascinating look at this technique that’s now widely used by top restaurants around the world. In sous vide, food is vaccum-sealed in a bag, then cooked in water at a precise temperature below simmering to seal in flavors and juices.

Thomas KellerAlthough Keller of French Laundry fame had hoped to market a vaccum-seal system for the home, he now says that’s unlikely because the device would be too large and cumbersome for most home kitchens. Instead, he may market an immersion circulation system that would allow for more precise sous vide cooking at home.

Fellow chef Hiro Sone, of Terra in St. Helena and Ame in San Francisco, also is hard at work on a new cookbook with his wife and trained pastry chef, Lissa Doumani. His last book, “Terra: Cooking from the Heart Of Napa Valley,” was published seven years ago. Read more

Bay Area/Napa Valley Foodie Happenings

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Sorbet is the finale to the new tasting menu at Mantra

PlumpJack Cafe in San Francisco kicks off its “Women of Wine Dinner Series,” 6 p.m. July 31 with winemaker Cecila Masyczek, who has worked for such labels as Hollywood & Vine Cellars, and Rocca Family Vineyards. The four-course dinner, paired with wines from Masyczek’s portfolio, is $125 per person.

If you miss that event, the next “Women of Wine Dinner Series” on Aug. 19 will feature winemaker Karen Culler of Culler Wines. The four-course dinner with paired wines is $95. For reservations to either dinner, call (415) 563-4755.

In Palo Alto, Mantra has introduced its first tasting menu. Although diners still can order a la carte, there’s also now a four-course tasting menu for $44 (wine pairing is an additional $22) . The tasting menu will change with the seasons. The summer one gives you a choice of entree: baby chicken with wild mushroom risotto or smoked chili organic tofu; and ends with a white-chocolate dipped strawberry sorbet with fresh fruit.

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Two New Bay Area Restaurants Coming In August

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Long-time San Franciscans might remember the popular Miss Pearl’s Jam House that was in the Phoenix Hotel back in 1989. Now, it’s being resurrected across the Bay in the Waterfront Hotel in Jack London Square.

The restaurant, expected to open in mid-August, will serve up New World Island cuisine such as crispy catfish fingers, black-eye pea fritters, gazpacho, and selections from a raw bar. There also will be killer cocktails, as well as the infamous Jell-O shots.

Joey Altman, the star of KRON’s “Bay Cafe,” was the chef who launched the original Miss Pearl’s Jam House. He’s back as a consultant on this new project. The executive chef will be Robert Barker, who was executive sous chef at Emeril’s  in New Orleans, and was a chef at three Wolfgang Puck restaurants.

Also expected to open in August in downtown San Francisco is Urban Tavern, a new restaurant owned by restaurateur Chris Condy and Aqua‘s celebrated chef Laurent Manriqe. Also working on the project is Dona Scala, owner of the ever-popular Bistro Don Giovanni in Napa.

Billed as a stylish “gastropub,” Urban Tavern will have a modern, artsy feel with a full-size horse sculpture fashioned out of tractor, motorcycle and car parts. The food will be Mediterranean-inspired.

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