Category Archives: Wine

All Spice Is All Charm

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Ahi tuna atop pickled watermelon at All Spice.

In a seemingly incongruous locale tucked back from busy El Camino Real in San Mateo sits a quaint 1906 Victorian house, where dynamic, modern Indian fare is now being created.

All Spice, which opened in November, is the latest venture by Chef Sachin Chopra, formerly of Sakoon in Mountain View, Mantra in Palo Alto, Amber India in San Jose, and Daniel in New York. It’s also the first time Chopra has partnered with his wife, Shoshana Wolff, in a restaurant venture.

Recently, I was invited to be a guest of the restaurant, which is a warren of small rooms that lend a feeling of warmth and intimacy.

Wolff greets you at the door with a cheery welcome. With a masters in Viticulture and Enology from the University of California at Davis, Wolff also is a wine-maker, growing her own grapes at her family’s vineyard in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Her Wolff & Father Wines, which she hopes to pour at the restaurant in the near future, will focus on Merlot and Zinfandel. At first thought, you might think those substantial reds jarring with Indian cuisine, but Wolff assures that they go exceedingly well with her husband’s style of cooking, which is boldly flavored but not at all searing in heat.

When I visited, the restaurant was still awaiting its wine and beer license, but offering a small, but well-crafted list of non-alcoholic beverages. I enjoyed a rosemary-infused pink grapefruit punch so much that I can’t wait to try making it at home.

Lentil-battered potato fritters show up as an amuse bouche.

After we were seated, our convivial server brought an amuse of lentil-battered potatoes with Indian-style aioli. The potato fritters were crisp on the outside, creamy within, and with bits of salty, porky bacon hidden inside.

Indian-style chicken wings with fall-off-the-bone tenderness.

My husband started with the star anise and fennel confit chicken wings ($9), a generous portion that is probably best shared. Fragrant with lemongrass and yuzu, as well as a red chili sauce, the wings weren’t crisp-fried like the Buffalo-version. Instead, the wings were braised until the meat was pull-away tender. It’s a messy dish, but one you’ll be happy to dig into.

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Healthful Pizza, Ruth Reichl Visit, Chef Demo & More

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The Mexican pizza at ZPizza in San Francisco. (Photo courtesy of the restaurant)

Organic Wheat Flour Pizzas in San Francisco

Laguna Beach, Calif.-based ZPizza, which has more than 90 locations nationwide, now has a locale in San Francisco at 833 Mission St., Suite C (at Fourth Street).

The pizza dough is made from certified organic wheat flour, the sauces are prepared fresh daily, and the cheese is part-skim, rBGH-free mozzarella from grass-fed cows. Gluten-free crust and vegan cheese also are offered. Gourmet ingredients include cremini and shiitake mushrooms, as well as truffle oil and the African hot sauce known as pili pili. For delivery, the pizzas are ferried via bicycles to reduce carbon emissions. Gourmet salads, pastas and sandwiches round out the menu.

Pizza choices include the Thai, with peanut sauce, mozzarella, spicy chicken, cilantro, bean sprouts and serranos; the Mexican with housemade salsa, mozzarella, spicy lime chicken, green onions, avocado, sour cream and cilantro; and the Casablanca, with roasted garlic sauce, mozzarella, ricotta, mushrooms, artichoke hearts and parmesan. Pizzas are $10.95 for a small, $19.95 for a large, and $24.94 for an extra-large.

The one and only Ruth Reichl. (Photo by Fiona Aboud)

Ruth Reichl at Stanford University

Join former Gourmet magazine Editor-in-Chief Ruth Reichl at a free event at the Cubberley Auditorium on the Stanford University Campus in Palo Alto at 6 p.m. March 29.

Reichl, now an editor and author at Random House, will be speaking on “The Intersection of Food, Culture and History.”

A Different Look at Vanilla, Saffron and Chocolate

Sure, they taste good. But did you know all three of those ingredients are rife with politics?

Learn all about the intrigue in getting these three ingredients from harvest to plate at “Politics of the Plate — What’s Behind the Silky Sexiness of Vanilla, Saffron and Chocolate,” 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. March 16 at the Unitarian Universalist Church of San Francisco (Starr King room), 1187 Franklin St. at Geary Street.

Experts Patricia Rain (vanilla), Juan San Mames (saffron) and Mark Magers (chocolate) will be on the panel with moderator Janet Fletcher, a San Francisco Chronicle food writer.

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Food Gal Giveaway — Tickets to the Berkeley Wine Festival

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Berkeley's Claremont Resort at night. (Photo courtesy of the hotel)

The Claremont Hotel in Berkeley invites you to the second annual Berkeley Wine Festival, which begins March 11 with a grand gala and continues through May 18 with intimate wine dinners and seminars.

The March 11 opening reception will feature more than 50 wines from around the world, as well as gourmet eats from the Claremont’s Executive Chef Josh Thomsen, who will be assisted by the likes of Chef Sean Baker of Gather in Berkeley and Paul Arenstam of Summer Kitchen in Berkeley. Tickets are $85 per person.

Other events to come include a reception and dinner with Miner Family Vineyards on March 16 (tickets are $140 per person); and a reception and dinner with Opus One Winery on May 11 (tickets are $195 per person). For a complete list of events, click here.

Guests also can stay overnight at the Claremont on festival days and receive 20 percent off the best available room rate. Call (800) 551-7266 or book online by using the code: WINE.

Food Gal is thrilled to be able to give a pair of tickets to the March 11 opening reception to one lucky person.

Contest: Entries are limited to those who can be in Berkeley on March 11. Entries will be accepted through midnight March 5. The winner will be announced March 7.

How to win?

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Food Gal Ticket Giveaway and Foodie Happenings

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(Image courtesy of Paso Robles Wine Country)

Win tickets to the Los Angeles Grand Tasting Tour

Taste wines from more than 40 Paso Robles wineries and nosh on gourmet bites at the glam 2011 Los Angeles Grand Tasting Tour, 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. March 2 at the Virbiana.

Tickets are $60 each. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the Alzheimer’s Association of Southern California.

Because the Food Gal has so many loyal readers who live in or travel regularly to the Los Angeles area, I’m happy to announce that I’ll be giving away three pairs of tickets to the event.

Contest: Entries should be limited to those who will be in Los Angeles on the day of the event, March 2. Contest runs through midnight PST Feb. 26. Winners will be announced Feb. 28.

How to win?

Tell me one of your favorite eats in Los Angeles and why I should try it the next time I’m there.

Here’s my own answer to that question:

“Do you love Chinese dumplings? And specifically, do you love xiao long bao, otherwise known as “soup dumplings”? Then, make a beeline pronto for Din Tai Fung in Arcadia for the very best dumplings you will ever have. I have Pulitzer Prize-winning, Los Angeles food writer Jonathan Gold to thank for telling me about this place. Here, the wrappers are the thinnest ever and so fragile you have to be careful picking them up with your chopsticks, lest you puncture them accidentally. They are tender, juicy, brothy and plain amazing. How good are they? So good that my husband and I ate there twice in three days last year. Until recently, its two Arcadia branches were the only ones outside of Asia. But Pacific Northwest foodies are sure to be rejoicing now that one just opened in Seattle.”

Winner of the Last Contest: In the most recent Food Gal contest, I asked you to tell me your favorite thing to eat back in school. The top three answers will win an annual membership to Blackboard Eats.

Congrats to the winners:

1) Single Guy Ben, who wrote: “I felt like we had the best school lunches growing up in Honolulu. Every day was a different entree always served with a carton of milk, a side salad (which I always ate) and dessert. And I don’t want to date myself but we got all this for a quarter! (Yeah, back when we actually did walk a mile to get to school.)

One of my favorites is the good ole’ Sloppy Joe. It’s ironic that it’s my favorite because growing up (and still today as an adult) I’m a bit of a neat freak. I used to eat my lunch in sections, eating the salad, then the entree, then dessert. Never mixing bites here and there. So sloppy isn’t really in my vocabulary. But something about the Sloppy Joe, whether it’s the flavor or the fact that the sauce soaked into the bun and made everything soft and juicy, just brings a smile to my face. An oddly enough, the Sloppy Joe’s weren’t necessarily super slopppy. Sure, a few clumps of ground beef would fall out as I slowly ate the bun in a systemized concentric pattern, but it still held together.

It’s funny how a lot of school lunch favorites aren’t a part of our regular diet when we grow up. It may be my adversity to eating too much red meat, so I haven’t had a Sloppy Joe in many many years. Or maybe it’s because I don’t use those ready-mix packets any more so don’t have the perfect recipe for Sloppy Joe’s made from scratch. But when I look back, I think now that a perfect, juicy, Sloppy Joe may be just the item I’d like as my last meal on Earth.”

2) Sadie, who wrote, “We had different exchange students every year when I was growing up. Nothing was more wonderful than discovering that a stroopwafel from Barbara or a pulparindo (tamarind candy) from Claudia had snuck into my otherwise very Wisconsin-Midwestern lunchbox.”

3) Jennie Schact, who wrote: “We carried lunch to school. Mom would sandwich thick slabs of roasted turkey between slices of challah slathered with Russian dressing (which is to say, mayo and ketchup stirred together), wrap ‘em up, stack ‘em in the freezer, and throw one into the lunch bag in the morning. You were lucky if it was defrosted enough to eat around the edges at lunch time. Frozen turkey = not pleasant. She was also the innovator of leftover cold hamburger on a bagel. I preferred Ring Dings from the vending machine.”

Dungeness crab salad at One Market Restaurant. (Photo courtesy of the restaurant)

Fabulous Restaurant Events

There’s still time to indulge in the annual Lark Creek Restaurant Group’s “Crab Festival.”

Through the end of the month, you’ll find special dishes at each restaurant that spotlight fresh, sustainable Dungeness crab.

Look for such lip-smacking fare as crab salad with grapefruit at One Market Restaurant in San Francisco; Dungeness crab raviolis with chanterelles and brown butter at Yankee Pier at Santana Row in San Jose; and chili roasted Dungeness crab with garlic and smoked paprika at Fish Story in Napa.

There’s also still time to try the the special prix fixe Black History Month menu with wine pairings from African-American wineries at 1300 on Fillmore in San Francisco.

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For a Heartfelt Time

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For the optimist on Valentine's Day. (Photo courtesy of SusieCakes)

For Valentine’s Day, SusieCakes has got you covered, no matter if you’re head over heels in love or not.

For those that are, there’s the “Susie Loves Me” gift box of conversation heart sugar cookies, sweetheart sandwich cookies, a Sugar & Spice cupcake and a Red Hot Red Velvet cupcake.

And for the pessimist...(Photo courtesy of SusieCakes)For those for whom Valentine’s Day is more bah-humbug, there’s the “Susie Loves Me Not” gift box with cookies amusingly decorated with “Love Me Not” written on them, as well as “It’s Not Me, It’s You” conversation heart cookies, a black sweetheart sandwich cookie, cupcakes inscribed with “Serial Dater” and “Breakup Queen,” and a “Broken Heart Brownie.”

Both gift boxes are available Valentine’s Day for $25 each at SusieCakes locations in San Francisco and Marin.

San Francisco’s Baker & Banker Bakery is getting into the mood with special Valentine’s Day treats and special-order cakes.

Among the tempting offerings for Feb. 14 are strawberry champagne cupcakes (champagne-soaked yellow cake with strawberry frosting; $3.50 each); hand-written “Hostess” cupcakes with salted caramel ($3.50 each); conversation heart cakes (Devil’s food cake with Grand Marnier ganache; $50 for 6-inch; $80 for 10-inch); and champagne cake truffles ($5.50 for four).

Adorable conversation heart cakes. (Photo courtesy of Baker & Banker)

For a bottle of wine with a heartfelt message, look no further than 2007 Linda’s Hillside Vineyard Cabarnet Sauvignon from Napa’s Darms Lane Vineyard.

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