Now is the perfect time to try some new restaurants or return to favorites because Restaurant Week is happening in full force in so many Bay Area cities.
You’ll find specially priced lunch and dinner menus at participating restaurants.
Here are some of the most popular Restaurant Week celebrations in local cities:
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A sublime salad that makes use of whole citrus (except for the seeds).
Something miraculous happens when you roast thin slices of lemons and oranges at high heat.
They get all jammy, intensifying their sweetness and taming the overt bitterness of their rind.
I’ve added plenty of orange supremes — juicy segments devoid of their pith and membrane — to plenty of salads. But never had I added roasted slices to one before, where the flesh has largely disappeared in the cooking process, leaving behind mostly rind.
Even my husband, who normally blanches at anything remotely very bitter or sour, remarked how wonderfully refreshing this salad was.
A miracle, didn’t I tell you?
“Roasted Citrus and Avocado Salad” is from the new book, “Farmsteads of the California Coast” (Yellow Pear Press), of which I received a review copy. The book was written by Bay Area food writer Sarah Henry, with beautiful photography by Erin Scott of the YummySupper blog.
Whether you live in California or not, this book will make you appreciate the state’s farms even more. Twelve coastal farms are spotlighted with stories about the farmers, including what they grow, which farmers markets sell their wares, and whether there is a farmstand on site that you can visit. The farms span the gamut from Pie Ranch in Pescadero to the Apple Farm in Philo to Hog Island Oyster Company in Marshall.
Once a week for the past couple of weeks, a box just like the one above has landed on my front porch bright and early in the morning.
Besides organic fruits and veggies, its contents have also included this:
And this:
And this:
All thanks to Full Circle, an organic produce delivery service, which started in Carnation, WA, and just launched in the Bay Area.
What is Portland?
One of the finest wine regions around…
If you love Pinot Noir, especially ones with an earthy roundness in the style of Burgundy, you will go crazy for these made in the Willamette Valley.
I know I have. And it’s a love affair that’s lasted many, many years already.
Thanks to Travel Oregon, a group of food bloggers, including yours truly, recently was invited as guests to explore Portland’s famous wine region, which is considered the birthplace of New World Pinot Noir.
It was my first time to the glorious Willamette Valley, which sports 20,000 acres of vineyards, most of it Pinot Noir and almost all of it grown on hillsides to avoid frost.
With 425 wineries, the Willamette Valley is as verdant and picturesque as the Napa Valley, but with a less touristy and corporate vibe. It’s still affordable, too, relatively speaking. While you practically have to be a neurosurgeon or Google employee #5 to afford to start a new winery in Napa, in the Willamette Valley, that dream is still accessible for regular, working-class folks with a bit of bank.
The staff at Il Cane Rosso inside San Francisco’s Ferry Building like to joke that they don’t have a real kitchen or dining room.
But what they’re able to create inside this tiny space that was once a takeout rotisserie is fairly miraculous. Cane Rosso’s open-face, warm egg salad sandwich with anchovy garlic butter is legendary. And its regular $25 three-course dinners have earned loyal fans.
Chef Lauren Kiino, who named the place after her three-legged rescue dog, Cody, opened the restaurant in 2009 in partnership with Chef Daniel Patterson of Coi in San Francisco. When that business relationship fizzled this year, Kiino took complete control of Cane Rosso.
She’s also been scouting locations in the Bay Area and Los Angeles to open another restaurant. Meantime, Cane Rosso has started doing a series of pop-up restaurants, in which the cooks borrow another establishment for a night to do a special prix fixe dinner. May 19 and May 20, they’ll be hosting one seating each night at 7 p.m. in honor of Mariquita Farm in Watsonville, which supplies a lot of Cane Rosso’s produce. Farm owner Andy Griffin will be on hand each night to talk about his farm as Kiino cooks up such dishes as crispy pork belly with Mariquita Farm roasted nettle and fregola salad. Crates of freshly picked strawberries will be available for purchase, too. The dinner, to be held at Coffee Bar in San Francisco, will feature four courses for $40, plus an additional $15 for wine pairings. To reserve a seat, email: info@canerossosf.com.
June 5 , Kiino will take over the Slow Club in San Francisco, for seatings at 6 p.m. and 8:15 p.m. The $55 three-course prix fixe (which includes cocktail pairings) will feature slow-cooked spring lamb with chicories and black olives. For reservations, email: info@canerossosf.com.
A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of being invited as a guest of Cane Rosso to its first wine dinner. The dinner spotlighted Romililly Wines of the Russian River Valley, which was started in 2006 by brothers, Aaron and Jesse Inman. The duo leases land from their uncle, Joe Briggs, who started August Briggs winery in Calistoga, which makes a fabulous Pinot Meunier, which I fell in love with a few years ago.
The name, Romililly, is an amalgamation of the three siblings’ middle names, Jesse (Ro)bert, Aaron (Mi)chael and sister Susan Lilly, who’s still too young to drink legally. The dinner was a chance to taste the creations of newbie winemakers, including an earthy, leathery, rich 2009 Romililly Piinot Noir made from 40-year-old vines.