Dragon Fruit Juice for a Healthful Welcome to 2012

Posted on by 14 comments

A dragon fruit juice that's a brilliant fuschia color. (Photo by Carolyn Jung)

After imbibing perhaps a little too much on New Year’s Eve weekend, you’re probably in dire need of a quenching drink right about now.

How about one made from the exotic dragon fruit?

The fruit, which looks a bit like a hot pink flower bulb from outer space that’s about to unfurl who knows what, is the primary ingredient in Pitaya Plus, a new juice drink launched a year ago in San Diego.

Company founder Chuck Casano was working for a non-profit in Nicaragua when he got his first taste of pitaya or dragon fruit. He was so smitten with it and the people there that he wanted to forge an even greater bond to bring a taste of Nicaragua to the United States, while helping employ impoverished Nicaraguans in his new venture.

The unique dragon fruit. (Photo courtesy of Pitaya Plus)

The result is Pitaya Plus, two juice blends high in Vitamin D, dietary fiber and other nutrients. There are 70 calories per 8-ounce serving. They’re sold in more than 100 Whole Foods nationwide, where they rank as having the lowest sugar level of any juice on the shelves there, according to a Pitaya Plus spokesperson.

Read more


Dungeness Crab Time, A New Indian Restaurant & More

Posted on by 3 comments

Fresh crab slathered with pesto -- at the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company. (Photo courtesy of the restaurant)

Dig Into Dungeness in Half Moon Bay

Hankering for fresh, local Dungeness crab, but don’t want to cook it, yourself?

Take a pretty drive along the coast to the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company, where Chef Gaston Alfaro is dishing up “Baked Pesto Infused Dungeness Crab.”

The crab is poached in a secret blend of spices and a splash of Mavericks Ale, then cracked and slathered in pesto sauce before being slipped into a hot oven for a few minutes. How good does that sound? Even better when you hear it comes with garlic bread.

Of course, if you’re a purist, you also can have your crab in the classic style, served warm or cold, simply with drawn butter and garlic bread.

Both dishes are $23 each. They’ll be on the menu as long as local Dungeness is available.

The modern interior of Arka in Sunnyvale. (Photo courtesy of the restaur

Arka Opens in Sunnyvale

A new contemporary Indian restaurant has opened in Sunnyvale, serving up the likes of vegetarian tandoori kebabs and “Doodhiya Gosht” (lamb curry with ricotta cheese, essence of screw pine and edible silver).

Arka Restaurant, Bar & Lounge will officially open in January, but it’s already opened its doors this month for a test launch.

Read more

Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall at AQ in San Francisco

Posted on by 12 comments

Succulent monkfish roasted with hops.

By the time you read this, there’s a good chance that not only have the dishes changed on the menu at AQ in San Francisco, but the decor, as well.

That’s because this new restaurant, opened less than two months ago, takes seasonality as literally as it gets — down to switching out the bar top, light fixtures, artwork and waitstaff uniforms according to whether it’s autumn, winter, spring or summer.

If you’re familiar with Park Avenue (Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn) in New York City, you’ve seen this concept before. It can be gimmicky, but only if the food falls short and plays second fiddle to the switcheroo interior. In the case of AQ, it does not. Indeed, the food created by Executive Chef-Proprietor Mark Liberman, former chef de cuisine at La Folie in San Francisco, is the star of the show. It’s executed so well, and with so many thoughtful little touches, that you long to come back again and again just to experience more, no matter how the dining room morphs.

The look for "autumn.''

The trees inside will shed their leaves for winter.

The open kitchen.

When I was invited in two weeks ago as a guest of the restaurant, it was still officially “autumn” at AQ — down to the bronze plaque embedded in the floor right after you walk through the front door. The bar top was a gleaming, gorgeous copper, which will give way to white marble in winter. The industrial-chic space with exposed brick walls and massive timber beams is decorated with soaring trees, whose leaves will be stripped for the winter. So will the hip ceiling fixtures fashioned out of vintage heaters and chicken wire. The servers were dressed in warm, plaid shirts, but will be wearing something all together different in the next season.

Read more

Not Your Usual Spinach Dip

Posted on by 16 comments

Dip into this spinach-walnut-dried mint dip.

When the champagne glasses start clinking on New Year’s Eve, you’ll want something tasty to go along with all of that bubbly.

But why settle for the same old spinach dip in a hollowed-out bread loaf when you can have this instead?

“Yogurt and Spinach Dip ‘Borani Esfanaaj’ in the Persian Manner” sure looks pretty, doesn’t it?

It’s also a bit more healthful than the old standby because it’s made with thick, creamy Greek yogurt instead of cream cheese or sour cream. You can make it with low-fat Greek yogurt, but it’s far more satisfying with the whole-milk version. If you insist on being virtuous (even on New Year’s Eve), use both — a tub of each. Just make sure you get some of the full-fat version in there.

The dip is by Shayma Owaise Saadat, a Toronto economist, whose recipe is featured in the new “The Food52 Cookbook” (William Morrow) of which I recently received a review copy. The book is by illustrious food writers, Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs, whom as you may now developed the Web site, Food52.com, which each week for 52 weeks ran recipe contests to find the best recipes from home cooks all over the country.

Read more

« Older Entries Recent Entries »