Meet sweet limes that look like lemons and taste like candy.
Believe it.
I found these at the Santa Clara farmers market last weekend, selling for $2 a pound. I had to do a double-take when I spied the sign that stated that these bright yellow fruit were limes.
Are you sitting down?
Meat Boy went vegetarian.
OK, it was only for one evening, but yes, my ultra-carnivorous husband actually ate an unprecedented meatless meal recently.
He figured if he was going to take that bold step, he might as well do it at Ubuntu in Napa, the veggie-centric restaurant that has garnered critical acclaim far and wide, including a Michelin star.
Ubuntu “is an ethic or humanist philosophy focusing on people’s allegiances and relations with each other emphasizing community, sharing and generosity,” according to its Web site. It’s also unique in that it boasts a yoga studio on its mezzanine level that’s fronted by frosted glass. Indeed, if you peer toward the back staircase, you can often spot mat-carrying students on their way to and from class.
If that all sounds a little too touchy-feely, granola-loving, Birkenstock-ish, you’re in for a surprise. The food, with much of the ingredients sourced from its own biodynamic garden, is a revelation.
If you’re expecting fresh, but rather tame and uninspired food, you couldn’t be more wrong. The dishes here are like a Versace fashion show on a plate — a riot of vivid colors and forms that make you sit up and take notice each time one is set down on the table. The flavors are shockingly bold, developed and complex. This is not timid tasting food in the least, despite the fact that there is no meat, poultry or seafood present whatsoever. There’s also no tofu or seitan — mainstays of most other vegetarian restaurants — at least not on the current menu. Instead, it’s all about the stellar vegetables and great technique.
I was invited to dine as a guest of the restaurant a week ago. It was my first time to this four-year-old restaurant. I wish I had tried it when opening Chef Jeremy Fox (who went on to become creative director for the Tyler Florence Group for five months) was still on board, just for comparison’s sake. But Executive Chef Aaron London, seems to be carrying on splendidly. He cooked for awhile with Fox at Ubuntu, before leaving for a spell to work at Bottega in Yountville. London also has worked at such acclaimed establishments as Blue Hill at Stone Barns in New York. Ironically enough, like Fox, who was known for his meat and charcuterie skills when he worked at Manresa in Los Gatos, London also helped open the meat- and foie gras-centric Au Pied du Cochon in Montreal.
When perusing restaurant reviews, do you find yourself smacking your lips, eager to try the dishes described in such tantalizing detail?
Now, BlackboardEats makes it not only easy to do so, but friendlier on the wallet, too.
The new Web site and e-newsletter features restaurant reviews written by professionals, including the ever-popular Marcia Gagliardi at Tablehopper. Reviewers pay for their meals; they are not comped by restaurants.
Each review sent to subscribers via email is accompanied by a promotional offer such as 30 percent off your tab or a $30 prix fixe meal. When you see an offer that tempts, you have 24 hours to log into the site to receive a special passcode to access that specific offer. Once you do, you have 30 days to use it at the specific restaurant.
Recent restaurants featured include Etoile at Domain Chandon in Yountville, SPQR in San Francisco, and Baker & Banker in San Francisco.
The Food Gal will be giving away three annual memberships (valued at $20 each) to BlackboardEats so that you can check out the deals yourself.
Contest: Because BlackboardEats operates right now only in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York City, entries should be limited to those who live in those areas. Enter now through midnight PST Feb. 19. The three winners will be announced on Feb. 21.
How to win?
Long-time Bay Area foodies probably remember the addicting fresh ginger ale served at the now-shuttered restaurants, Monsoon in San Francisco, Ginger Island in Berkeley and Ginger Club in Palo Alto.
Now, Bruce Cost, the chef and proprietor of those restaurants, has finally bottled that fizzy goodness. His “Fresh Ginger, Ginger Ale by Bruce Cost” says it all. The soda is made with cane sugar and fresh, whole ginger. In fact, you can see bits of actual ginger root floating in the soda, which is left unfiltered.
Cost, who went on to start the Big Bowl and Wow Bao restaurants in Chicago, brews and bottles the ginger ale in Brooklyn.
The ginger ale comes in three varieties: “Original,” “Pomegranate with Hibiscus,” and “Jasmine Green Tea.” A 12-ounce bottle has 160 calories.
The “Origiinal” has nice heat with balanced sweetness. There’s a real purity of ginger flavor here. The “Pomegrantate with Hibiscus” has the most subtle ginger flavor of the three varieties. It’s a beautiful ruby color, too. My favorite was the “Jasmine Green Tea,” which is infused with whole leaf green jasmine tea from Taiwan. The warm spiciness of the ginger is a wonderful match for the floral, slightly tannic notes. It’s a memorable sip, indeed.
It’s now being served at restaurants such as the Slanted Door in San Francisco, and is available for about $2 per 12-ounce bottle at select Bay Area Whole Foods, Bi-Rite Market in San Francisco, Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco, and the Pasta Shop in Oakland and Berkeley, where I bought a bottle of each to try recently.
Another refreshing ginger beverage is Fentiman’s Ginger Beer. Made with ginger root extract, it has a more medicinal taste than the Bruce Cost beverage, as well as a faint citrus note.
As a young girl, Kathryn Lukas remembers her Irish grandfather serving her hot dogs piled high with sauerkraut, just the way he liked it. And each time, she would push the shreds of pungent, fermented cabbage off to the side, trying hard not to make a face.
She may not have been a kraut fan then. But now, with more than 25 years in the restaurant industry, Lukas has grown into a kraut evangelist, bent on a mission to change the perception most of us have of the age-old condiment.
In 2008 in downtown Santa Cruz, she started her own business, Farmhouse Culture, which specializes in artisan contemporary kraut — made with local, organic and sustainable ingredients in intriguing, seasonal flavors such as Smoked Jalapeno, Apple Fennel, and Horseradish Leek.
Her raw, uncooked sauerkrauts can be found at nine Bay Area farmers markets, as well as local retail stores such as select Whole Foods, where they sell for about $7 for a 1-pound jar. For those outside the Bay Area, you’ll be glad to know that you also can buy the krauts on Foodzie.
Lukas knows sauerkraut may not be an easy sell to some palates, but she’s been pleasantly surprised by all the old-timers who come up to her to tell her they remember their grandparents making kraut or by the college students who have become regular customers at her farmers market stands after developing a new-found addiction to the stuff.
“I can’t tell you how many times a day people walk by our farmers market stands and say, ‘Sauerkraut? Ewwww…,’ ” Lukas says. “We talk them into trying a taste. I’d say 75 percent get converted. They tell us they hated sauerkraut their whole lives, but love ours.”