Spotlighting Summer Tomatoes

Posted on by 17 comments

Vine-ripened heirlooms are taking center stage right now.

Find these juicy beauties in all their glory at these Bay Area restaurants:

* Saratoga’s Sent Sovi hosts its third annual “Heirloom Tomato Dinner” on Aug. 26. Chef Josiah Slone will even feature some of his own homegrown ones at this special five-course meal that starts with “Lemon Boy Sake Cocktails” with tomato bites, and winds its way through slow-cooked lamb confit with poached tomato sauce before ending with tomato and peanut tart with pomegranate sorbet.

Price is $115, and includes paired wines.

If you can’t make it that particular night, have no fear; the restaurant will feature the tomato menu in lieu of its regular tasting menu, Aug. 27-29.

* Throughout August, the Lark Creek Restaurant Group will be creating inventive new dishes with Marvel Stripe, Purple Cherokee, Goliath and other heirloom varieties.

Look for dishes such as Dungeness crab and heirloom tomato salad with yellow tomato sorbet at One Market Restaurant in San Francisco; seafood-stuffed heirloom tomato with olives, capers, basil and lemon oil at Yankee Pier at Santana Row in San Jose; and Muscovy duck with white corn, summer squash, hickory-smoked bacon and heirloom tomato relish at the Tavern at Lark Creek in Larkspur.

* Gott’s Roadside in St. Helena, Napa and San Francisco is serving up its home-grown green tomatoes, fried with spicy chili aioli ($4.99), until supplies last.

The tomatoes are from its St. Helena garden, as is the fresh basil in its pesto on the menu.

* Also in Wine Country, the Carneros Bistro & Wine Bar in Sonoma will host its fifth annual “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes,” Sept. 14-20.

Tomatoes will take over the menu at this restaurant, which harvests about 48 pounds of tomatoes from its garden every day at the height of summer. Dishes to be featured include “Menage a Tomato with Housemade Mozzarella and Watermelon Gazpacho” and a “PBLT” sandwich with pork belly.

Read more

Mario Batali’s New Cookbook All About Veggies

Posted on by 19 comments

Yes, the man known for his love of pork and offal, has come out with a new cookbook that puts the spotlight on fresh, seasonal veggies.

“Molto Gusto” (Ecco) by Mario Batali is not a vegetarian cookbook per se. But the casual, easy dishes are all about using meat as an accent, while nudging vegetables to the forefront instead.

Read more


A Heavenly Time at Heaven’s Dog

Posted on by 18 comments

So much Chinese food often gets bogged down in grease, cornstarch and cheapo ingredients.

So much so that when you taste a once-mundane dish elevated with primo produce, it can be a revelation.

Such was the case when a friend and I encountered Chef Charles Phan’s distinctive take on the usual run-of-the-mill “Ants Climbing Tree” dish ($11) at his hip Heaven’s Dog restaurant in San Francisco, steps from the Holiday Inn Civic Center.

As a Chinese-American who grew up in San Francisco, I’ve long eaten this homey dish of ground meat (the so-called “ants”) cooked with garlic, soy sauce and ginger, then ladled over slippery cellophane noodles (the “tree”). My Mom would cook it or buy it to-go from an Asian deli. It was a fine dish — just nothing I necessarily ever craved or went out of my way for.

That is, until I tried the one at Heaven’s Dog, which was a most pleasant surprise. This meatless rendition was loaded with fresh black trumpet mushrooms and plenty of leeks. The crowning touch was the toasted pine nuts sprinkled all over the top, giving it unexpected crunch and richness. There was so much flavor and texture that I almost felt like I was tasting this warhorse of a dish for the very first time.

We couldn’t resist the Shanghai dumplings ($10), which burst appropriately with hot broth from the first careful bite.

Read more

Food Gal Featured in the New “Cooking for Geeks”

Posted on by 32 comments

I’ve made no secret of the fact that me and technology don’t always get along.

So, it’s with both great flattery and some bemusement that I find myself included in the new “Cooking for Geeks” (O’Reilly) book by self-professed computer geek and cooking aficionado, Jeff Potter.

Potter studied computer science and visual art at Brown University. This is his first book, which looks at how science works to create so many delicious dishes we love.

Potter includes not only recipes but interviews with folks, including yours truly. I’m in good company, too. Some of the other profiled in the book include Dave Arnold, instructor at the French Culinary Institute in New York; Harold McGee, author of the seminal “On Food and Cooking” (Scribner); and Brian Wansink, author and Cornell University professor, who studies how people interact with food.

In the book, you’ll find me rhapsodizing about making preserved lemons, a process that always leaves me spellbound by the transformation that occurs when you add copious amounts of salt to fresh lemons, and let the mixture sit for a few weeks.

Read more

Scenes From SF Chefs 2010

Posted on by 20 comments

Didn’t make it to the SF Chefs 2010 extravaganza this past weekend at Union Square in San Francisco?

No fear. Here’s a glimpse of the opening festivities last Friday night, which featured a slew of chefs, mixologists and vintners doling out gourmet goodies under a billowing white tent on the square.

The big guns were out in force, too, including New York Chef David Burke and star restaurateur, Drew Nieporent of the Myriad Restaurant Group.

The event officially got underway with a sabering ceremony, where a bottle of bubbly was dramatically opened by using a long knife to slice off the top of it.

You can tell from the expressions of the crowd that it was quite the sight.

A bevy of chefs were in attendance, including Mourad Lahlou of Aziza in San Francisco, whose first cooking show is expected to debut on PBS in the fall of 2011. Filmed in Marrakech and the Bay Area, the show will shine the spotlight on both traditional and modern Moroccan cooking. He’s still looking for help from investors, too. So if you’ve done well in the stock market or with the Lotto lately, don’t be shy and drop him a line.

Read more

« Older Entries Recent Entries »