in praise of sardines

Quince

Since opening four years ago, Quince has been my go to restaurant for celebrating special occasions. So how could I refuse an invitation to join some favorite food bloggers in dining there last night — at the chef's table in the kitchen no less — compliments of Visa Signature?

Michael and Lindsay Tusk of Quince are still at the top of their game. Even arriving from New York at 3 am yesterday morning didn't slow them down (they were in NYC to cook dinner at the Beard House). Lighting wasn't so good, so my pictures don't do our meal justice. Thank you Heather, Linda, Jennifer, and Michael for hosting a spectacular evening!

Check out the Visa Signature website for listings of the posh food and wine events you can attend for a steal if you have a Visa Signature card. 5-course dinner with Tim and Nina Zagat at La Folie for $75 per person (price includes wine pairings from Souverain Winery, tax, and tip!) sound enticing? (Bummer it's sold out, but there will be similar events in the future).

Last night's tasting menu with wine pairings:

Stuzzechini del giorno
squash blossom stuffed with lobster
vitello tonnato with capers
NV Fanciacorta, Ca' del Bosco, Brut, Lombardy, Italy

Dirty Girl Farm tomato tris
gazpacho, crudo & flan
2005 Grauburgunder Smaragd, Franz Hirtzberger, Pluris, Wachau, Austria

Tagliolini
crawfish, chanterelle mushrooms, romanesco squash & their blossoms
2005 Châteauneuf-du-Pape Blanc, Domaine de la Solitude, Southern Rhône Valley, France

Acquerello carnaroli risotto
black sea bass, sweet peppers & extra vecchio balsamico
2006 Chardonnay, Lioco, Durell Vineyard, Sonoma Valley, California

Agnolotti di piccione (squab)
al burro fuso
2002 Barbaresco, Cantina del Pino, Ovello, Piedmont, Italy

Watson Farm lamb
La Tercera Farm stridoli & shelling beans
2000 Château Soussans, Margaux, Bordeaux, France

Concord grape sorbet
green grape juice, grape sections

Black mission fig clafoutis
blackberry gelato, rasperry coulis
Madeira, Broadbent Madeira Company, 10 Year Malmsey, Portugal

Where would you have met the Amateur Gourmet for lunch?

Last week, I left a comment for Adam on his super-popular New York City-based food blog the Amateur Gourmet. I told him I was sorry I missed his San Francisco get-together at Place Pigalle and wished we could meet.

2 minutes later I got an email: "Hey Brett! Just saw your comment — I would really love to meet you too. Are you free at all for lunch on Thursday?"

"Sure!" I replied.

I thought I'd have a little fun with him. I asked him to send me the list of the places where he'd eaten and where he was planning to go to, then I would come up with a restaurant for our lunch. How hard could that be? He agreed, adding one criteria: lunch should be relatively light. He was going to the best-restaurant-in-the-Bay-Area (aka Manresa) for dinner.

In case you missed his posts, this is the list Adam sent me:

Saturday lunch at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market with Elise, Sam, and Catherine
Saturday dinner at Ad Hoc
Sunday lunch at Taqueria Pancho Villa
Sunday dinner at Zuni with Sam and Fred
Monday lunch at Tartine 
Monday dinner at A16 with Fatemeh
Tuesday lunch at The Slanted Door with Kristen
Tuesday dinner at Chez Panisse with Kristin again
Wednesday lunch at Delfina Pizzeria with Heidi and Bruce
Wednesday dinner at César and JoJo with Derrick and Melissa
Thursday dinner at Manresa with Pim

Oy! Adam had already planned to visit virtually all of my favorites. What had I gotten myself into?

Actually, I love challenges. (Why else would I be crazy enough to want to open a restaurant?) I got down to business. I searched for gaps in his list. Seemed a bit heavy on the California cuisine. The Bay Area dining scene is more diverse than that.

I asked myself questions. What kind of cooking do we do in the Bay Area better than what he can get in NYC? What are some places that are unique to San Francisco? What are some of my favorite places for lunch? What's on my Shortlist (see righthand column, half way down this page)? What would make for a light lunch?

This is the list I initially came up with:

"We freeze it fresh every day."

A whole week of temperatures over 80˚ (Saturday the mercury climbed as high as 97˚!). In San Francisco. In July. Simply amazing.

To celebrate our extraordinary good fortune, I headed across the Bay to my favorite gelateria, Sketch.

Sketch is located in a sliver of a shop in the posh and very un-sketchy Fourth Street shopping district of Berkeley. The storefront is set back a couple dozen yards from the street, across the way from Eccolo, an Italian restaurant I helped to open. As a beacon to alert passersby, the owners, husband and wife Eric Shelton and Ruthie Planas-Shelton, placed a shiny 1920's Italian ice cream cart near the sidewalk. The cart lures people into the inviting scoop shop, a tiny cocoon adorned with a few antique ice cream scoopers along one wall.

I love Sketch and all its quirks. First off, the awning advertises "ice cream." While the consistency is undoubtedly "creamy," there is nary a drop of cream in the frozen confections. Neither are there eggs nor any of the other varieties of thickeners typically found in products labeled "ice cream." Eric and Ruthie limit their palette of ingredients to three: Straus organic milk, sugar, and the star ingredient. (This strict minimalist approach must be the inspiration behind the shop's name).

The flavors at Sketch are all about the main ingredient. Peach tastes like the best peach you've ever eaten. The owners obsessively procure the finest from our local organic farms and they want every nuance of those ingredients' subtle flavors to reveal themselves. I find that their approach to gelato is identical to the jam making ethic of June Taylor, whose still room is located just a few blocks away. (Not surprisingly, I spied more than a few of Sketch's colorful bowls scattered around June's kitchen at a class I took there a few weeks ago).

By eschewing richer ingredients in favor of purity of flavors, these former Aqua pastry cooks are clearly taking their cue from Sicily, the birthplace of gelato, as opposed to northern and central Italy, which don't shy away from using cream and eggs (now you know why you gained 15 pounds on that last trip to Rome and Florence). Eric told me the key to the satiny texture of their gelati is, as I quote him in the title of this post, that they freeze each of the 14 flavors fresh daily and hold them at precisely the right temperature (slightly higher than home freezers).

Another oddity: no cones. Again in a nod to Italy, the gelati are mostly served in cute brightly colored plastic cups, like the one pictured below that *briefly* held my apricot and hazelnut gelati.

In lieu of cones, you can choose to have your 'scream served in a crêpe or accompanied by one of the changing array of pastries and cookies, all of which are excellent (and contain all the cream and eggs omitted from the gelati).

Quirk number three: each customer is only allowed 2 tastes. I actually didn't notice this policy, but read about it online. It doesn't concern me. I don't stray far from the theme I pictured above (one scoop featuring whatever sexy local fruits are in season and one of the extraordinary nut gelati). My pilgrimages across the bridge to Sketch are too few, so I tend to stick to that familiar tango of textures and flavors that my tongue finds so ravishing. According to online reports, other flavors that consistently receive raves are Scharffenberger chocolate, tangy Straus yogurt, and Blue Bottle coffee. I read (and fleetingly have even noticed) that Sketch also serves sorbetti and granite.

If you're in New York and want a Sketch-like experience, head to Cones in the Village. Based on recommendations from Eric and Ruthie, I made tracks to this small scoop shop on Bleecker Street, which apparently gets the highest Zagat rating in the city. From what I read in the press clippings posted on the window, the owners of Cones share much of the same philosophy as our Sketchers. The main difference is that they add a little cream to their base (1 part cream to 3 parts milk). And, of course, cones are available here. The shop, however, lacks the charm of Sketch and flavors tend more towards the traditional. That said, my hazelnut was every bit as outstanding as Sketch's.

For a creamier, more traditionally custard-based experience, head to Il Laboratorio del Gelato. Their selection of flavors are amongst the most innovative you'll find (reminiscent of another Bay Area gem, Mitchell's). If I could sing, I would've have broken out in an aria over the black sesame and the mascarpone flavors I sampled.

Sketch
1809A Fourth Street
Berkeley
510.665.5650

Cones
272 Bleecker Street, between Morton and Jones
New York
212.414.1795

Il Laboratorio del Gelato
95 Orchard Street, between Broome and Delancey
New York
212.343.9122

Having a ball (or two) at Incanto's Head to Tail Dinner

I've mentioned before on this blog that I used to be a vegetarian.

So how did I go from eating a diet of rutabegas and wheat berries to finding myself staring down a strip of bacon flanked by two nuggets from that part of the bull that, to put it politely, makes him a bull rather than a cow (third picture in post).

In my mind, there is a straight line that I can draw between my veggie days and my seat at the table of Incanto's Third Annual "Head to Tail Dinner" 3 weeks ago (where the only vegetables were a few capers and a sprinkling of herbs). I'll attempt to describe the connection between the two eras of my life here in this post and you can decide whether I am in fact full of another product of the bull (which thankfully was not part of this particular feast).

Like many who are vegetarian by choice (as opposed to by their upbringing), my decision to stop eating meat was made consciously and was based on personal ethics. I was and still am sickened by the treatment of animals in the industrial system that currently exists for raising the majority of the animals that we eat. (If you haven't yet, view The Meatrix now). Well, er, maybe that's only part of the story. The other reason was that, as a good little rebellious twenty-something, I enjoyed causing my mother grief during holiday feasts.

Once I chose to return to my omnivorous ways (it turns out vegetarianism has a way of curtailing the options of aspiring chefs), I sought some system of ethics that would support my decision.

I enthusiastically latched onto the ethical standards of Alice Water's "Delicious Revolution" and, later, those of the Slow Food Movement. I intentionally sought out local ranchers and farmers who raised animals more humanely, like Bill Niman (cattle, sheep, and pigs), Bud and Ruth Hoffman (chickens and quails), Jim Reichardt (ducks), the Straus family (dairy cows) and others.

Unfortunately, I quickly discovered that ethics costs a premium. On the pennies that I earned as a novice cook and the nickles N earned as a teacher, we really couldn't afford these pricier meats. But we were both committed to the cause, so we shelled out a shocking portion of our incomes to shop at farmers markets and support the efforts of these pioneers.

One way I learned we could save money was to buy less expensive cuts of meat. I happily mastered the art of slow cooking and braising tougher cuts like lamb shanks, beef short ribs and cheeks, pork shoulder and belly, and duck legs. In fact, these are some of my favorite cuts of meat to this day.

Unfortunately, every other penny-conscious chef and home cook in the area came to the same realization at the same time as I did. As demand rose, so did the price of these once less desirable cuts. Slow-cooked meats became a hot trend and "comfort food" became a buzz word.

The next logical step was naturally to find out which of the even less desirable cuts were the tastiest. I had eaten many interesting parts - like pig's ears and bull's "whip" (another euphemism) - during my year teaching English in Sichuan, China, but I honestly had little idea how to cook them.

My bad. Reflections of a food snob

The Sunday before last, a local newspaper critic reviewed Dosa, a new South Indian restaurant in San Francisco, and dismissed bloggers, including myself, who were critical of their initial dining experiences there as “snobs.”

I can't speak for the others, but me? A food snob? Well, um, yeah. Is that bad? Which of the following words describes me?

    a. chowhound
    b. connoisseur
    c. foodie
    d. food geek
    e. food lover
    f. food snob
    g. all of the above

Clearly I have to circle “g.” And, you know what? I’m quite OK with that. In fact, I’m rather flattered.

Honestly, though, I was critical of my first meal at Dosa and I bluntly expressed my dissatisfaction in a comment on another blogger’s review. In hindsight, perhaps too bluntly. While my wife, a second grade teacher, will remind me that there are no are "mistakes" (only "learning experiences"), I do have some regrets about the comment I left. So much so that, prior to the newspaper review, I asked the owner of the blog to delete it, and she kindly obliged. My regrets stem not from being called a snob, however, but from my own self-imposed ethical standards.

So, if you don’t mind, allow me to get horizontal on the couch here and share with you some of my innermost thoughts and feelings about my role in the Dosa debacle.

First, let’s look at what happened. Shortly after Dosa opened, my wife and I invited our friend, who’s of South Indian descent, to dine with us there. We were all quite excited that a South Indian restaurant had opened in San Francisco, as we love and crave dosai (plural of dosa. Oops. Does that come across as snobbish? Ah well, I am what I am).

With its winning combination of an imaginative wine and cocktail list, a contemporary take on a previously underrepresented “ethnic” cuisine, and affordable prices, all presented in a colorfully painted loft-like space, Dosa brings to mind the original Slanted Door and the new Limón. Unfortunately, our first dinner at Dosa was marred by myriad service mishaps and disappointing food. We especially disliked the chutneys. We were crestfallen that the restaurant initially didn’t meet our perhaps too high expectations.

Although I intentionally did not write a review of Dosa on my own blog (more on that later), I left that blunt comment on the other blogger’s review. That review, which was also somewhat critical of the restaurant (although more balanced than my comment), inspired an earnest reply from the restaurant’s co-owner, Anjan Mitra. Mr. Mitra acknowledged that our  criticisms of the food were at least in part warranted. During the first weeks, Mr. Mitra explained, there were some "mistakes" made by the kitchen staff that led to our disappointing dinners and, in particular, the problematic chutneys. He invited those of us who initially disliked Dosa to return.

A couple of weeks ago (prior to the newspaper review), my wife N and I accepted Mr. Mitra’s invitation and returned anonymously to Dosa. I am happy to report that the food and service are much improved. To use an analogy from the Winter Olympics, our recent meal was like Bode Miller’s performance prior to the Olympics, while our first experience at Dosa was like Bode during the Olympics. As the pictures on this post help illustrate, the food is now quite tasty.

Incanto, an offally delicious trattoria

Although it's not as sexy as A16, as trendy as Delfina, nor as pedigreed as Quince, Incanto may be the most innovative and inspired of San Francisco's many Italian trattorias.

Tucked away on the outskirts of Noe Valley, Incanto suffers from being off many restaurant patron's radar screens. It bears the unfortunate distinction of being the southernmost restaurant within the San Francisco city limits on the Chronicle's list of the Top 100 restaurants in the Bay Area.

A few years back, the owner, Mark Pastore, took the small fortune he made in the software industry and bought a dilapidated old German restaurant at the corner of Church and Duncan Streets. He stripped it down to its frame and spared no expense to lovingly convert it into the type of rustic trattoria that dots the Tuscan countryside. The dining room is awash in neutral Al Gore earth tones, from the stone pavers beneath your feet to the antiqued brick and stucco walls. Through a set of monastic arches, you have a clear view of the bar area and a glimpse into the buzzing activity in the kitchen.

The food that comes out of that kitchen is what draws me to Incanto again and again. The chef is Chris Cosentino, an iconoclast sporting spiky bleached hair, a goatee, and thick-rimmed Elvis Costello glasses. Although foolishly never tagged as a Rising Star by the Chronicle, Chris creates some of the most interesting food in the city. His daily changing menus take the concept of sustainability seriously - perhaps even more so than Chez Panisse. For one, he and Mark have worked together to make Incanto the first and only restaurant in California to receive "Certified Humane" certification. What really sets Chris - and Incanto - apart from the crowd, however, is his refusal to let any part of the animal go to waste.

Like his hero British chef Fergus Henderson, every night Chris features one or two dishes made from the innards, extremities and other odd cuts of meat that most chefs ignore. Two years ago, he began what has become an annual tradition, "Dining Head to Tail," in which every course features something from the "fifth quarter." I missed the first two events, but others - including Nancy Oakes, Mario Batali, and Fergus Henderson himself - have enjoyed menus that in the past even included a chocolate pudding thickened with pig's blood! Our own local bloggers, the BunRabs, were in attendance last year and shared - in their inimitable witty style - their experience and photos in their review titled "No Guts, No Glory."

I've already made my reservations for the next "Dining Head to Tail" dinner, which takes place in a few weeks on Monday, March 6. The tentative 5-course menu includes the following for $60:

• Beef heart tartare puttanesca
• Marin mountain oysters with pancetta afumicata and capers
• Finanziera, Piemontese market stew of cockscombs, sweetbreads, and sanguinaccio
• Spring lamb trio with spicy lentils, lemon and mint
• Suet pudding with chocolate blood gelato

{Gee, who knew their were oysters in the mountains of Marin! Gosh, do you think he meant "chocolate blood orange gelato"?}

On my most recent visit to Incanto a week or two ago, I thoroughly enjoyed my meal, which although relatively more prosaic was no less delicious. I started with local sardines (now you know the true reason I like this place) that had been lightly cured ceviche-style and were served with a salad of bitter curly-leafed puntarella and radishes.

Next I lapped up every bit of my flavorful seafood stew, in which every one of the clams, mussels, squid and head-on shrimp were as perfectly tender as their counterparts found in Spain and Italy. That favorable comparison is the highest compliment I can pay any seafood preparation in California, where I've found even the best restaurants sadly tend to overcook fish and shellfish.

For dessert, I was lured in by the combination of cardamom pastry cream, kumquats, and chocolate sauce in a napolean-like puff pastry creation. Although it didn't quite live up to my expectations, it was not bad.

Incanto's beverage service is as innovative and concerned with sustainability as the food. Mark, the owner, offers his guests complimentary local Hetch Hetchy water that has been filtered and, if desired, carbonated in order to reduce the number of bottles in landfills and recycling bins. The restaurant also offers all the wines on the excellent all-Italian wine list by the full- and half-glass. To help educate people less familiar with Italian wines, Mark cleverly places around the base of each glass a cardboard ring inscribed with the producer's name and the wine's region and vintage. Various wine flights are also on offer.

There are more clever touches and innovative approaches at Incanto that you can read about on their website here. I've said enough. Go to Incanto! Support this caring and wonderful little trattoria. Make the trek southward to Noe Valley, especially during the weekdays, which are less busy than they ought to be.

Perhaps I'll bump into some of you at the "Dining Head to Tail" meal on March 6?

Incanto
1550 Church St.
San Francisco
415-641-4500

Food|and Drink|Restaurants|Italian|San Francisco

My Tofu House

Rarely do I fall so madly in love with a place that after just one visit I add it to my "Short List" of favorite eateries in the Bay Area {see the right hand column}. But that is exactly what happened when I dined at My Tofu House {website is in Korean, click here for English} this past week.

Our friends who live in the Richmond District casually mentioned that we ought to try this small, always crowded Korean restaurant near their apartment. They told us that the husband and wife owners specialize in just one dish, a spicy stew of soft tofu, vegetables, and a choice of meat or seafood. A light of recognition instantly flashed in my mind.

A year ago, I had enviously drooled over tantalizing photos that accompanied an article in the New York Times which depicted this exact same spicy stew, which in Korean is called
soon-dubu chigae. The photos caused me to fantasize about making my own fresh tofu or, alternatively, to pack up and move to New York. At the time, I had no idea that there was a restaurant in San Francisco that specialized in this dish.

Now that I know, it is not an exaggeration to say that the quality of my life has suddenly improved. Just realizing that I can, on any given day, drop into the quaint little restaurant and order a bowl of this spicy elixir fills me with joy.

As soon as you sit down at your table, the waiter brings a warming cup of barley tea (mugi cha in Japanese) and an array of little dishes (pan chan), which include tiny dried anchovies and various pickled vegetables (kimchee), some of which are spicy.

While there are a few other typical Korean restaurant dishes on the menu, just about everyone in the place was ordering some version of soon-dubu chigae. You can specify whether you want your stew with pork, beef or seafood, if you want kimchee added to the pot, and how spicy you want it. I opted for the medium spicy version with pork and kimchee.

The arrival of the stew is quite an impressive production. The waiter delivers to you a stone tureen full of soon-dubu chigae that appears to have been lifted out of a volcano {pictured at the top of the page}. I quickly cracked an egg into the ferociously bubbling broth and left it alone while it gently poached. While you wait for the molten stew to cool, ladle a little broth and vegetable over some rice in a separate bowl and munch on the pan chan.

Pure heaven on a chilly winter night. If you live in the area and have not yet been, go tonight! I promise, your life will change for the better.

My Tofu House
4627 Geary Blvd.
San Francisco, CA 94118
(415) 750-1818

Food|and Drink|Restaurants|Korean|San Francisco

If you can't be with the one you love...

On a narrow shelf above the slicer at the front of the restaurant, where the deli man performed the final step in the magical transformation of tough beef brisket into ethereally tender pastrami and corned beef, dozens of mustard jars stood like toy soldiers, proudly displaying their labels.

"I really ought to buy one," I thought, "and bring it back to N as a surprise." Then I glanced outside at the steady rainfall and pictured myself schlepping the jar around in one hand, while balancing my flimsy umbrella in the other, as I sloshed from one of my million errands to the next. It would be hours before I headed back to my hotel room.

"What good is the mustard without the pastrami or corned beef?" I reassured myself.

I felt a twinge of guilt, as at that moment my stomach was reveling in the object of N's and my shared affection, one of the massive sandwiches of the famed Second Avenue Deli on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Though full to the point that my belly ached as much as it has after any Thanksgiving feast, my nose couldn't resist being intoxicated by the earthy, spicy aromas that engulfed it. Garlicky, salty vinegar continued to dance on my tongue to the sounds of the crunchy-crisp rhythm of the half-sour pickles that echoed in my ears. I swooned at the thought of the samba of flavors, the sweet coleslaw and, of course, that sharp mustard that had, just moments before, punctuated each bite of my juicy pastrami on rye.

My reverie was abruptly broken by a woman's voice. "Can I get you something else, hun?"

I hesitated. "No, that'll be all." Next time, I consoled myself. Next time I'll get the mustard.

There will be no next time.

I awoke yesterday to the sad news {broken to me, in the way that can only happen in our technologically accelerated era, by a comment on this blog by a longtime reader who lives in Spain...thank you "nopisto"!} that Second Avenue Deli, which had closed its doors on January 1st, would not be reopening. The kosher deli had become a landmark in the 50 years since it was founded by Abe Lebewohl, a Ukrainian immigrant who was tragically murdered a decade ago.

I can't recall a visit to New York that didn't include a visit to this temple of pastrami and corned beef.

For a foodie, losing a favorite restaurant can be as devastating as losing a close friend {I am embarrassed to report that I am that obsessive. Pronouncing my loss, say, "as devastating as losing a pet goldfish," doesn't do justice to my sense of grief... please feel free to tell me to get a life}.

All that remains are our memories. Thankfully, because of this blog, I recorded what has become my last pilgrimage to Second Avenue Deli just a few months ago {read about it here}.

Growing increasingly distraught after David pointed me to these depressing photos, the dreary morning rain outside my San Francisco window mirrored my sullen mood.

My heart {or was it my belly?} lifted momentarily when I recalled reading of a New York-style deli opening in the Presidio Heights neighborhood of San Francisco within the building that houses the Jewish Community Center. Hopes raised further when I remembered that the illustrious Joyce Goldstein had been hired as consulting chef.

Like a widower that starts dating too soon after his wife's passing {Prince Charles comes to mind}, I made tracks to the California Street Delicatessen and Cafe (website not operational yet), where I spotted this sign.

Rainy day breakfast

On a rainy winter morning in San Francisco, nothing beats a steaming hot bowl of jook, Asian-style rice porridge (also known as congee), at Hing Lung in Chinatown. On week days, if you arrive between 8 and 11 in the morning, this bowl of comfort costs just $2.50. There are a couple dozen choices of flavorings, such as chicken-and-corn, duck, meatballs, sliced fish, pork, pork liver, and giblets. I opted for a combination of pork liver and meatballs today.

Make sure to order a side of the "deep-fried devils," yao ja guai, which I like to think of as a fried baguette. The cooks at Hing Lung make and fry them fresh in house every day. I love to dip pieces of the savory bread into the molten porridge while I wait for it to cool off.

The cooks here are also masters in the art of making cheong fun, steamed rice noodles, which come in many fillings, including shrimp, barbecue pork and mushrooms with Chinese greens (pictured above).

Due to its location in the crowded Chinatown area, I don't make to Hing Lung as often as I'd like. Nobody else in the city seems to be able to make the deceptively simple dish of jook quite as well. For that alone, Hing Lung makes it onto my Bay Area Short List.

Hing Lung
645 Broadway (between Stockton and  Grant)
(415) 398-8838
Open daily 8am-1am

Food|and Drink|Restaurants|Reviews|San Francisco

In praise of Kashmir: touring the Tandoor-loin

An unusual incident sparked my interest in Kashmir. It occurred about 5 years ago while dining at Shalimar, a perpetually packed Indian/Pakistani dive in San Francisco.

One evening, N and I stopped by the restaurant to get our fix of kababs. Shalimar is like a small breakaway republic with inscrutable Byzantine rules that only the initiated can comprehend. One of the rules states that diners cannot place their orders until they secure a place to sit. Thus, the grease and smoke stained dining room becomes a Darwinian game of musical chairs, where only the most obnoxious and lucky survive.

This day, however, with the dining room hopelessly crowded, one of the bussers mercifully took on the role of host. After a brief wait in the longest line I have witnessed at Shalimar, we were surprised when this "host" asked us to follow him. He led us away from the dining room, down a narrow, unlit corridor along the side of the building. Out of the darkness we stepped into a brightly lit room, where people were sitting on sofas and chairs with plates of food on their laps as if they were at a friend's house.

Our host escorted us to the only table in the room, which we discovered was an office desk. N sat regally on a leather office chair at the desk, while I sat along the side on a folding chair. The restaurant was so crowded, they were seating customers in their office!

Under a layer of glass, there was a map proudly displayed on the desktop. The map was of Kashmir, except the Line of Control that divides the region between Pakistan and India was missing. The map was of a united Kashmir. Unfortunately, I can't recall if it showed the nation as independent or as a part of Pakistan. From that point on, we have referred to this office as the Shalimar War Room.

Today, as part of my "In Praise of Kashmir" series (with the hope that my posts will help raise awareness of the survivors of the earthquakes and encourage my readers to buy raffle tickets to donate to the Menu for Hope II), I am taking you on a field trip to the few blocks surrounding Shalimar, a seedy part of San Francisco's Tenderloin District. In an article that appeared in the Chronicle 2 years ago, local writer Sandip Roy dubbed the area that centers on the intersection of Jones and O'Farrell Streets the "Tandoor-loin," due to the high number of Pakistani tandoori restaurants found there. We won't find any Kashmiri restaurants here (as far as I know that aren't any in the Bay Area), but the next best thing are these Pakistani-owned dhabas.

As readers of V.K. Narayanan's blog My Dhaba know, a dhaba is a quick-service roadside restaurant found in Northern India that serves tandoori meats, naan and strong chai to truckers, cabdrivers, and the like. A decade ago, Naeem Mohammad opened Shalimar on Jones Street near O'Farrell, because he correctly perceived that San Francisco's many Pakistani cabbies needed a dhaba where they could grab a quick bite. He named his restaurant after the famous Shalimar Garden that Mughal Emperor Jahangir built for his wife Nur Jahan in Srinagar, the largest city in Kashmir.

Mr. Mohammad's timing couldn't have been any better. Shalimar's opening also coincided with the Dot-Com boom. Many South Asian engineers, who had left their countries to seek their fortunes in the Bay Area, grew homesick for the taste of dhaba-style street food. When word of Shalimar's existence got out, these engineers, along with other South Asians and adventurous "chowhounds," headed there from all over the Bay Area.

Seeing the crowds at Shalimar, other imitators quickly followed. Tandoori dhabas sprouted like mushrooms within a two minute walk from Shalimar. Naan n' Curry, Pakwan, Lahore Karahi, Chutney, Shalimar Garden and Little Deli opened their doors, all with menus similar to Shalimar's, but slight differences in atmosphere. Chutney, for example, is a little cleaner and fancier. The cooks at Lahore Karahi added saucier dishes to the formula. These dishes are cooked in a kadai (also spelled karahi), the cast-iron wok-shaped pot favored by north Indian and Pakistani cooks.

Shalimar and some of the imitators have gone on to open multiple locations in other parts of the city and Bay Area. In fact, because a couple of these new dhabas are closer to my house, with a Naan n' Curry in the Sunset and a Pakwan in the Mission, I rarely visit the Tandoor-loin, having lost the impetus to battle for first a parking space and then a table at Shalimar.

If you want to "touch the heart," I say "Fook Yuen!"

"Number 22."

A jolt of excitement shoots up my spine at the sound of our number being called. At last, it is our turn!

The hostess guides us through the labyrinth of round banquet tables, dodging first the shrieking child and then the server balancing a platter full of fried crab puffs. We arrive at our table ecstatic to discover after our interminable wait that we are being seated at the most strategically positioned table in the dining room, right next to the swinging doors where the servers exit the kitchen.

In most restaurants such a table is known as Siberia. This day, the Sunday after Thanksgiving, however, our table position is more like Nirvana. We are at the dim sum palace Fook Yuen in Millbrae, the place many connoisseurs of the savory Cantonese tea snacks consider the best and most authentic in the Bay Area.

Like Xi'an warriors perched atop our horses, we survey the lay of the land and size up our competition. Our two-top is like Lichtenstein surrounded by far more populous and powerful neighbors. Beneath chandeliers the size of small cars, most of the round tables are filled with families of 6, 8, even 10, all speaking Cantonese, a definite advantage. They dismiss the newly arrived squatters in their territory as simple neophytes.

Their underestimation is our advantage.

They don't know I cut my teeth on dim sum at restaurants in Singapore, Hong Kong and Taipei, where I studied Mandarin for a year. Or that N and I have been eating dim sum monthly since we arrived in San Francisco nearly 15 years ago. Although we are not natives, we are no amateurs.

We are completely comfortable in the cacophony of the dim sum house: the clickety clack of chopsticks dancing, the boisterous laughter of men toasting beer, the musical sound of waitresses hawking dumplings. To us, it's all just a pleasant background hum (N, you'll recall, is used to the controlled chaos of her second graders rehearsing for their holiday show, while I am most content in the swirling energy of a restaurant kitchen). We are focused on our mission with a Zen-like clarity.

We know to send back the jasmine tea the server automatically plunks down on the tables of non-Chinese. We request a pot of black bo lay tea (also spelled bo lei or po lay, which is pu-erh in Mandarin), the traditional accompaniment to dim sum because it is supposed to aid the digestion of rich foods. We are at Fook Yuen, after all, to yum cha, to drink tea and share conversation.

I like to think of the small dishes and snacks as decorations on a Christmas tree, highlighting the convivial conversation and tea like the shiny baubles and lights illuminate the tree. The little morsels are meant to "delight or touch the heart," the literal meaning of the poetic phrase "dim sum."

Our years of experience eating at Fook Yuen, and other favorite dim sum restaurants like Yank Sing, reminds us to practice patient restraint. We are only two today, so we have to choose our plates wisely to avoid regrets. Too many times have we succumbed to the temptress that plagues the inexperienced dim sum diner: Instant Gratification. We shamefully recall many times that, within 5 minutes of being sat, our table groaned with plates that quickly grew cold.

Here's my advice. Picture yourself as Jennifer Lopez in a fancy boutique on Rodeo Drive, perched on your shapely buttocks while salesclerks stumble over one another to open box after box of the latest footwear from Jimmy Choo or Manolo Blahnik. You are royalty.

Open your eyes. You're still you, and the boxes are bamboo steamers which contain not stilettos, but translucent steamed dumplings (like the fun gor pictured right, stuffed with pork and bamboo shoots). A far more valuable treasure, if you ask me. The servers await your decision. This should be the model of every restaurant dining experience.

"Char siu bao (barbecued pork buns)?" No.

"Siu mai (pork and shrimp dumplings)?" No.

"Potstickers?" No.

We know to save this everyday fare for the take-out shops of Chinatown or Clement Street. When we're at Fook Yuen, we wait for the plates of the restaurant's specialties, like suckling pig, crispy duck, and clams steamed with black bean sauce. We also look for cheung fun (rice noodle rolls) and N's favorite, the classic turnip cakes called lo bak goh. We might also consider ordering crab off the menu, but it is not available on this day.

This is where our vantage point next to the kitchen door helps tremendously. We keep one eye glued on every movement in that direction, so we can wave the server down to snatch up the steaming hot morsels before other diners do.

Make sure to save room for tofu fa, a bowlful of clouds of sweet soy custard that is the Chinese answer to pot de crème. Neither can you forget to indulge in a dan ta, the ethereally flaky egg custard tart. No version of these two desserts is better in the Bay Area.

At night, Fook Yuen also serves stellar seafood and hosts banquets. I particularly liked the title of this special menu.

Fook Yuen Sea Food Restaurant
195 El Camino Real, Millbrae, CA 94030
650) 692-8600

Food|and Drink|Restaurants|Reviews|San Francisco

Two steaming hot cups of comfort cure a rainy San Francisco day

Am I alone in relishing the first storms of the fast approaching winter? Perhaps. After all, I am a child of the winter solstice, the day with less sunshine than any other.

I find that heavy rain has a way of focusing us, demanding us to pay attention to our lives, to appreciate their fragile preciousness.

Usually, the power of a strong storm, like the one the that lashed our city yesterday, beckons me like a Siren to retreat to the cozy warmth of my stove. I desire nothing more than to simmer and braise, to coddle and nurture.

But this week N is away, so I refused to heed the Siren's call and opted instead to gather with friends, leaving the cooking to others.

When the wind blasts through the marrow of your bones, there is no more welcoming spot in our city than Swan Oyster Depot. Like my two favorite Barcelona tapas bars, Cal Pep and Bar Pinotxo, Swan only offers counter seating. Call it counter intelligence. Eighteen coveted stools line the long, well-worn marble counter of this classic oyster bar that dates back to 1912, so there is nearly always a wait. My friends and I wisely rendezvoused early, before the line grew fierce with workers on their lunch breaks.

The limited menu is posted on the wall behind the counter, above a collection of rubber duckies that look quite at home in the long, narrow white-tiled room. Behind the counter, the six jovial men who look like extras from the set of Cheers are the sons of Sal Sancimino, Swan's owner since 1946.

Each of us started with a steaming cup of Boston clam chowder (that's chowdah to you) which instantly made us forget the outside downpour. The creamy chowder, filled with chunks of salty clams and fish, was suitably rich without the addition of any superfluous thickeners. The accompanying crunchy oyster crackers transported me to my New England-born grandmother's kitchen table, which always had a bowl filled with the comforting hexagonal crackers.

Regrettably, unlike my beloved Barcelona tapas bars, hot entrées are not an option at Swan Oyster Depot. Our choices were limited to cold dishes. With the strike of the local Dungeness crab fishermen now thankfully resolved, I couldn't resist ordering Swan's signature Crab Louie salad,* overflowing with freshly caught local lump crab meat. Although I confess I am not normally inclined to order anything whose primary ingredients are shredded iceberg lettuce and gloppy Russian dressing, I happily devoured most of the enormous salad. Perhaps I was under the potent spell cast by the Sancimino family's generosity of spirit? Or perhaps it was the company of good friends warming up an otherwise dreary day?

Later in the afternoon, I met other friends at a new and welcome addition to the San Francisco culinary buffet, Bittersweet, which bills itself as a "chocolate café." This cheerful bakery and café arrived on Fillmore Street a few weeks ago to the loud cheers of the chocodependant San Franciscans like myself, who feel deprived every time we read yet another tantalizing post by Clotilde or David about one of the many luscious chocolate shops of Paris. (I often imagine the streets of Paris being overrun with Oompa Loompas driving tiny Smart Cars fueled by M&M's commuting to and from the city's innumerable chocolate factories). Although nobody will mistake the homey selection of brownies, cookies, cup cakes, flourless cakes, and pots de crème (all of course in the namesake flavor) for Pierre Hermé, I was reminded of my favorite chocolate shop in Barcelona, Cacao Sampaka.

Bittersweet is a sultry temptress that attempts to entice all your senses. The intoxicating aromas of coffee and cacao and the haunting melodies of Cesaria Evora fill every nook of the high-ceilinged loft-like space.  Warm butter walls, accented with splashes of pistachio and mandarin and dotted with vintage French chocolate posters, provide a bright and festive backdrop to dive into a cup of one of the café's selection of hot chocolates.

I savored every sinful drop of my "classic" hot chocolate, which consisted of chopped dark chocolate and hot milk whizzed in a Hamilton Beach milkshake blender until frothy. I only wish the milk had been hotter, which might have prevented the unmelted bits of chocolate from pooling at the bottom of my cup. Like some kind of illicit chocolate crack, that last chunky, intensely fudgey sludge sent me into a giddy orbit. I felt deliriously happy, like Augustus Gloop drowning in Willy Wonka's river of chocolate.

On future visits, I plan to explore other hot cocoa options, like the "bittersweet" (just chocolate and water), the "spicy" or the "chocolate chai." Or maybe by next visit "chocolate crack" will be a menu staple, so I can just cut to the chase and mainline it.

This month, Bittersweet will provide an ideal respite from the frantic holiday shoppers who jam Fillmore Street. You can even shop for fellow chocoholics (including me yourself) here, as the café also doubles as a shop. They sell dozens of hard to find artisanal chocolate bars, conveniently organized into "dark," "milk," and "surprises," which contain anything from hazelnuts to curry powder. Oddly, though, one of my favorite local chocolatiers, Michael Recchiuti, was not represented.

There's also a limited selection of books on all things relating to chocolate. Absent, however, was the book that we bloggers know as the definitive book on chocolate, David Lebovitz's The Great Book of Chocolate. So, I encourage anyone who visits Bittersweet to persuade the owners, as I did, to correct that oversight. The rest of you go to David's site and buy his book now.

Swan Oyster Depot
1517 Polk St., San Francisco, 415-673-1101

Bittersweet
2123 Fillmore St., San Francisco, 415-346-8715

* This photo of Crab Louie is my current leading contender for my submission to Rachael's ugliest food photo contest. Regrettably, I have a habit of deleting my bad photos.

Food|and Drink|Restaurants|Reviews|San Francisco

Joy of wood-burning ovens and a review of Pizzaiolo

As a cook, I never understood the allure of working the mesquite grill in a restaurant. You might as well be a chimney sweep or a coal miner.

Before you can start to cook, you have to sweep up the ashes from the previous night's dinner service. Then, you drag a 50-pound bag of mesquite charcoal to your work area and dump or scoop some of it into the grill. Despite your best efforts, you inevitably breathe in clouds of the black dust. It is a constant battle to light and then maintain the fire at the ideal temperature throughout the night, while simultaneously cooking and plating dozens of meals. By the end of the night, your fingernails, ears, eyes and snot are encrusted with black soot and you cannot avoid coming home smelling like bacon. What's good for the steak is not necessarily good for the cook!

Wood-burning ovens are a different story. With a degree equal in intensity to my hatred of working the grill, I adore using wood-burning ovens to cook. Enclosed brick ovens are far more efficient than open restaurant grills, using a fraction of the wood. Hardwood logs, usually oak, fuel the fire, so there is no black charcoal soot to fill your lungs. Best of all, the majority of the smoke rises up the oven's flue rather than your nose.

I am not alone here. At those rare restaurants fortunate to be equipped with one, all the line cooks inevitably dream of working the brick oven, especially if there are pizzas on the menu.

Cooks easily become addicted to the tactile pleasure of poking and stretching the delicate, yet playfully elastic dough; sliding and twisting the pies in the oven with a skillful flip of the pizza peel; watching the yeast bubbles blossom and scorch on the crust in the glow of the inferno. You feel a connection to an artisanal tradition, for pizza making is an art, or more accurately, a craft.

It's no wonder, then, that upscale pizzerias are mushrooming all over the Bay Area. Chefs miss the fun of working the pizza station!

It's a boon to Bay Area diners, too, who have suffered for years without a access to a decent slice or pie. On my last visit to New York, I didn't feel compelled to get that fix that, in the past, I have always craved.

Tuesday, N and I visited one of the newest of this wave of pizzerias, Pizzaiolo in the Temescal neighborhood of Oakland. In the interest of complete disclosure, I am acquainted with the chef, Charlie Hallowell, from his days at the Chez Panisse Café where I volunteered once a week for a year while I was sous chef at a nearby restaurant.

Canteen: looking at restaurants through my eyes

When I read about Canteen, a tiny cigar box of a restaurant in the theater district, a few months back in the San Francisco Chronicle, it was inevitable that I would fall for its charms. I'm a sucker for small, quirky restaurants with big personalities. My favorite restaurants are all tiny, usually 35 seats or less. They are places where the chef is the sole or co-proprietor, so that his/her vision and attitude are apparent in every detail, from the color of the paint on the walls to the font on the menu to the choice of butter dish.

Let's face it. Like a painter must feel when visiting an art gallery or a classical singer upon going to the opera, every time I go to a restaurant my senses are heightened. I take in every minute detail. At one moment, I'm critiquing the experience (I would've done it like this), in another finding inspiration (what a brilliant idea!).

But mostly, I am in awe. I love to watch the complex ballet that goes on in the kitchen and on the dining room floor. A server with a tray-full of drinks dodges drunken guests and their raucous children. The cook juggles 6 or 8 different pans on the stove and in the oven. When performed gracefully, it's a on par with a symphony rock concert.

I'm not saying this to romanticize the business, though. It's hard, backbreaking, unforgiving work with little financial compensation. More hours on your feet than anyone who has never worked in a restaurant can even begin to imagine. Try being on your feet for 8 to 10 hours without once sitting down, knowing there's not enough time to possibly finish the million things that need to be ready now (or preferably 10 minutes ago), that you've been dying to pee for the last hour, that the burn you just suffered from the spattered grease will only get worse if you don't stop to treat it, that you're starving because you yet again skipped your last meal, but you know you won't be able to do any of it because there just isn't enough time.

Those are some of the reasons I'm in awe of these people (and you should be too!).

But really, when I go to a restaurant like Canteen, it's not just my senses that are heightened. My emotions go into overdrive. Although it's difficult for me to express (hey, I'm a guy, cut me some slack), I feel a mixture of envy and anxiety and anger and confusion and joy.

in praise of Manresa

Near the end of our nearly five-hour extravaganza at Manresa, the most talked about restaurant in the Bay Area, I asked my three friends who, on separate occasions, had also dined at the French Laundry the inevitable question: which meal was better?

 

But, wait, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Four of my friends, N and I all dined at Manresa on Saturday to celebrate N's and my thirteenth anniversary and my friend's fabulous new job.

Arriving at Manresa, you feel like Alice (no not that one, this one) must have felt after she stepped through the looking glass. You've entered a world of paradoxes, juxtapositions and incongruities. You've entered chef David Kinch's mind.

The first hint that you're in for an unusual night is the location. Of course any time a city boy like myself leaves the big city and heads to unexplored regions of suburbia, I feel a sense of anxiety (my favorite Roz Chast cartoon from a few years ago depicts New Yorkers driving through the depths of New Jersey nervously exclaiming "Where are we? Are we in a town? Are we between towns? How can anybody live out here? Look! Look at that weird mall!!").

After driving for an hour south of San Francisco to Los Gatos (a suburb of San Jose?), we followed Manresa's own directions to the letter, for, as the website warns, "Google and MapQuest are not reliable." We carefully parked as directed in the bank parking lot, just behind Pedro's Mexican Restaurant.

Although I felt a sense of relief just to have arrived safely at the restaurant, this turned out to be my first lesson of the night: Trust Manresa. Allow Chef Kinch and General Manager Michael Kean and their capable staff to take care of you.

Because one of my friends had previously co-managed Silks Restaurant with Michael, we were warmly greeted and offered complimentary glasses of bubbly (thank you, Michael). This set the tone for a glorious, somewhat gluttonous five-hour feast that lasted until 1 am (sorry, Michael).

Unlike many other celebrated food bloggers, I'm admittedly not often lured into the rarefied air of four-star (or in Michelin land, three-star) dining. I'm probably the only so-called foodie to have eaten all my meals at tapas bars when I visited San Sebastián, Spain, the town renowned for having  more Michelin stars per capita than any other place in the world. As N somewhat embarrassingly commented upon learning that half our table had eaten at the French Laundry and we hadn't, "how come you only take me to Suzu?" Ha ha, isn't she funny! Of course, she was just joking...I think?

You and I need to sit down and have a little chaat

The Indian restaurant scene in the Bay Area is, for the most part, abysmal.

If you have had the good fortune to sample the authentic flavors of any of the cuisines of South Asia at the source or, at the very least in London, or even New York or Chicago, then you know what I'm talking about.

With few exceptions, there is nowhere to go when you get a hankering for a crispy butter dosa, a sweet jalebi, or an exquisitely aromatic biriyani. So Indian expats and other members of the desi community (collective term for members of the South Asian diaspora) in the Bay Area, along with those who have become addicted to the flavors of their cuisines, have learned to make do with pale imitations of their favorites.

The situation improved markedly about five years ago with the sudden influx of inexpensive Pakistani kebab and curry houses, beginning with Shalimar and Naan-n-Curry in what has been dubbed the Tandoorloin, and the subsequent explosive expansion of franchises and imitators throughout the Bay.

But, really, the one place that everyone unanimously agrees is truly exceptional is, perhaps, the most humble of them all.

When N and I first discovered Vik's Chaat Corner over a decade ago, it consisted of a few rickety tables and chairs hidden in the back of a dusty spice wholesaler's warehouse located in an unassuming, somewhat run-down part of Berkeley. It was a well-kept secret that was just beginning to be revealed.

That was then.

Now, Vik's is an institution. Despite several expansions into the warehouses next door, there are still impossibly long lines on the weekends. On Sundays, it feels as if the entire desi community and all the hippie wannabes of Telegraph Avenue have descended upon the place.

The press hasn't stopped its adoration of the humble snack emporium, either, adding accolade after accolade to the wall of press clippings. In the 2005 Zagat Guide, Vik's is tied for best Indian restaurant in the area, pulling in an impressive 25 points for food (although only 5 points for its decor!). This also marked the first year that they were (rightfully) included in the San Francisco Chronicles annual round-up of Top 100 restaurants.

And so I, too, give Vik's perhaps its highest honor yet by adding it to my personal Short List. Like its other legions of fans, I go for the well-crafted masala of contrasting flavors, textures and aromas found in their renditions of North Indian street food known collectively as chaat.

There isn't a clunker on the menu, so I find it difficult to single out just a few dishes to recommend. I'd be sorry to see anyone miss Vik's stellar renditions of sev puri, bhel puri, pani puri, and samosas, but my favorites on the daily menu are the dahi papdi chaat (pictured, right, crisp wafers topped with chick peas, steamed lentil dumplings, creamy yogurt, and tamarind and coriander chutneys) and aloo tikki cholle (pictured, above left, fried potato patties stuffed with peas and topped with spicy chick peas, tamarind and coriander chutneys).

When I'm willing to wade through the Bollywoodesque weekend crowd, I never fail to pick up a box or two of dhoklas (steamed chickpea flour cakes), N's favorite Gujarati comfort food, for the next morning's breakfast. They also serve a passable masala dosa and pav bhaji on weekends, but my favorite weekend treat is the lamb baida roti, a buttery bread stuffed with spiced ground lamb.

 

Cold noodles on a warm day at PPQ

On those rare days when the mercury rises above 70˚ F (21˚ C) in San Francisco, N's and my default Short List choice is PPQ, which is abbreviated from Pho' Phú Quôc (1816 Irving Street at 19th Ave.). The reason we head to this Irving St. Vietnamese restaurant on warm, sunny days is not, however, for the hot beef noodle soup, pho', that is a part of its name (and in my opinion not as good as the pho' at Loi's up the street).

No, we go to PPQ when we are craving the cold noodle dish, bún. Bún are thin rice vermicelli-style noodles, usually served as a cold salad. At PPQ you can get your bún with charbroiled pork, beef, five-spice chicken, shrimp or meat balls. When your bowl of noodles arrives at the table, the various components are neatly arranged on top and then you toss the whole mess with a sweet-sour dipping sauce, nuoc cham.

My personal favorite bún is the charbroiled pork with Imperial rolls (no. 11 on the menu), bún chá giò thit nu'óng. The tender grilled pork adds smokiness, the deep-fried Imperial rolls add crispness, and the nuoc cham adds that perfect zip of sweet-salty-tangy-spicy that compels you to eat bite after bite until the bowl is empty. Like all the bún dishes on the menu, this one comes with shredded vegetables hiding under the noodles and is garnished with chopped peanuts, fragrant cilantro, caramelized garlic and shallots that add a whole other onslaught of flavors and textures.

PPQ also does a great version of green papaya salad with charbroiled beef and catfish simmered in salty caramel sauce in a clay pot. The atmosphere is simple and homey and the crowd is mostly locals, with a heavy dose of teenagers from nearby schools on weekends.

San Francisco on $40 a day?...no problem

Apparently there is a show called "$40 a Day" hosted by Rachael Ray which airs on the Food Network.  Perhaps you've seen it. I haven't. I don't have cable. As of yesterday, I don't even have a TV. I'm not making this up. With the intention of freeing up my creative energy (remember, I live in San Francisco), I just sold my 19-inch Magnavox television and VCR on craigslist to an art student for, you guessed it, $40.

So, in celebration of dumping this time-wasting, mind-numbing, brain-washing device, I thought it would be ironic fun to be television personality Rachael Ray for the day, which is the theme for the fourth edition of Dine & Dish. Limiting myself to $40 total (unlike the real Rachael--how does she do it?--not including tax or tip), where would I eat breakfast, lunch and dinner in my home town?

I set out yesterday morning with my newly earned 40 bucks burning a hole in my pocket and my hunger pangs burning a hole in my stomach. Since I had recently returned to San Francisco from a long absence, I was easily able to look at my city through the eyes of a tourist, specifically a food-loving tourist. If I were here for just one day and only had $40 (who, I ask you, who in their right mind would come to one of the most expensive cities in the world with just 40??), where would I eat?

First, I ditched the car. San Francisco is parking hell.

Breakfast: $4.95
Since San Francisco has often been called the most European of America's cities, I started my day in the French fashion with a relatively light breakfast of a croissant and a cafe au lait ($2) at Tartine in the trendy, gentrified (i.e. yuppie) part of the Mission District. Not just any croissant, but the best damn frangipane croissant outside of Paris ($2.95) at San Francisco's premier bakery/patisserie. And not just any cup of coffee, but a steaming hot bowl of Mr. Espresso coffee, made from beans roasted over oak wood across the Bay in Oakland, mixed with organic Straus milk from Marin County.

Two in the Mission: Limón and Range

Although I don't envision "In Praise of Sardines" as a restaurant review blog, per se, from time to time I can't help but shout the praises of restaurants I've visited that I particularly liked.  This past week I went to a pair of restaurants in San Francisco's Mission District that I feel are especially worthy of a mention.

I have to admit it took me a while to warm up to Limón, the most hyped of the wave of Peruvian/Nuevo Latino restaurants that have swept over San Francisco's dining scene in the last few years. I think my hesitation to embrace the likable Limón stemmed from my fondness for another Nuevo Latino restaurant at the other end of Valencia street, Alma. I was acquainted with Alma's chef, Johnny Alamilla, and I could see that the restaurant was struggling, especially with the increased competition from the newly relocated, grander and sexier version of Limón.  Now, with Alma's unfortunate recent closure and Johnny's departure to Tahoe, I thought it was time to revisit Limón and see it through fresh, unbiased eyes.

I'm finally ready to jump on the Limón bandwagon. Even in the original location on 17th Street, I had loved the uplifting palate of lime and tangerine splashed on the walls, cheery colors that almost demand that you loosen up and look on the bright side of life. In the new location, a loft-like space reminiscent of the original Slanted Door that used to be just down the block, the owners wisely retained the same palate and added gorgeous dark mahogany floors to create a festive, lounge atmosphere.

Everything my friends and I ordered from the menu was perfectly prepared and incredibly tasty. We started in the front lounge area with a refreshing pitcher of sangria, that citrusy, chilled red wine drink that I always manage to avoid when I'm in the sweltering heat of Spain but am oddly only too happy to slurp down in the icy fog of San Francisco. After we moved to our table, we dug into a fresh and lively tasting platter of four of the signature ceviches. Unlike many ceviches I've endured, each one of Limón's was lightly kissed with lime and other seasonings at just the last minute, enhancing rather than overwhelming the seafood's flavor and texture.

All of our meaty entrées--the pork chop (chuleton carlitos), the top sirloin (lomo saltado), and the rib-eye (churrasco a la parilla)--were equally juicy, tender and flavorful, so I could not name a favorite. Well, maybe because it's so difficult to find a well-prepared pork chop, I'd recommend the chuleton. Our desserts were good, but not particularly memorable (OK, maybe I had too much sangria to remember what we had).

I was inspired to visit the newest Mission hot-spot, Range, after reading a letter from the chef, Phil West, to Sam Breach posted on her blog, Becks & Posh. He mentions that he uses a lot of my favorite local organic farms (including Mariquita and Happy Quail Farms) as sources for his ingredients, so my wife, N, and I paid them a visit this week.

For the most part, we enjoyed everything we ate there. We started with an unusual sounding hamachi sashimi with avocado and cantaloupe (good, but even better with the addition of a touch of salt, making me wonder why I don't carry a container of my favorite Maldon sea salt with me for emergencies) and the bay scallop "diablo," a voluptuously creamy gratin that the chef apparently learned in New Orleans. Both of these appetizers tasted even better when paired with a glass of one of my favorite white wines, a Rías Baixas from Galicia in western Spain, which is made from the albariño varietal. The Rías Baixas served at Range, a 2003 from Morgadío, was one of the best I've tasted: round and creamy, incredibly aromatic, yet acidic enough to cut through the richness of the scallop dish.

Our next courses included a particularly well-prepared pork shoulder, always a must-order for me when I see it on a menu, and a venison salad, listed as an appetizer. All of the desserts at Range sounded tempting, which is a feat in itself, but we eventually settled on a pistachio waffle with caramel ice cream, a chocolate custard and huckleberries. It was a fun and satisfying end to a good meal that showed that Range has the potential to evolve, like Limón already has, into a destination restaurant.

Dosas: A Tale of Two Cities

As promised, I want to write a couple of posts about my brief stopover in New York on my way back from Spain.  I met up with my wife, N, who had been studying at Columbia Teachers College for the summer.  After a month of Spanish food, I craved something, anything, not made with olive oil.

As is often the case when we're in New York, I especially craved Indian flavors, in particular South Indian snacks like dosas, idli and sambar.  For those of you unfamiliar with the amazing snack foods of South India, here's a quick primer.  First, they are all vegetarian.  Second, most of the dishes originate from versions of the same batter, which is made from a type of lentil, urad dal, and sometimes rice that are soaked, ground and fermented overnight in a process similar to making sour dough.  The batter can be shaped into dumplings and steamed (called idli, sometimes spelled iddly), shaped into doughnuts (vada/vadai) or balls (bonda) and fried, made into thick pancakes (oothapam) or large thin pancakes (dosa/dosai).  In restaurants, all are usually accompanied by coconut chutney and a bowl of spicy sambar, a stew of toor dal (another type of lentils, sometimes called pigeon peas) and vegetables.

To get our fix of South Indian food, we headed to Murray Hill (dubbed "Curry Hill" by the locals for its abundance of Indian eateries), around Lexington and the high 20s.  It was a Monday, so a lot of places were unfortunately closed.  We noticed a lot of Indians eating in Dosa Hutt (102 Lexington Ave. at 28th St.), which may or may not be the second location of the well-known South Indian restaurant of the same name in Flushing, Queens.  Regardless, everything we ate here was perfectly prepared, although considerably tamer than what I have had in India.  My butter dosa (cooked in butter instead of oil) was so tangy and crisp yet tender that we ordered a second one.

Coincidentally, a week later in the Bay Area, on our return trip home from Tassajara Hot Springs, we stopped over at Dasaprakash (2636 Homestead Rd., Santa Clara) to get another fix of the delectable dosas.  Dasaprakash is, in our opinion, the best South Indian restaurant in the San Francisco/San Jose area and belongs on our Short List.  How did they compare?  We were split on this one.  I preferred Dasaprakash, because the flavors were more authentically spicy--incendiary would be more apt.  N, who for some odd reason prefers that her food not scorch her taste buds and bring tears to her eyes, liked Dosa Hutt a bit better, but agrees that Dasaprakash is more authentic.

If it's foggy, I crave Suzu's ramen

When the fog rolls into San Francisco, one thought inevitably pops into my mind:  soup noodles (or is it noodle soups?).  Either way, my home town rivals Singapore as the gastronomic capital for these and other Asian comfort foods.  The next decision, then, is Vietnamese, Chinese, Burmese, Thai or Japanese.  Today, I felt in a Japanese mood, so there was still one more choice to make:  udon, soba or ramen.  The winner was ramen, so my wife and I headed to one of our new favorites and definite short list member, Suzu (no website, tel. 415-346-5083, location 1825 Post St. at Webster, in the Japan Center downstairs from the Kinokuniya bookstore).

Although, unlike most of the foods I will write about, I should first give a caveat that I have unfortunately never had authentic ramen in Japan.  So my platonic ideal of what ramen should be is, alas, based mostly on one of the great all-time foodie movies, Tampopo.  With that disclosure out of the way, I can say that Suzu's version never fails to satisfy.  The noodles, freshly made off-site daily, have the al dente chewiness that I like.  But really, for me, when it comes to noodle soups, it's all about the broth and I adore Suzu's broth.  Perhaps it's because I love pork, and this broth can best be described as being porky.  An added attraction for pork lovers are the two tender slices of braised Berkshire pork shoulder or leg that float atop the ramen.  I could devour an entire plate of these heaven-sent slices of pork.  For starters, I can recommend the croquettes and the much better than average edamame.