Challah's Secret Ingredient

The star of New Year's Eve dinner turned out to be a huge loaf of challah that my cousin Monica and I baked together. It turns out the best bread machine is an eight year old with excessive amounts of energy. She helped pour flour as I was making the dough so I could keep my hands in the dough at all times, and then helped me knead the dough for much longer than I normally would have done. I credit her with the success because I think the longer kneading really helped develop the interior of the bread so that it was springy and delicate.

It's fun baking with kids because they're so curious. She was amazed that a ball of dough smaller than her head could turn into something the size of a soccer ball overnight (risen in the fridge), and then into a braided edible loaf of bread almost too big for her to hold. Since she helped so much, she got to have the first bite out of the oven. That's why the right edge of the challah wasn't photographed.

I used a recipe from The New Joy of Cooking posted on recipelink.com. It comes with clear instructions for braiding a four-strand loaf. There's a diagram, but being the kind of person I am I found the written instructions much more easy to follow. The bread was much better than bread machine challah I've made in the past, and tasted eggy and buttery despite not using much of either. Everyone was shocked when I told them it was Monica's doing, not something I'd purchased in SF and brought to LA.

Happy 21st to My Darling Sister

Well, my parents are officially down to one whild under the age of 21. To celebrate, a whole mess of food was made and consumed. Additionally, there was plenty of champagne and sangria.


Up first was a winter squash mash: I sauteed onions and sage in butter, then added mashed roasted butternut squash and parmesan cheese. It's basically Deborah Madison's winter squash galette filling, but I love it and wanted to share it with everyone. It was a hit.

Kale soup, roughly styled after a Portuguese caldo verde. Kale, spinach, and onions are simmered in chicken stock for several hours until very soft. Sauteed chopped sausages are added later so they retain flavor. Cornstarch mixed with cold water is stirred in at the end to make the soup gooey. I grated some carrots on top, but it didn't do much for color. You live, you learn.

A last minute kitchen emergency rendered us gnocchi-less. I'd planned to hand make some potato pasta, but the potatoes were in the oven for two whole hours and refused to cook through. So instead, I tossed some boiled linguini with sage brown butter and Italian parsley. Colorful, filling, fragrant, and a last minute life saver. Thank goodness for dried pasta. Note how my cooking looks extra beautiful on my mom's pretty plates. There is something to be said for presentation.

Sushi Heaven

A trip to Los Angeles isn't complete without a visit to our favorite secret sushi bar. Do feel free to be jealous. They started us each with a cucumber and octopus salad before taking our orders. Our first dish was a sashimi salad: assorted fish tossed in ponzu, masago, and green onions. Everything is sitting on a bed of green and purple seaweed as well as the usual shredded daikon. I love the seaweed here; it's so refreshing to have three different vegetables to eat with the meal.

Sashimi plate: salmon, yellowtail, tuna o-toro, and Spanish mackerel. We ordered the large sashimi plate and were presented with two identical plates of what's pictured above.

Ankimo: fish liver in ponzu with masago and green onions. This is often described as the foie gras of the sea. It looks a little like tofu, and has a silky pate-like texture.

Giant clam nigiri: crunchy, sweet, with barely a hint of saltwater. I love this stuff a lot, and no one else has ever matched the quality here.

Live scallops, killed to order and served between small slices of lemon. This wasn't my favorite dish of the evening, but one must not pass up the chance to eat seafood this fresh. After this we took a photo break and enjoyed a few extra pieces of yellowtail, o-toro, and uni nigiri. Then it was time to take a break and decide how to wind down the meal.

I usually finish a sushi bar meal with a handroll just to make sure I'm full. I also like the feeling of ending the meal with something that's cooked all the way through. My handroll was a bit small. Everyone else in our party got huge mountain-like rolls brimming with meat and vegetables. Totally unfair. Oh well, this one was big enough, even though I regret getting salmon skin instead of softshell crab. Besides, I thought we were finished, but we weren't.

I have yet to have grasshoppers served to me at any other restaurant, Japanese or otherwise. These taste like teriyaki or beef jerky, depending on who you ask. Crispy shell, sweet interior. All the people I know who've been brave enough to try it like it (some more than others).

We asked for a grilled fish and were presented with something we'd never seen before: an arabesque greenling. Near as we can tell, it's sorf of like a very small lingcod. But not really. As full as I was, I enjoyed this because I like fish with firm white meat.

The meal ended with complimentary fish soup: daikon, carrots, green onions, and a few chunks of whatever fish ends up in your particular bowl. I got salmon; others had different white fish.

Coco500, a Californian Delight

Sometimes a second trip to a restaurant disappoints, but Coco500 remains in my mind a delightful lunch spot. Having now tried most of the items on the lunch menu, I may have to return to sample the dinner fare. Coco500 says it serves California French fare, but to my palate it seems more like they do a California twist on various world cuisines: Japanese, Latin, French, and more. We had three appetizers, three entrees, a salad, and a dessert. That was plenty of food for four people. We basically lined up the food and ate family style, which is very easy to do at Coco500. The staff brought out all the appetizers together, and all the entrees along with the salad.

Started with one of the restaurant's more popular small plates: fried green beans. We couldn't figure out what was in the sauce, but the batter on these were hot, crispy, and not at all greasy. The beans themselves were cooked through but still had a little crunch in them. It's really hard for me as a home cook to get the squeakiness out of green beans, but these were perfect.

Duck liver terrine. This is a dish that's wowed first time pate eaters two times in a row now. The pate here isn't the extremely smooth kind, but it has a nice duck flavor and doesn't taste very liver-y. The pickled onions and carrots, pickles, and mustard on the side were a nice complement.

Coco mole "tacos," another thing I've heard a lot about. I'd hoped to try the beef cheeks, but they weren't on the lunch menu. Our waitress said the "tacos" would be the closest approximation of how the tender beef cheeks are cooked. The mole on this was wonderfully dark, dense, and full of spices. Or maybe I've just been starved for good mole.

I don't know if it was a service lapse or just their habit, but bread came out after appetizers. I didn't really mind; I was glad I didn't fill up on these little nuggets of dough. They were fine, but the rest of the food was much better.

Duck confit here was very different from more traditional French versions I've had. It was baked until crispy, and served dry with a few tropical accoutrements. Grilled mangos and toasted macadamia nuts were served along with a frisee to round out the meal.

The butter sage ravioli was my least favorite dish of the day. The sage flavor was not very prominent, and the ravioli was a bit heavy on the dough and light on the filling. I like the idea of ravioli, but I think I'm slowly cluing in to the fact that it's not a dish I generally love.

Coco burger: a very nice burger with house made potato chips. The chips are not as thin and melt in your mouth as Canteen's, but definitely good. The burger would be a great lunch if you didn't want to spend too much and were very hungry, but it wouldn't be indicative of the style of cooking for which Coco500 is known.

The little gems salad was great, as was the butter lettuce salad I had earlier this year. Crispy apples, juicy grapes, and slivers of poached chicken with romaine lettuce, blue cheese, and walnuts. A light vinaigrette was all that was needed to bring out the fresh flavors of the great ingredients.

We were plenty full, but had to try Loretta Keller's famous vacherin. Puddles of creme anglaise and dark El Rey chocolate floated on the plate. The base of the dessert is a little cup of baked meringue, which holds a giant scoop of coffee ice cream. More dark chocolate sauce is drizzled on top, and a few handfuls of slivered Spanish almonds are thrown in for good measure. I wavered a little between this relatively heavy dessert and a light-sounding mango panna cotta, but I'm so glad i decided to go with a classic.

I might change my mind if something on the menu really strikes a chord with me, but overall I think sticking to small plates and salads is the best game plan for me at Coco500. Those are the dishes that I thought really stood out, and the ones I ate the most of. The entrees are lovely, but if I'm going to eat Californian cuisine I want my cute little small plates and amazing salads.

Coco500 website

Oliveto Tastebud Overload

After months of reading about the wonders of Oliveto, I giddy by the time I was sitting upstairs at a windowside table with the Winter Menu placed before me. Our server was very knowledgeable, friendly, and happy to explain the dozen or so esoteric Italian terms which were brand new to me (gobetti? sugo?).

After we had a good idea of what we wanted, I ran our choices by the server to see if we were getting a good sense of the kitchen's specialties. Basically, I wanted to try some handmade pastas and something from the wood oven. The waitress added that we should try the homemade salumi tasting, and we were on our way.




Salumi tasting for two ($16.00): fino, crespone, finochchiana, soppressata, coppa di testa, and Milano. Everyone's favorite was the coppa di testa, which was a very soft salami with a sprinkling of what tasted like crunch pigs' ears. It's the second from the left. I wish I could have a huge sandwich filled with just that.

Gnocchi with cured steelhead roe and bottarga di muggine with scallions ($15.50): I cheated; we didn't actually eat this. A server brought it by mistake and we photographed it along with the rest of our meal before we realized it didn't belong. I kind of regret not ordering it; those little round eggs look amazing.

Charcoal-grilled Watson Farm lamb chops ($30.00): served with brussel sprouts. Simply amazing. We got two Saratoga chops and a loin chop. Everything was perfectly tender, with a touch of smokey charcoal flavor. The bits of meat along the bone were especially flavorful. This was one item that we saw at least five other tables order. No one seemed disappointed.

Trompetti with Monterey Bay squid braised in white wine ($14.00): trompetti is this funny shaped pasta. It's almost like smaller, thinner pieces of lasagna curled on itself. It's great for catching the light sauce it was cooked in. The squid was lightly fragrant (not too sea-stinky), tender, and the white wine was very muted.


Pici with lamb sugo and pecorino cheese ($14.50): pici is hand-rolled pasta. I really liked the toothsome texture and irregular thickness. Sugo, from what the waitress described, is a condensed sauce made from broth and other yumminess. It's very lightly applied because it has a very strong flavor. This isn't what people usually think of when "Italian pasta" comes to mind, but the lightness of the sauce really lets the unique pasta shine.

Our wonderful waitress also brought out a side of fresh-milled polenta ($3.75). She said that since we mentioned we wanted to get a broad idea of what Oliveto was all about, she couldn't let us leave without having tried the made-on-premises polenta. I'm so glad she didn't. The huge mound of creamy polenta looked like a plate of grits, but was ten times creamier and butterier than any grits I've ever had. I was full after a few bites, but had to keep eating because the corn flavor was so incredible. I've had horrible restaurant polenta and mediocre homemade, but Oliveto's version has inspired me to do better. It has an incredible mouthfeel. I would go back just to eat a bowl of polenta. And coppa di testa.

We were too full to order dessert, but I saw some persimmon pudding on the way out that made me regret that decision. Another item I wish we'd ordered was some wine to accompany the meal, or perhaps one of their signature cocktails. Next time, next time.

Oliveto is so good, I might just be willing to pay the $6 premium to BART both ways to eat there from time to time.


Oliveto Inc
(510) 547-5356
5655 College Ave
Oakland, CA 94618
(walking distance from the Rockridge BART)

review and link to menu: be aware that Oliveto's menu changes daily, and that they usually rotate a few dishes out each day and add new things.

Houston's Post Sonoma

Houston's is quickly becoming our post-Sonoma tradition. Big hearty portions of meat and starch, reasonable prices, lively atmosphere, and no corkage. The perfect place to go when you're already a little tipsy. Plus, we all know how I feel about ribs.

Two of us got ribs and two got prime rib. The ribs were the same as last time: fork-tender, a little charred, and fairly dry compared to your run of the mill West coast variety of rib. Even though I always ask for a small dish of barbeque sauce on the side, I appreciate that these ribs are lightly coated with sauce, salt, and pepper instead of drowning in sweet goop.

Standout sides were the baked potatoes and cole slaw. Shoestring fries were good but didn't stay hot, mashed potatoes were a bit gummy, and the cous cous was dry and had too many raisins in it.

The prime rib was a winner. We were a bit wary since we were going in comparing it to HOPR's prime rib. Houston's prime rib might not be quite as good (memory can make a meal seem especially delicious when it was merely okay), but it was cheaper and definitely good. I got to chew on one of the bones, and the fat clinging to it was bursting with charred meaty flavors. In the future I'm going to be hard pressed to pick between the ribs and the prime rib.



We washed all this food down with a Benziger Estate Farm Cabernet Sauvignon (2002). It was a good choice for all our heavy meats; big, red, with tannins that stood up to the food.

South Sea Seafood Christmas Feast

Still stuffed from a huge lunch and an afternoon of hiding indoors avoiding rain, we set out for a late dinner at South Sea Seafood Village prepared to split a Peking duck four ways. On the car ride there, I mentioned offhand that maybe we should have called to make sure they had Peking ducks left. Nah, everyone else insisted, there was no way they'd run out of a signature dish.

Sure enough, we got to the restaurant in time to see the last Peking duck being sliced for the table next to us. When we tried to order one from our waitress, another waitress scuttled by and muttered "we're out of the duck; you should have come earlier." So we were relegated to sitting there, duckless, while every table in our periphery chowed down on sandwiches of fluffy dough filled with crispy skin. They didn't even share! Christmas? Bah humbug.

But it's okay. We had a great meal anyway. We started with the sampler appetizer platter. Perfectly crunchy jellyfish, two kinds of marinated meats, tiny octopi, and marinated seaweed. The Cantonese seafood restaurant cold appetizer platter is a ubiqiutous dish, but the quality at South Sea doesn't fail to impress.

Soup with crab meat and fish maw; one of my favorites. It's slightly gooey (from starch) and has egg flowers as well. Very nice with a spoonful of red vinegar.

Our steamed fish for the night was a black bass, steamed and served simply with a soy sauce and oil. Business was so good tonight all they had left in the tank were a few crabs, Maine lobsters, one gigantic Australian lobster, bass, and catfish. There were at least three completely empty tanks.

Salt and pepper crab; good, but not as good as their ginger garlic crab (with gooey rice wine sauce). Still, we weren't going to let our guests leave San Francisco without eating a whole Dungeness. Our original plan was to buy some crabs and steam them at home. We went to three markets today, only to see empty tanks that used to be filled with $5.99/lb. crabs. Seeing that the restaurant was only charging $10/lb. (and actually had good-sized crabs), we jumped on it.

All in all, a very merry Christmas dinner.

Mezes: a Mess of Food (and a quick plug for A16 and Steps of Rome)

We stopped in at A16 to show our guests the wine bar and burrata mozarella. All were declared wonderful. People expect to ooh and aah over wine, but cheese like this is really something special. It's stringier than most cheese, but the flavor of the fresh cream and olive oil only develops as you slowly chew it. Even as a pre-dinner snack, this burrata is a beautiful thing.

Ever so slightly tipsy (or maybe that was just me, the lightweight), we headed a few doors down to Mezes. I don't care if it doesn't get mentioned much--I think Mezes is one of the better mid-range values in town. Our bill for ten dishes and two glasses of wine was $95; that was enough for four people. Granted, we didn't go in starving. But we did leave a little to full for comfort.

Pikila platter to start, of course. Mezes has the most tender pita bread around. Hummus, baba ganoush, and tzatziki were all standard good far. I love that Mezes doesn't douse its dolma in lemon juice. It's one of the few versions I find edible.

Deep fried potato cakes with yogurt sauce. Not terribly exciting, but well executed and very good when hot.

White bean salad. We figured we needed to eat some vegetables. Tangy tomatoes and some of the biggest white beans I've ever seen. Most people find this dish surprisingly good because it looks so boring; tonight's guests were no different.

Winner, tonight and every night. The grilled prawns at Mezes are what really keep us coming back. They find these huge tiger prawns and cook them in this out of the world garlic seafood sauce. I think maybe they boil the prawns' heads until all the flavor has been leeched into the sauce. There's no way to describe this incredible creamy, tomato-y, garlicky piece of heaven. This is the kind of sauce you wipe up with every piece of bread in sight, then lick off the plate.

Grilled octopus. Usually this is quite good, but tonight it was a bit off. The smokiness was still there, but the tenderness was not.

After this dish, I lapsed in my duties as table photographer. I blame it on the two glasses of Greek wine. We had deep fried smelt and Greek meatballs. Both were good, but I for one was a little too full at that point to enjoy them fully.

Since we ate an early dinner, we got off the bus in North Beach and wandered around a bit. Bought some candy at Cioccolata, headed down Columbus, and had a snack at Steps of Rome. These are profiteroles filled with fresh whipped cream and rolled in chocolate mousse. The chocolate mousse is light in color, but had a rich dark chocolate flavor and not too much sugar. The drink, labeled "jacuzzi" on the menu, really was almost big enough to soak your feet in. The coffee they use here is purposely roasted until it has a slightly burnt flavor, but it's not offensive the way Starbuck's coffee is. It's touristy, but Steps of Rome does put out some really tasty desserts as long as you stay away from the frozen packaged desserts they buy. As an after dinner spot, it's hard to beat it if you want both dessert and coffee. So many places do one but butcher the other.

Mezes

(415) 409-7111

(415) 409-7114

2373 Chestnut Street

San Francisco, CA 94123

Fresca On Fillmore Does It Again

I haven't had a bad meal here yet, and it's been four or five times. It's quickly becoming my favorite place to take people for lunch, because you can get stellar food and fill up for under $10 per person. Granted, we'd had a big breakfast and snacked throughout the early afternoon, but as a three o'clock snack the three of us shared two plates and were stuffed to the gills until dinner.

Ceviche 5 Elementos. I'm guessing the five ingredients are the raw halibut, boiled hominy, toasted hominy, yam, and purple onion. All of that is marinated in lime juice and chili powder, and served with some green onion atop a butter lettuce leaf. Extremely tangy, a little spicy, and very refreshing.


Possibly the best fried calamari I've ever had. The calamari here uses large white slabs of squid instead of the tiny rings you see at most places. The batter is thin and crunch, and the onions and tomatoes are flavorful but dry enough that they didn't turn the dish into a soggy mess. The thousand island-ish sauce is less exciting, but still a good accompaniment.

None of us were hungry when we walked in, but we were in the area and my cousin and sister had never had Peruvian food before. Both of them thoroughly enjoyed the meal. My cousin, fairly new to the U.S. and unused to non-Asian cuisines, said he wasn't quite sure what he had expected but that the meal vastly exceeded expectations. We all agreed that the quality of the seafood was extremely high, and portions were huge for the price ($8-10). We also had a glass of sangria, which was very refreshing and fruity but with still a little zip to it.

Fresca Restaurant
2114 Fillmore Street
San Francisco, CA 94115
(415) 447-2668

Mama's Wakes Us Up Good and Early

Thank goodness we got to Mama's at 7:50 Christmas Eve morning. We were practically the last table to get in for the first round of seatings, and there were at least five people lined up outside by the time we'd left. Those poor folks probably had to wait another half hour to forty five minutes for others to finish.

Mama's serves familiar comfort food, but the crab benedict will always have a special place in my heart. I don't often shell out $11 for breakfast, but two perfectly poached eggs with slightly oozy middles topped with handfuls of Dungeness crab perched on toasted English muffins is a worthy treat. If they had a half order option, I'd probably show up a lot more often. Two of these, with rich hollandaise and potatoes, is a bit much.

Three of us shared two plates of food and were plenty full by the end of breakfast. So much for trying to save room to eat more later. Three slices of French toast with a mix of berries was a nice contrast to the crab benedict. Somehow, no matter the season, Mama's always manages to find fresh, sweet berries to top its French toast and pancakes. Warm maple syrup and powdered sugar made this a festive dish.

Consensus: worth waking up at 7:00 a.m. (once in awhile).

Mama's on Washington Square
(415) 362-6421
1701 Stockton Street
San Francisco, CA 94133

Pesce Wins Us Over, Mind, Stomach, and Soul

I don't say this often because it doesn't happen often, but Pesce is a good value for fantastic food. We left stuffed to the gills having spent under $35 a head. Granted, we didn't have any alcohol with this meal, but $35 in San Francisco usually means you're either merely un-hungry or have had mediocre food. Pesce was pronounced uniformly delicious, and better knowledge of the menu could have brought the price of dinner down even further. It's definitely worth recommending to people, as well as a return visit.

The smoked fish trio was a nice start, and the only cold dish we ordered. Two of us preferred the salmon, which was well marbled, thinkly sliced, and quite oily (in the good way). The other two liked the sturgeon, and even the two who liked salmon better agreed it was much more moist and flavorful than most smoked sturgeon. No one really cared for the trout, unfortunately. The horseradish cream had a nice texture, but could have used a spicier kick in order to stand up to the strong fish. Instead, it was almost like whipped cream. The capers, onions, and iceberg lettuce were very fresh, crisp, sweet, and simple.

The octopus salad with potatoes came highly recommened by Chowhound. I thought the flavors were nice, but that the octopus could have been more tender.

The swordfish rolls, for me, were the most boring dish of the evening. It was nice, but was a bit stingily portioned and not as delicious as everything else tonight. It was basically swordfish rolled around pine nuts and capers, with some oregano. I am just not a big fan of oregano in general.

Fortunately, the most disappointing dish of the evening was followed by my favorite dish of the evening: squid ink risotto. Wow. Perfectly cooked rice, tender with a slight bite, blackened by squid ink. The rice was buttery and creamy. The squid, however, really made the dish. They had an intense smokey flavor, were much more tender than the octopus had been, and had been stuffed with their own heads. So in one bite, you got the squid's body as well as its tentacles.

Drunken tuna cooked in red wine won the most unusual dish of the evening. We were aiming for a dinner made up entirely of seafood, but if I'd been blindfolded I would have declared this beef stew with a tomato wine sauce. It tasted like Chinese oxtail soup. Very good, and the grlled polenta was moist. I hate dry polenta.

Cioppino, the San Francisco treat. The soup was the best part of this version. It's obviously made with some great seafood stock, and very rich in flavor without being overpowered by tartness from tomatoes. There were clams, mussels, shrimp, fish, crab, and a piece of polenta at the bottom of the bowl, but the beautiful broth was the star.

By this time, I was so full I regretted having ordered our last dish, a whole snapper with a side of scalloped potatoes. But after the fish came, I was glad we did it. Not only was the fish beautifully baked with onions, tomatoes, capers, and kalamata olives, but it came with a dinner show! After bringing the fish to the table, our waitress split it open down the middle, picked out the tail and spine, expertly removed the side bones, took out the herbs that'd been stuffed inside, and put the fish together again! It's really hard to see the fish in this photo because of all the vegetables around it, but it really did look like a whole fish after she was done. She even left us the head, after first asking if that was our preference (of course it was!). It was a beautiful thing, and we oohed and aahed appreciatively. Her tip went up 5% just for that alone, even if she had already been charming and friendly all night long.

The fish comes with your choice of sides. The scalloped potatoes we got were intensely buttery and cheesy. They would have been great earlier in the meal, but it was really hard to finish it toward the end of the meal. Still, we tried. They were just that good. But next time, maybe some asparagus would be wiser.

We couldn't quit: we got a tiramisu to share. Look, they stencil fishies into it! The version of Pesce stands out for several reasons: the ladyfingers are soaked longer, the mascarpone is softer, the layer of cocoa powder is heavy, and the overall dessert is not cloyingly sweet or overpoweringly alcoholic. We liked it a lot.

Pesce has several menus: they hand you a cecchetti menu, which includes a few dozen choices of hot and cold small plates ($5-15). They have a raw bar menu with oysters and clams, which we skipped because we're going to Hog Island Oyster Company tomorrow. The entree menu has daily specials, which are $15-25. Finally, there's both a wine menu and a cocktail menu. Everything looked tempting, but we did exercise some degree of self control. Our two entrees tonight were the cioppino and snapper. As we were eating dessert, a plate of grilled prawns piled around a mountain of creamed fetta floated by to another table. Next time, next time! I also have to try their signature Venetian dessert drink, a mix of prosecco and lemon sorbet (I think).

Overall, the four of us agreed that the risotto and snapper were the best dishes of the night. They were also both a great value. Pesce's dishes all taste different from each other, but complement each other in a way that really makes a meal come together and has you looking forward to each dish. Aside from me feeling that things were a bit salty (but I always think that), it was perfect.

Pesce LLC
(415) 928-8025
2227 Polk Street (at Vallejo)
San Francisco, CA 94109
Citysearch link