Slow Recovery Toward Food Greatness

Phew, my cooking skills have not abandoned me. Dinner tonight turned out reasonably well considering the dearth of supplies in my fridge.


So yes, we embark on yet another "What Can Pei Cook With What's in Her Fridge?" adventure.

• olive oil
• 1 large carrot, diced (or three tiny ones like I had)
• 2 leeks, white parts only, sliced
• about a handful of onion leftover from something else, chopped
• 1 can tuna, drained
• cooked egg noodles (or whateve ryou like)
• salt
• pepper

Sautee all the vegetables together until cooked through and brown around the edges. Add the tuna and stir until heated through. Add cooked pasta, a sprinkle of salt, and tons of pepper. Voila! Exactly the kind of quick, comforting food I need to coax me out of my cooking slump.

Lesson? Always keep dried pasta and a few canned goods in the cabinet. They almost always taste good mixed together.

And that beauty to the right? My new Global chef's knife, friend to the pros. This is one of the most beautiful things in my kitchen, rivaled only by my stand mixer and Le Creuset dutch oven. Slowly but surely, I'm building a kitchen collection that will be the envy of all home cooks (tenting fingers and laughing maniacally). For a review of top of the line chef's knives, click here.

How do I like it? I love it. Paper thin slices of carrots are now no big deal whatsoever, and chopping an onion is less painful because fewer onion cells are destroyed by cutting (meaning less crying). Global is Japanese made of harder steel than typical German knives, so it should also keep its edge better during cooking. Meat, frozen or fresh, is also easy to cut into pieces with the Global. Overall, a great investment in that it saves time and cut prettier food.

Finally, a shoutout to reader Aaron for his comment to the last post, because it sure gave me a sorely needed laugh. It's nice to know I'm not alone. I'll remember to be careful with the French press tomorrow.

Bad Food Blues

Tonight I painted my nails.

Those of you who enjoy seeing my food photos should be screaming in agony right about now. Those of you who have lives have probably already clicked away from this page.

And for those of you who are clueless, let me offer a translation: painted nails=moratorium on anything but the simplest cooking. This means no kneading, fine chopping, rubbing, pressing, or any other action that might result in chipped paint horrors. As someone who's always pawning off my food on others, I can't afford to have someone find chipped paint in my cooking. Hence, I never grow out or paint my nails.

This week, I'm giving myself a break because the world is screaming "DON'T COOK!" at me. A few notable examples: a bottle of kombucha built up so much carbon dioxide the glass exploded, I tried making a simple fish and vegetable pasta and it was more shudder worthy than shutter worthy, and I've put off making a lemon tart for five days because I can't seem to get my act together and collect all the ingredients (which include exotics such as lemon, sugar, butter, and cream. I lost about a pound of sugar in aforementioned kombucha disaster). The one thing that has turned out well this week has been a sweet potato, scrubbed clean and baked in aluminum foil. I'm going to stick with cooking at that level for a few days. I even cancelled my produce box for this week, and plan to use the savings to eat for $5 a day in the Tenderloin.

All this whining brings me to my question: I know most cooks have slumps, but do others have weird cooking quirks? I know before a prolonged cooking project I have to scrub down my nails and tie up every last strand of hair. It's a ritual that signifies I'm getting down to business and not just messin' round.

Four Seasons and Lahore Karahi

Today was a ton of fun--hence, the goofy glass.

To make a long story short, I ended up at The Four Seasons for drinks with Lisa and Cathy. We started with a Hanzell chardonnay (each of them) and a Gruner Veltliner from Austria (me).

I tell ya, The Four Seasons is one classy joint. The bar is gorgeous in a civilized, warm, formal, old world way. It has modern touches like amazing abstract art and simple furniture that keeps it from being overly opulent, but it's swank. It's somewhere you'd be comfortable taking your old white mustached grandfather (if you have one), but would also be a great choice for meeting your first date before dinner. Every bar customer gets a tray of kalamata olives and wasabi peanuts. The kalamata olives were appropriately low in sourness, and the wasabi peanuts were simply the best I've had--ever.

After our wines, we started sharing cocktails. The one above was a lemongrass cocktail. Good, but things only got better (and, as usual, my photography got better as the evening progressed):

A Strawberry Field: Absolut Vodka infused with fresh and dried strawberries, strawberry puree, and rose champagne. Delightful, especially because we got strawberries and a glass of whipped cream on the side. But no, not done. Below is our favorite drink of the evening:

I can't even remember what this was called. Anyone? All I know is it had grapes and Inniskillin ice wine and was absolutely phenomenal. Subtle grape flavor, just enough sweetness. Perfect, especially with a small plate of very sweet partially frozen grapes. Our only (very small) disappointment of the evening was not getting a drink in an adorable pink cup with different sized polka dots on it. The glasses here are all hand blown by a local artist. Unfortunately, someone else decided what drink he wanted before we did and we suffered by being denied the pleasure of drinking out of as many different glasses as possible. Still, we had a great time eating wasasbi peanuts and olives for four hours. The bartenders were sweeties once they loosened up a bit. A few funky things happened around us, but I'm going to choose to ignore them in favor of remembering tonight in a perfect light.

Cathy and I headed to Lahore Karahi afterwards. Why? Because halfway home, we got hungry. This should not surprise anyone. We headed to Lahore Karahi, which I've been wanting to try ever since I saw it posted on bunrab.com.

A+ for service. Our waiter, Malek, was a dream come true. He was soooo nice, friendly, warm, and funny. He was absolutely thrilled that two little Asian girls came into his restaurant late at night, knew that the tandoori fish was their most famous item, and wanted to know what he would suggest as his second favorite dish. He suggested the prawn tikka masala, and was visibly giddy when we said we wanted the dish to be "as spicy as you'd eat it."

As if his friendliness weren't enough, Malek brought out a plate of deep fried potatoes, compliments of the chef. As soon as that plate of potato perfection hit the table, he won us over hearts and souls. This was perhaps my favorite thing of the evening. Perfectly fried, crispy, thin skin with warm, soft potato filling. The potatoes were subtely spiced, with a bit of a kick but mostly just mellow homey goodness.

The prawns were definitely the opposite of mellow. Drenched in a creamy, rich, spicy tikka masala sauce, the dish included several huge prawns. It was great with the rice.

Tandoori fish is what the good folks at bunrab.com rave about at Lahore Karahi. While this sea bass was nice, I didn't enjoy as much as the prawns or potatoes. It was smokey and moist, I just don't like the texture of seabass that's been grilled. I much prefer a steamed sea bass. But I could see why people love this; it's probably the best tandoori fish I've ever had. And since I recall the bunrab.com folks saying that fish tandoori wasn't always on the menu, and it was printed on the regular menu tonight, I assume it's so popular that they've made it a point to always have it.

A day of nothing but great company, food, service, at both the fanciest and diviest places in SF. Who could ask for anything more? This sign we saw was pure bonus:

Priceless Reader Response

I have to post this, because Kenigma is hilarious. He says I owe him a new keyboard (drool damage) and a monitor (as quoted from AIM)...

Kenigma81 (9:57:15 PM): because i get a habit of hurling objects at the screen when i see the food you're having

Fried Chicken Feast

The secrets to fried chicken success are now mine. All mine! Fried chicken and red wine--I've been craving this for days!

Thanks, of course, goes to my friend from the south--Claire the Southern Queen. Even if this and Luzianne black tea were all she ever introduced into my life, I'd already be forever grateful . As a bonus, she's also wonderful in many other ways.

Fulton Valley Farms also gets a shout out today. Their chicken really is phenomenal. You can taste how fresh and sweet the meat is, with a firmness that your run-of-the-mill chicken (Safeway, I'm looking at YOU) lacks. Usually the thigh of a fried chicken is my favorite, but Fulton's chicken was so juicy the thigh was almost too dark; next time I'll get a breast for sure. The chicken had such a good texture that I was able to eat a lot of cartilage that's inedible on most chicken: most of the wing tip, the knobs off each end of the drumstick--I crunched through it all and gobbled it down.

You'll have to discover your own path to perfect fried chicken. Even I didn't follow Claire's instructions perfectly. Here's an outline of what I did; do with it what you will.

THE NIGHT BEFORE:

Cut up chicken into fryable pieces. I cut a whole leg into thigh and drumstick sections, and also purchased a wing.

Soak the chicken pieces in buttermilk. I didn't want to go buy more buttermilk, so I got creative. I mixed left over Mexican crema, whole milk, and about a tablespoon of vinegar until it was roughly the consistency of storebought buttermilk. Before you condemn me in your head, remember that it's all just soured milk anyway. Place the chicken and buttermilk in a pan, cover, and let sit in the fridge overnight.

Get a paper bag. I used a small one because I was only going to make three pieces. For more, use two layers of big grocery store paper bags. Mix a cup or two of all purpose flour with salt and pepper. I also added a healthy dose of cayenne pepper, celery salt, and about two heaping tablespoons of cornstarch. I'm not sure if the cornstarch was a mistake, but I did it because as a Chinese person it's engrained in me that all deep fried foods should be coated in cornstarch.

Before you leave for work or school or wherever it is you go all day, flip the chicken over so that the other side can soak too. The chicken should be fine for up to 48 hours if you bought it fresh. I wouldn't keep it that long if it was frozen and defrosted.

THE NIGHT OF THE CHICKEN FEST

Take your chicken out of the fridge at least an hour before cooking. It needs to come up closer to room temperature. That way you decrease the chances of getting burnt skin with raw interior. Heat up a cast iron skillet with canola oil, lard, shortening, or whatever combination of the three you have lying around the kitchen. Using a candy thermometer (look below at how I rigged mine with a binder clip--fantastic idea), raise the temperature of the oil to 350 degrees over medium heat. When your oil is around 325 degrees, continue.

Have the open bag of flour ready. Pick a piece of chicken up out of the buttermilk, and let it drip until most of the excess liquid is off. I used a small brown paper bag, so I could only shake up three pieces at once. Put all three pieces in. Hold the top of the bag closed, and hang on to the bottom so the chicken doesn't come crashing through (thanks Claire! I would totally have forgotten that). I shook it a few times, then rotated the bag to ensure even coating.

Shake the excess flour off the chicken, dredge again in buttermilk, then shake in the flour again. Double coating is essential to good fried chicken. Shake off excess flour.

Gently place chicken into the oil. Unless you splashed some water into it, have wet hands, or are otherwise reckless, the oil should not splatter much. Don't drop the chicken in; you'll burn yourself and/or start a grease fire. Hold the chicken gently but firmly and let go of it only after half of it is submerged in the oil. You want a third or so of the chicken to be above oil level Contrary to popular belief, fried chicken is NOT deep fried. Water needs to evaporate off the chicken as it cooks. If you submerge the chicken, the water will have nowhere to go as it turns to steam, and it will explode. It's hard to get cast iron to heat up or cool down quickly, but you want the temperature to stay between 300 ad 350 degrees--on the high side for small pieces, low side for large pieces.

Your mileage will vary depending on the size of your chicken as well as how big your skillet is, but I cooked my chicken on the first side for 10 minutes. Turn the chicken over with the longest tongs you own when the skin's dark golden brown. If you let your oil boil at over 350 degrees, the outside will burn before the inside is cooked. After you flip it over, the second side should be done in about five minutes. Keep an eye on it, and just take it out when it's as golden as the first side. If it takes you any less than ten minutes to get the outside browned, you probably cooked at too high a heat and will have a raw interior.

Remove to a plate lined with paper towels. Salt and pepper further, if that's your fancy. i think I should have left a little more flour on the chicken to get them reall nobbly, but maybe buttermilk also holds flour better than the thin stuff I concocted. There's always room for improvement!

What struck me about the chicken this time was the skin. It was so crispy I gobbled up every piece that fell onto the plate. And unlike mega-chain fried chicken, the skin did not come off in one huge slab, so I got to enjoy crunchy deep fried skin with every bite.

Revelation of the day: fried chicken is good with merlot! I opened a half bottle of Whitehall Lane Estate Bottled 2003 Napa Valley Merlot. The wine shop guy said it was one of his favorite merlots of all time and that it tastes like most merlots that cost twice as much. It was indeed great for the price point ($13 for a split, $25 for the regular 750mL), especially after I let a glass sit out for half an hour. What was really surprising, for me, was how great it went with chicken! After the first bite of chicken, the wine tasted positively sweet. It was just the right amount of acidity to cut through the grease and fat in the chicken, but wasn't "California big red wine" enough to make me yearn for red meat.

Bake Sale!

Mom's right (look at the sign)! Especially when we flex our food muscles to help others.

Today, the employees of many service agencies throughout San Francisco banded together to rally for services for seniors and people with disabilities. We convened on City Hall steps with songs, signs, and plenty of food. Thank goodness it was sunny and warm.

Everyone was invited to donate food for a bake sale, because good old fashioned values are what we're trying to preserve. You know, values like not tossing seniors in nursing homes or writing off disabled people as worthless. While the most generous donations came from friends of our agencies, I did notice that some tourists and City Hall employees were mesmerized enough by the sweet scent of sugar to drop a few bucks in the bucket.

The rule of the day appeared to be "desserts that are decadent and homey." All the desserts were hearty and filling--things that mommy would have baked to have ready for you when you got home. I tried an amazing peach/ginger breakfast cake (which happened to be vegan), some oatmeal cookies were flying off the table, there were what looked like a million brownies, and some pies as well. Someone even brought adorable bone-shaped dog biscuits. Her friend was a defense attorney in the infamous San Francisco dog mauling case, and after that case he retired to the countryside and now makes horse biscuits as a hobby. He made dog biscuits for her dog and she was nice enough to share with everyone. Those who were watching their waistlines were happy to buy a few biscuits for their furry friends at home.

One of the great things about San Francisco is how easy it is to find others who love food as much as I do. The participants were not people who do anything even remotely related to cooking for a living (aside from the few who run meal delivery programs). And yet, at the first battle cry, these incredibly busy people all retreated into their respective kitchens and whipped out tray after tray of amazing treats. And no, not all the bakers were women. It was a non-gender-specific equal opportunity show off your skills day!

Everything was sold on a donation basis whether you could donate a nickel or $20. My cookies (ashamedly pulled from the fridge in a mad dash to make some kind of contribution), sold out within minutes. Yes, I'm bragging even though I was too tired to bake something especially for the sale. I was a little sad I didn't have time to bake more things, but the table was actually overflowing with donations of food so I'm sure they did fine.

The sale was followed by visits to the Mayor's and supervisors' offices. It's good to remind them that San Francisco is home to a myriad of people, and that we all need love and support from our city.

Madeleine Office Party

While recent activities have ensured that I'll be eating at home for quite some time, I am by no means ready to not experience deliciousness each and every day. Today, I was in charge of picking up treats for a meeting. Off to Cafe Madeleine I went in search of baked goods.

This is, hands down, the most beautiful fruit tart I have ever purchased. I'm so glad Whole Foods flaked out on me. That's right, I called yesterday to order a tart, and at 7:00 a.m. this morning they called and told me the tart would not be ready for my pick up at 8:00. This is the first time that Whole Foods has so shamelessly dropped the ball on me. They didn't even offer to comp me something different. Oh well. Good thing it occured to me that Madeleine makes tarts, because I had my heart set on something with fruit on it for an early-ish meeting.

Madeleine's fruit tart is $29, which is a few dollars more than at most bakeries. But they use at least twice as much fruit as anyone else, and an incredible assortment to boot: strawberries, pear, mango, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, apricots, and kiwis. All the fruit was very ripe, juicy, and large considering it's the middle of February. The whole tart was lovingly glazed with both a red berry jelly and a clear jelly to keep all the fruit moist and shiny. Delicious. Making myself a fruit salad of this caliber would probably cost over $10.

The only strange thing about this tart, if it can even be called strange, is that it the filling is not a custard. Instead, it was sort of a cross between your average custard tart filling and a cake: dense, moist, and flavored with a hint of almond. It was very nice, just not what I expected. The amazing fruit more than made up for any preference I might have for custard.

I got some pastries as well. The scones (cranberry and blueberry) were perfect: not overworked, not too sweet, moist, with large berries. The cruller-shaped elephant's ear thing was my favorite because it was so airy and crispy. The almond croissant was fine, but not as good as Tartine's even though I prefer a less burnt croissant than Tartine's version. I didn't try the strawberry danish or the bran muffin, but was assured that they were great.

So yet again, Madeleine came through with flying colors. There are three branches in the FiDi, but I've only been to the one below

Previous Madeleine Post

43 O'Farrell Street

San Francisco, 94108

(415) 362-1713

The Dining Room at The Ritz Carlton

**CAUTION**CAUTION**CAUTION**CAUTION**CAUTION**
DO NOT PROCEED ON AN EMPTY STOMACH

If you're in a hurry, come back when you have time to have a snack and read this post. Why? Because this just might be the marathon be all and end all of posts.

After dreaming about it for two years, we finally dined at The Ritz tonight. It was, in short, a breathtakingly amazing experience and hands down the best non-Asian meal I've had in my life.

Edit: I've thought about it and talked to a few friends about it, so I think I can synthesize the experience a bit. Our bill was $360 for two dinners, one flight of wine, and a 25% tip on the food. Breathtakingly pricey? Certainly. Was it worth it? To me, it was. I'm not divulging the pricetag to show off or shock anyone, but to accurately prepare you should you choose to go. It's also useful for comparison purposes. People pay over $100 to see mediocre singers in concert. Tickets to the Metropolitan Opera start around $200. As a lover of food, I would regret living in the same city as Ron Siegel and never trying his cooking. It's certainly not a neglible amount, but I'd eagerly give up plane tickets to Hawaii for another dinner at The Dining Room.

To someone who doesn't really know or care about food, this meal might seem like the biggest rip off ever conceived. To me, it was an evening long experience that I'll cherish, and which to me is much more memorable than any trip to the theater has ever been. Every bite, every smell, every plate that came to my table or floated by on its way to someone else, every lengthy description, and every bite was something to be savored. I think anyone with curiosity about food and a basic knowledge of cooking would be awed and impressed by a meal like this. It's not about dressing up and feeling fancy for a night--there are any number of less expensive restaurants where one could go for a better "see and be seen" experience. The Ritz's focus is on doing everything it can to make the customer live, breath, and understand The Perfect Dining Experience as Ron Siegel envisions it. It's about the wonder inspired by seeing what a chef can do when he's given every culinary resource available to man.

Saying it's like magic is cliche but accurate. It's truly something to behold, and people are 100% right when they say it's worth saving up for even if it means putting spare change in a jar for two years to save up enough pennies.

The menu included a la carte options (your choice of three courses), a tasting menu featuring salts and peppers from around the world, and a vegetarian menu. Instead of those options, we both chose the chef's nine course tasting menu, meaning we left our stomaches in the capabable hands of executive chef Ron Siegel (the first American to ever beat an Iron Chef, aka "I-Ron Chef Siegel, remember?).

At The Dining Room, when two people order the tasting menu, the chef whips out two completely different meals. Meaning, essentially, that you end up eating at least eighteen different dishes. In addition to these eighteen dishes, you also get amuse bouches, compliments of the kitchen. We got well over twenty dishes--and that's not even counting the dessert tray. But, I digress. We also got one wine pairing for our nine courses, and shared it because we knew nine wines would be more than enough to do both of us in.

After we sat down, the waiter wheeled around the champagne cart. It's basically a mountain of ice with four bottles sticking up from it, and glasses hanging below. We declined, knowing we'd have more than enough to drink later (and not knowing how much a glass would further bankrupt us). They then brought over a basket of four breads. We declined the epi loaves, I got a chapeau, and JS got the black olive loaf. The olive loaf was the clear winner, although my little chapeau was cute. Imagine a crusty Cuban style bread with a disk of dark crunchy pumpernickel perched on top of it. That's the chapeau (hat)!

Now, to the real food! They started us both with three of the same amuses:

Asparagus Soup with Sugar Cap Mushrooms: first off, let me apologize for missing a few photos in this post. I was in a dim room surrounded by well-dressed people enjoying very expensive meals. I didn't want to be the oaf with the camera. Still, as the evening wore on, I got more comfortable in my skin. Our waiter was so charming and put us at such ease that I didn't feel so stiff and formal towards the end. The result: better photos! So there's no photo of the asparagus soup, but it was an intensely flavored, bright green, creamy cold soup served in a tiny teacup. The perfect thing to get your appetite going. We each got a cup of this and savored it as a sign of great things to come.

Sashimi: yes, Ron Siegal loves Japanese food and brings a lot of Asian touches to his French cooking. I actually love this about him, because it means the food's not as heavy as it would be at a traditional French restaurant. This piece of fish was wonderful in every way, and again we each got one: served at just the right temperature, it was a mouthful of tender sashimi (suzuki?), a bright red piece of watermelon radish, and a few slivers of what appeared to be regular radish. I'm pretty sure the watermelon radish was pickled in something fishy because it had a distinctly oceany flavor to me.

Uni Panna Cotta: bizarre name, right? This was the first time I'd ever had uni whipped into a mousse. It was entrancing: the texture of dessert with the pure clean taste of a great piece of uni. The taste of uni was mellowed out with cream, as well as by the chopped pieces of prawn and dribble of vanilla oil that was added tableside. I once read a description Chowhound that said eating uni tastes like kissing a mermaid; eating this was like getting a full body massage from the Sea Princess herself. This was the last amuse, and also the last identical dish we got. From here on out, we were each served different takes on a similar main ingredient.

After the uni came our first pour of wine: Engelgarten, Bergheim, Domaine Marcel Deiss, Alsace, 1999. This signalled the beginning of the nine course meal. As it turns out, each of our nine courses complemented each other and the wine, but were sometimes very different takes on the same main ingredient. You'll see what I mean. The first wine was somewhere between a riesling and a pinot gris, with a definite lean towards the latter. It was a little too dry for me, and lacked the floral nose that I enjoy in white wine.

Cold Artichoke Puree With Golden Osetra Caviar: the appearance of the osetra made the entire meal worth it for JS. Being a seafood fanatic, he was pleased as pie to finally be able to say he's tasted some top grade caviar. The mandatory half-way-through-the-dish trade confirmed this to me too, as if his constant oohing and grinning weren't proof enough.

Hot Artichoke Puree Soup: my bowl came empty except for a bundle of raw scallop slivers, herbs, and mushrooms at the bottom. After the first waiter set it down a second waiter glided up to the table with a clear glass teapot full of the soup, explained the dish to me, and poured the piping hot soup over the raw scallops. By the time I dug my spoon in, the hot liquid had cooked the scallops to perfection. Meaning, of course, just barely.

Second course wine: Gruner Veltliner, Rotes Tor, Hirtzberger, Wachau, Austria, 2003. This was possibly my favorite wine of the evening. Very fragrant, just sweet enough, and enjoyable all by itself.

Spot Prawn With Lemon Verbena Gelee and Shiso Sauce: okay, this is a blurry photo, but I had to post it. Why? Because of that little green blob above the shrimp. That, my friends, was our first taste of fresh wasabi. After setting down our plates, a waiter came by with what looked like a paddle, a small bamboo brush, and a whole wasabi root that had been peeled on one end. He commenced grating a teaspoon of it using the paddle-shaped grater, then brushed it into a mound with the brush. Fresh wasabi is very interesting. It's got a spicy kick, but the impressive part is its aroma and aftertaste. There's a nuttiness to it that's not present in powdered or tubed wasabi. The prawn was your basic ama ebi, but paired with the lemony, grassy gelee, topped with the wasabi, and dipped in the sauce it was the perfect match for the glass of wine that came with this course. I already loved the wine, but it tasted even sweeter and more fragrant with a bite of shrimp in my mouth. Incredible. I think matches like this are the reason people eat at high end restaurants. There's no way a layperson can have the time and palate needed to figure out what exact preparation of a food is going to bring out the best in one particular bottle of wine. This goes way beyond the "fish and white wine, beef and red wine" rule.

Deep Fried Prawns Head With Two Sauces: our waiter, Laurent, mixed the sauces tableside for us. Honestly, eating here is like having dinner and a show. Not only was he a great server, he graciously chatted with us about wine and food, answering all our questions with knowledge and charm without any sense of pretense when we asked him questions he couldn't answer. One sauce was shiso salt, and the other was powdered sea salt. Both were mixed with fresh lemon juice. The sea salt was nice, but not exceptional. The shiso salt was fragrant, grassy, and an amazing accompaniment to the prawn. The sauces were intended for the raw prawn, but I ended up dipping the head in it too.

Blue Fin Tuna: Two perfect pieces of fish, topped with a slice of radish and raw fish chunks. Tasty, but not as amazing as the prawn.

Wine with the following fish course was from Peay Vinyards, Roussanne/Marsanne, Sonoma Coast, 2003. Our waiter said it was one of his favorites, but I liked the previous wine so much I couldn't concentrate on it.

Sea Bream With Coconut Sauce: a taste of Thailand came with this one, to be sure. It didn't really mesh with the rest of the menu, but I enjoyed it anyway. The fish skin was cooked to a crisp and the inside was hot and juicy. This is a pretty firm fish, and the hot creamy sauce was well seasoned though not spicy. The gimmick with this dish, however, was the mystery under the perforated plate. When he poured the sauce onto my fish, the waiter explained that I would have something special when I finished the fish:

Spot Prawn Ravioli, Leeks, and Artichoke Heart: surprise! As soon as I was done with my fish, a waiter came by and took away the plate. Below was the second part of my course, which of course had been sauced by the dribbles from the fish above it. This dish was unremarkable, though of course the prawn inside the ravioli was delicious.

Turbot With Black Truffle Mushrooms: another new food for us was black truffles. This was shaved generously on a piece of turbot. White truffles have a much more intense fragrance than black truffles. So, while this was a wonderful new thing to try, we both like the white version more. The turbot was served on baby carrots and asparagus, along with a smear of port sauce and truffle oil.

We were getting into the swing of it now. Basically, as soon as we finished our wine after one course, a new glass was brought over, wine was introduced and poured, and the next course was served as soon as we'd had time to take a sip or two of the wine by itself. Our next wine was Macon-Villages, Domaine de la Bongran, Jean Thevenet, Burgundy, 2001. A white burgundy with shellfish. I have to say, as someone who's not a huge fan of white wines, I got to try a stunning variety of great whites with this meal. Most, if not all, had beautiful smells. Onward...

Lobster Claw in Oxtail Sauce: surf and turf overdone, I say. I'm no fan of lobster claws, so I could have done without this dish. The sauce was great, but I'm sure it could have been more useful in another dish.

Lobster Tail and Golden Osetra: now we're talking! Buttery, firm, crunchy lobster tail with a dollop of caviar. So very, very nice.

The next course was our first non-seafood dish: foie gras. It was served with a sweet riesling: Riesling, Auslese, Dorscheimer Pittermannchen, Nahe, Germany, 1998. I never realized just how much foie gras needs to be paired with a sweet wine. This was not a wine that I could ever finish a whole glass of by itself, but it was just the thing to pierce through the fatty foie gras.

Seared Foie Gras: served on a piece of toast with dried huckleberries. Everything seared foie gras should be. I was most struck by the thickness of this slab of foie gras. Even though the piece was small in diameter, the fatness of it really gave the dish some extra oomph.

Foie Gras Torchon: a classic preparation with a piece of toast, quince jelly, champagne jelly, and baby bean sprouts. Well executed, and one of the few "Aha! Familiar!" dishes in the meal. Do we like JS's tie? He's giving colors a chance.That's right, real colors!

With the poultry course came our first red wine. Surprising, right? Chatteauneuf-du-Pape, Domaine la Milliere, Rhone, 1998. See what I mean? It's not always red wine with red meat, and the kitchen knows that. This wine was 95% grenache, 5% syrah. Not something we usually like, because it's a very peppery, thin wine. Still, I can see why they paired it with the birds. It's not a wine that would hold up well at all to red meat, but was good with these particular dishes which were cooked in red sauces.

Squab: crunchy baked skin, soupy sauce, lots of veggies. I'll confess that this point I was getting too full to fully analyze everything set before me. Suffice it to say that it was good, and I wanted to finish every bite despite my growing discomfort.

Chicken: fine, but nothing to dwell on. The dish was beautiful, but the chicken breast was cooked just short of being dry. I hesitate to say I could make this at home, because how could I make something look so pretty? But no, it's not something I would order at this restaurant again. The chicken Jo and I had at Campton Place was more impressive. I did enjoy the sauce, since I'm a nut for sauce. And the dish came atop what appeared to be a miniature whole head of celery. That was pretty amusing.

This photo demonstrates what people mean when they say The Dining Room is over the top. I asked for a cup of hot water to cleanse my palate, and this is what arrived: a silver teapot of hot water, two wrapped lemon halves, a mini jar of Ritz Carlton white clover honey, a warmed teacup and saucer, a silver tin of raw and white sugar lumps, and a silver tin of Equal and Nutrisweet. It was the best water service I've ever seen, anywhere. I highly recommend ordering the water at the Ritz. Still, at this point in the meal we were having a fantastic time with our waiter and the experience in general. People say The Dining Room is stuffy, but that wasn't our impression at all. It's definitely formal and oppulent, but the staff is trained to make you feel right at home. I've dined at any number of mid-priced restaurants where the waiters are overly polite and stiff. They're like robots who come, give you food, follow your orders, and take your food away at the end. Our waiter joked with us, smiled, bantered, and acted like a normal human being. He even offered (jokingly) to bring us blankets and extra pillows if we got sleepy. Fantastic idea. But there was no time for a nap, because the next wine poured was...

The wine of the evening: Lancaster Estate, Cabernet Sauvignon, Alexander Valley, 2002. So after going on a European wine tour throughout the rest of the meal, we realized that we simply are nuts for a big California red. In our defense, the reds were the only 60+ bottles of wines we were served tonight. One was going for as low as $15 on Froogle, and the bulk of the wines were right around $30. The cabernet came with the meat course.

Lamb With Red Wine Sauce: I love lamb. Tender, seared, red lamb. I don't know what to say. It was delicious. I can't go into more detail than that. And look at that perfectly circular puddle of sauce. Even the plates were fun to look at during this meal.

Beef and Black Truffles: inevitably, each course had one dish that I preferred over the other. For this course it was the beef. Not only did the shredded truffles pair well with the hearty beef and red sauce, beef went better with the wine than lamb did. The asparagus and risotto under the beef were nice, but nothing outshined the meat in this dish.

The meat course was the last savory course on the menu. By this time, we had been thoroughly defeated by the kitchen. I was so full I was ready to be carted home in a wheelbarrow. Thank goodness for this little refreshing morsel. This was tangerine sorbet with a little berry jelly. Mine was a blood orange and beet sorbet with regular orange bits. It was just two tiny spoonfuls of sorbet to get us ready for the real dessert.

But first, the wine! Moscato d'Asti, Forteto della Luja, Piedmont, Italy, 2004. A standard, slightly fizzy, very sweet dessert wine.

Passion Fruit Tower: this was a layer of cake, fruit jelly, passion fruit mousse, passion fruit sorbet, and a baked meringue. Very tart, perfect for waking up the mouth after a looong meal. Sidenote: the restaurant has over a half dozen different plates that they cycle through, but this one was my favorite. It's a smooth shiny center, and the outside is a textured rim of unpolished china. It's really simple and beautiful. Notice how big the plate is compared to JS's body. The food portions look small, but they're also sitting on 16" chargers.

Hazelnut Coffee: my dessert was a crispy hazelnut cake/cookie on a bed of whipped cream, topped with coffee ice cream. It wasn't as rich as it sounds, which was good. I liked the coffee ice cream because it had powdered coffee beans in it, but I never love hazelnut.

You think I'm done, don't you? You're wrong. There was more. The following was the coup de grace of The Dining Room, designed to make you laugh, cry, and hold your stomach in the beautiful pain that is eating the best meal of your life but being too full to continue enjoying the last course. Just when I thought it was time to waddle home, our waiter Laurent came by with a rolling cart overflowing with sweets. I should have photographed the cart. It's a two-tier serving cart. He took a beautiful tray from the bottom tier and began filling it with one treat from each bowl/plate on the cart. I thought I was going to be asked to choose a few treats that struck my fancy (like dim sum), but I got one of each! He described each as he picked it up with pretty little tongs. I later saw him pushing a cheese cart with the most interesting assortment of over a dozen different colored cheeses, but I think cheese is (wisely) only an option if you've eaten the three course selection--not the 9 course tasting menu.

I tried. I really tried. But in the end, Laurent put most of this in a little box for me to enjoy as a midnight snack. As he said "Later, when no one's looking!"

I won't even pretend to remember all the things on this plate. There were two lollipops, an almond nougat, pistachio nougat, pistachio cake, meringue, coconut macaroon, coffee marshmallow, a French financier cake, truffle, lemon jelly, chocolate layered mousse cake, lemon mousse tart, and more. The two most unique things were a berry with dried leaves (top right) that had been coated in crispy sugar. The berry popped as I bit into it and all the sweet juices burst out. The other thing I'd never seen before is a French cake that's traditionally dipped in beeswax (bottom right). It is dipped in sugar here, but has a mesmerizingly deep burnt caramel flavor and soft moist interior. I'd seek out a purveyor or recipe for this cake before for anything else on this tray. Much thanks to pastry chef Alexander Espiritu for all these treats.

Still not done. After the check, we were presented with two little boxes of candies. They're salty, soft, burnt caramel candies, one of my favorite kinds of candy. Just a little something to remind us the next day that we really had dined at one of America's finest restaurants.

In short, the meal was everything I had expected and more. It's not nearly as stuffy and uncomfortable as some people make it out to be. The food is every bit as good, and in many ways superior to, anything I could have imagined. The staff is gracious, unobtrusive, and accomodating. As this post proves, I was not made to feel uncomfortable even though I had a camera. Fortuitously, the table next to me turned around and said they usually have a camera too but had forgotten it that night. So, instead of being annoyed, they were envious and even offered to take a photo of me and JS at the end of our meal. Good food, good service, and some unexpectedly good company. Followed by a slow stroll home in the chillingly refreshing night air, it was truly a night to remember.

The Ritz Carlton San Francisco Website

Photos from a far superior photographer

Apple Oatmeal Muffins

I'm doing a great job this week of using up things in my kitchen. I discovered today that I have everything I needed to cobble together these apple oatmeal muffins. I'll post the link to the original recipe followed by my alterations. These are not too sweet, and my version is full of whole wheat and oats. They smell great in the oven, and they're cute to boot! Here they are with a pot of tea and some minneola oranges from this week's produce delivery box.

Link to Recipezaar's original recipe

My version (IMPORTANT: if you're going shopping for ingredients anyway, you might want to follow the original recipe. If you have things you want to use up, feel free to follow either recipe that fits what you have in your kitchen. This recipe was a lesson in the seldom-remembered fact that recipes are made to be tweaked):

• 1 cup steel cut oats (soak in warm water while the other ingredients are being assembled, then squeeze out water before you use. Don't worry about oversoaking. In fact, cook them if you want the muffins to be completely soft. I liked the slight hardness of these in mine, sort of like chewy bran muffins)
• 1 cup apples (I coarsely grated them this time, but I did not like the long shreds at all. Next time I'll either cube the apples and soften them a bit in the microwave so there are actually pieces in the muffins, or finely grate them so they're just there for flavor)
• 1/2 cup Mexican crema (instead of yogurt)
• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 1 large beaten egg

• 2/3 cup maple syrup (all natural, please)
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 2/3 + 1/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour (long story short, I read the recipe wrong and needed to add 1/4 more flour after I added 1 cup total to begin with. No big deal, in most breakfast breads you can substitute in whole wheat pastry flour completely without anyone noticing the difference. Much healthier for you, and tasty too. But it has to be whole wheat pastry flour, not just whole wheat)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1/3 cup raisins, soaked in rum and drained (I only put these in half)
• 1 Tablespoon cinnamon (I didn't think about this until too late, but would add it next time)
• I'm trying to figure out how I could increase the protein in these with powder or tofu
• next time I will definitely use walnuts too. I missed having nuts in these

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Sift dry ingredients together. Beat wet ingredients together, and stir in oats and apples. Fold the wet ingredients gently into the dry ingredients. Don't over mix, as this will cause gluten strands to form. The result will be dense dry muffins. You want to mix just until the liquid is absorbed completely into the flour.

Divide batter among 12 large muffin cups. I don't have large muffin cups, so I made 12 cupcakes and then added some raisins to the remainder of the batter to make 4 rum raisin cupcakes. Don't forget to fill the empty cupcake tins halfway with water to promote even baking. The raisin ones puffed more (increased moisture), but both were great.

Bake at 400 degrees until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out dry. For my little muffins this took almost exactly 20 minutes.

Edit: because great minds think alike, my friend Pam also baked apple oatmeal muffins last night. We swear, it was a coincidence. Her recipe was from a different source, and she lives on the other side of the country. Here are hers in all their glory! From what I can gather, her recipe used brown sugar and cubed apples. I like how they're puffier than mine.

If you would like to have your food photo features on chezpei.com, e-mail me at chezpei@gmail.com!

Ryoko's

Underground sushi, where have you been all these years?!

Not that far, apparently. Ryoko's serves up Japanese fare in an underground cross between a sushi bar and a discotheque. You walk down a steep flight of stairs into a dark room dominated by a grand piano. You grab a seat wherever you can, hopefully at the sushi bar in front of the chef. The staff hustles about, chattering at each other in Japanese.

I just wanted some food to go, so I sat at the bar and waited for my order. The waitress plopped down a bowl of edamame and asked if I wanted anything to drink while I waited. I just had some water, but appreciated how attentive she was to a to go customer. The sushi chef, though swamped, kept smiling at me and politely saying "Just a minute!" When I grabbed my food and stood up to leave, the staff let out a chorus of "arigato!" So friendly! I had the hamachi roll and the Jumping California. The hamachi roll was a standard roll. Not very tightly rolled, but fine fish quality. The Jumping California must be a house specialty. At least three other people ordered it while I was there. The filling was a bit heavy on mayo, but the avocado was extremely creamy and the batter was not too thick. As far as deep fried maki rolls go, this one was a winner. It's the kind of roll I like to have towards the end of a sushi meal, when my stomach hankers for something warm and filling to finish up.

Summary: it may be more about the hipster atmosphere and loud music, but the staff couldn't be nicer and the food's not bad. And from what I could see sitting at the bar, they do NOT skimp on the alcohol here!

Ryoko's
619 Taylor Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
cross street: between Post & Sutter
415.775.1028

Slanted Door and the SF Pillow Fight

For once, food wasn't the most fun thing in my day. The San Francisco Pillow Fight was friggin' high-larious. Four or five hundred grown men and women, whomping each other with pillows on Valentine's Day. It really doesn't get any funnier than that.

Edit: A great photo gallery has been posted on Flickr. Those guys really captured the insane frenzy that consumed the crowd for all of fifteen minutes. The gallery is really fun to look at, and if you know what I look like you can spot me!

Surprisingly (to me at least), the fight did not get vicious at any point. Don't get me wrong, people were hitting each other pretty hard. But it was all in good fun, and I didn't see anyone get hurt. Most of the time it was just strangers running up to you and bopping you with a pillow. I got a few good wallops in, but most of the time I was laughing too hard to do any harm. Please bear with one day of non-food photos:

And a shot of the feather-littered ground:

Okay, so you're thinking this is totally unlike me, right? Walking out into public with a pillow and smacking strangers upside the head? I tell ya, it was liberating. My partner in crime commented that I seemed a bit too conservative for this kind of mayhem. Considering what Susan said a few weeks ago about mistakening me for a prim and proper Asian Girl when she met me seven years ago, I think maybe I just come off a little quiet and conservative upon first meeting because I really don't enjoy talking to strangers. Those of you who know and love me recognize me as a loud sarcastic bitch who hates stupid people, but I guess I try to hold that side back when I first meet people. Go figure! But enough about me. Where are the edibles?

We sandwiched the pillow fight with before and after drinks at The Slanted Door. I've never eaten or drunk there, but the drinks were tasty. Unfortunately, we were too excited about the upcoming fight to photograph our before drinks (the Phantasm and Buddhadrop). Here are our after drinks (the Ginger Kaffir Limeade and Martinique). I think the bar menu here has a definite citrus bias, but everything was well blended, not too sugary, and zingy. The Martinique packed the biggest punch, and the Phantasm was the most unique. It had a hint of after dinner mint that was very ephemeral--maybe hence the "phant" prefix?

The most impressive part? They had most of the pillow feathers cleaned up by the time we left The Slanted Door. All that remained were a few snow-like drifts.

Chinese Sausage and Vietnamese Salad

After a week of pasta and relative inactivity, it was time to get back on the healthy track. I had the day off work today, so I had plenty of time to run, lift, swim, and prepare today's installment of "How Pei Used Up Stuff in Her Fridge:"

Inspired by Hung Ky, I made a cold mixed salad with nuoc cham. In my fridge I found iceberg lettuce, red onions, carrots, and cilantro. Everything got thinly sliced and placed on a plate, and was topped with a handful of crushed peanuts. I made a slightly unorthodox nuoc cham with fish sauce, sugar, and the zest and juice of a meyer lemon. I didn't have chili peppers or garlic, but the fish sauce Jo's mom got me is so good I almost don't need them.

The Chinese sausage complemented the nuoc cham flavor very well; I think Chinese Sausage is a great quick substitute for marinated grilled Vietnamese pork becaue it's also sweet and garlicky. I just defrosted a pack of them and grilled them on a cast iron skillet. I'll eat the rest over the course of the week, so stay tuned for "How to Eat Sausage Five Days in a Row."

I also made my first cup of salted lemon soda! I was at a market today and noticed a jar of Vietnamese pickled lemon on the shelf. For $1, I thought "Why not?" The clerk who rang me up was nice enough to tell me that the drink is just one lemon, a little of the pickling juice (1/8 cup), some honey (a little more than a tablespoon), and soda (fill to top of glass). Fizzy, slightly salty, not very sweet, and very refreshing!

Canteen Sans Leary

Dennis Leary wasn't cooking at Canteen today, but his staff whipped out an admirable breakfast nonetheless. Despite rumors that this places becomes a madhouse at lunch and dinner, the two times I've eaten there have been quiet and civilized. Benefits of going on weekdays, I suppose.

The eggs benedict are phenomenal. Soft, moist egg whites surrounding a gooey dark golden yolk. No anemic daisy yellow egg yolks here. The yolks were almost as orange as a tangerine, and had a richness about them that was almost as satisfying as real meat. The hollandaise sauce was a dream. Fresh, smooth, rich without being thick or gloppy, and ever so slightly tangy. Whoever invented this sauce deserves a shrine.

This dish blows the WashBag out of the water and gives Mama (of Mama's on Washington Square) a run for her money. At $10, it's also several dollars cheaper than benedict at either of those North Beach establishments. Next time, I'm going to ask for a half order with a big cup of coffee. I always forget that a lot of restaurants are willing to sell half orders of food, which are the perfect size for me and bring reasonably priced food down to the level of cheap eats.

My server today was incredibly nice (and beautiful). She chatted with me about Dick Cheny's moron-osity, I heard her giving very good activities advice to some tourists sitting behind me, she lent the phone to some New Yorkers who were stranded here because of the storm, and she let some people stay for breakfast even though they showed up five minutes after closing. We talked about food in general and some of the various dishes Leary's trying out, so it was a fun way to spend an hour. She was the perfect diner waitress because she had the ability to maintain a warm, casual, unrushed demeanor while being efficient with service. She also had the waitress's sixth sense: knowing which customers want to talk and which ones just want to read the paper. It's not a fancy restaurant, but it was the first time in a long time that I've been thoroughly impressed by a server.

The Wall Street Journal wins the Chez Pei Best Headline of the Week Award:

"

The Truffle With Turin: Eating as an Olympic Sport"

Basically, Turin is the first Olympic city in a looong time that has any kind of tradition of good eats. Mmm, wait til they get to Beijing!

Canteen

817 Sutter Street

San Francisco, CA 94109

(415) 928-8870

Edit: This is Canteen's temporary website, with correct hours and a nice photo of the interior so you can see what I mean by tiny.

5.6.06 Edit: More photos!

Mocha and chai tea: they use Jeremiah's Pick coffee, and boy is it strong! The mocha has intense dark chocolate flavor as well. It's very much a hot chocolate/mocha hybrid. The chai tea is a light, less creamy, gingery alternative. Both are delish.

Corned beef hash: tender, juicy chunks of homemade corned beef with potatoes and one of their perfectly poached eggs. This dish, unfortunately, has been rumored to be inconsistent. Sometimes it's transcendent, other times it's dry and tough. And the regular beef hash has just never been great.

Rutabaga Revelation

I roasted a plate of carrots, leeks, and rutabaga for dinner tonight. It was delicious. I love vegetables that are burnt around the edges and lightly salt and peppered. I know roast vegetables can get a little greasy at restaurants, but I never use more than a tablespoon of oil and it works very well.

I did, however, decide tonight that I'm probaby never going to eat rutabaga again. I got three of them with my produce box last week. After eating two, I can assuredly say that they are not for me. I'll be giving the third one away.

Don't get me wrong. They're delicious. I enjoy the way they taste: sort of soft and sandy like potato, with the slight flavor and texture of daikon. They smell incredible in the oven, and don't taste as heavy as potatoes. What's the problem, you ask? They make my throat itch! I don't have any food allergies of which I'm aware, but after eating rutabaga I feel like someone put dry brush down my throat. This happened both when I put raw slices of it in a salad and when I ate it cooked. It's not worth it. If rutabaga were incredibly delicious, I might be willing to put up with the itchiness. As it is, I think I can give it up for good. Too bad; it's really not a bad little root.

Here are some unroasted vegetables:

For those who've never done this, you pre-heat your oven to 400 or 450 degrees (hotter=more caramelization). Then, cut up as many vegetables as you want. Anything goes, so just use what you like to eat. You can cut them into big pieces, but I like smaller because they cook more quickly. Toss the vegetables in a bowl with some oil, salt, pepper, and herbs if you have them. Spread the vegetables out on a baking sheet and bake for at least thirty minutes. At the thirty minute mark, stir the vegetables around a little and bake for 10 more minutes or until they're as soft as you'd like.

Tea Time for Pei

There's nothing like a hot pot of tea, a tangerine, and my favorite cup to make a sunny day complete.

Today I brewed a combination of rooibos and blood orange teas and threw in the skin of the tangerine for extra flavor. It's hard to tell in this picture, but the tea is a beautiful bright brown with a tinge of red. Lovely.

The teapot is my latest kitchen find. I've never purchased anything at a thrift store before, but for $3 I could not resist. Plus, it seemed pretty clean. I think someone unloaded his/her stuff on the store, because there was an entire kitchen's worth of things from IKEA, Crate and Barrel, and Pottery Barn (where this teapot is from). Still, I did bleach and boil it when I got home. You never know.

My friend once made fun of me for using such a grandmotherly cup. She told her mom I used a strawberry cup made of English china to drink everything (even water). Her mom told her it was because I'm a lady. Tee heehehehehe. It makes me chuckle, even today.

Hung Ky Redux

In San Francisco, the only restaurants I go to again and again are the low end ones. Here's my rationale: if I'm going to pay $30+ for a meal, I want it to be special in a lot of ways. There simply aren't very many mid-to-high end restaurants that leave me craving their food so badly that I'm willing to go back and spend that much money again and again. I'm always happy to try a new place and rarely regret a decision, but 90% of the time I don't end up returning.

Cheap food, however, has a much stronger ability to stir up intense cravings in me. After yesterday's lunch, I felt myself craving bahn cuon. For those of you who don't know what bahn cuon is, here's a photo (seriousy kids, you WANT to click that link. This is rare Vietnamese comfort food that's phenomenally prepared at Hung Ky). I'll post my own thoughts when I finally get to eat and photograph it again. So anyway, with visions of bahn cuon dancing in my head I met up with a few people at Hung Ky to try it for the second day in a row. I also got to try a few more things from their menu in addition to the excellent bun cha and the tasty pho ga.

Vietnamese Chicken Salad: the most refreshing thing I've had in a long time. I didn't eat the little fried chips, but the rest of the salad was amazing. Hung Ky must serve free range chicken; the meat in all their chicken dishes is firm and sweet. This salad had sliced red and green cabbage, iceberg lettuce, cilantro, peanuts, and other green goodness. It was great by itself or with the accompanying nuoc cham.


Chicken Porridge (chao ga): comfort food find of the year (so far, at least). This porridge could have been just a smidge thicker, but I think those at our table just prefer our porridge that way. Again, amazing chicken, intense flavor in the broth, very creamy texture. This is probably as good or better than yo mama ever made it.

Tragically, the restaurant ran out of bahn cuon at 1:00 p.m. I think the three of us almost cried. Therefore, I was again unable to photograph it in all its glory. Instead, we had the bun cha again (which I forgot to photograph): delicious grilled pork and grilled pork sausage swimming in sauce. It's served with a large plate of cold vermicelli noodles, basil, cilantro, and red leaf lettuce. You can eat all the ingredients mixed together in a bowl or try to make a lettuce wrap out of it.

Addendum: here are more photos of Hung Ky Chowdown Day 1, courtesy of ed:

Bahn cuon, the star of the show! You have to get to the restaurant early to eat these suckers. So so so delicious. I can't even do it justice. Beautiful transluscent rice flour skins. Very elasticy. Others called it chewy, but it wasn't chewy to me, just springy, warm, and perfect. They're filled with mushroom and pork and topped with Vietnamese sausage, cilantro, and deep fried scallions. The combination of the crunchy charred scallions and tender soft bahn cuon was divine.

Pho ga and Bun rieu. Pho ga was very good, probably second best after Turtle Tower (but I'd have to do a side by side to decide). Bun rieu was a nice change of pace. Interesting broth, but I found the noodles a bit too soft and the tofu (?) patties in it strange. Not something I'd order on my own, but something that I would probably take a few bites of if friend ordered it.

Hung Ky
(415) 674-8278337
Jones Street
San Francisco, CA 94102

Cookbook Collection Growth

My modest cookbook collection has grown to the point that I'm proud to post a photo of it. I've been very careful about the books I choose, so I think most of them are selections with which other aspiring young home cooks would be happy. I've also tried to keep my selections balanced, so I'm slowly collecting a little of everything. I'll start from my oldest to newest books rather than the order in which they're sitting on my shelf.

This post is, more than anything else, a big sloppy thank you kiss to everyone who helped me build my collection. You people truly know me well.

The Chinese Kitchen, by Eileen Yin-Fei Lo: this book actually belongs to JS, my better half. It's a fairly comprehensive book of classic Chinese dishes. The good thing about this book is that it's very comprehensive and has great descriptions of unusual Chinese ingredients. The recipes and instructions are completely in English, but the names of the dishes are written in Chinese so that those who know Chinese food and can read the names can verify that they're about to cook what they think they're going to cook ("braised Chinese pork" could mean anything, but "hong sao ti pang" can only mean one thing). It's one of the few English books I've found that has lengthy and authentic Chinese dishes. The recipes, however, are very complicated.

Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, by Deborah Madison: a gift from my beautiful and talented friend Claire. I think she finally got tired of my always asking her to type out recipes (but it's her fault for describing all her drool-worthy creations to me!). This book is almost 700 pages long and has a recipe for every vegetable out there. It's great for those times when I wonder "What to do with this artichoke besides steam it?" This book's recipes are know for being simple but wonderful, meaning you don't need to have a ton of talent or experience to make something impressive. It is a daunting book to pick up; how does one decide which of over a thousand recipes to choose first? But Madison has written a great basics book here; from pancake batter to simple vegetarian sauces, this book is full of recipes even non-vegetarians will enjoy. My biggest complaint is that there need to be more photos.

Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home, by Julia Child and Jacques Pepin: I picked it up for a song at a used bookstore, and it's probably the most charming cookbook I own. Julia and Jacques introduce a few dozen basic French recipes and techniques, all the while bantering back and forth about whose technique is best. It's fun to see two ways of cooking any one dish, and reassuring to know that even master chefs agree there isn't always one right answer. The layout and color scheme of this book is very whimsical, and the recipes aren't too complicated at all. There are also clear directions for basic kitchen skills like deboning a chicken, folding a fish en papillote, trussing a bird, and so on.

The Zuni Cafe Cookbook, by Judy Rogers: my sister gave me this for Christmas after seeing it on my Amazon wish list. I wanted it after falling in love with the Zuni method of roasting a chicken. I plan to take my sister to Zuni Cafe the next time she's in San Francisco so we can try the famous roast chicken and bread salad, and ask Judy Rogers to sign my book. It's a lovely book, but so far I can't say that it's a must for every kitchen. Maybe I'll change my mind after cooking more out of it. Ricotta gnocchi and mock porchetta are high on the list. There are gorgeous photos, but of course not enough. And I would really rather Rogers included photos of actual dishes from the book, however lovely a plate of cheese or a plate of sliced fruit might be.

How to Cook Everything, by Mark Bittman: another book to check off my wishlist, this one gifted to me by hungryindc and junist. This is definitely a cook's bible. There's a little bit of everything, including recipes with international influences. I plan to use this more as a resource and jumping off point than as a "follow religiously" cookbook. This book has the distinction of being the only on in my cookbook collection that was written by a man.

Suday Suppers at Lucques, by Suzanne Goin: my latest find. Half off at Anthropologie, of all places! People keep talking about how great it is, and I know I shouldn't have, but I love this book. First of all, it's possibly the most beautiful cookbook I have. The photos are stunning, and they're on almost every other page. The most unique feature of this book, however, is the way the recipes are arranged. Instead of having a section each for appetizers, soups, entrees, and desserts, the book is divided into 52 meals. Each meal has at least one appetizer, one entree, and one dessert. The dishes are matched to complement each other, taking away the guesswork for those of us who slave over questions like "what do I serve on the side when the main course is already so heavy?" The book is divided into seasons as well, so it's easy to see what dishes are summer appropriate and what dishes will warm your soul during winter. I really have yet to find a flaw in this book, but I guess I won't know until I cook out of it. Braised ribs and a lemon tart, anyone?

Here's a photo of all the book covers:

I think I'm going to take a break from buying cookbooks for awhile. When I start up again, I'll probably be looking more into Asian, Southeast Asian, and Latin American cookbooks. I'll need to stop buying books from San Francisco based chefs (Madison, Child, Rogers, and Goin all either started off in or still work in San Francisc0).

Oops: I forgot my Bread Bible and Big Book of Stews. Maybe more on those later...

Kombucha Adventures Commence

I had an amazing lunch at Hung Ky in San Francisco today, but for lack of photos I'm just going to post this link for now until someone e-mails me photos or until I go again. The other big news today is that I've started brewing my first batch of kombucha! Much thanks goes to the lovely and talented "P," who was the previous owner of my kombucha baby.

For those who are wondering what the hell I have floating in a jar in my kitchen: kombucha is a Japanese drink made from a kombucha culture. The culture is actually a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY is its cute nickname, and it's that white thing floating in the tea. It looks and feels a little like squid). In an ideal situation, here's what happens: you take a sterilized one gallon glass container. You add water that's been boiled and cooled to room temperature along with a SCOBY, some tea from your last batch of kombucha, and a combination of very strong brewed tea and sugar. You cover the container with a cloth or paper towel, and leave the whole thing in a cool dark place for at least six days. Depending on weather, the health of your SCOBY, and the type of tea you've used, it may take 6-10 days for the SCOBY to process all the caffeine and sugar in your container.

Here's the bizarre part. As the SCOBY consumes the sugar and caffeine, it begins to make a copy of itself: the baby. Sounds like something out of ALIEN, right? It's not supposed to be pretty, either. I'll keep everyone posted as the project continutes. Today all I did was boil water and tea and start the brewing process.

Why, you ask? I like the taste of kombucha! I really do. It's like a zippy tangy drink that costs me next to nothing. Plus, kombucha creates vitamins A and B as well as some other minerals during its process of consuming sugar and caffeine. Its waste is actually human nutrients! Amazing. So hopefully this will go well. Time will tell!


No fancy supplies needed: a gallon sized glass jar that used to hold kimchi, a pot of boiled and cooled down water, a strong batch of Luzianne black tea brewed with a cup of sugar, and some wine to help me get through it all. Everything has to be clean and oil-free, as oil and metal will kill the culture. The water can be boiled in metal pots, but the brew can't be kept in anything metallic. I thought this project was pretty amusing. Picture, if you will: a Taiwanese girl making a Japanese health drink using a Korean kimchi jar and some kombucha given to her by a Singaporean, with black tea from the American South, all the while drinking Californian wine. Globalization at its best. My kitchenware was probably all made in China.

Building Valentine's Party

There are some perks to living in my building. The staff is very nice, and they often throw us little movie parties. I won't mention the annoyances of living in my building. Today, we got strawberries (chocolate covered and plain), cupcakes, brownies, and cookies. I won't go into detail about every treat. Suffice it to say they all came from Costco and were sinfully sweet.

Shortbread Cookies with Lemon Filling

I know. Too cute.

Oh well. I wanted to recreated Citizen Cake's shortbread cookies, I had a heart shaped cookie cutter, and everyone knows I always love pink frosting. If these happened to pop out of the oven near V-day, so be it.

I'm too tired to find and post the recipes I used. Suffice it to say, the Chowhounds were a valuable asset as usual. The recipe shall be posted tomorrow.

The cookes and filling were actually incredibly easy to make. It was the putting them together that was hard. First of all, perfectly cut out hearts tend to expans into unidentical hearts when you put them in the oven to bake. So first I had to pair up each heart with its soul mate, then very carefully fill each sandwich without breaking the rather crisp cookies. It wasn't easy, and cookies were sacrificed. But I did manage to make a plateful without any catastrophes.

The rejects, of course, were eaten.

How does it compare? The cookies I made were tasty. The filling had a nice tartness to them. However, I'm pretty sure Citizen Cake uses a plain lemon buttercream. And their shortbread recipe is a lot softer. Next time I'm going to use a shortbread cookie with cornstarch (it softens the cookie) and a filling that's more like cupcake frosting.

This Week's Produce Box

Farm Fresh to You has been good the past two weeks, but I was really impressed by the variety of this week's box. I also haven't had to shop for produce or fruit in a month, which I consider a triumph of time efficiency. today's box was significantly heavier than last week's and included:

• a sack of kiwis
• a sack of satsumas
• a few apples
• a few meyer lemons
• kale
• lettuce
• rutabagas
• carrots
• onions, yellow and red
• leeks

The rutabagas and kiwis are good examples of why I use FFTY. I've never purchased a rutabaga in my life, but now I'll be forced to cook it and find out if I like it. I hardly ever buy kiwis because I don't know how to pick a good one, but FFTY doesn't send anything out unless someone has tasted that harvest and made sure it's okay.

Collard stems update: I cut the thicker parts of each stem in half lengthwise, then cut the stems into inch long sections. I stir fried in garlic and canola oil until they started turning color a little. Then I added a few spoonfuls of water and covered the wok for about two minutes. The stems do taste like broccoli stems, and are much more bitter than the leaves. I liked it as a side dish, but I wouldn't eat a whole plate on its own and I wouldn't recommend it to bitter haters. I think there's potential for it, and I would add other less bitter vegetables next time. It's definitely tasty enough that I would feel bad throwing away collard stems in the future.

Pappardelle Pasta and Collard Greens

Pasta. I love it. If I had to choose between rice and pasta, pasta would win. I was telling this story today:

When I was little, I turned to my mom one day and told her I wish we could eat noodles more because noodles were way better than rice. My mom, ever pragmatic, said I only thought that because we ate rice every day. She said if she fed me noodles every day, I would soon tire of them and want rice. At the time, I thought perhaps she was right. Later, I found out she just said it because she likes rice more than noodles and didn't want to have to cook noodles all the time. Years later, with a kitchen of my own, I've discovered that while I like rice more than I did as a kid, I really can eat noodles in various forms for weeks on end and not tire of them.

I finally bought fresh pasta from The Pasta Shop today. In the Bay Area, you can go to their store in Berkeley or find their products in fancy food stores. I got some thick, flat pappardelle and defrosted the meat sauce I made a few weeks ago. My meat sauce wasn't much to speak of, but the pasta made it divine. With the memory of Il Borgo's fantastic fettucine bolognese fresh in my mind, I have to say The Pasta Shop might have a leg up even though I bought the package in the refrigerated section of Whole Foods (edit: CH Addict says that comment sounds really bad, so I'll add that it's probably just because I prefer pappardelle to fettucine. That, and I can be quite a hasty judge. Not the most level head in the room, if you know what I mean). After ninety seconds in boiling water, the pasta was tender with just a little spring to it. It soaked up the saltiness of the sauce nicely, and did not keep getting softer as I ate. The pasta was so good I didn't need a lot sauce to enjoy myself. $3.50 bought me enough pasta for three meals. Not cheap compared to $1.00 dried pasta, but well worth the increase in quality.

The side dish tonight was collards and onions. I thinly sliced some onions and threw them in a hot pan with some garlic and canola oil. The collard leaves were taken off the stems, rolled tightly, and sliced into thin ribbons. When the onions became translucent I added the collards and some sea salt, and stir fried until the greens were completely wilted. This was the first time I had non-Southern collards, and I liked them quite a bit. In addition to being much less time-intensive than collards slow cooked with a ham hock, this dish tasted fresh and crunchy. I thought the collards would be quite bitter, but they were just barely bitter with a balancing sweetness from the yellow onions. This experiment went so well, I might even throw tradition to the wind and try stir frying the stems tomorrow. Such derring do!

Il Borgo

Four posts in a day! I'm a posting machine!

Anyway, just photos for now, descriptions later. Too tired to describe everything in detail. Suffice it to say that my first Chowdown was a lot of fun. I met a lot of friendly, interesting, well-travelled people tonight. It was nice to not