The Fig Cafe

The last round in my Sunday evening posting blitzkrieg:

Another gorgeous day to be in Sonoma. It was sunny and probably in the mid-70s today, but to this city mouse it felt like blazing 80 degree heat. I basked in it and enjoyed it, knowing the sunshine here is always likely to end before I've gotten enough.

I love that Fig Cafe feels the need to apologize for only allowing their guests to drink one bottle of wine per meal--per person. Ah, Sonoma!

I was promised that the bellini would be out of this world, but I really regret not getting the fig royale instead. The peach flavor was mediocre, not like the legendary Venetian bellinis you hear about that make you glad to be alive. The stamp and design on the tables were a cute touch.

Fig and apple bread pudding came in lieu of the usual bread and butter. I liked it: soft, warm, moist, and not too sweet. A great breakfast bread. Now that I typed that, I realize it's true: this was more of a breakfast bread than a pudding.

Tart du jour: a classic French quiche with gruyere, ham, and leeks. I thought this was a very stingy portion for a $10 quiche: three-quarters of an inch thick, and about the size of a 3x5 card. C'mon, at Tartine you can get a three inch tall quiche for $3 and it's almost enough food for 2 people! Granted, this quiche came with a salad, but really. Poor JC was still hungry!

Omlette du jour: three eggs, bacon, spinach, and a little cheese. The heartiest dish of the day, but reportedly not very fluffy. Then again, Wung's comparing to the Wynn in Vegas, which is hardly fair. That omlette probably cost an arm and a leg.

Being his hungry self, Wung ordered a side of apple-smoked sausage. The consensus was that this is strange. The first bite reminded us of Chinese sweet sausage, and the other herbs and smoke comes in later. But ultimately, it's a little dry on the inside, a little cold, and not well charred on the outside.

If there's something Californian restaurants know, it's salad. The boys both had great green salads as side dishes, and I just went ahead and ordered an entree salad because I was pretty sure I'd love it. Butterleaf lettuce with slices of grapefruit and an entire sliced avocado. Everything was just perfect, and the sauce was light enough that even though the salad was over dressed for my taste it was not too salty or tangy.

Overall: The Fig Cafe is an adorable little restaurant with beautiful food. It's not a bad value compared to the brunchy spots right in Sonoma/Glen Ellen, but in typical Sonoma fashion the food's a bit precious. But I really wish I could find a low brow diner-style place where we could fill up on decent good food like burgers and shakes for under $10, but we don't go enough to sniff out the neighborhood spots.

We hit a few new wineries today in addition to our usual Benziger stop:

St. Francis: loved both zinfandels on the list. Fantastic, smooth, fruity, easy to drink big wines. Wung liked the cabernet franc as well. I liked it, but found it a bit musty to drink alone. Cute winery with super nice staff. The tasting room looks very new and chic, prompting me to note that St. Francis has a "Mini Mondavi" look about it.

Blackstone: didn't see anything on the list that called to us, but there's a nice outdoor area where people had brought their own food to eat, and there's an outdoor tasting bar as well.

Kenwood: the big surprise of the day. Decent $7 table wine! I mean really and truly decent. Nice ruby color, easy to drink blend of grapes, reasonably dry but still very fruity. Just good. The $5 white wasn't half bad either, and the $14 Gewurztraminer smelled deliciously fruity while tasting dry. I'm very glad we stopped by. Kenwood is such a big name and the place is so crowded that I wasn't expecting much, but this is one of the few places offering free tastings where I've been impressed. Definitely worth a stop to look for every day table wine.

The Fig Cafe Website

Wung-B-Que

What does an engineer buy himself to celebrate a quarter century on this planet?

A smoker, of course! This is the Lazy-Q, the busy man's solution to all his smoking problems. The chimney on the right holds wood chips formed into pucks, and the smoker automatically feeds a new puck into the smoker every 20 minutes. Set it, and forget it! The Lazy-Q enables the home smoker to simultaneously smoke meat and accomplish tasks like cooking habanero BBQ sauce in the kitchen (aka. Death Sauce), pick up his dearest friend Pei from the Caltrain station, and play catch with his less dear friends (aka. boys).

Brisket and ribs were dry rubbed, refrigerated overnight (I assume), and smoked at 200 degrees for 10 hours, at which point everyone wanted to eat. The ones that came out after 11 hours were far superior. We're thinking next time fifteen hours at 150 would be even better.

Beef....

...and more beef!!

What birthday is complete without a cake and some strawberries? These genetically engineered beauties were sweeter than anything I've tasted in a long time. The cake, from Sheng Kee, was layers of mango mousse, white cake, raspberry mouse, and chocolate cake. It sounds like too many flavors, but it worked really well. Light, fluffy, and nice after a meal of nothing but meat (and a salad that JC snuck into Wung's kitchen, and for which I whipped up a vinaigrette). Go team salad!

Helmand

Short version: Helmand's appetizers are stunningly delicious, have surprising flavor combinations, and I could eat a whole table of them and be very happy with my meal. Their entrees are just okay, fine but not unique, and some of them start tasting the same after awhile.

Warm flatbread: soft on the inside, crispy on the outside. The three sauces were all wonderful, but the herby green one was the table favorite. The red one was a spicy chili sauce with black sesame seeds in it, and the white was a yogurt sauce.

Mmmmm, ravioli-like things filled with spinach and topped with both yogurt and meat sauces.

Both kinds of dumplings above totally blew me away.

Pumpkin! This is Helmand's most famous dish. When I saw it, I was disappointed. Steamed pumpkin, what's so special about that? One bite had me going back for more. The flavors, the accompanying sauce, the meat, the yogurt...it just all comes together somehow.

My beef with pallow (fragrant rice cooked with cumin and other herbs): the meat was overcooked. I was very sad. Meat like this is the reason I avoid kebab-like meat in most restaurants. The flavor was there, the char was nice, but it was so tough! The rice was good but not phenomenal, and the chickpeas were fine as well. What I really enjoyed was the grilled pear that came with a lof of the dishes.

Grilled lamb: much better than my beef.

Beef meatballs in sauce: I actually never saw this dish, but the rumor was it wasn't great.

Lamb special: this was the one dish that really did wow me. I was sad I hadn't orded it for myself. Very tender meat, a sauce that didn't taste like any of the other sauces at the table, and good flavor penetration.

Tenderloin steak: much better than my grilled beef. Rare in the center and tender. However, it was just a steak, and I could grill a tastier steak at home without much effort. The spinach rice did look delicious, though, and with all the little side vegetables this would have been something I could eat a whole plate of. Contrast with my beef, which was so tough it went around the table twice for tasting and I still had half to take home.

Grilled salmon: good fish, not overcooked. But again, just fish.

Fish: as usual, there was one dish I forgot to photograph. It was pretty good, actually. But again, the sauces start tasting the same after awhile.

Korean Grocery Raid

My thirst for blood continues un-checked.

First it was the rare burgers. Now I've moved on to just plain blood. I went to buy some kimchi and raw spinach to eat with turkey porridge, but spied some sausage-like objects at the checkout stand. And you know how much I love sausage. I asked the little old man at the cashier if it was blood sausage, and he said the key words "Yes," "Very good," and "Home made." I was sold.

They're very garlicky, not too salty, and the potential for blood sausage to be crumbly and dry is mitigated by the nicely cooked rice throughout. The casing had a nice snap to it as well. It was a lot less dense than Chinese rice blood sausage, but equally effective at satisfying bloodlust. The accompanying salt is a mixture of salt, sesame seeds, and ground Korean chili flakes. In addition to adding flavor, the salt has a nice crunch. I like.

The two kimchis I got today were a standard house made napa cabbage kimchi from the store and a baby daikon kimchi from a company called Chongga. The store, on Fillmore just off Geary, is one of the few Korean markets in SF and makes very respectable if not amazing kimchi. As for the other, I've always been wary of commercial kimchi, but I have it on Korean authority that Chongga isn't half bad. We'll see.

Pearl's Deluxe Burgers (aka. Pearl's Phatburger)

The tears of joy coursing down my cheeks are preventing me from typing a proper ode to Pearl's. I'm going to go cuddle with my vanilla malted shake and leave you to drool over this photo. I'll type up a report after I recover.

Three hours and a buffalo cheeseburger later...

I almost ran back across the street for another one after I scarfed down the first. Then again, I can't remember the last time I had red meat, and I ran today, so maybe I was just feeling anemic. Still, this is one of the better burgers I've had in SF, not counting fancy restaurant burgers that cost $15. The buffalo cheeseburger was $7, a regular cheeseburger is a few dollars less.

Look at all that pink! The plusses: the meat was lean, flavorful, and cooked medium rare on the rare side. It had a hint of that gamey buffalo flavor, but it was similar enough to regular beef that I'll just order regular beef next time (see bonus round for statement retraction). It was nicely cooked, with a little bit of char and that buttery aftertaste that a great burger gets from its fat content. I just wanted a classic burger this time, and the lettuce and tomatoes were both cold and crispy.

The minuses: The onions could have been grilled a little longer (I like my char), and the burger could have used more salt. I solved the second problem by adding ketchup and eating a lot of pickles, but a very light sprinkling of salt over the patty would have been ideal. Still, I much prefer for a restaurant to undersalt than oversalt. This burger has great potential, and I'm willing to cut them some slack in their first weeks.

I love that there's finally a no frills diner in the neighborhood. This is the kind of food people want in the Sirloin (aka. Tendernob). You can get a full meal for under $10, or a light meal for under $5. It's the kind of food that makes you feel like a kid again, the kind that's conducive to sharing with friends and making a big mess. Lovable, familiar, back to basics food. Oh, and they let you have as many pickles as you want. Take the time to pick and choose; one of mine was crispy and the other was limp.

I do have to go back and explore the menu. So many delicious things, including a dish called frings. That's right, someone finally realized that people often want fries AND onion rings on the same plate, but don't always want two orders of deep fried snacks.

Bonus round...

Yes, I was back the next day for fries and a Fat Bob. Bacon, onion rings, Monterey Jack, and BBQ sauce on top of a beef patty. I rescind my previous statement: the buffalo tastes way better than the beef. I guess I never noticed because I've never done a side by side comparison, but buffalo tastes beefier. Not gamey, per se, just beefy. Still, this was a well made burger--like a Bacon Western Cheeseburger that tastes like real food. The fries were hot, crispy, and of the variety that has much more soft center than crispy crust. Again, I love this thickness for fries. I was really impressed by the length of these fries. There were only a handful that were shorter than my longest finger, and many that were a good four inches long.

A note on ordering: do insist on your meat being rare or medium rare if that's what you want. They're not squeamish about giving you what you want. I wasn't careful about ordering today and the meat was barely pink in the center. Yesterday I was very insistent about my meat not being overcooked, and it came out deliciously pink/almost raw.

Pearl's Deluxe Burgers
Post, between Leavenworth and Jones
Website

Fish Fried Rice

I promised myself I'd finish some of the leftovers in my fridge today, so even though I was feeling under the weather I forced myself to come home and cook. Besides, I knew a simple home cooked meal would make me feel much better than anything in a restaurant, and it wouldn't require talking to people. Not in a people mood. Not at all.

I cooked some rice, set a small pot of water on simmer with a lot of sliced ginger, washed some baby bok choy, and stir fried the vegetables with some ginger and leftover pan fried catfish. It looked good and smelled fine, but I didn't want to eat it. Looking at it sitting in the wok left me feeling bored and uninspired. So I covered it and took a two hour nap. When I went back to the kitchen, I realized that what I wanted was fried rice. I heated the fish and vegetables back up, picked out the ginger, added the rice with a splash of soy sauce, and scrambled an egg into it. Suddenly I had a meal I wanted to eat.

Confession: I compulsively mash food together. I'm the one you don't want to share Chinese shaved ice with because I'll mush it all together before digging in. I'm the one who stirs her oatmeal a hundred times even though it's already a homogenous mass. I don't know that I think all this mushing makes things taste better; I just can't control myself. I usually catch myself stirring gravy into mashed potatoes and have to force myself to stop because even I don't think it tastes better that way. So yes, mashing all the food into one plate somehow comforted me and made the whole thing easier to eat.

To explain the ginger water: ginger tea! A must when one's feeling down. All you do is simmer the heck out of some slices of ginger, then add sugar (I like brown or rock sugar). It's better to make the ginger tea too strong and add water later rather than to make listless ginger tea and have to boil it way down to get flavor. The tea also tastes better after it's had some time to mellow. I like to simmer for half an hour, let it cool down, then reheat.

So comforting. I feel almost as good as new.

Spam Musubi

Aloha! I had nori, I had rice, and I had an intense craving for spam musubi after dinner at C's last night. A quick trip to the store and I had the necessary can of Spam to complete the project.

Rough rundown:

• nori (seaweed)
• 1 cup uncooked sushi rice (short grain Japanese rice, cooked with a teaspoon or so of white vinegar)
• 1/2 tablespoon of sesame oil
• 1 tablespoons of soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon sake
• 1 tablespoon sugar (white or brown)

Start cooking the rice.

Slice the Spam into 1/8 inch thick slices. What I do is stand the Spam up straight (the same way it stands upright in the can) and cut vertical slices. Mix the soy sauce, sesame oil, sake, and sugar together. Hm, I guess you could refer to those as the Four Ss. Soak the Spam slices in the sauce while you wait for the rice to finish cooking. I actually didn't have sake or Chinese rice wine, so I used Bacardi Gold. Inauthentic, you cry! Shut up, I say! It tasted d***ed good to me! Go somewhere else for your authentic recipe for fake sushi.

When the rice is done, start frying the Spam. Just make sure they're a little charred and brown on both sides, then put them back in the sauce. Remember, Spam's already cooked so it's fine to put it back in the sauce.

Mix up the rice and let it cool down until you can handle it with your bare hands. If you're getting fancy, put some Furikake in the rice. Meanwhile, cut the nori into thirds (or long strips roughly the width of the Spam).

With slightly wet hands, make oblong balls of rice and pack it together so the rice sticks. If you like things salty, you can sprinkle some salt on your hands at this point. I find the extra salt a bit much.

You'll need to judge how to wrap your musubi depending on how long your nori is. I left about an inch and a half at the end. Put the rice ball on the nori, cover with a slice of Spam, and roll up. You can seal the end with a wet finger, but the rice and spam are hot/wet, so if you just set it seam side down the steam will seal the musubi. When you've finished making a plate of them, you can cover it with plastic wrap so the musubi will sweat a bit and make the seaweed nice and soft.

Thank you!

People who cook me dinner always deserve to be mentioned on Chezpei.

C and her friend cooked up a fantastic pot of oden tonight. Oden is Japanese hot pot made with kombu (seaweed) stock, a variety of fish cakes, tofu, noodles, hard boiled eggs, and a variety of other goodies. Like most hot pots, there's a sort of "anything goes" mentality. Tonight the things I liked best were a shark's fish cake (huge slabs of very tender, almost tofu-like cakes) and a little tofu skin pouch filled with mochi. I really regret not getting a good photo of that. Photo skills were definitely left at the door today. I was just so grateful to have a lovely, warm home-cooked meal made by someone else. Yummmm. C's friends know their Japanese food, and a huge bottle of great sake was on hand. I've never cared for sake, but tonight's bottle was clean, crisp, creamy, and delicious chilled. It really completed the oden experience.

A few hours after the oden, someone came up with the brilliant idea of making spam musubi. So the Hawaiian in the room took charge and showed us all how it's done on the islands. Aren't they cute? In another instance of "Why is San Francisco itty bitty," C's friend the musubi master turned out to be Chowhound sushi fiend umetaro. Even when I don't go to Chowdowns I meet up with Chowhounds.

Less exciting was a bowl of udon I had earlier today at the Cherry Blossom Festival in Japantown. Almost everything about it was fine: clear broth, not too much sauce, nice flavors, decent toppings. But the udon! Oh, the horrible, horrible udon! It was too dense, lacked spring, and had been over-cooked. I was saddened, especially because fair food is supposed to make one very happy. Oh well.

Mission District Afternoon

I was a busy bee today, cycling through one group of friends and then another from noon until the wee hours of the night. There's no place like the beginning, so...

Ritual Roasters. Started off the morning with a few Chowhounds who converged on Ritual Roasters for a cuppa and some chatting. This is a photo from a previous trip, but the latte art is as beautiful as ever. This is still the best consistently excellent cappucino in San Francisco. Massimo Lounge is the only other place I can think of that consistently makes me sigh with relief and delight upon first sip. I had a mind-blowing, gasp-inducing, life-changing foam once at Cafe Rulli, but only once and never again. Ritual Roasters if always excellent if not revelatory. I also had some gingerbread today (purchased from a bakery), and enjoyed it. It was a very dense, moist, flavorful cake with plenty of ginger flavor. However, it was much too dense for me to finish and I with they'd sell just half a slice.

After some shopping and friend shuffling, I ended up with L and C at the St. Francis Fountain Shop. I had never had anything but ice cream here, and was pleasantly surprised by all the food. And look how cute the menu is: "The St. Francis Fountain is a cell phone friendly restaurant. As long as you don't use them in the restaurant, we'll be friendly." I politely kept my cell phone usage outdoors. They kept their promise: all our servers were very friendly.

French fries: when are fries bad? This style of french fry cut is my favorite. I like the skin on, and I like this thickness. The fries were on the soft side, but they were hot and soft. We managed to polish off this plate pretty quickly. We should have regretted it later when we weren't able to finish our entrees, but I didn't hear anyone complaining. A plate of fries and a table of girls? Fries beware.

Biscuits and gravy: the biscuits were too dense, but that's some good sausage gravy. I'm a gravy fiend, but even L who doesn't like creamy milky things liked this sausage gravy. At $3, this might be the best bargain meal on the menu.

Bacon, chives, and cheddar pancakes: Amazing! They were good on their own, but came to life with maple syrup. I would never in a million years have thought to pour maple syrup on something so savory, but for reasons beyond my ken the flavors in this just make sweet sweet music together.

Guacamole, tomato, sour cream omlette: This is one of the best guacs I've had in San Franisco. It was tasty enough to make me long for the guacs of LA. The eggs were super fluffy, the salsa was fresh and tasty despite it not being tomato season, and the English muffins were like crumpets (not just like boring Thomas's English muffins). The potatoes were average.

Chef's mess: true to reputation, this little bit of everything scrambled into one mass was stellar. And, uh, I love sour cream? The cornbread was soft and hot, and the butter smelled great. I preferred the omlette ever so slightly, however, and felt that having both of these egg dishes was redundant. I wouldn't order both for a table of food sharers, though both are great.

We, unfortunately, left no room for dessert. Otherwise we were going to try the Guiness float. C'est la vie when you're greedy and don't have a fourth person to share. Next time!

This is how we felt after we finished eating: "Help me, I'm sooooooooo full!!" This was actually a little present from whoever sat at the table before we did. Funny, no? Stuffed to the gills, we waddled through the Mission. All of us were half asleep at this point, and somehow decided we needed coffee to wake us up.

A short walk through the mural alley...

and we ended up at Philz.

Having coffee like Philz, if you happen to get served by Phil himeslf, is like taking a trip to a three-ring circus run by a madman. There can be no doubt that Phil is passionate about his coffee. His shop is a mad scientist's dream; a motley assortment of old furniture and ancient machines, with about two dozen custom blends of coffee created and whimsically named by a coffee mastermind (the Philharmonic, Turkish Delight, and Philz Dream are just a few). And true to mad scientist form, Phil will serve you what he wants when he wants. L unwittingly engaged Phil in a long conversation about the perfect cappuccino, which sent Phil into a frenzy making cup after cup of black coffee for us to sample, all the while building up to creating the perfect capp for L. To make a long story short, L got a great cup of coffee that was nothing like the cappuccino she described. Oh well. Phil's shop, Phil's rules. While all this hubbub was going on, C tried to order a mocha from a nice lady who was on staff, but Phil declared that he would be the one making her mocha and that she was to immediately relinquish the one she had been served by someone else: "Who made this? Who made this? I make you one myself--you will love." Then he gave her both the original and the new and improved cups. Flabbergasted, I made a final attempt to rein Phil in: I clearly stated that I wanted a cup of iced coffee with cream and cardamom. Wonder of wonders, I got exactly what I wanted. I counted my blessings. While paying, we were handed a baklava each because Phil said he had to get rid of them before he ate them all himself. So yes, he is a benevolent dictator, a charming older man, and brilliant coffee blender. We lovingly dubbed him the coffee Nazi as we beat a hasty retreat to a bench outside the shop to drink our bazillion cups of coffee.

Did you keep count? This is what the three of us ended up with, minus the cup that I finished and tossed before remembering the camera. There was also two other baklava. Yup. This is what we got after ordering three cups of coffee. Chaotic? Yes. Delicious? Always. Fun? Absolutely.

We ended our Mission crawl with a trip to Dianda's for rum cake to go. I, bad person that I am, forgot to photograph the rum cake, chocolate rum cake, and mille feuille. The rum cakes were moist and rum-arrific, the kind of cake that oozes a light taste of rum with every bite. The perfect end to a lovely day inn one of SF's best food 'hoods.

The rest of the day was slightly less food related and involved another friend switcheroo. a bunch of goofballs came over to my place and we gathered together some takeout from Tajine, Shalimar, and Bang San Thai. Food from these divey spots was as fantastic as always, and we finished with the cakes from Dianda. Stuffed to the gills, we goofed off and watched music videos for a few hours before heading off to a birthday party and dancing the night away.

The End.

Dottie's True Blue Cafe

This is pretty belated, but breakfast at Dottie's always deserves a mention. I always manage to go a few months without stopping in, but every time I get up early enough to go I leave the restaurant wondering why I don't do it more often.

First of all, Dottie's decor is hysterical. Art deco posters, tabletops covered with giant glamor shots of Fitzgerald-era songbirds, and kitschy salt and pepper shakers from around the world.

My favorite dish is black beans, but I've been on a "try something new" kick so I opted for the fennel sausage, mushroom, and spinach hash with a side of potatoes. Good, but not as good as the black bean cakes. The fennel flavor came through fully in the sausage, but had been cooked enough to taste sweet with a slight bite instead of strongly of licorice.

My lovely dining companion had a three stack of cinnamon pancakes and fruit, drenched in pure warm maple syrup and sprinkled with sugar.

Ultimately, Dottie's remains one of the premier breakfast destinations in San Francisco for a reason. The fruit's not organic, there's no Plugra butter, the coffee's not especially blended just for the restaurant, bla bla bla. No one cares. It's damned good food whipped up in a divey neighborhood restaurant by a one man cooking machine, served by sassy brassy servers who will flirt with you, ignore you, compliment you, insult you, rush you, and make you feel at home all in the same meal. What they do have is a menu of breakfast staples, a whiteboard of ever changing breakfast specials, and a chalkboard of fresh house baked pastries. The flurry of confusion is purely a bonus.

Sitting at the bar and watching the cook/owner in action or watching the Tenderloin go by while sipping a bottomless mug of mellow black coffee remains a quintessentially San Franciscan way to start the morning. I wonder why I don't do it more often? (See what I mean?)

Dottie's True Blue Cafe
Jones, between Geary and O'Farrell
Breakfast and lunch, Closed on Wednesdays

Turkey Fried Rice

Yup, I'm still eating turkey.

Fried rice is one of the first things a Chinese kid is taught how to cook. Not knowing how to fry up some rice is like being American and not knowing how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Okay, it's not that easy, but you get the idea. Fried rice is the default dish we make when we have cold rice, eggs, onions, and some other things to get rid of. Don't try it without those three ingredients, though, because they are key. Below is what I made with roughly three cups of cooked rice, one cup of vegetables, and four eggs. You can decide what ratio you like, or just use whatever you have on hand. Remember to salt at each step, not all at the end.

Step 1: scramble the eggs until they are fluffy but still quite runny. Remember to salt the eggs. Set aside and get your wok to hot hot hot!

Step 2: stir fry diced onions, carrots, peas, and whatever other vegetables you're using. Remember to add a pinch of salt.

Step 3: when the vegetables are soft, throw in any meat you want. I usually have some Chinese sausage in the freezer, but Chinese BBQ, ham, Spam, cooked fish, ground meat, and shredded meat all work. You shouldn't need more salt at this point.

Step 4: add in cold rice. You'll want to use wet fingers to break up all the rice before you do this, so that you can just pour the cold loose rice into the wok. Toss the rice with the vegetables so that all the rice is evenly coated in oil. Sprinkle in about a teaspoon of soy sauce and toss immediately so that the soy sauce evenly coats the rice. If a little rice sticks to the bottom, don't stress it. After you turn off your stove and leave it awhile, the rice will loosen up. It might or might not be a be a bit crunchy, which I actually like.

Taste, and adjust for seasoning. At this point I usually add salt and not soy sauce, because I don't like my rice to get very dark (it's ugly!). A dash of hondashi is nice if you have fish in your fried rice, and a drizzle of sesame oil is always nice.

I sprinkle liberally with white pepper and chopped green onions before serving.

Da Flora

Dinner at Da Flora on the 100th anniversary of the Great Quake of 1906 turned out to be something to remember. Coincidentally, HAPPY BIRTHDAY LILY!!! My darling sister has turned the big TWO-OH.

Gorgeous dining room, fun staff, and fantastic company as always.

A Chowhound is always ready to further her knowledge of the fine wines of the world. Thank you to the bearer of this indescribably fantastic amarone. Words cannot describe what a joy it was to partake in this bottle. In the corner the menu says "Tonight, we dine in memory of..."

"...The great earthquake of 1906...Let's pretend it's 1906--no cell phones, no credit cards!" Menu items included throwbacks to a San Francisco of days gone by as well as classic dishes that are still city favorites.

This bears repeating: a Chowhound is always willing to further her knowledge of fine wines of the world. Our prosecco came in a gorgeous pink bottle. As we placed our orders and the sun quickly set over Coit Tower, Da Flora became a cozy cave awash in old world charm and candlelight. It was utterly impossible to take pictures without flash, so please excuse the less artistic photos going forward.

Appetizers: half a dozen oysters (just okay, a bit fishy), fava bean crostini (amazing, flavorful, creamy, with great olive oil), and asparagus with egg salad and vinaigrette (I've really had an aversion for eggs lately, but that vinaigrette was phenomenal).

The Earthquake Kit (a little of every essential, eh?): pasta with anchovies, caramelized onions, parsley, etc. I really liked this. Some thought the onions were too sweet, but I thought it went very well with the fishiness.

Sweet Potato Gnocchi: close to perfect, even though I've decided I'm not gnocchi's biggest fan. These puppies held their shape even though they were light and fluffy in the middle. Perfectly charred on both sides, they came in a creamy but not too heavy sauce. I didn't get any pancetta, but I did inadvertently steal the lion's share of the gnocchi.

Petrale Sole: the fish was great. Petrale sole is almost always a winner in San Francisco restaurants. Perfectly grilled on both sides, crispy, soft and tender in the center. Some of the artichokes served with this dish were too hard to eat. That and the fishy oysters were to me the biggest missteps in terms of food tonight.

Where's the osso bucco? I'll post that photo later. I liked it. It could have been even more tender, but the flavor was good and the marrow was yummy. The bed of risotto under it was fine, but not great. Best risotto award still belongs to Pesce's squid ink risotto.

Pistachio cake with vanilla cream. Simple, good, nothing to write home about. Overall, I think Da Flora is one of the best places to eat in North Beach. The prices are the same as all the tourist traps, it's a little off the beaten path, it has more character than most North Beach restaurants, and there isn't some obnoxious person standing outside assaulting passerbys so they'll come in for dinner. But if you throw in price considerations, Il Borgo still has the best package for homey Italian meals in SF.

Vegetable Tajine

Bare bones tajine tonight. Yes, I whipped out the kitchen gear instead of walking the few blocks down to Tajine, the restaurant. More than anything, I am trying to eat a ton of vegetables and not much else to make up for a weekend of overindulging.

First, I simmered four cloves of mashed garlic in two cups of turkey stock until the garlic was soft. If I'd had an onion, I would have diced it very finely and let it melt into the stock. When the garlic was soft, I fished it out.

Then, I added a generous pinch of saffron, a teaspoon of paprika, two teaspoons of tumeric, and half a teaspoon of cumin. All of these proportions are rough. I didn't have a lot of things (coriander and harissa come to mind), but the spices I had were enough for a nice base flavor.

I let the stock simmer down a bit, put in large cubes of vegetables, brought to a boil, turned down the stove to a simmer, and covered the pot. I had zucchini, potato, and carrot, but most root vegetables and squash work well. I salted the mix about halfway through simmering. You'll want to simmer for a good 45 minutes or more, until the vegetables are extremely soft. Stir gently no more than two or three times to coat with the sauce, but don't mix often because you don't want to mash the vegetables.

This totally gave me cravings for cous cous, but alas I had none. I did get more than enough vegetables for today, though. That was a good thing.

More Turkey

I think this is the seventh dish I've made with my frozen turkey. It's almost gone, but not quite yet.

Today, I repeated yesterday's "full meal in one bowl" theme but Asianized it. Porridge cooked in turkey broth, with shredded turkey, chopped broccoli and porks' blood rice cake mixed in toward the end. I do love my comfort food.

It was so sunny today I had a hard time taking a good picture! I'm so happy. It's about time we got some sunshine. Time to air out the apartment.

Easter Brunch

Happy Easter, Everyone!

Brunch today was a continuation of my efforts to eat down the things living in my kitchen cabinet. I've resolved to shop smarter in the future: no more stocking up on things when they're cheap, just normal frugal shopping and an attempt to keep the kitchen cabinets clear.

Anyway, today's efforts resulted in tasty turkey risotto with broccoli.

Following the instructions on the back of your arborio rice box/bag, stir about 1/2 cup of uncooked rice into a tablespoon of olive oil pre-heated over medium heat. Normally I would sautee some onions or garlic in the oil, but I had neither. When all the rice grains are coated, begin adding stock. I had turkey stock, so that's what I uesd. It takes about 20 minutes of gradual adding of stock and constant stirring over medium heat for the rice to cook through. With the last addition of stock (last 5 minutes or so), I also added chopped fresh broccoli and shredded turkey meat. When the rice is al dente, turn off the stove and let it sit for a few minutes to thicken up and cook through. Stir in cheese, cream, or whatever you like at this poing. Colorful, hearty, healthy, and delicious!

North African Fun

Tonight we had a feast at Tajine. Mohammed the owner was, as always, an incredible host. Food came out slowly since there were only two people working the kitchen and serving the food, but everything was delicious. In fact, the camera didn't come out until we were all done. For photos from previous visits, click here.

Yes, we at a LOT. Favorites of the night ended up being:

• Chicken kebab. This has been my favorite all along, and tonight my friends confirmed that it's awesome. Like I've said before, it surpasses many a tandoori chicken in terms of smokey flavor and inside tender juiciness.
• Vegetable bastilla. Chicken bastilla is such a standard dish for Moroccan food that I'd never thought to order the vegetable bastilla. But I'm glad Mohammed made us try it, because I think the different vegetables in it result in a better combination of flavors than in the chicken. Both are good, but the vegetable might have a slight edge.
• Vegetable cous cous. Fluffy, flavor-packed, and topped with a great variety of soft cooked vegetables. Delicious.
• Baklava. Easily one of the best baklava I've ever tasted. I forgot to ask, but I'm pretty sure they buy these somewhere. They don't look special, but they're just the right amount of sweetness. The best part for me was that they weren't doused in honey. The top layers of puff pastry were dry, and only the bottom and the nuts were soaked in honey. My friends said the best baklava are not topped with honey, and I can certainly appreciate this version more than the drenched ones.

A veritable feast for 8 ended up costing $19 per person after tax and tip, even after everyone was full and two of the guys needed to order something like five more dishes to fill up.

We continued the evening next door at the Nile Cafe. I'd stopped in for decent morning coffee before, and was lured in by the promise of hookahs. Nile Cafe has an impressive array of flavors of hookah. The menu has about 20 choices, and we settled on Double Apple and Coke (at the insistence of the owner). Surprisingly to everyone, the Coke was astounding and easily became the crowd favorite. Nile Cafe is very cozy and homey on the inside, and the hookahs are beautiful and new. Instead of having hookahs with multiple pipes like some places, Nile Cafe gives each person a cone-shaped tip to place over the pipe, and you just alternate smoking with your own sanitary disposable plastic tip. No worries about the hookah being dirty, and if someone decides to join your group you just get an extra tip instead of having to share a pipe. We also learned some new names for hookah: shisha and hubbly bubbly. Of course, after that we couldn't stop screaming "hubbly bubbly!" all night.

Hookahs are actually very low in tobacco content (around 0.02%). Some fun information can be found on wikipedia (click the link), but basically a hookah is a water pipe and the flavored patties are usually fruity and smell nice. You're not even supposed to breathe in the smoke, just puff on the flavors and enjoy blowing smoke rings. People do it to kill time and relax, not really to get a nicotine high. I don't know if it really is the tobacco or more of a mood effect, but we were all feeling pretty mellow after awhile.

The non smokers had mint tea. We had all enjoyed the Morrocan mint tea next door, and the owner at Nile Cafe convinced us to try the mint tea because he asid his was made with black tea and Tajine's was made with green tea. The two are definitely different, and each is good in its own way. I'd never thought to do a side-by-side mint tea comparison, and those who'd had it for the first time were hankering to find a place to buy it for home consumption.

Washington Square Bar and Grill

Went to brunch at the Washbag today after an unsuccessful attempt to get into Mama's on Washington Square. On a rainy day, thirty or so people were still lined up outside Mama's waiting to get their egg fix. I concede that Mama's has the upper hand over the Washbag in all things benedict, but that line was just too long.

Not much to say about the Washbag; it's solid food at decent prices. Nothing special, nothing bad. It baffles me that every time I've been for brunch it's been almost completely empty. If they would just walk over to Mama's and hand out some menus, I'm sure they'd be able to drum up some business without hurting Mama's one bit.

My friend had an omlet with tomatoes and goat cheese, served with a side of potatoes. It looked and smelled good, and she said she enjoyed it. It's listed on the menu as having shrimp, but she doesn't eat meat.

I had the chicken and andouille sausage hash with poached eggs and hollandaise. The hash was a little too charred, and the egg was slightly undercooked. Not as good as the benedict I had last time, but the flavors were nice and the sauce was good. I think the key at the Washbag is to know what to order, which is unfortunate in such a touristy area because most people only eat there once (and certainly wouldn't be tempted to walk into an empty restaurant).

XOX Truffles afterwards was of course, the highlight. Such a highlight that I forgot to take pictures. We took a box to EURA and enjoyed them with some tea.

Hayes Street Grill

Another lovely day, another great meal. Thanks, lunch buddy!

I've heard plenty of positive things about The Hayes Street Grill, and I've even walked by and looked at the menu a few times. However, it's always been one of those restaurants that cross my mind a lot but where I've still never eaten. First there's the location: I'm just not in Hayes Valley much, and when I am it never happens to be meal time. Additionally, I have a personal bias against restaurant seafood. There's so much that can go wrong, and it's never a cheap mistake.

Still, when the Arlequin wine sale brought me half a block from HSG's front door, I jumped on the chance to finally eat there. In a nutshell: incredibly fresh fish, simply prepared, with excellent sauces and simple but well-executed sides. There's nothing fancy here and it's not cheap, but I don't see how you could have a bad meal.

We shared two dishes. First was a grilled Australian blue-nose sea bass with lemon caper butter and french fries. The fish was the star of this dish. It was grilled until just cooked, without any visible pepper or even salt on the outside. The watercress served on the side seemed like almost an afterthought, simply there for color. I can't say that it added significantly to the fish, but I like watercress so I ate it anyway. The lemon caper sauce was thick and tangy but didn't distract from the fish, and the sauce was delicious with both the fish and the perfectly crispy french fries.

The second dish was sauteed (pan fried is a better term, I think) petrale sole--the San Francisco Treat!. Dangit, I just love sole lightly fried on both sides. The trumpet mushroom white wine sauce was phenomenal--one of the best sauces I've tasted in awhile. Rather than being just about the fish, this dish was about how well the sauce and fish complemented each other. I tried to get the watercress to wilt in the warm sauce of this one, and the pieces with which I was successful were phenomenal.

A sauvignon blanc was recommended to my friend, and I had a glass of Navarro Gewurtztraminer grape juice. Both lovely, though of course in completely different ways.

Bread, served before the meal, was soft, spongey, and a very nutty. I always prefer my bread warm and crispy on the outside, but this was a good loaf. It could just use a quick toasting.

Overall, I think HSG excels at very carefully prepared, simple, classic seafood. There's a lot of quality control going on even if there's not much in terms of innovation or fuss. I really appreciate the fact that not only is the fish fresh, the little details are not forgotten: good bread, good butter, perfect french fries, a dish of kosher salt instead of iodized table salt, and so on. When the food's so simple, the little things really stand out and can make or break the overall experience.

Final note: I left the restaurant sated but not stuffed, but as the afternoon wore on I felt increasingly full and stayed that way for many hours. I even skipped 3 o'clock snack! So don't let appearances fool you; the portions here are fair if not hefty; you wouldn't pay much less buying good fish from a specialty store (and then where would you get a ramekin of sauce? Or would you have to spend several dollars on sauce ingredients? And fries? Are you going to bust open a quart of canola for frying? And the quarter loaf of bread? So really, it's a good value.) And if you're still in doubt, get the hulking Niman Ranch burger we saw going by.

I had an orange late in the afternoon, then soba and blanched broccoli for dinner. That's all! And y'all know that's not much for Pei. That's how filling my lunch was. I think I sense butter...

Hayes Street Grill Website
320 Hayes (between Gough and Franklin)
415.863.5545

Taqueria Chile Verde

Mmm, burrito, awash in the garish flourescent glow of office lighting.

I go to TCV a lot for lunch because it's close to work. I think the food's better than at Taqueria Cancun around the corner, though TC has a much larger following and is usually packed at lunch time. I'm perfectly happy to eat at the cheaper, emptier, and in my opinion better taqueria.

Today, I tried the breakfast burrito for the first time ever. O.M.G. Am I wrong, or is that a freekin' huge breakfast burrito? I thought breakfast burritos were those little one hand foods sold at Taco Bell before 11 a.m. This was easily the size of a stingy regular burrito (like the fish burrito at Rubio's, ahem. Tasty enough, but could we be a little less stingy with the frozen fish sticks?)

How did it taste? Not bad. I would have liked bigger egg chunks, but maybe having it all mashed together like this is what some people enjoy. To me, eggs mashed that finely look and taste like tofu. I want scrambled eggs, not mashed tofu! The chorizo was just spicy enough for breakfast, although I did get one mouthful of fat that I had to spit out. The only real fault I could pinpoint was the overabundance of dried oregano in the mash. I really don't like oregano.

As always, the best part about eating at TCV was the green salsa. Big avocado chunks, just enough heat, not watery. It's the perfect cross between green salsa and guacamole, and I could eat it by the bowl. Unfortunately, you only get to ask for bowl after bowl if you eat in.

Taqueria Chili Verda

6th Street, just south of Market

Saha for Brunch

Took a breather between meetings today and went to Saha for what they call an Arabic Fusion brunch. Saha is a largely unknown restaurant with a Yemenese influence; I'm willing to bet it thrives off the business of its hotel guests, but therefore lacks local recognition. It's inside the Carlton Hotel, which I always thought was some seedy roach motel but is actually a cute older building that they've made very cozy and clean. There's a fireplace in the lobby, and a lot of very beautifully upkept Arabic furnishing. It's very classy, and would be much more respected if it were just five blocks east.

The restaurant itself is simple but cute. I especially loved the lanterns, even though I only managed to take a pretty poor photo of them. There's also a gorgeous stained glass skylight that I couldn't photograph without stepping all over the people eating behind us.

I opted for the Yemenese Fouel, which came with homemade pita and fresh fruit. Fouel is described as cooked beans with tomatoes, onions, garlic, and zatar. To me, it tasted like refried beans with cumin and paprika instead of oregano and tobasco. It was warm and soothing, and the two poached eggs nestled in it were a nice complement. The pita was warm and crispy on the outside, but a little too moist and doughy on the inside. I don't know if they were underbaked or if the dough had too much water content, but after I chewed on them for awhile they became sticky and heavy. I think I would have preferred lavash.

Another shot of the fouel, since I don't think it's something any of my friends have seen or heard of. The two eggs looked almost like cheese or yogurt. I poked at them for a bit before remembering that two poached eggs had been included in the menu as part of the dish. The runny yolks were delicious with the creamy hot fouel. It's amazing how many cultures eat creamy hot foods and bread for breakfast: East Asian rice porridge, Euro-American oatmeal/grits/cream of wheat, Central American beans, and now Arabic beans. Simultaneously exotic and familiar, this was a nice first dish at Saha.

My friend had the salmon benedict. Gorgeous. Her plate was gorgeous. Beautiful eggs, nice green slices of avocado, bright red paprika. I had a bite, and didn't love it. It's unfair to compare any benedict to Canteen's but I'm going to do it anyway. The eggs at Saha were watery, whereas Canteen manages to cook the eggs so the yolks are runny but more the consistency of a gravy. The egg whites here were limp; Canteeen's egg whites are jiggly and moist. The salmon cake, I thought, was much too fishy and too heavily fried. The English muffins were mashed flat and chewy. The avocados, while beautiful, were a tad underripened.

Given our limited experience, I would stick to the more Arabic dishes and throw fanciness to the wind. A salmon benedifct sounds fancy, but my down home fouel was much tastier. A huge bowl of fruit and yogurt at the next table looked good, as did a child's French toast.

Sutter near Larkin, inside the Carlton
Saha Website (prices are a few dollars out of date)

Beef Chili the Old-Fashioned Way

I'm always striving to learn how to make comfort foods without recipes. The whole concept of comfort food necessitates throwing things together with little thought, so I threw caution to the wind when making this chili and hoped for the best. I took this photo several hours before it finished simmering, so remember the chili should be much thicker than this. I just wanted to get posting out of the way. Maybe I'll take a picture tomorrow, when the chili's at its prime.

Turned out pretty good. Here's the process for about a gallon of chili:

• Soak beans overnight. I used a cup each of kidney, black, and great northern. I threw in a can of garbanzo beans just to get rid of them.
• Cut a pound of chuck roast into small pieces. How small is up to you. You can use ground beef, ground turkey, or even lamb.
• Chop up an onion, a bell pepper, an entire bulb of garlic, and two jalepenos.
• Sautee the beef, bell pepper, garlic, onions, jalepenos together until the beef is brown on the outside.
• Add spices. Here's where it gets crazy. I just threw in about a tablespoon each of oregano, thyme, and cumin. Use more or less if you particularly like or dislike any of these things.
• Add two cans of diced tomatoes, or real tomatoes.
• Add a can of tomato paste.
• Add the beans.
• Pour in just enough cold water to cover all the ingredients.
• Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for two hours.
• When the meat is soft, taste, adjust seasoning, and add salt and celery salt. Adding salt before the meat is cook will prevent it from softening properly.

When the chili is thick, it's ready to eat. But remember, chili is always better the next day. The flavors have time to soak into the beans, the tendons and fat in the meat have time to dissolve, and the whole pot will just be thicker and more flavorful. I took this photo several hours before it finished simmering, so remember the chili should be much thicker than this. I also wished I had some canned or frozen corn, but alas I did not. What else do people add to chili?

Unfortunately, I doubt chili will ever be a dish I can just throw together. I simply don't cook with the necessary ingredients often enough, so there will always be some pre-planning involved.

EURA Cafe & Lounge

EURA is proably the lovliest spot in the Tendernob. Soothing green tones, sleek dark wood furniture, cheery service, and a dizzying array of teas from around the world. Today, in celebration of a long awaited non-freezing day, I had a glass of the famous EURA pineapple iced tea. The sweetener used gives the tea an elusive quality. It's not honey, it's not simple syrup--what is it? My best guess is something like golden syrup (darkened simple syrup) or rose water syrup. But really, I slurped it down too quickly to really figure it out. It's the owner Lauren's little secret, and one of the many reasons she has so many regular customers.

Lately, food's been added to the menu as well. This is a turkey cranberry panini with what I think is brie cheese. Buttery, cheesy, sweet, and smokey all at the same time. Appropriately buttery and crisped on the outside, but ultimately just a sandwich. Filling and tasty, but not revelatory like Tartine's. Then again, I'm not really a sandwich person. Note: the cheesecake is incredible.

My choices today strayed quite a bit from my norm. Usually, I prefer hot tea and more Asian type food (a maki, some udon, etc.) My favorite tea at the moment is the chai latte, followed closely by the yulmucha. The earl grey is fantastic because Lauren will gladly steam you some perfectly frothed milk for your tea. At EURA, it's all about relaxing with a few simple creature comforts in a space that you'll wish were your living room.

Next to try: apricot brandy iced tea. Who knew?

EURA Website

For Real? No way...

Someone told me that she doesn't like putting crabs in boiling water because they scream. Scream? I'm pretty sure crabs don't make any noises of any kind. They don't have vocal cords. If anything, they might make bubbly noises underwater as they process water through their gills, like fish. I'm pretty sure they don't scream in agony when boiled. But no, she insists she hears them. Ironically, this is the same friend who's going in for a hearing check this week (hm, suspicious?) Hehehe...anyway, any ideas on this one? I'll have to do more research, but was wondering if anyone here has heard or heard of screaming crabs.

The cioppino, as it turns out, was fine. Not as great as last time (lack of ingredients, forgetfulness under time pressure), but a fine dinner for a Saturday night.

See's Candy Factory

Food Field trip!

When my partner in crime and I passed this, our collective food-dar started bleeping.


Then, I saw the Easter bunny. A factory full of candy with a giant blowup Easter bunny perched atop its roof? Who could resist? What kind of a fool would pass up an opportunity like this?

Totally worth it.

See's stores are usually generous with free samples, but these people were ridiculous. It was like every time you turned around someone was handing you free samples. We definitely got more samples than purchased chocolate. Between the two of us we chose individual packets of dark chocolate walnut, chocolate covered raisins, dark chocolate covered butterscotch, and a fourth that I am not forgetting. Our samples included mint crisps, some kind of walnut nougat covered in dark chocolate, and a huge walnut bar. All chocolate, all good, all making me very hungry as I type this post. It's time to go eat chocolate. Thank you, secret chocolate buyer (identity has been concealed to protect the guilty).

Making Love...Out of Nothing at All

This photo wins some kind of gross award. I feel sort of ill just looking at it...

I came home today, looked in my kitchen, and immediately became distraught because:

• I passed by Bang San Thai but didn't buy pumpkin curry even though it was calling to me.
• I regretted it all the way home, but it was too rainy for me to turn back.
• When I got home, I saw a bottle of kombucha had exploded all over the kitchen floor. I know. It's like I don't learn. MUST remember to release pressure every few days or kombucha will explode!
• Nothing edible in fridge.
• Tajine is still closed for remodelling
• No one was around to go somewhere nearby to eat with me.
• I didn't really want to go out alone even though I normally don't mind at all. today, it didn't appeal to me because I always try to be cheery and chat with staff. I feel like eating alone is my chance to ask staff the pesky questions that would annoy or frighten my friends. Besides, if you don't talk to anyone the entire night you look like a real freak eating by yourself.

So after griping about my misfortune and crying over spilled kombucha, I aimlessly went through my mental rolodex of things I could eat in my neighborhood and decided I was much too tired to brave the rain. And yet, I wanted to eat something hearty. At this point I was really regretting not taking some Chowhounds up on an invite to Ristoreante Ideale. But no, nothing over $10 for me this week was the rule.

Into the (now kombucha free) kitchen I went. I rassled up every vegetable in the fridge and came up with two carrots, a leek, and some chard. I chopped up my last kielbasa, chopped up all the vegetables and sauteed them until soft, added a shot of vodka, set the whole pot on fire (fun!), then poured in a can of diced tomatoes and simmered for 20 minutes. I added a little leftover cream and plenty of parmesan cheese toward the end. Not at all orthodox, but mighty tasty just the same.

This is how sad my pantry is: I didn't have pasta. So instead, I broke lasagna into squares and ate them like handkerchief pasta.

Satisfying. Very satisfying. Plus, now I can start fresh because my fridge is truly empty. Besides, pasta in meaty tomato sauce with plenty of cheese is the kind of thing I can eat all night long (with chocolate chip cookies!).

I don't care if you're a total Itali-nerd and find my dish disgusting. I liked it and that's all that matters.

Food for Thought (but not for belly)

No cooking or eating out today. Too lazy, too many leftovers, too many meals eaten out last week (must. save. money. and. eat. down. pantry!)

But I did do some thinking. I think I've narrowed down my favorites list. Here are the favorites, which include only places where I've been several times (except for one). They're narrowed down to one per category, and listed in rough order from morning to night.

Favorite:

Place to nosh the morning away: Ferry Building, more for the small eateries and food shops, than the big restaurants that anchor the building.

Breakfast: Canteen

Dim sum: Koi Palace (or Gold Mountain in the City)

Lunch, close enough to escape to during work: Little Delhi

Lunch, geography notwithstanding: Canteen

Feel-good Chinese (lunch or dinner): Spices II

Coffee house: Ritual Roasters

Tea house: EURA

Gelato: Tango Gelato

Pastries: Tartine

Cake: Delessio

Chocolate: Fog City News

Cheap dinner: Tajine

Chinese banquet: South Sea Seafood Village

Soul-restoring dinner: Coco500

Impress the pants off your soul mate: The Dining Room at The Ritz Carlton

Wine Bar: The Hidden Vine

Typing this, I'm thinking about all the places where I do like to eat but have decided to leave off the list. I think the reason these stay is this: there's something about these places that exhilarate me. Maybe it's just a vibe, usually it's because the owners are super nice, but it's also because the customers always seem so happy to be there. It helps that I've never felt monetarily cheated at any of these spots. Instead, the net result is that I always leave these places feeling refreshed and happier with life no matter how many times I've been or how recently I was just there. I even sometimes end up tipping more just because they make me so happy. And isn't that what it's all about?

Yes, it helps that the employees at a lot of these places know me by face or name. But it's a two way street: I have to really like the food to keep going back until they recognize me, and they have to be warm places with a small, observant, staff that cares about return customers and quality of service to even ask me my name.

I think what's telling is that I could be very happy just eating at these places for months on end if all the other restaurants in San Francisco disappeared.

Michael Mina's Chocolate Chip Cookies

***WARNING***HIGHLY ADDICTIVE***WARNING***

After last week's treat at Michael Mina, I needed to find a recipe for myself. The original recipe is below, but I'm so afraid of losing it that I'm copying the ingredients here:

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature and cut into chunks
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup dark brown sugar, lightly packed
• 2 large eggs
• 1-1/2 teaspoons natural vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 pound bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 1/2 pound toasted pecans or walnuts, finely chopped

Makes about 40 cookies, if you're careful not to roll any cookies bigger than a golf ball. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees before you begin.

Yes, I took the time to gather all my ingredients on my counter before beginning today. Usually, I just run around the kitchen getting whatever I need when it comes time for it in a recipe. I did this for the photo opt, but ended up really liking it. Everything was within easy reach, and as soon as I was done with it I put it away. It really sped things along and was sanity preserving. And please, don't judge me for using Hershey's. People give me free things and I'm not about to waste them. Maybe if I ever go back to Mina's I'll sweet talk the staff into telling me what kind of chocolate they use.

The batter starts off pretty dark after the first five minutes of hard beating of the butter with two types of sugar. It lightens up as after each egg is added. When ready, it's very soft and the dry ingredients are just barely incorporated. It looks a big sandy and rough rather than perfectly smooth. That's okay; you don't want to overmix and make tough cookies.

After the chopped nuts and chocolate are stirred in the batter looks unreasonably thick. I had to switch from a silicon spatula to chopsticks--you need a stiff wooden spoon You don't need to mix too much, but you want to make sure that there aren't pockets of white dough in the mix.

Roll the dough into golf ball-sized balls and place them at least two inches apart on a baking sheet. I always rinse my hands in icy cold water and dry them before rolling dough balls because it prevents the dough from melting sticking too badly. Also, you want to gently roll them into a ball without actually pressing the dough into itself. Again, you're not baking hockey pucks. The dough should come together without hard squeezing.

Bake for fifteen minutes in a 350 degree oven, until the edges are crisp but the middle is still soft.
Fresh from the oven, the cookies look crackly on top and dry around the edges, but very raw and soft in the middle. They'll harden as they cool, but if you bake them until they're solid they'll cool into a hocky puck. For most cookies but these cookies especially, it's best to underbake. These cookies are mostly nuts and chocolate anyway, so even if you underbake the chocolate will solidify at room temperature and hold the cookie together.

Here's one that was overbaked, mostly because it was smaller than the other ones on the sheet with it. See how the edges have melted and spread out in a thin crackly layer beyond the edge of the cookie? Contrast that with the cookie above, which has a rounded edge. This cookie will probably taste fine, but a crispy cookie really isn't what this recipe is all about. This cookie, aside from being overbaked, also suffered from having one lump of dough in it that didn't have chocolate and nuts mixed into it. Let this be a lesson to incorporate well! Luckily, it was just the one that was subpar.

Don't:

• Chop the nuts too finely. I don't know about you, but I like crispy walnut chunks in my cookies.
• Chop the chocolate too coarsely. I had my chocolate almost in shreds, and I didn't have any chunks that were even half as big as a chocolate chip. It really helps give this cookie a cohesive chocolate flavor and soft chocolate-ness instead of big pockets of hard chocolate here and there.
• Put the dough in the fridge. I did this for my last batch because I was worried that the dough might have started to melt sitting in a hot kitchen. The last batch looked more like the bad cookie above than any of the other batches. I don't think the cold dough could spread properly, and the edges just melted out into ugly flatness.
• Let these cookies sit out too long. Put them in a tupperware container and freeze them until you want to eat them. A cookie this thin and so chock full of nuts and chocolate won't take long to come back up to room temperature, but if you just keep them in a container at room temperature or in the fridge the nuts might go stale.
• Be afraid to experiment with cookie size. Some of my cookies were smaller, and I thought they were actually cuter and a more manageable size. I just enough dough to roll a ball about two-thirds the size of a golf ball.

Consensus: great! I would put in even more nuts next time, perhaps substituting out a half cup of chocolate. But it's Michael Mina's recipe (which he says his young son knows how to make), and the cookies definitely turned out like the ones I had at the restaurant. Crisp around the edges, crackly on top, and very soft and chewy in the center. I love cookies that have this texture, so I think this recipe's a keeper. It's going to be fun trying variaions on this theme: whole wheat pastry flour instead of white, adding raisins and/or oatmeal, using peppermint oil or almond extract, and of course experimenting with pecans and almonds. Happiness may come in a cookie after all; I think I've broken my cookie curse!

If only I had the time and energy to make root beer sherbet and sassafras ice cream as well. One day I will, if only to prove that I have as much culinary talent as Michael Mina's seven year old son.

Link to recipe