Any motorcycle ride down the California coast wouldn't be complete without a lunch (or dinner) stop at the Central Texan Barbecue in Castroville. In fact, even if you're driving you should stop.
I have been going to the Central Texan for years and it never fails to disappoint...
My friend Ajiki-san and I went out to dinner this evening to a new place I just happened to find by chance on the web. We read the reviews, they seemed to be getting good ones and so we decided to roll the dice.
Ajiki-san and I are extremely food-compatible so an evening of yakitori and oden would do just fine. And although not the ultimate for that kind of thing, Toriyaki Kurumaya was well worth visiting...
Well, even in Tokyo you can get bagels. This is a good thing especially when you feel like having a slice of home. But as the way food goes here, you're in for a few surprises.
Wandering through Jinbochou looking for books, brought me across a Bagel & Bagel shop. Since it was nearly time for lunch (but lunch was still a few stops away), I felt the need to nosh. So in I went...
Dear diary:
Sometimes you just need to revisit the past. Excitement aside, the past brings out the memories and memories bring out the satisfaction and so on...
Tuesday and Wednesday were the days to relive a bit of food treking. Hankering for the familiar, I went out to Nebari-ya for a nice natto-kimchee-tori soboro donburi lunch on Tuesday. Then onto Kazuki Ramen for late dinner on Wednesday.
Oh Two. Ate. Diary, the only other eye-opening things I discovered in the past 24 hours were the rather unique flavors applied to bagels (!), plus an interesting French restaurant nestled on a small backstreet (aren't they all?) in Hiroo but more on those later....
Chazuke (or ochazuke) is one of my favorite things to eat. It's just bits of vegetable or fish, some seasoning (usually something like furekake - dried seaweed, sesame seeds, preserved fish...) on top of rice on which green tea is poured. It's a do-it-yourself bowl of porridge.
Yes, tonkatsu please... (photo courtesy of www.toncya-suzuya.co.jp)
But I never in a million years would associate tonkatsu (deep fried pork cutlet) as a chazuke topping. But Suzuya manages to pull it off....
Out in the middle of the Kiyosato area, through some twisty, country roads lies Ichi, a soba restaurant with a different kind of twist.
Housed in a building that used to be a Meiji-era hospital (the original sign still is hanging at the entrance), Ichi's charm is it's rustic, old-timey atmosphere. The tatami is sturdy but worn, the tables and chairs a melange of styles from years past and low beamed ceilings remind you to humble your head so you won't end up knocking yourself out. It's a very comfortable, cozy room.
Food-wise, the soba is top-notch. The buckwheat noodles are hand-made (common to soba restaurants in this area) and delicious and served with some unique and less common soba sides....like, gobo and mame tempura, tororo (grated mountain potato) or tender cooked root vegetables.
Ichi itself is a hidden gem worth searching out (sorry, no directions or pictures I was so taken by the location that I neglected to do either) in this area. I'm sure if you ask one of the locals, they'll be able to tell you where. It's some extra work, but worth it in the end.
I love figs. Fresh, dried, stuffed with goat cheese and grilled, in a clafloutis, eaten out of hand. Figs figs figs...so it was a total surprise to go to The Girl And The Fig in Sonoma last weekend.
I had never heard of the restaurant (I'm kind of bad that way...I guess I should do more research) but was really blown away by the experience....
Olivetos in Oakland is once again having their annual Whole Hog Dinner next month. And for the first time, we're actually going. You can read all about it here. Check out the link on that page for last year's menu. There are some interesting things on it
I'm not real sure that bacon ice cream is something more than just a novelty (and bacon-oatmeal cookies? definitely a novelty and a borderline "bacon-for-the-sake-of-bacon-in-something-that-really-doesn't-need-bacon-all-that-much" sort of thing) but I'd eat it. Once.
After Nebari-ya, we wandered through the Rokugo-dori. The neighbourhood is an older area with well established shops, most of them are restaurants. We stopped at a country French restaurant for some wine and a small plate of cheese. And after a while (and even though we just ate at Nebari-ya), we thought it would be a good idea to walk back and sample the neba-neba stylings of Hashiya.
Make no mistake, Hashiya serves spaghetti... (photo by wjc)
Hashiya is a spaghetti restaurant with a mind-boggling number of combinations. I lost count at 40 (well, our food arrived...). However, they do have some interesting dishes involving neba-neba...
If you do a search of Two. Ate. you can find a few postings about natto (納豆, fermented soy beans). Lots of people think natto is disgusting if only for the smell but actually, natto is very good for you. And depending on how you serve it, it's really delicious. BUT, there are a whole class of foods here in Japan classified as neba-neba (ねばねば) or sticky foods.
Sticky natto... (photo by wjc)
Natto, when mixed up, becomes very sticky and threads of protein resemble the gossamer threads of a spider web. Mountain potato (山芋, yama imo), taro (里芋, sato imo), okra and tororo imo (とろろ芋) are other examples of typical neba-neba foods.
Our friends Soma-san and Kazumi *love* neba-neba type foods. And so do I. So much so that we built ourselves a mini-festival (matsuri)...
Continue reading "Sticky Foods Matsuri Part 1 (Nebari-ya)" »
In the US, unagi (eel) is most often thought of as topping for a piece of sushi. The sweet/salty soy-mirin-sugar sauce basted over a strip of grilled eel has many fans in the US. However, there is so much more that unagi can offer.
Small, friendly, eel-ee... (photo by wjc)
As with most local food cultures, nearly all parts of an animal are used and Una Tetsu demonstrates that with unagi in interesting and delcious ways....
It would be a gross understatement to say that there are lots of restaurants in Tokyo. Gigantic portions of the culture here are food-based and there really is no better place in this part of the world to eat such a wide variety of food.
Thinking about owning a food-based business where we live is (or appears to be) difficult. The distances between cities and even neighbourhoods is great compared to a densely packed city as Tokyo. Even San Francisco is spread out enough to make it a chore (albeit a happy one) to get to a restaurant...
Last year, my friend Les and I were in Japan and after a full morning of book shopping in Jimbouchou (THE book district in Tokyo), we were mighty hungry.
King katsu curry... (photo by wjc)
Wandering down the Suzuran Dori (a small, backstreet-like street, just off the main drag of Jimbouchou), we found (rather smelled) Kitchen Nankai. One look inside and we immediately queued up. The large plates of dark Japanese-style curry with tonkatsu beckoned...
My friend Ajiki-san and got together this evening to dine on some more traditional Japanese fare. She found a place called DaDa close to the Ebisu Station in Tokyo.
Miso oden, egg and daikon (image from DaDa's website, apologies in advance for nicking this...)
This underground (as in basement floor) restaurant is ambience central. You walk down a narrow flight of twisting stairs that opens up on a smallish trianglular room with a gently curved counter. There are a few tables off to the sides as well. The lighting is subdued but it's not so gentle that you struggle to see. The counter is lined with many large bottles of sake (and yes, they serve all of them...)
With atmosphere like this, the food is going to have a Herculean task in front of it...
I came across a beautiful set of vegetables at a stand/restaurant in Shimokitzawa on Sunday. Go here for some pictures. I was real tempted to have lunch right then and there...
Last year, I discovered Hiroki. Les and I were in Japan for a second time and we were lamenting the disappearance of the little no-name okonomiyaki (お好み焼き) shop just beside the Akihabara station which served up thick slabs of super-delicious okonomiyaki.
Hiroki popped up as offering Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki and so we treked out, nailed our target and had a feast. So it was time for a return engagement, so off we (I) go...
The Tokyo food tour has begun in earnest. After a day of trying to keep dry in a somewhat rainy Shinjuku, it was time again for ramen.
One bowl! (image from Kazuki's website, apologies in advance for nicking this, I had no camera this evening)...
Kazuki Ramen is a small gem among many ramen places in Tokyo. I'm sure it's not the absolute best ramen place but to me it serves a pretty near-perfect bowl of ramen. There are at least two locations of Kazuki that I have seen: one near the Azabu end of the Hiroo suburb and one out near Yokohama near Higashi-Totsuka.
Want a steaming, comfrorting bowl of noodles? Here's what's in store...
The totally amazing Dream Theater is in town and my friend Tom (of Butter Pig fame), his girl anne, and Janet and I decided to join the festivities. But of course, we needed sustenance to gird ourselves for the 2 1/2 hour show. A day before the show, we wracked brains trying to find both a place within walking distance of the Warfield, a place actually open at 5pm *and* an available reservation. You'd be surprised at how that criteria is somewhat difficult in the restaurant-rich San Francisco. Finally, the chips turned up Azie...
We (belatedly) celebrated our 19th (!) wedding anniversary this past Saturday. We have been so busy that we decided to make this a low-key affair. Alexander's is a relatively new place, occupying the former El Torito restaurant in the very run-down Vallco Shopping Center in Cupertino.
While I have had lunch here many times (hi, Meriko!), we had yet to sample their dinner offerings...
Our Christmas gift to my (Wm.'s) parents for 2005 was a day of sake tasting in Berkeley and dinner at a nearby restaurant.
Earlier in the week, we had arranged a time and picked a place for dinner. However, this morning we felt the need to wed our sake tasting a bit better to our dinner selection. We had originally selected Eccolo as it came highly recommended by Meriko. However, their Italian bent seemed at odds with an hour of sake tasting.
After doing a bit of searching and online inquiring, we hit upon a restaurant that seemed to fit the bill: Sea Salt on San Pablo Ave. in Berkeley.
Sea Salt is a fish and seafood restaurant tucked away into a nondescript block of San Pablo Ave. Well, as nondescript as having the Berekely branch of Good Vibrations and a Cafe Trieste on the corner...
What impressed us right off the bat from searching online was their menu: lots of innovative dishes (large and small), and equally innovative ingredient mixtures in lots of them. We were set...and Sea Salt was it...
Negeen is a Persian restaurant in Campbell...just 3 minutes away from where we live. There are, in fact, a couple of excellent Persian places nearby...
Negeen has the usual array of richly spiced vegetable dishes (mostly appetizers) and kabobs of all kinds of meat: chicken (ground and not), beef (ditto) and lamb. All of the kabobs are accompanied by more rice than humans are allowed to eat. A broiled whole (!) tomato is usually included....
While out shopping for baklava nuts today, I chose Whole Foods (a (now) national chain of "healthier food" stores) because they have a nice selection of bulk bin items including all kinds of nuts.
I have gotten to know (slightly) one of the people behind the cheese counter and she (no names here but...you know who you are) has always been helpful in helping me find the runniest, most pungent French cheese in the cases. Today, I passed by to say "hello" and inquired about the possibility of them (Whole Foods as a chain, or maybe just their cheese department which is conveniently located next to a *relatively* preserved meats department) making patés in the future.
What I got back as an answer was a screed of calm but mammoth proportions which roughly equated to, "Oh no, less and less people each day are eating paté because they are finding out the 'real deal' about it."
Uh, the REAL DEAL about WHAT exactly? Patés come in many types but she seemed to be generalizing around the FOIE GRAS aspect of paté. Ok, so PETA and other folks are applauding the foie ban in the state coming in a couple of years because of "abuse" of ducks. Uh huh...and how exactly does that match up with the abuse of chickens, kept in square cages barely able to move fed only to fatten? No one but no one decries their miserable existence.
I pressed her about "exactly what the deal was" with paté pointing out that there are many varieties: pork, duck, chicken *MEAT* patés (i.e., non-liver)..."yeah...we sell those...they're right over there...but paté will never sell in Northern California because people are just too hip to them and won't eat them."
I walked away feeling kind of like the WF I knew (and shopped at) just lost a bit of allure for me...and maybe has become a tad too uptight. Maybe they've always been that way; maybe it was just her...it left a sour taste in my mouth. The higher prices are sometimes worth it but add the attitude and it makes me think twice...
For those of you who don't know us, we eat at the Left Bank Restaurant in Menlo Park on the first Friday of every month, at 8 pm. We have been doing this for over three years. Why the Left Bank? Because their food is consistently good, hearty bistro fare.
Earlier this year, the restaurant made a major change to it's menu. They put some decently innovative dishes on, took some of the long-time ones off and generally modernized the selection. The food remained excellent and they left enough of our favorites on as well.
Eight weeks ago, they radically changed the menu and we heard that Roland Passot decided to go in a more classic brasserie/bistro direction. Gone were the semi-California-style dishes...in came classics: rillettes (duck, rabbit, salmon), coq au vin, boudin blanc and noir, duck l'orange and more...and for us, it's a hit.
Last month, the boudin noir took centre stage. It was cooked perfectly - soft, creamy. It even had Janet (who kind of recoils at blood sausage) tucking in to bits of it. This month it was the coq au vin for me, the lobster-chanterelle starter for Janet..
So...coq au vin is not a dish that is done very well by lots of places. Over cooked, over sauced, weird reductions...so I was a bit hesitant. However, the Left Bank's rendition blew my mind. A little cast iron pot with two legs and a thigh nestled among a really small bed of pasta with onions and other veg and a sauce was rich and fragrant and tangy. Oh god...this was good and it just got better as you went to the bottom of the pot. Taste: complex; feel: simple comfort food. Janet's lobster dish was very similar in feel: a very succulent dish with some simple and very satisfying touches. A piece of baked lobster with sauteéd chanterelles with a light, almost Americaine sauce.
When we went to Paris a month ago, we thirsted, lusted, dreamt of bistro-style food. Of the nights I cook, I tend to cook in a very bistro-influenced manner. And now, we've got our regular haunt following suit.