food « Towse: views from the hill

May 17, 2007

Hocus-Pocus, and a Beaker of Truffles

Filed under: food,San Francisco — Towse @ 6:15 pm

Is nothing sacred? Daniel Patterson writes about truffle oil in Hocus-Pocus, and a Beaker of Truffles

[NYTimes. Registration required.]

A TRUFFLE by any other name may smell as sweet, but what if that name is 2,4-dithiapentane? All across the country, in restaurants great and small, the “truffle” flavor advertised on menus is increasingly being supplied by truffle oil. What those menus don’t say is that, unlike real truffles, the aroma of truffle oil is not born in the earth. Most commercial truffle oils are concocted by mixing olive oil with one or more compounds like 2,4-dithiapentane (the most prominent of the hundreds of aromatic molecules that make the flavor of white truffles so exciting) that have been created in a laboratory; their one-dimensional flavor is also changing common understanding of how a truffle should taste.

[continues]

Patterson’s restaurant, Coi, is amazing and just a hop, skip and jump away — four blocks, maybe five, near the corner of Broadway and Montgomery. Delish food in a soothing venue. $$$ or we’d eat there more often than we do. Coi includes service in the bill, one of the few restaurants I know that does. Wish more did.

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May 13, 2007

KFOG KaBoom! 2007

Filed under: food,life,photographs,San Francisco — Towse @ 9:21 pm

KaBoom!

Yesterday’s Chron:

[Click to enlarge image]

Program cover:

Pics:

My pics don’t do the show justice. (I’ll link to the KFOG video, which gives the fireworks and the music background, when it’s up.) Amazing. Thump. Thud. Heart-crashing fireworks set to a KFOG soundtrack. The “single barge” that the Coast Guard was making arrangements for turned out to be five barges full of fireworks lashed together.

KaBooM!

Live music beforehand. This year: Ozomatli, Guster and Kenny Wayne Shepherd. If you go some time in the future, be sure to come before the gates open (we arrived at 3:30p and still had to stand in a very long line to get in) and bring a blanket or something (we brought a couple which we folded to spare our tailbones) to stake out your space on the piers. The last hour before the fireworks, the piers keep getting infill with people stopping if there’s a spare 2 sq ft of space for them. I get a bit weirded out by crowds cramming in around me. The blanket-sized space keeps me sane.

KFOG’s KaBoom ends with hundreds of thousands of people walking home (or back to cars or to public transit) on the Embarcadero. The Embarcadero was closed to Mission, but in reality, the pedestrians had the streets until more like Market. When there are thousands of people walking north, the cars must move carefully up the single lane that pedestrians were allowing them.

We wound up at Globe for a snack-ish dinner around 10p. I had tuna tartare (with bread snips and black olive tapenade) and a sausage/garlic pizza. His nibs had a chunk of lamb with garbanzo beans and green garlic. We split a bottle of French cabernet franc. I had some Bonny Doon muscat for dessert. His nibs had some delish crepes stuffed with strawberry cream-cheese and almond filling. (Went well with the muscat!)

Up the steps. Home again by 12:30a. Slept in.

Happy M-Day to the Mothers and to those who Mother without having the actual title.

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May 3, 2007

[BLOG] Gastronomie

Filed under: blog,food,San Francisco — Towse @ 1:53 am

Out and about today, we were heading down Townsend and noticed DISTRICT.

“Have you heard of DISTRICT?” I asked his nibs.

“No,” he replied. “Must be new.”

Bar? Restaurant? I’d never heard of it and even if it is brand spanking new, there should’ve been some peep in someone’s “here’s what’s coming up” column. We’re talking SOMA, here. We’re talking the clubbing, see-and-be-seen set.

His nibs checked Zagat, and the place turns out to be a wine bar with bar food/tapas/small plates. He was searching for DISTRICT’s Web site but a search for /”san francisco” “district restaurant”/ kept bringing up hits for “xyz, a Mission District restaurant” and the like.

I tried /”san francisco” district winebar restaurant/ and BINGO!

I found a most excellent review at Gastronomie, a foodie blog (subtitle, “culinary adventures in San Francisco & beyond”) which comes at you with detail and a straightforward, “here’s what I thought” style.

Go read Gastronomie, Fatemeh’s blog, and tell me what you think. (That I agree with her wholeheartedly about Globe — we’ve stopped off there twice in the last month or two, on our way home from some other event — has a smidgen to do with it, but not much.)

Gastronomie’s review of DISTRICT
DISTRICT’s Web site [Caution: hip music!]
DISTRICT’s menu

I love reading words written by people who can write well about the places they go and the foods they eat.

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April 28, 2007

Amazing Cake Art

Filed under: art,food — Towse @ 11:54 pm

Amazing Cake Art (more than just the one cake pictured below) found at englishrussia.com — allegedly totally edible, allegedly made by Zhanna from St. Petersburg.

[repurposed from SG’s tumblr site]

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April 22, 2007

Walk around in the neighborhood

Filed under: food,life — Tags: San Francisco, Telegraph Hill — Towse @ 7:04 pm

A few neighbors had a walk around in the neighborhood last evening from 6 until, well, after getting home and clearing up our messes, it was 2 a.m.

The first of more I hope.

The original idea was something K and I hatched when she was new to the neighborhood and didn’t know anyone. She’d dropped in at a party next door hosted by P & Y and introduced herself.

We both left at the same time and I invited her in to take a look around. We talked about how entertaining it would be to have a party where everyone could poke noses into each other’s places instead of having to wait until the place was for sale and the agents were showing a real estate open house.

But then we were gone, and then K was gone and then we were gone again and then P and Y were gone and we were …

Finally in February Y and I were talking about it again.

“We’ll be gone in late March/early April. March isn’t good.”

“Let’s just choose a date and a few people and we’ll plan a smallish gathering and expand it to include more neighbors later if we have fun.”

“How about later. How about April. How about the weekend after taxes are due. Okay by you?”

“Okay by me.”

“If the date’s okay with K, we’re on.”

And it was. …

We sent out invites. Y sorted out who would be where on the walk around. We all gathered at K’s down the walk where she and M, who lives in the same building, provided cocktails and hors d’oeuvres at 6p. Then, on to A’s next door for salad (and to catch a glimpse of S and B’s brand-new (as of Sunday) baby) and then to P and Y for tapas and then here for more tapas and then down to the next walk down (in the pouring rain) to J’s for dessert and coffee, hosted by J with help from J and G.

Fun time was had by all.

Tapas here were empanadas: (1)cashew chicken with a honey/soy sauce (2) homemade pesto and toasted pine nuts (3) marinated beef with onion and peppers (4) sausage and peppers and cheese.

The pastry was kind of tossed together because I couldn’t find the butter pastry recipe I remembered so I checked what ratios Christopher Kimball used for fat to flour (he used part butter and part vegetable shortening) and made up two batches of pastry. Chilled in frig. Rolled and filled and pat-a-cake pat-a-cake. The pastry ingredients for both batches combined were simply 5C flour, 1 pound butter and about 12T cold water. Easy peasy.

The cooking of the various fillings, the cooling of same, the making of the pastry, the rolling of circles, the filling of the pastry circles and the crimping and the baking until almost done so I could finish the baking in just a few minutes after the party arrived here took far longer than I’d thought it would, but it all turned out as good as I’d hoped and there were a few left over.

Reheated empanadas for bfst. Ym.

We’re already talking of another one. More neighbors. More fun. Next time!

Have to start planning now, though. I checked this morning. That original party where I met K and we started talking about a walkaround party? November 2005.

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April 11, 2007

For Paula: What to ask for for Mother’s Day.

Filed under: food,life,URL — Towse @ 10:25 pm

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March 7, 2007

Free beer! and bushi-tei

Filed under: food,life,San Francisco — Towse @ 10:01 pm

Went to dinner last night at bushi-tei in Japantown. … for the third time.

Those who know us know that we seldom eat anywhere more than once, maybe twice. We must think bushi-tei is yummy. We do. It is. There are so many good restaurants in this town, that eating anywhere more than once or twice is absurd unless we think the restaurant is a keeper.

bushi-tei’s appetizer to die for is /Seared fresh foie gras, pumpkin pot de crème, pistachio, red onion marmalade/. The pumpkin pot de crème sounds like it would be weird with the seared foie gras (the foie is settled in the middle of the pot de crème), but the pairing is perfect. Delish. Mine!

His nibs had /Lobster and Crab, Chrysanthemum leaf, papaya, bacon, ginger cream, curry oil/. A salad of sorts only there’s very little greenery and LARGE CHUNKS OF LOBSTER! Tasty dressing. The bacon and papaya bits add intriguing shots of flavor. The salad is more crab and lobster than anything else. Tasty. We swopped our plates halfway through.

For the main course I had /Pan roasted Sonoma duck breast, spinach, mascarpone-mustard, dried chutney/, cooked medium rare. I figured if I had duck liver for the appetizer, it was only fair that I should carry on with the rest of the duck for the main course. The duck was cooked perfectly. The mascarpone-mustard was smooth and mellow and didn’t overwhelm the duck.

His nibs had /Pan seared Maine scallop, black rice tabbouleh, eye berry- cucumber yoghurt/. Delish as well. Have we ever had anything not delish here? No. For dessert his nibs had an apple dumpling served with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream, a drizzle of caramel and a sprinkling of crushed pistachio. I had a glass of Ichinokura Himezen saké.

LaWand Mathern wrote a fine review of bushi-tei last August that I won’t even try to compete with except to say the food is great, the setting is calm and serene and the bathrooms! Well! We have friends with toilets that do everything but sponge the spilt wine off your shirt. These are those kinds of toilets.

But wait! you say. What about the free beer?

Well, Muni cooperated (don’t say it never does) and we walked down to Washington Square Park where we were whisked off on the 30Stockton which dropped us at Union Square just in time to catch 38LGeary and we found ourselves at Bushi-Tei a half-hour before our 7p reservation. (Early reservation because his nibs was due for a conference call concerning raises and staff bright and early this morning.)

The early start to dinner meant that we finished at an unheard of early hour and (backtracking on the 38 and the 30) found ourselves back in North Beach, getting off the 30 at Panta Rei some time around 8:15p. We were walking up Green from Columbus when his nibs decided that the night was still young and we should stop into Maggie McGarry’s for a pint of Anchor Steam before making that last push up the hill.

The barkeep said, “You here for the trivia?”
“No,” we answered. “Just stopping by on the way home from dinner.”

And yet … we were still there when the trivia contest (every Tuesday!) started ’round about 8:30p. The quizmaster gave us a pencil and an answer sheet booklet. The night was still young. Why not try our luck and our smarts — the luck being in the quizmaster asking a question we knew the answer to.

His nibs won a free pint at a drawing mid-session. The session went on for six rounds. We were totally skunked for the music round. We made unexpected points in the hip-hop ’round. We were lagging behind, but made it up in the last “last call for know-it-alls” round and wound up in third place out of maybe eight teams competing. We were clearly a couple decades older than the rest of the contestants. Yay, us!

One of the youngsters came over ostensibly to get another round of drinks but in actuality to ask his nibs if he could tell her who sang Leader of the Pack (one of the answers in the music round). She must’ve figured we were old enough to know, but we couldn’t help her. Did I mention total skunkage in the music round?

Our third place finish earned us chits for two more pints of beer.

Free Anchor Steam. Can’t get much better than that.

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February 21, 2007

Phat Duck in The Pastry Department

Filed under: blog,food — Towse @ 5:29 pm

Dana at Phat Duck has closed her blog to join Hillel Cooperman over at Tasting Menu.

I’m hoping the Phat Duck archives hang around, because her blog was dessert-lovers’ heaven.

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February 5, 2007

The Queen is visiting …

Filed under: bookstores,food,photographs,San Francisco — Towse @ 4:47 am

The Queen Mary 2 is in port, the largest ship ever to sail into the San Francisco Bay.

We walked over to Fort Mason to have a good look from one of the piers. (… and, of course, stopped by Book Bay at Fort Mason before we walked on home.)

Thousands of people lined the shore to greet the QM2 on its way in. The bay was filled with boats. Quite a turnout considering the Super Bowl was competition for all the attention at the waterfront.

The QM2 was due in at 3P but didn’t show until 4P. Just as well for us as we’d stopped on our way at Pompei’s Grotto for some crab sandwich lunches.

The story was that the waves were a bit rugged outside the Gate and the bar pilot had difficulty getting aboard. Or it may have been a different reason. Stories scattered like pigeons in front of an unleashed puppy.

What was true was that once in port, the QM2 had to spend hours hanging around off Treasure Island until the bar pilot finally docked her at 8P. The tides in the bay are pretty strong and the bar pilot wanted to bring the QM2 in while the tide was changing for full to ebb and moving least.

Tricky maneuvering. We watched as this huge mammoth inched into Pier 27 and tied up.

The bulk of the passengers offload today to spend some time in San Francisco and then head home. An equal number of boarding passengers replace those leaving and continue with the ship on its journey around the world.

QM2 leaves tonight at 8P when, again, the tides will be changing.

QM2 comes through the Golden Gate	QM2 w/ greeting from fire boat
QM2 Boats! and the USCG helicopter	welcoming crowd at Fort Mason pier
QM2 passing Alcatraz
Pier 27 night shot while docking	Pier 27 Monday AM

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January 13, 2007

This is just so wrong, in so many ways: fourthmeal.com

Filed under: food,peeves — Towse @ 6:33 am

I was down in the south Bay today, making sure the parental abode in East San Jose would survive the expected frigid temperatures. We’d basically shut down the heat after my mom moved on to save $$$, but his nibs was afraid the pipes would burst if the temps dropped as low as expected.

(Woo hoo! Temps in the 20s expected. We haven’t had temps this low since The Great Freeze of 1989. Yesterday, in anticipation, we moved the jade plants and herbs into the house. Did you know the blossoms on jade plants had a pungent smell? I didn’t. Now I do.)

The younger sib was taking the train in to work and wouldn’t have a car available to check on the parental abode and rather than ask him to change his plans, I drove down, set the heat, pumped a bit from the pool cover, piled things in piles, shifted nine bags of clothes/towels/sheets/&c. to the Goodwill and … had lunch with his nibs.

Lunch was our usual (if not Thai Orchid) place: Taco Bell. Fears of green onion? chopped lettuce? E.coli? Death? Not us. Death by Chalupa, maybe.

Call me totally unaware. We don’t watch TV, so we don’t get the commercials. We don’t pay much attention to print ads.

Today at Taco Bell, I was introduced to the ad theme of “the fourth meal. … the meal between dinner and breakfast.”

You know that meal … the meal that makes 127 million Americans overweight, and 60 million obese. (*)

There’s even a very lame Web site — very lame I say because I tried it because I wanted to see what was being offered, and …why? Why have this site at all? I exited about three clicks into the experience.

The thing that bothers me most about all this is the Taco Bell ad agency thinking it would be a great idea to convince folks who eat at Taco Bell that a fourth meal between dinner and breakfast is not an aberration and “munchies” (uh.oh.) but an ‘onest-to-gosh extra meal in the day that everyone knows about and eats and you should too.

Bad enough I eat chalupas at lunch: ghod spare me from the day when I think a mid-evening “meal” of chalupas is nothing out of the ordinary, nothing I ought to be having second thoughts about.

fourthmeal?

That copy writer ought to have zir mouth washed out with soap.

Whoever designed the Web site needs a spanking, too.

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