Food Without Borders

I make a yearly visit to San Fran­cisco and the Bay area. Before our daugh­ter was born I would would fly out there 3–4 times per year. The area is so spe­cial to me that I chose to pro­pose to my  wife at one my favourite parks in Moun­tain View. On a recent visit we decided to stay in San Fran­cisco proper and re-explore the city with our 3 year old. We never travel any­where with­out plan­ning out vis­its to cof­fee houses — as we try to avoid Cor­po­rate cof­fee houses. On a recent visit we heard from our hotel’s concierge about a cof­fee house close to the old Mint buid­ing that spe­cial­izes in small batch brews. This is where we found Blue Bot­tle Cof­fee Com­pany. The store is located in the SOMA neigh­bour­hood, in a ren­o­vated office build­ing just behind the Mint and a court­yard on Beach street. If it’s cold out­side, this is a per­fect time to sip your favourite brew and warm up while brav­ing the typ­i­cal San Fran­cisco cold.

Arti­san pre­pared cof­fee in cool urban sur­round­ings. The Blue Bot­tle Cof­fee Com­pany, named after the first cof­fee house in Vienna, offers small batch brews of organ­i­cally grown cof­fee with the fresh­est of beans — in fact all beans are freshly ground and roasted in the last 48 hours. Their cof­fee is made via drip, french press (my per­sonal favourite), or via siphon­ing. The espresso is expertly pulled.

Sin­gle Brew Cof­fee Siphons Await­ing Action

Siphoned Cof­fee

Siphoned cof­fee has been pop­u­lar in Japan for some years now. The UCC cof­fee stores found in Japan and in part of Metro Manila are prob­a­bly the most well known stores for siphoned brews. Freshly ground cof­fee is added to a glass flask then waster below the cof­fee is heated by halo­gen lights until it begins to per­co­late upwards into the ground cof­fee. The ris­ing water is stirred into the cof­fee, then the heat is turned off caus­ing the the brew to trickle back down into a wait­ing cof­fee pot or cup. Yes, it’s enter­tain­ing to watch. But does it taster bet­ter? I have to say that is tastes bet­ter than drip cof­fee, but the french press still imparts the best flavour and cream of the many brew­ing meth­ods. Also expect to pay a lit­tle more for the plea­sure of tast­ing (and watch­ing) the siphoned brew.

Sin­gle Brew Cof­fee Siphons in Action

Blue bot­tle begins serv­ing break­fast around 10am. They have sev­eral types of stuffed brioches — the goat cheese and herbs hazel­nuts and cin­na­mon are stand­outs. We also tried there Pro­sciutto Quiche. They use a less saltier pork so that you are able to enjoy your cap­puc­cino with­out hav­ing to drink a cup a water to cope. Their quiche is backed in a phyllo dough rather than pie shell so you get a light crispy crackle with each bite. Bring a friend and split one of their brioches and a quiche.

Prioscotto Quiche

My cap­puc­cino was medium bod­ied,  fruity and choco­laty but not with a winy taste . If you’ve ever had one of the Hershey’s dark choco­late can­dies with cher­ries or blue­ber­ries, this will remind you of it. I thought it was a lit­tle acidic but smooth enough to drink quickly if you were so unfor­tu­nate to be in a hurry. And of course it had a lit­tle love on top. Plan on mak­ing a few vis­its for drip cof­fee, cap­puc­cino, and a siphoned coffee.

Note to Vis­i­tors: At the time I wrote this arti­cle, there were a few free park­ing spot just to the right of the cof­fee house. Be care­ful when park­ing on the street even for a “quick run in” to grab a cof­fee. No need to make your visit extra expen­sive with a park­ing ticket.

Capuc­cino with Love

Blue Bot­tle Cof­fee Company

1552 Beach St. #R
Oak­land, CA 94608
510–653-3394

Web­site: http://www.bluebottlecoffee.net/

We were meet­ing up with a friend on a recent visit to San Fran­cisco. Since it was late she offered to take us to B*uppo’s for a quick bite; I know her to be a foodie and I think she saw the look on our face. The plan quickly changed and we headed up the street a few blocks into San Francisco’s SOMA dis­trict where one of the city’s best Mediter­ranean bistros — Zare at Fly Trap.  Thanks to Min­nie for the great find! Chef/Owner Hoss Zare is at the helm. His food can best be described as Per­sian meets New Amer­i­can. Chef Zare began his career at this very loca­tion some 20 years ago as the Exec­u­tive Chef. He went on to be Chef at Aromi, later to become Bistro Zare. In 2005 he opened Zare Napa to show­case his Mediter­ranean cook­ing style along with wine coun­try cook­ing. He returned last year to Fly Trap and pur­chased the restau­rant. Chef Zare can be seen at the restau­rant greet­ing his guest as the enter and exit. We were so happy that the restau­rant was both sophis­ti­cated and accom­mo­dat­ing of children.

Isa Help­ing Chef Zare Pre­pare Dessert

Our 3 year old is a bud­ding cook in her own right and was thrilled to get the oppor­tu­nity to pre­pare a dessert along­side Chef Zare.

We decided to go with the on the sin­gle bone short rib, which was deli­cious. The reduc­tion was one of the best I’ve had — well bal­anced between beefy, salty, and sweet. The short ribs are served along­side a deli­cious risotto which was not too creamy; like I like it. I had sworn off short ribs since in Texas it seems to be all over the place. I think I’m back! I am still void­ing any restaurant’s short ribs which are bone­less or flanken cuts.

We also tried the braised duck legs which are pre­pare with can­died cit­rus peels, bar­ber­ries, and pis­ta­chios. It is sim­i­lar to duck con­fit; how­ever it is both sweet and savory and has bits of orange zest, saf­fron, and demi-glacé. The duck was ten­der and crispy in all the right places.

Braised Duck Leg with Can­died Citrus

Our appe­tizer was also fan­tas­tic. It was a large “meat­ball” of Bul­gar wheat, lentils filled with oys­ter mush­rooms and served along with a creamy chili sauce. We will be back to try more of Chef Zare’s inven­tive cui­sine on our next trip to the Bay Area.

Bul­gar Wheat Meatball

Zare at Fly Trap

606 Fol­som Street, San Fran­cisco, CA 94101, 415.243.0580

Arti­choke Salad

Since it was our 6^th visit to Napa, we decided to try the route to Napa that takes you through Sonoma. The high­way through Sonoma is but 2 lanes; it winds through rolling hills until it reaches CA 29. On this trip we headed straight to St Helena — a small town just towards the north­ern tip of the high­way. In St Helena you will find the train­ing ground for many of America’s great­est chefs — The Culi­nary Insti­tute of Amer­ica at Greystone.The school has its own restau­rant called Wine Spec­ta­tor that is focused on serv­ing chef inspired menus cre­ated from locally pro­duced and sea­sonal ingre­di­ents. We had vis­ited the cam­pus before, how­ever this was our first time at the restau­rant. The restau­rant is sit­u­ated on a ter­raced bal­cony with shaded out­door seat­ing that per­mits a good view of the coun­try side to the east. Inside is a wine coun­try bistro look with wood, stone, and cop­per. The kitchen is clearly vis­i­ble from the entire din­ing room or bar, so you can hear and see the Chefs as they work.

Sar­dine Tapa from Today’s Temptations

Like all restau­rants in Napa, the wine selec­tion has many good choices, so I sug­gest you decide before arriv­ing if you will do a wine tast­ing or save your tongue for the few winer­ies you plan to visit that day. I have found that a day in Napa only allows for vis­it­ing 2–3 winer­ies any­way, so you could just begin your wine tast­ing here at the restau­rant. We passed on the wine tast­ing since we would later be vis­it­ing Robert Mon­davi and the Carneros vineyards.

We tried two of the restaurant’s sig­na­ture drinks– the gin­ger infused peach jas­mine tea and the nat­ural grape juice. Both were refresh­ing and not too sweet. The grape juice was made from freshly squeezed grapes which I had not had before; it was like some­one picked up a hand full of grapes and squeezed them into a glass. I am more used to what you find in the gro­cery store or foun­tain drink machines — both which are concentrates.

Lavash

The appe­tiz­ers at Wine Spec­ta­tor are more invit­ing the entrées — the entrées were bistro fare — good but not out­stand­ing. We ordered 1 entrée (the ricotta stuffed whole wheat ravi­o­lis) and 3 appe­tiz­ers. The soft-shell crab BLT, the arti­choke salad made of olive oil poached arti­chokes, water­cress, wal­nut bagna cauda, and lemony aioli, and their sea­son offer­ing Today’s Temp­ta­tions, which that day was dif­fer­ent bites of Mediter­ranean influ­enced amuse-bouches.

I’ve been com­ing to San Anto­nio since I was a kid. I’ve seen it grow from a BBQ and Tex-Mex haven to hav­ing a more diverse and eclec­tic restau­rant scene. Even with Japan­ese cui­sine grow­ing ever pop­u­lar, San Anto­nio still is not the place you expect to find good Japan­ese food and sushi. Some­time find­ing the unex­pected is half the fun.

We found Zushi Sushi by pure acci­dent. We were stay­ing in the north­west side of the city on a week­end visit and talk­ing about where to eat that night. The usual sus­pects came mind — BBQ, Tex-Mex, maybe Ital­ian. We didn’t feel like a dri­ving  very far and we had heard that was a good Japan­ese restau­rant just min­utes walk from our hotel; we fig­ured to give it a try. What a find! Zushi is not tra­di­tional Japan­ese and its not Amer­i­can­ized Japan­ese. You will find many of the same types of items com­mon in chic hotel and depart­ment store restau­rants. If you ‘re not famil­iar with the Japan­ese food scene, know that hotel food and depart­ment store restau­rants are some of the best places to dine in urban Japan . Items like kushiyaki, which are small morsels of food fried on sticks — such as chicken, sweet plan­tain, or tofu.

Grilled Salmon Masubi

Zushi’s lay­out is mod­ern but some­how very com­fort­able. You’ll find both a trendy set here and fam­i­lies with chil­dren out for a good meal. Do expect to wait for a table on a Fri­day or Sat­ur­day night. The wait­staff is well trained and has per­sonal favourites and rec­om­men­da­tions — so do ask.  Stand­outs on the menu include their Soft-Shell Crab Kara Agge — we had 4 whole crabs for $7.00.; rice dishes, and var­i­ous chi­rashi. Zushi also allows you to cus­tomize your sushi order; from hav­ing it fried, torched, or rice-less if wanted. This amount of con­trol can seem over­whelm­ing for some din­ers if you think to much about it. If you are crav­ing smaller por­tions of katsu (panko coated fried meats) they now offer mini ver­sions of their larger katsu dinners.

Zushi-Sushi has now become a fam­ily des­ti­na­tion for us on all our vis­its to San Antonio .

I-10 and Wurzbach
San Anto­nio, TX
210.691.3332

http://www.sushizushi.com/

Over the past few years the num­ber of cup­cake shops has grown greatly as Amer­i­cans seek smaller, higher qual­ity snacks and desserts. I’ve been debat­ing with myself and oth­ers about whether this was a fad or some­thing here to stay. I fall on the side of here to stay, but going the way of the bagel craze of the late 80’s and early 90’s. At that time there many dif­fer­ent shops, most have closed. Those which remain are those with a good busi­ness model and a supe­rior prod­uct. Since cup­cakes can also be found in gro­cery stores, cup­cake shops have to dif­fer­en­ti­ated from what you can find in the gro­cery store for a 10^th of the price.

Crave is one of Houston’s newest cup­cake shops, located in the upscale Uptown park area just north of the Gal­le­ria. In the past I’ve vis­ited Sugarbaby’s Cup­cake Bou­tique, located on Rich­mond and Shep­herd. Sugarbaby’s color scheme is pink, black, and white. It reminds me of a lit­tle girl’s tea room so I am not too com­fort­able  hang­ing out there. Crave is sleek, mod­ern, and clean. It has a very un-Houston feel to it, although the company’s lone store is located here in Houston.

The cup­cakes are the right level of sweet. Since cup­cakes are gen­er­ally topped with a sweet icing, the cake under­neath should con­tain less sugar to com­pen­sate. I enjoyed the choco­late peanut but­ter and espresso choco­late cup­cakes the most. The ingre­di­ents seem to be high qual­ity — real milk, vanilla, choco­late, and sugar. The cake is moist, and does not fall apart under fork.

The red-velvet is their best seller; it is a very good good red vel­vet how­ever most red-velvet cakes are good red vel­vets. The flavours and tex­tures of Crave’s cup­cakes are not homo­ge­neous. You will not feel as though think you are eat­ing cake bat­ter shaped like a cup­cake. Crave’s cup­cakes are best eaten with a black cof­fee or a dark fresh hot tea. In true small cof­fee house tra­di­tion, their coffee’s are brewed to order , one cup at a time. If you say you will never spend $3.oo on a cup­cake, Crave just might be the first place to go if you ever change your mind.

Hous­ton, TX 77056
713–62-CRAVE
Crave Cup­cakes

Boat Noo­dles

One of my favourite home style cook­ing Thai restau­rants. We heard Chef Lee had opened his restau­rant close to our home. We knew him from his trans­for­ma­tion of Vieng Thai into a some­what chic restau­rant. The food at Thai Lily Café has the authen­tic Thai taste you crave after you return from a visit to Bangkok — the herbs, spices and use of krachai and black pep­per­corn strings. No Chi­nese food dis­guised as Thai or American-Thai here!
My favourites include his Pad Keemao with chicken and his Pad Ped Pla “Fried Fish in Red Curry”. The Pad Keemao has a that the taste of fresh chilies, pep­pers, and onions that defines good drunken noo­dles.
The fish is accen­tu­ated with the krachai, a rhi­zome with no Eng­lish trans­ac­tion — sim­i­lar to gin­ger. The staff is very friendly and professional.

Pad Ped Pla “Fried Fish in Red Curry

Lightly salt fish, and dust with flour, fry, then set aside.

Heat oil on medium, then cook krachai, gar­lic, onions, and gin­ger for 2 min­utes. Add red curry, cook for 1 minute. Add sugar, fish sauce and stir in. Let develop. Go by smell. Maybe 3 min­utes or so.

Lower heat, then add basil, chili, kef­fir lime, and pep­per­corns. cook for 5 minutes.

Add coconut milk and put on low­est heat for 5 min­utes. Add water if too dry, then Pour over fish and serve with steamed rice.

Thai Lily Café

713.474.8388
2390 S Dairy Ash­ford St
Hous­ton TX 77077

Located in a small hum­ble strip cen­ter near Houston’s Westchase Dis­trict, Sasaki Japan­ese Restau­rant is one of the few real Japan­ese restau­rants in Hous­ton. You will find many from Houston’s Japan­ese com­mu­nity eat­ing lunch or din­ner here.

CLOSED

We were really look­ing for­ward to eat­ing at Robert Gadsby’s new restau­rant Bed­ford, in the Houston’s Heights area. Along with Mon­trose and the hip part of Wash­ing­ton Avenue, Houston’s Heights is one of the top areas for new inno­v­a­tive cuisine.

First Visit

We were long­time fans of Chef Gadsby’s cook­ing from his time at NOE. The ini­tial entry way into the Bed­ford is west coast chic. The restau­rant was packed so our antic­i­pa­tion grew even more. On our first visit, we opted for the reg­u­lar seat­ing over the Chef’s table, which looks like a sushi bar with a small kitchen in front.

Please, every­one keep in mind: Yes, there is some con­fu­sion going on among the servers. This restau­rant is new and the place was packed, but the ser­vice was friendly. We already have a our favourite server — she knew the items on the menu (how they were made, what the key ingre­di­ents were), had rec­om­men­da­tions with expla­na­tions, and took great care of us.

The restaurant’s look is accept­able, but it will def­i­nitely remind you of a hall­way in a hotel-a lit­tle bare and noth­ing that really estab­lishes an ambiance. The addi­tion of a few pic­tures, more art with spot light­ing would help to cure this. The waitstaff’s uni­forms were untucked shirts rem­i­nis­cent of barongs or jan­i­to­r­ial uni­forms. We were informed by our server that the uni­forms would be chang­ing. Thanks — this is a good idea.

Mimosa Salad

The food was what we expected — great. The quail was per­fectly sea­soned and ten­der. The duck pasta was so deli­cious — bal­anced flavours of duck, with­out the greasy taste that turns some non-duck eaters off. The top dish had to be the papaya chicken salad. If you’ve eaten Robert’s mimosa salad at NOE, you will be famil­iar. This one dish should be given to every­one. It is absolutely delicious!

They ran out of lamb, that night –so I missed out. Look­ing into the kitchen, I saw lamb dishes com­ing up every 5 min­utes or so. The tel­licherry crusted tuna was also good. I rec­om­mend avoid­ing the shorts ribs. They are just “ok” and you can get short rib any­where in Hous­ton. We ordered 2 dif­fer­ent desserts. I espe­cially liked the Indian cheese donuts, but the bread pud­ding was so-so. Cap­puc­ci­nos tasted hand made and not from a cof­fee machine.

Duck Ravi­oli Salad

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Sec­ond Visit

On our sec­ond visit, we decided go for the deep tracks. We went with the Chef’s table or what Bed­ford calls “Table One”. I thought sit­ting in the bar chairs would be hard for 2.5 hours. To my sur­prise, they were fine — even after 4 hours.

Our meal began with an amuse-bouche of a sweet corn­bread topped with a gar­den veg­etable but­ter. It was a good start. I think if you are inclined to do a tast­ing menu, be clear on whether you want to include wine or not. The servers will assume you want wine if you do not speak up.

Rec­om­men­da­tions

• A mixed seafood soup with broth, arti­chokes, striped bass, shrimp, sun-dried toma­toes, potato, and lemon. This was one of the best soups I’ve ever had. Very sim­ple taste and spirit warming.
• Steamed egg cus­tard, with black truf­fles. This was the biggest sur­prise dish of the night. Per­fect bal­ances of earthy truf­fles, salty egg and kuzo.
• Duck roulade. This is a must try for duck meat lovers.
• 3 meat (bison, elk, and lamb) ravi­oli was flavour­ful and hearty. The pasta was per­fectly al-dente and the meats’ tastes came together well, with­out and one meat over­pow­er­ing the other and no gamey taste and all.
• The duck ravi­oli with scram­bled eggs and truf­fles was my favourite dish. I could eat a entire meal of this. I hope this one gets on the main menu — highly rec­om­mended! I’ll be backor the duck and cook­ing classes.

Mako Shark