A 27 course dinner at Bouley. 6.5 hours and the man himself was cooking for us.
probably making you hungry
Locally grown chicories and Niki’s delicious homemade granola
Clearly I am in Northern California.
the remnants of delicious chicken feet at Mayflower Restaurant in Union City,CA.
Within 30 minutes of arriving in rainy Northern California Niki had me at an unusual Dim Sum restaurant located in a strip mall across from a gas station. My initial thought was the food HAD to be good! Well, I was right! We dined with Siew-Chin, a pastry cook at Chez Panisse and some of her friends and family. Siew-Chin is a brilliant woman and an incredibly awesome dim sum hostess. Eating dim sum with a native speaker makes the entire experience that much better. We dined on delicious chicken feet, braised until tender, then lightly coated and fried with a mild almost sweet sauce. Simple shrimp and chive dumplings were incredible, clean flavor, great texture, as was the fried tofu, pan fried noodles and the fried taro root. We also managed with eat some delicious tripe, braised and then heated at the table and mixed with a sweet and pungent vinegar and soy sauce, thinly sliced scallions and sliced fresh chilies. The tripe was tender and absorbed all the incredible flavors of the sauce. We finished the meal with a Chinese dessert of bean paste coated in coconut and peanut with a black sesame filling. Overall it was great food, incredible company and a perfect way to start this ultimate vacation of mine.
Much more to come as Niki and I have made our schedule for the week while I am here and well it is obviously centered around food! So while I am probably making you hungry, I am also probably eating delicious food in San Francisco.
heading south. maine to nyc
Well the season in Maine has ended and I have spent the past five days journeying home from Maine, stopping for 2 nights in Boston and spending four nights in nyc before heading to San Francisco tomorrow! Here is my take on two days experiencing some food in Beantown.
Danny, Josh and I headed to Watertown, MA to stay with Rachel for two nights, but also to try some food in and around the Boston area. The night we arrived in Watertown, we dragged Rachel to the South End to a trendy tapas eatery that has a great sounding menu, full of all kinds of interesting dishes that seemed to have an equally as interesting cocktail list. We waited for about 20 minutes for a table (on a Monday night at 830) and sipped some pretty decent Pisco Sours. Once we were seated at the table the four of us could immediately identify at least 15 tapas items that sounded both enticing and interesting. We decided to start with five menu items to pace ourselves. This turned out to be a great decision by the group. Of the first few dishes we tried all were under seasoned. It seemed as though not one cook had tasted the food they were serving.(a nig no, no) A razor clam, done simply on the flattop was like chewing on a large rubber band. Fried sweetbreads were over coated and way over cooked. The soft pillow like texture a well cooked sweetbread can posses in this version was grainy and unpleasantly dense, made worse by the overly crunchy and sweet sauce coating around it. (think really bad fried sesame chicken from a chinese take out) We decided to give the kitchen one more try, ordering a few more dishes. Unfortunately our first round of food was not a fluke. The next round of food fell into the same vein as the previous. We did have one great bite of food which was the garnish to the salt cod fritters. A round slice of lemon had the actual fruit removed form the center and was battered and deep fried. I could have eaten a bag of them. We left this meal greatly disappointed and still hungry, needless to say we went back to Rachel’s apartment and ordered in some chinese food.
The next day we headed to Sofra for some lunch. This great “coffee shop” in Cambridge is run and owned by Ana Sortun of Oleana fame. This place is really special. They serve Middle Eastern influenced breakfast, lunch and pastries and everything is truly delicious. We started with kholrabi pancakes (think cheesy, tender latke) followed by schwarma sandwiches done on their Lebanese style metal drum grills.
After lunch we headed further into Cambridge to check out Christina’s spice store which conveniently has an ice cream shop attached. After looking at some spices and a purchase of dried chili threads and tonka beans we headed next door to the ice cream store which featured over 100 flavors of ice cream. We sampled with carrot cake, the burnt sugar and the khulfi. All were pretty delicious. The khulfi was a bit heavy on the black cardamom which caused it’s flavor to linger throughout most of the day.
Finally, our last dinner in Boston was at a place I had been looking forward to eating at for a while. The service was great, our server was really fantastic. The meal started off great with 2 phenomenal appetizers, but after that, things took a drastic turn for the worse. After the first 2 courses we probably had 12 other dishes from the menu on our table at different points during the evening and well….i’m going to be as polite as possible here… The service was great.
So Boston, I challenge you to feed me great food.
Sunday Lunch.
Standard Baking Company’s fig and anise bread, toasted filled with mayonaise, smoked quail meat, fried rosemary and pan fried fingerling potato coins.
Since I’ll be heading south soon, I am trying to use up the delicious things I have left in the house. I have to admit this was a killer sandwich. It oddly reminded me of a thanksgiving leftover sandwich with the sweet figs, salty potatoes, incredible bursts of rosemary. The flavor profile matched, but the Primo Smokehouse hot smoked quail sent this sandwich into a whole new realm of taste and flavor.
I was fortunate to receive an entire tin of Browne Trading Company ‘s American White Sturgeon Caviar as a bit fo a giveaway from my more than generous boss. After a breakfast of scrambled eggs and caviar, I decided to have some fun with the caviar as it was the kind of opportunity I would probably not be given again. So with the assistance of Josh and Danny we set to do some caviar indulgence using only what we had in my kitchen.
I happened to have a few North Haven oysters in my fridge and Danny happened to bring over a bottle of champagne. A little minced shallot and black pepper into some champagne and a table spoon of that mixture on top of each oyster followed by some caviar. It taste like a mouthful of expensive ocean water. Salty, briny, great fish essence and the dry champagne to balance it all.
I had some beautiful fingerling potatoes, I simply roasted until soft and then scooped out the inside, leaving about 1/4 inch of potato with skin intact. I hard boiled 2 eggs (placed them in boiling water for 8 minutes) and then separated the whites from the yolks. I mixed the yolks with black pepper and sour cream and spread that inside the potato skin. I then shredded the whites thru a zyliss cheese grater. (this could be achieved by using a microplane or the smallest side of a box grater) I then placed the shredded white on top followed by a generous spoonful of caviar and a few scallions to finish. Not your average potato skins, but simply delicious.
For the final caviar dish of the evening Danny set on making a potato rosti (think big potato pancake with a bit more texture) adding some grated onion and fennel. I placed 3 eggs in boiling water for 5 minutes and 10 seconds, then immediately shocked them in an ice bath until cool. I peeled them and then held them in the fridge until ready to serve. Once the rosti was done, we dolloped it with sour cream. pour some hot water over the eggs to get them back to room temp (even a little warmer, think activate gooey egg yolk)placed the eggs half on the rosti and made a slit in the top to release the perfectly “cooked” yolk and then topped it off with a generous spoonful of caviar and some minced scallion. In all my years of friend potato eating never have I had an experience so decadent. The saltiness of the caviar was a perfect balance for the sweet creamy yolk and also paired nicely with the sweetness of the potato and fennel in the rosti. Perhaps we will have to rethink Hannukah next year!.
Chatting with Chef Melissa Kelly and No Reservations host Anthony Bourdain, while making Bread and Fish Soup for Bourdain and his crew post a little winter sailing in Thomaston. Look for the full episode to air April 12th at 10pm on the Travel Channel.
Pretty cool.
Coleslaw for our celebration dinner…yes it is shaped into a pigs face.
red cabbage, green cabbage, apples, celery root, carrots, red onion, caraway, mustard seeds, cider vinegar, mayo salt and pepper.
