Alli and I have eaten at a lot of special restaurants, and I’ve blogged about some of them before. One thing we haven’t done is eat at a really, like, crazily high end place together. Poor folk, etc. But, armed with a gift certificate (holiday gift from Dan and Dalia. (Hi Dan and Dalia!) and on the occasion of Alli’s birthday, last night we went to Michael (fucking) Mina!

I just want to tell you what we ate there. But if you’ve never seen the place, it’s in the Westin St. Francis in Union Square. It’s totally beautiful inside. The service was absurd. and I mean also that I am a little uncomfortable with that level of professionalism, both in its sort of the-diner-is-royalty thing and in some of the actual aspects of it: its weird gender problems, its rigidity, etc. But I did really appreciate feeling like I could ask our person absolutely anything about what we were eating, and that he could talk about the food without condescension or the sense that we were annoying him with questions.

As far as the food goes, it is complete artistry. It may not have been the most meaningful restaurant experience I’ve ever had (though it was very much so), but it may have been the best food, all things considered.

Mina is known for serving “presentations”, generally three takes on a given ingredient. We chose to do a three course pris fixe, and luckily got to taste everything on each other’s plate. This isn’t cheap. The pris fixe is $100 at minimum (extras for treats: foie gras, crab, caviar, beef), but by the end of the night I was convinced that it is a bargain. I mean, including the amuse bouche and mignardise at the end, I had thirteen (flawless) courses. And since I bit off all of Alli’s and she mine, we each tried 22 dishes!

Before the pris fixe courses started rolling in, we both were given an amuse bouche. Of lobster and crab. Lobster and crab three ways. The ways: beautiful lobster salad with tail meat, celery spears, and buttons of watermelon radish (reminding me how good shellfish and celery are. shellfish and celery!), rich lobster consommé with tapioca, and finally a fried crab tortellini over a lemon aioli type sauce.

For the first course I had bacon-wrapped scallops in three different chowders: one with corn, jicama, sweet peppers; one with young leeks, Yukon potatoes in a cream sauce; one “Manhattan” chowder with tomato concasse and celery. Alli had the Dungeness crab presentation; poached claw wrapped in endives with three different sauces, two whole legs with one of the best sauces I have ever tasted, made of butter, crab stock, and espelette pepper; finally a cioppino, Mina-style, with backfin meat, squid, and tinkerbell peppers.

For the second course Alli had the “Bouillabaisse”, starting with pan-seared branzino with perfectly crisped skin over a fennel slaw and burnt bread aioli; a poached turbot with a lobster mousse and a saffron lobster hollandaise; finally, an arrangement of shellfish: a scallop, a tomato stuffed clam, and a tempura calamari with sauce pistou (French pesto). I went with the duck. And oh my god: crispy skin rare duck breast with parsnip puree, star anise jus, and roasted apples; seared foie gras with pink lady apples, apple puree, and this gorgeous sweet parsnip bread; and what really took me over the top: leg rillettes formed into a breaded and lightly fried cake, topped with apple butter and mesclun.

Finally, or almost finally: dessert. The theme of my dessert was floral chocolate, so it started with a white chocolate and rose petal panna cotta with hibiscus foam and crumbled macaroon, a S’more with saffron marshmallow and pistachio puree, and deep dark chocolate ice cream with lavender sauce and shortbread. Alli’s dessert presentation focused on quince, and I thought all three were even better than my chocolate desserts (though they were phenomenal). Hers started with a quince paste and something she described as halvah-like but unfortunately I can’t find or remember the dish too well; but I do remember well the orange blossom donuts with apple chip and quince jam and the quince cobbler with ginger ice cream.

The wine was gone, the cognac I had was gone, and with our check they brought us cold bon bons, one with white chocolate and rice, the other with dark chocolate and sesame.

I kept proclaiming near the end of our meal that it was the “perfect” amount of food, but it was actually a little too much, not that I’m complaining. I wouldn’t give back one of those 22 courses.

Again, when I think about the best restaurant experiences that I’ve had, this one really stands out. It’s not where I would go when I want to eat something (pork hearts, pig’s feet) I thought I could never prepare (that would be Incanto). It’s not where I would go when I want Tuscany in San Francisco (that’s Delfina). But it is utterly inspiring cooking. It’s the kind of meal that makes me want to spend the next month straight in markets and in the kitchen; it makes me want to buy fillets of fish, cut them into three pieces and make three different preparations and do this on like a Tuesday. It was beautiful.

p.s. the photo above depicts the bacon-wrapped scallops chowder, but, again, I didn't take it. Thanks anonymous flickr person!

showtime!

I definitely didn’t grow up watching basketball. I always forget that Kansas City even had a team, and I was shocked to find that the barely-memorable Kansas City Kings (now safe in Sacto) played in my hometown from 1972-1985: why, I could have spent my first seven years watching them suck! Instead I watched the Royals (sorry, the awesome Royals) and in the winter, I dunno, I must have done my homework and slurped up plate after plate of Hamburger Helper™ (thanks mom, thanks dad).

But Alli is a Lakers fan, and I get it. Beyond even just being from the Los Angeles area, if I had been seven watching Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, I’d probably be a basketball fan too. And even being a basketball fan isn’t necessary for enjoying a Lakers/Celtics NBA final—just liking sports at all will do it. Anyway, to celebrate the Lakers/Celtics final and try to achieve total triumph in gender role reversals, I cooked dinner while Alli watched the game on the couch.

On the walk to the market yesterday I decided that I wanted to do a yellow & green themed meal for the game. Green, I knew, would be pretty easy, but yellow? In early June? No problem. It really just came down to a decision between yellow crookneck squash and these early-season yellow heirloom tomatoes. When I ventured inside to check out the fish market and saw fresh, beautiful, yellowtail in the case, supper took shape.

So here you have it, Showtime Yellowtail “Fauxencal” with Lamb’s Quarters

Yellowtail is definitely not a fish I know anything about past the sushi bar. And the Interweb was not much help: it couldn’t even really tell me which sort of fish I had! But I could tell by the texture, and the color, even, that the fillet I had (I asked for a center cut) was going to be full of flavor, meaty, close in some respects to ahi tuna, and thus probably (hopefully) amenable to a take on Provencal preparation, with capers and tomatoes, olive oil and salt. The result was terrific. The acidity of the tomato sauce played against the meatiness of the fish, and the braised greens provided a spiciness which, paired with the sweetness of the tomato, was sublime. Oh, and absurdly simple.

for the greens. any greens would work. I actually used a combination of fava leaf and lamb’s quarters. I washed the greens well, let them drain for a few minutes over a bowl, and then chopped them into one inch or so strips. I heated a tablespoon or so of olive oil over medium-high heat until hot, added the greens, and tossed to coat in the oil. Season these with salt, and red pepper flakes (at your discretion, my taste is for lots), lower the heat and cover until they’re cooked—again at your discretion, I let them cook for about ten minutes and they were tender, and delicious).

for the sauce. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Slice a thin “X” in the bottom of the tomato and plunge into the water for 20-30 seconds. Let cool, and slip off the skin. Dice the tomato, making sure to save all seeds and pith and goodness. Then heat a tablespoon or so of olive oil over medium-low heat and add tomatoes, a healthy pinch or two of salt and pepper, and let cook. I cooked mine for about fifteen minutes, until the tomatoes were cooked through and the sauce had thickened into a semi-paste. Only when I turned off the head did I add a pinch of drained capers.

for the fish. I really was going to broil this guy, but decided to cook it in a pan instead, and the results were wonderful. There may be better instructions for cooking thick, belly pieces of yellowtail out there—let me know!—I had to improvise. I cut a 7 oz. fillet in half, and massaged the pieces all over with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and let it sit with oil and salt and pepper in the refrigerator for about an hour. When it was time to cook the fish, I heated up half a tablespoon of olive oil in a nonstick pan over medium-high/high heat until it was very hot. I added the fish skin side down, listened to it sizzle, and watched it cook for five minutes. The skin side was very brown and crispy. I turned it in the pan and let it cook on the flesh side for 90 seconds or so, no more. I also let the fillets rest for a few minutes before plating.

The Lakers won in thrilling fashion, making my supper second fiddle for Tuesday thrills, but it was a successful preparation! And yellowtail beyond the sushi bar, who knew? (Probably everyone. But now I know too.)

So are any of you planning on participating in the Slow Food Nation events in late August?

I've been browsing the site this afternoon and, I mean, okay, look, it's all great. The day trips to the creameries of Marin sound totally awesome, "mysterious Bolinas," sure, etc. I guess the source of my confusion is about who these events are for. Will there be a big influx of foodie tourists from around the country coming to the Bay Area to eat slow? Is it mostly a chance for locals to see what's been in their own backyards all the time, just for $130-160? I'm completely with the politics of it, and undoubtedly will trek to the Civic Center on my Friday lunch break to see the (free) spectacle, but how will it be much different than, say, any Saturday at the Ferry Building?

I'm not asking any of this rhetorically, but seriously, I wonder?

If the idea is that San Francisco is a good inaugural place for such a festival, which will then move on to less like-minded regions, I get it. After all, it's a fitting time for me to be thinking about the Slow Food thing--I just got back from visiting Kansas City, Missouri. It's not that I eat so terribly when I visit there, there is a city cuisine that is terribly satisfying, artery-ruining, and greed-inducing. But the concepts which guide my everyday consumer choices as a Bay Area person interested in food and eating primarily, and the politics of food and eating secondarily, the trope of the "local," etc., are totally absent from food culture in a major Midwestern metropolis like KC. There are individual chefs and restaurants, from what I hear, interested in changing things. But the metropolitan area as a whole? Forget it. Which is why I think Kansas City would be a terrific place for Slow Food '09.

There's a lot of long weekend highlights I could report about today. Cocktails at Beretta and Elixir, rye whiskey at Whiskey Thieves, the bistro hangar steak and the arista I made yesterday. But I'll have to stop short and reveal that this show is going on the road later this week, as I return to the land of my birth, Kansas City.

Just for a short, family-focused jaunt. But even given the brevity of my trip, I do hope to be looking at something a lot like the picture to my right while I'm there, as often as possible!

I work in the Financial District in downtown San Francisco. Every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday there lies a daytime farmer’s market within lunch break’s radius—pretty hot stuff. Yesterday I walked down to the Ferry Building with the happy opportunity to improvise a night’s dinner. We had two boneless pork loin chops in the fridge and a small bag of Far West Fungi shiitakes, and the rest was up to me.

I thought I’d share this one for its ease, healthfulness, and deliciousness, though I know using boneless pork loin chops gets me no head to tail points for sustainability. Oh well. What I did is make a simple shiitake quinoa and fava leaf timbale, pan-grilled the pork chops and topped those with jus-tossed fiddlehead ferns.

Fava greens are becoming one of my favorite greens—that’s saying something, I love greens. Mustards, collards, kales, chards, sure. But part of the beauty of being a Mariquita Farms CSA subscriber is the terrific greens that come in our box: spigiarello kale, orach, agretti, different spinaches and bok choy. But for a weekly greens fix, the kind women who vend for Heirloom Organics at the Ferry Building are perfect. They had at least three kinds of spinach yesterday, plus arugula rabe, the fava leaves, orach, mustards, and more. But back to favas—they have just the right amount of bitterness and earthiness to complement the fiddleheads and the savory quinoa.

Here’s the recipe, more or less. I stemmed, rinsed, and sliced a cup or so of shiitake mushrooms, and sautéed them over med-high heat in a tablespoon of olive oil, until they softened and released their juices (about five minutes). I added a cup of well-rinsed quinoa, stirring to coat the grains in the oil and mushroom jus, and let cook for a conservative minute. Then I added a cup and a half of chicken stock, brought it to a simmer, covered the pot, and let that cook for fifteen minutes. After twelve or so, I noticed the liquid had receded too much and added a little bit of water, tasting the quinoa to check for doneness. That’s a better method than following a formula.

Meanwhile, I very simply washed the fava greens well. I heated one tablespoon of olive oil in a large skillet, and added the leaves, again stirring them to coat each leaf. I reduced the heat to medium-low, and added two pinches of black smoked salt and a turn of pepper. At this point, you just keep your eye on them. When they’re tender, they’re done. It seems like you could keep cooking these nearly forever, if you wanted, and they’d be fine. You could also eat them raw. This is the epitome of easy cooking.

When the quinoa was cooked and the water was gone, I took the pot off the heat and let it rest, covered, for a couple of minutes. Then I seasoned the quinoa, and stirred in a tablespoon of sweetened butter. C’est tout.

This was actually a terrific side dish for the pork chop and the fiddleheads, but could almost be a (gasp) vegetarian meal in itself!

I’m not trying on purpose to make this blog exclusively about cocktails, but I suppose I’ve been doing more drinking lately than cooking (pass the Advil), and, god, this is the city for it.

We went to an art opening and performance Saturday night in Hayes Valley, and the idea was to walk from our place and stop for a cocktail on the way. The place we stopped was Elixir, on 16^th and Guerrero, a bar I’d never been to, but knew was on the long list, at least, for interesting drink. We both selected drinks off the cocktail menu, and I was pretty ready for The Shirazerac, which purported to complicate the Sazerac (until later that night my favorite drink) with Shiraz. But there was a wrinkle. The bartender explained that the owner “hid” the ingredients, and that he didn’t know a) how to make the drink and b) where the ingredients for the drink were. (Cue sound of deflating balloon). Luckily, he could make Alli’s drink, a vodka/cucumber/kumquat thing that was nice and refreshing. But I decided, out of a strong desire to not make our bartender’s shift any more unpleasant, to try the house-aged tequila straight up. It was great, actually, and I found myself saying to Alli that I wanted to start trying to do this more often: when visiting terrific drink establishments (Alembic, Nopa, etc), I would try to expand my knowledge of spirits by trying them straight (bourbon, rye, tequila) or simply chilled (gin).

I was going to eat those words within the hour.

The walk from Elixir to Hayes Valley took way less time than I predicted, and we found ourselves with half an hour to kill. In Hayes Valley. Ugh. Sorry, Hayes Valleyans and fans. I worked for many years at a café/bar establishment there and while some of that experience (and the people involved) spark nostalgic good-feeling, mostly when I think of Hayes Valley my chest tightens and my mood plummets into my espresso-grimed shoes. Not interested in shopping for four hundred dollar shirts, I proposed having a beer at Suppenkuche, somewhat of an oasis. But it was horrendously packed, even at the early hour. So with 29 minutes left to kill, we decided to check out Absinthe.

We ran into friends there, and luckily it was not as congested, and the night was mild, so we were able to all sit outside. We shared the charcuterie plate (hurrah for the charcuterie plate and the best mortadella I’ve ever had (including in Italy—though the disclaimer for that is I didn’t eat too much of it there. It’s hard for me to pick mortadella over, uh, say, wild boar and fennel salami)) and instead of walking the walk and expanding my spirit-palate, I ordered the Bob-Tailed Nag at our server’s recommendation.

OMG.

Best. Cocktail. Ever.

Or not really, right? Like anything else, it’s wholly subjective. Really what I should say is, drinking at these places serves to teach me what I like, because I actually don’t know. Cooking, of course, teaches you the same thing. But not having access to the really overwhelming array of spirits and tinctures and bitters that are available, it takes time and effort, at least for me, to get a good grasp on which of those spirits and tinctures and bitters, and in what combinations with fruits, and vegetables, and herbs are most pleasing to me.

So it’s more correct to say that the Bob-Tailed Nag at Absinthe is exactly what I like, at least on a mild Saturday evening in May of 2008. I reserve the right to have my mind blown elsewhere. The BTN sort of alludes to two classic whiskey cocktails, the Manhattan and the Derby. It’s made from Michter’s Single Barrel Straight Rye, mint bitters, a lemon twist, and the surprise: Cocchi Barolo Chinato, an herbaceous Italian spirit that just moved to no. 1 on the must-have-around list. (This list, of course, now perfectly conforms to the recipe for the Bob-Tailed Nag.) Like any great cocktail, each of the ingredients lets its presence be known, and yet the sum is far greater than any of its parts. I’m sure Michter’s is fabulous in a glass with nothing else but air, and after I run out to buy mint bitters on my lunch break, I’m sure I can tell you that a chilled whiskey with vermouth is improved by the bitters. But in combination, this is an achievement.

I’ll remember this next time I do find myself in one of these places, these great places to drink. A spontaneous walk, a little luck, and these freaking genius half-scientist, half-artist people with aprons and shakers: they really can make life better than the sum of its parts.

The CUESA cocktail event last night at the Ferry Building was a really terrific time. The “farmer’s market inspired cocktails” were actually perfect given the very unusual warmth and pleasantness for a mid-May in San Francisco. In a way, the organizers of this event were a little crazy—it was far more likely to be overcast or raining or cloudy or, you know, San Franciscesque—to have this event planned for the outdoors in the evening time. But the sun was out and it was warm, and many of the drinks featured seasonal fruits (strawberries, blackberries, rhubarb) and herbs (thyme, tarragon, the first basil!), which all lent themselves nicely to light, refreshing, fruit-forward cocktails.

I thought all of the cocktails were pretty good, with only one notable, and not-to-be-named, stinker (think college, vodka stink). But if I just had to choose a favorite, I’ll choose two. Josey Packard’s (Alembic, mise en place pictured above) “Morangoes e Cata”, an amazing concoction of cachaca, lemon juice, simple syrup, and drops of absinthe topped with a buckwheat honey whipped cream. The surprise of the experience was that just a little buckwheat was really present in the finished product—marvelous. But it’s not really a surprise that the drink was great. I’ve raved about Alembic on these vaunted pages before, and I’m always happy when Josey makes our drinks.

My other favorite, though it was not, decidedly, Alli’s favorite, was “The Jubilee Train,” created by Steven Liles of Boulevard. Heck, great cocktails at Boulevard? I had no idea (but, then again, why would I have an idea? My bank has a sensor that delivers a small electric shock to the back of my neck every time I entertain the notion of going to Boulevard). The Train consisted of Barsol Pisco, Luxardo Maraschino, lemon juice, fresh pressed cherry juice, dashes of orange bitters, and allspice dram. Ooh, allspice dram. My new favorite thing. Christmas in a bottle. I’m definitely investing in a bottle of this before the holidays. With bourbon or brandy as a base, this is going to be like a fireplace in a glass (these similes are lame. I’m sorry). But it did work in a summer drink, with the sweetness of the cherry, the puckeriness of the lemons, and finally the back-of-the-throat spiciness of the dram. Wow. It was good.

The next best part of the whole event, besides the luscious cocktails and awesome cocktail snacks (fava bean bruschetta, truffle grilled cheese, chilled potato and green garlic soup), was that each station offered a copy of the recipe for the drink. Did I mention that the bank also buzzes me when I compile a list of all the fancy liqueurs I’m contemplating buying? ZZZZZZ. But I’ll include one here—they won’t mind, this one was in the SF Chronicle as well. This drink, the Soiree, was the official drink of SF Cocktail Week, and one of two that the $15 entry fee entitled you to a full glass of.

The Soiree

1 ½ ounce Partida Blanco

¾ ounce Green Chartreuse

½ ounce St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur

½ ounce lemon juice

2 dashes Cinnamon Chile Tincture

Mint Leaf, for garnish

Combine first 5 ingredients in an ice filled mixing glass, and shake for 10 to 15 seconds or until well chilled. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and garnish with the mint leaf.