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One of the benefits, and curses, of living in Germany was having access to the great Italian shops. In every city there were at least a couple Italian specialty stores, offering fantastic foods at...
One of the benefits, and curses, of living in Germany was having access to the great Italian shops. In every city there were at least a couple Italian specialty stores, offering fantastic foods at a fair price. Even the Karstadt and Galeria Kaufhof department stores in Cologne and Munich had separate counters stocked solely with fresh pastas, cheeses, sauces and cured meats. The problem is that the stores here - any of them - just don't compare.
Take, for example, a simple ham. At my corner Italian store in Cologne, I could get garlic rubbed ham, spicy ham, rosemary ham, black truffle ham, tri-color ham (cured with sweet peppers, rosemary and garlic), a proscuitto cotto (steamed ham), two or three standard prosciuttos of various grades as well as fresh porchetta - roasted suckling pig slathered with herbs, rolled and sliced. Five types or turkey, over a dozen salamis and a half dozen types of mortadella alone graced the deli counter, and the list goes from there... and this was just a small neighborhood Italian store in a working class neighborhood. Every couple of days I would wander in, have an espresso and search the store for something new.
Unfortunately, because of the excessively restrictive laws on importing European meat, most Americans will never get a chance to have the experience of good Italian deli... and here, in San Francisco, every salami seems to come from Carando or Molinari, which are adequate, but nothing even close to what I became accustomed to.
With that said, I need to put my European experience behind me and look at what we have to work with here.
A.G. Ferrari is a small local chain of Italian delis, and because of their size, it can get meat producers to make specialized products for the stores. The prosciutto cotto al vapore, a natural steamed ham, had a fantastic flavor, rich with pork flavor - as did the porchetta, which wasn't really a porchetta by any sense of the word, but was a nice roasted herb pork. The salamis were the standard San Francisco selection - the milano, supposedly spicy was decidedly not.
The cheese selection is pretty good, and the fresh bocce ball mozzarella were outstanding. The shop offered a fresh burrata, which looked nice, but isn't appropriate for the sandwiches I had in mind.
Some thoughts - I would love to see the pesto available at the counter so I can just get a little or alot. The bread is good, but I would love to see some more selection - a garlic or rosemary ciabatta would be nice.
It's a good place - one of the better ones in town, and when you're jonesing for the fixings for a nice Italian meal, it's worth stopping in.
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There's certainly fancier places for Italian food in the city, but when it comes to the sort of everyday Italian that I had the pleasure to eat while living in Europe, you really can't beat...
There's certainly fancier places for Italian food in the city, but when it comes to the sort of everyday Italian that I had the pleasure to eat while living in Europe, you really can't beat Pazzia.
From the moment you walk in, it feels like the sort of simple cafe you would find anywhere from Munich down to Firenze... and I've eaten at dozens of these places. Bruschetta, Pizza, Pasta and some simple secondi (roasted stuffed chicken breasts, mussels in broth, scallopine, etc...) is the name of the game.
When you walk in, it's very simple - square tables in a mustard colored square room with only a Monet-esque mural of the Tuscan countryside. As you peek into the open kitchen, you see plates being assembled, pizzas coming out of the ovens and the telltale blue boxes of Barilla pasta.
What? Barilla pasta like in the supermarket?
It's a myth that most Italian restaurants make their own pasta. Even in Italy, most cafes and smaller family restaurants don't have the time, space or skill to be able to produce enough dry pasta to feed their customers, so they find a brand they like and use it and instead focus on the sauces, where the real skill is.
No offense, but let's face it, dry pasta is water and wheat - it's easy to make a good dry pasta, but almost impossible to make a great dry pasta. Unless you're operating a restaurant known for making your own spaghetti and you're investing an extraordinary amount of cash to get the best pasta maker, equipment, water and flour, it's perfectly acceptable to use a higher grade commercial pasta (De Cecco and Barilla are most common).
I've had Pazzia's simple cuisine twice. The first time, I brought home pizzas, and the fennel sausage was amazing. This time, I went with a Calzone Romana - a perfect dough brushed with olive oil and filled with fresh mozzarella, mushrooms, prosciutto, eggs and parmasan cheese.
As calzones go, this is one of the hardest ones to make, because the mushrooms and mozzarella will both give off copious amounts of liquid, making it a watery mess that spills out of the calzone shell once opened and makes the bottom of the crust turn into mush. Through a thorough understanding of the dough, the filling materials and the temperature of the ovens, the calzone ended up perfect - with a moist filling, crisp shell and fantastic flavor... and guess what? I cut it open and not a drop of liquid spilled out of the calzone.
For me, this is the sort of comfortable, every day Italian food that I crave when I think back to Tuscany.
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Coi
Category:
Food & Dining
373 Broadway
San Francisco, California 94133
(415) 393-9000
When I first saw mention of Coi in the Gayot SF News section, I was intrigued. Daniel Patterson (of Frisson and Elisabeth Daniel) had thrown down the gauntlet that California Cuisine hadn't fully...
When I first saw mention of Coi in the Gayot SF News section, I was intrigued. Daniel Patterson (of Frisson and Elisabeth Daniel) had thrown down the gauntlet that California Cuisine hadn't fully evolved past what Alice Waters was doing decades ago at Chez Panisse - and to a large part, I agree.
The Chez Panisse era of "California Cuisine" took its inspiration from Southern Europe - playing with French and Italian flavors and combining them with the abundant fresh food products available in the Bay Area to create something unique. Since then, this style of cooking has become rote... and boring.
In the Bay Area today, flavors are bold and heavily influenced more by Latin and Asian sensibilities than Italian, and you're more likely to find North African infused Spanish than French. When you do find French, chances are it leans more towards Basque than classic Gallic Parisian.
As Bob said, "The times, they are a-changin'" and it's time to challenge everybody who thinks that Chez Panisse sits in the center of the Northern Californian solar system. Enter Coi.
Tonight was the soft launch of Coi - and I think that my wife and I might have been the only non-industry folks in the restaurant.
So, as you read this review, take into consideration that it was their first night of real operation.
I spent many an afternoon in Coi back when it was Great Water, but honestly, as I was sitting in the tiny dining room (and I mean tiny - 30 people maximum could fit back there, and it would be really cramped), I couldn't even imagine how that bar (which was unchanged from the older Bierhaus days) could be transformed into something like this. With soft ambient music, rich chocolate walls and an abundance of texture ranging from the horizontal weave of the wall coverings to the beautiful diamond embossed tablecloths, it woke the senses up.
Tonight, the choice was simple - the four course tasting menu, which was the only thing available. The meal started with an amuse bouche (whose contents escape me) followed by an exceptional pre-appetizer avocado panna cotta - delicate citrusy avocado served next to creme fraiche and topped with black caviar. The balance of flavor was perfect, and the caviar, which is typically not a favorite of mine, was fantastic.
The first of my ordered courses was the Crisp Pig's Feet - which was a cross between southern trotters and a Japanese korokke, or croquette. The flavor was rich and gelatiny, and the accompanying frisee with bacon vinaigrette was just superb, but I am a big fan of bacon vinaigrettes. If you're not into trotters, which can really be an acquired taste, there were two other options. One small detail point, trotters are very hard to make, as they require so much attention to convert all of the connective tissue into tasty gelatin, and occasionally, you'll get a small piece of gristle. In this large appeitzer, I only got one small piece the size of a pin head, which shows the kitchen's skill in preparing the trotters, but if you hate getting any gristle like this in your food, skip this and pick something else.
The trotters were followed by the monkfish, served in a beautiful black pepper and yuzu (a Japanese citrus) broth with a little chinese broccoli (like rapini or broccoli rabe). Monkfish can have a funky texture if prepared improperly, but in this case, it was quite exceptional.
The third ordered course was quail, deboned, flattened, covered with a "crepinette" and sliced into three long strips. It's hard to imagine it, but you can see that this was certainly a nod of the head towards the great fried poultry dishes of the world ranging from southern fried chicken to Japanese chicken kara-age... and the accompanying roasted endive and olive tapenade were perfect accompanyments. One small point, during the deboning, a small piece of a socket joint was left in the meat, so there was a moment of casual dabbing of the lips and expelling the offending piece into my napkin. Not what I expected, but I'm willing to let slide this once.
This was followed by a palate cleanser of ginger sorbet with a rhubarb-mint sauce, topped with cilantro. The experience was just perfect, ranging from the texture of the sorbet, the flavor of the sauce all the way down to the fact that the bowls were chilled to ensure that the sorbet would remain solid while you finished the dish.
The dessert I chose was my biggest risk - a date terrine with Vietnamese iced coffee gelato. The risk paid off - a warm spicy cake with a gelato that could stand up to the best in Italy (don't lose that pastry chef)! As we concluded the meal with a press-pot of Cafe Trieste, Daniel himself came out to thank us, as he did with every table.
I could go on and on, but suffice it to say, the meal was great and the 5th star is certainly within reach.
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For Indie comics and graphic novels, Comix Experience is legendary in San Francisco.
For years, I lived blocks away from the store and was able to stop in each week to pick up my books, and more...
For Indie comics and graphic novels, Comix Experience is legendary in San Francisco.
For years, I lived blocks away from the store and was able to stop in each week to pick up my books, and more importantly, get the newsletter.
The newsletter, actually a multi-page booklet, had reviews of upcoming comics and an order form which listed most of the popular comics on it. As a subscriber, I would fill out which comics I wanted, turn in the form and then the comics would be pulled every week.
However, when I moved back from Europe this time, I didn't end up in the Lower Haight, instead moving near the ballpark. This in itself made going all the way out to Divisadero a pain in the backside, but adding in a new job that requires a good amount of travel made it almost impossible to ensure I would even make it into the store more than once a month, making it difficult to ensure I would get the newsletter each month to fill out the form in time.
Because of this, I cancelled my account.
If your schedule allows weekly visits, or you just need a quick indie fix, you could do much worse than Comix Experience.
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After experiencing some of the best Indian cuisine in Germany, I was disappointed that the best that San Francisco could offer me was Indian Oven on Fillmore - uninspired curries and overcooked...
After experiencing some of the best Indian cuisine in Germany, I was disappointed that the best that San Francisco could offer me was Indian Oven on Fillmore - uninspired curries and overcooked tandoori dishes.
Last Friday, a group of four of us decided to try out Mehfil, our local Indian restaurant. Keeping our expectations low, we were just hoping for passable food. Boy, were we wrong.
The food was affordable, spicy and fantastic. Highlight dishes: Chicken Lachha - spicy and tender, Garlic Naan - a perfect teardrop naan... both crispy and tender as a naan should be, Chicken Tikka Masala - with its beautiful nutty flavor, and the Kadahi Chicken - made appropriately spicy when asked. The Rogan Josh was good, but a little oily for my taste (but not inappropriate for the style), and my friends who were samosa divas found them to be OK - not bad, but not the best. The Butter Chicken was also nice - not a favorite dish of mine, but very well made.
All of the chicken dishes, aside from the Chicken Tikka Masala and the Chicken Lachha are made with thigh meat - which I happen to prefer as it lends better flavor and texture, but for some who only eat (the typically flavorless and overcooked) breast meat - be prepared for poultry with flavor!
Great to have in the neighborhood, and the best Indian so far in SF proper.
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When my wife and I were in college, we would head into Pittsburgh every Saturday around midnight to pick up the New York Times with a couple of friends who had a side job delivering the paper to the...
When my wife and I were in college, we would head into Pittsburgh every Saturday around midnight to pick up the New York Times with a couple of friends who had a side job delivering the paper to the students and faculty of West Virginia University. It was then that we realized that the city of the Steelers could hook us up with a damn good sandwich.
Fast forward a decade and a half and a long drive down I-80 to Giordano Brothers - a shop making the quintessential "Pittsburgh Sandwich"... though I never saw a sandwich like this during my saturday nights in the Tri-River area.
Regardless, it's an interesting concept: fresh italian bread cut thick, cole slaw, grilled meat (the cappicolla is amazing), cheese and a small handful of what might be the best fries in the city. It sounds like an artery blocker, but instead of being unwieldy, it's a perfect, managable balance of flavors without being too heavy.
A sandwich, coke and a mini-Clark bar later, neither of us felt like we were transported back to Pennsylvania, but we walked up towards the 30 Stockton feeling better for having the experience.
Giordano Brothers: Cash and credit cards accepted, international soccer on the TVs in the background, good looking chicken wings, excellent sandwiches, buckets of beer (though I don't recall if they had Rolling Rock) and hooks to hold a jacket or umbrella all across the bar. Worth a visit.
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Yeah, you're likely to have an expat on one side and a tourist or twenty on the other, but if you've spent the afternoon trapped in the shopping hell that is Union Square, there's nothing nicer than...
Yeah, you're likely to have an expat on one side and a tourist or twenty on the other, but if you've spent the afternoon trapped in the shopping hell that is Union Square, there's nothing nicer than a well poured Murphy's Stout while sidled up to the bar at Johnny Foley's.
If I am ever in need of a time-out while exercising the bank card downtown, you can be sure I'll end up there before making my way through the tourists to get home.
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Sigh. I really, really want to love 21A. It's fresh beer, perfectly acceptable food and only a block away... yet, there's something unsatisfying about it.
It's not the beer. Overall, the house...
Sigh. I really, really want to love 21A. It's fresh beer, perfectly acceptable food and only a block away... yet, there's something unsatisfying about it.
It's not the beer. Overall, the house made beer is better than average... if a little pricy ($4.75 per pint)... and they offer cask ale once a week. It's not the food either - the asian-style ribs I had as a snack were actually quite good, though I didn't understand why they served them with field greens. It's also not the staff- the bartenders there are friendly, efficient and overall pleasant to be around. They also started to serve guest beers from local breweries like Drakes and Speakeasy - a real plus.
I think that the problem is that everything just doesn't fit together properly. The bar is small, the restaurant space is industrial (but not in a chic sort of way), and you just don't know if they want to be a restaurant that serves its own beer or a bar that wants to serve food. There's nothing wrong about it, but there's something not quite right either.
Don't get me wrong - I've met Nico (one of the owners) and watched this place for years, and I love having this place in the neighborhood. Even if it's not inviting... and the beer and food is expensive... and it closes earlier than I want on the weekends and...
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Yank Sing
Category:
Food & Dining
101 Spear Street (Rincon Center)
San Francisco, California 94101
(415) 957-9300
A Yank Sing haiku...
Randomly priced treats
Why are you so expensive?
Ton Kiang? Better.
There are much better places for Dim Sum, such as Ton Kiang, but 40 minutes on the 38 Geary is...
A Yank Sing haiku...
Randomly priced treats
Why are you so expensive?
Ton Kiang? Better.
There are much better places for Dim Sum, such as Ton Kiang, but 40 minutes on the 38 Geary is just too darn long of a trip when you just want a quick couple of dumplings and some buns. So, the premium price equates to a penalty for lazyness. No consistency on the pricing or itemized receipt (take a hint from Tian Sing) makes me suspect that a $40 lunch for two one week costs $70 the next.
Overall, the food quality is good - but not nearly as good as when they operated the Battery Street location. The Rincon facility on the weekend is just too large and impersonal. A good place to introduce visitors to Dim Sum and when someone else is paying.
PS: if Ton Kiang is only two syllables instead of the three I think it is, make the last line of the haiku "Ton Kiang? Much Better"
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Have you ever had something that was so good that you kicked yourself in the ass for waiting so long to try it? Well, that's what I was doing all afternoon after having my first truffle from...
Have you ever had something that was so good that you kicked yourself in the ass for waiting so long to try it? Well, that's what I was doing all afternoon after having my first truffle from Recchiuti.
For me, it was always the price... paying a dollar a truffle after spending time in Belgium where I could pay just a few euros for a kilo of Leonidas was just too much. However, since my wife and I were entertaining a friend from Antwerp, we wanted to show her the best the city can offer - so we went to the Ferry Plaza, dug deep into our pockets and ponied up $2.50 for two pieces: a raspberry truffle and the burnt caramel.
Ok, enough backstory... on to the chocolate.
First off, I hate fruited chocolate... which makes my love for the raspberry truffle quite surprising. It isn't just that the balance of the fruit and chocolate are spot on, but that the raspberry's flavor includes the texture and flavor nuances that you only expect from the fresh fruit. Even though the ganache filling was exceptionally smooth, I could shut my eyes and taste the small seeds of the fruit. It was truly exceptional. The burnt caramel was also fantastic - balancing the taste of burnt sugar, butter and chocolate, with no single flavor dominating.
If you love chocolate, take pause before going there, because either way, you'll lose. Either you'll kick yourself in the ass for having waited so long to try it, or you'll kick yourself in the ass because you've become addicted to the myriad flavors they offer.
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