Nishino's

Last week, Samad and I went to eat at Nishino's for some sushi.  I forget how good this place is.  I usually come here for birthdays. It's my mom's favorite sushi place.  Just simple good quality food...no frills and trends.  Like Carrie said in SITC about George Cloony...like a timeless Chanel suit.  This is how I feel about Nishino's.  

We sat the sushi bar and Samad asked the chef to just make him something special and here are what he had.  I can't recall the names.

I, on the other hand stuck to the veggie items that I like...

Cucumber Roll.  Can't go wrong with this.

Veggie Tempera

For dessert, he let me choose and thought we should keep it light and had the Shiso Sorbet with Azuki Red Bean Compote.  Shiso is a Japanese mint like herb, leaf.  We eat this in Korean food too as a savory item, usually marinated in soy sauce, red peppers, and other spices.  We then wrap a little rice inside and eat it.  At first bite the dessert tasted a bit strange, like when you have a shot of wheat grass, but then when you ate it with the Azuki, it tasted better.  After finishing...it wasn't that bad.  It wasn't a dessert though.  More like a palate cleanser.

Having the sweet tooth that I do, I had to have something more decadent.  So, we also had some cupcakes at Cupcake Royale.

Toolbox Wine Co.

Sue and I did some wine tasting on our Napa food tour.  One that stood out was and all women company called Toolbox Wine Co..  It stood out because of the tongue in cheek attitude of their winery.  Their motto is that three girlfriends got together to "share the importance of a good screw to hold things together".  It's about fun in a male dominated craft.  

The wines were good.  I bought home a bottle of the Pinot Grigio.

One of the founders...

The wine store

ad hoc

Another place I got to try was my idol's place's ad hoc in Yountville.  This is the latest restaurant by Thomas Keller.  I tried to get a reservation at French Laundry but no chance.  I even called 2 months in advance.   

http://www.adhocrestaurant.com/ 

I love ad hoc.  It was better than I ever expected. The story of ad hoc is that  Thomas Keller wanted to do a burger place and when he found a space in Yountville that opened up, he secured it.  However, he didn't have time to work on the restaurant so he and his staff would do these one time dinners for the public.  It was 4 courses, $50, one menu, all served family style...vwahla...ad hoc.  It was such a success that he opened the place as a permanent restaurant, and a burger place would have to wait.  ad hoc is also about comfort food that he grew up with and one of his favorite meal is fried chicken so every Monday night is fried chicken night, otherwise the menu changes every night.

I went on a Saturday night and it was about the pork.  They also have a vegetarian entree option.  The other courses were all veggie friendly.  Here is what we had.

First Course was a citrus salad with fennel, and honey gastric.  It was light, tart, and sweet.

Second Course was the entree and sides.  Pork porterhouse was the main entree that Sue had. I had the veggie lasagna.  It was a deconstructed lasagna with greens and white sauce.  Our sides were butternut squash risotto and roasted greens with hazelnut.  I didn't even the need the lasagna. I loved the sides.  You also have the option to add a fish dish to this course and we did. It was a beautiful halibut with a light preparation that I can't remember exactly what it was.  We had so much food we didn't need it but wanted to try it all.

Third Course is the cheese course.  This was a sheep's milk cheese with olive tapanade, roasted tomato, and his famous croutons.  Thomas Keller is all about hand torn croutons.  It was a great dish with many accompanying flavors to highlight the cheese.

Fourth Course...my favorite was the dessert.  On this day was the pecan bar with caramel sauce.  This course I know so well and....it was okay.  Didn't know my socks off.  It was a traditional pecan bar but I think the prepared ahead of time didn't make it as fresh.  I also needed a little fruit to cut the richness.  Caramel was great but it was too heavy to the already heavy pecan bar.  A little banana or apple slices would have been a nice touch.

It was still an amazing dinner with all those courses.   We loved it!   Can't wait to go again.  

All of Thomas Keller's restaurant are in Yountville.  Bouchon looked like a little piece of Paris in CA, the Bouchon Bakery was right next door, and French Laundry is close by.  Those will be saved for another visit.

I Love Bottega

I was on a work trip to San Francisco last week.  My friend Sue was there for training as well, so we went up to Napa for a girls weekend and enjoyed some great food and some spa time.


Yountville is this cute little, small town between Napa and Calistoga.  It is also the home to my idol chef Thomas Keller's restaurants.  It is also the home of Bottega, Michael Chiarello's Italian restaurant.  If you've never heard of him before, he is a famous chef and has his own show on the Food Network called Easy Entertaining.  He makes great Italian ingredient based foods that are rustic, simple but elegant.   He has also been on Top Chef as a judge and contestant on the Master Chef version of Top Chef.  It is here that he showed his meanie side of his personality and his stubbornness. 


Well, I've heard some great things from people who visited Napa and they all said that I had to try Bottega.  So my friend Sue and I went on Friday night.  We couldn't get a table until 9pm but it worked out well because by the time we got to Napa and checked in, it was around this time.


Bottega
6525 Washington Street, A9
Yountville, CA 94599
http://www.botteganapavalley.com/index.html



After we ordered and got our drinks, they plunk down a thick, warm, rustic sliced chuck of bread right on the table.  No plates, basket or nothing, just on the table lined with paper.  They also brought a little tub of butter and this luscious thick drizzle of grassy olive oil that had tons of parmesan reggiano, garlic, red chili peppers, and herbs I think.  It was amazing!  I would have been happy with just eating this and my wine.

We then had our first course of...


I had the Shaved Artichoke Salad Two Ways lemon olive oil braised and roman fried, shaved parmigiano reggiano

Sue had the Polenta Under Glass, caramelized wild mushrooms, balsamic game sauce.  Wow!  The best dish of the night!  It was creamy and had so much flavor.  Reminded me of the time Soung ordered the polenta at Scarpetta and I wish I had.  When you are at a uber chef's restaurant and you see the polenta on the menu, order it!  Don't expect to share because it's so good, everyone should order their own.

For our second course...


I had Spaghetti alla Chitarra, imported chitarra cut spaghetti, white head-on prawns, tomato-fennel broth, basil & tarragon.  I wanted a simple pasta and sauce dish.  This was good but it was a bit too fishy for me.  I even had them remove the "head".  They didn't have that many veggie items on the menu, they were willing to make accommodations but I really wanted to try something that the chef had intended. 

Sue had Confit of Half Duck mostarda di frutta, panettone bread pudding, red wine duck jus.  She said the best duck she has had by far.  I kept thinking about the ducks that float around
Greenlake when I go running.  :)

We were both full to the max but had to have dessert. Wow! They were amazingly good. I must remember to order the desserts first so I can enjoy them more.


I had Tiramisu Profiteroles, a tramisu & sponge cake gelato, “Cocoa puff”, chocolate sauce.  Need I say more than the pic?  I, like Ted Allen, love table side presentation and love that they poured the chocolate sauce at the table.

Sue had the Salted Caramel gelato Affagato.  It came with this Peanut cookie that was to die for.  Sue was too full and didn't want the cookie so I said I wanted a to go box to eat later.  Well, the next morning I was looking forward to eating the cookie with my morning coffee before we head out...guess what, Sue had eaten all of the cookie before I even got up.  She didn't even save me a nibble. 

There was a moment during dinner when chef Chiarello was making the rounds saying hello to his regular diners and friends.  It caught me by surprise when I saw him talking to our next table to the right.  I was trying to be cool and was trying to alert Sue to by using my ventriloquist voice but she couldn't understand.  I so wanted to take a pic and meet him but I didn't want seem star struck which I was.  Well, he passed our table by and went to another table. I was so jealous.  We even talked to the waitress to ask about him and she said he would totally take a pic with me and say hello.  She said she would try to have him over.  Well...it never happened.  I need to know to seize the moment.  He was right there.  :(


There was one dish that everyone was ordering that we didn't.  It was the Truffle Fries.  Everywhere you look, every table were getting a heaping plate of rustic, homemade fries.  I was kicking myself.  Sue and I had a quick snack of "tie me over" food at the hotel when we arrived.  We had some fries and wine a few hours before hand.   I'm definitely planning another weekend at Napa and getting these fries and the polenta!

Anya's Old New Year Party

Hello everyone!  Hope you all had a nice month of January and good start to 2011.  I've been just super busy with my day job and can't say too much fun. I've not even been up to the mountains for snow boarding and it's already Feb. 


Russians have a tradition and celebrate what's called Old New Year on January 14th.  My Russian friend Anya had a party at her house for this occassion.  She cooked up storm and made these amazing dishes.

Beef Roulade

Chicken Roulade

Potatoe Gratin

Orzo Pesto Salad

Tomatoes with Mushroom Risotto

Carrot Salad

Roasted Red Pepper

Parsley Drizzle Sauce

Marinated Olives

White Bean SpreadHomemade Crackers

Fresh Cut Fruit

Coconut Macaroons

She even made these cute little table signs to tell what the dishes were. Seriously, how cute is that.  It was a fun night of friends and great food!

Le Rêve Bakery

Can a pastry be a little too sweet?  Yes it can!

My friend Anya told me about the new bakery on top of Queen Anne.  In fact we met there for some coffee last week.  I was super excited...a new neighborhood bakery? My kind of place.


Well, this place was okay at best.  We had the Petit Four, Espresso Eclair, French Macaron.  It looks lovely in pic but their baked goods were a bit too "homemade".  When I say that, I mean there was not enough care and had too heavy handed for the baked goods.   Nothing wrong with homemade that but if it's gonna cost you 11.00 for 4 little baked goods...well, they better be darn good.  Also the place is suppose to be a "French" bakery, but the goods like and tasted like Safeway's bakery dept.  You know the birthday cake you get from the grocery store  and it's so sweet because they use commercial grade ingredients.


Anya and I  both agreed, everything was too super sweet.  Even their macaron just tasted like sugar.  The crust was a bit chewy and not crisp of the good macarons I've had.  The eclair should have espresso filling and not just in the fondant topping if it's espresso.  They filled it with just the vanilla cream.  They had 3 flavors like Le Panier, but looks like they make one vanilla filing and just change the top fondant.  Not good.  Need to make the extra effort.  The petit four cake was the size of 2x4.  We cut into to four pieces to eat it but because of the sweetness,  we couldn't even finish.  The little cakes should be the size to fit in your mouth in one bit or so not like a reg piece of cake.


When baked goods are too sweet, it means they didn't balance it with enough salt or other flavorings.  They prob used unsalted butter like most bakers but you have to add salt to balance the flavors.  A good example is when you eat salted caramels from Frans.  Caramels are mostly sugar and some corn syrup but the salted caramels never taste too sweet. This is because the flavor is counter balanced with salt.  I usually want to eat the whole box of Fran's caramels so go figure.


Note to bakers, add salt!

A Birthday Brunch

One of my oldest and dearest friend Sue's birthday was last week and thus was another reason to make one of my favorite meals of the day.  Brunch. 

Birthday Cake
Sue wanted the Ribbon Cake on last month's Bon Appetite but I didn't have enough time to make the modeling chocolate for the ribbon so I just decorated it with fresh raspberries and shaved chocolate

Tomato and Herb Scones
Sue really like this so made it for her. The recipe is in the previous blogs.  I did make this with just bread flour and it made it a little more hearty.

Sticky Buns

Baked Eggs with Herbed Potatoes

Homemade Salsa

Maple Bacon

Spanish Roasted Potatoes
Had paprika and green olives.  Just wanted to do a different version than I normally do.

Salad
Soung made a nice salad with pecans and cranberries. She also made a delish dressing with the flavored vinegar we got in NYC called the "Filling Station".

Fruit
Sue brought some lovely fruit salad.

We also got some other cupcakes for her little boys.

Here is the birthday girl with one of her little boys.  

It was a lovely day to spend time with close friends and family.