Monday, May 24, 2010

In love with quinoa

Yotam Ottolenghi is a genius, and I may have mentioned it before on this blog already. His 'new vegetarian' column in the Guardian has opened my eyes to the world of vegetables, and even though most of his recipes do have a long list of (sometimes unfamiliar Iranian) ingredients, it has been worthwhile to restock my store cupboard.

This is the recipe I have made twice in a week since I got back to London. The addition of cumin and chilli is a work of genius.

Avocado, quinoa and broad bean salad (serves 6, easily half-able)

200g quinoa
500g podded broad beans
2 medium lemons
2 small ripe avocados
2 garlic gloves, crushed
200g fresh breakfast radishes, sliced lengthways
50g purple radish cress or small, fresh purple basil leaves
1 tbsp ground cumin
75ml olive oil
1/4 tsp chilli flakes

1. Place the quinoa in a pan of water, bring to the boil and simmer for 9 minutes. Drain in fine sieve, rinse under cold water, and set aside to dry.

2. Throw the broad beans into a pan of boiling water, return to the boil and drain immediately. Refresh with cold water and set aside to dry. Gently press each bean with your fingers to remove the skins, then discard.

3. Top and tail the lemons. Stand each one on a chopping board and cut down the sides, following the natural curve, to remove the skin and white pith. Over a large bowl, cut in between the membranes to release the segments into the bowl. Squeeze in the juice from the membranes.

4. Peel, stone, and thinly slice the avocados. Add to the bowl and toss to cover in the lemon juice. Add the dry quinoa, broad beans, garlic, radishes, half the radish cress, cumin, oil, chilli flakes and some salt and pepper. Toss gently, without breaking the avocado, and season again if needed. Serve garnished with the remaining cress.

This was the version I made, substituting the broad beans with asparagus (why can't I find broad beans anywhere at the moment?!), lemon with lime, and I couldn't find any purple cress:

This is so so so good, try it. I am in fact having it for my lunch!

White rice will not kill you

Whilst I was extremely exasperated with some of the food neurosis of Californians (I've just been reading about how Zooey Deschanel is vegan, and is apparently allergic to soy, gluten, diary, and eggs), I have returned to the UK with more of a focus on the healthy stuff. Here's a little round-up of some of the little healthy establishments I liked lots and some I liked less.

Calling your food shop Beautifull would make some people baulk, but I was surprised to see the number of men inside this cafe in Laurel Heights. I really liked the concept; they sell a huge variety of salads, most of them very interesting, as well as hot food like meatballs, as well as soup noodley type stuff. It is the kind of lunch place I always dreamt of having when I was working on the Strand, even if the prices were a little keen. This was my lunch of salmon fishcake with a red quinoa salad, with roasted pumpkin:

I have been very taken with quinoa since I returned (excellent recipe coming up), but it would not surprise me if they decide that it is carcinogenic after a few years. Actually, I just read up the recipe of the quinoa salad above, and it has Hijiki seaweed in, which apparently is also carcinogenic!

The very first place we went to for dinner after I landed in SF was a gorgeous place called Flour & Water in the Mission. It is a crazily popular place serving Italian/ Mediterranean style food, doing the fresh ingredients cooked well formula that SFians do so well. Again, I was bowled over by the waitress, who disturbingly seemed to want to be our friend. My lovely main course was a ravioli 'doppio': a double filled ravioli with a seafood mix on one side and a pea puree on the other:

One place I liked not so much was Gather in Berkeley. The name summarises the idea of the place, which is to serve food suitable to everyone, from the strictest vegan to the most ferocious carnivore, so that it is a place you can gather your friends. It was packed on the weeknight we went, so obvious there is a demand for these things, and overall the cooking was fine. My pork cheeks were very soft, even if the rhubarb sauce was just a little too sour to go with it:

What did irk me though was some of their descriptions of the food, in particular their 'vegan charcuterie':

It was actually a gorgeous platter of food, including interesting ways with wild mushrooms, broad beans, some of the best vegan food I've had in ages, but why oh why oh why did they have to call it a charcuterie?!?! Just call it a vegan plate!!! Stop trying to be clever with words!!!

So this is the end of my SF postings, hope you enjoyed. I end with one of the best meals I had in SF, with all my favourite Californian things. If someone can tell me what Farmers' Cheese is, and where I may be able to buy it in London, I would be very grateful.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Best of (not quite) SF

I have to be honest, I didn't really know much about Thomas Keller before my little trip. I knew there was someone who owned rather a lot of restaurants in the United States, but I have never really had the inkling to research them, kind of like when I'm disappointed when Jay Rayner or Matthew Norman write about non-London restaurants (yes, I'm one of them annoyingly London-centric Guardian readers).

The fact that we actually ended up at one of Thomas Keller's restaurants was kind of by accident. We'd planned to do a little trip to Napa and Sonoma, but we'd made no bookings, done no planning, but managed to blag a table at Ad Hoc by asking our hotel concierge to book it for us. And we nearly didn't make it, as we finally looked up where it was, and it was going to be a good 50 minute drive from our hotel in Santa Rosa. I am so glad we managed to drag ourselves out.

Apparently, Ad Hoc itself is a bit of an accident, with Thomas Keller intending it to be a burger joint, and whilst they were waiting for the license for it, he set up a chilled place where they would basically cook their staff meals. Today, it is still a family-style place, with only one menu per day, no choice, and I'm pretty sure they've up the ante from their usual staff meals.

It is such a horrible cliche nowadays to say that ingredients is the secret to good cooking, but Ad Hoc is a pure celebration of the gorgeous produce of California. And they manage to just put some genius combinations together. Here was our very simple, but glorious menu:

OK, I must admit, I was disappointed to see a salad as my starter, but it turns out that they always serve a family style salad as starters at Ad Hoc, and it was probably the single best dish I ate in my whole time in SF. A little gem lettuce salad, with potentially the most amazing dressing ever:

They call the dressing 'green goddess dressing', and when I asked the waiter what was in it, he spent about 5 minutes going into the ins and outs of the recipe. Literally 5 minutes. I had to write it down to try to remember it. The ingredients involve parsley water, chives, anchovies, buttermilk, creme fraiche, aioli, lemon juice, probably some other stuff, combined in the most convoluted way. But I don't care, it was divine. I was smothering my lettuce with it. I was dunking my bread in it. I may have dunked my finger in it.

And furthermore, I was impressed by the fact that the waiter knew exactly what was in that dressing. The waiting staff, on the whole, had amazing food knowledge, and you suspect they are all budding chefs biding their time by waitressing for Thomas Keller. I wish waiters in this country cared about the food as much as they did!

Onwards, the peppered beef flatiron was a little flat for me. Sorry, I will continue the battle of British vs. US steaks here:

But the veggie side with it was wonderful. I really ought to start cooking radishes:

Their cheese course was also very very amazing. Apparently the Browning Gold comes from somewhere in New York, with perfectly ripe apple, and a perfect almond brittle. My dream kind of dessert:

And unfortunately, the cheese course was so good, I wasn't really paying attention for the pudding (cocoa rib cake with raspberry sauce and hazelnut ice cream), or the very cute petit fours:

I heard that they have a band of regulars who come every week to Ad Hoc, I am so jealous. I was so enamoured by this restaurant that I have already got a copy of the cook book Ad Hoc At Home next to me on the sofa right now. It makes for a very interesting read too. Having grown up cooking in the casual style of Nigel Slater, having a cookbook written by an obsessive 'proper' chef is a real change. The first recipe is for fried chicken, simple enough, but once you read it, you realise that the whole recipe takes about 15 hours from start to finish. And there is a whole page telling you off for using tongs in the kitchen. It's one of those serious whole Sunday kind of cookbooks, which I am sort of looking forward to discovering.

Oh, and did I mention? Thomas Keller was dining on the next door table. I didn't recognise him.

Friday, May 14, 2010

Asian SF (part 2)

One of the key things I wanted to try in SF was the sushi, and I can even call it research for work! SF is overrun with sushi places, reminded me of Hong Kong where there is almost one at every street corner, many of questionable quality. The one we went to, however, turned out had a Michelin star a few years back, and I took it as a good sign that they could only offer us seats at the sushi bar when we walked in without a reservation.

Sushi Ran in Sausalito is in quite a sleepy neighbourhood, Sausalito being the one stop north of the Golden Gate bridge that tourists manage to get to. There is an adjoining sake and wine bar next door, and the layout of the restaurant itself is pretty tiny, dominated by the large sushi bar. Having spent quite a lot of time examining sushi bars recently, I was really quite impressed with this one. The display was pretty standard for Japanese restaurants, but the chefs behind the bar all showed very good knowledge of their product, and just chatty enough (thankfully none of the American false over-friendliness). Our chef was hilariously named Garth, but with an appropriately Japanese sounding surname:

Their sake list was also pretty impressive, didn't count exactly but probably about 30 different sakes, many available by the carafe. It is still interesting to see how restaurants present their sake lists, many I've seen, including this one, actually put a little picture of the label on the menu, which strikes me as both a little useless and a little tacky. Never mind, at least the tasting notes were pretty good, and we opted for a sake I recognised: dewazakura oka, which was fragrant and light. The way their served it meant that getting the table all wet was a bit inevitable:

Sushi Ran boasts that they ship a lot of their fish directly from Tsukiji Market in Tokyo, but Garth explained that because it was Golden Week in Japan, their shipment had been delayed, so the selection was quite limited on the day we visited. This was a shame, because we were comparing the sushi in SF vs. London (he came to do an extensive visit last year), and one of the things he complained was the lack of variety in London, but the selection that day in SF didn't really show me what I was missing.

The uni was so good and fresh and creamy that we ordered another round. It was a good sign of their freshness that they ran out really soon into the evening:

Monkfish liver (ankimo) you don't really see on the menu in London (although Chisou has it as an appetiser), and it was very good. I'm all into my creamy nigiris as you can see:

Their hot food impressed me less, with some quite steep prices and variable food. Their tofu tasting was an interesting concept, with tofu 3 ways, but only the usual agedashi tofu was any good. The top one was disturbingly cold and made me squirt juice across the table, and the one with chilli at the bottom was disappointingly bland. And this is a tofu fan telling you that tofu is bland!:

Fil had never had black cod miso before, so we went for that. Pretty good version it was too, fish was meltingly soft, but at a very steep price, one of the most expensive 'mains' they had on the menu, tiny portion size:

We also sampled some of the crazy maki that Californians are known for. They didn't actually have California roll itself, but all sorts of maki with a similar idea. Their spicy tuna roll was so so, with the spice coming from the sprinkles on top rather than within, but we really liked their miso scallop roll, again, creaminess always wins me over:

We had also asked for a crispy salmon skin roll, but after being told that it would take 30 minutes and it was towards the end of our meal, we asked for their recommendation instead. Garth mentioned that they sell around 10,000 of their crunch maki every year (we worked out that it was just about believable at around 30 of these rolls a day), which includes eel, avocado, spicy crab, and shrimp, and as you can see, lashings of sauce on top:

For me, there was far far too much going on in this roll, with so much stuff inside that it collapses as soon as you put it on your sharing plate, so you end up eating it in pieces anyway. I guess it is this style of sushi which is popular in California though, if they sell so many of it, which I think is a shame, particularly as I've just looked up their sushi menu online and looked at how many types of fish they normally are able to serve. We never did get a chance to try any more sushi whilst I was in SF, but pretty impressed if this is the standard they set.

Asian SF (part 1)

I kept wandering around San Francisco thinking that it reminded me of Sydney; the bay is arguably even nicer, and the bridge even more impressive, but even better, there appears to be things to do in SF other than go jogging. But from a foodie point of view, Asian food was another point of comparison between the two cities. It is the Thai and Vietnamese food that I miss most about Sydney, and SF certainly was able to compete on that front.

Our first weekend started well with a visit to the Farmers' Market in the Ferry Building. Someone very clever decided to re-purpose this large cavernous space as a mecca for fresh produce, and the place was heaving with yummy mummies on the Saturday morning we went, just imagine if they scrubbed up Borough Market a bit and put it in Primrose Hill! It was almost too clean for me, but I loved to see how people revelled in the produce.

It was interesting to see that the emphasis of this market vs. Borough at home, which I think is a reflection of Californian vs. British strengths in food. In Borough Market, arguably the best things are the meat and the cheese, and whilst there seemed to be a healthy industry for these farmed goods in SF, it was definitely not quite to British standards. Most alarmingly, meat and fish is sold in zip-lock bags, all filleted and neat and clinical, no way you could have figured they came from animals. Interestingly, we read that Fergus Henderson was going to be guest-cheffing at a few restaurants after I left, not sure his cuisine would go down that well in SF to be honest.

On the other hand, the vegetables and fruit is the real star of the show in SF, and these are the things I'm craving now I'm settled back into cold, cold London. The oranges in particular were like eating sunshine, and strawberries so sweet it feels they must have injected them with sugar. No wonder they can have raw movement in California, one of the only places where raw food is glorious enough to shine by themselves.

But getting back to Asian food, Eugene sent me a list of his SF favourites, and bang on top of the list was Slanted Door in the Ferry Building. Fil tried his hardest to get me to try other stuff instead for lunch, but it looked too enticing! It is apparently one of the Top 10 grossing restaurants in the US (or California, I forget which), and you can immediately see why. The place was rammed on a Saturday lunchtime, and we were lucky enough to get seats at the bar after being told it would be a 90 minute wait for a table. The restaurant makes the most of its location with huge windows all along the harbour, and minimalist design, but ultimately I think the success of this place is down to the consistently good, fresh food.

We decided to test the place with some Vietnamese classics as well as some of the more funky things on the menu. I'd only been in SF for a few days at this point, and putting uni on the menu just made me want to try it. This uni was served with avocado, cucumber, and black tobiko, and was wild Californian uni:

The combination was really quite fabulous, loved the contrast between the crunchy cucumber and the creaminess of the avocado and uni together. The uni by itself wasn't anything to rival its Japanese cousins for creaminess on its own though, hence I guess the inclusion of the avocado to help it along. Sometimes these slightly Americanised 'sushi' dishes have too much stuff in them, but this really worked.

More traditionally, we also had their Slanted Door spring rolls and a Vietnamese crepe:


Both these dishes you see in almost every Western Vietnamese place going, but this was probably the best two examples I have ever tasted. Both dishes were incredibly light; the spring rolls laced with very thin slices of pork to give another dimension of flavour, and the crepe not only had the freshest ingredients, but floated in my mouth. The curse of Western Asian cuisine is to use substandard ingredients and cover it is cloying sauce as a disguise, but this was the absolute antithesis.

Our decision on Slanted Door was mainly because of our equal obsession with Asian soups, so we tried both their wonton soup and their beef pho:


To be honest, the pho is nothing to write home about. Indeed, Eugene told me off later for ordering pho in somewhere that wasn't a 'proper dirty Vietnamese place', and he is so right. The wonton noodle soup was pretty decent though from the one bite of noodles that I got out of Fil. The noodles had exactly the right texture, and also the prerequisite 'fairy liquid' taste you get from Hong Kong noodle eateries. However, we went to the sister Out The Door on my last day in SF and tried the same dish, and disappointingly there the noodles were all stuck together and the whole dish was swimming with MSG. Stick to the pork buns if you're going to OTD.

The other Asian place that Eugene recommended was The House on the corner of Grant Ave and Vallejo. This was a much smaller, family feel affair, and I loved the little homey touches they had. Their place mats I thought had the perfect combination of being cost effective and cute:

We were meeting two old friends for dinner here, so I couldn't really focus on the food, but their special starter of seared scallops with a miso ponzu sauce was by far the most successful thing we ate that night. I love that combination of saltiness and sourness:

The grilled seabass with soy dressing that everyone raves about, however, was only just ok. The seabass must be a completely different breed to what we have in England to warrant such a huge steak, but ultimately I found the flavour to be meaty but a bit bland.

The boys both had the special of grilled cod, the most interesting thing about it was the presentation:

Served with what was essentially a Californian roll that had been sliced lengthways, apparently this was really quite good as well as being creative.

With the higher proportion of Asian population, it is not surprising that the Asian food is of a good standard. We also went to the much heralded Yank Sing for dim sum, again, very high standards even though they don't seem to be able to make char siu buns properly. Still, we still managed to get tourist-trapped in Chinatown - we had decided to go there on an empty stomach lacking any decent recommendations, and relied on yelp.com to find somewhere to go. We apparently went to one of the best Chinese in America at Chef Jia's, according to some of the reviews, and I really should have known better when reviews praise a restaurant for its use of chicken breast meat. I should just trust my instincts and never eat in a Chinatown ever again.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Unhealthy stuff in San Francisco (yes, it's possible)

My first few days in San Francisco felt like a whirlwind tour of what you can take out of food and still manage to eat it: gluten-free, meat-free, soy-free, lactose-free, and of course, fat-free. More on that in my next post, but I wanted to celebrate all the unhealthiness of the city first.

I have never understood why American students always come to London and moan about the lack of Mexican food. Even with the advent of Wahaca, I still don't really get the appeal of what I see is essentially a cuisine made of mixing some kind of tortilla with some tomatoes with some meat, and then smothering it with cheese.

La Taqueria in the Mission is such a favourite amongst my friends, that Fil has come straight here when he gets off the plane, and apparently we are going to all live in a communal squat with Eugene and Aisha just so that we can be near. This humble Mexican joint has been in the Top 100 San Francisco restaurants for many many years now, and was suitably crowded with an eclectic crowd when we went, a mixture of local Mexican families to what looked like a well-fed white Texans on tour.

Inside, the menu is small, you can basically get either various kinds of tacos, or various kinds of burritos, served with a small selection of drinks. The walls are adorned with the numerous awards the place has earned over the years:

I went with the expert, who recommended the carne asada burrito with a strawberry agua fresca. At this point, it remained somewhat unpromising:

But unwrap the tinfoil, and I finally, finally understand what this was all about. This was unlike any burrito I have had, in London, US, or Mexico. There was no rice, no avocado, just a perfect mixture of beef, tomato salsa, and beans in a tortilla wrap, nothing more. And I am thinking that this might only work in California where the tomatoes are just amazing. It was so juicy that I think I used up half a carton of napkins, and hence why the photos suddenly stop. It took a long walk around Mission to digest it, but that only helped me to think it was the best neighbourhood in San Francisco (living in East London helps).

Oh, and the agua fresca was amazing too, probably because the strawberries in California are in season and amazing right now. Sorry, British strawberries will never again cut it for me.

Somehow, we managed to top this food coma with brunch at Dipsea Cafe in Mill Valley, a local favourite serving 'homestyle breakfast' in Marin. It is like one of those cute little American diners that you always see in films, complete with the booths and the unlimited jug of coffee and the overly friendly waitress. I was almost expecting Pumpkin and Honey Bunny to come and rob everyone.

Their breakfast menu is a little ridiculous for choice, including some interesting things like huevos rancheros, gravlax scramble, but I thought you should just go with the locals, and ordered the Dipsea Special of two buttermilk pancakes, one egg, link sausage, bacon, and home fries.

Now, I'm used to a good old big English breakfast, and was getting my stomach prepared for the onslaught. But I still wasn't quite expecting the enormity of the pancakes that were presented to me. I was expecting little drop-scone sized things, but they turned out to be bigger than my face (and ever since my teens I have been teased for having a huge face):

And that huge nob of butter on top was just unnecessary. I somehow managed to plough through about one of those pancakes before admitting defeat. I have a Nigella recipe for American style pancakes, the proportions of which are so huge that I have to halve the recipe each time, but now I understand where she's coming from. We actually spotted another table on the way out which had ordered an extra full stack (3 pancakes) and side of bacon on top of their normal breakfast.

Fil started getting worried about me during the trip because I kept refusing food, saying I wasn't hungry. If you've ever met me, you would know that this is not normal. I didn't want any dinner that day, and I'm sure I am still digesting some of that pancake right now.

One last naughty outing was to go to In and Out Burger, mainly to placate my foul mood after I found out about the inconclusive election results and was missing the Guardian last Thursday. There is only one branch in San Francisco (and another in Marin), so unsurprisingly it was packed that lunch time. I had forgotten what all the secret codes were, so we went for a straightforward cheeseburger & fries. It was much better than the one I ate in LA this time last year, it is certainly a superior fast food burger, and I think it's strategy of keeping the number of branches small probably ensures the quality.

Don't worry, a full report on salads, fresh fruit, and ridiculous healthiness in the next post :)