Traveling Feast

I’m in love.  Mocha love.

This comes from a guy who only orders coffee if it might go well with what I plan to eat.  It is a good thing I don’t live anywhere near Redmond WA or my wife might look at our VISA bill and begin to ask questions.

“What are all these charges at Kitanda Brazilian Bakery and Espresso?”

“Uh…”

“This isn’t like you.  Are you meeting someone?”

“Well… um…”

“What is it?  Tell me! There are 100s of dollars of unexplained charges here.”

“I’m too embarrassed.  I didn’t think it would go this far.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m in love… but wait… before you do anything rash.  It is only coffee.  Nothing more.  Delicious, beautiful Brazilian coffee, but that’s all.”

Counseling would probably be required.  Things would be rough for a while.  We’d make it.  I’d probably be drinking green tea again within a few months, but there would be times I would break down and cry.

Yet since I live in Spokane I hope to never need to have the imagined conversation above.  Our VISA bill won’t reflect daily charges at Kitanda and I won’t need to invent excuses to drive to Redmond day after day.  But you can be sure I’ll be back when I’m in the Seattle area and I suggest you do the same.

One sip and you just might be in love too.

I claim that Spokane’s Donut Parade has the best maple bars in the Western Hemisphere (possibly the planet since large swaths of the world have no access to this pinnacle of raised donut perfect).  Yet food gurus Jane and Michael Stern have a different opinion in their fun volume entitled 500 Things To Eat Before It’s Too Late.

They claim the best maple bar they’ve had is at Voodoo Doughnuts in Portland where the iconic bar comes topped with strips of bacon.  I’m looking forward to trying a Voodoo bar, but believe a truly classic maple bar needs to stand on its own without a pork assist.

This leads me to their second recommendation: Countryside Donut House in Mountlake Terrace in the Seattle metro area.

Chance would have it that I’m in Seattle today for a family emergency, but I have a break this morning in my duties long enough to head to Countryside.  Who knows?  Maybe a fine maple bar delivered at the right moment could help in the family emergency.  I’m willing to try.  And I’ll get a chance to see how the bars at Countryside compare to Donut Parade.

One of the best moments of my East Bay eating tour last week was the first bite of the Zachary’s “pride and joy.”

That would be the Spinanch and Mushroom pie that you can’t even order thin.  It is deep dish or nothing.

Up to that moment, the only Bay Area pizza worth a drive was the New York style pies served up with a bit of borough attitude at A Slice of New York in San Jose.  But Zachary’s Chicago Pizza is a real contender.

New York pies and Chicago pies really are only distantly-related culinary cousins.  Comparing them is essentially impossible.  You find your favorite NY pie and compare other thin crust pizzas against that standard.  The same is true for Chicago deep dish pies.  I have a vivid taste memory of my first real Chicago pie.  On a tip from a friend I left the Interstate and drove into downtown Chicago in September of 1990 and ordered a sausage pizza at Gino’s East.  It was a revelation.

Zachary’s Spinanch and Mushroom pie didn’t recreate the Gino’s sweet crust, but it is a remarkable pie in its own right and one I’ll be back to eat again as soon as I can find another excuse to fly or drive to Berkeley or Oakland.  If you beat me, expect a wait and enjoy the art while you do.

The text on The Forbidden Pizza poster:

The Forbidden Pizza
In Gargantuan Portions
Staring Psycho – Mad Max – Bleu Velvet
Spinanch Mushrooms – Cheese
Directed to your Alien Jaws
Produced by Zachary’s

I hear stories about how awkward it can be to eat alone… stories of being shuffled into corners or tables back by the door to the kitchen, rude wait staff, and uncomfortable moments on loneliness in the midst of others so obviously together.  And I can imagine that eating alone all the time could be hard.

Yet so many of my meals out… reviewing restaurants… require me to eat with others, and this admittedly warped perspective has allowed me to discover the gift of eating alone.  Two of the best meals I’ve eaten this year have been meals alone: one in New York City on Memorial Day weekend (Eleven Madison Park) and a second tonight on the west coast in Seattle’s Le Pichet.

The food on both occasions was wonderful, and, come to think of it, French.  Elegant and daring at Eleven Madison Park.  Rustic and simple at Le Pichet.  Not that I’ve come out of the closet as a Francophile… I haven’t.

In fact, what was most memorable about both meals wasn’t the great food at all, but the wait staff and specifically how they treated me as I dined alone.  At Eleven Madison Park it was Reilly and Chris who went out of their way to describe the food and discuss the wine.  Tonight it was Aaron who did both.

I got to glimpse briefly their delight and expertise as they described the possibilities represented by the menus and my interest was met with enthusiasm and a willingness to take extra time pointing out details I’d surely have missed if I’d been at the table with a party rather than alone.

In fact, in the end it didn’t feel like I was eating alone at all.  They made space for me, offered real hospitality, and set a table that felt a lot like home.  The food was more refined, but what in the end I’ll remember long after I’ve forgotten the flavors is their grace.

I’m not a rabid reality show fan.  In fact, most of the reality show phenomenon makes me groan and remember why I like books.  More thought.  No need to BLEEP every third word.  Characters I actually like.

That said, I have watched a fair amount of Top Chef.  For one we actual got Bravo with our minimum cable package until the world went HD.  Two, I am somewhat obsessed with food.  Hell’s Kitchen strikes me as idiotic… an excuse for the notoriously short-tempered Gordon Ramsey to scream and humiliate aspiring chefs.  But Top Chef takes a somewhat less brutal approach and can be entertaining to watch.

This season of Top Chef, which aired its first episode tonight, is filmed in Las Vegas and features two Seattle chefs, Ashley Merriman and Robin Leventhal.  Score two for the Northwest.  Yet the way I heard about the new season line-up was in a email from Kevin Gillespie, the executive chef at the Woodfire Grill in Atlanta.

I met Kevin during his brief stint here in Spokane.  He came to town to take the helm at Luna only to have that position not work out… quite definitively.  Then while deciding on his next big move (back to Atlanta) he logged some kitchen time at Bin 98 Twenty up on north Nevada.

We met at Quillisascut Farm in February of 2008 during a weekend when local chefs gathered to talk about developing a sustainable local food system.

He and his wife later helped out on a restaurant review locally before they moved back home to Atlanta.  I hadn’t heard from him until about a month ago when he sent me a note about his upcoming Top Chef appearance.

So tonight we headed over to friends who still get Bravo to watch episode one.  It will air again next Wednesday night so I’ll not give a blow by blow, but let me say this much: Gillespie gets some significant air time and puts it to good use.

Kelowna BC: We were simply looking for something better than generic fast food and a place with a vegetarian item or two on the menu for Megan.  Following a reader poll in Okanagan Life we settled on Dawett, an Indian restaurant on Ellis Street.

The air conditioning was cranked too high for the evening.  I worked my way through four glasses of ice water waiting for the food.  And the portions, once they did arrive seemed disappointingly small.  But none of that mattered after the first bite of Lamb Vindaloo or Tandoori Chicken with a Butter Sauce.  The mushroom rice along with the nan and roti were noteworthy, but for me it was the sauce on the lamb and the butter sauce were in a class by themselves.

Either we stumbled onto the best restaurant in Kelowna in one shot or this is a town with a number of restaurants cooking at a level not normally seen outside a major metropolitan area.

I met Boka’s Executive Chef Angie Roberts this weekend in Oregon and after a taste of her amped up breakfast hash, I was very interested to find my way into her restaurant in Seattle soon afterwards.  Last night on the back end of a Mariner’s game  (we left BEFORE Ichiro’s game winning hit at the bottom of the 9th) we stopped by Boka’s sleek space in Hotel 1000 for appetizers and dessert.

But first the space…

Near the center of the room is a stand of glass bamboo.  Equally striking are the walls in the back reaches of the dining room:  they gradually change color throughout the evening.  Our server said these transformations are programmed along certain themes such as “sunset colors” but confessed that she didn’t know what the current for the night might be.  Whatever it was, it included a cool blue and a blood red along with white and purple.  Maybe the theme for the night was Patriotic Eggplant.

I seriously doubt I would ever be inspired to decorate my home to look like a cocktail lounge lifted out of the Jetsons, but it Boka’s version is a great spot to spend a few hours.  Good food certainly helps, and Boka throws in the food righteousness factor with a menu that is upwards of 75% organic and as local as possible.  Expect individual farm names on most of the dishes on the menu.

We opted for an heirloom tomato salad with fruit grown on Billy Alsott’s farm and a small plate of of goat cheese gnocchi served with smoked tomatoes (excellent), porcini mushrooms (meaty), toasted pine nuts and shaved parmesan cheese.  I  was enjoying myself and quite full before Sous Chef Andrew Pritchard appeared with the most memorable dish of  the night: a selection from the brand new dessert menu.

It is listed under a somewhat confusing name,”easy like sunday mornin’, but don’t let a little menu camouflage get in your way.  Megan start to eat while I talked with Pritchard, and I should have known that something was amiss when she didn’t stop.  Just seconds before Pritchard arrived at the table, she had said with conviction that she couldn’t eat another bite.

Easy like Sunday morning’ is technically a sundae, but unlike any I’ve encounter in recent memory.  Put together a remarkable graham cracker ice cream with a huge pillow of house-made marshmallow skewered on a stick of sugar cane and suspended over the bowl with a tiny pitcher of hot fudge sauce on the side.  I may not be able to eat another s’more again with thinking of Boka and beginning to weep silently.  Okay… that might be a bit melodramatic, but it truly was a treat… so much so that I completely forgot to pull out the camera until we’d almost destroyed it entirely.

In my ongoing investigation into whether Facebook can be useful or is ultimately a sinister plot by Chaos to cut worldwide productivity in half, I requested suggestions on places worth eating in San Francisco.

Here are the responses I received in the event you might want to add them to your ‘hit list’ for the next time you visit.  I’ve added a few explanatory notes in ITALICS at points.

Daryl Geffken commented on your status:  “naan and curry… fantastic. azteca in the castro… not the chain… ask a local what to get. pho vietnam II. have fun”

Jeremy Leonard Hansen commented on your status:  “Say hi to Chef Eric Tucker at Millennium for lunch & Michael Mina’s Clock Bar for cocktails. Have fun and eat with thought my friend.”

Tad Wisenor commented on your status: “You can never go wrong with the Pacific Cafe at 7000 Geary. Two of my favorite seafood meals ever.”

Diane Allen Buzzard commented on your status: “Try Tommie’s Joint! Very fun + good food!”

Jeff Englehorn commented on your status: “the stinking rose is always fun… oh yeah- the caffe trieste in north beach for espresso, then over to vesuvio – where kerouac used to hang out…”

Eric Charles Lanes commented on your status: “Bouca di Beppo on Howard is always a riot–but you have to go in a group to the hang of it. Meatballs the size of softballs, ravioli the size of playing cards, parmigiana to kill g’ma for. Get off on Harrison/Bryant from S. 101 or from the Bay Bridge coming West (and you could get off on Howard just as easily) and in your in South-of-Market. Up and down Harrison, Bryant, Howard, & Folsom (run parallel) you’ll find alot of different things. Gets somewhat fancier toward Financial District/Mkt. St. so try to stay toward the grungier part of SoMa. Good Indian food places, dim sum, etc. Too many to list here.”   “Almost forgot: Picadilly Fish & Chips @ 1348 Polk St (415) 771-6477 is excellent (it’s a block off Van Ness, right turn).  Naan N’ Chutney 525 Haight for Indian is good.  Okay, okay. Last: If you want some fancier excellent food that’s prepared by a staff of all ex-convicts/parolees (I’m not kidding) go to Delancey Street Restaurant at 600 Embarcadero St (right under the 80 freeway, pretty much). From S. 101 get off on Howard go to the bottom of Howard, turn right and go on. Ex-cons doing valet parking, too. http://www.facebook.com/l/;delanceystreefoundation.org”    “One more thing: If you get to the East Bay and have time, go to Linguini’s in Alameda 1506 Park St. Pescatore is recommended (every shellfish there is w/calamari over garlicky fettucine, basil, olive oil, parmesan butter, tomatoes, onions, etc). So is the asiago w/prosciutto on spinach fettucine with peas. From 80 E. on Bay Bridge take 880 Nimitz Freeway south get off on Webster St./Alameda exit, thru the tube onto the island, take a left on Central at end of Webster (becomes Encinal at split right exactly where I lived a block away), drive thru town and left on Park. Lived here for 5 years–great little town and this was my favorite eating place. http://www.facebook.com/l/;linguinisrestaurant.com (pix of the food!) Sushi in Alameda: Kamakura 2549 Santa Clara.  Oakland: In the Piedmont off MacArthur is Shin-Shin. Small excellent Chinese outfit. Ask for waiter Dennis-good man. In Jack London Square (right on water under freeway) in Oakland: Hahn’s Hibachi–great Korean Grill (get a side of spicy kim chee).”

Cammie Finnerty commented on your status: “Swans (OYSTER BAR) for lunch if you haven’t been already. Also, try Anchor and Hope. My sister-in-law works there and I hear the food is yummy!” “Just thought of another good one… Burma Superstar- on Clement St. The tea leaf salad is a must!”

Julie Ann Higgins Russell commented on your status:  “I had an excellent dinner at Gitane on Claude Alley. The bacon bonbons were delicious (and I don’t usually eat meat) and the dessert beignets are something I still think about.”

Thanks to everyone who weighed in with a suggstion.  Eric gets the award for the most enthusiastic and detailed suggestions.  Naan and Curry picked up two votes and I happened to drive by it as well as The Stinking Rose on my way to pick up a friend in the Financial District.  In the end we headed down to the Ferry Terminal on the Embarcadero to Taylor’s Automatic Refresher for half a bottle of wine and an order of sweet potato fries.  The setting was near perfect, but one of the food suggestions above would have been better.

I’ve been complaining about the lack of Shanghai-style dumplings in the states for over a year.  One of the food-related downsides to travel is the two-fold discovery.  First you eat something transcendent in, say, China, only to return and realize it is impossible to get anthing remotely similar at home.

During a week in Shanghai in the spring of 2008, my goal was to eat absolutely everything put in front of me, and I came remarkably close.  I even managed to gulp down a few bites of blood soup before calling ‘uncle’ in universal sign language (clutching my throat, rolling off the chair, and writhing on the floor while making gagging noises).

But without a doubt the biggest culinary revelation of the trip were the incredible dumplings.  We even ate them for breakfast and in less than a week I went from thinking that pork dumplings at 8 am were about the strangest start to the day to craving them from the moment I woke up.

This presented an immediate problem once I passed through customs back into the U.S.  It was morning in Portland and there wasn’t a dumpling anywhere in the airport.  Spokane wasn’t any better: no dumplings.  And not just for breakfast.  I couldn’t find anything even marginally similar anywhere in town at any hour.

I asked my Chinese friends: still no joy.  They said part of the reason they return to China almost yearly is simply to eat dumplings.

Then Wednesday night I discovered a reference on a San Francisco web site describing a tiny shop in Millbrae that served Xiao Long Bao.  The place is called the  Shanghai Dumpling Shop.  It was a long shot, but I was desperate.

Last night after a meeting in San Francisco with Kate Riley of Mercedes ‘Hair of the Dog’ Cantina I punched into the GPS the coordinates for the dumpling shop (455 Broadway, Millbrae CA) and headed down the 101.

I counted it as a hopeful sign that nearly everyone in the shop was Chinese and the man behind the counter looked suspiciously at me.  It is the Seinfeld ‘Soup Nazi’ Principle: some of the best food is to be found in places that don’t need your business and might not be particularly pleased you walked in the door.

The fact that I heard more Mandarin at the tables around me than English was another hopeful sign, and so I didn’t waste my time exegeting the whole menu.  I just asked for the pork Xiao Long Bao ($7.50 for 10) and ten minutes later a bamboo steamer arrived without ceremony at my table.

They were not exactly like I remembered from the storefront shops in Shanghai, but they were very, very close.  In fact they were so close I was very, very happy even though I nearly burned my tongue as the hot juices of the first one squirted out into my mouth when I bit down.

Millbrae isn’t close enought to Spokane for  a daily fix, but plane tickets to California are somewhat cheaper than those to Shanghai and, at least as of yesterday, a passport wasn’t required to order at the Shanghai Dumpling Shop.

Food Service Typos #3 and #4

I almost hate to post these for fear that the next printing of Ginger’s menu will remove them, and a great typo can be such a source of delight.  I should also add that there is no correlation at Ginger between the food and the occasional menu hiccups.  All the food to date has been excellent, but even the best food rarely makes me chuckle.  Certain typos do.

“Ceviche” isn’t the easiest word to spell, and an internet search suggests that “cevice” has almost become an alternate spelling.   But those dang collective singulars like “shrimp” will kill you.  Then there is the “slice baby vegetable” and the random exclamation points included throughout! the menu with no! discernible pattern.

“Chom Mein” sounds like it could be a soft noodle dish designed for anyone who forgot to bring their dentures.

Yet rather than face the accusation that all I documented photographically at Ginger were typos, let me also include a shot of a stellar roll: the Black Jack ($12).  Inside is spicy tuna and crab.  On top is  it albacore and (as you might observe) quite a bit of creativity that included shaved radish, slivered scallions, and sesame seeds.  The light vinaigrette on the plate added another unexpected and welcome note to the dish.

New England Trip #6

Seafood is clearly central to the regional identity of New England and lobster appears to be king.  Growing up in Montana we had Rocky Mountain Oysters readily available, but not a lot of fresh lobster.  Even in Seattle with its myriad of fresh fish and seafood options, lobster stayed far from center stage; appearing only occasionally on a menu and the often as part of a surf-n-turf paring listed at “market price.”

My budget usually means I don’t even both to ask what “market price” might be.

Truthfully, I’d never even heard of a lobster roll until I set foot in Connecticut, but it became evident immediately that any trip to New England that didn’t include a lobster roll was woefully incomplete.

A little reading informed me that much of New England serves up lobster rolls cold with the lobster tosses with a little mayo: a lobster salad sandwich if you will.  Yet Connecticut prides itself on its hot lobster rolls that are nothing but lobster drenched in melted butter on a bun.  No mayo, no diced celery for crunch, no nothing but lobster, butter, and bread.

The more I read the more I realized that the best lobster rolls probably were not to be found in sit-down, white-linen, big-check establishments.  Instead I realized the best would probably be found at some small seafood shack near the shore where you ordered at a window and ate at a picnic table or at least on a plastic chair.

Zagat’s probably lists a high-end spot willing to put a lobster roll on the menu, but I turned instead to Yelp and Road Food to find the perfect spot for a stellar example of ye olde lobster roll.  Road Food came through for me with a promising hole-in-the-wall recommendation in Old Saybrook, CT.

Johnny Ad’s also serves up hot dogs that have taken home awards, but I refused to be distracted from my objective: a great HOT lobster roll ($15.50).  A clear birch beer was a bonus.

The purist clam pizza might be a learned craving.  The hot lobster roll?  Not so much.  It took all of a bite for me to decide this could easily become an obsession.

Johnny’s has been open since 1957 which suggests that a number of locals probably agree since you certainly don’t head to Johnny’s for ambiance.

New England Trip #5

On a side street in New Haven, Connecticut, Frank Pepe opened his Pizzeria Napoletana in 1925 to serve up classic “tomato pies.”  And with a coal-fired, brick oven that hit 2200 degrees, he started turning out pizzas quickly famous for their thin blistered crispy-chewy crusts.

Today Frank Pepe’s feels something like a stripped-down food shrine with utilitarian booths identified by number and the faded pictures hung on the walls above.

We ended up in booth 19 after making the pilgrimage to Frank Pepe’s in New Haven for one reason only: the clam pizza.  Frank’s clam pizza is widely rumored to be the best on the planet.

Of course it is not unusual for restaurants to claim they have the very best of something, but more often than not these claims go unsubstantiated.  Frank Pepe’s clam pie is in a different category.  A few pizza fundamentalists might argue that you can find a better clam pie somewhere else, but even they have to admit it is Frank’s Pizzeria Napoletana that set the standard and remains the pie to beat.

I love clams.  I love pizza.  And Frank’s progeny and staff aren’t stingy.  Even the smallest pizza on the menu is substantial and thick with clams.  We ordered ours without mozzarella at the advice of our brisk and business-like waitress.  She didn’t beat around the bush when asked if a quintessential pie came with cheese or without.  “Without,” she said definitively and didn’t bother to explain.

Thirteen minutes later… without cheese… but with the promised thin crispy-chewy blistered crust our pie arrived at the table.

I confess to disappointment.  My West Coast pizza sensibilities and taste buds are decidedly New World and apparently assume a pizza isn’t a pizza without tomato sauce and melted cheese.  Faced with possibly the country’s best clam pizza, I found myself ogling the massive sausage pizza at Table 18 across the aisle.  It sported the same brilliant crust but was slathered with sauce and topped with a thick sheen of melted mozzarella.

Bottom line?  I’ll return to Frank Pepe’s next time I’m in New Haven.  I bet I’ll even order another classic clam pie on the premise that it might well grow on me.  But I’ll also order one of Frank’s original tomato pies and get the version – authentic or not – that includes cheese.