Ottolenghi

Just when I think I know a lot about food (which is ridiculous), I'm reminded that I actually know very little. I was at my neighbor's recently when I mentioned that I would be flying a trip to London. Their response was "Ottolenghi"! To which I said "Otto what"? My neighbors are the ultimate foodies with sophisticated palates and a cookbook library that rivals that of any large book store. They sent me home with 2 books from their shelves for me to explore.

 A fascinating story unfolds with the unlikely collaboration of two cooks who met in London. Yotam Ottolenghi from the Hebrew side of Jerusalem and Sami Tamimi from the Arab side of the same city did not know one another in Israel. Yotam, while awaiting the start of his PhD studies, decided to enroll at Le Cordon Bleu in London. Sami had also arrived in London to further develop his cooking skills in a more cosmopolitan city. They crossed paths and the rest is history. Together they have written one cook book "Ottolenghi: The Cookbook" and Yotam has written one on his own called "Plenty". "Ottolenghi: The Cookbook" prefaces with the statement that if you the reader do not like lemon, coriander, artichokes, and eggplants, then you will not like this book. The books are full of beautifully illustrated simple recipes with bright clean flavors. I immediately made 2 of the dishes and was sold.

They have 4 locations in London under the name "Ottolenghi" of which one is a proper sit-down restaurant and the other 3 are more of a deli/market style with limited seating. On my trip to London, I chose to go to one of the deli style establishments located in Notting Hill pictured above.

(Side note: only a few blocks away from the great Portobello market made famous by the movie "Notting Hill" with Hugh Grant).

The space is small, but if you love food, visually you'll be very attracted to what is on display. Similar to their cookbook recipes, their offerings are vibrant in color and pleasing to the eye. I chose to fill a small takeout box with 3 of the dishes on display to the right. I wish I had written all of the ingredients contained in each dish, but suffice it to say that they were all delicious and chocked full of fresh zesty flavors. I can't wait to go back again. If in London, you will not be disappointed with Ottolenghi.

Applewood Inn and Restaurant

 I had just finished cooking at a winery event yesterday in the Russian River AVA (American Viticulture Area) so I decided to take a drive to soak up the beautiful fall colors of the wine country. If you have not visited the Russian River and Dry Creek region you owe it to yourself to visit in the fall. The colors may rival the changing of the leaves in the New England and the region is in the midst of grape crush with aromas of fermenting grapes permeating the air.

I had decided to meet some friends at Applewood restaurant which has held a 1 Michelin Star rating for two years now. It's located off the beaten path in the town of Guerneville. Applewood Inn. It's always fun to try Michelin rated restaurants for sake of comparison and to see what the fuss is all about!

The setting of the restaurant and Inn is beautiful. The restaurant offered a special "Russian River Night" menu with a 3 course meal for $30 - a good deal considering all of their entrees top the $30 mark. Corkage was free as long as the wine was from Russian River. Another great deal for a Michelin restaurant!

Last night's menu is pictured below. I always wonder how much of the Michelin rating is hype and how much is credited to the performance of the restaurant. So, I decided to be a critic in disguise.

The first course of butternut squash soup was excellent. I had just made a big batch at home and it was fun comparing it to mine. The soup garnish crispy sunchokes was really nice. All 6 of us enjoyed the soup.

The second course was goat cooked 3 ways: grilled, braised, and confit on a bed of lentils and spinach. Three waiters set our plates in front of us and the lead waiter explained the contents of the plate from left to right. It turned out that 1 of the plates had been placed upside down so his description of the meats didn't match. It's a small detail that didn't really bother me, but that's what Michelin ratings are all about-attention to detail. The grilled goat was tough and very chewy. The braised meat was delicious and tender, as is anything slow braised. I loved it. The confit was extremely salty in my opinion. When the course was finished, I noticed that all 6 of us had left some of the grilled goat uneaten.

The third and final course was a quince cake with almond creme anglaise - almost unanimously voted as dry by our group. It was good enough to finish however. I really liked the creme anglaise.

I want to say that overall I enjoyed my meal.  Our service was great and we received just the right amount of attention. I thought the price was good given what we had and the no-corkage was fantastic, but on this given night, I thought the execution was not deserving of the laurels bestowed upon this restaurant by the Michelin Guide.

La Fonda Del Sol, NYC

A wintry, drizzly day in NY led me to seek quick shelter for lunch. Walking rapidly and trying to peer below the rim of my umbrella through the drizzle, I spotted a trendy looking sit-down restaurant. No time to be picky, I ducked inside and asked for a table. I was at La Fonda Del Sol in Midtown Manhattan. Pure chance had led me to this cool Spanish tapas restaurant on the ground floor of the MetLife Building at 44th and Vanderbilt. The menu looked interesting. It was divided into seafood, meats, cheese, and vegetable. The average price ranged from $9-$15 per serving. So I decided to order the tuna belly with Navy beans, herbs, and jalapeno tossed in an oil and vinegar, the short rib with pomegranate seeds and sweet pickled cipollini onions, and the Tuna tacos with avocado, jalapeno pickled onions.

As I waited for the food, I read some yelp reviews on my iphone. The overall rating was 3 1/2 stars. Most of the complaints were about the octopus dish being rubbery and bland, poor service with lots of orders being mixed up, and steep prices for the small serving size.

Tuna Belly, Navy beans, jalapeno oil & vinegar

Short Rib, pomegranate, sweet cipollini onions

Tuna Tacos, avocados, jalapeno, lemon/lime juice

All in all, it was a great meal. The tuna belly dish was a little too oily and the tuna could have been canned white tuna, but the overall flavor was decent. The short rib was excellent. It was tender and juicy. The tuna taco was also delicious. The tuna was sushi grade and went well with the jalapeno, onions and the lemon/lime juice that was drizzled on it. My service was excellent. Grant it, it was a very quiet lunch so I had the server all to myself. I do think that the prices are fairly steep, but it's NYC! Everything is expensive. I left feeling satisfied. I would come back again.

Kangsuh Restaurant, NYC (Allis LCB classmate)

In the continuing tradition of keeping in touch with some of my LCB classmates, I was fortunate enough to meet with my classmate Allis in NY for lunch. I was lucky enough to catch Allis while she is home for the Holidays from Tokyo. we had also invited Julia but she was unable to attend due to travel plans. We decided to meet in Koreatown which is along 32nd St between 5th Avenue and Broadway. The street is lined with lots of Korean restaurants which makes it difficult to choose one from another. We decided on Kangsuh Restaurant. I deferred all of the ordering to Allis who is of Korean heritage. My only request was that we include the traditional Korean BBQ in the order. Allis ordered salads, assortment of vegetables marinated in various sauces, and dumpling soup. The table top stove was gas and not the traditional charcoal which Allis pointed out would have been better for flavoring the meats with that great smoky flavor. The meal was tasty and the service was good, but I have to confess we were too busy catching up to focus on the food. Although her job keeps her very busy, Allis has managed to squeeze in a part-time internship at a Tokyo restaurant to keep her cooking hand in the game. She provided me a small glimpse of what it's like behind the scenes of a Japanese kitchen. It's fascinating to see where we have all landed following our Parisian experience. Obviously driven by the passion for food, we have all managed to find our niche, whether full-time or part-time, despite primary careers and personal demands.

I dug up the above picture of Allis which was taken a year ago during a class party following our final written exam. Every time I talk with one of my classmates I think how much fun It would be to go back for Intermediates!

Bridges Restaurant, Amsterdam (Sjoerd LCB Classmate)

Many reasons to celebrate today, to include Sjoerd and Jayne's 7th Anniversary, led us to Bridges Restaurant for a taste of fine dining. This restaurant is within the Sofitel hotel and focused on seafood as its specialty. Tonight we opted for a 6 course Chef's tasting menu with wine pairing for each course. Upon seating we were presented with an Arrive' which consisted of a cube of salmon with wasabi and ginger crystals, olives ,and puff pastry mozzarella cheese stick served along with the most delicious Champagne I have ever tasted. Next came the amuse bouche, a sardine with tomato foam on julienned red and yellow pepper topped with a pea shoot garnish. The following course came from the raw bar, an arrangement of raw oysters from Bordeaux, Normandy, and Zeeland (Netherlands). Also, there were 3 shot glasses each filled with a different type of fish or shell fish, herbs, and sauces.

We were then served a starter of lobster prepared cleverly with Indian ingredients. The  half lobster, resting on shiso leaves, was coated with a tandoori sauce, and presented along a coriander pesto sauce,  a yogurt/cucumber sauce, and Nan. The presentation was beautiful.

The main course was a monk fish on a bed of pea risotto, and was coated with a  mussel beurre blanc foam and tempura asparagus.

Finally, after 2 1/2 hours of eating, we were greeted with the dessert pictured to the right. All in all it was a feast, a treat, and a fantastic session for 3 people highly interested in food to discuss and explore fine cuisine. After the meal we managed to get a tour of the kitchen and met the "back of the house". What a night! I'll remember this meal for a long time. Thanks Sjoerd and Jayne for arranging this fantastic night! 

Del Posto, NYC (Julia LCB Classmate)

It has been a week for getting together with LCB classmates. Today it was lunch with Steve and Julia at Del Posto in NYC. Del Posto is a Mario Batali 1 Star Michelin restaurant on 10th Ave in the meat packing district. Julia and I became fast friends when we found ourselves in the same practical group among a bunch of young 20 somethings. We had shared a few meals together in Paris and had last met in January at the restaurant Boulevard in San Francisco where I had met Steve and Julia for a nice dinner.

It was great to meet once again over this delicious 3 course meal. Regrettably, I have no pictures to share (how could I forget my camera!). It was lots of catching up and talking about food, restaurants, and LCB classmates as we worked our way through the fixed price lunch. By the way, this is a great deal for $29! I had done my research on yelp and the consensus is that the fixed price lunch is the way to go. I had a lobster salad for the antipasti (Additional $10), the grilled lamb chop with ceci and swiss chard ragu for the secondi, and the  chocolate ricotta tortino for the dolci. The service was impeccable with a team of waiters hovering about at the appropriate times. Great lunch!

It makes my layovers so much fun when I can actually meet friends and share such great dining experience with them. Julia has no plans to further attend LCB, but as she cooks in her own kitchen she is realizing, as I have, the depth of the education we received in Basic Cuisine. One of these days we'll have to get together and cook.

Willis Seafood, Healdsburg (Alan LCB Classmate)

I always maintained that one of the most rewarding aspects of my culinary education in Paris was the people that I met. Today I made a trip up to my old town of Healdsburg. I lived there for 2 years in mid 2000's and it was fitting to go back to meet my old LCB classmate Alan (the "big guy" as I would refer to him in my posts). Alan is in Northern CA for a week from his home in Wyoming. It was great seeing him. We managed to meet at one of my favorite restaurants Willi's Seafood which is actually not really a seafood place but a tapas restaurant. What a place to meet a fellow foodie! As the plates of delicious tapas paraded across our table we talked about the past and the future of our culinary worlds. It was great fun rehashing some of our favorite memories of LCB, what we have done with our acquired skills since, and our course for the future. What fun!
It's a possibility that Alan will be going back for Intermediates this year!

5 Ninth NYC

In the tradition of exploring good food in NY I decided to head down to the West Village Meat Packing District to try dinner at the trendy and rustic 5 9th with my friend Al. I had been here before with Beth for a drink. The Meat Packing District, as the name 
implies is where all the meat butchering and packing took place in NYC and was home to over 250 butcheries in its day. Over time, the area fell into disrepair and became a haven for sex clubs, and prostitution. This was until the 1990's when some visionary developers and retailers began transforming the area into a hip and funky area laden with boutiques, clubs, and restaurants. It's a real cool area to visit. For foodies, it's also the home to Chelsea Market where the Food Network resides and films their Iron Chef series. OK...back to 5 Ninth:

5 Ninth stands for Building #5 on 9th Avenue. It's a rustic 3

story brownstone built in 1848. The first floor is the bar and a backyard garden with seating. The 2nd floor houses the dining room with 6 fireplaces, and the 3rd floor is candle lit lounge with chairs and sofas. The place has a very cool ambiance. I think it was voted as one of the hippest bar/restaurants of NYC in 2005. My buddy Al and I headed there for dinner. We sat at the window on the first floor (the window on the right in the above picture) which is elevated above the street with a bird's eye view of the happening on 9th Avenue. I ordered the grilled hanger steak with a cherry tomato, raisin, grilled oyster mushroom, frisee salad with white balsamic dressing. It was made perfectly. The meat was a perfect medium rare and the balsamic dressing was nicely balanced. Not the most sophisticated dish, but cooked very well. Yelp gives it 3 1/2 stars. Zagat rates it 19/22/18/$52 (food/decor/service/avg. cost). I would consider going again not because the food blew me away, but the whole package of ambiance, hip, and trendiness all combine to make for a nice dining experience on a summer night in NYC.

Balthazar, NY French Bistro

I am on a layover in NYC and wanted to explore the French Bistro scene and decided to have lunch at the famous Balthazar Bistro in the Village. The Chef de Cuisines are the well known Chef Riad Nasr and Chef Lee Hanson. The place oozes with with old world Parisian decor with its distressed mirrors and walls. Sitting in the dining room I felt as though I had been transported to La Belle France.

I ordered the signature "Balthazar" Salad which is haricots verts, asparagus, and mixed greens with a truffle vinaigrette dressing. It was well composed and delicious. Next I had the steak tartare which was equally tasty. I could detect the flavors of cornichons, capers, shallots, and parsley (very classic) and a slight hint of Tabasco. To finish the meal I had an espresso. All in all it was a great meal in a truly authentic French setting at a reasonable price.