A Live One

There are lots of things about my new job that I’m enjoying: the work promises to be both challenging and rewarding, my colleagues (old and new) are sharp, interesting people, and the company culture is a good fit for me (fast paced, imperfect, and untraditional). However, I think that the part of my job I’m enjoying the most currently has to be the amazing cafeteria on our campus.

When I first started contracting (long ago, when I was still at the agency and my current company was then my client), I remember being in absolute and complete awe at the food options offered, the incredible prices, and the way that a central cafeteria made a workday easier and more productive. Whereas at the agency sitting down at lunch was seen as unproductive, my new company has recognized that as much work is done over a salad and a sandwich as is done in meetings, on conference calls, and sitting at a workstation. The cafeteria is so busy each day as everyone from the CFO to the guys from the mailroom comes to eat that there’s hardly a place to sit down at peak times.

Productivity and ease aside, though, the cafeteria warms this foodie’s heart. This is hardly dorm-style food (though, like college, it’s as easy to make the wrong choices as it is to eat healthfully). There are 5 hot “stations,” a huge salad bar (my favorite), a deli, soups, a refrigerator case to “grab and go,” and infinite dessert options. Sodas, coffee, and the best iced tea EVER made are free all day, every day (as are coffee drinks like lattes, cappuccinos, and chai…in fact, each building has its own coffee bar that’s open all day as well). I often go for the salad bar, as I’ve always loved to build my own meals according to that day’s picky taste. It’s by far one of the freshest salad bars I’ve seen anywhere. On any given day I can choose from things like jicama, baby corn, pea pods, an assortment of legumes, artichoke hearts, hearts of palm, two types of beets (red and yellow), cheeses, and fresh firm tofu (in addition to the regular salad vegetables). If I have some extra time, the guys at the grill will grill me up a chicken breast and chop it for the top of my salad. If I don’t have time, there’s pre-packaged chopped chicken to go. There’s always fresh fruit, some sort of yummy pasta salad, and a bunch of crunchy toppings, including cheddar cheese Goldfish (my personal favorite).

The deli is much of the same overwhelming abundance as the salad bar: infinite options of meats, cheeses, fresh veggies, roasted veggies, spreads, and breads. The soups are consistently awesome, and there’s always a vegetarian option. When I get sick of soup, salad, and sandwiches, I usually head to the grill which serves everything from burgers to grilled cheese to chicken to fish. You can be as healthy (grilled skinless chicken breast with steamed veggies) or as not healthy (tuna melt! cheeseburger! fries! onion rings!) as you wish. You can get wood-oven pizzas, calzones, burritos or the Mexican specialty of the day. You can get the pasta of the day, or whatever special concoction has been dreamt up. There’s always a vegetarian dish of chickpeas and samosas, a bento box, basic Asian fare, and then an Asian specialty (Vietnamese pho being my favorite).

Given the range of choices, I’m always surprised at how good the food is and how transparent they make the preparation. You can come down to the cafeteria for breakfast (which is a whole other deal…omelets, oatmeal, fruit, cereal…) and watch them chop veggies and meats, prepare the pizzas, and cut trays of the most delicious Rice Krispie treats. The salad bar is refilled consistently throughout lunch and you can see how the food is managed and stored. When the guys at the grill open their fridge to get more tuna salad or what have you, you see Tupperware full of real food, instead of institutional cans of unidentifiable items or preservative-laden choices. Healthy eating is promoted here, and it’s easy to navigate, for which I’m truly thankful.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t have a Rice Krispie treat every once in a while.

Posted by jmakunas at 05:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

(Photo courtesy of Rappy!)

(Quick note: Apologies for still not blogging regularly...I should have known that after spending the past two weeks with sick people, I'd get sick myself. Grrrr.)

So, I've thought for a while about how to best tell the story of our trip to Miami without having to rehash every single detail, bore you all to death, or incriminate myself. Heh. As on any tour, our activities can pretty much be divided up into three categories: food, friends, and (of course) music. And as is my wont, I'll start with our Cuban culinary adventures.

Seeing multiple-night runs of shows usually means that we're up late at night, sleeping late in the morning, and eating only one meal a day (a big lunch). In the past year or so, though, we've figured out that a little research and forethought can mean that one meal can be a gourmet experience. This summer, for example, on the last leg of our crazy jaunt up and down the East Coast, M and I figured out that we'd have an afternoon to kill in Philly - the perfect excuse to eat at Morimoto. (Fish before Phish!) That meal (exquisite and outstanding) sealed our touring philosophy: if you're just going to eat once a day, make the most of it. I mean, we're almost 30 years old here, way too old to subsist on grilled cheese from the lot.

So before we left for Miami, Jackie and I did some research and came up with a list of restaurants for lunch and one for dinner. For the most part, we wanted to try to find authentic Cuban food, have some fresh seafood, and have one night out in South Beach where we focused more on the scene than the eats. I'd have to say we accomplished our goals pretty darn well this time.

Lario's on the Beach/Bongo's: We chose this for our night out in South Beach because Dave and Jackie had been there before, enjoyed the food, and enjoyed the live salsa music during dinner. Unfortunately, they failed to impress upon me that the salsa music was GOING TO BE VERY VERY LOUD, and so I was a party pooper and we were seated upstairs where the music was quieter (and our neighbors were loud).

We began with mojitos (mint, lime, and simple syrup muddled together then mixed with rum and club soda) which were good, but nowhere near those from our beloved Luna Park. All four of us shared a PuPu platter full of yummy bite-sized goodies: fried pork, croquettes, tamales, and these awesome fried potato puffs stuffed with chorizo which I would have never thought would work together but which was outstanding. I had a lovely piece of fresh grouper, M had more fried pork, Jackie had Churrasco steak with Chimichurri sauce (a tangy loose pesto with garlic, parsley, lemon juice, and herbs) and Dave had a seafood platter that seemed more Cajun (think etoufée) than Cuban, but was delicious nonetheless. The best part of all our meals was the beans and rice that were brought on the side. As usual, there was enough food to feed a small African country. And you wonder why Americans are fat. We all thought the meal was good, not amazing, but we were there for the South Beach scene, which is truly insane, and about which I will write more another time.

Versailles: This was by far the culinary highlight of our trip. Versailles can accurately be described as “the Cuban Denny’s,” a gigantic restaurant done as a very tacky over-the-top replica of Versailles (replete with a “Hall of Mirrors”) that serves diner-style low-fuss Cuban food to tons and tons of people, most of them Cuban families, some of them intrepid tourists (like ourselves) who venture into the Little Havana section of Miami in search of authentic fare. I had heard great things about this place - cheap, fast, authentic, a bit insane - and we weren’t disappointed.

We went for lunch on Sunday after Rappy joined us for the day and fueled up for the first show with a huge lunch. Jackie and I had the “Cuban Pot Roast:” a few large pieces of meat stuffed with chorizo (again with the chorizo! I love that stuff…), Rappy had the Ropa Vieja (I’ll let her tell you about it), and Dave had something seafood-y again. We also had a pitcher of excellent sangria – not too sweet, not overly fruity, and truly refreshing. It was a great pre-show meal, casual, relaxing, and truly authentic. (Although, we’re still trying to decide if our waiter Yasser was as authentic as the food.)

In fact, we enjoyed our lunch at Versailles so much, we returned for a late night snack the next evening after the show (around 1am) and I ordered a “Calle Ocho” Cuban sandwich (named for the street the restaurant is on). This was truly the most outstanding thing I ate all week. It was basically only a grilled club sandwich on Cuban bread (which is like a big soft white roll with a light crispy crust) with ham, turkey, bacon, cheese, and a few veggies, but - maybe because I was starving after the show, or maybe because they did something special to the sandwich that I couldn’t discern - it was incredible. At 2am, I ate almost the entire thing, which is unheard of for me. If they could ship this sandwich to San Francisco, I’d do it in a second. I would return to Miami solely for this sandwich. I need to figure out how to recreate this sandwich. (Can you tell I liked the sandwich?)

So. Good.

Van Dyke Cafe: Van Dyke’s was another lunch spot that we chose solely for its location along South Beach’s Lincoln Road mall, a nice outdoor promenade with shopping and flower markets and greenery. Of course, it was a bit too cool to sit outdoors, so we sat inside. Heh. The only memorable things about this meal (it was pretty standard café fare… it was recommended highly on Chowhound, but I can’t quite figure out why) were the outstanding piña coladas and the fact that I learned that the person who had sat in my seat right before me was the gorgeous and talented Larry Mullen. Since I have quite a thing for cute drummers, this knowledge was decidedly better than the food at hand.

Big Fish: Big Fish was not originally on our list, but was a last minute addition because it was walkable from the hotel and we were tired. (And hey! More Fish before Phish! Heh.) It took us a few minutes to find it because it was tucked under a bridge right on one of Miami’s many waterways. In fact, one could sail right up to the restaurant, dock the boat, and stop for a glass of wine and a salad (which many did while we were eating). While our food was good (we all ate some form of seafood, given the name of the restaurant was Big Fish), the service was horribly condescending and rude (“Oh… little lady doesn’t want a wine list…I bring you house wine. And for you, $25, not $26, OK?” *runs off*), and they messed up our orders. I could never recommend a restaurant where the service was that dismissive, though my food was awesome (I had a truly outstanding salad of fresh shrimp, tomato, avocado, and greens and some delicious crab cakes that were full of flavor and just lightly breaded and fried). Perhaps I’m spoiled living in San Francisco, but for a waiter to refuse to bring me a wine list because I’m a woman, ignore our requests for salt, pepper, water, bread, and napkins, then forget to put in my salad order? It could be the best shrimp I’ve ever eaten in my life, but I ain’t going back.

In fact, I have to say that the service in Miami as a whole was routinely horrid. People were ridiculously slow (not like the Bahamas or other tropical destinations, where you expect people to be on “Island Time” and you understand it’s just the pace of life), often messed up our orders, were fairly rude, and were pretty darn sexist. Jackie and I know what we’re doing around a menu (and a wine list, for that matter) and we take it for granted that we’ll be accorded the same courtesy as the men at the table. Most of the food – once we got it – was good…it was the getting that was miserable. My food rating for Miami: about a 5.

Except for that sandwich. The sandwich was a 12.

Posted by jmakunas at 01:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

As I mentioned before the holidays, every year since I was about seven or so, my family has gone out to dinner on Christmas Eve. M and I have decided to continue this tradtion ourselves, and the past two years we've gone out to eat at LuLu, which is one of our favorite restaurants in San Francisco, and has the added benefit of being on the next block, though it's hardly fancy.

This year, however, we decided to re-institute the gourmet Christmas Eve dinner and eat at La Folie, which we've heard described as one of San Francisco's Top Five restaurants. M chose it because it has a very traditional French Christmas Eve menu: fixed price, five courses, quite expensive. It's certainly unique among San Francisco's top restaurants in that Chef Roland Passot doesn't really indulge in the modern Californian/eclectic style, but has still managed to cultivate a very warm, friendly, casual atmosphere in a very fine restaurant. The food could easily have become stuffy and overly formal, but instead it's beautifully presented, lovely precisely because it's traditional, and quite delicious.

After our "coupes de champagne," dinner began with a rather large amuse bouche of Scrambled Eggs with Truffles, served in an individual egg cup, each dish intensely flavored with the musky headiness of black truffles and containing the texture of tiny tapioca.

At this point, we decided to order a half-bottle of white wine for the first two courses and a full bottle of red for our entrees. We asked the server for a white suggestion, as we were both having Lobster Bisque with Scallop Flan for the soup course, and lobster is notoriously hard to pair. He brought us a 2002 Paul Chapelle Mersault (offering to drink the rest if we didn't find it satisfactory) which was perfect with the soup, just rich enough to challenge the lobster, but not too oaky or sweet as to overpower the flavors. I have to say, I was slightly disappointed with the bisque - it was a bit to acidic for me - the lobster was marinated in lemon and, while an interesting touch, I thought it made the meat a bit tough. The flan wasn't scallops as advertised, but lobster, and it was the highlight of the course. However, I think the title of "Best Lobster Bisque Ever" still belongs to Carlos.

As it was a fixed price menu, we had only two options for each course. Looking back, we probably should have ordered one of each plate, but since La Folie is known for their foie gras, we both had to get the Seared Sonoma Foie Gras with Quince, Raisins, and Muscat de Beaume de Venise Broth for our third courses. The lobe of foie was HUGE, and from the much-beleaguered but truly excellent Sonoma Foie Gras farm. I found the preparation outstanding, if a bit sweet for my tastes. I love foie gras, but can't eat that much of it on my own, and usually prefer it in a pâté or terrine. We both agreed that this was overwhelmingly good (but that Masa's foie gras course was slightly better).

Unfortunately, for some still-unknown reason, just as they were bringing us our entrees, M started to feel extremely ill. Maybe it was something in the rich amuse bouche, or maybe it was just stress from the past few weeks of work, but he had to leave the table for a bit, and was quite unhappy for the rest of our meal, managing only a few bites of his entree and a glass of wine (shocking!). It was at this point where the service really began to shine. Our waiter waited for a few minutes, then came over to me to inquire quietly about M's absence. He understood immediately what I really meant when I said I thought he was just "very tired" and he did everything possible for the rest of the evening to make M comfortable: packed up his meal AND his dessert for him to go, brought him peppermint tea, and just was very kind in general. It was handled so beautifully, and we were very impressed.

So while M was trying to deal with feeling horrible on our favorite food night of the year, I was happily plowing through an amazing entree of Wild Black Cod on Braised Cabbage with Black Chanterelles and Bacon, Lobster Broth. This was the perfect savory successor to the foie gras, a meaty white fish with delicately seared skin, served over an elegant slaw with just the right amount of buttery sauce. M had ordered Duck "Pere Noël" with Citrus Gastrique, "Farce" of Camargue Rice and Root Vegetables which was excellent warm, and even better cold when he finally ate it, two days later, in our hotel room in Fort Lauderdale at about midnight. We decided that it was the perfect thing to order to cap off our year, given we had driven through La Camargue with my parents when we were in Provence in June.

Our wine for the main course was an excellent 2000 Rasteau from Benjamin Brunel that we chose ourselves. We love Rhône wines, and found it curious that this bottle resembled a Châteauneuf-du-Pape and stated the wine's origin as C-d-P rather than Rasteau, since it was decidedly not a C-d-P. Just another nod to our summer vacation, I suppose. Since M was under the weather, I drank almost the entire bottle by myself and was very, VERY happy by the time dessert arrived.

Dessert was a Chocolate Raspberry "Buche de Noël" with Spiced Myer Rum Eggnog which made me extremely happy, as I love the little meringue mushroom buttons that accompany a Buche de Noël. Around this point, Roland Passot, the head chef, came around to each table to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and inquire about the meal. I think I managed to squeak out something stupid in French (I'm much braver in Paris proper) and he was very sweet in return. We ended the meal, as usual, with a déca for me and a normal espresso for M, who thankfully felt much better by the time we returned home.

In all, we thought La Folie was lovely and would definitely return for a special occasion, but it wasn't the best meal I've EVER had and it was decidedly expensive. I thought they more than justified their price with the personal service, wine recommendation, and festive menu. A practically perfect start to our holiday week.

Posted by jmakunas at 08:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Over the past four or five years or so, San Francisco has been over-run with a restaurant trend called "small plates." (With all due respect to the NY Times, I hardly think we're copying the East Coast on this one.) It's an extension of the Spanish Tapas idea: food is served on small plates, often in small bites, and usually shared. In its best form, it allows you to have many different tastes on the table and can save a bit of money (as the plates are often half as much as regular entrees). In its not-so-perfect form, you can spend LOTS of money for very little food. You just gotta know where to go.

M and I have our favorite small plates places (most notably Timo's, which we've loved since the week we moved here and Tallula, which has recently opened to deservedly rave reviews), but this past week we've had a chance to dine at two more new restaurants - Cortez and Baraka - with mixed results.

We went to Cortez last Saturday night before the Christmanukkah party with W and Y. Four people at these restaurants is ideal, as you're able to sample much of the menu. We all enjoyed our meal here, especially the Katafi crusted crab cake which arrived looking like a spiky, forbidding, fried sea urchin all but tasted divine. I also loved the terrine of foie gras which was accompanied by chunky orange and Herbes de Provence marmalade - it had the texture of butter or a good triple-cream cheese and I loved the idea of mixing herbs in marmalade.

Last night, M and I went to Baraka in Potrero Hill, largely because of the favorable review in the Times and because we've been saving money by not going out to dinner and were feeling in need of a dose of civilization. We had higher hopes for Baraka given that the owners operate two other extremely successful restaurants right down the street, but I found the food very one-note and overly sweet. Perhaps we didn't do a wonderful job ordering, but nearly every one of the five dishes we received had raisins in it. And while I appreciate the well-used raisin (Timo's Catalan Style Spinach, I'm looking at you), I don't need it hiding in every dish on the menu. The lemon and cumin marinated quail was outstanding (though on a plate of soggy, overly-sweet spinach - with raisins!). We should try to cook little birdies on our own more often.

So tonight we're back at home, happily creating our own "small plates," as Clotilde's Oeuf Cocotte recipe bakes in the oven as I type.

In other news, for the holidays this year M and I decided to use an old merchandise credit we had at Williams-Sonoma to buy ourselves gifts. Apres nos oeufs ce soir? Ice cream from our brand new ice Ice Cream Maker!

And as exciting as that purchase is, I'm even more excited about this one. What can I say, I'm a kitchen dork!

Posted by jmakunas at 04:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)