Monthly Archives: July 2010

News in Wine Country, Kids Eat Free & More

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New Happenings in Wine Country

After years of renovation, Rustic, Francis’s Favorites has opened in the soon-to-be-completed Francis Ford Coppola Winery in Geyserville.

The dining room is centered on the parrila, an Argentinian grill. Enjoy Neopolitan pizzas such as the one named after the famed director’s daughter (a stellar director in her own right), Sofia. This pizza comes topped with arugula, prosciutto, and Parmigiano. Other dishes include a whole fish cooked in salt, classic Fiorentino steak for two, short ribs Argentine-style, and “Mrs. Scorcese’s Lemon Chicken” (one guess where that recipe came from).

The restaurant is open for lunch and dinner daily. The winery has a temporary tasting room for now. Eventually, it will include two new tasting rooms, as well as Coppola’s collection of movie memorabilia, including Don Corleone’s desk from “The Godfather” and the original 1948 Tucker car.

Join more than 30 of the Napa Valley’s top chefs and wineries at Share Our Strength’s Taste of the Nation Grand Tasting at the Silverado Resort in Napa, Aug. 5.

Among the restaurants participating are Peter Pahk, chef of the Silverado Resort, who will be assisted by chefs from La Toque, the Restaurant at Meadowood, and Cole’s Chop House.

Funds raised will go to Share Our Strength’s efforts to eradicate childhood hunger in Napa County and across the nation.

Tickets are $75 per person. One of the sponsors, Pretzel Crisps, is offering a deal on $15 off the ticket price. Just use the code, “PRETZELCRISP,” when purchasing tickets online.

This month, Swanson Vineyards in Rutherford debuted a new, whimsical tasting room, Sip Shoppe.

It joins the winery’s Salon tasting room. The Sip Shoppe, open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays, is decorated in striped circus-like fabric and faux stone gargoyles. Enjoy sipping wines in unusual glassware such as glass “Dixie” cups, mini Riedel O’s, and colored cut crystal.

A sense of fun permeates this tasting spot, which was envisioned as a candy store for grown-ups. Wines are available by the glass or by specific tastings, including the “Oakville Irony” ($15, Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay, a dollop of caviar atop a potato chip, and a New Orleans Snowball).

Look for new gift sets to be sold there, too, such as the “Newlywed Kit” (six bottles of  Swanson Vineyards “Just Married” wine, along with a feather ostrich duster, and a sage bundle).

Kids Eat Free at Chipotle Aug. 2

Parents who purchase a burrito, salad, burrito bowl or tacos at Bay Area Chipotle’s get a free meal for their kids on Aug. 2.

It’s a promotion to show off the new Chipotle kids’ menu, which includes choices such as small cheese quesadilla ($2.95, which includes a bag of chips, and beverage) and a “taco kit” ($3.95), which allows the pint-sized bunch to build their own tacos from three items (and enjoy chips and a beverage).

Just as with the grown-up dishes, the kid-friendly ones also are made with naturally raised meats, organic and local produce, and hormone-free dairy.

Today is National Cheesecake Day…

…And you know what that means? Half-price cheesecake slices for eat-in diners today at Cheesecake Factory locations.

Choose from more than 30 different flavors, including the new Reese’s Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake Cheesecake, which includes chunks of your favorite candy mixed into cheesecake with layers of fudge cake and caramel. How decadent is that?

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Treasures To Be Found Inside the Attic

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Earlier this year, I, like so many other foodies, mourned the passing of San Francisco’s Poleng Lounge, one of the few restaurants not only to feature modern Filipino food, but to do it exceedingly well.

So, I rejoiced when I heard that the Mosquito had landed — at least temporarily.

For those in the know, that’s the nickname of Filipino-American Chef Tim Luym, formerly of Poleng Lounge, who earned that moniker during college, when he used to deejay at club gigs by scratchin’ vinyl to create distinctive sounds. And nothing scratches more than a mosquito, right?

Luym now can be found in the kitchen at the barely two-month old Attic restaurant in downtown San Mateo, where he is the consulting chef. Whether he sticks around permanently, remains to be seen. Luym would only play coy, saying he was still exploring all his options.

For those who have missed the bold, memorable flavors of Luym’s former Southeast Asian small plates restaurant in San Francisco, you’ll be glad to know the menu at Attic features a lot of the same dishes you fell in love with there.

The vibe also is similar. Walk in the doorway, and you’ll find yourself first in the Bar under Attic — a small, bare-bones speakeasy on the ground floor that stays open late. Walk up a flight of stairs in the corner, and you’ll enter the actual restaurant upstairs, done up in warm reds and browns, and decorated with terracotta tea pots and wood crates. Dark, polished tables are set with caddies of chopsticks. Sliding glass doors overlooking the bustling street below let in a cool breeze on warm summer evenings.

Although my two gal pals and I paid our tab, Luym sent out extra goodies as a welcoming gesture because I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing him multiple times over the past few years.

The best way to enjoy yourself, of course, is to share all the dishes family-style. That’s just what my friends and I did, starting with sweet potato fries ($3.50), which were wonderfully crisp. To dunk them in, there was a spicy, house-made ketchup made with banana. Yes, banana, which lent a wonderful note of fruity, tropical sweetness, so much so that you wonder why more ketchups don’t have banana incorpoated into them.

Then came monster-sized house-made Sinigang Chicharonnes ($3.50). They looked like tortilla-sized shrimp chips. But one bite revealed their porky, fatty lushness.

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Ad Hoc BBQ Goodies

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When it carries the name, Ad Hoc, synonymous with the high-quality famous at Thomas Keller’s lauded, family-style Yountville restaurant, you know it will come with good taste and a high premium.

Such is the case with the new Ad Hoc Apple Bacon BBQ Sauce and Ad Hoc Sweet & Spicy BBQ Rub, both sold exclusively at Williams-Sonoma.

Recently, I got a chance to try out samples of both — the 13-ounce jar of barbecue sauce, which sells for $16; and the 3-ounce canister of rub, which is $12.

The hubby, aka Meat Boy, smeared the rub on racks of ribs, then brushed on the sauce after they came off the grill.

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Fruit- and Veggie-Packed Muffins

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Who doesn’t need to eat more fruits and veggies? (You know who you are.)

I like to get mine in the form of tender, moist muffins.

OK, my idea of fruits and veggies comes wrapped in butter, eggs, vanilla and sugar. But that got your attention, right?

These “Zucchini, Carrot, and Cranberry Muffins” come courtesy of “The SoNo Baking Company Cookbook” (Clarkson Potter). The new cookbook is by third-generation baker, John Barricelli, who graduated from the Culinary Institute of America at Hyde Park, NY, then worked at Le Bernardin in New York and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, before opening his SoNo Baking Company & Cafe in South  Norwalk, Conn.

If you’ve got zucchini taking over your backyard like zombies with no place else to go, this is the recipe for you. If you have cranberries stashed in your freezer from last Thanksgiving and have been wondering what the heck to do with them, this recipe is for you.

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New Starbucks Flavored Coffees & Food Gal Contest for Coffee Lovers

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Over the years, many flavored coffees have left me feeling much like I do about yesterday’s grounds — wondering why they were still around and hadn’t been thrown out or used as compost yet.

You’ve probably experienced the same — coffee flavored like Christmas or your favorite ice cream sundae topping, where you couldn’t taste the coffee at all, and instead were left with this way too strong, rather artificial taste in your mouth.

That’s why I was pleasantly surprised by the new Starbucks Natural Fusions. The three new coffees come in Vanilla, Caramel and Cinnamon flavors.

I hesitantly tried the samples I received, only to find myself smiling at what was in my cup. These flavored ground coffees are made with real-deal ingredients — ground vanilla bean and Indian sarsaparilla root in the Vanilla; cinnamon, orange peel and nutmeg in the Cinnamon; and licorice root, orange peel, cinnamon and nutmeg in the Caramel.

The flavors are subtle, which is nice because you can still taste the robust coffee, which is what we, true coffee lovers, want anyway, right? The Cinnamon has the strongest fragrance, hitting you the moment the hot water meets the grounds. It has a nice added warmth on the back of your throat from the spices. The Vanilla and Caramel are more elusive. They don’t taste like you’ve stirred in vanilla extract or caramel syrup into your coffee cup. It’s more as if you’d just nibbled on a vanilla cookie or sucked on a caramel candy, then taken a sip of coffee afterward.

The Natural Fusions sell for $8.99 per 11-ounce bag at Target stores. But they won’t be widely available at more retailers until September.

Contest: Five lucky Food Gal readers will get a chance to win one bag of each of the three new coffee flavors, along with a nifty French press. Contest is open only to those of you in the continental United States. Deadline to enter is the end of the day on July 31. Winners will be announced Aug. 2.

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