Monthly Archives: July 2008

Taste of Terroir in Livermore

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What do you get when you put 16 of Livermore’s top wineries with 16 top Bay Area chefs? You get “Taste of Terroir,” the sixth annual wine and food experience, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. July 24 at the Palm Event Center at Ruby Hill in Pleasanton.

The chefs and vintners will be creating food and wine pairings that will vie for “Most Innovative Pairing,” “Best Expression of Local Ingredients,” and “Judges’ Best” awards. Guests also will have a chance to vote for the “People’s Choice” award. Afterwards, guests will enjoy desserts paired with Livermore Valley ports.

Participating wineries include Concannon Vineyard, Steven Kent Winery, and Page Mill Winery. Restaurants include Scott’s Seafood, Maholo Grille, and the Restaurant at Wente Vineyards.

Tickets are $75 per person.  They are available here or by calling the Livermore Valley Winegrowers Association at (925) 447-WINE.

Two New Bay Area Restaurants Coming In August

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Long-time San Franciscans might remember the popular Miss Pearl’s Jam House that was in the Phoenix Hotel back in 1989. Now, it’s being resurrected across the Bay in the Waterfront Hotel in Jack London Square.

The restaurant, expected to open in mid-August, will serve up New World Island cuisine such as crispy catfish fingers, black-eye pea fritters, gazpacho, and selections from a raw bar. There also will be killer cocktails, as well as the infamous Jell-O shots.

Joey Altman, the star of KRON’s “Bay Cafe,” was the chef who launched the original Miss Pearl’s Jam House. He’s back as a consultant on this new project. The executive chef will be Robert Barker, who was executive sous chef at Emeril’s  in New Orleans, and was a chef at three Wolfgang Puck restaurants.

Also expected to open in August in downtown San Francisco is Urban Tavern, a new restaurant owned by restaurateur Chris Condy and Aqua‘s celebrated chef Laurent Manriqe. Also working on the project is Dona Scala, owner of the ever-popular Bistro Don Giovanni in Napa.

Billed as a stylish “gastropub,” Urban Tavern will have a modern, artsy feel with a full-size horse sculpture fashioned out of tractor, motorcycle and car parts. The food will be Mediterranean-inspired.

A Profile of Chef Daniel Sudar of Red Lantern in Redwood City

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Daniel Sudar cooking in his San Francisco condo

Get to know Chef Daniel Sudar in my story on “Chef’s Night In” in today’s San Francisco Chronicle food section.

Sudar is the multi-talented, multi-faceted chef of Red Lantern, who also makes his own jewelry, does fashion photography, and designs clothing, including the French-cuffed shirt he’s wearing in this photo above. Learn how to make his version of gado gado, a traditional salad from his homeland of Indonesia.

Gaoo gado, an Indonesian salad of contrasting textures and flavors

Amped Up Sesame Cake

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Tender sesame cake.

Maybe you’ve tasted sesame cake before. Well, you probably haven’t had sesame cake like this before.

Extremely moist, artful with black sesame seeds throughout, and with the haunting, revved up flavor of toasted Asian sesame oil. Wow.

The recipe is from baker extraordinaire, Alice Medrich, who never ceases to amaze. It’s from her book,
“Pure Dessert” (Artisan). It’s a simple cake to bake, and one that needs no other adornment to shine.

Sesame Seed Cake

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Thomas Keller To Open Restaurant In Los Angeles

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Southern California, which no doubt has been starved for a stellar Thomas Keller restaurant, will finally get one in late 2009 when a new Beverly Hills outpost of Bouchon will open.

The French bistro will be on North Canon Drive in the Beverly Hills Gardens building. It will be adjacent to the Montage Hotel, which will open later this year.

“This project is a homecoming of sorts for me as I worked for many years in the Los Angeles area,” said Keller in a statement, referring to his time overseeing Checkers restaurant before he was fired for insubordination. But that wasn’t such a bad thing, as not long after that in 1992, Keller ended up buying the French Laundry in Yountville; and the rest, of course, is four-star culinary history.

World-class restaurant designer Adam D. Tihany, who created the look for Bouchon in Yountville, as well as Per Se and Bouchon Bakery in New York, will once again turn his magic on creating this Keller restaurant that will seat 225. The two-story structure will house the restaurant on the second floor and a Bouchon Bakery on the first level.

Rory Herrmann will be the chef de cuisine. He is the former private dining kitchen chef at Per Se.

Bouchon Beverly Hills will join the Bouchon family, which also includes a Bouchon Bistro and a Bouchon Bakery in Las Vegas.

Not to be left out, Laura Cunningham, Keller’s former long-time girlfriend who ran the front-of-the-house operations at French Laundry and turned service into a true art there, will be opening up a restaurant of her own in Yountville.

Cunningham, who has been a restaurant and hotel consultant all over the world since leaving the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group about two years ago, will take over the former Pere Jeanty restaurant site on Washington Street. She plans to rename the restaurant, Vita, which means “life” in Italian. It also was the first name of Cunningham’s late grandmother. The restaurant will be contemporary Italian with an emphasis on her family’s Sicilian and southern Italian heritage.

The concept, image and design will be overseen by Cunningham. The daily operations of the 120-seat restaurant will be managed by Culinary Director Jeffrey Cerciello of Bouchon and Ad Hoc restaurants, along with the team from the Thomas Keller Restaurant Group.

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