Monthly Archives: March 2012

Cuvee Venus

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One smooth, rich Cab.

Chef. Restaurateur. Cooking show host. Culinary radio host. And even winemaker.

Narsai David truly does it all. And always while wearing one of his flashy trademark bow ties.

Born to Assyrian immigrants and raised in the farming community of Turlock, Calif., David learned to cook from his mother. He went on to open the legendary Narsai’s restaurant in Kensington in 1970, along with Narsai’s Market eight years later, which sold all manner of specialty breads and pastries. It’s David you have to thank, too, for introducing the world to chocolate decadence torte, a rich, flourless dessert that so lives up to its name.

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Shabuway to Expand in the Bay Area

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The huge vegetable shabu-shabu plate at Shabuway in San Jose.

How else but in shabu-shabu-style dining can you enjoy a hot, nourishing, relatively healthful cook-it-yourself meal, and get a steam facial all at once?

If you’re as much of a fan as I am of this traditional Japanese dish of thinly sliced meats and veggies cooked tableside in a pot of  bubbling broth, you’ll be glad to hear that Shabuway, which already boasts three locations in the Bay Area, will be adding three more this spring.

Tokyo-raised Eiichi Mochizuki opened his first Shabuway in San Mateo in 2004. That was followed by another in downtown Mountain View in 2006, which has proved so popular there’s sometimes an hour wait to get in. Last year, one also opened in the parking lot of Mitsuwa Marketplace in San Jose, which is the one I recently dined at as a guest of the restaurant.

The next ones to open will be in San Francisco’s Richmond District, Union City, and in Santa Clara on El Camino Real near the ever-popular Korean fried-chicken joint, 99 Chicken.

The meat is sliced to order.

With its glossy red interior, the San Jose locale features a large U-shaped counter in the center, where lone diners or couples can sit. Behind it, wait staff man a slicer to shave Kobe-style beef slices paper thin.

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Taste of the Nation, Love Apple Farms Tomato Seedling Sale & More

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Chef Michael Tusk will lead the culinary team for "Taste of the Nation.'' (Photo courtesy of the chef)

Time for “Taste of the Nation”

James Beard Award-winning Chef Michael Tusk of Quince and Cotogna, both in San Francisco, will be the lead chef overseeing the culinary gala, “Taste of the Nation,” March 29 at the Bentley Reserve in San Francisco.

The event benefits Share Our Strength, a national organization dedicated to making sure no child grows up hungry.

Guests will enjoy tastes and sips from 45 of the Bay Area’s best chefs, wineries and mixologists. Among the restaurants participating are A16, Cafe des Amis, Frances and Park Tavern. For a complete list, click here.

Tickets are $95 in advance or $120 at the door. VIP tickets (which include access to the event an hour earlier and free valet parking) are $165 in advance or $190 at the door. For big spenders there’s “executive admission” at $500 in advance or $550 at the door. That top ticket gets you complimentary car service to the event, a champagne toast, access to a private lounge with more food and drink, and admittance to the after-party.

Love Apple Farms Famous Tomato Seedling Sale

Get ready for it — the largest tomato seedling sale in California.

Love Apple Farms of Santa Cruz, which grows produce exclusively for Michelin two-star restaurant, Manresa in Los Gatos, hosts a seedling sale every year that even entices folks from as far away as Los Angeles to drive to and fro in the same day.

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Make Room For Smoked Meat Loaf

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Getting ready to smoke the meatloaf with plenty of hickory.

Sure, you’ve baked many a meat loaf. But have you ever smoked one — over hickory chips no less?

It may spoil you for any other version.

A beguiling smoky, woodsy flavor permeates this very moist “Slow-Smoked Barbecued Meat Loaf” from “Cooking My Way Back Home” (Ten Speed Press) cookbook, of which I received a review copy late last year. The cookbook is by Mitchell Rosenthal, co-owner and executive chef of three San Francisco restaurants: Town Hall, Salt House, and Anchor and Hope. The book features more than 100 hearty, Southern-inspired dishes from those restaurants.

This is one flavorful meatloaf, as the mixture of ground beef, pork and veal is suffused with your favorite barbecue sauce, Dijon mustard, grated Parmesan and a spice mixture that includes cayenne, paprika, cumin, coriander, oregano, celery salt and dry mustard.

Meat loaf that's as good as it gets.

The meat loaf can be cooked either inside a loaf pan or on top of a sheet pan. The latter will expose it to more of that lovely smoke, so that’s the method I chose.

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Restaurant O Has Finally Moved to Santa Clara — Well, Part of It

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Chef Justin Perez in his new kitchen in Santa Clara, a space he's been working on for more than a year.

It’s been a long time in coming, but Chef Justin Perez, who started refurbishing the old Wilson’s Jewel Bakery in Santa Clara way back in the summer of 2010, has finally moved his Restaurant O Catering company into that site.

As of last Thursday, his catering company, which had been operating in Los Gatos, was up and running in the new site with a huge 4,000-square-foot kitchen, cobbled together with equipment he refurbished, scoured at auctions and purchased new with scrounged funds. The restaurant portion of the space is still to come. But the fact that his team is finally in its new facility is a huge achievement, he says.

“It feels amazing,” Perez says. “It’s all just been unreal.”

The catering part of the company is up and running in the new site.

When his longtime cooks saw the finished space for the first time, they had tears in their eyes. It’s easy to understand why when you know the horrific and shocking events that came before.

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