Category Archives: Meat

Belcampo Makes A Big Splash in Jack London Square

Feast your eyes on an entire beef short rib -- Korean-style -- at Belcampo in Oakland.

Feast your eyes on an entire beef short rib — Korean-style — at Belcampo in Oakland.

 

Belcampo’s flagship restaurant in Oakland’s Jack London Square may have only opened last month, but the soaring, 7,000-square-foot spot is already packing in the crowds, hankering for its menu focused on the company’s own sustainable meats.

Other restaurants may source sustainable products. But Belcampo takes that much further. It owns its own 25,000-acre ranch at the foot of Mt. Shasta, where it raises all its own organic, grass-fed beef, lamb, pigs, chickens, turkeys and other animals. It also owns its own USDA-certified slaughterhouse, as well as its own restaurants and butcher shops. That means there is never any middle man involved nor breaks in the supply chain. It’s as farm to table as you can get.

The Jack London Square locale is an ideal one with lovely waterfront views, and mere steps from Belcampo’s corporate offices.

On a recent Sunday evening, I dined as a guest of the restaurant.

Right on Jack London Square.

Right on Jack London Square.

The soaring, light-filled space.

The soaring, light-filled space.

The large, comfortable bar.

The large, comfortable bar.

It’s a lively venue with a large bar with plentiful seats and a lounge area. The main dining room is framed by huge windows that let in a lot of light on a summer day.

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Join Yours Truly for a Climate One/Commonwealth Event, Plus A Franco-Filipino Feast & More

CommonwealthClimate

“The New Surf and Turf”

Join yours truly in conversation with Patrick Brown, founder of Impossible Foods, and Mike Selden, founder of Finless Foods, as we talk about “The New Surf and Turf,” innovative new protein products that mimic your favorite burger or seafood.

The event takes place at the new Climate One at the Commonwealth Club on the Embarcadero in San Francisco, 6:30 p.m. July 19.

Brown, a former Stanford University biochemist, is the man behind the Impossible Burger, the plant-based burger that actually “bleeds” and has the texture of ground beef. Selden, also a biochemist, founded the start-up that’s aimed at creating real fish meat from stem cells.

With changes in climate, not to mention over-fishing of so many species, their inventions could have a profound effect on the way we eat in the future, as our world population continues to grow.

At the end of this fascinating talk, you’ll also get a chance to taste samples of Impossible Foods products prepared by Jardiniere restaurant.

General admission for non-Commonwealth member is $20. However, use the code, “Neighbor” at check-out to enjoy member ticket prices at $12 each.

Sundays Were Meant for Meat & Threes at Town Hall

San Francisco’s beloved Town Hall restaurant has debuted a fun “Meat & Threes” prix-fixe Sunday supper menu.

Town Hall restaurant's Meat and Three's Sunday dinner with its famed fried chicken. (Photo Copyright Nader Khouri 2018.)

Town Hall restaurant’s Meat and Three’s Sunday dinner with its famed fried chicken. (Photo Copyright Nader Khouri 2018.)

During 5 p.m to 9 p.m., diners have a choice of soup or salad, one of eight meats, three of 11 sides, and a slice of Key Lime pie.

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Better Sweet-And-Sour Spare Ribs

Not your usual sweet-and-sour pork.

Not your usual sweet-and-sour pork.

 

This is not your battered to oblivion, deep-fried, unnaturally red, gloppy sauced sweet and sour pork that’s a standard at Chinese restaurants.

No, this is a home-style version that eschews all of that — and tastes even better as a result.

“Sweet-and-Sour Spare Ribs” is from the new cookbook, “Chinese Soul Food” (Sasquatch Books), of which I received a review copy. It’s by Hsiao-Ching Chou, a Seattle food writer and cooking instructor.

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She grew up in Columbia, MO, where her parents settled in 1975. At the time, there were no Asian markets there. In fact, the family had to drive 10 hours to Chicago to stock up on decent soy sauce and other Chinese provisions. Her parents eventually opened a Chinese restaurant in 1980, which lasted for 23 years.

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Dinner’s Only One Pan Away

Lamb steaks, barley, apricots and pistachios make this a one-dish wonder.

Lamb steaks, barley, apricots and pistachios make this a one-dish wonder.

 

Since I do most of the cooking in my house, my husband graciously rolls up his sleeves for dish-washing duty.

Even so, he would be more than thrilled if the entire dinner could be made in one pot.

Yes, salad, roast chicken and apple pie all out of the same pan. Or jasmine rice, stir-fried pork, and ginger panna cotta all from the same pot.

That’s not gonna happen. But I will say we are both loving this latest craze of one-pan or sheet-pan cooking. For the cook, it’s a simplified way of getting dinner on the table. For the dish-washing spouse, it makes for a lot less clean-up afterward, too.

“Dinner’s in the Oven: Simple One-Pan Meals” (Chronicle Books), of which I received a review copy, exemplifies that philosophy. The book is by Rukmini Iyer, a former lawyer turned food stylist and food writer.

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The cookbook is filled with recipes for one-pan dishes, with everything from “Olive & Pine-Nut Crusted Cod with Roasted Red Onion & Cherry Tomatoes” to “Paprika-Roasted Corn with Scallions, Feta & Lime” to “Rhubarb & Ginger Oat Crumble.”

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Hawker Fare’s Flavor-Bomb Grilled Pork Chops

Thinly sliced pork chops grill up fast and sweet, and get a potent dipping sauce.

Thinly sliced pork chops grill up fast and sweet, and get a potent dipping sauce.

 

Hawker Fare — it is far more than a restaurant and a cookbook.

It is the deeply personal embodiment of Chef-Owner James Syhabout. It is a love letter to his mother, a reckoning with his Laotian heritage, a symbol of respect for an often misunderstood cuisine, and a testament that fortitude, passion and determination can lead to greatness and awakening.

Syhabout may be known best as the only Michelin-starred chef in the East Bay — for his fine-dining Commis restaurant (two stars, thank you very much). But it is the down-home Hawker Fare where his heart lies.

That’s immediately evident in the pages of his first cookbook, “Hawker Fare: Stories & Recipes From a Refugee Chef’s Isan Thai & Lao Roots,” of which I received a review copy. Syhabout wrote the cookbook with assistance from James Beard Award-winning food writer John Birdsall of Oakland.

HawkerFareBook

It was published by Ecco, Anthony Bourdain’s publishing imprint of HarperCollins.

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