Enjoying nibbles of the fabled fried chicken and perfect little meatballs, a throng queued up happily at Ad Hoc restaurant in Yountville on Saturday morning.

They were there for Chef Thomas Keller’s signing of his best-selling “Ad Hoc at Home” (Artisan) cookbook. The invitation-only event was for “friends and family” of the restaurant. And yours truly was lucky enough to be one of the guests.

Keller, looking dapper in a sports coat, sat at a back table with Ad Hoc Chef de Cuisine Dave Cruz, as both took turns signing each book.

Keller’s always had an uncanny ability for nailing all the little details. The book signing was no different, as a hostess actually took the time to announce the name of each guest to Keller as he or she stepped up to the table to greet the world famous chef, who signed each book with a script as stylish in form as calligraphy.

Cruz, who was born in the Philippines, chatted with me about how he only came to cooking nine years ago. Prior to that, he worked the front of the house instead. And before that, he was an engineering student — a field no stranger to anyone raised by an Asian parent, we both chuckled.

Read more

No figs were in attendance at this afternoon’s book signing at Kepler’s book store in Menlo Park with David Chang, superstar chef of New York’s insanely popular Momofuku restaurants.

Nope, but there were about three dozen folks eager to get their copies of the new “Momofuku” cookbook signed by the always no-hold-barred chef, who appeared with his co-author, New York Times writer Peter Meehan.

As you probably recall, Chang had caused a ruckus last month when he reportedly said on stage at the New York Food & Wine Festival: “F*****g every restaurant in San Francisco is just serving figs on a plate. Do something with your food.”

That comment has dogged him ever since, especially as he embarked on his book tour, which took him this week to — ahem — San Francisco.

At Kepler’s, he was met with a good-natured crowd, more eager to hear him dish on his unbelievably successful career than about the aforementioned slandered fruit.

Chang’s good friend, esteemed Chef David Kinch of Manresa in Los Gatos, introduced him at the event. Kinch recalled how he used to eat at Momofuku Noodle Bar when it was then Chang’s only restaurant.

“He took a simple dish of ramen and elevated it,” Kinch said. “It was revelatory.”

The proudly potty-mouthed Chang kept the cursing to a minimum today. Maybe because the stage was only a few feet away from the children’s reading section — or not — he uttered no f-bombs and only one mere “a**hole.”

Other noteworthy Chang-isms from the event:

On “Fig-Gate”:

“I got myself into a media mess. I was not drunk. I was coherent. But maybe it shed some light on a touchy subject in the Bay Area. I was at the farmers market today (Ferry Building one in San Francisco), and I didn’t want to look at anything because I was so upset. I don’t think the Bay Area is the culinary capital of the world. I don’t think New York is, either. People don’t know I come to San Francisco 10 times a year. I love San Francisco. For whatever reason, San Francisco doesn’t have the diversity food-wise. Neither does New York or DC and every other city that has the ability to do something great. Why shouldn’t we have the most progressive cuisine here?”

On which city is doing it right:

“San Sebastian. And a number of other cities in Spain.”

On opening his original Momofuku Noodle Bar:

“It was so small, I wasn’t even sure we could fit a bathroom in it. Our first exhaust system sucked up all the A/C. Our customers would be sweating to death. In the winter, we didn’t have enough amps to turn the heater on, so we just turned up all our burners so the guests wouldn’t freeze.”

“When you limit what you have, you limit what you can do. We couldn’t break down a full pig. We tried. We tried to do it one day on top of the bar. It didn’t work so well.”

“It’s the Crayola Crayon box analogy. Some chefs can use the 120-crayon box. They’re that skilled. We, at the time, needed the 6-color one.”

“When I first opened, I got a penalty from the New York State Tax Department because I hadn’t been paying sales tax. I didn’t even know what sales tax was. That’s how stupid I was. I didn’t know we had to pay it.”

Read more

As the new 2010 Michelin Guide San Francisco goes on sale today with its discriminating picks for the top Bay Area restaurants, South Bay chefs would be wise to keep their eyes peeled for those sneaky inspectors coming their way.

With the 2011 guide, Michelin plans to expand its coverage of the South Bay, according to Jean-Luc Naret, director of the guides, whom I spoke with by phone yesterday.

“To be honest, the first year of the guide we went as far as Los Gatos only because of Manresa,” Naret says of the first San Francisco guide that came out four years ago. “We want to expand that coverage. I can’t say how far south we will go yet. It all depends on the restaurants we find.”

This year, Silicon Valley was represented by Chez TJ in Mountain View, Plumed Horse in Saratoga, and the Village Pub in Woodside, each of which garnered a coveted one-star rating. Trevese in Los Gatos, also received one star, but closed a month ago.

In the new 2010 guide, which retails for $17.99, the East Bay received a closer look this time around, with the inclusion of restaurants in Walnut Creek, Emeryville and Lafayette.

All in all, there are 110 more restaurants than last year’s guide.

But some things have stayed the same. The French Laundry in Yountville remains the only three-star restaurant. It is one of only 80 three-star restaurants in the world, Naret says.

Three stars, which mean “exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey,” is the highest rating Michelin awards. Two stars mean “excellent cuisine, worth a detour.” One star is “a very good restaurant in its category.”

This year’s top-rated restaurants are:

Read more