15 May 2013
It was non-stop eating on my recent trip to San Francisco. The two things I loved most were: A choice of still or sparkling water in every restaurant - for free! They all had their own carbonating equipment with no need for those expensive bottles of imported water. And the other; the freshness of the cuisine as it seems to me the Bay area chefs are spending time sourcing fresh food from farmers, artisan and the farmers market at the Ferry Plaza (Tues and Sat mornings) and they have the confidence to let the ingredients speak for themselves! Here is a list of what I thought was really good: (I would have included Greens, the famous vegetarian restaurant on the Marina, but the wincey-poncey Maitre d' was so rude and arrogant, and the staff so hopelessly unhelpful that I fear the days of the place may be numbered, despite my stunning asparagus pizza!)
Copita Tequileria y Comida, Facebook.com/copitatequileria T +1 415 331 7400 Take the ferry to Sausalito for the spicy Mexican food and knockout tequila cocktails. Chef Joanne Weir presides over a menu that includes such do not miss dishes as 24 hour pork carnitas, papas bravas and sone stunning ceviches.
Park Tavern, www.parktavernsf.com 1652 Stockton St T +1 415-989-7300, at Washington Park is owned by New Zealander Anna Weinberg, with talented chef Jennifer Puccio in the kitchen. Noisy, always buzzy and serving smoked devilled eggs, lovely seasonal vegetables. great seafood and much more.
Boulevard, www.boulevardrestaurant.com T +1 415 543 6084. Winner of Americas best restaurateur, Nancy Oakes dishes up contemporary cuisine in a French brasserie setting. Oysters, calamari stuffed with lobster, lacquered king quail and great bread.,
The Hog Island Oyster Bar right in the Ferry Plaza, for a quick feed of fresh oysters from all over America, shucked to order of course and some lovely local wines.
Kokkari, www.kokkari.com T +1 415 981 0983 I walked into this place and felt right at home immediately. Really comfortable and some terrific Greek food - wood fired roasted pork, fresh Greek salad, potatoes with lemon and oregano, grilled octopus salad and saghanaki. Refreshing Greek wines.
Nopa, www.nopasf.com T +1 415 864 8643 Everyone in the city wants to go here. Dinner only, reservations taken one month out, for urban rustic food and lots of woodfired food like chicken, pork and flat bread and always seasonal ingredients, carefully sourced from local farmers and artisans.
State Bird Provisions www.statebirdsf.com T +1 415 795 1272 Modern Californian innovative combinations with the freshest of food, served dim sum style as starters with great modern mains to follow, including quail, the renowwned California State bird. Bookings taken 60 days out and there is a constant a line for walk-ins.
SPQR www.spqrsf.com T +1 415 771 7779 Tables are crammed into this busy modern Italian neighbourhood (Fillmore) restaurant. Pass on the main courses and get a selection of astonishing selection of fresh Italian inspired antipasti dishes, and the modern pasta dishes combined with fresh veggies and Italian cheeses.
Bar Tartine, www.bartartine.com T +1 415 487 1600 Owned by the same people as the popular Tartine bakery, this simple restaurant is open for lunch dinner and weekend brunches. Lovely fresh food like roasted kale with rye, seeds and yoghurt, and farmers cheese dumplings with red beet sauce and spinach serving a small menu of contemporary simple food.
MY China. www.mychinasf.com T +1 415 580 3001 Martin Yan, one of the true characters of the American food world presides over this contemporary buzzy restaurant in the Westfield shopping centre on Market St. A full menu of everything from china you ever dreamed of eating!
Camino, www.caminorestaurant.com T +1 510 547 5035. We were booked at Chez Panisse in Berkeley but they had a devastating fire, so we headed across the Bay to Oakland to Camino. Everything is cooked over the fire and we loved our kebabs, fresh salads and woodfired vegies. Very deceptively simple and yet quite complex as there must have been a lot of food gathering, foraging and sourcing going on!
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13 April 2013
We had one spare morning after our conference in San Francisco. Forget shopping. Here are our discoveries on a walk around just two of the lively blocks in the Mission district. Do not miss the mural clad Womens Building on 18th Street and all these delicious eateries....
- Craftsman and Wolves, 746 Valencia
Pictured above. For cutting-edge pastries, bread, great espresso and casual sandwiches. I brought home their sourdough loaf in my luggage the bread was so good. Do not miss the genius The Rebel Within - a runny egg, perfectly set within a savoury scented muffin, and the Cube - a dekicate cake which is several mouthfuls of creamy caramel and chocolate deliciousness.
- Dandelion Chocolate, 740 Valencia
The ultimate in simple sophistication; this is what you can do if you make money in a startup - use your profits to follow your taste-buds to produce some of the staggeringly fine single origin chocolate bars. We swooned over a salted caramel tart and a tiny chocolate ganache tart with fresh raspberries that almost levitated from the plate. Smooth rich pure drinking chocolate European style too.
- Mission Cheese, 736 Valencia
A cheese bar with matching beers and wine blackboard menu that has everything cheesey from raclette to grilled sandwiches. Four cheese flights to choose from and cheese to take home.
- Farina Pizzeria and Farina Cucina Italiana 700 Valencia
Gorgeous gooey crusted pizza to takeout or eat in a small cafe beside a larger more focussed restaurant next door that offers a full menu of great pasta dishes and other Italian fare.
- Tartine Bakery, 600 Guerrero
Constantly crowded, this cafe offers large French inspired bread, patisserie and savouries to accompany coffee and cold drinks throughout the day.
- Delfina and Pizzeria Delfina, 3611 to 3621 18th St
Before I left home a friend begged me not to miss this superb modern Italian restaurant and she was right. Up-to-the-minute menu of everything that is super fresh and typically seasonal Californian with an Italian twist. And if you can not get in to the restaurant, settle in for the thin crusted pizzas at the more casual space of the Delfina pizzeria next door.
- Bi-Rite Market, 3639 18th St
Fantastic grocery store and deli that was one of the first to stock fresh produce straight from the local farmers. Now a fully fledged emporium of every exotic ingredient you might ever need for cooking from fish sauce and spices to delicious chunks of fresh meat and fish. Food to go at the deli counter too.
- Bi-Rite Creamery, 3692 18th St
There is a queue all day for the amazing ice-creams at this offshoot of the Bi-Rite market. The flavours were wild; orange and cardamom, ginger, roasted banana and that perennially popular salted caramel and more. Cones, tubs and very generous portions. Just the ticket to finish the food walk!
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13 April 2013
If you're going to San Francisco, don't miss Omnivore Books. It well may be the best little specialty bookstore in the world. There's not much owner Celia Sack doesn't know about cookbooks and her shelves and display tables are crammed with new releases, wonderful all-time best selling cookbooks, literary food writing and a huge selection of collectors' cook books.
When I was there this week for a book signing event for my new memoir, Everlasting Feast, (see the book featured in the window in my photo) I was intrigued to learn book collector Mark Cherniavsky (husband of Anne Willan) had been in and made quite a few purchases. Celia was honoured and excited for, as she said, she knows those books have now gone to a very special collection and will be safe for ever!
I could spend a week or two there browsing the shelves, but had very little time as there was so much fun to be had; a talk on New Zealand food and wine to quite a crowd who attended. The questions came thick and fast about our food and culture, and the two recipes they most wanted to hear about were bacon and egg pie and pavlova. (Luckily both recipes are in Everlasting Feast along with 98 more of my favourite things to eat.)
The Saint Clair sauvignon blanc and pinot noir wines blew everyone away with their fresh, zingy New Zealand intensity, and Celia sold a heap of books ahead of the release this coming week. Don't miss this wonderful place that keeps cook books so alive. Thanks Celia.
Omnivore Books, 3885a Cesar Chavez, San Francisco, T415 282 4712.
And sign up for Celia's newsletter to keep up with what's new and worthy. www.omnnivorebooks.com
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13 March 2013
What better way to proclaim Italian connections and influence than a lunch at NSP in Parnell? I almost thought I was in Napoli today sitting in the restaurant's Italianate courtyard in the dappled sunlight eating a superb menu of grilled vegetables with fresh mozzarella, beautifully seasoned seafood salad (insalata di mare) and a hearty duck confit cannelloni with porcini. Matched to excellent Poderi Crisci wines. Their extra virgin olive oil from the Waiheke estate is pretty delicious too!
The occasion was the launch of Nespresso's new limited edition coffees, inspired by the cities of Trieste and Naples. The star turn was the affagato, a scoop of tiramisu ice cream with Napoli espresso poured over for dessert. I can't help thinking of the Mafia when I hear about Naples, and this special coffee is bold, assertive with woody, smoky overtones and a dark intensity that really is totally suited to the name! Very Italian, very complex.
I try to limit myself to one coffee a day but I sipped on the Trieste as well and found it a silky, slightly lighter style. Bella Italia!
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11 March 2013
Sometimes you eat something almost life-changing. It needs to be simple, approachable, fresh, tasty and above all made with love, respect and passion.
Last night as we sat at the table talking and drinking superb wine, our host disappeared into his garden and came back with these tomatoes. Within twenty minutes of plucking them from the vines, he'd prepared an absolutely life-changing tomato salad. There were about fifteen varieties of tomato, all chopped up and dressed with a mixture of pounded basil, some salt-cured anchovies he'd carried back from Sicily a couple of years ago and some fine extra virgin olive oil. Absolute bliss, and if anyone, anywhere, anytime has ever had a finer tomato salad I don't believe them!
(You might just get something similar for the next few weeks at Fishbone in Queenstown as the salad came from the Fishbone garden, prepared by Darren Lovell who is not only Fishbone's chef/owner, but he tends the garden too.)
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12 February 2013
Sometimes, and I have to say they are exceedingly rare times, you encounter service that almost takes your breath away. In the past twelve months, I experienced two dining occasions in New Zealand where this happened. And it may well be significant that both were not your typical Kiwi experiences, nor delivered by locals.
The first was at Herzog, a stunning European-styled restaurant set amongst the vineyards and gardens of the Hans Herzog wine estate near Blenheim in the sunny but windy Marlborough region. The elegant restaurant offers a tasting menu that’s upmarket, completely delicious and perfectly pitched to match the stunning wines crafted by the owner Hans Herzog. Service was decidedly European too, and although kind of formal, the sommelier had a twinkle in his eye and that wry sense of humour. A great evening and as they say, it was “worth the detour.”
The second occasion of amazing service was totally on our doorstep, and “worth the detour” from the Ponsonby Strip, albeit just over to Symonds St. Symonds St, you say? Must be the French Café? (Actually the service is pretty exceptional there too, I must admit.) But no. It was at a small place with a totally unprepossessing street frontage in the strip of shops that extend from Newton Rd towards the Southern motorway where it crosses below Symonds St.
This occasion of amazing service was at Kazuya, and despite a couple of odd reviews, this restaurant remains one of Auckland’s better kept fine dining secrets. Owned by Japanese chef, Kazuya Yamauchi, the menu is French/European with hints of Asia, and a distinct Japanese influence is evident in every aspect of this stunning little restaurant. Kazuya only seats about 24 people, in fairly intimate spaces, and is staffed by very smart Japanese professionals, including the whizz-bang sommelier, Mojo Horiuchi. This is an oasis of style and sophistication where Mr Horiuchi adds a touch of theatre to his extensive knowledge of wine, beverage and food service. He’s gathered the best of French and local wines for an inspired and classy wine list that ups the ante on smart lists around the city.
I reckon that whatever you pay there for the meal, (more of that later) it’s worth going there to order a beer to start; just to see this clever sommelier deliver it, open it, check the clarity of the glass and the temperature, and then pour the golden liquid for you in front of your eyes with flair and panache. I guarantee you have never experienced such amazing attention to detail and style when being served a beer!
Chef Yamauchi offers three tasting menus; a simple $65 menu of five courses, the seasonal $85 menu and a degustation at $125 that must be ordered at least 24 hours in advance. I recommend choosing the seasonal menu, which kicks off with a play on Caprese salad; a delightful concoction of tomato, basil and mozzarella that’s full of textures and intrigue, signalling the care, attention and passion that is poured into every bite emerging from his kitchen.
‘Textures’ is the signature dish, and the large plate arrives, with more than 30 seasonal vegetables and herbs, artfully arranged and a total visual delight. If there’s anyone that tucks in immediately, they’re in the wrong place as this is like an artist’s palette produced by a chef with a superbly sensory palate. It needs serious viewing before devouring, like any good painting. Yet once started, every tiny bite is there for a reason and is not to be missed.
The menus include Cambridge duck, Wagyu beef, scallops sourced from the chef’s home town in Japan, the wonderful Cloudy Bay diamond clams, the freshest of fish and more. You could order from the á la carte menu, but you’d be crazy to do so. In the past few months I have read a couple of put-downs of dégustation menus by local chef/foodwriters who should know better. Actually, the chef in charge of any given restaurant does know best, and diners should put their appetites in the hands of the master in the kitchen. Kazuya’s menus are an example; perfectly pitched, perfectly balanced and perfectly paced. No-one could leave hungry, nor bursting, and all will have experienced a well-planned evening that includes a variety of carefully sourced and exquisitely treated food that will remain in your head for weeks.
I’m not sure if I would have appreciated my Kazuya experience so much if I hadn’t just returned from Tokyo. In Japan, in fine dining places, in sushi restaurants and even in every casual place we ate, it seemed that everything was ever so carefully and thoughtfully placed on my plate for a reason. So it is at Kazuya. From the moment I stepped in, I knew that this was as close as perfection as I could find. There’s an element of Japan about the place that will have me going back again and again.
Highly recommended for a very special and unforgettable experience.
Kazuya, 193 Symonds St, Newton T 09 377 8537 www.kazuya.co.nz
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10 February 2013
Now that stopping by a café has become almost a daily occurrence for many of us, I’d like to pose a question for the many café owners around the country. (It’s the mini rhubarb muffin recipe here that got me thinking.)
Why does all the food in the cabinets have to be so ‘big’? It is all very well if the café is situated in the middle of an industrial area, or in the centre of the workplace, to provide hearty sandwiches, muffins, wraps and cakes that satisfy the hunger and healthy appetites of zealous manual workers. But it’s very hard anywhere to find delicate small bites to go with a cup of coffee or even for a very light and healthy lunch for the rest of us.
It’s daunting to walk into a café and see rows and rows of chunky sandwiches filled to bursting with thick layers of fillings, humungous-sized pies, large slabs of pastry-encased vegetables, meat and cheese, and giant slices of cake that could happily feed four old ladies. Why not make mini muffins? Dainty club sandwiches? Little asparagus rolls? Delicate little cakes? And perhaps, or maybe I am asking too much, some healthy snacks that don’t rely on a heavy hit of carbohydrates.
Lots of us just want a little treat with our coffee or tea. Please.
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3 February 2013
Last night we had this stunning peach tart for dessert. It may be the best and easiest tart ever, made with goodies from some of my favourite artisans and farmers.
THREE ingredients!
- Paneton's ready rolled Flaky Puff Pastry
- Fresh peaches grown by Jenny Quayle at her Waybyond organic farm in the Wayby Valley.
- Heilala vanilla syrup
Place the pastry on a baking sheet.
Halve the peaches removed the stones and place them face down on the pastry.
Bake at 200C until the pastry is golden brown (20 minutes.)
REmove the tart and drizzle over the vanilla syrup.
Serve with Whangaripo buffalo yogurt and runny cream, and for a special treat that gorgeous Tokaji dessert wine (courtesy of Mark Godden of Fishbone, Queenstown.)
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31 January 2013
I’ve always thought that the very best restaurants are those that continually work at reinventing themselves - but not changing direction nor completely modifying every single detail from the menu to the décor. Rather, the canny restaurateur knows how to refresh, tweak and invigorate the business constantly while retaining the things that their loyal customers love best and return again and again for. Just like Simon Wright and Creghan Molloy Wright do at The French Café.
Last night I attended a sublime dinner at The French Kitchen at The French Café, and was completely bowled over by this talented pair's newest initiative. They must be Auckland’s most consummate restaurateurs, as everything, as always, was perfect. I’ve been dining at the French Café for the best part of thirty years, ever since Annie Mantell and Barrington Salter opened it in that little back room that you had to enter through a side door of a lane that led to the Symonds St building’s courtyard.
Well now, not only does that courtyard contain the most stunning kitchen garden to supply the restaurant with herbs and seasonal vegies, but on the far side there’s a new state-of-the-art airy kitchen with space for dining, cooking demos, parties and events for up to 25-30 people. There are white walls, big glass doors, a great Electrolux modern kitchen, a fantastic wooden floor (made from floorboards in the old Orange Coronation Hall where my mother used to dance with Bill Sevesi) and some well chosen art.
Simon Wright cooked for us: five fabulous courses that were light, and formed with superbly well thought-out combinations of vegetables, herbs, and seasonal treats. We stood first in the courtyard, admiring the garden and nibbles on pre-dinner appetisers including little round toasted sandwiches filled with whitebait that were buttery, crunchy and that almost stole the show from the meal that followed.
I’m not sure if the dishes were on the regular French café menu, but if the kingfish ceviche with crème fraîche, caviar and garden greens is listed I’ll be back to eat that dish, and the egg yolk confit on smoked potato with peas and the last of the season’s asparagus, and that perfect seared duck breast with spiced fresh cherries, parsnip and red wine, and the strawberries and cream that came with meringue, cream, raspberries and mint. As for the accompanying wines – total delight, especially the demi-sec Roederer with dessert.
Service at the French Café is always stunning. And now it’s combined with the theatre of the French Kitchen. It’s a real treat to watch the intensity of Simon Wright and his chef, with their complete focus and concentration on cooking and plating the food, only metres from the tables. Like so much of the alterations, additions and fine-tuning they’ve brought to the restaurant over the years, this new project should yet again catapault them into the premier position on New Zealand’s restaurant scene. Well done!
The French Café, 210 Symonds St, Auckland City T 09 377 1911
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20 January 2013
My husband thinks this is the best salmon he's ever eaten! Here's how I cured it:
I had half a side of super fresh NZ King Salmon. I cut this in half lengthwise (leaving the skin on.)
I made a mixture of 150g sea salt, 150g sugar, and half a cup of excellent vodka. Once dissolved, I poured this over both pieces of salmon, added about half a cup of fresh chopped dill and pressed the two halves together, with the skin on the outer.
I placed the salmon in a shallow glass terrine, covered it tightly with plastic wrap and pressed a weight on the top. It was then into the refrigerator for 48 hours. The final step was to remove the skin, easily done with a sharp knife by putting the salmon skin-side down on a board and running the knife flat along the skin betwen the skin and the flesh.
To serve, slice thinly and serve with wasabi-flvoured mayonnaise. DIVINE!
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