Food Notes: Dinner in August

A few weekends ago I had 10 or so friends over for what wound up being a test kitchen dinner. Here are the dishes along with some sourcing and prep notes, wine notes to follow:

Hog Island (big) and Kumamoto (small) Oysters
These came from Berkeley Bowl, but I prefer to get them from Hapuku Fish Shop in Market Hall where they tend to be smaller. In my opinion, a better size for raw eating.

Strawberry Puree and Cucumber "Spaghetti" with Chopped Olives and Basil
This recipe came from a New York Times Magazine article on Patrick Mikanowski (already archived, requires purchase), and was adapted from his book "Uncooked". The sauce was a straight puree of hulled strawberries --which i picked up at the Grand Lake Farmers' Market-- with salt and pepper to taste. The Cucumber Spaghetti was made with a Mandolin, but could also be food-milled. I goofed up and didn't buy seedless cucumbers - this complicated preparing the spaghetti a lot.

Raw Scallop and Salmon with Passion Fruit, Shiso, and Lime Zest
From the same NYT Magazine article as above. Think this dish was the most interesting but also could have easily been a bunch better: More shiso, more lime zest, more red pepper flakes. You can find shiso at Berkeley Bowl (to the right of the potatoes along the eastern wall) in small bags for just under a dollar. You can grab Passion Fruit there too. They are on a stand in the middle of the produce area, along side the other semi-obscure tropical fruits (Star Fruit, Horned Melons, etc.).

Zucchini Carpaccio with Tonnato
Tonnato is basically aioli with tuna and anchovies blended in. This is a dish that they were serving at Dopo a couple of weeks back, but before I could taste the zucchini version they started serving the tonnato with roasted peppers. The Dopo recipe starts with their tuna confit, which I prepared according to a Govind Armstrong recipe with mixed results (cooked too long and at too high a temperature). Most tonnato recipes found online recommend a canned tuna, I'd like to try it with the bulk Ortiz Tuna that they sale at Market Hall. I've since tried the sauce over oven roasted tomatoes and that worked pretty well too.

Grilled Honey Glazed Chicken with Green Pea and Mint Sauce
A Boy Meets Grill recipe compliments of the Food Network. Thought this sauce was good, but the honey didn't really come through, the vinegar was too prominent, and it should have been blended more. Also, the chicken didn't really glaze. Think the alcohol consumption to this point was impacting the attention I paid to the chicken.

Review: Pizzaiolo

Open Since: June 2005
Eaten There: 3 times

I was disappointed by my first visit. Beets in the Little Gems salad were overcooked (except when they were under cooked) and dressed haphazardly, like they forgot to put oil in the vinaigrette. Orecchiette with rapini and garlic was okay, but nothing a lot of people who eat there couldn't do better at home by starting with fresh pasta. A pizza with brandade and egg was good, but the crust was tough.

Second time around I went with a group of folks, and we were one half of the family table they have in back. We ordered pizzas to share and everyone ordered something as a starter.

Seemed to take a long time for the antipasti to arrive. But my carpaccio was great, perfect texture and temperature. A couple of people ordered poached shrimp - poached in water that had been used to blanch Kale. This didn't come through for me, and the shrimp were more cooked than I like.

Folks who ordered the polpette as starters got them along with the pizza instead. The meatballs were chock full of breadcrumbs and herbs and covered in red sauce. Didn't do much for me, but people seemed to like them. Pizza crust was certainly better this time, the sausage and greens pizza was particularly tasty, still chewy though.

Over the evening we had 3 bottles of wine from the list which has gotten more eclectic since opening (French, Spanish, and Californian bottles as well as Italian staples). During my most recent meal there, two of the 3 bottles we'd had and a few others we hadn't were off the list. The turn over is a mixed blessing. If you like something there's no guaruntee it'll be there when you get back, if not - try again next week.

It is tempting to compare the place with Dopo, and friends and co-workers certainly do. The prices are in every way comparable, usually people out front waiting to get in, and the menu has some similarities. But the vibe here is clearly different (bigger, louder, etc.) and the food seems less considered, even less sophisticated - not that this is necessarily bad.

Pizzaiolo takes good, occasionally even interesting, ingredients and deploys them in the service of what is essentially comfort food for people who dig food.

Review: Sea Salt

Open Since: June 2005
Eaten there: 4 times

Standout items on the menu for me include the bacon, lettuce, and trout sandwhich with oven roasted tomatoes, and the tuna tartare with black olives and oranges served with house made potato chips.

During my first dinner there the oven roasted tomatoes on the trout sandwhich weren't roasted enough to be interesting. During a recent lunch there was a run on the tartare apparently (which i probably brought on myself by bringing 6 co-workers along) and they served tuna that was so cold it felt nearly frozen.

The food looks and tastes both fun and inventive though, and the space is similarly appealing. My only gripe really is with the prices, which seem high for the quality of food and also sheer level of technical execution.

This is my gripe with Fonda as well though. Sea Salt is the latest restaurant by the folks who own and operate Lalimes, Jimmy Beans, and Fonda Solano (incidentally they are also about to open a BBQ place called T-Rex, that has been four or five years in the opening).

The prices are thoroughly comparable to Pearl on College, which generally sets a higher standard even if portions there can be small. The similarities to Pearl extend to certain aspects of the interior, but here the vibe is more whimsical than hip.

That said, Sea Salt is the sort of place that contributes to a good time and serves pretty good food which will probably only get better with time.

Another curious touch, is a selection of beverages that require assembly. Lemonade for instance comes as a small pitcher of fresh squeezed lemon juice, a tumbler full of ice, and a pitcher of simple syrup.

The restaurant is located in the space that used to be Tallulah, and so is in the same block as Cafe Trieste and Good Vibrations.

Restaurants: Reviews: Dopo

My sheer delight and bewilderment in discovering that fig newtons had any naturally occuring prcedent overwhelmed me for a long time. Even now, 10 years later, when I see a basket of ripe figs I have to pick them up regardless of price (4 to 6 dollars a basket this year at the Lakeshore Farmer's Market).

Dopo did the same thing for me with Italian food. so now most weeks, I eat there two or three times (I'll post the menus I remember to grab). and i'm not alone. the place, small as it is, is almost always packed. dropping by early or late in an evening, or just mid-week, i don't think i've ever waited more than 15 minutes though. the staff will also generally ask if you'd like a glass of something while you wait. if they don't, just ask to see the wine list.

i can understand how the oliveto pedigree and overwhelmingly positive reviews might lead folks to arrive with some specific set of expectations that aren't met. having spent my last ten years happily leaning more toward the French than the Italian though, this food came as a revelation.

everyone talks up the pizza. it's transcendent: light and compelling enough that a friend and I have been known to eat 3 of them after the antipasti. recently though i had:

- boston mackerel with watercress and agrumato
- mixed bean salad with lemon, parsley, and bottarga
- fusilli with braised niman ranch pork belly and sweet peas
- whole wheat fettuccine with paine farm pigeon ragu
- knoll farm (i think) santa rosa plum sorbet

whenever i ask about specific preparations, the response almost always begins,"You just take 'X' ingredient and do 'Y' with it..." even on nights when the daily menu features items that were there the night before, the preparations are likely to be slightly, or even pointedly, different.

a friend recently confessed to eating here five times in a week - every night but tuesday. he waxed poetic about each of the meals. went into great detail, before saying that he was sure he ate something somewhere on tuesday night, just couldn't remember where or what. it can be that good.

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Portions of this entry originally appeared in a review at yelp.com.