Being a Bay Area resident, food enthusiast, and foodblogger, I consider attending Slow Food Nation a civic duty. This was the first big Slow Food-organized event that did not necessitate an expensive trans-Atlantic flight and a hotel stay. So, I coughed up the $65 for a ticket to the last four-hour shift at the Taste Pavilion in San Francisco’s Fort Mason. (Good thing I bought my ticket when I did, as they were sold out by the time I asked a friend to join me the next day.)

The purpose of the Taste Pavilion is to “showcase an amazing array of products from across the country” while offering samples of fine American charcuterie, cheeses, wines, spirits, coffee, chocolate, bread, and naturally fermented and pickled foods. To me, the Taste Pavilion should be an opportunity to broaden one’s palette by becoming acquainted with food producers beyond the Bay Area who use traditional methods to produce delicious food. The Pavilion should allow visitors to support these artisans by eating their food and purchasing it, or at least learn more about where to purchase said foodstuffs.

What I found at the Taste Pavilion is not quite what I had imagined. Full disclosure: I have had disappointing experiences with Slow Food in the past, and this time was no different.

A brief timeline:

2006: I am a member of Slow Food. Although I enjoy their annual publication—which includes fascinating articles and scholarly pieces by a variety of people the world over—I find that I can seldom afford any of the events at my local presidia. I justify my membership fee as a donation to a worthy cause that helps poor farmers.

2006: I finally attend an affordable Slow Food event in my area—a one-day movie festival with snacks and drinks. The festival ends less than mid-way through when the organizer announces that the film screening guy has accidentally locked himself out of the projection room and it seems that nobody has the keys. All attendees are promised a follow-up event at which the remaining movies will be screened.

The event never happens, or if it does, nobody tells me about it. I am never reimbursed.

2007: Tired of receiving e-mails about Slow Food events I can’t afford to attend alone, let alone with my husband, I decide to let my Slow Food membership lapse. I love the work that Slow Food does internationally, but I don’t appreciate the seemingly knee-jerk assumption that all San Francisco Bay Area presidia members have wads of cash which they are glad to throw at every Slow Food event. My membership is itself a donation. I don’t feel the need to donate additional small fortunes for every expensive presidium-sponsored event.

In 2008, little has changed. I arrive at Fort Mason via public transit, as instructed by the Slow Food Nation website. There are no signs or instructions directing people to the Fort Mason Center buildings. Along with a number of other Slow Food attendees, I trek up the hill to the top of Fort Mason only to find that the Pavilion is down below. Everyone takes the stairs down the hill and begin walking towards the mass of people crowded around one particular building.

Reaching the Slow Food Nation information booth, I show my ticket and ask whether the long line is for those who have pre-purchased their tickets. It is. The line snakes around several buildings. I estimate it is about two blocks long. It’s hot outside, the line is long, and I’m parched. As I walk toward the end of the line, a smiling baker hands out fresh bread sticks to the people at the front of the line. I wonder whether there’s a big bottle of water baked into each of those bread sticks. (Probably not, as this is a bottle-free event.)

Some twenty to thirty minutes later, I arrive at the front of the line. My ticket is taken by a volunteer and another volunteer gives me a funny money bill called “Slow Dough.” She explains that this bill “pays” for the foods I am about to sample inside. The bill has twenty circles on it. I am to present the bill at each booth where the circles will be marked with permanent pen to indicate my “payment” for each sample I eat. I am told that I can receive another bill when this one is used up by simply returning to the entrance and presenting my used Slow Dough bill. Fair enough. Another volunteer hands me a pamphlet, and yet another gives me a thin book about food producers and a schedule of Slow Food Nation events. Nobody gives me a receipt for my ticket or a hand stamp, and I wonder vaguely whether this careless form of crowd control is effective. I enter the Taste Pavilion area and notice that the first outdoor booth on my left has an enormous, disorganized line. The booth is serving bread and pizza. I skip it and continue on to the booths indoors.

Inside, I find a well-organized pavilion of booths that is easy to navigate. Large signs clearly mark which booths serve meat, cheese, fish, chutney, chocolate, and so on. The booths are beautifully and cleverly built using recycled materials. One of my favorite setups is the fermented and pickled food area, which features a lovely backdrop made of mason jars and lids decorated with names of pickle makers and other food producers. The canopy of mason jar lids that seem to float below the ceiling is breathtaking.

I get on the charcuterie line, which seems less painful than the bread and pizza line outside. It’s a bit of a wait, but I get my bits of beef jerky and a tiny half slice of sausage. The prosciutto serving plate, however, is empty. Everyone in line waits another ten minutes for the chef to slice up enough to refill the plate, then portion out a slice. This costs three check marks. The meats are very tasty.

Next, I go to the chocolate booth. Again, the decorations are lovely, using recycled materials and emphasizing the process of cacao production. The tasting line seems to stretch everywhere, vertically back towards the entrance of the booth and horizontally along the lengthy table where several vendors provide tastes. The woman in front of me is annoyed as she informs me that a large group has just cut ahead in line. I continue waiting when I look down and realize that I’ve lost my Slow Dough billet. I must have held the bill between the brochure and book, or perhaps beneath the wax paper that held the prosciutto. At any rate, it is gone. I retrace my steps back to the entrance but someone has probably found my bill by now or tossed it into one of the many recycling bins.

I approach one of the volunteers at the entrance and explain my quandary. I am told I must wait for a woman named Lakesha*. I ask whether I may be given a single new bill instead of receiving an additional bill by turning in my old one. The volunteer explains that this is impossible, because I need to hand in my old ticket before receiving a replacement. I ask whether it would help to show my ID so as to verify that I have paid for my ticket. She says no. Furthermore, she explains that she is just a volunteer and has no idea how any of this works and that I must wait for Lakesha. I ask whether Lakesha may be reached by cell phone or other communication device. Apparently, she cannot. “You can wait there,” she says, motioning to a spot under the hot sun right next to her shady, covered volunteer booth. With my SF farmers’ market bag, Slow Food brochures, and used potato-plastic fork, I assume that my appearance must be strikingly similar to some clever fiend who makes a living sneaking into expensive food festivals and eating a whole lot of stolen food.

Lakesha never arrives, but Hal* the volunteer coordinator does. He introduces himself with a smile and asks what the problem is. I explain that I was waiting in line at the chocolate booth when I realized that my Slow Dough bill was nowhere to be found. I must have lost it somewhere and would like to replace it. Hal assures me that the billet will be replaced as soon as I remove my sunglasses so that he can see my eyes as I promise him that I really did lose my bill. “Are you kidding me?” I ask with a bemused grin. Hal apologizes, and explains that the organizers have had some trouble with people entering the event without paying, under the guise of being vendor employees. I sympathize, and offer alternative solutions such as a computerized entrance system in which the bar codes on tickets are scanned and entered into a database. This way, mishaps such as mine can be handled by simply matching a person’s driver’s license with their name in the database. Jim explains that they have a database, but that this sort of system is too expensive. He sympathizes with my frustration and provides me with a new billet.

I go back into the indoor pavilion and try to plan the rest of my time. I cannot handle caffeine, so coffee and tea are out. I must avoid seafood for health reasons, and I’m not in the mood for dealing with the large and likely tipsy crowds at the wine, beer and spirit booths. That leaves jam and honey, chocolate, cheese, ice cream, olive oil, pickles, and maybe the bread and pizza booth if I want to wait in line for fifteen minutes. I go to the chocolate booth and taste some of the most delicious and unique quality chocolates I’ve ever tried, as well as one of the worst. The honeys are pleasant enough, with a coffee-infused version that intrigues. The pumpkin preserve is quite tasty, and I appreciate the freshly-baked roll that goes with it (served directly from the oven at the bread booth). The cheese line snakes out the door, and the queue itself appears to move very slowly. I skip it entirely, although I regret not getting to taste any of the cheeses. The ice creams are tasty and creamy. My favorites are pistachio and pawpaw. I try a lemon-flavored fermented milk drink on my way back out to the bread booth. It is refreshing, tangy, and delicious, though a bit sweet. The pickle and chutney line seems to have grown by leaps and bounds, so I skip it as well.

The bread line outdoors is ridiculous. When I finally reach the front of the line, I get some rolls and a slice of pizza. I still have ten circles left on my Slow Dough bill, so I ask about using all my check marks for one small pie. The pizza baker kindly explains that this is impossible, as they had earlier handed out large orders in exchange for more Slow Dough marks. Consequently, they are now running low. No problem, one slice it is.

I go back into the indoor part of the pavilion, determined to spend my remaining marks. Some of the honey people are handing out miniature cupcakes with rosewater honey frosting. They have plenty to spare, and agree to give me several of their tiny treats in exchange for most of my remaining marks. I gladly take a small plateful of little cakes as the woman behind me in line gives me a look that would wilt oregano.

As I make my way among the various food purveyors, I try to buy take-home versions of the products I enjoy. Nobody actually has anything to sell. Some people have a card which they give out when asked. Some have no additional information at all. Some vendors note that their products are not for sale in the Bay Area. One vendor directs me to the Slow Food Nation website, informing me that Slow Food has promised to post a list of vendors by Wednesday. (As of Wednesday, I have not found a list of vendors on the Slow Food Nation website, other than the haphazard partial list of vendors in each food category. The partial lists include no links to vendor sites.) There is no market place where visitors may buy packaged versions of the foods at the Taste Pavilion. It strikes me that this is a huge waste of a financial and marketing opportunity. Slow Food could have profited by charging a small percentage for the bulk of items sold by each vendor. Vendors could have made a profit by selling their wares to the thousands of people who visited the pavilion. It’s all about promoting the food producers. Shouldn’t easing the process of buying their foods be a top priority? How many people will actually ask for vendor business cards or write down vendor names and track down their websites after the event?

On my way out of the Taste Pavilion, a lone volunteer offers to stamp people’s hands so that they can re-enter the Pavilion later. “How useful that stamp might’ve been earlier,” I think.

* Names have been changed for the purposes of anonymity.

Self-Compiled Partial Linked List of Slow Food Nation Taste Pavilion Vendors

• Mockingbird Meadows
• De Vries Chocolate
• Patric Chocolate
• Benton’s Smoky Hams
• Gelato Naia
• San Francisco Gelato
  

Lest you thought Oakland was merely San Francisco’s little step-sister, here’s a brief update on good eats across the bay.

Water

A new restaurant called Water Lounge + Raw Bar has replaced the recently closed Pearl Oyster Bar and Restaurant. Externally, nothing seems to have changed save for the name of the restaurant. The menu posted outside looks fairly similar to Pearl’s menu, focusing on the fruits of the sea. Only Pearl’s oyster selection is missing. I rather liked Pearl before it shut down, and was mystified by the negative reviews that preceded its demise. Will Water live up to its predecessor?

Water
5634 College Avenue
Oakland, CA 94612
(510) 654-5426

OB’s Coffee Café
In my never-ending search for the perfect fried chicken, I checked out OB’s Coffee Café. The fried chicken is indeed very good, and very crisp. OB’s serves up breakfast and lunch. The menu includes classics such as grits, hash browns, smothered potatoes, sausages, bacon and eggs and good, strong coffee. The food is straight-forward and honestly prepared, and the whole place is a remarkable one-man operation with the tiniest professional kitchen you ever saw. Been here once, definitely plan to go back.

OB’s Coffee Café
729 Washington St
Oakland, CA 94620
(510) 268-9696

Green Papaya Deli
This little neighborhood eatery is a gem. Green Papaya specializes in regional Lao cuisine, and has recently expanded its menu to include classic Thai dishes. Every dish I’ve eaten here has been carefully executed of fresh ingredients, creating a true delight for the senses. My current favorites include Sai Oaw, a salty, spicy, earthy sausage served with cucumber slices or cabbage; the tangy, spicy, garlicky Lao chicken soup with cherry tomatoes and lemongrass; the cilantro-laden Larb Gai (chicken salad); Som Moo, a tasty pickled pork sausage which would likely go very well with beer; and the spicy, creamy heaven that is Kao Poont (Lao chicken curry with noodles). Dining companion extraordinaire, A., has stated unequivocally that Green Papaya’s Pad Thai is the best he’s ever eaten. The service at this family-run establishment is friendly and efficient. For unbeatable Lao food, Green Papaya is well worth a trip to the East Lake neighborhood.

Green Papaya Deli
207 International Blvd.
Oakland, CA 94606
(510) 836-5337

Farmer Brown is a restaurant and bar that showcases the produce of local African-American farmers. The menu consists of riffs on American Southern food, such as greens, macaroni and cheese, fried chicken, poor boy sandwiches. The goal of Farmer Brown is to bring to city folk produce grown by African-American farmers, while celebrating African-American culinary heritage. The idea is a good one. I’m excited by the idea of businesses and diners supporting the small farms that are all but disappearing, and moreso by supporting and highlighting this tiny sub-group of small farms. There are few African-American owned farms in California. Farmer Brown intends to bolster those few farms, and perhaps encourage new farms.

Upon entering Farmer Brown, we were greeted by a pleasant hostess who immediately sat us at a table although we had no reservations. I enjoyed the decor, best described as industrial-agricultural-country-sophisticated. The walls are sheathed by rusty metal panels with dull copper at the edges. Small art prints decorate the metal-covered walls, held in place by small round magnets. A large painting depicts a woman’s head surrounded by hairspray cans labeled “Emancipate your soul from mental slavery.” The familiar Bob Marley refrain played in my head throughout dinner.

Farmer Brown is touted for its cocktails, although we didn’t have any. Depending on when you arrive for dinner, the music changes from blues to louder music more befitting a bar atmosphere. (The San Francisco Chronicle recently published a piece on noisy restaurants, in which Farmer Brown featured as an example. I wasn’t bothered by the level of noise, but some people might be, depending on the time of day.)

We began our meal with mini corn muffins and a butter-like spread, served on the house in a pretty wooden bowl. The corn muffins were warm, sweet and soft. The spread left something to be desired, as it tasted of margarine. We ordered homemade lemonade, which is served with half a lemon in the glass, and spicy ginger beer. Both were refreshing and delicious.

Our first course was watermelon salad with ricotta salata, arugula and mint oil. It was perfection. Bite-sized chunks of red and yellow watermelon are piled on a plate along with arugula and shavings of ricotta salata. The salad is drizzled over and encircled by mint-infused oil. The classic combination of salty cheese and sweet watermelon has been traditionally enjoyed in the Mediterranean. Arugula adds a grassy, spicy note to the sweet and salty dish while the freshness of mint oil rounds it all out. The salad arrived on two plates, so as to more easily share it (a thoughtful gesture from the kitchen). My only reservation about the salad was that the ricotta salata shavings are too mild on the palate. Cubes of cheese would have lent a more powerful salty flavor and toothsome texture, which in turn would have provided a stronger foil for the watermelon. Still, the salad was thoroughly enjoyable.

After the salad, we continued on to fried chicken and a pulled pork sandwich, respectively. The chicken comes with greens and macaroni and cheese, while the pulled pork sandwich comes with barbecue sauce and homemade potato chips. The greens were a tasty quick-cooked combination of seasonal greens such as chard. I had been expecting slow-cooked collard greens with bits of smoked ham hock, so this was a departure. Nonetheless, the greens were juicy and well-seasoned, yet still had a bit of bite. The mac and cheese were more like macaroni with an orange béchamel sauce. The sauce, while creamy enough, tasted a bit of flour and paprika, and not very much of the Tillamook cheddar
cheese advertised on the menu. The macaroni was, however, al dente so it stood up to the sauce quite well. I honestly would have preferred a more traditional baked mac and cheese, prepared with a tastier and sharper cheddar such as those found at the farmers’ market or specialty stores.

The fried chicken was well seasoned and fried to a golden crisp without being at all greasy. However, the fried coating was not uniform. Parts of the drumstick, for example, were bare and a bit dry. The fried breast was well-coated with crisp golden batter. The meat, while on the bone, was rather dry and difficult to eat. This was not surprising, as breast meat tends to be dry when it comes from a typically raised chicken. The fried chicken is described on the menu as “Rocky chicken.” I applaud the restaurant’s selection of more “natural” poultry than the typical supermarket variety. But given a choice, I’d opt for a cage-free, pastured, farm-raised bird, such as those sold by African-American farmer Aurthur Davis at the Berkeley farmers’ market. Pastured chicken meat must be handled differently from its supermarket counterpart. But its flavor and even texture are vastly superior to the ordinary supermarket bird, in my experience.

Chicken from Davis’ Ludwig Avenue Farm is always a treat. I was therefore baffled by the omission of Ludwig Avenue Farm chickens from Farmer Brown’s menu. You may as well get your fried chicken at Chicken n’ Waffles or the Lake Merritt Diner in Oakland. Farmer Brown’s fried chicken would be more distinguished by an improvement in frying technique and a change in poultry source. That said, the fried chicken plate at Farmer Brown is quite generous, including a wing, leg and breast.

My companion had better luck with his pulled pork sandwich. The meat itself was soft and juicy, the bun substantial and pleasantly chewy. The barbecue sauce was sweet and slightly spicy, with warm tangy undertones. I could have eaten the whole tub. I only wish the house honey jalapeño hot sauce was as good. (Sadly, it was a bit too much honey and not enough jalapeño.) The chips were crisp and tasty without being greasy.

Finally, we moved on to dessert: pecan pie and strawberry shortcake. The menu claimed the shortcake to be dolloped with “soft whipped cream.” Instead, my shortcake arrived topped by a huge firm scoop of what appeared, at first glance, to be chalky looking ice cream. In fact, it was overly whipped cream. The cream was fresh and tasty enough, but it was flecked with tiny bits of butter that interrupted the smoothness of the whipped cream. Even if the cream had been whipped properly, there was far too much of it to actually eat. I took a few bites and pushed the rest aside.

The shortcake itself was tasty. It consisted of a flat, nearly unsweetened biscuit sliced in half and filled with ruby red strawberries and rhubarb in a sort of brown sugar syrupy sauce. I was very pleased to eat a rhubarb dessert in which the rhubarb slices were still a bit crunchy and firm (instead of stringy and mushy). The rhubarb lent a much-needed sourness to the overly sweetened strawberries. The bottom half of the biscuit soaked up the sauce from the filling, making it soft and sweet like cake. The top half remained crisp, almost like shortbread. The shortcake would have hit the spot with much less sugar in the berry rhubarb filling. Alternatively, the fruit filling could remain as is, if the biscuit were thick and fluffy enough to offset the powerfully sweet filling.

The pecan pie was fairly tasty, but fell short of the ideal. The pecan filling was much less sweet than I had expected—a pleasant surprise to my salty sweet palate. The crust, however, was a bit tough, not at all flaky, and tasted of margarine. This was a disappointment. Pie should be a triumphant ending to a meal, a celebration of flaky, rich buttery (or lardy) crust. This was not.

Our bill was reasonable, but I honestly expect a little more effort from a restaurant with such lofty ideals. Much like the country style decor that permeates the restaurant—the ladies’ room includes such decorative pieces as an old wooden ironing board and a rusty old bike with quaint baskets—the menu should be a little more informed by the bounty of local African-American growers. Their food ought to be celebrated just a little better for the gems they are.

This was my first visit to Farmer Brown.

Have you ever gone out for dim sum and wondered what to order? So have I. Here’s a short overview of a few items I ordered recently at my favorite neighborhood Chinese place, Happy Valley’s in Oakland.

You might have noticed that this is a departure from your regularly scheduled post. I’m new to vlogging, so do let me know what you think!

If you’d like to learn more about dim sum, here are some useful links:

• Dim sum on Wikipedia
• What is Dim Sum? at the World Foodie Guide
• Chopstick Etiquette at the World Foodie Guide
• How to Eat Chinese Food at the World Foodie Guide

Happy Valley’s
400 East 12th St.
Oakland, CA
(510) 451-0218

Like a bell to a dog, the very mention of the name Scharffen Berger tends to induce instant salivation among chocolate lovers. The Berkeley-based chocolate company is one of the few “bean to bar” chocolate manufacturers in the United States. Unlike most chocolate companies in the U.S., Scharffen Berger works with cacao farmers all over the world, selecting their own beans, roasting them, and combining them to produce a variety of chocolate products.

John Scharffenberger recently gave a chocolate making demonstration and lecture at Sur La Table in San Francisco. How could I not attend? Scharffenberger is a charming and eloquent speaker who really knows his chocolate. He covered both chocolate history and certain aspects of its biology.

Some salient facts from the presentation:

• The pulp surrounding cacao beans tastes like “nectarine sorbet.” Cacao was originally used to make alcohol, the bitter beans were discarded. Whole cacao fruits can sometimes be found in specialty markets in Florida and New York City.
• The original xocolātl was more like a porridge, including corn masa and other grains.
• The Spaniards were the first Europeans to find chocolate in the new world. They kept it secret from the rest of Europe. The secret was discovered when a Jewish royal chef, expelled from Spain in 1492, escaped to the Medici court. The chef combined a bit of cacao and some meat with a strange fruit that had just arrived from the new world—tomato—to make what is now the classic sugo.
• Chocolate was quite possibly the first widely consumed stimulant in Europe.
• The term “devil’s food” in reference to chocolate cake is a holdover from the American Pilgrim era. The Pilgrims, being religious zealots, referred to chocolate as “devil’s food” as it was often consumed in chocolate houses and social clubs. Invigorated by theobromine and sugar, “devil’s food” consumers were much too lively for sedate Pilgrims.

Scharffenberger also demonstrated how to make chocolate in the home kitchen. It’s easier than one might imagine. In fact, many rural South Americans still make their own chocolate with a metate y mano, a traditional Aztec and Mayan kitchen utensil similar to a mortar and pestle. Cacao pods are still highly prized and used for special occasions. In order to celebrate, families roast their cacao beans in a skillet, then peel and pound them in a metate. The liquefied cacao mass is formed into a hockey puck shape and left to dry. The dry chocolate is scraped into boiling water with sugar and spices such as cinnamon, or even black and red pepper. The water is then poured from one container to another and back until it froths. Preparation takes around thirty minutes, and produces a rich, fresh chocolate with a unique flavor.

Even without a metate, you can make your own chocolate at home. A spice or coffee grinder takes the place of the traditional method of preparation, with a simple mortar and pestle to smooth the chocolate mass. Cacao beans are generally hard to find at the local market, but cacao nibs—broken bits of the shelled cacao beans—are becoming more common. The resulting homemade chocolate is rich and creamy, perfect for frosting a cake.

John Scharffenberger’s Homemade Chocolate

This recipe makes chocolate with 80% cacao solids. You can make chocolate with 66% cacao solids by doubling the amount of sweetener. John Scharffenberger recommends using white cane sugar as a sweetener. I tried this recipe with white cane sugar, brown sugar, and honey, using no spices except a bit of ground vanilla bean. Each chocolate was delicious, although I admit I prefer the one made with ordinary sugar as it doesn’t compete with the complex cacao flavors.

8 parts good quality cacao nibs (such as Scharffen Berger or Dagoba)
2 parts white cane sugar
any mix of spices you like, such as cinnamon, cardamom, allspice, nutmeg, even chile (John recommends using only a tiny amount of chile as it tends to overpower the chocolate flavor)
Cacao butter, palm oil, lecithin or butter (optional)

1. In a coffee or spice grinder, combine the ingredients.
2. Pulse for 5 minutes, stopping every minute to scrape down the sides.
3. Transfer the mixture to a mortar and pestle and pound until smooth.
4. Optionally, add a little cacao butter, palm oil, lecithin or even butter for a smoother chocolate.

For more information on chocolate, see the following links:

• The History of Chocolate at allchocolate.com
• The National Confectioners’ Association what’s happening today in the world of chocolate
• Manufacturing Chocolate, an interactive presentation at the Field Museum
• Xocoatl.org everything you could possibly want to know about chocolate all in one spot, collected by an avid enthusiast and chocolate expert

Classes at Sur La Table:
77 Maiden Lane
San Francisco, CA 94108
(415) 732-7900

Bittersweet, the self-described chocolate café of Oakland and San Francisco, is one of my favorite places to get a chocolate fix. Whether you’re looking for a good dark chocolate bar such as Hachez 88%, a steamy cup of probably the best vegan hot chocolate around, or some nice pain au chocolat, Bittersweet probably has what you’re after. Bittersweet goes far beyond the typical supermarket varieties of Lindt and Cote d’Or chocolates. This is the place to go for a fairly expansive selection of high quality chocolate, whether dark, milk, or that strange little hybrid called white chocolate.

Of late, Bittersweet has begun selling chocolate covered nuts in small eight ounce bags. I recently tried a bag of dark chocolate chipotle almonds. These are salted, roasted almonds with “dried chilies” all covered in dark chocolate. The idea of smoked chilies with sweetened chocolate appeals to me not only because this seemingly odd combination might evoke the flavors of ancient xocolatl, but also because I like a little salt with my sweets. If salty sweets please the palate, how much more so might salty, spicy, smoky sweets? That corn syrup is one of the ingredients in this confection gave me pause. Do I disregard the documented dangers of corn syrup for a moment of pleasure? The insatiable glutton in me said “absolutely!” while the virtuous health nut said “certainly not!” They duked it out for all of ten seconds, until the glutton said “Dude, it’s chocolate with chipotle. Chocolate with chipotle!” I grabbed the bag while the poor health nut grumbled and ate some hemp.

The verdict?

These are a fun little snack. The almonds are nicely roasted, and their saltiness is a pleasant counterbalance to the sweetness of the surrounding dark chocolate. The ratio of salty to sweet is pretty much perfect. The chipotle chile flavor, however, isn’t quite powerful enough. In about eighty percent of the nuts in the bag, whatever smoky flavor I could taste was overpowered by chocolate, while my palate detected only a hint of spiciness. The glutton was a little disappointed, and the health nut… well, she was too busy sitting in the lotus position looking smug.

“Now hold on you two,” I told them. “Let me finish the rest of the bag.”

Sure enough, I was right. The remaining chocolate covered almonds were just what I had been expecting. They were assertively spicy and smokier, the hot chile sting lingering on the tongue long after the dark chocolate had melted away. Now this was a fun snack. If Bittersweet can get the whole bag of nuts to taste like the bangup ones at the bottom, they’d have themselves some chocolate covered nuts that are far more exciting than the ones people steal from the bins at the supermarket. If they covered them in chipotle infused ganache and then rolled them in cocoa powder, they’d have a sophisticated dragée/truffle that would send my little glutton into paroxysms of delight. (Quiet, you. This is a family publication.)

The health nut hopes Bittersweet replaces the corn syrup with something a little less processed, like simple syrup. The glutton wants to try the chocolate covered pistachios, and, well, everything else. Me? I’m with the glutton.

Nobody writes obituaries for restaurants, except for those brief little blips you might see in the restaurant gossip column of the Chronicle. But those by the by tidbits are so dry and business-like. Such and such restaurant closed, chef so and so to relocate. Sometimes it’s just “[insert name of vaguely known but not quite well enough eatery] to close”–no forwarding address, no word of the chef’s plans. Does she retire? Does he sous-chef at someone else’s restaurant? Do they find a VC and start again? Unless you’re closely acquainted with the culinary industry, you seldom find out what happens to the people who made the food you enjoyed at the little restaurant you so liked to eat at.

Someone needs to write restaurant obits, if only to comfort the grieving customers of the recently departed. When you find one of your homey local favorites has closed its doors for good, there’s a crestfallen feeling–like a stone sinking to the pit of your hollow stomach. It’s hunger, yes, but sadness and a little guilt too.

“If only we’d eaten there more often, maybe… ”

“Ah, but the location was bad. It’s off to the side, behind the burger place. How could anyone see it?”

“Maybe they had a hard time competing with the fancier places up the road.”

“Oh, but it was such fun eating there. And the chef was so nice! He always came by for a chat.”

“…”

“I’ll miss them.”

“Me too.”

Perhaps the saddest part is when you regularly write about restaurants, and in two years of dining neglect to write something about the cute Asian fusion place you’re so fond of that’s just around the corner.

Luckily, Jonathan Kauffman–writing for the East Bay Express–had some nice things to say about Cuvae:

“…the restaurant’s simple food is fresh and comfortable.

One slim row of tables lines the front wall, spectator distance from the semi-open kitchen, and further from the chill is the windowless back room. It’s the color of fresh butter, with sleek wood tables and architectural collages.

Despite the slick ambiance, Cuvae still has a mom-and-pop feel. Perhaps it’s because the young waiters, casual but not sloppy, almost twitch with their eagerness to please….

Cuvae’s guileless Asian-American cuisine is meant to be eaten, not contemplated. There are no witty cultural collisions to ponder, no novel preparations. It’s just simple Chinese-Japanese-Hawaiian food married with simple bistro food. What the marriage could use is a little more romance.”

Guileless, fresh, and comfortable. That’s exactly what Cuvae was. Could it have used a little romance? Maybe. But I’ll miss it, just the way it was.

Cuvae–Closed
Yelp reviews
Photo by mohey51

Every so often I get a hankering for a good plate of hummus. I mean hummus, not chipotle sundried tomato garbanzo bean spread from a plastic box on the supermarket shelf. I’m talking about a plate of hummus with a well in the middle shaped by a tablespoon, drizzled over with spicy olive oil and maybe a few whole garbanzo beans. And a basket of fresh pita bread, not cardboard wedges, but rounds of pita bread that you rip with your hands and use to mop up the thick, tangy paste. I think most people who’ve spent time in the Middle East get similar hunger pangs now and then. Whether you’re Lebanese, Syrian, Israeli, Palestinian, Jordanian, Egyptian, Saudi, North African, or plain old American–there’s nothing quite like a simple plate of hummus and pita.

Alhana Foods is one of my favorite places to go to for a Middle Eastern food fix. Alhana is a family run deli/restaurant/Middle Eastern grocery that carries a variety of foods familiar to people who spent time in a number of Mediterranean countries. Alhana has a refrigerator case of cheeses and dairy, meats, and a frozen food section including traditional favorites such as lahem b’ajeen, bourek/bourekas, manti, and mlawah. There is an ample bakery section, including various types of pita and flatbreads, Armenian bread, cracker bread, and numerous traditional sweets.

The Alhana sit-down menu is composed mainly of “plates” including rice, Arabic salad, hummus, and one of the following: shawarma, falafel, kebab (including shrimp, beef, lamb, chicken). Main courses can also be ordered in a sandwich rather than on a plate. Some of my favorite menu items include kibbeh–a fried, torpedo shaped bulgur-coated meatball–and za’atar bread. The kibbeh is crisp and crunchy on the outside, tender on the inside. The meat is traditionally spiced, a little sweet with allspice, and flecked with pine nuts. The za’atar bread is a messy breakfast treat. A slightly sweet, soft round of thick pita is topped with a generous sprinkling of za’atar spice mix and olive oil. You can buy a bag of Alhana’s za’atar bread to take home. It’s great with a fresh Arabic salad and a tangy chevre, labneh, or halloumi. It’s also nice as the base for a Middle-Eastern style pizza topped with goat or sheep cheese.

During my most recent visit to Alhana, I ordered the regular shawerma plate, being a combination of thinly sliced broiled lamb and beef over rice with hummus and Arabic salad. The meat was nicely spiced and pleasantly tender without being greasy. The simple al dente rice was a perfect foil to the meat. My only reservation about the rice was that it tasted a bit like the parboiled variety, with a slightly too toothsome mouthfeel. Nonetheless, the rice was enjoyable, with just the right amount of flavor. The tart freshness of the Arabic salad–served with a pickle slice and a pickled chili–cuts the slight fattiness of the shawerma. However, the salad serving is more condiment than accompaniment. Salad enthusiasts such as myself may want to order an extra side of salad for $3.99. Soft, fresh pita breads were served for mopping up hummus.

After a meal at Alhana, I often take some time to stroll around the store and explore all the familiar and foreign food items. (I always get a little nostalgic when I pass the shelves of Elite Turkish coffee). If you’re looking for baharat spice mix, or spices for samneh (North African spiced clarified butter), this is the place to get it. This time, I picked up some sahlab drink mix, dried mloukhieh leaves, lovely fresh za’atar bread, Cypriot halloumi, Bulgarian kashkaval, and some unfiltered Lebanese olive oil. A dry bouquet of wild Greek oregano (similar to the herb za’atar) was a fortunate find.

After bidding the owners “shukran” and “salaam,” I walk past the stacks of Middle Eastern newspapers near the door. The headlines of the Israeli paper Yediot Aharonot seem to jump off the page with their loud thirty point font. I sigh and smile. Thank the gods for an oasis like Alhana.

This write-up follows several sit-down visits to Alhana Foods over the course of about a year.

Alhana Foods
25 W 37th Ave.
San Mateo, CA 94403
(650) 349-3300
Mon-Sun 9:00 a.m.-9:00 p.m

Photo courtesy of jatbar.com.

Out of curiosity, I bought a sampling of locally produced vegan cookies and taste tested them all. Cookies are rated on a scale of one to five chips.

Vital Sweets: Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookie

Flavor: Mellow sweetness perked up by chocolate chips. Needs salt to enhance flavor.
Texture: Pleasantly chewy on the inside, with crisp edges, but a bit dry.
Mouthfeel: These cookies have a somewhat buttery mouthfeel, but a distinct tofu aftertaste reminds you that they’re vegan.
Overall: This is a whole grain cookie that doesn’t look or taste like a “whole grain cookie.” The tofu aftertaste, however, interferes with the cookie’s mild sweetness. Could use more walnuts, a dash of salt, and a little less baking soda.

Rating: 3 chips.

Vital Sweets: Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookie

Flavor: Sweeter than its non-coconut counterpart, and without the pronounced tofu flavor. Still tastes a bit too much of baking soda.
Texture: Dry, crumbly, chewy–and not in a good way.
Mouthfeel: Feels a bit stale, unpleasantly airy and far too chewy.
Overall: If Vital Sweets removed the coconut, scaled down the baking soda, added salt and a little more liquid, these cookies might be more fun to eat.

Rating: 1 chip.

Grindstone Bakery: Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookie

Flavor: Sweet with a good amount of salt to round out the flavor. Baking soda, while present, does not dominate.
Texture: Pleasantly chewy, although the shredded coconut is a bit annoying. I found myself chewing bits of coconut after I’d finished chewing the rest of the cookie.
Mouthfeel: The main flour here is barley, which lends a soft, melting quality to the crumb. At times, it’s a bit too much, as the barley flour stickiness lingers on the tongue.
Overall: Fun to eat, if a bit sweet. This is a very substantial cookie that could easily replace a meal. The cookies are baked in a wood-fired brick bread oven, lending them a rustic density. These would go well with a glass of hot tea.

Rating: 3.5 chips.

The Vegan No Cookie Cookie: Chocolate Chip Cookie

Flavor: Very sweet, could use a little salt for balance. This cookie cries out to be eaten with a glass of milk (or almond milk). No baking soda aftertaste. The dark chocolate chips contrast nicely with the sweetness of the cookie.
Texture: Soft and chewy.
Mouthfeel: Melting and smooth. Barley flour is the main ingredient here, and it works well.
Overall: A good chewy cookie that goes well with milk. Could use less sweetener and more salt. Making a smaller cookie might help mitigate the sometimes overwhelming sweetness.

Rating: 4 chips.

Vital Sweets
Grindstone Bakery
The Vegan No Cookie Cookie

Shuna “Fish” Lydon is known and loved by many people in the foodblogging community, bloggers and readers alike. She is admired in the blogosphere for her professional perspective on food, as well as her sensual prose. I have taken several cooking classes with Shuna and found her to be an engaging and knowledgeable teacher, encouraging her students to use all their senses when learning to work with food. At her classes, I had the privilege of tasting some of her unique desserts, such as goat yogurt panna cotta with rhubarb compote, and lemon verbena meyer lemon ice cream. Her desserts are complex, unusual, not too sweet, and “fruit-inspired”–a pastry chef after my own heart.

I was glad to hear that savory chef Michael Dotson and Shuna were to collaborate on a new restaurant, and quite excited to attend a pre-opening dinner and the opening festivities. Starting a new restaurant is an enormous endeavor, but also a great opportunity for Shuna to user her talents unencumbered. I am pleased to support Shuna at her new position, especially when doing so is such a delight to the senses. (As you may have guessed, the preceding two paragraphs are ample evidence of my lack of objectivity regarding Sens Restaurant.)

The cuisine at Sens Restaurant is “inspired by the Southern Mediterranean, focusing on Turkey, North Africa and Greece.” The menu includes an abundance of lamb, fish, and seafood, as well as goat and sheep’s milk cheeses. A number of dishes are baked in the traditional wood-burning oven, such as the Turkish flat bread and the market vegetable casserole. Everything is prepared from locally sourced, sustainably grown vegetables, fruit, meat, and fish–and it shows. The wine list is fairly extensive. In addition to French, Spanish, and Italian wines, the list includes wines from a variety of other regions including Lebanon, Israel, Australia, and Greece, to name a few.

The look and feel of Sens is both magnanimous and cozy. The walls are stone and brick, with rustic wood beams here and gauzy curtains there, and large windows overlooking the bay. Tables are intimate yet accommodating, with leather chairs comfortable enough to pass as living room furniture. I was charmed by the warm-toned earthenware plates, the recycled wine bottles turned water glasses, and the beautiful wooden grain threshers discreetly covering the entrance to the restrooms. The WC area even has a small external waiting room, replete with a comfortable leather bench, food magazines and a view of the bay. The open kitchen enhances the homey atmosphere, without being messy or loud. I wondered how all the cooks and chefs manage to work efficiently without raising much of a racket, but the background music piped through the restaurant may have something to do with it. I was amused to hear Ofra Haza played among the Mediterranean and North African music.

The service at Sens is attentive and knowledgeable, without being overly formal. Both servers had first-hand knowledge of the menu, and were able to offer recommendations and guidance. Flatware and plates were promptly cleared, and new flatware was provided for each course. (A pet peeve is being handed back my own used cutlery from a dish as it’s being cleared.) Servers were even kind enough to clear away crumbs between courses, not just before dessert.

Following are my first impressions of various items from the current menu:

• Olives–According to our server, the olives served at Sens are unpasteurized, apparently a rarity in the United States. These olives are excellent, mainly salt and brine-cured, as far as I could tell.
• Turkish flat bread–Baked in the restaurant’s wood-burning oven, the flat bread is crisp on the bottom and slightly soft on top. It is topped with braised greens, Sonoma Crescenza cheese, walnuts, and carmelized onions. The cheese is delicate, not overwhelming, the greens earthy, and the walnuts–with their bittersweet crunch–are a nutty foil to the bread and cheese. Sens serves the flat bread cut in ribbons, piled neatly in a sunburst pattern. The ribbons are far less messy to eat than a round or oblong pizza. This clever presentation also lightens the dish by turning it into dainty finger food. My only reservation about the dish was the strong flavor of caramelized onions. While their sweetness balances the bitterness of the walnuts and deepens the flavor of the greens, the onions overpower the other flavors. Rather than topping the flat bread with chopped onions, perhaps a few thinly sliced rings would suffice.
• Grilled vitelloni tongue–Served with chunks of green olive and cranberry beans, this dish is perfect. The soft, tender slices of tongue fairly melt on the, er, tongue, contrasting with the plump, turgid beans. A savory reduced sauce enrobes the whole lot, speckled with the acid saltiness of green olives. It’s a pleasurable combination: the feel of the soft meat and the firm bite of the beans as they release their creamy starch.
• Seasonal greens–This salad includes greens, parsley, and pomegranate, and is dressed in a honey-coriander vinaigrette. The use of parsley in the salad is a nod to traditional Middle Eastern salads. The vinaigrette is quite tasty, and the salad was perfectly dressed with neither too much nor too little.
• Market casserole–A lovely vegetarian dish fit for an omnivore. My companinon “A” was very pleased with this dish, and I was pleasantly surprised. The vegetables are stuffed with farrakeh (an ancient grain), and dotted with squares of halloumi cheese. Having been baked in a wood-burning oven, the vegetables are permeated with a delightful smoky flavor. The high temperature oven allows the vegetables to remain firm and juicy.
• Wolfe Ranch quail–Sens serves their roasted quail with cockles, merguez meatballs, and fingerling potatoes in jus. The quail is perfectly succulent with a crisply browned skin, and is stuffed with the sourdough bread served at the beginning of the meal. The sour softness of the stuffing is a pleasant surprise. The potatoes are starchy and soft while still retaining an al dente firmness. The potato skins are an astingent, earthy balance to the richness of the jus and the creamy potato flesh. While I enjoyed the bread stuffing, it was a bit too soft, and might have used a good toasting before being filling the bird. While the merguez sausages are very well spiced and the lamb meat pleasantly gamey, they could have used a little more heat. Indeed, authentic merguez sausages are very spicy. Authenticity is not necessarily the goal here, but a bit of North African heat might enliven the dish.
• Soft & evocative–A ordered this rustic dessert consisting of poached pear, a slice of buckwheat cake, and brown butter crème anglaise. A loved the pear, I was mesmerized by the nutty density of the gently sweet buckwheat cake. I am an enthusiastic consumer of buckwheat or kasha, usually in savory dishes. I particularly enjoy its nutty flavor and toothsome texture. Its use in sweet cakes is both highly unusual and yet completely sensible. The crème anglaise was a perfect foil to the grainy earthiness of the cake.
• Late summer/Early autumn–This dish is Shuna’s foray into kadaif pastry, or thin noodles of dough shaped into a loose bird’s nest and subsequently baked or fried. A traditional kadaif dessert called knafeh is topped with soft cheese (usually of sheep or goat’s milk), sprinkled with chopped pistachios, and drizzled with honey. Shuna’s version is topped with soft manouri cheese, with a side of sorbet and fruit. The late summer dish included woodleaf peaches sauteed in verbena butter, along with peach sorbet. The peaches were soft and buttery, yet still firm to the bite, a perfect foil to the crunchy kadaif. Shuna has waxed poetic about woodleaf peaches on her blog, and with good reason. The autumn version of the dish includes a nearly red quince paste and light pink rosweater sorbet. Its colorful presentation alone is very appealing. The sweet/tart quince and the sweet floral sorbet complement the creamy cheese on the kadaif. A thin line of tart syrup around the plate tantalizes the taste buds with its citrus perfume and hints of caramel. (I couldn’t, for the life of me, guess the syrup’s ingredients. Hint: lemon verbena is one of them.) Shuna’s interpretation of kadaif pastry is reminiscent of another traditional Middle Eastern dessert, mahalabiya, in which a creamy milk pudding made with powdered orchid bulb is drizzled with a sweet rose syrup. Kadaif is an unusual ingredient with a unique texture that crunches and crackles between the teeth. It’s fun to see it on a San Francisco menu, and I hope it remains a staple at Sens.
• Icy bright–Shuna hit this dish right on the head. With its cool melon granita, diminuitive watermelon cubes, and creamy almond milk gelée this dessert is precisely icy bright. The combination of textures is positively delightful: creamy softness on the bottom, turgid juiciness in the middle, and crunchy ice on top. Similarly, the dish offers varying levels of sweetness with the mildness of almond milk, the sugary starch of watermelon, and the cool mellow sweetness of melon. Sexy, soft slices of fresh figs top the granita.

With its attentive staff, focus on quality, and skillful execution, Sens Restaurant is off to a good start. I look forward to sampling the menu as the seasons change, especially the desserts.

This piece reflects my impressions of Sens Restaurant over the course of one week, both before and after opening, including three visits.

Sens Restaurant
4 Embarcadero Center
San Francisco, CA 94111
(415) 362-0645
Opentable reservations
Menu

LUNCH Monday-Friday: 11:30am - 2:30pm
DINNER Monday-Friday: 5:30pm - 10:00pm Saturday: 5:00 - 11:00