by Sam Tackeff | Jul 1, 2018 | Food Travel, Restaurants, Shopping, Travel, Uncategorized
I’m back from a week in California, and food is lingering on my mind. This was a quick, intense work trip for my client in San Mateo, sneaking in under the radar (sorry, friends!!) While the focus of my time was very much on the job at hand, I was thankful that many client meals ended up being over good food, and I was able to sneak in a few meals across different parts of the bay.
Beyond the food, the weather was absolutely beautiful, and San Mateo had some great short trails for me to get in both my daily mile and some restorative long walks.
:: Meal Notes ::
My first meal off the plane was brunch at Plow (although depressing, as I went exclusively for the biscuit, which they ran out of while I was waiting in line.) I ordered “the Plow”, and a side of hollandaise. Scrambled eggs, crispy potatoes, a few rashers of Neuske’s bacon, and lemon ricotta pancakes. Next time, there’d better be a biscuit, and I’ll try their BLT if it’s still on the menu.
With the office in San Mateo, I ate several meals in the South Bay, including In Burlingame, where I imbibed an excellent virgin Paloma at Barrelhouse – grapefruit, lime, syrup, salt and seltzer. I’ve been craving citrus and it didn’t disappoint. Dinner at Limon Rotisserie: rotisserie chicken, Lomo Saltado, a ceviche trio – pulpo camaron, pescado, and camarones, yuca fries and tacu tacu (rice and beans).
There was a disappointing visit to Draeger’s (I remember it being more exciting?) where we stocked up on salad material, in contrast to a fulfilling one at Rainbow later in the week,where picked up some date balls, black tahini, a cashew chocolate caramel, and a glorious grapefruit. Meals at home included summer salads with chicken sausage on the grill, fresh parsley, mint, avocado and blue cheese. In California fashion, we also stocked up on good coffee, goat yogurt, raw sauerkraut, and a box of Its’-Its. One of my compatriots acquired a $25 bottle of mango cream coconut yogurt from the coconut cult – I won’t lie, it was delicious and I’d probably get another.
Admittedly while I love my morning Nespresso these days, the thing I was looking most forward to was my coffee routine at Philz. Usually an iced Tesora, either black or with a splash of cream before heading back to the office. They have a new mobile ordering system through their app which makes ordering reasonable. (Otherwise you don’t go to Philz in the morning if you don’t have time to kill…)
Mid-week office lunches included:
The Egg and Okra curry and tea leaf salad at Best of Burma. We don’t really have great Burmese food in the Boston area. (Nor Nepalese, or Filipino, a few more of my favorite cuisines living in SF.)
At one point, I rolled into the office with $200 dollars worth of tacos from Los Primos – barbacoa, al pastor, camarones, veggie, pescado, chicken, a few stuffed quesadillas, and a large container of refried beans. I ended up eating leftovers for a few days.
For an office happy hour we headed at Attic, with perfect crispy and salty sweet potato fries, lumpia cigarillos (double the length of normal lumpia), brussels sprouts with bonito flakes, oysters, and deviled eggs. I ordered a virgin “Calamansake” with soda water, muddled ginger, calamansi syrup and lime juice which hit the spot.
I organized an outing to Takahashi Market, an asian and Hawaiian market that has been open since 1906 (four generations!) where I picked up kalua pork with cabbage, spicy spam musubi, haupia, and a lilikoi cheesecake. (The cheesecake was saved for the following evening after a late night out.) I was given a large cardboard box to tote back my haul.
Most mornings I woke early, made a cup of coffee, pulled out my notebook, wrote and planned the day hours before going for a run and then heading into the office. This was the view. That astroturf was actually soft and stayed clean – by the end of the week I was praising them for their brilliance.
My walks were equally as beautiful in the morning and the evening, and my running route had me going past a dog park every day.
On Tuesday I made it into the city for a dinner at Hawker Fare which exceed expectations given the mixed reviews of friends. I had Thai iced tea, blistered green beans, crispy rice ball salad, pork laab, sticky rice, barbecue chicken (gai yang). Kat ordered a cocktail in a cat cup, and it came with an umbrella. Behold the fabulousness.
Before the evening was over, we hopped in a Lyft to head for dessert: a scoop of olive oil rhubarb ice cream at Humphrey Slocombe, including a nostalgic celebrity sighting (BD Wong). While I was looking forward to a scoop of Secret Breakfast, I have to admit I found most of the flavors much sweeter than I remembered after so many years.
On Thursday, we had an excellent dinner at Foreign Cinema – starting with my first cocktail of my week – the Felicity – Hennessey VSOP, passionfruit liqueur, dry amaretto, fleur de sea, lemon and lime juice. I couldn’t resist. Kat, one of my dining partners who is also a stylist, gave me a side part, and a dark lip, which managed to stay perfectly through an entire evening of food and drink. I think I’ll keep it up.
For dinner: the lavender baked goat cheese; the plancha with calamari, clams, and mole rojo; Ceviche; pasta with corn; the sesame fried chicken; and a steak with corn and peppers. Dessert was similarly blissful – a chocolate pot with a thumbprint cookie; and the standout – rose meringue with cherries, sorbet, vanilla almond cream. The film was Splash, but regretfully I was sitting right under the big screen, and my only comfortable view was that of the rest of the diners.
To extend the evening – we headed to the Make Out Room, where the DJ was playing a mix of Cumbia and early 00’s favorites – enjoyable until someone came up to us to ask if we were having “mom’s night out” (Who says that as a pick up line?? Also, so what if we were??), at which point he was escorted out of our eye-roll zone, and a round of tequila was ordered for the group. Our evening progressed – five minutes in a completely empty Double Dutch, and then wrapping up the night over quiet conversation at Casanova.
The next day: a plate of pasta with spring vegetables and tomato cream sauce at Merchant Roots (very good!), as well as a slice of warm carrot sandwich. I headed over to the Rothy’s show room to try on a multitude of sizes, but alas, determined that none were a perfect fit.
For my parting dinner, I had a reservation at Boulevard. I’d never been, despite long admiring Nancy Oakes, and so many of the accomplished chefs that have come up in this kitchen. We shared Spanish octopus; Sea Scallops, and a plate of salad with burrata. We shared the pork chop (the meat was perfect), and a steak; dessert was a peach tart and the summer berry buckle. My observation: classic, California, nothing flashy, just all executed well and the taste of the season.
For my final morning, work people all packed up and headed their separate ways to the airport, and I had the house and the trails to myself for a final few hours.
Before heading home, I made one completely out of the way trip I couldn’t miss: I packed my bags, and took a Lyft from San Mateo to Berkeley for one last perfect bite.
Finally, two slices of always delicious Cheeseboard pizza, and a salad with yogurt and mint dressing. A last iced mocha Tesora at Philz, and then despite giving myself well over an hour to commute back to the airport, I barely made the airplane, arriving nearly 25 minutes after the plane had started boarding. I made it on the flight, waved out the window, and spent the trip listening to my audiobook. So long, Bay Area, I’ll be back before you know it.
PS: California, you are weird sometimes.
by Sam Tackeff | Jan 4, 2018 | Uncategorized
Huzzah! It’s that time of year again when my planning and organizing itch goes into hyperdrive. While I’m not really a “New Years Resolutions” devotee, I AM a goal oriented person all year long – I set a variety of long and short term goals in all parts of my life. No, I’m not some sort of goal-setting superhero, without them I’m an aimless, wandering, grump, prone to the gravity field of my couch. It’s for the best for all of us.
The only real resolutions I DO set are my kitchen resolutions – my re-commitments to spending more time doing the things I love: cooking, reading about food, talking about food, and eating…. all the food.
In 2017, my word for the year was “Share”. I had lofty goals for sharing my thoughts, dreams, and meals. But all in all, 2017 ended up being not much of a food year for me – I think it was a particularly difficult year for a lot of us. Surprisingly few kitchen projects, limited dinners out (probably for the best), and fewer cookbooks read than in probably any year of the past decade.
So, in 2018 the word for the year is “Finish” which is a good reminder to finish some of last year’s kitchen resolutions that I didn’t quite end up following through with… see what I did there? I also have a renewed sense of optimism about the future. I’m working on some amazing projects, with excellent people, traveling more, and being more organized with my culinary pursuits.
First, here are some of my 2017 kitchen resolutions I’d like to continue with:
- my weekly meal planning process – I did generally well with this, but this year I have a spiffy updated spreadsheet and process to keep me planning and updating on a regular basis.
- bucket list restaurants – in the short term, I’d like to eat my way through Boston’s Eater 38. Still quite a few amazing restaurants in my backyard that I haven’t made the effort to try. I actually ended up going to a few bucket list restaurants in San Francisco that I tragically had missed out on while living there: finally made it to Zuni Cafe!
- 100(0) fruits, nuts, and seed to try – here’s my list; quite a few of these I’ve definitely eaten (but can’t actually remember eating…. hello aging) so I’ve left them on my master list to actually re-try for the record.
- I didn’t end up doing much in terms of “challenging cooking” this year, but I’d like to spend some more time doing projects in my kitchen.
- While I didn’t hit my goal, I do like the idea of following through with cooking from one of my already owned cookbooks a month. I’m joining a little in-person cookbook club to help do that!
What other kitchen resolutions are on the docket for 2018?
I’d like to cook a weekly Turkish dinner – I’ve been thinking about writing a Turkish cookbook for well over a decade, so this is some measured effort to that end. But the more important impetus is to eat more of the food I grew up with, the stuff that brings me comfort and joy. Also, Turkish home cooking is pretty much all the food I WANT to be eating most of the time: healthy, loads of vegetables, lots of lamb, and all the spices. Also, pudding.
I try meal kits so you don’t have to – although I cook 90+ percent of my meals at home, I’m still smitten with the idea of an occasional meal kit to outsource all of the planning and shopping. I’ve tried Blue Apron, Purple Carrot, Home Chef, Sakara, and Hello Fresh, and I’m looking for any and all good recommendations (and free weeks if you have ’em!)
Deal with the (expletive redacted) lids to all of my containers – let’s face it, I’ve never seen a perfect solution to the container lid situation. But chance are there are better solutions than my current on (shoved in the top of one of my Raskog kitchen wheelies.
Minimize the amount of stuff on the counter in my kitchen – I generally like access to “all the things” in my kitchen. That doesn’t mean that they have to all be on the counters everywhere.
Improve the light situation and the art in my kitchen – my last few kitchens have been a little bit sad in both lighting and cheer. (And frankly, warmth, but that’s another issue.) Until I have my dream kitchen, I can’t make sweeping changing, but I can do some incremental steps to making the kitchen a better place. New lightbulbs and art it is!
What are your kitchen resolutions this year?
