Cyrus

It was supposed to be a classy affair: I imagined us reverentially keeping our elbows off the table, using the long-forgotten knowledge of college's business club's etiquette class and receiving service from a Mr. Darcy look-alike in a penguin tux.  I imagined a string quartet playing music in the background with dedication akin to that of the Titanic's string quartets, entertaining the first-class customers up until their doomed end.  


However, dinner at Cyrus, a two-star Michelin restaurant in Healdsburg, with Mitra and our mothers, quickly devolved into three hours of bets on the finishing time of dinner and ages of each of our servers.  We quickly discovered the inner snarkiness of the bread guy, that the head waiter realized just as much as we did how ridiculous the whole charade was and that the supposed synchronization of the service (two waiters would come for each course and set down our plates at the same time) was not repeated when the plates were taken away.  The only saving grace was the wine guy, who I truly believed would have taken us away on a journey to South Tuscany with his piercing eyes and detailed chronicles of our wine pairings, all while the hypothetical ship we were on was sinking.  The bread guy would have jumped in a rowboat and sailed off at the first sign of a glacier.


We decided to go all out with the eight-course meal and shared wine pairings. I won't bore you with all of the details of each course, because they were all delicious, but you can see the full dinner menu here.  Here were some of the most memorable moments:


Most tongue-tickling:
We started off with a tripod presentation of small bites representing the five tastes: sweet, salty, bitter, sour and savory.  Our taste buds were tickled by salty chorizo powder, a sour blood orange tart, a bitter radish with leek ash and a savory umami.  I particularly liked the sweet bite, a molecular gastronomy concoction comprised of a prickly pear juice sphere with vanilla salt which spewed juicy flavor when eaten.  

Weirdest ingredient:
Yuba: Yuba is the film created when soy milk is boiled and then cooled rapidly.  (Is this a real thing?  When this happens, isn't this generally discarded?)  Additional research shows that yuba is often used to wrap dim sum or bunched together to form a meat substitute.  It was also a layer in this multi-layered between-course small plate.

Most straight-from-the-animal:
This bone marrow custard was served inside a bone.  The light salad on the side was absolutely incredible.

Favorite savory dish:
This John Dory with greens on the side was buttery, tender and tasty.

Runner-up Favorite:
There must have been something in the Healdsburg air that the fish were responding well to because the sashimi appetizer, doused in oxtail-umeshu consomme (umeshu is a plum liqueur and combined with oxtail stock, created a sauce with sweet and sour notes), was great: meaty and full of flavor.

The Worst:
I'm sure the butterscotch sundae on chocolate soil with a popcorn tuile, pictured below, is a technically advanced, richly nuanced dish to some high brow foodies.  But for us, it was a little tasteless and not satisfying at all.  I would have preferred a scoop of ice cream with some caramel sauce and M&M's on top.

Best Comeback:
The dessert above was the last dish listed on the menu, but with these multi-course meals, there always ends up being 4 or 5 extra things to eat along the way.  For the grand finale, a cart holding a selection of treats was wheeled out and with calorie-clogged hearts and heavy stomachs, we chose a selection of marshmallows, macarons, brownie pieces and truffles to wash down the meal and temper the blow of the final check.   It was amazing.  Our collective plate is below.
  

All in all, it was a satisfying and entertaining meal.  For meals like these, bragging rights and good stories seem to be just as meaningful as culinary taste and execution.  Taking all these factors into consideration, dinner at Cyrus was a raging success.  


Disclaimer: I apologize for the poor quality of the photos.  In an attempt to not disrupt the flow of the meal and embarrass my dinner mates, I was subtle and surreptitious in taking pictures, not pausing to focus or use flash.  Based on the behavior of our table throughout the meal, I should have been a much more obnoxious photographer.

Slapsgiving 2011

In high school, Mitra and I were the only two girls in our physics class and naturally, we paired up as lab partners.  We prided ourselves on the level of efficiency we wielded while working on each of our lab projects: we moved quickly gathering together equipment, performing the experiments and answering the questions.  Our reward for our timely finishes was helping Mr. Drennan with whatever personal dilemma he was trying to resolve that day instead of teaching: setting up his voicemail, playing with his new cellphone's ringtones, etc.  I can't speak to the quality of our physic's lab assignments, but I can say that we usually finished first.


During our backpacking trip in Asia, the efficiency kicked in again and we split up our tasks fairly organically: Mitra booked transportation and found laundry deals; I booked hostels and exchanged money.  When Sara joined us for the last leg of the trip, she marveled out our efficiently planning (at least I think she did) and took on the role of continually feeding us candy and pieces of fruit.


Back at our apartment, I'm not sure if we always operate in the same way, mostly because we live fairly independently, but once in a while, the physics lab habits kick in.  For the first annual Slapsgiving party it was ever-present, mostly out of necessity due to laziness and a late start on our part, as we channeled the efficiency of high school lab project days.

Here are the events of the day leading up to Slapsgiving:
11am: Mitra gets groceries and I create a playlist and the signs above.
12pm: Mitra comes home 
2pm: Mitra and I go to Starbucks to take advantage of their 2-for-1 holiday drink special.
2:30pm: Mitra blow-dries her hair.  Kat calls me and asks if we need help.  I turn on the oven.


We eventually got to work and by the time Paula, Denis and Laura showed up on time at 4pm, we were finished with most of the prep work. Mitra delegated the remaining work among the three on-timers and we just had to keep an eye on the oven.  We had picked fairly easy recipes to put together and managed to pull off the cooking with a minimal amount of preparation.  


Below, you'll find the food menu for the most efficiently planned dinner party ever:


Chicken Tandoori - This was amazingly easy and I am now in love with Sukhi's Tandoori Marinade.  So much so, that the week after Thanksgiving, I purchased another packet and 2 pounds of chicken for myself.  The night before the party, I had marinated 4 pounds of chicken breasts and chicken legs in the marinade and a couple spoonfuls of yogurt, so the day of, all I had to do was cook the chicken in our oven's broiler for 20 minutes right before the party, flipping the meat once.

Acorn Squash: Glazed with maple syrup and topped with fried sage, this recipe was easy and delicious.  I fried the sage in our cast-iron for about 10 minutes and it turned out to be a great garnish.  Mitra was very particular about plating and chose this blue plate to make the colors of the squash pop.

Just as delicious, but not pictured - Brussel Sprouts: Mitra and I love brussel sprouts.  So much so, that when we were driving back from Monterey a few years ago, we stopped at a farmer's market, purchased a huge brussel sprout stalk, and Mitra's mom promptly proclaimed it our love child, naming it Devin. Here's the brussel sprout recipe Mitra prepared. 


Other delicious items: Baked brie with honey, Laura's olive bread, Brucek's three bean salad, Lakshmi's chocolate cake


Non-delicious items: Pepper vodka and maple syrup - horrible drinkable items to have on hand when playing drinking games.

How to Eat Brunch

My apologies, it's been a little while since I've posted.  No, I haven't stopped eating and I haven't hit writer's block yet.  But I have been keeping very busy catching up on......

..wait for it..

How I Met Your Mother episodes, Seasons 1 through 3!  There are about 22 episodes per season and any 20 minute free slot I have, I use to catch one.

Other things that have kept me busy: planning a Slapsgiving party after watching the Slapsgiving episode, googling Neil Patrick Harris and trying to determine what character in the show each of my real-life friends most closely resembles.

In Season 2, the group brunches with Ted's parents, and the brunch starts out as a classy affair before devolving into a jumble of jealous up-staging, back-stabbing comments, family secrets and sex in the bathroom.  "I love brunch!" Marshall exclaims.

If you live in San Francisco for long enough, you've probably brunched at some point.  The title of this post is misleading - I can't really tell you how to eat brunch, because there really is no wrong way - you just eat it any way you want.  Brunch is the lawless wildchild of meals, as compared to the structure of breakfast and lunch and the regality of dinner.  What I intend to actually do is point out some of my observations about common brunch trends/things to do at brunch that are okay and then show you some pictures of really good eggs: 

1) Brunch has a very generous timeline: it can occur anywhere from 8 am until 4 pm, or later, as long as it's before dinner. 

2) It is okay to order anything you want at brunch.  But if it's not an egg dish or other breakfast-y dish, you might need to explain your decision to the brunch table.   

3) It is okay to drink before noon when you're at brunch.  If you happen to be at a place with bottomless mimosas, it's a little weird if you don't. 

4) You get major points if you worked out before brunch and show up in your workout gear.  It is completely okay to not have showered first.  There's an obligatory 5 minute opening period where everyone talks about your workout and how hard/long it may have been and then praises you. 

5) It is okay to splurge on transportation (i.e. take a taxi) to get to brunch.  When I once suggested taking the bus to get to our brunch place, my friend Josh said, "It's not very brunch-like to take the bus".  He was right. 

6)  Post-brunch activities that are okay: Buying/eating a donut/cupcake/rice pudding, getting a pedicure, going shopping, taking a nap (my favorite), watching an episode of How I Met Your Mother (my favorite recently).

Last weekend I double-brunched: on Saturday, I went to brunch with my parents at Magic Flute in Laurel Heights and on Sunday, I went to a brunch spearheaded by my roommate at Rex Cafe on Polk Street.  

Magic Flute was a last minute decision, I had quickly yelped places right before going, with my main criteria being that the restaurant have availability for the time we needed. And the brunch experience turned out pleasant for everyone!  Magic Flute is located in Laurel Heights on Sacramento and Spruce.  It's a cute little Italian restaurant with a nice back patio, a perfect place to sit on a sunny Saturday.  

I ordered the chorizo sausage omelet, made using chorizo sausage, avocado, mushrooms and peppers, with a side of potatoes and fruit.  The omelet was great, robust and filling with plenty of mix-ins to give it some variety.  The real star was the side of potatoes - they were well-spiced and crispy and brown on the outside. 

My mom ordered the mussels, cooked with garlic, wine, fresh mint and lemon aioli and my dad ordered the grilled spicy lamb hamburger.  Both were impressed with their dishes and they are not easy to please, especially having just returned from a trip to Turkey and Greece, where mussels and lamb are common to the region.  

Neither explained to me why they didn't order an egg dish, but seeing how it was already about 2pm by the time we sat down, I didn't push it.  Afterwards, we did some post-brunch shopping on Sacramento Street and upon returning to the car, realized we'd received a parking ticket.  It was all very brunch-like.

Sunday, I went to Rex Cafe with my roommate and a group of girlfriends she had assembled.  Rex Cafe is one of our favorite staple brunch places - it is close by, on Polk and Green, and has high quality food for decent prices.  I usually order either the Rex skillet scramble, an egg scramble that is served in a tiny skillet, or one of their varieties of eggs benedict.  

I opted for the Blackstone eggs benedict on Sunday: the eggs are served on a crispy fried tomato as opposed to an English muffin with bacon instead of ham.  I like this version because it's lighter than the typical eggs benedict without sacrificing flavor.  Plus you can never go wrong with bacon.

I'll leave you with this: 7x7 has a great article about well-known restaurants that are opening up for brunch.  Hopefully some will show up in future posts!
Enjoy!

Zushi Puzzle

"I feel like I'm in a living room."

Said Gary, my former colleague as we sat down with our KPMG family of ex-auditors for one of our quarterly hangouts last Thursday.  Earthquake weather was haunting the streets of San Francisco, Harold Camping had predicted the following day to be the End of Days and Wells Fargo's Q3 "Record" profits had fallen short of analyst expectations as we enjoyed a lovely sushi dinner at Zushi Puzzle on Lombard Street in the Marina.  It did feel surprisingly homey - the restaurant was well-lit and not too loud, allowing us to engage in good conversation comfortably, and the decorations and dark wood furniture created a simple, intimate atmosphere, a rare experience in a hopping Marina restaurant.

We started with beers and hot sake.  I ordered an Asahi Black, a dark Asahi beer that had that slight chocolate-y taste of Guinness.  The "Salesforce roll" was the major roll of the night: it reminded me of the "Kitchen Sink" sandwich from Toaster Oven, known for its variety of ingredients, basically "everything but the kitchen sink." It's kind of like all of the sushi rolls you like and want and can't decide between merged into one roll: tuna, salmon, hamachi, avocado rolled in soy paper and lightly fried for a tempura finish with spicy sauce drizzled on top.  The fish was delicious and fresh as was the fish in the other standard nigiri and rolls we ate.

Salesforce Roll:

While Zushi can't compare to LA's Sasabune, it was definitely one of the better sushi places I have been to in the city, and our bill for 5 people came out to only $95.  

Random non-food-related musings:

Number One: I went to the Marina straight from work before dinner and had some time to meander around Union Street.  My plan to browse the shops was quickly thwarted by overly aggressive salespeople in all the stores from Sephora to Bebe to Lush, where a lady washed my hands with pumpkin soaps.  I guess Union Street on weeknights becomes primarily residential vs. commercial and the retail workers are lonely and desperate for attention.  I took to wandering the streets and passed by Blo on Union Street, a blow dry salon, whose slogan was loudly displayed along the window: "Because you can't blo yourself".  I know the Marina is known for being a fratty, cultural wasteland as compared to the rest of San Francisco, but this seems to take the post-adolescent vibe too far.

Number Two: Two earthquakes hit San Francisco on Thursday - one during the afternoon at work and one while we were at dinner.  Both were small, at around 3.9, but jolting enough to cause everyone to take notice.  Living in the Bay Area for most of my life, I've experienced numerous earthquakes, but only two seriously: the earthquake of '89 when I was 6 years old and the Japanese tsunami - I was 26 years old and on a layover in Tokyo when the quake hit, and ended up spending the night there before thankfully getting a flight out 24 hours later. 

Everytime there's an earthquake, my roommate and I swear we will put together an earthquake kit but never actually get around to it.  I think we know deep down that if a serious earthquake hit, and we were in the apartment, we'd be toast and an earthquake kit just doesn't seem worthwhile.  It's sort of sobering to know that if a large quake hits, there's really nothing I can do about it, except maybe take a picture and post it on Facebook.  When the 7.9 afterschock hit Japan 30 minutes after the first earthquake, a group of college-age boys started shrieking in high voices, and everyone around started cracking up, which seems like a completely inappropriate response in the face of an impending catastrophe, but what else could you do?

Anyways, I apologize for being so incredibly morbid.  I guess to tie everything together, the lesson is Carpe Diem!: eat all of the Salesforce rolls you can, fry everything and eat it with spicy sauce and choose inappropriate moments to laugh.  Just don't get a professional blowdry from Blo.  

The Moral Way: Vegan Tofu Enchiladas with Vegan Sour Cream

"Hilarious, but I don't eat anything with parents"

 - Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer

  

At a recent wedding of a college friend, I was astounded to learn how many of my former UCLA classmates had taken the plunge into vegetarianism.  They excitedly discussed their reasons for changing, their new healthy lifestyles and their trendy new meal plans.  Were these really the classmates I shared chili cheeseburgers with at two in the morning in college?   The reasons varied somewhat, but most of my peers were in it for health reasons - part of a broader plan to work out more, eat healthier and drink less. 

I am a carniverous lady and I require a meat product everyday at lunch to get me through the day.  In high school, while running cross-country, I learned and maintained the belief that the iron gained from eating red meat once a week was essential to maintain an active lifestyle.  I learned that meat provides all 20 essential amino acids required by humans which few non-meat food items provide in totality (but which can still be obtained through conscious intake of grains and legumes).  I have heard of several turned vegetarians who quickly go back to meat after losing too much weight and energy. I also know being a vegetarian does not automatically equate to greater health: the actual food eaten and ensuring proper intake of all the essential nutrients and vitamins are much more important than the veg/non-veg labels chosen.

Certain vegetarian things are not intuitive to me.  I can't wrap my head around how a vegan brownie - in which eggs are replaced with oil and milk is replaced with more sugar, is actually healthier for you than a regular brownie with all of the typical ingredients included. The recent listeria cantaloupe outbreak proves that fruits and vegetables can also pose risks we can't always control.  During the week of September 26th, I was better off eating a dirty-water hot dog in the mission than a cantaloupe from a Colorado Safeway.

I am not claiming to say one way or another is the right thing to do, both morally or health-wise, as I know that how we choose to define what we eat is an incredibly personal decision.  I know that vast health benefits exist from being vegetarian which I've insolently disregarded.  My immediate family always ate meat, but I learned at a very early age, to be sensitive to the vegetarianism in my extended network of family and family friends, which represented cultural and religious ideals.  My grandfather knew we ate meat, but we were never to mention it and my peers rebelled against their parents by sneaking hamburgers into their diet whenever they could.  I developed an unspoken courtesy with Indian friends and coworkers to always check when eating a meal about their dietary restrictions (which is slowly turning into check with Everyone regarding their dietary restrictions).  

Then there is Natalie Portman, who is a 20 year vegan for moral reasons.  Few people I know seem to talk openly about moral vegetarian or vegan convictions, maybe for fear of being made fun of? (Don't carrots feel pain when dug up too?).  Maybe from knowing that they can't turn ravenous, carniverous, predatory crowds into grass-loving herbivores?

And then there is David Foster Wallace, who has the ability to evoke deep thoughts from our subconscious that we didn't know we had, where they linger on the surface, causing us to reassess the beliefs we've held for 27 years. I recently read his essay "Consider the Lobster", and walked away with this:

"....the whole animal-cruelty-and-eating issue is not just complex, it’s also uncomfortable. It is, at any rate, uncomfortable for me, and for just about everyone I know who enjoys a variety of foods and yet does not want to see herself as cruel or unfeeling. As far as I can tell, my own main way of dealing with this conflict has been to avoid thinking about the whole unpleasant thing.

"Is it not possible that future generations will regard our own present agribusiness and eating practices in much the same way we now view Nero’s entertainments or Aztec sacrifices? My own immediate reaction is that such a comparison is hysterical, extreme—and yet the reason it seems extreme to me appears to be that I believe animals are less morally important than human beings; and when it comes to defending such a belief, even to myself, I have to acknowledge that (a) I have an obvious selfish interest in this belief, since I like to eat certain kinds of animals and want to be able to keep doing it, and (b) I have not succeeded in working out any sort of personal ethical system in which the belief is truly defensible instead of just selfishly convenient.

"Given the (possible) moral status and (very possible) physical suffering of the animals involved, what ethical convictions do gourmets evolve that allow them not just to eat but to savor and enjoy flesh-based viands (since of course refined enjoyment, rather than just ingestion, is the whole point of gastronomy)? And for those gourmets who’ll have no truck with convictions or rationales and who regard stuff like the previous paragraph as just so much pointless navel-gazing, what makes it feel okay, inside, to dismiss the whole issue out of hand? That is, is their refusal to think about any of this the product of actual thought, or is it just that they don’t want to think about it? Do they ever think about their reluctance to think about it? After all, isn’t being extra aware and attentive and thoughtful about one’s food and its overall context part of what distinguishes a real gourmet? Or is all the gourmet’s extra attention and sensibility just supposed to be aesthetic, gustatory?"

There's really no way to argue with all that.  As I'm beginning to realize that I will soon be attending/hosting dinner parties where half the group is vegetarian and my future children may one day scoff at grilled chicken breasts and medium-rare steaks, here is my recipe for vegan tofu enchiladas with vegan sour cream on top, which I made last weekend:

Ingredients:

Corn Tortillas

Enchilada Sauce (I like the Trader Joe's brand)

Tofu

Chili Powder

Lemon

A variety of vegetables (I used onion, bell pepper, spinach, corn, tomatoes and roasted green chilies)

Dice the tofu and vegetables and saute in a hot skillet until cooked through.  Season with lemon juice and chili powder throughout.

To make the enchiladas, first spread enchilada sauce along the bottom of a large baking pan.  Soften the tortillas by heating in a microwave or over the stove.  With each tortilla: spread with enchilada sauce, spoon in the tofu mixture and top with vegan sour cream (recipe below).  

Roll up each tortilla and place in the baking pan.  Cover with the remaining enchilada sauce and dollops of sour cream.  Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

Vegan Sour Cream (Paul McCartney's recipe)

1/2 lb tofu

3 tablespoons oil

1 teaspoon maple syrup

Juice of 1 lemon

Salt to taste

Combine in a blender or food processor until smooth.

My Idea of Beautiful: SF Weekly Dish 2011

On the season premiere of Real World San Diego, Frank, a nice bisexual hipster, professes that beauty comes in all forms, beauty is defined differently for different people, and cited the exotic Alexandra as the most beautiful woman in the house, far exceeding Ashley whose blonde model looks had caught the attention of the other men.  His entrancement with her beauty progressed from constant compliments and longing looks to sadistic begging for attention and psychotic episodes of rage when rejected to a final exhausted collapse in the confessional room.

I was reminded of Frank's proclamations as I descended upon the SF Design Center on Sunday for the 2011 SF Weekly Dish, an event featuring dishes from over 40 restaurants, as well as wine and cocktails.  The venue was a beautiful spot and all four floors of the Design Center seductively harbored tables filled with unlimited amounts of mouth-watering food and beverages.  This was my idea of beautiful.

I ravished my way through the first floor of bite-size restaurant tastes, glared jealously at those in line in front of me and lustfully gulped down homemade vodka crans while frantically taking notes on my iPhone. By the middle of the second floor, I was slightly delirious and dizzy but intent on continuing my foray.  By the third floor, I was sweaty and red in the face, and begging the vendors to give me the smallest portions possible so I could draw out the tastes.  And by the fourth floor, I trekked on in denial, convinced I could make it work despite my swollen stomach, my paralyzed taste buds and my burning heart which ached from the build up of hydrogenated oils in its arteries.  

I reached a table of fried chicken in defeat, and my brain yelled "Am I not strong enough?" while my clogged intestines raged, channelling Frank's interrogation of Alexandra "Am I not cute enough?" before his chair-throwing fit.  When I couldn't even muster the energy to smuggle some fried chicken into my purse, we decided it was time to go.  Cruelly, a homemade ice cream table was placed near the exit, and even though I knew it was a bad idea, and my friends told me not to do it, and the only possible outcome was for me to end up hurting more, I grabbed a final scoop.  It hurt so good and I wept.

You cannot possibly know what I went through unless you were actually there.  All I can do is list out everything I ate, took a bite of, or stared at for a while before throwing away and hope that with all of that data careening towards you, your brain will fry and fizzle out and you'll feel defeated.  That's my goal: for you to understand my defeat from sensory overload.

Round 1: 
Clockwise from top right: 

Alfred's: Zinfandel braised tenderloin stew

Cliff House: Tomato and feta salad

Chabaa Thai: Chicken curry

Anchor and Hope: Thai squid ceviche

Round 2:
Tres Agaves: Carne en su jugo with bacon

Tito's: Homemade vodka cranberry

Round 3:
Clockwise from top:

Turtle Tower: Chicken noodle soup

Wing Wing: Ground chicken black pepper biscuit

Papalote's: Chips and salsa

Round 4:
Clockwise from top:

Mission Mini's: Pumpkin Pecan Cupcake

Four Barrel: Coffee

Rock Candy Snack Shop: Peanut Brittle and Kettle Corn (top)

Palomino's: Heirloom tomato bisque

Round 5:

Slow Hand: Barbecue brisket and cole slaw

Round 6:

Clockwise from top:

The Plant Cafe: Crostini with fig and chanterelle mushroom

Good Frickin' Chicken: Falafel with tahini sauce

Bocce Cafe: Ravioli and tortellini

McCormick and Kuletos: Deviled egg with caviar

Round 7:
Bund Shanghai Restaurant: Fried wontons with fried rice

Round 7.5:
Let's Cupcake: Coconut lime and green tea cupcakes, coconut chocolate chip cookie

Round 8:
Top to bottom:

Knead: Raspberry cheesecake

Schmidt's: Pea Latke with smoked salmon and yogurt

Round 9:
Sol Food Puerto Rican restaurant: Plantain Chips

Round 10:
Mr. and Mrs. Miscellaneous Ice Cream: Homemade dogfish head punkin ale ice cream

Favorites: Anchor and Hope thai squid ceviche and the Let's Cupcake green tea cupcake 

Regrets: Slow Hand BBQ and the Schmidt's pea latke