Honkman

Pork and tomatillo stew with rice and lime-spiked sour cream

Whoa, whoa, whoa... Who do you think funds most studies on things related to consumer goods? Not a lot of people are sitting out there conducting studies on foods & materials for the heck of it.... it is usually people with a profit motive and talk about "self selecting"... corporations have the most to gain from self selective research. I've was an executive at a consumer product company that sponsored lots of research... and have seen the self selection first hand. Seeing a bunch of "positive / no real risk" studies, funded by corporations with very little research done by organizations not tied said corporations doesn't give me the warm fuzzies... say for example you have dozens of Tobacco industry sponsored studies suggest there is no proof of the link between smoking & lung cancer.. but a single government sponsored study suggests otherwise... I am am going to er on not giving the corporations the benefit of the doubt... just sayin' Profit motive and commerce are the reasons you live in a house and have a computer instead of residing in a mud hut. I would suggest not pretending like they are forces of evil. Also, the government that you seem to trust and think is both good and competent has killed, extorted, stolen and lied more than all the corporations in the world combined but don't let that get in the way of the string of logical fallacies in your post. Any chance you could back up some of your "claims" with actual facts/evidences beyond just repeating Foxnews propaganda. It's obvious that you have very little clue how research in industry and academia(government funded) is interwined and that with industry research alone we wouldn't be as advanced in many areas, e.g. IT, biotech etc. etc. And just to look into the food area and to see how many recalls (often enforced by government and against the interest/will of the commercial companies who would like to hide any problems with their products) we see every month/week from commercial companies shows that it is very naive to blindly trust commerce (which also means you shouldn't trust blindly government but the world is not only black and white)

If they are only looking for the parent compound it doesn't say much about how long potential metabolites may stay in the body. Also tissue accumulation is possible and would give you similar results for the urine concentration without eliminating the compound from the body

Only if you count bloggers (which brings us back to the argument about who is a journalist/writer vs. blogger)- otherwise less and less qualified food writers

@ Frogprincesse Completely agree on everything - it is astonishing how the quality of restaurant "reviews" in San Diego dropped over the last few years once they started mainly to print blogger reports ( and I am pretty sure that is not an issue only in San Diego) which are often horrible written and sound more like PR material from the restaurants. I can't remember the last time I read a even decent review anywhere especially after Naomi Wise died.

Its pretty common practice with text books and science books, which this pricy beast more closely resembles. Agreed. At that price level it is quite common with science books (and I would call MC one) to publish errata etc.

Full review and photos: Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton Travel time – the best time to indulge in one of our favorite hobbies. There is hardly any day when we don’t talk about our next potential trip, and for us arranging and planning a journey is already part of the fun. First we will have long discussions where we should go next going back and forth between new destinations we haven’t visited before and revisiting places we liked a lot but never feel we have visited extensively enough. Once we decide on a place the next question circles around how we will get there – driving/flying directly or should we travel slowly with several stopovers to get to know even more locations. But the most extensive planning is always around the time at the destination itself. Starting with finding the best hotels and reading many travel review pages the most time is spent on finding the most unique points of interest and best places to eat. There are many different ways to explore the culinary scene of any city – starting from discussion boards as Chowhound and eGullet, local newspapers to the numerous food blogs every part of the world seems to have by now. And so it is rather easy to come up with a very long list of interesting restaurants covering a wide range of cuisines for every city, but the hard part is to decide how to prioritize this list to make a final decision on the restaurants. As much as we like to explore new places there are a few cities we visit quite regularly – Los Angeles and Las Vegas are fairly close to San Diego and we go to them, especially Los Angeles, many times every year. One city which isn’t as close by but we really started to enjoy the moment we visited it for the first time several years ago is San Francisco. Over the years we kind of lost our heart to San Francisco and hope to live there at one time but until then we try to visit the city at least once a year. There are many attractive features about San Francisco far beyond just food but the vast culinary scene of the city has always attracted us and makes the selection of the restaurants for each visit fun and painful at the same time. We always try to find the right balance between the many different ethnic restaurants often with unique regional places, e.g. diverse Italian restaurants from different regions, old-established places, like Chez Panisse and high-end places with unique tasting menus. On one of our last trips we were contemplating a number of places with more conventional tasting menus to add to our mix of restaurants for that particular trip. Some of the restaurants we were considering were Gary Danko, Campton Place or Murray Circle but in the end we decided to go for the 9-course tasting menu at the Dining Room at the Ritz Carlton. One of the aspects which attracted us to the Dining Room at the Ritz Carlton was its chef Ron Siegel. He has a quite interesting and impressive background with many diverse influences throughout his career covering several well known and influential mentors. Born in New York he moved as a child to San Francisco and started to work as a butcher at John’s Town and Country Market in Palo Alto when he was 16. During the next several years he worked at several different jobs outside of the culinary world like construction and maintenance but finally decided to focus on his culinary passion and enrolled at the California Culinary Academy. In 1991 he found his first mentor with George Morrone, opening chef of Aqua, and worked under him for two years as a line cook. Morrone was also responsible for helping Siegel to find a position at Daniel in New York under the guidance Chef Daniel Boulud. It was here that he met one of his key mentors with Thomas Keller who was in the process of opening the French Laundry and hired Chef Siegel as the opening sous chef. The successful start of the French Laundry facilitated his first position as executive chef at Charles Nob Hill focusing on the fusion of French and California cuisine. After five years he moved to Masa’s in San Francisco as the executive chef before in 2004 he took over the Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton. Throughout his career Chef Siegel had a strong foundation from French cuisine which he combined with different other influences. Perhaps the most unusual one, Japanese, came through the one event which made him famous far beyond the close circle of foodies – becoming the first US chef in 1998 winning Iron Chef Japan in a battle using lobster against Iron Chef Hiroyuki Sakai. All these features combined let us hope to be in for an exciting and unusual tasting menu at the Dining Room. The restaurant is located inside the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in San Francisco which opened 20 years ago but is located in a more than a century old building. The hallways inside the hotel towards the restaurant are fittingly decorated to match the history of the landmark building. The interior of the restaurant continues the theme from outside and looks very much like a restaurant from the 50s or 60s with very old fashioned décor. Once we entered the restaurant we significantly lowered the average age of the guests... Even our seats had covers which we had last seen in one of the old movies. Overall we weren’t expecting that the Ritz-Carlton and its restaurant would be outfitted overly modern but were still surprised how old fashioned and partly also worn everything looked. Pomegranate Martini and Old Fashioned As always we wanted to start the night with some cocktails but that caught the restaurant a bit by surprise as they didn’t even have a cocktail menu/list but were willing to mix us something. The pomegranate juice gave the martini a good balance between sweetness and some sourness. The old fashioned was one of the better versions we had in quite some time. This cocktail often tends to be unbalanced either focusing too much on the interplay of sugar and bitters or the bourbon. In this version all three components could easily be tasted but at the same time worked perfectly together to be a true cocktail where the sum is greater than its parts. Amuse Bouche 1: Pastry, white bean paste Somehow this amuse bouche appeared like a reminiscence to the famed Gougères at French Laundry but with a nod to Asian influence due to the white bean paste - a simple but nice start to the tasting menu. Amuse Bouche 2: Nantucket scallops, shaved fennel Good interplay between the raw anise-flavored fennel and the sweetness of the scallops. The fennel also had a nice textural contrast to the soft scallops. Amuse Bouche 3: Poached quail egg, prosciutto, white truffle, brioche Classical breakfast pairing of runny egg with some prosciutto and white truffle shavings. Lightly toasted brioche sticks to soak up the white truffle infused egg yolk – unfortunately the egg yolk was completely set and not runny so that a key component of the dish was missing. It was quite disappointing that a kitchen on that level had problems to serve a poached egg. 1st Course: Sashimi of Kampachi, yuzu gelee, asian pear marinade This dish clearly showed the Japanese influences from Chef Siegel. Flawless Hawaiian yellowtail with its mild flavor and buttery, tender texture was paired with the delicate sweetness of the Asian pear and the unmistakable complex citrus and floral flavor of yuzu. A dish you could also find in a better sushi place. 2nd Course: Abalone, shiitake mushrooms, chard, dashi broth Abalone harvest season in California has very tight regulations due to the dwindling population over a long time and so you don’t see it often on restaurant menus. Abalone had a mild slightly sweet flavor with a not overly rubbery texture. The dashi broth enhanced the maritime flavor of the dish whereas we hoped to get some bitterness from the chard but it was hardly noticeable and didn’t add much to the dish which appeared a bit one-dimensional. 3rd Course: Black cod, elephant garlic, shortrib ravioli, watermelon radish Pairing braised meats with fish is getting more and more common in recent times and to avoid that the braised shortribs overpower the delicate black cod Chef Siegel tamed the braised meat by using it as a filling for the ravioli. The pasta acts as a buffer between the flavors of the meat and fish and allows both of them to shine. The elephant garlic added a very mild garlic flavor to the dish whereas the braised watermelon radish just offered some texture to the dish. 4th Course: Lobster, marina di chiogga squash puree, sunchoke chips, red wine shallots The tender lobster and the squash puree paired nicely but both ingredients have naturally a sweet component which rendered this dish on the overly sweet side. The shallots brought some welcomed slight bitterness but overall the dish was missing some balance. 5th Course: Hot foie gras, huckleberries, brioche, rome apple juice with longpepper A large piece of foie gras with the wonderful buttery and livery flavor one expects, expertly prepared with a slight smokey, crunchy exterior. The sides covered the well known spectrum of sweet ingredients to counteract the richness of foie gras but stayed only within established culinary boundaries. More and more chefs try, especially in tasting menus, to present unusual pairings of ingredients to explore new culinary areas. We wished that Chef Siegel would have tried something more unusual here otherwise this dish felt like a foie gras dish we had in many tasting menus before. 6th Course: Quail, salsify, pomegranate, matsutake, Madera sauce One of the dishes were we saw some attempts to bridge French and Japanese flavors. Quail and salsify with the Madera sauce were classical French cuisine whereas the matsutake mushroom, even though often picked at the US West coast, is strongly associated with Japanese cooking. The strong, meaty matsutake flavor went well with the quail and the pomegranate seeds added a nice tartness and some texture. Overall one of the stronger dishes of the night. 7th Course: Beef ribeye, celery root, porcini mushrooms, sancho pepper reduction Another dish which was very well executed on a technical level with perfectly medium rare and tender ribeye but paired, here with porcini mushrooms, celery root, potatoes, as we have seen it many times before. The sancho pepper reduction didn’t really add much to the dish and so it felt like a déjà vu with prior tasting menus. 8th Course: Cheese selection, bread, condiments Normally we expect in such high-end restaurants that it is possible to select a few cheeses from a cheese cart. Unfortunately here at the Dining Room no cheese cart was to be seen and the selection was made for us. The bread was just regular baguette with the condiments just a few slices of apple and some almonds – one of the more disappointing cheese courses. Intermezzo: Persimmon sorbet, carrot granite Refreshing and unusual combination between persimmon and carrot with the vegetable providing the sweet component whereas the fruit added some tartness. A surprising palate cleanser which we wished to be much larger. 9th Course: Chocolate-layered cake, vanilla ice cream, pineapple puree, gingerbread cake, pear sorbet, caramel sauce Dessert came with two variations of cake - both of them moist and not too heavy but also not too far from the expected norm. The dessert was lightened up by some fruit sorbet and puree but overall followed the theme of the savory courses – well made on a technical level but it felt like we had the same course in many tasting menus before. We finished the tasting menu with an espresso Mignardises: As much as we had hoped for a cheese cart we were surprised about the large selection on the mignardises cart and were able to taste a large selection of their very good sweets. Ritz-Carlton hotels are not really known as edgy, modern places but once we entered the hotel we were surprised how old-fashioned everything looked and started wondering how much the Dining Room would fit in. Part of the fascination of every great restaurant is not only the cuisine and service but also the ambience which should form a coherent unit with the philosophy of the chef. Chef Siegel’s reputation was letting us to expect a tasting menu anchored in French cuisine but with modern interpretations, often including Japanese influences, and brimming with creativity. The technical execution of many dishes revealed indeed the strong French cuisine background of Chef Siegel and was mostly on a high level, perhaps with the major exception of the failed poached egg. But what we were completely missing were the creativity and surprises one expects from tasting menus at this level. There were sometimes sprinkles of Japanese influences by the use of some Japanese ingredients but mostly the dishes had either a clear French or Japanese background without many efforts to create any new directions. But even the many dishes with French influences were staying very close to the expected norm without any surprises. There was hardly any dish throughout the tasting menu were we didn’t comment how they reminded us of dishes we had eaten at other occasions before, everything felt like repeats. It speaks volume that the two things we remember most from this dinner were the intermezzo, with its unusual and successful combination of persimmon and carrot, and the huge mignardises cart – both are normally only a side notes of a tasting menu. Besides the uninspired dishes the service at the Dining Room was far from its very good reputation. Prior to our visit we often read about the flawless and polished service at the restaurant but that was different from our experience. Starting from a very rushed service at the beginning which slowed down after we asked for a more reasonable pace to servers which didn’t really know what they were serving (and had to help each other to get together all components of a dish which they were serving) the service was simply not very professional. But worst was when the maitre’d started to bad-mouthing restaurants when talking with other guests. He compared other one star Michelin restaurants in San Francisco to the Dining Room and in particular slandered about One Market and its “horrible food and service” which was quite ironic as we just ate there a few days before and had a much better experience than at the Dining Room. It didn’t came as a surprise when some time after our visit to the Dining Room we read that Chef Siegel was closing the restaurant to renovate and reopen it under a different name and different, more casual, concept. On one side we particularly enjoy restaurants which offer tasting menus and so seeing another one closing or changing its direction wasn’t encouraging. But at the same we felt that the Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton was clearly past its prime and was in need of a readjustment. Perhaps this new concept will give Chef Siegel the opportunity to go back to his roots of creative cooking.

Yes, Bosch rhymes with wash

Over time our focus has shifted regarding the purchase of cookbooks. At the beginning when we started cooking we were interested in finding books which covered a broad spectrum of cooking/techniques/ingradients - there is quite a large selection to choose from and our cookbook library grew fast. Once we got much more experience in cooking we are much more selective in what cookbook we buy - mainly focusing on either restaurants or chefs we are particular interested (e.g. Eleven Madison, Volt) or very specific regional ethnic cuisines (e.g. books covering specific small regions in Italy, France etc.) - here the selection is much smaller and so our cookbook library is growing much slower over the last several years.

Honkman, I really pains me to read this about NINE-TEN. I would really give them another chance. I've had many great meals there including this one documented last summer. Jason Knibb, the head chef (teamed with his pastry chef, Jack Fisher), recently faced Bobby Flay in Iron Chef America (battle caviar). Unfortunately, he lost but I thought his performance was really solid. Our prefered way to eat in any restaurant is always a tasting menu and since San Diego has only a rather limited number of restaurants which offer tasting menu we always look forward to try new ones out. Unfortunately 9-10 was by far our worst dining experience on 2011 in SD (and we eat out 2-3/week). The restaurant showed so many different mistakes/weaknesses throughout the night that it is unlikely that it was just a bad night. The food was boring, uninspiring and lacked creativity and was overpriced for what you get (especially considering that we had other excellent tasting menus in SD around the same time from Chef McCabe, Schmidt, Martinez). The service was actually beyond laughable (e.g. had to ask for silverware for different courses, had to remind for wine pairing several times, ordered cocktails to drink before tasting menu but got them after second course etc. etc.). It is very rare that we don't go to restaurants a few times but 9-10 was so bad that it will take a lot of time to think about going back. There are many better options for dining in SD.

Braised Turkey Thighs with Onions & Butternut Squash and some German dumplings

I agree with a lot of what you said, but not with this part. There are things you clearly can't do with most P&S cameras: sophisticated remote flash is one of them; changing lens is definitely another. You can get round parallax by knowing your P&S. The only point I can think of beyond which SLR leaves P&S in the dust is well beyond an A4 image size: it's simple resolution and the difference only shows when you blow the image way up. And just to drive the point home, I give you the Sigma DP2s and a gallery of an owner's global samples - you can work backwards from the linked page. (I wouldn't recommend the Sigma and its fixed-focal-length lens for the casual user). ETA: going backwards, you'll find the first significant volume of P&S shots from page 154. It might depend on why you are using a camera. We very recently bought our first DSLR also driven because we were quite unhappy with the quality of the photos on our blog. We mainly use it foodwise for restaurant visits and the capturing of our cooking at home. In both cases the lightning conditions are in general are very dark and don't allow for any kind of flash or other kind of "extra" light source. Since we mainly cook in the evening even at home we hardly have any natural light to photograph our dishes (and the different cooking steps). In addition, (and that is just personal preference) we like food photos of dishes with a certain type of bokeh/depth of field which we haven't really seen with P&S cameras.

If by "narrow DOF" you mean shallow dof like this: It's tough to achieve with a small sensor camera. But can easily be done in post using Photoshop. This works best with photos taken at low angles. Here is Sobaaddict's photo: This is how it looks after one minute in Photoshop: Open your photo in PS. Click on the layers menu and choose "duplicate layer". In the dialogue box click "ok". Click on the filters menu and choose "Gaussian Blur". In the dialogue box choose a number between 5 and 20. Click "ok". Create a mask by clicking on the square icon with the small circle in the middle, at the bottom of the Layers pallet. Choose the "Gradient Fill tool". Place the pointer at the tip of the piece of fish in the foreground (bottom of image), click and drag a straight line to the top of the image. That's it. If you don't like the effect, just undo and place the pointer in a different spot, click and drag up to the top again. I agree that in general the knowledge/experience of the photographer is more important than the quality of the camera. But on the other side once a photographer has a certain level of knowledge/experience there is a clear point where a P&S camera can't compete with the decent DSLR and you can see a significant difference in the quality of the photos. One argument I often hear than is that photoshop wil take care of it but unfortunately this is hardly ever the case. Nearly all photos from a P&S camera which are "significantly improved" through Photoshop always look artifical and have a low quality. And, with all respect, this "narrow DOF" is a good example. "Narrow DOF" isn't just blurring parts of the photo with "Gaussian Blur" and the final photo has not much to do with "real" narrow DOF and looks artifical and obviously photoshoped.

They may not go to McDonalds for simple carbs, but it's precisely the simple carbs that are responsible for making them fat from doing so. Read Gary Taubes. Gary Taubes is a good salesman but not a good scientist.

You could try to use it in a braise. There is one in Daniel Boulud's book "Braise" which uses watermelon radishes with beef brisket and red miso. I haven't done this recipe but was planning to do it soon when i saw watermelon radishes last week at WF. You can see the recipe in google books: http://books.google.com/books?id=sZPERTPwr4MC&pg=PA12&lpg=PA12&dq=%22watermelon+radishes%22++braise+%22Daniel+boulud%22&source=bl&ots=ivkNF7uGCt&sig=TkMMkfGxqteuLYeR8nSjP9eCTqs&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false

I think both Wolfert books are quite similar whereas the Pepin books might have some small overlap in recipes but are very different. (Cooking got already much better over the last few weeks - we are close to our old schedule of cooking 3-4 times a week and going to restaurants with our daughter 2-3 times).

Seems that I misread the fat part but the main reason for the difference in taste is still not because of the fat content but the overrun

I don't know what kind of gelato you are eating but good versions definitely don't coat the tongue with fat as gelato has normally less fat than ice cream (10+% vs 7-8%). Another big difference is the overrun of both versions which is much higher with ice cream

The main conclusions you might get from those retrospective studies is that there might be potentially a link or not between a disease and some substance or substance mixture but nothing more. Unfortunately that's not terrible helpful as the relation between a disease and its cause is rarely black and white and it is critical to get an understanding on many other things as for example exposure levels, genetic predispositions, environmental influences etc. etc which you will hardly get out of those analyses. I agree that it is for most scenarios not possible to set up adequate clinical studies and that is exactly the reason why we will always over- and underestimate (or simply not understand) influences of food ingredients and diseases (and we haven't even discussed that it is even more complex as something like coffee (or any other food) contains myriads of substances where one of them (or combination thereof) could have an positive or negative effect). Studies for correlations between food intake and cancer are good get scientists and companies some news exposure but are nearly always misleading and it often takes just a few years until a study will be published about the same correltation but with complete different results.

I think you are overestimating the amounts of food you will get served at a tasting menu. We often go for tasting menus and very rarely are we afterwards too full to not get some late night drinks and/or snacks.

There are many pseudo scientific correlation you will often read in newspapers about certain things you eat or drink are good for you based on these pseudo cross correlation. If you look long enough you can pretty much correlate everything especially in the food sector. Marion Nestle touches on this in one of her books and how it is used by industry to lobby for certain things but isn't based on any even decent science / same in this case with coffee and cancer. As long as you don't have clearly defined, controlled clinical studies to examine exact described ingredients and endpoints these assumptions are not based on any science and meaningless

Full review and photos: Kitchen 1540 Kitchen 1540 – 20 Dishes, 10 Courses – White Flag Tasting Menu Our interest in everything about food, cooking and restaurants isn’t much of a secret to our co-workers and so it is not surprising that often discussions at work center around these topics. One question we are asked regularly is about the best restaurant and special memorable meals. It is impossible to answer about “the” best restaurant as we like a broad spectrum of restaurants ranging from small ethnic hole in the walls to high-end upscale restaurants and it really depends on the occasion and mood which ones we prefer on a given day. And so it is easier to just agree on general criteria for a good restaurant – quality of food and service paired with a fitting ambience. The more interesting question is about special memorable meals and how they are defined for us. Even though we are not fixed on one particular cuisine it became more apparent for us over the years that we truly remember and discuss for a long time those dinners in restaurants which are trying to combine unusual flavor and ingredient combinations far outside of what the majority of restaurants are serving often incorporating modern techniques. Most of the restaurants we enjoy most, like Bistro LQ, Saam or Coi are located in Los Angeles and San Francisco. San Diego has a number of restaurants we have on our heavy rotation list but for a long time none of them really belonged to the list of restaurants for one of these memorable dinners. At the same time the background and reputation of several chefs in San Diego is on par with their peers in LA and San Francisco and so we often wondered if there are hidden gems in San Diego we are missing. More recently we decided to focus on finding those unique restaurants in San Diego and were quite happy to indeed find those special places like Blanca under Gavin Schmidt and Rancho Valencia with Aaron Martinez. Encouraged by these findings we decided recently to contact more restaurants in San Diego to discuss with several chefs if they would be interested in preparing special tasting menus without any limitations. One of the restaurants which was on the top of our list was Kitchen 1540 in the L’Auberge Hotel in Del Mar. The restaurant under Chef McCabe was our very first fine dining experience in San Diego several years ago when it was still named J. Taylor. But we still discuss today some of the dishes we had like a venison entrée or a dessert with a selection of different crème brulees. Paul McCabe, born in Arizona, started his culinary career as an apprentice under Chef Michel Blanchet at the L’Ermitage in Los Angeles. Over the next few years Chef McCabe held different positions with increasingly more responsibility at restaurants in California, Arizona and Hawaii including Sous Chef and Chef de Cuisine at the Enchantment Resort, Sous Chef at the L’Ermitage before in 2001 he finally settled in San Diego as Executive Chef at Top of the Cove. He moved in 2002 to the Star of the Sea before becoming Executive Chef at J.Taylor which after extensive renovation in 2008 reopened as Kitchen 1540. After some email exchange with GM Bryan LaFontaine we finally settled on a 10-course White Flag Tasting Menu where we served up to ten courses but could “throw up the white flag at anytime we feel that we cannot eat anymore”. Hibiscus Caipirinha: Leblon Cachaca, Domaine de Canton, fresh lime, house made hibiscus syrup We started the night with an interesting twist on this classical Brazilian cocktail which got some refreshing floral notes from the hibiscus syrup balanced by the ginger liqueur. Bread Service: Kitchen 1540 serves several different breads for the bread service. Most of the selection is decent with the highlight of the grape-fleur de sel foccacia Course 1A: Bison tartare, smoked bacon Sabayon, brioche, chives We had many different tartars so far covering beef, deer or venison but this was the first time with bison. The bison had a surprisingly strong and rich flavor with some subtle background notes from the mixed-in lemon oil. The bacon sabayon added a complementing smoothness to this excellent dish. Course 1B: Hamachi crudo, shishito peppers, grapefruit supremes, shaved bottarga We expected to get the same courses throughout the tasting menu but were surprised when our server brought us two different first courses and mentioned that chef McCabe was planning to continue so for the entire menu so that we had a chance to taste more different dishes – a nice and welcome surprise. Here we had some beautiful pieces of hamachi with a firm but yet melting, tender consistency which were paired in a classical fashion for crudo with a sour-salty-peppery mix consistent of grapefruit, bottarga and shishito peppers. A very good example of McCabe’s approach to show his own interpretation of well known dishes by adding unexpected but yet fitting components. Course 2A: Organic beets, Valdeon blue, pistachio brittle, caramelized yogurt Beets can be a difficult ingredient to work with as it easily can overshadow a dish with its earthy sometimes even muddy flavor. And so we like beets as part of a dish but are often wary about it as the main ingredient. Here we have a prime example how it can take the center stage but its flavors are impressively incorporated into the whole dish – tender beets perfectly cooked so that they also show their subdued natural sweetness are nicely balanced with the sharpness and saltiness of the strong cow and goat’s milk cheese whereas the pistachio brittle not only gives a textural contrast but also some appreciated sweetness. Course 2B: Farm house salad - organic vegetables, sundried tomato puree, pistou gelee, orange blossom vinaigrette It’s interesting to see that some of the fine dining restaurants, like Blanca and Rancho Valencia, had on their recent tasting menus some interpretations of salads showcasing the abundance of outstanding local produce covering it from very different angles. Whereas Blanca’s approach focused on the flavors of the produce itself with very minimal distraction from anything else, e.g. vinaigrette, Kitchen 1540 incorporated the produce in a much more complex dish with many different flavor components including some dehydrated goat cheese, sundried tomato puree, orange blossom vinaigrette and olive powder. Both variations were very different but highlights of their tasting menus and for us a kind of “signature dish” for San Diego. Course 3A: Bacon & egg - house made pancetta, 62°C egg, brioche, smoked ketchup There are dishes where you immediately known that they are a success when they are brought to the table even before you taste them. What can go wrong if you combine pancetta, a runny egg and some brioche and perfected by some tangy ketchup and arugula to cut through the richness. A dish you want to have for breakfast every day. Course 3B: Diver scallop, popcorn puree, candied almonds, salted caramel, nasturtium The combination of tender diver scallop and popcorn puree with its intensified corn flavor worked surprisingly well. The candied almonds gave some additional sweetness and textural contrast to the dish and so the salted caramel played a key role as it provide some much need saltiness to counter the sweetness of the other ingredients. Course 4A: Pan roasted sweetbreads, smoked almond milk, blis maple, apple celery salad Too often sweetbreads are covered in a thick crust of breading so that it is hard to discern their natural flavor. Here we had a perfectly roasted sweetbread without any distracting coating just with a crisp outer layer and a creamy core. The apple celery salad gave a refreshing touch to the dish whereas the smoked almond milk acted as overarching component pairing nicely with the sweetbreads and the apple celery salad independently. Course 4B: Stone seared foie gras, tangerine pop rocks, tangerine reduction, black pepper financier Very interesting preparation and presentation of a flawless piece of foie gras seared by the hot stone. The thyme under the hot stone added an enticing aroma component to the dish. The tangerine reduction proved to be sweet enough to cut through the richness of the foie gras but not to be overly sweet to dominate the dish. The tangerine pop rocks were a nice gimmick adding some acidity whereas the black pepper financier had some noticeable spiciness from the pepper. Course 5A: Pan seared Barramundi, clams, Yukon potato, pancetta, celery, Tabasco This dish was a play on a deconstructed clam chowder centered around the moist barramundi with its crispy skin. The clams brought some of their characteristic brininess which was enhanced by the saltiness of the pancetta. The potato and the celery acted as the base of the dish with earthiness and tied the components of this successful “clam chowder” together. Course 5B: Pan seared Black Cod, cipollini onions, fingerlings potatoes, chorizo-mussel broth Conceptionally a similar approach but with a different flavor profile as the other fish dish – centered around the very flaky black cod, a good combination of brininess and saltiness from the chorizo and mussel broth and again potatoes, this time accompanied by cipollini onions, as the base of the dish. Both dishes showed that the strength of Kitchen 1540 of working with fish. Course 6A: Organic chicken – sous vide breast, crispy thigh, chicken-fennel sausage, lobster mushroom, scrambled cauliflower, jalapeno-apple gastrique Chicken is often dreaded in tasting menus as too boring and flavorless but here we had an impressive take on different parts of the chicken – chicken breast which was cooked by sous-vide to ensure a very tender and moist piece, crispy, flavorful thigh and housemade chicken sausage. The jalapeno-apple sauce was a key part of the dish as it added a complex sweet-sour-spicy mix which lightened up the preparation. Course 6B: Braised Kurobuta pork shoulder, herb gnocchi, braised cabbage, bacon, pickled onion The most rustic dish of the tasting menu was appropriately served in small Staub cocotte. The braised pork shoulder and cabbage was quite close to dishes we have made at home but what elevated this dish for us were the herb gnocchi – light and fluffy yet with distinct flavor supporting the braised ingredients and at the time they transformed the dish to a surprisingly light course. Course 7A: Natural beef tenderloin, kim chi fried farro, fried egg Farro is one of the grains you don’t see too often on menus which is a shame as it has a wonderful nutty flavor which works nicely with many different dishes. Here is was quite uniquely combined with kimchi to give the dish a subtle sour character which paired well with the tender, sous vide cooked, beef tenderloin and the fried egg. The dish appeared to be a strange combination of components which didn’t really fit at first but really grow on us after a few bites. Course 7B: Pork belly, smoked potato croquettes, lobster mushrooms, tomato-cabernet reduction Pork belly might be one of our favorite cuts of meat and it didn’t disappoint here - very tender with a crisp skin it clearly showed all the strong points one expects. Even though the pork belly took the center stage in this dish it was fittingly accompanied by potato croquettes which could have a stronger smoked flavor and the tomato-cabernet reduction which added some acidity to cut through the richness of the pork belly. Course 8A + 8B: Cheeses with accompaniments The cheese plates presented a surprisingly large array of cheeses covering different flavors and textures mainly focusing on cow milk cheese with Schlosskrans, Vintage Gouda, Morbier, Valdeon Blue and Roaring Forties Blue and one goat cheese with Boucheron. Definitely one of the better cheese plates we had in San Diego. Course 9A: Chocolate caramel tart, orange marshmellow, carbonated orange A rather classical chocolate caramel tart which came alive by the inclusion of orange. The fruitiness balanced out the sweetness and richness of the chocolate to lighten the dessert. We also liked the addition of marshmellow as it provided an interesting textural contrast to the tart. Course 9B: Frozen key lime pie, coconut streusel, fried cashews, dehydrated mering Overall for us the more successful dessert with a very good combination of different textures, temperatures and well balanced flavors. The frozen key lime pie showed the right amount of sweetness and tartness to be refreshing without being too rich. The coconut and cashew flavors helped to tame the sweet- and tartness of the pie even more and added a welcomed complexity to the dish. Course 10A + B: N2-Ice cream Sunday At this time of the tasting menu we were one of the last guests in the restaurant and once the server brought out a large metal bowl, ladle and dewar vessel to the table next us a number of servers and cooks gathered around our table to watch the preparation of our last course. Sous chef Jonathan Bautista came and started to do his work with an iSi creamer and liquid nitrogen… …to form a sphere of frozen vanilla cream. Together with an array of condiments, like chocolate and caramel sauce, nuts, whipped cream and macerated raspberries, we could than build our own ice cream sunday. The liquid nitrogen gave the frozen vanilla cream a range of different consistencies. The outer layers were frozen very hard whereas the inner layers became softer and softer - a perfect ending to an outstanding tasting menu. We came with high expectations after our good experience with J. Taylor and Kitchen 1540 easily met and exceeded them. It was refreshing to see that after Blanca and Rancho Valenica there is another restaurant and chef in San Diego who doesn’t only try to satisfy the mainstream by playing it safe but trying to create a unique restaurant with its own identity. The dishes at Kitchen 1540 covered a wide range of ingredients, flavors and inspirations but it always felt as Chef McCabe was trying to create his own vision and not just mimicking other well known restaurants. It was also nice to have a chance to talk to the chef a few times throughout the night and hearing about different topics including the sourcing of his ingredients but also his whole grilled pig which he prepared for a Chef Confab dinner some time ago. The excellent impression of Kitchen 1540 didn’t stop at the kitchen but was equally spotless with the service – very knowledgable and we never felt rushed so that the food was perfectly paced which was especially welcomed as the dishes were considerable larger than at regular tasting menus and we could understand why it was called white flag tasting menu. It seems that it is indeed possible to get excellent and creative food in San Diego even though it might take a little bit more efforts than in other cities as it is often necessary to contact many chefs directly to give them the creative freedom they need to create memorable tasting menus. And so we were pleased when shortly after our visit Kitchen 1540 made the white flag tasting menu a regular menu option without any necessary prior notice. Unfortunately very recently Chef McCabe surprisingly decided to leave Kitchen 1540 to become partner at the Delicias restaurant. Even though he mentioned in interviews that the culinary direction at Delicias won’t be as ambitious as at Kitchen 1540 we hope there will be some kind of creative outlet at the restaurant for him to continue to present such outstanding food. It will be also very interesting to see who will follow him as Executive Chef at Kitchen 1540 and if the management at L’Auberge Del Mar is willing to continue to support such an ambitious restaurant concept or if it will convert it to a more “conventional” hotel restaurant. It would be disappointing to lose another important restaurant for San Diego after the closing of Blanca and the changes at Rancho Valenica.

Oxymoron = Knorr and homestyle in the same product description

Overall a very good year (including a few I will buy in the next few weeks and hopefully more time to cook after having our first baby three months ago): - Modernist Cuisine - Heston at home - Eleven Madison Park - Rustic Italian Food - Volt INK - The food of Morocco - Essential Pepin - Mourad - New Moroccan - Odd Bits - Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams - Mozza

I wasn't talking about two years if interning (for which you need a J-1) but spouses who wanted to volunteer for free for one or two days a week and got in trouble visit out the necessary visa.