Honkman

Full review and photos: French Laundry Special Extended 18-Course Tasting Menu In today’s media-driven world you constantly hear and read about new interesting restaurants opening or closing somewhere. If you are interested in food it is really hard not to get continuously bombarded by news on discussion boards, blogs or magazines about new restaurant trends emerging or new chefs making an impact in the culinary scene. And so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that like many foodies we also have many different lists of interesting restaurants we want to visit all over the US and the world. At the same time every foodie seems to have the one special restaurant which fascinated them early on, which they always wanted to visit and which is their ultimate destination. Similar to explaining why a certain music band is so special or a why a painting has this particular fascination it is often hard to explain why one restaurant sticks out to all the others. Of course the food and cuisine is a major factor in the interest for a restaurant but real fascination goes far beyond and includes also the mindset and philosophy of the chef, the focus on ingredients and techniques and even the location. Since moving to California about ten years ago and getting highly interested in high-end restaurants this special restaurant for us was always Thomas Keller’s French Laundry in Yountville. Thomas Keller was born in California but lived most of his youth in Palm Beach, Florida. During this time he started to work during summers or after school first as a dishwasher at the Palm Beach Yacht Club but also soon as a line cook which ignited his interest in cooking. During summers he also started working at the Dunes Club in Rhode Island where he met his key mentor – Chef Roland Henin. Henin was important in exposing to and teaching him French cuisine but also to start developing his own philosophy of cooking. After working several cooking positions in Florida Thomas Keller started working at La Rive in the Hudson Valley River valley where he had for the first time larger responsibilities but also the possibility to work more with local and seasonal produce and farmers. Unable to buy La Rive Keller decided to hone his skills by working in several Michelin starred restaurants in France like Guy Savoy and Taillevent. After returning to New York he worked at La Reserve and Restaurant Raphael before opening in 1986 his first own restaurant – Rakel. Rakel got good reviews but due to the hard financial times the restaurant didn’t survive for a long time. He then had a period of time where he worked at different restaurants in New York and Los Angeles before he finally found in 1992 the French Laundry at that time owned by Don and Sally Schmidt. After raising money for quite some time Thomas Keller could finally purchase the French Laundry and open it in 1994. Even though since then Thomas Keller opened several other successful restaurants for us the biggest fascination always focused on the French Laundry. Not unlike with music albums of rock bands the earliest releases often represent the purest and most honest approaches and tend to give the best chances to experience the original work and philosophy. Even though we visited many high-end restaurants over the last years and the French Laundry was for a long time high on our restaurant list we somehow never really started seriously tackling getting a reservation at the restaurant. But recently we decided to go on a three week culinary trip to the Bay area and felt that it was finally time to experience the French Laundry. After some preparation we were able to get a reservation on our preferred day for the last seating – what better day to choose for our first visit than a special birthday celebration. Like we have done with many restaurants before we contacted the French Laundry and we wanted to give the chef absolute creative freedom and asked for an earlier seating to have a chance for a special tasting menu without any limitations. After some extended phone discussions over a few weeks we finally got a table for the first seating and a promise to have a special menu on our visit which turned out to be a memorable extended 18-course tasting menu at the French Laundry highlighting why this restaurant had and still has such an impact on the culinary scene. The French Laundry is located in the small village of Yountville a few miles north of Napa. Yountville seems to be existing mainly to host a large number of restaurants and hotels for its small size. Yountville is also the epicenter of the Thomas Keller culinary empire with French Laundry, Bouchon, Bouchon Bakery and Ad Hoc within walking distance. Whereas all other three restaurants are closer to the center of the village French Laundry is a little bit more outside. Across from the French Laundry are the restaurant’s vegetable gardens which should play an important role for many of the ingredients on our visit. These gardens are quite impressive with their large variety of often unusual produce. The French Laundry restaurant is in a historic building which was built more than one hundred years ago as a saloon before it was converted in the 1920s into a French steam laundry. The building was renovated in 1978 before it was used as a restaurant. If one wouldn’t know that the building was used as restaurant it would easily go through as a residential building. Only a smaller sign reveals the true purpose of the building. The restaurant is spread out over two floors with the main dining room on the lower floor. The maitre’d knew of our long tasting menu and gave as a nice four top in the corner of the main room. We were once asked if we were interested to see the menu before or if we trust the chef and just want to be surprised. Obviously we just wanted to sit back and start the journey into the culinary world of Thomas Keller and the French Laundry. 1st Amuse Bouche: Gougères Pâte à choux filled with warm aged Gruyère mornay sauce. Very light pillows filled with a slightly salty crème which still showed the typical aged Gruyère flavor. A rather classic French start to the dinner and for us a kind of palate cleanser for the coming dishes. 2nd Amuse Bouche: Scottish Salmon Coronets One of the signature amuse bouche’s of the French Laundry. The cone had a buttery and soft texture with some sesame seeds. The salmon was almost pate-like with a delicate taste. The bottom tip of the cone was filled with some crème fraiche to give it a slightly tangy finish. 1st Course: Nantes carrot velouté, medjool date, marcona almonds and cilantro As the next course the server put small bowls of an orange soup in front of us and informed us that the carrots for this velouté were harvested just a few hours ago in the gardens across the street. This carrot soup was unlike any other carrot soup we had before. It had a very intense carrot flavor like it was made out of carrot extracts but at the same time a velvety and light texture. The dates gave the soup just the right sweetness to balance the flavors and almond added some nice textural change. We could have easily eaten a large bowl of the velouté. 2nd Course: “Oysters and pearls” - “Sabayon” of pearl tapioca with island creek oysters and white sturgeon caviar. Perhaps the most written about savory course at the French Laundry and one of the few courses which are part of nearly all tasting menus. Even though we wanted to experience the French Laundry as a whole event we were looking forward to finally try this dish – and it didn’t disappoint. The creamy and rich sabayon laid the foundation for the dish and the tapioca supported this richness with its texture. The perfectly cooked oysters had a wonderful sweetness whereas the quenelle of caviar provided the right balance of saltiness. It’s easy to understand why this dish has such a reputation as being a showcase for Thomas Keller’s cooking as it is a perfect combination of texture, flavor and creativity. The use of a mother-of-pearl spoon to serve the dish fits perfectly into the picture. 3rd Course: Salad of Dungeness crab, apple gelée and “fines herbes” Another course which demonstrated Thomas Keller’s cooking philosophy – on one side high quality ingredients like cooked Dungeness crab which was presented in a way that its natural flavors speak for itself. At the same time he uses every kind of technique necessary to add components to the dish which complements and enhance this flavor and brings it to a new and often unexpected level. Here the slightly sweet and tangy apple gelée was key to the success of the dish. 4th Course: Hokkaido coast “uni” with sake granité Over the years we really have learned to love uni and its unique flavor reminding us of ocean, salt and sea air. Normally we had Santa Barbara uni which has a light yellow color whereas the Hokkaido uni had a much darker orange color. The flavor of the Hokkaido uni was similar to one from Santa Barbara perhaps a bit more pronounced and stronger. The sake granite was a good addition as itself had similar to the uni first a slight sweetness which changed after melting in the mouth to some bitterness without overpowering the delicate flavor of the uni. 5th Course: “Ris de veau en croûte” with “pruneaux d’Agen” We had to smile when the server brought this dish to the table as its shape reminded us of a caterpillar. The flaky, light puff pastry shell broke easily to reveal its tasty inside – perfectly seared veal sweetbreads. Sweetbreads can easily be overcooked but this version had the right consistency – not too soft without being too dry. The dish got some refreshing fruitiness from the prune sauce made out of the famous prunes from the region of Agen in France. 6th Course: Hen egg custard, ragout of Périgord truffles This plain looking egg had some amazing content – at the bottom was white truffle custard which was topped with a ragout of black truffles made out of veal stock. This creation was crowned by a chive potato chip perfect for mixing the tasty mixture. Not only could you smell this course long before it reached our table but was an impressive flavor explosion when eaten from the different truffles and the veal stock. 7th Course: Salad of French Laundry new crop potatoes, baby beets, broccoli and horseradish mousseline. Another dish in which the garden of the French Laundry across the street played a major role. A few new potatoes were slightly roasted so that the roasting flavor didn’t overwhelm the tastes of the different vegetables. Especially the baby beets added some nice earthy component to the dish. The horseradish mousseline helped to add some mild spicyness. All these courses so far really didn’t need any bread but now we were presented with the pain au lait from the Bouchon Bakery down the street. This warm and buttery role had a wonderful soft texture and was accompanied by two different butters - an unsalted goat’s milk butter from Andante Diary in Petaluma and a whipped salted cow’s milk butter from Animal Farm in Vermont. Before bringing the next course our server came to our table and presented this – white truffles from Alba. The smell was so strong that people at other tables turned around to look at our table. 8th Course: Castelmagno cheese “lasagna” with white truffles from Alba The lasagna was a good vehicle for the white truffles. Many layers of perfectly al dente pasta where covered in noisette sauce which helped to bring out some of the truffle flavor. We were a little bit surprised that despite the very strong aroma of the truffle and the generous slices the actual truffle taste was quite subdued. For the first part of the menu we decided on a Gruener Veltliner – Hirsch, Heiligenstein, 2008 – which was a light-bodied wine with some acidity and some green apple and lemon aroma. The second part of the dinner was accompanied by a Burgundy – Denis Mortet, Gevrey Chambertin 2007 – which had some quite strong berry flavors, some earthiness and a long aftertaste. 9th Course: Sautéed fillet of striped bass, razor clams, butter beans “en persillade”, San Marzano tomato compote, petite lettuces and extra virgin olive oil emulsion. Perfectly cooked striped bass filet was tender and flaky, the razor clams were also tender but still had some “bite” whereas butter beans remained, as you would expect by their name, soft and buttery without being mushy. The “en persillade” coating, bread crumbs and parsley, was a nice textural change as were the “al dente” haricot verts. Key component of this dish was the tomato compote which brought the dish together with its acidity and slight sweetness. 10th Course: Sweet butter-poached Maine lobster tail, piperade, young fennel and “sauce Noilly Prat” A large piece of succulent lobster tail which had the wonderful slight sweetness of perfectly poached lobster. The soft piece of young fennel added unexpected slight anise flavor which worked nicely with the Noilly Prat based sauce. Similar to the tomato compote in the course before here the piperade helped to bring the dish together with its more subdued acidity. 11th Course: Moulard duck “foie gras au torchon”, Gros Michel banana, celery, cashew, oxalis and honey-banyuls “gastrique” Thomas Keller is well known for his great dishes including foie gras, and this classic foie gras au torchon was no exception. Wonderful buttery foie gras smeared on the warm brioche showed its characteristic melt-in-your-mouth livery flavor. The foie gras was outstanding but what really elevated the dish were the “condiments”. Foie gras is often accompanied by some sweet and savory components but it was first surprising to see bananas and celery with this foie gras and we were initially skeptical if it would work. After just a few bites it was clear that this was a fantastic combination. The banana puree and the celery provided just the right amount of sweetness with some savory undertones without being cloying and worked nicely with the foie gras. The roasted cashews added some textural variety. After we had eaten about half of our brioche the server brought us new warm pieces of brioche to ensure the best foundation for the foie gras. For this and the next few courses we were provided with an array of different salts. It was really fun to taste these and it was astonishing how such small amounts of “impurities” have not only such an effect on the color of the salt but also the flavor. 12th Course: “Aiguillette” of Liberty Farm pekin duck, melted cabbage, Satsuma mandarin, chestnut purée and ginger”jus” An interesting “asian” take on duck – very tender sous-vide cooked duck breast where especially the ginger-infused jus gave the dish an “asian” touch which was intensified by the chestnut puree. The sweetness of the Satsuma mandarin helped to cut through the fat of the duck. 13th Course: Broken Arrow Ranch venison, Hobbs’ bacon, arrowleaf spinach, flowering quince, white pearl onion and juniper-scented “soubise” Very tender vension wrapped in bacon was rather classical accompanied, as game often does, by a juniper-scented sauce. The small ball of arrowleaf spinach was not only a nice visual variety in this dish but also helped to lighten up the dish. 14th Course: “Sweet potato pie”, “Cavatina”, marshmellow, pickled huckleberries, watercress and black winter truffle Instead of an “official” cheese course we were served this combination of a dessert and a cheese course. This was a cheese cake made out of cavatina goat cheese from Andante Diary and had a pronounced, slightly salty, typical goat cheese flavor. The pickled huckleberries and the black truffle sauce were similar to what you expect as condiments for a cheese course. An interesting and well executed course but we felt that a regular cheese course would have been a better progression between savory and sweet courses and that this course didn’t really fit in at this point of the tasting menu. 15th Course: Feijoa sorbet, “tres leches”, coconut and pineapple This was the first time for us that we had feijoa which is also known as pineapple guava or guavasteen and it had an interesting flavor combination of kiwi and papaya with some slight banana flavors in the background. It matched perfectly to the light tres leches cake. The coconut powder and the lightly roasted pineapple completed this very refreshing and light dessert which was an outstanding start for the sweet part of the tasting menu. 16th Course: “Coffee and doughnuts”, cinnamon-sugared doughnuts and “cappuccino semifreddo” The most famous dessert of the French Laundry – wonderful light freshly made and still warm doughnut and doughnut hole with a light cinnamon flavor which was perfectly matched with the espresso semifreddo. The popularity of this dessert is not surprising and fully justified. 17th Course: Gianduja chocolate “ganache”, Guiness “génoise”, sour cherry, hazelnut and malt ice cream As the last dessert we were presented a plate with a “collection” of different “classic” desserts like sponge cake, ganache and malt ice cream which all by itself were already great but eaten together really showed a nice variety of complementing flavors. 18th Course: Granny Smith cake with streusel When we thought that we were finished with our tasting menu one of our servers came, presented us with these cakes and mentioned that the kitchen thought we would like to have another dessert. How can you not like such a classic approach to an apple cake – light, fruity and with a good balance between sweetness and sourness of the apple – a perfect ending to the dinner. The espresso was brought in unique cups which according to our server are nicknamed “flying saucers” by everybody and it’s easy to see why. The espresso was surprisingly good for restaurant espresso with a good crema. Mignardies: And the night ended with some tasty treats Before we left the French Laundry we were given several bags of shortbread cookies and chocolate which we would enjoy over the next few days We were really looking forward over several years to visit the French Laundry but at the same time once we scored a reservation we were also a bit anxious if we would be expecting too much and ultimately be disappointed. It was similar to liking a rock band for many years and then finally meeting the musicians in person, and quite often you might find out that the imagination is better than the reality (except when we met the Scorpions last year). But we were very happy to find out that the reputation of the French Laundry is more than justified and the restaurant lives up to the hype, yet it even exceeded our already high expectations. One of the criticisms you hear sometimes about Thomas Keller and the French Laundry is that the cooking is soulless and just focuses on techniques. After our visit to the restaurant these accusations are hard to understand as we felt that the cooking and the dishes at the French Laundry not only showed an extremely high level of technical sophistication but also true dedication to creativity and food and ingredients in itself. It was impressive to see how much the produce grown in their own garden across the street had an impact on different dishes throughout the tasting menu. At the same time the restaurant is looking to also use the best ingredients available anywhere for all their dishes – it’s a symbiosis of cooking locally and globally driven by such a high interest of the culinary team in the quality of their dishes. We also liked that even though the dishes showed such a high level of creativity and often unexpected twists the chef always made sure to use all the techniques to still let the natural flavors of the ingredients speak and not muddle them unnecessarily. For us the French Laundry is an ingredient-driven restaurant which just uses all available techniques in a very creative way to get the most out of the flavors of all ingredients. The service at the French Laundry is, as you would expect for a three-star Michelin restaurant, very good and professional, even though they made a few small mistakes like forgetting to ask if we wanted coffee before bringing the bill, and formal but also a bit impersonal. We have seen at other high-end restaurants like Providence in LA that professional and formal service can be at the same time warm and personal. An outstanding service team is able to adapt their service style throughout a dinner according to the style of the customers. The exception was the sommelier who clearly was able to judge fast what kind and style of service each customer wanted and adapted his style accordingly so that everybody felt comfortable with him. It was very nice from the maitre’d that he invited us to the kitchen after our dinner so that we had a chance to see inside, including the famous video screen to Per Se and the “Sense of Urgency” sign under the clock, and exchange a few words with chef de cuisine Timothy Hollingsworth. Overall our first visit to the French Laundry was an outstanding night and even though we hesitate to name any restaurant visit as the best we ever had, since this can often change depending on our mood, there is no doubt that this visit was and will always be one of the highlights in our culinary journey. Over the last few years we regularly visited many favorite high-end restaurants like Providence and Bistro LQ in LA which deliver outstanding food and service and were wondering before our visit to the French Laundry if a restaurant can really be better than those. The visit made us realize two things – restaurants like Providence and Bistro LQ perform indeed on a very high level but it also showed us that the French Laundry is a class of its own. It’s very rare that there is not a single course in a long tasting menu which disappoints but even more each course was always a new and unexpected culinary exploration. The French Laundry is not a restaurant you put on your regular rotation list but when we left the restaurant after more than six hours we already discussed how and when we will return to the French Laundry.

That's definitely not my experience. Farmers market eggs are much better tasting especially at dishes were eggs play a key role like Spaghetti Carbonara, and also don't give any more or less problems than supermarket eggs

Full review and photos: Relate Restaurant Most trends in the restaurant industry are focused on variations of the food by using new techniques, different ethnic influences or ingredients characterized by buzzwords as molecular gastronomy or farm-to-table. The restaurant as a business entity and the base for a restaurateur to conduct business always remained the same over the years. The chef and cuisine could change but the location and the name normally stayed the same and was the characteristics of this business. Only in recent years did some restaurateurs start to think about the concept of the restaurant as a business entity as itself and how it could be transformed. As a consequence two new restaurants styles recently emerged – food trucks and pop-up restaurants. Food trucks could be described as a new twist on fast food places whereas pop-up restaurants try to establish themselves as the trendy version of more upscale restaurants. Pop-up restaurants are an interesting concept as they could be described as temporary restaurants within a restaurant - restaurants which only serve breakfast or lunch rent out their space for a limited time to other restaurateurs for dinner service. This deal appears to have many advantages for everybody: the pop-up restaurateur doesn’t need a long term lease and has much less overhead costs. The temporary character of the pop-up restaurant often creates a lot of interest without much advertisement and ensures a well booked restaurant. The renter gets money for renting out the unused restaurant for dinner. The customer often has the chance to experience some very creative and unusual cuisine at pop-up restaurants. It is hard to track down or agree when the first pop-up restaurant started but some people think that the Chinese restaurant Lung Shan in San Francisco was the starting place of the pop-up restaurant boom several years ago as it transformed twice a week to host the Mission Street Food as a venue for chefs to cook without many limitations. Over the last few years more and more chefs started their own pop-up restaurants and today there is hardly any bigger city which doesn’t have its own versions and it was just a matter of time until even San Diego would have a first pop-up restaurant. Perhaps the most well-known pop-up restaurant currently is LudoBites from Chef Ludo Lefebvre in Los Angeles. Sous Chef for LudoBites incarnation 4.0, 5.0 and 6.0 was Chef Dan Moody. Chef Moody has San Diego connections as he graduated from Torrey Pines High School before enrolling at CIA at Hyde Park. Already during his time at CIA he worked for Ludo at L’Orangerie. After some years in the restaurant industry he decided to change fields and started working in the financial sector after earning a degree in economics. But after a few years he realized that his true interest was really in the restaurant business, got back in touch with Ludo and worked first as line cook and then as sous chef at LudoBites. Seeing the success of the pop-up restaurant concept he decided to move it to San Diego. He choose St. Germain’s Café in Encinitas as the location for Relate - San Diego’s first pop-up restaurant. St. Germain’s Café is located on the Pacific Coast Highway close to the city center of Encinitas. The signs of the café are hard to miss whereas only a few small signs show that during the night this is the home of the Relate Restaurant About 1/3 of the seats are located outside on the patio where some heating lamps help to make the area comfortable. The inside of the restaurant reminds that it is during the day a café with its rustic table and chairs. Overall the ambience was lively and at the same time relaxed. It’s a nice feature to be able to see Chef Moody throughout the night work between the kitchen and the front of the house coordinating everything. He also took the time to visit every table at least once during the service. Relate has every night a five course tasting menu with the possibility to add one or two extra dishes. Amuse Bouche: “French Onion Soup” A regular French onion soup has bread surrounded by the liquid. This amuse bouche was a clever play on an inverse soup where the bread is surrounding the liquid. Once you bite on the pillow the warm onion soup is oozing out. A very promising start of the tasting menu. 1st Course: Foie gras & chicken liver mousse, sautéed apples, onion jam, baby lettuce, golden beet vinaigrette. Even though foie gras and chicken liver mousse both start from livers they have quite distinct different flavors. Mixing them together in one mousse blurred the unique character of both. It might have been better to have both mousses on one plate but separated. One of them could have a sweet pairing with the sautéed apple whereas the second mousse would have worked nicely with a more savory onion jam. Supplement: Crispy escargots on toast with garlic crème anglaise. We decided to order one extra course with the crispy escargots. The escargots were indeed crispy without being rubbery which is often a problem with escargots. The garlic crème anglaise was a good idea for the classic pairing of escargots and garlic but would have needed a stronger garlic taste. The toast was very crispy which reminded us of zwieback and overshadowed the crispiness of the escargots. A softer toast could have also been soaked up with some garlic preparation to intensify the garlic flavor. 2nd Course: Seared local redrock, white bean puree, wilted kale, garam masala buerre blanc. Nicely seared fish with a crispy outside and moist flesh was accompanied with some earthy bean puree and slightly bitter kale. What really brought the dish together was the garam masala of buerre blanc. It added an interesting and unexpected flavor to the dish without overpowering any of the other components and made the dish come alive. 3rd Course: Sauteed scallop, miso lentils, baby bok choy. Lentils are a versatile ingredient as they add texture to a dish and also some background flavor without dominating everything. Therefore they are often paired with milder tasting proteins like fish or in this case with perfectly sautéed lightly sweet scallops. At the same time lentils can be combined with many different spices to steer a dish in a certain direction, e.g. adding some curry gives the dish an Indian touch, cumin can be reminiscent of North African influences and adding miso shows some Japanese/Asian direction. The baby bok choi helped to accentuate this influence but unfortunately the miso flavor wasn’t noticeable in this dish and left us with good ingredients but compared to the previous dish where the garam masala elevated the dish this time it felt flat. 4th Course: Spiced beef, spinach avocado puree, crispy porcini spaetzle, green flash double stout gastrique. This was perhaps the most balanced dish of the night. Very tender beef cooked to rare/medium rare had a spice coating which gave the beef an interesting spicy kick. The creamy spinach avocado puree had a bitter undertone which together with the green flash double stout gastrique complemented the spicy beef. The crispy spaetzle with a discernible porcini flavor was a fitting side. 5th Course: Mascarpone mousse napoleon, lemon, dragon fruit, orange. Good variation on mille-feuille with light puff pastry and mascarpone cream which together with the lemon jam made a flavorful “filling”. The orange slices added some fruitiness to the desserts whereas the dragon fruit were nice to look at but didn’t add much to the dish. We went to San Diego’s first pop-up restaurant without really knowing what to expect. Pop-up restaurants have the reputation to often try to push the limits of the culinary expectations. At the same time San Diego isn’t really known to be a successful place for overly creative restaurants. So the question for us was what Chef Moody and his team at Relate would think about this situation and how they would position the restaurant. After experiencing the first tasting menu at Relate we had the feeling that we weren’t the only ones to have this question. It appeared that Chef Moody asked himself the same question without really having a clear answer and used, understandably, the first round of Relate restaurant to test the situation in San Diego. As a consequence Relate’s first incarnation was a solid presentation without any major missteps but also without any really memorable dishes. The execution of the dishes was overall solid but also felt often as if Chef Moody’s creativity was muted and he downplayed any sparkles of culinary excitements in favor of playing it safe. The amuse bouche and the beef course showed where a future direction of Relate might lead to but too often we had the feeling that Chef Moody wasn’t willing yet to do the last 2-3 steps within a dish to make it special. Even though San Diego isn’t known as the stronghold of culinary creativity there are still quite a number of excellent restaurants as Blanca, Kitchen 1540, George’s, Cavaillon, and Café Chloe, and it is obvious Chef Moody with his ambitious cooking style is targeting a similar customer base as these restaurant but it will be necessary for Relate to step up the game in the future to be really able to compete with these restaurants. Overall it would be too early and unfair to judge Relate’s quality after the first round which more or less is just a get to know between San Diego and the restaurant. It will be interesting to see which direction Chef Moody is planning to go – focusing on pop-up restaurants as a novel concept for San Diego and relying on this type of restaurants as an event for the success or just seeing pop-up restaurants as vehicle to present excellent cuisine. But we are glad that Chef Moody was willing to take the risk and expose San Diego to the concept of pop-up restaurants and we are looking forward to follow and participate in future iterations.

It's very interesting to read these explanations but when I read any kind of science papers I am of course interested in the results part but even more in the part which describes the experiments to get to the results. In science the interpretation of experimental results and discussion part can be sometimes very different depending which scienctist is working on it. It's not that I don't believe their explanations but I would always like to understand what experiments they did to get to these explanations. Does the book have any description of the experiments ?

People bring their cookies, pies etc. but what really stands out sometimes is when somebody brings some fresh fruits etc. from their own garden.

If you want a second Keller experience I would switch Bouchon with Ad Hoc. Ad Hoc is more unique than Bouchon which is good (but not outstanding) French bistro food. In addition the Yountville location was for us the weakest in terms of service and food compared to Las Vegas and Los Angeles (and even those two can also be quite underwhelming sometimes)

Conchiglie with roasted cauliflower, arugula, and prosciutto

Full review and photos: Snout-to-Tail-Dinner Blanca (San Diego) – Snout-to-Tail Dinner or Meeting San Diego Chows There were a few reasons for us why we decided to start our own food blog. Over the years we have visited many fascinating and interesting restaurants covering high-end to hole-in-the-wall places and many different cuisines from around the world. We often talk about particular interesting dishes and visits but also realized that more and more we had problems to remember when we had which dish or how it compared to a similar dish. Starting a food blog helped us to continuously take some notes of our restaurant visits and also take photos of all dishes. It’s similar with our cooking. We have many cookbooks at home and love to cook from them. Even when we make similar dishes we hardly ever repeat a recipe but always try some new variations. Our food blog “forces” us now to capture our cooking work with photos. Besides capturing all our culinary adventures the food blog is a helpful creative outlet for us. Working as scientists is definitely interesting and also includes creativity in research, but often a more confined and targeted one. Writing and photographing is a much more free-flowing form of creativity which creates a nice counterbalance for us. In addition to giving us the possibility of looking back to previous restaurant visits and cooked dishes, a food blog is also a nice way to share some of our experiences with our family and friends far away. Even when we lived in Germany we already had quite an interest in restaurants and cooking but it really got more and more serious since we moved to San Diego about ten years ago. It was always a bit unsatisfactory to talk in detail about the latest dish we cooked or had in a restaurant when we only could describe it roughly – the blog helped to change this. Interestingly, since we started our blog we now also get photos from restaurant visits from our family from time to time. But beyond our family we also hoped that the food blog would give us a possibility to meet other people who are interested in food, might it be virtually or even better in person. After we posted about our recent visit at Blanca in Solana Beach on Chowhound rather quickly an interesting discussion evolved which centered around the interest of many posters to have some kind of get-together. After we moved the discussion to the San Diego Chow Group and Chef Gavin Schmidt from Blanca joined the discussion all those thoughts substantiated rapidly, and we decided to have a special Snout-to-Tail Dinner at Blanca. The snout-to tail dinner took place in the private dining room of Blanca which provided a quiet and intimate ambience for all twelve participating foodies. After a few introductory words from Chef Gavin and proprietor Seth Baas the night started with an array of canapés: plate of a variety of excellent charcuterie covering pork and lamb, profiteroles filled with pork and goat cheese, lettuce cups with crispy pork, garlic pork sausage with cabbage and mustard, chicharrone taco with bbq pork and house made kimchi. The canapé selection showed a nice variety from different ethnic influences and was a good play on different street foods. It was hard to agree on a highlight since all of them were excellent, but it was especially nice to have some excellent blood sausage which unfortunately isn’t often seen on restaurant menus. Chef Gavin’s take on the current trend on combining Korean with Mexican influenced street food was also memorable. Amuse Bouche: smoked potato foam, pork kidney, house made prosciutto, caviar. Good combination of the mild prosciutto and the very good kidney which didn’t have a too strong uric acid aftertaste like other preparations we had before. The caviar gave the dish some slight saltiness whereas the potato foam wasn’t just an often seen gimmick but added some base to the dish. Skin Salad: fried pork skin with baby vegetables in various forms. This was a smaller version of a related dish we also had at the last tasting menu at Blanca and was a nice showcase of the broad spectrum of cooking styles Chef Gavin is using – on one side the focus on unadulterated local produce where the taste of each vegetable is important and on the other side modern techniques as spherification to encapsulate a yogurt-chamomile mixture as part of the dish. A very strong dish for us by itself, and even though this dinner was pork themed we felt that although the fried pork skin was a nice idea which added some textural variety, it distracted too much from the rest of the dish. Dichotomy of the Pig Head: plan vs. impulse, conform vs. deviate, tradition vs. unknown….and sassafrass. The description of this dish on the menu was intriguing but left many possibilities on what to expect. The dish turned out to be a mélange of different preparations of parts of pig head. Sous-vide cooked torchon of head meat which was reminiscent of good headcheese. In red wine braised cheek which was very tender and had a mild flavor. Excellent smoked tongue and, as a highlight between many good preparations, pickled and fried pig ear which was much more tender and flavorful than any pig ear preparation we had before. Blood and Flowers: pork trotter, blood, cocoa, nasturtium. The pork trotter as a deep-fried gelantinous preparation reminded us of a similar presentation at Osteria Mozza in Los Angeles. The two different sauces alone had very different characteristics – the nasturtium sauce had some spiciness whereas the cocoa-pork blood sauce presented some minerality and depth. Both sauces alone didn’t really work with the pork trotter but once you mixed them they were a perfect match for the richness of the trotters. Chowder: Pancetta and potato broth, various clams, jowl and razor clam “ravioli”. Another nice example of using modern techniques to enhance a dish – Chef Gavin created the ravioli by encapsulating a razor clam between two pieces of pork jowl using transglutaminase, also known as meat glue. This dish had as a foundation an outstanding pancetta and potato broth where one clearly could taste both main ingredients. The different clams, ravioli and potatoes added some additional layers of flavors without overpowering each other – a very strong dish. Surf and Turf: seared rock cod, pork cider jus, pork belly, apple Perfectly seared rock cod with moist flesh and very crispy skin was paired with sous-vide cooked tender pork belly. The cider jus added some slight sweetness to balance the richness of the pork belly. Grilled Pork Chop: Brassicas, parmesan, picholine vinaigrette Very flavorful pork chop which was tender and had the right amount of fat to make it flavorful. This dish showed once more Chef Gavin’s ability to work with vegetables and make them an integral part of a dish. The smoked cauliflower with parmesan puree and the different brassicas stole the show of this dish and were good just by themselves. Dumpling: braised hock, foie gras, truffle dashi It’s always a good sign if in restaurant a dish is presented in a covered bowl. Normally one can expect a strongly fragrant dish and this time was no exception. Once the lids were removed a wonderful smell of truffles pervaded the dining room at Blanca. The shaved black truffle and truffled dashi were perfectly accompanied by foie gras and a braised hock dumpling - another highlight in an astonishing tasting menu. A Day on the Farm: soil, seed, sprout, root, flower This dish is most likely the most written about creation from Blanca and kind of the signature dish of Chef Gavin. For this dish the chef came into the room presenting a whole roasted pork shoulder. It was than carved tableside and laid atop the other components of the dish – a wide array of vegetables and flowers as well as some “soil” made out of among other things ground cocoa nibs. The roasted pork shoulder and the vegetables were excellent and we liked the conceptional idea of the soil but thought that the dish contained too much of it and that its flavor distracted from those of the meat and the vegetables. Pumpkin Pie 2011: Tahitian squash frozen meringue, bacon brittle, spiced chichacones, maple ice cream. A fall/winter inspired dessert with a very light squash based meringue as the foundation of the “pumpkin pie”. The five-spiced chicharrones and the bacon brittle added some salti- and spiciness to the dish as well as textural variety. The maple ice cream completed the pie with some sweetness. Mignardises: Blood Orange Truffles In a pig centered tasting menu even the mignardises have to include parts of the pig. Here the truffles not only contained orange, cocoa and chocolate but also some pork blood which added a hint of minerality to this fitting end of the night. After our excellent first tasting menu we came with high expectations to Blanca and were hoping for a continuation of this experience. But already the first plates of the canapés ensured us that we would be part of a memorable night. This tasting menu enforced our impression of Gavin as a chef who has the confidence and experience to develop his own style but at the same time adapt it to his surroundings. His dishes combine all kinds of modern and classic techniques but also involve ingredients special to this area. It was also very nice and helpful that he took the time to explain all of his dishes before they were served. Something, which is of course impossible under normal circumstances, but would be a great addition to any tasting menu. The great experience didn’t end at the kitchen but everybody made sure that we had a smooth dinner – Seth provided us with a good and balanced wine pairing, explaining each wine and his thoughts for the choices. The service was flawless and we never felt rushed. At least as important as the food for us was the opportunity to meet some of the people we knew from discussion boards. It’s nice to meet others in the virtual world but in the end it only allows for very limited interaction and so it was interesting to see the people behind names like SDGourmand, Dining Diva, stevuchan, Shouzen and karaethon. Everybody at this dinner felt that this shouldn’t be just a one-time event. As part of this initiative a new San Diego / South California message board (“The Communal Table”) was created which not only should help to facilitate such dinners but also initiate a more open discussion between all parts of the dining experience, e.g. chefs, guests, and waiters.

Which upcoming Ruhlman/Polcyn book ?

Full review and photos: One Market Restaurant One Market (San Francisco) – Thanksgiving Dinner 2010 There are many different holidays in the Western world which are celebrated in all countries like Christmas or Easter but there are certain holidays which are very specific for each country. Often these holidays are related to the founding of a country like Independence Day in the US, Bastille Day in France or the Day of German Unity. The day which represents for us from a foodie perspective the most specific American celebration of gathering and food was always Thanksgiving. There are remotely related holidays in Europe like Erntedankfest in Germany but those celebrations are much more based on a religious background and are often only celebrated in scattered areas. When we moved to the US Thanksgiving was for the first few years always an international potluck we celebrated with many coworkers from all over the world at the research institute we worked at that time. In the last few years we often used the Thanksgiving break for a short foodie trip to Las Vegas but this year Thanksgiving was for us the starting day of a longer trip to the Bay Area and the wine country. We never really had problems to find a good restaurant in Las Vegas on Thanksgiving but it turned out to be surprisingly challenging to find something suitable in San Francisco. Either many restaurants we were interested in weren’t open for Thanksgiving or they were open but had very boring and vastly overpriced special menus. After many phone calls and emails with different restaurants we finally settled on One Market for our Thanksgiving Dinner. One Market is the best known restaurant of the Lark Creek Restaurant Group. The Lark Creek Restaurant Group was founded by Chef Bradley Ogden and business partner Michael Dellar in 1989. Bradley Ogden has over the years established himself as a well respected chef in the culinary world and was critical in setting up all twelve restaurant of the Lark Creek Restaurant Group throughout California and Las Vegas with several more planned in the near future. Even though Bradley Ogden was the founding chef of One Market in 1993 since then a number of executive chefs have followed him with Mark Dommen at the helm for the last six years. Chef Dommen started his culinary education at the California Culinary Academy before honing his skills and moving up the ranks by working for many exceptional chefs like Hubert Keller (Fleur de Lys), Gary Kunz (Lespinasse) and Jean-Louis Palladin (Palladin). He was also opening chef of Julia’s Kitchen in Napa before joining One Market. One Market restaurant is located across the Ferry Building in one of the large buildings which house banks and investment firms. The restaurant is on the first floor and has windows all-around which gives the place an open feeling. When we arrived at One Market the place was extremely crowded in the entrance and it soon became clear that they were about 20-30 minutes behind their schedule. They have a small bar area to the right where most people waited for their table. The dining area has two levels. We were seated on the lower level and even though the tables are relatively close to each other the restaurant didn’t feel too overcrowded. We started the night with two cocktails. No Partridge – Hangar One spiced pear vodka, Orchard pear liqueur, Domaine de canton ginger liqueur. Pleasantly fruity cocktail with nice pear flavor which got a nice kick from the ginger liqueur. The drink had a nice balance between alcohol and fruitiness. Hot Apple Pie – Tuaca, mulled apple cider, cinnamon whipped cream. The warm cocktail was perfect for this cold night and was indeed reminiscent of an apple pie. The vanilla liqueur paired nicely with the apple cider. The bread was an epi-style bread which reminded us on the bread you get at the different Bouchon restaurants. A simple but very fresh bread. Amuse Bouche: Duck liver mousse, quinoa tabbouleh, pickled cauliflowers and carrots. The menu just mentioned an amuse bouche to start the dinner but our waiter brought a rather large plate of a few different appetizers – a light version of tabbouleh with quinoa instead of the normal bulgur which gave it a more nutty flavor, pickled cauliflowers and carrots which weren’t overly sour like many pickled vegetables often tend to be and, as the highlight of the plate, a very creamy and smooth duck liver mousse. One often sees chicken liver mousse on restaurant menus but duck liver mousse seems to be much less popular which is surprising as this example shows a wonderfully rich and creamy version which has a nuanced livery taste and is perfectly accompanied by toasted bread. Course 1a: Golden lentil soup, vadouvan, yogurt cloud. This soup was made of pureed lentils so that it had a smooth and creamy consistency without the use of cream which made the soup very light and enjoyable. Vadouvan seems to be one of the current trendy spice mixes often used now by chefs and is a French version of an Indian curry by adding onions, shallots and garlic to classic Indian curry mixes. Since lentils are frequently used in French and Indian cooking the use of vadouvan was a clever way to bring these two worlds together. The addition of spinach and croutons gave the soup some color and textural variety. Course 1b: Red wine risotto, duck confit, gizzard, chicories Risotto cooked al dente can be some of the simplest but most satisfying dishes and this red wine risotto was no exception. The carnaroli rice had the right balance between creaminess and some toothiness from the firmer center. The red wine not only gave the dish an impressive bright color but together with some duck stock gave the dish a solid foundation. The duck confit, but even more importantly the duck gizzard, pronounced the duck flavor of the dish. The chicory completed the dish by adding some slight bitterness. Course 2a: Spit-roasted Berkshire pork loin, fennel, apple, potato puree, cider Pork often tends to be overly dry but Chef Dommen used spit-roasting to ensure a juicy cooked pork loin on the bone which also had fortunately not all fat trimmed of. The spit-roasting also gave the pork loin a flavorful crust. The creamy potato puree and sautéed apple-fennel mixture accompanied the meat fittingly to give a simple but expertly prepared dish. Course 2b: Roasted Willy Bird turkey, cornbread & applewood-smoked bacon stuffing, creamed spinach, shallot-thyme gravy What is Thanksgiving without turkey ? One Market presented a rather classical but very tasty version. Large pieces of moist, tender turkey meat, not overly dry cornbread stuffing with a strong bacon flavor, good gravy and some cranberry jam. The unexpected star of this good Thanksgiving dish was the creamed spinach – a perfect preparation with a pronounced garlic flavor. Course 3a: Valrhona chocolate soufflé cake, chocolate-banana ice cream, chocolate malt cream The souffle cake was light, well prepared and had a good balance between the sweetness and some bitterness from the chocolate. Even though the ice cream and the cream on top of the soufflé also had chocolate incorporated the dessert didn’t feel like chocolate overkill and overly sweet but was balanced. Course 3b: Triple layer pumpkin cheesecake, maple sugar pecans, egg nog ice cream Nice presentation of this fall dessert with rather subdued pumpkin flavor in the cheesecake. We normally are not big fans of egg nog but here the flavor wasn’t too dominant and went well together with the cheesecake. Surprisingly good espresso ended the night at One Market We came to One Market with low expectations - We had so much problems to find any interesting restaurant for Thanksgiving in San Francisco. Reviews were mixed and pointed more towards a meeting place for bankers and politicians. Thanksgiving, together with Valentine’s Day, is normally a day when you should avoid restaurants like the plague and when we arrived the restaurant was clearly overwhelmed by the rush of the customers. So we were quite worried when we waited for our table that the evening would become a disaster but it turned out to be quite an enjoyable dinner. The cooking style from Chef Dommen at One Market might not be the most innovative but it produces very solid dishes which had some surprising twists. It was refreshing to see that he used even at such a dinner where you would expect that he cooks for the lowest denominator some unusual ingredients as duck liver or gizzards. A special mention deserves the service at One Market. We normally prefer a very slow pacing but were expecting to be rushed at such circumstances but instead our server made sure from the very beginning that we had a relaxing night and ensured a slow progression of the dishes throughout the night. Even though he was responsible for many tables our server always recognized when we needed bread, water etc. One Market might not be a destination restaurant in San Francisco especially if you just come for a visit to the city. But if we would be living in San Francisco we would be interested to try more dishes at One Market. Especially the “Weekly Beast” from Chef Dommen where he offers whole animal menus with a strong emphasis on local ingredients sounds very interesting.

You are talking about Lotus of Siam. It is on East Sahara Avenue (and has now a Indian restaurant next door). Still one of the best Thai restaurants anywhere and always worth a trip. Another good restaurant of strip is Abriya Raku, a very good Japanese/Charcoal Grill restaurant.

Just came back from a two week foodie trip to SF (and Napa and Healdsburg) and had many very memorable nights, some highlights (often for very different reasons and sometimes it is hard to compare the restaurants) were French Laundry, La Folie, Incanto, Aziza, Scopa, Barndiva, Chez Panisse, Oenotri. Some of the disappointments were Dining Room at the Ritz Carlton and Cyrus

I looked through the McGee book recently in a bookshop and was quite disappointed. As much as I like his "On Food and Cooking" his new book is just a very dumped down version which hardly includes any interesting or new information if you haven't just started cooking for the first time.

Cooked kohlrabi shouldn't be too crunchy (but also not too soft) but more like good cooked carrots.

Do you remember how much you paid for the kaiseki menu at Raku ? We liked our dinners at Raku but a kaiseki menu would be even better.

This seems to be the best thread for my question. My wife and I have experience in cooking and baking (and a large cookbook library) but we never tried to work with chocolate. A lot of books were mentioned in this thread but which one would be the best for beginners to learn the techniques and get the first sets of basic and advanced recipes ?

Full review and photos: Wine Vault - Oktoberfest Dinner Wine Vault (San Diego) – Oktoberfest Dinner or finally an Oktoberfest we enjoyed Asking San Diegans what three things they associate most with Germany, many are likely to answer: cars, beer and Oktoberfest. We can agree with the first two items as parts of the image Germany has abroad, but to us Oktoberfest illustrates some of the worst stereotypes about Germany. If you ask Germans, especially outside of Bavaria, about Oktoberfest most of them will just shake their heads and couldn’t care less about it. Every time during Oktoberfest many television channels will air a few documentaries and interviews from Oktoberfest and it will remind everybody what Oktoberfest is about – to squeeze as much money out of visitors as possible, and for the visitors to wear strange clothes that no German would touch (except for Bavarians who are a little bit special in that regard), singing to the most horrible country music and to drink themselves senseless and act like complete idiots. So every time somebody asks us if we are interested to visit one of the Oktoberfest incarnations in San Diego we usually tell them that we prefer to pass. When we first heard about the Oktoberfest Dinner at Wine Vault we were initially skeptical what it was all about and if it would have any “features” of the original one but the more we looked into it the more we got interested. We liked and have visited Wine Vault several times and enjoyed the Chef’s five-course tasting menu on Saturdays with many interesting dishes and good wine pairings. The Oktoberfest dinner appeared to be an interesting variation on the Wine Vault tasting menus with a slight twist towards Oktoberfest influenced dishes with, most importantly, some good German beer. When we lived in Germany our preferred style of beers were mainly Pilsner and Hefeweizen. Both styles are the most popular beer styles throughout Germany. San Diego has become one of the beer capitols of the world but many breweries tend towards hoppy ales which was quite a change for us, and it took some time to adapt to it but by now we even often tend to prefer these ales over a Pilsner. But still we crave from time to time to have a nice Pilsner or Hefeweizen and so the Oktoberfest dinner was a perfect chance to combine great beer with good food. Wine Vault is located on India Street close by to Gelato Vero, Saffron and Shakespeare Pub in a rather nondescript building elevated from the street. Due to the hidden location a number of signs are placed close by. Wine Vault has two main seating areas – A covered patio which is very nice in the summer but can be a bit chilly later in the year. This time we were seated inside in the stretched main dining room. The interior is quite spartan with the wooden chairs and tables but not uncomfortable. The bread service was very good with what tasted like housemade bread. 1st Course: Knight’s salumi sausage, housemade pretzel, sauerkraut, whole grain mustard froth. Nice sausage from Knight salumi which was filled with Gouda cheese. The sausage was encased by a tasty dough even though it wasn’t the promised pretzel but reminded us more on what is called in Germany as a Stockbrot. The mustard froth was a nice idea to add some spicyness to the dish though it could have been more pronounced. The disappointment of the dish was the sauerkraut. Good sauerkraut should be very mild in taste, hardly sour and braised for a very long time. Unfortunately this version was what you get in most restaurants in the US - overly sour, not long enough braised and tasted like the stuff you get in glasses in the supermarket. The only really good sauerkraut we ever tasted in San Diego can be found at the Linkery. Paulaner Munich Lager: Classical lager with golden color and traditional light, hoppy finish. It paired nicely with the sausage without overpowering it. 2nd Course: “Clam Chowder”, braised bacon, marinated clams, celery, harissa oil, crispy sourdough. This was not a classical clam chowder and had a more intense, briny flavor but was at the same time much lighter. The base of the clam chowder was a homemade clam broth where the other ingredients were prepared separately and added just at the very end. The harissa oil gave a subtle spicyness to the dish. Paulaner Pilsner: Overall a quite similar beer to the lager before but with a stronger hoppy finish. The beer had a crisp and dry flavor which went along nicely with the clam broth. 3rd Course: Confit of prawns, brandade cake, brussels sprouts, preserved lemon, wild arugula. Perfectly tender prawns with a sweet, fresh taste paired with brussels sprouts and brandade cake. The brussels sprouts were finely chopped after the cooking which eliminated their inherent bitterness and resulted in smooth and mild texture. The brandade, a mixture of salt cod, olive oil and potatoes was a fitting starchy foundation of the dish but the salt cod could have been more pronounced as it was hardly detectable. The lemon flavor was a good link to the paired beer. Paulaner Hefe-Weizen: Classic Bavarian wheat beer with a crisp but also fruity taste. Wheat beers are often drunk with some drops of freshly sequeezed lemon which was replaced here by the preserved lemon of the dish. 4th Course: Roasted pork belly, olive oil potato puree, green apples, micro chives. Pork belly is very popular in Germany so it is not unlikely to find such a dish on Oktoberfest. The pork belly was roasted and had a similar consistency to braised pork belly. The meat was sprinkled with sea salt which made some bites too salty. The richness of the pork belly was counterbalanced by some fruitiness of the apples – presented as apple slices and apple puree. The use of olive oil instead of butter for the potato puree intensified this fruitiness and also resulted in a smoother puree. Paulaner Oktoberfest: Bavarian Maerzen style beer with a good balance between the sweetness of malt and the bitterness of the hops. This meat course required a stronger tasting beer which could stand up against the heftiness of the pork belly. 5th Course: Braised short ribs, soubise, crushed potatoes, braised mustard greens, gremolata. Rather classical dish of fork tender meat with braised greens and potatoes. What set this dish apart was the use of soubise,a bechamel based sauce with pureed onions, and gremolata. Both added some variety to the dish by the sweetness of the onions and the tartness of the lemon in the gremolata. Paulaner Salvator Double Bock: Very rich, malty beer with some chocolaty aftertaste. The boldest beer of the night was fittingly paired with the last meat course and had no problem to hold up against the different flavors of the dish. Dessert: Housemade Valrhona chocolate truffles. The regular dinner didn’t include any dessert but we wanted to end the night with a sweet finish and ordered some of their homemade chocolate truffles. The truffles tasted homemade as they had a good balance between the different filling and the chocolate without overpowering each other. The five truffles had fillings of Whiskey, peanut, ginger, Grand Marnier and hazelnut. We had many good meals at Wine Vault before and this Oktoberfest dinner was no exception. Wine Vault has found its niche of bistro-style food with sprinkles of fine dining creativity and a strong emphasis on paired tasting menus. The kitchen consistently showcases high quality dishes, with the only exception of the underwhelming sauerkraut that night, using interesting flavor combinations. Their wine pairings are often thoughtful and we particularly liked the beer pairings during the Oktoberfest dinner. The service was less personal than normal but that was understandable as much more coordination is necessary to serve the same course to a fully occupied restaurant at the same time. The only major complain for us was that Wine Vault didn’t replace any glasses between the courses. Even though the beers progressed throughout the nights towards stronger tasting ones we still could taste the previous beers. For a restaurant that is strongly focused on wine/beer pairings it should be obvious to provide the best way to enjoy such pairings. A nice add-on to the dinner were the introductory explanation of Chad Heath from Stone Brewery before each course. Stone Brewery is one of the importers of Paulaner beer in the US and it was enjoyable to get some more information about each paired beer from him. Overall the Oktoberfest dinner not only supported our notion that Wine Vault is a good place for a relaxing, interesting dinner in San Diego but perhaps even more importantly that it is worth looking more often after these special wine/beer dinners at some of our favorite restaurants as they often provide a great opportunity for a unique night. After our recent Fort Rose winery dinner at Café Chloe this Oktoberfest dinner was another great example.

German Pancakes with Homemade Raspberry Fruit Quark German pancakes are less fluffy than their American counterparts because no baking powder is used. They are closer to French Crepes in taste but have a thicker consistency.

Why is it annoying to you if somebody takes a picture of his/her food at a table far away from your own (as long as they don't use flash which hardly ever happens anyway)

Full review and photos: Blanca Blanca – Seven Course Tasting Menu or Cooking Dangerously Creative When we go out to eat we are very open in the choice of the restaurant. It can be an ethnic restaurant with a strong focus on authentic food, a bistro-style place with variations on classic dishes or an innovative high-end restaurant – in the end it is all about good or bad food which distinguishes a restaurant. But like everybody else we have our own preferred styles of restaurants which we are specifically seeking out. Restaurants which get us excited are often using creative and unique flavor combinations which go far beyond just some twists on conventional dishes. They tend to use unusual ingredients and techniques to accomplish it. These chefs have a very special way to express their thoughts on food and ingredients, and it is a stimulating process for us to try to understand what they want to express with their creation – it is “food for thoughts”. Bistro LQ in Los Angeles is a prime example of such a restaurant and has been one of our favorites since our first visit there briefly after they opened about a year ago. Unfortunately we haven’t had many opportunities so far to experience such Chefs or restaurants of this specific style in San Diego. Only a few special tasting menus at Better Half Bistro and at Blanca under Chef Jason Neroni left us with lasting impressions as restaurants which go far beyond the usual mainstream. But going beyond the mainstream also often means that you take the risk of losing your customers, and this is not only true for San Diego but even for LA in some instances. When we had the chance to talk with Chef Neroni during our tasting menu at Blanca last December, he already sounded quite disillusioned and so it wasn’t a big surprise that he left Blanca after only a few months. His final comment that “The running joke other chefs told me was that all San Diegans want is fish tacos. It was funny for a moment, and then it got annoying because it was true.” might be too much of a generalization but it also contains some truth. After this short stay from Jason Neroni and the underappreciation of such a creative cooking style in San Diego, we expected Blanca to become more conservative in their choice of the next Executive Chef. We were quite surprised when after a few weeks Blanca announced to appoint Gavin Schmidt. He has an impressive resume mainly focused around San Francisco. Besides Sous Chef positions at Aqua and Fifth Floor Chef Schmidt really made an impact as Executive Chef at Campton Place Restaurant and Chef de Cuisine at Coi. Both restaurants are known far beyond San Francisco as very creative and ambitious restaurants, and are much closer to the cooking style of Jason Neroni than we had anticipated. So we were really curious to check out Blanca and find out how much he might adapt his cooking style to “fit in”. The recent addition of the seven course Chef’s tasting menu at Blanca was a good opportunity for this. Blanca is located in Solana Beach in one of the small shopping malls along the Pacific Highway. If you don’t really know where to look it is relatively easy to overlook the nondescript building. Their distinctive sign “b” is found outside and even after you are seated. The restaurant is separated into two parts – a bar/lounge area and the dining room. The dining room is surprisingly small with a number of cozy booths on two sides. The interior is an interesting mix of subdued elegance with some interesting lamps which reminded us of those used on older ships. The bread was freshly baked at the restaurant and was one of the best bread services we had in San Diego. We liked the presentation of the butter on the block of steel which was slightly warm to give the butter the right consistency. Amuse Bouche: Sea urchin, smoked avocado panna cotta, geoduck, apple, cucumber dashi vinaigrette. Over the last few years we have come to love sea urchin with its characteristic taste of the ocean. Its delicate flavor can easily get lost if not carefully paired. Chef Schmidt chose the right combination by focusing this dish on smoked avocado and sea urchin which complemented each other nicely without overpowering. The apple and geoduck gave the dish some textural variety. The vinaigrette helped to emphasize the “fresh sea” character of the amuse bouche. A very strong start of the tasting menu with more creativity than some other restaurants have on their whole menu. 1st Course: Local vegetable composition, encapsulated caramel joghurt. Every restaurant talks about the importance of farm fresh food but this dish might be one of the best representations of what it really means by focusing solely on the ingredients. An impressive combination of 14-15 different examples of local produce. Some from well-known local farms, some from the restaurants own garden, some of them collected by the Chef himself who is known for his interest in foraging. Each bite was an experience of a different variation of incredible produce. But this dish also showed the Chef’s ability to combine great ingredients with newer techniques such as spherification. The encapsulated caramel joghurt was a nice palate cleanser between the different bites of fresh produce. 2nd Course: Fennel apple soup, spot prawn sashimi, long pepper marshmallow. The fennel apple soup reminded us as a typical example of a fall soup. It had a nice balance between the apple and fennel in which one could clearly taste both with some basil in the background. The prawn sashimi gave some textural counterbalance. But what really set this soup apart was the marshmallow. Similar to the inclusion of fresh eggs that gives many dishes a characteristic taste/mouthfeel the marshmellow slowly started to melt and gave the soup a satisfying creaminess. 3rd Course: Dungeness crab, brown rice porridge, crab tempura, Vietnamese ram tempura, carrot lemongrass emulsion. The porridge reminded us with its creaminess of a risotto. The dish had a good amount of Dungeness crab and we liked the crunchiness of the tempura. Foams and emulsions often don’t add much to a dish and can end up as some kind of gimmick. Here the carrot lemongrass brought some freshness and slight sourness to the dish. It would have been nice to get a second portion of the dish… 4th Course: Black cod, Matsutake, pears, wild flowers. Perfectly seared black cod which was very moist. We liked the inclusion of pears which gave the dish some fruitiness. The wild flowers were another example of the Chef’s interest in foraging. 5th Course: Fried chicken and octopus, frying peppers, sesame, sassafras. Our waiter pronounced this dish as a fun dish and we were at first not sure if fried chicken and octopus would work together but even though both kinds of meat had their distinct flavors they weren’t so different and even the consistency was quite similar. This dish was also a good example of the Chef’s use of different sauces and foams, here based on sassafras and peppers, not just as a gimmick but to really bring a dish together and at the same time adding some uniqueness to it. 6th Course: Lamb loin roasted in hay, carrot, potato, wheatgrass. Another dish which reminded us somehow of fall. The lamb was cooked sous-vide and had a surprisingly distinct taste of hay. The meat was very tender and had despite the hay flavor still some slight gaminess left as you expect from lamb. The spiral of aerated wheatgrass sauce was not only a nice presentation but supported the hay aroma of the dish. Another very creative dish which we felt showed the Chef’s ability to bring some unexpected dimensions to a seemingly “familiar” dish. Intermezzo: Goat cheese semifreddo, melon granite, pink peppercorn meringue, fizzy melon, pineapple. We like goat cheese and we like ice cream and here we have a great combination of both together – goat cheese semifreddo. The goat cheese semifreddo had the typical slight sourness of goat cheese and was nicely accompanied by the fruitiness of the different variations of melon granite, fizzy melon and pineapple. We also liked the presentation using the same block of steel as for the butter but now frozen. 7th Course: Chocolate truffle cake, bourbon caramel, ginger ice cream. The chocolate truffle cake had a very strong chocolate flavor but wasn’t overly dense. We really liked the ginger ice cream with its spiciness which helped to cut through the sweetness of the cake and the caramel sauce. Mignardise: Coconut and coffee pralines. Nice way to end the tasting menu and like all dishes before it was of high quality and very tasty. We went to Blanca without really knowing what to expect. Somehow we were expecting that based on the low acceptance of the cooking style from Jason Neroni in San Diego, Blanca would push Gavin Schmidt towards a more mainstream approach covering just well established classic dishes. We couldn’t have been more wrong. Even though the cooking style of Chef Schmidt is different and more playful than the one from Jason Neroni, who prefers bolder flavors, both seem to try to push boundaries of creative and ambitious cooking in San Diego. Starting from the professional service which made it possible to have a relaxing, slow paced night to the outstanding kitchen Blanca presented for us where we would like to see restaurants in San Diego develop – creative cooking which is not afraid to explore unusual ingredients and flavor combination, utilizing all types of techniques but at the same time having a San Diego edge by using what this city (and California) stands for – some of the best and freshest produce and ingredients one can find anywhere. We really would like to see that more chefs in San Diego would be willing to take some more risks and not just cook for the lowest denominator. The restaurant business is of course very risky and nobody expects that chefs would suddenly completely change their menus but it would be very encouraging to see if organizations such as Cooks Confab, Chef Celebration or Slow Food would use their (media) influence to try to educate the customers more hat good food can be so much more than the next variation on short ribs, roasted chicken, steak or burgers. But at the same time it was not very encouraging to see that Blanca was never more than half occupied during a Saturday night, and it very much reminded us of our tasting menu with Jason Neroni. Hopefully we will have the chance to follow Chef Schmidt vision of cooking in San Diego, and this first visit was just a first glimpse of what we can expect in the future.

Marche Modern (Costa Mesa) has very good French inspired food on the same quality level as the better places in LA. Pizzeria Ortica has very good Neapolitan style pizza. Kean Coffee (Newport Beach) (former owner of Diedrich Coffee) is the best place for serious coffee.

Nice. How do you go about celery root creme ? Nothing fancy. Just steam cleaned, cut celery root for 15 minutes, make bechamel sauce, than use immersion blender to incorporate celery root into bechamel sauce.

A bit OT and not talking specifically about the authors but being an accomplished scientists in one field doesn't mean anybody is an accomplished (or even reasonable) scientist in any other field of science. And even more OT, you are aware of how patents and the USPTO/WIPO work and that having a patent doesn't mean anything about the quality of the science behind it. The USPTO has nothing to do with peer-review but just evaluating novelty, non-obviousness etc.

According to the San Diego County Farm Bureau San Diego had in 2009 more than 6680(!) farms with most of them between just 1-9 acres which is more than any other county in the US. San Diego County is also the largest community of organic growers in the nation with 374 organic farms. So there are a lot of good sources yearround for excellent produce which we like to use often. Recently we made a ratatouille lasagna with celery root creme. All main ingredients beside the pasta and Parmesan cheese were grown locally or at least came from somewhere in California.

We followed the basic recipe from Ricki Carroll's "Home Cheesemaking" and used the direct-set Fromage Blanc starter. Overall we liked the slightly sour taste of the fromage blanc. One of the ingredients we really miss from Germany is good "Quark". There is some quark commercially available in the US but it tastes lousy. So it was time to make our own which tasted actually better and fresher than most of the quark you will get in Germany. It's very versatile - you can eat it with salt and pepper on bread, mix it with fresh fruits, mix it with jam and use it as a crepe filling or use it for quiche dough.