The Primatology of BBQ

"Foodie Friday" returns (a little late in the afternoon) with something mouth-watering.

The first week of April brought Fosco's friend Todd on his annual pilgrimage to the Bay Area. You may not know that, in recent years, Todd has become something of a BBQ expert. Because of his travels around this country (and a group of very food-obsessed friends), Todd pretty much has recommendations for good BBQ in almost any major American city. I never travel without asking Todd if there is a good BBQ place to visit at my destination. Todd was particularly excited this visit, as he finally had a lead on some good Bay Area BBQ. And so we drove to the small town of Pacifica, just south of San Francisco along the coast, to find Gorilla BBQ.

Gorilla BBQ turns out to be notable for several reasons. First off, there is its location in a bright-orange boxcar. Second, there is its theme song (listen to it at the website). Third, there is the fact that the owners spent $26,000 on a smoker. Fourth, the place recently appeared on punk bear Guy Fieri's "Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives" on Food Network. And perhaps most interesting: one of the co-owners has the words "PORK" and "RIBS" tattooed on his knuckles. Indeed!

Let's check out the setup. This is boxcar (and over that hill is the ocean--that's Highway 1 right there).


The sign is perhaps slightly misleading, as I have yet to see much smoke coming from the place. Too much smoke is probably against local environmental restrictions anyway.



This is Jeff, one of the co-owners (and apparently the primary chef). Notice all of the monkey tchotchkes on the counter.


This is Rich (aka "Gorilla"). He's the one with the tattooed knuckles. He takes the orders.


As you can see, there isn't much space in the boxcar to run the whole operation. Of course, it's takeout only.


So let's talk about the food. The menu features the standard smoked meats: pork ribs, chicken, beef brisket, pulled pork, hot links. There are traditional sides (mac and cheese, red beans and rice, corn muffins, potato salad) and NorCal-inspired sides (portabello mushrooms, grilled eggplant). When Oz and I went with Todd, I opted for the three meat combo: brisket, pulled pork, and hot links. It came in two containers: one for the meat, one for the sides. Plus sauce on the side. Here's the meat:


The pulled pork is fine. The hot links are spicily delicious. The brisket is EXTRAORDINARY--crusty, smoky, tender, cut-able with a spork (yes, a spork is what they provide you to eat with...). The BBQ sauce (appropriately served on the side) is tart and wonderful--best I've had outside a hundred-mile radius of Memphis. One thing I liked: the attention to the sides, which were pretty much all delicious. The Mac N Cheese is absolutely awesome, and the corn muffins are the Platonic ideal of corn muffins--best I've EVER had. Seriously.

Oz and I were smitten and we returned the next week (with Todd in our memories...). This time, we concentrated all of our attention on the brisket and mac n cheese:



At this point, I am absolutely obsessed with this brisket. Apparently, however, I am not alone. This was the line at 11:45 on Saturday (for the opening at noon):


Sure, it may have taken half an hour to get to the counter. But it was worth it. Brisket!

Of course, Gorilla may not compete with the best of Memphis (or Texas and North Carolina, for that matter), but I suspect it's the best in Northern California--and that's not too shabby. If you are ever within 50 miles of this place, it is worth a trip.

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Rounding Up Food, Because Why Not?

Even though it's the first week of a new academic quarter... And even though Fosco is still groggy from Wednesday night's Springsteen concert... "Foodie Friday" must go off without a hitch. But it may be a bit uninspired...

Forgive me for doing a "roundup" post today. However, there are some things about food that you should know:

• Fosco's delightful college roommate Jeremy is currently in Hong Kong, eating better than anyone could imagine. He has recently discovered some fascinating fruits that Fosco has never heard of. While the langsat sounds appealing (because it is a member of the soapberry family, after all), the sugar-apple sounds best to Fosco. How can you go wrong with a fruit that, as Jeremy describes it, tastes like
  

  a milky, sweet egg custard or ice cream. Eat it cold. Beware its high sugar content, and be prepared to have sticky fingers for a while even after washing.

  Beware the high sugar content? Not in this lifetime.
  
  This makes me wonder why Americans are so stuck on the same old fruits. There are only like seven fruits that appear regularly at the supermarket and in restaurants. While Fosco has nothing against the lowly apple or the stolid banana, wouldn't you like to eat more fruit that tastes like "milky, sweet egg custard"? And how can you resist eating something that is called a "soapberry"? I don't know--I guess Fosco just has a thing for Asian fruits.
  
  
• The redoubtable Maggie offers this excellent meditation on Mark Bittman's Food Matters. From her description of the book, I'm actually quite fascinated by Bittman's argument. As I understand it, he suggests a non-dogmatic way to eat healthier and more eco-consciously (while still reserving plenty of room for delicious things like meat). As Maggie glosses it:
  

  To improve your body, you have to improve your diet, which means long-lasting change, not just abstaining from sugar until your next weigh in. Bittmans' approach is interesting - essentially you bulk up on the veggies and plant matter, remaining vegan (or so) until dinner, when you can eat as you will.

  As someone who is habitually struggling with his weight, Fosco finds this idea to be pretty appealing. Imagine feeling virtuous about yourself and the planet for most of the day and then enjoying a normal meal in the evening (although as Fosco noted last week, "normal" no longer includes fast-food). I think I need to pick up this book. (Once again, Maggie tells me what to read!)
  
  
• Some San Francisco-related food news. First, the (soon-to-be-history?) Chronicle reviews Absinthe, the restaurant of "Top Chef" contestant Jamie Lauren. You remember her: she's the lesbian who always cooked scallops. Strangely enough, the Chronicle found Lauren's scallops to be completely repulsive:
  

  When the scallop dish was placed before us I thought someone had an accident and tried to reshape the presentation because the sunchoke puree was smeared and the four quarter-size grilled scallops were unevenly spaced around a pile of wilted chard, fennel and artichokes. There was a glaze over everything that reminded me of leftovers from a photo shoot. It unfortunately tasted like that too. The scallops didn't even pretend to be warm and the vegetables tasted tired.

  Yuck. Even though a few other dishes were fine, on the whole, this was not a good review. Sorry, Team Rainbow.
  
  Second, the extraordinary No Salad As A Meal has reviewed Charles Phan's new Chinese restaurant in SF. You may know that Phan is the culinary wizard behind Fosco's beloved Slanted Door. The review is kind of lukewarm about the new place, but Fosco would much prefer to focus his attention on the name of Phan's new restaurant: Heaven's Dog. Is it me, or is this a terrible name for a Chinese restaurant? (Although it is better than the name Fosco misremembered when he told this story to David: "Dog Heaven.") After all, "Heaven's Dog" sounds like nothing so much as the name of something on a Chinese menu (in China at least).
  
  
• Thanks to the BeeMaster for this tip: a Grand Rapids, Michigan minor-league baseball team is offering a 4,800 calorie burger. Yes, that's the geographical region of Fosco's early life--is it any wonder that Fosco's genes and eating habits have conspired to produce a tendency toward heaviness? But back to this burger:
  

  The 4-pound, $20 burger features five beef patties, five slices of cheese, nearly a cup of chili and liberal doses of salsa and corn chips, all on an 8-inch sesame-seed bun. That's a lot of dough!
  
  The Grand Rapids Press reports that anyone who eats the entire 4,800-calorie behemoth in one sitting will receive a special T-shirt. Saner fans can divide it up with a pizza cutter and share.

  Umm, sign me up? Sure, eating one would probably mean certain and immediate death, but... wow. Just wow.
  
  Wait until you see what it looks like:
  
  
  Of course, Mark Bittman would be appalled by this burger for several different reasons. But even recognizing that it's probably edible evil, aren't you just a little in awe of it? I mean, haven't you ever thought what it might be like to eat something like this? I just can't look away. But, does it need a warning label?

Lunch with David

"Foodie Friday" is the name of the game today.

Last weekend, Fosco's well-connected and entertaining college roommate David was in town for a brief spring vacation. David and I were able to have a lazy lunch on Friday at San Francisco culinary fixture, The Slanted Door. As you may recall, Fosco is a fan of Charles Phan's local/organic Vietnamese; however, dining at the flagship (as opposed to one of the much cheaper Out the Door takeout spots) is a treat that Fosco generally reserves for special occasions (like his birthday last year, when Oz took him to Slanted Door for dinner).

Slanted Door is an excellent place to take an out-of-town guest. The dining room (as seen above) may be understated and casual, but the real attraction is the floor-to-ceiling views of SF Bay, the Bay Bridge, and Yerba Buena Island (view at right). There is probably no better restaurant view in the city, especially on a sunny day. Add an appealingly casual waitstaff (t-shirted with many tats and pierces), and you have a laid back atmosphere where you can pay attention to the important things in life: visual and gustatory pleasure.

At midday, neither David nor Fosco felt like a cocktail. However, David was intrigued by the appearance of the adjective "biodynamic" attached to the (non-alcoholic) Elderflower spritzer on the beverage menu. Our waiter was only too happy to explain that "biodynamic" refers to a specific organic agricultural method developed in the nineteenth century by Rudolf Steiner. As the waiter explained, it involves treating the farm like a completely closed system. Or something like that. The waiter also noted that "biodynamic" has "metaphysical and astrological connotations," but (thankfully) he declined to elaborate. An organic spritzer with astrological/metaphysical properties? Welcome to San Francisco, David! Actually, both David and I ordered the Elderflower spritzer and it was quite enjoyable (I tasted citrus, David tasted lychee).

Ever since Fosco's birthday dinner with Oz last summer, Fosco has been obsessed with Slanted Door's yellowtail sashimi. It is absolutely exquisite. It comes topped with crispy shallots (like high-end french-fried onions) and Thai basil. I can say without exaggeration that it is a true metaphysical and astrological experience. So of course David and I ordered it. Isn't it gorgeous?

I could eat it once a day. At least.

Slanted Door is family-style and the rest of our meal was a bricolage of yummy Vietnamese specialties, including

• honey-hoisin pork shortribs (accompanied by extremely hot towels for washing your fingers after)
  
• Fosco's favorite green papaya salad (which he's discussed before)
  
• the shaking beef--made with tender filet mignon
  
• sadly, some very forgettable noodles--why aren't the noodles at Slanted Door better?

Other than the shaking beef, Fosco thinks the best strategy at Slanted Door is, as recommended by No Salad As A Meal, an entire meal of appetizers. Damn, those honey-hoisin ribs were good.

Because it was a special occasion, desserts were ordered. We had beignets with a cinnamon sabayon (are doughnuts ever bad?) and the intriguing "black cardamom tapioca, kumquat geleé, black cardamom pudding and tapioca." Fosco is a big fan of cardamom (even for dessert) and this pudding did not disappoint. It was surprisingly elegant, actually.

After lunch, because Slanted Door is in the gourmet mecca of the Ferry Building (seen above), Fosco and David dropped by Michael Recchiuti for some boutique chocolates. Fosco's loves Recchiuti's rose caramels and bergamot chocolates. Mmmmmmm...

As we left the Ferry Building, the lunchtime line for high-end burger palace Taylor's Automatic Refresher was getting a bit out of hand:

Alas, we had no room for garlic fries.

[Several of these photos (guess which?) were taken by David himself.]

Sweet, sweet honey

Posting will be a little light for the next few days, as Fosco deals with a confluence of work (paper draft due) and play (a visit from David!). Even so, today remains "Foodie Friday."

Good news for New York City Filipinos: Jollibee is in town! Buzz, buzz!

For all you white readers, Jollibee is a Filipino fast-food chain, occasionally described as the "Filipino McDonalds." Fosco has been told that Jollibee franchises are on almost every corner in Manila. There are also a number of locations in California. And now, finally, there is one in Queens, as reviewed by the New York Times.

Two summers ago, a branch opened in San Francisco and Fosco and Oz went to try it. Full disclosure: Oz is Filipino, Fosco is white--neither of us had tried Jollibee before.

The Jollibee menu is a bit odd (and not exactly "familiar to anyone who’s passed under the golden arches" as the Times review claims). There are basically four main types of food you can get at Jollibee:

• burgers (called "Yumburgers")
  
• fried chicken (called "ChickenJoy")
  
• hot dog spaghetti in a sweet sauce (called "Spaghetti")
  
• palabok, intriguingly called "Palabok Fiesta."

You can see a sample of the San Francisco menu below:

When Fosco and Oz went, the place was pretty crowded: Fosco had never seen so many Filipinos in San Francisco (apparently they all hang out at Jollibee). Because Oz is completely uninterested in Filipino food, he ordered a burger. Because Fosco is a well-meaning white man who wants to experience authentic cultural difference, he ordered the Palabok Fiesta. When we sat down, Fosco noticed that the only other white person in the restaurant was also eating the Palabok; all of the Filipinos were eating the ChickenJoy, natch.

And how was the food? Well, the burgers were bad. The Palabok was fine, but nothing I would rush to order again. Here's what it looked like:

Months later, Oz's Aunt M explained to us that the only good thing on the menu is the ChickenJoy. We should have known.

In conclusion, probably the best thing about Jollibee is its mascot. But look out, the mascots have been known to swarm!

Save me, BeeMaster!

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Rounding Up Food, Again

"Foodie Friday" continues at Fosco Lives!

Here's a roundup of some very cool foodie things for the week:

• Fosco has been in love with kolaches for years, ever since Todd's remarkable parents introduced him to them. They buy them every so often at some ethnic bakery (Czech would make the most sense, but I don't think it's actually a Czech bakery) near St. Joseph, Michigan. In Fosco's experience, kolaches are kind of like heavy cookies with fruit filling and thick sugar glaze (like a crust, almost). I think Todd's parents normally get apricot and raspberry--both are good.
  
  UPDATE: Check the Comments section below for more information on this West Michigan bakery. It turns out that I was almost entirely wrong about everything. (What else is new...)
  
  Well, in this month's Gourmet, there is a feature article on kolaches! Apparently, the kolache capital of this country is central Texas(!), where the descendants of Czech settlers have created a kolache culture. Both the pictures and descriptions seem slightly different from the Western Michigan kolaches that Fosco is so fond of (these appear to be more like danishes), but they still look (and sound) amazing.
  
  But the best part? There is a chain of stores called The Kolache Factory (with locations all over the Midwest and Great Plains). Imagine--an entire factory dedicated to making kolaches! I am having "Willy Wonka" visions, yes I am. (Apparently, there is one in Austin. Hint, hint, John Mackey and AEJ.)
  
  
• I've mentioned before that I am now enthralled with Jean-Georges Vongerichten's blog. Well, recently J-G used his blog to announce two new innovations at his flagship restaurant in NYC:
  
  • the "select menu": a four-course meal of three signature dishes plus your choice of a dessert flight, all for $58. Even though the selected signature dishes are not quite as exciting as his frogs legs or black sea bass, this menu is an absolute steal at this price. This is a wonderful concession to a bad economy--thank you, J-G!
    
  • half glasses of wine: perfect for people like Fosco who like to taste a little wine, but who rarely want to finish a whole glass. As Jean-Georges notes:
    

    I noticed that people getting together at the bar would start with a glass of wine, and then be stuck in the awkward position of wanting to stay a little while longer, but not for another full glass. (Think first dates.) In the dining room, customers wanted to pair different wines with different courses, but didn’t want a full glass with each course. And colleagues who came in for lunch celebrations would want to order champagne, but a full glass is a bit much when you need to return to work. (In these times, it’s more important than ever to celebrate professional achievements.) Perhaps most importantly, I wanted diners who drove to my restaurants to drive home safely.

    I think this is brilliant, although I can't help but imagine the disdain the French will feel if they ever hear about it.
  
  
• Speaking of Jean-Georges, Mark Bittman explains a beet-roasting technique he learned from J-G himself. He also has an easy recipe for eating them:
  

  a dressing of walnuts, garlic and fresh orange juice. Note that all of these have some bitterness or acidity, which counter the sweetness of beets beautifully. To tame the garlic, I cook it quickly, along with the walnuts; toasting always makes nuts nuttier. This makes the purée smoother tasting as well.

  Fosco lurves beets and this sounds like a great preparation.
  
  
• You may know that the French Laundry (the best restaurant in the country) is located in the Napa Valley town of Yountville. Well, it turns out that, as Thomas Keller's restaurant empire grows, so do the ambitions of Yountville. As this article notes, Yountville is positioning itself to become the capital of Napa. As one resident suggests, Yountville is now the one stop that a person needs to make in Napa:
  

  "It's an experiential village — you can stay, eat, go to all these different restaurants, check out great art, enjoy the wine. It's what makes Times Square, Times Square. Yountville is the rural Times Square."

  Hmmm. An odd comparison, I think. Even so, Fosco is currently scheming a trip to Yountville; he'll keep you updated.
  
  
• Fosco's favorite Queen of Good Living, Jill of Stella's Roar, did some cooking and some mixology recently. Check out her amazing Gumbo YaYa and the filthily-named Black Snake Moan cocktail. I'm a little in awe of her lifestyle.

A Fusion Dream

I'm hungry. It must be "Foodie Friday."

In recent weeks, Fosco has learned a surprising amount about eating in Los Angeles (mostly via random TV shows like "Man v. Food"). But now, thanks to this NYT article, Fosco is finally convinced that he needs to go to there. And, upon arriving, to eat.

To understand Fosco's new sense of culinary urgency, you need only understand two word: KIMCHI TACOS.

Listen to this:

After obsessively checking the Twitter postings of the Korean taco maker to see where the truck will park next, they begin lining up — throngs of college students, club habitués, couples on dates and guys having conversations about spec scripts.

And they wait, sometimes well beyond an hour, all for the pleasure of spicy bites of pork, chicken or tofu soaked in red chili flake vinaigrette, short ribs doused in sesame-chili salsa roja or perhaps a blood sausage sautéed with kimchi, all of it wrapped in a soft taco shell.

The food at Kogi Korean BBQ-To-Go, the taco vendor that has overtaken Los Angeles, does not fit into any known culinary category. One man overheard on his cellphone as he waited in line on a recent night said it best: “It’s like this Korean Mexican fusion thing of crazy deliciousness.”

Which all sounds like a beautiful dream to Fosco. What a perfect fusion: street tacos + kimchi + food truck!

As far as Fosco is concerned, this is probably the best reason to travel to LA right now. Road trip?

Another Great Food Blog

On "Foodie Friday," you can eat fried chicken for breakfast even. Really.

Fosco continues to stumble across first-rate food blogs. Here's one for Bay Area readers: No Salad As A Meal. The photographs are beautiful (definitely John Mackey-quality). And while the reviews are SF-centric, you can still appreciate the restaurants vicariously.

Here's a great recent review: Thomas Keller's casual dining experience in Napa, Ad Hoc. Believe it or not, Ad Hoc offers FRIED CHICKEN NIGHT. Thomas Keller fried chicken? Um, as Liz Lemon would say: "I want to go to there."

N.B., while the above photo is of the buttermilk fried chicken(!) at Ad Hoc; it is NOT from No Salad As A Meal. Like I'm going to steal a pic from a blog in the same post that I recommend said blog? Trust me, the photos are much better at No Salad.

Breakfast for Dessert

Every meal can be breakfast on "Foodie Friday."

There it is, my friends: the French Laundry cinnamon-sugar doughnuts with cappuccino semifreddo. It's one of the signature desserts at Thomas Keller's Napa temple of gastronomy (read a wonderful blog review of the restaurant here). And it's also, according to this NY Times piece, the original inspiration for the culinary trend of breakfast-themed desserts.

The Times profiles several of the more interesting breakfast-inspired dessert options, including several of the offerings at David Chang's Momofuko Empire in NYC. Momofuku's pastry chef is Christina Tosi is known for her panna cotta made from cereal milk (you know, what's left in the bowl!). She also has some other tricks up her sleeves:

She is also developing a pancake cake, stacked pancake layers separated by cinnamon-bacon, maple syrup and brown butter fillings. At Momofuku Ko, she serves a sphere of guava sorbet with a cream-cheese skin: the flavors mirror classic Latin breakfast sweets.

As you may recall, Fosco used to belong to a pancake club... which means that "pancake cake" has now become his obsession.

And then there is molecular gastronomy. The craziest food science in the country is going on at Chicago's Moto and the desserts are no exception:

“Breakfast flavors are so familiar, and that makes them a great way to bring in unfamiliar textures and temperatures,” said Ben Roche, the pastry chef at Moto in Chicago, where he uses an ice-cold “cooking” surface and a syringe full of “batter” (a purée of pancakes, milk and maple syrup) to make a dessert called frozen flapjacks (the taste is like ice cream with concentrated essence of pancake.) Mr. Roche’s twist on coffee and doughnuts is a cup of hot doughnut soup (made from chopped glazed doughnuts steeped in milk) with a circle of coffee-flavored whipped cream. The whipped cream is sucked through a vacuum sealer to make it tall, puffy and firm enough to cut.

You can actually see these frozen pancakes being prepared in this clip:



And yes, you heard correctly: Moto executive chef Homaro Cantu works with NASA. This is truly an exciting time in the history of food!

Rounding Up the Food

It's "Foodie Friday," so let's talk about food...

Fosco isn't really feeling ambitious on "Foodie Friday" this week, so he's just going with a post of food-related titbits:

• Times food critic Frank Bruni reviewed The John Dory this week. The John Dory calls itself a "British Seafood Restaurant," which should make one ignore the whole thing. However, it is also the creation of a very serious chef, April Bloomfield, so we must take notice of it. Bruni gives the place two stars (which means "very good") and is generally enthusiastic. Fosco was stopped in his tracks by this paragraph:
  

  There are nervy surprises. For a while Ms. Bloomfield served pan-fried milt, which is basically cod semen, its flavor and texture not unlike that of sweetbreads. She blasted it with capers and butter, which is also how she blasts its replacement for the time being, monkfish liver, served not in the pâté-esque way of many Japanese restaurants but as a hulking, meaty, pan-fried lobe. I admire her immensely.

  That's right, my friends: cod semen. See above right.
  
  
• You know what Fosco has been craving lately? A cocktail. Which is strange, because Fosco hasn't been drinking much the last few years (since his body got old). But, for some reason, Fosco has really been jonesing for a Pimm's Cup, like the one he enjoyed last summer at The Slanted Door. It's actually more of a summer drink, best enjoyed around Wimbledon-time (it's an English cocktail, of course), which may explain why it does not currently appear on Slanted Door's online bar menu right now.
  
  The thing about a Pimm's Cup is that it's difficult to make it correctly here in this country (as most bars lack Pimm's). However, as Camper English notes, the Slanted Door makes a very delicious approximation using gin &c. The other ingredient generally lacking around here is borage leaves; however, as English notes as well, cucumbers work almost as well.
  
  Now assume that Fosco doesn't want to try to make his own Pimm's Cup (authentic or approximated). Any ideas on where I could order one in the Bay Area?
  
  
• Speaking of cocktails, did you see that you can now get Sweet Tea-flavored vodka? Now Fosco has been getting tea-infused liquors (especially gin) in his cocktails for a number of years now at several local bars, so this doesn't seem like much of an innovation. But I'm sure that this wider exposure of tea-infused vodka will be greeted with much rejoicing at certain SEC football games.
  
  
• A couple new blogs (well, new to me) that I'm really digging! You may recall Fosco's extraordinary interest in the cuisine of Jean-Georges Vongerichten. Well, it turns out that Jean-Georges has his own blog and it has absolutely gorgeous food pix.
  
  Also, if you're a silly Top Chef aficionado (like Fosco and Oz), you should be reading Skillet Doux. The Top Chef power rankings on that blog are pretty helpful. And there are also useful reviews of various Top Chef contestant restaurants.
  

Foie Gras Sale: Everything Must Go

"Foodie Friday" continues...

Welcome to the upside of the recession: good tables at good restaurants at good times at good prices.

According to this piece by Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni, NYC's fine restaurants are begging for your business (and yes, that is acclaimed chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten wearing a sandwich board printed with "You Won't Believe Our Deals!" How humbling...).

As Bruni notes,

Battered hard already by the recession and petrified of what’s to come, restaurants are talking sweet and reaching out in ways they didn’t six or even three months ago. They’re cutting special deals, adding little perks, relaxing demands and making an extra effort to be accessible.

They’ve seldom wanted you so bad, so they’ve rarely treated you so good. If you can still afford to dine out, you’re likely finding yourself enfolded in what the restaurateur Stephen Hanson— who recently closed two Manhattan restaurants, including Fiamma — describes as a big, tight embrace.

This embrace takes many forms: lower prix fixe prices, a more solicitous staff, cheap wine, prime reservation times. It's like Christmas for foodies (assuming you still have a job that will let you dine out). Well, and except for the part where lots of great restaurants are closing...

Fosco and Oz, intrepid boy reporters, plan to do some research on this phenomenon in San Francisco over the next month. We'll let you know what we discover.

Food of Tomorrow... Today!

Welcome to "Foodie Friday" here at Fosco Lives!

Let's kick some things off today with a bit of gastroporn--both professional and amateur. Fosco remains fascinated by the work that Grant Achatz does at his Chicago temple of molecular gastronomy, Alinea. Achatz was born in both the same year and the same state as Fosco, so he feels a natural connection with the star chef. At some point, you should read about Achatz's battle with tongue cancer--it's an amazing story.

Here are some professional pictures of Achatz's creations. One of his guiding principles is to create entirely new ways of tasting familiar flavors. This is "rhubarb."

And this is a "tomato" caterpillar:

And now here are three "amateur" photos of dishes that Fosco had on his visit to Alinea in December 2007. I don't know who took this (found it on image search; my own pic didn't really turn out), but the dish is called "Lamb in Cubism." There are two preparations of lamb plated onto colorful panes of sauce--each pane is a different sauce, focusing primarily on Mediterranean flavors (yogurt, mint, pomegranate, saffron, &c.). The idea is to mix and match.

The next two photos were taken by Fosco. This is a dish called "venison." Achatz is also very interested in the ways in which scents can impact flavor--so yes, that is an inedible juniper branch. Nestled inside the juniper is a super-heated river rock. On top of the river rock, a small venison roll is being seared. The roll contains marinated Japanese plum and is topped with candy cane shards. You eat it in one bite with chopsticks. (And in case you think this looks like too small a portion, recall that the Alinea tasting menu has something like twelve courses. Fosco was very full.)

This dish was one of the desserts. It's a tempura-battered fried pumpkin pie popsicle (frozen with liquid nitrogen) on a cinnamon stick that is set aflame (look at the tip).

And you see that Achatz custom-designed wire holder? They've been popping up at other restaurants recently (including Jean-Georges, where Fosco saw them last December). That's called influence.

Golden Delicious

"Foodie Friday" continues here at Fosco Lives!

This past week was the annual Bocuse d'Or competition in Lyon, France--a sort of "culinary Olympics" for the best French-style chefs in the world. The competition is named for legendary French chef Paul Bocuse, who with typical Gallic modesty, also lends his name to the eponymous award. Interestingly, the literal translation of bocuse d'or is "golden narcissist," which seems appropriate when you see the winner's trophy:

Yes, that is the actual figure of Paul Bocuse standing atop the globe. In gold. This guy makes Donald Trump look like Mother Teresa.

But despite Bocuse's Rick Warren-like self-regard, the competition is still a deadly serious event, with many European countries following it as closely as sporting competitions. The competition takes place over two days and is something of an endurance test. Each country that participates is allowed one team, led by one chef. This year, the American chef was Timothy Hollingsworth, the sous-chef at the best restaurant in the US, Thomas Keller's French Laundry in Napa. Hollingsworth won the privilege last September and has worked full-time since then with his team to prepare for the competition. Like I said, this is serious.

The New York Times covered this year's competition quite well (how will we live when they no longer exist?). You can watch this short video explaining the competition and describing its strange football-game atmosphere.

If you prefer your culinary competitions to have a bit of a Top Chef twist, then you will definitely appreciate this report from the competition that describes how the first day's ingredient (Norwegian prawns) were given to the chefs frozen. As the Times notes,

“It was the surprise of the day!” said Christian Têtedoie, a member of the official organizing committee, who once won the Meilleur Ouvrier de France, considered the most prestigious cooking award in France. He offered no other comment except to shrug his shoulders, tap his clipboard and walk away.

Eek! What would Tom and Padma say?

The good news is that, unlike previous years, all of the chefs lived through the ordeal. The bad news (for rabidly patriotic Americans like Fosco) is that the American chef, Mr. Hollingsworth, came in sixth. The winner was Norway. Or Sweden. Or something like that. Luckily, you can read about why Mr. Hollingsworth failed. It turns out there was a minor snafu with plating (I told you this thing is serious):

“It was very difficult to plate the fish,” he added. “This was the first time I was with these servers, it was very difficult. They were working a different way from the way I’m used to working.”

He said he was used to plating all the dishes for one course at one time, but his servers at the competition did it in sets of four.

Nor did things go any better for the home team:

The biggest disappointment was felt by France. Philippe Mille, the 34-year-old Frenchman who is the sous-chef at the three-star Paris restaurant Le Meurice, was a strong candidate, and many expected him to win. But his fish dish came out a minute late, which cost the French team 12 points in the scoring.

Sadly, M. Mille will now be deported to Belgium.

Meal on Wheels

Welcome to a new feature at Fosco Lives!: Foodie Friday. A whole day every week to talk about food. Will it be enough? We'll see.

This is a post dedicated to one of Fosco's very favorite eating experiences: dim sum. In Cantonese, dim sum literally means "a million little pieces." If you've never had dim sum, you're in for a treat someday. Basically, you sit and drink delicious hot tea while Chinese ladies wheel carts of Chinese appetizers past you. Any time you want something, you just point to it and you get to eat it! And you can do it all morning! Then later, when you're completely stuffed, you receive an inexplicably high bill that seems to bear no relation to the food you ate. It's a pretty amazing experience.

Fosco and Oz go about once a month on Sunday morning to their favorite dim sum restaurant, San Francisco's famous Yank Sing. Yank Sing has a lovely website that has a gorgeous gallery of dim sum items (although not all of our favorites appear). We tend to get Yank Sing's signature Shanghai dumplings, potstickers, spring rolls, steamed bao, sticky rice, turnip cake (Fosco's favorite), and one or three other items depending on our mood. And, of course, Fosco has to have an egg custard tart and mango pudding for dessert. It's better than church!

SFGate ran a feature on SF's dim sum houses this week, finding 46 of them in the area. Yank Sing reviewed well, of course (their Shanghai dumplings are accurately described as "the stuff of dreams"). The SFGate piece also offers some advice for enjoying dim sum for the first time, but not all of it is correct. For example, the SFGate's expert suggests that you should

Order one thing at a time. Although it's tempting to grab everything that looks good as the carts roll by, Chiang recommends getting one item at a time. Finish your first dish before moving on to the next. "I like to eat it in courses," she says. "That way, everything stays hot," which, she explains, is the most important thing when eating dim sum. Nobody likes a cold dumpling.

This is wrong, of course. The key to a satisfying dim sum experience is to grab as much as you can every time a cart goes by. If you don't have 4-5 dishes on your table, then you're not doing it right. And you don't have to worry about the food getting cold as long as you eat it fast enough. Hint: conversation is what you do after lunch.

SFMOMA by night

Fosco and Oz had a (very small-scale) eighteen-month anniversary celebration in SoMa last Friday night. They had dinner at Northern California's fanciest food court at the Westfield San Francisco Centre. You can tell it's a fancy food court because they have real silverware. They also have an outpost of Beard Papa!

Oz was in the mood for spicy tuna, so he opted for a spicy tuna bowl:


Fosco was in the mood for the deliciousness of the Slanted Door's takeout version, Out the Door. Out the Door serves Fosco's favorite green papaya salad:

Fosco is not normally agog over green things, but this salad is exquisite. It's fresh and clean and complex and totally rejuvenating (the french-fried onions really rock it). Sadly, Fosco cannot recommend the Egg Noodles with Shrimp Stir-Fry--an unfortunate failure for such a consistently good place to eat.

After dinner, Fosco and Oz headed down the street for an after-hours corporate reception at the SFMOMA (thanks to Oz's employer, which may or may not be Mmm Carpets). It was a surprisingly hip event. The SFMOMA's atrium was almost clubby, with a DJ and everything.


The best part, of course, is that all of the galleries were open. Fosco and Oz had been to the museum recently, so there wasn't much new. However, they got a nice second look at the Martin Puryear show. Most of Puryear's work is on some borderline between wood crafts and art, usually on a (very) large scale. A surprising amount of the Puryear exhibit leaves Fosco cold, but he does really appreciate this work, entitled "Brunhilde":


The longer you walk around this piece, the more interesting it becomes. Fosco also enjoys Puryear's little tiny ladder on display in the SFMOMA's atrium:


There is a nice (short) piece on Puryear's art here that I think is helpful.

We had also seen the exhibit called "Art of Participation" before, but we walked through it again. One of the best pieces is by Fosco's adored Félix González-Torres. This is Untitled (1992-93):


The work is essentially a big stack of prints on large sheets of paper (like 2.5 X 3.5 ft). The prints are all the same. Viewers are encouraged to take one of the prints home with them. The stack is replenished forever. Isn't that cool? Right now, Fosco has one on the wall near his desk (don't worry--Oz and I have another one to frame someday):


The last time Fosco was at this exhibit, the ANT FARM Media Van wasn't working correctly. Luckily, it was running smoothly on Friday night. The Media Van is a gutted van that is the repository for a digital time capsule (which will be opened in the year 2030, assuming humans still exist then). Inside the van, there are hookups for iPods, cell phones, cameras, etc. Visitors are encouraged to hook up an electronic device to the van; the van then randomly downloads a file from that device for inclusion in the digital time capsule. Once you the van copies your file, it spits out a receipt for you (which is good for 10% off in the SFMOMA store!). Here is Fosco's receipt:


As you can see, the van randomly selected a Bloc Party song from Fosco's iPod. Fosco realized afterward that this could have been a very embarrassing situation: can you imagine putting some horrible song into a time capsule to be played in 2030? Now Fosco doesn't have a ton of bad music on his iPod, but there are still some things he wouldn't be thrilled about (Bon Jovi, Aly and AJ, Roxette...) Luckily, Bloc Party is acceptable in terms of street cred (and "Sunday" is a particularly good song with a particularly good chorus for an anniversary: "I love you in the morning / When you're still hung over.") And who knows? Maybe in 2030, that song will still sound totally rad.

Come to think of it, Fosco and Oz will celebrate their twenty-three year anniversary in 2030.

Finally, a Reason to Care about Science

There is always something interesting going on at Harvard. Like, for instance, a visit from the best chef in the world, Ferran Adrià (of impossible reservation El Bulli in Spain). Adrià is responsible for molecular gastronomy, an approach to cuisine that uses experimental techniques based in chemistry and engineering to produce new preparations of food. You've probably seen it practiced (usually badly) by several "Top Chef" eliminees of the past few seasons. The foremost American practitioner is probably Grant Achatz of Chicago's Alinea (where Fosco had an ethereal and surreal meal in December 2007).

But dinner at El Bulli is beyond pretty much anything that you can find in this country. Dinner is a 35 course tasting menu. Adrià is a living legend, responsible for some of the most fascinating (and funny!) food preparations you've ever seen. Here is his "letter soup":

You can find an entire slideshow of his creations here.

Adrià's visit to Harvard is especially notable, however, because it came under the auspices of the Harvard School of Engineering. According to the press release, Adrià's talk actually focused on the use of hydrocolloids. Even more interesting, this visit allowed the signing of a "Memorandum of Understanding"(!) between El Bulli and the Harvard SEAS, which allows for a staff exchange(!!) between the two institutions. How cool would it be to be an engineering grad student who got to spend some time doing research at El Bulli? (Well, assuming that it could ever be cool to be an engineering grad student...)

Vietnamese in a Shoebox

Fosco took a little break from blogging this weekend. It was nice, but I still thought about all of you--frequently and fondly.

It was an action-packed weekend, with some piratical fun (more on that later), a Rock Band 2 marathon, and an emotional punch in the gut (courtesy of the newest BSG episode). But here's a highlight for you: a new restaurant review!

Yesterday, Fosco and Oz were in the city and decided to have Vietnamese "street food" for lunch. Fosco may have mentioned before that he's head-over-heels for the upscale Vietnamese food in the Bay Area (like the thrillingly precise Slanted Door or the artsy and romantic Tamarine). And that's not to mention the more traditional fanciness of Thanh Long (buttery garlic noodles!). But Oz promised this food would be quite different: simpler, more casual, and much heartier.

And so we went to the oddly named Cordon Bleu Restaurant on Nob Hill. Oz had warned me that the place was tiny, but I was still surprised. There were two tables and one counter with stools--seating for maybe fifteen customers. However, the room is painted a cheery yellow and there are pictures, so it's actually quite pleasant:


All of the cooking is performed behind the counter on a grilltop and a deep fryer:


Look at those Imperial Rolls coming out of the fryer!


The food is essentially a plate lunch. I got the #5 plate: a piece of 5-spice roasted chicken, a shish kebab, rice with meat gravy, cabbage salad, and an imperial roll. It was beautiful:

That's the 5-spice chicken breast at the top. The menu humbly suggests that it's "Possibly the best chicken outside of Vietnam." I think that is possibly right: it was juicy, tender, and deliciously smoky from the spices. The "shish kebab" is on the rice in the middle. It's actually not on a skewer; rather, it's a piece of beef pounded thin, marinated and grilled. The gravy for the rice is tomato based and has ground beef and onions in it--the flavor is reminiscent of Midwestern macaroni goulash (which is not a bad thing). The gravy is Oz's favorite. The imperial roll is mine--it was exceptional, better than any I've had anywhere else. Oh, and you know what makes this even better? My plate cost $6.85. That is a serious deal for some serious food.