Tu Lan

Everyone says it's a dive, a dump, resting on its laurels since Julia Child made a favorable comment about it 20 years ago. Whatever else you don't want to hear about a restaurant is what you hear about Tu Lan. But you also hear it has the best Vietnamese food in San Francisco, and Slanted door aside, I believe it; best of all it's cheaper than dirt. This is still my go to restaurant for Vietnamese food, I just have to avoid eye contact with other customers and keep my eyes off the floors. If I concentrate on the food, I'm in heaven, not skid row.

Siracha says Vietnamese food better than any other single ingredient and Rooster brand sits on every table. The food is so delicious, I usually avoid using it on my meal, since I don't want the heat to overpower the cacophony of other flavors, but I do anoint the steamed rice with it, and then drizzle the rice with any leftover sauces that might remain on the table. Imperial rolls are practically a food group for me, along with egg rolls, lumpia, and taquitos, but I digress. The black peppered, spicy pork filling is deep fried in a rice wrapper and then baptized with a rice vinegar, sugar, chili dipping sauce. I cannot imagine a better way of starting a meal at Tu Lan even though I do also love their Spring Rolls.

Even though I often order Chinese chicken salad in restaurants that have it on their menu, I have yet to eat one I like better than the Tu Lan chicken salad. Primarily shredded cabbage and carrots, with cilantro and shredded chicken, it is elegant in its simplicity and so flavorful with its light sweet and sour vinaigrette sprinkled with chopped peanuts. Served with steamed rice it becomes a filling meal.

The same salad, sans the chicken, becomes a perfect partner for caramelized onions and sauteed shrimp in Tu Lan's Shrimp Salad. I've eaten this on so many occasions, it has single handedly been responsible for my inability to get through the entire menu. I want to try everything, but never manage to do that. I'm going to have to try harder the next time I visit.

On occasion I break away from the salads and try other dishes. The pork served two ways was a nice change of pace, served over noodles instead of rice. Of the two, I definitely preferred the BBQ pork that had been marinated, over the stewed and shredded pork that just didn't keep pace in the flavor competition. Pork meatballs, Sweet & Sour Pork on the menu, were good for a change as well, but perhaps because the thick sauce was so very good. It tasted similar to, and could have actually been hoisin sauce with peanuts and carrots mixed in for more texture. The pineapple that accompanies the meatballs added a vibrancy, another sweet and sour element.
Desserts are on a very short list at Tu Lan, but the fried bananas are enough for me. Sweet, crunchy, what more does one need to finish a meal? If you're thinking Thai iced coffee, better think again unless you plan on staying up very late. One cup at 5:30 p.m. had me wired until 3:00 a.m. the next morning.

Tu Lan Menu from MenuPages

8 - 6th St (just south of Market St)

San Francisco CA 94103
(415) 626-0927

Pican in Oakland

What a wonderful way to start a new year of dining experiences. When a friend suggested we get together in the East Bay, her selection of restaurant came as a complete and perhaps a slightly disappointing surprise to me. Soul food is not normally on my priority list because, if truth be known, I really dislike collards and macaroni and cheese and most soul food restaurants I have been to in San Francisco have limited selections of sides. I do however like grits, BBQ and fried chicken, other staples of this genre, so several, predictable selections would work for me. My experience had been limited thus far to small mom & pop operations, but my mind is forever changed about the depth of this classic American cuisine. With Pican, down home cooking just moved uptown. It equals or exceeds what I've eaten in Savannah or Charleston SC.

The room itself is elegant and sophisticated, utilizing deep wood veneers and warm paint tones. Being focused on the food, other details were missed, but the bathroom had faux alligator skin tiles on the floors and the floral arrangement was respectable enough to be at the front desk.

We started with the roasted cauliflower and crab soup that was beautifully decorated with a drizzle of a grassy olive oil. We had mentioned to our waiter that we would like a second spoon, so we could both taste it, and he was considerate enough to split it for us with no extra charge. It was so silky in texture that we could easily have forgotten that crab was in it at all, were it not for the delectable crab taste. This was a starter I could easily order over and over again. Simply delicious. If a restaurant has to serve bread, you could do worse than this moist cornbread, but could you do better? Not in my estimation.

When ordering I decided to go with the fried chicken, since it was still on my mind, but it came with a smoked Gouda macaroni and cheese. I asked if it was possible to switch the macaroni for grits and it was not a problem for this restaurant. They aim to please at Pican. It was a great call, because the grits were better than my Mascarpone polenta recipe. I asked the waiter what they put in them and the answer was, "butter, butter, and butter" However, I am now thinking that the smoked Gouda mac and cheese might be able to change my mind about that dish once and for all. I feel compelled to try it. The fried chicken had a major failing for me. Even though it was soaked in buttermilk and employed a good combination of spices, it had been brined. I won't buy chicken that has been "plumped" with water and I don't like to eat it. Competency at frying can achieve a juicy, tender chicken without adding extra salt by brining. It reminded me of a Butterball turkey with the pop up "timer" and that is an unfavorable comparison.

My dinner partner ordered the pork chop on a bed of Hoppin John mixed with basmati rice, topped with chow chow, a mustard laced ,onion chutney for lack of a better description. It's served with fried pork belly that you can see in the foreground. Succulent and extremely well made, this dish was very well balanced. We both swooned over the Hoppin John and would order it again without hesitation, but who can order the same thing from a restaurant with such accomplished cooking? Eating one's way through the entire menu seems a better choice. The Hoppin John was made with black eyed peas, sausage and rice.

Dessert was another item we split and it was quite good. It was a Coca Cola chocolate cake with a caramel chocolate ganache frosting and if that weren't enough, it was dolloped with whipped cream and came with a Bourbon panna cotta. The panna cotta was thin, so the texture was off, and I didn't exactly taste Bourbon, but it was still good.

I'll be going back to try some of their small plate offerings. The shrimp and grits is calling to me, and wouldn't that be just perfect with a cauliflower and crab soup, with a side of Hoppin John?

http://www.picanrestaurant.com/

2295 Broadway

Oakland CA 94612

(510) 834-1000

Nob Hill Cafe

Television is fine for entertainment but never depend on it for a restaurant recommendation; friends are a much better source. After expressing disappointment in Nob Hill Cafe, a friend mentioned that she had been to the restaurant and thought she'd go again if she lived in the neighborhood, but would not go out of her way to return. I feel exactly the same. Nob Hill Cafe is probably an exceptional neighborhood restaurant, but what I saw on television set me up for a very different evening. It's an Italian restaurant and pizzeria. I was primed for the restaurant, but got seated in the pizzeria; feeling a bit like a business passenger being seated in the economy section of the airplane, between two overweight passengers. Yes, the seating was so tight that when the waitress unfolded my napkin and handed it to me, I told her it would never fit between me and the table! She promptly refolded it and said perhaps I'd prefer it on the table, this girl was a class act and didn't skip a beat, so the service was exceptional.

Starting off with good San Francisco sourdough bread was the best possible start for my dining companion. Since we were in the pizzeria, it seemed appropriate to actually try their pizza Even though other starters were available none really stood out enough to make the cut. The sausage mushroom pizza was quite good with a nice chewy crust, but the center was soggy. Still, they divided the toppings in half, as we had requested, and they get plus points for that.

How many times do I have to review pasta with Bolognese sauce? The answer is more often than I would prefer to, but Bolognese sauce is a very good item by which to judge a kitchen. This one was meaty and flavorful, not too complex, but not pedestrian. For a meat sauce this was a good one, better than most; for a Bolognese, it was lacking several classic ingredients and no way near as rich tasting as it should be. Admittedly, I have eaten too many great sauces in Bologna to allow any glowing praise for local endeavors, but I hope to find a better version one day in San Francisco. I haven't given up all hope quite yet.

Gnocchi is another dish that helps to determine the competency of an authentic Italian Restaurant. Nob Hill does a really decent job with their handmade version; not gummy and on the lighter rather than the heavier side of the sliding scale. These were good gnocchi and they afforded me the opportunity to try the Bolognese. Freshly grated cheese was another plus for this restaurant. They serve nightly specials and the prices are fair. Maybe I will go back.

http://nobhillcafe.com/

1152 Taylor Street (between Sacramento & Clay)

San Francisco CA 94108
Monday - Friday Lunch 11am - 3pm

Saturday & Sunday Brunch 11am - 3pm.

Dinner Nightly from 5pm - 10pm.

Trattoria Antico Fattore

Proximity to a very good restaurant is the best way to find it and here's the proof. Trattoria Antico Fattore happened to be around the corner and one door down from an apartment we rented this year in Florence. If it were not for a personal recommendation and a very generous gift from our landlady, we easily could have found it on our own, as the aromas wafted across our threshold. Whenever asked about how to find good restaurants in a foreign country, my initial response is to say, "Follow your nose.", and that advice would not have failed me in this instance. How did I miss it for all the times I've been in Florence....it's a mystery. That will not be the same case in the future, because this restaurant is adept at producing excellent Tuscan cuisine that begs to never be missed again.

Crostini is the classic Tuscan antipasti. You can find it in many parts of Italy but everyone will admit to the fact that it originated in Tuscany. Liver crostini seems to be the most typical. I'm sorry, mi dispiace, but it looks like cat food to me and I just cannot wax poetic about it, indeed it's difficult to even look at this photograph, but my dining companions ate it without complaint, except to describe it as having a strong liver taste. For my tastes the grilled polenta with porcini mushrooms was exquisitely earthy and had an outstanding contrast in textures. My money is on the polenta and mushroom crostini as the clear winner in the antipasti taste test and it wins hands down in the eye appeal category too.

On my own for lunch one afternoon, I ventured in and ordered the polenta porcini crostini and the above photographed pasta dish, described as tortelli with white truffle sauce. I suspected there were also porcini in the sauce to extend it, but the sweet, earthy, truffle scent was well pronounced and quite evident in the drizzle of truffle oil on top. It may very well have been "porcini cream" with truffle oil. No matter, it was delicious and I was surprised and delighted by the filling that turned out to be made with potato and parsley.

A new one for me, this combination is worth some experimentation at home. It would be nice to reproduce with perhaps some parmigiano added. Speaking of which, the waiter warned me not to add cheese to the pasta as it would destroy the truffle taste. My underdeveloped instinct for rebellion awoke and I resisted his advice. My well developed need for conformity, however, restrained the use of the cheese and it provided the needed taste of a little salt to enhance the truffle.

Perhaps the two best known zuppe of Tuscany were served to us during our "tasting menu" specially arranged for us by our landlady Rossella Ristori Uffizi Apartment . During our negotiations for the rental I had offered to show her a few things on the computer that would enhance imagery on her website. I found her emails charming and gladly put in the time as a good deed. She felt obliged to do something in exchange, and arranging this special tasting of traditional Tuscan food was the result. The photo on the left is Pappa al Pomodoro. You can see the olive oil glistening on top. On the right is the other classic bread soup called Ribolito that literally translates to reboiled. This rich, filling, and rustic soup is primarily made of vegetables, beans, bread and olive oil. Perfect for that cold, rain drenched evening and rewarming my bones at the mere thought of it.

What could be more Tuscan than beans? The photo above shows the heartiness of the bean and sausage stew. Again another nicely executed classic recipe. The lamb and artichoke combination is a lovely rich combination of flavors and a true comfort food. Since Toscano bread is baked without salt, it makes a good vehicle for sopping up the pan juices of the lamb.

Of the three entrees we tried, the veal with porcini sauce was the dish that appealed to everyone equally. Often, this means a middle of the road, safe bet, but this selection while predictable in flavor had a heady, earthy note due to the porcini and spoke well of the Fall season. All in all, this was a very good meal and we were so full we could not manage dessert.

http://www.mega.it/antico.fattore/efattore.htm

V.Lambertesca 1/3r

FLORENCE

Phone +39 055 288975

Fax +39 055 283341

Closed on Sunday

Brooklyn Bagel & Coffee Company

   

Can you imagine anything better than being shown around New York City by a local? I learned so much from friends I have met online through Craigslist Food Forum. On this particular visit I was led to some of the most wonderful food related venues, most notably Sahadi's, a specialty grocery store in Brooklyn. My friend and I also visited a local shop in Chelsea that sold bakeware and everything related to baking including a plethora of unusual cake pans and candy molds. It was an amazing day and by the end of it, my friend who is a professional singer and actress, even gave me a lesson in breathing! I wouldn't consider online dating, but it's great for finding friends with similar interests. After the foray into baking equipment and multicolored doilies and chocolate sprinkles, we needed a quick bite. Finding one with a local proved easy.

 

We walked over to 8th Avenue and went into Brooklyn Bagel & Coffee Company's Chelsea location. It was the best venue for us because most everything they offer is premade and ready for take-out or to eat there. The sandwich fillings are lined up and ready to go, waiting for you to to select your choice of bread, wrap or roll. My friend, as a New Yorker, could afford to be blase about bagels, so she ordered her egg salad sandwich on whole wheat. As a visitor, I would not consider ordering any form of bread in NYC unless it was a bagel, or biali. Besides, lox and cream cheese demand a bagel. I have tried my share of bagels, but it's true, they make them better in New York. Brooklyn Bagel & Coffee Company makes a good one, but more importantly, they offer quick service in this fast paced city.

Brooklyn Bagel Website

286 8th Ave (between 24th St & 25th St) New York, NY 10001 (212) 924-2824

Rocco's

When we walked into this West Village pastry shop the first time, we had no idea of the history. To us it was just Rocco's, a convenient place to order dessert after eating a pizza at John's down the street. In fact, it was Rocco's Pastry Shop & Espresso Cafe. It was a neighborhood bakery with classic Italian pastries that could have easily given Ferrara's a run for its money. Some of the recipes are over 100 years old.   

Whether you come in for coffee and dessert or just a quick treat to go, the selection of cookies, cakes, cheesecakes, pastries and Italian specialty items will feed your fancy while you wait in line. Rum Baba and Cannoli are only two of the old world recipes that are prepared daily. Every neighborhood should be lucky enough to have a bakery like this and a family dedicated to keeping it producing such recipes.

  

It was so difficult to choose between cakes with butter cream or dairy whipped cream frostings. But select we did and we ended up with plenty of whipped cream in the form of a raspberry cream pie, liberally laced with chocolate. One can't go to New York without trying the cheese cakes, so the second selection was a very light, cheese cake with fresh fruit on top. We were happy to see that they also would serve us a steamed milk, and in this case, it was mixed with an almond syrup. Magnolia Bakery was up the street. Strolling along, it was easy to take a look at their nationally famous cupcakes, but when it came time for dessert we headed straight to Rocco's.

Pasticceria Rocco Website

243 Bleeker St New York NY (212) 242-6031

Ben & Jack’s

 

After several trips to NYC where we had consumed massive amounts of meat at Peter Luger’s in Brooklyn, my long time dining companion and I decided to give the competition some of our business and spend the evening in Manhattan. It was a good idea. Ben & Jack’s, as we were lead to believe, were former employees of Peter Luger’s who wanted to create a more upscale establishment, serving the same quality dry aged beef as Luger’s. Similarities in food selection were quite apparent and went a long way in keeping us happy with our meal. Dining at Ben & Jack’s was like ordering at Peter Luger’s and being served on white linens instead of funky wooden tables, but better.

 

First of all, if we are to compare the two establishments,  you could actually sit down at the bar without being jostled from behind by the numerous customers awaiting their tables; that was a big plus. Better yet, they served house made potato chips with your drink order; I don’t even recall whether or not Luger’s had snacks, but with all the waiting one did even with a confirmed reservation, they should have. The chips were excellent, thin, crispy, salty; just as good as they looked.

  

Two classic Luger items were available from the Ben & Jack’s menu, onion rolls and thick cut bacon. Both were as good as those served at Luger’s; identical in fact. We were very happy to see both, but when looking at the side dishes, there was a selection of salads that was far superior. Ben & Jack’s offers a classic Cesar salad with a very good dressing, and a mixed salad with several choices for dressing. Make mine Thousand Island. We truly appreciated an option besides tomatoes or onions and tomatoes. As good as they are with Luger sauce poured over them, I cannot consider either Luger choice a proper salad. Clearly, at this point in the meal service, one would not hesitate to choose Ben & Jack’s.

Now that the discussion has turned to “sides”, it might be worthwhile to mention that we enjoyed both the baked potato and creamed spinach. Peter Luger’s has a slight edge on the creamed spinach, but where they really shine is in the Luger Sauce. Ben & Jack’s version was good, but when compared directly with Luger Sauce, it can’t hold a candle to it. They may look the same, but the taste is very different.

 

The meat compared favorably and for once, there was no thought concerning a “fair share”. It was a pleasure to be able to offer what I couldn’t finish to my dining companion who generally likes to eat more meat than I do, and is not adverse to sharing meals. At Peter Luger’s we always order “steak for two”. Theoretically it should be split equally, but it almost never is. Must one keep track of what remains on the platter, to avoid losing one’s share of the filet? What happens when one person eats faster than the other? Is that person entitled to take more? Since Ben & Jack’s offers individual steaks, these esoteric dilemmas  never manifest themselves. Service was good and ambience would have been too except for the woman at the next table who thought we might enjoy hearing her read the riot act to her husband with language so “peppery” it would have made a sailor blush! That poor man couldn’t get a word into the conversation, nor could he finish his dinner. It was truly an “only in New York” moment, that dragged on for a little under an hour!

Ben & Jack's Website

219 East 44th Street (between 3rd & 2nd Avenues) New York, NY 10017 (2120 682-5678 M-Th 11:30a.m. – 10:30p.m. Fri     11:30a.m. – 11:00p.m. Sat   12:00p.m. – 11:00p.m. Sun    3:00p.m. – 10:00p.m.