Artisan Bistro

My hometown has a delectable treat known as Artisan Bistro ; a California style French restaurant, boasting a former sous chef from French Laundry. My family loves to go for special occasions, the most recent one being that my sister and brother-in-law were in town! Ok fine, any time we have the excuse to go, we take it!

The presentation is impeccable, and really every bite is mouth-watering. From time to time they have a 'sunchoke' soup, which is out of this world:

Another soup favorite is the corn soup (with charred baby leeks, sautéed corn, huitlacoche, cilantro) pictured below next to some tempura vegetables:

Below is the sous vide chicken breast and thigh (with bhutanese red rice, broccolini, Romano beans, yellow wax beans, ras el hanout spice, roasted garlic jus), next to the sauteed John Dory (with orlotti beans, kale, artichokes, bouillabaisse consommé, fried sage, almond & rosemary vinaigrette):

Roasted pork loin over polenta (with black eyed pea, blistered corn & chard ragout, pickled chard, purslane, whole grain mustard jus) next to their farro 'risotto' (with nettle cream, royal trumpet mushrooms, fennel, roasted rainbow carrots, scallions, aged Pecorino cheese):

and last but not least, the lamb (with english peas, chanterelle mushrooms, baby spinach, summer squash, gypsy pepper emulsion and vadouvan jus):

As I said before, the presentation is just beautiful, but the real treat is the care and creativity of each ingredient!

Hong Kong Meatballs

Last month I was lucky enough to have several high school friends in town from various cities around the world. Going to school in Hong Kong means that these opportunities are few and far between, and always a blast! The first night we walked to Cha Cha Cha, a delicious cuban/tapas place on Haight st.

Apart from the tasty pitchers of Sangria, we ordered a variety of tapas, my two favorite below are the fried plantains and black beans (I'm drooling now...) and the patatas bravas:

But the real magic happened the second night when we decided that waiting an hour to get into Suppenkuche (another great restaurant) was not in our agenda. Instead, we piled into the grocery store, each tasked with grabbing different ingredients for a simple Italian meal; spaghetti and meatballs.

Doug convinced everyone that he would handle the meatballs, and surprisingly we all decided this would be fine. Back at my place, Doug decides to read the directions for the meatballs, realizing that 1) we didnt have bread crumbs and 2) this was going to take 3 hours. After blending up some old bread in my magic bullet for bread crumbs and declaring '3 hours? we'll do this in 15 minutes', we actually ended up with some delicious, mozarella-stuffed meatballs! Complimented with my new favorite salad (mixed greens, red onion, avocado, toasted pine nuts and parmesan), garlic bread, et voila!: