ITALIAN IN LA

We were down in LA to attend Katie and Dustin's wedding a few weeks ago, and that also allowed us to spend a couple days hanging out with my family. I wanted to try out some of the new restaurants in LA, but my mom made reservations at an Italian restaurant that she had visited previously called La Botte. Hidden on a corner in Santa Monica, it's full of dark woods, and dark leather. When we entered, the restaurant was almost empty (we had an early reservations so my little sis and her boyfriend could drive back down in SD later that evening.)

The servers were really friendly, though, and unlike many places where servers will pretend like they can speak Italian, many of the servers actually were Italian. So were ordered a bunch of small plates to share, and my favorite one is below - a duck prosciutto.

It was pretty light and not too salty, so I like it quite a bit. Most people at dinner ordered just one course (a pasta course) for dinner, but I was hungry, so I ordered two courses. (God, is it any wonder that I've gained so much weight since leaving Boston?) At any rate, here's my crab and squid ink linguini. I found this dish to be allright - it was pretty basic and as I often say, I could have made it very easily at home.

Meanwhile, I also ordered a dish or roasted duck, which I liked a much more. The duck was well cooked and had very crispy skin.

I think our meal was actually pretty good. I think it's hard for me to judge restaurants when I don't pay for the meal, because that whole value thing goes out the window. But the bottom line is that my family had a good time eating there, the service was very friendly and I wouldn't mind going back.

FRIED CHICKEN AT AD HOC

Yes, I know it's been more than a month since I've blogged. But as Tom can probably tell you, I've been exceedingly busy and stressed out at work. But finally I have a day off where I can sit around and not do a whole lot (Ok, I lie, I'll probably be doing a little work later today and I am cooking Thanksgiving dinner). But while sitting on my couch with Top Chef playing in the background and my kitty curled up in a ball next to me, I decided to catch up on my blog. Actually, I'm pretty surprised that I haven't even blogged about our trip to Ad Hoc, so that just shows show long over due I am for blogging.

Ok, so a while ago Tom and I went for dinner at Ad Hoc in Yountville. But it wasn't just a regular dinner - it was the fried chicken dinner at Ad Hoc. For those of you who aren't familiar, Ad Hoc is a Thomas Keller restaurant with a bit of a twist - they only serve one prix fixe menu every night. It's 4 courses for $48, and you can't choose what you get, and they don't repeat the exact same menu. The good thing is that at least once a week, on alternating Wednesdays and Mondays, they always do a fried chicken night. So it's pretty easy to predict which day fried chicken night happens.

So before we even headed over to Ad Hoc, we dropped by the Oxbow Market for some snacks and provisions. The reason we were up in Napa was not just to have dinner at Ad Hoc, I also wanted to see some grapes on the vines during harvest.

At Oxbow we visited the Fatted Calf Charcuterie where Tom picked up a ton of stuff including some thinly sliced lardo, duck rillettes and smoked turkey.

After our snack, we drove over to Chandon in the hopes of seeing some grapes on the vines, but it turned out we were too late - most of them had already been harvested. A bit disappointed, we headed over to Yountville for dinner. Since we were still early for dinner, we walked around the town, and finally spotted some actual grapes on the vine.

And so I was finally ready for dinner at Ad Hoc.

The dining room at Ad Hoc isn't very big, but it is very Californian, with this casual, modern look, and lots of brown leather. We were having an early dinner (the only reservation I could get was at 5:30), so the dining room wasn't full when we arrived.

After ordering some drinks, we were served our first course - a salad of haricot vert.

Oh, I forgot to mention that no only does Ad Hoc serve only one menu, but they also serve everything family style. Man, looking at the photo of this salad just makes me hungry. It was really perfectly done. They were so generous with the the green beans, but what made it really awesome were the pickled red onions. The only thing we didn't like were the black olives served on top of the salad, which were way overpowering.

Next up was the main course - the fried chicken. It was also served with two sides- brussel spouts and roasted potatoes cooked with bacon.
Tom's favorite dish of the entire night ended up being the potatoes cooked with bacon. The chicken was served in a really generous portion (we actually ended up taking some of it home) and what I liked about it was the little hint of rosemary. The batter was much lighter than the fried chicken that I make, and what can I say, how can you really beat freshly fried, prefectly cooked chicken?

Our third course was the cheese course - the Mt. Tam from Cowgirl Creamery.
Now, I'm not normally into soft cheeses, but this was really awesome. It was served with warm, butter toast and a side of fig jam. So when you spread the cheese on the toast, it just melted and adding the fig jam on top added this lovely sweet note. Surprisingly enough, I really enjoyed it.

And the last coure was dessert - for me my least favorite course for dinner. Acutally I don't find any of the Ad Hoc desserts really inspiring (I get the email menu every day). They really go for simple desserts that can be easily assembled. In this case we had red wine poached pears with whipped cream and shortbread cookies on the side. But it was decent enough and I certainly ate my share.

Overall, we had a really lovely meal at Ad Hoc. And sitting there at dinner, looking out at this beautiful sunny day as the sunset over the valley, it was really hard not to think that we were truly lucky to be living and eating in the Bay Area.

HANGING WITH THE BOYS FROM BOSTON

We were pretty busy a few weeks ago. Not only were Cathy and Ben visiting, but Big Ed and Harin were also in from Boston to attend a wedding in the Bay Area. Even though they stayed at our place, we didn't get to spend much time with them since they were otherwise occupied with all different wedding related activities. However, on the Monday before they left, we were able to hang out together and visit the Ferry Building. We also met up with Sue Min and Nate there.

The Ferry Building is packed with all types of places to eat, so we decided to take on a grazing tactic and visit a number of different vendors. They first one that we stopped off at was the famed Hog Island Oyster. It was beautiful day, so we sat outside:

Harin and Ed ordered a number of items from the menu which we all ended up sharing. We were given some rolls and butter...

And then we were left to wait. It was kinda surprising that the food ended up taking so long, since half of it was raw. But it showed up after a while. They boys ordered a dozen different oysters:

And though I didn't partake, they thoroughly enjoyed it. They also ordered some oysters casino and some clams. Meanwhile, I ordered some fresh sardines:

And they were really excellent. I love really fresh sardines, because they end up with only a slight fishiness.

After Hog Island, the boys got some charcuterie, bread and cheese. While they sat aside Taylor's Automatic Refresher enjoying their snacks, I got an order of chicken fingers and sweet potato fries. Overall, we had a fun time just hanging out and eat. Harin said that I really do know how to eat, and I responded, it's one of the fews things I'm truly good at.

OLIVETO, ROCKRIDGE

Since my little sister, Cathy, was in town with her boyfriend, Ben, we decided to head out to dinner at a place we hadn't tried before. We ended up in Rockridge, which is a really nice area in North Oakland, filled with shops, and on that day, a street festival that was winding down when we arrived. We headed over to a restaurant called Oliveto, which is a pretty famous restaurant in the East Bay. The upstairs area is the fancy party, but they also have a small cafe downstairs, specializing in small plates and pizzas.

The cafe is pretty cozy, but they had quite a few seats available and we were seated immediately. After perusing the menu, we decided to order a few small plates. Tom, Cathy and Ben ordered pizzas, while I ordered a chicken brochette.

Here's a photo of one of the small plate: a salad of octopus and beans. Normally Tom loves octopus, but he also hates celery, so he was so so on this.

And then there was my chicken. On the menu it was $15, so I was expecting something more substantial than a single skewer of chicken. Now, it was really tasty, with lemon zest and grilled bread sandwiched between the chicken pieces, but for $15, I should've gotten at least 3 of these.

Not surprisingly, I ended up being pretty hungry. I stole some pizza from Tom, but even then I was hungry. So post dinner, we check out Ici, a very famous ice cream place also in Rockridge. There was a line out the door, but I gotta say, it wasn't worth it. I just like gelato much more then ice cream. At least it filled me up, though.

So even though the food (what I had of it) at Oliveto was pretty good, the price are just too high for the portion sizes. I wouldn't mind going back if someone else were paying. Actually, Ben paid, but I mean more like my parents, but I'd just prefer to go somewhere where I don't walk out hungry.

OYSTERS IN TOMALES BAY

A little while ago I had to do a demo up in Point Reyes Station for a client. It was my first time visiting Point Reyes - an area north west of where we live, but it was a cute little town and not too far from our home. While I was doing the demo, I overheard some people talking about the place you could go and buy oysters and shuck them yourself. I was curious about it, so when I got home, I googled it and found out about the Tomales Bay Oyster Co. Actually, there are two companies, Tomales Bay and the more famous Hog Island. I had wanted to go to Hog Island Oyster, but not only do they charge you to reserve a picnic table ($8/person), but it fills up months in advance for weekend reservations. Oh, I'll also mention here that I don't eat oysters. Actually, the only bivalve I eat are scallops, but Tom loves oysters, as does my little sister, so when she and her boyfriend, Ben, visited last month, we decided to take them up to Tomales Bay.

So I actually did some major prep before our drive up - buying bread, supplies, utensils, etc. And the first stop we made before we even went to Tomales Bay was at the famed Cow Girl Creamery located in Point Reyes Station. Here we picked up some supplies, like cheese, drinks, and rabbit pate. We ended up at the Tomales Bay Oyster Company a little before noon, and luckily, not all the picnic tables were taken up yet - though plenty of people were already there- shucking oysters and preparing for their BBQ's.

Since it was our first time, I went on the guidance of reviews on Yelp, which in retrospect I probably shouldn't have done. While Tom heated the grill, we headed over to buy the bags of oysters. This is where they're kept:
This place only offers one type of oysters in like 5 different sizes. People online generally suggested getting the large oysters for shucking and grilling. So I ordered 50 of them (the previous day, Tom said he could easily eat 40 oysters). While I was fiddling with ordering some mussels and shucking tools, the oyster were gathered up. Only when I was handing over the money did I realize how enormous the "large" oysters really were.

We hauled the bag back to our picnic table, and Tom got busy shucking. Unfortunately, our oysters were like 2-3 times the size of the oysters we'd seen online for the shucking tutorials on Youtube, and it ended up being much harder in real life. Cathy and I left the shucking to Ben and Tom, and after eating a few raw, they decided that the best way to serve them would be cooked on the grill.

Meanwhile, I manned the grill, grilling our bread, to eat with the cheese. I had also bought myself a pack of chicken dogs, and happily ate those. Here's Cathy and Ben at our table - the view was pretty spectacular, and you couldn't have asked for a nicer day.
After a while, we started getting pretty stuffed. But I'd bought five pounds of mussels to cook for my little sis. I did it with some garlic, white wine and parsley and cooked it all over the grill.

Our neighbors at the table next to us were also really friendly and they had totally done this before. There were only two of them, and they had so much extra food that they started giving it away to all the surrounding tables. They gave us garlic bread and some seafood stew with more mussels. I also saw lots of groups of Chinese people - one party was grilling shrimp wrapped in bacon.

Overall, we had a really great time. I had bought too many oysters, and ended up hauling them back home and giving them to a friend. I've now learned my lesson that next time I have to buy the small oysters, and hopefully will actually manage to shuck one successfully. And I'm hoping to go back soon.

VEGAN/VEGETARIAN SUSHI? ONLY IN BERKELEY

There's a very popular Vegan/Vegetarian Japanese restaurant in Berkeley called Cha-ya that I've wanted to try for quite some time. However, the place is tiny and since it's located in Berkeley, it's also packed most of the time. We'd tried going there once, but the line was too long, and on other occasions, the restaurant's been packed.

So we were pretty surprised one evening while we were headed to a different restaurant that there were seats available at Cha-ya. We decided to take advantage and ducked in to sit at the sushi bar. Now, I knew that Cha-ya was expensive since I'd seen their menu previously, but it was really quite surprising how expensive it was considering that there was no fish involved at all. Many people assume that just because it's vegetarian, food will be cheaper, but I've founded that that is often not the case, especially up here in the Bay Area. Basically, the prices at Cha-ya were the same as if you'd gone to a nice sushi restaurant (and maybe a little higher, too).

At any rate, since the place was kinda pricey, I had to do some strategic ordering. I started off with a special. It's a tofu roll with corn that's wrapped in seaweed and deep fried. It served with a side of dipping sauce:

As you can see, they have very nice presentation here, and the tofu roll wasn't too bad. Meanwhile, Tom ordered a bowl of agadedashi tofu. (deep fried tofu in broth). It was quite good, and I ended up liking it more than my own tofu dish.

Then we each had plates of sushi. Here's mine. You can see that there's one cucumber roll, and then 3 pieces of nigiri - one with seaweed, the other topped with mushroom and the third with eggplant. Again, the presentation was really nice.

However, the sushi itself was pretty terrible. Or not so much the sushi, but the sushi rice. It was tough and underflavored and really not tasty at all. I soon discovered why. While watching the chef prepare sushi for another customer, I watched him take out a large plastic bag filled with rice. He then walked over to a microwave, nuked it, and used that for the sushi. This place charged so much money, and they didn't even make their rice fresh. That was just appalling.

Additionally, we didn't really start off the meal on a great note. We were basically ignored by the waitress for like 10 minutes, during which I was very tempted to just walk right out. Our dinner ended up costing $40, which is much more than we usually spend on a sushi dinner, and in the words of Sue Min, "It cost the same as regular sushi and there was no fish? Why bother?" and I'd have to agree with her.

SAUSAGES AND FRITES

As many of you know, Tom and I have plans to adopt an additional kitty and one day a dog. Not right away - we're gonna wait until we have more room, first, but that didn't stop us from attending the annual SPCA Adopt-a-thon at Jack London Square in Oakland. It was our first time to Jack London Square and there was a lot going on that Sunday. We saw plenty of cute puppies and kitties and there was a also a farmer's market to walk around.

Earlier in the week, I had read of review of a place serving sausage and frites right in the area called O'My Dawg, so we decided to check it out. It turned out to be quite a small shop, and after perusing the menu, I realized that there weren't any non-pork or beef options. That's a little unusual for the Bay Area - even the little hot dog cart a block from work serves turkey dogs, and they only have 5 things on the menu. I think this place will figure it our pretty soon, and add either turkey or veggie dogs. At any rate, this meant that I'd be eating just frites. That wasn't a bad option though. Here they are below.

They were definitely skinnier than the traditional Belgian frites that I've had, but they weren't bad. And I like the slightly smokey and spicy aioli that it was served with.

Meanwhile, Tom had two different type of sausages. I don't remember which ones, but he actually liked them quite a lot - enough to say that he'd want to go back again in the future. (and he tends to be pretty picky about his hot dogs). As for me, the setting was nice, and the owners were very friendly, but I think I'll wait to go back when they've got a turkey dog on the menu.

BREAKFAST IN BERKELEY

As many of you know, Tom and I are early risers, so we enjoy going out for breakfast. After living here for over a year now, we certainly have our favorite places, but we're always looking for new ones to try, too. We've recently found two places to add to our regular roster of breakfast favorites. The first is a coffeeshop called Jimmy Bean's. We've often driven by this place and I'd heard good things about it, but we hadn't taken the time to visit it, so one morning we finally headed over to Berkeley to check it out.

Jimmy Bean's is owned by a family that owns several restaurants in Berkeley. Unfortunately, I haven't really loved the other restaurants that we've visited (T-Rex BBQ and Fonda), so I was a little skeptical about Jimmy Beans. On the other hand, it is pretty hard to screw up breakfast. When we arrived, the place was pretty empty, so it was easy to find a table quickly. We first ordered out breakfast at the cashier, helped ourselves to coffee and were given a number to put on our table.

This place is much more casual and has an unfinished look to it that their other restaurants lack. After picking a table and flipping through the paper a bit, our breakfast arrived. I had ordered a breakfast burrito, which chicken sausage, eggs and cheese.

As you can see, it was served with a side of 3 dipping sauces, and the green one, the cilantro pesto, made the whole thing worth eating. The breakfast burrito was good, but with that cilantro pesto, it was truly amazing. Meanwhile, Tom ordered corned beef hash.

He found the hash to be pretty good, and even liked it more than the hash he'd had at 900 Grayson. Breakfast ending up being very enjoyable - the only thing that wasn't was the price. This place definitely cost more than our usual breakfast places, so I think we'll visit it only when we have guests in town.

Another breakfast place that we've frequented lately is Berkeley Bagels. It's been known to have the best NY style bagels in the Bay Area. We finally checked this place out while dog sitting for a friend - they just live a few blocks from the store. Here's the bagel case:

And here's the bagel I ordered:

Though the coffee there isn't great, I do enjoy their bagels. I normally get a toasted Asiago bagel with light butter. We did try their whole wheat bagels, but they use real wheat, and it came out too heavy and chewy. It might not be as healthy, but I'll stick with their normal bagels. As for being as good as NY? Not quite, but since I don't eat bagels that often, I'm happy to have theirs.

GETA SUSHI, PIEDMONT

In our continuing quest to find good, cheap sushi in the Bay Area, we recently headed over to an area that we haven't visited before - Piedmont. Piedmont is one of the up and coming neighborhoods in North Oakland, filled with a strip of cute shops and restaurants. My co-worker who lives in the area was the one who suggested Geta, since she enjoys going there for quick, cheap sushi.

So we headed over there one evening and found the place pretty quickly. It's actually not too far from work, by kind of a schlep from where we live, so I'm not sure how often we'll be visiting Geta. When we arrived, we found a very small restaurant, with only about 5 tables and 4 seats at a bar. It was so small that there was a little line outside, and we ended up joining the line and waiting to get it. Luckily it was a pretty warm night, and the line moved quickly, so we only waited about 10 minutes before we were seated at a table for two.

My co-worker wasn't kidding about the low prices. Everything was incredibly cheap, with nothing on the menu over $12. Below is the sashimi plate that Tom ordered:

It was very pretty and a decent portion. He said the fish was ok. Not the freshest stuff in the world, but not terrible, either. I ordered a cucumber salad:

Along with some rolls (behind my rolls is some spicy chicken that Tom also ordered).

I had ordered a lobster roll, because it was only $6.50 and also a veggie roll. Overall, it wasn't too bad, and certainly worth the very low prices. I ended up liking this place more than Manpuku, though Tom felt that they were about equal. And I thought that they were making pretty good stuff, considering the very tight space that they were working out of. I wouldn't mind going back again in the future.

After dinner, we decided to explore Piedmont a little bit. We walked down the streets and discovered all types of cute shops and places to eat. I think we'll certainly have to go back in the future and explore more of the food options there. If only it weren't so far away....