Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category
Monday, October 10th, 2011
We’re ‘enjoying’ some the South-East coast’s famous storm season weather, so you’re going to get to read another post.
From LA we flew to New Orleans. After seeing all the news about Katrina and subsequent storms and floods, I really didn’t know what to expect, but I’ve got to say we were really impressed. Aside from Bourbon Street which is a bit of an abomination, it’s really cool and interesting place, that literally sweats music and good times from ever pore. We arrived with a fist full of recommendations of places to go from my mate Graison who I met on the SFBI course and who used to live there, so we set about munching our way through town.
We had three really memorable meals in ‘The Big Easy’. The first was at Dante’s Kitchen. It kicked off in style with some stellar ’spoon’ bread, which is a kind of corn bread, and was absolutely delicious. So much so that I had to know what was in it, and the chefs kindly printed me out a recipe. This was followed by fantastic shrimp and grits and then ox tail. Small dishes, really nicely done. I’d go back in a shot.
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Tags: Banana, Cayenne, City House, Dante's Kitchen, Dry Rub, Elvis, Fried Chicken, Gracelands, Maple Leaf, Memphis, Nashville, New Orleans, Peanut Butter, Prince's Hot Chichen, Rendezvous, Ribs, Road Trip, Shrimp Boil, Willie Mae's Scotch House
Posted in Opinion, Reviews, Travel | 2 Comments »
Monday, October 3rd, 2011
So we are exactly a week into our road trip across the ‘States, and so far, so amazing.
From San Fran we drove to Yosemite which is just incredible. I visited the valley before with my folks as a young child, but I didn’t remember much of it. Probably too young to appreciate it, but it’s a jaw dropping place. Everywhere you look, there are unbelievable postcard views. It really is the big country. Food wise we had to pretty much fend for ourselves, firing up the barbie or gas stove at our camp and packing lunches, which was all good ‘back to nature’ stuff.
Next into Death Valley. Everyone had told us stuff like ‘…it’s just a long road…” or “…there’s not much there…”, so we were unprepared for how beautiful it is. That’s beautiful in a kind of brutal way. En route we stopped by Schat’s bakery cafe in Bishop and gorged on his famous sandwiches. The turkey club was the bomb. We stayed in the heart of the valley in a little settlement called Stovepipe Wells, which felt a bit like a theme village you might get at an amusement park. It was as hot as Hades, and the food wasn’t up to much, but the setting was incredible and they had a pool. Nuff said.
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Tags: Alain Ducasse, Death Valley, Gjelina, Katz's Deli, LA, Las Vegas, Reuben Sandwich, Schat's Bakery, Stovepipe Wells, Turkey Club, Venice Beach, Wolfgang Puck, Yosemite
Posted in Opinion, Reviews, Travel | No Comments »
Sunday, September 25th, 2011
I’m writing this post with a very heavy heart as tomorrow we leave San Francisco.
The five or so months that we’ve spent here have been so amazing, and the missus and I have totally fallen in love with the city. The hills, the fog, the history, the food, the people, the atmosphere all combine to make San Francisco a totally unique place. Having visited before for a short time as a tourist, I think I was a bit worried about being bored, but far from it. There may not be a huge quantity of ‘must do’ sights, but it has to be one of the best cities in the world for just hanging out and chilling. No wonder the hippies loved it here!
So yeah, we’re basically totally gutted to be leaving, and if things were different with visas etc, I think we would have stayed for a couple of years. But we can’t. C’est la vie. It’s not all doom and gloom though, as we’re heading on an awesome road trip that will take us across country to New York before we head back to London in late October.
So before we bid San Francisco a very fond farewell, I thought I’d give you my top 10 culinary highlights.
1. Mission Chinese Food – I’m pretty sure you’re all sick of me talking about MCF by now, but humour me. I love everything about this place. The food, the venue, the buzz. It’s been wining every time we’ve been there. Wonder if they’d deliver to London.
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Posted in Opinion, Reviews, Travel | 1 Comment »
Saturday, September 24th, 2011
Every now and again, you get a really good feeling about a restaurant just by walking past it. In our first week in San Francisco, we walked past The Swan Oyster Depot on our way home after a boozy night out. Even through our alcoholic haze we could tell we were going to like it. It had this really lovely old-school feel to it, so the next day we decided to give it a go. As you can probably conclude from this post, we weren’t disappointed, and we’ve been back a few times since.
But before we get down to the nitty gritty, a short history lesson. The Swan has been around since around 1912, and by the look of the place not much has changed since. The original oyster bar was bought out by a guy called Sal Sancimino and his three cousins (Al, Pat and Frank LaRocca) in 1946, and in turn their kids took it over in the ’70’s, and it not surprisingly has a really friendly, authentic family feel to it.
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Tags: Albacore, Chowder, Clam, Olive Oil, Salmon, San Francisco, Sashimi, Sauvignon Blanc, Scollops, Shellfish, Smoked Salmon, Swan Oyster Depot, Tuna
Posted in Lunch, Reviews, Travel | No Comments »
Friday, September 16th, 2011
I’m sure there’s plenty of cock waving when it comes to which nation produces the greatest chefs in the World. Japan? Spain? The US? England? France? Denmark? To be honest, as long as I’ve got a great plate of food in front of me, I don’t really care. But one thing I’d stake my reputation on (for what it’s worth), is that when it comes to making sandwiches, the Yanks p**s all over the competition.
Us Brits may have invented the humble sarnie, but the Americans have taken it to a whole new level. Here the sandwiches are a proper meal, lots of good stuff slapped between whichever kind of bread you fancy. The fact that burgers sit in the same section on a menu kind of sets the tone. Now I’ve tasted the brave new world, I feel kind of sad when I think about the Prets and Eats I used to visit so often back home, especially as most of the really good ones come out of small independent shops and delis.
Anyway, to prove the point, I thought I’d show you the evidence by showing you a few of our favourites (excluding burgers) from the recent months. GET READY TO DROOOOOOLLLL.
The Delores from Rheas Deli
Smoked peppered turkey, spicy cranberry sauce, muenster, bacon, tomatoes, red onion, pickles, pickles jalapenos, spinach on Dutch crunch bread.
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Tags: Bread, Delores Sandwich, Golden Gate Sandwich, Ike's Place, Korean Steak Sandwich, Mayoose's CA-BLT, Meal, Paul Reubens Sandwich, Rhea's Deli, San Francisco, Sandwiches, Sarnie, Saul's Deli, The Eggbert, Whole Foods
Posted in Lunch, Opinion, Travel | 3 Comments »
Sunday, September 11th, 2011
So that’s it. It’s over. 4 and a half months, 18 weeks, 90 days, 720 hours, 43,200 minutes of hardcore baking action. We graduated from the SFBI Professional Bread & Pastry Programme last Friday, and I’ve go to say it was a bitter sweet occasion.
In the week running up to the graduation, as a group we made over 160 products, and most of them in multiple numbers. We were split into four groups as usual, with two groups concentrating more on bread and the other two predominantly on cakes and pastry. It was a full on week of late nights, early mornings, little sleep and lots of coffee. We all started on pastry, prepping stuff to be frozen and items with good shelf life, and the production schedule steadily ramped up over the week to fever pitch, particularly on Thursday and Friday for us bread people. It was full on, but hugely enjoyable. I have to admit, I felt pretty emotional as I scored the very last loaf that went into the oven.
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Tags: Baking Institute, Bread, Chocolate, Class Of 2011, Diploma, Graduation, Michel Suas, Pastry, Production, Products, San Francisco, SFBI, Viennoiserie
Posted in Opinion, Reviews, Travel | 10 Comments »
Saturday, September 10th, 2011
ICEBERG DEAD AHEAD!!
The poor old Iceberg lettuce is a pretty unfashionable leaf these days, but the Americans still have a lot of love for it, particularly when it’s served in big old wedges and drenched in blue cheese dressing. This twist on the American Classic uses a local Californian goat cheese called Humbolt Fog, which is lovely and creamy, and has a blue-ish tang to it. Paired with some applewood smoked bacon candied in maple syrup, and a few thinly sliced red onions, it’s pretty much the perfect starter. It’s pretty easy to throw together too. Lets begin.
Ingredients (serves 4)
1 large iceberg lettuce
200g Humbolt Fog, or your favourite mild blue cheese
300g Buttermilk, or sour cream
Juice of 1/4 – 1/2 of lemon, to taste
1 teaspoon Tabasco
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Tags: Applewood, Bacon, Blue Cheese, Butter Milk, Goat Cheese, Humbolt Fog, Iceberg Lettuce, Lemon juice, maple syrup, Smoked, Sour Cream, Tabasco
Posted in Dinner, Lunch, Recipes, Travel | No Comments »
Wednesday, August 31st, 2011
Last week felt like a pretty quiet one compared to the previous 16. I kind of got the feeling that our tutors were taking it easy on us as next week is graduation when we’ll be making pretty much everything we’ve made on the course. But in one week. That’s right. One frikkin’ week. We’re going to be busier than a one-legged man in a butt kicking contest.
The earlier part of the week, we spent prepping and making ‘baked custards’ of the world. France was repped by the crème brûlée and crème caramel, Italy by the panna cotta, and the good ol’ US of A by a rather tasty baked cheesecake. But where was the British custard tart I ask you? Nowhere. A bloody outrage!
The above was the pre-cursor to the plated deserts section of the course, which we were led through by Frank and Juliette, both of whom have worked as pastry chefs at some pretty fancy places. And it showed.
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Tags: Baked Custards, Cheesecake, Chocolate Mousse, Creme Brulee, Creme Caramel, Deserts, Frangipane, Ice Cream, Pain Perdu, Pancakes, Panna Cotta, Plated Deserts, poached Pears, Sabayon, Sable Breton, Sorbet
Posted in Opinion, Sweet Stuff, Travel | No Comments »
