Trev's Bistro

Plat du Jour: Monday September 24, 2012: Five Fig Ideas and Obama the Eater

Much attention has been lavished upon President Obama and the White House’s home brewing unit…the most highly coveted beer now in the world, easily over Pliny the Elder. I only had to wait five hours in line last year for the latter. I’m doubting I’ll be tasting the White House beer…you never know though, because today Barbara Walters received some of the beer from the President.

Recently I’ve been following the blog Obama Foodorama daily, an excellent concept that calls itself “blog of record about White House food initiatives, from policy to pie.” Much of the excitement from the blog, which serves as the public of the digital archive of record for the Obama Administration’s food and nutrition initiatives, comes from reading and learning what the President actually is served at formal functions and what he eats to…just eat. Often recipes are included from the White House chefs.

It’s an important and fascinating resource. Make sure to visit often!

With September coming to a close in a week, it still might be tomato season, but let’s now focus on another bountiful September produce delight: figs. Of course figs are excellent plain. How about a few other fig ideas? And yes, eat the fig skin and look for figs that are just barely starting to be soft. Use the same guidelines for ripeness with figs as you might with peaches and plums. Continue reading “Plat du Jour: Monday September 24, 2012: Five Fig Ideas and Obama the Eater”

Monday’s Neighborhood: Pearl Brewery Complex, San Antonio

It’s fascinating to see the variety of old buildings who were thriving factories a century and now have been completely remodeled and spruced up for retail and often culinary purposes. You see your old steam powerhouses become nightclubs. Old carriage houses hold salons. Warehouses now seem to always become cozy bistros and artist ateliers, unless it’s the old B&O Warehouse in Baltimore, in which case it becomes part of the Major League ballpark in that city, Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

How about old breweries? With the recent astronomical surge in craft breweries, it would seem to be common sense to replace an old brewery shell with a new brewery. That’s essentially what many of the world’s massive breweries have done, including Miller in Milwaukee, Budweiser in St. Louis, Guinness in Dublin, and Carlsberg in Copenhagen.

In San Antonio, they’re a little more creative with what they’ve done with the old Pearl Brewery, just barely north of the city center on a prime piece of real estate along the San Antonio River. Yes, the same river as the “river” in the Riverwalk. The Pearl Brewery is night and day from the endless tourist overload in the heart of the Riverwalk.Continue reading “Monday’s Neighborhood: Pearl Brewery Complex, San Antonio”

Greetings from…Dallas!

Big D. The Metroplex. DFW. However you prefer to refer to the sprawling urban-suburban-rural region of Northern Texas where skyscrapers nudge up to huge swaths of empty fields and McMansions, the eating is Texas-sized exciting here in the nation’s 9th most populated metropolitan area. As Frank Loesser immortalized in his classic show tune from “The Most Happy Fella,” in “Big D, Little A, Double L, A S…that spells Dallas, where every home’s a palace…and there’s oil all over your address.”

O.K., the oil really is more a Houston trait since the Gulf of Mexico is nowhere near Dallas. And not every home in Dallas is a Deion Sanders mansion-sized palace. But everything about Big D is, well, quite big. The jungles of freeways and the traffic with such sprawl and reliance on cars can give Los Angeles some stiff competition. Except Los Angeles still doesn’t have the big tolls that some Dallas freeways charge, a real trap for visitors to the Metroplex.

No stadium can compete size- or price-wise with the massive, billion-dollar spaceship built by Cowboys owner Jerry Jones in the middle of nowhere, also known as Arlington. Even the baseball stadium, Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, is at least the 7th largest ballpark in Major League Baseball.

Of course in the summer, Big D gets some Dallas-sized temperature readings, where the main challenge of the day becomes how to constantly remain in a swimming pool or air-conditioned building. In Dallas, the triple digit heat is intense, but it is a dry heat as they like to say, unlike down in humid Houston.Continue reading “Greetings from…Dallas!”

Beer of the Week: Tartare Sour Berliner Weisse, Bear Republic Brewing Co., Healdsburg, CA

What a great name for a soft, easy to drink at 4% ABV beer. Usually tartare evokes raw beef, bloody rare. It’s not usually a bucolic term. This tartare evokes sunny days in the California Wine Country, or this time of year, a perfect session beer to carry you through hours of Oktoberfest oompah bands.

Tartare manages to balance being both a tart and slightly fruity beer with subtle elements of mango and blueberry. It has far more character than the typical Berlin style wheat beer, that often seems like a muddled down hefeweizen, if that’s even possible. Perhaps the character of Tartare comes from being fermented in a 2500 gallon oak vessel. It’s treated with all the care that the Zinfandel grapes receives at the hundreds of wineries surrounding Bear Republic in Healdsburg, CA.

The beer’s body is less murky and hazy yellow than most of this genre. Instead it’s almost a healthy straw golden hue, nearly shining. Of course Bear Republic is best known for its Racer 5 IPA, a slightly lighter, less bitter version of an IPA than by nearby rivals Lagunitas and Russian River. I didn’t care for the somewhat prickly Jack London ESB or the indistinct Red Rocket Red Amber Ale. However, the Hop Rod Rye, the not too burly and heavy Big Black Bear Stout, and a sensational double IPA hop bomb called Café Racer 15 show why Bear Republic is one of the country’s leading craft brewers…and they’re from the heart of Wine Country.

Well, this is Wine Country after all. No wonder they call Tartare the “champagne of beers.”

Tasting Notes from Healdsburg

At the meeting point of four major wine growing valleys, Healdsburg boasts no shortage of wineries to visit and tasting rooms to sample at in town and out amongst vines. Fortunately, the traffic of Napa’s Highway 29 hasn’t yet found its way to the Russian River Valley, the Dry Creek Valley, the Alexander Valley, and for the most part, the Sonoma Valley. Healdsburg itself is a delightful, re-energized small town with a shiny new gloss and restaurant revolution around its central plaza. Then depending on where tasting plans send you, the possibilities of exploration around the area are endless.

In town, yes you can go fo well known brands such as La Crema and Kendall Jackson. The real highlight is a small cluster of new tasting rooms just on the edge of town, about five minutes from the plaza on Front Street.

This area may be best known for its sun drenched zinfandel, but watch out Willamette Valley and Santa Barbara. The wineries of Sonoma County are crafting some formidable Pinot Noir. Leading the pack is Hank Skewis, a true virtuoso winemaker with the grape. Skewis founded Skewis Wines in 1994, meeting his wife and business partner Maggie the same year, and released his first vintage of 70 cases in 1997. Now Skewis produces around 900 cases with grapes from six vineyards in the Russian River Valley, Anderson Valley, and Sonoma Coast. Hurry and get a case before the precious 899 others are gone. Or visit the now year old tasting room, always with either Maggie or Hank pouring.Continue reading “Tasting Notes from Healdsburg”

Tuesday’s Project: Summer Isn’t Officially Over, So Grill Flank Steak

It might already feel like it should be time for the World Series and in some parts of the country the foliage has even begun. But the calendar has not hit September 21 yet. So even if it feels like summer left long ago, it’s still summer. Hold off on the root vegetables and the stews for another few weeks. It’s time for some grilling, with a twist.

I always think of summer grilling to go with the thicker cuts of beef or burgers or chicken breasts. So for an almost autumnal cut of meat, may we recommend the often forgotten flank steak?

First of all, why is flank steak tougher than the more traditional cuts of beef? That would be because it is not actually a cut of beef to begin with. The flank steak is the abdomen muscle of the cow. Being a muscle, the meat is more tense and tougher. If cooked over a long period of time, flank steak becomes downright chewy and unpleasant. It demands for a marinade to soften up the meat, then a high heat, short amount of time on the grill to provide the softest, juiciest result.Continue reading “Tuesday’s Project: Summer Isn’t Officially Over, So Grill Flank Steak”

Restaurants: State Bird Provisions, San Francisco

Pancakes, quail, and cheesecake are a bizarre trio to be the showstoppers of a sizzling new, highly innovative restaurant trying out a truly ambitious concept. State Bird Provisions, the slightly less than a year old establishment from the husband and wife team of chef Stuart Brioza and pastry chef Nicole Krasinski, is certainly unlike any other restaurant I’ve found before. Yes, there are tapas bars all over Spain and now all over the world. The small plates revolution of a decade ago came and went and might be back again and then probably will depart again. Dim sum is of course a staple for lunch at Chinese restaurants.

But what really is State Bird Provisions? It shares the carts and trays carrying the food of dim sum-style service. The plates range from tapas-sized to small plates to medium-small plates or small medium-sized plates.

Is there really a cuisine when a petite, cast-iron pot holds a sizzling kimchi-pork belly-tofu dish, while you can also sample tuna crudo covered in quinoa with a bonito-rosemary aioli, or chips, salsa, and guacamole is re-interpreted with a seafood salsa atop slices of Haas avocado. The cuisine really would be that wonderfully vague “California-New American” cuisine, where inspirations from around the world show up on the menu and the real cohesive theme is the emphasis on ingredients, seasonal cooking (everywhere on this menu from tomatoes to melons), and excellent technique. There is no preaching about the farms and orchards where the pigs and plums came from.

State Bird Provisions is not a restaurant that can be labeled by a cuisine. It is a restaurant that can be labeled with a spirit: the spirit of a convivial dinner party. Think of the dining room on Fillmore as Brioza and Krasinski’s kitchen, dining room, and living room, and forty or so of their best friends fill up the house every night by starting with hors d’oeuvres, moving towards plated dishes, and then finishing with some dessert.Continue reading “Restaurants: State Bird Provisions, San Francisco”

Monday’s Neighborhood: Valencia Street, Mission District, San Francisco

You won’t go hungry or thirsty or uncaffeinated anywhere on Valencia Street in San Francisco’s Mission District. The street is the new symbol of the Mission’s recent surge in popularity (and rent prices), as the gritty aspects of the district evolve into boutiques, colorful shops, and of course, restaurants. Like its cross-country sibling Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the Mission is well-known for being the neighborhood of hipsters. It’s also a fascinating mix of young money arriving from the Financial District and tech start-ups of South of Market. It has long been a Hispanic neighborhood, along with pockets of the city’s Chinese population. As you work your way across the Mission from expansive Dolores Park to the west and on east towards Mission Street, the grittiness certainly becomes more and more apparent.

Food can certainly be considered a primary driving force behind the Mission’s emergence. The most acclaim deservedly goes to what I consider the country’s premier block for eating, on 18^th Street between Guerrero and Dolores. There, you’ll find Tartine, Delfina, Pizzeria Delfina, Bi-Rite Market, Bi-Rite Creamery, and Namu Gaju all in one single block. That’s tough to compete with.

However, the ten blocks from 14^th Street to 24^th Street on Valencia, two streets east of Dolores, may now be the single, most impressive dining stretch in a city full of them. And, it’s only getting better.Continue reading “Monday’s Neighborhood: Valencia Street, Mission District, San Francisco”

Cocktail of the Week: “The Yellow Kid” from Local Edition, San Francisco

The latest concept from the minds behind some of San Francisco’s premier bars is a real headliner. The group, Future Bars, runs bars that run the entire gamut. There is a small, reservations only speakeasy in the dicey Tenderloin, complete with a hidden speakeasy within a speakeasy (Bourbon & Branch, Wilson &Wilson), a large happy hour Financial District factory with arguably the city’s finest cocktail (The Rickhouse, the drink is the “Laphroaig Project”), and a newer bar based on the different geographic cocktail genres of the U.S. (Tradition).

Now, the press is out on the newest hit from Future Bars, located in between Third and Fourth Streets on on Market Street…not exactly a nightlife central area. Local Edition focuses on ye olde days of when newspapers were the main source of news, when newspapers were actually printed on paper, and when newspapers were written with typewriters. I’m sorry, typewriters? What are those?

You guessed it. The massive underground room is filled with typewriters and old newspaper headlines (remember when San Francisco was a two newspaper town? In theory it still is.) Is that Herb Caen at the bar sipping a Gibson, complete with housemade brined onions?Continue reading “Cocktail of the Week: “The Yellow Kid” from Local Edition, San Francisco”

Tuesday’s Project: Blueberries with Fish

It seems to be a perfect match: fresh fruit and fresh fish. A freshly picked fruit bursting with life at the peak of its season paired with a just caught fish. Add a glass of chardonnay and right there should be the perfect dinner recipe. Except so often two of the food world’s most desirable (and healthy) components don’t compliment each other. Sweet fruits in salsas or sauces cover up the delicate fish. Or weak fruits are barely noticeable against the brute strength of a swordfish or tuna. Sometimes razor thin slices of fruits, often pears, work magic when paired with a raw fish, sashimi style. Tropical fruit salsas, especially mango and papaya based, are seen often atop scallops for appetizers. In Hawaii, chefs work magic between the local fish caught in the morning and the guavas and passion fruit from nearby orchards.

What about just a plain piece of salmon or halibut with a fruit in its prime, such as blueberries in late summer? Melissa Clark of The New York Times recently shared the recipe to solve this dilemma. After trying her agrodolce blueberries sauce with both baked salmon and grilled halibut the past few weeks, I now have a go to blueberry preparation for fish where the fish and fruit actually co-exist together.Continue reading “Tuesday’s Project: Blueberries with Fish”