Wa Dining Okan - San Diego

I've got a couple more San Francisco posts in the queue (Anchor and Hope and Vietnamese breakfast at Out the Door) but I thought I'd take a break from that for a minute, and talk about a great place a little closer to home. I'd been hearing about Okan and dying to go there for a while, so I was very excited when the occasion finally arose a few weeks ago. I thought I knew where it was, but when the time came I drove around for ages trying to find it, so let me save you the trouble. It's in the Nijiya shopping center on the South end of Convoy - just behind Nijiya.

Like it's sister (brother?) restaurant Oton, Okan is a hidden jewel box. The aesthetics are startlingly lovely, with soothing and stylish natural wood decor. It's small, so you will definitely want to make a reservation - though singles or couples may be able to find seats at the square bar in the center of the room. I love their assorted pottery and earthenware dishes, especially the large pottery tumblers they used to serve beer.

Sushi or tempura probably come to mind when most people think of Japanese food, but the menu here goes a step further, with some more original dishes. It is an Izakaya, and the dishes could loosely be described as Japanese tapas. Most are small plates, meant to be shared. Our party was fortunate enough to have the assistance of a Japanese chef in choosing what to order, and we were more than pleased with her suggestions. We had the must-try fried gobo root salad, pictured up top, braised pork "Nagasaki style" that literally melted in the mouth, a few of their small starter snacks including fried tofu (pictured above) and some amazing gyoza. We also shared the salmon and scallop carpaccio, the egg omelet with eel, and a pot of rice with king crab meat. (There were five in our party.)

The rice was delivered to the table in a cast iron pot, and scooped into bowls by our server - it was slightly toasted and crunchy, and the sweet crabmeat was delicious. It was all excellent, but the gobo salad was especially fabulous and unusual, with young, tender, bitter greens, tossed with a sesame dressing and topped with a giant tangle of fried gobo root. The pot stickers and pork belly are also definite must-haves. They were out of another highly recommended dish - the chilled egg custard, but I plan to try it on a return visit. We washed it all down with beer and sake, served in their beautiful pottery tumblers.

Unlike most Asian restaurants, dessert here is more than an afterthought. There were three choices, and two out of the three were very worthwhile - the green tea tiramisu, and the pudding with black honey. (The third, a promising-sounding ice cream sundae, didn't quite measure up.) The tiramisu has perfect texture, and a subtle flavor of green tea in place of the espresso, and the liberal sprinkling of cocoa powder on the top is surprisingly harmonious. The pudding with black honey is like a soft flan - topped with a deep honey-tinged caramel syrup. If you like flan or custards, you will undoubtedly love this.

Okan also serves lunch during the week. It's a limited menu, but a very good set price of $6.50 for 3 small tapas, miso soup, pickles and brown rice. They also offer add-on entrees for $3.00 to $3.50. - seems worth checking out if you're in the area. Note that they only accept cash at lunch time for some reason.

Okan means "mother" in Japanese slang, and the owners recently opened another restaurant, called "Robata-ya Oton" - Oton meaning father. It's located in a small strip mall just off 163 at Clairemont Mesa boulevard. It's only open for dinner, and is somewhat more difficult to find, since it has no sign. It's in the strip mall behind the Arco station, on the far right hand side. After 6:00 pm the door should be open, and after dark, you can see the large globe shaped paper lanterns glowing through the windows. Oton's menu shares some dishes with Okan, but there are some differences. I think it would be best to cover those in a separate post, so stay tuned...

Wa Dining Okan
3860 Convoy St #110
in the Nijiya shopping center, just behind Nijiya on the left
San Diego, CA 92111
(858) 279-0941
reservations recommended for parties of 2 or more.

A Tale of Two Porchettas - Il Cane Rosso and Roli Roti, San Francisco

Not just two porchettas, two porchettas on the same day at the Ferry Building in San Francisco. I know, right? And people wonder why I love San Francisco so much. (Actually, they don't - I just made that up.)

Porchetta is a traditional Italian pork dish consisting of a whole pork loin, seasoned and stuffed with a whole pork belly. The whole assembly is tightly rolled and allowed to dry in the fridge for a bit so the skin will crisp, and roasted in an oven or on a rotisserie. The meat is thinly sliced and piled onto sandwiches with some of the juices, bits of the crispy skin, and pork-complimentary condiments such as mustard or onion marmalade and bitter greens. If you want to try making it at home, Cesar Casella's recipe can be found here.

Roli Roti is a very popular rotisserie meat stall just outside the south end of the Ferry Building, in the Farmers Market proper. Though it's only available in that location every Saturday, their porchetta sandwich has become a cult favorite in the City - one of those "must do" things for visitors and locals alike. In fact, it's holding steady as #12 on the 2010 list of 100 Things to Eat Before You Die from 7x7 in San Francisco. The line is long, but it moves pretty fast.

Their sandwich, pictured up top, definitely wins the beauty contest. The meat was thinly sliced and piled high on a baguette type french roll, topped with onion marmalade and a tangle of baby greens. It was flavorful, but the meat wasn't as succulent or tender as I expected given the hype. This also may just be a personal thing, but I wasn't crazy about the hard crunchy bits (more like chunks) of skin mixed into the meat. At first I thought I was crunching on gristle or bone - never a pleasant experience.

Il Cane Rosso (the red dog, in Italian) is a relatively new addition to the Ferry Building, opened in July, 2009 by Daniel Patterson, chef/owner of Coi and Lauren Kiino, an alum of Delfina. (It's named after her dog.) It's a walk up stand, but there are tables where you can eat on the concourse, or you can take your food to go. The menu offers simple salads, soups, sandwiches and rotisserie platters with hearty sides. On the day we visited, the menu included their version of porchetta, pictured below.

The Il Cane Rosso sandwich wasn't as large or showy as Roli Roti's, but the size was perfectly satisfying. Their condiments include a thick-sliced, pickled cabbage slaw, a plum mostarda, and some fresh curly endive. This juicy, succulent, sweet, sour, crunchy and salty combination was piled onto a soft hollowed out rustic baguette roll with just the right amount of chew. It's clear that a lot of thought has gone into the combination, and the result is more than the sum of its parts. It does cost a couple of dollars more than the Roli Roti sandwich, but all in all, I think it's worth it. No long lines, a place to sit, available almost every day? For me it's an easy choice. (The little dish on the side held a couple of pickled carrots - in case you were curious.)

At Il Cane Rosso, I was accompanied by friends Sam and Catherine. We shared not only the sandwich, but a winter panzanella salad with squash, winter greens and croutons, and a butter lettuce salad with bleu cheese and apples. The panzanella didn't have as many pieces of squash as we would have liked but we all loved the apple salad. It was crisp and sweet, perfectly dressed and seasoned.

Catherine also had the open faced warm egg salad sandwich. I wish I could say I liked it, but I just didn't. There's something about warm egg salad that just doesn't seem right to me - but she enjoyed it and it is a popular dish there, so take that with a grain of salt.

So, there you have it. If you needed another reason to go to the Ferry Building you have one, and if the line is too long at Roli Roti the next time you're at the Farmers' Market - now you know where to go!

Special thanks to Andrew Spurgin - for not only sharing his Roli Roti porchetta sandwich with me, but for waiting until I took the photo up top to eat it!

Roli Roti
Mobile Rotisserie and Catering
Ferry Building - South End, Saturday Mornings
San Francisco, CA 94101
(510) 780-0300

Il Cane Rosso
1 Ferry Building # 41
San Francisco, CA 94111-4231
(415) 391-7599
menus for lunch and dinner

Meals for the First Week of March

This afternoon I started to think I might have bought too much at the market today (combined with what we're already growing) so I had to do a little planning to figure out how to use it all. We're trying to be better about planning ahead. It helps us eat more fruits and vegetables, whole grains, less meat, etc. We're not perfect by any means, but we're definitely improving! Here's what's on deck for this week:

Sunday Supper
Grilled Lemon Chicken (made with boneless skinless thighs under the broiler)
Cannellini beans with sage & garlic
Greens from the garden with mustard vinaigrette and parmesan
Blood Orange Upside Down Cake

Monday
Cauliflower "bisque" with roasted baby brussel sprouts

Bitter greens from the garden with blood orange vinaigrette, goat cheese, pine nuts and golden raisins

Tuesday
Out to the Movies (to see Up in the Air - as part of our quest to see all the best picture nominated movies before Thursday.)

Wednesday
Old School Turkey Tacos
with avocado, scallions, lettuce, cheese and hot sauce
Refried Beans

Thursday
Tuscan Bean Soup with Bitter Greens (slow cooker recipe)
Curly Endive Salad with mustard vinaigrette, parmesan and croutons

Friday
Mexican takeout

Saturday
Beef Curry with Toasted Spices
Jasmine Rice
Naan bread

Other meals -

breakfasts:
plain greek yogurt with a drizzle of agave nectar and fuji apples
or with granola and blackberries

Ezekiel toast with a soft boiled egg

Ezekiel toast spread with ricotta cheese and drizzled with honey

Fuji apple with almond butter

Frozen banana and berry smoothie

lunches:
turkey sandwich on ezekiel with home grown greens and mustard

leftover soup

tuna and cannellini bean salad on greens

snacks:
Rancho Gordo popcorn

Dark Chocolate Zone Bars

Fuji apples with almond butter

Hummus with baby carrots

photo from the Ferry Building Farmers' Market, San Francisco - taken 2.20.10

The Heath Ceramics Factory and Store - Sausalito

Earlier in the day - before Chez Panisse, we made another pilgrimage of sorts - to the Heath Ceramics factory and store in Sausalito, another place that had been on my list for quite some time. I had only a vague notion of Heath Ceramics until a couple of years ago, when I suddenly started seeing references to them (and their goods) everywhere. Fittingly, Heath makes the dinnerware used at Chez Panisse (they have a custom line) and their plates are also used as bread and butter plates at Hog Island Oyster Co. - my favorite first stop a trip to the City. There's nothing like that first bottle of champagne and some Acme epi bread, torn and smeared with butter, to start a vacation. That is to say nothing of the impeccable oysters and the pickled mignonette - but we're not here to talk about that now, are we?

No, we're here to talk about pottery. Lots and lots of pottery. The factory sits in a mixed-industrial area, right around the corner from the Mollie Stone's grocery store that was in Albert Brooks' movie "Mother" - starring Debbie Reynolds. It's been there since 1959 - and all of their pottery is still made right there in the studio - from start to finish.

The factory store sells mostly what they call factory seconds. In fact, of the entire store - ONLY the goods you see on the table above are "first quality" - all the rest - on the shelves and other tables, are seconds. Most of the seconds are indistinguishable from first quality goods - at least to my eye, and I guess they should at least be pretty close, since they're only 20% less than the first quality prices. Bowls like the ones on the wall below are around $40. Dinner plates are $22. first quality and $18. for seconds - serving pieces are between $50. and $100. - you get the idea.

All of those things below? The casseroles, dishes, plates, mugs? All seconds. Anybody need some brown soup bowls?

The far wall, above, and the shelves below are lined with dinnerware factory seconds, arranged by type and color. You might get lucky and find eight plates in the pattern and color you want - or four bowls. People apparently stop by all the time to see what's available and snap up what they need.

The section above is stocked with overruns, samples and factory 3rds - items with obvious flaws and cracks. The glasses you see there are all made from recycled wine bottles.

They also have a nice section of books and gifts - all made by craftspersons and artisans - and an enormous selection of Weck jars (which can be ordered online.)

Heath is also known for their tile - perhaps even more so than for their homegoods. The tile section of the store is in the back, with samples and design boards on one side, and all the colors and sizes stacked on opposite wall. There are so many beautiful, saturated colors, with different glazes, sizes and shapes - I can see how it would be a little overwhelming to choose.

If you're interested in the tile, it's well worth a trip to the factory to check out what they have on hand in the overstock tile room. This area in the back of the factory is stacked with boxes upon boxes of tiles - most of which are perfectly usable, at a 20% (or greater) discount.

If I had any reason at all to do so, I would have snapped up some of these in a heartbeat. They can ship them home for you too. On the way to and from the overstock tile room, you walk past the kilns, and you can actually feel the heat coming off of them.

It was fun just to walk through and see the goods in progress. They give free factory tours on Saturdays and Sundays at 11 (but I'd call first, just to make sure) which would be very interesting, I'm sure.

This is a little peek at their stock room, where they keep the finished goods. The circular mosaic is made of their vintage tile. I just love the muted colors with the bright blue accents.

I managed to limit myself to eight small plates - four in robin's egg blue, and four in brown. I've desperately needed some dessert plates for a long time now - or at least that's what I'm telling myself!

Heath Ceramics
400 Gate Five Road
Sausalito, CA 94965
(415) 332-3732

They also have a new Los Angeles Studio and Store
7525 Beverly Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90036-2722
(323) 965-0800

and a new store is opening in April at the Ferry Building!

A Pilgrimage to Chez Panisse - Berkeley

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to eat at Chez Panisse. When I moved up to the Bay Area, in October, 1995, I actually drove by the restaurant, just to check it out. I found a bakery nearby that I liked, and from then on, every once in a while, I would go over there to get cookies and goggle at the menu in the glass case out front. (The original Peet's location is also just around the corner on Vine.)

The downstairs restaurant was a little out of my reach at the time, and the Cafe didn't take reservations. I remember driving the 45 minutes or so at least once to try my luck for a table, but never made it. I did frequent Cafe Fanny though, for beignets, mochas and poached eggs on toast, and the downstairs Cafe at Oliveto was my favorite lunch spot. I'm not sure if I knew at the time that Paul Bertolli, the chef and owner of Oliveto was a Chez Panisse alum. Other Chez Panisse alumni have become successful in their own right. Jeremiah Tower had Stars for a time, and Judy Rogers has the Zuni Cafe - which is wildly successful to this day. Lindsay Shere - the longtime pastry chef and co-owner of the restaurant opened the Downtown Bakery and Creamery right on the square in Healdsburg.

Chez Panisse has the feel of a magical place - it has the mythology, certainly, but there's something about the building itself and the aesthetic that has a fairy tale quality. It's welcoming, the lighting is just right, the noise level has just the right murmur. The service has just the right tone. Every detail - though not necessarily perfect - is just right. At least for me. I loved walking in, up the stairs past the dining room with it's wild flower arrangements, to the copper toned bar with the marble counter - then past the wooden bar laden with the evening's desserts, to a booth just opposite the kitchen. (We snagged a last minute reservation in the Cafe - no luck on the dining room.)

When we were seated, we were immediately presented with a plate of Acme bread, some amazing butter and a carafe of eau de Chez Panisse. The restaurant has repudiated bottled water, and serves filtered tap water in elegant, etched carafes.

The menu changes daily, and on this particular evening there happened to be so many good choices we had trouble deciding among them. While sharing a bottle of "Vigne di Alice" Prosecco, we elected to try two starters, the fresh mozzarella with tapenade, asparagus salad and prosciutto, and a toast topped with cardoon, kale, egg and anchovies.

You already know that everything at Chez Panisse is perfectly fresh and responsibly raised, but that isn't always a guarantee of delightful flavor. A little originality and composition is always appreciated when it works well, and in these dishes it worked perfectly.

For main courses, both Tommy and James chose the Pork Milanesa with Celery Root Remoulade and Little Potatoes, while I picked the pizza of the day - spicy squid with tomato sauce and aioli. Yes, Aioli on a pizza. It may sound a little strange, but it was genius. The crust was light and crisp, the squid perfectly cooked with just the right amount of spice.

The Pork Milanese was crisp and juicy, and combined with the celery root remoulade to create a perfectly balanced dish in terms of both flavor and texture. The celery root has a juicy almost apple-like texture, but isn't as sweet. A bit of mustard in the dressing, watercress, capers and a squeeze of lemon rounded out the dish.

The dessert list was tempting but deceptively simple. Both of the options we chose provided more satisfaction than I expected based on their descriptions. Tommy chose the white and dark chocolate ice creams with chocolate sauce, and I had the blood orange upside down cake with cardamom cream. James opted for a cheese plate - which offered three small servings he very much enjoyed.

The ice cream was silken and smooth, like frozen chocolate mousse, and the cake was buttery and dense - topped with a layer of caramelized blood oranges. It's something I've never thought about trying at home, but I'm pretty sure it could be done. The cardamom spiked whipped cream alongside was lovely, and it was all fabulous with the little pot of their own Blue Bottle coffee that I had ordered.

I can see how one might become frustrated with Alice Waters and her idealistic philosophies, decide the restaurant couldn't possibly live up to the hype, or simply look for a way to find fault to be contrarian, but there was no temptation to do any of that, at least for me. The restaurant has lofty ideals, but it's the tradition of excellence, simplicity and attention to detail that has kept them in business for nearly 40 years. It's inspiring and encouraging to see that tradition being carried on - not just by David Tanis and his crew - but by all of the restauranteurs, chefs and eaters who have been informed, influenced and changed forever by Alice and her little house on Shattuck Avenue.

Chez Panisse
1517 Shattuck Avenue
Berkeley, California 94709

The Cafe is open 7 days a week, lunch and dinner. Prices range from $10-$30
The downstairs restaurant is open 7 days a week, dinner only - prix fixe. $60. on Mondays, $75 most other nights, $95 Fri and Sat.
Reservations are recommended and are taken one month to the day before dining.

Current Obsessions (+ 10)

1. Handmade sandals.
2. Cauliflower.
3. Latte art.
4. T strap and platform shoes.
5. Camera Bag and Hipstamatic (vintage photo apps for the iPhone.)
6. Hiking.
7. Vietnamese breakfast.
8. Waiting for daylight savings time to start.
9. The Heath Ceramics factory store.
10. Mastering pie crust.
11. Paper art - paper cuts, printmaking, woodcuts, letterpress, etc.
12. Having a farm (or at least more animals) someday.
13. Making cheese.
14. Pizza ovens.
15. Kale.
16. Rancho Gordo beans.
17. Humphry Slocombe ice cream (follow them on Twitter!)
18. Big necklaces.
19. Spending more time at the beach this Spring.
20. Hog Island Oysters at the Ferry Building in SF.
21. Learning to sew.
22. Modern classical music (e.g. Build)
23. The new Harvey Faircloth and Kate Spade clothing lines.
24. Salt.
25. Popcorn popped on the stove.
26. Chez Panisse.
27. Naples style pizza.
28. Flooking.
29. Pleated skirts.
30. The Olympics.

(photo of oysters being shucked at Hog Island via Hipstamatic)

The Rest of LA - Villa Delle Stelle and Roscoe's Chicken & Waffles

On our last trip to L.A., we discovered the perfect Hollywood hideaway. Villa Delle Stelle - a five unit rental property/inn between Hollywood Boulevard and Sunset, just off Gower. It's one block from the Sunset Gower studio, two blocks from Hollywood Boulevard, and perhaps best of all, spitting distance from the Hollywood Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles. So close that the aroma of frying chicken will fill your nostrils day and night - so fair warning if you're bothered by that sort of thing.

This is the Art Deco suite - one of the four rooms in the house. There are three other almost identical units also in the house, and one smaller one-bedroom. Out back is a free-standing two bedroom, one bath bunaglow. In the Art Deco suite, the decor is modern but the original vintage charm is still intact. There are two bedrooms and one and a half baths (one shower, two toilets) and a party-ready kitchen, complete with a drawer dishwasher tall enough to hold champagne flutes.

On the last trip, we all crashed in this apartment at the end of the night - this time though, our friends also rented had the one next door - connected through the back staircase. Theirs was the "Parisian" - decorated with a French Provincial theme. Downstairs is the Dudley Moore suite, housing his Disklavier piano (the place is owned by one of his ex-wives, presumably the most recent one) and the bungalow in the back is decorated with a 1940s cottage theme. The one bedroom unit in the main building has a Greta Garbo theme and features a poster that reads "He loved her most when she loved him least."

The apartment is arranged in a line along the upper West side of the building - so it gets a lot of sunlight into the afternoon. It costs about $350 for one night, including tax - but the price goes down the longer you stay. All of the units can also be rented out long term.

I actually found this place because of the great location, before our last trip in June. We were going to see a friend's band play on Hollywood Blvd. and I wanted to find a place to stay within walking distance - so I went on Google Maps, and searched the location for nearby hotels. This was not only the closest place, it was by far the nicest (the area around there is still a little sketchy - especially after dark.)

Another benefit of having and apartment rather than a hotel - you can paar-taay. And so we did. Actually, correction, they did. I went to bed at midnight. I had to rest up for fried chicken the next day.

There was a wait outside this place day and night the entire time we were there, so we were kind of surprised when we were able to waltz in at 9:30 on Sunday morning and found the place nearly empty. Maybe everyone else was sleeping in.

I had the "Carol C. Special" one breast with waffle combo. My waffle was ok, but if we had one complaint it was that some of the waffles were a little limp. Next time I'd ask for it well done. The chicken was fabulous with that juicy meat and crisp skin and nice savory flavor. A little hot sauce, a little syrup.. oh my. I didn't need the butter - but it just wouldn't look right without it I guess.

This was the heap of fried chicken our friends ordered to share. I found it curious that they placed the chicken on the plates skin side down. Must be a reason for that, but I don't know what. It slides less on the plate? It sends the juices flowing downwards?

Chicken and waffles may sound like an odd combo, but if you like your chicken with biscuits and honey, you're already halfway there. The legend goes that it started in the African American community when familes returned from church, and some people wanted breakfast, and some wanted lunch. If you're not a fan of waffles or just can't do chicken for breakfast, they have all sorts of combinations of each served together and separately. If you really have a deathwish, you can also order just about anything on the menu "smothered" - i.e. covered with gravy and onions. Definitely something you want to order only after going to church!

Villa Delle Stelle
6087 Harold Way
Los Angeles, CA 90028-6403
(323) 876-8100

Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles
1514 North Gower Street
Los Angeles, CA 90028-6422
(323) 962-0276

I'm in luurve... with Harvey Faircloth

I am head over heels for this new line of clothing - designed and styled by former Blueprint/Martha Stewart style editor Katie Hatch and former Kate Spade art director Abby Clawson Low. At top is their inspiration board for Spring/Summer, then the Fall line - now available online (though pickings are a bit sparse at this late date) - and the remaining looks are new for Spring and Summer. Prices are reasonable, the fabrics are lovely, and isn't it just so refreshing to see something original for a change? Also, I'm immediately embarking on a search for the right shade of red lipstick to wear with little or no other makeup, after seeing the look on their model here!

A little bonus - when she was at Blueprint, Katie designed this adorable no sew wrap skirt. Follow the link for a video of her making the skirt on Martha's show. I remember seeing it on the cover of the magazine, and I am still dying to try it.

Stay tuned: More food posts are coming up - including more from LA, Japanese food in San Diego, and another trip to San Francisco later this week!

hat tip to Rachel of Black Eiffel for the inspiration!