Perhaps you’re afraid of the State Street scene, where the only thing in shorter supply than sobriety is the fabric of young women’s skirts. Or perhaps you go to bed so early you don’t even know there’s another 11:30 on the clock. If so, all the hot talk — an Independent Foodie Award last year, mentions in the New York Times and Food & Wine since — might not be enough to get you to the late-weekend-night-only Blue Owl at Zen Yai. Well, there’s good news for you, as Cindy Black is opening a second Blue Owl, this one in the former Bitterman’s Deli spot on Canon Perdido — and it’s only open for breakfast and lunch. Oh, and a laid-back tea time, the very antithesis of the original Owl’s drunken rowdiness.
Want to read the rest, then do so at the Indy's site.
Monday, June 11, 2012
Friday, June 8, 2012
My Steak Has a First Name, It's D-I-A-N-E
Enough oysters--let's get meaty! Or that will be my theme for this day (the third of the trip), as we'll get to in a bit. First there's a quick breakfast at Blackbird down the street from the motel, a cute coffee shop with a not-particularly-cheery clerk but good lattes, an indescribably gooey sticky bun that comes from Bovine Bakery in Pt. Reyes Station (great baked goods, but that's got to be the worst name--"eat here and become a cow!"). The photos on display are impressive, too, very much Walker Evans-esque black-and-white shots of the same people in the same poses and settings years apart. It seems an easy cliche, capturing time on the move like this, but the portraits are all gorgeous.
As is our drive, up and up the Sonoma and eventually Mendocino coasts. There's a quick stop to see the church in Bodega Bay, luckily free of birds, a peek at Land's End in Jenner, to watch the Russian River pour into the Pacific, and a lot of thinking about Denis Johnson's wonderful, twisted gothic Already Dead, which describes this coast so well. We also stop at Fort Ross, as a bit of a walk mid roadtrip is always welcome and the place seems so odd: what did they need to fight off then--nobody is here now. Just to show we took pictures of things other than food, here's one of my favorites from Fort Ross:
Now the dress up kids camp that was occupying the other end of the fort in their faux Russian colonial wear didn't offer us any of their rations, so we got back to the car and kept heading north, through Sea Ranch, the most branded community in America it seems (especially given its paradisaical location), to Gualala and a Yelp-aided chosen place called Bones Roadhouse, that offers Texas-style wood pit barbecue...with a view of the Pacific. There's also several Lagunitas beers on tap so the food almost doesn't matter. It ends up fine, the slow smoked Memphis pulled pork I have is deeply flavorful and tender and of the two squeeze bottle BBQ sauce choices, the mild is actually better--more range of flavor than just hot. The mac 'n' cheese side is a bit too soft, but we'll make up for that with an amazing mac 'n' cheese in a few days.
Full, we head north, with a brief stop at the Point Arena lighthouse as we seem to be collecting those. (It is worthy, if nothing else than for the view, and the bit of a charge being 115 feet up in the air in the replacement for a lighthouse that the 1906 earthquake toppled.) Our goal is Mendocino, where we have a great TravelZoo deal to stay at the MacCallum House Inn for two nights. I'll get to the food there in a bit, but I want to comment on one clever thing they do--each guest gets a $7 credit wooden poker chip to use each night in the bar or restaurant. Of course you never spend just $7, so it's a shrewd loss leader.
For dinner this night, however, we drive even further north, to the town of Fort Bragg, working hard to be something as the timber industry about it went elsewhere. It's also the home of North Coast Brewing, and their Tap Room and Grill, not-quite-gruesomely located in an old funeral home, where we plan to have dinner and drink beer. And not just ant beer, for North Coast is home to one of my all-time favorites, Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout. If you've never had this beer on tap, you've never had it, and if you've never had it at the brewery, you've never had it as good as it gets. Creamy on the mouth, bread and hops on the nose, and then that deep complexity of bittersweet chocolate and coffee and toffee followed by more hops than you might expect in a malt-monster like this one (it is 75 IBUs). One time when a friend tasted and it simply said, "It's sweet," I almost punched him. Luckily he wasn't there that night.
As for food, Chryss was perfectly happy with her mussels and frites, even if it was a bit of a miserly portion. No doubt, they were made in some mighty good beer (oh, they had Red Seal on cask, too--making a good beer yet better). I opted for what at North Coast is something crazy expensive, the steak Diane special for $29.95.We're talking one serious slab of Brandt beef , rather indelicately but deliciously drowned in the Diane sauce, zippy with barely crushed peppercorns and warmed (but not flambéed) with brandy.
That was a lot of cow, especially given the sides would have made (as slightly larger portions), a wonderful dinner all by themselves. The braised greens were done just to the point of soft and so redolent of garlic I made sure Chryss ate some so we would both reek equally. That savory bread pudding was sort of more a stuffing, chock-full of wild mushrooms and red pepper and the bread moist on the inside but the outer edges were pleasingly crisp and crusty from time in the oven.
We skipped on dessert as we had those $7 chips burning a hole in our pockets for back at the MacCallum. There we sat in the bar area and Chryss enjoyed an Eldeflower martini--made with St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur, of course, but also Square One Cucumber Vodka, orange bitters, and sparkling wine--something light, bubbly, and lovely, while I had to have some of the best the region has to offer, a Germain Robin brandy, the Fine, which might be the bottom of their barrel, but then their barrels are so much better than most that at $8 for a very healthy few fingers of it, I couldn't say no, especially on a misty Mendocino evening alongside the hearth at the Gray Whale Bar.
As is our drive, up and up the Sonoma and eventually Mendocino coasts. There's a quick stop to see the church in Bodega Bay, luckily free of birds, a peek at Land's End in Jenner, to watch the Russian River pour into the Pacific, and a lot of thinking about Denis Johnson's wonderful, twisted gothic Already Dead, which describes this coast so well. We also stop at Fort Ross, as a bit of a walk mid roadtrip is always welcome and the place seems so odd: what did they need to fight off then--nobody is here now. Just to show we took pictures of things other than food, here's one of my favorites from Fort Ross:
Now the dress up kids camp that was occupying the other end of the fort in their faux Russian colonial wear didn't offer us any of their rations, so we got back to the car and kept heading north, through Sea Ranch, the most branded community in America it seems (especially given its paradisaical location), to Gualala and a Yelp-aided chosen place called Bones Roadhouse, that offers Texas-style wood pit barbecue...with a view of the Pacific. There's also several Lagunitas beers on tap so the food almost doesn't matter. It ends up fine, the slow smoked Memphis pulled pork I have is deeply flavorful and tender and of the two squeeze bottle BBQ sauce choices, the mild is actually better--more range of flavor than just hot. The mac 'n' cheese side is a bit too soft, but we'll make up for that with an amazing mac 'n' cheese in a few days.
Full, we head north, with a brief stop at the Point Arena lighthouse as we seem to be collecting those. (It is worthy, if nothing else than for the view, and the bit of a charge being 115 feet up in the air in the replacement for a lighthouse that the 1906 earthquake toppled.) Our goal is Mendocino, where we have a great TravelZoo deal to stay at the MacCallum House Inn for two nights. I'll get to the food there in a bit, but I want to comment on one clever thing they do--each guest gets a $7 credit wooden poker chip to use each night in the bar or restaurant. Of course you never spend just $7, so it's a shrewd loss leader.
For dinner this night, however, we drive even further north, to the town of Fort Bragg, working hard to be something as the timber industry about it went elsewhere. It's also the home of North Coast Brewing, and their Tap Room and Grill, not-quite-gruesomely located in an old funeral home, where we plan to have dinner and drink beer. And not just ant beer, for North Coast is home to one of my all-time favorites, Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout. If you've never had this beer on tap, you've never had it, and if you've never had it at the brewery, you've never had it as good as it gets. Creamy on the mouth, bread and hops on the nose, and then that deep complexity of bittersweet chocolate and coffee and toffee followed by more hops than you might expect in a malt-monster like this one (it is 75 IBUs). One time when a friend tasted and it simply said, "It's sweet," I almost punched him. Luckily he wasn't there that night.
As for food, Chryss was perfectly happy with her mussels and frites, even if it was a bit of a miserly portion. No doubt, they were made in some mighty good beer (oh, they had Red Seal on cask, too--making a good beer yet better). I opted for what at North Coast is something crazy expensive, the steak Diane special for $29.95.We're talking one serious slab of Brandt beef , rather indelicately but deliciously drowned in the Diane sauce, zippy with barely crushed peppercorns and warmed (but not flambéed) with brandy.
That was a lot of cow, especially given the sides would have made (as slightly larger portions), a wonderful dinner all by themselves. The braised greens were done just to the point of soft and so redolent of garlic I made sure Chryss ate some so we would both reek equally. That savory bread pudding was sort of more a stuffing, chock-full of wild mushrooms and red pepper and the bread moist on the inside but the outer edges were pleasingly crisp and crusty from time in the oven.
We skipped on dessert as we had those $7 chips burning a hole in our pockets for back at the MacCallum. There we sat in the bar area and Chryss enjoyed an Eldeflower martini--made with St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur, of course, but also Square One Cucumber Vodka, orange bitters, and sparkling wine--something light, bubbly, and lovely, while I had to have some of the best the region has to offer, a Germain Robin brandy, the Fine, which might be the bottom of their barrel, but then their barrels are so much better than most that at $8 for a very healthy few fingers of it, I couldn't say no, especially on a misty Mendocino evening alongside the hearth at the Gray Whale Bar.
Thursday, June 7, 2012
You Ate A Mouth Full
Just a quick one to alert you to one of the best sandwiches you can have without traveling to Pittsburgh, and who wants to do that anyway.* Hollister Brewing Company is offering my favorite special of theirs, a Primanti Bros. Sandwich.What is that, you may ask, and you couldn't ask if you were eating one as it's a true mouth-fuller: Niman Ranch ham, melted Fontina cheese, coleslaw, sliced tomatoes, aioli and HBC duck fat fries sandwiched between Texas toast. To do it right you have to get the optional fried egg on top, too, because, really, are you suddenly counting calories? Plus you need the soft yolk to ooze out and coat everything, helping it keep deliciously together. Somehow the Primanti Bros. legend is they started putting everything on the sandwich as it was easier for truckers on the go to eat them, which just means it's very easy to spot the truckers in Pennsylvania--they're the ones with the food-stained pants.
I'm not usually into the food-as-dare kind of thing, but the co-mingling of all those flavors is spectacular, especially when washed down with a pint of one of Eric and Noah's fine ales--the batch of White Star XPA right now is creamy and light and would make a fine balance with the bulk of a Primanti Bros. sandwich. Or perhaps go with one of the two slightly unusual Belgian-ish beers on right now, the 5th Anniversary Ale (it's got flowers and honey and is neither too floral or too sweet) or the Here and There (a mild Belgian, if that makes sense, all about elegance, and not too alcohol-heavy, either).
*I kid Pittsburgh, having been there a bunch from 88-94 and liking it, especially Kennywood. Plus I really want to make it to what looks like a beautiful ballpark PNC (no stadium this). Three Rivers was a football concrete doughnut, but I did get to see Barry Bonds pre-Clear a bunch. I wonder if a roided Bonds would have thrown out Sid Bream in 1992? More likely he would have launched one to the backstop.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Every Bivalve Has Its Day
And to keep you oystered-up, here's one from the Independent....
Sometimes a festival starts with just a mollusk and a dream. “I always wondered why there wasn’t an oyster fest in Morro Bay,” explained Neal Maloney, founder of the Morro Bay Oyster Company, “and it turns out there was one — in 1969. I wanted to bring back that feel of a legacy, of a sea-faring town.” Literally one day after first uttering the idea aloud, he got a call from Jacqueline Delaney, wondering if he’d support an oyster fest fundraiser. Said Maloney, “Her enthusiasm and experience took it to the next level.” That next level is the Central Coast Oyster Festival, which debuts on June 16.
Want to read the rest then go do so at the Indy's site.
Sometimes a festival starts with just a mollusk and a dream. “I always wondered why there wasn’t an oyster fest in Morro Bay,” explained Neal Maloney, founder of the Morro Bay Oyster Company, “and it turns out there was one — in 1969. I wanted to bring back that feel of a legacy, of a sea-faring town.” Literally one day after first uttering the idea aloud, he got a call from Jacqueline Delaney, wondering if he’d support an oyster fest fundraiser. Said Maloney, “Her enthusiasm and experience took it to the next level.” That next level is the Central Coast Oyster Festival, which debuts on June 16.
Want to read the rest then go do so at the Indy's site.
Monday, June 4, 2012
Oystered with One's Own Regard
It turns out the Acqua has a pretty good breakfast, not just barely plated box mall boxes of fauxssaints and long-over-prepped coffee, but good eggs, bacon, two kinds of sausages, fruit that's ripe, a waffle iron to play with, and a woman who can make you lattes. All included in the room rate. Nice.
This is day two of our trip up north, if you haven't had your coffee yet to catch up, and today we head out from Mill Valley to hang out at the Point Reyes National Seashore, walk a kajillion steps down to and then back up from a lighthouse, avoid looking a solar eclipse in its infernal eye, discover our motel is a birder's paradise where you learn quail are silly birds (and delicious! ok, we didn't eat any), and a luck upon the finest place to eat oysters until our own stomachs begin to develop pearls.
But before all that, before pretty much anything, we are cheesy. So that means in this neck of the woods, after we get done ahhing and oohing over magnificent Pacific cliffs and rolling dairyland, we need to stop at Cowgirl Creamery in Pt. Reyes Station. It's hard to imagine the artisan cheese movement without them, and they saved Straus Family Creamery by buying in bulk before the rest of us knew enough to go organic. It's both a bit underwhelming--I guess I pictured a place big enough to host dancing cows in tu-tus--and just right, for it's all about manageable scale, isn't it. They sell their fine cheeses and many of the best of others and have a pleasing little take out counter with salads sold by weight (the fennel and arugula with a bit of a cheese I don't recall grated atop was lovely) and soups and sandwiches, all be-cheesed, of course, if some, like the one we shared (saving room for those pearls we knew we wanted to grow) open-faced so you don't get too carbed out. As snack places go, you could do much worse.
After a quick peek about Pt. Reyes Station, which is kind of like an old west town wafted with smelling salts from the nearby bay, we headed out for bivalves. I had a rough idea of where I was headed but had only been this way once years before in the opposite direction, so when we got to an oyster place, we pulled in. Well, we waited, first, for permission to pull in as the parking looked like Dodger Stadium back before everyone hated Frank McCourt. We got a spot and wandered in to what looked like a bay-side, many-grill- and beer-cooler-fueled frat party, but with children, too, and more scary dogs. Turns out we were at Tomales Bay Oyster Company, a wilder scene than we were looking for hunting for Hog Island Oysters, which was good enough for Eric Ripert, and we want to be avec Eric. So we forsook our luckily landed parking space and motored further north along the bay, finally finding our destination, which looks like this--better than those drawings of heaven in third grade Catholic school if you ask me, which might be why I don't go to church anymore but love me some oysters.
If you want you can reserve ahead of time and drag your cooler in and buy by the bushelful and those will come with shucking knives and gloves to help you keep all your fingers. I've shucked a few in my time, but then again, too few to mention, so I have no problem letting the pros do it. Those pros are housed in a boat that's been buried, prow to the sky, as a brilliant re-use shelter, and kindly help everyone through the ordering. But basically it's simple. Tell them to keep the oysters coming. At first we had to stand, but that just gives the oysters, those perfect packets of brine and sweet, a straight shot to slide down our gullets. The BBQ oysters at Hog Island might be the best shelled thing I've ever eaten--no doubt fresh as you're looking out at their still cold beds they left perhaps just that morning, then grilled just to the point where they seem they've met heat but haven't melted or worse, toughened, and then laved with a garlic-chipotle butter so good that if Pavlov had it, the saliva from all his dogs would have drowned him. (OK, bad image when I'm trying to say how delicious something was, I know.) You get to wash this down with good micros like Racer 5, and can get bread and cheese and Spanish chorizo from ace purveyor the Fatted Calf, but if you do that, make sure someone wants to help you eat it--these are sharing portions. I guess they figure enough people fight over the oysters, why cause more problems.
We did finally leave, only by promising ourselves we'd consider stopping by for early lunch on the way out of town the next day, since we had to loop down around and back up the west side of the bay to get to the Motel Inverness. This isn't a fancy place, and there's barely enough room to swing a chorizo in the standard rooms, but the location is perfect--it even has a catwalk out to a bird-blind right on the bay, and if you get lucky like us, the redwood lodge/lobby will only be visited by two folks checking Facebook on the house computer.
That meant we had dinner there after purchasing it at the Palace Market in Pt. Reyes Station, a simple one, since we sort of lunched in two-parts, of locally baked bread, a couple of Fuji apples, a slice of Humboldt Fog (we weren't going to get all the way to Humboldt, so might as well meet and greet it in our bellies--plus that ash line is such a delightful design element, isn't it?), and a bottle of Broc Vine Starr Red. The wine is lighter than most predominantly zin-based (95%) wines, but we weren't really looking for heavy, just some good berry-ness and enough acid to cut the creamy richness of the goat cheese.
It's meals like these that make you go--ah, yes, this is a vacation. And then we had a giant stone hearth with a roaring fire and a pool table all to ourselves. That last part is best for everyone, as it saved you all much laughter.
This is day two of our trip up north, if you haven't had your coffee yet to catch up, and today we head out from Mill Valley to hang out at the Point Reyes National Seashore, walk a kajillion steps down to and then back up from a lighthouse, avoid looking a solar eclipse in its infernal eye, discover our motel is a birder's paradise where you learn quail are silly birds (and delicious! ok, we didn't eat any), and a luck upon the finest place to eat oysters until our own stomachs begin to develop pearls.
But before all that, before pretty much anything, we are cheesy. So that means in this neck of the woods, after we get done ahhing and oohing over magnificent Pacific cliffs and rolling dairyland, we need to stop at Cowgirl Creamery in Pt. Reyes Station. It's hard to imagine the artisan cheese movement without them, and they saved Straus Family Creamery by buying in bulk before the rest of us knew enough to go organic. It's both a bit underwhelming--I guess I pictured a place big enough to host dancing cows in tu-tus--and just right, for it's all about manageable scale, isn't it. They sell their fine cheeses and many of the best of others and have a pleasing little take out counter with salads sold by weight (the fennel and arugula with a bit of a cheese I don't recall grated atop was lovely) and soups and sandwiches, all be-cheesed, of course, if some, like the one we shared (saving room for those pearls we knew we wanted to grow) open-faced so you don't get too carbed out. As snack places go, you could do much worse.
After a quick peek about Pt. Reyes Station, which is kind of like an old west town wafted with smelling salts from the nearby bay, we headed out for bivalves. I had a rough idea of where I was headed but had only been this way once years before in the opposite direction, so when we got to an oyster place, we pulled in. Well, we waited, first, for permission to pull in as the parking looked like Dodger Stadium back before everyone hated Frank McCourt. We got a spot and wandered in to what looked like a bay-side, many-grill- and beer-cooler-fueled frat party, but with children, too, and more scary dogs. Turns out we were at Tomales Bay Oyster Company, a wilder scene than we were looking for hunting for Hog Island Oysters, which was good enough for Eric Ripert, and we want to be avec Eric. So we forsook our luckily landed parking space and motored further north along the bay, finally finding our destination, which looks like this--better than those drawings of heaven in third grade Catholic school if you ask me, which might be why I don't go to church anymore but love me some oysters.
If you want you can reserve ahead of time and drag your cooler in and buy by the bushelful and those will come with shucking knives and gloves to help you keep all your fingers. I've shucked a few in my time, but then again, too few to mention, so I have no problem letting the pros do it. Those pros are housed in a boat that's been buried, prow to the sky, as a brilliant re-use shelter, and kindly help everyone through the ordering. But basically it's simple. Tell them to keep the oysters coming. At first we had to stand, but that just gives the oysters, those perfect packets of brine and sweet, a straight shot to slide down our gullets. The BBQ oysters at Hog Island might be the best shelled thing I've ever eaten--no doubt fresh as you're looking out at their still cold beds they left perhaps just that morning, then grilled just to the point where they seem they've met heat but haven't melted or worse, toughened, and then laved with a garlic-chipotle butter so good that if Pavlov had it, the saliva from all his dogs would have drowned him. (OK, bad image when I'm trying to say how delicious something was, I know.) You get to wash this down with good micros like Racer 5, and can get bread and cheese and Spanish chorizo from ace purveyor the Fatted Calf, but if you do that, make sure someone wants to help you eat it--these are sharing portions. I guess they figure enough people fight over the oysters, why cause more problems.
We did finally leave, only by promising ourselves we'd consider stopping by for early lunch on the way out of town the next day, since we had to loop down around and back up the west side of the bay to get to the Motel Inverness. This isn't a fancy place, and there's barely enough room to swing a chorizo in the standard rooms, but the location is perfect--it even has a catwalk out to a bird-blind right on the bay, and if you get lucky like us, the redwood lodge/lobby will only be visited by two folks checking Facebook on the house computer.
That meant we had dinner there after purchasing it at the Palace Market in Pt. Reyes Station, a simple one, since we sort of lunched in two-parts, of locally baked bread, a couple of Fuji apples, a slice of Humboldt Fog (we weren't going to get all the way to Humboldt, so might as well meet and greet it in our bellies--plus that ash line is such a delightful design element, isn't it?), and a bottle of Broc Vine Starr Red. The wine is lighter than most predominantly zin-based (95%) wines, but we weren't really looking for heavy, just some good berry-ness and enough acid to cut the creamy richness of the goat cheese.
It's meals like these that make you go--ah, yes, this is a vacation. And then we had a giant stone hearth with a roaring fire and a pool table all to ourselves. That last part is best for everyone, as it saved you all much laughter.
The Latest Intelligence
It has come to this: I see a newspaper headline that reads "Inside the Mind of the CIA" and immediately assume it's a story about the Culinary Institute of America. Judge as you will.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Savoring Salinas, Pleased with Picco
I owe you many an entry, having been on vacation and then buried under the "damn, I went on vacation but my job didn't" catching up to do. Plus there's the anxiety of having 10 entries lined up to write--one for the food and drink on each day of the trip--, and the inability not to think of them all at once, instead of a day at a time, which is how they'll get written (I hope). Since, of course, I'm not on vacation anymore so that whole day-at-a-time mentality thing is long blown. But it went like this, northern CA via car (since it's still CA even if it's northern)--one night Mill Valley (to get past SF where it was Bay-to-Breakers weekend and hotel rooms were hard to find and expensive), one night Inverness, two Mendocino, two Anderson Valley, two Healdsburg, one Asilomar/Pacific Grove. So that's what you've got to look forward to as I try to look back (and see over my much larger stomach)(which no, isn't in my back)(I've messed this sentence up, haven't I?).
Hyundai does not drive on gas alone, though, so on our way from Santa Barbara to Mill Valley that first day, we got hungry and Chryss let loose her mad Yelp skillz. (The "z" bothers me too but I can't help myself.) That's how we discovered El Charrito Market (122 W. Market St.), which is actually even kind to your car, as a nearby gas station had some of the cheapest prices we encountered on the trip. It's one of those family-owned, been around forever--since the Bicentennial, which was, like, a different century and all--store as much as restaurant, especially since everything is to-go. Expect very fair prices, sizes big but not all-roided-up like so many places specializing in burritos (not that they don't do other things but a plate of enchiladas in even a parked car sounds like a mess waiting to lappen, and that's not a typo), and taste you can only get by doing everything from scratch. These beans do not hail from a can from Costsco-ito. The chile verde in particular, on a trip full of great pork, stands out, succulent chunks of shoulder in a rich sauce. I'd never thought anything would make me want to live near Salinas.
Two quick, non-food side-notes: The best way to make a 6 hour car trip bearable is to get to walk in Muir Woods at the end of it. As for lodging in Mill Valley, the Acqua Hotel is affordable-ish, offers soaking tubs, is amazingly quiet as it's in the shadow of the 101 (but it's back side, which all the rooms face, looks over a lovely estuary towards Mt. Tamalpais), and chic.
For dinner we took the short drive to Larkspur to check out Picco, which recently made the Chronicle's top 100 restaurants issue, so we figured that had to mean something, getting the paper across the Bay and all. We'd never been to Larkspur before, and while the downtown is charming, it also seemed to be the town where everyone you ever disliked in high school moved to when they grew up--somehow most of the population we passed evinced an ex-jock nouveau richness. Larkspurned, perhaps?
That doesn't take anything away from the fine meal we had. It got off to a bit of a rocky start as the very lively restaurant had no one at the host station when we walked in and the servers all seemed too busy to do that polite "someone will be right with you" thing--I said to Chryss, "If this were restaurant wars they'd be so busted." Then the hostess showed and seemed annoyed she had her job to do, telling us our table would be ready in a minute quite unsmilingly. This wouldn't have seemed too bad if she didn't chat up the table next to us--clearly regulars, and poster children for the Larkspur smugs--later in the evening. Oh well.
Fine food and cocktails smooth a lot of tepid service. This place is serious enough to barrel age its own cocktails, and a Manhattan out-of-barrel is as smooth and rounded as a baby's bottom, if the baby were made of oak. Chryss adored her Agent Zero Zero, the epitome of the salad-in-a-cocktail she so likes with its Square One cucumber vodka, lime, basil, cilantro, and cane syrup all perfectly balanced.
The food supposedly comes small plates although the prices and the classic apps to the top, entrees to the bottom menu design hint even Picco doesn't believe that. We kicked off with a special hamachi crudo that sat in what seemed too much juice, but a surprising amount of it was oil, not just vinegar or citrus. Somehow the extra oil made the fattiness of the fish extra luscious, and then that contrasted with the zip of pepper and micro green.
It seems they relish in making odd things like that work, for we also thoroughly enjoyed avocado bruschetta, the just-ripe avocado slices on some very hearty toasted bread topped with Manodori balsamic and sea salt. Between the acid atop and the hot bread a-bottom, the avocado sort of, well, not cooks but melts. Usually cooked avocado is something like putting water in a martini, but this dish offered something delightfully new.
The choices were hard so we skipped the chance for the place's famed risotto and instead went with grilled artichoke agnolotti, with ricotta, spinach pasta, fava beans, Calabrian chili, and basil as that seemed so California and so spring. It was. There was a grilled prawn dish with a succulent broth over some Israeli couscous, the prawns deftly grilled yet still tender on the inside--they have flash grilling down.
And then there was dessert, and talk about things that shouldn't work: the waitress (who was much better than the hostess) described part of it as "upscale Cap'n Crunch." And that nails what was strewn on the plate along with what could have been more caramel (five of the most redundant words in food writing?) all supporting the star--a corn ice cream cookie. There's that old New Yorker cartoon of people approaching an ice cream stand that has 3 flavors listed--vanilla, corn, and wood--and the vendor tells them, "We're out of vanilla," but the joke doesn't work at Picco. Obviously corn has a creaminess, and freezing it with actual cream and sugar (probably not much extra added, for this was far from sweet) can only make it better (of course you strain all the pulp out). The cookie itself also had cornmeal as its backbone, and add all that up you get one of the more intriguing and yummy desserts I've had in a long time. Who knows what Picco could do with wood?
Hyundai does not drive on gas alone, though, so on our way from Santa Barbara to Mill Valley that first day, we got hungry and Chryss let loose her mad Yelp skillz. (The "z" bothers me too but I can't help myself.) That's how we discovered El Charrito Market (122 W. Market St.), which is actually even kind to your car, as a nearby gas station had some of the cheapest prices we encountered on the trip. It's one of those family-owned, been around forever--since the Bicentennial, which was, like, a different century and all--store as much as restaurant, especially since everything is to-go. Expect very fair prices, sizes big but not all-roided-up like so many places specializing in burritos (not that they don't do other things but a plate of enchiladas in even a parked car sounds like a mess waiting to lappen, and that's not a typo), and taste you can only get by doing everything from scratch. These beans do not hail from a can from Costsco-ito. The chile verde in particular, on a trip full of great pork, stands out, succulent chunks of shoulder in a rich sauce. I'd never thought anything would make me want to live near Salinas.
Two quick, non-food side-notes: The best way to make a 6 hour car trip bearable is to get to walk in Muir Woods at the end of it. As for lodging in Mill Valley, the Acqua Hotel is affordable-ish, offers soaking tubs, is amazingly quiet as it's in the shadow of the 101 (but it's back side, which all the rooms face, looks over a lovely estuary towards Mt. Tamalpais), and chic.
For dinner we took the short drive to Larkspur to check out Picco, which recently made the Chronicle's top 100 restaurants issue, so we figured that had to mean something, getting the paper across the Bay and all. We'd never been to Larkspur before, and while the downtown is charming, it also seemed to be the town where everyone you ever disliked in high school moved to when they grew up--somehow most of the population we passed evinced an ex-jock nouveau richness. Larkspurned, perhaps?
That doesn't take anything away from the fine meal we had. It got off to a bit of a rocky start as the very lively restaurant had no one at the host station when we walked in and the servers all seemed too busy to do that polite "someone will be right with you" thing--I said to Chryss, "If this were restaurant wars they'd be so busted." Then the hostess showed and seemed annoyed she had her job to do, telling us our table would be ready in a minute quite unsmilingly. This wouldn't have seemed too bad if she didn't chat up the table next to us--clearly regulars, and poster children for the Larkspur smugs--later in the evening. Oh well.
Fine food and cocktails smooth a lot of tepid service. This place is serious enough to barrel age its own cocktails, and a Manhattan out-of-barrel is as smooth and rounded as a baby's bottom, if the baby were made of oak. Chryss adored her Agent Zero Zero, the epitome of the salad-in-a-cocktail she so likes with its Square One cucumber vodka, lime, basil, cilantro, and cane syrup all perfectly balanced.
The food supposedly comes small plates although the prices and the classic apps to the top, entrees to the bottom menu design hint even Picco doesn't believe that. We kicked off with a special hamachi crudo that sat in what seemed too much juice, but a surprising amount of it was oil, not just vinegar or citrus. Somehow the extra oil made the fattiness of the fish extra luscious, and then that contrasted with the zip of pepper and micro green.
It seems they relish in making odd things like that work, for we also thoroughly enjoyed avocado bruschetta, the just-ripe avocado slices on some very hearty toasted bread topped with Manodori balsamic and sea salt. Between the acid atop and the hot bread a-bottom, the avocado sort of, well, not cooks but melts. Usually cooked avocado is something like putting water in a martini, but this dish offered something delightfully new.
The choices were hard so we skipped the chance for the place's famed risotto and instead went with grilled artichoke agnolotti, with ricotta, spinach pasta, fava beans, Calabrian chili, and basil as that seemed so California and so spring. It was. There was a grilled prawn dish with a succulent broth over some Israeli couscous, the prawns deftly grilled yet still tender on the inside--they have flash grilling down.
And then there was dessert, and talk about things that shouldn't work: the waitress (who was much better than the hostess) described part of it as "upscale Cap'n Crunch." And that nails what was strewn on the plate along with what could have been more caramel (five of the most redundant words in food writing?) all supporting the star--a corn ice cream cookie. There's that old New Yorker cartoon of people approaching an ice cream stand that has 3 flavors listed--vanilla, corn, and wood--and the vendor tells them, "We're out of vanilla," but the joke doesn't work at Picco. Obviously corn has a creaminess, and freezing it with actual cream and sugar (probably not much extra added, for this was far from sweet) can only make it better (of course you strain all the pulp out). The cookie itself also had cornmeal as its backbone, and add all that up you get one of the more intriguing and yummy desserts I've had in a long time. Who knows what Picco could do with wood?
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