Yummies: Volume 6

This year's Valentines Day may have been my best yet. My boyfriend was skiing in Tahoe all weekend, coming back to San Francisco Sunday evening. This was great, because it relieved all the pressure of spending some ooey gooey Valentines Day afternoon together, and I had the whole day to myself to do whatever I pleased. While some of my friends like to spend their Sunday Fundays going to bottomless mimosa brunches - which I too enjoy, but only on occasion - my ideal Sunday Funday is spent in my neighborhood and home, pretending to be a suburban housewife. Forgetting all together that many people were celebrating some silly Hallmark holiday, and instead taking in the beautiful weather on this Sunday afternoon, I mapped out my version of Sunday Funday: yoga clothes all day (minus the yoga thanks to my recent knee injury), coffee and sunshine on my deck, farmers market and some gourmet grocery store shopping, a walk to the park, cleaning the house, some Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations episodes here and there, doing laundry, getting a pedicure, a long shower, and preparing for an elegant meal with my boyfriend. Mind you, the preparation was very minor. This whole meal is easy to make and it takes very little time to execute. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!


Seared Halibut with Green Beans, Tomatoes, White Wine Sauce and Orzo
(from Epicurious, but I've made some very slight adjustments - serves 2)

• 1/2 pound green beans
• Two 7-ounce halibut fillets, skinned and cut into chunks
  
• Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
• 1 tablespoons canola oil
• 1/3 cup Sauvignon Blanc or other dry white wine
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
  
• less than 1/4 cup unsalted butter
• bunch of scallions, white part only, finely sliced
  
• 1 tablespoon capers, drained and rinsed
• 15-20 cherry tomatoes, quartered
• 1 1/2 cups of orzo pasta, preferably wheat
  

Preparation (try to do all simultaneously so everything finishes at the same time):

• Chop tomatoes and scallions, and place in small bowl with capers. Season with salt and pepper, and set aside.
• Boil water for orzo. Add a teaspoon of salt. When water is boiling, add orzo and 1/2 a tablespoon of olive oil and cook for 8-10 minutes.
  
• Meanwhile, in a another pot of boiling salted water, cook the green beans for 3 to 4 minutes on high heat, until tender. Once done, drain and place them back in the pot. Cover and keep warm on simmer.
• Season the halibut chunks on both sides with salt and pepper. In a large saute pan, heat the canola oil over medium-high heat. Cook the fish for about 3 minutes, until lightly browned. Turn, reduce the heat to medium, and cook about 4 minutes longer, until the fish is opaque in the center and browned on both sides.
  
• Once everything is ready, place the orzo on warm platter. Top with green beans and then fish. Cover with aluminum foil, and set aside.
  

For the sauce:

• Add the wine and lemon juice to the pan you were cooking the fish in.
• Raise the heat to high and deglaze the pan by scraping up any browned bits of fish with a wooden spoon.
• Cook for about 2 minutes, then reduce the heat and stir in the butter, a piece at a time, to enrich and flavor the sauce.
• Add the scallions, capers, and tomato. Stir for about 2 minutes.
  
• Pour over the fish on the platter. Serve immediately.

Note: buy a decent bottle of Sauvignon Blanc to use for the recipe (I recommend Husch) and serve the remainder with the meal.


Apple Crisp
(From the Vegetarian Epicure)

• 3 large tart green apples
• 1/4 cup water1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/2 cup butter

Preparation:

• Peel the apples and slice them thinly.
• Layer them evenly in a glass pie dish sprinkle them with the water.
• Put them aside while you prepare the crust.
• Sift together the dry ingredients and cut in the butter until all is well combined. Sprinkle this mixture thickly and evenly over the apples. Don’t mix the two together.
• Cover the casserole and bake at 350 degrees for ½ hour, then uncover and bake another ½ hour. The crust will be crisp on top, and will have partly seeped down through the apples, flavoring them and binding them slightly together.
• Serve with Vanilla Ice Cream.

Note: you can make this a couple hours ahead of time and refrigerate it until an hour before you're ready to eat dessert, then bake as directed.

I'm in it for the Ads

WHO DAT? The New Orleans win their first ever Superbowl and Katrina is officially over. Seriously though, congratulations on a fantastic win! With Mardi Gras just around the corner, I can only imagine what the topless girl-filled streets of the French Quarter looked like last night.

While I'll be the first non-football loving girl to admit that the game was actually quite entertaining this year, I'm usually in it for the ads. This year, however, I was quite disappointed. Not even Budweiser could come up with a funny commercial. The only decent one was the one that features the Clydesdale running along the adorable calf, turned raging bull three years later. What can I say, I have a soft spot for animals. The deserted island Bud Light commerical was okay, but I wonder if non-Lost fans recognized the parody. And way too long car.com and godaddy.com ads were stupid and had nothing to do with the product they were marketing.

I did, however, think that there were many entertaining movie trailers this year, especially and obviously this one. I'm also looking forward to seeing the new Robin Hood, as well as the M. Night Shyamalan flick. Some other winners include the Betty White Snickers ad, the Dorito-covered man in the gym ad, the stuffed animals coming to life KIA ad, and of course the long-awaited Google ad, which happen to be directed by a college friend of mine named Aaron Duffy. Congratulations, Aaron!

What I love about the Parisian Love Google ad is that it's simple, yet effective and heart-warming. It appeals to men for it's straight, dry humor and to women for its romantic side. It illustrates the development of a relationship through quick Google searches. I love the detail of the searches; how it corrects him when he misspells "Louvre" and how he goes off on a Trauffaut search tangent when he is looking up the meaning of truffles. This realistically depicts how someone conducts seemingly meaningless Google searches to come up with their end result, but also proves that these everyday web-surfing searches do have meaning, and in fact are very calculated. The subject of the ad goes from looking into study abroad programs in Paris, to searching for jobs in Paris, to looking up how to build a crib. And we get all of this with simplistic and familiar imagery that is the start to an excellent television campaign for Google.

If only the other many poorly executed commercials could have followed the path of Google and Dorito, then maybe the ad portion of the Superbowl would have been half as entertaining as watching 70+ year old musicians (aka The Who) belt out the lyrics to "Baba O'Reilly" - which many of you (including myself up until yesterday) know as "Teenage Wasteland."

Dine About Town

Every year from January 15th to January 31st, San Francisco's best restaurants put together a prix fixe $35 dinner and $22 lunch menu. A self-proclaimed foodie, I take advantage of these 16 days and visit as many restaurants as I can without going broke.

Last year I went to dinner at Supper Club and Foreign Cinema, and lunch at Absinthe. Supper Club was overrated and kind of freaky, Foreign Cinema was fun and delicious, but Absinthe took the cake with their French inspired menu, and the fact that I got my in with Top Chef's Jamie Lauren.

This year I went to lunch at One Market, and dinner at Cassis, Foreign Cinema and Luna Park. Here's what I thought (ratings are on a Zagat scale):

ONE MARKET
First of all, they have amazing warm crescent rolls - some of the best table bread I have ever had! I ordered a glass of white wine (yay for boozing on lunch breaks), farmers market salad and dock confit. The salad was light and refreshing, a good start but nothing special. The duck confit was delicious! Not too heavy (even with a bowl of risotto), lots of great flavors, interesting texture. My co-worker ordered the Cobb salad. When it arrived we were both a little confused. It appeared to be a couple pieces of lettuce, some avocado slices, bacon and poached quail eggs on top of something that resembled a pita or flat bread. Turns out it was thinly pounded boneless, skinless chicken breast under the salad! Very well seasoned, the chicken alone encompassed all flavors that go into a Cobb salad. It was a very unique presentation on a classic favorite. The only bad thing about the meal was that our server was kind of all over the place, and she took a very long time to bring our entrees. Other than that, she was very nice and polite - probably just a little busy during the lunch hour.
Food: 20
Decor: 20
Service: 16
Cost: $37

CASSIS
I went here with my close friend and we left very pleased with our evening! We split a bottle of the Viognier, which was reasonably priced at $37 and a perfect fit for the meal. My friend ordered off the main menu: chorizo-wrapped scallops to start, and the duck confit for dinner. I ordered off the DAT menu: duck foie gras (suggested by the waitress - who was French and had a very high-pitched bubbly voice - "because it is a FRENCH restaurant after all"), day boat scallops with crispy Californian wild rice and chorizo, and of course the dulce de leche and hazelnut profiteroles for dessert. Both scallop dishes were delicious. I thought the wild rice was a little undercooked, but then again it was supposed to be crispy so maybe that was the point. The fois gras came with cornbread and blueberry port wine jam. The fois gras was so smooth and creamy - it almost tasted like butter (maybe a little too much), but combined with the cornbread and jam it was an explosion of flavor in my mouth! We decided to top off the meal with some Kir Matisse, because why not? When the waitress brought out the dessert, there was a candle on top and she started singing "Happy Birthday." She placed the plate out in front of me and prompted me for my name when it came to that part of the song. She told me to make a wish and blow out the candle, and then scampered off. It wasn't my birthday, or my friends, and the plate said "Happy Birthday Elyse" on it. It was pretty funny, but we told the hostess it was a mistake. She brought it back to the kitchen, wiped off the birthday message and removed the candle. Oops!
Food: 23
Decor: 19
Service: 20
Cost: $80

FOREIGN CINEMA
Always a pleasure, and great for a small group or a couple. I went here on a double date with my boyfriend and two friends of ours. We ordered a bottle of Cotes du Rhone for the table, and we each ordered off the DAT menu. I had a salad with fennel, croutons and Green Goddess dressing, the cioppino and creme brulee (I also tried the chocolate pot de creme). Everything was delicious, flavorful, light and fresh; I will vow to go back to this restaurant for all future DATs. They were also playing Casablanca on the big screen, which was a beautiful backdrop.
Food: 24
Decor: 25
Service: 24
Cost: $60 per person, I think. Thanks, boys :-)

LUNA PARK
I was with a group of 9 for this meal, and we made the reservation a month in advance. We were seated at a round table, which was very nice because we could all talk to each other. Though, the restaurant was so loud that it was hard to converse with anyone who wasn't sitting near you. It took them a while to take our orders; some people ordered off the regular menu, and some ordered off the DAT menu. My boyfriend and I split a Scorpion Bowl, which surprisingly didn't get us that drunk. Everyone was given a carrot soup amuse bouche, but it came the same time as our appetizers which was a little weird. I ordered an poke tuna appetizer, salmon in a tomato-based broth with fava beans, and make-your-own s'mores (that I happily shared with everyone). The tuna was nothing special; it tasted how all poke tastes but I guess that's what you expect. The salmon was good, but not memorable (maybe because of the Scorpion Bowl?), and the s'mores were good but I was a little too full to finish more than one. Overall, it was a fun night (thanks to the company) but I was a little disappointed with the restaurant itself.
Food: 15
Decor: 12
Service: 13
Cost: $58

Overall, I was very pleased with my Dine About Town experiences and I will certainly go back to Cassis again. I'm happy to have tried One Market and Luna Park, but I probably won't be back there. And to Foreign Cinema, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Meatless Balls

I've decided to go red meat-free in February. Originally this started as a wager with my parents (though, the wages were never outlined). Once I tried to stop eating meat for a week (see Veg for a Week), but I failed because I ate fish and turkey bacon. So this time I decided to be a little more specific with no red meat, including pork (I know pork is supposed to be "the other white meat" but common people - does pork look white to you?). I thought February would be a good month because it's only 4 weeks, and it's after the holidays and Dine About Town and all those other opportunities to engorge yummy pieces of steak.

Last Thursday I made my boyfriend and I some delicious skirt steak for dinner. This weekend I enjoyed a pastrami sandwich and beef slider (actually, the beef slider was only so-so and I didn't even finish it - a good start to a meatless month!). I'm looking forward to learning some vegetarian recipes from my roommate, Maddie. I'm not looking forward to a meatless superbowl; though I'm sure I could whip up some veggie-friendly apps, it will not be the same as a big bowl of spicy chili. And I suppose I won't be dining at House of Prime Rib for that icky hallmark holiday on February 14th - but then again I don't think I would dine at House of Prime Rib anyway. I may be tempted to enjoy some pork when I go to Slanted Door with my mom in a couple of weeks, but fortunately they have a menu that vegetarian foodies rave about so I think I'll be ok.

Wish me luck! I'm sure you'll hear all about it on March 1st.