Incanto and the Leg of Beast

It's been a while. I really need to get better about updating this food blog of mine.

Ok, so the long awaited post (at least for me) about dining at Incanto with 10 very special people, and with 1 very special piece of meat.

Reservations were at 7:30 on a Friday night. Incanto is in SF's Noe Valley- a very cute and neighborly neighborhood. Incanto itself has a very inviting atmosphere. The wooden tables, warm smells, friendly staff, and warm lighting all contributed to its homey ambiance.

The Leg of Beast is a prix fixe menu so the waitress sat us down and explainedhe different courses to us, and, almost as importantly as the leg of beast, she asked us which dessert we wanted to eat.

To start off the meal, we ordered a bunch of appetizers. For those of you that aren't familiar with Incanto, it is a unique restaurant that specializes in cooking all parts of the animal- nothing goes to waste. And to add to this unique meal, we decided to go a little crazy and ordered a few other things off the menu.

The fried pork skin was pretty good. Very crispy, had a meaty yet light flavor to it. I like to think of it as the "pork chip".

The fish cheeks were pretty good as well. Not my favorite, but everyone else seemed to really enjoy it. The best part of the dish for me was the flavor of the tomato broth. The texture of the fish cheeks was like chewable styrofoam and bubble wrap mixed with jellyfish.

Then came the blood parpadelle. One of my favorites! Rich, al dente, smooth, and creamy. I've had pork blood before so I know what blood tastes like- and the taste can be very overpowering. However, when incorporated with pasta, it really is quite delightful and the bloody taste is a bit muddled. Not to mention- the deep red velvet hue was really beautiful.

And then the real meal finally started. The salad was huge. It was the only part of the meal with no meat! And the charcuterie plate was amazing. So many different cuts of meat, including the head cheese and pate. The roasted garlic cloves were very tender, moist, and buttery.

They served the marrow of the leg first. This was probably my favorite part of the meal. Marrow is really God's butter. So creamy, melts in your mouth, rich and oily goodness.

And then came...the LEG that we'd all been waiting for. This leg of beef that Incanto serves is marinated over the course of 3 days. It must be ordered at least 1 week in advance due to the preparation involved. I'm not sure what they use to marinate it, but it definitely fell right off the bone when they served it to us. They really preserve the taste of the beef and they don't marinate it with too many other flavors. Not so much of a "wow" factor that way, but I like that they really want you to taste just the beef on its own.

The chef is friends with Josef so he came out and told us how they have to be extra careful when moving it from roast to plate. He said about 3 people have to move it so the meat doesn't fall off the bone before it is presented.

Above is Todd cutting the leg for us. And this dude with the face is Adnan, eating the bone of the leg of beast.

And then onto dessert: panna cotta and chocolate bread pudding. Delicious. The best panna cotta I've ever had.

And we also decided to order some other desserts- such as their "cheese" plate, which is bleu cheese ice cream and a fig tart.

The gang with Incanto's chef, Chris: Me, Jeff, Josef, Adnan, Elaine, Leann, Todd, Sarah, Greg, and Adnan

After two bottles of wine and Muscat to close the meal, my Incanto goal is now complete. What a great evening with my dear friends. Thanks for coming to eat leg of beast with me!

Vietnamese Cookin' in La Honda

Do any of you know where La Honda is? Ok so I had no idea either until my boyfriend invited me there to eat dinner one night. Truthfully, I was a little scared to go since it's about 10-15 miles into the woods of Skyline off Woodside Road in Palo Alto, and at night it's kinda creepy...BUT it is an amazing place during the day! There is tons of hiking, biking, trails, views, wineries, and things to do there. It's also just a great place to go to be outdoors and get away from the loud bustling city of SF.

Anyway, I don't go too often, but I did go last week. We didn't really have a set menu for cooking, but my bf, Jeff, has lived in Cambodia and in turn loves Vietnamese food- as do I! What food don't I like? =) He grabbed some chicken and Vietnamese fixings for dinner, we headed back, and his roommate, Rick was already cooking Vietnamese food and had some people over! Talk about coincidence and a yummy feast. Rick is also an amazing cook. He makes everything from scratch- including Bacon!

The menu items for the night were a cabbage, cucumber, carrot salad, marinated chicken thighs, shaking beef (a la Slanted Door in SF), roasted BBQ eggplant, and rice. Gotta have rice!

Below are the chicken thighs. Jeff marinated them in fish sauce, mint, lime juice, rice wine vinegar, salt, pepper, green onions, and some other good stuff. He then grilled them in an egg grill, aka The Big Green Egg. They were delicious! You can't really see from the horrible Blackberry picture I took with my less than 1-2 megapixel camera, but just imagine smokey, tender, juicy chicken Vietnamese style.

Here is the shaking beef that Rick made. He bought an entire beef shank, cut off all the fat, cubed it, and then marinated it. If you want to see the real recipe, I've included it below. Basically if you love beef, shaking beef is something you'll really like. Get the right beef and it's tender, flavorful and just really simple.

Shaking Beef 

Charles Phan, The Slanted Door

The Meat
2 T chopped garlic
1 t sugar
1½ t salt
¾ t fresh black pepper
2 T neutral cooking oil, such as canola or corn oil
1½ lbs filet mignon, cut into 1” cubes

The Vinaigrette
¼ c rice vinegar
1 T sugar
¼ c rice wine
4 T light soy sauce
1 T dark soy sauce
1 T fish sauce

The Dipping Sauce
Juice of 1 lime
½ t kosher salt
¼ t fresh black pepper

The Stir-Fry
4 T neutral cooking oil, such as canola or corn oil
3 stalks green onion, cut into 1” pieces
½ small red onion, thinly sliced
2 t butter
2 bunches watercress, for garnish

1.   Prepare marinade by combining garlic, sugar, salt, pepper and oil in a large nonmetal bowl.   Add filet mignon, combine and marinate, covered, in the refrigerator for two hours.

2.   Prepare vinaigrette by combining rice vinegar, sugar, rice wine, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce and fish sauce.   Set aside.

3.   Heat a wok over high heat.   Divide beef, green onions and red onions in half, as you will cook in two batches.

4.   Add 2 T oil to the wok.   When the oil starts to smoke, add first portion of the beef in an even layer.   Let it sit until a forms a brown crust, about 2 minutes.   With a spatula, flip the beef over to brown the other side, about 1 minute.

5.   Add first portion of the green onions and red onions and cook for 1 more minute.   Pour half of vinaigrette down the side of the wok, and then shake pan to release the beef and toss with the vinaigrette.   Add 1 t butter and continue to shake pan until butter melts.   Remove the meat and onions from the wok.   Keep warm.

6.   Repeat steps 4 and 5 with second portion of meat, green onions and red onions.   Place the watercress in the middle of the serving plate and spoon hot beef and onions on top.

7.   Prepare dipping sauce by putting salt and pepper in small ramekin and squeezing lime juice over it.   Serve alongside the beef.   Serves 4.

My next adventure that I post about will most likely be "Incanto" for the Leg of Beast happening on 7/30! But who knows. I may go somewhere this week or next that is blog-worthy.

Happy eating! I know I will.

Beretta makes a beretter pizza than...I don't know, I love pizza!

Every few months my old Google girlfriends and I get together for dinner. This time we went to Beretta, which is at 22nd and Valencia in San Francisco. It was my second time there as I had gone another time with my friends Todd and Jeff a while back. However, this time I stuck to the traditional Beretta items of pizza, risotto, and meatballs!

I got drinks with my friend John beforehand at this dive bar right on 22nd between Mission and Valencia and really should not have eaten all the chips and salsa in front of me, but I was starving! I also coerced John to join us gals for dinner. Good thing I did eat those chips though because despite our 8pm reservations, we didn't get seated until 8:45pm.

We started out with cocktails and meatballs. The meatballs are very very good. Not humongous and not tiny, but moist, hearty, and just the right amount of herbs and salt.

We then moved on to get two pizzas: the spicy italian sausage, panna & green onions pizza and the funghi misti, tomato, fontina & thyme with buratta on top. Buratta is basically a fancy mozarella that is extra creamy and buttery- really good. It's the top pizza (pictured below) with all the white blobs on it below- mmmmm love buratta.

The pizza is really good here. Thin crust, reminds me of eating pizza in Italy with really fresh ingredients and the right balance of sweet and salty tomato sauce. We also ordered the squid ink risotto and the kale and prosciutto risotto. The squid ink was better (in my opinion) than the prosciutto.

Overall, Beretta is a great dining experience. It can get a bit crowded so I'd recommend making reservations ahead of time or going earlier. They have a great cocktail menu as well: if you're a girl (or guy) and like drinks that are sweet but not overly sweet and fresh, I recommend the lonsdale made up of gin, apple, lemon, basil, honey.

More to come! This Friday I'll be dining at Incanto with Chef Josef and some friends to eat the Leg of Beast and other delicious goodies! Note: the food served at Incanto is not for the faint of heart when it comes to eating all parts of an animal.

Cooking in La Honda

The other night Jeff and I cooked Jeff's famous honey ginger pork burger. It was DAMN good. I didn't really do much of the cooking, except assisting and watching but it was pretty simple putting it all together. It just takes some creativity and good ingredients.

We headed to Robert's Market down by Woodside and got some ground pork, honey, french bread, spinach, coconut, ginger and pear. Jeff sauteed coconut milk, ginger, and garlic in a pan and then used that to marinate the pork. He then added the honey and then started grilling the pork. It smelled good and the honey glazes and chars the outside of the meat really nicely.

I helped chop some things and toast the bread =). Not a big feat, but someone needed to do it! Then we sliced the pears and put them on the toasted bread, along with fresh spinach. I added mayonnaise to mine since I love mayonnaise, but it tastes just fine without it as well! The burger is perfect. Crunchy bun, flavorful meat, crisp spinach and the pear adds a bit of creamy goodness. So does the mayonnaise! You can substitute the bread with normal buns or any other type of your favorite bread. The key to this sandwich/burger is namely in the meat flavors and the pear.

Anyway, finished product is depicted above. YUM. I highly recommend you try this sometime because it's delicious and relatively easy to make.

Nopalito

Greetings from Dublin, Ireland! As I sit here waiting for my room to be ready (since I'm checking in at 8am) I am going to update this blog!

The night before my flight, Jeff and I headed to Nopalito, a Mexican restaurant that is a sister restaurant to Nopa. Hands down, really really great food and very well done. The wait was a bit long, but no big deal. We just got some drinks beforehand. Anyway, if you haven't yet tried Nopalito, I highly recommend it. The food there is incredibly well flavored and the dishes are unique. The prices are also very reasonable and the portions are a good size.

We got 4 dishes. Two smaller ones, and 2 larger ones. We went with the Taco pescado, Quesadilla azul, Albondigas, and Braised pork shoulder stew. My favorite was the stew or the Albondigas. Kinda a toss in the air for me since they were both really yummy. In the stew, they put cabbage, the pork shoulder bits, and also large corn pieces. The stew was a smokey, rich flavor and really hearty. I also think it made me fall asleep since when I got home, I passed out on the bed for a while. Here is a photo of it! A bit blurry since I took it with my bberry.

 

The Albondigas were beef meatballs that were covered in a dark mole type sauce. They were really delicate and light and there was a beef taste, but also a taste of vegetables (like a really well-cooked chard). They served it on top of a pile of spanish rice and it was really yummy! Picture is below.

 

All in all, a great night with great company and great food! Also a good meal to have right before I depart the country! I want to go back and plan to in the future at some point.

Cheers!

I haven't posted because I've been too busy eating

Yes, it's true. I haven't posted in about a month now because I've been too busy eating my face off. Maybe not the best excuse, because it's not like I'm eating 24 hours in the day, but basically life caught up with me and so did dinners galore. Here are some highlights of the last 4 weeks:

My good friend and roommate's home cooked indian dinner - amazing and pretty dang spicy. I'm not the best with spicy food, but everything looked and smelled so good that I ate it even though my mouth felt like it was on fire.  Vik's mom, Mrs. Thairani, knows how to cook!

Dine about town in SF started. For those of you that aren't familiar with what this is, it's a 2 week period in January where most of the fine restaurants in SF create prix fixed menus for $35 dinners that include an appetizer, entree, and dessert. Depending on the restaurants, certain dine about town menus are better than others. But it's a great time to check out new places and it's an excuse to eat...A LOT =)

Below was a kobe beef dish from Supper Club. I have got to say that I'm not the hugest fan of Supper Club, but this specific dish was really good. Supper Club has only one dinner a night and it's usually around $100 per person or so. Everybody gets the same dishes and there is entertainment to accompany the dinner- usually singers, acrobats, dancers, etc. Definitely an interesting concept and great idea, but not always well executed and I don't think the food is worth the $100 tab.

This dish below was a dinner I had with girlfriends at Ruth's Chris steakhouse. Now they have a great dine about town menu. You get a steak, side dish, salad, and dessert for $35. Pretty amazing. The food was awesome. I got a shrimp and steak combo, which is what you see below. Very yummy and great steak.

More recently, last night my coworkers and I went to Salt House. Salt House is owned by the same owner as Town Hall, another restaurant in SF. The ambience was pretty cool- exposed brick, dim lighting, and an urban space. I thought Salt House was a dine about town participant, but it turns out they only had a lunch menu. Oh well, no big deal. The food was still delicious. I must say that their appetizers are better than the entrees. The restaurant is known for their fish, which is definitely light and moist, but it's not that flavorful. I tried some of my friends' petra sole and cod. I felt like chicken and that's what I got (pictured below). It was damn good. Chicken breast pieces that were moist and had nice pieces of crisp skin on top of them. It was served on a bed of a pasta, leeks, and some bacon. YUMMY. We got some pinot noir to go with it and a few appetizers. My favorite was the foie gras. So good. The scallops were also excellent.

Lastly, I celebrated by birthday a week or so ago. Went to Roy's for dinner with my parents and my aunt and uncle who were visiting from Michigan. I've been to Roy's a few times already, but I really love the way they do their seafood and they have one of the best chocolate souffles. We all did their dine about town menu, which is phenomenol. I got an appetizer sampler, butterfish, and the souffle. The butterfish was amazing. Juicy, tender, and tasted like butter. They also didn't just give one piece of the fish, they gave three! Pictured below was their special bday present to me. More food! :)

 

Until next time.... =)

Dinner with mommies and karaoke

Over the break, my family friends and I got together. With people home for the holidays, (some of them live in NY currently) we decided, as daughters, to take our moms out to dinner and a night out on the town in SF. It isn't too often that we can wine and dine our mothers. Best. Idea. Ever. Or, one of the best ideas ever. And some of the best money I've ever spent on somebody :)

First, our moms are completely traditional and old fashioned. None of them come to SF often at all, even though they live a mere 40-45 minutes away in the east bay. All were immigrants into the US and can be a bit embarrassing and "fobby" than your normal embarrassing mother. For example, at dinner, every single one of them whipped out their cameras and took pictures (with flash) of all the dishes. The restaurant was dimly lit and people stared at us. And yes they all took the same pictures...multiple times. Nonetheless, we love them and chuckled at how cute they were amidst rolling our eyes and taking some more sips of our drinks.

Above is all of us at dinner. Look how cute the moms are! Can you guess the mom and daughter pairs?

This past Sunday, we took them to dine at RN74. I picked up some rose boquets for each of them on the way over, just as a special thank you. The last time they got flowers from someone was probably a while ago- and the dads definitely haven't gotten flowers in a while. So we wanted to spruce things up a bit :). Anyway, RN74 is the new Michael Minna restaurant in SOMA. The Yelp reviews of this place weren't the best- 3.5/5 stars. However, the food was actually really good. Main courses were definitely good. Not too big a fan of the swordfish, but the pork, chicken, and scallops were good. We got a bunch of appetizers to share and I just got to say that the Hamachi Sashimi and the Maitake Mushroom Tempura was yummy.

Pictured below is the Beef Carpaccio and Butternut Squash Agnolotti. Delectable.

The main course I got was bacon wrapped pork loin over a bed of spinach with this cornbread wheat bread. So good. I've realized that I love pork and pork on pork. YUM again.

I should have taken cocktail pictures as cocktails are important to the meal. Our moms don't drink too much normally so each of them felt "dizzy" and "lightheaded" after a few sips of a cocktail. Precious. My mom got a margarita, which she didn't quite finish. We also got a bottle of wine for the table and tried our best to encourage the moms to finish their drinks to get them liquored up for karaoke. Don't worry, the daughters were responsible and became the DD's for the evening.

The desserts at RN74 weren't to die for. I wouldn't really recommend getting desserts there. They all were very unique and different tasting. We did get their beignets, which were probably the best thing on the dessert menu. But again, not my favorite place for dessert.

And then we headed to Karaoke. Amazing night. Singing in chinese, singing 80's songs and old classics was a lot of fun with the moms and they had a great time together. The night will need to be repeated again in the future. Maybe we'll add the dads in next time.

This will probably be my last post of the year. Here's to wishing you and your loved ones a very safe, healthy, and happy new year. Cheers!