Bar Tartine

I recently met Lou, Russ and Matt for dinner at Bar Tartine, on Valencia Street at 17th Street. It had just been opened by the same owners of Tartine Bakery, and I have been hearing about its impending debut for some time now. As an admitted Tartine-addict, I have been eager to see what they'd do with an honest-to-God restaurant.

The first thing to say about it is that the space is beautiful. The walls are white and the lighting is soft (Lou hated the Antler chandelier). But the contrast of the walls is heightened by the black painted wood floors and striking "bar," which is made of bright white marble. It's like walking into a spacious, gussied up Tartine.

As with Tartine Bakery,the front part of the space is devoted to a large "open" table for walk-ins (this is the rage in San Francisco). They apparently plan to limit the number of tables available for reservations, and I suspect this will serve them well. I can imagine the hordes of people that will wait for tables inside and outside the door on the sidewalks (the same brilliant strategy they've used at Tartine where the line on Saturdays and Sundays regularly snakes out the door and down the block (as an aside, I will wait in the line as long as it's only at the door--it's worth it)). It's a brilliant way of rationing a good thing and making a table a highly coveted thing. And, as best I could tell, there is no real bar where there's any room for anyone to actually wait (there's only a high counter at which lucky diners can eat). This is also true at Delfina, Tartine's big sister.

We sat a four-top along the wall, giving me a view of the "bar" and the kitchen.

The second thing to say about Bar Tartine is that the menu was a bit of a surprise, a disappointment even. The list of starters and appetizers was much longer than the list of entrees--there were only four entrees. And I can't say that I was overly impressed by anything on the menu (except the recommended prosecco by the glass at the top of the menu--I love prosecco).

Russ and I order the celery root soup. Lou ordered the tuna tartare, and Matt skipped a starter. The soup was excellent. It was creamy and smooth and topped with small roasted chestnuts. Lou's tuna was actually prepared as both tartare and carpaccio, and it was good.

For entrees, Lou and I split both the beef tenderloin and slow cooked pork ribs and a beet and gorgonzola salad. The meat was delicate and tender, but we were given only two pieces of beef and two ribs. Russ ate the halibut, and Matt ate the duck. Both of them also complained of the small portion size.

The big let down, however, came when the waiter brought the dessert menu. Nothing appealed to any of us. I was shocked that the dessert menu wasn't better, given that they've made their names making pastries. No chocolate. No pastries. Big surprise, and big disappointment.

I'll go back and try it again. They had not even been open a week, and they need some time to work out the kinks and get feedback from folks. I am sure that in time they'll be sitting on another gold mine.

Go try it, and tell me what you think.

Baking Powder

My friend, Russ, after reading my comments about biscotti, pointed out that I should know a little more about baking powder, and he kindly forwarded on some information about what, exactly, baking powder does.

Here's what he sent me:

Baking powder is normally made of three different parts:

An acid
A base
A filler of some sort

All three need to be dry powders that can be mixed together. For example, baking soda (a base), cream of tartar (an acid) and corn starch (the filler) are three common ingredients.

In school, you may have done the experiment where you mix baking soda (a base) and vinegar (an acid) and get a bubbling reaction. Baking powder works the same way. When you add water to baking powder, the dry acid and base go into solution and start reacting to produce carbon dioxide bubbles.

Single-acting baking powder produces all of its bubbles when it gets wet.
Double-acting baking powder produces bubbles again when it gets hot.

If you want to prove to yourself that this is how baking powder works, simply try mixing a teaspoon of baking powder into a cup of hot water. As long as the baking powder is fresh, you will definitely see the reaction!

Thanks, Russ.

Thanksgiving Dinner--At Last!

I cooked Thanksgiving dinner on Friday night, one day late. It turned out perfectly.

I roasted the turkey with pearl onions--at Lou's request--and celery. I pasted the top of the breast with melted butter, salt and pepper and cooked it for about an hour and fifteen minutes at 350 degrees. The top of the breast lightly browned and the meat turned out to be moist and juicy. Lou and I ate two slices each (probably no more than a half a pound, and it was a 5 pound turkey).

The sides also turned out well--mashed potatoes with garlic, mascarpone, covered in butter soaked leeks and broccoli rabe lightly sauteed in olive oil with a dash of salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. It was a hit. Lou liked the dinner, and he's no easy critic.

I was most pleased with the results of my biscotti, which I had made on Wednesday afternoon and evening before getting sick. Though not darkly browned, the biscotti were soft and crumbly both on Thursday when Lou first tried them (I was still too sick to eat them) and on Friday when we finished them off with the Vin Santo. I used the Zuni Cafe cookbook recipe, and my only displeasure with them was that I found the licorice flavor overpowering to the flavor of the pistachios. I would have preferred a better balance or an outright pistachio flavor. Lou disagreed and thought they were perfect. I was just happy that they didn't turn out hard as bricks.

What I think is funny about the whole process is that unlike with most everything else--turkey for example--the trick to cooking biscotti well is not to worry about overcooking them, but to worry instead about undercooking them. Judy Rogers instructs her readers not to undercook them, so I was sure to let them stay in the oven longer than called for--about 25 minutes in all, which was at least 5 minutes more than she recommended--and even then I was afraid to pull them out because of softness of the dough. It seems that cooking them properly requires cooking them long enough for the baking powder to do its job--whatever that is--and then allowing them to cool and harden outside the oven.

Given the speed with which Lou ate up the biscotti on Thursday and Friday, I think I'll be sure to try making another batch some time soon.

Thanksgiving Postponed

Welcome to Foodphiles.

I had planned to start blogging on Thanksgiving Day yesterday, but, in a cruel twist of irony, I came down with food poisoning from a piece of pizza I ate on Wednesday night. I spent all day yesterday curled up on my couch barely able to move. No turkey for me. All I was able to drink was some Vernor's Ginger Ale and little bit of chicken broth late in the day. It was not the Thanksgiving I had hoped for. My plan had been to cook a simple, but elegant, Thanksgiving Dinner for Lou. The menu was going to consist of roast turkey breast, mascarpone and garlic mashed potatoes covered in sauteed leeks, broccoli rabe and celery root soup. I was going to serve a light German Riesling with dinner, and for dessert I was going to serve homemade pistachio biscotti--I made the biscotti on Wednesday--and Vin Santo. I was going to do all the cooking, but instead Lou ended up making his mom's spicy pork sausage stuffing for himself. He carmelized shallots in butter, added some celery and pork and mixed it all together with some more butter and stove top stuffing and then topped it off with mozzarella cheese before baking it for about 25 minutes. He was very pleased with how it turned out, saying it was as good as he remembered his mom's being. I sat on the couched and watched him eat it. Even though my plans were foiled, Lou and I managed to celebrate Thanksgiving without a traditional meal. We entered into the spirit of Thanksgiving by giving thanks for the time together, for food--foodlessness in my case--and for love.

I'm feeling much better today. I may roast the turkey tonight if I don't feel too tired. Or, I'll roast it tomorrow, and we'll eat a belated Thanksgiving dinner then. I'll write more about how it turns out then.

A word about Foodphiles. This is a blog about people who are passionate about food. My intention is to talk to as many people as possible about why they cook, what they cook and how they cook and tell their stories. Eventually,I want incoporate video and photos into this site. I may also write about some of my own cooking and some of my own experiences in restaurants, but I mostly want this to be about others. I've got a great story to tell about a day I spent making pizzas in a homemade brick wood-buring oven.