Archive for May, 2010

  • 28 May

    bsharp

    Posted by
    Brandon Sharp


    Category

    oak cliff I

    0

    Last night we put on a winemaker dinner with Bruce Regalia and JR Richardson of Oak Cliff Cellars.  The menu read as follows:


    flash-grilled hawaiian hamachi with compressed pineapple,
    serrano chiles, vanilla oil and puffed rice
    2009 napa valley sauvignon blanc

    ~

    seared diver scallops with santa cruz morels,
    hen-of-the-woods, crispy pork belly and sweet peas
    2007 mendocino county pinot noir

    ~

    roasted saddle and sausage of pozzi farms lamb
    socca nicoise, tomato confit and a pole bean-marjoram ragout
    2008 curtis ranch vineyard zinfandel
    2008 firebrick hill vineyard reserve zinfandel

    ~

    uplands “pleasant ridge reserve”
    rogue creamery “smokey blue”
    toasted brioche, candied walnuts, huckleberry mostarda
    2008 lake county petite sirah

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 22 May

    bsharp

    Posted by
    Brandon Sharp


    Category

    when change is a constant

    0

    During a day of what seemed like endless 5-yards sprints, overripe plaintains that turned to mush when I fried them, and a freak May hailstorm that nearly ruined two wedding ceremonies, we decided to update the lounge menu to the tune of SIX new items. Changing that many dishes on Saturday afternoon: gonzo cooking, another instance of learning to fly while falling, just like John Besh pulled almost every weekend and I swore I’d never inflict on my own kitchen.  (But I have a short and selective memory, as anyone to whom I’ve promised a free meal or a raise will tell you.)

    So here’s the lineup:

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 21 May

    bsharp

    Posted by
    Brandon Sharp


    Category

    old habits die hard

    1

    This time last year, we served a lunch entree that has become, along with our steamed pork buns, the most requested “dish gone by”–our smoked brisket served on Texas toast with our house recipe barbecue sauce (one of two recipes I won’t give away), bacon baked beans, creamy coleslaw, and fried onion rings.

    It was everything you want to eat with smoked brisket, but it ran its course on the lunch menu and we replaced it, striving, like always, to change things often. But the same lip-smacking combination of those ingredients and flavors may soon resurface in a new set for our braised beef shortribs.

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  • 16 May

    bsharp

    Posted by
    Brandon Sharp


    Category

    tee you are, dee ay why. ess ay.

    0

    Jerry & co had an unintentionally lucid insight into Saturday night in a restaurant:

    everybody’s dancin at the local armory
    with a basement full of dynamite and live artiller    y

    and Saturday nights like this one, when the whole shebang doesn’t blow up, are good ones. The following characters, #$*(^%!, represent about 400 words detailing the difficulties with equipment, product, and personnel that we experienced today, and that I typed out and since deleted.

    To publish them would be not a little irresponsible, so suffice to say that we had our share of challenges today, and one of the privations and private satisfactions of restaurant work is that you are working while everyone else plays, and vice versa.

    And here is a very talented writer at play–serious play.  Be sure to click on the links to the right of the text for more of his opinions on Bay area restaurants.

  • 15 May

    bsharp

    Posted by
    Brandon Sharp


    Category

    everybody must get stonefruit

    0

    The first cherries landed this week, and for Brooks cherries (which are the pollinators for and the precursors to the more flavorful Bings) they’re very good, especially after a rainy April. Like tomatoes and grapes, stonefruit can get washed out and bland if too much groundwater enters the plant’s root system when the fruit is near maturity.

    The first thing we did was pit and pickle some cherries with sugar, red wine vinegar, and a chunk of fresh ginger. They’re crunchy, bright, and sweet, with a little ginger burn at the end. We added them to the chilled foie gras confit composition along with gingersnaps and arugula.

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  • 06 May

    bsharp

    Posted by
    Brandon Sharp


    Category

    the unvarnished and sometimes ugly truth about 2010′s james beard award winners

    0

    Just kidding.  They’re all brilliant of course.

    I’d rather use this space instead to talk about the beef we serve at solbar.   Yesterday, a guest asked me about our (double) cheeseburger, which I described in mouthwatering (for me and, I hope, for her) detail, from the pain au lait buns we bake fresh in the morning to the well-raised beef that we grind ourselves.  We melt sharp Tillamook cheddar over both 4-oz patties and add bibb lettuce, pickled red onion, a slice of heirloom tomato (in season only),  and the best fried pickles west of Shreveport.

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 03 May

    bsharp

    Posted by
    Brandon Sharp


    Category

    ail noir

    0

    It sounds terrible, because except for truffles and trumpet mushrooms, “black” normally means “burnt” in the kitchen. But black garlic, how could we not try it?

    Six thorough minutes of internet research shows that it is whole-head garlic that is slowly fermented through the application of heat over time (so maybe there is something to edible black fungi–the aforementioned truffles and trumpets, huitlacoche, and now garlic). Most interestingly, it’s a new food, and not in the way the molecular gastronomists are finding applications for chemicals–black garlic has only been around since 2005.

    » Read the rest of the entry..