Brunch at Chez Panisse Cafe

Last year a trip to the Bay Area ended up being one of the best food weekends ever. As soon as I land we caravaned to Berkeley, kicking off the weekend with some Alice Waters brunch at Chez Panisse Cafe.

Located on the second floor of the building, the Chez Panisse Cafe was packed to the gills during this Saturday brunch.

Just looking at the menu will give you an idea of the style of food here. The ingredients high quality and enticing, the preparations relatively simple but bound to be excellent.

One friend ordered the Bob's cardoon and anchovy toast with grilled radicchio and parmesan ($9)
I tried a bite and it was quite good, a nice combination of flavors, though it was too weird for my friend. Though what's visible is mostly the cardoon, the anchovy flavor was quite strong.

Enticed by the word 'truffle' on the menu, I decided to go really simple with Scrambled eggs with black truffle, grilled garlic toast, and chervil salad.
Softly scrambled eggs, strong truffle aroma. As a truffle lover, no complaint.

But then I got cephalopod envy.
Monterey Bay squid roasted in the wood oven with frisee, artichokes, turnips, and romesco sauce ($19)
I loved the texture of the tender roasted squid along with this drier version of romesco sauce. Both worked very well with the frisee.

Grilled Wolfe Ranch quail with winter squash puree, broccoli, and black olives.
Another great dish. The butterflied quail was very moist and tender and you can tell the quality of ingredients used here at Chez Panisse with the broccoli and squash. Growing up I came to dislike the dried up store bought broccoli. None of that here, naturally, as expected of Alice Waters.

On the whole, the desserts were very good but rather expensive.
Meyer lemon cream puffs with caramel sauce and pistachio brittle ($9.50)
Good cream puffs, but better and bigger can be bought for over $3 apiece.

Blood orange sherbet with kumquat confit and langues de chat ($8.25)
This was actually our favorite of the desserts. An amazing sherbet with strong blood orange flavor, but over $8 for 3 scoops still seems very steep.

Pink Lady apple and quince tart with creme fraiche ($9.75)
This small and thin tart was possibly the most expensive tart I've paid for ... again, good, but not sure it was worth it.

Overall we were very happy with Chez Panisse Cafe, especially with all the savory dishes - all of which used amazing products and were excellently prepared. Given another chance to visit Berkeley, I would probably end up here or at the restaurant again, though next time I'll skip dessert and go around the corner to Gregoire's for dessert instead.



Chez Panisse Cafe
1517 Shattuck Ave
Berkeley, CA 94709
(510) 548-5525
www.chezpanisse.com

The Menu: Christopher Kostow Guest Chef Dinner at Melisse

On Sunday June 27, Chef Christopher Kostow from The Restaurant at Meadowood in Napa Valley will be preparing a special five course meal (+dessert) at Melisse, kicking their Summer Guest Chef Series.

Here's the menu Chef Kostow has prepared:

First Course
Foie Gras in Black Bread
Dark Chocolate, Apricot, Bacon

Second Course
Santa Barbara Spot Prawn, Hokkaido Scallop and Cuttlefish
Windrose Farm Tomatoes, Uni-Apple Emulsion

Third Course
California Halibut with Serrano "Skin"
Molten Corn, Porcini, Borage

Fourth Course
Liberty Duck Breast and Confit Leg
Murray's Lulu Berries, Japanese Turnips, Jus d' Epice

Fifth Course
Veal Breast "Vitello Tonnato"
Hamachi Collar Mayo, Pickled Cucumber, Sorrel

Dessert
Peach, Peach, Peach

The dinner is $150 per person (tax and gratuity not included)
A portion of the proceeds will be donated to The Special Olympics.

For reservation please call 310-395-0881 or visit OpenTable.

Sneak Peek of Debbie Lee's Ahn-Joo Truck: Korean Pub Grub, Minus the Pub.

Seeing Chef Debbie Lee's Korean-Soul food on America's Next Food Network Star was intriguing. So far I haven't gotten the chance to try it, but now Chef Debbie Lee just launched a food truck touting "Korean Pub Grub" and a soon-to-open restaurant.

Starting tonight, the Ahn Joo truck will be at the LA Film Fest serving filmgoers who don't feel like patronizing the LA Live establishments.

Two days ago Chef Lee held a sneak peek for their truck, Ahn-Joo, for some bloggers (and random passersby) near their office in Hollywood.

She was on hand taking care of customers, and at least in the early days you can probably count on finding her inside the truck.

Ahn-Joo will also be selling some Korean sodas, like the grape coco palm and aloe vera.

All the robata skewers are $3 for an order of 2-pieces. Here's the Salmon, Scallion, Korean miso honey.
I also tried the chicken skewers and both were good with moist and tender pieces of chicken/fish and good flavors. They're also easy to eat on your feet.

Korean Fried Chicken (garlic glaze): $7 for 3 LEGS! By the time I got there, there was one piece left from a previous order, so I just grabbed that one.
Yes, I love that she gives all legs. Dark meat FTW. Moist, tender, and flavorful with crisped skin glazed with a sweet sauce (although I could use more garlic flavor personally), like a proper korean fried chicken should be. Minus the heat of a spicy sauce. And the beer.

The most notably different dish was the Korean Nachos ($7). These are fried rice cakes with smoky chile queso, soy braised pork, and kimchee salsa.
Sorry that it got mutilated before I took a picture of it.
A fun use of the chewy ddukbokki here as "nachos". A lot of bold and heavy flavors going on, making it a tasty bite and both a good drunken/hungover food.

Mama Lee's Meatloaf ($7) is made with ground rib-eye, soy onion demi, and topped with crispy shiitake.
The meatloaf was very moist, and her use of rib-eye meat gave it quite a nice flavor.
I would've liked something to go with it though, or perhaps less sauce as it was a little salty for me. I liked the crispy shiitake because it provided a much needed textural contrast to the tender and moist meatloaf - while I liked the meatloaf itself quite a bit, I needed to balance the texture if I were to eat 2 pieces of it. Personally I'd like to see more of the crispy shiitake here, or some carrots perhaps?

There are only two desserts on the menu right now: Grilled Nutella Bhang which looked like nutella toast (didn't try it) and Fuji Apple Eggroll with ginger mascarpone. Both are $5 per order.
Still warm and crispy, I enjoyed this dessert although it was a little hard dipping it into the ginger mascarpone - since we were sharing and I didn't want to double dip. Also, I could barely taste the ginger in that mascarpone. Being a ginger lover: more ginger, please.

I also got to take home the Spicy chilled buckwheat noodles with fuji apples and korean veggies ($5). This was a nicely portioned buckwheat noodles with spicy gochujang sauce and sliced hardboiled eggs, fuji apples, carrots, pickled onions, and cucumbers. Perfect for the summer, really.

I felt that I got a glimpse of Chef Debbie's Korean soul fusion, though I'm still waiting for my chance to try that galbi pot pie. Of course, the truck was meant to be "Korean Pub Grub" so I shouldn't be complaining that most of the dishes I tried leaned strongly Korean instead of the fusion that I was curious about. Some of the items are fairly priced but a couple I felt were a bit more than I would expect from, well, a truck. The food we tried was quite good, but since I did feel a glass of cold beer would go well with some of them, I'll be looking forward to the restaurant.

Ahn-Joo
@AhnJooLA
http://www.ahnjoo.com/