At Bunk sandwiches with the family.

I’ve met my sister and our two cousins, Katy and Matt, in San Francisco for an excursion to some restaurants. Katy was intent on going to the French Laundry but apparently two months in advance is not a sufficent amount of forethought. We went to Chez Panisse instead. I feel like a regular now, me and Martha even spotted our old waiter, Howie.

The initial two dishes were very good but rather unexciting. First was fennel and chipotle mayonaise with some poached sole and a little crayfish. Next, rissoto with fava beans and asparagus spiced with tiny cubes of chorizo. The main dish was really good, with butter lettuce tossed in a butter based juniper infused sauce. The warm greens went really well with bloody squab. Dessert was grapefruit sorbet with sections of tangerines and oranges.

Katy was excited about visiting Tartine, a bakery that makes coconut cakes that look like Scotty dogs. We ate croissants so saturated with butter they left a grease slick on everything they touched, pastrami and horseradish paninis pressed with big daubs of butter, coconut cream pies in pasty crust. I felt a little under the table afterwards.

Martha is staying in San Fran to finish up her thesis. Me, Katy, Elena, and Matt will fly to Portland on a Bombardier Q400 turboprop.

Last night me and Martha went to Chez Panisse for the Monday night dinner. The meal was very simple and totally delicious. The first course was squid stuffed with bread crumbs and raisins. It was topped with a lemon confit sauce and little bits of mint.

The main dish was pork shoulder and pork loin with a squash sformato and onion rings. The squash reminded me of my mothers spicy corn souffle. Dessert was blood oranges with bitter orange zest infused jelly. The food was very midwestern and cozy. Instead of being fancy or avant guard there was simply a sense of love and comfort. Simple preparations, sauces with primary flavors, and a use of tradition American cooking.

We drank a bottle of Echézeaux with dinner. It reminded me of Christom’s wine. A lean body with dark fruit and lees flavors. Our waiter overheard me mentioning this to Martha and he brought out an almost empty bottle of 2008 Christom Mt. Jefferson that he said they had opened for a tasting. How amazing to taste the two side by side! The Mt. Jefferson gets less oak then the other wines at Cristom and is actually my favorite. They were very similar, although the Christom was just a little lighter.  By the end of the meal the Echézeaux was getting richer and spicier but the Cristom headed downhill pretty fast and eventually lost all flavor. I just find that fascinating. How can two wines taste so similar but evolve so differently?

After dinner we checked out the kitchen. It’s very calm and super organized. That night they were only having to prepare three dishes! The squid was cooked in the oven for two minutes.

I read about Coi on some Portland cook’s blog a while ago and have been excited to go for some time. It’s not any particular cuisine, although it’s got a strong Japanese and East Asian bent. The above is beets smoked in hay, mixed with chevre and topped with sorrel sprouts. I’ve been reading about this hay smoking technique for a while now.

Martha’s favorite dish was a mushroom porridge with parsnip chips and tofu foam.

Pea juice, pea sprouts, then a cracker with dungeness crab, topped with a slice of melted pork fat. All the dishes had very colloqial names and this one was called a “crab melt”.

Wild spinach, beef, and mashed potatoes. The mashed potatoes were totally amazing. I believe it was whipped cream with a little potato puree folded in.

The first dessert: lemon sorbet, pomegranate, mint, and meringue crackers. The last had a light flavor resembling bubblicous chewing gum.

This was totally amazing. Brioche breadcrumbs sauteed in butter, liquid chocolate held in a chocolate ring, “brioche ice cream”, whatever that means, tarragon, pistachio creme anglais, and a fluffy pistachio powder.

My sister snapped this photo in Brooklyn today. This is outside The Smoke Joint, at Fulton and Lafayette. My question is: aromatherapy or actual cooking?

I flew out to Minnesota this last weekend to hang out with my sister and cousins. We drove up north and spent the weekend at their cabin. In Cloquet we stopped for lunch at Gordy’s High Hat, a wonderful old school burger joint that makes very clean and fresh food. Crisp and fluffy fries, delectable burgers on airy white bread buns, perfectly battered fish and cheese curds, and blackberry milkshakes. All of it like a dream of 50′s Americana.

And speaking of Americana, I finally got over to the Grilled Cheese Grill. Somehow I’d always assumed it was a joke, like the dutch taco’s, but in fact it’s a very satisfying lunch. I had a mushroom swiss cheese sandwich with tomato soup. They thicken the soup with a little roux, and it’s just terrific.

I’ve been meeting Elle at Lovejoy Bakers every once in a while since they opened several months ago. They have decent bread and good sandwiches. Elle has buttery grilled cheese. I had a cilantro, cabbage, mayonaise, tender stewed beef sandwich on a chibatta bun.

I walked up to Belly Timber last night for a dinner by myself. They are a very strange restaurant, devoted to a sort of Victorian style of cooking. Like everything in Portland it is of course Victorian/Portland food. This is now the third time I’ve been. Previously I would order whatever sounded most exotic and exciting: Deep fried pigs tail, roast cauliflower with anchovies, french fries with bone marrow aioli. This food was all well made yet the flavors were rather unappetizing. I made an effort to order the most simple and restrained items this time. It was good.

The salad has a mustard, sour cream, and vinegar dressing. The pears are roasted with lots of salt, then sliced when cool. They were firm and tasted pickled. The ribs came with mashed potatoes (it’s a color balance issue making them yellow) and root vegetable dice.

Bunk Sandwiches is all about that. Tommy Habetz was the chef at a few good restaurants, now he’s running his own place. Everything is very rich and oily. I watched a sous chef reheat some brussels sprouts on the grill and then, after he plated, carefully pour an ounce of butter over them. Everything is delicious.  I’ve had pork belly, sauerkraut, russian dressing and gruyere on a toasted kaiser roll; medium rare meatballs (these were delicious) and spaghetti sauce on a toasted hoagie with cheese; salted cod spread, chorizo slices, and olives on focaccia. 

Little T Bakery is just down the street from me. The bread is really good. They only make a few sandwiches. I’ve had bacon, egg, and cheese on thick slices of toasted white bread; ham, salami, gruyere, and spicy pickles on a heavenly mini baguette. I usually get a little side salad, and the greens right now are thick, small, crisp, and intense winter greens like kale, chard, and mustard.

Meat Cheese Bread is a really, really great little place. They make their own bread, most of the food is local, they don’t put everything in the panini press. I’ve only been there once, and got the flank steak, pickled onion, blue cheese sandwich called ‘park kitchen’. It came on a carrot and polenta foccacia. The small amount of corn grit gave some nice texture and a bit of sweetness. They’re serving greens from the same farm as Little T.

Toast bakes one type of bread, a very fluffy white loaf. It is almost always toasted, of course. They have really good breakfast sanwiches but I haven’t been for lunch.

Evoe is in the same space as the Pastaworks on Hawthorne. The design of the space is very minimal and clean, as are the sandwiches. They are all open faced on a single slice of bread. Yesterday I had the Highland: rare roast beef, horseradish, bread toasted with olive oil, and a poached egg with pepper. I don’t think any sandwich has more then 3 ingredients, sometimes less. Others are pate and frisee; salami, roasted peppers, and manchego cheese; procuitto and asiago. I’m not sure whether an open faced sandwich is an insult to the idea of sandwich or an homage to it’s genius. You can’t pick it up and hold it and the bread is difficult to cut with a knife, so it’s sort of like a medieval trencher, a sop to save the juices of the meal.