Posts Tagged ‘Brenda’s French Soul Food’
July-to-August Review!
t says: We’ve had a pretty month since coming back from London – the summer is flying by! We need to play a little catch-up.
V Street! That’s right – we finally did V Street. Well, to be clear, g had done V Street several times before, but I had not. This is one of her favorite dishes, and was demonstrative, in general, of the style of food there. What you see above I think is called their “Peruvian Fries”. In an interseting-taasting aioli, herbs, and peanuts, the nicely cooked potato wedges were fantastic! However, I have to say that I wasn’t quite as blown away as she, as I was expecting something “punchier” – tangier, spicier, louder. The other dishes, too, just felt a little muted to me, not quite hitting the expectations that I had after having eaten at Vedge and reading V Street’s interesting menu. It’s not “bad”, but I’ll leave this place for the vegans (and g).
oh – and don’t do the custard – the texture is atrocious. (unless you’re used to vegan ice cream).
Hop on over to Jersey and visit Vineland, our hometown. It’s a quaint little city, Vineland, with not a lot of the craziest gastronomic advances going on – but that’s fine – that’s just Vineland! That said, I’ve had these pretty amazing ravioli at Larry’s so I just had to give them a shout-out! Often filled with ricotta+vegetable (pea, or caramelized onion, or whatever) and sparsely dressed, it’s my new favorite when visiting our parents!
Ah, yes – the good ‘ol blurry photo. Why bother including it? Because it’s a reminder to one and all that Mercato is still frickin’ killing it, Italian-BYO-style. Remember when Philly was reknowned for its Italian BYOs? When Mercato, Melograno, Modo Mio, and La Viola were all the rage? Before we cared about celebrities and expensive tasting menus. Well, we won’t forget those good ‘ol days (obviously we are old and crotchety and resistant to change). The above is a dish from Mercato during the “Summer Tuesday Tastings” they got going on. Pasta, braised meat, pistachio, and some shreds of cheese? Yes please. God it was good.
It has been a while since we did brunch here on adsz – we just kept going to the usual suspects. But now, check out the newest king of the hill: TRIA! Yes, that’s right – TRIA (the one on Fitler Square). These blueberry ricotta pancakes were absolutely insane! So delicately light and fluffy, (but substantive) and full of flavor. It was incredible. And there were still like three other dishes we wanted to try! Get their early, avoid the lines, order a glass of Riesling (obviously!), and enjoy breakfast!
Now here we go … here we go … Look at these four beignets, sitting in a row. Stuffed with apples or chocolate or crawfish, Brenda’s does the most amazing sweetly fried dough that I have ever had. The catch? Brenda’s is in San Francisco (sadtrombone.com). Consequently, we’ll just have to keep going back every time we visit …
Oh – and Brenda’s does upside-down peach cobbler pancakes, too – imagine peach pie (with crumble topping) but in pancake form. Seriously – blew my head off. So delicious.
Also on a recent visit to SF, I dined at Saru, a place we first visited for lunch some time. As usual, it was delicious, from the charred shisito and daikon salad …
… to the nigiri I chose from the menu. Now, because I dined alone, I had the chance to make a few observations. The first one was weird. I arrived at restaurant opening, which meant there was a line. While there were parties of 2 and 3 and 4 being turned away with wait times of about 30 minutes, I knew that a solo diner like me would just sslliiddee right in. So when I finally got up to the host and hostess, I told them, “party of 1, please” and looked over to the bar, eyeing an open seat, smiling. So he nodded and I swear he was about to seat me, right up until, I overheard her lean in to his ear and telling him, “make him wait”. WTF!! But it’s ok – I waited the 20 minutes (I visited a nearby chocolate shop) and it was worth it. The sushi is crazy. The other observation is that Saru is only prepared for a single ordering for each party – the “oh if we’re hungry we’ll just order more” tactic doesn’t work. The kitchen is small, busy, and doesn’t have time to go back and make another order for you – they want you in, ordered, fed, and gone, ready for the next party. Lingering, ordering “just a few more” is discouraged – that messes with their workflow. The couple next to me didn’t understand this. It was an interesting exchange to say the least: “another 45 minutes for just 1 more roll and a few nigiri?”. So remember: order, eat, leave.
k and cm took me to a wonderful little restaurant for seafood pasta, cioppino, and oysters – so great. No idea what it was called, but I can’t wait to go back!
Remember when we said we needed to go back to Mercato more? Done! Boom! My dish: pasta, meat, cheese – done! g’s dish: pasta, meat, cheese – done! So simple, SO GOOD. It used to be second fiddle to Melograno, but no more – Mercato is our new-old-fave Italian BYO.
Oh, yes, this. I’ll just leave this right here.
And to close: check out our pseudo-porchetta. Let’s zoom in:
From “All Abour Roasting”, the lovely sage, rosemary, thyme, and garlic sang between the two slabs of meat (5lb pork belly, 3lb tenderloin). Yea – it was as good as it looked – had it with some broccoli rabe, provolone, potato rolls. Next time, I’ll cook it a little slower so it’ll be a bit more tender, but nevertheless, 6 people demolished 8lbs of meat over two days. Success!
finishing in Napa and killing it in SF
t says: I have to say that up until this point, g and I were pretty successful in attaining wine in Napa (Quintessa, Sinskey, Massican, Larkmead) … BUT … we were a little disappointed that we hadn’t found something “new” or “exciting”. For example, last time, we “found” Larkmead, we “found” Tor, we “found” Massican (i.e. they were around for a while and it was our first time tasting them, so I am saying that we “found” them), but this time, nothing really shocked us … (well, except for how mediocre Maisonry and Napa Vintner’s Collective were). (g cuts in: hey – Newton’s Puzzle was delicious – I’m shocked that you didn’t buy any!). Be that as it may – our last day in Napa started off with 750wines. This “wine concierge” service is now our new favorite place in Napa. It’s totally NOT for newbies, but basically you email them, you arrange an appointment, you fill out a questionnaire where they ask you about your price point and wine preferences, and they take it from there with a free tasting. I’m not sure why it’s free – maybe they have that much faith that they’ll find something that you’ll buy? No idea. But It. Was. Awesome. First off, the host, Monica, is fabulous. She knows her wine, and she knows how to talk to people – very refreshing and surprisingly not commonplace in the Valley (for example, we went to one place shopping for “a crowd-pleasing, fruit-forward, super-smooth red” and all we got in response is, “we don’t stock those here” – are you for real? Are we still in California?). She also knows how to put together a tasting, and took it upon herself to “push us” a little, making 3 of 6 wines well outside our “comfort zone” in terms of what we typically drink (e.g. she included some chardonnay, some Italian stuff, some pseudo-Spanish stuff) – we would have never tasted these wines otherwise! And you know what – they were more impressive than the ones that we would have predicted we would have liked (i.e. your standard cabs and sauv blancs). Furthermore, she was willing to improvise some, pulling out a 7th wine because our conversations happen to meander some, inspiring her to show us yet another unique bottling that we would have never found. Actually – if memory serves me correct, 6 of the 7 wines only had around 300 cases produced, so this was some low production stuff. So yes, it was a great tasting, and although we only left with two bottles, if we had to join one wine club in Napa Valley, this would be it for sure! We have that much faith in her ability to find wines that would appeal to us! Oh, and she also gave us a tip about MacDonald Vineyards and their first ever release this year, which we hope will be the next big name in Napa.
We followed up 750wines with a return to Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen. My duck burger was probably the best burger I’ve had in the past year (I only wish it tasted a little more ducky) and chicken-topped salad put a smile on g’s face. This was our last meal in Napa … except for the Kara’s cupcakes we bought on the way back to SF …
Now, SF featured a lot of relaxing and catching up with k and kp, so we’ll be vague about the activities. But the food … now that is some adsz-worth stuff, so we will try our best to shock and awe with picture upon picture … starting with our first dinner of SF … which was SPQR! (PS – these are only SOME of the pictures we took)
g had a weird dish called “sweet carrot and lentil salad, medjool date, and vadouvan curry crema”. What actually came out was an assortment of like 37 different root vegetables and a few blobs of random textures … and g liked it! i was also impressed – it was like something that we could have found at a casual version of Vedge.
because we brought a red wine (i.e. because kp brought a red wine), i started off with a wagyu beef appetizer … which was interesting because the broth and greens were fabulous, and the dancing bonito was a sight to behold (i took a movie on my iPhone, but for some reason can’t post it to this blog – you’ll just have to trust us) … However, this was probably the weakest of the appetizers as the beef preparation was less-than-superbly executed (the three slabs weren’t super-tender, lacked seasoning, and was somewhere in the medium-medium-well range). consequently, this dish was kind of a fail.
buckwheat tagliatelle with bacon-braised suckling pig. now this dish should be, in v’s terms, “all bait”. But to be honest, it was a little underwhelming, as the pasta’s graininess was sadface-inducing – I would have taken a plain ‘ol barilla pasta because without the textural distraction of the buckwheat, I could have focused on the splendid oink-oinkiness of the rest of the dish … which was indeed everything that a pig-based pasta dish could be (i.e. heaven).
now g’s pasta, on the other hand (mustard cappellini, guinea hen ragu, savoy cabbage, mimolette cheese), was so ridiculously addictive that i think i had more of it than she had! and to further blow your mind – it was not even the “best” dish of the evening – that would be kp’s (not pictured). He had this lasagnette (which, when served, looked like a boring folded over crepe) and meatballs that were in-sane. It hit you in the face with memories of 5-year-old you, the first time you ever had your own meatball to yourself on a fork, with wide eyes and a cheesy grin with your tongue trying to reach the corners of your tomato-sauce-covered face. in-sane.
for this dinner, kp reached deep into his cellar, past the santa margherita everyday “date wine”, and over to the “special wine” row to find this beauty. This 2002 Revana was “tots cray”, with a nose of “man” (leather, tobacco, musk), but then palate of plush dark fruits that slid smoothly across the palate to make you pause and savor. What’s the secret to this wine? Is it the terroir? The deep “family” wine-making heritage? …
… nope! It was the ringer that the proprieter hired to make his wine: Heidi Peterson Barrett, the “first lady of wine” who gave us a 2002 that far outclassed the Dominus 2002 we had a few years ago. How great! In retrospect, while the food was delightful at SPQR, it was the wine (and company) that made it truly remarkable.
And so, the night ended and we went to bed with full stomaches and a smile … especially because I knew what was going down the next morning:
Day 2 in SF started off with a trip to revisit Brenda’s French Soul Food Kitchen – we were back for the beignets! And they were exactly like last time: one chocolate, one apple, one plain (that k demolished later with Blue Bottle coffee), and one crawfish. And just like last time, it continues to completely ruin any other non-filled beignet ever, including those in NOLA.
the shrimp-n-grits was similarly fabulous. Now grit-for-cheesy-grit, kp’s are superior, however, that bacon-tomato jam is crazy-addictive and should be sold in jars so I could put it on anything and everything.
After a day of shopping and parking (that’s a gerund for a new verb “to park”, which means “to relax in a park”), we went to a place called Ice Cream Bar – a cute little shop with frequent visits by cute little kids eating cute gigantic ice cream cones. g and k got things like soup and sandwich or something boring like that. But not me – oh no – what you see above is a pb&j&b, where the second “b” is “bacon” (the waitress was totally unphased by my inquiry to add bacon to the sandwich).
That night, we went to Tsunami Sushi, which had some of the best fish we’ve had in a while. While chirashi typically includes boring cuts of fish, Tsunami did it right with quite a variety, as you can see above. I think my only criticism was that the rice (actually, the sushi rice used in all the sushi there, not just the chirashi) was a little mushier than I come to expect from a Japanese eatery. But that’s ok – becuase after sipping on the Taketsuru 12-year, I didn’t care anymore – it was just as fabulous as it was in NOLA at Cochon (which reminds me: I have got to get me some of that! Either that or splurge on the 17-year). What are the drawbacks of the place? Maybe the music is too loud for this aged 31-year-old’s ears.
Our last day in SF started at “The Mill”. I have to confess that g and I are not cool enough to eat here (ok, g is, but I’m not). Their main dish is “toast”. No really – it’s “toast”. And it’s toast that takes 10 minutes to prepare. Like if you had someone brew a cup of coffee (like hipster-style, poor-through-a-chemex) versus someone making a slice of toast (e.g. above is “country” toast, with honey, salt, peanut butter, and apple butter), the toast would take longer to construct. And yea – it’s some darned good toast – but come on people – it’s toast!
After a day of some full-contact, no-holds-barred shopping (g and I tore it up in the Mission and on Hayes Street), we went for some lunch. After failing to get Mission Chinese (closed on Wed) and Ken Ken Ramen (for some reason not offering lunch), we went for the safe lunch at Absinthe on Hayes Street. Great “pasta of the day” and a refreshing salad. And, even better was that wine shop next door … which was the only source of Massican Sauvignon Blanc in the entire US (seriously – why the hell is it so hard to find?).
Now, I want to say that dinner at Bar Tartine, like the rest of our dinners, was also crazy-good. But, I have no pictures! We relied on kp for pictures and the flash makes them look a bit weird, so I’m not going to include them here. Let’s just say that the menu looks boring-as-all-hell, with what seems to be an assortment of bread-related spreads, an assortment of pickles, and then a lot-lot-lot of vegetables. Well let me tell you that despite the snooze-ville of a menu, these dishes were crazy. Like the above was the “blue cheese and beet salad”: it was 95% blue cheese, 4% beet (two kinds!), and three leaves of lettuce – and it was off the hook. Other highlights included a smoked salmon with cucumber and serrano chile jam that blew all of our minds, another dish that looked like ice cream in chocolate sauce but was actually smoked potatoes in barbecue sauce, and a green chile seafood stew that tugged at your heartstrings like an old-fashioned ciopino but had such a fresh zing to knock you on your ass. Amaze-balls.
yea, we had some chocolate “salami” (almonds and cherries were the specks) and a currant-apple gelee (best petite four ever!), but really, by then we were so impressed with the rest of the food that we tuned out the sweets. There was, however, a more savory dessert course with carob (n.b. no matter what the server said, it does not taste anything like chocolate), goat cheese, walnuts, and 18 other components, that when put together, hit the sweet, salty and savory much like that gruyere “s’more” at DiBruno brothers. Bravo. Did not see that oen coming.
this was our “find” of the trip – a bottle of 2012 Annia signed by the man Dan Petroski himself. g did her “booyah” dance four times as we were exiting the store, as we were charged not a dime on top of the standard price (we have a crush on Dan Petroski … bigtime).
would you sell your soul for a beignet?
t says: g and I found ourselves in San Francisco (and Bay Area) recently, and, like our last trip to Cali, we made sure to go around and frequent delicious restaurants and cupcakes. But rather than bore you with every single thing we ate, I will instead tell you about the awesomest thing we ate. On the Saturday morning before leaving, g and I wanted to get some brunch. Unfortunately, the places we remembered from our research for our last trip were primarily Sunday brunch spots. The Ferry Building could have been had, however, we did it once before and we were taunted by g’s cousin: “Don’t do that again – you’ve already done it once – do something else!” We pulled out the iPad and started googling “Best Saturday Brunch” and limiting our scope to within walking distance from our hotel. A place called “Brenda’s” popped up, and it felt like a place I had heard of before. Boasting “soul food”, it promised to offer a little something different than we were used to.
When we arrived, we promptly put our name on a giant chalkboard that allowed us to see where we were on the waiting list. As far as two-top tables were concerned, we were fourth in line. We secured some seats in the waiting area (g does not like to wait standing) and cast hungry eyes in the general direction of the diners. The specials on the board in the dining room included Bananas Foster French Toast and Pork Belly with Brussels Sprouts and Grits … simply put: I refused to go anywhere else.
Now, I could tell you all about how the French Toast was delicious (but honestly, Cochon, in the hayday of the Elvis French Toast does it better), and how the watermelon iced tea was very refreshing, blah blah blah. But really, the dish of the meal was our first dish:
four beignets, lined up in a row
When we ordered them, we figured they’d be tiny, kind of like Talula’s Garden’s beignets. They were not. Seriously, one order of Beignets would have KO’d both of us had we finished them (we saved some to go for later). The three powdered sugar ones consisted of the following: plain (i.e. unfilled), apple-filled, Ghiardelli chocolate-filled. The last one, which did not have powdered sugar on it, was “crawfish-filled”. Don’t believe me? Look for yourself.
get in my belly!
The crawfish one was delightful. Chunks of seafood in a delectable sauce of creole spices all inside a perfectly fried crust. Sooo good. It was like some sort of seafood stew but shoved inside fried dough. But as good as it was, it was only second place in my book because that chocolate one haunts me to this very day. It has single handedly ruined beignets for me. The chocolate tasted exactly like Ghiardelli chocolate chips (trust me, I’ve eaten enough of them in our chocolate chip cookies to know). It was powerful and rich and wonderful. It made my bananas foster French Toast seem kind of “boring” in comparison – that’s how good it was.
g, who’s a sucker for doughnuts, was similarly in heaven. I’m not sure which one was her favorite (maybe the apple one), but I can tell you that by the time we were leaving, she was adding Brenda’s to the short list of restaurants we absolutely have to eat at the next time we’re in town (actually, “the list” only includes Kiss Seafood and Kara’s Cupcakes so that’s pretty impressive!).
Long story short: go to Brenda’s for brunch – the beignets are worth the wait. That’s right – it’s a brunch spot worth waiting for – a g&t first!
