Making a Frozen cake

Adventures of a super-amateur (as in, mostly experienced in cake mix) baker....

For her 4th birthday this year, my daughter requested an "Anna and Elsa cake". When she requested the same thing last year, I went the cheap route, ordering a chocolate sheet cake with plain white frosting from Costco, an edible cake topper from etsy, and Frozen figurines from Amazon. I also evidently never took a photo of just the cake.

This turned out ok - Costco cake is decent for such an inexpensive cake ($19 for a 1/2 sheet in 2015), the image made her happy, and the figurines were useful as toys afterwards, but I thought maybe I could do better this year.

After talking to a bakery and getting price shocked ($150 to feed 40 people??), and remembering that no bakery I talked to last year did a particular Frozen design, they just asked me to find an image online for them to replicate, I remembered why I went the Costco route last year. But I was still determined to do better. Maybe I would try to make one myself.

First, I thought I might take a Wilton Cake Decorating class from my local Michael's store, which was only $15, but after registering realized that you actually have to buy a lot of supplies, AND make a cake and buttercream frosting before showing up. Luckily, they were good about cancellations and refunding my class fee. Instead, I decided to indulge and sign up for a Party Cake class at Baking Arts in downtown San Mateo. The $90 class fee certainly wouldn't help me *save* money vs going to a bakery, but I also didn't need supplies or prior knowledge of cake baking or frosting making, and it seemed like it might be fun. Plus, I might actually be able to use the skills again. The class was fun, though focused more on cake leveling/layering/frosting than decorating, and I went home with a delicious recipe for a vanilla butter cake and another for Swiss buttercream frosting. Plus, a cake.

I then went about plotting my cake and acquiring supplies, primarily a cake turntable, short angled spatula, some decorating tips, and lots and lots of butter and eggs. After all, the party was going to have 40+ people, so I was pretty convinced I'd need both the 9" round "fancy" cake and a 1/4 sheet cake to feed everyone. I gave myself most of 4 days to work on this.

At first, I thought I'd do a simple blue cake with some snowflakes and white frosting and the Frozen figures on top, maybe try to make some white mountains with frosting or leftover cake or something. Thanks to the power of Google and YouTube, I found a simple tutorial on how to make royal icing snowflakes. My first attempt took me like 3.5 hours to make 20+ snowflakes, but turned out pretty well. Those snowflakes break really easily though. They also keep indefinitely, so I made them a few days early.

Then, since I was told buttercream can be made a few days in advance, I turned my attention to making blue and white buttercream for the two cakes. I figured I should at least triple the recipe for that much cake.

 

Royal blue color wasn't exactly the right color to use for the shade I was looking for, but what can you do. Didn't take too many drops to get the frosting blue. Making buttercream, at least with a stand mixer and an infrared thermometer, was surprisingly easy. Into the fridge that went.

After all that buttercream, I found myself with a plethora of egg yolks that I was loath to just throw away. After some Googling for what to do with leftover egg yolk, I used this recipe to make lemon curd from leftover egg yolk and lemons from our backyard. This was relatively simple (though it took a while for the curd to set) but boy are the lemons from our yard tart. This made some seriously tart lemon curd.  Word of advice: do *not* make scrambled eggs from just egg yolk. It's really weird.

So now, I was feeling good. I had my frosting, I had my snowflakes, I had my Frozen figures and my recipe for the cake. So of course, this is when my daughter tells me she doesn't just want an "Anna and Elsa" cake, she wants an ice palace on the cake. Errr....

Googling "Frozen ice palace birthday cake" turned up an unbelievable array of gorgeous, multi-tier wonders that there was no way I'd ever be able to replicate. But after looking through a ton of Pinterest photos. I came across a couple that I thought I might actually be able to do something with (cake 1 and cake 2). Oddly enough, it was my 4 year old who gave me the idea of what material to use. I asked her jokingly what I could make an ice palace with, and she said "um, chocolate!". I pointed out that this would mean a brown ice palace, and she said she was ok with that.   But of course, white chocolate exists, and after talking to Richard at Baking Arts, I went home armed with a bag of white vanilla non-pareils (no actual chocolate or cocoa butter content). His suggestion was to melt them down and spread them on parchment paper with my angled spatula to solidify into flat sheets which I could then cut into shape. Add a little blue food dye into one batch, and voila! This worked surprisingly well, and I soon had a collection of shapes that might actually resolve into a passable ice palace. Sprinkle a little blue and silver glitter on top, and they start even looking pretty.

Another note: this stuff hardens quickly and if you obsess too much about getting it perfectly smooth, you end up really screwing it up. On the plus side, it is super easy to re-melt and start over. Also, I carefully cut it with a knife - put a little too much pressure, and it'll splinter off in an unexpected directly. Yay re-melting!

OK, so now I had snowflakes, ice palace pieces, and frosting. Time to actually make the cake(s) (the day before the party).

So much butter and so many eggs. My recipe was for two 9" rounds, so I doubled it to make the 9"x13" cake. That ended up being too much, so I ended up with two 9"x13" cakes, one of which was a bit thicker than the other. I figured that actually meant I could make the rectangular cake three layers so people eating that cake wouldn't get stiffed on frosting layers.

I didn't anticipate how buttercream frosting turns hard as a rock (or butter) when cold. Need to leave time (2-3 hours) to let it come up to room temperature, and then put it through the stand mixer again to get the consistency right. But once I did that, it seemed almost as good as new. Next time, I might not make it ahead of time though. It takes less time to make than it takes to come up to room temperature.

Looks like I didn't forget everything from the Party Cake class about leveling, frosting, and putting on the crumb layer (thin layer of frosting that keeps crumbs from getting into the pretty layer). The turntable sure was nice to have.

Leveling and frosting the rectangular cake was more challenging, since many of the techniques we learned didn't really work. I did my best:

Time for the blue frosting. This was before refrigerating for an hour and cold-carving it smooth. At this stage, you just do your best to make it mostly smooth.

Post cold-carving and application of snowflakes (very very carefully - I broke a bunch in this process, but on the plus side, you can sometimes just stick the broken pieces together with frosting and it's not obvious).

Not seen is my dry run at making sure I could make the ice palace work. This basically entailed making yet another batch of white buttercream frosting, gobbing a bunch of it on top to resemble a snow drift, and making sure the white chocolate pieces would stay upright when stuck into the buttercream.

My original intention was to put snowflakes on both cakes, but do all the fancy decorating on the round cake since the other one was just to make sure we had enough cake. However, my daughter threw another wrench in the works when she declared the day before the party that she really wanted an "Ariel" (Little Mermaid) cake as well as a Frozen cake. Going along with her felt like over-indulging, but at the same time I did have a second cake, and the ocean *was* blue. So my original plan was just to take her Little Mermaid figurines and do this:

Alone in a vast blue sea...

However, my sister had just done a mermaid-themed birthday party for her daughter the month before, and she offered me her ocean-themed cake decorations to use.

Finally, it was the day of the party. I carefully boxed both cakes up (yay Baking Arts again) as well as all the other component pieces, and cheered when they survived the drive to the birthday party venue. Once there, I spent a good twenty minutes re-assembling the cakes as the kids played.

Final products:

The seaweed is always greener...in somebody else's cake

So crowded, but hey - ice palace!

Finally enjoying the fruit of my labors (not really, I sampled a lot of cake and frosting along the way):

Turns out, a three layer 9"x13" cake is more than enough to feed twenty 2-4 year olds and whichever of their parents decided to actually eat cake. The Frozen cake was disassembled again, transported home, and actually frozen in the deep freezer to eat another day. And a final note on that: it's advised to defrost the cake overnight in the fridge and then out on the counter to bring to room temperature before serving. I decided last minute that a large family reunion a week after the birthday party was a great opportunity to eat the cake, but only had a couple hours to defrost. Turns out that you can defrost the cake at (somewhat higher than) room temperature for 3 hours, and it pretty much works. True, it was a particularly warm day during a heat wave, and the cake wasn't perfect, but there were no complaints.

So, in the end, making my own Frozen cake didn't remotely save me money, between the cake class, the cake decorating supplies, the time, and even the cost of the eggs and butter. However, I think I was happier with the end result than I would have been working with one of the local bakeries I talked to, I had a lot of fun, and I might (hopefully) be able to use the skills gained again in the future.

Hakone Visit - Oct. 4, 2012

To a certain extent, the 24 hours delay to our trip plans worked to our advantage. While Wednesday, our original planned day to visit Hakone, was rainy and grey, Thursday dawned bright and blue and beautiful. If we had gone through faster, we might even have been able to see Mt. Fuji - unfortunately, by the time we got to the part of Hakone with the best views, the clouds had rolled in, making for dramatic photos but no mountain view. Still, the weather was gorgeous for the bulk of our day.

Hakone is an area known for its hot springs and onsens, and is a place that many people visit on a day trip from Tokyo. It encompasses a mountainous area and a lake, with a network of various means of public transportation connecting it all. The way most people visit Hakone is on the Hakone Free Pass, sold by Odakyu (railway/dept store?), which covers almost all the forms of transportation in the area, as well as a round trip train ticket from Shinjuku Station in Tokyo (if bought in Shinjuku - it's 1100 yen less to buy in Odawara, the main station before entering the Hakone area). In fact, I think part of the appeal of visiting is the chance to switch through so many forms of transport.

The first leg is a train that climbs uphill from Hakone-Yumoto, past the Tounosawa station (where our hotel was), and switchbacks up the mountain to Gora, where passengers transfer to a cable car. At Sounzan, they then transfer to a ropeway (or go a different way to a bus), which takes people up and over the mountain and down to Togendai on the shores of Lake Ashi, where they transfer to a sightseeing ship (in the form of a pirate ship) to cross the lake. At either Moto-Hakone or Hakone-Machi on the opposite shore, the loop is closed out with a highway bus, which takes people back to Hakone-Yumoto. There are highway buses that go along many of these routes, but it's not nearly as interesting or scenic.

One of the switchback tracks

When I read that the train went through a number of switchbacks through the mountains, it never occurred to me that trains just don't switch directions easily. Therefore, it was fascinating for me to realize that the way they do switchbacks is to go up the track to a stopping point, switch the tracks, and then go "backwards" down the new track uphill. It was even more interesting that apparently only one guy could drive the train, so at every switchback, the driver and the guy at the other end of the train would get out and switch ends of the train before we could start up again. Not the quickest form of travel, but pretty fun to watch.

On that first train, we got out at Miyanoshita to check out the town and the Fujiya Hotel. The latter is quite a famous landmark in the area, a historic old hotel with a lot of character and evidently some nice restaurants. We almost got diverted here when we spotted an old photo of some really cool looking waterfalls, and even asked the staff how to get there, but realized our schedule didn't really allow us to take a 2 hour round trip hike. Instead, we continued on to our next destination, the Hakone Open Air Museum, at the Chokoku-no-Mori stop on the train. 

Part of the Fujiya Hotel

The main building of the Fujiya Hotel

There are a number of art museums in the area, but we're typically not really museum people. I had vaguely thought that if we did stop at a museum, maybe the open air museum would be more interesting since it was a sculpture museum and we could look at the scenery, if nothing else. However, this turned out to be a highlight of the trip. There are over 100 sculptures, set along a beautiful open air area of 70,000 square meters, as well as a few indoor galleries. It was a beautiful setting, and there were some really interesting sculptures. Not a big fan of Henry Moore, who had far too many "reclining figures" sculptures at the museum for my taste, but really liked many of the other sculptures and the settings. I especially liked the suspended reflective balls which reflected back the gorgeous scenery around them, and a stained glass tower that was especially beautiful on the inside. We also really enjoyed a special exhibit by an artist whose name escapes me, but who made really cool use of light, texture, and interactivity in his various exhibits. One exhibit was a room full of hanging black threads that you walked through, playing tricks with your perception, while another had a sheet of gauzy white material, suspended by air jets in a brilliantly white sunlit room. I can't really do justice to how beautiful it was in words.

We next wanted to go to the Gyoza Center for lunch, but this was where our Thu visit became a problem - the Gyoza Center closed on Thursdays. In paging through a local dining guide, which I couldn't read, and looking at ads in the train, I noticed that there was an "Itoh Dining by Nobu" listed. At first, I didn't think much of it, but after seeing ads for a relatively inexpensive lunch at a place with kobe beef, we decided, what the heck, why not try it? Upon arriving at Gora, we initially waited in line for the cable car, but then realized that our stop for the restaurant was the very next stop, and that we could probably walk there before the cable car even got to the Gora station, so we decided to walk uphill.

On arrival, I realized my mistake - just because there was an inexpensive lunch didn't mean that the inexpensive lunch had Kobe beef. The Kobe beef started at 100 grams for over $100, of course, and we weren't able to make the mental shift to decide to spend that much on lunch. Instead, one of us got the Hakone beef donburi, while the other got a Hakone steak set (including salad, soup, and a dessert). We were seated at the counter right in front of the steel grill where the chef prepared ours and others' meals, which was quite fun. We marvelled at the beautifully marbled raw beef pieces, as well as the chef's knife and cooking technique. The whole space was beautiful - minimalist and modern, with a wall of windows overlooking the valley below. Given how tasty the Hakone beef was, I can only imagine what the Kobe beef must have been like. Ah well, missed opportunities. We were still very glad we had decided to check out the restaurant, since the beef we did have, and indeed all the food, was delicious.

Lunch over, we resumed our journey, taking the cable car all the way up to Sounzan so we could switch to the ropeway that would take us over the mountains. The views from the ropeway were beautiful, giving us a view of the lake to the east? of the region behind us, as well as the mountains. It also gave us a good view of the sulfuric yellow smoking hills of Owakudani, before we got out at that stop. Owakudani, also known as "The Great Boiling Valley", is a volcanic region where the ground still smokes and the water bubbles, and where they sell black eggs boiled in the sulfuric hot springs that are supposed to add 7 years to your life (we didn't try them - they sold 5 at a time and we only wanted 1). It's also where you're supposed to get your best view of Mt. Fuji...we saw a short stretch of one flank of the mountain through the clouds? I have to admit to being a bit disappointed by Owakudani - everything I'd heard made me think it was larger, and that you got closer to the boiling springs, and everything was more dramatic than it was. Still worth a stop, but don't expect *too* much.

Owakudani seen and over with, we got back on the ropeway to continue our journey down the side of the mountain to the shores of Lake Ashi. Again, there were beautiful views coming down the side. At Lake Ashi, we were very amused to see that the sightseeing ships really were in the form of pirate ships, and they even had a couple people dressed up as pirates to pose for photos. Pirate ship or no pirate ship, it was a nice cruise across the lake, passing the famous red torii gates in the water of the Hakone Shrine. We got off at Moto-Hakone (the boat stopped at both Moto-Hakone and Hakone-Machi) so we could take a walk down the old cedar road towards Hakone-Machi. This was a nice, peaceful walk - or would have been if it didn't run right along the modern highway, so there was a constant sound of cars. We finished the walk in time to catch the express bus back to Hakone-Yumoto (a 40 min or so trip), where we picked up the bags we left in coin lockers at the station, and caught the train back to Shinjuku, thus concluding our tour of the Hakone area.

In Shinjuku, I was hoping to take Scott to see the camera bag I'd spotted the day before in Yodabashi, but to my surprise, it was already sold and gone. The attempt to visit the camera stores and get a view of the Tokyo Metropolitan City Offices was completely defeated by a torrential downpour that sent us scurrying for the subway instead. And the attempt to find a good dinner was defeated by both the rain and Scott's inability to remember which coin lockers in the vast Tokyo Station he'd left his suitcase in. We ended up eating a very late dinner at a ramen joint in the station basement before taking a taxi who had no idea how to find our (very close) hotel and finally getting to our hotel after he pulled over and called the hotel. A rather downspiriting ending to a very nice day.

Dinner at Manresa

Figured since I posted my Cyrus review, referencing my dinner at Manresa, I should also post my review of Manresa (320 Village Lane, Los Gatos), which I went to two weeks ago.

It always cracks me up when they carefully coordinate to do simultaneous service and simultaneous picking up of dishes. Or when they HAVE to do everything from your left side so they have to walk around the table to do something for each of you. And it's a bit..embarrassing and odd when you get up to go to the bathroom and like six waiters and busboys and maitre'd people all point you towards the bathroom. I guess the appeal of fancy restaurant service kind of goes right over my head. What I do appreciate - prompt service, good pacing of the courses, and Manresa had both.

As for the food, which is what my bf and I really care about... we both loved the amuse bouches, thought they were both very interesting and really tasty. The first was some sort of sweet corn, garden tomato & basil concoction in a wine glass that was super yummy and a really nice combination of flavors. The second was the..arpeggio? served in an egg shell - nice runny yolk, cherry? vinegar and maple syrup - also very tasty and nicely textured. My bf doesn't like egg and he even liked it. The bread was good - really buttery brioche, a good multigrain, and a nice French rustic sourdough. So we were both very enthusiastic to see what came next. Unfortunately the actual main courses were a bit of a disappointment. I got the "from the garden" - a collection of vegetables freshly harvested from the garden that morning and prepared in a mixture of ways, is how it was described to me. What I got seemed more like a little salad with one leaf of each of a bunch of different things and some random other little slices of various vegetables, flowers, and roots. Some were bitter, some were savory, some tasty...it didn't really work for me, especially because I'm really not fond of bitter raw greens. Not what I was really expecting. The bf got the crispy soft shell crab with nectarine, which we both liked - really nice light fry of the soft shell crab which paired well with the nectarine.

Second course, I got the local halibut with crispy mussels. It was again a nice fry on the mussels, but I don't really like mussels themselves and when I got through the nice outside, it still was a mussel inside and eh. The halibut was fine but nothing special. The flavors were all very subtle - subtle to the point of blandness. The bf got the albacore confit, which was also very subtly flavored. He liked it ok but nothing special.

Third course, I got the rack of veal which was ... a bit chewy, kind of fatty, and again kind of bland. It had some crispy potato that was really tasty (they seem to fry things well there), some chanterelles (I think) that almost tasted like butter, and something else that slips my mind. Bf got the porcelet, which had a nice crisp skin but, as he said, smelled better than it tasted.

We liked the intermezzo - coconut tapiocia, yuzu sorbet, and citrus grenadine. The yuzu was really strong, but it was a nice fresh combination of flavors.

Dessert was better than the main courses but not outstanding. I got the "taste of New Orleans" - 3 little beignets, a pecan praline bar type thing, a really well caramelized banana, coffee cream, I forget what flavor ice cream... pretty yummy. Bf got some kind of bittersweet chocolate sorbet (very tasty) with all these dots of various flavored creams - hazelnut, chestnut?, etc. The sorbet was good but some of the other flavors were a bit odd.

They finished off with a small slice of a dense flourless bittersweet chocolate cake, which was good, though I have had better.

Overall, it was an interesting experience and I really did like those amuse bouches but I wasn't as impressed as I'd hoped I'd be. Having now eaten at Cyrus, though, I have to say...I think I might prefer Manresa a bit. Subtle/bland is better than having off-putting flavors. But in general, neither were quite the type of dining experience my bf and I tend to like. Interesting to try once, but...

Fun around Healdsburg

I was determined to get out of town Labor Day weekend, but actually flying somewhere seemed impractical for a 3-day weekend. Poking around the Web, I Googled California getaways, and hit upon the idea of visiting the Russian River area and Healdsburg. I'm really glad I did. I had a great time, and am now happy to know that a relaxing weekend getaway with great food is so close at hand.

Recommendations (day by day):

Saturday:

Wild Flour Bread - 140 Bohemian Hwy, Freestone, CA 95472 (Open Fri-Mon, 8:30AM-6PM)
It's a bit out of the way - exit Santa Rosa, located in Freestone, 5 miles past Sebastopol - but totally worth the detour. This is primarily a bread bakery, turning out perhaps a dozen varieties of wood-fired brick oven baked breads each day, along with delicious whipped cream scones, biscotti (which we didn't try) and coffee drinks. There were so many good options, we may have gone overboard on Saturday. We picked up a fougasse (a delicious sourdough based bread with chunks of potato, rosemary, garlic, and I think jack and cheddar cheeses), a sticky bun (massive - the size of one of their bread rounds), and three scones (double chocolate almond marzipan, apple ginger white chocolate, and peach strawberry nectarine(?)). The sticky bun was still warm out of the oven, and was delicious if rather daunting (we've eaten some every day and still have a bit left). The fougasse was possibly my favorite non-baguette savory bread I've ever had. The scones were large and triangular, but more like bread in texture than the harder scones I'm accustomed to. The double chocolate almond marzipan was delectable - a chocolate bread-y scone with a layer of chocolate sauce and almond marzipan sauce. I was less fond of the peach strawberry nectarine, which was moist with large chunks of fruit baked in, mostly because I didn't love the baked fruits. I don't like ginger, and the apple ginger white chocolate distinctly had pieces of ginger in it, so I only ate one bite, but my bf seemed to enjoy it. We even swung back out of our way on Monday to get some bread to bring home, picking up a red bell, green onion, jack, cheddar, and swiss fougasse which was warm out of the oven at 4:30pm (they were out of most of their other breads and scones), which is currently in the freezer since they said it freezes well. We're still working on finishing the first fougasse!

River's Edge Kayak and Canoe Trips - 13840 Healdsburg Ave., Healdsburg, CA 95448
I love canoeing and kayaking, though I'm hardly expert at it, and really enjoy a lazy float down a calm river or canal. River's Edge met my needs handily. We rented a sit on top double kayak for $65 (they also have canoes, and single or double cockpit kayaks) to take on their 1/2 day 5.5 mile "Rio" trip. They were located not far off the highway, with clear large signs indicating their location. Check-in was quick and easy - sign a waiver form, pay, check in our car keys so they could move the car in their small lot, grab some ziploc bags in case we need them, and then hop in a school bus for transportation to the put-in point at Rio Lindo, several miles up a very bumpy dirt road. At the put-in point, we were greeted by a man who had us all grab life jackets (rather old faded, one-size ones, but they worked) and gave us pointers and information about landmarks and our take out point. We then grabbed our kayak and off we went. The section of river we went on was class I + current, quite calm and easy to navigate, though periodically getting extremely shallow. We occasionally mis-read the river and grounded ourselves in particularly shallow waters, choosing generally to scoot and push our ways out, but once just jumping out and dragging the boat back to deeper waters. There were frequent gravelly beach areas where we could stop and hang out, and deeper spots in which we could swim and splash (though we didn't really try to swim until the end). The water was in the low 70s (the day was in the high 80s), and was quite pleasant. The run ended at a beach right above the Healdsburg Memorial Dam, only some 70 ft from the River's Edge office, making it easy to pull in, leave our rented stuff on the beach, and walk back to our car. The river occasionally got a bit crowded with other groups and couples kayaking/canoeing, or swimming along the way, so it wasn't exactly peaceful, per se, but it was still a really nice float. Next time, we'll try one of the longer runs, maybe on a different section of the river. We also might go back to swim by the Memorial Beach Dam, since there was a little park there right after the boat landing, and the water was nice there.

Zin Restaurant - 344 Center Street, Healdsburg, CA 95448
I was looking for a more casual dining option for dinner Saturday night, since we already had reservations at Solbar in Calistoga and Cyrus for Sunday and Monday nights. Zin Restaurant fit the bill, with a somewhat upscale take on American cuisine with a focus on seasonal ingredients. I was quite happy with the food and service, with just one sour note. The couple seated next to us arrived after us and ordered after us, but were apparently friends of the owner or someone affiliated with the restaurant, and ended up a full cycle ahead of us. They ordered the same appetizer but while theirs appeared almost instantaneously, ours took I think another 10 minutes to arrive. From that point on, we had to watch while they received everything quite a ways before we did. This disparate service really made my bf grumble, while I was mostly just outraged about the appetizers b/c I hadn't heard the part where they knew someone. Aside from this, though, it was a good meal. The appetizer that both we and the table next to us ordered was the Mexican Beer Battered Green Beans with Mango Salsa. The menu failed to mention that cilantro was a liberal ingredient sprinkled over and fried into the batter, which made me somewhat unhappy, but I contented myself with picking off as much as I could and leaving the really cilantro-infested beans to my bf. It didn't matter; we were given a large cone of green beans, and there was more than enough for both of us. Unfortunately for my bf, he also ordered another appetizer, a salad with warm peaches wrapped in prosciutto with goat cheese on top of a frisee salad, which was quite delicious, but made him pretty full before his entree even arrived. Entree-wise, I mis-ordered, forgetting that short ribs, while incredibly tender, tend to fall short of delicious, just b/c the meat itself isn't that flavorful. Their BBQ short ribs with horseradish mashed potatoes and a sweet corn salad was well done, and I ate every last bite happily, but I think one of the other entrees might have been more interesting. My bf's entree was the applewood smoked pork chop with fresh apple sauce over braised greens andouille sausage & cornbread stuffing, and I kept stealing bites because I loved the flavors. The pork chop had a distinctively rich and deep smoked flavor which made up for it being slightly dry (probably because they took it back to keep it warm while he was in the bathroom), while the andouille sausage/cornbread stuffing had a nice sweet/savory combination I enjoyed. Despite being somewhat full by this point (especially my bf), we ended up not being able to turn down dessert. Both of our neighboring tables had ordered the "Zinfully Decadent Brownie Sundae with Homemade Chocolate Chunk Coffee Ice Cream" but it was just too huge for us to even contemplate. We ended up with the Mexican chocolate panna cotta with salted caramel and churros. The balance of the dish was a bit off - the caramel was over-salted and therefore dominated (I mentioned it to the waiter and he actually went back and tried some and agreed that it was definitely on the too salty side of the salt/sweet line, even though he loved salty things), while the Mexican chocolate panna cotta was delicately delicious on its own, but totally overwhelmed when eaten with the caramel. The two little churros were nice. With a bit less salt, the dessert would have been really yummy.

Not so much recommended - our hotel, the Madrona Manor (1001 Westside Rd, Healdsburg), at least not for the prices we paid. The pros: we had the "Garden Cottage", which was a standalone cottage set apart from the other buildings, so we had a lot of privacy. After living in the city for 3 years, it was blissful having no one upstairs, downstairs, or sharing walls with us. It also had a nice-sized, fairly private shady back patio with comfortable deck furniture where we enjoyed relaxing. The cons: our room was $400/night (we were indulging - I've never paid this much before) but the king bed, while having nice linens and a pillowtop, had distinct dents in the mattress, verging on sagging. It was blissful to lie down on it initially, but less blissful as we actually tried to sleep on it. It was nice having a sitting room along with the bedroom, but it felt like we were paying for privacy over niceness in terms of furnishing/decoration. The bathroom had a slipper tub that looked jetted, but we could never make the jets work, and an overhead rainfall showerhead that pointed straight down, which was a little odd. The included buffet breakfast was definitely "European-style" - a plate of cold cuts, a plate of fancy cheeses, one warm egg dish, hard boiled eggs, a basket of small croissants and breads, some bran flakes, fruit salad, and granola. That list sounds like a lot but it just didn't look that appealing (we didn't end up trying any of it, mind you, so it could have been better than I realized). Luckily we had our Wild Flour Bread to eat. The fresh squeezed orange juice was excellent, though, and was the reason we went to breakfast each morning. There was a warm pool which was pretty, but had a lot of bugs floating in it when we went to swim in it. Overall, the privacy and patio were wonderful, but it would be much more worth half the price than what we paid. Which is ironic, since they gave us a 50% off our next stay coupon when we checked out. For 50% the price, I actually might consider staying there again for the privacy and quiet grounds. The restaurant is a Michelin 1-star, tasting menu sort of place, but we didn't eat there.

Sunday:

Sunday morning we set out on a 30+ mile bike ride recommended to us by a friend, the Dry Creek - Alexander Valley ride from the Santa Rosa Cycling Club. The ride is supposed to start at the City Hall in Healdsburg, but it ran straight by our hotel, so we just started from our hotel. I really enjoyed most of this ride. The first 9 miles ran down West Dry Creek Road, a meandering, mostly flat or gently rolling 35mph local road with a lot of wineries lining the road. There was the occasional car or other bike, but for the most part it was a peaceful, partly shady, beautiful ride. The usual ride takes the Yoakim Bridge Road to Dry Creek Road, staying on this larger road for just a short distance, but we chose to try the optional out and back to the Lake Sonoma Visitors Center down Dry Creek Rd. We kind of regretted this. Dry Creek Rd is a much busier blacktop asphalt road, with a 50-55mph speed limit, a lot more cars whizzing by, including many SUV's pulling boats, a fairly narrow shoulder, and a much rougher high-friction road surface. I found the ride stressful in the extreme (riding in the city is nothing compared to trying to balance on the white line while cars zoom by you at top speeds) and harder than the first part (combination of being slightly uphill, the friction-y surface, and the heat from the asphalt). When we reached the Visitors Center, it seemed from the map that it would take a lot of work to get anywhere near the lake, and it was starting to get really hot, so we just refilled our water bottles at the water fountain there, and turned back. Luckily, when we turned off Dry Creek Rd into Alexander Valley, the ride got a lot more pleasant and pretty again. Alexander Valley isn't as rolling or full of terrain as Dry Creek, so it was a different feel, but still pretty. The roads were less busy again, and slower. It was overall a really nice ride, less hot than I expected (as long as we kept moving), and punctuated by a nice stop about 10 miles from the end, Jimtown.

Jimtown Store - 6706 Highway 128, Healdsburg, CA
Apparently a popular stop on many a bike route, as well as a popular stop for locals, tourists, and Martha Stewart, Jimtown is a cute little store with a delicious lunch counter/deli and really pleasant patio seating (as well as an indoor section to sit). We ordered the "Jimtown", a prosciutto sandwich with Pt Reyes blue cheese and a fig/olive spread. I'm not the biggest fan of olive, and despite the counterperson's reassurance that the spread was more figgy than olivey, I definitely tasted the olive. However, I still enjoyed the sandwich, which had an interesting blend of sweet, savory, salty, and pungent flavors. We also ordered the smoked albacore sandwich, was less interesting by far, but still quite tasty and refreshing. They also had a chocolate mint lemonade which was really nice - the cool, sweetly tart, refreshing lemonade with an interesting initial/undertaste of subtle chocolate mint. Overall a good stop and a great bike ride, and I very much thank my friend for the recommendation.

Solbar - 755 Silverado Trail, Calistoga, CA (in the Solage Hotel)
Dinner Sunday night was a recommendation from my sports conditioning class instructor, who'd just spent 4 days vacationing in Calistoga, and who raved about this place. Solbar is a Michelin 1-star restaurant located in the Solage Hotel in Calistoga, a really nice resort hotel that also contains the Spa Solage, apparently Conde Nast's #1 Spa in the Americas/#10 Spa in the World, and Travel & Leisure's #2 Spa in the US. Might need to try that next time. This was probably the meal I enjoyed most and was happiest about this weekend. I loved the atmosphere and ambiance - the restaurant had a large outdoor patio which was 1/3 lounging space with comfortable-looking chairs and lounges scattered around with people enjoying a glass of wine and chatting, and 2/3 dining space with nicely spaced tables under some light greenery and lights strung about. The patio was located next to the pool, which was looked gorgeous, large, and inviting (but was separated from the restaurant by a fence). The interior, which I only went in initially and to visit the restroom was also a big open space which had a nice, airy, casual feel. We opted to dine outside since it was a nice warm summer's evening. This proved to be a great choice, as the sun went down and the hot summer's day cooled into a very comfortable warm evening. The food was as tasty as the ambiance. My bf got a chilled sweet corn soup with avocado, lime, and cilantro that was delicately flavored, delicious, and a wonderful complement to the warm day. I went heavier, and got the pasilla-chile rubbed pork cheek tacos with avocado, cilantro and lime crema. These were much more generous-sized than I anticipated, with large juicy chunks of pork filling the corn tortillas. Really delicious, though I opted to not finish them in order to save room for my entree. The bread came in 3 kinds - a sourdough I didn't try (my bf did, said it was fine but to save room for my entree), a really delicious corn muffin I wish I could have had more of, and light bread sticks. My entree was a buttermilk fried quail with cheese grits, black eyed peas, smoked ham hock, and red-eye gravy. An upscale take on southern food, that was really tasty and kind of different. The quail itself was beautifully breaded and fried, tender and moist and delicious. The combination of foods under it was alternatively savory, sour, and salty, but without being too much of any of these flavors. My bf's entree was a bavette steak in bourdelaise sauce with a potato chive agnolotti and garlic creamed leaks. The steak was wagyu from Snake River Farms, and was quite tender and marbled. Unfortunately, since neither of us like wine, the bourdelaise sauce didn't work as well for us, but my bf loved the agnolotti and garlic creamed leeks. Despite pronouncing himself full, we still couldn't resist the dessert menu, actually ordering two desserts. He got the valhrona chocolate marquise with salted almond creme anglaise, which was melt in the mouth delicious - a square of melty deep chocolate on top of a nice counterpoint of almond creme anglaise. I got the deep fried cherry pie with ginger caramel and vanilla bean ice cream, which my gym teacher had recommended. It was a bit like a fried cherry donut, with a fairly delicate fried pastry and surprisingly runny cherry filling (I thought it'd be thicker). The vanilla ice cream was thinner and lighter than I would have liked, but the pie was yummy, and I enjoyed scooping up the cherry juice/ice cream combination. Unusually for him, my bf also tried the dessert wine pairing for his dessert, the "emilio hidalgo, pedro ximenez sherry" from jerez, spain, and pronounced it very yummy cough syrup (which is a compliment from him). Overall, a very satisfying evening.

Monday:

I can't imagine anyone's read all this, but it's for my own memory as well as other people's interest. But now onto the last day.

Not really recommended, but perhaps unfairly: Bovolo Restaurant 106 Matheson St (inside Copperfield's Books) in Healdsburg.
I think this suffered from us mis-ordering while not very hungry. They're known for making their own salumi, bacon, and gelato, but all we ordered initially was the "Coo-Coo Frites", fried dough with mozzarella and salumi inside. I like all these ingredients a lot, but what we ended up with was four squares of fried dough, each with some mozzarella and a single small slice of salumi inside. The end result? Bland, doughy, and a bit too greasy. The couple next to us in the park exclaimed excitedly when they saw what we were eating and then were disappointed to hear me flatly tell them it wasn't good. We still ended up going back for gelato, getting chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. The chocolate was initially good - a nice rich flavor - but over time my bf said he could tell that it was made from Scharffen Berger cocoa powder - still good, but kind of distinctively cocoa powdery. The strawberry was delicious and fruity. The vanilla was disappointingly bland, kind of like the vanilla at Solbar the night before. Vanilla can be really good and hold its own even against strong chocolate and strawberry flavors, but not that one. So two hits and one miss.

Armstrong Redwoods State Reserve - 17000 Armstrong Woods Road, Guerneville, CA 95446
We were looking for something to do to kill time until dinner that was low exertion and cool. A stroll through a redwood forest seemed to do the trick. The reserve is bigger than we saw - there are some serious hiking trails and mountain biking trails in there, but given the "low exertion" requirement and the fact that I was only wearing sandals, we stuck to the 1.5 mile "pioneer" nature trail loop with an optional add-on loop. There's a picnic area at the end of the trail (halfway through the loop) which was large and seemingly very popular with area families. The trails themselves have people on them,but not nearly as many people as Muir Woods. Otherwise, it's a similar feel - strolling through the towering giants, pondering the trees that seem to have split from the same base, or grown together, checking out the hollowed out bases of trees that have survived fires over the years. It was definitely considerably cooler on that 90+ degree day in the forest, and it was a nice way to spend some time. You can pay a $8 day use fee to drive into the park to the picnic area, or you can park in the lot or on the street outside the entrance booth for free, and walk into the park, which is what we did.

Cyrus Restaurant - 29 North Street, Healdsburg, CA
Last, and surprisingly least of the 3 restaurants we went to for dinner, was Cyrus, the Michelin 2-star restaurant that all our friends had raved about. Going to Cyrus really drove home a few points for us - 1) we are not foodies. we are not impressed by the history of food or how creative the ingredients and creations are. we just want the food to taste good. 2) I don't like most herbs or spices, evidently (I knew I didn't like cilantro, but basil, parsley, ginger, and other herbs or spices are fast joining that list), so letting someone else control what I eat may not work that well if I don't tell them I don't like all of those things, which I didn't want to do b/c I was hoping that I'd find these things more palatable with a good preparation. 3) a cheese course really fills you up if you insist on eating the whole thing. After the 8-course tasting menu with a few small additions, we were stuffed to the point of nauseous discomfort, which is not the way you want to end a Michelin 2-star dining experience. We even had to pull over in Windsor on our way home to SF to stop by the side of the road for 20 minutes so we could digest some and not feel sick as we drove home.

I do not want to imply Cyrus is a bad restaurant, by any means. The service we received was good - we showed up 10 minutes early to our 6pm reservation and were promptly seated, our waitress was kind and thorough in her explanations, we certainly received attentive service in the filling of our water glasses, clearing and placing of our place settings, offerings of bread, etc. The food was all beautifully presented and well-executed. The option to substitute options from the vegetarian menu was appreciated, and the offer to let us tell them if there were any particular food allergies or tastes we disliked was something I should have actually taken them up on. They seemed to like to play with offering a variety of tastes on the same plate, which I guess were supposed to stimulate your taste buds or maybe combine in interesting ways, but to me just felt like a bunch of strong competing flavors fighting it out in my mouth, rather than coming together in interesting new ways. I think people who like the sort of restaurant Cyrus is would really love it. I think I'm more of a Zin/Solbar type of person. But onto the courses. We passed on the champagne/caviar cart since we don't really drink and we don't really like caviar.

They opened with canapes - five in total for each of us, each representing a different taste. This is a neat concept, but given that I don't actually particularly like bitter things, some sour things, etc, something that didn't quite work for me. What did work - sweet: a strawberry bubble, and sour: a spring roll on balsamic vinegar. What sort of worked - umami: a mushroom broth; I like mushroom but there was a strong ginger undertone/aftertaste which I do not like. What didn't really work for me: bitter: japanese eggplant puree with a dusting of ground coffee (usually I like Japanese eggplant more than American b/c it tends to have less of the bitter and odd tongue tingling properties, but in achieving "bitter" they brought back the exact eggplant tastes I do not like), or salty: a steamed clam with cilantro gel and chorizo powder, mostly because I do not like clam, and I do not like cilantro.

The amuse bouche was an aji mackerel sashimi with compressed plums, a dashi gel, and some other stuff. It was fine, but I wasn't particularly excited by it. The amuse bouches at Manresa, which we'd gone to two weeks previous, were really interesting and tasted extremely good, which had made me excited about the possibilities for amuse bouches. Unfortunately, the one at Cyrus was not that interesting, IMO.

They offered a wide assortment of breads - I tried the mini epi (yum), the brioche (fine, but not nearly as buttery and delectable as Manresa's), and the bacon cheese biscuit (yum). I tried not to fill up too much on the bread, though, turning down any further pieces.

The first course was the Thai Lobster 2.0. This was offered with a basil/cilantro/mint puree dipping sauce that I was concerned about (not liking basil or cilantro), but ended up actually being quite tasty, with a kind of tangy undertone and a nice light mint note to it. My problem was that I just don't particularly like lobster - I find crab to be much more tasty, while lobster has an odd flavor which was subdued in this dish but still there. I don't think that was the fault of the preparation, just my own lack of enthusiasm for lobster. The dipping sauce was good, though.

Second course, I found to be a decision between two things I wasn't sure I'd like. I'm not a fan of liver and don't think I like fois gras, so the fois gras torchon was suspect, while the scallop came with pickled green papaya. I think papaya is disgusting, so this worried me, though the pickling maybe would have removed the slimy quality I particularly detest about papaya. I decided, nice restaurant, maybe I'd like their fois gras if I liked anyone's. I was wrong, though not in the way I expected. Instead of having the dusty livery texture and taste I disliked, I found the fois gras off-putting because to me it tasted exactly like I was eating a gigantic gob of butter. Good, smooth, creamy butter, but still like I was eating a gob of dense fat, which I do not want to do. It was also extremely subtle tasting - I had to hold it in my mouth and really taste it to detect any sort of meaty undertone. It came with a cherry compote rolled in pistachio that was pretty good, but the best thing about the dish was the buttermilk biscuit. That was utterly delicious, and both my bf and I ended up saving half of it until the end so we could eat it unadulterated, without any fois gras or cherry compote detracting from the flavor.

Third course, I couldn't decide between the Medai (butterfish) with sweet corn and scallions and lemon verbena, or the sweet corn and black truffle risotto on the vegetarian menu. I *love* sweet corn and black truffle, but I also love butterfish sashimi. I'd actually had cooked butterfish several times in the past that had led me to conclude I should stop ordering cooked butterfish b/c all the qualities of the sashimi were destroyed in the cooking process, so that should have decided me. But oddly, the week before, I had gone to Roy's Hawaiian restaurant in SF (someone gave me a coupon) and though I usually find Roy's completely underwhelming, had had a cooked misoyaki butterfish that was moist, flaky, and delicious in a way I loved. I figured if *Roy's* could do such a good job with butterfish, Cyrus definitely could. And since my bf was going to order the sweet corn and black truffle risotto for his next course, I figured I could just try his. Mistake. The butterfish was cooked exactly the way that had turned me off cooked butterfish to begin with - a good crispy skin but the cooking had rendered the fish meat itself dry, bland, and uninteresting. The sweet corn was nice, but did not make up for the disappointing fish.

Fourth course was probably my favorite. I had the "bacon n' eggs with black eyed peas and chanterelles". The bacon was a piece of kurobata pork belly with a balsamic vinegar maple glaze - yum, I love pork belly and I love maple. The eggs was a perfectly runny soft egg with chanterelles on top and sitting on a bed of black eyed peas. I dunno about the chanterelles or the black eyed peas, I was too busy scooping up and enjoying the delicious yolk. To make things even better, my bf had substituted the sweet corn and black truffle risotto, the 3rd course off the vegetarian menu, since he doesn't like mushrooms or eggs and both the vegetarian and regular 4th course involved both. The risotto came with some black truffle foam, and both proved to be too strongly truffly for my bf, who likes truffles but hates mushrooms. He ended up eating half the risotto and giving me the rest, so I happily devoured the risotto. The black truffle foam I enjoyed at first, but it rapidly became far too salty, which I found a bit surprising.

To cleanse the palate before the last savory course, they gave us a chunk of kiwi lime ice on a stick. A nice little cold sour jolt, though I perhaps swallowed it too fast to truly cleanse my palate. Oops.

Last savory course was, for me, a crispy poussin with potato mousseline and haricots verts, fines herbes. Which is fancy sounding words for basically a crispy-skinned young chicken with mashed potatoes and green beans. Ie, something that wasn't all that different from what I ate the two nights before, except less creatively done. It tasted good, if a bit over-salty (someone was generous with the salt shaker) - the poussin tender, moist, and flavorful with a nice crispy skin, the potato also flavorful, and the haricots verts very tender. I was just a bit surprised b/c I had been told how creative Cyrus was, and this felt very standard in terms of ingredients and preparation. My bf got the striploin of beef with daikon, ginger-tomato broth. The beef itself was pretty good - tender and medium rare. But I despised the broth, thought it utterly disgusting. After just a bite of his dish, I left him to it, and noticed he was pulling the food out of his broth to drain on the ledge of the dish. For all its lack of creativity, my dish tasted infinitely better to me.

Next came the cheese course, something I could have done without. In fact, if it wasn't for the bacon & eggs, I would have happily have gotten the five-course menu in retrospect. The waitress wheeled over a large cheese cart with a large selection of cheeses. Unfortunately, I found her explanations of the cheeses to be long on history of the cheese but not very helpful in understanding what the cheese tasted like, or even whether it was hard or soft or medium, if it was strong tasting or not. I knew some of the cheeses were soft and some pungent, but the rest required more questioning to find out anything about the flavors. I ended up with a soft cheese from France (a small-format brie - which means it had a smaller wheel than usual? which means what for taste?), a medium cheese that had been rubbed with a walnut liqueur and had a faint walnut taste, and a blue cheese. I liked the soft cheese (from Vermont?) my bf got better than my soft cheese. The medium cheese was fine, but whatever. The blue cheese was tasty. My bf got a sheep's milk cheese with a hard rind he was supposed to remove that was supposed to resemble a Manchego cheese, a goat's milk cheese, and a soft cow's milk cheese. Neither of us were overly impressed with most of the cheeses, but we for some reason still decided to eat all of it, along with all the bread and crackers and fruit bread (this was more me than him) they provided us (as well as the fig gel with date in a spoon). That was a mistake, filling us up far more than we would have liked. We concluded that while we like cheese, we like very specific cheese and should just get that triple-cream or whatever brie we love and dig happily into it, and not bother with trying other cheeses we probably won't like.

I had told them I was celebrating my birthday in the reservation (well, it was within the last week and a half), and as a result, we got a surprise. The waiter brought over two small chocolate chip cookies in a bell jar with a gold balloon attached. He squeezed the balloon, causing the air to blow chocolate powder onto the cookies in the jar, before giving us the cookies. In the meantime, a waitress was busy topping off two small shot glasses of valhrona chocolate with soda water for us to take. These came with little metal straws that we used to stir the chocolate (which was very thick) and soda water together. I quite enjoyed my little cookie and chocolate soda (but I love cookies so I'm not very discerning about them - my bf was less impressed).

The first dessert arrived while I was still busily stirring my soda, a passion fruit gelato with miso custard and sesame sable. This was topped with a peach soup the waiter poured on at the table, as well as extra virgin olive oil. I found the peach soup delicious, and the passion fruit gelato tangy and refreshing but the rest of it felt like overkill. The miso custard was heavy but relatively tasteless, feeling like a weird textured lump in the middle of otherwise delicious fruity flavors.

The second dessert was for me an orange blossom fritter with apricot, basil, and pine nuts. I was a bit apprehensive about this one b/c I thought it sounded odd, but the fritter turned out to basically be a big ball of fried dough with sugar on it. Like a big, high quality donut hole. I like this kind of thing, so I enjoyed it, but it wasn't at all what I expected. Also heavier than I expected, which contributed to the overfull feeling I had at the end. The fritter had a gob of apricot foam, which I found overly tart, a smear of pine nuts on pine nut butter, which I found a bit too...something I can't pinpoint but didn't entirely enjoy, an apricot which was good, and a smear of basil something on the plate, which was interesting but I didn't love. I was really confused how I was supposed to eat all these flavors, so I may not have put them together the way I was supposed to. Basically I ended up liking my fritter and not particularly enjoying the 3 other flavors on the plate. My bf got the "red velvet cake" which sounds basic, but apparently was the chef's way of playing with the elements of a red velvet cake. As the waitress explained it, a red velvet cake is traditionally a chocolate cake dyed red with beet juice. So, along with two small cubes of red velvet cake next to dabs of cream cheese frosting, he also got a chilled beet soup (with something in it that slips my mind), a smear of beet puree on the plate, cocoa crumbles, a yogurt bubble, and I think some kind of pickled melon. This was fairly interesting - at least the parts I tried - but again, a bit hit or miss for me.

By this time, we were both really stuffed, but of course they came over with the mignardises for us to choose from. So many options sounded good - they had cinnamon or some sort of Chinese fruit lollipops, guava jelly squares, coconut jelly squares, pecan shortbread, two types of chocolate (one with mint, one with salted caramel), vanilla caramels, some chocolate nut thing in a wrapper, and a couple other choices. But my stomach was loudly protesting the idea of adding more to it, so we just got one square each of the guava and coconut jellies, two chocolate mints (one for each of us), a lollipop for later, and a vanilla caramel for later. One bite of the tart guava jelly and I felt nauseous, but I still stuffed half of that, half of the coconut jelly (which was really yummy) and the chocolate mint (also yummy) into myself, and then wished I hadn't. My problem is when I get over-full, it only gets worse before it gets better, so I was seriously unhappy and uncomfortable by the close of the meal. My other problem is, I don't realize I've reached this point until it's too late =P.

Overall, I felt that Cyrus lacked both particular creativity (except in the desserts) and particular flavors of the kind I enjoyed (except in a couple courses). It was interesting to try once, but I wouldn't go back. But, what's for me and not for me is very different than what others might enjoy. With my particular array of food biases and quirks, it's probably best for me to choose from a menu with an understanding of what I'm getting, than to have a creative chef pick for me.

All in all, I had a wonderful weekend in Healdsburg and the surrounding areas and would most definitely go back for another weekend getaway, maybe not on a holiday weekend when things are more booked and hotels are less available. Next time, I'd like to try Honor Mansion, which also offers private cottages/suites and a host of amenities that Madrona does not seem to, if I'm feeling particularly indulgent, or Dry Creek Cottage or even the villa if we go up with friends, which is a private cottage with a pool and hot tub (the latter was missed keenly by my bf) which is much cheaper than many of the other options in the area. I'd also maybe try renting a canoe or kayak from King's Sport & Tackle in Guerneville to try a different stretch of the river, and maybe do one of the bike rides around Calistoga. A day of kayaking, a day of biking, and delicious meals in between sounds like a wonderful future weekend getaway.

ETA: Almost forgot to mention that Powell's Sweet Shoppe at 322 Center Street in Healdsburg is fun to walk through, just for the childhood nostalgia factor. They've got a ton of candy of all different types that you'll remember from your childhood (Pop Rocks, Nerds, Pixy Stix, etc) including old lunchboxes/historical candy packaging. It's fun to do a quick browse.

New dining experience

On the recommendation of the bf's coworker, we decided to try something different last night. Mr. Pollo is a tiny little hole in the wall, a quite run-down little space dominated by the kitchen, with seating for no more than 4 parties, and no more than 12 people. It's run by a young Columbian/Venezuelan man who says he's driven by just loving to cook, not trying to make a profit. He goes to the local farmers' markets and picks fresh ingredients, and then basically invents his menu based on the ingredients he has. No, correction. There is no menu. There are a few set things you can order - arepas (which are yummy sweet white corn fried cakes with stuffing- he compared them to pupusas), for instance - but for the most part, it's chef's choice. You can tell him how much you want to eat and he'll basically just keep whipping up dishes until you're full. At the time he went, he had gotten a whole goat that he'd broken into different pieces, so he was offering one menu which was five different parts of the goat (shank, tenderloin, leg, rack, and I think chorizo made of goat), while another was comprised of beef, pork and chicken (since I didn't think I liked goat). For $15, we ended up with 3 courses, a fresh fruit juice and a fairly large "amuse bouche". The "amuse bouche" was a cheese arepa, about 3 inches in diameter, which was all crispy sweet fried yummy goodness that left us wanting more. I got the pineapple juice, while my bf got the strawberry juice (he also had mango and several Columbian fruits), which were also good. First course for me was tender grilled shredded chicken with potatoes and some peppers and onions in a savory sauce, while my bf had pieces of tender goat shank with the same preparation style. That was quite tasty. The second course was several small medium rare slices of beef on a bed of lentils, with some parsley-based chimichurri or something similar on top, fresh arugula arranged over, and some kind of seasoning for the lentils. The beef wasn't the best I've ever had texture-wise but it was quite tasty. My bf had essentially the same dish, but with some pieces of goat chorizo, which was quite good, and a few pieces of yucca. The third course for me was crispy fried pork pieces around a delicious rice with fresh market vegetables (including brussel sprouts, fuji apples, and some other veggies), while my bf had the same rice with a small piece of goat tenderloin, a couple ribs, and a small piece of goat leg. By then we were pretty much stuffed, so we called it a meal. I got the impression he would have fed us more if we wanted, but I'm not sure what. While we were there, another woman came in and just ordered the large $6.50 arepa, which was stuffed with a variety of meats and veggies and looked pretty good. He also told us that if we wanted, we could get a single dinner plate with meats and veggies and rice for $10 - again, his choice on preparation. It seems that if you go multiple times you'll get different foods depending on what he's bought and feels like making that day.

It's definitely an interesting experience, especially since the space is so tiny - completely dominated by the kitchen/cooking area - and so run down - the door had a broken top hinge and required special manipulation to even close properly. But the food was quite good, especially at the price - a really excellent deal. The restaurant is located on Mission and 24th, right next to the McDonald's and by the BART station. I'd definitely recommend it for the experience and the food, but don't be surprised at what you find when you get there! Oh and don't go in a rush - this is literally a one man operation. He takes your orders, cooks your meals, plates them, serves them, busses the dishes, and takes your payment. There is nobody else there at all. Though, I think despite all that, and the fact that he was serving two other parties at the same time as us (he staged it so we were basically all at the same time for each course), we still finished our 3 courses and amuse bouche in less time than Cafe Andree took.

And a quick note on another meal - ate at Ana Mandara with friends tonight. The restaurant is a rather large, beautifully decorated space at the corner of Beach and Polk in Ghiradelli Square. Definitely has character and a nice use of space - good feel to the restaurant. It's not cheap at all - they offer a 3-course "comfort menu" for $35 (which was suspended due to their participation in DAT - which had different 3 course options) and a 4-course menu for $55, both of which seem like reasonably good deals given that entrees range from $23-39 (or so) and appetizers tended to be $12+, while desserts were $5-10. My two friends and my bf all got the DAT, starting with either the spare ribs or crispy spring rolls for appetizer, the hangar steak or jumbo prawns for entree, and the banana boat dessert. I didn't find any entree I wanted in the DAT menu, so I ordered the duck entree off the regular menu ($29), and the mango soup dessert ($9). I thought the food was all reasonably good, some better than others. The spare ribs were eh - I tried one, thought it was fine but nothing special. I'm told the spring rolls were the same way. The meat all had a good texture and was cooked well - I particularly liked the tenderness and taste of my duck. I felt the sauce on my duck (a pineapple-pinenut based sauce) was a little over-salty, but the overall dish was good - had long beans and daikon cakes on the side. The hangar steak I tried was also tender and quite good, and came with kimchee, yucca gnocchi, and some other unique sides. My friend said his jumbo prawns were really good, in a kind of sweet chili sauce. The banana boat dessert with caramel walnut sauce and vanilla ice cream was pretty good. The mango soup, which was the specialty of the chef, was excellent. It was a mango puree which I think must have been mixed with coconut milk or evaporated milk or something, for a thick, sweet, light mango taste, with strips of fresh mango ("mango noodles") and a scoop of durian sorbet. The durian sorbet was ok, but not to my taste, so I scooped it out and my friends ate it. The strips of mango were fine, but the puree was truly delicious. Ana Mandara is a bit pricey and the food doesn't quite live up to the price, IMO, but it has some interesting dishes and flavor combinations and is a nice dining experience, so I might still go back under the right circumstances. Might be an interesting, if pricey, place to have a party - they had an upstairs space with loungey-areas, an outside deck with tables and seating, and it looked like possibly private rooms as well.

More restaurants

It's DAT, so we're going out more.

Monday, we went to midi brasserie, located on Sutter right near Kearny, attached to the Galleria Park Hotel or whatever it's called. Restaurant upstairs, bar downstairs. It was a very cute space overlooking Sutter, decent service. The DAT menu was exactly the same price as the components on the menu totaled up, so I didn't try to stick to it. Got a pear and Belgian endive salad with blue cheese and candied hazelnuts in vinaigrette, which was decent. Nothing exceptional, but nice and crisp and fresh, and the candied hazelnuts were yummy. For entree, I got butternut squash ravioli - 4 ravioli for $20 =P. It was right about the middle to the upper end of the range of butternut squash raviolis I've had - I've had some truly nasty or uninspiring ones, and some really yummy ones. These were fine - pretty yummy, decent filling. Not the best and not the worst. The bf got the duck leg confit - he was starving so the quantity wasn't really sufficient for him - the duck was fairly small. He said it was decent. For dessert, I got the bittersweet chocolate pot de creme which is, as my bf pointed out, really just fancy chocolate pudding with whipped cream on top, but it was really chocolatey and I enjoyed it. He got the honey chai cake with cream cheese frosting which I found just odd tasting but he said was ok. He did say he probably wouldn't bother to go back to midi, though. I was curious about the braised pork short ribs on the menu they were out of, which would be the main reason I'd go back, but yeah there was nothing that really stood out.

On Tuesday, we went to Cafe Andree, attached to the Rex Hotel in Union Square (on Sutter near Mason). We went there mostly b/c the other DAT restaurants I'd looked at were booked up on OpenTable, while Cafe Andree had open reservations. No wonder, too - there were only 3 parties including us in the restaurant the entire time we were there. It was a smallish space attached to the hotel, kind of cute with a sort of old library theme to it. Service was quite slow, though very friendly. I got the DAT menu. Appetizer was butternut squash soup (sense a trend?) which was actually quite tasty, one of the better I've had recently. Entree was sesame crusted salmon with bok choy, a tempura pumpkin piece (nicely fried), on top of "forbidden fried rice" which was some sort of black rice. Tasted pretty decent - cooked salmon is never that good, I've discovered, but the combination of flavors was decently done (if a little heavy in the sauce). Bf got the pork loin with caramelized apples, braised chard, and sweet potato souffle - he was disappointed that it wasn't a tenderloin, but said it was pretty decent, liked the sauce, actually ate the greens b/c they were buried in the sauce, and liked the sweet potato souffle, which I found a little odd. Dessert for me was the white and dark chocolate molten cake with peanut butter ganache, and it was crap. Rubbery cake that didn't taste very good, with a somewhat warm, somewhat better tasting melted chocolate center. I still ate it all, being me, but I was very disappointed and fairly vocal about it. A neighboring table got it as well and I heard the guy more politely saying how it wasn't what he expected in a molten cake. Overall, appetizer and entree were decent, if unexceptional. Dessert was bad. Probably wouldn't go out of my way to go back.

One place I did go back to was the Live Sushi restaurant in Potrero Hill on Saturday night. Went with a vegetarian friend, who was pleasantly surprised that they actually had a fair number of veggie options (and were very open to substitutions - like edamame for the fish-based miso soup). My miso black cod was a bit disappointing (maybe I should stop getting it every time I go out) - the last time I got it there it was better. My Nemo - seared scallops wrapped in salmon with a garlic-based dipping sauce - was quite tasty, especially with the sauce. The sushi was all good. I like Live b/c the fish is quite good, there are interesting options, and parking is never an issue.

Cafe Claude - yum!

Haven't blogged in ages which means I haven't been keeping track of restaurants I've been to, which is annoying when I try to pick restaurants to go to and can't remember if I've been to one or what I thought of it.

So, making note.. went to Cafe Claude tonight (7 Claude Ln, a little alleyway off of Sutter right next to Kearny), and really enjoyed it. They have a small jazz band playing by the bar some nights of the week, they have outdoor seating with heat lamps (we sat indoors), and they have yummy food. I got a french onion soup that was good (not the best ever but more than good enough, esp on a chilly day), and Porc au Miel, which was pork tenderloin in a honey cream balsamic vinegar sauce, with caramelized apples and haricot verts. The sauce was delicious, the pork was tender, and I ended up sopping up the last of the sauce with the Acme pain epi bread they gave us at the beginning of the meal (yummy). There was some flavor I didn't love on occasion (the chives? rosemary or something? but for the most part it was just really yummy). My bf got the seared ahi tuna with onion confit, bacon, soy green peppercorn sauce (and lemon zest?) and that was quite yummy too, especially if you ate the fish and confit all together. The flavors really complemented each other well. Yelp and OpenTable says it's $$ - I'm not sure how they classify that. Soup was $8, my entree was $19, his was $20, I think...and it's casual. Definitely would go back.