an open cupboard

OK, maybe not, but there is plenty of good, even great food to be found in my particular neck of the SF Bay Area woods. (If I ever massacre a cliché like that again, please shoot me.)

Check out my update on Oakland eateries over at Well Fed on the Town.

Photo by DJ Wallstrom from the Farmer Brown website

I am a sucker for American Southern and Soul foods. Give me fried chicken with hot sauce any time, day or night, breakfast, lunch or dinner. Black eyed peas and rice, cornbread, collard greens with smoky ham hock. I love it all. Just thinking about crispy fried chicken makes me crave it. Our default places for fried chicken tend to be the Lake Merritt Diner and the Home of Chicken n’ Waffles here in Oakland. But recently, we checked out Farmer Brown in San Francisco. Farmer Brown is unique in that the management sources their produce from local African-American farmers, a nice concept, I think. Read more here…

You go to your favorite sushi joint for a leisurely bite with some friends. Someone points you to a table, the usual one. You’re wondering whether you’ll get a California roll, or perhaps a simple plate of sashimi. On the other hand, the daily special might be good. Everyone has a seat and waits for menus to arrive. But there aren’t any. You look around and notice that the other diners in the restaurant are all leaning over to touch colorful photos on a screen at the sides of their tables. Instead of servers, computers are now taking orders.

That’s exactly what’s happening at Tel Aviv’s “Frame & Sushi Bar.” The restaurant/bar installed a computerized menu and order system developed by Israeli company Conceptic. The touch screen allows diners to peruse photos of items on the menu and place an order. They can also chat with other diners. Frame restaurant manager Natalie Edry says the new system is a source of entertainment for young and old alike. Children can play with the menu while waiting for food, while the late-night after-party crowd can flirt with diners at other tables. The system also eases the workload for waiters and reduces the wait time for orders. What a concept!

I think it might be fun to try, but I wonder how well it actually works. If you know what you want to eat and you don’t have any particular needs or requirements, I imagine it would work quite well. But what if you want your burger medium rare? Suppose you want to know whether the feta cheese is made of sheep or cow’s milk? Are the greens organic? Is the fish wild or farmed? And if you want to order wine? Well, no computer can supplant a sommelier. Here’s where the system might become less efficient—when diners need to use the computer to fetch their server.

I can’t help but wonder what the maintenance must be like. Does the software run on Windows? What happens when you have to reboot? How much extra work does it take to keep the touch screens clean? And what if a pint-size customer accidentally spills his milk on the console?

On the other hand, for a majority of orders, a computerized ordering system might work quite well. The table to table chatting feature is particularly appealing for pubs and bars. In the case of Frame—open 24 hours with a late-night pub atmosphere—the screens appear to blend in pretty well with the fifties meets George Jetson style décor. The talble-side screens echo the large flat screen TV on the wall that displays to diners the real-time goings on in the kitchen.

What do you think? Would you prefer to order your food from a computer or a person? Do you think this system will help or hurt restaurant servers?

Watch a video clip of the story here or here.

In case you missed it, here’s a link to my latest post on Well Fed on the Town, in which I lament the passing of one of my local favorites.

Photo by mohey51.

What’s it like to open a new restaurant? My favorite pastry chef can tell you all about it.

And what’s the new restaurant like, anyway? It’s like a cozy cabin in the mountains but big enough to feed and water a very large, well dressed crowd. It’s like eating your way through the local farmers’ market but with za’atar, sumac, and harissa for flavor (and kadaif for crunch).

Read more at Well Fed on the Town…

On your way to Seattle? No? Need a reason to go? Thomas Keller-trained Chef Lisa Nakamura creates Japanese/European flights of fancy on a plate. Read more about it on Well Fed on the Town.

I just got back from a wonderfully relaxing and fun vacation in the Pacific Northwest, namely San Juan Island off the coast of Washington state, Seattle, and Portland. It was actually warmer and sunnier up there than it is right now in Oakland. In fact, Portland is currently having a heat wave with humidity that rivals any day in June on the Tel Aviv boardwalk. Odd for a region known for its overcast, cloudy skies.

We ate out quite a lot, and I went a little nuts with the camera (but not during meals, *ahem*), so I’ve got a lot to share. Here’s a taste of what we ate on San Juan Island…

I’m a fan of Hiro’s Sushi and Grill, a new Japanese joint in Rockridge:

Hiro’s Sushi and Grill is a relatively new addition to Oakland’s array of restaurants on College Avenue. Don’t let its location fool you. You can almost walk right by the weirdly pink shopping area housing Hiro’s near the bottom of College. But something calls you back. Maybe it’s the rice paper screens, a menu hanging in the window, the sight of people enjoying good food in a relaxed environment.

Read all about it at Well Fed on the Town.

(Hat tip to Wikipedia for the Hokusai reproduction.)

Mango lassi, anyone? Check out my review of Flavors of India, a local Indian restaurant.

Couscous is a marvelous dish when prepared properly. I don’t mean the kind of couscous you make by soaking it in hot water for ten minutes. I mean the kind of couscous you steam forever, smother in butter, steam forever again, etc. OK, I admit, this type of couscous comes in a box too. (Most of us don’t have the time to painstakingly prepare the tiny pasta from scratch.) But when served with traditionally cooked vegetables and meat, couscous is a pleasure to eat—deeply satisfying and soulful.

Traditionally, couscocus is served on Tuesdays, laundry day in certain North African communities. While waiting for their laundry to dry, North African women would prepare the pasta and dry it in the sun. Thus laundry day became a social event, an opportunity to get together with friends and neighbors to gossip and exchange recipes.

The Tuesday couscous tradition persists in Israel at North African mom and pop eateries. Traditionally, couscous is served with a soup of vegetables and meat, eather chicken or beef. The types of vegetables and the spices used vary depending on the regional extraction of the cook.

The couscous joint I frequented in Israel was run by a family of Tripolitan extraction. Their couscous included carrots, potatoes, turnips, and zucchini, as well as chicken. Effie, the owner, always had a full house on Tuesdays, when all the high tech employees in the neighborhood would converge on his place for a plate of some down home couscous and little complimentary plates of mezze and pita. Effie’s has no menu.

Instead, Effie would greet everyone with a smile and some friendly banter, and proceed to rattle off the specials of the day. He’d then take everyone’s order faster than any waiter I’ve seen before or since, and pass them on to his wife in the kitchen. One of his sons would cover the table with simple sheet of butcher paper, and another son would arrive with plates and cutlery. The first son would return with a basket of fresh, warm pita bread and small mezze plates, including hummus with olive oil, olives, a Tunisian pumpkin spread, and two types of eggplant salad. It was always a challenge to eat all the mezzeh and still have room for couscous.

Couscous veMafroum
(That’s the official name, but everyone calls it Effie’s)
12 Yehezkel Kazaz St.
Or Yehuda, Israel
03-5339252

couscous with vegetables

Here’s my vegetarian version of couscous with vegetables, loosely based on my memories of Effie’s couscous.

for the vegetables:

1 onion, chopped, or 3 shallots, chopped
2 cloves garlic
3 small carrots, peeled
1 large turnip, peeled
1 large potato, peeled
1 cup garbanzo beans, soaked and cooked
1 bunch chard, spinach, or other greens, washed and coarsely chopped
1/2 tsp whole fenugreek
spice mixture: 1/2 tsp each whole fennel and coriander seeds, 2 tsp whole cumin seeds
(If you don’t have whole spices, use pre-ground. Just spice the vegetables a little more cautiously, reserving any leftover spice mixture for a later use. It is best, however, to use whole spices.)
salt to taste

for the couscous:

250 gr coucous
butter
salt to taste

equipment:

couscousiere, or a medium sized pot with a steamer or sieve
(I used a small pot and a vegetable steamer for the couscous, and a separate pot for the vegetables. Ideally, the couscous should steam above the vegetables to as to absorb their flavors.)

• Pour the couscous into a large, shallow bowl and soak in 1/2 cup very cold water for 20 minutes.
• Chop the vegetables into coarse chunks.
• If using whole spices, place in a clean coffee grinder and grind to a powder.
• Heat some butter and olive oil in a pot and add in the onions. Season with salt and stir. You don’t want the onions to turn transluscent without browning.
• Press the garlic cloves into the onions, then add the fenugreek and half the ground spice mixture. Stir to distribute evenly.
• Add chopped vegetables to pot, along with garbanzo beans, and cover with water.
• Drain the couscous and rake it with your fingers.
• Place steamer, sieve, or couscousiere steaming insert above vegetables and place drained couscous in steamer.
• Bring vegetables to the boil, uncovered.
• Keep the vegetables on a low simmer and turn the couscous into a bowl.
• Rake the couscous with your fingers, sprinkle it with 1/4 cup cold water, and season with salt and butter to taste.
• Let stand, and then steam again over the simmering vegetables.
• You can repeat the raking-sprinkling-seasoning-sitting process, as recommended on the Ya Rayi site. I was lazy and hungry, so I steamed the couscous twice, rather than three times. It was still delicious.

Serves 3-4