What I Ate On My Summer Vacation

July 15, 2009

We’re not big vacation takers in my house. It might have to do with the economy, or the fact that Susan grew up in a distinctly non-vacationing home, or the fact that we’re just so busy that the very idea of time to ourselves eludes us completely, and then it’s winter, and then we do nothing but hibernate and plan next year’s trip, which we invariably never take. I also suffer from acute vacation guilt, which means that I always hook my time away to work of some sort, lest I be afflicted by sloth. This year, though, made us a little bit squirrely. Too many days spent in bleak New England followed by too many days spent in a windowless office and my sensory neurons felt like they were dressed up in furry little moth-eaten overcoats, much like the ones that my teeth wear after I’ve had too much wine.

There was only one place we wanted to go on short notice: the Bay Area. So, I planned a lot of business meetings around a short conference, we found fabulous fares and even better hotel rates (a $485 corner executive room with wrap-around balcony and Japanese soaking tub at the Hotel Kabuki was ours for $85 a night thanks to Travelzoo), and off we went. I hadn’t been to San Francisco since 1970 (I was 7 and came home with love beads and a brown suede mini skirt–the first in a long line of attempts by my frill-seeking mother to turn me into something other than a tomboy; laugh’s on her), although I did spend three days in Berkeley on business back in 2001. Susan hadn’t been to the Bay Area in 20 years. We had no idea what to expect beyond the fact that we’d probably eat very well, and we did– pretty much to the exclusion of everything else. What we discovered? Everything in San Francisco is about a third more expensive than it is in New York, except for the wine (for obvious reasons), and the banh mi at Lee’s Sandwich Shop, located in what used to be called the Tenderloin (don’t ask), and what is now Little Saigon, which is where we started.

Meal 1
June 24th, lunch.
Lee’s Sandwich Shop

An enormous fast-food establishment serving perhaps a dozen varieties of Banh Mi on house-baked baguettes, Lee’s has all the charm and warmth of the waiting room in Penn Station. Blinding, buzzing florescent lights beckon stupid tourists (like us), who clog the place alongside members of the local Vietnamese community. The reason: a spectacular sandwich, filled with pate, grilled or cured pork (I opted for the cured variety), daikon radish, carrots, a thick layer of sliced jalapeno (great for my head cold), and cilantro for $2.75, and big enough to split three ways.

Meal 2
June 24th, dinner.
There’s a lot to be said for hooking up with an old friend you haven’t seen in a quarter of a century, finding out that you have more in common now than you did then, and discovering that your respective spouses also seem to be two peas in a pod. This makes for the beginnings of a great meal; a window-side table at cavernous but calm Greens, great food, great wine, and an unparalleled view makes for an even better one. The red curry was mouth-warming and delicious; the hand-cut tagliatelle with peas and asparagus, beautiful. The winner of the evening and a paean to the increasingly lost art of simplicity: grilled local peaches dolloped with house-made creme fraiche. Deborah Madison is in New Mexico now, writing amazing books, but she’d have been happy, I think. 

Meal 3
June 25th, breakfast.
Nine years ago, my last trip to Berkeley was a whirlwind: 3 days, back to back business meetings with Publishers’ Group West, and two breakfasts at this small 4th street diner that’s always packed. I’ve raved about it since my return from that trip, and managed to convince Susan that if I was ever able to get her out there, she had to order the homemade scrapple, which she did, along with the fluffiest pancakes she’s ever had, and an egg. I worried that she had a tapeworm. And then I ordered exactly what I had the last time I was there: spicy house made chorizo, two poached eggs, toast, and tea. There are lots of reasons to head over to Berkeley from San Francisco, and breakfast at Bette’s is absolutely one of them.

Meal 4
June 25th, dinner.

Fried sweet milk, dusted with sugar, at Farina.

Food writer and SF pal Tori Ritchie turned me on to the crazy, stuffed-foccacia at this place that’s so painfully, cloyingly hip and fabulous that even I felt tall and honestly blonde by the time we left. Dinner in the city with a kid is always sort of a crapshoot, but not so with Sue’s cousin Kyle (11 years old, gourmand, once pronounced the rabbit at the Red Cat Grill “magnificent”) and his parents, Beth and Kevin, from Fremont. Homemade Ligurian specialties, including potato-and-pesto -stuffed tortolloni that could just about make you swoon. Even if you just went for the focaccia (not like obese American focaccia but thin and wafery and overflowing with melted cheese), it’d be worth it. But if you have the dessert I had — fried sweet milk dusted with sugar and served warm — you’d want to buy a condo around the block. I arrived poised to be metaphysically skewered by the staff (witheringly chilly, to some), but they couldn’t have been more lovely. Go, wear black, and act tall and skinny.

Meal 5
June 26th, brunch.

When is too big too big? Always. 
There’s something to be said for reputation, and when we spied this branch of the fast food chain on the way up to Mendocino, I slammed on the brakes, made a u-turn, and really pissed off Loretta, my GPS. “Recalculating. Recalculating. Recalculating, DAMN YOU.” She sounded like Hal in 2001. Anyway, we haven’t had burgers in a very long time, and I haven’t had a speck of fast food since I read Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation. Susan felt the need to order the double-double, animal style (with fried onions), which was the size of my head (see above). Good thing they’re not on the east coast, or I’d be there every day, tofu and cholesterol be damned. $8 for lunch for two, with fries and water, which, in California, doesn’t come cheap.
Meal 6
June 26th, dinner. 
Mendocino Cafe
The innkeeper from whom we were renting a cottage for two nights clued us into this local place in bucolic Mendocino, which is about as close to Brigadoon as I’ve personally ever come, cannabis crop not withstanding. I said we wanted laid back food, so here’s where we went. One small-ish room, packed with locals, and served by exactly one robustly exuberant gentleman who sounded just a little bit like Donald Duck. The potstickers–stuffed with tofu and vegetables–were enormous and flat, more like a rice-noodle crepe than a dumpling, and pan-fried to a toothsome, supple, and garlicky burnt sienna. My Thai hot pot (I still had a cold) was perhaps the most perfect thing I’d eaten thus far on the trip, but then again, when you bathe local rock shrimp in 2 gallons of red curry-spiced coconut milk and wash it down with an icy, local Navarro Gewurtztraminer, what could be bad. 
Meal 7
June 27th, lunch.
Lauren’s, Boonville

A great tostada, at Lauren’s in Boonville. 

You have to love a small town that’s so peculiar it makes up its own language in order to keep outsiders from understanding its inner workings. This is Boonville, which is, some 150 years after the language of Boont was invented, a very happy and pleasant place indeed. It’s comprised of one short street, upon which there are several slightly higher-end establishments for eating and shopping. Lauren’s, I am happy to say, was not one of them. Clearly a dance hall, the place becomes a restaurant during the day with an active clientele that includes scads of extremely happy hippie children who have their own play area in the back. This is not fancy food, and despite the fact that it was 105 degrees out by the time we arrived there and I’m on year 6 of perimenopausal hot flashes, I didn’t even notice that there was no air conditioning. The food–a chicken tostada for me, and a composed salad for Susan — was that good. That’s Lauren’s. Lunch for two, with icy beers, around $30. 
Meal 8
June 27th, dinner.
Years ago, when I was the book buyer at Dean & Deluca, there were certain iconic establishments that published tie-in cookbooks, and Cafe Beaujolais in Mendocino was one of them. I have two copies of said book in my library (procured from my town’s book sale, and never cooked from), and the little cottage we were renting a few blocks from the ocean looked down the street right at the cafe, so I took it as a sign. I’m not sure if this is the place to quote my grandmother who said “if you can’t say anything nice, come sit by me,” but, sorry, I can’t say anything nice. My flaccid duck confit (see the last post) was gasping for air as it drowned, slowly, in too-thick huckleberry sauce made from local huckleberries. Susan, attempting to be good, ordered vegetables baked under a layer of overcooked filo possessing the consistency and flavor of cardboard. The only redeeming feature–Laura Chenal’s goat cheese–could barely rescue it. All this and more for $147.
Meal 9
June 28th, on-the-road snack.
Boonville General Store, Boonville.
Knowing that we were meeting up with my friend Allison, her husband Mike, and their spectacular Italian Greyhound, Audrey, at their lovely home in Hayes Valley, we decided to forgo breakfast in Mendocino and instead pick up a bite on the road heading south back to San Francisco. The Boonville General Store was the perfect place to stop, and it’s a good thing we did when we did: I spied a sign on the counter that read “Hand Pies, Ham, Egg, Sausage” and jumped at the chance. Of course, neither one of us had ever heard of a hand pie before, but I figured it might be similar to that disgustingly good Hostess Apple “Pie” that I grew up eating, that could withstand temperature swings from sweltering to freezing without so much as a dimple. Anyway, the lady behind the counter handed over the hand pie, we got back into the car, and started nibbling. A close cousin of the empanada, my hand pie was crumbly, delicate, warm, and one of the best things I’ve ever eaten for breakfast on the run. $3 for two, with coffee and tea. 

Meal 10
June 28th, dinner.
The Slanted Door, San Francisco.

The Slanted Door: cavernous paradise.

The dregs of green papaya salad and turnip cakes. 
Susan wants to run away with Charles Phan.

It’s a dangerous thing to actually land a reservation at the one restaurant in town that everyone unanimously waxes rhapsodic about, and to assume that dinner is going to be so good that you count yourself as one of the waxers. Because, the risk is not liking it, and winding up a malcontent, like Elaine in Seinfeld, who hated The English Patient. So when we were able to snag a window-side table at this cavernous, bustling Vietnamese establishment owned by the remarkable Charles Phan, we were blissed out before we even sat down. Shaking beef, clay pot chicken, green papaya salad, roasted turnip cakes, Gruner Veltliner, and I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Nothing short of mouth-tingling, blissful perfection. Thanks, Charles. Pricey, and worth absolutely every cent. 

Meal 11
June 29th, breakfast.

Poached eggs, queso fresco, and white beans for breakfast.

A few months back, Tori Ritchie told me about a breakfast dish that she’d had at Boulette’s, a smallish working kitchen/restaurant in the Ferry building, right on the water: a poached duck egg on bulgur wheat. I made a version of it at home, sprinkled with a bit of Aleppo pepper; culinarily speaking, it was a great melding of taste and texture, flavor and simplicity. So when Tori suggested that we have breakfast at this place when I was in town, I jumped at the chance, and jeez, was I glad I did. First of all, the location is so ideal (it’s on the water, facing the Bay Bridge) that on a nice day it’s hard to get pissed off when your dining companions are half an hour late (sorry Tori); second, the food itself is sheer artistry in a distinctly un-showy manner. Poached eggs, white beans, queso, a smattering of salsa, and fresh tortillas? Mouth-warming and sexy. Scrambled eggs on greens and topped with spiced breadcrumbs? Please. Who thought of that? Breakfast at Boulette’s is what happens when tall food gives way to great food built from delicious ingredients treated lovingly. I don’t know what the bill was; Tori picked it up on account of it being my birthday. She’s such a good egg. 

Meal 12
June 29th, dinner.
Twenty years ago, my literary and culinary worlds collided when I was the book buyer at Dean & Deluca: sure, I carried cookbooks, but I also carried the North Point Press reissues of Marcel Pagnol’s My Father’s Glory and My Mother’s Castle, and Jean de Florette; all of MFK Fisher’s books; and of course, Jason Epstein’s babies–the Random House Chez Panisse cookbooks he published. One day, Alice Waters breezed in, straight from Tuscany, dragging a fireplace grill with her; she deposited it at the feet of my boss, Jim, and asked him to have it copied (you can find them pretty much everywhere now). Today, Jim lives in Berkeley, near Chez Panisse, and works part time at Cesar, the tapas bar next door. Everyone knows who Alice is, but no one talks about her restaurant’s food so much, probably because the name Chez Panisse is so iconic. When I told Susan that this was where I wanted to celebrate my birthday, we both were a little circumspect. What would happen if it, nearly 40 years after opening, was okay-just-okay. What would happen if it failed us? It didn’t. It so didn’t that I can only call the entire experience, including the food, mind-blowing. Dinner: local pork, brined, and roasted with hay. Grass, salt, and pork that actually tasted like pork. Wine: a lot. Half a bottle of Navarro Chardonnay. A bottle of Domaine Tempier Bandol Rose. Our waiter: a young, thoughtful man who had just returned from France and a brief interlude with Lulu Peyraud, matriarch overseeing Domaine Tempier, and now in her 90s. 
A visit to the kitchen and a meal that lasted for hours. I don’t recall the drive back to San Francisco. We packed the menu, and upon returning home to Connecticut, I discovered that Susan had tucked into it a sprig of the hay that was waiting to be tufted underneath the pork in the open Chez Panisse wood oven.
We’re home. It was a good trip. I managed to not gain an ounce. And we both did leave our hearts out in San Francisco. 
(Sorry my homework is late.)



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