Chile Pies and Ice Cream

Patrick American, Dessert, Ice Cream, Restaurants, San Francisco

San Francisco has some pretty amazing dessert places. Just like Chile Pies and Ice Cream, a restaurant devoted to just serving pie slices and ice cream alongside a small handful of bites. They form part of the Green Chile Family including a mexican restaurant that looked absolutely heaving when we passed it.

They had an amazing selection of pies including interesting combinations such as Apple Chai, Mexican Chocolate Pecan, Peanut Butter and Chocolate, Lemon Buttermilk and more. Most of the pies are hot with a small handful that were served cold like the Peanut Butter and Chocolate one. These change regularly so I’d watch out for some interesting combinations.

The store itself is quite large with plenty of seating area. We noticed quite a few students sitting around on their laptops or with their studying books out.

In addition to the pies, they serve Three Twins Ice Cream, a local ice cream store to California that I hadn’t seen anywhere else. Just like the pie combinations, they seemed to offer a number of twists on just plain ice cream flavours such as Cardamom, Lemon Cookie and Mint Confetti as well as vanilla, mocha, and strawberry flavours. I tried a scoop of the lemon cookie ice cream with the slice of peanut butter chocolate pie (based with crushed oreo cookies instead of graham cracker crust). A bit excessive but amazed at the strength of the flavour from the ice cream and the richness of the pie from the peanut butter. A winning combination but we probably should have shared a slice.

My sister tried the chile apple pie that came drizzled with the chile sauce. She wasn’t too impressed by the odd spice combination given by the chile sauce. We both failed to finish our slices. A pretty good store that I’d definitely come back to.

Name: Chile Pies & Ice Cream
Found at: 601 Baker Street, San Francisco, United States
Website: http://www.greenchilekitchen.com/ice_cream/index.html

Memphis Minnie’s Barbeque Joint And Smokehouse

Patrick American, BBQ, Restaurants, San Francisco

With a name like Memphis Minnie’s Barbeque Joint And Smokehouse and located in the more alternative Haight district of San Francisco I wasn’t quite sure what we were in store for dinner. I always try to fit in some good BBQ when I visit the states and the choices in the city were too numerous to think about. One bad hit and it’d probably be our only opportunity.

Fortunately when we walked in and took a look at the place, I wasn’t too worried. The entire restaurant seemed to be covered in some sort of pig-themed love, and numerous awards and celebrities spotted at this rather low-key joint. I liked the fact that it definitely seemed more like a diner than a restaurant. Most of my BBQ experiences tended to be in New York city where I think it skews the perception of what a BBQ restaurant should look like.

Plenty of pigs were flying as well, meaning so many more things were possible.

We came early (6pm) and it’s a good thing we did with most of the tables filling up quickly with, what I guess were, locals. Many others came in to simply order and take their big bags of smoky-filled BBQ away. We had a bit of trouble choosing from the menu. Not only did you have all the classic things like the baby back ribs, beef ribs and pulled pork but they also had sausage links, rib tips and some special offerings like a BBQ cheesesteak special of the day just to throw us off.

We settled for sharing a platter in the end. I wanted to try the onion straws as well, figuring they would be an interesting alternative to onion rings not realising that the bowl they came in would rival the plate our BBQ sat upon. I shudder to think exactly how much fat we were consuming. It was very tasty anyway. We tried a side of the mac and cheese (a bit average) and I really enjoyed the smoked BBQ beans. Vegetarians beware since the beans had just as much pork as the plate itself. The ribs were great – smoked and not saucy, the pulled pork utterly divine and sumptuous and the rib tips meaty and wholesome.

I tried the variety of sauces as well. The mustard perfectly matched the onion straws although I wish they had a sauce that was much spicier than the “It’s stupid hot” Beelzebub’s sauce that barely brought any heat to my mouth. A fun place to be that I’d definitely head back to in that neighbourhood.

Name:
Found at:
Website: http://www.memphisminnies.com/

Dojima Ann

Patrick Asian, Japanese, Restaurants, San Francisco

Japanese is expensive in the UK, so I thought it’d be a great opportunity to try some while we were here in San Francisco. Numerous places turned up but in the end we dropped into this one that I noticed around the downtown area that looked pretty good. Bright and clean from the outside, I was even more pleased stepping in to find the whole restaurant filled with Japanese people and a small TV playing some Japanese shows in the background.

I’m not confident that all the staff were Japanese, but they were at least Asian and the fact that queues formed shortly after a while made me think we hit something pretty good. We shared a mixed tempura that was both a very generous portion and stayed crisp. I’ll admit it was slightly greasy but only very just.

The chicken karage (fried chicken) was just as divine as well. I love putting the shiso pepper on it after the squeeze of lemon to try to cut through some of the grease (in this case not very greasy as well).

My sister continued the theme ordering a katsu chicken that she didn’t realise was a set meal also accompanied by udon soup and a salad. The portion serving was huge and a lot of rice was left over.

I opted for some sushi rolls. On the left was a soft shell crab roll and on the right an eel and cucumber roll. Both were very full, and very tasty indeed.

We both had a softdrink and I’m pretty sure that the total of our meal still came to about USD60 total.

Name: Dojima Ann
Found at: 219 O’Farrell Street San Francisco, CA 94102, United States
Website: No website found

The Cheesecake Factory

Patrick American, Restaurants, San Francisco

Although I knew about the Cheesecake Factory for over a decade now, I never really had the opportunity rise at the same time as a want to go and eat there. The last time I was in San Francisco, I tried the Macy’s store but remember the ever long queue. I never checked to see if New York had one with so many great eateries and the when I stumbled across the Las Vegas outlet, I had just eaten breakfast and eating was the last thing on my mind.

We came here for dinner and I can tell you the line up hasn’t really changed. Constant streams of people come to put their name down at the reception area. Large families wait. Couples wait. Sometimes an individual comes and heads to the bar where you can watch sports on their giant TVs and probably fight your way for a seat pretty much immediately. We were told it’d be about a thirty minute or forty minute wait, and it was closer to an hour by the time we finally got seated. We got this buzzer where we headed outside (where you could also get seated immediately but had to brave the chilly evening air that I didn’t have the right clothing for).

Fortunately we had enough things to do to occupy our time. We took some pictures from the terrace as the sun went down, stood around people watching and trying to predict how much of a queue we had. Another thing we did was to peruse through the long menu. It’s a good thing we did as well because the menu was almost like a book with so many pages. I have no idea how big their kitchen is to deal with all the food and worried a bit about exactly how good the food was going to be.

They had sections for pizzas, pastas, salads, asian food, mexican food, mixed food, some american diner classics and a “small plates” or “appetiser” section that spanned at least four pages. The dessert offerings had at least two full pages describing all the types of cheesecakes on offer. They brought bread, although I tried to avoid it considering they had a reputation for bringing huge servings of food. The table next to us ordered the burrito almost the size of my head. The gentlemen didn’t finish it though made a good dent on it.

We split a popcorn shrimp as an appetiser. I was drawn in the by thought or rock shrimp, but instead turned out to be an extremely generous serving of medium sized shrimp battered and served with a spicy mayo and tomato sauce. A good starter and worried about the main meals to still come.

My sister ordered the Madeira chicken that I never really tasted though it looked pretty good. I couldn’t fathom exactly how many calories sat inside the humungous scoop of mashed potato that landed on the plate. No need to say she didn’t finish it.

Not sure that I’d make it to any restaurants serving southern fare, I decided to go for the bowl of gumbo. When the steaming bowl I arrived I was very impressed by the size. I immediately shoved the bowl of rice away, choosing to savour the tender chunks of chicken, prawn and sausage dotted throughout the succulently dark gravy. I’m no expert but it was pretty good and had a good enough heat throughout the dish.

Although many other desserts looked enticing, I’m not sure we can visit the Cheesecake Factory without having a cheesecake. I love key lime pie (it’s hard to get in the UK) and so while my sister ate a weird carrot-cake chunk cheesecake, I tucked into a huge slice of pie that I failed to finish. I told the attendant that I didn’t want any whipped cream and asked if I could replace it with ice cream. As you can see from the photo, it failed and he managed to bring both.

Anyway, despite the bustling crazy speed of the restaurant, it was nice to be seated and the food was pretty decent. I’m not sure it’s the sort of food you really want to line up for, but the experience is one you probably won’t forget for a while.

Name: The Cheesecake Factory, San Francisco Outlet
Found at: 251 Geary Street (in the Macy’s building), San Francisco, CA 94102, United States
Website: http://www.thecheesecakefactory.com/

Rick Bayless’ Frontera Grill

Patrick Chicago, Mexican, Restaurants

I’m a huge fan of the Top Chef series and was even more excited about coming to Chicago to try to get a taste of Rick Bayless’ cooking after learning about him from the Top Chef Masters competition. He has quite a collection of restaurants in Chicago but I heard about one of his restaurants that you didn’t need to book one month in advance for, the Frontera Grill.

I organised to meet with a few friends there and we put our name down shortly at 6pm when they opened only to already be told that we’d have to wait at least two hours before we’d be seated. Fortunately I wasn’t so hungry from a very big brunch earlier in the day. We headed out to Sable for some drinks as the bar at Frontera was far too busy for our liking and returned when we were called about two and half hours later.

This is us dining after finally getting a table!

We ordered the sample platter of appetisers to share, a number of obligatory margaritas and of course a tamale to try. In most other places, mexican food tends to be a bit bland when served. What surprised me when we tucked into the platter was how everything that so much vibrancy, flavour and life. The dishes didn’t really blur together and each had very distinct flavours that you can try. There was even some ceviche on the platter (more peruvian than mexican) but I didn’t really complain as we ate it all. The guacamole tasted rich and went perfectly with the home-made corn chips.

I also wanted to try the tamales as I’d had one at a mexican take out place and was disappointed by the dry, cornmeal steamed around a pitiful amount of meat. Our waiter actually brought us the wrong tamale to begin with (a plain one) that actually had a lot of fresh flavours and was very promising. I’m glad that when the real chicken tamale arrived, I wasn’t disappointed by the bursts of flavours contained in the golden yellow husks.

For the main I had to order the pork mole, the more traditional of the ones listed on their menu. In total I think they had three or four different varieties including a green mole for fish, and a duck or chicken mole as well. I’m glad I went with this traditional dish, hoping to feel the rich, dark and complex flavours that mole is supposed to have and that Bayless delivered impeccably.

We split for dessert, the banana bread mainly because I really wanted to try it and figured I wouldn’t be back at the Frontera Grill for some time to come. It came with toasted walnuts, caramelised banana and some home made ice cream to provide relief from the richness of the entire dish.

I had high expectations for the entire experience and other than the having to wait for a table, the restaurant definitely delivered on all the points it was supposed to be. I can’t think of any of the dishes being flavourless and all of my friends also commenting on how great everything was.

Name: Frontera Grill
Found at: 445 North Clark Street, Chicago, IL 60610, United States
Website: http://www.fronterakitchens.com/restaurants/restaurants.html

Chicago’s Stetson’s Steakhouse

Patrick American, Chicago, Restaurants, Steak

As part of the working week we had a group, my company organised for a dinner in the hotel we were staying at. The result was a dinner at the surprisingly inventive Stetson’s Steak house. We had the private dining room booked and they had a fixed menu for us with a number of alternatives to choose from. We also had two types of wines, but taking the chance, I asked for a glass of Zinfandel instead (which I got and enjoyed very thoroughly).

Our first cocktail was an inventive shrimp cocktail with shrimps almost appearing mutant size – they were really that big. It come straddled across a fresh tomato sauce with a background of wasabi kick and cleverly kept cold through some dry ice in the bottom container. Spectacular to look at and a very great combination to start with.

I opted for the lobster bisque that was a very good bowl of soup indeed. Nothing very surprising here but an extremely enjoyable bowl with lots of flavour.

They brought around tiny coronets of lemon sorbet to cleanse our palettes for the oncoming main menu. I wasn’t expecting this and was delighted by the zesty citrus flavours.

I ordered a 400g steak that arrived with a lovely BBQ sauce and they brought around a number of sides to go along with it including some onion rings, asparagus.

I had to try the mac and cheese as well though there was already a lot of food. The steak was perfectly cooked to medium rare and it was very deliciously juicy and meaty.

The cheese course arrived looking grand with an interesting assortment of prunes, fruit and honeycomb as well as some toasted bread to eat the cheese.

Dessert arrived in the form of a platter with tiny cakes and chocolate dipped strawberries. Too much decadence here but I couldn’t resist trying some of the cakes and blueberries.

I really enjoyed the dinner. Although I don’t know how much the dinner overall cost, looking at their website, the US$100 seemed reasonable for the sheer number of courses that arrived and the quality of the food. It’s definitely not an every day sort of place to eat. Or at least, not to do the tasting menu every day of the week but would definitely head back to have a steak there.

Name: Stetson’s
Found at: In the Hyatt on Wacker (151 East Wacker Drive Chicago, IL 60601, United States)
Website: http://www.hyatt.com/gallery/stetson/index.html

Chicago’s Nomi

Patrick American, Chicago, Restaurants

Nomi, Not to be confused with the world’s number one restaurant in the world, Noma, you can find this Chicago based restaurant in the Park Hyatt Hotel offering effectively regionally sourced foods with the theme of being served from the “Kitchen” as you would make at home. Of course, it’s a lot fancier than that.

They served us a few rounds of some lovely crusty bread and butter. Unusually the butter tasted a lot more creamy than what you get in most other American restaurants (a good thing). I remember the bread being especially warm as well helping the butter to melt and to start our appetite for the things to come.

Opting for a theme of mushrooms, I started with the Forest Mushroom Soup. It arrived drizzled with truffle oil, and the perfect use of sourdough bread to provide crisp croutons to contrast the soup’s texture. Although still welcome to provide bite, the use of goat’s cheese to add salt and a melting creaminess seemed a tad excessive although the additional pan fried mushrooms were very good. The others split a plate of jamon iberico ham and cheese to begin.

The mushroom theme continued with the hand cut linguini served with black truffle cream, parmigiano-reggiano and fresh herbs. A generous serving of pasta with lots of cheese, but surprisingly light on the flavour. I expected more saltiness or sharpness from the cheese, and a rich earthy flavour from the truffle but both were a little bit too subtle for my liking. The truffle aoili chips we ordered to share was good and the pasta aided by a side of foraged mushrooms pan fried in probably a little bit too much butter.

My fellow diners ordered a wide range of dishes although I was only able to successfully take a picture of the skate ala plancha that looked amazing served atop its bed of dauphinoise potatoes and assorted roasted vegetables.

Our waiter teased us with a board filled with the offering of today’s tarts but we were defeated as a group to even attempt dessert. If I had space for it, I probably would have tried the brioche beignet although they had a huge menu to choose from. Not the cheapest of the meals I had, this one, even with two bottles of wine between the five us cost about US$98 including service.

Name: Nomi
Found at: 800 North Michigan Avenue Chicago, IL 60611, United States
Website: http://www.hyatt.com/gallery/nomi

Avec’s Spin on Mediterranean Food

Patrick Chicago, Dessert, Restaurants

I caught up with a number of friends for dinner the first night I spent in Chicago and they recommended the restaurant Avec. They recommended getting there early (6pm) that worked for me as I was still recovering from the flight and wouldn’t really last to a very late dinner. It’s a good thing too because like many popular restaurants in the town, they had a first come first seated basis.

The front door to the restaurant is rather discrete. Upon walking in, it feels like you’re entering a huge communal sauna where the entire room is wood-panelled including the tables and the major counter top. Putting my name down for the group of four, I sat at the counter and sipped on a glass of red wine from spain until the others arrived. I asked about getting something local (i.e. American) but they said that this was a mediterranean restaurant and thus only offered wine from France, Italy and Spain. Strange.

The others soon arrived and we were shown to our table that we split with another group sitting at the end of the large table side. A lot of the dishes had been designed for sharing and even though we ordered a number of large dishes, we still opted to split them as a group to try to savour and experience all that Avec had to offer. It worked for me. Our waiter came to recommend a number of dishes including a number of daily specials on the board.

We went for these chinese greens that were served with some toasted quinoa and had a great earthy nutty feel to them. It had a great mouth feel and gladly had not been overcooked.

Next up were the apparently famous chorizo-stuffed medjool dates with smoked bacon and piquillo pepper-tomato sauce. Our waiter pushed us really hard to order more than just one of these dishes, but we only really wanted to try one each. Of course the date, meaty flavours mixed with the spicy tomato sauce worked really well but I remember this being particularly overseasoned and needing to reach for more water to quench the thirst.

We then tried the marinated hanger steak with lemon marscapone leeks, escarole and charred onion vinaigrette that turned out to be a perfectly cooked, slightly smoky piece of steak that disappeared rather quickly.

We also tried the crispy duck with toasted fregula and couscous, mustard greens, squash and egg yolk that reminded me of a Chinese style duck blended with mediterranean flavours. I really enjoyed the choice of the large cous couse here, and the egg yolk bursting to add a richness to this dish. The crispy duck added texture to the dish and, at the same time, was too overcooked to enjoy any of the duck flavour.

Ajit recommended ordering the “deluxe” focaccia with taleggio cheese, ricotta, truffle oil and fresh herbs. This bread, slightly slimmer than what one would expect from a Foccacia was filled with a creamy filling all full of great umami. Once again the only disappointment was how they went a bit heavy on the salting of the bread that was perfectly fine with out it.

Typically unable to resist desserts, my friends ordered some dessert wines and I opted for the hazelnut crumb cake with fennel creme fraiche, candied hazelnuts and butterscotch, a rich cake including a sweet sauce very well balanced out by the choice of a creme fraiche instead of whipped cream.

Overall a pretty good dining experience though not as perfect as I’d hoped after hearing all the reviews. I’d still definitely go back and try a few of the other dishes as I think the flavour combinations were pretty inventive and not what you would find in many other kitchens.

Name: Avec Restaurant
Found at: 615 W Randolph, Chicago, IL 60661
Website: http://avecrestaurant.com/

Clerkenwell’s The Green

Patrick British, Restaurants, UK

One of the great things about Clerkenwell is the number of quality places to eat out are. There are almost too many but this is a good problem to have. My flat mate had planned to have a Sunday lunch at St John’s but the big turnout forced him to pick an alternative venue, The Green that we’ve been to a number of times.

The restaurant wasn’t particularly busy so we had the entire top floor to ourselves where we indulged in many drinks and a sunday roast as the glorious March sun streamed in through the walls. We had quite a good choice of things to choose from the sunday roast including the rare roast beef (above), roast chicken (below), some lamb and pork although I didn’t catch any of the photos.

Of course a Sunday roast is incomplete with the traditional Yorkshire Puddings, and these were excellent – light, crispy and massively blown up. They obviously had the right technique for making them and I’m impressed they managed to pump out so many all being wonderful as well. The gravy was pretty good too.

Plenty of sides came along including brussel sprouts, turnips, carrots, beetroot and roast potatoes. I prefer my roast potatoes cooked with goose fat and I suspect they cooked theirs with olive oil or something as they turned out a bit more waxy than crisp on the edges.

Almost everyone ordered the hazelnut brownie with a salted caramel ice cream for dessert where they ended up running short.

I’ve eaten at The Green before and their food is consistently good and the bar reasonably spacious unless it’s a Friday pub evening. Try not to tell too many people okay.

Name: The Green
Found at: 29 Clerkenwell Green, London EC1R 0DU
Website: http://thegreenec1.co.uk/

Chicago’s Bristol

Patrick American, Brunch, Chicago, Restaurants

One of the final places I ate at during this trip to Chicago was The Bristol. It’s one of those places that focuses on nose to tail eating and the pig features heavily in their menu in a wide variety of forms. It’s not too far of a walk from Bucktown towards a more polished neighbourhood filled with high end independent stores.

As you can see from the picture below, they take their pig seriously.

I had a hard time picking something on the menu as I wanted to try quite a number of dishes. I think it’s the sort of place I could go back to. We were seated immediately at the bar, and I think was almost preferred to the crowded noisy shared tables behind us. We also got to see the bartender make some of his brunch drinks including the Bacon Manhattan we tried.

A mixture of bourbon, maple syrup and a bacon infusion plus a candied streak of bacon with oversized ice cubes worked up a charm. It’s not the sort of drink I would have too many of, but its a decadent drink that makes you think about what exactly a mixologist can make. A great balance and a perfect start to a brunch.

Here’s the crowd behind us.

Ajit ended up with the burger. Not a huge sized burger, but definitely a good portion size as well as the duck fat fries topped with parsley, salt and a number of other tasty seasonings.

Not content, I had to order another cinnamon roll just to try it from this place. As you can see, it seemed a bit more cooked and less fluffy as the ones we tried at ann sathers. In a way, I preferred this one as it focused more on the cinnamon flavour and the roll rather than the sweet glaze poured all over it.

I went for a braised pork chilaquiles, salsa verde, cilantro, lime, fried egg. Continuing on the mexican theme, what turned up was a soft pork belly bits of meat through softened tortilla chipps and lots of flavour all throughout. I put on quite a bit of the home made chilli sauce that was reported “very spicy” but turned out to be slightly more than a typical tabasco. Still a great addition to it though.

Name: The Bristol
Found at: 2152 N Damen Ave Chicago, IL 60647, United States
Website: http://thebristolchicago.com/