Serenastyle Blog

In our apartment, Tuesday nights are lovingly dubbed "TND" for Tuesday Night Dinners huddled around the coffee table with The Voice playing on TV. This week, it was my turn to cook, so I prepared the one and only dish I'm decent at making: sushi. 

Wondering where I got the ahi, salmon, and hamachi? Yum Yum Fish Market on 23rd and Irving — no joke about the name.

Wednesday, June 1, kicked off San Francisco's 10th Annual Dine About Town event where over one hundred restaurants participate and offer special two-course prix fixe lunches for $17.95 and/or three-course dinners for $34.95. The foodie in me went a bit crazy and looked up every single restaurant on Yelp, eliminated any below 3.5 stars with less than 500 reviews or with 4 stars and <200 reviews (+ other metrics such as "Is this restaurant on OpenTable? Have we been here already?"), then ordered the decent restaurants into lists for Most Popular (1000+ reviews on Yelp), Best Deals ($$$$ on OpenTable), Closest to Work (for team lunches or crunch days), and The Remaining Contenders.

Day 1 of Dine About Town meant we went with the highest rated (and most popular) restaurant under the Best Deals list: Ruth's Chris Steak House. 

Having been to Ruth's Chris (in Maui, actually), I thought the prix fixe menu was simply what we were paying for — a cheaper meal at a high end restaurant. The first course was a mixed greens salad (mainly arugula) with a few cherry tomatoes, some croutons, and literally, a splotch of balsamic dressing in the center — neither mixed in nor on the side. For the entree, I went with the petit filet with shrimp and a side of mashed potatoes. Decent, but smaller portions than usual. The dessert was a bit disappointing as it was just a chocolate cupcake and a custard topped with berries, nothing too special.

Day 2, Ryan chose Blowfish Sushi to Die For, since we're huge on sushi and sashimi. On first impression, this place was more tacky than posh, considering there was a live DJ bumping Missy Elliott while anime was playing on the big screen behind the bar. However, once the food came out, I was deeply impressed. The ritsu roll was solid maguro (+ a little avocado, no rice), the steak appetizer was paired with salsa (unusual and surprisingly delicious) and avocado tempura (what!), and the chirashi was generous in portions (and selection!) and really fresh. Dessert was a green tea cheesecake with a scoop of green tea ice-cream and an almond cookie!

Considering that it's Friday and we don't have any reservations, we might just go the gym and eat Subway afterwards. However, I do have a reservation at Chapeau on Monday, which I'm definitely looking forward to! (It's the highest rated restaurant on my Most Popular list, and highest rated overall!)

Which Dine About Town restaurants do you recommend?

Last week started off horribly with nightmarish apartment troubles and ended with such a bang as one of the best weekends of my life... in Napa Valley. The father of a friend of ours is a pretty big player in the food and beverage industry, so we got to stay in Silverado's four-bedroom guesthouse, dine at the Franciscan (with our personal chef), and tour Opus One and taste their 2007 vintage — nobody could wipe the smiles off our faces all weekend. In addition, we also ate at Chandon's restaurant Etoile, Top Chef Michael Chiarello's Bottega, as well as Go Fish, which was present at Toast of the Town two weeks ago. We wrapped up our trip nicely by visiting my favorite sparkling wine maker, Mumm Napa. I acquired so many new corks (each one embodying a moment and memory) to add to my cork collection — cheers!

Friday night, we arrived around 7:30, dropped off our luggage in the guesthouse, and headed to Etoile, where Ryan managed to make a reservation last minute on the drive down. This turned out to be one of the best meals of my life:

Etoile Restaurant (in Domaine Chandon Winery)
1 California Dr
Yountville, CA 94599 

At Etoile, you choose either the prix frixe four-course or six-course dinner, and everyone in your party has to choose the same, meaning your 200-pound boyfriend can't choose the six-course if everyone else can only finish the four-course. There are four choices in each category with suggested wine pairings, which you may order as a package or by the glass. To start off, we all got to try some tuna tartare on cucumber (on the house), and for my appetizer, I decided to be bold and went with the sweetbread and calf liver (think chunky foie gras). The suggested pairing was the Etoile rose, so I got a glass of that for the rest of the meal. The savory foie gras somehow went really well with the sweet roasted grapes, which was a pleasant surprise. I liked Ryan's hiramasa sashimi a lot more though, so I included a photo of it for memory's sake. My first course was the red snapper, which was so crispy and well-seasoned on the outside and tender on the inside with a perfect flake. It was delicious. My veal tenderloin couldn't even compare afterwards. For dessert, I went with the hazelnut chocolate semifreddo, which tasted like a nutella cream pie (disguised in lava cake form). As another option, you may also choose one of six artisan cheeses for dessert instead, which came with two generous slices as well as mixed nuts and croutons. If I could go back, I'd gone with a cheese instead, but dinner was so wonderful that I had no reason to complain and only a grin the entire time.

Franciscan Winery
1178 Galleron Lane
St. Helena, CA 94574 

Our gracious host first gave us a tour of the vineyards in front and then brought us into the "Sonoma Room" for a tasting of their Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot, Cabernet (which they're best known for), and then their Magnificat, a truly magnificent Bordeaux style blend of mainly Cab and Merlot. Franciscan almost converted me to a red wine lover. With one surprise after another, we entered our own private dining room for a delicious three-course lunch by Chef Boris Olvera, who prepared our meal with such care (since we were the only guests he had to cook for that day). While I still consider Etoile as my best meal on the trip, this was easily everyone else's favorite. To start off, we had a romaine heart salad with a blue cheese dressing paired with Franciscan's 2008 Cuvee Sauvage. The dish that blew everyone away was the pork tenderloin and polenta paired with a 2003 Mount Veeder Cab. As if we weren't satisfied enough, the chef surprised us with poached pears covered in whipped cream and drizzled with caramel. Delicious. Unwilling to part, we managed to leave with four cases, one book, one poster, and numerous memories.

Opus One Winery
7900 St. Helena Hwy
Oakville, CA 94562 

Half of our party has already decided to become aspiring sommeliers so being able to tour this pretigious winery was such a privilege and treat. Our tour guide was extremely patient and knowledgeable enough to answer our endless questions, and the estate was simply breathtaking with beautiful views from the front steps as well as the roof terrace. Opus One is a collaboration between Baron Philippe de Rothschild (or rather, his successors) and Robert Mondavi and they only produce one wine of "ultimate quality" each year — this trip, we each got to try a glass of the 2007 vintage.

Bottega Ristorante
6525 Washington St
Yountville, CA 94599

Ryan and I must have called up over fifteen restaurants on Yelp before we were able to make a Saturday night reservation at a decently-rated restaurant. The fact that we were able to make a reservation should've been a sign, because none of us thought the food was that great. (The Yelp ratings are probably skewed by Michael Chiarello's Food Network fans.) My artichoke salad was decent and Ryan's sashimi served on a salt block was awesome presentation, but Frances's and my lobster pasta were both served nearly cold (with the pasta dry and hard). Perhaps preparing varying dishes for our party of six and presenting them at the same time was a challenge, but I think most restaurants can handle that just fine. 

Silverado Vineyards
6121 Silverado Trl
Napa, CA 94558 

Saturday night, we sat around the fireplace guessing "stories with holes in them" and admiring the full moon; and then Sunday morning, we checked out of the guesthouse and headed to the tasting room for one last goodbye. I really enjoyed the Sangiovese but Ryan also purchased a bottle of SOLO, their 95pt cab. Our bartender gave us a rundown of the history of Silverado in story form... how Ron Miller used to play football for USC before Diane Miller's dad told him to quit and work for him — then revealed at the end that Diane Miller's dad is Walt Disney, surprise!

Mumm Napa
8445 Silverado Trl
Rutherford, CA 94558

I thought we were heading back home before Ryan decided to make one last winery stop at Mumm's. (I have a separate cork collection for champagne corks since Mumm's Rose was the first bottle we ever shared together and have shared 50x since, so being able to visit this winery made me so giddy.) I could probably identify their classic rose and brut prestige out of 100 sparkling wines, so I decided to taste a few others and ended up really liking the Cuvee M, DVX 2003, and the Blanc de Bancs. A bottle of 2006 Devaux Ranch (a winery exclusive) currently sits daintly on my dresser, thanks to Ryan's new club membership. Sweeet!

Go Fish
641 Main St
St. Helena, CA 94574 

After all that sparkling wine, a few of us were really craving some sushi, so we stopped by Go Fish for lunch before heading home. For $20+ rolls and $6 miso, I was really expecting better quality, but the food was decent. The only roll I truly enjoyed though, was their signature go fish roll... go figure. The spider had a little too much batter, the miso was extremely salty, and the specialty rolls for that day (the lobster and the geisha) weren't that spectacular. I was too wined out to drink anymore and many of the rolls had a lot of sauce or seaweed, so perhaps that's why I couldn't taste much of the fish. All in all, I'd give this place three stars.

Thank you, Napa, for such a memorable weekend!

Yesterday night, our company had a blast eating and drinking our way through the Toast of the Town in City Hall. I made sure to coat my sore throat with a lot of honey and tea beforehand, though all the painful swallowing was well worth the delicious food. At each table we visited, I took a bite (and a swoosh), snapped a picture of the dish, and then took another of the menu (which is how I remember everything). My favorite dishes are bolded and I've included the restaurant addresses for anyone interested in journeying on a culinary escapade with me one day!

A. Smoked white sturgeon with ginger-meyer lemon marmalade & avocado brioche (The Ahwahnee)

B. Ahi tuna cracker, wasabi creme, house-made sesame cracker (Cindy Pawlcyn Napa Valley Catering & Restaurants)

C. Various cheeses for guests to sample

D. Pickled eggs with oyster dressing and crisp bacon (Comstock Saloon)

Read the rest of this post »

Did you know that (despite our sashimi preferences) bluefin tuna are critically endangered — one status away from extinct? Bluefin tuna are warm-blooded, yet we don't protect fish like we do with marine mammals (such as whales and dolphins) — why is it that when we think fish, we only think seafood (or in Europe, "sea fruits")? This blue-finned "fruit" can grow up to fourteen feet and weigh more than fifteen hundred pounds — not exactly plate-sized nor farmable.

While the thousand-pound breeders are caught and sold as wild tuna, there are unsustainable farming strategies where wild juvenile tuna are netted, penned up, fattened, then sold as "farmed" tuna. This presents an overall loss of wild bluefin, since the big guys are caught and eaten as sashimi while the babies are also removed from the wild and denied a chance to breed. On the other hand, there do seem to be tuna ranches, which breed farmed tuna in hormone-treated tanks — though I'm not sure how I feel about that.

According to Paul Greenberg, author of Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food, humans keep eating more fish year after year while our wild stocks keep depleting due to overfishing. Even if we drastically reduce fishing, conserve key fish breeding grounds, and close down unmanageable fisheries — the fish we eat will still have to come from someplace while the wild stocks try to recover, so farming is inevitable. However, we should focus on producing sustainable, productive domesticated fish, which follow five principles outlined by Greenberg:

1. Efficient. With limited food resources, we shouldn't be farming fish that require more feed to produce a pound of edible flesh than our most efficient land animals. (Greenberg humorously comments that fish don't even have to warm their bodies or stand against gravity, so they of course should be more efficient than land animals.) Therefore, we shouldn't be considering the warm-blooded, carnivorous bluefin, whose feed-conversion exceed twenty to one (we'd be removing more fish to produce less tuna) and look into fish like the Hawaiian kahala ("Kona Kampachi"), which only require a feed ratio of 1.6-to-1. (Kahala also spawn weekly throughout the year, making them an ideal fish to breed.)

2. Nondestructive to a wild system. Wild salmon populations have declined in Maine, Atlantic Canada, and Europe in areas where they interact with farmed salmon. On the other hand, American striped bass have staged a strong recovery in the wild despite the growing numbers of farmed striped bass, which now account for 60% of all striped bass consumed. The reason is because "farmed striped bass" is actually a sterile hybrid of a female striped bass and male white bass. This hybrid cannot breed with the wild bass (and they are also grown in freshwater ponds away from migration routes), so the wild populations are buffered against contracting farm-born diseases. Sea lice and infectious salmon anemia are problems because salmon are farmed too densely (yet they escape into the wild and affect the wild stocks — boo).

3. Limited in number. Every time a species is brought into culture, new diseases specific to that species or genus can develop and spread to related wild populations. Instead of wasting so much time and energy overcoming new hurdles with new species (and trying to domesticate whatever we can just because we can), we might as well perfect the rearing of a small sample of fish ideal for the job.

4. Adaptable. Environmentalists believe that we should not be farming carnivorous fish, since their overall footprint is larger than that of herbivorous fish like carp and tilapia. (Example: 2+ trophic levels of food consumption take place before a salmon eats a sardine.) The good news about Salmon is, they seem to be able to adapt to alternative feeds made with seaweed and soy; one company has even developed an algae-based feed replacing fish oil and meal for salmonoids.

5. Functional in a polyculture. As terrestrial agriculture has proven, monocultures of crops are prone to diseases and can cause environmental degradation. Instead of making the same mistakes, we should start from a polyculture where wastes are recycled, space is maximized, and systems (instead of just individual species) are mastered.

Why did I just reiterate all that? Because in last week's sermon, the pastor shared a personal anecdote where he's trying to buy fair trade products only (and ruined his wife's grocery shopping experience completely). I figured instead of just reading about fish (because I love fish), I should share with others what I've learned about fish and make a considerable effort not to eat the fish in the "Avoid" column of my pocket seafood guide (which I now carry in my wallet or use as a bookmark).

There are so many sticky issues with trying to save our fish; many of the suggestions listed above (like using premium feed and spacing out farmed salmon) are costly. In addition, rich countries once fished all the fish in the ocean and now they're trying to set fishing regulations (preventing developing countries who have finally perfected their fisheries from capitalizing on valued fish and feeding their people) — tough. On a more personal level, only those who are slightly more privileged can afford to buy wild salmon (perhaps even from the one and only fair trade salmon fishery in Alaska) instead of farmed salmon prone to diseases. At the same time, only the privileged can afford to eat bluefin tuna sashimi instead of its smaller cousins, the bigeye tuna or yellowfin tuna (more commonly known as "ahi"). I'd like to think of it as a duty then (to be aware of such issues and actively choosing the right foods to eat) — just as some of my smart friends think that it is their duty to create useful products, not just shitty ones they simply capitalize on.

If you'd like to learn more, consider picking up Four Fish by Paul Greenberg. He goes into detail about salmon, sea bass, and cod (in addition to tuna) — the most commonly consumed fish on our planet. I only talked about tuna because it is my favorite fish in the world (not in the sense that I'd like to have a pet tuna if I lived undersea but with the fact that I always order tuna sashimi at Japanese restaurants).

According to this SF Mag article, even ahi tuna isn't recommended; instead, I should eat "California albacore (summer only)" — what does that even mean? I can only eat tuna in the summer, and it has to be albacore (the type more commonly found in canned tuna)? Where am I supposed to go for my poisonous mercury intake then? In other words, I guess this means I should be more open to trying new things, especially those fish listed under "Best choices" on my pocket guide.

Anyone want to try barramundi with me?

Saturday, Berkeley boasted of beautiful, warm weather, so we drove up for lunch at our favorite destination:

Cheeseboard Collective
1512 Shattuck Ave.
Berkeley, CA 94701 

Next, we visited my favorite stationery and letterpress studio before buying cupcakes from Love at First Bite and doggy toys from Holistic Hound. I spoil myself — I spoil my dog.

Nourished, we set off on our hike towards Indian Rock and the Rose Garden for breathtaking views of the Bay:

Ici
2948 College Ave.
Berkeley, CA 94705 

Thank God the food, trek, and sunshine released enough endorphins in my brain, because I walked out of Landmark Shattuck Cinemas that night in tears, after watching Blue Valentine — the most heartbreaking story of a deranged couple falling out of love.

Considering that I've fallen back in love with Berkeley, I hope to move back by the summer — in time for walks along the Marina, hikes through Tilden, and bike rides all over town.