A Bacco's story

For Kat's birthday we went out to Bacco restaurant, a wonderful little neighborhood italian restaurant in San Francisco. Away from the glam of the city, Bacco is a warm cozy little place that tells you just that as you enter through their red velvet curtain.
Kat started off with an argula and raddiccio salad with walnuts and gorgonzola cheese. A simple straightforward dish with a tasty vinaigrette that with the gorgonzola went well with the wine. We each had a glass of a verdiccio, as one of my wine instructors would say, "fresh and light, and light and dry, that goes well with linguini and clams." The large and rich chunks of gorgonzola went perfectly with the wine!
I started off with a pasta special, linguini with pesto and bay scallops and pecorino. To paraphrase, my old wine instructor, the verdiccio was, "fresh and light, and light and day, that went perfect with linguini and scallops!" Bacco's claim to fame has got to be their housemade pastas. A restaurant nestled in the middle of a residential neighborhood bordering Noe Valley, Bacco's pastas fit the scene well. For Italians is there a better comfort food that homemade pasta?
Kat got a veal dish with an arugla salad. As I told my friend Steve (An fellow food lover.) after a first couple dates, Kat's eating meat is my benefit!!! It was her first time eating veal, and Bacco being Bacco, didn't serve "Western Veal," but the real stuff. White and completely tender, the veal was pounded thin, breaded and pan-fried and very well seasoned.
My entree, the lamb chops was nice, but forgettable. Properly cooked, medium rare, they were served with a bittergreen and roast rosemary potatoes. Nothiing wrong about the dish, but nothing to inspire me with. Nitpicker that I am, they served me four thin chops...
Why not serve two thick chops? Something I could get my teeth into...

Anyways, happy 26th birthday Kat, i love you!

Mi Lindo Yucatan, Mi Habla Espanole Super Fantastico!!!

Last night, Kat and I want to dinner at Mi Lindo Yucatan, quickly becoming one of my favorite casual sit down diner stops. As always expected in a mexican restaurants we were greeted with chips and two salsas. As unexpected, the tomatilo salsa was the spicy one, whereas the red was mild...

We ordered three things to split, a ceviche mixto tosada and a pork panucho from the appetizer spot, but my winner was their always wonderful Poc-Chuc!

I regularly have ordered their pork poc-chuc, but on their specials was a poc-chuc de res, served with pickled onions, guacamole, and red beans. In one simple conjoined spanish word, super-fantastico!!!

The beef was wonderfully seasoned and incredably moist! Random trivia of the day, Poc-chuc is a traditional yucatan dish where salted meat (For preservation) was then slow cooked with acid to balance the saltiness.

A cook I use to work with, Moises (Tangent: we didn't exactly get along, but we did share a passion for food.) use to make a lot of braised dishes from the yucatan, and we would come together, shortly, to bask in the greatness of braised dishes. How do you take the cheapest cut of meat and turn it into tender moist deliciousness? Braise it...

Warm Corn Salad

The perfect summer accompaniment to grilled steak. I first tried this dish out for Kathryn, a quick sautee of red onion, sweet corn, and red bell pepper; I then let it cool to room tempature. I added it to some chopped romaine, salt and pepper and then tossed with a quick sherry vinaigrette Kat made. In two words, super delicious, it went perfectly well with our ribeye seared rare.

I made it a couple more times since, but last night putting together a quick meal, I added the sautee to the greens while still warm and then dressed the salad. Wow, too bad I didn't have any steak, but this is the winning combination!!!

A sweet warm corn salad...

National Fried Chicken Day, hooray!

Today, July 6th is national fried chicken day!!!