Summer Celebration by Cuesa

Tonight, I attended Cuesa's Summer event rather than volunteering. It feels good to be on the other side just enjoying food for 2 hours. There's a lot of people but not too crowded. There's no rush, me and my wife were able to taste almost all the dishes and just enjoy the freshest ingredients and the different flavor combinations these restaurants have to offer.

Whole beast carving station. Happy Pig!

My favorite drink! Blackberry swizzle from Elixir

This is event was packed with SF's most talented chefs. All the dishes were amazing. Each booth tells you where they got their fresh ingredients from. It makes you feel good that you are eating the freshest ingredients sourced from the Ferry building farmer's market. For me the highlights were the Buttermilk Panna Cotta with berries from Scala's bistro, Soy tofu cheesecake from Ozumo, Roasted pork with chiles, lime and stone fruit from 4505, Tomato Gelee with buratta from Cotogna and the Panna Gelato from Beretta. Here are the pictures to recap almost everything me and my wife ate that night.

Tofu cheesecake, fried tofu skin and berries from Ozumo. This was really surprisingly good. It's like "taho" cheesecake.

Summer salad from Origen. The restaurant is opening in August 2011 in Berkeley



Marinated squid, pickled melon and padron peppers from Blue Plate



Marinated sardines, charred peppers and olives from Gitane

Smoked boysenberry, cream soda float and cinnamon cracker from La Victoria bakery

Summer squash tacos from Nopalito

Seared Shiro Maguro Tataki from Ichi Sushi

Fish Po'boy from Marketbar

Plum salad from Millenium. Hodo Soy Tofu, sweet 100's, cucumber, kaffir lime dressing

Buttermilk Panna Cotta with Peaches from Scala's Bistro.

Duck Prosciutto, smoked plum, mushrooms and onions from Bon appetit Management Co

Chicharrones

Radish, stone fruit and lime

Finished product. 4505's roasted pork tacos with stone fruit slaw topped with chicharrones

Strawberry sliders with honey mascarpone and caramelized blackberries from One Market

Cotogna's Tomato Gelee with Buratta. Most interesting dish for me. It tastes different than it seems. Very creative and great presentation.

Chicken cracklings, shaved zucchini and watercress from Flour+Water

Papa al Pomodoro - traditional Tuscan tomato soup from Delarosa

Salmon rillette from Serpentine.

Beretta's Panna Gelato with extra virgin olive oil and sea salt. Creamy Gelato. One of the best!

Tacolicious' Adobo marinated skirt steak.

"Green eggs and Lamb" - lamb belly, wasabi tobiko on a brown rice crepe - Gastronaut

House cured anchovies with salsa verde from Barbacco

Poached cod on a zucchini bread with mint cilantro chutney from Technique at the CCA.

Duck confit with shiso, walnut duck butter and cherry chutney. They are hiding on the cherries! Great presentation

Pork sandwiches with Arugula from Bix

To summarize, it was an evening of duck goodness with prosciutto and confit, stone fruits, berries on almost everything, sardines and anchovies and the smell of roasted pork all over the ferry building. It's truly a celebration of what Summer has to offer!

Bite on Dynamo Donuts



Donuts for the day



I've been hearing about Dynamo Donuts on T.V, newspapers and magazines. Their donuts are considered by 7x7 as one of the 100 things to eat before you die. I'm not really a donut eater. I've always associate it with cops just eating donuts while waiting for some car hitting 80mph. The last donut I've eaten was Krispy Kreme and it's been years since I ate one. This morning I've decided to head to the mission and to finally satisfy my curiosity.

I got there and there's a line. Not a long one, probably 5 people ahead of me. I'm excited to try different flavors that I haven't tasted on a donut. I'm pretty much up for anything.  Here's the menu for today:

Inside Dynamo

Handmade donuts daily

I got the bacon maple apple, lemon thyme, lemon pistachio, chocolate rosemary, chocolate rose and banana de leche. Whew! That's a lot of sugar! I didn't eat it all though, I shared "some" with my wife and the baby. I got to say I've never tasted donuts like these before. The flavors were just amazing. The donuts itself are fresh and warm. There's also texture with the nuts. It's like a flavor bomb in your mouth. The bacon maple apple is definitely a must try. Lemon pistachio is really great and the chocolate rosemary is unusually good. I also loved the Banana de leche. It reminded me of the Bavarian creme filled donuts in the Philippines only better. 

Coffee + donuts

Lemon donuts

lemon pistachio/lemon thyme

Chocolate rosemary almond/ banana de leche

bacon maple apple/ chocolate rosewater glaze

It's a great way to start your morning and get your sugar high. You can tell they use great quality ingredients. Based from their website, they use Clover organic milk plus local and sustainable ingredients whenever possible. I would definitely recommend this place for out of town guests and locals. It's definitely something you need to try even for the anti-donut eaters like me.

Sansrival bites

I was craving for Silvanas but the only bakeshop I know selling it is House of Silvanas which is about 30 miles away from where I live. This recipe is the closest thing next to this buttery treat. Both desserts use butter as their main ingredient. Silvanas is a soft cookie sandwich with butter cream filling and more butter cream on the outside covered with cookie crumbs. SF weekly calls it the "Filipino Macaron". Because of the article, the more it inspired me to make it. As a start, I used graham crackers instead of making my own cookie. That saves me some time so that all I have to do now is the filling. Since I used graham crackers this dessert resembles more of a Sansrival rather than Silvanas that's why I called it Sansrival bites.

The recipe calls for a few simple ingredients that means that you have to get the best quality for each ingredient. The most important ingredient is BUTTER. Since you'll be tasting mostly butter and cream, you have to get the best tasting, best quality,  local butter you can get. Don't even try using fake butter.
Here's the list:

1 cup butter
1 cup heavy whipping cream
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup chopped cashew nuts or almonds or pistachio
Box of graham crackers

First whip the butter in a large bowl until it's creamy. In a seperate medium bowl, whip the cream, sugar and vanilla until light and frothy. Slowly pour the cream mixture into your butter while mixing it. Beat continuously until smooth.

Now the fun part, assembling the cookie bites. Cut graham cracker into squares. Spread butter mixture on top of one cracker. Make sure to spread it on the smooth side of the cookie. Top it with the other half forming a sandwich. Spread the butter mixture again on top of the sandwich and on its sides sealing it. Arrange the cookie sandwiches on a cookie sheet. Once you've finished with all your cookies, Top it with your favorite chopped nuts. I used cashew in this recipe to make it more authentic. Make sure to press the nuts on the butter so it will stick. Cover with parchment paper or foil and freeze for at least an hour. The best way to eat this is straight from the freezer. This way the butter cream will just melt in your mouth.

There's a lot of great Filipino desserts out there but this is definitely one of my favorite treat next to Silvanas! Super easy to make, simple ingredients and very addicting. :)

Bites on Broadway

Finally! Food trucks are coming to the East Bay, Oakland to be exact. I follow a handful of food trucks in Facebook but it looks like they are always in Emeryville. Cupkates is the only one that goes to Oakland pretty often but I can only have enough cupcakes in a week. Fivetenburger usually swings by at night time close to bars which doesn't really work for me. Off the Grid just started to serve Berkeley on Wednesday nights which is pretty amazing. One thing is for sure, You can pretty much get your food truck fix any day of the week. With all the food trucks popping up pretty quick, I wonder how quick this hype would last. How many food trucks can the Bay Area really handle? For now, my goal is to make the most out of this. Enjoy what these talented people have created and taste the different flavors each truck has to offer.

Bites on Broadway is Oakland's answer to Off the Grid. It's a Friday night street food event  along 45th and Broadway in Oakland. I got excited when I heard about this event mainly because I live in Alameda and it's close to where I work. Second is because I love to check out what these new food trucks have to offer. It's no Off the Grid. They don't serve wine and alcohol at the moment and there's no live music yet. It's pretty much a laid back, get your food and sit on the grass kind of thing. Vendors include: 51st state, Fist of Flour, Cholita Linda, Sue's Sassy Pies, El Taco bike, Nick's Wheely Good Breakfast, etc.

51st state Brunswick stew just sounds so goood!

I heard about 51st state and their Brunswick stew but unfortunately they were sold out that time. Cholita Linda is pretty much everywhere. They are at the Jack London and Downtown Oakland Farmer's markets. They serve Baja fish tacos and Carnitas(Slow Roasted Pork) Tacos which is pretty good. Sassy Pies was letting people try their pies and it's not bad.They have the Chicken Pot Pie with bacon on a sage cream which is amazing.

Cholita Linda's menu



Trio of Tacos



Salted Caramel Apple Pie

Cheddar biscuit sandwich with bacon, arugula and aioli from Nick's Wheely Good Breakfast

 I can't wait to see how this weekly event unfolds and to try more exciting dishes out of these mobile food vendors.