Off Topic

I live in a city with amazing food (Toronto), but there’s something about San Francisco that just makes me want to eat all day long. I drove up here from Silicon Valley late yesterday afternoon and am staying at the Hilton Financial District, which is nestled between Chinatown and North Beach (the Italian area), just a few minutes walk from the Embarcadero at the ferry terminal. I immediately whipped out the hotel local guide, and saw that the ferry terminal has been converted into bunch of upscale market/food shops/cafes, and decided to check it out.

I didn’t arrive there until after 7pm so a lot of the shops were closed, but it was a nice place to walk around and take some photos. I tried for the fish tacos at Taylor’s, but they were out of fish for the day; I’ll have to try this another day, since I can’t seem to find any place in Toronto that makes fish tacos. I settled in for dinner at the white Italian marble bar at Ferry Plaza Seafood, sitting indoors facing the bay through the large windows rather than at a table outside, since it was starting to cool out there. This is a combo restaurant and fish market, with the long counter of fish for sale right behind me as I sat at the bar. They offer three types of chowder — New England clam, Manhattan clam, and fish — and I ordered a cup of the New England clam chowder that was served up with 2 minutes. The clams were a bit firm, but not yet chewy, and the taste was sublimely creamy, paired with a chunk of fresh sourdough bread. I ordered a glass of Tiefenbrunner Pinot Grigio (Italian) and waited (but not long) for the main course: a seared ahi salad. The salad was greens, grape tomatoes and roasted potatoes with three significant slabs of seared ahi laid over it: definitely more than I needed, although I did manage to put it all away. The fish had been prepared in advance so was completely cold — many seared ahi salads that I’ve had use freshly-seared fish so that it’s warm on the outside while cool on the inside — and had been rolled in white and black sesame seeds. Very tasty, although the salad dressing was a bit lackluster, and I’d be hard-pressed to even say what the dressing was. All in all, a satisfactory and filling dinner.

I wanted to hit the ferry terminal again during peak hours, so I headed down there this morning around 11 to check out the shops and have lunch. I thought that I’d be back to Taylor’s for those tacos, but decided instead on two fresh rolls from Acme Bread, a slice of pecorino from Cowgirl Creamery and a masala chai latte from Peet’s, eaten on a bench at the water’s edge. The rosemary roll, although fresh and tasty, had not a hint of rosemary in it; the olive roll, however, was nicely flecked with green olives. The pecorino, I confess, was Italian, not local, in spite of some of the nice locally-made cheeses in the shop; it just caught my eye on the way in, and was a firm enough cheese to eat on my lap on a bench without making a mess as well as having all that sheep’s-milk goodness in it. I finished off lunch with a 2-scoop cup from Ciao Bella Gelato: one scoop of guava sorbet, and one of pear sorbet. The guava was lovely, tropical on the nose and the tongue, but the pear was outstanding: intense, definitely Bartlett, and with a graininess on the palette that was just like eating a fresh pear, only 100x more so.

Since I had an early drink planned with a friend and would likely have a late dinner on my own, I picked up a few things for a snack in my room. A visit to Farm Fresh To You yielded a package of chili-lemon almonds and a selection of olives: some Mediterranean-style black olives aged for 18 months, plus green olives stuffed with almonds, and some stuffed with blue cheese. As I sit here now and nibble on these, I think that they should all be declared illegal for being just too good. I also picked up a 2003 Castillo Labastida Crianza Rioja from the Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant, although I had a glass of wine left in a bottle of Aussie Shiraz from earlier in the week so I haven’t opened this yet.

The best is yet to be tasted, however: I stopped by Recchiuti and selected four perfect chocolates to enjoy at the end of the day: one star anise and pink peppercorn, one cardamom, one cassis strata, and one tarragon and grapefruit. Given the two speciality chocolatiers in this one market, I think that Ghirardelli’s is seeing a bit of competition locally.

I also picked up a jar of truffle salt from Far West Fungi, to be sprinkled as a finish on anything from meat to vegetables to popcorn (although sparingly, at $24 for a small jar). I tasted this in the shop, and it has an exquisite truffle flavour from real truffles as well as the faux-truffle flavouring that goes into most truffle oils.

Tomorrow, I definitely walk some of the San Francisco hills, or I’m not going to be able to fit in the airplane seat going home next week.

I spent the weekend in Niagara with some friends from the Opimian Society, a wine club that I don’t belong to but probably should, tasted about 60 wines over the course of the weekend, met some winemakers, ate some great meals and bought a ton of great wine. Now I just need to find a place to put all the wine in our somewhat overcrowded condo.

I took copious notes on the tour and will blog about it over on my wine club’s blog when I get a chance. Also check out the 100+ photos that I took; I haven’t labelled them all yet but there’s some that need little explanation, like the one at the right where I happened to catch a little ladybug climbing up the grape stem when I was really just shooting the leaf itself in close-up.

For me, much of travel is about food: I love going to other places and eating whatever’s fresh and local, which is often tied up in the cultural aspects of the place.

This past week in Nova Scotia was no exception: on Wednesday, I ate a huge lobster that had been caught that day — best that I’ve ever eaten – then on Thursday, a kilo of mussels. Staying with Pat’s parents meant that this was all served in their comfort of their home; we only dined out once during the entire trip, which was to go to the Jubilee Cottage B&B in Wallace for dinner one night.

Jubilee serves a set menu (that is, no choice) that changes each night; Friday was the “Now and Zen” Asian spring menu. They use a lot of organic ingredients, and try to buy locally where possible, such as the organic salad greens from a local greenhouse that was almost within throwing distance.

Dinner started with an appetizer of sauteed shrimp flavoured with tomato, coriander and garlic, served with a salad of organic greens, cucumber, bean sprouts and grilled potatoes and carrots, dressed with a coconut/chili/peanut gado-gado dressing. This was an amazing dish, and I could have just had a few more plates of that and been perfectly satisfied. The potatoes were especially interesting: cut into long shapes like slightly oversized french fries, they were parboiled until still crunchy, then grilled. This course, like the main course, was served family style: a large platter on the centre of the table for the four of us to share.

Next up was a corn and egg drop soup, with water chestnuts and snipped chives and parsley. Delicious and smooth, a very delicate soup that was improved by a slight grinding of black pepper.

We had two main dishes following that: salmon marinated in garlic, ginger and hoisin sauce, grilled then simmered in rice wine, chili, soy and spices; and boneless chicken pieces marinated in lime and rum, stir friend, then served with a mango sauce. I found both of the dishes a bit too sweet – the salmon had sugar in the sauce, and the chicken had honey as well as the sweet mango — although the fish and chicken were well-prepared. I expect that this was catering in part to the widespread taste for North American “Chinese” food that includes much more sugar than anything that I’ve ever eaten in Toronto’s Chinatown. All of this was served with a variety of grilled vegetables and coconut rice, both of which were perfectly prepared.

The meal finished with completely non-Asian desserts, and we had to make a decision between two: tiramisu or “chocolate silk leaves”, a thick chocolate mousse between individually baked phyllo layers with raspberry sauce and whipped cream. We shared around so that we could try each of them, and both were good although nothing out of the ordinary.

Given that we were in small-town Nova Scotia, a couple of hours drive from a major centre in any direction, I’d have to give them pretty good marks for the dinner. The commitment to local and organic produce definitely makes a difference in the quality of the meals, and the couple who run the place seem to enjoy what they’re doing and interacting with their guests. We were the only people in the dining room that night, since it’s still in advance of the season and the weather was cold and damp, and they came out and chatted with us for quite a while after dinner.

The price was right as well: $35 per person for the four-course meal plus tea or coffee, and you won’t walk away hungry. They don’t sell alcohol, but you can bring your own wine (which we did) and they’ll serve it for a $4 per bottle corkage fee.

They have a couple of other set menus, depending on which night that you’re there: “Fire of the Caribbean”, featuring Caribbean curries and Creole dishes, and “Atlantica & Australis”, a marriage of Nova Scotia and Australian dishes served tapas style.