the petite pig

dining out for life: eat for a good cause!

a charitable dining event in a metropolitan area near you:

dining out for life is an organization that allows you eat and support the fight against AIDS at the same time.  restaurants participating in the program donate 25% of their food sales on a certain day to an AIDS service organization in their respective city.  some are even donating 25% of their food and liquor sales to the cause.  check out when your city is participating by visiting dining out for life's website.  san francisco will be participating on thursday, april 26th 2007 and features a few of my favorites in the city (chow, indigo and tres agaves) as well as many that i am dying to try (foreign cinema & firefly) on its list of participating restaurants.  happy eating!

a beer convert and quixote winery

i was raised to be a beer drinker. i suspect that when i was born, my father set out on a mission to ensure that his daughter would be different than all the other little chinese girls out there, commonly known as the lightweights of the lightweights who prefer the fruitier cocktails. looking at old family albums, there are several photos of me as a toddler strategically situated next to a beer can.  i can only assume this is my father's doing.  and well, his hard work paid off because until this day, i consider myself a die-hard beer drinker over any other libation. 

until this past year, i've remained my father's beer-drinking daughter. i've scoffed at the snootiness of wine, all that jargon people throw around when waxing the merits of a pinot noir over a merlot (and i suspect that over half of them are just reciting paul giamatti’s lines in 2004’s sideways). i imagined wine drinkers as people with names like "sir jeeves" who sample 1987 bordeauxs (hmm, not even sure if '87 was a good vintage of bordeaux?).  they take grand dramatic sips of the stuff and after some thoughtful contemplation, pronounce the emotional judgment of their taste buds: "yes, i feel we've aged this bordeux just long enough to allow some of the tannins to subside while exposing the ripeness of the grape which creates the most velvety sensation on the tongue."  me: "ahh yes, sir jeeves i do agree with your titillating description.  you've expressed my very same thoughts!"  ok, no, not really because i have no idea what you've just said.

yes, i'll admit i was a bit wine ignorant (and probably still am).  i saw the world in grape or grain.  you are either a wine drinker or a beer drinker.  wine drinkers took themselves too seriously (and had names like sir jeeves).  beer drinkers knew how to have a good time (and had names like joe).  who wouldn't want to be part of the latter group?  but as my food tastes have become more sophisticated, i've felt the social pressure to venture into the world of wine.  after all, when was the last time you were at a fine dining establishment and they handed you a beer list?  my foray into the wine world has not been easy and i can’t say i’ve gone all too willingly, fearing that i’ve been a traitor to my roots (i took my father wine tasting in sonoma recently and he kept asking them, "so do you have any thing other than wine?"  we are definitely not wine drinkers.).  however, i have reached a point where perhaps there is room on my table for both a pint and a wine glass. 

it seems that more and more, the two worlds are converging. the microbrew has become the indie band of the beer world. in other words so popular that it isn’t even indie anymore. beer isn’t just an ale or a lager anymore; or pale or dark. there are beer reviewers, beer magazines. more jargon to describe beer as there is to describe wine.  beer, it’s not just for your regular joe anymore.

on the other hand, wine seems to have watered down its reputation to appeal to the regular joe. we can all walk into a trader joe’s and get a decent bottle of wine for under ten bucks (some of my favorites in the under ten crowd are: cellar #8’s 2004 merlot, twin fin’s 2004 pinot noir and 2005 hello my name is syrah).  there’s even a wine blog called the budget vino, dedicated to reviewing wines under ten bucks. labels are becoming more fun and less stuffy. wines with names like fat bastard fly off the shelves.  yes, it seems that the world of wine has changed (for the better).

that’s why it was so refreshing to come upon a winery like quixote on a recent trip to napa.  quixote was started in 1996 by carl doumani (previously of stags leap winery and also father of lissa doumani of terra and ame) after he decided that napa was taking its place in the wine world just a little bit too seriously.  through quixote, doumani was able to recapture the fun in wine again with the help of friedensreich hundertwasser an austrian architect. taking six years to build, quixote is hundertwasser’s only design in the states and is well worth a look for its playfulness and divergence from the rules of conventional architecture. from the color to the lack of straight lines, the place is a bit alice in wonderland. for any of you who have been to barcelona, you will definitely be reminded of gaudi’s “what was he smoking?” style.

tucked away from the main silverado trail, quixote is a nice departure from the chateau after chateau like structures that line napa’s main artery.   tours and wine tasting can be arranged by appointment through lew price (lew@quixotewinery.com), the general manager.  at no more than eight to a tour and tasting group, the whole feel of quixote is personalized and intimate (but never snooty).   it's more of a museum tour than a winery tour if anything and on a nice day, the wine tasting happens outside with the pacific palisades as a backdrop.  i could get used to this whole wine thing, eh?  i even came out with two bottles of the 2003 quixote petite syrah and two bottles of the 2004 panza claret, which may be one of the best wines i've ever tasted.  i would describe it as a full bodied wine with just the right blend of spices and fruit.  just kidding.  i have no idea what it was except for really, really good. 

now how 'bout a pint of beer?

a table for two at quince & the sauce debate

 

continuing on my conquest to conquer the chronicle's top 100 restaurants, i managed to snag reservations at quince last weekend to celebrate a little anniversary of mine.  a sole dining room holding just sixteen tables, this intimate space can only be described as a gem within san francisco's many fine dining options.  like its small, intimate size, small, intimate touches dressed up what was to be a great meal.  menus printed with personalized menus for our special occasion.  what seemed like a one to one ratio of service staff to happy eaters.  paintings of quinces decorating the wall.  it was nothing but lovely. 

i went to quince for the agnolotti (in this case dal plin, stuffed with veal), a piedmontese-filled pasta that is a rare find on even the most-italian of menus. it's similar to tortellini and ravioli, which every american is familiar with, but dressed with a lighter pasta wrapper; in other words, it's better.  the lightness of the pasta lets it melt in your mouth leaving you with a mouthful of the filling's flavor. 

we also enjoyed quince’s homemade gnocchi with fried nettles and pesto. the most flavorful of all the dishes, tender gnocchi came out covered in a bright green sauce.  the fried nettle reminded me of japanese nori (seaweed), and to be honest, the savoriness of the dish had a sea-like quality to it. another favorite of the evening was the spinach and dungeness crespelle with fine herbs. the spinach crepe was center-plate with its emerald color, with a filling of dungeness crab hiding inside.  a light cream sauce unites the dish’s flavor, providing just the right balance.

however, I did not find this balance in the other three dishes we tried:  an octopus salad with twin girls farm oro blanco grapefruit & pecholin olive oil; the devil’s gulch rabbit with borage, proscuitto and fava beans; and the wild black seabass with balsamic vinegar sauce, black trumpet mushrooms & little farm tomatoes.  with all those dishes, i found myself needing more sauce, wanting more sauce.  too often these days are beautiful plates of food delivered with just a drizzle of sauce used more for visual embellishment rather than true flavor enhancement. it’s a fine balance, the use of sauces. you don’t want to overpower a dish with sauces, losing the individual flavors of each ingredient.  more and more often though, i’m finding the opposite problem: stinginess of sauces. perhaps i’m just being chinese (in other words, cheap.  i mean, frugal.  i mean, wise with our money.), but a two hundred dollar dinner warrants a bit more than half a teaspoon of reduction?

still, the atmosphere and service at quince made up for any shortcomings in the food department and there were three outstanding dishes (and a great choice of barolo) to make up for the three mediocre ones. if you have an occasion to celebrate, do make reservations.  just remember to call on the dot at noon one month prior to your desired dining date – these sixteen tables are hard to come by.