Monthly Archives: January 2007

The Solano Grill & Bar

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Today is my Mom’s 69th birthday, and this must have brought us luck, because we also heard that the final agreement for our new house was signed this morning and we close the deal in two weeks.  I took Mutti to The Solano Grill and Bar (1133 Solano Avenue, Albany) for a nice lunch.  This is a good place where lunch seems to me to be a loss leader for dinner.  Many of the entrees are offered way cheaper for lunch and I have never seen a difference in the portion size.  Example:  the breast of chicken entree is $8.95 for lunch and $13.95 for dinner.  Since this is our local unpretentious fine dining spot, we eat here all the time and I have to say you really can’t go wrong.  The chef was trained at the California Culinary Academy and has a flair for Asian fusion, which is given quite a bit of airtime in that program.  If you have any specific questions you may, as always, email me, but I would probably tell you to get the chicken or the ahi tuna sandwich.  Everything is made from scratch, including the desserts.  If you go for the weekend brunch, you can get the best fried seafood combo ever for only $8.95.  This is a comfortable place where the staff is very nice.

Tuk Tuk Thai in Berkeley

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The only food item of note involves our lunch today at Tuk Tuk Thai Cafe (2466 Shattuck, Berkeley).  I have enjoyed their lunch special for some time now and almost always order the BBQ chicken with sticky rice and green papaya salad.  Transliterated, that’s gai yang and som tum.  Fact is, Tuk Tuk produces superior som tum.  Being a student and lover of Issan-style cooking, I know my som tum, and this is tops.  The papaya is grated coarse so it retains its texture, and all the ingredients meld into that sweet-sour-hot-pungent flavor profile that is the hallmark of Issan cuisine.  The grated papaya and condiments are pounded together in a wooden mortar, you see, which brings the salad together.  Traditionally, dried shrimp, lime juice, fish sauce, dried chili pepper, tomatoes, palm sugar, green beans and sugar are used.  If you want to try to make it there are about a zillion recipes on the web, but try to find one that uses the ingredients I list.  Until I got the Thai mortar and pestle, I had some luck using big wooden spoons to smash the mass into the bottom of a large stoneware bowl.  Now, if only I could get Matthew to stop ordering lunch special #1, the chow mein.  No matter how I try to steer him, he is a stick of furniture.

New kitchen

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Yixing and other teapots I collect

Yixing and other teapots I collect

The akitachow pack is moving to a much bigger house soon.  Given that my cooking paraphernalia, cookbooks and teapot collection are crammed into a 930 square foot bungalow right now, this is A Very Good Thing.  No more moving 20 clay pots to get the correct one out for congee!  No 300 crashing lids when I take out the sauté pan living under those lids!  Room for a 36-inch gas range!  OK, so the kitchen is decorated in two God-awful and clashing designs of flecked, dark brown ceramic tile, but who really cares when you can have a BIG-ASS GAS RANGE.  It is amazing, though, that a person paid to have those tiles installed.  Actually selected them for a recent kitchen renovation.  Two different designs of dark brown for an already-dark space.  Tiles are already a problem for me since I won’t have a smooth work surface, but I would really rather not need 3-D glasses to enter the room.

One garden tomato left

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Tomato plants in the yard from summer of 2007

Incredibly cold in the SF Bay Area — we are having thick frost daily! — but I still have one garden tomato left on my countertop.  When I was in Binghamton my mother picked the remaining green ones (it was a productive but sloooooow season) and brought them inside to ripen so they would not be subjected to the rainy season or a freeze.  She also picked all the lemons and gave them away at the Albany Senior Center, claiming “they were not doing well and needed to be picked.”  I tell you, you leave for 6 weeks here and find all your lemons gone when you get back.

Boulud’s Braise

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Braised fish from Boulud's book Braise

I received Daniel Boulud’s Braise for Christmas and spent the afternoon putting together the Mackerel with Herb Curry (pg. 158), having been seduced by its glossy representation.  The Spanish Mackerel looked pretty sad at the fish store, so I substituted a small, whole, white-fleshed salmon that was on sale at 99 Ranch Market for $1.99 per pound.  $11.61 and ‘fish cleaning option #3’ later, I arrived home with a bag full of fat salmon steaks, head and tail.  Even though I did not have a Kaffir lime leaf nor tomato juice nor a red bell pepper nor the plum tomatoes, the dished turned out to be a big hit here at Chez Akitachow.  I substituted fish stock for the tomato juice (yes, there are people who have fish stock around but not tomato juice — so shoot me!), a green bell pepper for the red and beefsteak tomatoes for the plum.  To hell with substituting for the lime leaf.  I also added a whisper of Spanish paprika to make up for the loss of the red bell pepper.  Serve this baby with rice and you’ll convert even those wimps who never before looked a fish steak in the eye.