2021 California Food Journalism and News [SF Bay Area, Los Angeles, the rest of California and Northern Nevada]

Thanks to zippo1 for posting this - good to hear Chef Deetz is still around. We loved Temple Bar; only place one could get really excellent Vietnamese cuisine without going down to San Jose area.

All the other Vietnamese restaurants use way too much sugar. He told us that has become the style in Asia as the Big Food Corporations move in and take over the grocery store shelves.

I truly hope he will someday reopen in the EBay or NBay. He’s too good a chef to lose the way we’ve lost so many others - Brandon Sharp, Robin Low, Sophina Uong et. al.

1 Like

The Día de los Muertos Festival will take place on Oct. 31 throughout the Fruitvale district. Fruitvale Restaurant Week specials will run from Oct. 24–31. Details here.

https://diaoakland.com/experience/eat/

https://diaoakland.com/?ltclid=77d11583-837a-4d21-90d6-8c9422880804

Soul Slice
5849 San Pablo Ave (at 59th Street), Oakland
3-9 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday
Closed Sunday and Monday

from Berkeleyside -

There are also a decent number of salads and sides, all of which are very good (especially the grit sticks! Gotta love grits you can eat with your hands). But if you’re going to Soul Slice, you should really get a slice, you know? Lewis told Nosh that the restaurant will start lunch hours in September, and is planning a happy hour deal with a pizza and pint for $15. Reservations are recommended for a seat in the dining room, and takeout or delivery are options, too.

Los Angeles Times

Good Catch Plant-Based Fish Cakes Thai Style

Base ingredient(s): Good Catch’s six-plant protein blend
Appearance: Your average fish cake but with a green tint.
Texture: Clumps of protein are mashed together like a fish cake with a nice, crisp exterior.
Taste: I would actually seek these out, and possibly serve them at a dinner party. The cakes were flavored as advertised — with a strong hit of lemongrass and lime juice, garlic and chile.
How close it is to the real thing: 10 out of 10. I can’t remember the last time — or if I’ve ever — eaten a real Thai-style fish cake, but I’d like to think all versions taste similar to this one.

LA Times digital subscription deal, $1 for 6 months, when that is up you can try to argue with them and maybe get a deal for about $4/month or see what happens when you sign up for the $1 deal with a different email address. They have a good food section.

1 Like

Here’s a link to part 4 of the KQED Arts series on food in San Jose. Luke and his team are knocking on the door of a James Beard award with this effort:

In spite of the looming changes, many of the shops in San Jose’s Japantown seem frozen in time. Shuei-Do Manju, a tiny storefront on Jackson Street, sells nearly a thousand pieces of mochi and other traditional sweets every day. Open since 1953, the shop gives off an old-fashioned candy store vibe. Youth sports trophies and a Kristi Yamaguchi cereal box are proudly displayed behind the counter, which features a glass case with round mochi, wafer-like monaka and pastel cubes of chi chi dango arrayed in lacquer trays.

1 Like

Part 5 of the series KQED’s San Jose: The Bay Area’s Great Immigrant Food City

Former Oakland resident John Birdsall writes in the NY Times:

Birdsall:


It contains three types of wheat (all grown in southern Arizona), including White Sonora, which Mr. Guerra has helped revive.

Bringing that heirloom variety back into use was purposeful. Because although Mr. Guerra still uses the vocabulary and traditions of French and Italian bread baking, he has managed something radical. Baking exclusively with grains grown in southern Arizona, Mr. Guerra has traced wheat to its deepest roots in North America: the stretch of the Sonoran Desert that includes Tucson and that dips below the U.S.-Mexico border to the fields where Spanish missionaries are believed to have introduced the grain in the mid-1600s.

An alternative for cities like Baltimore where their local newspapers have been gutted by hedge funds. and as happened to the East Bay Times and the Mercury News in California.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2021/10/26/baltimore-banner-kimi-yoshino-bainum/

Luke Tsai will be on the radio program KQED Forum 88.5 FM at about 9:40 am today, Oct 27, with host Alexis Madrigal talking about the San Jose food scene. The audio of the show will be available online soon. The show usually takes calls.

RIP Comedian Mort Sahl passed away yesterday at age 94 in Mill Valley CA. He first broke through in late 1953 at Enrico Banducci’s hungry i which I think was then located in the basement of the Sentinel Building (sometimes called the Coppola Building) at the corner of Kearney and Columbus in SF. Favorable publicity from columnist Herb Caen helped increase attendance at the shows. The Purple Onion club was across the street and I’ve always wondered if the title of this website is a contraction of hungry i + Purple Onion.

In 1960 he co-hosted the Academy Awards show and was on the cover of Time Magazine. He continued to perform online until last year from the Throckmorton Theatre in Mill Valley and was close friends with Robin Williams.

One of his jokes went something like this: “… being courageous means going to a restaurant that hasn’t been reviewed yet…”

“I don’t tell jokes, I give little lectures,” Sahl would tell his audiences. He’d generally conclude his shows by asking, “Are there any groups I haven’t offended?”

Part 6 of the series KQED’s San Jose: The Bay Area’s Great Immigrant Food City

Luke on KQED radio on Forum on October 27, about 20 minutes

Part 7 of 8 of the series KQED’s San Jose: The Bay Area’s Great Immigrant Food City

Luke -
San Jose, Day 7: In one of the finest pieces of tofu writing I’ve read in a long time,

@AdyThapliyal

argues that San Jose is THE tofu capital of America (emphasis added) —largely thanks to city’s wealth of Vietnamese tofu delis.

“Americans want tofu to be sturdy, whereas the tofu that you buy at an Asian tofu shop … tends to be more tender because we love that tenderness.”
Andrea Nguyen

2 Likes

The last part, Part 8 of 8.

KQED’s San Jose: The Bay Area’s Great Immigrant Food City is a series of stories exploring San Jose’s wonderfully diverse immigrant food scene. A new installment will post each weekday from Oct. 20–29.




Luke Tsai
@theluketsai

Half the writers for this series hadn’t even written a food story before, and look at the brilliant work they produced! Which is just to say, there isn’t, like, some prerequisite or secret club you have to be a part of. My email is in my bio.

West African shrimp suya at Sobre Mesa

Kampot fried chicken at Nyum Bai

Quesabirria at El Garage

Listen online for 49 minutes to Ruth Reichl, Soleil Ho, Mas & Nikiko Masumoto and others or listen tonight on KQED FM radio 88.5 at 7 pm.

7:00 PM – 8:00 PM

The Splendid Table

Passing the Torch

Best-selling author and restaurant critic Ruth Reichl ( Save Me the Plums ) talks with Soleil Ho, the new restaurant critic for the San Francisco Chronicle , about stepping into big shoes. Peach farmers Mas and Nikiko Masumoto ( The Perfect Peach , Changing Season )talk about what it is like for them to pass the farm from father to daughter. Bricia Lopez ( Oaxaca ) tells us about taking over the family restaurant when her parents returned to Mexico. To end the episode, Ed Levine ( Serious Eater ) and J. Kenji Lopez-Alt ( The Food Lab ) talk about the places their collaboration on the cult website Serious Eats has taken them.

Show Segments

  • 00:00 - Show Introduction, Mas & Nikiko Masumoto
  • 17:27 - Ruth Reichl & Soleil Ho
  • 33:36 - Bricia Lopez
  • 42:50 - Ed Levine & Kenji Lopez-Alt
  • 53:33 - Show Credits

First aired on September 20, 2021

1 Like

Restrictions will be reevaluated on Nov. 22.

https://twitter.com/taraduggan/status/1455344781001773059

https://twitter.com/hooleil/status/1455208144657739779

1 Like

https://nantmedia.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/LATimesCareers/job/El-Segundo-CA/Food-Editor_REQ_001075

By coincidence I was given a gift certificate to Oliveto during the pandemic…just made a reservation to use it before they close. I’ve never been.

1 Like

The street food portion starts at abut the 16:00 mark but even the beginning is worth watching.

from YouTube:


Pajaretes - There’s no doubt, pajaretes is one of the greatest and craziest food experiences in all of Los Angeles. Popular especially on ranches in Mexico where you need a quick breakfast as you’re milking the animals, a pajarete is a cup of fresh milk with some toppings. It’s all self service, you add coffee, milk, sugar, a shot of alcohol, and cinnamon and then spray in - directly from the cow or goat of your choice - fresh milk. It’s a life changing breakfast moment. There’s nothing better than goat to cup!

Carnitas Los Dos Chingones - https://goo.gl/maps/3smHSAfsze1Uv33a6 - Next up on this ultimate Mexican street food tour in Los Angeles, we headed to Carnitas Los Dos Chingones where they make an insane carnitas chilaquiles burrito for breakfast. Birrieria Barajas - https://g.page/BirrieriaBarajas?share -

Next, we headed back to Compton and to Birrieria Barajas for their Jalisco style goat birria. The goat is baked so it has an incredible soft yet crunchy texture. It’s paired with soup and you can season as you like with onions, cilantro, and salsa. We ordered the Mexi Papa special, including a dino sized goat drumstick, and rib meat. So good, one of the best real deal Jalisco birria spots in Los Angeles. El Taco Grande - https://goo.gl/maps/6iDF5cAkxcbadzE37 -

Finally to finish off this street food tour, we went to El Taco Grande, one of the staples of Los Angeles Mexican food. They arranged to prepare an entire shawarma “trompo” of al pastor - pork marinated in chiles and citrus and onions, and stacked. The flavor was so good, and they have a special technique of roasting the meat, then slicing it and frying it on the hot griddle before serving it to you. That way all the al pastor is cooked, crispy, and smoky. Some of the best al pastor tacos in LA.

Again, a massive thank you to Mexi Papa for taking me on this ultimate Mexican street food tour in Los Angeles - and easily one of the craziest food experiences in all of LA!

Mexi Papa YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5Wg…

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mexi_papa_a…

:musical_note:MUSIC: https://goo.gl/HwVjdo

Cesar Hernandez is the new associate restaurant critic for the SF Chronicle.

As far as I’m concerned, L.A. TACO continues to be the voice of the streets. The only reason I even wanted to be a part of this talented group was because they wrote about where I’m from, Lynwood . My L.A. Not the L.A. from the movies, not the L.A. transplants like to complain about, not the trendy parts, not the vapid ideas of the city. At L.A. TACO it felt like my world was seen and I wanted to be a part of that.

Kristina Cho’s “Moon Cakes and Milk Bread” (Harper Horizon,$29.95) is billed as the first major English-language cookbook dedicated to Chinese baking. Amisha Dodhia Gurbani offers a collection of modern California-meets-Indian vegetarian recipes in “Mumbai Modern” (Countryman Press, $35). And Edgar Castrejón veganizes Mexican staples in “Provecho” (Ten Speed Press, $32.50).

The facility, part of a new, $50 million, 53,000-square-foot campus for Berkeley food tech company Upside Foods, is billed as the first of its kind in the world and ready for commercial scale. While other companies have made cultured meat, also known as cultivated meat or lab-grown meat, they’ve typically worked out of smaller laboratories.

You include some great tidbits in Hella Town , like the fact that there was a national Highway Beauty Awards competition, and that canned olives were invented in Oakland. What’s your favorite fun fact that you dug up?

I was fascinated with the guy who invented the fruit cocktail. It was a Berkeley professor and it was developed through the Del Monte canneries, which had several locations in Oakland. I grew up eating that, it was horrible, but I think a lot of Americans had that.

1 Like

from Youtube:

:taco: Follow Mexi Papa: @Mexi papa Adventures :cut_of_meat: Mexican Street Food in LA (Part 1): https://youtu.be/BEbKyZSpBQk :bell: SUBSCRIBE: http://bit.ly/MarkWiensSubscribe Don’t miss new food videos! LOS ANGELES: Welcome to LA, home of some of the best Mexican street food in the world! Today I’m hanging out with my friend Mexi Papa, and he’s taking us to a few of his favorite spots, including an amazing spot for carnitas, deep fried chicken necks, and a place that serves one of the best and freshest quesadillas I’ve ever had in my life. Get ready for amazing Mexican street food in Los Angeles!

  • Carnitas el Momo (https://goo.gl/maps/32BbkJTGRSpSXspv7) - First we headed to Carnitas el Momo, one of the best places for carnitas in LA. They boil the pork in huge bathtub sized copper pots, just like in Mexico. Their carnitas are moist and so flavorful. Along with all the different parts of the pig, the highlight at Carnitas el Momo is the burnt ends - all the drippings from the bottom of the pan that accumulate the most flavor. Santa Rita Jalisco Taco Truck (https://goo.gl/maps/LdQ6ckeYq1asECyD9)

  • Next up on this Mexican street food tour in LA, we headed to Santa Rita Jalisco Taco Truck which is legendary for their deep fried chicken necks. They are deep fried for 20 minutes until the entire chicken neck is crispy all the way through. What really makes them is the fresh salsa! Tacos Los Poblanos #1 Estilo Tijuana (https://goo.gl/maps/iTbH6mFH5sTZo5CA6)

  • Finally to end this food tour, we headed to Tacos Los Poblanos #1 Estilo Tijuana, a Mexican food stall that sets up outdoors and serves everything fresh - from the tortillas to the meats to the salsas. Along with a huge selection of things you can order, one of the highlights for me was a huge fresh quesadilla, loaded with both carne asada and chorizo, guacamole and salsa. And that wraps up another amazing day of Mexican street food in Los Angeles!

Mexi Papa YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5Wg…

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mexi_papa_a…

1 Like

Costco is selling a Turkey dinner meal, already cooked, for $2.99/lb. My brother sent me the photo. If I were going pre-cooked grocery store turkey meals, I’d do that. Looks a lot better than the usual grocery store turkey dinners. Turkey usually is frozen in a plastic bag.