Finally posting the menu from an excellent many-courses-of-autumn-vegetables dinner a few weeks ago at the new 18 Reasons space, cooked by Nicole LoBue. I loved the radicchio with unusually good frisee, kale with fennel pollen (!!), fresh beans with tiny radish-size tokyo turnips, and the chanterelles with two kinds of roasted grapes.

My favorites from Sunday’s " Fiets & Frites" tour of SF: Absinthe shoestring fries, with chipotle ketchup: Super Duper fries: Chili cheese fries from Bill’s Place: Yup. Not everywhere needs to be a Chez Panisse offshoot.

I finally had ice cream at Ici in Berkeley. The Candied Orange Peel and Chocolate Chip in their special homemade cone was great. Some people I know don’t like Ici as much as other places, and it was certainly a different style than Bi-Rite or Mr and Mrs Miscellaneous (Ici had a different texture– less uniformly smooth, a bit more dense), but I actually liked it. I don’t have a favorite, but I’d be happy to go here again. ...

After visiting a long string of “fine, but not amazing” izakayas* in the Bay Area (Nombe, Nojo, Sebo, Oyaji), I’ve finally gone to one I love: Ippuku (in Berkeley): Negima (chicken thighs + leek, one of my “baseline izakaya dishes”): Shishito peppers: Chicken with ume (sour plum) and shiso leaf. Perhaps my favorite dish of the night: Gyu no tataki (very rare grilled beef), also a favorite: ...

Brunch for a few friends, including homemade corn tortillas, scrambled eggs, black beans (made with slow-cooked onions and garlic, anaheim pepper, toasted chipotle & cumin, a little tomato), sauteed Padrón peppers with sea salt, salsa (striped heirloom tomatoes, serrano peppers, lemon, a little white vinegar), and more. Delicious!

Mikkeller, the one-man ‘roving brewery’, makes a series of many (19, over the years?) beers from the exact same IPA recipe*, except each uses a single, different variety of hop. Beer + Science? How could I say no? And two different friends thought the same way– so twice in the past month+, I’ve had a chance to do a side-by-side tasting of 16 of them with a group of friends. Fascinating. ...

I just made the bottom dish: “garbanzos, spinach, bread crumbs, spices” from Moro via Smitten Kitchen, and with clarified butter instead of olive oil. It was quite good, though maybe I’d use even more spices next time.

Basically this Smitten Kitchen recipe, with a few changes based on what the store was out of: Preheated oven to 425. Diced a butternut squash into 1" cubes, tossed with 3 cloves crushed garlic, 2 Tbsp olive oil, and 1/2 tsp of a " Kashmir curry powder" blend I had around. Roasted in the oven for about 25 minutes. Made a tahini dressing (3 Tbsp tahini, juice of two lemons, 2 Tbsp olive oil, 1 crushed clove garlic, a splash of water). Let the squash cool about 5 minutes, then tossed with a can of cannellini beans. Drizzled with the tahini dressing, minced parsley, and pepper. [ edit: It tasted great, but the texture was a bit boring– I think it would have been better with garbanzos as originally intended, or next to some crunchy fresh vegetables ] ...

Maple-pecan scones, scrambled eggs with a little smoked paprika, fruit, and a view of the Bay.

Basically this recipe, but with chipotle flakes instead of red pepper, with slices of baguette and irish cheddar broiled on top, and with a little fresh basil.

A brief article from Slate earlier this summer suggests that if you’re making your own bagels, the water (New York or otherwise) doesn’t really matter– it’s the combination of gluten, slow rising, and boiling before baking. Similarly, an article in The Food Lab at Slice / Serious Eats suggests the mineral level in water has no significant effect on the quality of pizza dough.

After a few disappointing restaurants in the past two months, I’m on a roll: the pizzas at Una Pizza Napoletana were the most delicious I’ve had in the bay area. A bold statement, but I stand by it. My eyes might have rolled back into my head. The crust was very good (slightly charred, and a bit chewier than the crispy sharded style I think of myself preferring– but it challenged my preconceived notions and won me over). But the real revelation was the outstanding flavor, from just the simple Neapolitan combination of buffalo mozzarella, olive oil, garlic, basil, and sea salt (in the case of the Bianca– the Margherita that added San Marzano tomato sauce was also fantastic). How was it so good? ...

It was so good I had to do it again when they switched menus. It wasn’t as every-single-dish-I-want-to-eat-again amazing as last time, but the radiatore with hen and the fattisu with duck and chanterelles (my favorite mushroom) were fantastic. Both were rich but slightly tart, whether from the lemon, the chanterelles, or the cabbage. For wine, the Tami Grillo and Foradori Teroldego were highlights.

I lucked into a special “summer pasta tasting” menu option recently, and it was one of my best meals out in quite a while. flour + water really is that good (especially their pasta). Every one of these pastas was something I’d happily order again as a standalone dish, but my favorites were probably the agnolotti dal plin (filled with hen and perhaps another meat or some pork broth? so rich…) and the rabbit francobolli with chanterelles & sage. ...

This is the final writeup from a weekend trip to Portland, focusing on our favorite beer places (Part 1: Portland Food, Part 2: Oregeon Brewers Festival). I half-wrote this right after the trip but hadn’t got around to posting it. Bailey’s Taproom(SW Broadway and Pine, downtown) A great place to taste beer– an informal space with plenty of seating and a rotating selection of about twenty beers on tap, including a lot of Oregon beer. For just $7.50 you can get a sampler of any five of your choice. I liked the Avatar Jasmine IPA (very faint hints of jasmine), but can’t remember what else we had (a scotch ale and one of the Upright beers, but I don’t seem to have notes). ...