Consuming Ambitions

BellyFull: New Mercury News Food Blog

The San Jose Mercury News launched a decent looking food blog called BellyFull that features "food news, tips, new products, recipes and more." Along with links to articles from the newspaper, the blog contains posts from food section writers such as Carolyn Jung, Aleta Watson, Sylvia Ulloa, and Julie Kaufmann. One request for the Merc: lose the popups! There are plenty enough ads on the page already. Plus I still pay for a print subscription for old time's sake even though I now consume 90%+ of my news online.

King Eggroll

Now that Thanksgiving is behind us, it's time for the gauntlet of holiday parties. Family gatherings. Office parties. School functions. Lots of need for food in quantity. A timely suggestion comes from Chris Yeh, who recently shared a foodie moment involving Chinese eggrolls from a surprisingly popular greasy spoon down in my home town of San Jose called King Eggroll:

Our IT guy brought in a platter of 50 to our Thanksgiving potluck--scrumptious. Crunchy, meaty, with a good balance of filling and wrapper. I thought I didn't like egg rolls--it turns out I just never had good ones before. These bad boys are big too, about 5 inches long and 1 inch in diameter.

Best of all, a platter of 50 is only $30. Spread the word!

So there you have a tasty yet economical bulk take-out option (assuming you are in the South Bay). The rap on King Eggroll is that the eggrolls are generally considered awesome, but don't bother with most of the rest of the food (some do like the hot wings as well). The interior could most charitably be described as "not the most clean." But people are willing to overlook it for the sake of eggroll nirvana. As one person put it, "Don't try to take King Eggrolls on the plane, because they are DA BOMB!" (Groan.)

Update 12/18/06: San Jose Mercury News Food Editor Julie Kaufmann has this to add:

I enjoyed your blog, too, and agree about King Eggroll! I think the Vietnamese rice paper rolls there are great, too, and you can also order those ahead for a party. (I've gotten trays of vegetarian ones -- both the fried egg rolls and the summer rolls -- by ordering ahead.)

King Eggroll
980 Lundy Ave
San Jose, CA 95133
(408) 729-8307

The Best Pumpkin Pie in Palo Alto is on Emerson Street

For as long as she was able, my late grandmother always made two pies for Thanksgiving: a cherry pie, and a pumpkin pie. As a kid, I loved the cherry pie but always took a little of the pumpkin pie in appreciation for her effort. Over the years, I actually grew to appreciate subtlety of the consistency and spices of a good pumpkin pie.

Just in time for Turkey Day, the Palo Alto Weekly conducted a pumpkin pie taste-off comparing the products from five Palo Alto purveyors. Winner: Palo Alto Creamery (downtown location was tested) which is great because you could always drop in to sample a slice in case you don't need a whole pie. Runner up was Whole Foods Market (on Emerson Street, 2 blocks down from the Creamery). Have a happy Thanksgiving!

Destroying Your Contact Lenses, Foodie Style

Note to self: jalapeño peppers and contact lenses do not mix. Over the years I have lost my contacts in the usual ways (tore with fingernail, rinsed down sink, and so on) but leave it to me to discover a new, foodie technique for accomplishing the task. I was making a sugo of beef and tomatoes to put over some good pappardelle from A.G. Ferrari (the kind that's nice and rough on the surface so that the sauce bonds to the pasta). I decided to pull an Emeril and "kick it up a notch" by adding some jalapeño.

I grabbed a single, medium sized pepper, sliced it lengthwise, and scraped out all the seeds with the tip of the knife (to cut down on the fiery spice -- after all, I was aiming for zesty Italian, not Thai style). I minced up the jalapeño, stirred it into my sauce, and didn't give it another thought. Fast forward many hours later when I was getting ready for bed and experienced an exquisite burning sensation in my eyes as I removed my contact lenses (I was ready for Emeril to burst into the room saying: "Bam!"). Turns out that although much time had passed, and I had seemingly done plenty to rub off the jalapeño oils (washing my hands at least a dozen times over the course of the day, cooking, cleaning, addictively using my Treo, etc.), I still had fingers o' fire. So I went to bed with smarting, watery eyes. But the real punchline came the next morning, when I tried to pop my lenses back into my eyes -- yes, it was Return of the Jalapeño as I realized that the pepper oils were now a permanent feature of my lenses. I checked the label of my Opti-Free Express Multi-Purpose Disinfecting Solution and sure enough, the product does not claim effectiveness against chili oils (anybody from Williams Sonoma reading this? Huge market opportunity here!). So it was that another pair of lenses bit the dust. C'est la vie.

RadCru: Small Vines...Rad Wines

One evening during the Web 2.0 Summit, I had the opportunity to swing by an evening party that was a bit different from the usual conference fare. The guys from RadCru put together the Wine 2.0 reception which exposed "top wine and technology media" (how on earth did Consuming Ambitions slip in?) to emerging companies that are using technology to change the way that wine is marketed, sold, or made. Surrounded by contemporary fine artwork in the Varnish gallery, I enjoyed meeting friendly, happy people (heck, they get to work with wine all day!) such as Zach Coelius from wine online ad network Triggit.

One highlight of the evening was meeting Cameron Hughes, who is a very savvy businessman. He purchases premium blending component wines that are in oversupply and blends them into high-quality wines at very reasonable prices. A wine arbitrageur. He refuses to sell via distributors, which he says would take a 30% bite out of his hide; instead, he sells only via his own web site, and at Costco. See this excellent post on Corkdork for more info (including an interview with Cameron) from somebody who knows a hell of a lot more about wine than I.

Brief plug for RadCru (with which I have no affiliation; I'm just trying to help out a couple of nice guys): it's a service which promotes a single wine each day starting at 12:01am (Central time, don't ask why). So it's like Wine.Woot.com, a comparison which RadCru resists a bit because they view themselves not as a liquidator at discount prices, but rather a purveyor of hard to find, limited quantity, or new release product from boutique wineries (hence the motto: "Small vines...rad wines"). Check it out!

Parties that Cook

Last week Trinity Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners came together for a fun evening of cooking and competition -- think venture capital meets Iron Chef. The event was led by a company called Parties That Cook that specializes in corporate team building through food. Each team had one hour to prepare a meat, a starch, and a vegetable using beef, rice, and green beans with a large "pantry" of ingredients and spices. Everybody started out a bit nervous at the prospect of cranking out not only a "show plate" for judging, but also edible food for twelve to feed ourselves -- David Cowan quipped, "Are we going out to eat afterwards?" It sounded like the opening to a bad joke: "How many VCs does it take to burn dinner for twelve?"

As it turned out, we received significant assistance from the Parties That Cook team, led by Chef de Cuisine Tanya Rogow. Recipes, tips, and outright orders were all welcome aid. Actually, a few of us were amused by how overstaffed we were, a team of twelve turning out a mere three staple dishes (as compared to Iron Chef where a team of four or so conjures up five exquisite plates, replete with sauces and accompaniments). At any given time, you could observe one VC working on something while surrounded by two other VCs observing, looking for something to do, possibly befuddled, often enjoying some wine and cheese. I can imagine the entrepreneurs out there sniggering, "Hah, just like my board meetings except with wine and cheese!"

If you are planning a team building event, I'd highly recommend considering Parties That Cook. Everybody from Trinity and Bessemer had a ball, and even enjoyed the not-bad dinner we prepared with our own hands!

Fantastic Foodie Post

From the reader mailbag: Doug Klein, who is now qualified as a Consuming Ambitions top contributor, forwarded me a link to a hilarious masterpiece of a foodie blog post by Adam Roberts on his Amateur Gourmet site. It's a complete account, comic-book style, of the incredible windfall of a complimentary white truffle tasting menu at Alain Ducasse in New York (an invitation to dine gratis in exchange for penning a blog post about the meal). Yet another example of the good things that come from blogging. Nice exhibition of Apple's Comic Life too. Check it out!

Yahoo! Food

As noted by Sergio Monsalve and a few other readers, last week Yahoo! launched a new vertical content section focused on food. Yahoo! Food brings together content from celebrities such as Martha Stewart and Rachel Ray, as well as established food-related sites such as AllRecipes.com and Epicurious. The site primarily features recipes, food videos (e.g. How to Carve a Turkey), and articles about restaurants, chefs, and entertaining.

Don't take this as sour grapes based on the fact that Yahoo! neglected to contact Consuming Ambitions for a content syndication deal (what were they thinking?!), but this new food site needs to find some polish and focus. Yahoo! Food feels very mish-mash and lacks an editorial voice. Also a few of the features didn't work as expected: for example, search for "coq au vin recipe" and you get no matches, but if you search on "coq au vin" (omitting the word "recipe") you will find a recipe from AllRecipes.com, which should have been returned from the first query. The Local Dining Guide is extremely rudimentary and presented as the top San Francisco restaurants sorted by rating: Round Table Pizza, followed by Subway Sandwiches (each based on a single rating of 5 stars). Not particularly useful.

In any case, I am all for more foodie resources online and will check back on Yahoo! Food to see how it evolves.

Red Lotus: Modern Authentic Southeast Asian Cuisine

Last week Eric Chin of Bay Partners treated me to a wonderful lunch at the newly opened Red Lotus restaurant in the Ladera shopping center in Portola Valley (in the location formerly housing a different Asian eatery, New Bamboo). The meal was fantastic not only because of the food and ambience, but also the friendly and enthusiastic people behind the restaurant. Chef/owner David Yeo was formerly a trader for Cantor Fitzgerald, working in New York's World Trade Center. Prior to the 9/11 attack, he decided to leave Wall Street to pursue his passion for cooking. So, David says "cooking saved my life," noting solemnly that on 9/11 he lost seven dear friends who were his former colleagues at Cantor Fitzgerald. His impressive culinary resume includes working with Joel Robuchon in Paris, at Louis XV in Monaco (with Alain Ducasse and Sylvan Portay), and at venerable New York establishments Tavern on the Green and Le Cirque. In the Bay Area, he was a corporate chef for the Straits Restaurants, and most recently was Executive Chef at Asia de Cuba. David runs Red Lotus with his wife Belinda, and Eric can attest that anytime you pop into the restaurant, the couple is always there.

Despite the fact that Red Lotus has only been open for a few weeks, Eric has already visited three or four times including some takeout runs. This fact exemplifies David's desire to create a casual place where neighborhood residents such as Eric stop by regularly, rather than a high-end eatery one only visits for special occasions. Reflecting this design goal, the delicious food is quite reasonably priced considering the quality. Small plates, soups and salads, curry bowls, noodles, and rice dishes are $6-12. "Sharing plates" with generous portions of red meat or seafood are $15-25. Restaurant decor is elegant yet casual. David describes his food as "modern, but authentic," simple food done well. He resists the notion of "fusion," quipping that "fusion is confusion." Authenticity is important to him.

Eric and I put ourselves in the hands of chef David, who first produced a starter plate of roti (which is complimentary at dinner time) with curry dipping sauce, and chicken satay. I usually am not a fan of the latter dish, because at many places the chicken is underseasoned and overcooked, resulting in a dry, unexciting skewer of meat. David's creation, on the other hand, was seasoned with spices such as lemongrass, chili, and palm and brown sugars; the sugars caramelized, resulting in a delightfully flavorful exterior enveloping moist meat cooked to perfection. It's not just the technique, but the ingredients that count: David grinds his own dry spices on premise, for maximal freshness and punch. Also he uses all natural, hormone free products, with no artificial flavorings or MSG, naturally raised, local and sustainable. His produce comes entirely from California, and he aims to support local farmers whenever possible. The kitchen is clean and amazingly small considering the over three dozen items on the menu. David proudly pointed out how small his freezer is, and the fact that there were no cans anywhere to be seen (underscoring his penchant for using fresh ingredients).

Our appetizer was followed by excellent preparations of Asian BBQ pork spare ribs (slow braised, then charbroiled over fire in a honey-soy BBQ glaze, toasted sesame, Szechuan fries and Asian slaw), tamarind shrimp curry (prawns simmered in a mild tamarind curry with long beans, baby carrots, eggplant, tomatoes, and okra), and Indonesian beef rendang (slow braised beef curry in a lemongrass-coconut and kaffir lime curry, pickled onions and vegetables). The fiery beef rendang was my favorite.

If you like flavorful Southeast Asian cuisine, or at least are willing to give it a try, I highly recommend Red Lotus. Ask for David and if he's not busy, he'll come out to say hello, and you'll get a chance to see firsthand just how passionate he is about his mission to create a valuable service for the community.

Red Lotus
3130 Alpine Road
Suite 300
Portola Valley, CA 94028
(650) 851-1718

ChefShop.com

My cousin tipped me off to a fantastic online gourmet food source. ChefShop.com describes itself as "searching the world for the best artisan-produced, sustainable foods and ingredients" and provides a nice online store selling olive oil, balsamic vinegar, chocolates, nuts, and even fresh fruit, meat, cheese, and sustainably fished seafood. The founders of ChefShop are passionate about the quality and healthiness of food, and were inspired to start the business by the degradation of food quality they saw in the United States.

Located in the South Lake Union area of Seattle, Washington, ChefShop.com was started in 1999 by a small group of passionate food-lovers with a very big mission: To change the way people think and feel about the foods that they eat by finding the very best-tasting foods from small farmers and artisan producers from around the world - especially from those growers and craftspeople who see the connection between the way the land is maintained and the quality of the food they produce - and making these products available to ChefShop.com's customers wherever they live.

One aspect of the site that I enjoy is browsing the merchandise by "pantry." A pantry is simply a collection of ChefShop store items organized around some theme. There is a pantry for various types of ethnic foods (French Pantry, Japanese Artisan Pantry, and so on), for occasions (Holiday Snacking, Labor Day Entertaining), or for people (celebrated chef John Sundstrom has a pantry, as does ChefShop CEO Tim Mar).