SPQR opens on Fillmore

We've been trying to get to the famed A16 for years now -- for a while I had even worked with one of the restaurants investors, and still somehow I hadn't gotten there. Well, when we heard that the same crew was taking over the old Chez Nous space on Fillmore street and opening the Roman-cuisine focussed SPQR right up the street from us, we were shamed into going. Immediately.

Good thing too -- as it's a fabulous little neighborhood place where we're planning to spending a lot of time, so not a moment to waste!

The space hasn't gotten any larger than it was with Chez Nous, folks, so you're still sitting cheek by jowl with you fellow diners, but all the better to see and smell what the table next to you is eating. It kind of became a family-style experience with the couple who was near us -- apparently devotees of Nate Appleman's A16 -- chatting and exchanging food tips. The gentleman was from Italy and once he found out we were headed to Italia in October, he had numerous recommendations for what to eat and where -- a conversation that kept us from noticing that it did take a little while to get from one course to the next.

The place is busy, but the service was extremely pleasant and knowledgeable. We arrived at 6 and got the last seats open before the turnover. SPQR takes no reservations, so you just have to get in line and wait, but it's well worth the time.

We started with a round of three antipasti plates. None of them are too large, so three is fine for two people. Roasted friarelli peppers (an import from A16) were tossed in a really nice olive oil and sprinkled with chunky sea salt. Add a squeeze of lemon juice and the little buggers are thoroughly addictive.

The mozzarella and brioche panino was adequate, but probably the weakest dish of the evening (though certainly not terrible). I would have liked to have seen a bit more anchovy -- it felt as though the bread were rubbed lightly, but not enough, with anchovy oil.

The third item however, housemade pork sausage with caramelized onions, was heavenly. Onions were small -- maybe pearl onions or cipollines, caramelized with balsamic vinegar, and the soft sweetness was a lovely contrast with the salty sausage patty.

Our newfound friends also recommended the calamari, and a plate of scallops that went by me had me drifting along trailing after the scent.

For the next act, I had Spaghetti alla Carbonara, which made a nice light main for me, though it might not satisfy a heartier appetite. Pasta is homemade at SPQR and the sauce is flavored with flecks of guanciale. My Omnivore, though, had a spectacularly succulent Saltimbocca style pork cutlet, with fried sage leaves and probably the best braised frisee we've ever had. Pork was not only tender, but the outer browning of the cutlet was perfectly handled to make a flavor-packed crust.

S.P.Q.R., of course, stands for "Senatus Populusque Romani" (The Senate and the People of Rome), a brand stamped on every manhole cover in Rome. I've read that some non-Romans waggishly claim it mean "Sono Porcini Questi Romani" (These Romans are Pigs), but hey, if their pork tastes this good, the Romans should be proud to be pigs.

Desserts look a bit limited still, although, everything that we and the table next to us had was delicious. A shortbread crusted with honey nut brittle was rich, and packed with butter-- a little heavier than we wanted at the finish of the meal, so we took home much of it. The panino of brioche with caramel and a dusting of cocoa was much lighter and very tasty, though not earth-shattering. At the next table, they said that the almond milk granita was excellent -- and worth checking out.

Just as we were all getting set to stand up and squeeze out of the tables to make way for the impatient hordes at the door, the chef sent our friends glasses of moscato and the wine steward brought two for us as well.

"You guys are practically a four top anyway!" she said.

I was impressed -- not just by the Moscato, which was beautifully balanced naturally fizzy dessert wine, but by the fact that even in the frenzy of a busy Saturday night service, they noticed a detail like that.

SPQR, 1911 Fillmore Street at Bush, 415-771-7779

"What Indian Summer?" Dinner

It was going to be a lovely al fresco dinner at the home of Mr. Tarte Tatin and the Pajama Queen. You know, glasses of wine sparkling in the golden sunlight as we casually grilled pork tenderloin and laughingly passed plates laden with food in the breezy warmth of our famous Bay Area Indian Summer...

Well, summer ended with a drippy finality on Saturday. But undaunted, we moved (all the furniture) into the cozy warmth of their dining room instead and thanks to the manful efforts of Mr. Tatin and My Omnivore, who stood stalwart in the damp dark evening air keeping the coals aflame, we still had wonderfully grilled meat.

No sacrifice is too great in the service of dinner.

As always, we're more than thrilled to bust out of the Itsy Bitsy Cooking station we call the Four Square Kitchen, and head over to, in this case, the Pajama Queen's surgically clean venue. It's so clean you could very well eat off the floors. No need for "five second rule" questions here. It could sit on the floor for five minutes or five hours -- there's not a bacterium in sight on that linoleum.

On the menu:

• Figs wrapped with Prosciutto, courtesy of the Pajama Queen
• Assorted Olives
• Grilled Balsamic Pork Tenderloin with Lemon Shallot sauce and grilled grapes
• Polenta, Rosemary and Walnut Diamonds
• Roasted Beets
• Walnut Arugula Salad (PJ Queen)

The very fine cheese course came courtesy of the PJ Queen's friend, Mme. Maya and her consort Mr. Flickr, who made the pilgrimage to the Cowgirls at the Ferry Building to obtain:

• Sottocenere al Tartufo
• Cypress Grove Fog Lights
• Bread from Acme and some of our homemade butter
  

Dessert:

• Pear Tarte Tatin with Pear Caramel ice cream

It all sounds quite fancy, and I think wound up being quite a tasty meal, but in actuality, each dish was pretty simple to make. And as I pre-prepped a lot of the stuff, I was reminded again of the chef vs. cook debate. I might not be a chef per se, but we can certainly cook when called upon. Especially if you give me good stuff to start with.

The pork tenderloin? It comes courtesy of Cuisine Magazine but the recipe is a simple marinade of balsamic vinegar and mustard. Really, that's it. I salted the tenderloins a bit, popped them in a ziploc bag with the marinade overnight and then my Omnivore threw them on the grill. We tossed the grapes with a little olive oil and grilled. That was that.

Lemon Shallot sauce? Chopped shallots sauteed in butter. Throw in a little white wine, a sprig of rosemary and deglaze. Add about a cup on chicken broth and reduce, reduce, reduce. Throw out the rosemary, add the juice of a lemon and whatever was left at the bottom of my honey jar (maybe a teaspoon?).

Beets are so delicious right now. I trimmed the red and golden beets, rubbed them with some olive oil, wrapped them in tinfoil (keeping the red and golden ones separate because the red ones bleed so much) and roasted them in th oven at 350 for 40 minutes. Cool, peel (I advise wearing at least one rubber glove for the red beets) and cut into wedges. Serve with dollops of Laura Chenel's goat cheese on top.

The polenta was a variation on a dish we made for Ms. Food Snoot's wedding. I like it a lot because it's quick to make, and is one of those "make-ahead, then heat-on-the-day-of" kind of deals:

Polenta with Rosemary & Walnuts

2 1/2 cups chicken broth
2/3 cups polenta
3/4 cup grated Parmagiano cheese
4 Tablespoons butter
1/3 cup walnuts, toasted and finely chopped
1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary
Salt and pepper to taste

Butter a square nine-inch glass dish -- you can also use a pie dish or mini-tartlets pans if you like.

Bring the broth to a boil in a heavy medium saucepan and very gradually whisk in polenta. Reduce the heat to medium and whisk constantly until the mixture thickens, about 6 minutes. Don't leave the polenta -- it has a tendency to burn and or clump, so whisking really improves the texture and helps draw out the starch.

Remove the pan from the heat and add in the cheese with 1-1/2 tablespoons of the butter, stirring until the cheese melts. Mix in the chopped walnuts and rosemary. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Transfer the polenta to the prepared dish, or tartlet pans. Using a buttered knife or rubber spatula, spread the polenta out evenly. Cool until the polenta is firm, at least 1 hour.

Line a baking sheet with foil. Cut the polenta into diamonds, or if the polenta is in a pie dish, cut it into 8 wedges or unmold from the mini-tartlet pans. Transfer these to the baking sheet, dot with 1 1/2 Tablespoons of butter.

All this can be made one day ahead. Cover and chill.

In a medium skillet, melt 1 Tablespoon of butter over medium heat. Gently place the polenta cakes into the skillet and heat through -- allowing it to brown slightly on each side.

You can also finish the polenta in the oven. Preheat oven to 350°F. Bake the polenta until it's heated through, about 12 minutes.

Serve immediately.
===================================================

Oh, and the Pear Tarte Tatin.

"What's wrong with apples?" inquired my Omnivore suspiciously. "Why do we have to do pears?"

"Because I want to do something different," I whined.

It was a hard sell to him and Mr. Tarte Tatin, who are really classicists at heart. But I used the standard recipe replacing the apples with Bartlett pears, which had a lovely aroma and kept shape very nicely through the cooking process. Paired with David Lebovitz's Pear Caramel ice cream, I think I won them over.

"Yeah, alright, the pears are okay..."

My Office

My workstation is COMPLETELY OSHA compliant.


("Hey, hey! HEY! You aren't taking a picture are you? Well... is it cute?")


My guidelines for the perfect computer workstation.

1) Top of the monitor at or below eye level.

2) Head and neck balanced and in line with torso.

3) Shoulders relaxed.

4) Elbows close to the body and supported.

5) Lower back supported.

6) Lap supported and warmed.

7) Adequate room for keyboard, cat and mouse.

8) Feet flat on floor.

Poor Paupiette of Sea Bass

I had incredible sympathy for the Top Chefs the other night. They had an actually honest-to-goodness, real, worthwhile challenge for once. No snack machine silliness, or freezer bag madness. As I watched them try to recreate Le Cirque's potato crusted sea bass, I thought, "Man, that's gotta be difficult to do."

I consider myself a not-too-shabby cook, but when Hung made his remark about "Any chef should be able to do this dish," I cringed a little. I don't think I could.

Then I remembered. Oh, yeah. We DID try to make this once. How did it turn out...?

Well, we didn't have a mandoline back then, so the potato slices were too thick. We didn't have sea bass, so we used halibut. And we had no idea how to wrap the pieces of fish, much less make them stick together, so much of the kitchen dialogue went like this: "God%&*!@$%! STICK damn you, STICK!"

(In case you're interested, here's the recipe on Daniel Boulud's site.)

Let's just say it's a good thing that there's no photographic evidence. I think I was probably blocking it from my memory.

I don't think I could ever be a "chef." All that stuff about technique and skills -- I still don't do the knife-against-the-knuckles-while-chopping thing properly, although I must admit, I fairly certain that I can still chop an onion faster than Casey.

I'm reliant on recipes, I like to troll other people's ideas and steal from them flagrantly. And is it "cheating" to use the best possible ingredients, and then just cook 'em up with lots of butter and salt? I leave it to you to decide.

Take this lovely meal we had a little while back, for instance. I suppose credit for how good this meal was should actually go to the ferry plaza farmers' market. Marin Sun Farms Beef: We rubbed with some olive oil, salt and pepper and stuck it under the broiler for a few minutes. Potatoes and wild mushrooms: clean, slice and cook with some duck fat and salt. Fresh peas: shelled (and heavily sampled) and cooked in butter. (I'll let you read all about the Sean Thackrey Andromeda we drank with it all on my Omnivore's blog.)

Three-year aged Parmigiano-Reggiano drizzled with chestnut honey.

Voila!

The Gourmet meal.

Are we chefs, or what...


Dessert is probably the most complicated thing we make in this household. Here's a duo of ice creams, Pear Caramel and his heavenly Chocolate Ice Cream-- for which I can take no credit -- they're both recipes out of David Lebovitz's fine book (By the way, we've made four of his ice creams to date and everyone has been killer. Buy the book. Seriously) .

So are we chefs or cooks? Hrm, I think we're just eaters.

Mac and me

I love macarons.

Although I haven't made an exhaustive study of them or anything (you'll have to consult Cindy of Food Migration about that.) I have my favorites. We're a little macaron-deprived over here in SF--as compared to, say, Paris, for instance -- although Pascal Rigo at Boulangerie Bay Breads makes some extremely tantalizing Parisian macarons, and I daresay they could probably compete favorably with even those from the City of Lights.

I've had Rigo's cookbook for a long time, and for some reason I've never attempted his macaron recipe. But after making many batches of ice cream this week (and yes, David Lebovitz, it IS your fault...), and separating many eggs, I felt that something had to be done about the mounting egg white emergency in our fridge.

The Omnivore is away for the evening. After four straight episodes of Law & Order, I'm bored. Let's fire up the oven, baby.

I was thrilled to discover that they are indeed as delicious as the ones you can buy at the boulangerie itself.

Plus, you get to eat all the ones that get broken. I mean, that's a rule, isn't it? Getting rid of the evidence??

That one's broken.

Oh and that one.

And that one's too big.

And that one's looking at me weird... *chomp chomp CHOMP*