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Asheville, NC: Tupelo Honey Cafe (Mar. 2013)
On this recent trip to the south I never thought I’d come across such a hidden gem as Tupelo Honey Cafe. It’s a pretty unassuming restaurant from the outside looking in, but after stepping into the cozy interior and glancing over the menu, I was immediately intrigued by all the interesting items offered by Chef Brian Sonosukus. The menu was distinctly southern, but with a lot of exciting unique twists and takes. I was able to try a few of the outstanding dishes and cannot speak highly enough of the great cooking being done at Tupelo Honey Cafe. When I got home, I went online and bought their recipe book; hopefully I can make a couple good items and share later on.
Their rosemary peach tea has a great aroma from the intense rosemary, and their raspberry iced tea is good too. I was intrigued by their local beer selection but we were halfway through a long drive so I passed. Onto the food!
Pho Recipe
Everything great and wonderful about pho aside, it is a LOT of work to make. Still, the dearth of good pho in NYC spurred me to just invite a few friends over and attempt to make it. Luckily the hard work paid off! I was happy enough with the results that I thought I’d share the recipe. I adapted a recipe from steamy kitchen and made the pho with my 2 favorite meats: well done brisket and rare steak. I also like tripe, and my cousins certainly like fatty flank, but I just didn’t get around to making those this time. Every Vietnamese mother has her own recipe that they boast as the best, so feel free to be creative with your own variations and substitutions. Comments on how to improve my recipe are welcome!
SF: Hachi Ju Hachi (in Saratoga, CA) (Feb. 2013)
I love Hachi Ju Hachi. There are a couple restaurants that make me feel instantly at home the moment I step into the dining room, and Hachi Ju Hachi is one of them. It’s not just the clean and neat decor, or the increasingly numerous handwritten notes on the walls of the restaurant from former customers (if you order the kaiseki, you literally get to leave your mark on the restaurant – my sister somehow wrote on the ceiling).
What makes Hachi Ju Hachi wonderful is the food and the chef. It’s like stepping in my grandma’s kitchen, if my grandma cooked badass Japanese home-style cooking and had a wonderful sense of humor that made me feel at ease. Chef Suzuki-San is always in the kitchen with a bright smile plastered onto his face and has a fantastic sense of humor that just makes you feel like you’re part of the family. And he serves fantastic food that reveals an underlying intensity about food that hides well behind his friendly grin.
This isn’t an izakaya or a sushi bar (although there is hakozushi (boxed style sushi)). It’s much closer to kaiseki a la carte, with actual kaiseki options available if you call ahead. On my most recent trip I didn’t try the Kaiseki, but we did order a ton of the dishes and a lot of them kept me floating on a blissful cloud 9 made of great flavors. Let’s get to the food:
Eggplant deep fried with grated mountain yam and seaweed
Oops my chopsticks got to this dish before the camera did. I don’t know how that happened. The eggplant was slightly sweet and salty, and I loved the milky texture of the grated mountain yam.
Monte
Victor
tadv3
Happy Noms 