Alex Hopmann’s Blog

On our way back from a long bike ride (we are kicking off training for the STP this year), Kat and I were looking for a good place to grab some brunch. Seattle Magazine had just done a round-up of best breakfast spots and mentioned brunch at The Corson Building. We have been meaning to go there so it seems like a great idea.

Their format is a bit different from normal- its tiny inside, and its prix-fixe, with a buffet with a bunch of miscellaneous stuff and a choice from two hot entrees. We enjoyed the buffee a lot- a citrus salad with orange, grapefruit and blood-orange, a great beet salad, some radicchio, home-made yogurt with some great jam and nuts to mix in, and a couple of other things. We got both entrees, a quiche with pork belly (bacon!) and sturgeon. Everything was great, and the overall experience was a really nice departure from the standard brunch experience all over town. At $23 its not inexpensive and I’m sure that will deter many people, but for a special experience with top local ingredients, its well worth it.

The NY Times has a write up about Sriracha. I had no idea it wasn’t actually Asian, although in retrospect its not surprising that its another American invention based on a blend of other cultures. In the end I don’t care where it comes from, I’m a fan…

Dana wrote a great piece on Perfecting Panna Cotta over on Tastingmenu.com. I think some people had a bit of a tough time initially figuring out what to make of the “new” tasting menu, but with pieces like this Dana is really putting it over the top- this article I’m sure will be one of the primary resources on the Internet for how to make Panna Cotta. And I don’t mean just for a couple of years- its really cool to see new content that will be useful for decades.

One note- she mentions that its hard for the home chef to find gelatin sheets and I’ve found that to be very true. Last time I needed some I managed to borrow them from a pro kitchen. But today we found some gelatin sheets at Delaurenti’s down in the Seattle Pike Market.

Rich writes about Dim Sum in Seattle. Overall I’ve found this one of the very frustrating parts of living in Seattle because I love Dim Sum and the overall quality doesn’t seem nearly up to Vancouver or San Francisco. In general I find his observations to be good, although I’d also recommend a new discovery- the appropriately named “Dim Sum House” on 4860 Beacon (not in the middle of any of the usual restaurant clusters). I haven’t found any especially interesting or new Dim Sum here, but the stuff I’ve had (I’ve been 3 times in the last few weeks) has been fresh (order from the menu, no carts going around with stale stuff), and just simply good. Its no Hakkasan but I can’t head to London (or even Vancouver or San Francisco) every day for lunch. Not to mention that my favorite place in Vancouver, Sun Sui Wah has been disappointing the last couple of visits.

Brett posts a detailed recipe for Massaman Curry. I can’t wait to try it out.

This weekend on our way back from the Grand Canyon we stopped in Vegas for two nights. Saturday night we had dinner at Robuchon’s “The Mansion” at the MGM. I’ve been to L’atelier de Joel Robuchon several times and its been pretty much my favorite dining experience in the country (or at least up in the top couple), so trying out Robuchon’s high-end place was pretty exciting.

Overall the meal was fantastic. From the excellent service, to the selection of 10 kinds of breads (including one with bacon! Bacon goes with everything…), to the candy selection at the end with like 40 different choices of little bites, it was a great, over the top experience. I wasn’t in the mood to take pictures of everything or take notes, but there were a number of highlights including some great caviar, a great combo of sea-food dishes, and a veal in herb-jus.

There are two other notes worth mentioning. The first is that I was surprised by what felt like a bit of kitsch with the meal. Maybe its an attempt to fit in with the general kitsch-nature of Vegas, or maybe it was just trying to be fancy somehow in a slightly clumsy way. One of the seafood dishes came out on a little net, with some shells. Many of the plates were beautiful, but some were just a bit over-done and distracting. Plus the music was pretty cheesy- again, we aren’t sure if it was a plan or an accident but during some of the main seafood dishes they were playing a musak version of one of the songs from the Little Mermaid.

Its kind of funny, but it makes a difference whether it was an intentional “Vegas” joke or just clumsy. When I first went to Vegas I pretty much hated it and it was years later that I came to appreciate it for all the cheese and neon and fake other-parts-of-the-world. Done in that context stuff can be really fun that would be just lame somewhere else like Seattle, Paris or New York. I’m hoping that is what was going on.

The other note is that I’m feeling pretty jaded/burned out on over the top meals. I suppose its not surprising, but a 16-course thing like this doesn’t have the same wonder that it used to. It certainly isn’t something I could do that often and 95% of the time I’d probably enjoy the Atelier more for its cool and more approachable style. We also went to Craft Steak the previous night which with its focused, more simple preparations seemed more in tune with my mood lately. Having said that the meal at the Mansion was great and I’m really glad that I finally got to experience it.

Kat and I are planning on making a Clafoutis tonight- here is a recipe from Williams Sonoma.

Cherry Clafoutis
4 eggs, separated
2/3 cup sugar
6 Tbs all-purpose flour
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 lb fresh cherries, pitted or 1/2 lb frozen cherries, thawed and drained.
1/2 tsp. lemon zest
Pistachio ice cream for serving

Preheat oven to 375F. Butter large rectangular baking dish.

In large bowl, combine egg yokes and 1/3 cup sugar; beat with handheld mixer on medium-high speed untill ribbons form, about 8 minutes. Add four, vanilla and cream. Reduce speed to low; beat until completely blended, stopping mixer occasionally to scrape down sides of bowl.

In small bowl, using handheld whisk, beat egg whites and salt about 30 seconds. Add whites to batter; beat with mixer on low speed until incorporated, 1-2 minutes.

Preheat, prepared baking dish in oven for 4-5 minutes. In bowl, stir together cherries, 1/3 cup sugar and zest. Remove pan from oven. Pour in cherries; top with batter. Bake until clafoutis is set in middle, 30-35 minutes. Serve warm with pistachio ice cream. Serves 6-8.

For a few years now Hillel and I have had a bit of a debate about which of two San Francisco dim sum restaurants is better. The two
contenders are Yank Sing and Ton Kiang. I’ve always argued that Yank Sing had
more interesting variety in dishes, but as of today I’ll switch and admit that
Hillel was right. I visited Ton Kiang and I’ve got to say that the variety and
just great freshness of their dim sum put them in the top spot.

I warmed up with a couple of pot stickers, but then they brought around
something that is apparently a new dish they just introduced- green tea salad.
They bring it on a plate with different ingredients (cabbage, garlic, peanuts, I
think ginger and some green tea paste) separate and then mix it together for you
at the table. It didn’t blow me away but it was very nice and it was a new taste
which was great.

Then I had a couple of deep fried pork buns. These were great when fresh-
later on I brough some back for Kat and they were a bit greasy but right at the
table they didn’t come off that way. The snow pea shoots were very good, and the
shrimp and snowpea, and scalop dumplings were just about perfect- delicate but
they didn’t fall apart when you tried to pick them up. Finally a few normal pork
buns, which were super fresh again.

Also checked out a couple of other places the last two days- Straits cafe
opened a branch in some new mall down in San Jose and I found it very
disappointing. And Kat and I went to Aqua which was just great- it was nice to
have interesting modern cuisine with the sea-food angle on it which resulted in
something a bit different from the “usual”.

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