Truffle Report #5 – What’s that smell?

The truffle dinners are now in full swing and going very nicely, but I wanted to provide a brief wrap-up of this year's trip to Italy. Monti-in-Chianti, about 10 miles north of Siena, has been the center of my activities since I began traveling to Italy (over ten years ago) to get truffles, and Giorgio Sacchini and his family have been...

BREADS OF INDIA - Garlic Naan & Beer

What is it about bread that makes me go weak in the knees? Bagels, English Muffins, Sourdough. All of these fantastical starches have been woven into my DNA since childhood. I used to dream of being locked into the Lakeshore Deli (an old-world delicatessen my grandfather used to frequent and on whose proscuitto and ravioli I was raised) and left to consume all the bread and cheese I could manage to swallow. That was my childish idea of heaven.

So it isn't a surprise that I might find a restaurant named "Breads" of anything intriguing. When Breads of India first opened, my food gang and I tried it within a week or two of it's unveiling. This most recent visit was a little over a week ago, early in the week. Thought it deserved a revisit for the blog.

Breads of India is one of those smallish family places you really want to be good. Everyone is very nice, and in this economy one never wants to see a place near empty. But it was, as so many eateries are these days. Unfortunate sign of the times. The restaurant's decor is extremely quaint. It looks like a 70s ideal of an Indian Restaurant in a film.

We ordered pretty safely. Beginning with drinks. Better half had a "Goan Dream" a cocktail of vanilla vodka, midori, orange and pineapple juices, while our Partner in Food Crimes had anIndian Beer, Kingfisher, which oddly enough has been outsourced to this country to be brewed & bottled. Irony that. We all shared a Lamb Shish ke Bob, which was nice. Large bite-sized rolls of lamb barbequed and meant to be dipped in a nice light herby mint sauce. I thought the meat was juicy and the smoky flavor very appealing.

Next I had a spicy Chicken Vindaloo, along with our PFC who is a fan of spice as well. The BH ordered the far less spicy Chicken Masala. I didn't taste the Masala, but I imagine it was fine. My vindaloo was not spicy enough, but it was appetizing. Not amazing, but appetizing.

Lastly there is the Bread. These breads are by far the best thing this place has to offer. Our naan was hot from the oven and smothered in garlic and butter. Each bread comes with a generous slatering of whatever topping or spice it is billed as featuring. We ordered plain and garlic naan, both of which went well with the meals. Nothing quite like fresh hot chewy starchy almost pizza dough to dip in a sauce. Still my idea of heaven. I did have 'garlic' replay for the balance of the afternoon, since it was doused in uncooked garlic which can play a bit of havoc on the digestion, but it was enjoyable in the eating at least.

The food here is decent, like good home cooked food. But it isn't great. Rice is just a little dry, salad is maybe the tiniest bit limp. The meals are just okay. But like I said, I really liked the bread.

Check it out, and Bon appetit!

Breads of India

948 Clay Street

Oakland, CA 94607

510.834.7684

http://www.breadsofindia.com/

Table size: adequate

Noise level: low enough for conversation

Cost: moderate

A bit on Sarah Valor of Oakland’s Commis restaurant

EaterWire: Thoughts on the New Quince, Trying Top Chef Frozen Foods

[Photo: Jennifer Yin, 10/28/09]

THE MISSION—An epilogue to the Food For Thought fundraiser earlier this month, which saw 20+ Mission restaurants dedicate their proceeds on November 11 to benefit Mission Graduates: they raised over $35,000. [EaterWire]

JACKSON SQUARE—7x7's Sara Deseran shares one of the first real takes on the new Quince, and it's a good one: "When the food started to arrive, it was, in true Tusk style, the work of a perfectionist. It’s not bright, like the food you’ll find at another breed of Michelin-starred restaurant ... Tusk’s fine-dining take on Italian cooking is more of a sable coat: rich, luxurious and classic." More here. [7x7]

REALITY TV— Reader Brian Lerch reveals the new NBC/Magical Elves show won't be the only food show next year to be called "United Plates of America." He's been producing a show of the same name for the last year: "The show premise centers around celebrating cultural and culinary diversity in America. Each episode co-hosts Chad Kessler and Tati Amare are introduced to an ethnically diverse relationship through a viewer video submission or a live skype conversation. The viewers have an upcoming event in which they want to celebrate the uniting of their own distinct cultures in one dish that fuses both of their cuisines together- thus uniting their plates!" That sounds just as good as a glossy cutthroat reality competition. [Eater NY]

TOP CHEFFAGE— In a piece in Time, writer Joel Stein taste tests the Top Chef line of Schwan frozen dinners and realizes they aren't half bad. He also reveals that Top Chef alums are not paid for their efforts. [Time]

Taste of the Town

A Good Start For First Bay Area Holiday Festival

Vinegar Is Coming For Your Children!

An article in the San Francisco Chronicle says, "Eating just one tablespoon a day of some vinegars can raise a young child's lead level by more than 30 percent, modeling requested by the news service shows."

Which "some vinegars"? According to the article, red wine and balsamic vinegars. But not all of them. The article says, "Lead can vary widely from product to product and from batch to batch." I don't advocate feeding your children lead, of course. But this article sows so much confusion that it's hard to take it seriously.

First of all, where does the lead come from? The article suggests one possible source: higher lead content in the soil in Modena, the area famous for balsamic vinegar. But that wouldn't affect all red wine vinegars or even most commercial balsamic vinegars, which, at the cheap end of the scale, are wine vinegars trucked in from all over Italy and then "finished" in Modena (with caramel coloring and other tricks) so the producers can use the name. The author offers another clue: "Some toxicologists hypothesize that production and storage are the main sources of lead contamination rather than the soil." What parts of the production? What parts of the storage? The author doesn't say.

If the article had limited discussion to authentic balsamic vinegar, it could probably make a good case. That vinegar is produced by fermenting grape must and then letting the vinegar evaporate for 12 years or longer. You could imagine a slightly higher-than-normal lead concentration in the soil getting much stronger as the liquid reduces. You could probably make a similar case for high-end but unauthentic balsamic, which is often evaporated over a long time as well. But if you're talking authentic balsamic vinegar, which costs about $30 per fluid ounce, the number of people who could feed their children one tablespoon per day is probably limited to the upper end of the upper end of income brackets.

Let's recap. Some red wine vinegars from all over the world, balsamic vinegars, and "balsamic red wine vinegars" (a term for industrial balsamic vinegars?) have higher-than-they-should lead levels. The lead might come from the soil in Modena, which would not affect most of the red wine vinegar in the world. It might come from "production and storage." But the lead levels are higher than in white wine vinegar or fruit vinegars, which are produced the same way as red wine vinegar. It's all clear now, right?

The solution is clear, at least: Don't eat vinegar! Or, you know, assume that this article is so vague as to be unhelpful and eat as normal. Of course, my preferred solution is to just make your own.