Filet Mignon Rossini -- where to find this dish?

I agree w/Robert, canned truffle slices are classic on this dish in US restaurants. Most of the times I saw it in restaurants was during the 1970s, when it was the ostentation standard (Beef Wellington displaced it a few years later). That was all around the same time that the really food-literate US writers like Root and the Hesses were despairing the state of US restaurant cooking, and the renaissance of more honest less flamboyant farm-to-table cooking was gaining momentum. And yes, like many people I like some of those dishes too.

I don't know if it's current now among the restaurants resurrecting "tournedos Rossini" (as the dish was often called in the 70s), but common use of truffle oil (which per related CH threads of recent years is generally synthetic with a few truffle shavings per tank car for form's sake) is much more recent than those dishes' heyday.

If you want standard recipes for Sauce Madère and demi-glace just look them where everyone originally learned them (and most later writers copied or dumbed them down from), Escoffier's _Guide Culinaire._ I guess you can buy some decent stocks nowadays but I generally make my own at home, more often from roast poultry pieces than veal, but usually simmering 12-36 hours to extract thoroughly.

eatzalot in San Francisco Bay Area

Whole preserved black truffles

Robert, do you mean literally "raw?"

In my experience cooking with truffles (the classic species, not today's cheap lookalikes), only the White (T. magnatum pico) is much used raw (like, grated over risottos and pastas in Italy) and the books always say it doesn't take well to cooking, though I haven't actually tested that.

On the other hand the true black truffle is very often cooked into things (scrambled with eggs, stuffed into beef filets or other meaty objects, cooked in ashes, etc.). I've used them in various such ways, and GOOD fresh ones, in cooking, always contributed much more flavor and aroma than any canned ones.

Then again -- I haven't checked reports for this year specifically, but typically now is a bit late in the year for fresh Blacks from the traditional European sources. They're apt to be smaller and less flavorful if you can even get them. (One Bay Area chef, also quoted in a Chow story on truffles a few years back, was buying fresh ones in quantity through each season, and warning customers about expectations beyond February or so.)

eatzalot in San Francisco Bay Area

Real Italian Food Vs. American Italian Food

This thread is seriously re-hashing earlier content. calumin, I agree about pasta with cream long known in Italy; that combination has also been in US-published Italian cookbooks (with Italian authors) for many decades. But please read the several posts preceding yours about "Alfredo." For much of its history in the US, fettucini or "noodles" Alfredo was known, and recorded in mainstream cookbooks like Fannie Farmer and the JOC (quoted already above by paulj) in its classic form, a dish of noodles, Parmesan, and butter, just as it had been made around Rome for eons (as "fettucine _al burro_") before Alfredo made it into a particular showy tableside dish. Cream is a later US addition, for reasons repeatedly explained in print and online (references upthread).

All I'm quibbling about here is the assertion that "we in America" consistently associate pasta "Alfredo" with cream; many of us don't, some are even old enough to remember when most people in America didn't; and various of us who don't have already explained all that, above, in this thread.

eatzalot in General Chowhounding Topics

Real Italian Food Vs. American Italian Food

But if a distinctive, authentic US tradition (say, Carolina BBQ), advertised as such, were offered in Italy, and locals complained because it didn't match some variant of BBQ they were accustomed to, that would represent the same kind of prejudice, but by Italians.

There's a venerable history of such clashes in the US. Of course a famous pop-culture example you've probably seen (Italian vs Italian-American food) appeared in the 1996 US food movie _The Big Night_ where the immigrants try to offer risotto in 1950s New Jersey, and locals want spaghetti and meatballs with it. Similarly in my corner of the New World, a respected San Francisco Chinese restaurateur around 1970 was quoted in the newspaper for his dapper reply when a tourist visiting his restaurant ordered a popular Chinese-American dish (I think chop suey), but was told apologetically that the restaurant served only Chinese food.

eatzalot in General Chowhounding Topics

Real Italian Food Vs. American Italian Food

In fact, according to data I saw recently, far more pizza is consumed in the US than in Italy. Besides evolving its own styles, the US also popularized pizza and I remember at least one account (possibly again in Mariani) of it being well received in parts of Italy but considered "American" food.

To complicate matters even more delightfully, a very plausible detail I got from a European expert that not even Mariani may have mentioned is that the pizza wasn't even from Naples initially, but was imported (and in turn popularized) there from Greece, during the long ancient period when the important coastal province (later kingdom) of Naples was Greek colony.

No doubt, discussions raged in the public fora of post-Hellenic Naples about "Real Greek Food Vs. Italian Greek Food."

eatzalot in General Chowhounding Topics

Real Italian Food Vs. American Italian Food

The pizza is a Neapolitan invention, largely unknown elsewhere in Italy until after WW2, when it evolved offshoot versions both in the US and in other regions of Italy. Below, summary from another CH thread, quoting Mariani (the popular US historian of Italian-American food, whose writing answers most of the US questions posed in this long thread). For those of you unfamiliar with traditional Neapolitan pizzas, the differences are less about number of toppings than topping selection (pepperoni, for example, is a US, not Italian, sausage), size, serving, and eating (generally individual-sized pizzas are served whole on a plate with knife and fork, as you'll see in Italian cookbooks). That's also how many customers (who are from Italy) consume them in a VERY good and popular Neapolitan pizzeria here in California that I frequent -- topic of CH thread linked below. It's part of, and the cook is licensed by, the VPN (vera pizzeria Napoletana) trade group, which promotes the classic Neapolitan pizzas internationally. Despite the quality and integrity of his pizzas (the cook himself is also from Europe), many US customers complain, including online, because the pizzas violate their US prejudices -- complain basically about the VPN pizzas being exactly what they're supposed to be if authentically Neapolitan.

--
Like many “Italian-American” dishes, our pizzas are mostly a US idea. Food historian J F Mariani traces their evolution, starting as “poor people’s food from the slums of Naples” and unknown in most of Italy. Neapolitan immigrants brought them to the US where pizzas grew larger, changed from knife-and-fork to finger food, narrowed stylistically from free-form ingredients to a sauce-cheese-toppings ritual, and exploded in popularity in the 1950s.

-- http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/755006#6162998

eatzalot in General Chowhounding Topics

Current dense restaurant clusters in Palo Alto and Mountain View downtowns

Thanks Ruth. I do know most of those restaurants, frequent many of them. Unfortnately, your request for a "top ten" raises an obstacle I cited to a similar question in my CH Profile. As a mathematician might say, such a ranking uses a scalar quantity (one number) to measure a vector experience (many dimensions). I could f'rinstance sort by how many times I've returned -- but that'd strongy favor places with low prices and good value (like the Japanese noodle houses* and the good happy-hour food deals at some of the restaurant bars).

More helpful maybe: I've posted more on CH about MV restaurants than any other topic (it was what I first posted about, almost 5 years ago) and if you hit my name link and peruse the threads list you'll find many discussions of favorites.

------------
*Private msg I sent this week to some fellow local restaurantophiles about Maru Ichi, the best known of the (now 3) Japanese noodle-soup restaurants in the dense MV restaurant cluster:

Maru Ichi recently added a Tsukemen ("dipping noodles"). [Arch-rival Ryowa has long offered this delightful specialty.]. As usual, Maru Ichi's is very different, not hot and spicy at all (based instead on dark browned garlic in the dipping broth) and different noodles, round rather than flat as Ryowa's were, and not at all undecooked. I enjoyed it a lot. Spoke to owner / noodlemaker there [that's him in a past photo below, making noodles] who clearly is from Japan and was pleased (he may have recognized me from the last few hundred visits -- the servers know me much better, they're always trying sportingly to guess what I want to order, usually wrong). He gave a deep bow. Asked if I'd tried tsukemen in Japan, to compare. No, but I commented on differences from Ryowa. Which did I prefer? Both, I answered -- they are so different. Another deep bow. Later after leaving good tip (this was at a quiet time), servers waved goodbye and the noodlemaker, now busy in the noodle booth, gave a VERY deep and sincere bow. Little things like that add unexpected savor to the already flavorful noodle bowls (often counterpointed by Maru Ichi's distinctively bracing green tea -- if ever a drink deserved the word bracing, it's that tea.)

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Maru Ichi Restaurant
368 Castro St, Mountain View, CA 94041

eatzalot in San Francisco Bay Area

Steakout, unusual grass-fed hamburgers, downtown Mountain View

Opening the patio as a "beer garden" was a good move, IMO. You can get eight or so European beers on tap in various sizes, and several (8?) kinds of casual sausages at about $6, grilled, with choice of garnishes (caramelized onions, sweet peppers, s'kraut, etc.). After trying many combos I recommend the "Harissa" sweet-hot pepper garnish. Everyone I know who's tried it likes it too. (Once, Steakout proved very handy for picking up a big selection of grilled sausages on rolls for a party nearby, and the kitchen kindly packaged all four garnishes in bulk in tubs. That led to some taste-testing at the party.)

Story behind "running out of grass-fed beef:" I too ran into that, twice in a row, when going for exactly that, about the time of bbulkow's report here, and it was annoying, though they did offer good-quality mainstream "Angus" beef with apologies in its place (note: with all the recent dilution of the breed, it will soon be the _minority_ of US beef that doesn't exploit the label and former cachet of "Black Angus").

I asked the managing partner, Mike, what's up with running out of the signature ingredient, grass-fed beef. He said that it had proen so popular that the Morris ranch (the original regional contractor) now provides all its beef to Steakout and that various supplemental firms used to fill the further demand had proven to be unreliable. He said they'd just found one that looked like a permanent solutuion (thiswas about a month ago). I'm curious if anyone is till running into the problem of no gradss-fed beef.

(milcron's rather Yelp-ish complaint above, posted soon after Steakout opened, does read like a disappointing comedy of errors -- partly due to startup issues that I saw too, largely resolved some time ago -- but after a good 20 visits and many other reports from locals, I can assure everyone it doesn't represent the typical experience at Steakout today. Then again, you can go into any restaurant and have a disappointing one-shot experience, most especially if you approach it with a certain attitude, which would account for some online reports I read that are wonderfully and demonstrably unrepresentative of most people's experiences, therefore not very helpful to readers ...)

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Steakout
383 Castro St., Mountain View, CA 94041

eatzalot in San Francisco Bay Area

Current dense restaurant clusters in Palo Alto and Mountain View downtowns

Here's a complete list of downtown MV's restaurants, current as of mid-October. All are within a few blocks of Castro Street. (The concentration is denser than in downtown Berkeley -- my hometown, by the way -- most of these are within two to four blocks of each other.)

Note that this list is alphabetized traditionally (i.e., The Kitchen Table appears under K, and La Fiesta under F).

This omits restaurants in transition (e.g., Workshop [Burger Bar & Grill], of University Ave. in Palo Alto, has had a new location pending for months at 126 Castro, but hadn't opened yet when I last walked by) or limbo (Spice Islands has been closed "temoporarily" for 2 years and Food Street, with a famous sewer problem, even longer). Others, closed, have space available (New China Delight, 360 Castro; King of Krung Siam, 194 Castro; Villa 8 Buffet, 895 Villa). And I'm still hoping for a similar list from bbulkow for downtown Palo Alto!

Amarin, 174 Castro, 650 988 9323 (Thai)
Amber Cafe, 600 W El Camino Real, 650 968 1751 (Indian)
Amici's, 790 Castro, 650 961 6666 (High-end Bay-Area pizza chain)
Bangkok Spoon, 702 Villa,650 968 2038 (Thai)
Barracuda, 124 Castro, 650 254 1935 (Japanese)
Bean Scene Cafe, 500 Castro, 650 903 4871 (Coffee, light meals)
[Le] Boulanger, 650 Castro, 650 961 1787 (Bakery, catering, sandwiches)
Bushido,156 Castro, 650 386 6821 (Japanese small plates)
Café Baklava, 341 Castro, 650 969 3835 (Turkish grill, upscale)
Café Yulong, 743 W. Dana, 650 960 1677 (Chinese, owners from Shandong)
[El] Calderon, 699 Calderon @ Church, 650 940 9533 (Salvadorean)
Cantankerous Fish, 420 Castro, 650 966 8124 (Seafood, upscale, with big bar)
Casa Lupe, 459 Castro, 650 965 2944 (Mexican)
Cascal, 400 Castro, 650 940 9500 (International "tapas" and bar)
[Los] Caxcanes, see Monte Carlo
Chef Liu, 236 Castro, 650 938 2968 (Chinese; Cantonese specialties)
Chef Xiu, 855 W El Camino Real, 650 988 8820 (Chinese)
Chez TJ, 938 Villa, 650 964 7466 (High-end; Michelin star)
Clarke's, 615 W El Camino Real, 650 967 0851 (Hamburgers, sausages, breakfast weekends)
Dana Street Roasting Co., 744 W Dana, 650 390 9638 (Coffee importer&roaster; sandwiches)
[Ristorante] Don Giovanni, 235 Castro, 650 961 9749 (Italian)
Ephesus Mediterranean Cuisine, 185 Castro, 650 625 8155 (Greek/Turkish family recipes)
[La] Fiesta, 240 Villa, 650 968 1364 (Mexican, upscale, unusual specialties)
Fiesta Del Mar Too, 735 Villa, 650 967 3525 (Mexican seafood, upscale, 200? tequilas)
Frankie Johnnie & Luigi, 939 W El Camino Real, 650 967 5384 (Italian, pizzas)
Fu Lam Mum, 155 Castro, 650 967 1689 (Chinese; dim sum)
Gelato Classico, 241 Castro, 650 969 2900 (Ice creams etc.)
Gelayo Gusto, 856 W El Camino Real, 650 938 1333 (Pizza, burgers, ice creams)
Ginseng Korean BBQ, 475 Castro, 650 967 3913 (Korean; cook-on-table dinners)
Gyros House, 212 Castro, 650 940 9316 (Mediterranean, semi-takeout)
Hangen Szechuan, 134 Castro, 650 964 8881 (New owners, now labeled "Szechuan")
Happi House, 286 W El Camino Real, 650 969 7041 (Chain teriyaki)
Hong Kong Bakery, 210 Castro, 650 969 3153 (Sweet and savory pastries, cakes)
Hong Kong Bistro, 147 Castro, 650 968 8938 (Pan-Asian)
Hunan Chili, 102 Castro, 650 969 8968 (Chinese -- Sichuanese chef)
Jack in the Box, 200 W El Camino Real @ Calderon, 650 964 4266
Kapp's Pizza Bar & Grill, 191 Castro, 650 961 1491 (To remodel/update, post-Thanksgiving)
KFC, 696 W El Camino Real, 650 968 8554
Kirin, 485 Castro, 650 965 1059 (Cantonese)
[The] Kitchen Table, 142 Castro, 650 390 9388 (Upscale American/Deli cuisine; Kosher/Halal)
[Noodle House] Maru Ichi, aka Maruichi, 368 Castro, 650 564 9931 (Ramen, other noodles)
Mediterranean Grill House, 650 Castro, 650 625 9990 (Superb plates&wraps, unique seasonings)
Molly MaGee's, 241 Castro, 650 961 0108 (Pub)
Monte Carlo (restaurant is Los Caxcanes), 228 Castro, 650 988 1500 (Mexican)
Mtn. View Bakery & Cafe, 301 Castro, 650 961 9715 (Coffee, light meals; inside bookstore)
Morocco's, 873 Castro, 650 968 1502 (New: Moroccan; live music in evenings)
[Kappo] Nami Nami, 240 Castro, 650 964 6990 (Elegant Kappo-style Japanese cuisine)
Neto Caffe & Bakery, 135 Castro St, 650 625 9888 (Breakfast, grill, kebabs, pizzas; open late)
New Mongolian BBQ, 304 Castro, 650 968 0381 (Mongolian-style grill)
Nichole's, 300 Castro, 650 969 2487 (Fmrly Diyar, Bella Vita, Ristorante Toscana, Cafe Déjà Vu)
Papa John's Pizza, 571 W. El Camino Real, 650 969 7272 (Pizza chain)
Passage to India Bakery, 1100 W El Camino Real, 650 964 5532 (Indian bakery, sweets shop)
Pasta?, 160 Castro, 650 938 4147 (Italian, local chain)
Peet's Coffee, 1032 Castro, 650 605 0003
Pho Garden, 246 Castro, 650 968 4183 (Pho)
Pho Hoa, 220 Castro, 650 969 5805 (Pho)
Pho To Chau, 853 Villa, 650 961 8069 (Pho)
Posh Bagel, 444 Castro, 650 968 5308 (Bagels, sandwiches, salads, coffee)
Queen House, 273 Castro, 650 960 0580 (Chinese; dumpling specialists)
Red Rock Coffee, 201 Castro, 650 967 4473 (Coffees, snacks, open mike Mondays)
Rose Market, 1060 Castro, 650 960 1900 (Persian grocery, take-out grill)
[Ramen House] Ryowa, 859 Villa, 650 965 8829 (Ramen, other noodles)
Sakoon, 357 Castro, 650 965 2000 (Indian, unusual creative upscale)
Savvy Cellar Wine Bar & Shop, 750 W Evelyn, 650 969 3958 (Wine, small plates)
Scratch, 401 Castro, 650 237 3131 (Regional American, upscale)
Shabuway, 180 Castro, 650 961 8880 (Japanese, upscale, cook-at-table)
Shalala, 698 W Dana St, 650 965 8001 (Ramen)
Shezan, 216 Castro, 650 969 1112 (Pakistani-Indian; fmrly Sue's, Godavari)
Shiva's, 800 California @ Castro, 650 960 3802 (Indian)
Sono Sushi, 357 Castro, 650 961 9086
Spica, 650 Castro, 650 254 1110 (Coffees, sandwiches, jewelry)
St. Stephen's Green, 223 Castro, 650 964 9151 (Pub, weekend brunch)
Starbucks, 750 Castro, 650 564 9255 (Coffee chain; snacks)
Steakout, 383 Castro (Grass-fed hamburgers, grilled suasages, beer garden)
Subway, 451 W El Camino Real, 650 967 5733 (Sandwich chain)
Subway, 701 W Evelyn, 650 969 3858 (Sandwich chain)
Sufi Coffee Shop, 815 W El Camino Real, 650 962 9923 (Coffee, light meals)
Sushi Tei, 1036 Castro, 650 961 7272 (Sushi)
Sushi Tomi (aka Sushitomi), 635 W Dana, 650 968 3227 (Sushi, upscale)
Sweet Corner, 650 Castro, 650 961 1805 (Ice cream, frogurt, sundaes, coffee)
Taco Bell, 950 W El Camino Real, 650 964 3758
Tapioca Express, 740 Villa, 650 965 3093 (Bubble tea chain, light meals)
Taqueria La Bamba, 152 Castro, 650 965 4753 (Salvadorean, Mexican; breakfasts)
Taqueria Los Charros, 854 W Dana, 650 969 1464 (Mexican; US and Mexican breakfasts)
Tea Era, 271 Castro, 650 969 2899 (Tea, other drinks)
Temptations, 288 Castro, 650 625 1234 (Indian / Fusion)
Tied House, 954 Villa, 650 965 2739 (Brewpup)
Totoro, 841 Villa, 650 691 0796 (Korean)
Tsunami Sushi, 209 Castro, 650 965 0114
Vaso Azzurro, 108 Castro, 650 940 1717 (Italian)
Verde Tea Cafe, 852 Villa, 650 210 9986 (Drinks, snacks, Taiwanese thick toast)
Xanh, 110 Castro, 650 964 1888 (Hip Vietnamese, fusion, lounge)
Yakko, 975 W Dana, 650 960 0626 (Sushi)
Yoogl Yogurt Cafe, 260 Castro (Ice cream, frozen Yogurt)
Zpizza, 146 Castro, 650 314 0088 (Pizzas; organic, California chain)
Zucca Ristorante, 186 Castro, 650 864 9940 (Mediterranean bar-grill)

eatzalot in San Francisco Bay Area

Scratch in downtown Mountain View

You're not disagreeing with bbulkow so much as reporting a separate experience, which is always valuable. A single experience, if I read right; and if you remain interested enough to return several times, you could then assess if that one experience was representative. Though if someone's turned off by one experience, it's understandable if they don't return. (That will also mean they've chosen not to know the restaurant much.)

FWIW, my perspective after eating at Scratch a good 20 times is that service was generally fine, if not super-polished like the French Laundry. In the random occasions of service errors, we looked beyond that to appreciate what merits Scratch did, and does, consistently offer. It did take time to explore the initial menu (at least three visits) and find favorite dishes (I mentioned some here), and how much they can be expected to vary in execution over several orders (basically not much).

My perspective after a few thousand other Bay Area restaurant meals is that, barring VERY unusual circumstances (around one per thousand of my experiences), it takes time to know a restaurant and what to expect from it. (Those exceptions FYI generally entailed grossly inappropriate behavior by an owner or manager -- someone who sets a tone. One breathtakingly stupid arrogant weasely GM became known for things like spoiling a surprise birthday party booked at his high-end restaurant, and offending big customers of an associated wine sales dept. When he eventually left, former co-workers celebrated. His LinkedIn bio boasts a series of relatively brief restaurant positions. I'll do no business with any restaurant employing him and I'm not alone.)

-----
The French Laundry
6640 Washington Street, Yountville, CA 94599

eatzalot in San Francisco Bay Area

Steakout, unusual grass-fed hamburgers, downtown Mountain View

The food trucks will be back 5-9 PM tonight at Steakout, and again in two weeks (Aug. 18). I believe both are street-closure nights so downtown MV will have live music (other end of the same block, at Dana) and lots of pedestrians. Here's the line-up I saw for tonight:

An the Go - Garlic Noodles
Curry Up Now - Indian
Louisiana Territory - Cajun
Treatbot - Karaoke Ice Cream

If you happen to come to the area specifically for these events, note that Castro St is inaccessible, but large downtown public parking areas run for several blocks, parallel to Castro, through the middle of each block on either side of Castro. Get to them via open streets parallel to Castro. There should be plenty of parking there, because the lots are used mainly in daytime.

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Louisiana Territory
Mountain View, Mountain View, CA

eatzalot in San Francisco Bay Area

Our grass fed beef tastes like fish, why?

That wasn't why we raised a fuss about slaughtering rabbits when I was 8 or 9 years old! I'd forgotten all about it until much later, as an adult, being reminded by my father. (A certain difference of assumptions concerning the rabbits' exact role in our household surfaced when the time came -- we had many "other" pets that I haven't mentioned here. My parents relented. Much later and retired to the country, my father resumed raising rabbits and they no longer had any such protectors.)

eatzalot in General Chowhounding Topics

Our grass fed beef tastes like fish, why?

"they taste soooo much more delicious than store bought" [ansluasi]. Amen to that! There seems to be a general principle that animals that lived well taste better. With poultry it's dramatic.

My parents cultivated small livestock (chickens, rabbits; the goat was for milk) even in relatively metropolitan Berkeley, where it was highly unorthodox (maybe illegal) at the time, a minor consideration to people serious about food. All animals are inefficient sources of food unless their feed is "free" via scavenging -- it takes several times as much usable plant protein to yield a given amount of animal protein ("protein factories in reverse," as Frances Moore Lappé very famously expressed it 40 years ago). Rabbits I'm told are the least inefficient common livestock, followed by poultry. We kids did put up a fight about slaughtering the rabbits. (Our goat was very gentle and friendly too.)

eatzalot in General Chowhounding Topics

Steakout, unusual grass-fed hamburgers, downtown Mountain View

I can't keep up here with Steakout's menu evolution. Vegi-Burger appeared recently, haven't tasted it yet.

Related current discussion of flavor of some grass-fed beef and why, on General board. (I haven't tasted anything notably fishy at Steakout.) Link to my general comment there about the different fat chemistry in grass-fed beef:

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/798608#6717586

eatzalot in San Francisco Bay Area

Our grass fed beef tastes like fish, why?

I was surprised that the Omega-3 point (which is real) didn't come up at once, though it _doesn't_ by itself explain fishy taste, I've had good local grass-fed beef that might be called a little more gamy but not fishy. Omega-3 fat structures after all occur also in plant foods that no one calls fishy. Our bodies evolved to rely on Omega-3s in natural ancestral diets, and can substitute Omega-6 fat structures (found more in modern commercial foods) if they can't get Omega-3, with some physical side effects. This isn't some pet crusade of mine, but I was enlightened by a remarkable recent medical survey paper summarizing the wide variety of medical literature on this, and its upshots. (If I can find an online source I'll post it.) The range of roles where our bodies use Omega-3s preferentially is jaw-droppingly wide. One physician commented to me that a certain fraction of his patients (a third or something like that) with unfavorable blood lipids (HDL vs LDL cholesterol levels etc.) improve them dramatically simply by taking a gram or two of supplemental omega-3 "essential fatty acids" (EPA and DHA) in daily supplements.

Any basic authoritative book on dietary fat chemistry, such as Enig's _Know Your Fats_ (2000, ISBN 0967812607) will brief you on the fat structures that the body uses. The subject, like most of nutrition, is clouded somewhat by ideologies, fads, commercial hustles, and medically unsound earnest-looking Web sites and profitmaking "Health Letters" which all my medical-faculty friends at Stanford and UCSF are always warning me away from, so I suggest to stick to noncommercial scientific sources for at least basic info. Enig, a respected lipids biochemist, had something of a crusade against earlier simplistic fashionable unexamined condemnations of saturated fats (at least some quantities of some of which, I gather, you'd die without).

Which leads to my main point. It seems to surprise some people that cattle, like other herd animals, graze, and that they grazed for food for almost their entire history. That's why they have those complex multi-stage stomachs. Grass-fed cattle were the kind our ancestors mainly ate, what we are evolved to eat if we consume beef. (Many more of us had ancestors who ate lamb, but that's another topic.) Only in the last few decades have many cattle been raised in feed lots, fed sugar and corn and shortcut chemical agents like growth hormones and shotgun antibiotics (cheaper than veterinary care) because it produces the product and price that the consumer market prefers. I drive along Interstate 5 in central California and witness literally tens of thousands of poor beasts, each allocated some theoretical space by law, but in practice huddled pitiably in their hundreds and thousands often shoulder-to-shoulder amid their own byproducts. The sight and smell (for ten miles around) could convert some folks to vegetarianism. So grass-fed beef isn't new -- it's the "CAFOs" (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) that are the actual novelty, with the less well understood side effects.

(ETA:) The whole historical reason why the Americas developed much more meat-heavy diets than the places where their old-world immigrants came from -- why Italian-American and Chinese-American cooking use far more meat than their home-country cuisines, why Argentine gauchos on cattle ranches traditionally consume eight pounds or so of meat daily -- is grasslands. The Americas had endless plains where herd animals could graze and this led to red meat being far chaper relative to lands heavily trodden and farmed for millenia, where in some cases, e.g. Greece, much of the original arable land was gone, once the soils had been depleted enough that the complex ecosystem necessary for crops died.

eatzalot in General Chowhounding Topics

Steakout, unusual grass-fed hamburgers, downtown Mountain View

I have to describe the "Chi-Chi" burger after all, because I found (today) I liked it best of all burger types tried so far (which is all the ones offered now and previously except the "Undressed" which is just a free-form option, garnished to order from components of the others).

The new (since this past weekend) Steakout burgers are _thick,_ around 16 mm or half again as thick as the earlier models. About like I make at home. The Karma, today (as described above), was interesting, more mild than bold, the pickles restrained, the caramelized onions subtle by nature (as you already know if you've cooked with them at home more than a few dozen times). The Chi-Chi is a more cosmopolitan cousin of the now-gone basic chili-cheese burger. It had a little bit of very good tomato, sharp cheddar, a little mustard and pickle, and a layer of chili, more of a condiment now (i.e. still spilling out slightly, but not stealing the show as in the earlier chili-cheese). Delicious, a fine sense of balance. That one I finished without help even though it was our last "course." These two burgers were ordered medium-rare and came medium-rare to medium, and unlike past orders seemed to have less, or no, salt worked into the meat (I'd tasted just a hint of it in past orders). The half I tried of the grilled-cheese sandwich was competent and as advertised. Standard current product uses two slices each of sharp cheddar and mozzarella. Preferring a certain ingredients balance when I make grilled sandwiches at home, I requested half the usual cheese (just one slice of each) which came out what I consider perfect, so I can believe that the standard version fits its menu characterization: "Gooey Grilled Cheese and Tomato Sandwich, $4.50."

Oh, and I forgot in previous posting: "Steak 'Frites" is coming, I'm told. (They already make the steaks at breakfast, the fries for lunch and dinner, so it's just a matter of combining.) A small quickly-cooked tender steak -- sometimes a "hanger" steak, or a rib-eye -- served with excellent fries, is one of the most popular specialties in casual French bistros. (If you'd enjoy such a combination, and have been in France, and haven't had this specialty, it tells me you haven't eaten out much when you were there!)

eatzalot in San Francisco Bay Area

Shalala (ramen place), Mtn View review w/ pics

Link to the existing Shalala thread:

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/751418

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Shalala
698 W Dana St, Mountain View, CA 94041

eatzalot in San Francisco Bay Area

Steakout, unusual grass-fed hamburgers, downtown Mountain View

Considerable menu changes. Besides adding breakfasts Friday, Steakout revised its burger offerings. The two cheaper burger options are gone. Owners told me, when I asked about this, that contrary to what I wrote earlier the cheaper burgers used a different source of grass-fed beef which had some problem, so they went over to entirely the Morris farm in SJB, their existing premium source.

The premium burger menu expanded in more ways than one. Patties themselves are now six ounces (about $2.25 worth of raw beef by my independent information of current premium grass-fed beef prices wholesale to the restaurant trade, about $6 / pound) and there are now five premium versions, all priced $9.25.

New options join the original "Experience" and "Euphoria" burgers previously mentioned: "Karma" has caramelized onions and pickle slices; "Undressed" is customized with conventional garnishes; and "Chi-Chi" I'll leave to your discovery (or someone else's typing) -- it's a little complicated.

A grilled (two-)cheese and tomato sandwich ($4.50) is a new entry-level and vegetarian sandwich option that one fellow downtown-MV regular already tried and praised; I haven't yet tried it. (Comment I've gotten privately from diverse locals trying Steakout, including a venerable vegetarian resident who tried breakfast there, is uniformly positive, and the food-truck array during last Thursday's pedestrian evening provoked a lot of interest. I'm told at Steakout that the next such is planned for August 4 but check with Steakout for latest schedule.)

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Steakout, unusual grass-fed hamburgers, downtown Mountain View

Steakout began serving breakfast at 7AM today ("steak and eggs" advertised; several other menu items including vegetarian).

Also, last night for the summer "Thursday Night Live" Castro street closure, Steakout invited four separate diverse food trucks, arranged via Movable Feast, which formed an open square in the small parking lot and drew considerable crowds (Garlic Noodles, Cajun, Cuban, and Ice Cream -- with karaoke -- were there). Web site mvbl.org currently says this will be a WEEKLY event in downtown MV, 5-9 PM Thursdays.

I was able to post advance word of both developments here and there, except Chowhound where several attempts to do so were stymied by technical problems associated with ad downloads as mentioned earlier.

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Steakout, unusual grass-fed hamburgers, downtown Mountain View

Two corrections and a Thursday food event:

False alarm about missing burger types, they're readily available, no (current) need to worry about beef schedules. The guy at the counter today said he's been there every day (of the ten) that Steakout's been open, and the restaurant has never stopped offering the premium beef. One unusual, probably one-shot, thing happened Sunday which is that they ran out of _buns_ and substituted a smaller size and called them "sliders" -- a separate menu, still offered today; but I got a regular simple classic burger (again quite good, the beef stood out and the vegetables were conspicuously fresh) and have not tried those "sliders." I'd guess that was behind Psmith's unfortunate but unusual experience. (On the other hand when I was a few blocks from there on Sunday, local friends were stopping by and telling about the cool new "sliders" at Steakout ... The place is indeed generating some buzz in downtown MV, I can testify.)

Also correcting what I wrote earlier, all the beef is dry-aged, the premium version is only slightly more so but it comes from the better cuts of the whole-cow beef that Steakout buys.

Possible scoop: Thursday (7/21) MV's downtown is doing one of its Thursday Night Live dates. (Does about four every summer since they started a couple years ago.) Castro St. closes to traffic around 5 PM, a live music stage goes up around the Dana intersection, people hang out in the street (some bring chairs) for the music, vendors sell produce and other things, like a mini farmer's market. It's run by the local businesses (CBA) rather than an outside contractor as with weekend street fairs. The major downtown parking lots (which run through the centers of the blocks, paralleling Castro St.) empty out just then from downtown workers leaving, so should be very easy to park.

That's just the background, here's the news: Steakout not only will be selling its burgers to the strolling pedestrians, but acc. to the partner who was telling customers about this today, the small private parking area (off California) at Steakout will host multiple food trucks too, by Steakout's invitation.

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Steakout
383 Castro St., Mountain View, CA 94041

eatzalot in San Francisco Bay Area

Steakout, unusual grass-fed hamburgers, downtown Mountain View

I wrote in the first posting here that there may not _always_ be four burger offerings, but maybe I didn't stress "supply permitting" enough. They told me when Steakout opened that they get their beef on cycles of (?) two weeks, age some of it separatly and use the rest in production. Once the aged stuff is sold out, they said, they must wait until the next batch is aged.

I hope they are making this clear to customers, with reports of the four burgers already spreading, otherwise it could cause unnecessary confusion and disappointment.

So much about Steakout remains early and awkward (what a notice indoors apologized for, and called alpha-test phase) that people trying Steakout now should stay clearly aware of all that, and allow for it. To experience more like what Steakout promises in the longer run, I'd wait several weeks. The rituals and teamwork (and equipment, furniture -- what's indoors now is Bodrum's leftover wooden tables, sans cloth -- utensils, signage, decoration, etc.) should be together, and the menu may also have begun to expand beyond its simple start.

Meanwhile, once someone learns the beef-supply schedule and posts it (or mentions when the aged beef returns), we'll know the timing, therefore which days they're most likely to have the fancier burgers. I'm in the neighborhood constantly so will watch for it, but anyway getting that information will present no difficulty to the intrepid informants of Chowhound.

eatzalot in San Francisco Bay Area

Steakout, unusual grass-fed hamburgers, downtown Mountain View

Apropos Tied House, good point and I had similar impressions. Got a very decent basic fresh juicy hamburger there a few months ago.

The reason MV's Tied House hasn't yet penetrated my own consciousness as a FOOD venue is its horrible history. Since the 1990s, in both casual efforts to get food to go with our beers, and organized events and large business dinners, I was persistently disappointed with TH's food, though decent beers were served. And so was everyone else I've talked to personally on the subject, INCLUDING TIED-HOUSE EMPLOYEES! Only recently have I seen things like decent hamburgers there, so it is taking a while to assimilate the sheer amazing novelty of TH as a good place to eat.

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Tied House Cafe & Brewery
954 Villa St, Mountain View, CA 94041

eatzalot in San Francisco Bay Area

Steakout, unusual grass-fed hamburgers, downtown Mountain View

Good point! Caveat: The 1-page July-11 menu (in my MV menus file) has slightly different wording from what I saw earlier, and also, they said the sandwich names, especially the aged versions, are kind of placeholders, pending better names -- suggestions were solicited. Also seems from the menu like it's "Steak Out," but some wording elsewhere has it one word as I used above.

And correcting from above, all four burgers include both sauce and cheese -- no wonder we found them filling.

Classic Cheeseburger ($6): Steak Out sauce, American cheese, lettuce, tomato [cheese omitted on request, I was asked each time].

Classic Chili Cheeseburger ($7): "Beefy, spicy and dripping [I'll testify to that!] all-beef chili topped cheeseburger, yellow mustard, diced onions, pickles, tomato."

The other two use the aged version of the same beef (from the Joe Morris farm in San Juan Bautista):

"Experience" ($9.50): "Sharp cheddar cheese, Steak out sauce, lettuce and tomato."

"Euphoria" ($10): "Crispy fried onions [they're very finely cut and browned, like so-called French fried onions], horseradish mayonnaise, Sharp cheddar cheese."

Menu also declares "We are a 100% grass-fed beef house," "150% satisfaction guaranteed (we'll do whatever it takes)," which I have taken them up on, and I hope others do too as necessary. Menu also offers fries ($2), "vanilla bean shake" ($4.50), soft drinks ($1.50), three red and two white varietal wines by the glass ($3), several bottled beers including non-alcoholic ($3). Local draft beers pending.

We did no systematic preference ranking. I prefer the Chili Cheeseburger and the "Euphoria" (with the crispy onoins and horseradish), they're the most different from each other though all four sandwiches are clearly related (sharing the same custom bun and related forms of beef). And again following recent hamburger overexposure I may take a breather before trying more. At least until noon.

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Kapp's Pizza Bar & Grill El Amigo
191 Castro St, Mountain View, CA 94041

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Steakout, unusual grass-fed hamburgers, downtown Mountain View

Further to my comments below, please don't overlook (as many people seem relentlessly to do) the other major Castro St. hamburger option I mentioned above (July 11) and in past CH postings: Kapp's Pizza Bar and Grill (191 Castro) with its US Prime burgers in two sizes and shapes (one-third pound in standard bun, one-half on a French roll called "Francisco burger"), grilled to order, generous fresh-produce and multiple optional cheese garnishes, and usually superb steak fries. I've had these burgers maybe 10 times in 10 years and they were not totally consistent; once or twice they seemed dull, as if cranked out of an indifferent fast-food place, but more often I found them very good and similar to what I'd make at home using good ground beef.

(NOT as good as my father and I would make around 1970, coarsely ground using fresh beef and a clamp-mounted cast-iron hand grinder, even requiring no garnish to be memorable beyond maybe a touch of salt; but that is a different kind of hamburger.)

eatzalot in San Francisco Bay Area

Steakout, unusual grass-fed hamburgers, downtown Mountain View

Improvising in effect a buffet, with each of the four current burger types in halves and quarters, we tried all four kinds together. Observations:

-- Dry-aged versions (14 days by the way, not 21 as I wrote earlier) were more flavorful, and popular. (I tasted the horseradish on the one, as before.)

-- This time (but not on my previous walk-in), manager on duty mentioned that the burgers are done medium-rare, and they'd gladly cook them differently on request. (I said stick to the standard version, and med.-rare is about how they came.)

-- Meat patties varied somewhat in size (hand-shaped?) although basically about quarter-pound size. One was quite generous [maybe we we got some of what was missing in bbulkow's]. With the sometimes rich garnishes (3 of 4, I believe, include both cheese and sauces) some of us were filled up with one, some needed about 1.5 burgers.

-- Again I noticed a sense of balance and taste in the recipes; these were four different, interesting sandwiches.

-- Fries (ultimately three orders shared) were consistently less crisp than on two previous visits. My companions allowed, still, that they were above average. Again moderately and evenly salted, this time they lacked that crisp, light, poised style that French neighborhood bistros and some Bay Area restaurants have no trouble producing in quantity. I'd guess new kitchen workers are coming in, with pressure to fill orders quickly. Yet before Steakout officially opened, I saw the kitchen turn out a large group of orders (12?) that were all one could ask from French fries, so this kitchen has demonstrated it can do so in production.

-- The business is still coming together physically, vendors coming and going. During our late lunch, minor construction occurred in the dining room (so we sat outside). We later got a last-call request, as the kitchen was shutting down for two hours replace a stove or something. Employees were very good about it, gave us apologies and a price break. (A few unlucky walk-in customers were turned away during the unusual shutdown.)

I've now eaten as many hamburgers in a week as in a typical year (even innocently got another, just before I first stumbled on Steakout). I'd guess these are much healthier than most. Our ancestors ate grazing beef after all -- not cows fed sugar, corn, growth hormones, and shotgun antibiotics and confined de-facto immobile in grotesque lots visible and smellable along Interstate 5 in central California. Grass-fed beef is said to contain more omega-3 fats (which our bodies also were evolved to prefer) than salmon, But Steakout will offer a wicked temptation for more.

(PS bb, just saw your last posting. Maybe you misunderstood my thrust: I mentioned _professional critics_ waiting for new restaurants to settle down, seeking, at least in principle, a representative experience. We who report anecdotes from a brand new restaurant know, if we've done it much, that they may predict neither another's experience nor our own, next time And that a new restaurant can't be compared directly to one of similar genre with years of experience.)

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Steakout
383 Castro St., Mountain View, CA 94041

eatzalot in San Francisco Bay Area

Steakout, unusual grass-fed hamburgers, downtown Mountain View

I've tried three hamburgers there so far and was very pleased. Later today (with plenty of company) I plan a comparative taste-test of all four types. (bb, if you can point out another independent hamburger place in the neighborhood with grass-fed beef and creative garnishes, at these prices, I'll check it out! Of course it probably also will be well established, so can't be compared directly to a just-opened novel independent restaurant. Some time ago, local veteran chef friends commented that the restaurant journalists who cover MV, mostly in local small papers, normally wait four to eight weeks so as to report reasonably soon but not right after opening.)

I especially like the craftsmanship and attention to flavor I notice from Steakout's owners. Maybe I was lucky to get their burgers exactly as they want to make them, at uncrowded times.

A few people have complained of start-up glitches, which may continue for a bit; hamburgers over- or undercooked, or not cooked as requested. Though it also must be said the restaurant actually cautions people (on a placard near the cashier, on my last visit) that the restaurant just opened, and actively solicits feedback and the opportunity to fix anything unsatisfactory. I also was told a couple of times that this is an initial menu and should later expand.

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Steakout
383 Castro St., Mountain View, CA 94041

eatzalot in San Francisco Bay Area

Steakout, unusual grass-fed hamburgers, downtown Mountain View

Wow, mhuang, you clearly have the local restaurant history down, I can enthusiastically confirm all that. (We should compare notes one of these days.)

Around S. Bay where many very skilled Turkish-born cooks and restaurateurs work, it's customary to label their places "Mediterranean" or the like, for obvious marketing reasons (to many North Americans, Turkey is only a bird). Mehmet Degerli's Bodrum Cafe was the first on its street to clearly call itself Turkish (though the respected Cafe Baklava nearby did so more quietly). Stett Holbrook at the Metro made a point of that, 'till informed of several other restaurants with Turkish cooks or owners within short walk. Degerli grew up in the hospitality industry, worked many aspects of it, and is well respected locally (he was founding partner also of Zucca down the street, first of the more modern, post-2000 bar-grills locally). I enjoyed Bodrum's cooking a few times, I found it about the most subtle of this class of restaurants in the neighborhood. I hope Degerli tries something else locally (at perhaps a different address). I've also greatly enjoyed recently, as have many other locals I know, Ephesus, the Greek - Turkish place at 185 Castro since early this year (replacing Thaiphoon's unsuccessful expansion at one of the most venerable downtown MV restaurant addresses, as mhuang surely knows too). Ephesus is unusual in being operated by a recent immigrant family from the region that plies unique family recipes with passion.

And before I forget (and while I've got a stable CH session!) Morocco's new expansion from SJ to 873 Castro since last week (replacing the remarkable Savory), including an impressive live-music calendar, is hotter than a Habanero right now, the local residents i've heard from are raving about it.

(Local comment on restaurant turnover at 383 Castro divides exactly into two groups, who either do, or don't, know the basic factor. The second group speculates -- "curses" etc. --- but the actual peculiarity at 383 is far from supernatural, it's mundane, financial, obvious if you read commercial real-estate ads, and related to the similar turnover at #401, which Scratch now occupies. I wish the current restaurants the best luck, and they've both made excellent starts.)

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Zucca Ristorante
186 Castro St, Mountain View, CA 94041

Cafe Baklava
341 Castro St, Mountain View, CA 94041

morocco's restaurant
86 N. Market Street, San Jose, CA 95113

Thaiphoon Restaurant
543 Emerson St, Palo Alto, CA 94301

Ephesus Restaurant
185 Castro St, Mountain View, CA 94041

eatzalot in San Francisco Bay Area

Steakout, unusual grass-fed hamburgers, downtown Mountain View

They're fairly standard US "quarter-pound" size, the buns around 4 inches (10 cm) diameter.

Not sure what you mean by a crowded market segment (unless maybe hamburgers, of course). I know MV's restaurants pretty well, and only one of the 100 nearby restaurants(Clarke's charcoal grill) specializes in hamburgers; another (Kapp's Pizza Bar and Grill), less widely known for it, grinds US Prime burgers in two different sizes and they can be quite good; a couple of other restaurants offer them as one of many menu items. But grass-fed beef isn't common for hamburgers locally, to my knowledge (and no other local restaurant has these buns -- you'll see what I mean -- nor the several unusual garnishes). But please correct me: People have publicly sought good fresh hamburgers in downtown MV for many years, on sites like this one.

(Speaking of which, it took me several tries to get a stable log-in to post this reply. The ever-increasing overhead of advertisement downloads here -- which now seems to take minutes even on high-speed connections, and the ads sometimes collide with each other or crash the browser -- is approaching the point of making the site unusable. If you see any general falling-off of postings, this factor might be part of it.)

eatzalot in San Francisco Bay Area

Steakout, unusual grass-fed hamburgers, downtown Mountain View

In an unusually fast turnaround, the former Bodrum Cafe, at 383 Castro St. (corner California St.) in Mountain View since 2008, recently closed, and soon re-opened on Saturday as a different restaurant (retaining one of Bodrum's partners and adding new ones).

When I poked my head in and quizzed them (shortly before Steakout opened), the partners kindly explained a modest but passionate vision. Grass-fed hamburgers from "whole-cow" beef (i.e. not ground from scraps), from a dedicated farm supplier, served with interesting garnishes at moderate prices (regular around $6, 21-day dry-aged beef, supply permitting, around $10). Within that definition they have been aggressively, even visibly fine-tuning their recipes like perfectionists, toward the "best, most memorable" burger possible at their price.

I saw taste tests underway when we talked. One partner is a baker and has developed a custom bun, recognizeably a hamburger bun but more substantial and satisfying than the commercial article. I heard about the importance (to the resulting "crunch") of grilling rather than toasting the buns. The dough uses a local wild-yeast rather than commercial starter (so even the yeasts are local!). Kitchen was operating well before the new business opened (many Bodrum staff remain), with incessant cooking experiments. Pedestrians at this busy corner (across California St. from Scratch) were offered pilot-batch samples, or asked for taste feedback, in the several days before the opening. Likewise with the French fries, French-bistro style ($2), which so far have been, in my experience, outstanding,

The hell of this is, it's all very real, and it works! I've now had some _excellent_ flavorful hamburgers there. Folks I know who live nearby are starting to email testimonials. Though the menu concept entails some obviously trendy elements, I've seen no hint of preciousness or over-hipness at this down-to-earth new restaurant. The partners seem to be focused, knowledgeable,, and sticking to their knitting. Because the business is barely open, interior layout and menu are still pretty simple, but Steakout seems to've been rather busy ever since it opened Saturday.

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Scratch
401 Castro Street, Mountain View, CA 94041

Steakout
383 Castro St., Mountain View, CA 94041

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