One of the beauties of our thanks-but-no-tipping policy is the opportunity it affords us to associate with worthy causes, and the awesome people who espouse them. Call it buying friendship, if you want. We’re not above it, if the friends are people like these.

Under the auspices of the International Rescue Committee, immigrants and refugees come together to cultivate a little homegrown familiarity in a strange land. This month, all monetary tokens of appreciation left by satisfied Linkery guests will be donated to the New Roots Community Garden, which can be found and admired at 54th and Chollas Parkway.

We at the Linkery made overtures to New Roots a couple of times this past year, interested in getting our hands on some of their exotic produce. Just before the holidays, a group of the New Roots gardeners visited the Linkery to see where their produce could end up, if they wanted to partner with us. A reporter from the L.A. Times happened to be doing a piece on the garden that day–the article came out this morning. On the front page. Oh, yes.

Next week, a group of us from the Linkery will be taking a field trip to the New Roots garden to see what’s good. Stay tuned.

Everybody starts at the beginning. Let’s start at the end.We were driving down a residential street on a Tuesday afternoon when we came upon this local producer unassumingly at work.

She had a card table stocked with lemonade and a package of chocolate chip cookies. In interest of encouraging small-scale enterprise, Juan bought four cups of lemonade from her. While we drank the first two, she asked us if we lived in the neighborhood. We said no, we had just come from visiting the farm at the end of the street.

“Oh,” she said, “you mean the big mansion?

”Well,” we said, “yes.

“They have a pool,” she said. “We used to go swimming there.”

Juan asked her if she’d ever been to visit the garden at the big mansion. She said no.

Now, let’s Tarantino it back to earlier in the afternoon when we left the Link, bound for the inner recesses of National City. The tree-laced avenues there are anchored by stalwart Victorian-era residences, with the overlay of bland three-bed-and-a-baths characteristic of San Diego’s older suburbs. But where East 26th Street hairpins back on itself, a graciously proportioned house stands at the top of a slope, dark in the shade of king palms, conifers and orange trees. The hillside is dense with plantings, a jungle coaxed into gentle order by Martha Prusinkas, who has been the property’s caretaker for the last seventeen years.

The erstwhile home of John and Christy Walton, known as the ICF Center or as the “big mansion”

The house is the former home of descendants of the Walton family (of Wal-Mart fame, not television). When the Waltons’ son contracted leukemia, Martha turned the property into an organic garden to assist in his fight for survival. When the Waltons left the area in 2006, they donated the property to the International Community Foundation Center in interest of preserving Martha’s work.

Broccoli greens tower over red bok choy, French intensive-style)

Seedlings, doing their thing

Martha practices the French intensive planting method, which means banking the beds high and seeding them thickly with two or three complementary crops. She builds three-foot hummocks of compost from straw, organic waste, and unmentionables culled from a local dairy farm. Her chickens–or, as she calls them, her “girls”–get busy among the spreading bushes of nasturtiums. She eschews the use of plastic on her soil, and employs biodynamic planting practices, which essentially means respecting the natural growing seasons and not forcing, say, cucumbers in winter.

The ICFC works as a fundraiser for community initiatives, primarily in southern California and Mexico. Amy Carsensten, one of the foundation’s directors, explained their goals for the garden, as it is now and as it will be. The garden supplies produce for the UCSD Cancer Center’s Healing Foods program, and it also serves as a hands-on site for local schoolkids to come and play in the dirt while learning about the life sciences. Martha pointed out that she was leaving one overgrown bed to be pulled up by a group of fourth-graders who will kick off the field trip season this week.

Amy Carsensten, left, with Martha Prusinkas

On the other side of the big mansion, bulldozers are breaking ground to prepare for a children’s garden and learning center. The inspiration for this project came from the Edible Schoolyard founded by Linkery muse Alice Waters, and it’s slated for completion in 2012. They are also lobbying for the use of the National City golf course to expand their growing potential and meet the district’s goal of devoting more municipal space to community food sources.

Plans for Olivewood Garden, a children’s learning center for science, nutrition and good times

In a couple of years, kids like our lemonade vendeuse will not only know the garden is there, but will get to work on it themselves, and then eat what they are learning. For we must confess that her lemonade tasted a little heavy on the MSG. Publicly, we applaud her enterprising spirit, but privately, we feel that “homemade” ought to mean something more to a kid than “I dissolved this package of yellow powder by hand.” In a few years, she could be squeezing juice from lemons, one by one, that she pushed into the ground as seeds, one by one. That’s the idea, and it’s a good one.

Martha sent us home with a bag of dried Turkish figs (which we ate on the way), some broccoli, some lemons, and a Tahitian squash of epic proportions, which you probably consumed last weekend in the Link’s creme brulee. Look for more of the ICFC Garden’s produce on the menu in the coming months, and get involved with their classroom-building effort. Fact: stuff tastes better that was planted by smart kids.

Martha’s girls, kicking it on the compost pile 

Black lacinato kale, with the chicken coop in the background

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The house seen from E26th Street, with the orange grove

Alexander’s Restaurant (across 30th Street from us) is, we believe, open and serving tonite. Congratulations to Alexander and everyone involved in that project. Welcome to the neighborhood!

UPDATE: In early 2008 we reached our goal of serving only grass-fed pastured beef, and as a result completely stopped serving Brandt beef, which is grain fed. We continue to admire and respect the Brandt family and their passion for doing things a lot better than the commodity beef industry. For us, though, it was time to move to the next level.

Monday morning we got up early (early for us, anyway) and drove out to Brawley, California, home of Brandt Beef. With us were Jonathan Sachs and Sandra Ouellette from Hamilton Meats, and Greg Koch of Stone Brewing and Stone World Bistro and Gardens. (Side note: Stone Bistro is doing an incredible job of finding and presenting high-quality, ethical ingredients for their menu, and they’re doing so at a very impressive scale. Check ‘em out.) Mark Brandt from Brandt Farms led our tour, along with their (I think) feedlot manager Scott. And we met Mr. Brandt, as well, who was very informative.A few months ago, Michael and I visited the Brandt processing facility in Pico Rivera (near L.A.), which of course you can read about on the blog. With this visit to the Brandt feedlot, we would now have seen and learned about this cattle farm from the time the beeves arrive at Brandt when they are about 3 months old, to the time they arrive at the table at the Linkery. We accomplished that; the visit was highly educational and thought provoking. And fun.

This story ends, however, with the damndest sandwich I’ve ever eaten. Changed my whole thinking about sandwiches, actually. But first, Brandt Farms.

We’ve been using Brandt beef since they opened. We were intially attracted to their beef because it tastes super, it’s natural, raised with no hormones at all, and with no antibiotics in the last year of feeding (the animals will be given antibiotics if they’re sick when young, and then they’re monitored to see if they become fully healthy). Of course, we also liked that Brandt is local, and as we’ve gotten to know the Brandt family and the folks who work at their company, we’ve become big fans of all of them. As we’ve come to really understand how Brandt works, too, we’ve been able to find the best cuts for us to serve at the Linkery, which have really good flavor and fit into our menu well.

In the Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan explored at length the two principle poles of American agriculture, the factory/industrial food complex (operations like Tyson, Smithfield and Cargill) and the pastoral independent farm (represented in the book by Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farms, and also including places we work with such as Cane Creek Farm and Old Creek Ranch). The principal “Third Way” option he discussed was what’s come to be called “Big Organic”, large-scale factory farming meeting specific environmental goals. In the book, Big Organic comes off as better than the big industrial players, but without much focus on the larger goals of sustainable and ethical agriculture.

Brandt Farms is another kind of “Third Way” operation, one I would describe as “thoughtful and independent industrial”. They work within the basic structure of industrial beef farming, but they do so with a strong commitment to accountability, sustainability and land stewardship.

A little background: the predominant model of industrial beef production in America, as I understand it, is to buy “proven” breeds of beef cattle at a young age, stick as many of them as possible in small pens, fatten them as quickly as possible with hormones and corn, keep sickness at bay with antibiotics, with the goal of harvesting them as young as possible to save on feed and to clear space for the next generation. The beeve is harvested principally for the mass-market cuts such as New York Strip, Ribeye, and Filet Mignon, with the rest of the animal being sold for little money for ground beef or animal feed. Since the vast majority of steak in the US is considered a commodity — the only distinction is the USDA grade of Select, Choice or Prime — the relative profitablility of the average beef producer is dependent solely on how quickly (and inexpensively) he can turn his inputs of corn and cattle into outputs of mass-market steaks.

Just from describing this kind of operation, it’s obvious the amount of waste is staggering. Both bovine waste and the waste of the unused meat, plus the harm to the environment of concentrated excrement and hormones, and the introduction of antibiotics and excess hormones into the food chain. Additionally, since mass-market meat is a commodity the farmers have no interest in improving the subtle flavor characteristics of their meat beyond marbling (which is the basis for USDA grading). In particular, if the regular doses of antibiotics and hormones changes the flavor and texture of the meat (as it is said to), there’s no penatly to the individual producer, which means increasingly bad food, too.

Brandt farms takes a different tack. One thing that strikes me is that they put their name on their product, and they can trace each cow all the way to its birthday and what dairy it came from. This is true even when a restaurant receives a package of steaks — the steak has a bar code which contains a link to all the information about that particular animal. This culture of accountability can only be a good thing, and in my experience the flavor of their beef reflects that.

The basic structure of Brandt’s farm also speaks to their thoughtfulness in terms of conservation and sustainability. Brandt farms male Holstein cattle born to dairy farmers. These animals, being useless to a dairy farm, would generally be destroyed, since Holstein were known as being terrible beef cattle. Brandt got these animals for free, and put together a diet for them that would result in their becoming good eating. This diet included rolled corn, alfalfa and sudan grass (the latter two which grow quite a bit in the Imperial Valley, while the corn comes from Iowa and Nebraska). Interesting, Mark said that they will occasionally pasture some of their cattle, but only mixed breed — Holsteins on pasture make for really tough, undesirable meat.

By starting with unwanted animals, feeding them a diet composed partly of local crops, taking care to maximize the natural health and minimize the stress level of their animals, and composting their waste, Brandt grows better-tasting beef in a more sustainable manner than corporate factory operations. Of course, this costs them quite a bit more (though not to the same degree that grass-fed beef is priced out of so many markets). Brandt does charge quite a bit more for their beef than commodity beef, though they also are able to pay their increased costs by using every part of the animal — another step toward sustainability. When we toured Brandt’s processing plant, we came to understand that, because of the care they put into raising their cattle, Brandt is able to sell many cuts of meat — such as the coulotte steak — into quality-conscious markets, that factory beef producers couldn’t sell at all.

To me, the biggest contribution Brandt makes to our food goals — and the goals of thoughtful agriculture and eating — is that they start with the premise that their food is *not* a commodity, and they carry that idea through everything they do. They hold themselves accountable for their product, they put their name on it, and their operations are totally transparent (I think we’ve seen every physical aspect of it now, from 3-month old animals to the harvest floor to the steaks waiting for delivery trucks). Our community may not yet be ready to plunk down 35 bucks for a small grass-fed steak at our weekly casual joint; it’s still hard to reconcile the price of industrial food with the cost of industrial farming. A great start, I think, is to highlight food which is thoughtfully raised by independent people, and consider both its flavor and the effects of its production. Brandt definitely offers all of us a superb chance to do that.

Some photos, before we get to the sandwich:

The animals live 160 to a pen. Particularly when they’re young (here they’re about 3 months old), they aren’t really that packed in, as you can see here.

The ear tags, along with RFID, are part of the system Brandt uses to track each animal from birth. Presumably this guy has a mark on his permanent file that he’s a sloppy eater.

Brandt grows a lot of their own alfalfa and sudan grass. To help control pests while reducing pesticide use, they built “owl condos” to attract owls to the field. Mark said it’s very effective. I tried to get a photo of an owl but they were all too quick for me.

We learned that the Imperial Valley is home to the country’s largest purely-gravity-driven system of irrigation canals.

Brandt rolls its own corn in this mill.

Here it is…the infamous “Number Two Corn”, made world famous by Mr. Pollan.

This is a pile of corn rolled into flakes to be made a part of the cattle feed.

Rolled No. 2 Corn tasted like breakfast cereal, even including a little sweetness. Michael’s a big breakfast eater, he was down with it. I was hoping for a large cartoon tiger to tell me it was great, but that didn’t happen.

Hay. It’s not just for horses any more.

The Brandts keep track of their cattle pens with this whiteboard system. I have no doubt it’s much more reliable than computers.

The animals’ waste is composted at the Brandt facility. About 3% of Brandt’s feed cost is recovered through sale of compost! The compost fields smelled nutty and were surprisingly pleasant. The feedlot itself varied in aroma depending on winds and our position, but was never overwhelming. Michael pointed out that, while it did often smell of cow dung, it didn’t have that acidic burn you get when driving by some places.

Here the animals are getting ready for “selection” into the Brandt beef program (the best looking animals are identified as Brandt beef, the rest go into the commodity market). By the time the beeves are fully grown adults, as they are here, things are a little tighter in the pen, though to my eye not terribly so. After a year of being around people, the animals were very friendly and would come crowding up to us as we approached. The Brandts are very careful to keep the animals’ stress level down, since that affects the quality of the meat. Since the Brandt name is on the meat, they are very concerned with maintaining its quality.

***

For lunch, Mark called in orders for all of us down to the Stockman’s Club of Brawley. He recommended that we get New York Steak Sandwiches, which are made from USDA choice Brandt Beef, medium rare. We arrived, and the Stockman’s Club was wonderful, with a wall with the brands of all 100 or so families that farm cattle in the area. Sadly, the club didn’t carry Stone (or any Southern California) beer, but Greg didn’t seem bothered when Michael and I ordered Fat Tires.

We nibbled on salad and fixins, enjoying great conversation, when our sandwiches arrived. The plates comprised a couple delicious onion rings, a little stack of lettuce, tomato and onion slices, and a beautiful, large New York Strip Steak, perfectly crisp on the outside. That’s it.

There was a moment of confusion but none of us could wait to start digging in, which we did. After a few minutes of silent eating, finally Michael asked, “I thought we were all getting sandwiches — was that just joking around?” Mark explained that this was the sandwich. It used to come with a piece of bread, but some years ago everyone figured the bread wasn’t really necessary. I pondered for a while the idea that this amazing piece of meat, itself, was a sandwich, purely because it had at one time been conceived that way. Sandwich, it turns out, is just a state of mind.

Oh, and it was the best steak I’ve ever had.

PS I want to specifically thank Mark, Scott, and all the rest of our hosts at Brandt at Hamilton. I also need to say a big word of thanks to Greg Koch of Stone, who was prisoner in my car all the way to and from Brawley, and nicely consented to let Michael and I interrogate him about how Stone came to be, and how the brewery and bistro operations work, compared to the scale we’re used to. It was fun and educational, and we really appreciate it. I urge everyone to drink a Stone beer in sympathy to his having to put up with us!

UPDATE: You can see Greg’s vBlog about this here.

Having enjoyed our pre-opening lunch at the Bondi, I went back for dinner on Friday and was again very impressed. The food carries a lot of interesting and appealing flavors without being overly fussy, every dish was executed very well, the service was great and the vibe was fun and enjoyable. They also have tasty Aussie craft beers on tap — my favorite was “Little Creatures” Bright Ale — and a good-sized Australian wine list with most choices in the 20 and 30 dollar range.

I definitely have added the Bondi to my list of “go-to” restaurants in the Gaslamp. The other one on the list is the Oceanaire, though I’ve heard good things about a few other places (JSix and Stingaree, among others) that I haven’t gotten to yet.

Also, we also dined this weekend at the Guild restaurant in “East Downtown” aka Barrio Logan. They aren’t officially opened yet, so I’m sure it wasn’t everything it will be, but even pre-opening it was really enjoyable. We particularly liked the stacked yellowfin ahi and the stuffed pasilla pepper. The wine list is great — very extensive — and features one of my favorite wines, Chateau Musar Rouge. A bottle of which we happily consumed.

Oh, and since we’re doing a lot of Australian dishes this week we’re planning to steal pay homage to one or two things we particularly liked from the Bondi. And from Oceanaire, now that I think of it.

We’re open today (5 to 11), and Chelsea behind the bar doesn’t even follow football. I’m all about the LA Galaxy, now. Waiting for the Donovan-Beckham intrasquad clash of titans.

In other news, we sold about a case of Temptation yesterday (nod to Blair and friends who made a game effort to run us out of it), so our revised projections are 2 more Temptation Sundays left. Thanks to everyone who came in, it was good fun in spite of the day’s civic events.

Hi Friends,

It’s San Diego Restaurant Week, where the town’s posh restaurants offer a set three-course meal for thirty bucks, or sometimes forty,depending on the place. There’s a lot of great stuff out there to check out. On our end, we’re always priced so that a three-course meal is usually around thirty bucks — and always less than forty — so we didn’t join up for the promotion. But it worked out so we that we happen to have some pretty unique dishes this week, so we’re considering ourselves an honorary Restaurant Week destination.

Most happily, I can say that recently we’ve really been able to make strides in finding and bringing you more food which is local, sustainable, farm-specific, and/or just “from somewhere.” And really delicious. I think this week may be my favorite menu we’ve ever offered…check it out.

* I don’t know what you did for your Christmas vacation, but I know what our intrepid kitchen member Glenn (also known as Charlie for his striking resemblance to the protagonist of “So I Married an Axe Murderer”) did. He went to the Monterey Bay area and bargained for and foraged for ingredients that speak of the terroir of his home. The dish he came up with for this week is already one of the most Linkery-proud dishes we’ve ever served — even though we technically haven’t served it yet — because of the honesty, passion, and thoroughness he’s put into it. For this dish, we’re cold-smoking Brandt center-cut top sirloin mediallions (OK, Brandt sirloin is from Brawley, but still, beef is very Central Coast, and Brandt beef is superb) over Coastal Live Oak from Monterey County, then grilling it and putting it under a Monterey County pinot noir and blackberry reduction with wild pink peppercorns from San Juan Bautista. We’ll serve it with watercress and local Fuyu persimmons. A big deal here is the Coastal Live Oak, which is a treasured wood for smoking and apparently rather difficult to procure (you don’t wanna know the details). Glenn says it’s sometimes referred to as “black gold.” ‘Nuff said.

* As you may know, every week we offer a main dish featuring either fish or bird, for those of us who are in the mood to eat a little lighter. When the local fish aren’t biting, we pretty much have to go out of the area…until now. We’re happy to offer our first San Diego County feature dish: Emu. This is a free-range bird from A & W Emu Ranch in Lakeside, which has a hearty taste and runs about 97% lean. Emu is a native of Australia, and it’s super-lean like kangaroo, but its taste is not nearly as beefy as kangaroo is. Emu is much milder and really melds with the flavor of what it’s cooked with. We’re serving it in a stir fry with organic bok choi, organic snow peas and onions with a salsa of local avocados and Fairchild tangerines from Riverside, and rice, with local mini corn tortillas. I had emu for dinner on Tuesday and I can recommend it with enthusiasm.

* A couple weeks ago, I tasted my first real free-range ranch eggs, which changed my whole perception of what an egg tastes like. We knew, after sampling these eggs, that our “complete burger” was not yet complete, until we were serving it with the best-tasting egg possible. Which is now. This week, the egg on our burger is a free-range ranch egg from Wingshadows Hacienda in Warner Springs. Lynne, who along with her husband Bruce, owns and farms Wingshadows, sent me some pictures of the actual egg-laying hens which will be soon posted to the blog (if they aren’t already). I can’t say how exactly how we got these eggs, but I admit I made the buy in the parking lot outside of the Vista PetsMart at 11am yesterday morning…everything else is just rumor and innuendo. These eggs represent another step in our quest to build a burger which is not only ideal in taste — made from the finest ingredients we can procure — but is also farm-specific, sustainable, and generally ethicalicious.

* If you, like me, are a burger afficiando, let me take a second here and recommend a couple other great burgers in town. Just Fabulous in Kensington has a Snake River Ranch Kobe Beef burger which is phenomenal, I highly recommend it. I actually get it for breakfast there — I’m not a breakfast eater, so I steer decisions to a place I know I can get one of the best burgers in town even though it’s morning. Thank you Just Fabulous! Also, I’m sure everyone in San Diego knows about Hodad’s in OB, but if you don’t, go to Hodad’s. They have really, really great tasting burgers. I also suspect (and have heard) that both Jayne’s Gastropub and Lefty’s Pizza — both on 30th Street north of us — have super burgers, but in both cases the rest of their menu is so delicious I’ve never gotten to the burger. Let me know.

* When Michael made this batch of corned beef, he knew how popular it would be, so he made enough for us to serve Reubens for two weeks. Except it was even more popular than he thought, so it turned out he didn’t. Leave it to Mars to come up with a solution: Corned beef puff pastries. This is a starter dish of three little puff pastries, each with fresh cabbage slaw, house made corned beef (of brisket from Brandt in Brawley) and a little dressing. It’s what you might call Reubenesque — but, you know, smaller and fresher, and not likely to get mentioned in a personals ad. No joke, Mars served us a test pastry Wednesday night and it was a serious highlight. This dish is really, really good.

* Michael also cured and smoked some grouper. I don’t know if there’s any reason for this other than because we had some grouper and it tastes great smoked. But then again that might be reason enough. We’re serving it with rye bread crostinis and a creamy herb sauce.

* One more week of pork tenderloin (from Vande Rose farms in Oskaloosa, Iowa) before we change to another pork cut for a while. This week we’re not only citrus-brining the tenderloin, we’re also stuffing it with chili-herb spinach and Serena cheese (from Three Sisters in Lindsay, California). We’re going all out for tenderloin’s last week, ’cause that’s how we roll.

* Sausages this week will start with Polynesian Pork, Loukanika,Kasekrainer (yes! it’s been too long), Minnesota Potato Sausage, Fresh Polish, and Chicken Apple…and who knows what after that. Remember we make and sell snag pretty randomly, so call to confirm if you have your heart set on something. By the way, we were featured in an article about the new wave of fancy sausages, online at a site called Food Product Design. I admit I didn’t know of the site until I Googled our own restaurant one night, but hey, that’s probably ’cause I don’t get out much. We’re still grateful! The article is at http://www.foodproductdesign.com/articles/711culinary.html.

* Winewise, the new shipments of old favorites we didn’t get last week — Melipal Rose, Altocedro Malbec, Ratti Nebbiolo, and Mapema Malbec — are promised to arrive today. They *promised*!!! Plus, we’re offering Preston of Dry Creek Zinfandel by the glass. This is something we do once every two years, so if you’re looking for a chance to try out a Preston wine without the commitment of a whole bottle, now is a good time. The Preston wines, which are completely organic and come from an integrated, sustainable farm, are simply beautiful in character, and Dry Creek Valley is considered the best place in the world for Zinfandel wines. This is a simply super wine that is worth checking out — most people who try it will become big fans. Preston makes only a few thousand cases a year of wine, so every bottle (and glass) is precious.

* Beerwise, on cask we have Green Flash Imperial IPA (yummy with great apricot overtones), to be followed by Stone Pale Ale with added hops to be named later when I remember what they are (or look on the cask, where they’re written down). On draft: Stone Smoked Porter, and Lunatic Lager, a great light lager from Moonlight Brewing in Sonoma.

* After I completed the “free-ranch ranch chicken egg” buy from Windshadows, I stopped by Port Brewing to see what they had, uh, brewing. What I left with was a case each of their two very rare, allocated, pricey, barrel aged wines, I mean, beers. We seem to be collecting these now. First, we got their Angel’s Share, a barleywine aged in oak brandy barrels, with rich caramel malts along with vanilla, black cherry and molasses flavors. This comes in a 750ml (wine) bottle, and while the Padre says he drank one by himself, I think it would be best split between four people during mains and dessert courses (with something more medium-bodied, wine or beer, during the pre-dinner and starter courses). We also got Port’s “Older Viscosity”, which is their Old Viscosity Stout aged for a long time (I think it says how long on the bottle but the type is too small for me to really deal with) in oak bourbon barrels. This stuff is amazing. It actually seems to be best around 65-70 degrees Farenheit, the body is so full and rich with aroma and flavor. It comes in 375ml bottles and is *almost* as expensive as Temptation (see below), and like Temptation, is worth it. I am in fact drinking one right now as I write this (late Wednesday nite), and seriously could not be happier. Perhaps I could be more coherent, though.

* I’m just gonna repeat this verbatim one from last week…Temptation Sundays! You craft beer lovers out there probably already know about Temptation from Russian River Brewing. I believe it is, per ounce, the most expensive beer in America (if not the world). It comes out once a year in very small amounts and is *hugely* coveted. It is so precious that restaurants, bars, and retailers will get nasty and fight with each other to get just a little bit more of it. It is so precious that Michael and I plowed through a case in three days in Northern California, but that’s another story. That happened because the stuff is really, really good — it’s aged in Chardonnay barrels and acquires the oak and brettanomyces flavor to mellow the sourness of the Belgian-style beer. Anyway, every year this stuff comes out, and we all offer it for sale, and then it’s gone, and then we have to wait a year to get it again. So this year, we’ve decided to ration it out, like that last pack of Thin Mint girl scout cookies inthe freezer (no more than two a day!). Our program: Temptation Sundays. We will be offering Temptation on Sundays only, as long as we have it [update: at current rate, between one and two months. But things change!]. Sunday, with its relaxed time requirements and mellower vibe at the restaurant, is the perfect day to really savor this beautiful beer. Plus, I work on Sundays, and can bum the occasional sip from my friends who come in to drink it.

* Speaking of Sunday, the Chargers’ playoff victory this Sunday should wrap up around 5pm, so come on in for dinner and a celebration Temptation. If the game goes into overtime, we’ll still open at five but I personally will be a little distracted.

* Call to Save the Planet! Since we print our menu once a week, sometimes two or three times a week, we run through a lot of paper. We buy recycled paper, but really the best thing would be to reuse paper which has already been printed on one side and would otherwise be thrown out. (We can’t print new menus on the backside of old menus, ’cause it’s too confusing when you’re dining.) So if anyone works for a company or organization which has a lot of paper that it’s just sending to recycling, please let us know! We’ll pick it up, and print our menus on the other side of it. We use about 500 sheets every 2 weeks, sometimes a little more than that. The only requirements are that the material on the other side of the paper be neither confidential, disturbing, nor particularly controversial.

* Local restaurant note: A great new San Diego restaurant opened up this week, called the Bondi. It’s in the Gaslamp and is a proper Australian “hotel”, which is the Aussie stylee for a local pub. Like a lot of the hotels I’ve been to in Oz, the Bondi serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, and is open late for drinks and nightclubbing. They have high-quality Aussie craft beers including Cooper’s and a couple smaller labels which were new to me, and a well-thought out menu with great flavors that convey the Pacific Rim style that makes Modern Australian cuisine so enjoyable. We went to one of their pre-opening test runs and thoroughly enjoyed it, I can’t wait to go back.

* Even though Renee has left us for rare breed pigs on Cane Creek Farm, she picked our charity for the month, the San Diego Coalition for the Homeless. Since we happily don’t accept tips, any cash money left behind by guests goes to this organization. Last month (6 weeks, actually) we raised almost $500 for American Livestock Breeds Conservancy. I’m sure we’ll do just as well for our local folks.

* Lastly, just a reminder that we offer catering, particularly for outdoor events where we can bring our Mobile Fiesta Unit, a trailer-sized grilling rig with Santa Maria bona fides. Our specialty is simply grilling plates of high-quality ingredients for casual events where people want the best quality food. If you’re planning an  event and are interested in having the Linkery crew put together the dining, just email me at jay@thelinkery.com and we’ll mock up a menu for you to consider.

Back here at the ranch, we open today (Thursday) at 5pm with all the stuff described above, and we are open until 11pm every day until Tuesday, when we close for a couple days to put a new menu together. I hope you make it in to try this week’s menu!

Best,
Jay

We just had a great lunch at the pre-opening of the Bondi, a new restaurant in the Gaslamp.  It’s a proper Aussie “hotel”, serving breakfast, lunch and dinner, also with several bars and dining rooms and an outdoor patio.  In addition to really good food, they have Aussie craft beers (which they serve in excellent shape — they showed us the attention to detail they put into their draft system) and very friendly service. 

They open for reals on Wednesday, I’m told.  We were really impressed with the quality of everything, particularly considering it was just test runs.  I strongly recommend checking it out once they’re open.

We just purchased a bunch of tickets to see What Made Milwaukee Famous (along with French Kicks) at the Casbah on August 22nd. Michael bought a copy of their CD “Trying to Never Catch Up” and we’ve been listening to it at the restaurant so much that I think we’ve worn out all the 1’s on it, there’s just 0’s left now.

It’s a phenomenal CD. They are my new favorite band. In fact, I declare them everybody’s new favorite band. Everybody’s new favorite song, for that matter, is “Hellodrama”.

Prior to the Casbah, they’re playing here at Street Scene (on Friday night).

Last Wednesday about 8 of us took a tour of Stone Brewing’s new facility in Escondido and AleSmith in San Diego. Keith Bender from Stone was exceptionally nice to drive us around and be our host.

Stone’s new brewery is big and, well, new. The tour is great, the gentleman who leads it is very good at communicating how everything works. As I have found with winery tours, my favorite part is tasting the raw ingredients and then tasting the beer. We sampled the malted barley they use, with different roasts that go into different beers, and a couple different kinds of hops.

Stone also is opening a restaurant at this location. It’s still under construction although the kitchen looks almost done. We got a tour and it is clearly going to be a very nice place.

In contrast to Stone’s shiny new building, AleSmith has a small space in an industrial park in Kearny Mesa. I believe only 5 people work there, and we saw their bottling line, which fills 4 — yes, four — bottles every run. In spite of what I’m sure are challenges of being such small scale, AleSmith is making and selling lots of very, very good beer. And they’re very likeable folks, too.

We ended the tour by having a couple rounds (and some good grub) at Liar’s Club.

Thanks to everyone who helped put this together for us!

Something about this looks familiar…

Alex is the real King of Beers.

We served beer & wine at the Old House Fair last weekend, and got to meet the folks behind a couple of the new restaurants which will be going in in the South Park area.  Combined with the restaurants we already knew about, there’s a lot going on.

• A new tavern called Hamilton’s will be going into Sparky’s old space on 30th north of Beech.  Hamilton’s is owned by a couple of local gents and will feature quality local beers in their selection of beer and wine.
• On the northeast corner of Beech & 30th will be Alchemy, a restaurant with full liquor.  My understanding is that the owners of Alchemy own other restaurants in town and won the liquor license in the annual lottery, prompting them to look for a space to open a new place.  I spoke with several of them at the Old House Fair and they were very friendly.
• Across the street, in Santos’ old spot, will be Citron, which I understand will be a fancy cafe with cheese plates, gourmet coffee, light entrees, wines and so forth.
• Across the street from us, in the former San Diego Giant Pizza space, the family that owns Old Venice in Point Loma will be opening a small Italian bistro.
• On 30th north of University, in the building that was Mailo’s, our own Mike Flores will be opening the Ritual Tavern.

That’s all the news I know about upcoming places.

We’ll be at the Old House Fair in South Park on Saturday 17 June, in the center of South Park at Beech and 30th Streets. It will be a great community party, with bands, food, and all sorts of folks. We’ll be hosting a wine tasting and probably giving out our house made pate.

This year, the North Park Spring Festival has morphed into the North Park Festival of the Arts. I reckon it’ll still be a darn good time. It’s from 10pm to 6pm up in the heart of North Park at University between 30th and 32nd.

10th Annual. Cool.

…was last nite. Thank you to Mr. Paul Broadway for making it such a great community tavern for us.

Some folks have asked us about changes across the street from us, at San Diego Giant Pizza. A few weeks ago we had heard that someone had bought it, and there were a lot of new faces around.

A couple days ago the new folks actually closed it down and went about the process of fixing it up. I went over and introduced myself to them and welcomed them to the neighborhood. It turns out that it’s going to be a new restaurant from a gentleman named Alex, who is part of the family who owns Old Venice in Point Loma. He’s super easygoing and seems really excited about contributing to the neighborhood and the corner. And Old Venice is a well-loved success story for decades in San Diego, so only good things should be afoot.

Oh, as for what kind of restaurant it will be, Alex told me the place will be a neighborhood Italian bistro. Cool beans.

Sparky’s last nite in South Park is tomorrow (Monday). I’ll be heading in for a sayanora beverage after we close up.

They had their big going-away fest yesterday. I didn’t make it, wanting to save up my goodbyes for the actual last nite. However, rumor has it that it was off the hook, wall to wall crowded, and a lot of fun. I have no doubt this is true.

For those who don’t know, Paul Broadway, the owner of Sparky’s for the last few years, has been a tireless booster of the Golden Hill/South Park/North Park area, and a person who really brings together the community. People like Paul are the difference between a suburb and neighborhood, and his business presence will be greatly missed.

However, I’m sure Sparky’s will be a huge success at its new digs, on El Cajon Blvd just east of 72nd street.

I’ve been spending a bit of time after work at the Bluefoot Bar, which opened up next to us a couple weeks ago (Northwest corner of 30th & Upas). The owners are doing a great job making it into a friendly neighborhood bar with a relaxed vibe and quality beer and wine. (I believe they’ll be getting a license for hard liquor, too, in a month or two.)

Here’s a shot of the bar from their soft opening a couple weeks ago.

Every time we’d have another great casual meal, hand made with flavorful fresh ingredients — which, in Australia as in many other countries, is really no big deal — I’d wonder to myself why this couldn’t be the way we live regularly in the U.S., as well. What’s the secret to having this kind of food available everywhere? Talking to Aussies about food, I finally come to believe that it’s simply that they demand it. They expect food to have flavor, and nutrients, and to be thoughtfully prepared — and if a restaurant or cafe can’t provide that, they’ll go somewhere else or make the food themselves.

So, to my thinking, the good and the bad news is that we get the cuisine we deserve. And that means that if we want to have great food available to us all the time, all we have to do is insist on it — and dine only at places that are willing to pay attention to their ingredients and to the dishes they serve. In San Diego, we have the chance to do that because now, even at the least-expensive levels, there are places like Apertivo and Lefty’s that use fresh ingredients and make their food by hand.

So hold out for the good stuff. As Grill says, “When dining out, insist on food.”

We worked out an arrangement with the Turf Club for them to sell our links on the weekends. They’re open starting 1pm on Saturday and Sunday, and feature sausages as a special addition to their “grill-your-own-meat” options on those days. Tell ‘em we said hi!

One of our friends is helping promote an event at On Broadway featuring many of Napa Valley’s wines. I’m assured by other of our friends who really know Napa Valley wines that this is a very impressive roster of wineries. Here’s the text from the email:

Our Friends from Napa Valley are in town on February 8th and we want you to know about it!

Nightlife Napa Valley
San Diego
Wednesday, February 8th, 2006
8:00-10:00 pm
10pm – cocktails and club with DJ Mark Thrasher

Meet the rock stars of the wine world for a one-night only engagement at On Broadway, when we shine the limelight on the Napa Valley. Rub elbows with vintners as you swirl, sip, and savor the night away and learn a thing or two (or three) about Napa Valley wines.

On Broadway
615 Broadway
San Diego, CA 92101

Tickets are $25 in advance at www.LearnAboutWine.com
$40 at the door

over 50 wineries participating

Amici Cellars, Ardente , Atalon , Baldacci Family , Barlow, Bennett Lane , Bighorn Cellars, Bourassa , Broman Cellars, Chappellet , Chateau Potelle, Chimney Rock, Clos Du Val Wine, Conn Creek, Corison, Crauford, Cuvaison, Diamond Creek, Diamond Terrace, Dominari, Duckhorn, Ehlers Estate, Emilio’s Terrace, Fantesca Estate, Frank Family, Freemark Abbey, Frias Family, Gargiulo, Grgich Hills Cellar, Hess Collection, Honig, Judd’s Hill, Ladera, Lang and Reed, Levendi, Lynch, Markham, Merryvale, Miner Family, Monticello, Moss Creek, Napa Wine Company, Oakville Ranch, Palmaz, Paoletti Estates, Paradigm, Paraduxx, Peju Province, Renteria, Reynolds Family, Graeser, Robert Keenan, Rocca Family, Round Pond, Rutherford Hill, Saintsbury, Salvestrin, Schramsberg, Schweiger, Signorello, Silverado, Source, St. Supery, Stewart Cellars, Terra Valentine, The Terraces, Thirteen, TOR Kenward, Trefethen, Tres Sabores, Trinchero, Viader, Von Strasser, ZD Wines

After writing about Liar’s Club, it made me hungry for their delicious chow, so we went there on Sunday night. Had an ahi sandwich, cheese fries, an Alesmith Speedway Stout, and a Three Philosophers. Everything was awesome.

I just wanted to take a second to thank Louie, the owner of the Liar’s Club in Mission Beach, for helping us get the word out about the Brewmaster’s Dinner.

If you haven’t been to the Liar’s Club, I heartily recommend checking it out. Not only do they have an incredible selection of handcrafted beers both on tap and in the bottle, they also have great food. Plus, they’re sticklers for quality and keep their taps in excellent condition, so the pours are always perfect.

Mad props to our neighbors at St. Augustine High School, who last nite won the Division III football championship for San Diego Section. Michael and I went to the game at Qualcomm Stadium and thoroughly enjoyed it. We also watched Carlsbad beat my alma mater Torrey Pines for the Division I title. A running back for Carlsbad named Antwon Dawson, who is listed at 5-foot-3, was an extremely impressive player.

The championship quadrupleheader is a fun event, I’d recommend it to anyone who likes high school football.

Joshua Sibelman gives them some love in this week’s CityBEAT.

Free Radio 96.9 is back on the air. I find listening to Pirate Radio to be one of the most enjoyable cultural treats of living in Golden Hill. Welcome back, friends!

I just happened to see that we’ve been nominated for Best Burger in the AOL City Guide 2006 nominees. You can vote here.

OK , so we’re currently in 10th — aka last — place, but heck, we got nominated…not bad for only 9 months of existence, tucked away in North Park no less. Plus, this was the burger before we switched to the new francese rolls — which are awesome — from Bread on Market last week. And in the next couple days, Mars’ first batch of pickled beet root is to be ready…the coup de grace if you will. I’m feeling good about the 2007 awards, we’ll be rolling strong.

My disappointment — we’ll just have to work harder — at not being nominated for Best Vegetarian is tempered by the fact that both our mates at Ono Sushi and our mates at Zensei Sushi were nominated for Best Sushi.

And I respectfully submit to the editors of AOL City Guide, for next year’s Best Pizza nominees, please consider Lefty’s Chicago Pizzeria and Pizzeria Luigi, two great local pizzerias.

Lastly, for Late-Nite Dining, I voted TSC.

Kirk commented as to the previous post:

Jay - I enjoyed your CH post on the CAB. I’ve always gotten a kick about the “something”-Berto’s places, in fact it’s a little project of mine to photograph many of the variations. What i’d like to see, though it’s a little off the subject is a little “History” on how this came about, that is the Birth of all these “Berto-Babies”. I find that very interesting.

I know that Roberto’s asserts that they are the first of the taco shops, opening in 1964. They even have a history page on their web site.

Here’s a Berto’s affinity list from 2001.

Matthew Alice addressed the issue here.

If I recall correctly, El Indio considers themselves the pioneers of San Diego taco shop cuisine, they opened in 1940.

Here’s an interesting discussion on Chowhound about “authentic San Diego” food items. It kind of spins off in a couple directions, and I had fun participating in the discussion.

My contribution to the inital question was the following:

I really like fish tacos. However, as someone who grew up here, I believe their installation as our city’s signature food item is a bit newfangled and slights the contributions of the old-school taco shops to the way we eat in San Diego. I say this believing that most *berto’s-style taco shops don’t really do a great job with fish tacos, having more or less recently — in the last 10 years or so? — started carrying them in deference to their popularity in other restaurants. (For what it’s worth, I think Rubio’s did a great job in importing the fish taco recipe from Baja and popularizing them here, and adding to the local options in Mexican dishes. It just seems fairly recent, and there aren’t all that many establishments, in the scale of things, you can get a really good one.)

Instead, I respectfully submit the following as our signature food item: Carne asada burrito.

IMHO, what the cheesesteak is to Philly, what thin-slice pizza is to New York, what barbecue is to Kansas City — the carne asada burrito is to San Diego. Or maybe even more than that.

In San Diego, the CAB is a brilliant “street food” that you can get in any neighborhood, at all hours, inexpensively, often with very high quality ingredients. And no other city I’ve been to can do it anywhere near as well. (In the Bay Area, for instance, you’ll get *rice and beans* in your burrito. Imagine!) Other cities have good Mexican food, often great street tacos and such, but no city I know of knows the joy of a carne asada burrito as we make it here.

When I introduce out of town guests to the area, it is a certainty that they will end up, usually after midnight, chowing on a hot CAB at one of the following places: La Posta in Hillcrest, El Cuervo in Hillcrest, Gloria in Golden Hill, Los Reyes in Golden Hill, Robertos in North Park, Trujillo’s in College Area, or Roberto’s in Del Mar or Solana Beach. (These, in my opinion, are the premier CAB vendors that come immediately to mind. I know there are many other great ones.)

Plus, not only are our taco shops a great culinary resource, they inspired and regularly hosted one of our unique cultural groups — the Taco Shop Poets.

That’s just my $0.02. I hope your guests have a great time in town!

Best -
Jay

Since we opened, people have been talking about the impending re-opening of the North Park Theater. It’s great for the neighborhood obviously, and the renovation is very attractive, but in particular most everyone in North Park was saying this would draw a lot of people to the neighborhood and be good for local businesses in general — restaurants in particular.

I will admit now that I was skeptical of this, thinking that the demographic who goes to see theater, operetta, etc., in San Diego would be not the demographic that is interested in North Park restaurants.

Well, this was the first “regular”(i.e., not gala opening nite) weekend performance at the theater, and… I was totally wrong. We had lots of people come in both before and after the show, obviously out to make a complete evening around their nite at the theater. It was great to see, and I am now a believer. The theater is going to be a big step in getting San Diego excited about what North Park has to offer.

And, I’m excited to go a see a show there.

Here’s an interesting article on Baja wines, Monte Xanic in particular. I haven’t been to that winery but I do like their wines.

Another article from the same publication: a mini-rant about various restaurant issues — it caught my eye because one of the service goals we have is to never address any party as “guys”. It takes more training and discipline than you might think!

I also read an interesting complaint about sameness between restaurant menus, which I won’t link to here because it’s unfortunately prepended to a less-than-enthusiastic review of a brand new San Diego establishment. (Reason: I think it’s a little to harsh to rip on a totally new place that’s just opened. One thing we really learned going through the process of opening the Linkery is that no matter how much you prepare, and how many experienced people you have, when you have a new restaurant concept, the first time you reach a new level of busy-ness, some part of your system is going to break. The management needs to take care of the guests when this happens, of course, but there’s no way to avoid some inconsistency at a brand new place, with a brand new menu, new kitchen, new dining floor, etc. It’s not like opening a new Friday’s.) That said, the writer’s complaint about the ubiquity of certain ingredients such as truffle oil is something I’ve noticed myself. We actually take this sort of thing to heart, because we want not only to offer good food but food that’s a little different than you’re likely to get at other restaurants.