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