As you can see from Tate’s smile, the entire dinner was a hit; he’s already asking about when we can go back (and for the record, he thinks the potato pizza is a tie with Serious Pie!).

I highly recommend flour+water but want to caution parents that service is very leisurely. We were there for 1 hour and 40 minutes which was a bit long for a school night dinner. Reservations are a must as the poor folks waiting in the rain can attest.

http://www.flourandwater.com/

5:30 to 11pm Sunday through Wednesday
5:30 to midnight Thursday-Saturday

2401 Harrison Street
San Francisco, CA 94113
415.826.7000

This dish easily had WAY MORE tuna than the fried rice version (which I’d spied at the next table). The above image does not do it justice (indoor restaurant lighting and I didn’t have my Speedlite flash handy); The tuna was perfectly seared and Gregg plated it over a sweet-spicy sauce which I think contained soy sauce, brown sugar, jalapenos, and ginger. It was amazing! We all repeated dishes from the previous night’s dinner, too. Dane: shrimp; Tate: taco, me: BLT salad. We skipped the sides in order to have room for dessert.

We decided on the caramelized banana tart with coconut ice cream and rum/pineapple sauce. It was so incredibly over-the-top fabulous, I’m still thinking about it.

And the best (for me) was yet to come. Not only did they comp dessert, they charged the tuna tataki at the same price as the sashimi over fried rice appetizer.

Tate summed it up best that night: “It is so fun to be us right now!”

That night, the chef also visited our table and prepared us a special appetizer… but that’s a story for tomorrow’s post. Stay tuned!

P.S. In case you are interested, you may learn more at the resort’s website: http://www.cliffsresort.com/dining/

I want to offer a little prayer to the Italian travel gods today… please, please, please let us win the trip for two to Italy at the Il Fornaio Passaporto Party tonight!

In case you hadn’t heard, Il Fornaio San Jose hosts an amazing party for their regular patrons twice a year (approximately March and September). This is not advertised to the general public, however. Basically, you’ve got to be “in the know” to attend. Every year, during one of our regular dinners at the restaurant, we’ll ask the maitre’d when the party is and get our names on the list. One of the highlights of the evening (besides the amazing buffet and wine assortment) is the announcement of the winners of the “Passaporto” contest. In order to be eligible for the trip, you must dine at all 6 regions on the Festa Regionale calendar, about one per month, and get your “passaporto” stamped by your server.

Well, this past year we were finally diligent enough to get all six passport areas stamped and now the boys think it means we will automatically win. I hate to tell them there are probably a lot of other contestants since it runs among all Il Fornaio restaurants in the country. But here’s hoping nonetheless!

I think the San Jose location is the only one to throw this fabulous, FREE, party twice a year. We’ve been going for quite some time now and usually our boys are the only ones under 18 in attendance (they love all the extra attention along with multiple trips to the dinner/dessert buffets). The wine is generally a hodge-podge of leftover bottles from larger cases; we try to scout out a table with our favorites (or subtly swap out bottles with one of our waiter buddies).

If you haven’t been, I highly encourage you to patronize the San Jose Il Fornaio. Not only is the food terrific (and this is coming from a confirmed Italian-o-phile), the staff make you feel right at home and after 15+ years of dining there, we feel like members of the Il Fornaio family (or at least, unofficial ambassadors).

After a brief nap, we took a moderately expensive taxi ride to Brooklyn so Tate could realize one of his 2010 goals: eat a BLT at Choice Market. Fans of “The Best Thing I Ever Ate” will remember this small restaurant from the ‘with Bacon’ episode. Our friend, Dave, who lives nearby, met us for lunch. Five BLTs were ordered and quickly consumed… delicious! To this day, Tate still describes the sandwich with a combination of awe and longing. Dinner that night was at my favorite NYC establishment: Balthazar. The boys were excited about the fries, dubbed the ‘BEST’ by Bobby Flay in the ‘Totally Fried’ episode of “The Best Thing…” They didn’t disappoint, neither did the perfectly cooked steaks and my selection of spring pea ravioli.

The next morning, we raced down to Clinton Street Bakery, made famous (at least to us) in an episode of “Throwdown with Bobby Flay” (most of our tv-watching is on the Food Network, in case you didn’t notice). The Clinton Street Bakery makes, hands down, the best blueberry pancakes I’ve ever eaten. That, plus the sugar-cured bacon, was enough to make me pre-diabetic, but it was so, so good. Later that morning, we decided to double down on the sweets and try to find the Wafels and Dinges (Belgian waffle) truck. Even though we were in the right place, we missed the truck by about half an hour (they sold out early). So we found a cute little lunch place (also a chain, I believe), Financier. Everyone had salads (Greek, Italian, etc.) and we resolved to find the truck on our return visit the following week.

In hindsight, it was better we didn’t find the waffle truck just then. In the afternoon, we trekked over to the upper West side and went to Levain Bakery to sample their chocolate chocolate cookies (favorite of chef Rocco Dispirito). The taste (and calorie content) were off the charts! We ate them fresh from the oven and they were crispy on the outside and moist/chewy on the inside. It would be so nice to know how they do this but it is a closely guarded secret (that not even Rocco or Bobby Flay can get out of them… a bummer for those who live on the West Coast).

That night, we had an early dinner at Daisy Mae’s BBQ on the recommendation of TV Chef, Michael Symon. He raved about the beef ribs in another “The Best Thing…” episode so it was definitely on our culinary radar. We walked up to the counter and innocently ordered two beef ribs and two sides without looking at the price list. When the woman behind the register said, “Eighty-three dollars,” my jaw dropped. Each 20-oz beef rib was a whopping $38. We quickly re-thought things and decided to start with one, just in case it was too much for the four of us. Turns out, it was just enough! Tate insisted on saving the 10+ inches of beef bone for our dog, Scout, and we wrapped it up to go (we carried the bone to Connecticut for a few days and then to Maine, finally throwing it out just before returning for a last, 24-hour stop in NYC).

My apologies for the lack of photos; we brought our little Nikon Coolpix camera instead of the multi-lens Canon Digital Rebel and I don’t like to photograph food with a point-and-shoot.

To be continued…

Since the boys have an annual winter school break, we decided to take a short culinary tour to one of our favorite cities: Seattle. The idea originated with Tate, who has been obsessed (to say the least) with the made-to-order donuts at Lola (recommended by Giada de Laurentis on the ‘Totally Fried’ edition of ‘The Best Thing I Ever Ate’). Seattle was at the top of his list of places to visit; the decision was made even easier by the fact that airfares are relatively cheap this time of year (rainy season?). Well, the joke was on Alaska Airlines because we had 3.5 days of absolutely sunny weather! A bit chilly in the AM and PM, but otherwise nice the entire time.

After discovering that one of the hotels on my ‘must visit’ list (Ace Hotel – Portland) has a sister hotel in Seattle, AND that Lola is owned by Tom Douglas, who has 5 OTHER restaurants to visit, the donut lure became the tip of the proverbial iceberg. What follows is a meal-by-meal account, in chapters, of our amazing trip.

But first, a word about the Ace Hotel (http://www.acehotel.com/seattle) and the not-to-be-missed Ed, who runs the show. We checked in by late afternoon and Ed gave us the most incredible VIP treatment. Our room could not have been nicer (a very generous upgrade) and Ed was a warm, solicitous host. We received excellent directions to our first stop, Serious Pie, a mere 6-7 blocks away, and a gorgeous laser-cut Tom Douglas restaurant binder to peruse. Did you know that Tom Douglas beat Masaharu Morimoto in ‘Battle Salmon’ on ‘Iron Chef America’ in 2005? We didn’t and it only whetted our appetite for his world-class cuisine. So we decided to get an early start in order to beat the crowd (and were glad we did).

Dinner Number One: Serious Pie (seriously, good!)

Pizzas at Serious Pie are unlike any I’ve ever had (and coming from someone who has lived in Italy and made a pilgrimage to Naples, this is saying a lot). The crust consistency is thin but not overly so, and crispy like bread (Italian ciabatta is the closest I can think of); this is reinforced by the air wafting through the restaurant which smells primarily of yeast. We decided to order two pizzas, the first on the recommendation of Tyler Florence, one of Tate’s favorite television chefs along with Giada. Note: this pizza was Tate’s secondary reason for choosing Seattle. The pizza in question is very simple and very delicious: yukon gold potatoes, rosemary, pecorino cheese. Heavenly…. really. We decided to try a meat-based pizza, too, this one with house salumi, caramelized onions and sardegna (also a sheep’s milk cheese). Another bullseye – wow! (http://tomdouglas.com/index.php?page=serious-pie)

We staggered home and laid on the hotel beds (the white down comforters and Swiss military wool blankets making it extra cozy). We watched a few ‘Throwdown with Bobby Flay’ episodes, one of which prompted Tate to ask if we could seek out a pulled-pork sandwich for lunch the next day.

To be continued…

[All photos by Kathryn Besser]