Well Surprise, Surprise!!

In case you wondered where we've been, Dave and I picked up and moved to Charlotte, NC back in September.  After a "wonderful" cross country drive we were here and all settled in on October 1.

We've been eating really well here in Charlotte which is sort of funny. I think both Dave and I were a little concerned when we decided to move here, that we might find our choices limited to "southern food". Ummm, stupid us. We didn't realize that a LOT of southern food has always been Farm to Table, has always been LOCALLY GROWN and has always been SLOW FOOD. Duh!!

There is and will always be great food in San Francisco, but it's really busy trying to outdo itself. Here, the food is real, fresh, honest and rich with tradition. Yes, there are innovative restaurants doing new things, but those aren't the ones that impress us.

The places we have really loved; Harvest Moon Grill, Kings Kitchen; New South Kitchen and Halcyon are serving "country food". Traditional dishes; like fried chicken, shrimp and grits or braised ribs; done in new and fresh ways and using fresh, local and in season ingredients. Their food is wonderful, the ambiance is great and their chefs accessible - without the rock star attitudes one frequently finds in the Bay Area.

It's not uncommon for Cassie at HMG come out and chat up the room during the dinner rush or to have the kitchen at King's Kitchen prepare a special veggie plate just for Dave when they learn he's a vegetarian and all the "veggies" they have on menu are prepared with pork back, duck fat or chicken stock. There are restaurants in San Francisco that would show you the door for requesting something off menu. Not so here in the south. Hospitality is real and your welcome to the table is sincere.

Now I'm Ready for Cooking in the Great Outdoors

Wouldn't you want to go camping more if you had this rig?  Gotta find one like this - maybe with a full kitchen instead of the wet bar, but you get the point.

Serivce a little too saucy at Sugo

Sugo Petaluma

5 Petaluma Blvd. South, Suite B

Petaluma, CA 94952

707 782.9298

sugotrattoria@gmail.com

The customer is always right or aren’t they?

About day one in my venture into cooking school in my attempt to become a chef we were taught, "The customer is always right ".  That was stressed if you where the owner, the chef or the dishwasher the customer is always right. This is a very service oriented business no matter if you have a Michelin Star or not. If the customer is not happy with the service then the likelihood of them coming back is highly unlikely. Well I guess Sugo missed that lesson. Customer service can make or break any business and bad service can destroy a business. In the food industry this is especially the case no matter how good the food is. This was the case with a local favorite Petaluma restaurant Sugo.

Sugo unfortunately had not learned this valuable lesson in customer services. There is plenty I am willing to overlook, especially after being in the food industry. Having poor service when the restaurant is not busy is pretty much a bad practice. This was the case while dining at Sugo.

Entering a near empty eating gallery during the beginning of diner rush is a blessing and a curse. A blessing if you are in a hurry because your meal can be prepared faster.  Usually you are able to have more attention from wait staff with out being rushed if you’re early. A curse because it could indicate pending disaster. My wife was not feeling especially hungry that night and had asked to order a smaller proportion from the children’s menu.  Our waitress issued a very negative response. “Absolutely not! You must be 12 and under.  The chef is adamant about that.”  Okay… that harsh response was a surprise. Undaunted and yet still shaken my wife asked, “ Then may I possibly order a different item.  Is it possible to order the risotto and half of risotto boxed because I am not very hungry?” Our waitress responded, “Our kitchen does not do that.” When our dinner arrived my wife’s meal was rudely slapped down on the table and an empty to go box dropped beside it.  The waitress did not box the ½ proportion nor did she offer to help or even provide a spoon with which my wife could accomplish the job.

Okay so restaurants run on a very slim profit margin.  Portions are highly monitored to help keep food cost down and in order to maintain profitability. That helps explain why an adult usually is not encouraged to order for the children’s menu. Usually the policies concerning this practice are expressed in writing on the menu. This helps prevent confusion.  This also clarifies to customers about policies and practices.  Fair enough, it is a tough business to keep running. 

This does not however excuse poor customer service. Every one has a bad day. We can all understand that. No matter how good the food is; how many special features such as showing movies on the wall while dining; no matter how good your flashy web site is; it does not matter how cool your blog is for your restaurant is. Not making the customer being felt wanted in a services oriented business is suicide.

To make things perfectly fair to Sugo. My wife and I were in a rush and we did not talk to a manger addressing our dissatisfaction with our waitress. Nor did we call later. We did not return the rudeness we were served up. We did not demand unreasonable request to rush our order.

So why put the time and effort into posting this at all? Is this a rant, a chance at free meal, a flame war, an axe to grind or to have any other alterative reason? No, no, no, no and no. I am posting this as a cautionary tail for poor practices with customer services. I wish no ill to Sugo but I will not be returning.

Memories of Irene's

Dave:

What can I say?  Memory is an odd thing. Sometimes you will say to yourself  "Oh, I'll remember that moment for the rest of my life".  While other times, it sounds closer to "Honey have you seen my car keys?"  I am going to reconstruct a dinner I had in New Orleans' French Quarter. 

My wife, brother-in-law, sister-in-law and I had a great dinner at  Irene's Cuisine.  Now, The French Quarter is no stranger to great places to eat but what I believe separates Irene's from the others is the menu.   Irene's serves Italian food.  Not French, not Creole, not Cajun nor Spanish but, Italian.  Why? I don't know. What I do know is what they do they do exceptionally well.

Arriving through The French Quarter I am enticed by the magical smells of garlic and tomatoes tempting me to enter a magical wonderland of the unknown. This was my first trip to Irene's and I wanted to see what was behind the door and into the unknown.  Irene's is a busy bustling hive of activities. This not a bad thing.  It's quite the opposite.  It means people are happily enjoying themselves. 

Here where my faulty memory comes into play. With no menu or web page to jar my memory my task has became Herculean effort. I will endeavor forward dear readers to reconstruct what was for diner. At this point I might start pulling my hair out. Fear and frustration now grips our hero “wannabe food blogger”.  Looking for a quick exit from this quagmire I do the only rational thing… “Honey!”

Dorothy:

This has now become a collaborative posting since Dave seems to have mislaid his “notes”.   That’s not to say that we’ve become such food geeks that we immediately journal about great food, but we do snap photos on occasion.  However, I am clever enough to Google “Irene’s Cuisine Menu” and get a quick refresher on what we enjoyed that evening.

First, I’d like to mention that the service at Irene’s Cuisine is outstanding.  As it turns out our server, Sonny is also the fiancé of our friend Tracey, with whom we enjoyed Jazz Fest a few short days later. 

I had been at Irene’s once before in 2011 when I went to Jazz Fest with Tracey’s family.  It was great then however, I never made the connection between Tracey and Sonny until much later.  Regardless, Sonny and his colleagues are terrific servers!  The atmosphere in Irene’s is frenetic, bustling and watching the service staff practically dance through with all the remarkable food to be had is almost like a floorshow.

Being back in New Orleans a year later, with my soon to be husband, it was even more fun to explore the terrific food at Irene’s and enjoy the ambiance.  Now, on to remembrances of the menu and the meal.   Irene’s is Italian food, but not your typical pasta, meatballs and marinara joint.   They have an eclectic, Tuscan style menu on which it’s not uncommon to find rabbit, quail or other game right alongside raviolis.

My brother-in-law, who is not an adventurous eater, went way out on a limb during this trip to NOLA.  I must say, I was really impressed with his open-minded culinary explorations.  He ordered a seafood dish called Sautéed fish with shrimp, roasted peppers and corn macquechoux.  My sister ordered Pompano Amandine.  They switched dishes.  Macquechoux was a little confusing for Jim.

Dave ordered ricotta and spinach ravioli; handmade, beautifully tender morsels filled with a farm fresh local ricotta.  They were like little clouds of heavenly manna.  I am a carnivore.  I ordered the duck St. Phillip.  This was a delightful, tender duck breast with a raspberry and pancetta demi-glace.  I was in heaven!  Rich, tender, tart, savory, sweet – this dish had it all.  My taste buds were dancing in glee.

For dessert, we enjoyed my second annual (and hopefully one in a long line of) their mini flourless chocolate cake with hazelnut glaze.  It is to die for, delicious!!!

We ate really, really well in New Orleans.  There are dozens, if not hundreds of restaurants there that I have on my list of places to try.  However, every trip I make to NOLA will have to include a trip to Irene’s just as a matter of principal.  It would be like going to Paris without enjoying a view of the Eiffel Tower.  Irene’s is my landmark choice in New Orleans.

DAVE:

I feel hostage by my faulty memory. Like any good writer who is willing to admit they’ve forgotten where they were going with a story, a good out in a bad situation is to kill off the hero and introduce a new one in their place. That doesn’t only happen in B-movies or pulp fiction. Life very seldom delivers us simple answers. In this case another tactic was used, instead of killing off the hero. In this story, the hero would have been me, so I deployed another tactic. I used a ghostwriter. Any good writer would have done the same. Thanks to my wife Dorothy who came to my rescue.

The meal at Irene’s was exceptional even though my memory is not.

Here’s to great eating!

Dave and Dorothy

Festing!

We've been remiss.  We spent a week in New Orleans in April, 2012.  We ate our brains out.  All conscious thought, with the exception of where we were going to find our next delicious meal, was cleared from our minds.  Oh yeah!  We also had a wedding while we were there - ours!  That was a little distracting and kept us from updating our posts promptly too.  More on that, later.

First, I want to talk about Festival Food.  New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival food, that is.  This is different from festival food anywhere else in the world.  New Orleans just simply does not screw around with their food, whether it's in a white linen restaurant or a portable food kiosk on the fair grounds.

Day one of Jazz Fest and I knew right away what I wanted to eat.  Morning - an affogato.  For those of you who do not speak Italian, that means drowned.  In this case, it's a scoop of handmade caramel gelato with a shot of espresso drowning it.  LOVE!!  With that little pick-me up under our belts, we were able to think seriously about music and lunch.

There are so many options at Jazz Fest in both that one just can't make up their mind sometimes.  Should I get the alligator picante?  How about the shrimp ettoufe?  Red beans and rice?  Blackberry cobbler?  Sweet potato pie?  Well, we've been told to keep our stress levels down, so we just ordered it all.  YUMMY.  Dave even tasted a bite or two of gator (he's a 20 year vegetarian).

Then on to the "reason" for going to Jazz Fest, the music.  Again, the choices are overwhelming.

 

We made our way to "base camp" a plot of fair grounds staunchly staked out by my friend Cynthia and her family every year and enjoyed an afternoon of new, nostalgic and surprising music.  Dave and I spent the entire Zebra set saying "Wow!  I loved that song way back when!"  The lead singer still has an amazing voice and it was great to be reminded of some of the fun music of our youth.  We also heard a mess of other super talented and imaginative performers.

One of the most amazing things about Jazz Fest, if you've never been, is the sense of community there.  People, even in shoulder to shoulder crowds brought in by performers like Bruce Springsteen, are generally really nice, friendly and conscientious.  Take the following photo for example:

People at Jazz Fest are just cool.  They share.  I'm sure there were even a few instances of us giving or receiving tastes of food from the plates of complete strangers.  It happens.  Open your mind!

Day two was another day of amazing food - including an oyster poor boy that nearly brought tears to my eyes it was so tender and delicious and the second love of Dave's life, a sweet potato fold-over pie.  He still waxes sentimental about its light nutmeg infusion.  Should I be jealous?

If anything, it's the broccoli cheese pie I should be worried about.  As they say in the south, it's so good it makes you want to slap your mama.  Spicy, savory, cheesy gooey and delicious.  I think Dave's mouth is watering just recalling the light pastry filled with green cheesy goodness.

By day three, we thought we had experienced it all.  That was when I discovered the guy making crab cakes.  Crab could very well be my Kryptonite.  I love it!  It makes me weak in the knees.  These crab cakes were light, delicious, loaded with lump crab meat and topped with a light remoulade.  Spiced with a creole spice blend, they had a touch of heat to catch your attention, but not so much as to overwhelm the sweetness of the crab.  Those babies and an ice cold can of champagne and I was in heaven.  

Uh, yeah.  I forgot to mention, when Festing, you drink canned champagne.  They're these cute little babies from Sofia Coppola's vineyard.  

Icy cold drinks are a must when you're hanging with 200,000 of your buddies in a treeless fairgrounds.  If it's not canned champagne, there's always a frozen hurricane, margarita or pina colada.  As you can see, I sometimes have a hard time making up my mind.

That's it for Fest 2012.  We're already planning our 2013 adventure in New Orleans for Jazz Fest.  I love this city, its people and its traditions.  They really do know how to show southern hospitality and laissez les bonnes temps roullez!

NCB

Two Words from the Grammar Geek. Commas Matter.

Commas Matter.

That is all I have to say about this.

Surprises Abound

Had a pretty interesting experience today.  I received a surprise from my much loved friend, Carolyn Curtis, for my birthday.  She sent a gift certificate for Darden Restaurant Group - parent company of a wide range of establishments from Capital Grill to Red Lobster.  I know!  I was surprised it was the same company too.

Her instructions said to use it to just celebrate.  Well, Dave and I decided that now was as good a time as any to celebrate so we decided to take advantage of the all you can eat soup and salad offered at Olive Garden.  We had an exceptionally busy morning, few groceries and a hankering for soup.

As we pulled up to park, we were very surprised to see an elderly gentleman laying on the ground in the parking lot; his walker cast to the side and a small group of restaurant staff attending to him.  Because Dave has some experience in first aid, he hopped out to help and covered the gentleman with a jacket so that he wouldn't go into shock.

When we heard the ambulance approach and saw that the man was being well attended, we went into the restaurant and had our lunch.  We were again surprised, this time very pleasantly, with the meal.  We're sort of food snobs.  We're big endorsers of slow food, farm to table, organic and locavore movements.  Both of us were pretty happy with our meals - I had some ravioli in marinara sauce and Dave had a pasta and vegetable dish that he really enjoyed.

Sometimes a chain restaurant is pretty good.  Please don't kick me out of the local Slow Food Convivium for saying that.  Olive Garden has several really healthy choices and even offers a "garden menu" for people on special diets with options for gluten free and vegetarian meals.  They also list the nutritional content of every single item in their menu.  Pretty cool.

The check came, I pulled out the gift card and one of the managers approached with Dave's jacket in hand.  Here came our fourth surprise of the day.  They comped our check for lunch and were extremely kind and appreciative of the help we had offered.

So, now we get to celebrate again.  This time we can celebrate the fact that being a kind person sometimes does pay off.  Thanks Carolyn and thanks to Olive Garden for a surprising and very pleasant lunch!