Everything about Morimoto Napa is outstanding. The food, service, location, are all among the best of the best.
The wine list has a great number of Napa wines and the drinks also include a big selection of drinks including Pappy Van Winkle's Family Reserve and of course some wonderful sake choices.
I had dinner there recently and it started with this tuna tartar that has a unique presentation of the tuna and side flavors you can mix to your preference. It comes with a small metal spatula or paddle that you use to build each bite.
The tasting menu continued with a little of everything including sushi, beef, vegetables and a unique fondue with vegetables and a warm bowl of anchovy paste and olive oil. It was sooo good! The food was paired with some excellent Twomey Sauvignon Blanc that the server kept in an ice bucket for us. It was a nice touch on a warm early evening. She was very good about keeping the glasses from sitting empty.
There is an open kitchen so you can see things being prepared and getting ready for service.
The outdoor riverfront seating is in the shade and allows for some nice views and a look at the eastern Napa hills at sunset.
Ample free parking is across the street and it is just steps from the new Napa downtown dock so you could even boat to Morimotos.
"Costa Rica Don Mayo"? Wasn't he a character in Scarface?
The full name on the label of the beans I roasted tonight is Costa Rica Don Mayo "La Ponderosa" Bourbon.
Holy Moly what a name.
If I roasted it right the label also says I should end up with coffee that has a "toasted granola aroma, boysenberry syrup sweetness, hazelnut, malt syrup."
Now don't think this is flavored coffee made to taste like pancake syrup. Remember the comedy routine Dennis Leary did about that?
Notes: La Ponderosa is a special super-high elevation coffee from Tarrazu, processed expertly at the Don Mayo Micro-Mill by the Bonilla Family.
I met the senior, Hector in Costa Rica last year, and again when they visited in September withe the Costa Rica Micromiller group. He brought his son Pablo, who is a big part of the team at Don Mayo. And I must admit, they have the coolest logo ever (a coffee bean head with the traditional Tico coffe workers hat ... something of a Gilligan type thing.)
And I am so happy with how this lot of coffee arrived, so sweet, so balanced; it's a coffee I could drink all day long. The dry fragrance has berry fruit to it, toasted granola, and dark corn syrup sweetness. Adding the hot water, the wet aromatics sweeten exponentially, the boysenberry syrup sweetness fully fleshed out, spicey accents of clove and cinnamon. The cup needs some time to cool down for the flavors to really open up.
It strikes me as extremely balanced in the body initially, and amber malt in it's sweetness. The berry fruit flavors bgean to peek out, this time as a blackberry note. The roast flavors are more nut-based in tonality, between a very mild roasted peanut and hazelnut. And more than anything, the cup is sweet. I keep thinking of amber malt syrup, hence the fact that maltose must be present in this coffee. The degree to which you convert those sugars in roasting will determine a lot of your flavor here.
My favorite stradled the divide between City+ and Full City. This dense, Bourbon cultivar is a bit tough to read, in terms of degree-of-roast. Erring on the lighter side will yield better results.
That might all sound silly. I mean all coffee tastes like well "coffee" right? As Dennis Leary said "coffee flavored coffee." Well that's the deal. It doesn't. It changes according to the beans, the soil, the weather, the processing. The folks at Sweet Marias visit the farms, pick out the green beans. Buy a bunch, roast and make coffee. They tell you how dark to roast it, and what it tastes like.
I buy green coffee beans and roast them at home. These beans can come from all over the wold and you end up with a wide variety of taste. Every Sunday I roast up 1 pound. That lasts a week and most of the time it is something different than the week before. I do have some favorites, but more often than not I mix it up. My all time favorite? Monsooned Malabar "Elephant" coffee beans from India.
Monsooned coffees are stored in special warehouses until the Monsoon season comes around. The sides of the structure are opened and moist monsoon winds circulate around the coffee making it swell in size and take on a mellowed but aggressive, musty flavor.
The monsooning process is labor-intensive: coffee is spread on the floor of the special monsooning warehouse, raked and turned around by hand to enable the seeds to soak in moisture of the humid winds. The monsooning process takes around 12 to 16 months of duration, where in the beans swell to twice their original size and turn into pale golden color.
Then there are additional hand-sortings to remove any coffee that did not expand properly, and the coffee is prepared for export.
All that hard work ends up with an amazing cup of coffee in your hand after you roast the beans. There are none of these beans for sale right now. Hopefully these monsooned beans will be in soon.
You can do it too. You need a good hood fan because things can get pretty smokey. Other than that you can buy a fancy roaster or a popcorn popper. Then get some beans from a place like Sweet Maria's and give it a try.
You will not only have fresh coffee and save money, but you can also learn abut the places and the people that put in all the work to get you a cup of coffee. That cup of joe you slam down is the end result of a farmer somewhere in the world that puts in lots and lots of work in getting things just right for you to drink it asap while rushing out the door.
Give it a try, do some home roasting. Read up on the farms that supply the fresh beans. Appreciate their effort. Explore the variety of the beans. Slow down and taste the coffee. Never take it for granted. Oh and you'll save some money as well.
"Costa Rica Don Mayo"? Wasn't he a character in Scarface?
The full name on the label of the beans I roasted tonight is Costa Rica Don Mayo "La Ponderosa" Bourbon.
Holy Moly what a name.
If I roasted it right the label also says I should end up with coffee that has a "toasted granola aroma, boysenberry syrup sweetness, hazelnut, malt syrup."
Now don't think this is flavored coffee made to taste like pancake syrup. Remember the comedy routine Dennis Leary did about that?
Notes: La Ponderosa is a special super-high elevation coffee from Tarrazu, processed expertly at the Don Mayo Micro-Mill by the Bonilla Family.
I met the senior, Hector in Costa Rica last year, and again when they visited in September withe the Costa Rica Micromiller group. He brought his son Pablo, who is a big part of the team at Don Mayo. And I must admit, they have the coolest logo ever (a coffee bean head with the traditional Tico coffe workers hat ... something of a Gilligan type thing.)
And I am so happy with how this lot of coffee arrived, so sweet, so balanced; it's a coffee I could drink all day long. The dry fragrance has berry fruit to it, toasted granola, and dark corn syrup sweetness. Adding the hot water, the wet aromatics sweeten exponentially, the boysenberry syrup sweetness fully fleshed out, spicey accents of clove and cinnamon. The cup needs some time to cool down for the flavors to really open up.
It strikes me as extremely balanced in the body initially, and amber malt in it's sweetness. The berry fruit flavors bgean to peek out, this time as a blackberry note. The roast flavors are more nut-based in tonality, between a very mild roasted peanut and hazelnut. And more than anything, the cup is sweet. I keep thinking of amber malt syrup, hence the fact that maltose must be present in this coffee. The degree to which you convert those sugars in roasting will determine a lot of your flavor here.
My favorite stradled the divide between City+ and Full City. This dense, Bourbon cultivar is a bit tough to read, in terms of degree-of-roast. Erring on the lighter side will yield better results.
That might all sound silly. I mean all coffee tastes like well "coffee" right? As Dennis Leary said "coffee flavored coffee." Well that's the deal. It doesn't. It changes according to the beans, the soil, the weather, the processing. The folks at Sweet Marias visit the farms, pick out the green beans. Buy a bunch, roast and make coffee. They tell you how dark to roast it, and what it tastes like.
I buy green coffee beans and roast them at home. These beans can come from all over the wold and you end up with a wide variety of taste. Every Sunday I roast up 1 pound. That lasts a week and most of the time it is something different than the week before. I do have some favorites, but more often than not I mix it up. My all time favorite? Monsooned Malabar "Elephant" coffee beans from India.
Monsooned coffees are stored in special warehouses until the Monsoon season comes around. The sides of the structure are opened and moist monsoon winds circulate around the coffee making it swell in size and take on a mellowed but aggressive, musty flavor.
The monsooning process is labor-intensive: coffee is spread on the floor of the special monsooning warehouse, raked and turned around by hand to enable the seeds to soak in moisture of the humid winds. The monsooning process takes around 12 to 16 months of duration, where in the beans swell to twice their original size and turn into pale golden color.
Then there are additional hand-sortings to remove any coffee that did not expand properly, and the coffee is prepared for export.
All that hard work ends up with an amazing cup of coffee in your hand after you roast the beans. There are none of these beans for sale right now. Hopefully these monsooned beans will be in soon.
You can do it too. You need a good hood fan because things can get pretty smokey. Other than that you can buy a fancy roaster or a popcorn popper. Then get some beans from a place like Sweet Maria's and give it a try.
You will not only have fresh coffee and save money, but you can also learn abut the places and the people that put in all the work to get you a cup of coffee. That cup of joe you slam down is the end result of a farmer somewhere in the world that puts in lots and lots of work in getting things just right for you to drink it asap while rushing out the door.
Give it a try, do some home roasting. Read up on the farms that supply the fresh beans. Appreciate their effort. Explore the variety of the beans. Slow down and taste the coffee. Never take it for granted. Oh and you'll save some money as well.
1 pheasant, cleaned, washed and cut into quarters. You may use any small game bird as a substitute for pheasant. flour, salt & pepper 1/2 cup butter 2 onions, thinly sliced 1/2 cup water
Directions: Flour pheasant lightly, sprinkling with salt and pepper. Slice half of the butter and put into the bottom of a slow cooker, layer a thin layer of onions. Arrange pheasant pieces over onion. Cover with remaining onion slices. Dot top with remaining butter. Add water, cover and cook on low or at 250 degrees for 4-5 hours or until tender.
I really like reading the Wall Street Journal. I know you're thinking boring business paper. Well it was, and some of it still is. But their technology stuff from Walt Mossberg and the Personal Journal, and Weekend Journal are just great. Music reviews, travel info, and well a little of everything. I think (I say think because I rarely ever read it) the editorial section is pretty conservative. But I really read it for investing advice and trends, and really enjoy their features. Probably old timer WSJ readers hate the stuff I like. Oh well.
Get a good cut, some NYC chefs shop at Costco for their beef. I have bought from there, but I really like my local guy "Joe" see below.
Age it at home if you can. A risky thing to do says the health officials, but aged beef makes the beef taste better and stronger. It is like reducing a sauce. But you have to cut away the outside of the beef that goes "bad" during the process.
Cook over really really high heat. No your home broiler probably doesn't get that hot. But a good cast iron pan setting on high for a while will. I love cast iron. There is always a Lodge pan on my stove oiled and ready to go at all times. Yes it is pretty non-stick. Here's a good page with cast iron info.
After reading the article, and thinking about making a brisket with an overnight cook tonight, I figured it was time to go to my local meat market. So I saw my butcher Joe at Galvan's in San Leandro today. He's Da Man. I picked up a brisket for overnight cooking, 2 prime porterhouse steaks, and some sushi tuna.
He said forget about home aged beef. You have to cut so much off it gets expensive fast. He can get aged beef, but you can't buy a steak or 2 from him, you have to buy the whole loin. He said if you want aged beef get mail order (very expensive) or for about the same price just go to a steak house and live it up a little.
For home just try to find good "Prime" cuts, cook, enjoy. He also he said it is pretty easy to get Kobe beef these days. He said he can get it anytime but it can really vary, some is really tender like you'd expect, some more like prime. Last time he got some it was about 35 a pound I think he said. Again you buy the whole thing, not a steak or 2. About 10 to 12 pounds.
Phew that's some cash!
Joe, he's good to go.
Maybe I just go to Alfred's Steakhouse in San Francisco. Old school, and good stuff Maynard...
The tasting menu continued with a little of everything including sushi, beef, vegetables and a unique fondue with vegetables and a warm bowl of anchovy paste and olive oil. It was sooo good! The food was paired with some excellent Twomey Sauvignon Blanc that the server kept in an ice bucket for us. It was a nice touch on a warm early evening. She was very good about keeping the glasses from sitting empty.
