I am so ready to punch the clock. Lake Tahoe, your 80-degree weather and sun and squirrels and chilly nights (and even colder lake) and mountain air are calllllling meeeeee. Although boy, do I have a lot of work to get done before I hit the road. Leaving town: it’s like a military campaign—and Alexander the Great never had to deal with this many emails.
My weekend featured a call-the-cops amount of delicious food, from brunch at SPQR (uh, yeah, let’s just talk about the sunny-side up eggs, with ribbons of crispy pig ears and fingerling potatoes, all blessed with a chile vinaigrette) to a friend’s birthday dinner/tour de flavor at Aziza (damn, chef Mourad Lahlou and chef de cuisine Louis Maldonado are doing some seriously envelope-pushing dishes and executions over there, and so pretty, too—just look at this albacore with sea beans, cucumber, and a base of black garlic. Oh, and did I mention the harissa pretzel rolls?) Sunday night was about dialing things down to simple pleasures, with burgers at Roam Artisan Burgers on Union Street: the Tejano—with pepper jack, jalapeño relish, avocado, white corn strips (crunch crunch), herb ranch, and I requested a bison patty—totally won me over with its added texture component. Chips in a burger, oh yes. And vegetarians, they make an excellent vegetarian patty. (More on all this soon.)
Yo folks, I have some excellent news: we have even more kickass vendors added to the tablehopper Happy Ending after-hours party next Friday night at E&O: Turtle Tower will be there debuting their bahn mi, Basil Canteen will be serving Thai dumplings called sakhoo saimu (tapioca dumplings of pork and peanuts wrapped in lettuce), and the lovely duo from DeLise Dessert Café will be scooping some of their ice creams and sorbets (hello, coconut pandan). Oh yeah, baby. Get your tickets and more info here.
Hope to see you next Friday—let’s par-tay!
Aziza’s albacore with sea beans, cucumber, and black garlic.View tablehopper Newsletter from Tuesday, Aug 3 2010
