Plant burger with tomato, grilled onions, lettuce, vegan aioli on a sourdough bun

Resident Foodies say: We’re thrilled to see that The Plant: Organic Cafe has made it north to Marin County opening a location in Mill Valley. The Plant serves all organic food from locally grown ingredients. The Cafe has locations already in SF and SFO, but this is the first one across the Golden Gate bridge into Marin.

The menu is creative and lunch combinations very well done. We’ve been sampling some of their sandwiches. The Mango Lime Chicken panini is our favorite so far–it’s unique and yummy, with the bread toasted to perfection. The Plant Burger was fun to look at, but the veggie patty disintegrates too easily when you bite into it. In other words, it gets sloppy. It pales in comparison to North Star Cafe’s veggie burger in Columbus, the best we’ve tried.

Resident Foodies say: Avatar’s is one of our favorites in Sausalito. Here’s the yogurt marinated chicken, with grilled vegetables and basmati rice. This dish is so yummy it’s hard to describe.

Resident Foodies say: Our fascination with Fish restaurant in Sausalito continues. One of our favorite dishes is the Fish tacos, described on the menu as follows:

The Taco Plate
Three traditional grilled fish tacos served on fresh white corn tortillas with cabbage, fire roasted salsa, roasted tomatillo, lime crema and cilantro. Served 3 tacos per plate. Equadorian Tilapia $13

Today, we got the special side of cauliflower, which was grilled to perfection with a touch of anchovy. A culinary delight.

Resident Foodies say: We just tried out M.Y. China, the recently opened restaurant of James Beard award winner Chef Martin Yan in San Francisco on the 4th floor in the Westfield San Francisco Center (where Nordstrom’s and Bloomingdale’s are located). The menu consists of (1) dim sum, (2) noodles, and (3) wok prepared dishes. We tried out the Beijing Knife Cut Noodles, a vegetarian dish consisting of bean sprouts, pressed tofu, and warm hoisin vinaigrette. It’s a winning combination. The home-made noodles are soft and gooey, and melt in your mouth. We especially liked how fresh the ingredients were, and the hoisin sauce is tasty, but not overpowering.

Our only disappointment: we didn’t get to “see world champion noodle dancers pull giant balls of dough into thousands of thin noodles in minutes only using their bands,” as the website boasts. Maybe next time! Because we will be back.

Resident Foodies say: Continuing our post on Starbelly in the Castro, the second pizza we had was the pizza with market mushrooms, cave aged gruyère, thyme & roasted onions. The butternut squash pizza really wowed us (click here for the review), but the mushroom pizza was a nice complement to our meal.

Resident Foodies say: We had a delightful lunch today at Starbelly in the Castro in San Francisco. We ordered two pizzas, which are displayed in the clever double-decker rack above. The top pizza is a seasonal dish: a pizza with roasted butternut squash, black garlic, local goat cheese, sage & pumpkin seeds. (We’ll talk about the bottom pizza in another post. If you’re wondering, it was the pizza with market mushrooms, cave aged gruyère, thyme & roasted onions.)

The color is perfect for the fall–and the San Francisco Giants–thanks to the butternut squash and black garlic. The taste is even better. An amazing combination of sweetness from the squash, and gooey, caramelized flavor from the black garlic. The goat cheese, sage, and pumpkin seeds round out the flavor, but our taste buds were so enamored with the butternut squash and black garlic. Hands down, the best pizza we’ve tasted all year.

Resident Foodies say: We may have found a new favorite dish at Fish restaurant in Sausalito. The fish tacos are amazing. As described by the menu: The Taco Plate. Three traditional grilled fish tacos served on fresh white corn tortillas with cabbage, and three sauces–fire roasted salsa, roasted tomatillo, lime crema and cilantro. Served 3 tacos per plate. Equadorian Tilapia $13

Resident Foodies say: Our favorite at Fish restaurant in Sausalito is this Saigon Salmon sandwich, described on the menu: “Grilled marinated wild salmon with a blend of fresh carrot, jalapeno, cilantro and house made Vietnamese ginger-scallion sauce served on a fresh roll. Served with a choice of chili-lime coleslaw, green salad or shoestring fries.”

The Asian spices are wonderful, with a nice kick from the jalapeño. The bread tastes great, but gets a little big for our mouths.

Resident Foodies say: Just made it out to Blue Barn Marin in Corte Madera and tasted one of its “Sandos.” That’s short for sandwich. We had the MASALA curried chicken-apple salad, almonds, dried cranberries, cucumber, red onion & sprouts on seeded whole wheat ($9.25). It was delightful.

As soon as we took one bite, we knew Blue Barn meant business. The curry chicken and apple combination was so flavorful, and almonds, cucumbers, and sprouts gave the sandwich a nice additional texture. We can’t wait to try out more!

Resident Foodies say: We made it out to Chef Bill Kim’s new restaurant BellyQ, located at 1400 Randolph Street in Chicago. Michael Jordan is a part investor, but don’t let that scare you off. Chef Kim is control of the menu, thank heavens. The menu features Modern Asian barbecue–hence the name “BellyQ,” which combines the name of Kim’s other restaurants “Belly” (BellyShack and UrbanBelly) with barbecue. First things first, the restaurant is in a marvelous, if not cavernous, space, with an industrial and rustic feel. There are window tables that have barbecue grills for cooking (in a modern kind of Korean restaurant way), and a take-out station out in front. One mystery: we were only able to get 5:15 pm reservations on Open Table, but there appeared to plenty of open tables even at 7 pm, given how large the place is.

We were seated close to the kitchen, where all the action is at! As shown below, the kitchen is equipped with a word burning oven. The service is excellent, with several servers who periodically check in on your table.

We started out with the chilled soba noodle salad, with Thai basil, olive oil poached shrimp, and Chinese eggplant. It was a light, refreshing combination, although the shrimp had a little kick, which we enjoyed.

Next, we tried the tea-infused lamb rib with Hoisin BBQ sauce, served with 3 sauces and Chinese buns. The char on the lamb was out of this world. It was so good, the dish tasted better without the buns. Hands down, the tea-infused lamb was one of the best dishes we’ve tried all year. It was the star of the evening. We also ordered a side of kimchi, which had a combination of interesting flavors making it more Americanized or “modernized” than authentic Korean style.

Finally, we ended our evening with the seafood hotpot, which is reminiscent of Korean sang sun jjigae. It was both soothing and tasty!

All in all, we give BellyQ a huge thumbs up. The food is creative and different from other Modern Asian restaurants at a price that is quite reasonable. This easily is the best of Chef Kim’s three restaurants.

Resident Foodies say: We got a real treat today, and it was free. Chef Danny Grant, formerly of 2 Michelin-starred Ria (now closed), gave a cooking demonstration at Chipotle’s Cultivate festival in Lincoln Park. Grant was one of several big-time Chicago chef to participate in the food/music show, which was meant to highlight the farm-to-table and use of sustainable ingredients in restaurants. Food and Wine selected Chef Grant as one of the Best New Chefs of 2012, and we can see why. His food is incredible.

First tasting: For the first tasting, Chef Grant prepared cheese curds (aka cheese balls) deep fried in a panko crust. The cheese was a petit frere cheese from Wisconsin’s Crave Brothers. He also used what he called the “meth,” but we missed what he said was the actual ingredient. Whatever it was, it tasted good.

For the plating, Chef Grant used the actual cheese box from Crave Brothers to serve the cheese balls on a bed of greens. The cheese balls were small, but downright delicious–they had a nice crunch that led to a delightful taste of cheese.

Second tasting: As if one dish was not enough, Chef Grant treated us to a second tasting–heirloom tomato salad. The salad was so fresh and amazing for a late summer Saturday. The best dish of the day!

We especially liked the over-the-counter cooking mirror that showed the audience all of the chef’s moves. That was neat.

Chef Grant said he’s still enjoying his time off, but hopes to make his next move soon. We got the chance to chat with him after the show, and he’s very friendly, humble, and down-to-earth, especially for a chef of his acclaim.

Resident Foodies say: Bon Appetit magazine selected only 2 restaurants in Chicago for its 50 best new restaurants in 2012 list. Balena is one of them (Yusho the other), and deservedly so. We made it back there this weekend to try a few more of their Italian fare dishes. We were not disappointed.

Our cheerful server, who greeted us with a warm “Happy Saturday,” recommended two of the new pizzas on the menu: the heirloom tomato pizza with ricotta salata, garlic, oregano, or the eggplant pizza with pecorino, chili, and mint. We opted for the heirloom tomato pizza sans ricotta, and our server suggested that, if we didn’t want the cheese, it might be better to go with a pizza that was half tomato and half eggplant. Great suggestion because we got to sample both pizzas instead of just one.

The pizza is cooked in a brick oven, which can be seen from the back of the restaurant looking through glass to the kitchen. The dough is cooked to perfection, not too thin but not too thick. The heirloom tomato pizza was simply delightful. The eggplant pizza was almost as incredible, with the eggplant cut amazingly thin, although we tasted a bit too much heat from what we think was the chili. Not to be forgotten, the plating of the pizza is a work of art. Balena just may be our favorite new restaurant of 2012. Bravo, Balena!

Chicken ramen

Resident Foodies say: Chizakaya is an izakaya Japanese bar in Chicago that serves ramen and small plates of Japanese and Korean food. After wanting to go here for some time, we finally made it to the restaurant in Lakeview.

Chicken bao

Our favorite item was one of the specials: the chicken bao, consisting of chicken, brown sugar togarashi dust, kimchi, and cilantro. It may have been the best bao of our lives–the kimchi gives it an extra kick. The combination was wicked, in a delicious way. We could have eaten several of these as our meal. It was that good.

We also liked the agedashi tofu, deep fried with potato starch and served in a broth of dash, shoyu, and mirin. The texture of the tofu was just right–crispy, but easily dissolving into the soft center. The chicken ramen was good as well, but we’ve tasted better, homemade noodles.

Resident Foodies say: We tried these excellent Belgian Fries with three dipping sauces at the French Market in the Ogilvie train station. Served in a wire basket resembling an ice cream cone of fries, these fries are thick, but not too thick, and prepared for each order. They take a while to prepare, but they are well worth the wait.