There was a small crisis in the SF food community earlier this year – Hoffman opted to stop selling their chickens at the Saturday Farmer’s Market. If I were prone to waking up before 11am, I would have been sounding the alarms too. Unfortunately, Hoffman was always sold out of chickens before I arrived and the Hoffman lady wasn’t too keen (nor consistent) with saving a chicken for this late sleeper.

And they were pretty good chickens. Read the rest of this entry »

I found some “kobe-style” beef (re: Wagyu) the other day at the Golden Gate Meat Company in the Ferry Building Marketplace (SF.) It can be the curse of the Ferry Bldg – go in with a $25 budget and leave $50 poorer. $30/lb for 18-day dry-aged wagyu won’t kill me I reasoned, so might as well partake.

This wasn’t as fatty as the beef I’ve had @ Urasawa (LA) or Sugiyama (NY) but, ironically, I may have liked it more. Yes, there wasn’t that overwhelmingly fatty taste nor melting in the mouth; instead, it had some bite with a nice beefy taste (granted, it had nothing on the 40-day dry-aged wagyu @ Morimoto.) And this was only aged for 18 days – I can only imagine if I could age this for a few more days and get an even more intense beef taste. (If you’re interested in experimenting to create a more flavorful and tender beef product, you can learn how to dry-age beef in this article.)

I had a pound, I cooked half for dinner (need something for lunch tomorrow.) A thoroughly enjoyable time (and dinner!)

The Meat

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The San Francisco Fish Company in the Ferry Building is a confounding place. Despite its glamorous location and higher prices, the usual assortment of fish and shellfish leaves much to be desired – the “previously frozen” label all too hard to ignore. But every once in awhile they have a treat.

Yesterday, I was buying an excellent Heritage chicken (a write-up will be forthcoming) from Prather Ranch when serendipity must have led me across the hall into the fish store. I usually bypass it without a hint of feeling guilty about what I may have missed.

I walked in and immediately noticed the fresh Santa Barbara sea urchin sitting in the counter. Was I feeling lucky?

The Specimen

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