San Francisco: Incanto

Bourdain ate here in his San Fran episode. I promised myself we'd do one "nice" aka over priced, stiff restaurant per city on our trip. So with being a Tony fan and loving all things Italian in mind, we dined at Incanto in the very suburban neighbourhood of Noe Valley.

I was excited about this place probably because I had booked it like 1 month in advance so the experience had been building up. The verdict post dinner? Don't believe all the hype and everything you see on TV.

I now realise that Tony tends to be polite to all his hosts and censors perhaps what he'd really like to say or what he really thinks. Ok admittedly his hosts must put on the spread of a lifetime too, so that would up the ante considerably compared to my measly every day dining experience at the same establishments. *fist shaking in air* David Chang better deliver the goods in Momofuku Noodle Bar in New York! That's all I have to say.

Back to Incanto. Definitely above average. Hilarious waiter that knew his stuff and looked after us superbly, he even shouted us dessert wine and made half the food choices for us (I fear what the experience would have been like if he hadn't recommended some of the signature dishes).

We both did the mystery wine flight (all Italian as that is the specialty of the wine bar) which was very reasonably priced at $15pp for 3x half glasses. They were all superb choices as they tasted great and accompanied the food really well, a fact (the food ordered) the sommelier takes into consideration.

We had the complimentary bread plate with olive tapenade, two appetisers, two mains, shared dessert plus coffee with complimentary biscotti. Apart from the mystery wine flight and glass of dessert wine, I also snuck in another glass of red. The experience cost us about $160USD.

The food ordered was:
- chicken liver pâté with tomatoes and mustard, house made thyme brioche lightly toasted (this dish was the highlight of the evening)
- blood sausage with egg sunny side up and clams (disappointing, but I have authentic Argentinian and Uruguayan blood sausage as my bench mark)
- spaghettini with shaved tuna heart and egg yolk (most anticipated yet most disappointing dish of the night)
- lamb neck with greens and creamy polenta (extra soft and succulent meat that fell off the bone)
- bittersweet chocolate tart with basil sorbetto (refreshing and delicious)

What I do like about this place, apart from the whole experience, superb service, delicious wines and select delectable dishes, is its concept. Incanto is a nose to tail dining experience, the whole idea of not wasting any bit of the animal, but instead utilising and eating every part of it. Also, they produce their own sparkling water in house and serve it in recyclable and reusable glass bottles. Gotta love an environmentally conscious bunch!

So all in all it wasn't bad, it was actually great apart from the two out of five dishes ordered, but when I look at it as percentages it works out to 60/40 good/bad which is borderline, so its the tree hugging, ambiance, service and fantastic all Italian wine list that make it really great for me.

Authentic Happiness

Meditative March has made me all thoughtful and stuff. Less talk more action seems to be the motto. I've been busy socialising, cooking and living my life, too busy to be recording it all, which is starting to seem like such a ludicrous concept by the way.

I'm torn between two generations: X and Y. I  was born somewhere in between the two, either the end of X or the beginning of Y, no one is able to decide the exact dates that define the generations. Either way, I sway between the two like a fish being pulled by the tide. As much as I love technology I despise it. As much as I want to be connected I want to disappear.

Is there anybody out there? What is all this for? What's the purpose? The last is the biggest question.

What am I doing all this for? Who am I? Do I have to pick who I want to be? Who cares where I ate at on the weekend?

The last couple of weeks my writing has been inconsistent. I have a backlog of cafes I need to write the reviews for and photos to edit. That shit is weighing me down. When did it stop being fun and start being a drag?

It's Bourdain's fault, that rat bastard. He's got it made. I want what he's got. The traveling and the eating with a big slice of culture in his face.

It was a slow and steady culmination of doing Bourdain-a-thons (watching back to back episodes of No Reservations horizontally on my couch wearing nothing but a T-shirt and my underwear, eating my shitty food while he tasted exotic things and got sloshed), reading my signed copy of Kitchen Confidential and meeting the bastard. Add my constant slutting around Sydney cafes and restaurants the last two months and the last straw of the Taste of Sydney Festival. But what could all this mean?

I've got all Bourdain things that I love on one hand, then all Sydney things which I also (should) love in the other. Shouldn't they all harmonise? Something hasn't been sitting right deep down in my gut, it didn't make sense. Like eating a dodgy meal which is sure to cause you pain later, it festers and churns.

It's what I've been thinking and feeling ever since I stepped foot on this massive island of ours called Australia, 22 years ago. There is no culture. There is no history. So without these two elements, what story are we trying to tell? I knew it back then as an eight year old and I know it now even better.

Food is history, food is culture, it's who we are, where we came from and where we are going.

The only story Taste of Sydney explicitly told me is how to cash in, how to pose like a real Sydney-sider and how desperate we are for something more real and tangible, for something authentic. This is the same story I've been told consistently in every Sydney cafe or restaurant I've dined in. The superficial transactions speak for themselves.

Kooky decor or random tid-bits collected from someones trash can and back yard garage sale? Voila. We have a new theme for a cafe!

Sydney and in fact Australia is asking for anything as long as it has some sort of story or even abstract interest, just to get away from our every day monotony and instead get the opportunity to be sophisticated and cultured and shit.

That's why I'm over it. I've been trolling through the multitude of food blogs out there and every fucker and his dog is a food critic. But they're not telling me what I really want to hear.

I'm putting this down and hope that you pick it up: I'm not a food critic, I don't know the French names or techniques for food. That's what the chefs are for. I just know what I like and what resonates with me deep down in my soul.

Who I am is a Greek raised on farms and living the urban life for a while now. I'm a citizen of the world, taking in different cultures and wanting to find out more. I'm looking to make connections between how I was raised and what my culture and family is about, with how I live my life today. This is a declaration damn it. That's what I want to share with you reading this right now. I want to tell you my story and hopefully help you build your own.

Like any true philosophizing Greek and my forefathers before me, I want to know what the meaning is. I want to search the deep recesses and figure out how we got here in the first place.

I said Australia has no culture or history. The reality is, it has almost if not all the cultures in the world living under one roof. What an awesome collective?! It's evident in the faces of its inhabitants, in the cuisines they dish out and the themes and ideas they prop up. We are truly spoilt for choice and opportunity and perhaps smaller collectives like Melbourne and Adelaide are becoming so successful at it (the authentic food thing) because they are able to stay true to this vision of sharing their experiences authentically. Luckily Sydney is catching up, especially with cool and fun initiatives or groups like 6 Degrees of Preparation.

This is our time, where we the invaders bring our influences and traditions and create a mish-mash for this, our new world. It's us creating out own story. This is our time of making history or at least understanding it.

So this is my vow. No more boring posts of "this is a cafe I ate at and the service was good and the coffee tasty". Fuck that boring shit, let Simon Food Favorites wade through that dredge. It's time we took it up a notch and explored ideas and what that cafe really means, what lies underneath the surface, find out what the real story is. It's time to reinvent myself and this blog. Its time to start a conversation with some real people.

Existential crisis number two complete for this year and it's only March. Stay tuned.

No Reservations: A Night with Anthony Bourdain

Anthony Bourdain is real. It's like he stepped out of the TV in my lounge room and on to the stage at the State Theatre.

Tall, casual, beer in hand. He seems more in proportion in real life. He paces back and forth on the stage and only occasionally glimpses his notes on the lectern.

The format of the night is about an hour speech followed by thirty minutes of questions from the crowd. It's like sitting around the dinner table and shooting the shit. Awesome and entertaining. You get what you see, that's what I love about this man.

If you haven't noticed already, it's true. I'm a groupie. I'd say #1 fan but I'm not willing to flash my boobs at him. That would be like flashing my dad. Let's not go there.

I'm not going to give you a blow by blow of the night. I've got better shit to do. If you want the detail, you should have paid to see him like we did.

But I will give you Tony's top travel tips:

1. Observe local custom; consider where you are and remember you're an ambassador for where you come from.
2. Drink. Drink a lot of "whatever the fuck it is" that's the specialty in that location.
3. The breakfast buffets at hotels are a killer. Avoid hotel buffets and hotel food at all costs. If you must order hotel food, go for the least sinister thing on the menu.
4. Never eat where the concierge tells you to eat. The filthier the bathroom, the better the food. Find out where cooks like to eat when they're drunk.
5. Find out what the local specialty is and go where the locals think its best.

Earlier today one of the cooks from Cafe Sopra and I were chatting about how history shapes the food we eat. Tony summed this concept up well: he states that food is the history of the world. People have paid a price for their national cuisine, it's their identity. When someone cooks for you, they're communicating with you, telling you a story: where they come from, what their experiences have been, rituals, traditions and tidbits passed down from one generation to the next. Then it's preserved, copied, bastardised, rehashed, recreated and reinvented. And not necessarily in that particular order.

Food is about sensation. It's about enjoyment and emotion. You can't plan the most perfect or delicious meal; its a process of discovery, it just happens to you.

Tony's life seems to have just happened in this manner. Working a deep fryer at a restaurant one moment, to author and rock 'n' roll chef celebrity the next. I've been thinking about this concept of life a lot lately: that life itself is a process that must be embraced and enjoyed, from moment to moment. Creating, evolving, changing, responding to emotive stimuli. That's the shit that keeps it interesting man, living in the moment and letting it all unfold before your eyes like a beautiful, rich and colourful tapestry.

I can't wait to see the new season of No Reservations, especially the Sydney episode where Tony visits favourites such as Porteño and Bourke St Bakery. I love you Tony! You have the best job ever; I gotta get me some of that.