Saffron's Su-Mei Yu Featured in Sunday's Collaboration Kitchen

Su-Mei Yu, owner of Saffron and host of Savor San Diego on KPBS TV, will be featured, along with Ballast Point Brewing Co., at Sunday's Collaboration Kitchen, which runs from 5 to 8 p.m. at Catalina Offshore Products. There are limited tickets left.

What's on Su-Mei's Thai menu?

Thai Ceviche
Marinated salmon in seasoning paste, including chilies, garlic, shallot, krachai (Chinese keys) and lime juice, dressed with coconut cream, slivers of fresh Thai chilies, and shredded green mango – served with Belgian endive and rice/sesame seeds crackers. Pair with Calico Amber Ale with nice Madeira and toffee sweetness balanced with a citrus bite from Cascade hops.

Laab Goong
Northern Thai style salad with grilled marinated shrimp in Ballast Point’s Wahoo White beer, garlic, and olive oil and toss with chilies, Sichuan peppercorns, krachai (Chinese keys), shallot, green onion, kaffir lime leaves, culantro, mint and lime juice – served on lettuce leaves. Pair with Wahoo White Beer – Belgian wheat beer inspired ale with orange peel and coriander.

Grilled Mussels
Seasoned with Thai chilies, galangal, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves and rinds, Thai basils, coconut cream and Piper Down Scottish Ale. Pair with Indra Kunindra – export stout infused with madras curry, cumin, cayenne, kaffir lime leaves and toasted coconut.

Southern Thai Style Spicy Yellow Curry
Turmeric-infused curry paste with yellow tail and pineapple – served with red Thai organic rice. Pair with Dorado Double India Pale Ale with the bitterness that increases from heat from curry and hop aromas and flavors similar to that of pineapple and grapefruit.

Melon Balls with Coconut Syrup
Sweetened with maple syrup and infused with rose water. Pair with Sculpin India Pale Ale with a balance of bitterness with hop flavors of tangerine and ripe mango.

You'll enjoy hearty samples of all these dishes (along with tastes from Ballast Point) and the recipes will be on your seat waiting for you as Su-Mei demonstrates how they're created (I've been to a couple of her classes and she's a terrific teacher). And, of course, we'll have the enthusiastic comic duo of Tommy Gomes and Dan Nattrass emceeing the evening. Feel free to bring your own bottle of wine. And dress warmly; it gets chilly in there!

Tickets are $75 per person and can be purchased online here. All proceeds (yes, really, all proceeds) will be donated to the James Lebowitz Scholarship Fund, in honor of the 18-year-old Cal Poly Pomona student and San Diego native who died suddenly of an aneurysm in January. You can learn more about him and his amazing parents in a moving article by Ed Zieralski published in the U-T San Diego.

So, yes, your money is going to a great cause--but you'll also have a blast, learn a lot, and eat and drink well while doing good.

Collaboration Kitchen is a collaboration between Catalina Offshore Products and Specialty Produce. Catalina Offshore Products is located at 5202 Lovelock St. just off Morena Blvd.

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Whole Foods Hillcrest's New 7th Ave Pub

Last week, my friend Carolyn Kates invited me to come by the Whole Foods in Hillcrest, where she works, to learn about the program she created in which local producers make products exclusive to the Hillcrest store. I wrote about that for this week's Local Bounty blog post in San Diego Magazine. After checking out the products, she invited to have lunch with her in the store's new eatery, what they call the 7th Ave Pub--just a short stroll up the ramp to street level at University and 7th.

It's a cozy place with a contemporary feel, perfect for a beer and a burger. In fact, the pub carries 30 beers on draft, and several in bottles and cans--many, like Stone, Coronado Brewing Company, San Diego Brewing Co, Alesmith, and Ballast Point--from local brewers. There's also a small wine line list and some interesting non-alcoholic drinks, like the lemon ginger iced tea I ordered, which was remarkably refreshing.

The menu currently is a work in progress. Indeed, the 7th Ave Pub is a work in progress itself. The day I was there, a dumb waiter was being installed so that food didn't have to be carried up the ramp from the kitchen. Cooking equipment better suited for a restaurant than the market's prepared foods prep was on its way, which will give the cooks more latitude in creating a targeted menu for this particular venue.

Nevertheless, the food was terrific. Carolyn ordered a number of dishes for us.

The first that came up with Anishka's Beet Salad. Okay, I don't eat beets, but the salad was gorgeous and I was delighted that glistening red beets were limited to large slices on the plate, topped by the mix of arugula, grilled corn, and feta cheese--tossed in a tangy cilantro vinaigrette with sriracha sauce. I could enjoy just the salad and it was bright and perfect for that sunny spring afternoon.

Next up came a large serving plate filled with orange balsamic roasted Brussels sprouts, bedded in large red cabbage leaves. I adored these. You could just taste the citrus coming through the perfectly crispy sweet sprouts. But, get this, the Brussels sprouts were paired with a helping of whole grain mustard for dipping. That would never have occurred to me, yet it truly works and is something I'll be doing in the future when I make it myself. Loved this dish!

Then we were hit by a big--really big--burger. This was the University Burger & Fries. And there was the Pesto Tomato Flatbread.

The burger is served on a fluffy Sadie Rose bun. The top bun was laden with lettuce, tomato, a chunky slice of red onion, and what seemed to be a whole avocado, sliced. The bottom bun was invisible, covered by the medium rare whole beef patty (from Homegrown Meats), cheddar cheese, and two mammoth slices of crispy bacon. Decadent enough, but matched by the pile of crispy fries and a little bowl of Kickin' Ketchup (made in Orange County and sold at the store). The slice of pickle? Well, they can do better. Just open up a jar of Bubbies kosher pickles, please.

Okay, image trying to take the top bun and its toppers and flipping it over to create the burger. Then eating it. So delicious yet so fraught with danger. My suggestion? Sliders. Three types: beef, lamb, and pork. Perfect one-handed food for when you're also cradling an ale. And, I hear, they do intend to scale down some of the menu items to make them a little easier to eat. But, this still was a great burger.

The flatbread, also, was terrific. With a flatbread you obviously run the risk of juices above creating  soggy bread. But they know what they're doing here.

Those juicy tomato slices sat on a nest of house-made pesto and somehow their juices didn't leak through to the bread. The whole thing was smothered with mozzarella and parmesan cheeses--so it was a great melding of salty, sweet, aromatic, chewy, and crispy. (It even reheated well the next day when I ate the leftovers.)

The 7th Ave Pub clearly benefits from the variety of food and ingredients available to it from Whole Foods below, so you can also order sushi, a cheese board, tacos, soups, sandwiches, and dessert. There are vegetarian and vegan options for several dishes, too.

As I noted, though, the menu will be changing. That's something I can't wait to check out the next time I'm there.



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San Diego's Top Brewers

San Diego is one of the nation's top craft brewing cities. And we've got no shortage of innovative chefs. Beer. Food. It can be a blissful union. So, with this in mind, Chef's Press has just published a beautiful new book called San Diego's Top Brewers: Inside America's Craft Beer Capital ($24.95). Written by Bruce Glassman and photographed by Paul Body and Michael Pawlenty, the book features 17 top breweries--from Stone and Mother Earth to Alesmith, Ballast Point, Karl Strauss, and Iron Fist--and plenty of bars, taverns, and brewpubs, like the popular Blind Lady Ale House, Live Wire, and Hamilton's Tavern.

And, there's no shortage of delightful sounding beer/ale-oriented recipes created by forward-thinking chefs who clearly have an affinity for brews. After all, beer is a splendid and endlessly versatile ingredient for both savory and sweet dishes. You can use it as stock, for braising, for creating sauces, and as the liquid in pastries. The distinctiveness in brewing styles and tonality means that the chef or home cook can create a unique flavor and texture by astutely selecting their beer or ale. And that's what these chefs did. You'll want to check out recipes like the Green Flash Trippel-Cured Salmon with Smoked-Onion Flan and Barleywine Syrup from Terra's Jeff Rossman; Black Garlic Fondue from Karl Strauss Brewing Company's executive chef Gunther Emathinger; and Shrimp-Imbap from The Marine Room's Ron Oliver.

The book offers pairing tips, describes the brewing process, and tosses in resources for other beer businesses. There's even a section devoted to my favorite cupcake maker, Misty Birchall of Pubcakes, who I've written about in my Local Bounty column in San Diego Magazine. She's got the market on beer-flavored cupcakes like the Red Velvet Glove, that is made with Iron Fist Brewing Co.'s Velvet Glove, and Cup o'Helen, with Ballast Point Wahoo Wheat Beer (the recipe for this is in the book).

San Diego's Top Brewers is a refreshing insight into the idiosyncratic world of brewing with an inside look at the characters that inhabit it and what it's taken to turn their passion into liquid gold.

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More Beer! And the Cooks Who Use it to Perfection!

Time again for the Cooks Confab! This time, the theme is Craft Beer: From Grain to Glass, Farm to Table. And, we're moving from La Jolla to downtown San Diego. Specifically Stingaree. More specifically, the rooftop!

You can find the menu here, but just a sampling of participating chefs includes:

• Antonio Friscia of Stingaree, of course
• Jason Knibb of Nine-Ten
• Nathan Coulon of Quarter Kitchen
• Christian Graves of JSix
• Andrew Spurgin of Waters Fine Catering
• Amy DiBiase of Roseville
• Olivier Bioteau of Farm House Cafe
• Paul McCabe of Kitchen 1540
• Katie Grebow of Cafe Chloe
• Jeff Jackson and T.K. Kolanko of A.R. Valentien

And more! And, the brewers? They've got Stone, AleSmith, Ballast Point, Green Flash, Lightning, and The Lost Abbey. Each brewer is paired with chefs to create a fabulous dish.

Ah, the specifics. It's on Sunday, August 9 from 6 to 9 p.m. The cost is $90 per person and includes food, beer, other beverages, tax, and gratuity. Plus, a portion of the ticket sales goes to support Slow Food Urban San Diego. Valet parking is available.

These are hugely fun and delicious events! Make your reservation by calling (619) 544-9500.


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