Enjoying the Big O

Who doesn't love a good burger? I don't eat them as often as I would like, but it's a pleasure when I find one I really enjoy. My friend Alex Hart invited me to join her at O'Brothers at Horton Plaza, so we met there this afternoon for lunch.

Cheers to brothers Derek and Craig Cowling for turning Craig's penchant for great burger grilling into a sleek, hip burger joint. Their hook? Everything, but everything is organic. The meat is local, from Matt Rimel's Homegrown Meats. The buns, the ketchup, the fries, the salad greens, and even the beverages, both sodas and beers and wine, are organic. If you need to drink a Coke with your burger, you'll have to bring it in because they just don't serve it.

The restaurant, on the second level of Horton Plaza, facing Broadway, has been open since February. It's a big shift from the previous family business, Dixieline Lumber. The restaurant business may be new to them, but the food is very good and the ambience, thanks to designer David Robinson (whose previous clients include Stone Brewery, Mille Fleurs, Roppongi, Pacifica Del Mar, and Paradise Grille), is another of a growing number of modernist yet warm environments, complete with an open kitchen. Pull together tables for a group lunch or pull up a stool and sit at the counter to watch your meal being prepared.


The menu is simple and tightly limited. There are six burgers. Well, five if you take into account that the veggie burger is really just a veggie sandwich. There are a couple of salads, including a new grilled vegetable salad, fries, and onion rings. And usually a couple of desserts, made on the premises.

I was told that "The Big O" was their most popular burger, so I tried that. It's a quarter of a pound of meat, cooked a nice pink medium rare, and topped with crisp bacon, cheddar cheese, a slice of tomato, red onion, and thinly fanned avocado. A dollop of ketchup on top was the finishing touch. The burger is, well, good. Really good. Not too big, full of flavor, and mouth friendly.



With the burger comes, not fries, but a nice sized green salad with either ranch or balsamic dressing. I tried the ranch dressing and found the salad to be a solidly tasty addition to the burger. But, of course, we had to order the onion rings.


They looked great, but actually turned out to be disappointing. The crispness was fleeting, and the flavors were just off. Apparently, they've got various Italian spices in the flour and then another set of spices in the breadcrumbs that form the outer crust. They don't mix well, and even Derek acknowledged that the recipe needs revisiting.

On the other hand, the fries were delicious. A beautiful golden brown and crisp on the outside, but with a soft interior. They were just salty enough. And, they were wonderful with the homemade barbecue sauce they were served with.



What would I really like, along with improved onion rings? Well, a milkshake, of course. And, a root beer float. I hope they'll add these to the menu at some point. It sounds, though, that their focus is now on expanding the restaurants -- adding five or six in San Diego, looking at south Florida for up to 20 locations, and then Northern California. So, San Diego, we're the test location. And, really, I couldn't be happier.

O'Brothers is located at 188 Horton Place, above the Levi's store.


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Chewing the Fat at North Park Meat Co.

There's something so fundamentally basic about eating a really good piece of smoked or cured meat. It represents our carnivorous side but also our frugal side and a whole lot of human creativity and ingenuity. Without refrigeration, by necessity cultures around the world had to devise a way to preserve hard-won meats. Sun and wind did the job until fire was discovered and methods were created to cook and dry the meats to make them last longer and prevent spoilage and botulism. Somewhere along the way, "salting" was found to cure meats and then salting, drying and smoking were combined to lend additional flavors to the meat along with preserving them by creating physiological, chemical and bacteriological changes to the protein.

We've become used to commercially prepared hot dogs, bacon, ham and sausages but if you've ever tried an artisan-prepared piece of smoked or cured meat you know it's a very different flavor experience. It's not the saltiness that hits your tongue with such power; it's the woods, the spices, the meat itself that makes an impact. And, when the meat comes from pastured animals, it's that much better.

So, San Diego has a new treat in store with the opening last Thursday of the North Park Meat Co. It's a little offshoot of Jay Porter's restaurant, The Linkery, which moved last year to a larger space on 30th at North Park Way. Where there has long been a bar area and extra seating to the west of the dining room, you'll now also see a meat counter with a variety of home-smoked and cured meats and fish. All the curing and smoking is done by a team of three: Michael McGuan, who runs The Linkery's meat program; Max Bonacci, The Linkery's chef; and Ernesto Romero, the primary sausage maker.

"We've been making all these products for years as part of the restaurant menu," says Porter. "But we decided to make them available for customers to buy to take home. There's nothing like this available in San Diego."

Porter pointed out that the meat comes from pastured animals owned by independent farms. "This is completely outside of the commodity chain," he explains. "The other thing is that this is artisan curing. We have a lot of historical research about traditions of smoking and curing and have recipes we've been using. So that means that if a customer comes in with a desire from a cured meat from a specific country or region of a country, we can probably make it on request. Of course, if they want a country ham made to order, it could take six months to a year to deliver it. But for bacon, it can take just a matter of weeks."

One of the reasons Porter decided to sell the cured and smoked meats to the public was the realization that people "have no idea what goes on in our kitchen. They think we buy these products off the shelf. But that slice of ham or bacon on their plate was made by us."

The offerings will change depending on the availability of the animals, which Porter buys whole from a variety of independent farmers throughout California and parts of the Western U.S.

One of the most imposing products is the enormous blackstrap molasses country ham from Berkshire breed pigs raised by Barney Bahrenfuse in Grinnell, Iowa. The hams are approximately 16 pounds each and sell for $275.


There are a variety of bacons--pork belly bacon and pork belly slab bacon, also from Bahrenfuse's pigs, pork loin Canadian bacon from Jim Neville's Hampshire and Blue Butt breed pork, beef belly navel bacon from Tallgrass Beef's Northern California co-op farm, and even goat belly bacon from Bill and Nicolette Niman in Bolinas, Calif.


I was delighted to see cured beef tongue, also from Tallgrass Beef cattle. Tongue is something my mom made when I was growing up and still a sandwich treat on occasion. Try it sliced thin on a good corn rye with mustard.


Someone recently asked me where she could find good pancetta that she could slice herself. She was looking for a place along the North County coast, but if she wants to drive down to North Park, she'll find homemade pancetta here.


If you're looking for smoked fish, North Park Meat Co. regularly has wild local smoked fish. When I was there, it was swordfish and Mexican opah.

If, on the other hand, you're looking to indulge (shhh, don't tell your doctor), Porter has the most delicious and creamy lardo, also from Barney Bahrenfuse. This is a cured pork product that comes from the layer of fat directly underneath the skin. Once considered "poor man's food" it's now considered a delicacy.

What do you do with lardo? Slice it thin and include it in on antipasto platter. Toss lardo shavings with pasta. Spread it on bread or mix it in a salad. Add it to stuffing or use it as a replacement for pancetta. It's actually very light with a creamy flavor, not at all greasy.


Now how do I know how good it is? Porter had some samples of different items, including the lardo, prepared for me while I was there.


What you see here is, from the left, thin slices of lardo, Canadian loin bacon and pork belly bacon. As a palate cleanser, we also had toasted slices of homemade bread and gorgeous slices of watermelon radishes from McGrath Family Farms.

You'll find all of these items on The Linkery's menu in different dishes, but now you can buy them and take them home to use on your own.

"We're like a lab where we can keep alive traditional foods and ways of living," says Porter. "People think this is extravagant but what they forget is that it's all based on the thrift of a pre-industrial economy.

North Park Meat Co. is attached to The Linkery at 3704 30th St. in North Park.


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Cheese Chat on The Gourmet Club

For this Friday's meeting of The Gourmet Club, San Diego cheese whiz Gina Freize will be joining us in studio. Gina and her husband Roger own Venissimo in Mission Hills and last year bought Aniata Cheese Company in Del Mar. Gina will update us on new spring cheeses (yes, many cheeses are seasonal) and, in anticipation of St. Patrick's Day, talk about Irish cheeses. And, I'm sure that between Gina and Robert, we'll get some insights on pairing wine and cheese.

And what about pairing cheese with meat? The San Diego Union-Tribune's Doug Verkaaik will be with us to talk about the great San Diego hamburger search. Got a favorite place? Call in and let us in on your local burger preferences.

We'll also have Mike Mitchell of Oceanaire and president of the California Restaurant Association's San Diego chapter give us the lowdown on new foodie hot spots in town.

Join Ron James, Robert Whitley and me for another meeting of The Gourmet Club at 1p.m. PDT on SignOn Radio or podcast it to listen at your convenience.


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