Lara Hata

Takashi Saito's kakiage, or gobo-shrimp fritters, at Izakaya Yuzuki.

​ As a side note to this week's review of Izakaya Yuzuki, a 2-month-old Japanese restaurant in the Mission, I spoke to its chef, Takashi Saito, a alumnus of Ame and Kyo-Ya. In addition to making exquisite chawanmushi, fish cakes, and braised pork belly, Saito is starting a few culturing projects few American Japanese restaurants undertake. Here's a excerpt from our discussion last week:

SFoodie: On the menu, it mentions that you're culturing your own koji [rice innoculated with Aspergillus oryzae].

Saito: Yes. I'm seasoning with koji. For example, with meat or fish, I don't use regular salt, I use koji salt. The flavor of koji is kind of sweet, like sweet cooked chestnuts. To make it, I make a rice koji mixed with sea salt and mineral water, then keep it at room temperature for two to three weeks. Then the taste and the flavor of the koji comes out.

Is this something a lot of restaurants in Japan make?

A long time ago, every family cultured its own koji and used it, people of my grandmother's age. But now, it's not so popular. They've lost the use.

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Melissa Barnes

AQ's duck with beets.

​Right before today's review of AQ ran, I had a quick chance to talk to its chef, Mark Liberman. Before coming to San Francisco in 2007, Liberman staged at Daniel Boulud's Daniel and cooked for Joël Robuchon at L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon in Las Vegas.

SFoodie: How'd you end up in San Francisco?

Liberman: I had been living in Vegas for three years and was done with Vegas. So I took a job as chef de cuisine at La Folie after that - that was in 2007, early 2008. I was there another year. When I came back from living in Florida, I was training for the [2010] Bocuse d'Or competition. That's when Matt and I decided to open a restaurant. It took us a while to find a space, and I didn't want to take a job anywhere, so I did kitchen butchery, renting spaces out and doing small classes. I'd teach whole animal butchery: pigs, chickens, lamb, as well as charcuterie stuff.

I've heard the space you moved into wasn't a restaurant before that.

Yeah, it was a start-up office with a few desks, sporadically placed, and a few bikes leaned up against the wall. Pretty bare.

Did that allow you to design the kitchen the way you wanted?

Well, we're a new restaurant. Some places can spend $80,000 on a kitchen, but that wasn't the case with us. I was able to design it, but it was limited.

Is the open line we see from the dining room the extent of it?

No, there's a prep kitchen downstairs.

What has AQ then allowed you to do that you didn't get to at, say, La Folie?

Obviously, La Folie is very formal, fine dining, with very French-inspired cuisine. We're more California driven and casual. The cooking is still rooted in a lot of classic technique, but I do a lot of modern things. Also, La Folie is a special-occasion restaurant, while we're trying to make AQ a little more approachable for everyday guests.

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John Birdsall

Curry Up Now has been parking at Bush and Sansome for two years now.

​Yesterday's food feature in the Weekly described the escalating battle between downtown restaurants and food trucks parking on FiDi streets, which began after San Francisco introduced new -- and apparently flawed -- food-truck regulations in March. Last week, I spoke to Akash Kapoor, co-owner of Curry Up Now, whose truck at Bush and Sansome was one of the early arrivals downtown. I talked to Kapoor about competition, being a good neighbor, and how many trucks are too many for the neighborhood.

How long have you been parking in the Financial District now?
We actually purchased a truck that came with a permit two years ago, and we are in the process of getting permits for a new truck. Our hearing is coming up.

What opposition has Curry Up Now received from nearby businesses?
We have received a little, but you know, some of the nearby restaurants that have opened after us don't have too much to say because we were there before them. We're pretty conscious to not serve the same food. One of the reasons we chose the spot we're at now is that there's a Japanese place nearby, and no other restaurants, except a Freshii -- that's the only two restaurants on that block. We try to park in front of Wells Fargo, so there's no restaurant within 50 feet directly in front of there. And fortunately, no one else sells a tikka masala burrito.

In addition, we've encouraged the coffee shop that's next to us to pass out samples to people waiting in line for Curry Up Now. He says his business has gotten better because of us being there. Every couple of months, some restaurant will call the cops on us, and we'll have someone stop by and ask to see our license. Apart from that, relations have been pretty good.

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John Birdsall

The Doc's of the Bay truck.

​As I chronicled in this week's food lead story, the San Francisco Board of Appeals last week struck down two street-parking permits that the Department of Public Works had granted to Kasa's kati roller truck and Doc's of the Bay after an arduous eight-month permitting process. Back in March, Doc's owners Lauren Smith and Zak Silverman camped out in the rain for three days to apply for their top choices for parking spots they wanted to build into a route. The DPW struck down several of their permits during the initial hearing process, and during the Dec. 14 Board of Appeals meeting, downtown restaurants and building managers blocked two more.

The day after the hearing, I spoke to Silverman about San Francisco's new street-food regulations.

SFoodie: So how many permits do you have left after this process?
Silverman: We came away from the hearing with three of our five locations [a twice-a-week spot in the Financial District that remained uncontested, and two weekend nights in the Mission]. Ultimately, we're concerned even for those. Last night was the first time so far that any board in San Francisco has had the opportunity to evaluate the law. We were really discouraged by the DPW's presentation at the hearing, which gave us the sense that the permits we do have are liable to be taken from us at any point based on oversights that make the law rotten.

For instance, the parking clause that says we have to abide by all current and existing parking regulations. [Background: One of the grounds on which the Board of Appeals rejected the permits was that they were multi-hour permits for one-hour parking spots.] That was a known flaw from the get-go, and board member Mike Garcia said that, on those grounds alone, this law should have been fixed before.

We still have a location at Washington Street next to the Transamierca building, but it gives us cause for concern that we can be reported for violating the law and our permit can be revoked. Everyone knows that food trucks are breaking the law by parking at these parking spaces for more than an hour at a time. But that was glossed over in the new law.

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Lara Hata

Ashley Lee, manning the barbecue table.

​Ashley Lee is the force behind -- and the face of -- the newly renovated Jang Soo BBQ, the subject of this week's full-length restaurant review. Within the space of a year, she renovated and renamed her first cafe, then took over Jang Soo with her family. Before filing the review, I chatted with Lee.

SFoodie: So how did you go from starting Kaju Cafe (now Ashley's Cafe) to Jang Soo?

I grew up in the food business. My grandmother had a restaurant, my mom had a restaurant (both in Pohwang, South Korea) ... and I have a totally different college degree. But I love coffee, pastries, and cookies, so I opened Kaju Cafe on California Street about five years ago. We've gotten known for our Fair Trade coffee and our organic sandwiches. We serve a bulgogi cheese steak sandwich on the menu.

Then two months ago, I had the opportunity to open another business. My grandmother passed away two years ago, but my mom has all of her recipes. So I asked her, do you want to open a restaurant?

Now she's the head chef, and we make everything from scratch. We have our own garden in Mill Valley, where we grow all the vegetables and herbs. And Korean food is all about pepper paste and soybean paste -- that's the base of all our sauces. So we make all that from scratch. We try to stay organic as much as we can.

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Jonathan Kauffman

Spice Kit's fried chicken bowl, $7.95, only available two days a week.

​Not every day can be fried chicken day -- the subject of my review this week. In addition to the three restaurants I mentioned, Spice Kit, the banh mi and Asian wrap shop on First and Howard streets, has a San Franciscan covered two days a week.

This summer, founder Will Pacio and Spice Kit chef Fred Tang started up Fried Chicken Fridays, which expanded into Fried Chicken Wednesdays in late October. They offer the chicken like any other meat on the restaurant's menu: in a sandwich, salad, bowl, or wrap.

Though Spice Kit's lines move quick, they usually extend out the door, and so it wasn't surprising that when I arrived at 12:30 p.m. last Wednesday, I was one of the last few customers to score a chicken order. As they do with most of their food, Pacio and Tang have pulled a couple of different cuisines into the chicken recipe. They red-cook boneless strips of thigh meat -- braising it with soy, rock sugar, cinnamon, and star anise -- and then dust the meat with rice flour and drop it in the fryer. The meat doesn't come out terribly crisp, but the it is cola-colored, rich, and aromatic.

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Meigan Canfield

Summit (and Dux) chef Eddie Lau.

​Eddie Lau made a name for himself in the San Francisco food scene as a forthright, witty blogger before becoming chef of the Summit last fall. He's been supplementing his work at the cafe by hosting a series of elaborate, experimental dinners called Dux, which I reviewed in the paper this week. Before I filed the review, I spoke to Lau about why he was covering bitter melon in chocolate and steaming egg whites with lobster.

SFoodie: First off, how did Dux come about?

Lau: It was something I had been planning for a year and half -- really, the idea for at-the-table seating came from what José Andrés does at Minibar in DC, but not as modernist or molecular-gatstronomy oriented. So I always had the idea to do something intimate, different, and partially educational at the Summit's bar.

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Lara Hata

​The restaurant review published in print this week, of Grill House Mediterranean in the Tenderloin, noted that there were clear differences in the quality of the food when the restaurant's Turkish chef, Vahit  Besir, was in the restaurant.

That was truer than even I knew.

Mr. Besir emailed me today to say that he actually left the restaurant four weeks ago, in the middle of my four visits. "I had the quit my job because the owner (Ali) did not obey the agreement" he wrote. When I contacted the restaurant shortly before publication to verify information, I was told that Mr. Besir was the chef, but he was out for a few days with back problems. I have a phone call out to the restaurant to find out who the new chef, if there is one, might be.

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Marlowe

Jennifer Puccio, chef of Marlowe and the new Park Tavern.

​Jennifer Puccio, the chef of Park Tavern -- the subject of this week's full-length restaurant review -- cooked at Cortez, Ubuntu, and Ramblas before settling in at Marlowe almost two years ago. As I was gearing up for this week's review, I spoke to Puccio about her designs for the new restaurant.
SFoodie: How did you and Anna Weinberg end up in the old Moose's space?

Puccio: One of our partners at Marlowe, Dave Stanton, happened upon the space. I think one of his friends and business partners was involved when it held Joey and Eddie's. When the space became available, we loved it and the neighborhood.

In the restaurant you've found a number of ways [a photo, Ed's Negroni on the cocktail menu] to pay homage to Ed Moose. Were you conscious of his legacy when you were designing the restaurant? [Note for you youngsters: Moose was the owner of Moose's, which used to occupy the same space.]

Actually, when my husband and I moved out here from Boston, he was an assistant manager at Moose's, and I had the opportunity to meet [Ed]. Moose's was such an iconic restaurant, and had been around for so long. Ed Moose was such a part of San Francisco. It was our goal to try to bring the restaurant back to at least some sort of the glory that he had here.

The scale of Park Tavern is so much different from Marlowe. How has that changed what you're doing?

Mainly, the size of the menu. If I had to count, it's about double the size of Marlowe's menu, just because the size of the kitchens. We have a wood-fired oven here, room for six line cooks instead of just barely three, so it just allows us to do more production. Not being open for lunch also offers me a lot more freedom to play around.

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Marines' Memorial Club

​When I called MaryAnn Hatlan, director of food and beverage at the Marines' Memorial Club and Hotel, to ask her a few background questions about its Leatherneck Steakhouse -- the subject of this week's full-length restaurant review -- she ended up telling me about the history of the club and the building it's housed in.

"You should encourage people to join the club if they're eligible," she said. Membership is limited to former members of the U.S. armed services with an honorable discharge, as well as active members, who can join for free. "We're a unique environment: a private club, a hotel, and a nonprofit for veterans. We're very quiet about what we do. We don't advertise anywhere, and we're never in the newspaper or billboards."

The rest of the history follows in Hatlan's words:

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