Willow Street Pizza

Posted on 11/21/2013 by Randomly Edible

Willow Street Pizza is one of those places I never think of visiting until I’m standing right outside its door. This South Bay mini chain isn’t remarkable in any particular way, but it’s consistently above average and always sends me away satisfied with my choice to eat there. All of the Willow Street restaurants are also dog-friendly, which is a big plus in my book.

One afternoon in November, my wife Shawn and I found ourselves being dragged around Los Gatos by our two pint-sized dogs. We were finished with our primary objective – visiting every interesting shrub and fire hydrant the city had to offer – and so we moved on to locating a place to have lunch. We needed somewhere with outdoor seating, patio heaters, and tolerance of pooches. It didn’t take us long to narrow down our choice to Willow Street Pizza.

As we approached the restaurant, we noticed that there were plenty of open tables on the patio. Excellent. Shawn went inside to speak with the hostess and get us seated… and instead came out with a pager. “It’ll be 20 to 25 minutes” Shawn said, not trying too hard to hide her irritation. I looked around at all the empty tables as if to say, “Are they on crack?” Shawn shrugged. I shrugged. We waited.

Look at all those happy, invisible patrons. No wonder there’s a wait.

” I looked around at all the empty tables as if to say, ‘Are they on crack?’ “

20 minutes went by in a flash, with “flash” being defined as the amount of time it takes a set of human buttocks to go completely numb due to sitting on cold bricks while waiting outside a restaurant. Mercifully, the pager went off around then and we were whisked away to a nice, clean table underneath a toasty heat lamp.

Our server swooped by promptly, apologizing for the wait and setting us up with fresh bread. Well, that’s more like it. My Like-O-Meter had been dipping dangerously, but now it was working its way back up to a more reasonable level. I was barely through tearing off a piece of bread when our server stopped by again to take our drink order. Shawn chose a made-to-order ginger ale, and I went for the Shipyard Smashed Blueberry ale featured on the seasonal beverage board.

It was like getting wasted on breakfast muffins.

Actually no, it wasn’t ale… it was a malt beverage. Well it sure tasted like ale, and a good one at that. It had outstanding blueberry flavor, but not in a weird way. And sheesh, 9.0% alcohol? That’s a strong one. While I was engrossed in the flavor of my blueberry malt thing, Shawn ordered us a Gorgonzola salad with cranberries and a pepperoni and olive pizza. Perfect.

Gorgonzola and cranberries go surprisingly well together.

It didn’t take longs for our food to arrive, and it was very good. That beer though, wow! Yeah, pretty strong.. Big bottle too, 22oz. The gorgonzogla salad was surprisingly good for just being a salad. I mean, it’s a salad right? Who notices things like a salad? but anyway we liked it. And there’s cranberries in it! Oh yeah, that’s in the name. Loving this beer.

Very slightly oily but extremely flavorful. Overall a great pie.

we got the pizza when I was halfway through my ale. Really tastes like blueberries. no not that I meant the beer. Hey when did the pizza get here? It was fairly shimple but very nicely made, and I’m sure someone made it by hand. real good that pizza with good crust. Man. and this beer still isnt empty. here Shawn you need to take the car keys. WOO has someone turned up the patio heater I think? lol

well we had to wait while to eat but we finally did so great! THe blueberry ale was one of the best salads i’ve had, and the cranberry piza was good with my beer Hey whos dogs are these. i rate Willow Street Pizza pretty good but not acceptional, defently worth going back. omg this ale has BULEBERRIES

Willow Street Pizza
Multiple locations around the Bay Area
www.willowstreet.com

Willow Street’s Los Gatos location is a nice place to be, provided you can get seated.

How to grill a perfect steak

Posted on 11/19/2013 by Randomly Edible

Ha, fooled you! There’s no such thing as a “perfect steak”. This is because there are a thousand different types of steaks and a thousand different ways to cook each one*, and everybody likes theirs prepared a little differently. This of course means that, when cooking a steak, you are always guaranteed to delight some people while at the same time horribly offending others. The real trick is to only offend people who have no direct way of telling you that you’re an idiot, and if you can delight a few of the people within your immediate vicinity then that’s a bonus.
* Quantities are estimated

Skip to the short version

” The real trick is to only offend people who have no direct way of telling you that you’re an idiot “

I am not a steak grilling ace. I’m not bad, but I view myself as approximately average. I know the theory behind steak preparation quite well, but executing that theory skillfully is another matter. My father-in-law, on the other hand, makes the very best steaks I have ever had. His approach involves medium cut ribeyes, generous quantities of onion salt, a hot grill, and experience. I have yet to replicate his results, but I’m working on it.

The technique I prefer to follow is the “steakhouse style” sear-then-bake approach. I like this method not only because it produces nom-worthy steaks, but also because it’s fairly forgiving. Even if you get the searing completely wrong, you can easily adjust the baking portion to end up with something that’s still edible.

Coals ready? Good. Let’s grill.

Ingredients

Steaks (Do I really need to tell you this?)
Olive oil
Steak seasoning of some kind (Salt and pepper will do just fine.)

Directions

Skillet and oven
Preheat your oven to 450 degrees F. On your stovetop, preheat an oven safe skillet to a medium-high heat. If your skillet is cast iron (*cough* hint *cough*) it should smoke a little but not a lot. Rub your steaks with the olive oil and sprinkle your chosen seasonings on them. Put the steaks in the hot skillet and allow them to sizzle magically. The less you move the steaks the better, so don’t slide them around or peek underneath them if you can help it. After a few minutes there should be a nice, browned crust on the bottom of your steaks; flip them over and put the skillet – steaks and all – immediately in the oven. Check the steaks for doneness after a couple of minutes. You can do this either with a meat thermometer or, if you’d like to astonish your friends and family with your cleverness, use the “finger trick“. When the steaks are done to your liking, remove them from the skillet and allow to rest for five-ish minutes before unleashing your inner carnivore on them.

Barbecue/grill
Setup will be vastly different depending on the exact barbecue or grill you plan on using, but the basic idea is that you want a direct heat section for searing and an indirect heat section for roasting. If you have a gas grill, turn on one side to high and leave the other side off. If you’re using a typical charcoal barbecue, make your pile of coals off-center.

As above, rub your steaks with olive oil, season them, and put them on the hot side of your grill to sear. After a minute or two, turn your steaks 45 degrees to give them those signature cross-hatched grill marks that declare to the world you know what you’re doing. Flip the steaks over and repeat the process, a few minutes a side. If you don’t have nifty grill marks after this, your fire isn’t hot enough.

Move your steaks to the indirect heat area of your grill and close the lid. My grill (a Big Green Egg) allows me to change the height of the cooking surface, so at this point I just raise the grill up as high as it will go. Roast your steaks until the desired doneness has been achieved, allow to rest, and chow accordingly.

I made this. Be jealous.

tl;dr

How to grill a perfect steak

Ingredients

Steaks
Olive oil
Steak seasoning of some kind (Salt and pepper will do just fine.)

Directions

Skillet and oven
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. On stovetop, preheat an oven safe skillet to a medium-high heat. Rub steaks with olive oil and sprinkle on steak seasoning. Place steaks in skillet. Sear for 2 or 3 minutes or until a crust has formed. Flip steaks over and place skillet in oven. Roast for several minutes, until internal temperature of steaks reaches desired doneness.

Barbecue/grill
Set up grill for high temperature, direct heat, retain part of the grill area for indirect heat. Rub steaks with olive oil and sprinkle with seasoning. Sear steaks on both sides, then move to indirect heat area of grill. Roast for several minutes, until internal temperature of steaks reaches desired doneness.

See also

Turkey Herder Pie

Posted on 11/16/2013 by Randomly Edible

With bare cupboards, a grumbling stomach, and no idea what to make for dinner, I somehow managed to throw this shepherd’s pie clone together in about 45 minutes. To my utmost astonishment, it didn’t suck. I quickly grabbed a pad of paper and scribbled down the recipe, and because I’m super nice I’m going to share it with you.

Skip to the short version

A completely non-authentic shepherd’s pie rip off. We loved it.

It was just another regular old Sunday night at home, and there was nothing to eat. The pantry, freezer, and refrigerator were all in that familiar “blah” phase that takes places right before one drags oneself to the store to restock. Just as I was lamenting the grocery situation, my wife Shawn said, “Doesn’t shepherd’s pie sound good?”

” Fire up the broiler and show those stupid potatoes who’s boss “

We had barely any food in the house at all, so shepherd’s pie was very unlikely. “Oh sure, and why don’t we ask Bruce Willis to deliver some for us in a free Rolls Royce?” I said. Well, that’s what my brain wanted to say. My mouth, being tired of constantly getting into trouble thanks to my brain, decided instead to say “Sure, I’ll see what I can come up with.” My brain was horrified. Shawn was right though, shepherd’s pie did sound good.

There are a bajillion recipes out there, each one a little different, but there are some common themes. In a typical shepherd’s pie (aka, cottage pie), there is usually some kind of meat simmered in broth and Worcestershire sauce, some kind of vegetable, cheese or cream, onions, and mashed potatoes. I rummaged the freezer again and came up with some ground turkey I had forgotten about. The spice rack yielded beef bouillon powder and some dehydrated onions, and the pantry coughed up a box of instant potatoes and a can of corn. Well whaddya know. Rock and roll.

Ingredients

1 lb ground turkey
1 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp dehydrated minced onions
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp beef bouillon dissolved in 1 cup hot water (or 1 cup beef broth)
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp ground thyme
1 tsp sweet paprika
1 can of corn, drained
1 cup grated cheese (cheddar is best)
2 cups prepared instant mashed potatoes

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Brown the turkey in a skillet with the olive oil, dehydrated onions, and garlic powder, being careful not to overcook. When the turkey is barely done (don’t worry, it’ll cook quite a bit longer), add the boullion or broth, Worcestershire sauce, black pepper, thyme, and paprika. Stir well and simmer uncovered until most of the liquid has evaporated, about 10 or 15 minutes. Salt to taste and remove from heat.

This is an obligatory picture of cheese.

Layer the meat mixture in the bottom of a 13×9 casserole dish and cover with the drained corn. Add the cheese in another even layer, and then carefully spread the mashed potatoes over all of that using a rubber spatula. If you want to get fancy (and who doesn’t), take a fork and lightly scrape the top of the mashed potatoes to give it some texture. The resulting tiny little peaks of mashed potato will get toasty, ramping up the “Wow, look what you made!” factor.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the potatoes are browned. If they still aren’t browned after 25 minutes, fire up the broiler and show those stupid potatoes who’s boss. Remove from oven, dish up generous scoops of meaty goodness onto whatever plates you happen to have clean, and do be careful not to sear the flesh from the roof of your mouth. If you can come up with a better name than “Turkey Herder Pie”, I’m all ears. That was the best Shawn and I could come up with while under the influence of a respectable post-dinner food coma.

Super awesome tip: If you have a Dutch oven (tee hee), you can make this entire recipe in the one piece of cookware without having to do the skillet-to-baking-dish transfer thing.

Mmm, I do love me some tiny little toasty peaks of mashed potato.

tl;dr

Turkey herder pie

Ingredients

1 lb ground turkey
1 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp dehydrated minced onions
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp beef bouillon dissolved in 1 cup hot water (or 1 cup beef broth)
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp ground thyme
1 tsp sweet paprika
1 can of corn, drained
1 cup grated cheese (cheddar is best)
2 cups prepared instant mashed potatoes

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Brown turkey in a skillet with the olive oil, dehydrated onions, and garlic powder. Add boullion or broth, Worcestershire sauce, black pepper, thyme, and paprika. Stir well and simmer uncovered for 10 or 15 minutes, until most of the liquid has evaporated. Salt to taste and remove from heat. Layer meat mixture in the bottom of a 13×9 casserole dish. Cover with drained corn, then cheese, then mashed potato. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until mashed potato layer is lightly browned.

See also

Product review: Texas Gunpowder

Posted on 11/14/2013 by Randomly Edible

In spite of the name, Texas Gunpowder is actually food. It’s made from 100% pure jalapeño peppers that have been dehydrated and ground up into a fine powder. That’s it. You can use it anywhere you’d be inclined to use black pepper, as well as a number of places you wouldn’t.

A bottle of original Texas Gunpowder I keep stored in my secret underground lair.

” A good solid dusting will burn your face completely off “

Texas Gunpowder was originally created by Whit “Pappy” Pinnell and developed quite a cult following in the 1990’s, which is when I first discovered it. Unfortunately, Pappy passed away some years ago, and so the legacy of Texas Gunpowder was lost. I hoarded as much of the stuff as I could – a mere dozen bottles – and used it sparingly, but eventually my stash (and my spirits) began to run low. Then, earlier this year, I discovered that the rights to produce the spice were acquired by the unfortunately named SuckleBusters company, and there has been much rejoicing in my cupboard ever since.

This little bottle is full of sinus-clearing wonderfulness.

A bottle of ground up jalapeños sounds scary, but it isn’t. This stuff is actually fairly mild, believe it or not, and the powdered consistency allows you to scale up the heat in as many little increments as you so desire, from mega-wimpy all the way up to Dante’s Inferno. One tap of the bottle can barely even be tasted, but a good solid dusting will burn your face completely off.

Strangely, Texas Gunpowder doesn’t have much flavor of its own. There’s no salt or vinegar or tang or sweetness or anything else; it’s just pure heat that can be turned as high or low as you like. This means that, unlike most other spices and hot sauces out there, Texas Gunpowder can be used pretty much anywhere. It’s amazingly good in Italian food, especially pizza, and it’s great on salads. Oh, and sandwiches – you have to try it on sandwiches. And eggs, and barbecued steak. And Mexican food. And… well alright, it’s good on basically everything. I haven’t tried it on ice cream but I bet it’s good there too.

Why you should buy this

Texas Gunpowder is a simple, natural way to add gentle (or searing) heat to a mind-boggling array of dishes.
It’s sodium free. That might even mean it’s healthy. *gasp*

Why you shouldn’t

Avoid if you are a weenie (e.g., you think ketchup is too spicy).
Invisible particles of jalapeño always, ALWAYS float through the air and into any available nostrils, causing violent fits of sneezing in most carbon-based life forms.

Where it can be found

Right here.

Also available in red jalapeño, chipotle, and habanero, but regular old jalapeño is still the best though.

Also available in red jalapeño, chipotle, and habanero. Regular old jalapeño is still the best though.

Standard Product Review Disclaimer
No, I didn’t get paid to review whatever it was that I just wrote about. Shortest disclaimer ever.

Kotetsu Ramen

Posted on 11/12/2013 by Randomly Edible

Kotetsu Ramen is a bit of a contradiction. The food is high quality, it’s authentic, and everyone seems to love it. On the other hand, this place is questionably located and largely incomprehensible. I’m sure I’ll figure out what I think of it by the end of my review, but as of right now I’m on the fence.

“Reminder: Lunch” my smartphone declared at me. Well that’s odd. I hardly need help remembering to eat, so the notification must be for… Ah yes, I was supposed to meet my friend Kevin for lunch. “Are we still on for today?” I texted to Kevin, pretending to remember our lunch meeting. “I think it’s your turn to pick.”

“Let’s go to that ramen place we talked about last time, Kotetsu” came the reply.

” It seemed more like fried chicken fat that accidentally included some meat “

I looked up the address, jumped in the car, and started off down the street… and three minutes later I arrived. Well that was quite a bit closer than I thought it was – Kotetsu Ramen gets a thumbs up for convenience at least, assuming you live exactly where I do. Unfortunately, the convenient location just so happens to be a 1970’s strip mall that adorns the side of El Camino Real the same way an old piece of spinach adorns one’s teeth. The mall is not bad or scary really, it’s just ugly. If you’re ever in the market for an abandoned 1988 LeBaron station wagon with wood-look paneling, you’ll often find one or two specimens here.

I met Kevin in front of Kotetsu at 11:25am, right on schedule. “We need to wait out here, they don’t open for another five minutes” Kevin said, the “closed” sign on the door backing up his statement. Actually, no – scratch that. The sign didn’t say “closed”, it said “close”, without the “d”.

I am confuse.

Close. Hmm.

Did this mean “close by my house” or “please close this door”? Or was it a misspelling of “clothes”? My eye began to twitch slightly as my brain attempted to process this information and came up with nothing. To my relief, a nice man opened the door from the inside, removed the grammatically dubious sign, and invited us in.

Don’t mind me. I’m just some guy taking pictures of you while you eat. Pretend like I’m not here.

The inside of Kotetsu isn’t huge, but it’s well laid out, nicely lit, and absolutely immaculately clean. It really is a nice place to be. A lot of restaurants could learn a thing or two from Kotetsu and keep their dining areas a bit tidier. There’s a distinction between “not dirty” and “obsessively clean”. Customers (e.g., me) can tell the difference, and that’s one thing that really sets this restaurant apart.

The service at Kotetsu was as crisp and flawless as its cleanliness; within 2.8 seconds of being seated we had glasses of ice water and a competent waitperson at our beck and call. I opened the menu and started to browse through it… and immediately I knew I had a problem. Quite a lot of it was written in Romanized Japanese, which is Japanese words written using the English alphabet. This was a bit of an issue because, as you may have guessed, I don’t know Japanese. I gave Kevin a helpless “Please tell me you can read this” look, but he returned it with a shrug that conveyed “What, and you think I’m supposed to be able to?” Super.

I began carefully scrutinizing the menu, scanning for words I recognized and attempting to identify food items from the pictures. Let’s see… ramen…. ramen… ramen…. Yes, those are all words I know but they are not helpful. Ah, here’s pork… and this one here says chicken. I decided on the least alarming thing I could identify, a chicken plate something-whatever, and Kevin ordered a ramen thing that seemed likely to include pork.

This is the plate of items I must have ordered.

Our meals arrived quickly, and they looked fairly delicious. Well mine did anyway, but Kevin’s frightened me. To be perfectly honest, this kind of food really isn’t my cup of tea. Despite this, it was clear that the preparation was high quality and executed with the utmost care by expert hands. I wasn’t overly thrilled, but I’ll try anything once. My dish did indeed turn out to be not unlike chicken – fried chicken to be exact – and it included mayonnaise, some kind of potato salad, and assorted vegetable bits. The chicken was crispy, light, and had very good flavor, but it was extremely fatty. It seemed more like fried chicken fat that accidentally included some meat instead of the other way around. Kevin seemed to think that fatty chicken was just the style of the particular dish I ordered, which is possible, but I didn’t love it. I made my way through most of it and it grew on me as I ate. It’s still not my thing, but I can see how some people might appreciate it. The potato salad (if it actually was potato salad) was excellent.

“Yes, I’ll have the partially submerged meat flower with kelp please.”

Across the table, Kevin was enjoying the heck out of his ramen. It certainly did seem to have plenty of pork – large, flat pieces of it adorned the inner edges of the bowl in an epic fan of meatiness. The cuts of pork contained a fair amount questionable gristly bits throughout, and each was rimmed in a ring of fat. This dish was certainly not anything I would ever order for myself. It was becoming quite apparent, however, that I was the odd one out in the restaurant as far as my opinions went, as everyone else within eyesight really seemed to be chowing away with glee. Indeed, Kotetsu’s ratings on Yelp are consistently high, which tells me that this is a very good restaurant that simply doesn’t serve anything I like.

Coming up with a rating for Kotetsu Ramen is tricky. Objectively I give them decent marks for overall quality of preparation, cleanliness, flavor, and what appears to be a high degree of authenticity – let’s say 8.5 out of 10 pounds of fried chicken fat. On the flip side of the coin, I dislike the location, the menus need a lot of work to make them useable by a wider audience, and I just don’t personally care for the style of food (the latter of course is not the fault of Kotetsu). I’d be willing to go back to this place with the help of a translator, and if I can find a dish I like I have no doubt it will be made very well indeed …whatever it is.

Kotetsu Ramen
2089 El Camino Real
Santa Clara, CA 95050
(408) 557-0822
www.kotetsuramen.com

That’s a bowl of stuff alright. Enjoy?

Randomly Edible

Mostly a food blog. Sort of.

Tag Archives: food

Willow Street Pizza

How to grill a perfect steak

Turkey Herder Pie

Product review: Texas Gunpowder

Kotetsu Ramen

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