Leslie Sbrocco: Plant-forward fine dining in Burlingame…
Liza Fiorentinos: I said, “What, what, what, what?” It’s really unbelievable.
Leslie Sbrocco: And contemporary Peruvian plates in Oakland.
Chris Carroll: You realize, “Holy cow, it’s all gone.”
Leslie Sbrocco: Just ahead on Check, Please! Bay Area. Like eating the top of the muffin.
Manali Gokhale: Yeah, exactly.
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Leslie Sbrocco: Hi, I’m Leslie Sbrocco. Welcome to Check, Please! Bay Area, the show where Bay Area residents review and talk about their favorite restaurants. Now, we have three guests, and each one recommends one of their favorite spots and the other two go check them out to see what they think. Joining me at the Check, Please! table today are clean-energy program manager Manali Gokhale, plant business owner Liza Fiorentinos, and high school teacher Chris Carroll. Welcome, everyone. Ready for a great show?
Chris Carroll: Yes.
Liza Fiorentinos: Yes, absolutely.
Leslie Sbrocco: Manali’s breakfast spot is proof-positive that good things come in small packages. It’s a tiny bakery that packs big flavors into hot, buttery, build-your-own biscuit sandwiches. Located in San Francisco’s Mission District, it’s Kahnfections.
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Mark Kahn: I think a bakery can really be a community gathering spot. It is happy food.
Judy Kahn: Nobody comes into a bakery in a bad mood. Or if they do, they tend to leave in a much better mood.
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Judy Kahn: Kahnfections is kind of old-school American meets French. Our best seller, carrot cake, was kind of the impetus behind what was going to be at Kahnfections. But then when I went to pastry school, I really fell in love with croissants and making them. And we do 10 different varieties. Our scones are baked with a house-made scone glaze, just that finishing touch that put it right over the top.
Mark Kahn: It’s really hard to find a good breakfast sandwich, particularly on a buttermilk biscuit, and that’s kind of a thing we’ve become known for.
Judy Kahn: We make our eggs fresh to order in a kind of French omelet style, so that it takes on a little bit of a soufflé-like texture.
Woman: Each breakfast sandwich roughly gets about one and a half eggs.
Judy Kahn: I think the key to a good biscuit is not overworking the dough and doing it by hand. We make about 1,200 biscuits every week.
Mark Kahn: That’s 50,000 biscuits a year.
Judy Kahn: That’s a lot of biscuits. That’s a lot of butter. Some of our most loyal customers are the four-legged variety.
Mark Kahn: Yeah, we do have house-made dog biscuits.
Judy Kahn: People tell us that their dogs bring them to the bakery.
Mark Kahn: We do like the furry friends. We have people who come by every day. This is their morning coffee spot.
Woman: Vanilla latte?
Mark Kahn: They’ll grab a table and they’ll be out there for an hour and a half, and we love that. We’ve been approached, “Oh, you know, do you want to do, like, a ghost kitchen where you can make your sandwiches and we’ll deliver them out everywhere?” I was like, “No, we don’t want to do that.” We like to see people eat the food and get satisfaction out of it. We get satisfaction out of them getting satisfaction.
Judy Kahn: We just really love that we’ve become part of these people’s lives. We appreciate them so much and they appreciate us.
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Leslie Sbrocco: So, Manali, when you go for breakfast, do you tend towards the sweet or the savory or a mixture?
Manali Gokhale: Ideally, I really like to have both, and they actually have a pretty wide variety of your classic pastries, you know, croissants, muffins, scones. But what made me really fall in love with it is their breakfast sandwich. It’s an egg and cheese on a biscuit. But this is no ordinary biscuit. It’s almost indescribable but I’m going to try. It’s soft, it’s fluffy, it’s so fantastically buttery and also really generously sized. The other thing I really like about it is that it’s totally customizable.
Woman: Bacon and egg.
Manali Gokhale: I usually go for their dill, Swiss, and scallion biscuit. Then I’ll get cheddar cheese. And then for the spread, I go back and forth between either the garlic aioli or the lemon aioli. I think they both pack a lot of flavor. Just depends what I’m feeling that day.
Leslie Sbrocco: Depends if you’re kissing anybody.
Manali Gokhale: Yes, exactly. Yeah. I’m curious. Did you guys get the sandwich when you guys went?
Leslie Sbrocco: You got to have a biscuit.
Liza Fiorentinos: I didn’t get the sandwich, but I must have ordered like five biscuits and three of the scones. And my favorite was the bacon cheddar scallion. It was unbelievable. I don’t usually have bacon. It was delicious. It was bready without being over-chewy. Just absolutely delicious. What about you?
Chris Carroll: 100% the biscuit sandwich. I got the traditional buttermilk biscuit with egg, added bacon with the garlic spread. And there are hamburgers that are smaller than this. And I think for me, what is super key about that is just how fluffy and light and delicious that egg was. And by the way, I feel like I’m a bacon connoisseur. The bacon there was particularly thick and crispy. Absolutely fantastic. I could tell that I was eating at a wonderful place, just by virtue of sitting next to these two gentlemen who got their sandwiches, opened up their bags, and made this guttural noise. It wasn’t — It wasn’t a word. It was sort of like a grunt. And I heard nothing from these guys for like five, six minutes.
Manali Gokhale: I totally sympathize with those cavemen because the sandwiches come wrapped in foil, and it just feels like you’re unwrapping a present. Like, you tear it open. It’s hot. It’s fresh out the oven. Absolutely delicious.
Chris Carroll: We went back the next day just to say how wonderful this place was. We went back the next day.
Leslie Sbrocco: That is a true testament.
Chris Carroll: Absolutely, absolutely.
Manali Gokhale: That makes me so happy. They also have a mushroom Gruyère croissant. It’s a square croissant and the crust is just perfectly flaky, like you want a croissant to be, really buttery with a very generous amount of filling in the middle. And the mushroom and Gruyère is such a great combination. They also have a cute little individual quiche of the day, and the crust is nice and thin, but still really flaky and buttery, so you get a good ratio of filling to crust. And the filling is really custardy soft, and they have a different flavor every day, so you never know what you’re going to get. But I haven’t gone wrong so far.
Chris Carroll: The weekends is where you can get a cinnamon roll, and the icing that is on top of that cinnamon roll is baseball-like. It’s almost the size of a baseball itself, on top of this incredibly rich cinnamon roll.
Leslie Sbrocco: Are you an unwinder of cinnamon rolls?
Chris Carroll: No. Knife through the middle, knife through the middle of that. I want all of those flavors all at once — the middle of that bun, the icing that’s on top all in one bite.
Woman: It’s delicious.
Liza Fiorentinos: I had the sour cherry almond scone. And what I love about it — I don’t like things that are, like, super sweet. And this was just the right touch of savory and sweet. There was a pop of almond in it. The cherries had like a nice chew to them and it was just a nice, crumbly scone.
Leslie Sbrocco: Now, what did you get to drink with it? Are you a coffee drinker?
Liza Fiorentinos: I am a coffee drinker. I got a delicious iced caffè latte with oat milk. Very good.
Manali Gokhale: I’m actually not a big coffee drinker, but they have a really good European-style hot chocolate. Very decadent. It’s really thick, super chocolaty. It’s sweet, but not too sweet. So the richness isn’t overwhelming. It’s still manageable. And yeah, delicious on a cold day.
Chris Carroll: They have a pain au chocolat there. I loved the chocolate that was inside of it. There was a ton of it. I think the downfall of those kinds of pastries is that there’s not enough chocolate. At Kahnfections, they really do ensure that you get an incredible bite of chocolate with every bite of pain au chocolat that you have.
Manali Gokhale: They also have these fantastic mini cupcakes. My favorite is their carrot cake one. A great balance of frosting to cake, which I feel is very important for a cupcake and just packed full of raisins and spices. Super moist, really delicious, and just a tiny little bite. So, you know, if you’re already really full from your sandwich, you’re not going to put things over the top.
Chris Carroll: I think one thing to note is there is a place to sit inside, but other than that, if you want to dine there, you are sitting outside. And on the morning that we went, it was a little bit chilly, so I had a tall cup of coffee. They had heavy cream, which is how I take my coffee, and it was perfect. As a matter of fact, they were kind enough to top it off a little bit when the breakfast sandwich arrived. Just another reason why this is a place I will return to again and again.
Liza Fiorentinos: I would definitely go back. Absolutely.
Chris Carroll: 100%.
Liza Fiorentinos: Yeah.
Leslie Sbrocco: Alright. If you would like to try Kahnfections, it’s located on 20th Street in San Francisco, and the average tab per person without drinks is around $20.
Leslie Sbrocco: Liza’s passion is plant-focused interior design. She loves to fill homes and workspaces with living art, so it’s no wonder her favorite restaurant has an equally plant-centric approach. Located in downtown Burlingame, it’s Twelvemonth.
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Bob Trahan: I think a lot of people have this general notion of vegan cuisine sort of being bland and just a lot of vegetables. When I set out to create Twelvemonth, I really wanted to create a destination for all of life’s occasions where the food was sort of incidentally plant-based. You know, it’s delicious, nutritious, and hey, it’s all plants.
Man: Mm, mm, that’s good.
Bob Trahan: I love our cuisine. It’s sort of global fusion through a California lens. I think a lot about sustainability. We really focus on microseasonal food and just truly unlock every flavor. This features Brentwood corn. It was picked this morning. We’re not the type of place that makes a tomato taste like fish. We’re the type of place that makes you say, “That’s the best tomato I’ve ever had in my life.”
Woman: Mmm!
Bob Trahan: Other important aspects of sustainability come down to trying to use every part of everything, as well as reuse components that other places might consider, you know, used up. My favorite item in the menu is our bean stew. I intend to never, ever, ever take it off the menu.
Man: Good, buddy?
Bob Trahan: I love it. It’s a very long cooking process, but lots of love and thought along the way. If you’re thoughtful with every step from your broth to the finish, you can just infuse tons of flavor. We have a beautiful bar that has three lovely private rooms off them, and then our main dining room is just this huge, glorious space. But another thing I love about the space is actually the acoustics. There’s not as much echoing or loudness as you might expect. You can still have an intimate dinner with whoever. I hope when people experience Twelvemonth, it changes their opinion of vegan cuisine so they realize that plant-based food can be delicious. My favorite review is, “I’m an omnivore, but I love this place.”
Leslie Sbrocco: So, Liza, it’s interesting that we’re getting, I think, more and more restaurants that are solely plant-focused and plant-forward. How did you discover this spot?
Liza Fiorentinos: So a friend of mine called me because I had been plant-based for a while and she said, “Have you been to that new place Twelvemonth in Burlingame?” And I said, “No, what, what, what, what?” And I immediately made a reservation and went over there. It is fantastic.
Leslie Sbrocco: What do you start with, with a menu of that size?
Liza Fiorentinos: Our go-to is definitely the bean stew. It’s in a tomato broth. It’s got some kale and other spices and focaccia, which, oh, my God, just melts in your mouth. So, it gives you the impression that you’re eating beef. But it’s not. There’s nothing. It’s all plant-based. It’s really unbelievable.
Manali Gokhale: We also started with the bean stew. And can I just say from the first bite I was transported to another world. It was amazing. And I don’t eat a lot of meat, so maybe I’m not the best person to say this, but this tastes really meaty. It’s like very smoky. It has this really deep, rich flavor. This is so much more than just a pot of beans. So much more has gone into this to make it taste so incredible.
Chris Carroll: I really want to highlight their breaded mushrooms — very lightly breaded, dusted with a little bit of chili powder and the dip that it comes with, very similar to an aioli with a bit of spice. Not too much heat, but maybe a few seconds after your first or second bite. The mushrooms are an absolute don’t miss out because it was incredible.
Manali Gokhale: We got the panzanella alla puttanesca. First of all, I love a bread-based salad. You really can’t go wrong there. But it’s focaccia and a lot of fresh tomato. And somehow the focaccia really absorbs all the delicious flavors and juice from the tomato, but still stays really crisp. And it has these crispy capers and pickled cucumbers in it. So you just have all these different bursts of flavor and different textures. It’s just this really fresh-tasting salad.
Liza Fiorentinos: I go for the charred cabbage salad. It’s, of course, extremely healthy. It’s got a nice little bite to it. The texture of it is great. The spice of it is really good. Did you try that?
Chris Carroll: I didn’t, but I had what’s called the BBQ, the barbecue plate, which — meat eater from the Midwest — I know what I think I’m looking at, but it is actually a plate of lentils, and it comes with a barbecue sauce paired with some greens and some pears. And for me, the very first bite was a bit unique, certainly because I know what —
Leslie Sbrocco: “This isn’t barbecue!”
Chris Carroll: It’s not barbecue. By the second and third bite, I was eating just this incredible dish.
Manali Gokhale: As one of our entrées, we shared the corn pasta, which was amazing. It had so much fresh corn flavor. The sauce was so flavorful, and you had a lot in every bite. And there was this coconut feta on top, which added a little bit of extra flavor. They also had these Cajun corn cracklins over the top, which added a little bit of extra crunch and flavor to the dish. It was delicious.
Chris Carroll: My neighbor had the Japanese curry tofu served with rice, and the server comes out and pours the curry on top of the pieces of tofu. A little bit spicy, but certainly not something that would turn people off. It was a G-rated curry, as it were. [laughs] But again, a completely unique dish. And it made me forget that I was at a plant-based restaurant.
Manali Gokhale: I had the not paella, which was like paella, but not. It’s actually just socarrat, which is the rice that’s, like, at the bottom of the pan and gets really crispy.
Leslie Sbrocco: It’s the best part.
Manali Gokhale: It’s the best part. And they just — they only have that in the dish. They just get rid of all the rest of it.
Leslie Sbrocco: It’s like eating the top of the muffin.
Manali Gokhale: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And then it had really colorful sauces. It was a broccoli mayo and a romesco sauce. Had this, like, red and green going on and had lots of veggies in it. It was super crispy and just delicious. I’d never seen anything like that before. I was really impressed.
Leslie Sbrocco: And did you have anything to sip alongside your meal?
Liza Fiorentinos: I did. The flower spritz is delicious. Non-alcoholic elderflower, butterfly pea flower, some lemon, and club soda. Absolutely so refreshing, even actually in the winter.
Woman: Ooh! I like that.
Chris Carroll: I had a drink called The Garden Party, which is made with a little bit of sparkling water, but flavors of cucumber and mint and some apple cider vinegar. Extremely refreshing. So for someone who doesn’t consume alcohol, this was a great beverage.
Leslie Sbrocco: Alright. More food. What else did you have?
Liza Fiorentinos: Dessert. We have got to talk about the dessert. The chocolate dessert actually comes in a little flower pot near and dear to my heart. And a little shovel. You can’t — Like, we are all grabbing for it. It’s quite rich and dense and absolutely delicious.
Leslie Sbrocco: And creatively presented.
Liza Fiorentinos: Beautifully.
Manali Gokhale: We also got the toasted red miso cake, which was a little bit on the salty side for me, but still delicious, really unique flavors. And it came with this berry coulis, which was a really great way to kind of balance out the miso.
Chris Carroll: I didn’t have room for dessert. I will have to go back to try some of these because it sounds incredible, but it also goes to show just how great the meal itself was because I was so satisfied that I just couldn’t do it.
Manali Gokhale: Yeah, I thought each dish was so creative. Really, things I hadn’t tried before, and I would definitely recommend it to friends and family.
Leslie Sbrocco: Alright. If you would like to try Twelvemonth, it’s located on Lorton Avenue in Burlingame, and the average tab per person without drinks is around $75.
Leslie Sbrocco: Chris is a big meat and potatoes guy, and he’s now found a Peruvian take on that classic combination that he can’t get enough of. Anytime he’s craving a savory lomo saltado, he heads to Oakland’s Rockridge neighborhood, home to Pucquio.
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Carlos Moreira: I’m making the dressing for the potato for your next course. The flavors of Peru are limitless. There are different regions. There’s the coast, there’s sea, there’s land, there’s highlands. As a Peruvian and as a cook, we want to send a message to the people. We wanted to introduce them to our culture. The kitchen of Pucquio tries to evoke all the flavors from Peru, from most of the staple dishes that we have there, but since we’re in California, we added an additional twist to it. A good example of that will be the tacu-tacu de mariscos, our interpretation of a classic Peruvian dish, but made completely different with beurre blanc on it and different elements that we get from our “stash” in California.
Carlos Moreira: One of the most representative dishes in our cuisine is the ceviche, without a doubt. It’s a ritual. The Mochicas probably were the first humans to start fishing and marinate raw fish. We admire and appreciate more about the freshness of the fish itself and how the nuances of that fish are brought by combining with the spice and citrus.
Carlos Moreira: One of our desserts, bombitas de carretilla, it brings me a lot of memories from my childhood in every aspect. Similar to a beignet, but we stuff it with fermented sweet potato and dulce de leche. My favorite item on the menu is every single one of them. They’re like my kids. I might have a favorite. I won’t tell you.
Carlos Moreira: The name of the restaurant, Pucquio, is Quechua for “spring water,” and for us it’s a reflection of something pure and transparent, which is our mission to our community. Hello, hello. I really hope they feel touched, satisfied, happy, and raving about this restaurant.
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Leslie Sbrocco: So, Chris, talk about what’s unique about this space, right? A very intimate dining room and that open sort of kitchen feel.
Chris Carroll: For sure. One thing about Pucquio that I love is that the interior seats about 18 people. It is very small.
Carlos Moreira: You know where to find me.
Chris Carroll: And there are four seats at the pass where you can sit and watch the chef and the sous chef work their magic.
Leslie Sbrocco: So what do you get when you walk in that door and you start smelling all that food?
Chris Carroll: The first thing we have is the cebiche de clásico. This dish is made with a wonderfully flavored rockfish. It sits on a bed of greens with some red onions and Peruvian nuts that give every bite that you have just a little bit of crunch, a little bit of texture. They serve this dish with a relatively large spoon. But for me, because I think lifting the plate and drinking from it is a bit rude, I can at least scoop some of that citric juice and just sort of finish my ceviche with that, which is a great way to end that particular starter.
Manali Gokhale: We also started with the cebiche de pescado, and it was amazing. And I especially loved how the marinade is, as you said, very, very acidic. I felt the sweet potato really balanced that out and made it overall a really delicious dish.
Leslie Sbrocco: Did you use the big spoon too?
Manali Gokhale: I did use the big spoon to get the extra juice. And the Peruvian corn is so fun. I’ve never seen corn kernels that big before, but it really adds that extra bite and fun texture.
Liza Fiorentinos: So actually, I just want to jump in and talk about Kevin, who was actually our welcome wagon when we first got there. He is exceptional…
Kevin: This is coming from Susanville.
Liza Fiorentinos: …describing everything because it was one of my first times having Peruvian cuisine. So, my appetizer was the cebiche de truchae, which actually had a little bit of skin. It had fennel, yucca, and a little bit of caviar. And I loved there was a lot of acidity to it, but it was a combination of like the lemon and lime and some of the green leaves, which made it extremely tasty.
Leslie Sbrocco: What about you, Manali?
Manali Gokhale: We got two entrées, so one of them was the arroz de mariscos, which was a Peruvian take on paella. Delicious. It had Gulf prawns, squid, and rockfish in it. And the arroz, the rice had squid ink in it as well, so it was super creamy. It had that fun, you know, dark black color that you get with squid ink. Really incredible. And, again, it had that Peruvian corn in it that I’m just totally obsessed with.
Liza Fiorentinos: Kevin actually explained that there are 84 types of corn in Peru.
Manali Gokhale: That’s a lot.
Liza Fiorentinos: Yeah. That’s a lot.
Manali Gokhale: Our second one, we got the tacu-tacu de mariscos, which was more of a rice and beans dish. They sound very similar, both like rice with different types of seafood, but very different in terms of the flavor. The rice and beans were cooked so perfectly. The beans were really tender. And it came with this beurre vert, which was this very herbaceous green sauce that was also very creamy and went great with the very fresh seafood that was served with it.
Liza Fiorentinos: So, we also had the chupe de camarones, which is — it’s like a cross between like a shrimp bisque and a shrimp chowder, and it comes with like a poached egg. It comes with some rice, and it’s a complex taste. It’s delicious. Don’t miss that.
Leslie Sbrocco: Alright. From the ceviche, what’s next?
Chris Carroll: It is definitely a meat-centric, protein-centric restaurant. And so the lomo saltado is a marinated steak served with steak fries, white rice, some marinated tomatoes and onions, and if you wish, you can get a fried egg on top of the rice, so you can have all these various flavors in each bite that you have of the lomo saltado. And then you realize, “Holy cow, it’s all gone.”
Leslie Sbrocco: This isn’t just steak and potatoes.
Chris Carroll: Absolutely not.
Leslie Sbrocco: Any other main dishes to try?
Chris Carroll: Yes, the adobo de chancho is a pork dish that when you are served this dish, Kevin will bring you your silverware, which is a fork and a spoon. Rarely, if ever, have I gone to a restaurant where there is no knife, because the pork is so soft and tender that you use the spoon with the fork to break it apart, and then it’s paired with these braised beans, small pieces of pork belly, and red onions that create this multi-textural bite. And it’s melt-in-your-mouth pork, an incredible dish.
Leslie Sbrocco: Mm-hmm.
Chris Carroll: They have a beverage called the maracuya, which is a passion fruit drink. And that to me is a sipping drink that you can enjoy throughout the entire meal. I say that as someone who often gets two with every dining experience, but it’s fantastically sweet and rich as a beverage can be.
Manali Gokhale: Yeah, I had the spritz del dia, which I guess was kind of an aperitivo of the day. Delicious. Had a nice flavor. It was very light, refreshing, and went well with the meal.
Liza Fiorentinos: So, we wanted to have a Chardonnay, which Kevin said they don’t carry, and he made a recommendation, and it was such an amazing recommendation. I want to say it’s called the Rebolledo. I’m not sure about the pronunciation. We ended up having two bottles. That’s how good it was.
Chris Carroll: That’s awesome. That’s awesome.
Leslie Sbrocco: Can’t remember the name after the first bottle. Alright. Desserts. Desserts.
Manali Gokhale: We got the bombitas, which were these little doughnut holes. They were so fresh. Super hot. They were filled with dulce de leche and then came with a pisco crème anglaise, which was great because it had just a little bit of sour to kind of cut through the sweetness of the doughnuts.
Leslie Sbrocco: It sounds like a must-have dessert.
Liza Fiorentinos: Yes.
Leslie Sbrocco: Any dessert?
Liza Fiorentinos: That was my must-have dessert as well. Like, the four of us split that.
Leslie Sbrocco: So would you go back again?
Liza Fiorentinos: Absolutely.
Manali Gokhale: Yeah. I totally agree with you. It was an interesting experience where it felt like a very upscale experience. But at the same time, I felt like I was in someone’s home. It was — It’s hard to balance those two things.
Leslie Sbrocco: Quite a passion project.
Chris Carroll: Absolutely.
Leslie Sbrocco: Alright. If you would like to try Pucquio, it’s located on College Avenue in Oakland’s Rockridge neighborhood. The average tab per person without drinks is around $45.
Leslie Sbrocco: Looking for more Bay Area bites you’ve just got to try? Check out “Cecilia Tries It” online at kqed.org/checkplease.
Leslie Sbrocco: I have to thank my great guests on this week’s show — Manali Gokhale, lover of the hot buttermilk biscuits at Kahnfections in San Francisco, Liza Fiorentinos, who savors every drop of bean stew at Twelvemonth in Burlingame, and Chris Carroll, who adores the adobo de chancho at Pucquio in Oakland. Join us next time when three more guests will recommend their favorite spots right here on Check, Please! Bay Area. I’m Leslie Sbrocco, and I’ll see you then. Cheers, everyone.
All: Cheers.
Judy Khan: We just really enjoy doing whatever we can to make people happy. We usually have at least two cakes in the pastry case, mini cupcakes, mini tarts, the typical cookies and brownies, and things like that. I really enjoy watching people enjoy their food.
Woman: This sandwich is so good.
Judy Khan: That’s what does it for me.
Man: Do the whole thing in one bite.
Man #2: One bite’s a little much, actually.
