...Italian Sausage Tacos

One of the many reasons I really love Breakfast at home is that it's the meal of they day where I have the most freedom to experiment for myself.  Even if I brown-bag lunch, I'm limited by what I can carry, store, and re-warm in my tech-company break room.  Dinner affords me more time to plan, shop, prep, and cook, but I'm bound by the need to put food on the table for my beloved Lacto-ovo-pesco-vegetarian wife and our toddler daughter.  Both are relatively adventurous (given their respective limitations), but there is a whole world of food that neither one will touch and it often just isn't worth it to prepare adventurous things for one.  Breakfast, though, is somehow more freeing.  Most of the freedom comes from the relative ease of feeding the rest of the household.  On weekdays the wife is satisfied with good coffee and the toddler prefers dry cereal with a little dried fruit.  On weekends I move through the kitchen like a short-order cook at the local coffee shop.  Everyone usually gets what they want, to-order, (made easy by the fact I can usually predict what they'll want.)  On even the most hectic Saturday before a playgroup or Zoo excursion I can still bang out a steaming pile of biscuits or pancakes in a few minutes, with a side of substitute-bacon and real-bacon for the appropriate diners.  No problem.  The remaining freedom for breakfast comes from the fact that I love savory breakfasts, which means I positively adore experimenting with leftovers, odd flavor combos, and food nobody else would eat.  Practically speaking, one of my experimental breakfasts is usually more lasting and satisfying for the inclusion of protein, etc.

Tacos for breakfast is a great example of this.  We do "taco night" fairly regularly at home.  The wife enjoys a re-seasoned soy-based taco substitute, I enjoy carne- or pollo-asada, and the toddler vacillates between them.  Things improved dramatically when I recently re-discovered the Azteca Mexican Market hidden near my workplace, which finally provided the reliable and convenient source of hand-made style tortillas I'd been searching for for years.  As an aside:  Seriously, this is San Diego.  We used to be part of Mexico, why is it so hard to find a decent tortilleria north of I-8?!?!  An artifact of purchasing tortillas this way, we have to buy somewhat in bulk (2-3lbs minimum), and they aren't fresh for very long, which leaves me looking for ways to use up the wonderful little discs of corn.  Usually, I can just use up whatever leftover protein went into the tacos the night or two before, but every so often, I make the "mistake" of buying just enough pollo asada (or the toddler surprises us with her appetite) and I'm searching for other fillings.

This week, the "just enough taco filling" problem collided with the "had a lot of leftover ingredients after a DIY-pizza-party" problem and a new favorite was born:

Italian Sausage "Street" Tacos

Ingredients:

• 2-4 corn tortillas, hand-made if you can get 'em
• 1 link, spicy Italian sausage (casing removed)
• 1/2 Avocado, ripe but preferably still a bit firm
• 1/2c cheese - Mexican blend = good, Cotija or "Queso Blanco" = better
• Small handful of Cremini or button mushrooms
• 2 lime wedges (or 1/2 tsp of Real Lime juice, etc.)
• 1/2tsp olive or vegetable oil

Method:

1. Wet a hot pan with a very small amount of oil and begin frying the sausage.  As it cooks, you'll be able to break it up with a spatula into bite-size chunks.  If you're using a salty cheese like Cotija, resist the urge to add seasoning.  If using a basic Mexican blend, a pinch of salt is probably a good idea.
2. While the sausage is cooking, slice the mushrooms.  After the fat has rendered, add the mushrooms and brown them.
3. Slice the half-avocado into two quarters and then cube the meat while in the skin.
4. Place tortillas between two sheets of paper towel on a plate and microwave for 30s (if scaling up the recipe for >1 person, use your favorite tortilla warmer - I use a terra cotta garlic baker pre-warmed in the microwave with damp paper towels)
5. Once the filling is cooked, assemble your tacos - some prefer doubling up the tortillas but the ones I buy are thick enough to use one-per-taco.  Distribute the sausage/mushroom mix evenly, then add your cheese.  Turn the avocado cubes out of the skin and add to the tacos, then finish each with a light squeeze of lime juice.
6. Feel free to experiment with finely diced white onion, cilantro, or pico de gallo, but keep it simple and light! Taco sauce, etc. would easily muddy the flavors here.

Makes 2-3 small tacos for a very satisfying small meal.

...W?ch Addiction

I've raved in the past about my love for the Devilicious Food Truck, and touched on the trend of Food Trucks as the new medium for getting into the food business.  Imagine my surprise, then, when I made the lamentably late realization that the new restaurant I saw going into my work-neighborhood was in-fact a brick and mortar establishment by the same folks behind Devilicious.  Enter: W?ch Addiction.

Dyann and Mark have continued riffing on "New American" cuisine and have done a seemingly smart thing in designing the menu around the same quick-turnaround handmade food that makes the truck so awesome.  Fortunately, with the advent of actual tables, they can get away with a few more things that just aren't easy to do in the mobile environment.

As the name implies, Sandwiches feature heavily on the menu, though salads, sides, and the ever-eclectic Poutine are added.  For my first visit, I was called by the Panzanella salad, and of course I couldn't resist adding the crispy pork-belly on top.

The salad itself already packed a big punch of flavor and was suitably rich - so the pork belly may have been overkill.  Indeed, by the end, I was feeling I might have over done it. In any case, the flavors were excellent and I couldn't wait to dive into the rest of the menu.

Imagine my joy, then, upon receiving a newsletter only days later from Dyann dropping the bomb that this week they'd start with a new 7am Breakfast menu!  They "had me" at the mention of Corned Beef Hash - probably my all time favorite breakfast dish.

The corned beef itself was excellent, but Dyann seems to be well aware that good meat alone can't hold up a hash, and it's the potatoes and veggies that really seal the deal.  Roasted Red potatoes, herbed with (at least) Rosemary and Thyme, along with caramelized onions and tomatoes and cheese are the stars of the dish - savory, sweet, and filling.  I was also very pleasantly surprised that the obligatory fried egg topper was actually seasoned - Kudos to Chef Dyann for having the temerity to put salt and pepper on an egg.  Too many cooks will leave the poor thing naked, which on a dish this big in flavor would be a letdown.  My wife seldom enjoys eggs when eating out because they're usually some combination of overcooked or under-seasoned.  I think she'll be enjoying the eggs here.

I had initially read that W?ch Addiction was going to be Breakfast/Lunch only.  Then, they were showing their hours as 10a-7p during the week (10a-2p Sat), which I thought was probably a better business choice.  Adding six days a week of 7am Breakfast service is gutsy and I hope it pays off.  Either way, I know my wife will be relieved at the opportunity to give it a try for a weekend Breakfast, as a mid-week dinner visit was going to be a mixed-bag with the vegetarian and toddler in tow.

Which brings me to my final thought:  One of the things I love about trying a restaurant in it's early days is to see what the owners end up changing.  In the quest to make the concept work while remaining profitable, many restaurants fail outright, and many more end up changing radically.  What makes the process interesting is that sometimes the stuff I thought was key to the restaurant is seen as a flaw (or at the very least expendable), or vice versa, so you learn a lot about the owners from how they make those early course corrections.  Sometimes a new restaurant will just fix the problems and refine the process and flavors, or adjust portion sizes.  Other times they see the need to make larger shifts in mission or delivery.  I remember the Linkery, for example, going through several phases of lunch service, no lunch service, and back again while they struggled with their too-small kitchen, ingredients sourcing and costs.  In the end they've settled on a concept and schema that seem to work for them, though at times I do miss the raucous nature of some of the early food there.  Given the Devilicious background and W?ch Addition's promising early start, I have to say I'm excited to see where this thing goes for Mark and Dyann!