Textbook 2022 “The Pey Family Reserve” Cabernet Sauvignon
Napa Valley, California $46
The Textbook wines are ones to seek out. Well-priced bottles overdeliver in quality, especially the Pey Family Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon. It’s a deeply hued, layered red that blends fruit from some of Napa Valley’s top vineyards. Dark fruit flavors and a supple texture make this a wine to enjoy now with hearty fare or cellar for a few years to gain more complexity. With an under-$50 price tag, it’s a fantastic deal when it comes to high-end Napa Valley Cabernet.
Founded by Jonathan Pey along with his late wife, Susan, their goal was to craft wines of elegance and balance that showcase “textbook” character. Winemaker Abagail Horstman carries out that vision with this classy red.
Paula Kornell Brut Rosé, Méthode Champenoise Sparkling Wine California $25
When talking about the history of Napa Valley — and certainly the history of sparkling wine in California — the name Kornell looms large. Famed winemaker and vintner Hanns Kornell was born into a third-generation German winemaking family. He immigrated to the United States and through hard work and a partnership with his talented wife, Marilouise, was able to purchase the iconic Larkmead Winery in 1958. There he made the highest quality sparkling wine using the traditional French method. Today, his daughter, Paula Kornell, has her own namesake bubbly, and it lives up to the family’s commitment of quality and value.
This beautifully pale pink sparkler is a wine to love. The attractive bottle catches your eye, but it’s the elegant wine inside that puts a smile on your face. A blend of mostly Pinot Noir with Chardonnay, red-berry and floral-scented aromas are complemented by delicate, crisp flavors. Enjoy a glass to begin your night, then pair it with savory dishes to a lightly sweet dessert. It’s a stylish sparkler worth twice the price.
Episode Transcript
Leslie Sbrocco: Good old country cooking in Fremont…
Nima Alahari: I don’t care about the calories. I don’t read them. I just eat.
Leslie Sbrocco: …dim sum delights in Oakland…
Anna Mindess: A symphony of different textures.
Leslie Sbrocco: …and contemporary French cuisine in San Jose.
Jason Douglass: It’s never changed. It’s always beautiful.
Leslie Sbrocco: Just ahead on Check, Please! Bay Area.
Cecilia Phillips: There’s sugar everywhere! Mmm! These are beautiful.
[music playing]
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 ASL interpreter and food writer Anna Mindess, tech sales expert Nima Alahari, and patient advocate Jason Douglass.
Leslie Sbrocco: Welcome, everyone.
Anna Mindess: Thank you.
Jason Douglass: Thank you.
Leslie Sbrocco: Nice to be here?
Jason Douglass: Very excited to be here.
Leslie Sbrocco: Nima gets things started with his bustling breakfast spot. Offering American diner classics paired with over-the-top, Instagrammable lattes and shakes, it’s his favorite way to jump-start the day. Nestled in the heart of Fremont’s historic Niles neighborhood, it’s Skillet’z Cafe.
Jonathan Tsai: Skillet’z is an American diner, old country cooking, but with a Mexican flair. The chefs are from Zacatecas, Mexico, and so they’ve brought a lot of the food that they grew up with, that their grandmas cooked.
Man: My go-to is usually the burrito.
Jonathan Tsai: Our food comes out super hot, super crispy, super flavorful. Breakfast made with lots of love and huevos.
Jonathan Tsai: How’s the food and everything?
Man: Good. Thank you.
Jonathan Tsai: I was a regular customer for over 10 years. I would eat at Skillet’z at least once a week. There was an opportunity to become a partner, so I jumped at the opportunity.
Jonathan Tsai: This is the sausage omelette.
Woman: Yeah, here.
Jonathan Tsai: A lot of the dishes are named after some of our team members and staff members.
Woman: I’m [indistinct], and you’re eating at Skillet’z.
Jonathan Tsai: They just named a dish after me. It’s a scramble that comes with all meats and all veggies and a side of bacon. It’s called the Jonathan Scramble.
Jonathan Tsai: When I first came to Skillet’z, I was told that the salsa is so good you could drink it. And that is literally what I do every time. I will pour salsa all over my food. Highly recommend pairing it with all of our savory dishes.
[music playing]
Jonathan Tsai: We really treat all of our customers like family.
Woman: Alright!
Jonathan Tsai: They say that breakfast is the most important part of your day, and it’s just food that makes you feel good, food that makes you feel like you’re with family and having a great time.
All: Cheers!
Jonathan Tsai: Alright. One, two, three, Skillet’z!
Woman: Good, good!
Leslie Sbrocco: Alright, Nima. So, you’re a big brunch guy.
Nima Alahari: That’s my thing.
Leslie Sbrocco: Alright. What is it about Skillet’z that brings you back time and time again?
Nima Alahari: Skillet’z is a really, like, familial kind of place. You go there and you just feel like you’re comfortable and you’re at home. I always get a couple drinks to start off with. I can’t skip the vanilla latte, which is absolutely fantastic.
Leslie Sbrocco: That’s your go-to, first thing.
Nima Alahari: It’s my go-to.
Jason Douglass: I had the caramel latte.
Nima Alahari: Yeah, the caramel latte. They’re really creamy, right? They have a nice foam on top. They always come with some, like, cookie or a wafer as well too, which is really nice.
Leslie Sbrocco: That’s right. Start your day with a cookie.
Nima Alahari: I have to. I’m a sweets guy. So I need to start with a cookie. But I’ll get that and I’ll also get their freshly squeezed orange juice, which is the tangiest orange juice.
Anna Mindess: I had that. It was so fresh. Really good.
Jason Douglass: You could tell it was right off the tree.
Leslie Sbrocco: Alright, so you got your drinks in front of you. Then what’s the order?
Nima Alahari: My order… Well, my brother-in-law will always say, “If you don’t know, you won’t know. You got to get the Monte Cristo.” So I always go for the Monte Cristo.
Anna Mindess: What’s that?
Nima Alahari: Now, the Monte Cristo is ham, Swiss cheese, and turkey with French toast as the buns. I know, it’s a lot. I don’t care about the calories. I don’t read them. I just eat.
Jason Douglass: Right.
Nima Alahari: Okay, that’s my thing.
Leslie Sbrocco: Sweet and savory.
Nima Alahari: Sweet and savory. My two favorite things. And I have to get that every single time. It is delicious.
Jason Douglass: Do they do the powdered sugar topping and the raspberry jam on the side?
Nima Alahari: Absolutely, raspberry jam. Absolutely fantastic.
Leslie Sbrocco: And what did you have, Anna?
Anna Mindess: Well, I had a traditional breakfast. I had two over-easy eggs with bacon that was really thick. Nice mouthfeel there. And the hash browns, which I liked because they were very crispy on top. And then there’s an option that instead of toast, you can get a pancake, and I got a blueberry pancake. That was the best part. It was fluffy and, like, raised up. I don’t know how they do that.
Jason Douglass: Souffléed, almost.
Anna Mindess: Souffléed!
Nima Alahari: What I usually like is the Nutella strawberry banana pancakes. You get the drizzle on there.
Jason Douglass: That sounds really good. I didn’t have that.
Leslie Sbrocco: I can tell you have a sweet tooth.
Nima Alahari: Definitely, definitely. [Laughter] I can’t live without it.
Jason Douglass: We had the biscuits and gravy with over-easy eggs. Lovely biscuits. Fluffy. The gravy was a little lacking in salt, but that was balanced by having a really nice piece of ham on the side — thick, sweet ham. The one challenge with the eggs was one egg was hard and one egg was the over-easy egg, so it was a little bit of a discombobulated egg. And I thought, “How did they do that? How did we get that on the plate?” But we ate it, you know. It was good.
We also had a mushroom and onion omelette, and you could tell that the onions were a sweet onion, like a Maui onion. Potatoes were not the crispy hash browns, but like a softer diced potato, and you could tell it was fresh. And then they serve a nice pico de gallo on the side that you can put over the entire plate. It made it very tasty.
Anna Mindess: I want to tell you something about this restaurant. I’m a sign language interpreter, and Fremont has two wonderful schools, the California School for the Deaf and Ohlone College.
Jason Douglass: Mm-hmm.
Anna Mindess: And because of that, there are places that are called “deaf friendly.” So I took my friend Tom, and he’s deaf. The server saw us signing as we came in. She made this gesture to Tom, which is not really the sign for “What would you like to drink?” But he said it was understandable.
Leslie Sbrocco: Sure.
Anna Mindess: And you don’t have to know sign language. Like, this woman didn’t know sign language, but you have to be into visual communication.
Leslie Sbrocco: But she was aware.
Jason Douglass: Yes.
Anna Mindess: Yes, that was really nice.
Jason Douglass: Inclusive.
Anna Mindess: Very sensitive and aware.
Leslie Sbrocco: So, that leads to the question of service.
Nima Alahari: Always fantastic. I just feel like it’s a family member treating us and serving us every time. You have to get there on time. It’s always going to be busy, especially on a weekend. It’s going to be packed,
Jason Douglass: Which you guys might have noticed, right?
Jason Douglass: The nice thing is, though, that they take your order beforehand, so you’re waiting outside, but someone will come and say, “Oh, is your order ready?” And so when you sit down, your food kind of comes very quickly versus having to wait, you know, to order once you’ve sat.
Leslie Sbrocco: That’s sort of the insider tip. You put in your order and you wait.
Nima Alahari: Nice and early, and you wait.
Jason Douglass: It’s a great town, actually, because there’s all the antique stores, and Charlie Chaplin filmed films there. That’s the amazing thing as well.
Anna Mindess: The movie industry started there.
Leslie Sbrocco: In Niles?
Anna Mindess: They have a museum.
Jason Douglass: In Niles. Mm.
Leslie Sbrocco: So, a bit of history and a lot of sweetness.
Nima Alahari: And a lot of sweetness.
Leslie Sbrocco: Alright!
Well, if you would like to try Skillet’z Cafe, it’s located on Niles Boulevard in Fremont, and the average tab per person without drinks is around $35.
Leslie Sbrocco: Anna’s been sampling the delicate, handmade dim sum at her restaurant for more than 10 years, and she still hasn’t tasted everything on the menu. The Cantonese specialties are made fresh to order and served steaming hot in beautiful, banquet hall-sized dining rooms. A mainstay in Oakland’s Chinatown for more than two decades, it’s Peony Seafood Restaurant.
[music playing]
Chris Xie: Peony Seafood Restaurant has been a staple in Oakland Chinatown for 30 years. We have a big menu — you know, dim sum, over 100 items. The “dim sum” means “to touch the heart.” When we have dim sum, usually we have tea, with lots of people, like a family or friends.
Our dim sum chefs, they hand-prepare the dim sum daily. And my favorite, the xiaolongbao and the cheung fun. The cheung fun, we make it here with thin, large steamed rice noodles. They fill it with some sorts like shrimp, pork and beef. Outside is smooth, and inside should be meaty and crunchy. And we have the special sauce that is called XO sauce, just to add a flavor, or you can use that sauce for the dipping sauce.
We have king crab, lobster. They can pick out the live fish from the fish tank. They can pick whatever they like.
The kids love the animal-shaped dessert, especially the piggy buns and the coconut rabbit. That’s so fun. A lot of people take a picture.
Peony Seafood Restaurant is the biggest restaurant in Oakland. It can hold up to like 500 people. And so we can catering any kind of party.
How’s everything so far? The job is like customer service, and some people, they come all the time to be treated like a family member. I want our customers to have a great meal and want to come back.
Leslie Sbrocco: Now, Anna, this restaurant has a huge variety of dim sum. And are you a dim sum specialist? Is that what you consider yourself?
Anna Mindess: Well, I’m a dim sum lover. And I’ve tasted dim sum in Hong Kong, in Toronto, New York, San Francisco. And of all the places that I go, Peony is my absolute favorite.
Jason Douglass: Wow.
Anna Mindess: I think they have very creative dishes that I haven’t seen anywhere else.
There’s a crispy daikon baton, then it’s wrapped in a sleeve of very fine, crispy rice noodles. Then it has a little squiggle of a sauce and little tiny fish eggs on top. And when you put it in your mouth, it’s like a symphony of different textures and flavors that all come together. It’s amazing.
Jason Douglass: And then, did you try also the salt and pepper custard tofu?
Anna Mindess: No, I haven’t tried that one.
Jason Douglass: Oh, my God, I could’ve eaten plates of it. It was so good. I don’t know how they get it so crispy on the outside, but so tender on the inside. And it’s served with jalapenos and peanuts, I think it is, on top, and some green onions. I literally could’ve eaten a plate of them.
Leslie Sbrocco: Well, and it’s an extensive menu, isn’t it?
Nima Alahari: It’s a really big menu.
Leslie Sbrocco: Yeah.
Nima Alahari: Everything was family style.
Nima Alahari: So I ended up getting the pan fried pork buns, which were absolutely incredible.
Anna Mindess: I like those.
Nima Alahari: Those were really crispy on one side and then just really fluffy, and you would tear them open. It would be hot in the center, and the texture was fantastic.
I got the beef rice as well, which came with egg, too, and with that, it was sort of bland by itself. I’m a huge rice guy, too, especially with beef, but I got that with a side of their soy sauce and their house-made chili sauce, too, which I could have broken into the back and stolen. It was that good.
Leslie Sbrocco: You want to put that on everything?
Nima Alahari: I want to put that on everything, even the sweets.
Jason Douglass: We had the barbecue pork puffs. It was like shatteringly tender. Pop in your mouth and it just broke, the crust. And the flavor was so good.
Leslie Sbrocco: Ah!
Nima Alahari: I got the shrimp dumplings with cilantro. The shrimp was perfect. It wasn’t too gamy. It wasn’t too tough. It was really meaty. And those were delicious, too.
Anna Mindess: Another thing — I like shrimp in a lot of things. So I got the red rice yeast roll. So, I think there’s some health property to red rice. Okay, it’s this very satiny roll on the outside of red rice, and inside is the crispy shrimp. It’s like the interplay of different textures.
Leslie Sbrocco: There you go.
Anna Mindess: Did anybody have soup dumplings?
Jason Douglass: No.
Anna Mindess: No?!
Nima Alahari: I should have.
Anna Mindess: Oh, gosh!
Leslie Sbrocco: That’s a dish they’re known for, huh?
Anna Mindess: Yes. And it’s just… you know how you eat soup dumplings? You have to make a little hole, suck it out. It just melts in your mouth. Next time, you have to get that.
Jason Douglass: Yes. Well, I’ll be going back.
Leslie Sbrocco: I think that Anna is going to be the guide for you guys.
Jason Douglass: Right?
Anna Mindess: We’ll all go with you.
Leslie Sbrocco: Alright!
Anna Mindess: Okay. That sounds fun. You can come, too.
Leslie Sbrocco: Alright!
Anna Mindess: Okay.
Jason Douglass: Did you happen to try the onion pancakes? ‘Cause when you were speaking about sauces, they serve the onion pancakes with a curry sauce, which is unusual, but it was so tasty.
Nima Alahari: I think their big personality at Peony Seafood was their desserts and their cute animals.
[excited chatter]
Those were fantastic. The piggies were gorgeous, and you’d tear them apart and they were really fluffy. And the custard and egg was delicious. It was pretty light. It wasn’t too overbearing and too over-sweet, but it was a perfect end to the meal.
Anna Mindess: That’s nice. And if you’re into social media, the bunnies, the coconut bunnies, they’re cute and they come on a little slice of carrot. And then if you take the plate and you jiggle it, then they wiggle, and it’s perfect. I mean, how many desserts can you have? But my favorite one is the pandan mochi.
Jason Douglass: We had that.
Anna Mindess: Yay! So, this is a green, pear-shaped mochi, and inside is warm custard. Oh, it’s just the best.
Leslie Sbrocco: And you ordered a lot of food, but did you feel like you got value?
Nima Alahari: I think so. Yeah, we got a lot of food, and the value was perfect. I didn’t feel like I was snubbed.
Anna Mindess: Did you take anything home?
Nima Alahari: I did. I took all the rice home. One more piggy left. I had to show it to my family.
Leslie Sbrocco: A little bit of that chili sauce?
Nima Alahari: A little bit of that chili sauce, and it was gone the instant I got home.
Leslie Sbrocco: Alright. If you would like to try Peony Seafood Restaurant, it’s located on 9th Street in Oakland’s Chinatown, and the average tab per person without drinks is around $30.
Leslie Sbrocco: When it comes to celebrating a special occasion, Jason knows just the place for an elegant yet unpretentious experience. Offering contemporary French fare for more than 40 years in San Jose, it’s Le Papillon.
[music playing]
Scott Cooper: Le Papillon was started in 1977 by our dad as sort of a continental restaurant, very popular at the time.
Over time, it’s evolved into being kind of contemporary French.
Camron Mashayekh: Our cuisine has many influences, a lot of them from Scott’s travels and his passions.
Scott Cooper: Favorite dishes on the menu… chefs are all the same, though. We only like the last dish we created. [Laughs] That’s, like, the favorite dish, right? Quail egg toast with caviar. My favorite way to enjoy caviar.
Woman: It’s delicious.
Scott Cooper: And you have to eat it in one bite, ’cause if you try and take a bite, you’ll wear it.
We offer a six-course tasting menu. That’s what I get most excited about because I get to control every course. One last little garnish.
Camron Mashayekh: People love to share. There’s a lot of plate switching or fork traveling across the table, and we encourage that.
Scott Cooper: While we are contemporary French, we’re still true to our French roots. A reduction sauce kind of makes everything French.
Camron Mashayekh: One of the things that we’re best known for since day one is our soufflé Grand Marnier.
Scott Cooper: Soufflé Grand Marnier is a tough dish to execute. It was on the opening menu, day one, in 1977, and it’s become a favorite and a classic. It’s light, it’s airy, but it gives you the real flavor of Grand Marnier. And if we ever take it off the menu, we will get full-scale revolt from our guests.
Camron Mashayekh: There would be a massive backlash.
[music playing]
I think a lot of people appreciate an elegant, quiet dining room. I think the key to great service goes unnoticed. You have this complete experience, and by the end of it, you think, “Wow, that was incredible and effortless.”
Woman: Mmm, that’s so good!
Man: Everything they do is good, you know?
Scott Cooper: I’m still here and we’re still cooking the food because we love making people happy and it makes us happy, carrying on the tradition. Here. Le Papillon. The pièce de résistance.
Leslie Sbrocco: Now, Jason, it’s interesting because for a restaurant in the Bay Area to be around 40 years, they have to be doing something right. Correct?
Jason Douglass: Very true. I mean, especially in today’s day and age where restaurants seem to open and close at the drop of a hat. They have been around for 40 years, and over those years, I’ve been going for 14 years to the restaurant, and I love it. It’s never changed. It’s always beautiful. Just, I love it.
Leslie Sbrocco: Did you get that feeling when you walked into the restaurant?
Nima Alahari: Absolutely.
Leslie Sbrocco: This is special.
Nima Alahari: Definitely.
Anna Mindess: Oh, yes.
Nima Alahari: I’ve never been to any kind of fine dining, especially French restaurant, in my life before. And it actually lined up with my girlfriend’s birthday when we went, so it was a really special occasion and a really special time where we went.
Leslie Sbrocco: Because you can choose either a tasting menu or you can choose a prix fixe menu. Correct?
Jason Douglass: Yes. Yes. I love the fact that they bring you a beautiful amuse-bouche when you sit down. Our particular evening, we had a lovely lobster bisque with beautiful lobster. Such a silky texture. And the lobster was perfect. Very tender, very of the sea. Just a lovely little bite.
Leslie Sbrocco: Did you amuse your bouche?
Anna Mindess: My bouche was amused.
Jason Douglass: Very amused.
Leslie Sbrocco: What did you have for an amuse bouche?
Anna Mindess: I can’t remember exactly, but it was little fish eggs that… on a little creamy… I mean, the tiniest little dish. I like small bites of things, so that was perfect.
Nima Alahari: My bouche was amused as well, actually. I had the mussel and saffron soup with a side of olive bread.
Jason Douglass: Oh!
Nima Alahari: And being Persian, saffron is a big part of my culture, so it really took me home. I actually asked for seconds on the soup. I don’t know if that’s something you can do, but it was absolutely delicious.
Jason Douglass: I’m sure the chef loved that.
Nima Alahari: Yes, it was amazing.
Leslie Sbrocco: Absolutely.
Jason Douglass: We typically do the four-course menu. I love it. We had the butternut squash soup. Very creamy, very silky, like a curry or a cardamom, which goes well with the squash.
Nima Alahari: I first started with the Dungeness crab soufflé with caviar and lemon. It’s my first time actually having caviar, and I actually enjoyed it. It was really good.
Jason Douglass: Caviar virgin.
Nima Alahari: Yeah.
Leslie Sbrocco: No longer.
Nima Alahari: No longer. Yeah.
And I was actually really delicious. I’m big on textures, and the texture of the crab wasn’t really to my liking so much, but the broth and the soup, it kind of came with as well, the dipping and the bread of the Dungeness crab soufflé was absolutely delicious.
Leslie Sbrocco: So, all together, it worked.
Nima Alahari: All together, it worked well and it got me going for the rest.
Anna Mindess: I had an interesting appetizer. It was raw fish, kind of chopped up, made into a patty that was kanpachi,
Jason Douglass: I had that as well.
Anna Mindess: Oh, the round thing?
Jason Douglass: The kanpachi.
Anna Mindess: And then they sprinkled it with flower petals, lemongrass, a little squiggle of tamarind, and then avocado sorbet, a scoop in the middle. Really unusual.
Jason Douglass: It was so good. I had that as well. It was really tasty.
Leslie Sbrocco: Yeah.
Nima Alahari: Gorgeously plated. I noticed that, as well.
Leslie Sbrocco: Yes. Alright.
Leslie Sbrocco: What was next after your first course or appetizer course?
Jason Douglass: Halibut with an herb crust. It was so tender. And it was served with cherry tomatoes and potato, like, pavé. It was really quite tasty.
Anna Mindess: I had beef tenderloin, which was perfectly cooked, absolutely. And it was interesting because it had a stewed plum, I think it was, on top, which oddly went together really well. Had potato pavé on the other side and was delicious.
Nima Alahari: I actually also had the beef tenderloin as well. And that, I must say, was the star of the show. I’m big on my steaks. That was a steak you would cut into and it just melted in your mouth instantly.
Leslie Sbrocco: Alright, now let’s talk about those desserts.
Anna Mindess: Yes!
Leslie Sbrocco: Who wants to go first?
Anna Mindess: I do, I do! Okay. So, the name on the menu made me think of a different image. It said terrine of black sesame.
Jason Douglass: Mm!
Anna Mindess: So I imagined, you know, it’ll be a pot with black sesame. And what I was served was surprising. Yeah, it had just delicate little bricks of black sesame and a little chocolate and banana custard, I think it was. And all those flavors together worked really well.
Nima Alahari: Well, I actually didn’t expect to get any dessert this time. Surprising for me, I know, but compliments from the chef, because their service was so fantastic, they actually brought us out a small birthday cheesecake platter with some honeycomb, a little candle just to commemorate my girlfriend’s birthday. That really set it straight. It was absolutely fantastic.
Leslie Sbrocco: And I hope you told her you planned that.
Nima Alahari: Uh…yeah. I missed my mark on that one.
Leslie Sbrocco: You could have taken responsibility.
Nima Alahari: I should have. I should have.
Jason Douglass: They never go wrong with dessert. Well, they never go wrong with any dish, really. We have never had a bad dish in 14 years of going there, and it keeps us coming back.
Anna Mindess: Might have been the most expensive restaurant I’ve ever eaten in.
Nima Alahari: I agree.
Leslie Sbrocco: So, a special occasion. Again, setting the stage here.
Nima Alahari: Yeah, it was awesome.
Anna Mindess: Birthday, anniversary. That’s the kind of place.
Leslie Sbrocco: Worth it?
Anna Mindess: Yeah. [Laughter]
Nima Alahari: I would say might not go back, just due to the price, but that beef tenderloin made it worth it 100%.
Leslie Sbrocco: Well, it made it very special for you.
Nima Alahari: Very special.
Anna Mindess: Life is short.
Jason Douglass: Life is short. Our coffins don’t have pockets.
Leslie Sbrocco: There you go. There you go.
Nima Alahari: Well said.
Leslie Sbrocco: If you would like to try Le Papillon, it’s located on Saratoga Avenue in San Jose, and the average tab per person without drinks is around $150.
Leslie Sbrocco: And now, reporter Cecilia Phillips takes us back to Fremont’s historic Niles neighborhood for more Bay Area bites you’ve just got to try.
[music playing]
Cecilia Phillips: Whoo! We’re here at the Flying A, which is kind of the cornerstone of the end of Niles. Lots of culture, lots of nostalgia. Tell me a little bit about what makes Niles so special.
Krysten Laine: Niles was the original Hollywood. Charlie Chaplin was brought here to do his first film, The Tramp, and they used to film Westerns here that are featured in Niles Canyon. And a lot of these buildings are still here that were there back in the day. This gas station was built in 1938. We brought the car culture back with the Niles Flying A, and every month we have Classics & Coffee, where people bring their classic cars, kick back, relax and have a good time.
Cecilia Phillips: So, that’s so cool. So, people can come, bring their cars, get a little bit of coffee and get some treats from the farmers market down the street.
Krysten Laine: Absolutely.
[music playing]
Ken Phung: Our business is Dough Wei Me Bakery, and we sell artisan donuts and pastries.
Cecilia Phillips: How do they make them so fluffy?
Ken Phung: It’s the yeast.
Cecilia Phillips: Okay, so it’s a yeasted doughnut, kind of like a malasada?
Ken Phung: It’s a malasada. It has eggs, sugar. And so the yeast eats the sugar, has CO2 and make it pouf up.
Both: Thank you!
Zoe Phung: This is our ube coconut mochi, our tiramisu, our chocolate hazelnut banana, and our pistachio raspberry.
Cecilia Phillips: Okay, which one should I try?
Zoe Phung: Maybe the tiramisu.
Cecilia Phillips: Dough Wei Me! Oh, my gosh, there’s sugar everywhere. [Laughs]
Man: Blueberry cream cheese.
Woman: We’ll take one of those.
Man: Alright.
Cecilia Phillips: Niles Pie Company. You’ve been around for a little while.
Sarah Vegas: We’ve been around for about 15 years. We’re a worker cooperative. All butter, all scratch-made.
Cecilia Phillips: All butter sounds good. [Laughs]
Sarah Vegas: We’ve got our brand-new bacon béchamel savory pastry. It’s got a little bit of our house-made béchamel, chives, hickory-smoked bacon, everything bagel seasoning, and our house-made pastry crust.
Cecilia Phillips: And this one here?
Sarah Vegas: And there is our beef and potato pasty with ground sirloin, Yukon gold potatoes, carrots, herbs and spices.
Cecilia Phillips: Yes. Ooh! That spice really comes through on the top, too. We’re at MAD Creationz. What makes your creations mad?
Marcus Dunlap: It’s really — It stands for “Make a Difference.” During COVID, me and my wife started a non-profit. So 5% of our proceeds goes to that nonprofit. We like to provide food for less-fortunate families during the holidays.
Cecilia Phillips: So you’re not mad at all. You’re quite happy, nice people.
Marcus Dunlap: Yeah, exactly. Barbecue is our number-one thing we like to make. Brisket, primarily. Low and slow. No shortcuts. I have the Space Cowboy right here, which is our smashburger.
Cecilia Phillips: And in my hand?
Marcus Dunlap: That is our legendary four-cheese macaroni and cheese with our smoked brisket and our homemade barbecue sauce.
Cecilia Phillips: So, what cheeses do you use?
Marcus Dunlap: I’ll tell you two out of the four. Swiss cheese, cheddar cheese, and then there’s two others that are very secret.
Cecilia Phillips: But if I’m able to taste this and guess what they are, you’ll tell me if I’m right?
Marcus Dunlap: Yes, ma’am. 100%.
Cecilia Phillips: Alright. Look at all this cheese. Mmm! Is one of them cream cheese?
Marcus Dunlap: Exactly.
Cecilia Phillips: Yes! [Laughs]
Marcus Dunlap: That was the secret one!
Cecilia Phillips: Yes! Alright. You know what? Here’s the thing — for the viewers, we’re going to leave the other one a secret. Okay? I’m not even going to guess.
Marcus Dunlap: Okay.
Cecilia Phillips: Okay.
[music playing]
Cecilia Phillips: I don’t drink coffee. So I heard that, like, there’s an alternative here that can wake me up?
Jordan: Mm-hmm. I’ve got wheatgrass shots and ginger shots for you. It’s grown with love, so you will taste that.
Cecilia Phillips: Okay. My first wheatgrass shot!
Jordan: Aw, you couldn’t fake it!
