San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Restaurants create seasonal dishes to highlight local produce
Here’s a fun food fact about Lodi: In the 1880s, the city produced so much high quality watermelon that it was called the unofficial “Watermelon Capital of the Country.”
These days, the region is better known for its other excellent fruit, wine grapes. But Lodi still thrives on agriculture, with many farms and ranches supplying premium foods like freerange eggs, humanelyraised pork, organic asparagus and almonds and a cornucopia of peppers, corn, eggplant, heirloom tomatoes, rainbow chard, cauliflower, kohlrabi, bok choy, berries, cherries and much more.
That means that diners in Lodi are in for top notch cuisine at the city’s many diverse restaurants. Whether it’s fine dining or more casual fare, chefs craft mouthwatering seasonal recipes based on what’s freshest from the land.
Whet your appetite with these favorite destinations. And naturally, be sure to ask your server about the perfect Lodi wine pairings for everything you order.
M SUSHI BISTRO
One of the area’s newer restaurants (debuted in late 2018), this very popular spot takes an upscale approach to Japanese classics. The Deluxe Sashimi Moriawase, for just one example, delivers 25 pieces of beautifully arranged fish presented with raw and pickled vegetables, accents of leaves and branch tendrils and spicy extras like sliced jalapeno and preserved wasabi.
Sometimes the kitchen has delicacies like grilled yellowtail collar, ruby curls of precious Japanese A5 Wagyu beef tataki and impossibly rich bone marrow sprinkled in bacon bits to be scooped with uni toast and crowned in sweet dill vinaigrette kale and fennel salad.
Hong Kong native and longtime Lodi resident chef Minh Nguyen draws on his family’s history in the fishing business, for signatures like Alaskan king crab legs draped in compound butter, spicy aioli and yuzu tobiko, or rare finds like seared albacore belly carpaccio with garlic and serrano peppers. Not surprisingly, it can be a challenge to find a seat in this this snazzy spot with its open kitchen, gleaming white sushi bar and big, dramatic mural of a fierce looking black, white, gray and red koi — the restaurant has no website except Facebook and does not accept reservations.
At the same time, a visit doesn’t need to be special occasion. Regulars stop in for the satisfying bento boxes, slurpable spicy miso ramen stocked with pork belly, chicken thigh and poached egg or clevercrazy rolls including a fusion Inferno of spicy tuna, panko shrimp and cucumber rolled with seven spice tuna, avocado, spicy sauce, spicy cream, teriyaki sauce, tempura flakes and fiery habanero infused masago (smelt roe).
TOWNE HOUSE
Nestled in the gardens at Wine & Roses hotel on Turner Road in Lodi, this restaurant is named for the Towne family, industrious farmers who founded the property more than 100 years ago. In fact, the surrounding area was originally farmland, and the hotel site still brims with towering trees and lavish gardens.
The interior look salutes the land as well with an upscale farmhouse with polished wood floors, a carved wood fireplace and a brick paved dining patio next to the porch framed by hundreds of rose bushes.
Chef Ian Bens updates his brunch and dinner menus daily. So first, you might nibble local almonds roasted with rosemary and sea salt paired with a craft cocktail decorated in fresh herbs and edible flowers. Then you might try the housebaked brioche with Toma cheese and garlic herb butter, plus a Little Gem salad dotted with local blueberries, Laura Chenel goat cheese and toasted pistachios, followed by herb roasted Petaluma chicken breast presented with confit fingerling potato, garliclemon sauce, rainbow