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California Summer

Baseball, hot dogs, chicken soup and matzah brei.

y

ou wouldn't expect anything
different from the family of Al
Mendelson, late owner of Nate &
Al Delicatessen in Beverly Hills, Calif. ...
It continues to stay with Al's tradition of
true Jewish cuisine as practiced years back
while working at Boesky's on Hazelwood
and 12th in Detroit ... Like chicken
noodle soup with the real thing, regular
old-fashioned long noodles, not those little
curled pasta thingamajigs or whatever
they are called.
Being there recently revealed this fact
while on the second leg of my recent trip
visiting son Scott, his wife, Bonnie, and
their two children, Matthew and Hannah
... Matzah brei is also a big seller all
year at Nate & Al ... And former Metro
Detroiter Jackie Kallen, America's first
lady of boxing, shared her deli favorite
matzo brei with our Orange County, Calif.,
granddaughter, 17-year-old Hannah, and
her girlfriend Vanessa Princie while I thor-
oughly enjoyed the Nate & Al chicken soup
with its right-way traditional noodles.
Jackie is busy these days traveling with
the six championship-caliber members
of her managerial stable ... She will soon
also reveal another new enterprise.
In Anaheim, more than 40,000 scream-
ing fans at Angel Stadium couldn't stop
me from bumping into CPA expert
Alan Borsen of the LBF Group in West
Bloomfield at the Detroit Tiger-Angels
baseball game ... Alan and 20-year-old
son, Michigan State student Brandon
Borsen, were on a baseball vacation that
took them to four stadiums and five
games ... They flew to Arizona to see
the Diamondbacks' Chase Field, Angel

Stadium in Anaheim, AT&T
Park in San Francisco (where
the Giants' Barry Bonds didn't
cooperate at the time and break
Hank Aaron's home run record
for them) and Oakland's McAfee
Coliseum ... My grandson Matt
and I sat in the first row just
back of the screen, great seats,
just a few rows from Alan and
his son ... Scott and Bonnie
were a couple of rows back.
At Mastro's Ocean Club Fish House
in Newport Beach, former Israelite and
Metro Detroiter Gaal Karp, son of liana
and Sam Karp, had dinner with Detroit
Tiger shortstop Carlos Guillen and then-
Tiger utility infielder Omar Infante ...
Gaal is senior vice-president of Kachay
Homes in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.
No reservations are taken at Mastro's
but people line out the doors daily waiting
their turn to get into the tuxedo-and-bow-
tie fine seafood restaurant.
There is no lack of good dining spots
in San Francisco, where Scott is CEO of
the Mindjet software and management
solutions company ... Tadish Grill on
California Street, California's oldest res-
taurant, has been in business since 1849
when originally only a little coffee tent
stand during the gold rush ... It bills
itself as the original cold-day restau-
rant although it has nothing to do with
the chilly weather experienced in San
Francisco or, as Mark Twain once said,
"The coldest winter I ever spent was a
summer in San Francisco."
Tadish joins those that serve the best
seafood cioppino (clams, prawns, scal-

lops, bay shrimp, crabmeat
and whitefish) I've eaten ...
Seems like most of the great
seafood cioppino soups are in
San Francisco ... Also, Tadish
has some fish dishes folks
won't see on many seafood
restaurant menus ... Like rex
sole, petrale sole, etc.
There aren't an abundance
of Jewish delicatessens in San
Francisco, but one of the bet-
ter ones is Miller's East Coast Deli on Polk,
with its 55-people seating and no eggs of
any kind served after noon ... Along with
the traditional Jewish delicatessen fare at
Miller's are things you rarely see at other
delis, like egg barley pasta with mush-
rooms or egg barley pasta with sauteed
onions and mushrooms, premises-made
Maryland crab cakes, etc. ... However
Miller's huge menu is mainly as it should
be, with the usually found deli favorites.
Among the large, south Asian menu
preferences at Shalimar on Polk, serving
Indian and Pakistani food, is an American
dish with an Indian touch ... Salmon
cooked with exotic spices.
One of the top Chinese Dim Sum restau-
rants in San Francisco, Yank Sing, in the
Rincon Center, on Spear Street, gave fur-
ther proof the huge asset of knowing what
to order from the rolling carts ... Having
Jon Wong, Scott's operational manager,
along to make selections from the almost
70 items, was a wonderful experience ...
His choices were superb and gave a great
insight into what delicious Dim Sum
goodies to eat from the huge assortment
... (Shangri-La employees at Orchard Mall

in West Bloomfield, are similar experts).
The Swan Oyster Depot on Polk Avenue
in San Francisco, with every type of sea-
food imaginable for people to eat at its
long counter, has no set hours ... People
wait in line outside to get in, and it closes
only after everything has been sold!
BACK IN THE local area, mention by
another newspaper that Lillian Shostak
is owner of Bread Basket on Middlebelt,
Livonia, was in error, says owner Al
Winkler's wife, Debbie ... She is Al's sister,
with 20 percent interest, says Debbie ...
Al and Debbie's newly opened delicates-
sen, Al's Famous Deli, on Woodward, Royal
Oak, is totally separate from Bread Basket,
says Debbie.
MAIL DEPT. ... "I have discovered
the best Italian restaurant food operation
in the Metro Detroit area. It is owned by
Dante Vanelli in Lake Orion, called Vanelli's
Express. It has 16 seats and is big on carry-
out. I took my mother and father there for
dinner, and we had a swell meal. Probably
the best Italian food I've eaten outside of
New York." ... Howard M. Schwartz.
[Recently opened Dante's Express is on
Lapeer Road, Lake Orion. Owner Dante
Vanelli formerly had Gus' Vanelli's Steak
House. His parents were the late restaura-
teurs, Sam and Alva Vanelli, who owned
Vanelli's years back.]
CONGRATS ... To Wendi MacDonald
on her birthday ... To Jody, not Judy,
Neirynck on her birthday (sorry) ... To
Les Kaplan on his 60th birthday ... To
Margaret Ludwig on her 85th birthday.

Danny's e-mail address is

dannyraskin@sbcglobaLnet.

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August 30 • 2007

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