THE DISH: Local is focus for dinners at The Kitchen
Jun. 18—Those looking for a fun night out that supports a number of local businesses should check out The Kitchen, which is continuing its meet your grower/producer dinners into the summer.
Chef Richard Yoshimura and sommelier Jeramy Brown curate a menu and wine pairings themed around a particular food or wine varietal with an emphasis on local purveyors.
Next up is a dinner highlighting Autonomy Farms taking place on June 24 and June 25. This is the fourth year The Kitchen has teamed with Autonomy owner Meredith Bell for the meal highlighting her chicken, which has also been featured on the menu at Rustic Canyon in Los Angeles, the Padre Hotel and other fine dining establishments.
The Autonomy Farms menu consists of chicken with olives and lemon served with couscous, pozole verde, gochujang fried chicken with kimbap and a butterscotch budino with candied chicken skin.
With tomatoes in season, it's no surprise that the next dinner highlights a tomato grower, in this case KR Farms. Kat and Ryan Armstrong have a quarter-acre farm in east Bakersfield that grows a variety of produce including a selection of tomatoes.
Taking place July 8 and 9, the tomato dinner starts with gazpacho and continues with panzanella salad, steak with avocado, corn and tomato salad and, for dessert, spiced polenta cake with mascarpone mousse and tomato sorbet.
On July 15 and 16, Yoshimura will offer an evening for the "true food lover" with a six-course tasting menu. Guests will be placed in kitchen theater-style seating to enjoy the show featuring Yoshimura taking you through his menu and explaining his thought process on each course.
Other upcoming events are a dinner with Johnston Farms focused on its potatoes and peppers on July 22 and 23, a wine dinner highlighting 2019 white Burgundy on July 29 and 30, and a meet your baker dinner with Sean Cartney of Blue Magnolia Bread on Aug. 5 and 6.
Dinners will be held at 6:30 p.m. Thursdays and 7 p.m. Fridays on their respective weeks at The Kitchen, 1317 20th St. Cost for the meet your grower dinner is $65 with an optional wine pairing available for $45. The chef's tasting menu is $65 with the additional pairing for $45. The winemaker dinner is $85.
Reserve your spot at thekitchenbakersfield.com.
For more information, visit The Kitchen's Facebook page (facebook.com/thekitchenbakersfield) or Instagram (@thekitchen1317).
New on the menu
Is the heat getting you down? Cool off with cold ramen soup ($17.95) at ReMix Asian Kitchen. The ice-cold sweet and sour broth is served with noodles and beef brisket and topped with a boiled egg, rakkyu pickles, cilantro, green onion and tomato. You can order it spicy style with a spicy broth and kimchee.
You can also enjoy a cold ramen salad ($12.95), a shredded salad with cold noodles, sesame-miso dressing and topped with grilled chicken.
If you can't get enough of the hot chicken craze, ReMix has the answer with hot chicken ($13.95), consisting of two chicken katsu cutlets prepared in a spicy style, served with rice and citrus slaw. Diners can swap out the slaw for the amazing potato-mac salad for $1 more.
Order at remixasiankitchen.com. ReMix is located at 9450 Stockdale Highway.
Caffeine Supreme (2000 F St.) has another cool treat especially for those not ready to head out to the theme parks. Its frozen lemonade is available on its own or in flavors such as lavender, peach, strawberry and mango.
It will also soon be offering a subscription service on its nitro cold brew coffee and teas (passion fruit, mango or ginger peach), which will be available in growlers. For now the beverages are available by the cup at the drive-thru and in limited supply for growlers and samples at The Hens Roost's Saturday market from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 1916 G St.
Baker's Outpost (3310 Truxtun Ave., Suite 160) made good use of the latest crop of tomatoes with a vegan tomato sandwich with vegan basil mayo and a PBLT with crisp pancetta, bacon, butter lettuce, Fortitude Farm tomatoes and Duke's mayo (if you know, you know). The shop's sandwiches have been rotating but here's hoping these stay on the menu through the summer. Keep updated via Instagram (@bakersoutpost).
Stefani Dias can be reached at 661-395-7488. Follow her on Twitter at @realstefanidias.