Grillaxin' with Christina Choi, Part Two

When reached by phone yesterday morning, Choi says she is "going back and forth between the kitchen and e-mail. I'm making granola."

What kind of granola are you making?
Seedy granola, with walnuts and currants and cinnamon. I've got sunflower, flax, and pumpkin seeds in there ... is this going to be in the interview?

Yes. So tell me about Nettletown.
Well, we (Choi and Matt Dillon, of Sitka & Spruce and The Corson Building) are still in the process of finalizing all the paperwork. Matt is my partner, he'll be there to consult and give advice and make sure everything runs smoothly, but it's my vision and I'm the one who will be in the kitchen everyday. We hope to be open by the end of February. We'll see. I might be taking some volunteers to help me. I don't have anyone else in the kitchen yet, though my brother, Chris Choi, who works at Matt's in the Market, will be filling in and helping me out.

As for the food, it has a lot to do with my background and where we are. I've been saying it's Pacific food, West Coast food. There's a lot of Asian influence, a lot of seafood, geographical influences, and, of course, an emphasis on wild foods. Really, the food is what I eat, how I eat, how I cook for myself and friends and family. Homey.

Will the feel of Nettletown be homey as well?
Yes. It's going to be a café, more casual, with counter service. We'll be starting with lunch and brunch service, and then I'll add dinner and special events later. We'll do monthly big dinners, probably on Monday or Sunday nights. And dinner service will likely be limited, just a few nights a week. It won't be a big formal restaurant, the overall feel will be that it's a place were you can stop in and get something small--to go, for lunch.

So, what's on the regular menu?
There will always be salads, sandwiches and soups. I really want people to be able to come in, warm up with soup, get a drink--super-fast and easy. There'll be miso soup and a soup of the day.

For salads, right now I've got a side salad of chrysanthemum leaves, shaved artichoke, lemon, and olive oil. And then a big salad of purslane with chicken, bean sprouts, Armenian cukes and walnuts. For sandwiches, there'll be a creamy chicken salad with jicama and celery, scallions, cilantro and dill--pretty simple. I'll also do lemongrass lamb, kofta-style, kind of a cross between Vietnamese and Turkish: ground lamb, bulghur, lemongrass and shallots on a baguette.

Anything else?
Well, there'll be noodle dishes, one Swiss and one Asian. The Nettletown Knoplfe: a spatzle, comes from the cookbook my sister made for our family called, "Get to the Table, Mabel!," which is what my Grandpa used to say to call us to the table when it was dinnertime. The knoplfe is served sauteed with cabbage, leeks, garlic and herbs--and a poached egg on top, if you want. Then there's Nettletown Noodles: thick, fresh egg noodles from Rose Noodle in Chinatown with blanched greens, roast pork and a piece of pork belly, topped with seasoned saucy wild mushrooms, fried garlic, and a hard-boiled tea egg.

Is it hard to translate the kind of homey, wild foods you're talking about into a restaurant menu?
It's a little different, but really you can make anything in a restaurant setting if you have the organization and the time. What I really have to think about, because I want to do wild stuff, is what can I use through the year, what can I preserve. Luckily, I'll be able to use huckleberries all the time, because Foraged & Found freezes them and have them year-round. Mushrooms I can't do year-round, but I can use dried mushrooms. When it's sea bean season, I'll probably be pickling them in five gallon buckets.

I really want it to be that there's a base of food that we're always making and then tweaking, but not reinventing the menu everyday. It's hard when you're attached to seasonal food--so much harder--but there's a balance between taking advantage of the seasons and having a plan laid out.

Is it weird to be moving into the Sitka & Spruce space, which has such an identity?
It's funny for me because it's so familiar; I've spent so much time at Sitka over the years, but we're not changing it hugely--no remodel, just making it feel like our own. My boyfriend Jason is designing and building it.

Are you changing the green walls?
Ah, the green walls. Yes, we're changing them. When you're taking over a space and trying to make it your own, you better paint. There will be some of the same elements, but the green walls are already slowly disappearing.