Restaurants and bars with themes have always rubbed me the wrong way. I think of the first and only time I walked into Butter. It must have been 2003. While I was as well-versed in irony as any literary theory buff with a fresh diploma, the brown-bagged forties, snack stand carved out of the side of a trailer, and steaming tater tots seemed a bit much. I'm not a stickler for good taste, but I was instantly annoyed by a bar dedicated to aping the coarsest trappings of poor white culture for the amusement of privileged San Franciscans carousing through SoMa. I've seen it before around these parts: even politically radical non-profit workers who would rather poke out an eye than offend a person of color think nothing of throwing "white trash"-themed birthday parties for themselves. Plus, tater tots are actually really good -- without irony, just ketchup.

Still, I've splashed around the Tonga Room, stomped into the Bigfoot Lounge, and knocked back a whiskey at Bourbon and Branch, that classy throw-back to San Francisco's speakeasy-riddled past -- appealing themed joints, all of them. The other day, I was talking themed bars with some buddies, one of whom manages a newish decidedly un-themed establishment in Russian Hill, on Polk, just above the Tenderloin. The topic was Manhattan bars, where drink costs soar to airport prices -- $6 for a bottle of beer, $10 for a well drink. We joked that someone should start a really, really expensive bar in San Francisco called $$$. There would be a $50 cover charge, and no music, karaoke, free food, pool, or pub quiz to account for the steep entrance fee. The drinks would not be made with fancy infused potentially illegal spirits or feature small artisanal producers. They would be perfectly plain and perhaps a little weak. Still, if you could afford to buy your way in, you could hang out with others who could as well, which might be reward enough. It'd be pure elitism, distilled -- as appropriate a theme as any.

My trip to Japan late last March gave me a new perspective on themed drinking establishments. I wasn't there long enough to deliver an exhaustive report -- I'm sure some late-night Travel Channel special has already tried. There was so much I did not see, particularly in Tokyo, where I only spent a few jet-lagged days. My home-base for most of the visit was Kyoto, Japan's old Imperial capitol. Still, after a week of bouncing around that city's bars and informal late-night eateries, my head was throbbing -- and not from too much single malt. Along Kiyamachi St., very close to the Kamo River, tiny izakayas and watering holes burrow into unassuming commercial storefronts and stubby office buildings. You walk up a few flights of stairs -- as if going to see a disreputable dentist -- and knock on doors that open on to strange, insular, fastidiously detailed worlds. They reminded me of levels in Super Mario Brothers: through one portal, a swanky, pocket-sized cool jazz club draped in blue curtains appeared, through another, fittingly, a red-and-white toadstool-themed "mushroom" bar no bigger than an apartment kitchen -- both in the same building, occupying suites on the same floor.

One night, I visited two establishments thoroughly preoccupied with Jamaica's most prominent (and cliched) cultural and artistic exports -- Bob Marley, an easy way with marijuana, Rastafarianism, ripe for the watering down, and the flag's black, yellow, and green color scheme. Despite being a huge reggae fan, in the United States, I wouldn't have had the slightest interest. Nonetheless, Rasta and Rub-A-Dub were a lot of fun. The first is a dark cave on the 4th or 5th floor of an office building. Muzak renditions of Rockers classics seep from hidden speakers. A weed leaf mosaic rises up out of the tiled floor. A shrine to Mr. Marley occupies the middle of the back wall, bathed in chartreuse light, overlooking the scene. When I was there, the crowd was typically diverse: bartenders with desperate attempts at dreadlocks, a few business guys enjoying an extended happy hour, a party of ladies on the heels of a shopping trip, and a couple hanging out along the side wall, with the lanky American gentleman trying not to look as absurd as the retina-burning blue "island" cocktails in his glass. Significantly older, Rub-A-Dub is located in a frond-filled basement. According to legend, the owner, a Japanese man, married a Jamaican woman, and opened the bar to continuously remind her of her homeland. In truth, theme aside, Rasta would be considered a pretty good restaurant in San Francisco, offering roast fish heads and Japanese riffs on jerked chicken and seafood. I didn't eat at Rub-A-Dub (too many fish heads at Rasta), but I did have a few drinks under bunches of bananas hanging from the ceiling.

I returned from Japan in April -- just ten days after I'd arrived -- but I started thinking about themes all over again last week, when I read an S.F. Weekly blog post about Hogs & Rocks. Set to open in May or June, this joint endeavor of Maverick chef Scott Youkilis and Eric Rubin of Tres Agaves will serve 45 different kinds of ham, along with pickles, salads, and oysters (the rocks, of course). Unlike, say Rasta, Hogs & Rocks will do food and drink first, letting aesthetics follow suit. If the bar sprang up in Japan, the floor cushions would be swine-pink and sewn up to look like plump hind legs. There'd be small chairs shaped like oyster shells. Albums by Badfinger (lead singer, the late Peter Ham) would boom on the stereo. Images of piggy pop culture's most prominent representatives -- Wilbur, Porky, Pooh's nervous little friend, and a rogue's gallery of notorious male chauvinists -- would line the walls. The atmosphere would be unsubtly rendered, but genuine, irony-free -- seriously silly, with excellent food. That's one distinction I can draw between themed bars and restaurants here and there: seemingly goofy joints in Japan actually tend to have good food, whereas in the United States, even in San Francisco, corny trappings (from tiki bars to Chuck E. Cheese) all but guarantee an indifferent kitchen.

In Kyoto, the most unassuming bar I visited was in many ways the most revealing. To launch a long night of drinking, my girlfriend and I wandered into Color, an elegant, stylish lounge decked out in handsome modern furniture and classy vintage appliances. This was a nice place to drink. It reminded us of countless bars we'd patronized in the States. We discerned no theme, which, obviously, didn't surprise us. We'd seen plenty of regular bars around. This one just felt cozier than most. Then, we grabbed a card on the way out and read the finer print. The bar did in fact have a theme. It identified as "New York-style," which explained why it struck us as so familiar -- right down to the $10 cocktails.

Everyday cooking means taking lots of shortcuts. For the most flavor with the shortest amount of time in the kitchen, especially when you've splurged or gone out of your way to buy good ingredients, it's a delicate balance between paying attention to the details and just trying to get dinner on the table.

We've all done it -- cooked tomatoes with their peels and seeds, served pureed soup unstrained, fried the potatoes just once, not twice. It's healthier, right?

As a cook, I embrace shortcuts. But as a cooking teacher, I always try to explain to my classes why, over the centuries and millennia, certain techniques have developed. Sometimes it's cultural. Usually, though, there's a very real change in texture or flavor, nutrition or shelf-life.

Two simple techniques increasingly omitted from recipes now are salting eggplant and browning butter. Neither are absolutely necessary. Both, however, are worth doing every once in a while to remind yourself just what amazing flavors you can create in the kitchen.

BROWNED BUTTER

Simmering whole butter until all its water bubbles off and its protein solids separate accomplishes several key improvements. It allows the butter to sit at (tropical) room temperature much longer without turning rancid. It significantly increases the butter's smoke point to allow high-heat cooking. And it transforms the milks sweet flavor, adding deep, nutty, caramel tones. Indians call it ghee, while the French call it beurre noisette, or hazelnut butter for its rich color and flavor.

You need just five or ten minutes to make browned butter. Melt good-quality, unsalted butter in a small, heavy pan over medium heat. (A lighter colored pan will allow you to judge more easily the color of the butter as it cooks.) Continue cooking it through the foamy bubbling stage, while all the water evaporates off. Reduce the heat if you want to give yourself some extra buffer time, especially if this is your first time browning butter. As the bubbles subside, swirl the pan occasionally and keep an extra close eye on the butter. The protein solids will sink to the bottom. When they turn light brown, transfer the hot butter immediately to a heat-proof bowl. Be sure not to scorch the butter, as blackened protein will taste sharply acrid, not pleasantly nutty. It will darken a little more as it cools.

For frying or long storage, be sure to separate the milk solids: skim off any remaining foam and spoon or pour off the oil while still liquid, leaving behind the darkened protein at the bottom of the bowl.

Browned butter can be used while still melted to saute or to garnish. It's excellent for vegetables like asparagus, broccoli, and green beans. If you're trying to use less butter, deepening its flavor will accentuate the effect from smaller amounts. For a super simple yet elegant entree, sear chicken breast, pork chops, or fish fillets in browned butter and then serve with fresh lemon wedges.

Let browned butter solidify and substitute it in baked recipes for extra delicate cookies and cakes. (Remember that less water means less gluten development in flour, so be sure to allow for some trial and error as you figure out the fulcrum point between flavor and structure.) Use it in rice pilaf to serve with full-flavored stews and roasts. Or simply offer it at the table in your regular butter dish and spread it on crusty bread or flaky biscuits for a flavor epiphany.

SALTING EGGPLANT

With ever smaller, younger and fresher vegetables making their way to our markets in the past decades, old rules have lost much of their imperative. Peeling, trimming, salting -- these were techniques required when vegetables were allowed to mature completely on the plant, transported long distances without the benefit of refrigeration, and served within days not weeks of harvest. Tender carrots no longer require peeling. Young celery stalks can be cooked with leaves. And most eggplants now, especially the narrow Asian varieties, are fine going straight from the cutting board the pan.

Occasionally, though, salting eggplant is critical and will remind you just why this vegetable has been embraced in classic dishes around the world. It's a hassle, but the extra step draws out bitter juices in older vegetables, whether those missed in the back corner of your garden or forgotten in the bottom of your refrigerator. More importantly, salting alters the cell structure of the vegetable's flesh, creating that famous silken texture while preventing excess absorption of oil.

To salt eggplant, halve, dice or slice it as needed. Sprinkle generous with kosher salt and set aside in a bowl or colander. To encourage the purging of juices, weight the eggplant. (The most effective way is to fill a zip bag with water and plop it on top of the pieces. The age-old method is a flat plate topped with a rock.) Leave the eggplant for 30 to 60 minutes. When you return and peek into the bowl, you'll see a surprising amount of dark brown liquid at the bottom. Rinse the eggplant quickly in cool water, drain well and then dry it by wringing in a clean cloth or patting with paper towels.

Salting eggplant will noticeably improve recipes that call for stuffing eggplant halves or rolling thin slices around a filling. It's also a good technique for dishes where keeping its shape is important, such as stews, curries, ratatouille, or parmigiana. If you're deep-frying eggplant, salting is essential for preventing greasiness.

And what if you're making baba ganoush or using tiny, little adolescent eggplants? Nope, no one will care or notice if you skip the salting.

Cooking is an investment of time and money, energy and love. Like all decisions, judging the costs requires knowing the benefits. And then choosing wisely.

A couple of summers ago, I called to check in on a friend of mine in New Jersey, who was taking a more-or-less enforced summer off of work. He'd spent his time traveling to Greece with his family, organizing his life, playing with his kids, but the novelty of so much free time was wearing thin. His boredom was as clear as he sighed over the phone when I asked him what he'd been up to.

"Oh...nothing. Just making butter today..."

Making butter? I pictured him sitting on an Amish stool churning away in the shade of his porch. And since I've always thought of butter-making as the sole province of women, I pictured him in a dairy maid's bonnet that matched both his eyes and his rugby shirt. I was a bit jealous of both his crushing amount of free time and the fact that he had thought of making butter before I did. I asked him where he picked up the churn.

"I don't have a churn, Michael. I'm doing it in my Kitchen Aid."

There went my fantasy. Use of a stand mixer was cheating in my book. Especially on the East Coast, where my urban, California sensibilities allowed me to imagine butter churns by the truckload were to be had yard-saling on any given weekend.

My fantasy deflated, I cast the thought of butter-making out of my head. Until last week, when I picked up my dog-eared copy of Much Depends on Dinner by Margaret Visser. Her chapter “Butter– and Something ‘Just as Good’” made me think entirely too much about the stuff. I wanted to know how to make it on my own, so I did a little research. And I do mean little.

It’s alarmingly easy to do, as you’ll soon see. For an excellent and very informative post on butter and butter-making, visit Cooking for Engineers -- a site filled with all the cooking Geekdom to which I aspire.

Butter

Makes: 1 cup

Ingredients:

2 cups heavy whipping cream (at a temperature between 60 and 68°F)
A pinch of salt (optional)
Finely diced herbs (also optional)

Preparation:

1. Place cream in the clean, cool bowl of your stand mixer, assuming you have one. Mix on medium speed.

2. Basically, you begin by making whipped cream. Once the cream has reached stiff-peak stage, slow the mixing down a little. The cream will now start to clump in the bowl.

3. What you have in the bowl will quickly turn from creamy white to, not surprisingly given the subject matter of this post, buttery yellow.

4. After a short while, the buttermilk will begin to separate from the butter solids.

5. Pour off the buttermilk. You may save it as the appropriate beverage for a late night, heart-to-heart conversation about women with your teen-aged son around your antique farm house table, cook with it, or throw it away. The choice is yours.

6. At this point, it’s a good idea to rinse the remaining buttermilk from the solid bits, since the buttermilk will cause your butter to turn rancid much sooner than one would like. Pour cold water over the butter, then squeeze and knead. Repeat until water runs clear.

7. Congratulations, you now have your butter.

8. You may now add a little salt, if that is your preference. Or fold in some fresh herbs. Whatever the hell you want, really-- it’s your butter.

Makes approximately one cup of useable butter excellent for lashing on one’s toast or experimenting à la Maria Schneider. Have a jolly time with it.