I spent last Sunday at perhaps the best street fair ever, the Silver Lake Jubilee. Besides enjoying some relatively reasonably priced Firestone Walker beer and a beard-y (and newly unemployed) Jeremy Sisto, there were a shitload of food trucks. I ate at some of them. This is my story.
Calbi. I've been wanting to try this dubious Kogi knock-off for a while, since there's always a truck parked in my neighborhood. The first attempt at a true corporate food truck (a team led by an ex-Baja Fresh exec is spearheading the franchising), Calbi is pretty much a textbook cynical ripoff, which I admire. Overall it was okay. The spicy pork was solid and similar to Kogi, though the accompaniments were not as good and the tortilla kinda sucked.
Maui Wowi. So I'm not 100% sure that this is where I ate, but I'll go with it. I had a crispy tofu bun (bao) and it was delicious. Crispy, nicely spicy tofu on a very fresh, moist and soft bun. The pork belly bun also looked good.
India Jones. Perhaps the highlight of the day. I had a paneer "Frankie," which is onions, tamarind, egg, and (in this case) paneer cheese, wrapped in a roti. Densely flavorful and very inexpensive. And it's one of the few food truck snacks that was really built to easily eat on the go.
Cool Haus. So, look, the ice cream was really good (I had the bacon and brown butter) and the cookies were good too. But.... over a half an hour in line for ice cream haphazardly slapped between two cookies? For $4? The crowd got to Cool Haus and they were sloppy with the service. And despite the hectic crowd, the one (that's right, one) guy making sandwiches was talking on his cell phone. Each sandwich took close to five minutes to serve because of a weird insistence on allowing the teeming mobs of hipster douches to taste and customize every sandwich. Next time at an event like this? Pick like three or four combos and pre-make the sandwiches. Everyone will be happier.
World Fare. The coolest food truck in town because it's in a double-decker bus with seating on the roof. Had the macaroni and cheese balls (smoked cheddar, because truffles are for mumblegrums). The balls were alright, needed more salt.
And that was the extent of the compelling trucks. I suppose I should've hit up Frysmith and I would've hit up the Dim Sum Truck except it wasn't there. But there's time.
So, some pretty good food truck opportunities presented themselves--this was what the Food Truck Food Fare wanted to be but failed at in its ill-conceived Icarus-like aspirations. Good stuff.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
HFF Rant: Arbitrary Hours
So it's 9:30 on a Sunday night. I have a friend in town who just drove down from Northern California. We're hungry. We want to show him the town. First stop? A restaurant favorite of mine that's billed as open until 10PM. We get there? Locked up shut. Closed with a capital Q. Okay, fine. Understandable. Pretty close to their closing time and it was a Sunday night so they closed early. Fair enough.
Next stop? A wine bar in Downtown LA. Their hours are advertised as "daily from 11:30AM to late." That's the business equivalent of the high school party invitation: "9PM-???" Holy shit! Our party's so crazy we don't know when it's going to end! Except you're a business. You should know when your party's going to end. And when you advertise a post-11PM Happy Hour with drink AND food specials, perhaps your kitchen shouldn't be closed before 10PM. That kinda makes as much sense as a platypus and have you seen a fucking platypus?
Restaurants are not businesses to be run on whimsy. Unless I can see a restaurant's open sign from my window, I'm not going to drag my ass out to a restaurant that may or may not be open. Pick your hours, advertise them, and stick to them. That's how you'll build a loyal clientele. In a business full of flakes, reliability and consistency can go a long way to establishing your reputation.
And come on, a restaurant that's known for being open late--that makes a name for being open late--that advertises being open until late--and is shut down by ten o'clock? That's lame. If I'm hungry at say 11PM on a Tuesday, where am I going to go? The place that I know is open or the place that might be open? Even if I might prefer the second restaurant, I'm going to go for the first restaurant so I don't end up wasting part of my night.
Restaurants are not that different from any business. Success isn't rocket science. It's producing a quality product for a good value that people will enjoy. Google can't just decide to stop working because not enough people are googling and a hospital can't stop administering aid because not enough people are getting shot in their neighborhood. Restaurants can't just decide to close an hour early because, well, they just fucking want to.
It's bad business and will equal a failed restaurant.
Next stop? A wine bar in Downtown LA. Their hours are advertised as "daily from 11:30AM to late." That's the business equivalent of the high school party invitation: "9PM-???" Holy shit! Our party's so crazy we don't know when it's going to end! Except you're a business. You should know when your party's going to end. And when you advertise a post-11PM Happy Hour with drink AND food specials, perhaps your kitchen shouldn't be closed before 10PM. That kinda makes as much sense as a platypus and have you seen a fucking platypus?
Restaurants are not businesses to be run on whimsy. Unless I can see a restaurant's open sign from my window, I'm not going to drag my ass out to a restaurant that may or may not be open. Pick your hours, advertise them, and stick to them. That's how you'll build a loyal clientele. In a business full of flakes, reliability and consistency can go a long way to establishing your reputation.
And come on, a restaurant that's known for being open late--that makes a name for being open late--that advertises being open until late--and is shut down by ten o'clock? That's lame. If I'm hungry at say 11PM on a Tuesday, where am I going to go? The place that I know is open or the place that might be open? Even if I might prefer the second restaurant, I'm going to go for the first restaurant so I don't end up wasting part of my night.
Restaurants are not that different from any business. Success isn't rocket science. It's producing a quality product for a good value that people will enjoy. Google can't just decide to stop working because not enough people are googling and a hospital can't stop administering aid because not enough people are getting shot in their neighborhood. Restaurants can't just decide to close an hour early because, well, they just fucking want to.
It's bad business and will equal a failed restaurant.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Arts & Crafts
I’m a skeptic. Pretty much everything for me has, in legal parlance, a “rebut-able premise.” I’m not going to take as a given that anything is inherently worthy of worship, deference, or even just my being impressed.
Despite my passion for all things culinary, I regard very little of it as an art form–it’s a craft. Unfortunately we’ve de-emphasized the importance of craft in favor of the illusion of art. We want to perceive our memorable gastronomic experiences as moments of ephemeral genius rather than what they actually are: the culmination of years of training coupled with a bit of ingenuity and intuition. The fact is, anyone can cook. Anyone can cook competently with a bit of practice. But it takes years of chopping, slicing and sauteeing before you can work effectively in a commercial kitchen. Coming up with the menu is, in many ways, the easiest part of being a chef. Effectively training your staff to serve that menu consistently to a restaurant full of hungry, demanding diners at 7:30 on a Friday night is the tricky part.
Cooking in a restaurant isn’t cooking in a vacuum. You could come up with the greatest dish on the planet, but if it takes an hour to prepare and can only be cooked correctly one out of three times, it’s utterly impractical to serve in a restaurant. If there’s no way to effectively make a viable margin without charging $80 for your entree, it’s utterly impractical to serve at (most) restaurants.
I worked for a number of years as a bartender in the SF Bay Areaduring the nascent stages of the “mixologist” boom. We came up with a number of interesting, artisan-spirit driven cocktails with fresh herbs and fresh squeezed juices. Of course we just called them cocktails and charged $8 for them because we weren’t retarded. I’m not saying I was the best bartender on the staff, but I was effective and fast. I churned out consistent cocktails quickly, got my customers’ buzz going, and moved (in the words of Jay-Z) it was on to the next one. Perhaps I could’ve spent longer to ensure an exact ratio of bitters to grapefruit juice, but taste is relative and I’d rather be quick and effective than unnecessarily meticulously slow.
And that’s what makes for good craftsmanship, producing a quality product reliably and efficiently. We’re not painting the next Guernica: we’re mixing a fucking cocktail; we’re grilling a steak; we’re making an Albarino. I don’t want to wait twenty minutes for a cocktail, no matter how good it is. At that point, the bartender has failed in his craft. There’s no “worth the wait” when it comes spending $16 on a cocktail.
We should take pride in our craft. Craft is a noble thing and good craftsmanship is exceedingly rare. Good craftsmanship is being replaced by pretense to artistic glory fairly rapidly. Instead of the Wolfgang Pucks and Thomas Kellers who toiled in obscurity and honed their craft for years before achieving well-earned success, we have flash-in-the-pan “celebrity chefs” whose genius is extolled by publicists while their restaurants fail. Or worse, we have failed actors who consider themselves revolutionary because they decided to actually pay attention to what kind of booze they use in their Manhattans.
You’re not a revolutionary, you’re a douche with a Boston shaker.
Despite my passion for all things culinary, I regard very little of it as an art form–it’s a craft. Unfortunately we’ve de-emphasized the importance of craft in favor of the illusion of art. We want to perceive our memorable gastronomic experiences as moments of ephemeral genius rather than what they actually are: the culmination of years of training coupled with a bit of ingenuity and intuition. The fact is, anyone can cook. Anyone can cook competently with a bit of practice. But it takes years of chopping, slicing and sauteeing before you can work effectively in a commercial kitchen. Coming up with the menu is, in many ways, the easiest part of being a chef. Effectively training your staff to serve that menu consistently to a restaurant full of hungry, demanding diners at 7:30 on a Friday night is the tricky part.
Cooking in a restaurant isn’t cooking in a vacuum. You could come up with the greatest dish on the planet, but if it takes an hour to prepare and can only be cooked correctly one out of three times, it’s utterly impractical to serve in a restaurant. If there’s no way to effectively make a viable margin without charging $80 for your entree, it’s utterly impractical to serve at (most) restaurants.
I worked for a number of years as a bartender in the SF Bay Areaduring the nascent stages of the “mixologist” boom. We came up with a number of interesting, artisan-spirit driven cocktails with fresh herbs and fresh squeezed juices. Of course we just called them cocktails and charged $8 for them because we weren’t retarded. I’m not saying I was the best bartender on the staff, but I was effective and fast. I churned out consistent cocktails quickly, got my customers’ buzz going, and moved (in the words of Jay-Z) it was on to the next one. Perhaps I could’ve spent longer to ensure an exact ratio of bitters to grapefruit juice, but taste is relative and I’d rather be quick and effective than unnecessarily meticulously slow.
And that’s what makes for good craftsmanship, producing a quality product reliably and efficiently. We’re not painting the next Guernica: we’re mixing a fucking cocktail; we’re grilling a steak; we’re making an Albarino. I don’t want to wait twenty minutes for a cocktail, no matter how good it is. At that point, the bartender has failed in his craft. There’s no “worth the wait” when it comes spending $16 on a cocktail.
We should take pride in our craft. Craft is a noble thing and good craftsmanship is exceedingly rare. Good craftsmanship is being replaced by pretense to artistic glory fairly rapidly. Instead of the Wolfgang Pucks and Thomas Kellers who toiled in obscurity and honed their craft for years before achieving well-earned success, we have flash-in-the-pan “celebrity chefs” whose genius is extolled by publicists while their restaurants fail. Or worse, we have failed actors who consider themselves revolutionary because they decided to actually pay attention to what kind of booze they use in their Manhattans.
You’re not a revolutionary, you’re a douche with a Boston shaker.
Thursday, May 06, 2010
HFF Quickie: Senor Fish
Senor Fish is a name that doesn't inspire confidence. And its logo, a mustachioed and be-sombreroed fish that looks something like a Mario Bros. mermaid, inspires even less confidence. But finally, despite driving past nearly every location dozens of time, I've now dined there a couple times and I'll say that it's pretty good. Great? No. But good quality and reasonably priced.
First stop I had, what else, the fish tacos. Good fresh fish, fried crisp, and served on soft tortillas. Nice crema, mild salsa. A perfectly tasty white boy fish taco.
On my second trip I had the fabled scallop burrito. Delicious. Fresh-tasting (though no doubt frozen) scallops, whole pinto beans, crema, salsa. The usual. A nice combination of flavors and at seven bucks and change (and enormous) it's a freaking steal.
My only complaints are that the large flour tortilla for the burrito (not the ones for the tacos) is a bit too chewy and none of the salsas were particularly compelling in terms of default spiciness. I'll make it back to the Downtown LA/Little Tokyo location for their late night happy hour with $1 tacos, $4 margaritas, and $3 beers. It's a very cool space with an open bar area, indoor cantina dining, and a big outdoor patio.
It's simple, fresh honest food at a fair price.
Senor Fish Cocina & Cantina
(several other locations in the San Gabriel Valley)
422 E. First St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012
213-625-0566
www.senorfishonline.com
First stop I had, what else, the fish tacos. Good fresh fish, fried crisp, and served on soft tortillas. Nice crema, mild salsa. A perfectly tasty white boy fish taco.
On my second trip I had the fabled scallop burrito. Delicious. Fresh-tasting (though no doubt frozen) scallops, whole pinto beans, crema, salsa. The usual. A nice combination of flavors and at seven bucks and change (and enormous) it's a freaking steal.
My only complaints are that the large flour tortilla for the burrito (not the ones for the tacos) is a bit too chewy and none of the salsas were particularly compelling in terms of default spiciness. I'll make it back to the Downtown LA/Little Tokyo location for their late night happy hour with $1 tacos, $4 margaritas, and $3 beers. It's a very cool space with an open bar area, indoor cantina dining, and a big outdoor patio.
It's simple, fresh honest food at a fair price.
Senor Fish Cocina & Cantina
(several other locations in the San Gabriel Valley)
422 E. First St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012
213-625-0566
www.senorfishonline.com
Friday, April 30, 2010
WP24 - Los Angeles, Ca
I had the rather fortuitous opportunity to go dine at WP24, the ass-slappingly new Wolfgang Puck restaurant on the 24th floor of the ass-slappingly new Ritz-Carlton at LA Live. I had the even more fortuitous opportunity of having someone else pay. Bonus. Despite being in LA for a couple years now, I don't believe I'd ever experienced a Wolfgang Puck-branded enterprise, other than his delightful canned soups, frozen pizzas and that one hooker in Salzburg.
It was pretty fucking good. The restaurant. The hooker was meh.
I'm a skeptic, especially when it comes to restaurants and especially when it comes to celebrity chef restaurants taking up an entire floor at a brand new swank hotel in a city known for beautiful, expensive restaurants with terrible food and shittier service. Despite only being in its third week of operation, WP24 is rocking out pretty hard.
Make sure when you enter the hotel you ask for directions, even if you know how to get to the restaurant. Since it's the Ritz-Carlton you'll be escorted by an impeccably groomed and friendly employee all the way from wherever you shambled in off the street all the way to the host station at the restaurant. The restaurant takes up the entire 24th floor, starting with a relaxed and spacious lounge--I believe the lounge serves the full dining room menu as well as its own menu of bar bites. An army of thin, beautiful hostesses escort you through the lounge to the dining room itself, past a bamboo forest of wine racks, each of which carries exactly 36 bottles of wine which, as far as I learned, have no intention of being opened any time soon. Then you are delivered to the army of thin, beautiful hostesses who handle the dining room proper.
The dining room is sumptuous, modern, and only ever-so-slightly overwrought. That's a compliment in LA. We were sat in a very cool booth/table hybrid with snooze-inducingly comfortable chairs. Three separate staff members simultaneously placed the napkins in each of our laps. It was a beautifully clear day so were able to enjoy a 270-degree view of LA at sundown. Gorgeous.
Already my experience was worth the (hypothetical) money. The space is beautiful, the atmosphere is welcoming, and the staff is very well trained--Klaus Puck (Wolfgang's brother and his front-of-house admiral) left the now-defunct Vert Brasserie to oversee the team at WP24 as well as the Bar & Grille on the ground floor of LA Live. Some of the younger staff members were visibly nervous, which is to be expected in a new restaurant with such grand expectations, but the waiters and managers were placid yet affable. I didn't really care how the food was, as long as it didn't shit the bed, as my sainted grandmother used to say.
But in the end the food was pretty damn good. The menu shares the Asian-Continental fusion style of many of the Puck restaurants--this skewed more heavily to the Asian (primarily Chinese, but also Indian and Thai) side. We had the kitchen send out a few of their signature appetizers. The prawn toasts (from the lounge menu) were warm, buttery and perfectly seasoned. Ditto the lobster and prawn spring rolls--fried crisp without a drop of excess oil. WP24 makes liberal use of pork belly--the pork belly bao was fatty and meaty without being overly sweet. That was followed by the sauteed duck liver and ume bao which was my favorite of the first course: sweet, tart and rich without being unctuous.
The wine list is excellent--originally assembled by Spago sommelier Chris Miller and now overseen by Klaus--with a beautiful selection of aromatic whites, ranging from the bone-dry to the semi-sweet, and a great selection of medium-bodied reds; perfectly selected for the cuisine. Mark-ups were not unreasonable, hovering right around 4-4.5 times wholesale, which is on the lower end for a fine-dining restaurant of this caliber. WP24 wine prices are in line with a slew of much more casual and poorly programmed restaurants in LA. We had an excellent Alsace Riesling before drinking our own wine with the main courses.
I had the Assam Prawns--five or six good sized shrimp simmered in a garlic-cardamom curry and served over rice. The curry was amazing--deep, concentrated slow-cooked flavors with a healthy but not overpowering spiciness; well-balanced and not overly salty. The prawns were plump and meaty though there was a barely perceivable "old" flavor on the finish of the meat that made me think that they had either been thawed and refrozen or had been ever-so-slightly freezer-burned.
I tasted my two companions' entrees as well. The Kobe steak, seared rare, was meaty and tender with an excellent sweet peppery sauce. The Angry Lobster was delicious. A whole two-pound Maine lobster, quartered live and rubbed with cayenne, salt and flour and then pan-seared before being finished in the oven. The spicy heat permeated the flesh and is complimented perfectly by the garlic-lime sauce. We shared a side of fried rice with Lap Cheung sausage and the best fresh peas I've had in a while. We also had a side of sauteed Chinese greens (a personal favorite of mine from my Daimo days) which were tasty.
Despite our better judgment we shared two desserts--I can't remember exactly what they were since we didn't order them and the dessert menu's not on the website. They were chocolate-oriented and well-executed. The stand out was the "Thai Ovaltine" which was a malted milk chocolate mousse on a chocolate crust with a chili-lime dusting. I think. It was a long night.
The restaurant is expensive to be sure but it's not overpriced. It might even be on the lower-end of restaurants of its type in Los Angeles. Appetizers are mostly in the mid to upper teens and the main courses start in the low 30s. Sides and desserts are in the $10-$15 range. Couple those prices with a wine list that features some excellent selections for under $50, and you can have an honestly elegant night in Downtown LA that isn't obscenely expensive.
My only significant complaint with the whole experience was that the menu was very safe. It was the same Asian Fusion cuisine that California's been churning out pretty reliably since Wolfgang Puck helped introduce the style three decades ago. It was probably the best-executed example of that style I've ever had, sure, but I always appreciate when even established successful chefs continue to challenge their diners.
But that's a minor complaint overall. Check out WP24. Great restaurant.
WP24
900 W. Olympic Blvd.
Los Angeles, Ca 90015
213-743-8824
http://www.wolfgangpuck.com/restaurants/fine-dining/57129
It was pretty fucking good. The restaurant. The hooker was meh.
I'm a skeptic, especially when it comes to restaurants and especially when it comes to celebrity chef restaurants taking up an entire floor at a brand new swank hotel in a city known for beautiful, expensive restaurants with terrible food and shittier service. Despite only being in its third week of operation, WP24 is rocking out pretty hard.
Make sure when you enter the hotel you ask for directions, even if you know how to get to the restaurant. Since it's the Ritz-Carlton you'll be escorted by an impeccably groomed and friendly employee all the way from wherever you shambled in off the street all the way to the host station at the restaurant. The restaurant takes up the entire 24th floor, starting with a relaxed and spacious lounge--I believe the lounge serves the full dining room menu as well as its own menu of bar bites. An army of thin, beautiful hostesses escort you through the lounge to the dining room itself, past a bamboo forest of wine racks, each of which carries exactly 36 bottles of wine which, as far as I learned, have no intention of being opened any time soon. Then you are delivered to the army of thin, beautiful hostesses who handle the dining room proper.
The dining room is sumptuous, modern, and only ever-so-slightly overwrought. That's a compliment in LA. We were sat in a very cool booth/table hybrid with snooze-inducingly comfortable chairs. Three separate staff members simultaneously placed the napkins in each of our laps. It was a beautifully clear day so were able to enjoy a 270-degree view of LA at sundown. Gorgeous.
Already my experience was worth the (hypothetical) money. The space is beautiful, the atmosphere is welcoming, and the staff is very well trained--Klaus Puck (Wolfgang's brother and his front-of-house admiral) left the now-defunct Vert Brasserie to oversee the team at WP24 as well as the Bar & Grille on the ground floor of LA Live. Some of the younger staff members were visibly nervous, which is to be expected in a new restaurant with such grand expectations, but the waiters and managers were placid yet affable. I didn't really care how the food was, as long as it didn't shit the bed, as my sainted grandmother used to say.
But in the end the food was pretty damn good. The menu shares the Asian-Continental fusion style of many of the Puck restaurants--this skewed more heavily to the Asian (primarily Chinese, but also Indian and Thai) side. We had the kitchen send out a few of their signature appetizers. The prawn toasts (from the lounge menu) were warm, buttery and perfectly seasoned. Ditto the lobster and prawn spring rolls--fried crisp without a drop of excess oil. WP24 makes liberal use of pork belly--the pork belly bao was fatty and meaty without being overly sweet. That was followed by the sauteed duck liver and ume bao which was my favorite of the first course: sweet, tart and rich without being unctuous.
The wine list is excellent--originally assembled by Spago sommelier Chris Miller and now overseen by Klaus--with a beautiful selection of aromatic whites, ranging from the bone-dry to the semi-sweet, and a great selection of medium-bodied reds; perfectly selected for the cuisine. Mark-ups were not unreasonable, hovering right around 4-4.5 times wholesale, which is on the lower end for a fine-dining restaurant of this caliber. WP24 wine prices are in line with a slew of much more casual and poorly programmed restaurants in LA. We had an excellent Alsace Riesling before drinking our own wine with the main courses.
I had the Assam Prawns--five or six good sized shrimp simmered in a garlic-cardamom curry and served over rice. The curry was amazing--deep, concentrated slow-cooked flavors with a healthy but not overpowering spiciness; well-balanced and not overly salty. The prawns were plump and meaty though there was a barely perceivable "old" flavor on the finish of the meat that made me think that they had either been thawed and refrozen or had been ever-so-slightly freezer-burned.
I tasted my two companions' entrees as well. The Kobe steak, seared rare, was meaty and tender with an excellent sweet peppery sauce. The Angry Lobster was delicious. A whole two-pound Maine lobster, quartered live and rubbed with cayenne, salt and flour and then pan-seared before being finished in the oven. The spicy heat permeated the flesh and is complimented perfectly by the garlic-lime sauce. We shared a side of fried rice with Lap Cheung sausage and the best fresh peas I've had in a while. We also had a side of sauteed Chinese greens (a personal favorite of mine from my Daimo days) which were tasty.
Despite our better judgment we shared two desserts--I can't remember exactly what they were since we didn't order them and the dessert menu's not on the website. They were chocolate-oriented and well-executed. The stand out was the "Thai Ovaltine" which was a malted milk chocolate mousse on a chocolate crust with a chili-lime dusting. I think. It was a long night.
The restaurant is expensive to be sure but it's not overpriced. It might even be on the lower-end of restaurants of its type in Los Angeles. Appetizers are mostly in the mid to upper teens and the main courses start in the low 30s. Sides and desserts are in the $10-$15 range. Couple those prices with a wine list that features some excellent selections for under $50, and you can have an honestly elegant night in Downtown LA that isn't obscenely expensive.
My only significant complaint with the whole experience was that the menu was very safe. It was the same Asian Fusion cuisine that California's been churning out pretty reliably since Wolfgang Puck helped introduce the style three decades ago. It was probably the best-executed example of that style I've ever had, sure, but I always appreciate when even established successful chefs continue to challenge their diners.
But that's a minor complaint overall. Check out WP24. Great restaurant.
WP24
900 W. Olympic Blvd.
Los Angeles, Ca 90015
213-743-8824
http://www.wolfgangpuck.com/restaurants/fine-dining/57129
Friday, April 23, 2010
The Double Down
Despite what many think, I”m really not too pretentious about food. I sneak a Del Taco burrito when I need a quick bite that’s easy to eat while driving. I’ve eaten at least one Lunchable in the last year. I eagerly and excitedly ate a McRib.
So as a naturally curious person who has a deep sense of irony, I was pretty damn excited about the Double Down.
For those uninitiated, the Double Down is Kentucky Fried Chicken’s new “sandwich.” It consists of bacon, cheese and special sauce sandwiched between two signature fried chicken breasts. No bread. Fried chicken replaces the bread.
(I will note that you can get the Double Down with “grilled” chicken, but that would be moronic. The calorie and fat difference is negligible and the KFC grilled chicken contains powdered beef. That’s as unnecessary as condoms at an open-carry rally.)
Unlike with the McRib, which I consider to be the spiritual cousin of the Double Down in its culinary fuck you absurdity, I found absolutely no pleasure whatsoever in the Double Down. The chicken breasts were dry and not crispy. The bacon and cheese were impossible to taste. The spicy sauce was pretty nice, I’ll admit. The McRib was meaty and pleasant, albeit fairly flavorless and too sweet. The Double Down is a fuck you salt fest that tea bags your taste buds and leaves your esophagus slightly mummified.
And can we talk about MSG? Now I am by no means averse to MSG. It’s a seasoning that’s been used for centuries. But KFC both seasons the chicken itself with MSG and adds copious MSG to the chicken breading. I think that the Colonel’s secret 11 herbs and spices are just 11 different varieties of MSG.
The sandwich has a lot of salt. It has something like 1400mg of sodium. For those of you keeping score at home, that’s almost 75% of your RDA on a 2000 calorie diet. It’s highly unnecessary. The Double Down could’ve had half the salt and still been too salty.
But I appreciate KFC’s take-no-prisoners approach, I just wish the sandwich was better. I mean, fuck it, I don’t get the uproar. There are a whole fuck tonne of sandwiches that are one chicken breast with bacon, cheese and sauce between a bun. I think that the subtraction of the bun and the addition of another chicken patty is a net nutritional gain.
Unlike the McRib, which I will recommend as a one-time indulgence, I see nothing redeeming in the Double Down, especially given its $5.49 price tag. Several thumbs down.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Alcohol in Wine
So here's a really fucking stupid article in the Wall Street Journal:
Wines That Pack A Little Extra Kick
First of all, the Wall Street Journal is about as progressive on wine matters as Michelle Bachman on a backwards running train into the Spanish Inquisition. Anybody looking at the Wall Street Journal, Wine Spectator, Robert M. Parker Jr., or, well, I could go on, for any kind of taste-making wine journalism could be more productive by hand trimming their front lawn with rubber scissors. Seriously, these guys wouldn't know what's actually going on in the cutting edge wine world if the cutting edge wine world sodomized them with a broken beer bottle. Second of all, the article conflates several points.
1. It conflates the belief that Chardonnay and Pinot Noir shouldn't be over 14% alcohol with the contention that no wine should be over 14% alcohol. I know the author really wants to defend the wines that he loves but one should not induce a journalistic article based on an opinion that is contrary to the facts presented. Objecting to a 14.5% pinot noir is not the same as objecting to a 14.5% zinfandel. 14.5% zinfandel is standard, 14.5% pinot noir is an abomination unto god and your children.
2. It suggests that such dogmatic opposition to wines based upon a specific alcohol percentage is widespread. It's not. Like all blanket disqualifications it's the rhetorical tool of the desperate poseurs, faded authorities attempting to reclaim lost glory, or an arbitrary distinguishing marker for those chronically desperate for attention. Most sane wine folks have tastes and preferences but fully acknowledge that there are blurred borders, not hard and fast thresholds. And it neglects the fact that there is a grey area in terms of the TTB that can be as much as 0.5% each way so really a 14% (reported) alcohol wine could be 13.5% to 14.5%. And so if you set a specific alcohol threshold, well, the arbitrary closed mindedness of that is self-evident.
3. And the selling point of the article, that "alcohol delivers flavor," is asinine. Alcohol is a by-product of ripeness. Ripeness produces immediately pleasurable sweet, full-fruited flavors. Alcohol has nothing to do with it. If anything, alcohol deadens or interferes with the other flavors of wine--alcohol's a necessary byproduct of quality wine production and all wines have plenty of alcohol, but it has nothing to do with actual quality of the wine.
4. It references this dubious idea that wine over 14% is classified as "dessert wine." It's not. It might sound good, but so do the Rolling Stones and the Rolling Stones suck buffalo cock. I know it's fun to think that we have these magical outdated alcohol rules that classify things in comically outdated ways, but the real world is actually (usually) more logical than we hope. Wine is taxed the same way from 0.5%-14% and then it's taxed 50 cents/gallon higher from 14.1%-21%. It's not called "dessert wine" it's just a higher percentage wine and taxed accordingly. Plus, lest we get too excited about such a HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE increase in taxes, that equals all of an additional 10 cents a bottle in taxes. It's really not particularly significant to wine pricing on any wine more than, well, two bucks.
Wine grapes are different. Some get riper than others, some ripen earlier than others. There's a huge range of styles of wine. Some wines can be 12% alcohol and suck, but some wines at 16% can be really good (you heard me!). What it comes down to is appropriateness for the varietal and quality of the wine-making. That's it. I've had 16% wines that taste like 13% wines and I've had shitty 13% wines that taste like equal parts Concord grape juice and rubbing alcohol.
Like the wine that you like and don't make apologies for it. But also don't attack the haters of your wine style with dubious statistics and misinformation. While that has become the American way, it shouldn't be. It's not adversarial, it's a matter of taste. Have enough balls to like what you like and not feel assaulted by provincial douche bags who need to add significance to their lives by ensconcing them in arbitrary rules. What they don't know is that it won't fix their impotency, but it will let them pretend they aren't impotent for another year or so.
But, in the end, please don't overly manipulate wine in pursuit of scores or the bullshit mainstream wine zeitgeist. Good honest wine will prevail over all pretenders. If we just drink the wine that is appropriate--i.e. the wine that produces naturally from a region's grapes, soil, climate, and tradition--then we'll have a world of unique, distinctive wine and not a world of dark, inky, high-alcohol bullshit that all tastes the fucking same: like butter and candied Grenache.
Wines That Pack A Little Extra Kick
First of all, the Wall Street Journal is about as progressive on wine matters as Michelle Bachman on a backwards running train into the Spanish Inquisition. Anybody looking at the Wall Street Journal, Wine Spectator, Robert M. Parker Jr., or, well, I could go on, for any kind of taste-making wine journalism could be more productive by hand trimming their front lawn with rubber scissors. Seriously, these guys wouldn't know what's actually going on in the cutting edge wine world if the cutting edge wine world sodomized them with a broken beer bottle. Second of all, the article conflates several points.
1. It conflates the belief that Chardonnay and Pinot Noir shouldn't be over 14% alcohol with the contention that no wine should be over 14% alcohol. I know the author really wants to defend the wines that he loves but one should not induce a journalistic article based on an opinion that is contrary to the facts presented. Objecting to a 14.5% pinot noir is not the same as objecting to a 14.5% zinfandel. 14.5% zinfandel is standard, 14.5% pinot noir is an abomination unto god and your children.
2. It suggests that such dogmatic opposition to wines based upon a specific alcohol percentage is widespread. It's not. Like all blanket disqualifications it's the rhetorical tool of the desperate poseurs, faded authorities attempting to reclaim lost glory, or an arbitrary distinguishing marker for those chronically desperate for attention. Most sane wine folks have tastes and preferences but fully acknowledge that there are blurred borders, not hard and fast thresholds. And it neglects the fact that there is a grey area in terms of the TTB that can be as much as 0.5% each way so really a 14% (reported) alcohol wine could be 13.5% to 14.5%. And so if you set a specific alcohol threshold, well, the arbitrary closed mindedness of that is self-evident.
3. And the selling point of the article, that "alcohol delivers flavor," is asinine. Alcohol is a by-product of ripeness. Ripeness produces immediately pleasurable sweet, full-fruited flavors. Alcohol has nothing to do with it. If anything, alcohol deadens or interferes with the other flavors of wine--alcohol's a necessary byproduct of quality wine production and all wines have plenty of alcohol, but it has nothing to do with actual quality of the wine.
4. It references this dubious idea that wine over 14% is classified as "dessert wine." It's not. It might sound good, but so do the Rolling Stones and the Rolling Stones suck buffalo cock. I know it's fun to think that we have these magical outdated alcohol rules that classify things in comically outdated ways, but the real world is actually (usually) more logical than we hope. Wine is taxed the same way from 0.5%-14% and then it's taxed 50 cents/gallon higher from 14.1%-21%. It's not called "dessert wine" it's just a higher percentage wine and taxed accordingly. Plus, lest we get too excited about such a HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE increase in taxes, that equals all of an additional 10 cents a bottle in taxes. It's really not particularly significant to wine pricing on any wine more than, well, two bucks.
Wine grapes are different. Some get riper than others, some ripen earlier than others. There's a huge range of styles of wine. Some wines can be 12% alcohol and suck, but some wines at 16% can be really good (you heard me!). What it comes down to is appropriateness for the varietal and quality of the wine-making. That's it. I've had 16% wines that taste like 13% wines and I've had shitty 13% wines that taste like equal parts Concord grape juice and rubbing alcohol.
Like the wine that you like and don't make apologies for it. But also don't attack the haters of your wine style with dubious statistics and misinformation. While that has become the American way, it shouldn't be. It's not adversarial, it's a matter of taste. Have enough balls to like what you like and not feel assaulted by provincial douche bags who need to add significance to their lives by ensconcing them in arbitrary rules. What they don't know is that it won't fix their impotency, but it will let them pretend they aren't impotent for another year or so.
But, in the end, please don't overly manipulate wine in pursuit of scores or the bullshit mainstream wine zeitgeist. Good honest wine will prevail over all pretenders. If we just drink the wine that is appropriate--i.e. the wine that produces naturally from a region's grapes, soil, climate, and tradition--then we'll have a world of unique, distinctive wine and not a world of dark, inky, high-alcohol bullshit that all tastes the fucking same: like butter and candied Grenache.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
The Double Down
Just as I did with the McRib, I will make a full report on the bun-less fried chicken & bacon sandwich that is KFC's Double Down ASAP.
It debuts on Monday.
Stay tuned.
It debuts on Monday.
Stay tuned.
Monday, April 05, 2010
More Pulled Pork in the Mix
I've already written about my love of pulled pork sandwiches here, but I figured I should throw out a couple new ones I've tried recently.
The York: I finally got out to this fabled gastropub tucked away in a secluded corner of Highland Park. Really damn good Carolina-ish sandwich. I say Carolina-ish because, although the meat was moist and vinegar-y, it also had a healthy dose of a sweet barbecue sauce--something very un-Carolinian. But the meat quality was excellent and the fresh slaw was a nice complement.
Spring Street Smokehouse: Meaty pulled pork with nice chunks of pork and good residual fat. The smokiest of all the pulled pork I've tried, but the smoke was that intense but cheap quality. Really sweet sauce--Kansas City in style. Decent slaw and well priced at $9.95 (including a side).
Do these affect my conclusions from the previous post? Not really. My favorite for the price is still probably the Oinkster (plus those fries!) and both Lou and T-Rex use the best damn pork you can get. But the York is pretty good and their beer selection rocks. Spring Street won't win any awards, but its earnest sluttiness is appreciated and the traditional bbq-house style sides is another plus.
Still to try? Sketch in Culver City and Zeke's Smokehouse in WeHo.
The York
www.theyorkonyork.com
Spring Street Smokehouse
www.sssmokehouse.com
The York: I finally got out to this fabled gastropub tucked away in a secluded corner of Highland Park. Really damn good Carolina-ish sandwich. I say Carolina-ish because, although the meat was moist and vinegar-y, it also had a healthy dose of a sweet barbecue sauce--something very un-Carolinian. But the meat quality was excellent and the fresh slaw was a nice complement.
Spring Street Smokehouse: Meaty pulled pork with nice chunks of pork and good residual fat. The smokiest of all the pulled pork I've tried, but the smoke was that intense but cheap quality. Really sweet sauce--Kansas City in style. Decent slaw and well priced at $9.95 (including a side).
Do these affect my conclusions from the previous post? Not really. My favorite for the price is still probably the Oinkster (plus those fries!) and both Lou and T-Rex use the best damn pork you can get. But the York is pretty good and their beer selection rocks. Spring Street won't win any awards, but its earnest sluttiness is appreciated and the traditional bbq-house style sides is another plus.
Still to try? Sketch in Culver City and Zeke's Smokehouse in WeHo.
The York
www.theyorkonyork.com
Spring Street Smokehouse
www.sssmokehouse.com
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Craftsman Brewery
There's an odd micro-brew black hole in California centered right on Los Angeles and Orange County. There are dozens of small commercial breweries from Santa Barbara up to the Oregon border and more than a handful south of the Orange Curtain. But in LA? I know of three--Angel City Brewery and Eagle Rock Brewery in Los Angeles and Craftsman Brewing Company in Pasadena. There are no doubt others but none have achieved the market penetration (however modest) of the aforementioned.
I wonder why that is? Is it not a beer town? The rise of beer-loaded gastropubs would suggest otherwise. Maybe it's too expensive? Too much bureaucracy in the county? I would think that there's a ready market for unique local beers and there are empty warehouses waiting to be filled with malt and hops by ambitious entrepreneurs.
Despite Angel City's eye-catching billboard and seeming attempts to position itself as the Anchor Steam of Los Angeles, it's Pasadena's Craftsman Brewing Company that seems to have found its way into the most restaurants and reached the most esteem among the beer cognoscenti.
Some friends were in town from Chicago and had heard of Craftsman. They called ahead for a tour and we met up with owner Mark at the brewery--a couple of roll-up garages in an industrial business park in northern Pasadena. The brewery is not open to the public per se but call ahead and if the schedule's not too packed they're happy to chat about their beers for a bit.
The brewery is small, but it's packed with fermenters and mash tuns which are constantly going to keep up with ever-increasing demand. Craftsman just recently picked up a distributor, prior to that Mark made deliveries himself in his vintage pickup. We had a good chat with the brewery staff: owner Mark, head brewer Todd and his assistant whose name escapes me, alas. All very friendly.
Craftsman makes three beers regularly, all excellent. The 1903 Pre-Prohibition style lager is fantastic, and their top seller. They also make a light, aromatic "Hevenly Hefe" in the Bavarian style and a nice golden English Pale Ale--one of the best of its kind. At any given time they have another six or so seasonal brews or one-offs. We tried two of those, the winter seasonal Cabernale, a lager mixed with juice from Texas Cabernet Sauvignon grapes and a sour Saison-tyle ale that was delicious.
Check out their beers when you have the chance. Nothing in bottles yet but these spots all have several Craftsman beers on draft:
Mission Wines
www.missionwines.com
Lucky Baldwin's
www.luckybaldwins.com
The York
www.theyorkonyork.com
Lucques
www.lucques.com
Craftsman Brewing Company
1260 Lincoln Ave, Unit 100
Pasadena, Ca 91103
www.craftsmanbrewing.com
I wonder why that is? Is it not a beer town? The rise of beer-loaded gastropubs would suggest otherwise. Maybe it's too expensive? Too much bureaucracy in the county? I would think that there's a ready market for unique local beers and there are empty warehouses waiting to be filled with malt and hops by ambitious entrepreneurs.
Despite Angel City's eye-catching billboard and seeming attempts to position itself as the Anchor Steam of Los Angeles, it's Pasadena's Craftsman Brewing Company that seems to have found its way into the most restaurants and reached the most esteem among the beer cognoscenti.
Some friends were in town from Chicago and had heard of Craftsman. They called ahead for a tour and we met up with owner Mark at the brewery--a couple of roll-up garages in an industrial business park in northern Pasadena. The brewery is not open to the public per se but call ahead and if the schedule's not too packed they're happy to chat about their beers for a bit.
The brewery is small, but it's packed with fermenters and mash tuns which are constantly going to keep up with ever-increasing demand. Craftsman just recently picked up a distributor, prior to that Mark made deliveries himself in his vintage pickup. We had a good chat with the brewery staff: owner Mark, head brewer Todd and his assistant whose name escapes me, alas. All very friendly.
Craftsman makes three beers regularly, all excellent. The 1903 Pre-Prohibition style lager is fantastic, and their top seller. They also make a light, aromatic "Hevenly Hefe" in the Bavarian style and a nice golden English Pale Ale--one of the best of its kind. At any given time they have another six or so seasonal brews or one-offs. We tried two of those, the winter seasonal Cabernale, a lager mixed with juice from Texas Cabernet Sauvignon grapes and a sour Saison-tyle ale that was delicious.
Check out their beers when you have the chance. Nothing in bottles yet but these spots all have several Craftsman beers on draft:
Mission Wines
www.missionwines.com
Lucky Baldwin's
www.luckybaldwins.com
The York
www.theyorkonyork.com
Lucques
www.lucques.com
Craftsman Brewing Company
1260 Lincoln Ave, Unit 100
Pasadena, Ca 91103
www.craftsmanbrewing.com
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Mixology Was Bad Enough
I love beer. Despite my personal and professional obsession with wine, beer is often a more honest and satisfying beverage. It's like Jay-Z said: "Got a project chick, that plays her part / And if it goes down y'all that's my heart." Parades of Burgundies and Bordeaux and Wachaus and Riojas are fine for a hot night at the club, but if the shit hits the fan, man-- a Guinness, Pabst, Hite, Lagunitas IPA--well damn.
But it's still just fucking beer.
I was at a big trade wine tasting the other day and overheard a dumpy white dude in a suit (who wears a suit to a trade tasting in LA?) telling (bragging?) to a not-quite-as-dumpy white chick in jeans and a strappy top that he was a "Certified Beer Educator."
I really wanted to teabag him right then and there. Just unzip, jump up, and ::thwap::
I already have such limited esteem for a "Certified Wine Educator" since, largely, certifying organizations are just self-perpetuating bureaucracies at best and pyramid schemes at worst/in most cases.
But at least with wine there is an enormous breadth of distinct product to cover. There are 2000+ different varietals of wine grapes, plus geometric expansion of those varietals into blends. And there are nearly infinite variations in the soil where the grapes are grown. Then throw in an hour seminar on winemaking. So right there you have at least a semester-long course in the basics.
A beer class would have none of the above, except for maybe a two hour seminar on brewing techniques. All beers have the same ingredients: barley and/or wheat (and in cheaper beers, other cereal grains); one (or several) of about eight major hop varietals; one of a handful of yeasts; water. By virtue of the brewing process, wherein all of the above are cooked together (except for the yeast and sometimes the hops) terroir expressiveness is eliminated.
What you have instead is an expressiveness of a cultural history, which is fantastic and awesome, but it's not something that can be transported, it's something to be experienced on location. If you drink a well-made wine from the Rheingau in Los Angeles you're experiencing a small part of the actual Rheingau. Drinking a Belgian beer in Los Angeles you're not experiencing Belgium. Having a Belgian beer in Bruges you're experiencing Belgium to a higher degree.
Throwing beer up on a pedestal is in the same class of disingenuous foodie douchebaggery as "gourmet" burgers and academic discussions about pizza. Beer, burgers, and pizza are all delicious and can be made really really well. But you can't really fail at beer, burgers and pizza either--I mean really fail. They can be disappointing or mediocre, but they can't fail.
Or, more accurately, beer, burgers and pizza only fail when ambition overshoots their humble purpose. A $16 burger is more likely to fail than a $3 burger. So it is with beer. I've yet to have a cheap beer that was bad. Mostly, cheap beer just tastes like dirty water--often water that tastes better than the Zone 7 shit I grew up with. But sometimes expensive beers served in wine bottles aggro-ed out with four separate hop treatments, a fistful of wormwood, and some cardamom, can fail spectacularly.
Let's all just calm down and like what we like because we like it. It's just food, it's just beer, hell it's just wine. It's meant to make our lives more pleasurable and more interesting. Don't turn that crucial, personal right over to some shlub who shelled out $200 for a few classes so he can get piece of paper. Great! Now he can make $14.75/hr. assistant managing at the Yard House instead of $14.15.
A certified beer expert is about as interesting to me as a certified handjob expert. And just about as hard to become.
But it's still just fucking beer.
I was at a big trade wine tasting the other day and overheard a dumpy white dude in a suit (who wears a suit to a trade tasting in LA?) telling (bragging?) to a not-quite-as-dumpy white chick in jeans and a strappy top that he was a "Certified Beer Educator."
I really wanted to teabag him right then and there. Just unzip, jump up, and ::thwap::
I already have such limited esteem for a "Certified Wine Educator" since, largely, certifying organizations are just self-perpetuating bureaucracies at best and pyramid schemes at worst/in most cases.
But at least with wine there is an enormous breadth of distinct product to cover. There are 2000+ different varietals of wine grapes, plus geometric expansion of those varietals into blends. And there are nearly infinite variations in the soil where the grapes are grown. Then throw in an hour seminar on winemaking. So right there you have at least a semester-long course in the basics.
A beer class would have none of the above, except for maybe a two hour seminar on brewing techniques. All beers have the same ingredients: barley and/or wheat (and in cheaper beers, other cereal grains); one (or several) of about eight major hop varietals; one of a handful of yeasts; water. By virtue of the brewing process, wherein all of the above are cooked together (except for the yeast and sometimes the hops) terroir expressiveness is eliminated.
What you have instead is an expressiveness of a cultural history, which is fantastic and awesome, but it's not something that can be transported, it's something to be experienced on location. If you drink a well-made wine from the Rheingau in Los Angeles you're experiencing a small part of the actual Rheingau. Drinking a Belgian beer in Los Angeles you're not experiencing Belgium. Having a Belgian beer in Bruges you're experiencing Belgium to a higher degree.
Throwing beer up on a pedestal is in the same class of disingenuous foodie douchebaggery as "gourmet" burgers and academic discussions about pizza. Beer, burgers, and pizza are all delicious and can be made really really well. But you can't really fail at beer, burgers and pizza either--I mean really fail. They can be disappointing or mediocre, but they can't fail.
Or, more accurately, beer, burgers and pizza only fail when ambition overshoots their humble purpose. A $16 burger is more likely to fail than a $3 burger. So it is with beer. I've yet to have a cheap beer that was bad. Mostly, cheap beer just tastes like dirty water--often water that tastes better than the Zone 7 shit I grew up with. But sometimes expensive beers served in wine bottles aggro-ed out with four separate hop treatments, a fistful of wormwood, and some cardamom, can fail spectacularly.
Let's all just calm down and like what we like because we like it. It's just food, it's just beer, hell it's just wine. It's meant to make our lives more pleasurable and more interesting. Don't turn that crucial, personal right over to some shlub who shelled out $200 for a few classes so he can get piece of paper. Great! Now he can make $14.75/hr. assistant managing at the Yard House instead of $14.15.
A certified beer expert is about as interesting to me as a certified handjob expert. And just about as hard to become.
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Demand the Best
After an unremarkable dinner at a very nice restaurant in a very nice hotel in Huntington Beach, I was reminded that we as consumers have a long way to go.
The restaurant wasn't cheap--it wasn't crazy expensive either--and it wasn't bad. But its ingredients sucked and were inelegantly prepared.
Based on the pleasant smiles on the sea of middle-aged white people eating, though, it didn't matter.
Do you really not realize that the lobster is overcooked and rubbery? The salmon is farmed Atlantic? Most of your produce isn't fresh or in season? Your coffee is sour and your desserts are frozen?
All of the above would be acceptable at Chili's for Chili's prices, but at a restaurant considered one of the OC's best?
Come on!
Oh, and then there was the wine list. With exception of the sparkling wines it was 100% California and the whites listed "chardonnay," "sauvignon blanc" and graciously "other whites." That last group? All of four additional California wines. The reds? "Merlot," "pinot noir," "cabernet sauvignon" and "other reds." That last category had all of five or six wines. It was the most asinine and myopic wine list I've ever seen at a reputable restaurant. Honestly, it was fucking shameful.
But whose responsibility is it? Does the consumer need to demand better? Or do the stewards and gatekeepers need to take the lead and make the effort to expand the palates of their customers?
I would argue the latter. The public palate is a massive oil tanker. It needs tugboats and pilots to get it out of safe harbor and into open waters.
If, as a wine and food professional, you merely respond to what your customers want, you're going to be fucked when that giant ship finally does change course. But if you push your customers, they'll follow you for who you are, not just what you sell.
The restaurant wasn't cheap--it wasn't crazy expensive either--and it wasn't bad. But its ingredients sucked and were inelegantly prepared.
Based on the pleasant smiles on the sea of middle-aged white people eating, though, it didn't matter.
Do you really not realize that the lobster is overcooked and rubbery? The salmon is farmed Atlantic? Most of your produce isn't fresh or in season? Your coffee is sour and your desserts are frozen?
All of the above would be acceptable at Chili's for Chili's prices, but at a restaurant considered one of the OC's best?
Come on!
Oh, and then there was the wine list. With exception of the sparkling wines it was 100% California and the whites listed "chardonnay," "sauvignon blanc" and graciously "other whites." That last group? All of four additional California wines. The reds? "Merlot," "pinot noir," "cabernet sauvignon" and "other reds." That last category had all of five or six wines. It was the most asinine and myopic wine list I've ever seen at a reputable restaurant. Honestly, it was fucking shameful.
But whose responsibility is it? Does the consumer need to demand better? Or do the stewards and gatekeepers need to take the lead and make the effort to expand the palates of their customers?
I would argue the latter. The public palate is a massive oil tanker. It needs tugboats and pilots to get it out of safe harbor and into open waters.
If, as a wine and food professional, you merely respond to what your customers want, you're going to be fucked when that giant ship finally does change course. But if you push your customers, they'll follow you for who you are, not just what you sell.
Thursday, March 04, 2010
An Easy Meal To Get You Laid
They say the quickest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. This is incorrect. As any ninja who keeps up with the trends will tell you, the quickest way to a man’s heart is a quick jab through the sternum.
However, the quickest way into a woman’s pants is through her stomach, because women like to eat. That is also something a ninja will tell you if you get a couple sakes in him.
So in the interest of everybody getting their hands dirty in the kitchen before getting them dirtier in the bedroom, I humbly submit an easy and delicious pre-coital meal:
Oven-Roasted Pork Tenderloin, White Potatoes, and Broccoli.
The oven gets a bad rap since it doesn’t have the immediate gratification of visible flames. But oven cooking rocks. It’s clean and easy and you can cook multiple things at once. It does take a little extra time because indirect heat, like a Frenchman, is inefficient.
0. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
1. Get yourself a roasting pan or Pyrex baking dish. Lube it up with some olive oil.
2. Cut up 6-8 medium sized white potatoes. Halve or quarter them depending on the size. Place them in the roasting pan. Throw some salt, pepper, and a little more oil on the potatoes.
3. Remove the tenderloin from its packaging. Try not to make penis jokes.
4. Rub tenderloin with olive oil, salt, pepper, oregano, basil and rosemary. Or herbs de provence. Or any meat-oriented herb rub. Again, refrain from dick jokes.
5. Place tenderloin in the roasting pan on/around the potatoes.
6. Throw the whole mess in the oven. Set a timer to check on it in 30 minutes.
7. Grab a bowl. Throw in broccoli florets (probably 2 crowns’ worth).
8. Chop 4-5 cloves of garlic. Add to broccoli.
9. Drizzle broccoli and garlic with olive oil. Add a big pinch of salt.
10. Mix it up and evenly coat the broccoli and garlic.
11. Arrange the broccoli evenly on a baking sheet.
12. After 30 minutes have gone by with the pork, put the broccoli sheet in the oven on the top rack. Bake for 10-15 more minutes.
13. By bake 10-15 more minutes I mean “bake until done.” 40-45 minutes should be enough, but go ahead and cut halfway through the tenderloin at the thickest part. If its not pink but still juicy, you’re good to go. Take it out of the oven. Take the broccoli out too.
14. Let the pan sit for 5 minutes or so.
15. Take the pork out of the pan and slice into medallions on a cutting board. For two, you probably only need to cut half of the tenderloin. Save the rest for a special occasion, like Flag Day.
16. Arrange your food on two plates, half the potatoes, half the broccoli and 3-4 pork medallions on each.
17. Enjoy with a medium-bodied red wine. I’d recommend a domestic Pinot Noir, a red blend from Portugal, or a Southern Rhone.
18. Get it on.
19. Wake up the next morning with shame on your face and make the long walk home (but don’t forget your leftover tenderloin).
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Alright, so, okay, and...or am I just crazy?
So I've been blogging for a long time--like eight years which in internet years is basically longer than the universe has existed, which is roughly 6000 years.
I've never made an assertion of being anything other than a knowledgeable person with a decent amount of experience and some opinions. That's it. I don't deny that experts exist, but I do believe that 99% of people who claim to be experts are charlatans. They're not deliberate charlatans, they probably do think that they're experts. They're just deluded.
Either that or I'm an expert, and I really can't believe that to be true. I forget my wallet and go the whole day with my undershirt on backwards way too often for that to be the case. We're all just people who can be knowledgeable and opinionated in certain areas and maybe we like to share our knowledge and opinions with others. Hopefully we can do this in a way that entertains and engages.
The problem with "experts" is that it creates a one-sided non-dialogue. The expert creates, by definition, an inequal relationship except in cases where there are two experts on the same topic talking with teach other. And that's often boring. The expert is talking, the sea of non-experts is listening. This would be fine except that almost all experts are, as I said, Charlatans.
And not the Charlatans U.K.
I much prefer two (or more) curious knowledgeable people talking to each other about something they're passionate about and, in so doing, move toward a dialectical truth.
As skeptical as I am of self-professed experts, I'm even more dubious of institutions that seek to certify expert-dom. The reason? These institutions are never free. An organization that truly seeks to acknowledge experts would be free, independent, and anonymously peer-reviewed. It should not be an organization of questionable provenance into which applicants pay large amounts of money to attempt to become inducted into an alleged elite.
This is why the Court of Master Sommeliers can suck my cork.
Every single thing that is "learned" in the program can be learned by reading approximately two books, tasting a whole fuck tonne of wine, and learning how to tie a necktie. That's it. If the CMS was legit, it would let applicants test into whatever tier was appropriate. But that wouldn't work, because it needs the hundreds of people failing the $400 basic test to run its dubious operation. In college I didn't have to take Introduction to College Writing because I scored high enough on my high school AP test. I was none the worse for it. This makes sense since it saves time, money, and sanity.
And I can't tell you how many fucking people I've met who've passed multiple levels of the CMS programs who haven't known wine from a flaming bag of Jancis Robinson's feces.
(Which I think is a wine. Or at least should be.)
This means that either:
1. The CMS program is horribly flawed and allows for ignorant and unaccomplished people to pass its exams--in the same way that kids who go to private college graduate in four years but public school kids don't (I did).
2. The CMS doesn't care who the fuck it passes in its first tier or two as long as it can collect its $$$$ so that the handful of actual Master Sommeliers can enjoy their platinum codpieces and vajazzled pudenda.
If it's the former, it should be done away with. If it's the latter, it's shrewd but cynical. I'm okay with that (the free market after all is about taking ignorant peoples' money by making them think that they aren't), but I don't respect it.
Because the fact is, wine is a lifestyle--it's something that is lived, not just learned. And no examination and no one hour seminar is going to make up for that. No intense study for a year is going to make up for that. So why flush your money down the toilet when all you need to do is just keep doing and keep learning for the rest of your life?
Don't spend money for someone else to tell you what you already know or can quickly learn from reading Wikipedia, Wine Grape Glossary, and tasting dozens and dozens of wine. It's 2010, the need for instant recall of arcane knowledge no longer exists.
We have iPhones. There's an app for that.
I've never made an assertion of being anything other than a knowledgeable person with a decent amount of experience and some opinions. That's it. I don't deny that experts exist, but I do believe that 99% of people who claim to be experts are charlatans. They're not deliberate charlatans, they probably do think that they're experts. They're just deluded.
Either that or I'm an expert, and I really can't believe that to be true. I forget my wallet and go the whole day with my undershirt on backwards way too often for that to be the case. We're all just people who can be knowledgeable and opinionated in certain areas and maybe we like to share our knowledge and opinions with others. Hopefully we can do this in a way that entertains and engages.
The problem with "experts" is that it creates a one-sided non-dialogue. The expert creates, by definition, an inequal relationship except in cases where there are two experts on the same topic talking with teach other. And that's often boring. The expert is talking, the sea of non-experts is listening. This would be fine except that almost all experts are, as I said, Charlatans.
And not the Charlatans U.K.
I much prefer two (or more) curious knowledgeable people talking to each other about something they're passionate about and, in so doing, move toward a dialectical truth.
As skeptical as I am of self-professed experts, I'm even more dubious of institutions that seek to certify expert-dom. The reason? These institutions are never free. An organization that truly seeks to acknowledge experts would be free, independent, and anonymously peer-reviewed. It should not be an organization of questionable provenance into which applicants pay large amounts of money to attempt to become inducted into an alleged elite.
This is why the Court of Master Sommeliers can suck my cork.
Every single thing that is "learned" in the program can be learned by reading approximately two books, tasting a whole fuck tonne of wine, and learning how to tie a necktie. That's it. If the CMS was legit, it would let applicants test into whatever tier was appropriate. But that wouldn't work, because it needs the hundreds of people failing the $400 basic test to run its dubious operation. In college I didn't have to take Introduction to College Writing because I scored high enough on my high school AP test. I was none the worse for it. This makes sense since it saves time, money, and sanity.
And I can't tell you how many fucking people I've met who've passed multiple levels of the CMS programs who haven't known wine from a flaming bag of Jancis Robinson's feces.
(Which I think is a wine. Or at least should be.)
This means that either:
1. The CMS program is horribly flawed and allows for ignorant and unaccomplished people to pass its exams--in the same way that kids who go to private college graduate in four years but public school kids don't (I did).
2. The CMS doesn't care who the fuck it passes in its first tier or two as long as it can collect its $$$$ so that the handful of actual Master Sommeliers can enjoy their platinum codpieces and vajazzled pudenda.
If it's the former, it should be done away with. If it's the latter, it's shrewd but cynical. I'm okay with that (the free market after all is about taking ignorant peoples' money by making them think that they aren't), but I don't respect it.
Because the fact is, wine is a lifestyle--it's something that is lived, not just learned. And no examination and no one hour seminar is going to make up for that. No intense study for a year is going to make up for that. So why flush your money down the toilet when all you need to do is just keep doing and keep learning for the rest of your life?
Don't spend money for someone else to tell you what you already know or can quickly learn from reading Wikipedia, Wine Grape Glossary, and tasting dozens and dozens of wine. It's 2010, the need for instant recall of arcane knowledge no longer exists.
We have iPhones. There's an app for that.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
This Shit's the Bomb: Saam, Los Angeles, CA
I'll admit that despite my foodie blog pretensions, I haven't been to all that many crazy destination restaurants. Matsuhitsa, Chez Panisse Cafe (maybe), Redd (barely)....that's pretty much it. It's hard to justify the price but I have found that once you hit a serious price threshold on food, the quality is almost invariably superb.
So when my friend invited me to dinner at Saam, Jose Andres' private tasting room at The Bazaar in the SLS Hotel I said, "Sure, what the fuck?" I'd eaten at Bar Centro at the Bazaar a couple of times and I'd been reasonably impressed.
But Saam was pretty fucking ridiculously amazing. An added bonus? Jose Andres was in the kitchen that day--I believe he's in town for the next several weeks, so take note cult-of-personality followers. And Andres is probably the most important and innovative chef currently working out of the USA. And that's what he was doing at The Bazaar too, expediting in the kitchen, not out gladhanding the crowd.
So even if you don't live in LA and you don't particularly care about food, you'll care about my course-by-course review of the twenty-two course tasting menu at Saam.
As a quick pre-cursor, Jose Andres is the sort of pioneer of what is rather incorrectly called "molecular gastronomy" by the food press. At its core it's the use of chemistry to explore new ways to experience food and drink. When it's great, you taste something like, say, a margarita in a whole new way while it stays at its core a margarita. When it's bad, it's a superfluity of salty air and seaweed foam.
Saam was great.
Course 1: The Golden Boy. Sherry and Cava with orange bitters and 14kt gold dust. A delicious drink. The gold powder suspended in the cava carbonation was hypnotizing in the same way that a ventriloquist's dummy is hypnotizing to homosexual hypnotists.
Course 2: Beet Tumbleweed. Shaved beets stuffed into a ball and then deep fried. It tasted like deep fried beets--sweet, earthy. I wanted a basketful.
Course 3: Olive Oil Bonbon. Thin lightly sweet candy shell filled with some of the most awesome extra virgin olive oil of all time. Very clean, fresh and grassy. This was the first "molecularly gastronomical dish of the night." Great.
Course 4: Bagel & Lox Steam Bun. Crazy interesting. Bagel dough stuffed with dill sour cream topped with smoked salmon. The first exceptionally innovative dish of the night. The dough tasted profoundly of bagel and the combination of flavors resulted in a perfect deconstruction of the classic lox bagel.
Course 5: Tuna Handroll 2009. Mini tuna handroll with top shelf chopped tuna, liquified nori, avocado puree, in a crispy cone. Fabulous
Course 6: Black Olives Ferran Adria. Adria, the crazy chef-dictator of El Bulli, is the inspiration behind this dish, olive juice spherified in a sodium alginate suspension. It burst with fresh olive saltiness.
Course 7: Jose's Combination. Perhaps the best dish of the night, a slice of Jamon Iberico loaded with Spanish sturgeon caviar. The meatiness of the delicious almond-fed ham bounced fabulously off of the salty zip of the caviar.
Course 8: Boneless Coconut Thai Chicken Wing. One of the few seafood-less dishes on the menu, this was great as well, even if the flavor was very TGI Fridays. The chicken was impeccably tender and the flavors of the Thai seasoning were well composed.
Course 9: Sea Urchin Ceviche. Sea urchin is delicious. Except when it sucks, which is often, and then sea urchin tastes like dirty sea water. But at Saam, the sea urchin was poppin' fresh. It was not dirty and Jersey-shore tasting. It was also topped with a hibiscus air which was quite complimentary.
Course 10: Chipirones en su Tinta. Squid braised in its own ink. Boring but tasty. One of the few dull dishes of the night. Not bad, just dull. The sauce (made from squid ink and shellfish stock) was tasty.
Course 11: Japanese Baby Peaches & Persimmons. Of the purely vegetarian dishes of the night, this was da bomb-ingest of da bomb. The persimmon was in the form of seeds and persimmon foam. Tasty cakes.
Course 12: Guacamole New Way. Here was a molecular gastronomy dish that was done without spherification or flavored air. Thin sliced avocado wrapped around tomato sorbet with onion foam and micro-cilantro. It was an incredibly complicated way to make guacamole, but it made me experience the flavors in a new way.
Course 13: Hot & Cold Foie Gras Soup with Corn. Melty foie gras and retarded good chicken broth topped with some whippity whip cream. Oh yeah, and corn nuts. Good. Straightforward.
Course 14: Norwegian Cigalas. I'm going to pretend this means Norwegian Cigar because that is awesome. Its a small Norwegian lobster that looks like, well, a shrimp-toned cigar. The meat was sweet and tender.
Course 15: Smoked Arctic Char with Tzatziki. This might've been the best dish of the night. The tzatziki was suspended in spherified awesomeness and the char was a fabulously tender piece of smokey fish goodness.
Course 16: Not Your Everyday Caprese. Tomato sorbet with a cherry tomato stuffed with sherry vinegar and paired with a spurty balloon of buffalo mozzarella whey.
Course 17: Wagyu Beef Cheeks. Finally another non-fish dish. The beef cheeks seared medium rare were served with some baby mandarins and caramelized cipollini onions. Great.
Course 18: Philly Cheesesteak. All good things in life are served by a monkey. Saam's cheesesteak is no exception. Nor is a cliche referring to something as being no exception a cliche. Except when it is. Which it is in this case. But yeah, there's a little brass monkey (that funky monkey) carrying a tray with a bit of air bread (like a football shaped cracker) inflated with creamy cheese and topped with seared slices of Wagyu beef.
Course X: The special supplement course. Mushroom risotto with piles of shaved black Italian truffles. Rich and earthy truffles to make James Spader spooge in his trousers complement some seriously stanky mushroom risotto. Really good and literally covered in shaved truffles.
Course 19: Dragon's Breath Popcorn. A signature dish that all the ladies love because it means you can breath smoke out of your face. A bit of praline popcorn frozen in liquid nitrogen that you eat with your mouth shut so that the liquid nitrogen smoke comes out your nose. For some reason. This was the most mediocre dish of the evening, though it did get me kinda high.
Course 20: Thai Dessert. Chocolate mousse with curried peanut dust and coconut sorbet. Tasty despite the peanut dust that clogged up my lungs like a Mississippi lung clogger.
Course 21: Hot Chocolate Pear. Poached pear with hot milk chocolate, some hazelnut shit, and pear sorbet. I liked this dish quite a bit, though it was really similar to the Thai Dessert in its basic composition. I guess in Spain they don't know about dark chocolate.
Course 22: Petit Fours. Totally innocuous chocolate tablets and candy bonbons. Nothing to really say. Pleasant.
I didn't have much booze since my dining partner wasn't a drinker, but the two glasses of tasty white wine were enough--a Cava Rosado and a great small-production Gruner Veltliner.
So at the end of the day a 22 course tasting menu for $95 (plus service) is probably the best deal in global fine dining, especially when Jose Andres is working in the kitchen. I mean seriously the regular tasting menu, without any supplements, is TWENTY-TWO COURSES for just NINETY-FIVE DOLLARS! Where is there a deal that fantastic in ultra fine-dining?
Plus the service is stellar, well-trained without being ponderous. You're even ushered to your table individually by a hostess--they never seat two tables at the same time at Saam. I think they leave at least fifteen minutes between seating people. The small dining room is attended by three waiters, plus the hostess.
23 courses! w00t!
Saam at the SLS Hotel
465 S. La Cienega Blvd.
Los Angeles, Ca 90048
www.thebazaar.com
So when my friend invited me to dinner at Saam, Jose Andres' private tasting room at The Bazaar in the SLS Hotel I said, "Sure, what the fuck?" I'd eaten at Bar Centro at the Bazaar a couple of times and I'd been reasonably impressed.
But Saam was pretty fucking ridiculously amazing. An added bonus? Jose Andres was in the kitchen that day--I believe he's in town for the next several weeks, so take note cult-of-personality followers. And Andres is probably the most important and innovative chef currently working out of the USA. And that's what he was doing at The Bazaar too, expediting in the kitchen, not out gladhanding the crowd.
So even if you don't live in LA and you don't particularly care about food, you'll care about my course-by-course review of the twenty-two course tasting menu at Saam.
As a quick pre-cursor, Jose Andres is the sort of pioneer of what is rather incorrectly called "molecular gastronomy" by the food press. At its core it's the use of chemistry to explore new ways to experience food and drink. When it's great, you taste something like, say, a margarita in a whole new way while it stays at its core a margarita. When it's bad, it's a superfluity of salty air and seaweed foam.
Saam was great.
Course 1: The Golden Boy. Sherry and Cava with orange bitters and 14kt gold dust. A delicious drink. The gold powder suspended in the cava carbonation was hypnotizing in the same way that a ventriloquist's dummy is hypnotizing to homosexual hypnotists.
Course 2: Beet Tumbleweed. Shaved beets stuffed into a ball and then deep fried. It tasted like deep fried beets--sweet, earthy. I wanted a basketful.
Course 3: Olive Oil Bonbon. Thin lightly sweet candy shell filled with some of the most awesome extra virgin olive oil of all time. Very clean, fresh and grassy. This was the first "molecularly gastronomical dish of the night." Great.
Course 4: Bagel & Lox Steam Bun. Crazy interesting. Bagel dough stuffed with dill sour cream topped with smoked salmon. The first exceptionally innovative dish of the night. The dough tasted profoundly of bagel and the combination of flavors resulted in a perfect deconstruction of the classic lox bagel.
Course 5: Tuna Handroll 2009. Mini tuna handroll with top shelf chopped tuna, liquified nori, avocado puree, in a crispy cone. Fabulous
Course 6: Black Olives Ferran Adria. Adria, the crazy chef-dictator of El Bulli, is the inspiration behind this dish, olive juice spherified in a sodium alginate suspension. It burst with fresh olive saltiness.
Course 7: Jose's Combination. Perhaps the best dish of the night, a slice of Jamon Iberico loaded with Spanish sturgeon caviar. The meatiness of the delicious almond-fed ham bounced fabulously off of the salty zip of the caviar.
Course 8: Boneless Coconut Thai Chicken Wing. One of the few seafood-less dishes on the menu, this was great as well, even if the flavor was very TGI Fridays. The chicken was impeccably tender and the flavors of the Thai seasoning were well composed.
Course 9: Sea Urchin Ceviche. Sea urchin is delicious. Except when it sucks, which is often, and then sea urchin tastes like dirty sea water. But at Saam, the sea urchin was poppin' fresh. It was not dirty and Jersey-shore tasting. It was also topped with a hibiscus air which was quite complimentary.
Course 10: Chipirones en su Tinta. Squid braised in its own ink. Boring but tasty. One of the few dull dishes of the night. Not bad, just dull. The sauce (made from squid ink and shellfish stock) was tasty.
Course 11: Japanese Baby Peaches & Persimmons. Of the purely vegetarian dishes of the night, this was da bomb-ingest of da bomb. The persimmon was in the form of seeds and persimmon foam. Tasty cakes.
Course 12: Guacamole New Way. Here was a molecular gastronomy dish that was done without spherification or flavored air. Thin sliced avocado wrapped around tomato sorbet with onion foam and micro-cilantro. It was an incredibly complicated way to make guacamole, but it made me experience the flavors in a new way.
Course 13: Hot & Cold Foie Gras Soup with Corn. Melty foie gras and retarded good chicken broth topped with some whippity whip cream. Oh yeah, and corn nuts. Good. Straightforward.
Course 14: Norwegian Cigalas. I'm going to pretend this means Norwegian Cigar because that is awesome. Its a small Norwegian lobster that looks like, well, a shrimp-toned cigar. The meat was sweet and tender.
Course 15: Smoked Arctic Char with Tzatziki. This might've been the best dish of the night. The tzatziki was suspended in spherified awesomeness and the char was a fabulously tender piece of smokey fish goodness.
Course 16: Not Your Everyday Caprese. Tomato sorbet with a cherry tomato stuffed with sherry vinegar and paired with a spurty balloon of buffalo mozzarella whey.
Course 17: Wagyu Beef Cheeks. Finally another non-fish dish. The beef cheeks seared medium rare were served with some baby mandarins and caramelized cipollini onions. Great.
Course 18: Philly Cheesesteak. All good things in life are served by a monkey. Saam's cheesesteak is no exception. Nor is a cliche referring to something as being no exception a cliche. Except when it is. Which it is in this case. But yeah, there's a little brass monkey (that funky monkey) carrying a tray with a bit of air bread (like a football shaped cracker) inflated with creamy cheese and topped with seared slices of Wagyu beef.
Course X: The special supplement course. Mushroom risotto with piles of shaved black Italian truffles. Rich and earthy truffles to make James Spader spooge in his trousers complement some seriously stanky mushroom risotto. Really good and literally covered in shaved truffles.
Course 19: Dragon's Breath Popcorn. A signature dish that all the ladies love because it means you can breath smoke out of your face. A bit of praline popcorn frozen in liquid nitrogen that you eat with your mouth shut so that the liquid nitrogen smoke comes out your nose. For some reason. This was the most mediocre dish of the evening, though it did get me kinda high.
Course 20: Thai Dessert. Chocolate mousse with curried peanut dust and coconut sorbet. Tasty despite the peanut dust that clogged up my lungs like a Mississippi lung clogger.
Course 21: Hot Chocolate Pear. Poached pear with hot milk chocolate, some hazelnut shit, and pear sorbet. I liked this dish quite a bit, though it was really similar to the Thai Dessert in its basic composition. I guess in Spain they don't know about dark chocolate.
Course 22: Petit Fours. Totally innocuous chocolate tablets and candy bonbons. Nothing to really say. Pleasant.
I didn't have much booze since my dining partner wasn't a drinker, but the two glasses of tasty white wine were enough--a Cava Rosado and a great small-production Gruner Veltliner.
So at the end of the day a 22 course tasting menu for $95 (plus service) is probably the best deal in global fine dining, especially when Jose Andres is working in the kitchen. I mean seriously the regular tasting menu, without any supplements, is TWENTY-TWO COURSES for just NINETY-FIVE DOLLARS! Where is there a deal that fantastic in ultra fine-dining?
Plus the service is stellar, well-trained without being ponderous. You're even ushered to your table individually by a hostess--they never seat two tables at the same time at Saam. I think they leave at least fifteen minutes between seating people. The small dining room is attended by three waiters, plus the hostess.
23 courses! w00t!
Saam at the SLS Hotel
465 S. La Cienega Blvd.
Los Angeles, Ca 90048
www.thebazaar.com
Monday, February 22, 2010
Umami Burger Part 3: Umami Burger FAIL!
So if you've read this and this you know that I am a huge Umami Burger fan. I'm such a fan and I think so highly of their product that I was very excited to take a couple chef friends who were in town from Berkeley to try what I considered to be one of the best burgers I've ever had. It would figure that on this one occasion where I really needed Umami Burger to shine it would fall flat on its big, juicy, ground beef face.
To be fair, we were going to the heretofore unvisited original La Brea location--a spot known for its tiny-ness and lack of a liquor license, but it was a fairly inexcusable performance.
First, they only serve their burgers one temperature, medium-rare. That is not inherently a bad thing--it facilitates speed and efficiency to serve all your meat at one temperature since you can just crank the burgers off the grill regardless of particular orders. But here's the thing, it's pretty much the POINT of a hamburger to use meats you wouldn't necessarily serve medium rare to make the ground beef. I don't mean bad meat, I just mean meat from that 90% of the cow that isn't really suitable to be served dripping.
But fine, I'm with you, you do a medium rare burger, cool. I respect that. I don't recall the other Umami Burger locations being so temperature-specific, but I could be wrong--I will say that my burgers had been right around medium. But at the end of the day if you're going to serve a requisite medium rare burger, make sure it's medium rare. At our table, all of the beef burgers were dripping red rare. They were so rare that none of the patties even held together, this was in contrast to the previous burgers I've had which retained shape and firmness admirably while still being plenty juicy. The rare burgers soaked the bottom bun to the point of destruction, basically they were impossible to eat without a fork. And Umami Burger La Brea doesn't provide forks. This was again in contrast to the previous burgers I'd had which all toed that crucial line--always on the verge of juicy destruction, always succeeding in not going all the way over the top into sloppy burger wreckage.
Another oddity were the thrice-fried French fries, which were not very good. Thick, potato-y, and bland, they had the flavor and texture of undercooked elementary school lunch oven fries. The onion rings were a hit, however, as was my perfectly prepared turkey burger.
So what happened at Umami La Brea? I think they were busy and had very little oversight in the kitchen. When you're throwing up burgers all day you want to keep things simple and quick. Simple is fine, hence the uniform temperature burgers, but quick rapidly becomes too quick and you end up serving barely cooked burgers for the sake of, well, nothing really. Our burgers came out in a matter of minutes despite the dining room being packed. That's entirely unnecessary. I'm happy to wait another ten minutes for an appropriately cooked burger.
I'm going to chalk this up to an off day and I'll give the Umami Burger La Brea location another go-round. Everything else has been too damn good for me to assume this last experience to be anything but an outlier.
Umami Burger
850 S. La Brea Ave.
Los Angeles, Ca 90036
www.umamiburger.com
To be fair, we were going to the heretofore unvisited original La Brea location--a spot known for its tiny-ness and lack of a liquor license, but it was a fairly inexcusable performance.
First, they only serve their burgers one temperature, medium-rare. That is not inherently a bad thing--it facilitates speed and efficiency to serve all your meat at one temperature since you can just crank the burgers off the grill regardless of particular orders. But here's the thing, it's pretty much the POINT of a hamburger to use meats you wouldn't necessarily serve medium rare to make the ground beef. I don't mean bad meat, I just mean meat from that 90% of the cow that isn't really suitable to be served dripping.
But fine, I'm with you, you do a medium rare burger, cool. I respect that. I don't recall the other Umami Burger locations being so temperature-specific, but I could be wrong--I will say that my burgers had been right around medium. But at the end of the day if you're going to serve a requisite medium rare burger, make sure it's medium rare. At our table, all of the beef burgers were dripping red rare. They were so rare that none of the patties even held together, this was in contrast to the previous burgers I've had which retained shape and firmness admirably while still being plenty juicy. The rare burgers soaked the bottom bun to the point of destruction, basically they were impossible to eat without a fork. And Umami Burger La Brea doesn't provide forks. This was again in contrast to the previous burgers I'd had which all toed that crucial line--always on the verge of juicy destruction, always succeeding in not going all the way over the top into sloppy burger wreckage.
Another oddity were the thrice-fried French fries, which were not very good. Thick, potato-y, and bland, they had the flavor and texture of undercooked elementary school lunch oven fries. The onion rings were a hit, however, as was my perfectly prepared turkey burger.
So what happened at Umami La Brea? I think they were busy and had very little oversight in the kitchen. When you're throwing up burgers all day you want to keep things simple and quick. Simple is fine, hence the uniform temperature burgers, but quick rapidly becomes too quick and you end up serving barely cooked burgers for the sake of, well, nothing really. Our burgers came out in a matter of minutes despite the dining room being packed. That's entirely unnecessary. I'm happy to wait another ten minutes for an appropriately cooked burger.
I'm going to chalk this up to an off day and I'll give the Umami Burger La Brea location another go-round. Everything else has been too damn good for me to assume this last experience to be anything but an outlier.
Umami Burger
850 S. La Brea Ave.
Los Angeles, Ca 90036
www.umamiburger.com
Thursday, February 11, 2010
HFF Quickie: The Lazy Ox Canteen
There's a certain category of restaurant that is under-appreciated. It's a restaurant where you can go for any purpose: on a date to have a fun time trying a bunch of different menu items; with your parents for a nice dinner where you leave sated; or alone at the bar for a late night snack and a glass of wine without shelling out too much $$.
I like restaurants where you can basically decide for yourself how much you want to pay, where portions are generally commensurate with price, where you can spend $25 on a late night bite for one or spend $150 on a splurge for two.
Little Tokyo's Lazy Ox Canteen, the newest addition to my 'hood, is just that place. The menu's an eclectic mix of Asian-tinged Cal-Med divided into three categories that can be roughly translated into "small appetizers," "large appetizers," and "small entrees," but that would be a very 2009 way of thinking about the menu. In reality it's a gently sloping curve of diverse deliciousness starting at $4 for a plate of house-made pickles on up to $25 for steak frites (or $42 for the steak for two on the specials menu). Which brings up the extensive chalkboard specials menu (easily visible in the hip but modest dining room) which serves to effectively double the size of the printed menu with a broad assortment of limited and seasonal selections.
The food has all been good to great, particular highlights were cauliflower gratin, slow-cooked pork shoulder, creamy farro, hand-torn egg pasta with egg & brown butter, and an awesomely retardedly good rice pudding with burnt caramel for dessert.
On the beverage front, Lazy Ox has a big well-priced wine list that is as eclectic as the menu, featuring that most endangered of all species, the $6 glass of wine at an upscale LA restaurant. In terms of beer Lazy Ox has a very nice selection of drafts and bottles, with a particular emphasis on Japanese beers and California micro-brews.
With a broad mixed-price menu, good fairly priced drinks (wines by the bottle are half-price on Mondays) and all day hours (11AM-3PM for lunch, 5PM-12AM for dinner), is Lazy Ox the perfect place for a nice but casual dinner in Downtown?
Pretty damn close.
The Lazy Ox Canteen
241 S. San Pedro St.
Los Angeles, Ca 90012
www.lazyoxcanteen.com
I like restaurants where you can basically decide for yourself how much you want to pay, where portions are generally commensurate with price, where you can spend $25 on a late night bite for one or spend $150 on a splurge for two.
Little Tokyo's Lazy Ox Canteen, the newest addition to my 'hood, is just that place. The menu's an eclectic mix of Asian-tinged Cal-Med divided into three categories that can be roughly translated into "small appetizers," "large appetizers," and "small entrees," but that would be a very 2009 way of thinking about the menu. In reality it's a gently sloping curve of diverse deliciousness starting at $4 for a plate of house-made pickles on up to $25 for steak frites (or $42 for the steak for two on the specials menu). Which brings up the extensive chalkboard specials menu (easily visible in the hip but modest dining room) which serves to effectively double the size of the printed menu with a broad assortment of limited and seasonal selections.
The food has all been good to great, particular highlights were cauliflower gratin, slow-cooked pork shoulder, creamy farro, hand-torn egg pasta with egg & brown butter, and an awesomely retardedly good rice pudding with burnt caramel for dessert.
On the beverage front, Lazy Ox has a big well-priced wine list that is as eclectic as the menu, featuring that most endangered of all species, the $6 glass of wine at an upscale LA restaurant. In terms of beer Lazy Ox has a very nice selection of drafts and bottles, with a particular emphasis on Japanese beers and California micro-brews.
With a broad mixed-price menu, good fairly priced drinks (wines by the bottle are half-price on Mondays) and all day hours (11AM-3PM for lunch, 5PM-12AM for dinner), is Lazy Ox the perfect place for a nice but casual dinner in Downtown?
Pretty damn close.
The Lazy Ox Canteen
241 S. San Pedro St.
Los Angeles, Ca 90012
www.lazyoxcanteen.com
Saturday, February 06, 2010
Food Porn?
There's this term, "Food Porn," that some of you've no doubt heard of. It has two definitions--the more common definition is used to describe close-up, graphic pictures of food preparations often done in a manner to make the food look as intensely desirable as possible. In this age of ubiquitous low-res internet pornography, a more apt phrase perhaps would be "Food Erotica" for such pictures and not food porn.
The term Food Porn is also used to describe haute cuisine dining experiences, exotic cooking shows like Iron Chef, and technical ambitious cookbooks--things that showcase the most elaborate and extreme kitchen achievements. In this context the word is usually used derisively or at the very least dismissively--that just as pornography showcases unattainably built people performing unachievable acts, so too does food porn show impossibly talented people preparing impossible dishes.
This is a bullshit, thought-terminating cliche because:
1. Both pornography and Iron Chef show actual people doing actual things and
2. With the exception of hard to obtain and/or expensive ingredients and hard to physically achieve positions and/or expensive plastic surgery, the vast majority of what is done on Iron Chef and in most pornography is achievable by the average person in the average home. Just because you aren't John Elway doesn't mean that throwing a football around isn't pleasurable.
3. The participants in both pornography and on Iron Chef do enjoy most of their activities, both the product(s) of their labors and the process by which it is obtained. Objectors would have you believe that is not the case.
So if you don't want to try and make trout ice cream with foie gras chantilly because you don't think you'll like it, that's fine, and if you don't want to try out froggy style for fear of penile fracture, that's fine too. But to deny the validity of either on the premise that there can not be anything aspirational for the average person is ludicrous and regressive. Food porn can undoubtedly provide positive inspiration for the kitchen and porn porn can provide positive inspiration for the bedroom, den, conservatory, Volkswagen backseat, or BART station bathroom--whether or not you successfully execute that which you're trying to imitate.
So be adventurous or else you'll just eat meat and potatoes the rest of your life. And hell, meat and potatoes do hit the spot every now and then--but it can never hurt to try new things, at least not very much.
The term Food Porn is also used to describe haute cuisine dining experiences, exotic cooking shows like Iron Chef, and technical ambitious cookbooks--things that showcase the most elaborate and extreme kitchen achievements. In this context the word is usually used derisively or at the very least dismissively--that just as pornography showcases unattainably built people performing unachievable acts, so too does food porn show impossibly talented people preparing impossible dishes.
This is a bullshit, thought-terminating cliche because:
1. Both pornography and Iron Chef show actual people doing actual things and
2. With the exception of hard to obtain and/or expensive ingredients and hard to physically achieve positions and/or expensive plastic surgery, the vast majority of what is done on Iron Chef and in most pornography is achievable by the average person in the average home. Just because you aren't John Elway doesn't mean that throwing a football around isn't pleasurable.
3. The participants in both pornography and on Iron Chef do enjoy most of their activities, both the product(s) of their labors and the process by which it is obtained. Objectors would have you believe that is not the case.
So if you don't want to try and make trout ice cream with foie gras chantilly because you don't think you'll like it, that's fine, and if you don't want to try out froggy style for fear of penile fracture, that's fine too. But to deny the validity of either on the premise that there can not be anything aspirational for the average person is ludicrous and regressive. Food porn can undoubtedly provide positive inspiration for the kitchen and porn porn can provide positive inspiration for the bedroom, den, conservatory, Volkswagen backseat, or BART station bathroom--whether or not you successfully execute that which you're trying to imitate.
So be adventurous or else you'll just eat meat and potatoes the rest of your life. And hell, meat and potatoes do hit the spot every now and then--but it can never hurt to try new things, at least not very much.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
HFF Quickie: Umami Burger Part 2
After enjoying an Umami Burger from their food truck a few weeks ago, I can say that I was more than intrigued by their product. So a few days ago when I had an appointment with a friend in Los Feliz I suggested that rather than the douchebaggery of Fred's or the pretentiousness of Psychobabble, we hit up the Umami Burger around the corner from Vermont Ave. on Hollywood Blvd.
Strangely, that is their "Hollywood" location, despite being in Los Feliz, and the location on Cahuenga in the heart of Hollywood is called the "Urban" location. One can presume that should an Umami Burger open Downtown it will be called the "Venice" location.
This Umami Burger was an overnight turnkey redo of the old Cobras & Matadors, retaining virtually all of the original design, embellishing it only with Kanji painted and/or carved on the walls and shelves full of wood Japanese dolls that look like crosses between bowling pins and Hello Kitty vibrators. It's the most elaborate of the three locations and has the most extensive beer selection: in addition to the well-curated line of draughts, the Hollywood Umami Burger also has a bottle bar of Japanese beers.
I had the Maple Bacon Pork Burger. I'd had my eye on that since I first read their menu a few months ago. It was fucking amazing. A well-balanced mix of ground pork and smokey chopped bacon that was impressively juicy. The burger's topped with a slightly sweet cranberry aioli, roasted & diced apples, and bits of crispy fried chard which provided an extra textural dimension that made the dish. Perhaps the best burger I've ever had.
The side of tempura onion rings was nice too--the fluffy tempura batter was still a bit greasier than the best tempura I've had at Japanese restaurants, but a fuck tonne lighter than the doughy messes that pass for "tempura" at most gastropubs and fusion joints. They're sprinkled with what appeared to be ground sea salt, which helped to unobtrusively salt the rings.
As a last note, the staff was friendly, attentive, and well-trained.
So Umami Burger, I think, has me hooked. Prices are reasonable ($10-$14 for good sized top-notch burgers) and the selection is dynamic and innovative without being over-elaborate or pretentious. It's that rare LA beast: a restaurant with a strong concept and big ambitions but where the food quality still, unequivocally, comes first.
Umami Burger (Hollywood)
4655 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles, Ca 90027
www.umamiburger.com
Strangely, that is their "Hollywood" location, despite being in Los Feliz, and the location on Cahuenga in the heart of Hollywood is called the "Urban" location. One can presume that should an Umami Burger open Downtown it will be called the "Venice" location.
This Umami Burger was an overnight turnkey redo of the old Cobras & Matadors, retaining virtually all of the original design, embellishing it only with Kanji painted and/or carved on the walls and shelves full of wood Japanese dolls that look like crosses between bowling pins and Hello Kitty vibrators. It's the most elaborate of the three locations and has the most extensive beer selection: in addition to the well-curated line of draughts, the Hollywood Umami Burger also has a bottle bar of Japanese beers.
I had the Maple Bacon Pork Burger. I'd had my eye on that since I first read their menu a few months ago. It was fucking amazing. A well-balanced mix of ground pork and smokey chopped bacon that was impressively juicy. The burger's topped with a slightly sweet cranberry aioli, roasted & diced apples, and bits of crispy fried chard which provided an extra textural dimension that made the dish. Perhaps the best burger I've ever had.
The side of tempura onion rings was nice too--the fluffy tempura batter was still a bit greasier than the best tempura I've had at Japanese restaurants, but a fuck tonne lighter than the doughy messes that pass for "tempura" at most gastropubs and fusion joints. They're sprinkled with what appeared to be ground sea salt, which helped to unobtrusively salt the rings.
As a last note, the staff was friendly, attentive, and well-trained.
So Umami Burger, I think, has me hooked. Prices are reasonable ($10-$14 for good sized top-notch burgers) and the selection is dynamic and innovative without being over-elaborate or pretentious. It's that rare LA beast: a restaurant with a strong concept and big ambitions but where the food quality still, unequivocally, comes first.
Umami Burger (Hollywood)
4655 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles, Ca 90027
www.umamiburger.com
Monday, January 18, 2010
HFF On The Road: Pleasanton, Ca
It's late January now, so it's time to assess all the fabulous dining I did in the corridors of suburbia while seeing friends and family over the holidays.
So:
There are two kinds of suburbs: the Berkeleys, Napas, Albanys, Los Gatoses, and Healdsburgs of the world which cultivate their own indigenous culinary flowerbeds; and the Concords, Fremonts, San Ramons, and Livermores where chain casual dining is the name of the game and the locally owned businesses aren't much better. I spent most of my holiday in Pleasanton, which is largely the domaine of the latter.
A brief discussion of the I-680 corridor. The freeway runs the length of Contra Costa and Alameda counties in the eastern part of the East Bay--over the hills that separate Berkeley/Oakland/El Cerrito/Richmond from Concord/Orinda/Lafayette/Pleasant Hill. It continues all the way south into Santa Clara County, ending when it turns into I-280 and spins around back north through Downtown San Jose and up the Peninsula into SF. While the northernmost reaches of the freeway are in decidedly blue collar East Bay, most of the corridor, from Pleasant Hill through Fremont, cuts through one of the wealthiest swaths of cities in the country. Walnut Creek, Danville, San Ramon, Alamo, Blackhawk, Pleasanton, Sunol, and much of Fremont is home to million dollar homes, SUVs, and country clubs. Pleasanton is the wealthiest mid-sized city in the country according to the last census, Blackhawk is the originator of the zero-property-line McMansion, and Walnut Creek is the East Bay hub of luxury retailers. And yet....
I can count the restaurants of distinction on the back of one hand and still be able to pick my nose AND suck my thumb.
But here's the thing, I can't really fault the restaurants. I fault the uninquisitive audience they're cooking for. The fact is, why would you bother getting anything better than Sysco foodstuffs if your audience will: A, not know the difference and B, object to the nominal increase in price.
So where did I go?
Redcoats - A perfectly serviceable British-themed brewpub in Downtown Pleasanton. Astonishingly cheap, especially by LA standards: my happy hour 20 oz. pint of Guinness was $3. Pretty tasty fried green beans, shitty frozen wholesale french fries with a middling curry sauce, decent fried zucchini, and well-prepared fried fish with the same shitty fries. But given the prices, the good cheap drink selection, nice atmosphere, and late hours, it's one of the better places to eat in town.
http://www.redcoatspub.com/
Amakara - Across the freeway is Dublin, Pleasanton's autistic younger brother. Though autistic in the same way that one brother works hard and becomes a modestly successful lawyer while the other brother drinks and fucks his way through college and becomes a billionaire investment banker. Dublin, despite being half Pleasanton's size, is home to a million fast food restaurants and every big box retailer known, driven beyond the overpass by Pleasanton's "planned progress" requirements. Amakara was pretty damn good overall. My mackerel was overcooked, but the grilled edamame, jalapeno hamachi, and grilled oysters were quite delicious. Additionally, Amakara prepares an array of sushi rolls that rival anything out there and that are largely cheaper than its rivals. In particular the "Klondike Experience--" a massive presentation of crab, tempura shrimp, scallops, and three flavors of tobiko roe.
http://www.amakaraco.com/
Oasis - Oddly masquerading as an Afghan Restaurant, which is a particularly strange pose to take in a relatively conservative part of California, and a Wine Bar, Oasis is really neither. It's a quasi pan-Mediterranean joint, which primarily means a bunch of mezze stuff interchangeable with any eastern Mediterranean/Central Asian restaurant, and a few actual Aghan things like borani. On the wine bar front, it was a wine bar inasmuch as anyplace that pours Rombauer btg can be a wine bar. The space is pretty and the location right on Main Street is quite nice.
www.oasisgrille.com
My Parents' House - Killer food as always. Great adventurous cooking, paired with good wine, and the lack of a need to drive in this traffic cop-happy town means that the parents' house is always the best place to eat. Dining highlights included grilled mackerel with fresh pasta, poached salmon with capers, a version of cochinita pibil, and, as a more-than-honorable mention, a killer prime rib cooked by grandma.
And really the point of going home isn't to go out to eat, it's about about seeing friends and family, relaxing, and falling asleep on the couch after drinking a couple bottles of the wine.
Happy New Year!
So:
There are two kinds of suburbs: the Berkeleys, Napas, Albanys, Los Gatoses, and Healdsburgs of the world which cultivate their own indigenous culinary flowerbeds; and the Concords, Fremonts, San Ramons, and Livermores where chain casual dining is the name of the game and the locally owned businesses aren't much better. I spent most of my holiday in Pleasanton, which is largely the domaine of the latter.
A brief discussion of the I-680 corridor. The freeway runs the length of Contra Costa and Alameda counties in the eastern part of the East Bay--over the hills that separate Berkeley/Oakland/El Cerrito/Richmond from Concord/Orinda/Lafayette/Pleasant Hill. It continues all the way south into Santa Clara County, ending when it turns into I-280 and spins around back north through Downtown San Jose and up the Peninsula into SF. While the northernmost reaches of the freeway are in decidedly blue collar East Bay, most of the corridor, from Pleasant Hill through Fremont, cuts through one of the wealthiest swaths of cities in the country. Walnut Creek, Danville, San Ramon, Alamo, Blackhawk, Pleasanton, Sunol, and much of Fremont is home to million dollar homes, SUVs, and country clubs. Pleasanton is the wealthiest mid-sized city in the country according to the last census, Blackhawk is the originator of the zero-property-line McMansion, and Walnut Creek is the East Bay hub of luxury retailers. And yet....
I can count the restaurants of distinction on the back of one hand and still be able to pick my nose AND suck my thumb.
But here's the thing, I can't really fault the restaurants. I fault the uninquisitive audience they're cooking for. The fact is, why would you bother getting anything better than Sysco foodstuffs if your audience will: A, not know the difference and B, object to the nominal increase in price.
So where did I go?
Redcoats - A perfectly serviceable British-themed brewpub in Downtown Pleasanton. Astonishingly cheap, especially by LA standards: my happy hour 20 oz. pint of Guinness was $3. Pretty tasty fried green beans, shitty frozen wholesale french fries with a middling curry sauce, decent fried zucchini, and well-prepared fried fish with the same shitty fries. But given the prices, the good cheap drink selection, nice atmosphere, and late hours, it's one of the better places to eat in town.
http://www.redcoatspub.com/
Amakara - Across the freeway is Dublin, Pleasanton's autistic younger brother. Though autistic in the same way that one brother works hard and becomes a modestly successful lawyer while the other brother drinks and fucks his way through college and becomes a billionaire investment banker. Dublin, despite being half Pleasanton's size, is home to a million fast food restaurants and every big box retailer known, driven beyond the overpass by Pleasanton's "planned progress" requirements. Amakara was pretty damn good overall. My mackerel was overcooked, but the grilled edamame, jalapeno hamachi, and grilled oysters were quite delicious. Additionally, Amakara prepares an array of sushi rolls that rival anything out there and that are largely cheaper than its rivals. In particular the "Klondike Experience--" a massive presentation of crab, tempura shrimp, scallops, and three flavors of tobiko roe.
http://www.amakaraco.com/
Oasis - Oddly masquerading as an Afghan Restaurant, which is a particularly strange pose to take in a relatively conservative part of California, and a Wine Bar, Oasis is really neither. It's a quasi pan-Mediterranean joint, which primarily means a bunch of mezze stuff interchangeable with any eastern Mediterranean/Central Asian restaurant, and a few actual Aghan things like borani. On the wine bar front, it was a wine bar inasmuch as anyplace that pours Rombauer btg can be a wine bar. The space is pretty and the location right on Main Street is quite nice.
www.oasisgrille.com
My Parents' House - Killer food as always. Great adventurous cooking, paired with good wine, and the lack of a need to drive in this traffic cop-happy town means that the parents' house is always the best place to eat. Dining highlights included grilled mackerel with fresh pasta, poached salmon with capers, a version of cochinita pibil, and, as a more-than-honorable mention, a killer prime rib cooked by grandma.
And really the point of going home isn't to go out to eat, it's about about seeing friends and family, relaxing, and falling asleep on the couch after drinking a couple bottles of the wine.
Happy New Year!
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