Organic, Sustainable, Biodynamic, Sulfite-Free

In Berkeley, these four words, Organic, Sustainable, Biodynamic, and Sulfite-Free have become commonly heard in wine shops and restaurants.

Here's the problem. Nobody has any fucking clue what they mean.

I've long said that wine is a drink you can feel good about, assuming we mean small-production wine and not massive factory-farmed estates.

Good wine grapes grow in soil that is otherwise not particularly great for anything else. It is a quickly renewable crop that doesn't damage soil. Vineyards can prevent erosion and create natural firebreaks. And many many vineyards dry farm their grapes, meaning that no additional irrigation takes place. Even if irrigation does take place it's in most instances negligible when compared to many other crops.

Most importantly, grapes aren't a staple crop, so consumption of wine (as opposed to say, beer) isn't contributing to the rapid price inflation coupled (strangely) with rampant subsidizing of staple grains.

But there's nothing wrong with seeking out wines with these descriptors, but before you just go out searching for these products, here's a basic layman's rundown:

1. Organic. Organic wine means just what it means when we're talking about other produce. The grapes are grown according to one of the many organic certifying-organizations, most commonly the USDA, Oregon Tilth, or CCOF. Note that truly "organic wines" are very rare as the United States prohibits the addition of sulfites in organic wines (even though sulfur dioxide itself can be organic and has been used for centuries) and other aspects of the wine making are restricted. It is much more common to see "wine made from organic grapes." You can feel equally good about either. In most instances organic grape wines will be superior to fully organic wines, as the lack of sulfur will reduce stability and increase the likelihood of spoilage.

2. Sustainable. Sustainable is a bit more nebulous term as there are very few regulatory bodies. Sustainability means that the wine makers ascribe to basic fundamentals about responsible farming practices, utilizing organic pesticides and natural pest controls. But it's hard to know if a winery is merely playing lip service to sustainability or actually providing an environmentally conscious product. There is a voluntary sustainable-certification organization in Sonoma County and a government certification in Spain. There may be others, but I'm not aware of them.

3. Biodynamic. Okay, this is a weird one. Biodynamic isn't just organic, and in many instances biodynamic isn't organic due to the aforementioned sulfur problem. Biodynamic means the grape growers and wine makers practiced farming and wine making practices that are certified by the international Demeter association. The vast majority of biodynamics is medieval-era geomancy. Included in biodynamics are the planting of a horn full of manure in your vineyard, treating pest problems by burning one of said pests, mixing it with wet sulfur (gee, I wonder why this worked), and then casting it on the grapes.

Oh, and by the way, if there is a field mouse problem you're supposed to scatter the ashes of field mouse skin in the vineyard...when Venus is in the Scorpio constellation, just to be sage about it. Biodynamics is a big scam with no real significance to wine making except that 1, you know that your wine is made completely naturally, and 2, the process is so detailed that you know that the vineyard managers at least have to pay very close attention. It doesn't mean they're GOOD grape growers, but at least they're paying attention.

4. Sulfite-Free. You will find very few sulfite-free wines. There's a reason for this, for a wine to be sulfite-free it actually needs to undergo a sulfite-removal process. Now that's hardly naturally, isn't it? One of the reasons we can make wine is that grapes have a decent amount of naturally-occurring sulfur dioxide on their skin. Many fruits do (apricots most significantly). This sulfur dioxide is a natural defense from disease and rot. It's a preservative.

The reason we can make raisins right out in the sun without having to add sulfur or acid to the grapes is because of this sulfur. The reason pressed grape juice can ferment into tasty wine instead of rotting into spoiled juice is because of the sulfur dioxide and to a lesser extent, tannins.
Are there people who are sensitive to sulfur, even deathly allergic? Sure. But there are a whole fuck ton more people who just think they are because it's yet another thing they can feel special about.

How do I know this? Two reasons. Most people who claim sulfite-sensitivity also note they have more of a problem with red wine than white wine. This is retarded. There are more sulfites in white wine than red wine. Red wine has more natural preservative from the tannins than in white wine, so white wine requires additional sulfur dioxide. Secondly, most people describe their sulfite-sensitivity as causing headaches. This is also retarded. Sulfite-sensitivity manifests in respiratory problems, not headaches.

Many wines in Europe that are drunk domestically and meant to be consumed within a year or two don't often have added sulfur since the natural sulfites will be enough of a preservative for that short period, but wine that is meant to endure the trials of shipping and export and the rigors of aging require sulfites or this wine will spoil. Period.

And then if a wine has no sulfites at all it becomes very unstable even for short periods of time and really won't last more than six months if you're lucky.

So yeah, you know what? If you actually have a legitimate sulfur allergy, then don't drink wine. Sorry. Drink beer, spirits, kombucha whatever. And if you DON'T have a sulfur allergy (and most of you don't) then just get over it and enjoy. Why waste so much time worrying when you can just enjoy yourself?

I'm convinced that people use "sulfur" as an excuse to hide their hang-ups about drinking. It's a way to self-regulate something without having to assume personal responsibility.

Frozen Delights: Wherein the Protagonist Discusses the Merits of Pre-Made Frozen Dinner Items from Trader Joe's

So here's the thing. I love to cook, I really do. Cooking is a blast. Making food for friends is great. Entertaining and enjoying others' company over an ambitious home-cooked meal is one of life's great pleasures.

That being said, I have a hard time finding the effort to devote the significant investment of time and money (nowhere are economy of scales more prevalent than in purchasing food) for just myself.

And despite my obvious love for dining out, I've found myself in recent months to be paying a little more attention to the bottom line as I've left the lucrative world of table waiting for a moderately less lucrative but infinitely more rewarding line of work.

So I've been eating a lot of Trader Joe's lately.

Don't get me wrong, I do cook. I made an excellent turkey loaf which lasted me quite some time--fry it up with eggs for a sort of turkey scrapple breakfast, slap it on some bread for a meatloaf sandwich, or throw it out the window to get your cute neighbor's attention. It's your world, the loaf's just along for the ride. I also can still make a nice from-scratch pasta sauce, assemble a mean sandwich, cook the shit out of some cranberry beans, and steam up the quinoa.

I know that one doesn't actually steam quinoa.

But what's the harm in letting Trader Joe's do the work sometimes?

I'm not a big fan of the fully-made frozen entrees, like the heat and serve pasta dishes, mac n' cheese, taquitos, and burritos. The heat-serve pastas aren't any better than if you make dried pasta and add a sauce and some chopped meat yourself, I can't bring myself to eat mac n' cheese as an entree even though I love it, and the Mexican stuff you can get fresh from a good taqueria for the same price.

What I mostly eat are the Asian and Asian-esque rice and noodle dishes. Some of them are pretty damn solid.

I like this stuff because it's really quick to cook, unlike the Mexican and Italian stuff which often take two or three repetitions of the on-the-box instructions to render the innermost delights not ice cold. Of course the outer layers will be molten as soon as you open the package. The rice dishes just take a quick sautee in the skillet and they're ready to go.

I also like these dishes because they're easy to doctor. You can cook a little garlic first, add some additional veggies or some scrambled egg, or grill up a piece of fish or chicken (or turkey meat loaf!) to throw on top.

Really what Trader Joe's is doing is saving me the time and annoyance of cooking rice only to have re-fry it and the tedium of dicing up some veggies really small.

Obviously it's not as good as the real fresh thing, but it takes 10 minutes and costs a few bucks.

The hits and misses of Trader Joe's frozen Asian-esque entrees.

Chicken Fried Rice: HIT! Cooks easily. Lots of big chunks of chicken. And the rice, although already fully cooked and frozen, doesn't leach out too much water into the pan (a common problem with this stuff). With enough patience (and enough canola oil) you can make a reasonable approximation of Durant food ghetto fried rice.

Chicken Chow Mein: MISS! I should clarify this. Overall it's pretty tasty, but the noodle preparation instructions are ridiculous. The already fully-cooked noodles come vacuum packed in the bag with the chicken and vegetables. You're instructed to let the noodles run under cool water for 5 minutes or so to thaw them while you prepare the chicken and veggies. Five minutes leaves them just as rock-freakin'-hard as before. And then even if you finally thaw them out, they're still all stuck together, which means you'll never actually have chow mein noodles but rather a bunch of two or three inch pieces of chow mein noodle resulting from you violently hacking the noodle-blob apart. At the end of this traumatic process you're still left with a pleasant-tasting dish but at the expense of your dignity.

Nasi Goreng: HIT! Really aromatic and flavorful with lots of chopped vegetables. Pretty much my favorite of the bunch, though it's lack of significant protein requires the addition of at least a couple eggs. My favorite additions are a scrambled egg and some frozen shrimp (also conveniently available at Trader Joe's!)

Vegetable Biryani: HIT! Good and surprising flavor combinations thanks to the addition of apples and cashews to the mix. Unfortunately the vegetables in the biryani sweat a bit too much and you're never able to get the nice dry, ever-so-slightly crisp texture that makes restaurant versions of this dish so appealing. Like the Nasi Goreng, it requires the addition of a couple things to make it a meal.

Sweet and Sour Shrimp over Rice: MISS! Simple dish to prepare, but found lacking in a number of ways. The cooked frozen white rice gives off a ton of moisture when thawed which takes a while to steam off and leaves the rice tasting, well, wet. The shrimp are nice and the vegetable quantity generous, but the sauce is a big miss. I appreciate the attempt at making a sauce that isn't overly sweet and syrupy, but unfortunately this was done at the expense of flavor. The sauce tasted pretty much like watered-down syrup from canned pineapple. Ah well.

Join me next time for a detailed discussion of boil-in-the-bag Indian food.

Not really, they all taste like cumin and ghee. Good though.

Pintxo - Santa Monica, Ca

When the "small plates explosion" hit the Bay Area about ten years ago with the opening of the "big three" Cesar, A Cote, and Fonda in the East Bay over the course of a few years, not to mention countless others in San Francisco and elsewhere, everyone (and by everyone I mean mostly single professional women in their thirties) fell in love with dining "tapas style."

The thing is, these restaurants offered very little in the way of true "tapas" dining and the aforementioned "everyone" definitely wasn't dining "tapas style" since dining in that manner involves traveling to multiple locations and imbibing indescribable quantities of wine, beer and sangria, not plunking one's ass at Cesar for three hours and drinking a Cuban Manhattan and half a glass of Cava.

Most importantly though it seemed that these restaurants were using this as an opportunity to serve less food for only marginally lower prices. The "casual" nature of small plates also allowed for slashing service requirements, as waiters are little more than order-takers and food runners (notice I didn't say "plate clearers") at most of these small-plates restaurants. The demands on the server are mostly physical and very little knowledge or refinement is required. This service mediocrity is sometimes a result of rampant understaffing (Cesar) or a general culture of incompetence (A Cote).

My grander point is that despite the "fun" aspect of sharing food and getting to try a lot of flavors (a form of dining I wholeheartedly endorse), rarely does one spend any less money at a small plates restaurant than one does at a more "refined" dining establishment. You are left with an inferior experience overall because of crowds, noise, and service inconsistencies. My dinners at Cesar, Va de Vi, and Fonda have been some of the most expensive I've had in the East Bay (not to mention I'm out of there in an hour as opposed to close to two hours at a more formal restaurant). And with the lack of other similar establishments within a close stumble, one can't really live the "tapas" life as I'd like to envision it: a drink and a bit of food before moving on to your next stop. I'd love to go out with a friend and spend $100 eating and drinking at four or five locations instead of spending that some amount at one spot, especially a spot where the service sucks and it's too awkward and crowded to linger even if I wanted to. As it is, $100 at Zuni buys a better dinner experience for a better value (not to mention the added bonus of an actual reservation) than $80 at Cesar (or $40 at A Cote).

As an aside, I think that a better integration of our eating and drinking cultures in America--that is the concept of "going out" to both eat and drink continuously throughout the evening rather than dining as either the beginning of a night of bar-hopping or the as a result of the beer munchies at the end of a night of bar-hopping (or both)--will go a long way to improve how we treat alcohol in our society. If you're always eating while you're drinking, you drink more slowly, alcohol is absorbed more evenly, and you probably consume less alcohol overall. Four drinks over four hours of a tapas crawl (drinks more likely to be beer and wine) versus four drinks over two hours at a bar (drinks more likely to be spirits and cocktails). You'll also consume more nutrients (including all-essential sodium), which will go a long way to ameliorate your hangover symptoms the next morning.

But here's the good news!

In Santa Monica, right by the water, I think I've found a spot for a legitimate tapas evening, though so far I've only eaten at one bar, Pintxo.

Pintxo (from the same people who brought Venice the esteemed, Michelin-starred Joe's Restaurant) is the first true tapas bar that I've been to in the U.S. Specifically, it's a style of tapas bar common in the Basque regions of Spain and, to a lesser extent, Catalonia that focuses on fish, cured meats, and chunky sauces served on top of slices of bread. These types of tapas are called "pintxos" from the Basque word for "thorn," originally referring to the small wood skewer that was used to hold the toppings on the bread.

Although the pintxos are served pre-made from a sushi bar-style fridge, there are never more than four or so of any dish in the fridge, so everything is served fresh. Pintxo also has a number of hot dishes, including a plate of pescaditos fritos--a pile of tiny fish dusted in flour, deep fried, and served with romesco--and a decently sized seafood paella. Prices start at $2 for a pair of toothpicks with chunks of avocado, radish, and jicama skewered on them, topping out at $12 for a foie gras parfait. Most of Pintxo's plates are between $4 and $6 and a serving is two individual pintxos.

The food was full of deep rich flavors coupled with a simplicity--only a few ingredients, basic spices, and loads of olive oil. The highlight was a slice of bread topped with chorizo, potatoes, romesco and a tiny sunny side-up quail egg.

As great as the food is, Pintxo's wine list is off the charts. 25 wines by the glass, all Spanish, all frequently changing. Wine's by the glass start at $5 with a huge selection falling under $8, something absolutely unheard of in a restaurant of this quality in the Bay Area. Especially given that even the $5 and $6 wines are quality small production Spanish imports.

So what did this all mean? When I left Pintxo's I was stuffed, had two glasses of wine, and spent about $35 or so. I easily could've had one fewer pintxo and I definitely didn't need the second glass of wine, so a less gluttonous me could've eaten extraordinarily well for about $25.

On those same few blocks of Santa Monica there's Bar Robata, a Japanese small plates bar, Chloe, an eclectic (gimmicky?) bar and lounge, and 3 on Fourth (a higher-end restaurant offering small plates as well as entrees) and several other pubs/bars/taverns that maybe, just maybe, are offering an opportunity for an eat and drink, eat and drink, eat and drink, evening out in California.

I'll find out soon.

Bar Pintxo
109 Santa Monica Boulevard
Santa Monica, Ca 90401
310-458-2012
www.barpintxo.com

Father's Office - Los Angeles, Ca

I'm going to declare the term "gastropub" dead.

Maybe there was a time where the idea of a casual establishment with a haute cuisine take on American/British bar food was innovative and rare.

That time has long passed. Just because you sell $7 pints of beer and are known for having "a great burger" doesn't make you something distinctive. It means you're a pub that has (gasp!) GOOD FOOD!

In fact, the basic premise of delicious well-made food in a casual atmosphere with copious amounts of alcohol is something that only the British or Americans would have to separately classify. Apparently in the Anglophonic world you either eat trash or you put on your smoking jacket and head out to spend 100 pounds sterling on an eight course tasting menu. God forbid you find someplace CASUAL that doesn't compromise on quality.

You know what? Most of the rest of the world calls that "dining." Cf. tapas, izakaya, brasserie, trattoria, meze, et al.

That being said, Father's Office was pretty damn good.

I'll be the first to declare that I like ordering at the counter. I think it's a nice streamlined way of operating. But when you combine that with a crowded scene-y spot like Father's Office the result is, at least for now, some degree of confusion.

The basic course of an evening at Father's Office: stand in line for a while (we didn't, we got there early). Enter, finally. Gaze around in confusion for a while. Finally find a table in the corner. Find out that table is reserved by one petite Armenian girl and her hand bag. Convince three other parties to reconfigure themselves so as to allow you four adjacent seats. Sit. Realize no food is coming. Right! Order at the counter! Find a menu. Decide what you want. Realize as you walk to the bar that there are also a bunch of specials. Damn. Change mind. Approach bar. Be served surprisingly quickly. Order a $7 beer and your food. Return to seat with little Carl's Jr.-esque plastic number. The food comes very quickly, thanks to a very limited menu driven heavily by burgers and the now-ubiquitous sweet potato fries.

While I'm declaring the word "gastropub" dead, I'm also going to declare "$4 pints of beer" dead, at least in Los Angeles. Ah well. It was bound to happen.

The beer selection at Father's Office is excellent. My only complaint is that it's not clear on the menu which of the many beers are draft and which are bottle. Order what you see from the wall of taps or risk spending a lot of money on a bottle of beer that you could track down at BevMo easily enough.

My duck confit salad, one of that day's specials, was great. Good fresh greens and a whole confit duck leg. I was expecting a smattering of pulled duck meat, especially given the incredibly reasonable $12 price tag. But nope, I got a whole crispy, juicy, fall-off-the-bone tender duck leg. Brother Noah and I also shared an order of grilled asparagus with hardboiled egg and serrano ham (rockin') and an order of the sweet potato fries which were also excellent. Perhaps the best I've had so far. Sweet potatoes, because of their higher sugar content, have a tendency to overly-brown on the outside while still remaining soft and undercooked. Through some mix of par-frying/blanching/black magic the Father's Office sweet potato fries are crisp, not burnt, and fully cooked.

The meal was great and the vibe's not too bad. I'd recommend going during off times because trying to mix a place that crowded with trying to actually enjoy food is just not worth it. Hit it up early for dinner and a pre-party before heading out to contract chlamydia.

Father's Office. Check it out.

Father's Office
3229 Helms Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90034
310-736-2224
www.fathersoffice.com

The Neighborhood Restaurant

After having spend so much time buried in the world of urban Bay Area fine dining I'd forgotten about what really makes the dining world turn: The Neighborhood Restaurant.

And I don't mean a neighborhood restaurant in the sense that the Chronicle defines it, where any restaurant that won't automatically get people to drive across a bridge is defined as a neighborhood restaurant. Nevermind that these would be among the best restaurants in town in virtually any other city in the country.

I'm talking about the neighborhood restaurant that provides a modest fine-dining experience with a decent wine list and good service for around $20-$30 a person instead of $40-$50.

Restaurants like this are the bastion of the sprawling suburbs. These are restaurants that cut corners in terms of ingredient quality in exchange for excellent prices. A place where the salmon might be wild, sure, but it's also frozen. Or a place that doesn't see the point in serving Niman Ranch pork if it means their sandwich is going to cost four dollars more.

And you know what? These restaurants are beautiful things.

They allow you to have an upscale night out without breaking the bank. I don't care to think about the number of nice dinners I've had wherein the bill for two people has been solidly over $100.

Shouldn't we be able to dine well for $50 or $60? We shouldn't have to go to TGIFriday's or Macaroni Grill (recently lambasted for the amount of sodium in their food, by the way) for an affordable meal out. We should still be able to patronize a quality, locally-owned, neighborhood establishment and not have it be so expensive we can't go back a few times a month.

Unfortunately I think the immediate Bay Area (San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, Marin) is so ingredient-obsessed that we don't understand what this really means for prices. One trip to Yelp! will show you so many "overpriced" complaints that you'll shit your pants, or at least really want to.

The first restaurant I worked at in the "gourmet ghetto" area was excellent. We served excellently prepared, flawlessly presented cuisine for extraordinarily reasonable prices. Appetizers were almost all under $10, entrees hovered in the upper teens. The menu changed often and was somewhat exotic. I think at one point we had a dozen different species of animals on our menu, including ostrich and antelope. Unfortunately the chef just didn't "get it" for that community. We served tomatoes out of season. Our lauded french fries were from Smart & Final. Our burgers were premade and basically everything other than produce was frozen. Yet we garnered good reviews and had a busy first wave. But nobody came back, because nobody really cared. We weren't offering what everyone else was offering for only marginally more.

I've come to think that we don't actually think our restaurants are overpriced. It just becomes a kneejerk response to sticker shock. Because the moderately priced restaurants close down and the $50 a person restaurant succeeds.

Except for Maritime East.

But I don't WANT to be stuck with a choice between sub $10 ethnic food and $50 California Cuisine.

Can't I have a nice place to go on a date with a girl I'm not sure I really like yet? I mean, that's not worth $100, is it? I probably won't even get any at the end of that date anyway. I should've taken her to P.F. Chang's.

So that being said, as I kinda mentioned before I spiraled away on this tangent, I ate at two good moderately priced restaurants recently. Both were in suburbia. Well, one was in San Jose, but most of San Jose is a massive suburb.

Did you know the Santa Clara Valley was developed by the same planner who plotted most of Los Angeles' postwar expansion? Explains a lot, no?

First, we have Elements in San Jose's southern Almaden Valley. This place is neighborhood restaurant exemplified. Solid food, solid wine list, great prices. Nothing phenomenal and the service was amateurish (but that weird overly-trained amateurishness), but it was good. My papaya salad had a pile of nicely dressed green papaya topped with a pair of fried prawns. For like, $6. My entree of stuffed pork loin was inexpertly stuffed and slightly overcooked, but it was decent and the price was right (about $17).

Strangely the wine list wasn't quite in line with the food, being priced at a slightly more premium markup with surprisingly few wines in the sub $30 range given the price of the cuisine. Perhaps that plays a role in subsidizing food prices?

Second, I had lunch at Eddie Papa's American Hang-Out in Pleasanton. The elegant interior doesn't match the kitschy theme (American classics from all over the country), and the service is embarrassingly amateurish (but also in that overly trained sense). The food, however, was respectable. My pulled pork sandwich was quite good and decently priced at $9. The admittedly smaller and french fry-less pulled pork sandwich at T-Rex is a good step and a half better for only $2 more. My dad had the halibut fish & chips. Why we keep insisting on deep frying halibut I don't understand, given it's propensity to overcook. The fish was decently prepared but dry and the fries were undercooked and underseasoned.

Okay, so maybe Eddie Papa's wasn't all that great. Nor was it particularly cheap. But the food was okay and prices were okay and the service was okay, and the space was warm and home-y. I appreciated the effort.

I'm hoping that there'll be room for places like this in more "refined" food communities in the Bay Area.

Though first thing we have to do is want it, I suppose.

Elements Restaurant
6944 Almaden Expressway
San Jose, CA 95120
408-927- 8773
www.sanjoseelements.com

Eddie Papa's American Hangout
4889 Hopyard Drive
Pleasanton, Ca 94588
925-469-6266
www.eddiepapas.com

Millennium - San Francisco, Ca

Stop the presses! Catch the flying pigs! Start building the snowmen in hell! Start the George W. Bush impeachment proceedings!

I agree with Michael Bauer.

I know, right?

That's something of a hyperbole, as I often agree with Michael Bauer's reviews in the Chronicle in many instances, at least in part. What I object to is his slavish devotion to "chef" cults, his adoration for ingredient at the expense of innovation and (in my mind) flavor, and the weird relationship he seems to have with the Kuleto restaurants.

What I'm saying is, rarely do I agree 100% with any Michael Bauer review, but in this instance I think he's nailed Millennium dead-on. I'll let you go to www.sfgate.com and look it up for yourselves.

Having once had a vegan girlfriend, I've actually been to the esteemed center of no-animal fine-dining a couple prior times and recall enjoying my meals, however this visit to celebrate a friend's 20th vegeversary was my first visit in a number of years and my first after having spent the last four firmly entwined in the world of Bay Area fine-dining.

The wine list here is excellent, very very well-priced, and food-friendly. They are a bit disingenuous when they label all their wines as either "organic," "biodynamic,"or "sustainably farmed," because only the first two labels mean that they are beholden to any sort of regulatory boards. Virtually all small-production wine of any quality, particularly in Europe but also domestically, is produced sustainably. Any non-factory farmed wine's pretty damn eco-friendly.

The food, overall, is quite good. That being said, in many instances it's very complicated to the point of being muddled, as Bauer mentioned in his most recent update. I'm not one who believes that one needs meat as a centerpiece for an entree to have a point--I've had some spectacular vegetarian entrees before and often find a big chunk of meat to be as boring as a plate of spaghetti.

At Millennium, however, so much of the food relies upon a truckload of ingredients and a shit ton of spices. There's a somewhat lackadaisical approach to presentation, many of the dishes arriving somewhat lukewarm (distressing given that food poisoning occurs most often from produce, not animal products). The pickles and beets that we shared at the table were delicious, the beets in particular were cooked nicely and accompanied with a well-made balsamic reduction. My appetizer of grilled flatbread was underwhelming--the only indication that the flatbread was "grilled" were the black marks--the bread was otherwise room temperature and a bit stale. The accompanying eggplant was nice, the cucumber was overloaded with spice. Girlfriend Charlie's shaved asparagus salad was perfectly cooked and dressed, but the little caraway cracker thing was stale.

Entrees showed Millennium's talents a bit more strongly. My injera crepe was pretty good, though served under-temperature. In this case I was expecting a spice orgy anyway due to the Ethiopian-inspired nature of the dish, so that wasn't a problem. I did find the dice of the vegetables to be too small to easily stab with a fork but too large to scoop and bits of food fell out of the crepe with every bite. Charlie's seared polenta cake with vegetables was delicious, though this dish in particular looked like it was missing a chunk of chicken or a rack of lamb short ribs sitting atop the vegetables and starch. Most other preparations did a good job of showcasing their vegetable protein centerpiece well. The hit of the evening was the chard roulade, stuffed with some sort of very well-executed vegan ricotta and mushrooms and nuts and all sorts of good stuff. Meaty, moist, flavorful without being overwrought, and served piping hot.

In every instance I would say that the plates were overconceived while still not having much of a point. Every dish was sort of "little chopped ingredients! spices spices spices! sauce sauce sauce! Pan-ethnic influences!" But with the exception of perhaps the roulade, nothing I tasted had any sort of gestalt, the sense of a whole of the dish that is greater than the sum of its parts. Which is the principal distinguisher of exquisite professionally prepared cuisine and a really good home-cooked meal.

I throw everything out the window when it comes to Millennium's desserts, however. The desserts are retarded good. Creamy, rich, decadent, and remarkably well assembled given their lack of eggs and dairy. The non-dairy ice creams have always been the best I've tasted. The chocolate almond midnight and the pistachio cake were two particular highlights. Desserts also had a distinctive quality of assembly where I felt there was a sense of the completed product throughout the preparation as opposed to the entrees, which had that "little of this, dash of that" quality of an accomplished amateur cook.

Sort of like Bob Ross messing around with watercolors on a canvas versus Michelangelo freeing his envisioned David from a single piece of marble--both results are pleasing, only one could be called transcendent.

And it's not the happy trees.

Not to say Millennium wasn't very good--it was and is still at or near the pinnacle of vegan fine-dining in America. I'd gladly go back and I'm curious to see if they're ever able to achieve what their chard roulade came very close to doing: an innovative, fully articulated, vegan dish to rival, say, Zuni roast chicken or Redd horseradish-crusted shortribs.

I'm pretty sure it's possible.

Millennium
580 Geary Street
San Francisco, Ca 94102
Reservations: 415-345-3900 or www.opentable.com
www.millenniumrestaurant.com

HFF has Lunch: Lola's

I want to bring up a place that I've been frequenting lately that is awesome, inexpensive, and unpretentious: Lola's on Solano Avenue. It's solely takeout and while Gregoire it surely isn't in terms of breadth of selection, there's a character to Lola's that Gregoire lacks and an immediacy to that food that is refreshing. Instead of a fixed monthly menu, the limited Lola's lunch offerings change almost daily.

The husband-wife (John and Donna) team spend the day roasting their famous chickens which I admittedly haven't had yet. Rather, I've come to enjoy their tasty focaccia sandwiches. A different sandwich each day, almost always only one, usually pretty eclectic (turkey and guacamole, coppa and roasted peppers, chicken and mango chutney, tuna salad with black olives) and always simply dressed on Donna's perfect lightly salty fresh-baked foccacia.

The sandwiches are on the small-ish side, but when you pair it with a slice of vegetable-studded frittata or savory vegetable tart you've got a rockin' awesome meal for less than $10. Lola's salads are also big and fresh and a nice change of pace.

It's also worth a drop-in for one of Donna's baked goods. Her pound cake in particular is spectacular.

The simplicity and lack of pretension is great. Get there early because they'll probably run out of their sandwiches. They make maybe a dozen or so each day and they're usually gone by 2:30 (sometimes earlier). Same goes for their daily soup and the roast chickens in the evening. While one might mistake it for surliness and poor planning, I see it as efficient food cost management. Why waste?

Lola's

1585 Solano Ave.

Berkeley, Ca

510-558-8600

A Wine Primer Part 3: Safe Bet Wines

In my continuing effort to steer people away from Charles Shaw and into the many many higher quality wines that can be had for only a couple dollars more, I present to you today some general guidelines to buying quality inexpensive wine.

I sell wine and many many people come in asking for one specific wine. Wine is a finite thing each year. There's only so much 2005 Chardonnay made by X Winery in a given year. When it's gone, it's gone. Additionally, wine can be allocated to retailers and distributors making it impossible to get more of it once it's gone. Many customers try to seek out a wine they loved that they'd had at a restaurant or a wine they'd had wine tasting, but many many wineries only sell direct through the winery or through restaurants.

Thankfully virtually every winery has embraced the internet as a means of selling their wine and shipping costs are relatively nominal.

So what can you do if you have a wine you really really like? There's surprisingly a lot of useful information on a label that can be very helpful. Here's a step by step:

1. Make note of winemaker, though this might not be as useful as you think.
2. What's the vintage?
3. Where is it from? (This is key).
4. What are the grapes?
5. Note the price (know that the retail price will be 30%-50% less than the wine list price).

Something that the Europeans have always recognized about their wines is that WHERE it's from is inextricable from WHAT'S in it. Soil and climate is the most important consideration in a wine--for instance Sancerre and Chablis taste strikingly similar even though one's Sauvignon Blanc and one's Chardonnay. Sancerre and Chablis are virtually next each other and their terroir consists of the same white chalky soil. A Chablis is more similar to a Sancerre than to another white Burgundy from across the region in, say, Macon or Meursault.

That's more for the advanced class though.

What I'm saying is, if you have a 2004 X Winery Dry Creek Zinfandel, you'll probably like MOST 2004 Zinfandels from Dry Creek. If you enjoyed a 2005 Jumilla Monastrell from Juan Gil, you'll like a 2005 Jumilla Monastrell from Casa Castillo. Though you probably won't like 2005 Yecla Monastrell.

More advanced class stuff, but you get my point. Admittedly a talented winemaker can do glorious stuff with excellent fruit and can MAYBE make a respectable wine from mediocre fruit, but what it really comes down to is the fruit. So instead of our American fixation on brand brand brand, let's take a different approach and think about PRODUCT.

You like a hamburger. You like roast chicken. You like ravioli. Sure if you had your druthers you'd get a Whopper, but you'll get a Famous Star before you get a BK Broiler in a pinch, because you know that in the end you like a greasy fast food burger regardless of producer more than you like a greasy fast food chicken sandwich from the same producer. You see?

But money's limited and sometimes you're just stuck someplace and need some wine. So what do you do?

I present to you a list of SURE THINGS! They're like a chick with tattoos who smokes and is overweight but in that still sorta hot way (i.e. big tits and a pleasant face), she'll pretty much always say yes.

1. Shiraz from Australia. It's never great, but it's always pretty rich and tasty without being tannic.

2. White wines from Spain or Italy. Unlike most other regions' whites that rely upon oak and weird herbal grassiness, Spanish and Italian whites are brisk, crisp, and innocuous. Guaranteed not to offend.

3. Gruner Veltliner. This might set you back a bit more than other wines, especially given its local trendiness, you can still get a liter of this tasty dry Austrian white wine for less than $15.

4. Cava & Prosecco. Fuck Korbel's. If you want a cheap sparkling wine grab one of these from the value bins of Spain and Italy. Always crisp, almost always bottle conditioned, and almost always for under $10 (especially Cava). Trader Joe's has one right now for $5.99 that is pretty wickedly inoffensive.

5. California Merlot. As maligned as this grape has been lately, it really does deserve its consideration as one of the most esteemed grapes in the world. It's lush and soft, mellow, and with a few hints of earthy complexity even in lower priced examples.

6. Red wine from the south of France for under $10. For some reason France doesn't let much bad cheap wine get out, I don't know why this is, but it seems to be true. Look for stuff from the Southern Rhone, Languedoc, and Provence. Grenache from this reason is a particularly good bet. Nothing great, but tasty and versatile.

7. Queer varietals (I'm reclaiming the word!) from California. A lot of wineries are experimenting with some funky grapes these days. Sylvaner. Grenache. Carignane. Albarino. Petit Verdot. Viognier. Chenin Blanc. Muscat. These're being done by a handful of producers with some excellent results and since the wines have virtually no demand, they're almost all under $20 with many around $10 or less.

Hope that helps.

Opinion! Adventure! Consensus!

I've been thinking more about my hatred of Yelp! and crap like that, and I think I've distilled it down to one very basic thing:

A disdain for this human need to have some sort of consensus opinion to reference before said human tries something.

Obviously, this is something that is necessary in things like popular elections and Constitutional Amendments, but I don't think it's necessary for things like finding a place for lunch or deciding whether you want to try a new sex toy.

Because, first and foremost, is there anything more distinctive and person-specific than one's tastes in music and tastes in erotic stimulation?

To what end is establishing some sort of broad-based record of what a bunch of individuals think about largely inexpensive holes in the wall? Why are we so insecure about trusting our own instincts? They're the only instincts that matter, right?

Some of the best meals that I've had have been serendipitous mosey-ings into restaurants that I had no previous knowledge of their existence. Like Wakasan and Brandywine in Los Angeles, for instance. Or Sophia, Gregoire, and Lanesplitter in the East Bay.

Why are we so afraid to look at a menu, check out the type of food, the price, and then just walk in and give it a go? And hell, if the place is pricey, look up some critical reviews from newspapers--not for the final declaration of stars, but for the narrative description of what was consumed and make a decision. Knowing that will allow you to judge your own tastes against the tastes of the reviewer in reference to the food served.

It's also a helluva lot more fun. You discovered some place ON YOUR OWN! You actually UNDERSTAND what YOU like and can reason out a judgment on a restaurant based on YOUR tastes! Amazing! You're an unique, self-determining individual.

w00t!

A friend of mine discussed her growing disdain for Yelp! because she had tried numerous highly recommended taquerias and found them lacking. I had to explain to her that people on Yelp! by and large don't really think too critically about their food and render broad judgment based primarily on the quaintness of the taco truck and the spiciness of the meat. Tacos are one of those things like pizzas, burritos, and burgers--they're pretty easy to do well, difficult to totally fuck up, and nearly impossible to make transcendent.

My basic premise is this: you are just as likely to like or dislike a restaurant whether it was reviewed by 100 of your closest Yelp! friends or it has yet has yet to grace Yelp!'s hallowed halls. Because it's just a matter of your taste and your taste in food and dining is uniquely yours.

Here's my challenge: if a specific restaurant is a place that you'll get out of for less than $20, look at the menu and if it looks good, give it a go. If it's over $20, I give you the right to go online and do some additional research, but avoid anything that gives you a capsule summarization on something like Citysearch or Yelp! Try to find something more detailed.

And at the end of the day whether you had a wonderful experience or a terrible one, you'll be a better person for having tried something new. Take that risk and just go for it. Dining out is all about the experience anyway.

If all you cared about was the food, you could just eat at home.

Adventure!

Lunch!

Having spent much of the last three years either working or going to school almost every evening of the week I haven't been one to really "go out to dinner" much. Most evening meals are a quick slice of pizza or some Chinese takeout. When I do go out to eat it's an occasion, planned in advance with the location deliberately selected.

The flipside? I I've had the pleasure of enjoying what very few normal folks get to do.... Frequent long leisurely off-hours lunches on a whim. I don't have to blast through a sixty minute power lunch, nor do I have to eat between noon and 1:30.

Lunch has its advantages.... It's more laid back, especially if you get there after the rush. The menu, while generally smaller, will usually offer the dishes the restaurant's known for and usually have a broader array of sandwiches, salads, and smaller plates which often are a better showcase of a kitchen's abilities and innovation. And also the servers are typically less experienced, which means they're usually younger and cuter.

So in my travels I've found some rockstar fabulous lunch spots worth a drop-by.

First, the good cheap spots:
1. Sophia on Solano Avenue in Albany
2. Yammy Sushi in El Cerrito Plaza
3. King Tsin on Solano Avenue in Berkeley (Dim Sum!)
4. Magnolia Pub at Haight/Masonic in San Francisco

But recently I rediscovered A16 and have quickly found one of the best lunch spots in town. I found myself with time to kill in the Marina and I caught A16 on one of its open days for lunch (Wed-Fri only). Assortment of salads, a few pastas and small plates, and their full array of pizzas--probably the best in town.

Glass of wine, salad, and a pizza and I was out the door for $43. Of course one didn't need the wine or the salad, and I took half the pizza home so realistically you could be out of there sated and pleased for under $30.

Hard to beat for a meal at one of the better restaurants in SF.

A16
Chestnut at Divisadero
www.a16sf.com
Reservations: 415-771-2216 or www.opentable.com

HFF Quickie: Uncle Yu's at the Vineyard

Growing up in the California suburbs there's one cuisine that you come to love more than any other: American Chinese food.

I'm not talking authentic Szechwuan cuisine or ducks' tongue congee. I'm talking General Tsou's chicken. Kung Pao chicken. Lemon chicken. All forms of chicken, pork, and etc loaded with deep-fried goodness and serious sweetness.

It's what mom or dad picks up on her or his way home from work when they don't want to cook. It's what you and your friends get for lunch when you go out to eat like grown-ups (but still can't spend more than $10 a person). It's what your parents tried every now and then to cook at home but could never get to taste as good as at Mandarin Garden down on the corner.

My dad always said it was the "dirty oil" at Chinese restaurants that made it taste so distinctive. If that's the case then dirty oil is delicious.

It's something that you don't find in the cities, but you'll find in every suburb (or even rural town) where a Chinese immigrant has set up shop to sell versions of cuisine from their home land delightfully corrupted for the American palate.

One of my great frustrations is that despite living in an area with a significant Chinese-American population, I have to return home over the hills to get really good American Chinese food. Everything out here is about authenticity, which is all well and good every now and then, but what about some nice Szechwuan eggplant and chicken chow mein on a $7.95 lunch special?

I had the pleasure of recently eating at the pinnacle of American Chinese: Uncle Yu's at the Vineyard in downtown Livermore. It was a family affair as we celebrated my brother's birthday, and everything we had was great. Only in the appetizers was there even a hint of "east-west" fusion, overall everything was authentically true to mid-20th century American Chinese food.

Duck spring rolls, dry-fried garlic green beans, fried eggplant, tender fried squid, chicken chow fun, fish in black bean sauce--it was fucking awesome. Flavors were thick without being overly salty, fried food was crisp and airy, meat was tender and of significantly better quality than most establishments of its ilk.

Plus there's none of the annoying gimmickry or pretension of a shitty-ass P.F. shitty shitty Chang Chang's.

But I have yet to get to the best part.... Uncle Yu's has an enormous wine list that offers a brilliant (if relatively conventional) array of wines from primarily California and France, including an enviable Alsatian selection to pair well with the cuisine. We enjoyed a great 2004 Guerra California Chardonnay and a pretty much flawless 2001 Pernand-Vergelesses red Burgundy with lightly steeped tannins and tasty cherry fruit.

Dinner was pretty reasonable too, about $190 for four of us for more than enough food (and that includes $90 on wine).

So there you have it. Uncle Yu's is the first restaurant east of Walnut Creek to get the HFF seal of approval. Pretty fucking great.

Uncle Yu's at the Vineyard
39 South Livermore Ave.
Livermore, Ca 94550
Reservations: 925-449-7000
www.uncleyuatthevineyard.com

Why Yelp! Sucks, Volume 2

I hate Yelp! I really do. I don't just hate what a lot of people write on the site, but I actually hate the site itself and everything it stands for. Which is essentially providing limitedly relevant information while exploiting a false sense of community for a profit.

But that's a rant for a much older post.

The principal problem with Yelp! is that there is no oversight or moderation. Unlike Chowhound, which is a moderated message board with specific relevance criteria, Yelp! is a haven for uncorrected misinformation and irrelevance.

I'm no longer working in restaurants, so I feel compelled to speak a bit more freely. Some things I've encountered on Yelp!:

1. T-Rex BBQ in Berkeley was given a one-star rating by a user because it's menu "didn't seem like barbecue."

2. The restaurant where I worked was lambasted for our french fries being "obviously frozen." We barely have a freezer (it has ice cream and a few odds and ends in it) and have never, ever, ever, ever, not once, ever, frozen our french fries. In fact they're cut fresh every day.

3. The restaurant where I worked was also "lambasted" because of our wine service. Nevermind that the professed "wine connoisseur" waited until all the glasses had been poured and his wife complained about the temperature of the wine before he tried to somehow finagle a free bottle. Sack up and know what the fuck you're doing and make this judgment BEFORE you nod for the waiter to pour the rest of the table. Here's what you do, you say, "Why that tastes fine but I think it's a little warm, could you put it on ice for a bit before pouring the rest?" Come on! Care enough about your wife's taste to know that maybe she likes colder wine than you do. Or just slap the bitch for making you look bad. That's what I would do.

4. A two-star review of the venerable Rivoli: "if they happen to have something you like that day-- bully-- otherwise your sort of SOL." Wow, no fucking shit. What do you want some fucking terrible shithole restaurant that has chow mein, ravioli bolognese, and steak frites? How retardedly retarded. "Hey, if this place doesn't have what you like than they won't have what you like." Fuck those fucking restaurants and their small changing menus! Curse their, freshness, seasonality and restraint from wasting food! Last time I checked Rivoli typically offers a chicken/duck, pork, beef/lamb, vegetable, and a couple fish dishes on every menu! That covers pretty much the range of menu proteins. What the fuck do you want? Falafel? Then go to a fucking falafel joint.

I'm getting to a point here.

On a place like a Chowhound, such asinine reviews or such blatant misinformation could be immediately responded to by other users and done so directly in a thread, not buried a dozen posts later on Yelp! Moderators could also redirect, clarify, or in some instances delete posts that are malicious or clearly false. But even an unmoderated message board allows for immediate user correction. This is why edits on Wikipedia declaring George W. Bush's penchant for a2m pornography don't last very long. And why Wikipedia might lock certain controversial pages from further editing.

Yelp! doesn't do that because Yelp! needs happy users to visit their site and see their ads so that restaurants will pay Yelp! money to pick which reviews a user sees first.

So I guess in the democratic world of the internet Yelp! is the ultimate example of American democracy. Keep the citizenry placated by pretending that their input matters and let those with money pay to create their own reality.

And so what if Yelp! might give you a lead on a good banh mi place in downtown Oakland? You could also just walk around downtown Oakland and look for a banh mi joint, eat a banh mi, decide if you like it, then decide if it's a place you'll go back to. It's called adventure and discovery. Take that big plunge and go eat somewhere without asking a dozen of your closest internet friends whether it's good or not.

Besides, they're probably just a bunch of ignorant assholes with poor taste anyway.

Sebo - San Francisco, Ca

I operate my life on two basic principles:

1. Inconvenience others as little as possible.
2. Be as productive as possible as quickly as possible.

When principle 1 and 2 are in conflict, 2 trumps 1. This sometimes causes problems for coworkers and loved ones.

Going out to a sushi bar and ordering omakase is the only way I can think of to dine out and fully and completely abide by these principles.

You show up, you sit down, somebody brings you a few drinks, and then the sushi chef starts sending out food. He doesn't have to ask you what you want, you don't have to pore over a menu. And then when you're done you pay your bill and leave. It's liberating. The chef makes food, the eater eats. No middle person. And by eliminating the stresses of ordering food and dealing with waiters, your meal will be just that much more goddamn tasty.

I started reading The Zen of Fish recently and as a result I developed a serious craving for some reasonably authentic Japanese food. Girlfriend Charlie and I were out shopping in Hayes Valley when I noticed Sebo's unassuming storefront. Why how fortuitous! We returned right when it opened at 6pm and grabbed a spot at the sushi bar.

Omakase was the name of the game and pretty much the only way to eat at an upscale sushi bar like Sebo. The courses came steadily. First was a tender marinated octopus appetizer followed by a mountain vegetable salad. Excellent. Next up were steamed clams in sake, simply but tasty. The first round of sashimi was really nice. Your usual suspects, but all impeccably fresh. The nigiri was similar, though the uni, ama-ebi (with accompanying grilled shrimp head), and tamago were all strikingly good. The rice was warm, loosely packed, and well seasoned. We also snagged two of their rolls--one was a fresh blanched asparagus roll, the other was a deliciously refreshing combination of daikon sprouts, tuna, avocado, lemon, and sea salt. Last dish was a vegetable and shrimp chirashi sushi topped with broiled eel.

So yeah, the food was pretty fucking good. Great, even. And pretty reasonably priced for the quality. That being said, Sebo was a slight disappointment for two reasons. First, they didn't offer anything distinctive, with the exception of the one tuna roll which was still pretty straightforward California sushi, nor did they offer a particularly big selection of sushi staples. Second, in my (admittedly limited) experience with omakase, the chef traditionally offers up a course or two that isn't typically available from the a la carte menu. Sebo's omakase was simply a collection of menu items presented in a logical order. That's like finally scoring a date with a porn star, but you only ending up doing missionary. It's still good, sure... but it's disappointing. You can get any chick to do missionary.

So near as I can tell Sebo's as close to traditional sushi as you can get outside of Japan and it was effing tasty. I just wish it pushed the boundaries a little bit. Even the best sushi bars in Tokyo allow for a degree of fluidity and whimsy. It's the nature of the beast--tradition colored with faint touches of iconoclasm. Sebo felt a bit rote. Deliciously rote, but rote nonetheless.

Sebo
571 Hayes St.
San Francisco, Ca 94102
415-864-2122
Reservations: No.

Landmark Wines

Although Landmark Vineyards is an excellent Sonoma County producer of wine, I'm referring not to this esteemed purveyor of California Burgundies but rather to fine bottles of fermented liquid grapes that have changed how I look at wine.

Wine's always been a part of my life. My parents dragged my brother and me wine tasting all the time, but it pretty much all tasted like creeping death. Except for Manischewitz at Passover, which was awesome.

In the last few years I've encountered wines that have rapidly changed how I've come to understand what this vastly over-mystified, over-priced, and over-douchey product means and how it can be really fucking good.

2003 Txomin Etxaniz Getariako Txakolina. Light, crisp, slightly effervescent, and a minerally finish longer than Ron Jeremy's back hair.

2003 Michael Gay & Fils Savigny les Beaune 1er Cru"Les Serpentieres." Holy shit! There's dirt in this wine. It tastes like dirt! And not in a bad way! Awesome.

NV Bonnaire Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs. An independent champagne producer with a yeasty, bready, limey, zesty, and uber-complex glass of gold that tickled my tongue and other lame wine writing words.

2003 Wild Hog Carignane. Rich, juicy, ripe, and matched perfectly with pizza.

2002 Kuentz-Bas Tokay Pinot Gris. This was the first time I ever impressed a girl with a bottle of wine. It worked so well I bought a case. I ended up giving the rest away as Christmas presents. Because it's not worth spending money on broads, 'cause then all they want is your riches when the only thing they should be after is your jimmy. Word.

Charles Shaw Merlot. This wine fucking sucks. It made me realize that cheap wines suck and people who think they're "getting away with something" by pretending that shitty cheap wine is actually good are simply deluded assholes. It's shitty cheap wine. That's it. Enjoy it as such.

2005 Bonny Doon Pacific Rim Riesling. Now THIS is a cheap wine worth drinking. Dry, crisp, floral, and citrusy. Admittedly it's a whopping $8 a bottle at Trader Joe's, but it's like at least a million times better than Charles Shaw.

A Wine Primer Part 2

As I mentioned before, wine comes from grapes. Grapes are a plant. Some of you might eat grapes. These grapes are usually not the same grapes you make wine out of.

My point is, grapes are a fruit that grows from the ground. They're a surprisingly hearty fruit that grows well in some of the most intimidating landscapes in the world.

And as we've learned, virtually every wine-making grape varietal is the exact same species. Vitis vinifera is very prone to natural mutation. In fact new research has suggested that all white grape varietals come from a single vine that had a rare mutation of two genes.

What I'm saying is, even though they're all the same species, the cultivars are strikingly different. Different grapes have different characteristics, properties, and as a result certain grapes grow phenomenally well in some areas and grow for shit in other areas.

What are some general rules about grapes?

Generally speaking, cold climates produce white wine. Germany, Austria, and Alsace produce almost exclusively white wine, the red wine production limited to pinot noir and other thin-skinned early ripening red grapes. Why is that? Most red varietals ripen much later than white varietals, but colder climates have a much shorter growing season and wines like zinfandel and cabernet sauvignon would be painfully underripe if harvested before snows and frost freeze the grapes on the vine. Additionally, acidity (a product of near-underripeness) is a characteristic that is immensely appealing in most white wines but is not desirable in most red wines. Conversely, overripeness is almost universally deplored in quality white wines but if properly controlled in certain red wines hints of extra ripeness can be beneficial.

If something like a riesling grape is planted in southern Italy, the grape would ripen fully too early and be rich, overripe, grapey, and cloying. If a pinot noir is harvested too soon, it will be tart, bitter, and generally crappy.

Certain grapes grow better in certain regions because of how compatible the grape's development schedule is with the climate of the region.

So yeah, think about climate when you think about wine. If it's a cooler climate, think acidic white wines like riesling, gruner veltliner, pinot blanc, and chardonnay, as well as pinot noir, and some other red grapes you probably have never heard of like Dornfelder and Schiava. Sparkling wine will generally come from cooler climates as well. Warmer climates think rich ripening reds like cabernet sauvignon, zinfandel (a wild card that also likes some cooler climates), tempranillo, as well as Rhone and Italian varietals.

Really hot climates (eastern Australia, California's Central Valley, parts of southern France, chunks of Spain, southern Italy), think cheap, ripe, inoffensive, and innocuous wines with little character and complexity.

Breakfast at Brown Sugar Kitchen - Oakland, Ca

There's something about being white, middle-class, and ostensibly Jewish that makes me love soul food. Slow-cooked greens and pork. Corn bread. Fried chicken. Black-eyed peas. Corn bread. Biscuits. Hush puppies. Okra. Pecan pie. Corn bread. Mmmmmm. Corn bread.

Let's just ignore the fact that half of my extended family lives in Virginia. That has nothing to do with my love of southern food. Nothing at all.

The only thing keeping me from enjoying soul food more often?

I'm scared of West Oakland.

I decided to transcend my apprehension for locations whose addresses are "______ & Mandela" and head out to Tanya Holland's newest venture, Brown Sugar Kitchen.

The food was pretty g-d good.

Girlfriend Charlie and I headed out for a late breakfast while she had the windshield on her Bentley replaced. The restaurant's located on a pretty barren stretch of Mandela just north of West Grand on the edge of an emerging residential neighborhood.

The space is sleek and stylish while still being home-y. The smokey aromas of barbecue were present but not overwhelming. We sat at the counter and were immediately given a couple beignets with meyer lemon marmalade and plum jam. It was something the kitchen was experimenting with that morning. Light, fluffy, and crisp and dusted with powdered brown sugar.

The breakfast menu's small but has what you need--granola, baked goods, poached eggs and grits, egg and bacon sandwich, egg and vegetable tart, and cornmeal waffles (add chicken for $5).

Charlie had the sandwich (with the optional ham). It's pretty damn good, served on a soft wheat roll. I opted for the chicken and waffle. The waffle was fantastic--light and airy but with a crispy crunch. The chicken was also tasty and well-spiced. It's cooked in advance and kept warm so it lacked the immediate crunch that fresh-fried chicken has, but it was still moist. I doused the plate with Tabasco and maple syrup and it was quite satisfying.

We also got a fresh buttery biscuit (with more fabulous plum jam) and a mini pecan pie (so fresh that there was a bit of shell in the pie) with a fresh un-syrupy sweetness.

The restaurant's barely been open a month which was reflected in the inconsistent (but friendly) service and the inconsistent (but friendly) timing issues in the kitchen.

The lunch menu looks rock-star fabulous and we'll head back soon to try the jerk chicken barbecue, po'boy, and probably another couple pecan pies, for what it's worth.

Also, good looking wine list and local beers on draught.

Fresh, reasonable, rich, and tasty.

Brown Sugar Kitchen
2534 Mandela Parkway
Oakland, Ca 94607
510-839-7685
www.brownsugarkitchen.com

A Wine Primer Part 1

Wine is delicious. This cannot be contested by any single person in the entire world. I challenge ye!

Wine also is not as complicated as it is made out to be. Just because something can be expensive does not mean it's particularly more complex than beer or whatever else.

Hell, in many ways wine is simpler than beer as wine doesn't require cooking and has fewer flavoring components than beer.

But that's a digression.

Over time at HFF I'll throw out some simple explanations and studies to demystify the wine world.

Some things to know:

1. Wine is made from grapes. Most of you know this. Know however that there are over 2000 different grape varietals from which wine is made, and there are scores of varietals that are used to make wines that are held in high esteem but wine drinkers, makers, and collectors.

2. Most wine is made from one grape. Or rather, one species of grape. Virtually every table wine is made from vitis vinifera, that probably originated from the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Every wine grape you can probably name (except for Concord and Scuppernong) is a cultivar of this grape species. Think of wine grapes like dogs.

3. In most of the world, wines are NOT labeled by varietal. Varietal naming is something that is more or less unique to the New World (Alsace in France, Germany, and Austria being notable exceptions). In most parts of Europe where the grapes are grown and the wine is made is of the most importance. Over time, certain grapes became associated with certain regions and that has since been codified into regulations that now require wines labeled in a certain way to contain a specific varietal or combination of varietals. More on that in a bit.

So who makes wine?

There are two over-arching wine-growing areas, the New World and the Old World. The Old World is just that, Europe and parts of Asia. Many of the former Soviet states were esteemed wine producers in the years prior to Soviet rule but collectivization resulted in artisan wine-making being virtually halted in favor of high-yield production for cheap mass consumption. That is slowly changing. New World wine producers include North America (mostly the USA, but also Canada and Mexico), South America (Argentina and Chile, primarily), Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.

In the Old World, France, Italy, and Spain outproduce all the other countries by a hefty margin. The wines of Germany and Austria (which despite the similarity in grape varietals and language are markedly different) are very highly regarded in export markets and produce white wine that is rivaled only by France (and for significantly less money). Portugal, Greece, and increasingly Slovenia are playing a significant role in the export market. Hungary produces a modest amount of wine for export (mostly the incredible Tokaji dessert wine) and Israel is increasingly working its way overseas. That being said, every country in Europe, Asia, and North Africa south of grape-growing latitudes and non-Islamic fundamentalism produce wine, most of it for domestic consumption.

In the New World, the United States, Australia, and Argentina are the major producers. Within the US, winemaking takes place mostly on the west coast, with a few well-regarded producers in New York and Virginia. Australia's Barossa Valley produces some of its most esteemed wines (as opposed to the cheaper college party staples like Yellowtail and Lindemann's). In Argentina, Mendoza is the main wine region. South Africa is a small but excellent producer of some specific grape varietals and New Zealand is garnering respect overseas for its Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir. Canada is producing some of the best ice wine (a type of dessert wine) in the world.

So going back to my point about varietals, it can be very difficult, especially for Californians growing up with domestic wine labeling conventions to navigate wines from other parts of the world. Here's a basic overview of what grape varietals you'll USUALLY find in wines from the major international wine producing countries. Know that there are producers trying out many other varietals in all these regions.

New World (New World wines are almost always varietally labeled)

United States:
- California: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Zinfandel, Pinot Noir (red) and Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc (white)
- Oregon: Pinot Noir (red) and Chardonnay (white)
- Washington: Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir (red) and Riesling, Chardonnay (white)

Canada:
Vidal (for ice wine)

Australia:
Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon (red) and Semillon (white)

South Africa:
Cabernet Sauvignon (red) and Chenin Blanc (white)

Argentina:
Malbec and Tempranillo (red) with very limited white production, usually Sauvignon Blanc and Torrontes

Chile:
Cabernet Sauvignon (red) with very limited white production, usually Sauvignon Blanc

New Zealand:
Pinot Noir (red) and Sauvignon Blanc (white)


Old World (Old World wines are rarely varietally labeled)

France:
- Burgundy: Pinot Noir (red) and Chardonnay (white)
- Bourdeaux: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot (primary, with Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, and Malbec as subsidiary) (red) and Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin Blanc (white)
- Loire: Sauvignon Blanc and Chenin Blanc (white) and very little red
- Rhone: Grenache, Syrah (primary, with Mourvedre subsidiary) and Marsanne, Roussanne, Viognier (white)
- Alsace: Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Pinot Gris, Muscat (white) and very little red
- Provence: Mourvedre, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah (red and rose) and very little white
- Languedoc: Carignane, Cinsault, Grenache, Syrah (red) and Grenache Blanc (white)

Germany:
Riesling (white) and very little red for export

Austria:
Riesling, Gruner Veltliner (white) and very little red for export

Italy:
- Northern: Sangiovese, Nebbiolo, Barbera (red) and Arneis, Garganega, Pinot Grigio, Tocai Friuliano (white)
- Central: Montepulciano (red) and Trebbiano (white)
- Southern: Negroamaro, Aglianico (red) and Falanginha and Greco di Tufo (white)

Spain:
Garnacha, Tempranillo/Toro (red) and Verdejo, Albarino, and Sauvignon Blanc (white)

Portugal:
Too goddamn numerous to name. Portugal is very confusing.

Greece:
Assyrtiko (white) and very little red.

Hungary:
Egri Bikaver (actually a designated blend of three+ specific red grapes) and Furmint (used to make the white Tokaji dessert wine)

Israel:
Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot (red) and very little white for export.

Enough for now.

Next up we'll discuss the nature of global wine growing regions and how it affects wine type, varietals, and quality.

REPOST! Dining and the Sex Trade: A Comparative Dichotomy

So this is my all time favorite post of all time. Don't worry, I'll get some new content up soon.

There's a reason that food and sex are intertwined in many aspects of our popular culture. There have been recent studies that suggest that food, cooking, and dining become sort of a proxy for the sex that gradually disappears from life as we age. The new, sleek, soft-focus, high-production value programming on The Food Network and its spin-offs reinforce this correlation. Is this a product of greater affluence and ennui? As food becomes "in" and "sexy" and therefore reaches a wider audience, is it imperative that the brainy food-nerd cooking shows and books of the past, when such programming was relegated to weekend mornings on PBS and a tiny corner of the bookstore, be replaced by the immediate gratification of Rachel Ray's apple bottom and Sandra Lee and Giada DeLaurentiis' respective racks? Not to mention Paula Deen's cockslaps of butter and Tyler Florence's panty-dropping chin dimple, all greeting us from the entire cooking wing at Barnes and Noble.

Let's look at this further.

Eating and fucking are, on a good day, total mind-body experiences that transcend their respective immediate physical gratifications. And while we're often able to fulfill our gustatory and sexual needs by ourselves to great effect (dinner for one and self-love being two of life's greatest pleasures) the addition of others can often increase the enjoyment--and in many instances make things more complicated and awkward.

And of course with all things sexual and gustatory, even numbers are better.

But perhaps the most distinctive similarity between eating and sex is how we take the activities out of the privacy of our homes and into the public world--that we're willing to utilize the services of professionals to meet the needs that we're fully capable of fulfilling on our own.

(As a side note, we use the word "fulfill" in describing our food and sexual needs I think because of its prominent compounding of "full" and "fill," two words eminently appropriate for both eating and fucking.)

For the purpose of this writing, the "sex trade" is a fairly broad term not limited to strippers, porno, dildos, and whores. I'm talking about sex-positive sex shops, mens' and womens' magazines of all kinds, sex advice columns and columnists, lingerie, swimwear, boxer briefs, plastic surgery, Abercrombie & Fitch (we sell abs!)--any business that capitalizes in whole or part upon the human preoccupation with increasing the pleasure and frequency of sexual activity. Because let's face it, we can talk all we want about these commodities increasing our self-esteem, but that increase in self-esteem ultimately comes entirely from being viewed as a more sexually attractive animal. It's cool. Roll with it.

Let's examine why we (often eagerly) seek out to exchange our hard-earned symbolic representations of our assets for food and tail.

1. It's more convenient. An acquaintance of mine is a dominatix. She once had a client pay her to put her foot into his butt. Her entire be-latexed foot into his prepared bottom. Let's say you're an otherwise normal, healthy individual with a stable home life and good job, but every now and then you need a foot in your butt. What's easier, trying to explain to your partner your desire to have a foot in your butt, or going out a few times a year, shelling out some money and discretely indulging in your secret pleasure?

I love good sauces, like a good mole or slow-simmered Indian entree, but when I feel like indulging in one of these dishes it's easier to shell out the money at a good Mexican or Indian restaurant then attempt to seek out the dozens of spices and slow-cook my food for twelve hours.

While it might be rewarding to learn to cook chana masala on your own and it might be rewarding to share your foot-in-butt fetish with your committed partner, unless your cravings for either occur on a daily basis it's probably simpler and more comfortable to leave it in the hands of professionals. Enjoy those simple, comfortable workhorse dishes at home with loved ones. And hell, definitely be adventurous with your non-remunerated partners--try out that rare artisan ingredient or exciting new bundt pan with the same titillating eagerness as a new vibrator or kama sutra position. But if you find yourself deviating into the aforementioned foot-in-butt and beyond, probably best to take that to the dungeon.

A corollary: unless you're a drug-addled rock star you probably don't want to be married to a coked-up stripper but unless you live in a Mormon cave (and even then....) you've probably enjoyed a lap dance from one. It's easy, refreshing, and probably won't result in having your bank account cleaned out and your kids grow up to be junior development executives for basic cable, things that would no doubt happen were you to marry the stripper.

Lastly--just throwing this out there--you don't pay a prostitute for sex, you pay for him or her to leave afterward. See? Convenience!

2. It's cleaner. Building on that previous idea, it could be said that we don't go out to eat for the food, we go out to eat to have somebody else clean up afterward. This is why rich people have man-servants. Rich people are inherently more noble and shouldn't have to get their hands dirty.

Do you really want to clean that out of your jacuzzi or wipe that off of your foot? Professionals of all kinds have the experience, tools, cleaning products, brass polish, insurance policies, and changes of clothes to deal with the gustatory and excretory problems that may arise from their lines of work. Because even if you're cooking the simplest pasta dish, you're still going to have some dirty dishes afterward and it's just so much more relaxing to not have to deal with that.

And it's also cleaner for a variety of socio-emotional reasons touched on in the previous entry and that I'll touch on in the following entry.

3. It eliminates personal responsibility. I would argue this is the most significant reason for the seemingly growing popularity of dining and sexing-up outside the home. If we cook food in our own home and it sucks, we have nobody to blame but ourselves. When I talk to people about why they don't cook, fear of failure underlies any reason that they give. And as with anything, if we don't keep reading, studying, learning, and experimenting, we'll never get better. I don't mean the quick-fix open a can and heat "cooking" that you get from Rachel Ray and Sandra Lee, but actual intuitive from-scratch cooking.

If we go out to eat and we don't like the food, we can call it somebody else's fault. If we turn ourselves over to the vicissitudes of dining trends and prepackaged commodities, we eliminate the vitality that personal opinion, culture, region, and taste plays in how we enjoy food. Fear of sexual inadequacy underlies almost every human insecurity so no wonder we like to trust "experts" and "techniques" instead of "our bodies" when it comes to sex and relationships, because then it's the technique's fault and we don't have to actually do anything ourselves.

But If we turn our sex lives over to guidebooks, videos, Carrie Bradshaw, and "hot tips" from Cosmo, we eliminate the personal responsibility of being in tune with our own bodies, tastes, and pleasures. Not to mention it creates the presumption that all men like some degree of anal stimulation, a gross exaggeration perpetrated by womens' magazines. Food magazines also seem to suggest that we as a people are way into tiny "slider"-type sandwiches. This is (or at least should be) a similarly gross exaggeration. That's right loyal readers, gourmet sliders equals a finger on the prostate.

Moving responsibility for sexual fulfillment over to movies, clothing, advertisements, jewelry, and (oh what's this?) food allows us to sidestep the actual problems. We're too fat. We're no longer attractive to or attracted by our partner. We're not good at sex. We come too soon. We're just not sexually compatible with our current partner. We can't cook chicken without it drying out. We don't know how to clean mushrooms. We don't even know where to begin to make a pie crust. So let's go buy a new car. Or a diamond necklace. Or have a couple children. And let's go to Zuni. Or the truffle dinner at Oliveto. Or finally eat at the French Laundry (sort of the dining equivalent of two $10,000 Vegas call girls and a kilo of coke).

But you might find, just maybe, that learning how to cook really well and learning how to fuck really well will enrich your life in ways that can't be made proxy. We're talking about a critical learning experience here though. It takes effort. You need to learn how to do the things you aren't good at, not find versions of things to do that fit better with what you're already able to do. Try. Error. Learn. Get better. What's great about both cooking and fucking is that the processes are a hell of a lot of fun and worth doing a lot.

4. It's fun. And this is what it all comes down to, doesn't it? There are plenty of people who can cook really well and fuck like champs who still love the French Laundry and a good coke orgy.

Plenty of happily married people still love flirting, strip clubs, and pornography because, hell, it's just a lot of fun. They fulfill (there's the word again) needs that, without placing judgment, cannot be met by a home-cooked meal or a home-fucked partner, no matter how good the respective meal or partner. To the same tune, a loving stable partner and a fabulous home-cooked meal fill voids that no Perfect 10 model or twelve-course tasting menu can.

But going out to eat and being treated well in a beautiful space with the added reward of a spectacular meal is a blast. Going to a tastefully appointed gentleman's club to enjoy a beverage and discuss the issues of the day, while beautiful scantily-clad women with daddy issues dance to earn money to open their tanning salon is a lot of fun. They're also our Allah-given rights as Americans.

So I'm saying it's not all doom and gloom. Four star restaurants and hookers are not telltale signs of a collapsing civilization, even if they might be better indicators than gay marriage and teen pregnancy. In fact, I'd argue that going out to eat and the sex industry are not just parts of, but essential to a functional modern democracy--there's a reason that market regulation and liberalization of the sex trade is a hallmark of virtually every developed country in the world and there are very few Michelin-starred restaurants in countries' whose GDP per capita is less then dinner for four at the Ritz-Carlton (cf. sarcasm). They're market-driven animals that fill gaping voids in our aimless, postmodern societies. Of course they also filled gaping voids in our aimless, god-fearing societies of yesteryear too.

Pulitzer Prize nominating committee, this has been humbly submitted for your approval.

REPOST: California Cuisine and Gangsta Rap: A Comparative Dichotomy

Another classic from the archives....

Ice Cube. Dr Dre. Eazy E. Snoop Dogg. KRS-One.

Thomas Keller. Alice Waters. Jeremiah Tower. Narsai David. Paul Bertolli.

Each profoundly influential. Each a genius in his or her own right.

Each blazing new trails by reinventing how they used the tools that were already in front of them.

Each using their fame and reputation to support dozens of far less talented artists on their coattails.

Each responsible for spawning a generation of mediocrity behind them.

Gangsta rap and California Cuisine share far more than just being popular with rich white people. Their basic shared tenets blur the boundaries between food and music, dancing and eating, beats and beets.

Sorry.

What are those tenets?

1. Simplicity is Key

What makes an excellent gangsta rap tune? A g-funk era landmark? A simple heavy beat. Catchy, repetitive synth hooks. Maybe a few simple vocal samples. And dope, dope rhymes. No flourishes. No guitar heroics. No multi-octave diva arias. No double bass pedal thirtysecond-note sextuplets. There's nothing to it that makes you think you should like it. It's not Dvorak or Mahler for chrissakes. Yet somehow some way gangsta rap still comes up with funky ass shit like every single day.

The same holds true with California Cuisine. Chefs aren't flambe-ing tableside, stuffing turkeys inside sardines, or serving domes of flavored air over tapioca pearls. I mean, some chefs are, but not California Cuisine chefs. That would be inappropriate. Transcendent California Cuisine is perfect organic seasonal ingredients cooked flawlessly. There's no reason for the food to be s0 damn good, other than from the culinary gestalt of perfect ingredients assembled perfectly.

Just as there's no reason that an old Parliament baseline, some high sine wave synth sounds, and flows about gats, weed, and bitches should be good, other than that same gestalt.

2. Careful Selection

Just as our California Cuisine chefs pick their produce for its peak of seasonality and freshness, so too do the top producers of gangsta rap select their basslines, beats, and synth hooks. There's nothing in theory difficult about deciding to cook with kale. But what kale? From where? When is kale at its absolute best? The producer makes the same decision--this sample of a breathy oversexed woman is great, but where should it be used? When can it be inserted into a song for its peak effect? Probably right after the rapper says "bi-otch."

3. Passion and Purity of Motive

One of the reasons California Cuisine works is because the chef is committed to the ideals of the movement. Seasonality. Locality. Simplicity. When one of these tenets is compromised, the whole effect slips away. Gangsta rap came out of the frustration and rage felt by a generation of black men living in the ghetto. California Cuisine came out of a desire to eat more simply and deliciously. Gangsta rap had the crack epidemic of the 1980's, California Cuisine had the fuel crisis of the late 1970's.

But as gangsta rappers become wealthier it's hard to take them seriously. Instead, hip hop now is about going dumb, bringing sexy back, and getting between you and dat booty. Hearing Ice Cube in 1990 when he was a pissed off 20 year-old is a helluva lot more compelling than hearing Ice Cube trying to be pissed off now that he's a multi-multi-multi millionaire who makes family road trip comedies. Most prominent artists from the gangsta rap era who are still recording have moved on into slightly different genres.

And as California Cuisine becomes accepted fact for most restaurants--that the idea of using fresh local seasonal ingredients is de rigeur--I'm no longer impressed. Now you're just doing it because you're supposed to, not because you really believe in the tenets of sustainability. It's time to forge new ground. Build on that very sturdy foundation and move forward. Stop being a multi-millionaire still rapping about the 'hood.

California Cuisine needs to stop being gangsta and find its hyphy.

DISCLAIMER: The author understands that he is conflating several related genres of hip-hop. The author also acknowledges that logical gaps that exist in his argument. The author understands that he is exaggerating for comic effect and/or entertainment factor. The author makes no claims at being an expert in either hip-hop or California Cuisine. Horny for Food is for entertainment purposes only. The author assumes no responsibility for actions taken either directly or indirectly as a result of reading his words. The author encourages all diners to think critically and come to their own conclusions about dining. The author thanks you for your readership.

The Grapes of Wrath (without the Okies)

Many people ask me "Hey Dave, what're your favorite wine grapes?" To which I say, "Go fuck yourself. How'd you get my cell number? Ima cut you hard."

None of that is true, nobody asks me that. But if they did, this is what I'd say....

1. Riesling. This is a grape that is still maligned in the US by uneducated imbeciles. Admittedly the export market was flooded with insipid uber-sweet German riesling in the decades after World War II. Riesling ranges from racily dry (Austria) to sweet but bracingly acidic (Germany). It's also one of the few white grapes that grows respectably in California (Trefethen and Navarro, for instance). But there's something about an excellent German riesling that is euphoric. I speculate it's the combination of sugar, modestly low alcohol, and food-friendly acidity that gets the serotonin going.

2. Pinot Noir. It's got the robust fruit of a grenache or merlot with the earthy complexity of syrah or mourvedre. And while incredibly difficult to make really well, it's hard to fuck up as long as the fruit is grown in the right climate and managed well. In order: Burgundy, Anderson Valley, Santa Barbara County, Willamette Valley, New Zealand, Alsace, Germany.

3. Zinfandel. See above, only with fuller flavors. It's not as elegant as other reds, but it's broad and complex. And it really doesn't grow well outside of a handful of regions in California. Try Mendocino County, Dry Creek Valley, and Paso Robles for the best of the best.

4. GSM. I'm going to group the Rhone power trio of Grenache-Syrah-Mourvedre as one grape here because, while I've had many single varietal wines of these grapes that I've enjoyed, when two or more of these power grapes hook-up, magic ensues. Grenache supplies the rich supple fruit, syrah the musty leathery tannins, and mourvedre the strong, broad earth. Try grenache-syrah blends from Northern Spain and GSMs from the southern Rhone.

5. Chardonnay. Steer clear of the giant overly buttery Napa versions of this excellent grape and opt for the crisper and more acidic white Burgundies from Macon, Chablis, and the Cote d'Or. In California, try excellent chardonnay from cooler climate regions like the Anderson Valley, Russian River Valley, Santa Maria Hills, and Los Carneros.

6. Carignane. What is essentially a blending grape in France has reached a rarefied art among a few producers in California. Rich dark fruit, dusty tannins, and a refreshing acidity. Contra Costa county is growing some rich, elegant carignane, as is the Dry Creek Valley.

7. Marsanne/Roussanne. Another Rhone party blend, these two aromatic whites make for some fun and funky wines. Excellent cool climate whites that tend toward overripeness in hotter years, these grape varietals, when combined, build a profile of honey, pear, and sweet spice with modest and soft acidity on the finish.

8. Verdejo. The king of Rueda, Spain's verdejo is the grape that sauvignon blanc should be. Crisp bright acidity, aromatic tropical fruit, and moderate minerality. Food friendly and refreshing.

9. Gruner veltliner. Austria's grape of grapes. Gruner's citrus fruit tartness coupled with lingering minerality makes for a wine that fits where others don't. Perfect with asparagus, pesto, and pretty much every seafood, gruner veltliner's probably the most food-friendly white grape in the world.

10. Furmint. Look, it might only make one type of wine, but that type of wine's pretty much the most awesome dessert wine in all the goddamn universe, Hungarian Tokaji. I've never had the dry furmints, but the sweet, botrytis-laden grapes in Tokaji create an elegant dessert wine that lacks the insipid syrupy-ness or heafty viscosity of other sweet white wines.

And now you know. And knowing is half the battle.

Now never fucking call me again.

A New Blog!

For those of you who can't get enough of my opinionated rants on food and dining can now also get my opinionated rants on men's fashion and style!

Check out the new blog here:

The Substance of Style

Enjoy!

HFF Has Lunch: Redd - Yountville, Ca

Tasting menus rock. No choice. Chef’s discretion. It’s liberating, like the formal beauty of an Elizabethan sonnet’s constrictions over the tedium of unrestricted postmodern free verse, or the casual elegance of a porn star that still leaves one hole sacred.

And I don’t mean “tasting menus” where you get to pick from an array of courses, I mean an honest no-choice tasting menu.

It was Chef Scott’s birthday so we were going wine tasting. After a morning in the northern reaches of Napa Valley we worked our way back to Redd in Yountville in the afternoon.

I’d dropped into Redd once before with Charlie where we sat at the bar and had a snack. I was impressed with the space, wine list, and what little food we’d had.

Every review of Redd talks about the “minimalist space” that’s a “perfect canvas” for Richard Reddington’s “art.”

Ejaculate on a sponge and wax Michael Bauer’s Lexus with it. Christ.

Did I mention that good food is good food? And a nice space is a nice space. I guess in a city where Pat Kuleto’s over-adorned pirate handjob adventure restaurant spaces are the standard for “good taste,” the simply designed and minimally adorned Redd would be jarring.

Though Redd does have an a la carte menu we both opted for the four-course tasting menu.

The tasting menu is a comparative steal at $50 ($25 for wine pairings), a value magnified by the fact that each of our two tasting menus were different and there’s enough of each course for sharing.

First round was a raw seafood course of hamachi and yellowfin tuna tartare with chili oil, soy, avocado and crisped rice, and hamachi sashimi with edamame. The fish was impeccable, and while the tartare flavor combination was, well, let’s just say it’s been done before, every flavor was fresh and balanced, never sharp, never harsh, never cloying. The crisped rice added a crucial textural dimension that, in both our minds, made the dish. The hamachi sashimi was as good as any sashimi I’ve had.

Next course featured seared diver scallops and braised skate wing, two of my all time favorite seafoods of all time. The scallops were one of the finer preparations I’ve had and the skate was firm and fluffy, served with a few steamed mussels and bits of chorizo, leaving the whole dish redolent of spiced pork. Flavors infused the entire dish and you sensed all the components’ presence without any individual flavor pushing through. We’re talking synergy in the finest dot-com sense of the word. The one techno-flourish here, the saffron nage (a foamy cloud), actually added an integral flavor and texture dimension. It wasn't just an artsy indulgence.

Meat course: Redd’s signature horseradish-crusted short ribs and roast quail with bacon (there it is again!) The shortribs are justifiably held in high esteem, fork tender and topped with just a bit of fresh shaved horseradish. The quail was moist and tender all the way through, enlivened by the microscopic dice of bacon.

Dessert. A trio of chocolate desserts, a chocolate-hazelnut mousse, a peanut butter honeycomb parfait, and a chocolate-peanut gianduia. Also a trio of citrus desserts, including a mini lemon cheesecake, an orange sorbet, and a mini citrus float with homemade yuzu soda. Pretty fucking cool.

I almost forgot—we deviated from the tasting menu just slightly. We got the trio of cold foie gras. I’m not as big a fan of cold foie gras as I am hot preparations, but… holy fucking shit this was good. The torchon with pistachio was my favorite, though the terrine with pear, and the mousse were also retarded good. Even the toasted brioche wasn't overlooked. It was soft, warm, and slightly sweet.

So Redd was pretty great, a very solid value in the uber fine-dining world, and lived up to its reputation and hype admirably. Just ignore what reviews say about blank slates and artistry on the plate and whatever else. Redd is dining at its simplest and most unassumingly elegant. Roll with it.

Redd
6480 Washington St.
Yountville, Ca 94599
707-944-2222
www.reddnapavalley.com