HFF on the Road: Jerome, AZ - Day 3

It's so rare in this post-iPhone UrbanSpoon App-age to dine at a restaurant that isn't on the e-radar SOMEWHERE. But I experienced such a phenomenon on our return trip from Jerome.

We opted to take the mountain highways back, as they run the hypotenuse from Jerome to Blythe. Two lane roads versus interstate, but there's a whole helluva lot more character. And I love the Highway 50 drive through the Sierra Nevadas, but US 60 through the Colorado Plateau is pretty goddamn beautiful. It takes you through the (relative) metropolis of Prescott but other than that you're dealing with ranches and creepy trailer park oases waiting for their snowbirds.

Prescott, Arizona came too early for us to be hungry, which was somewhat unfortunate as we discovered that it was basically the only place with multiple food options until, well, Palm Springs (not counting fast food options, naturally).

So we drove and drove and drove and drove and we got really fucking hungry and then we saw it, shimmering on the horizon, some sort of diner. We pulled off the freeway. We ate there.

The establishment in question is Steve & Shelley Bergeson's Ranch House. A thorough google search yielded nothing so it's a good thing I took a picture of the menu.

This was the sort of cash-only greasy spoon with a motorcycle-filled parking lot that exists in my imagination of Hollister is like. Once we found the door to get in, we were greeted warmly and found the place freaking packed. Which given its status as the only place for a home cooked meal for sixty miles makes sort of sense. The menu is a pretty typically diner selection of breakfast favorites with a vague white southwestern tinge.

Service was prompt and friendly and the food was good. My breakfast burrito was retardedly huge, loaded with eggs, potatoes, and peppers. Grandmaster A got a combo loaded with pancakes, eggs, bacon, and a biscuit/gravy combo. Biscuit & gravy was a real shining star, though the applewood bacon was also freaking tasty.

So really, in the world of random sit-down road trip lunhces, this was tops. My only complaint was as follows....

Somehow, our lunch which was advertised at costing ~$18 based on our listed prices ended up somehow coasting close to $40. Sure we got coffee. Sure we got "smothered" hash browns as our sides. But paying double what the listed menu price is makes me think that we were involved in a tourist scam.

And honestly? I don't object. This makes perfect sense. Why not scam douchebags who are cruising through your town to make a buck? Makes sense to me. It was the totally transparent nature of the upsell that pissed me off. "Do you want coffee?" Sure. "Do you want onions and peppers with your hashbrowns?" Fine. "Do you want to pay significantly more for nominal flavor enhancements to your dishes?" Why yes I do! Thanks for asking.

So, despite all the positives I was left with a bad taste in my mouth. It makes me less likely to go BACK to the Bergeson Ranch House on subsequent visits on Arizona highway 60....

Okay, not the most likely scenario, so maybe they're onto a new business model.

Other than being scammed and raped, it was a good restaurant, it's just disappointing that they would resort to such quotidian money stretching maneuvers.

As our day continued we ended up not being hungry again so we basically just kept driving and there isn't anything more to write about. Except for our evening Echo Park cocktail party courtesy of Pharmacie, so....

HFF on the Road: Jerome, AZ - Day 2

Day Two was the big day. This was the day we were spending with Paula Woolsey, AZ Stronghold's national marketing director, former co-owner of The Asylum, and the woman who has just maybe done more for Arizona wine's visibility than even Maynard himself.

We met up with Paula at the Flatiron Cafe in Jerome, a tiny corner restaurant on the approach into town. Little coffee counter with about eight seats inside but they also have seating at the patio across the street--a bonus on this warm morning. The cafe's got an upstairs kitchen that throws out some pretty cool sophisticated takes on southwestern food and diner cuisine. My breakfast burrito was simple and clean--egg, chorizo, nopales, et al nicely griddled. The patio was great though we had to deal with a gaggle of sexagenarians demanding that the vintage clothing store upstairs open up. Apparently the three blocks of Jerome was far too large of a city to be roaming around in waiting for a store to open. No doubt they were really looking forward to complaining about the prices and not buying anything.

Paula drove us out to Page Springs Cellars, giving us a roundabout tour of the Cornville wine country: Merkin Vineyards, Maynard's produce market (it's the most organic market in the world, if you don't mind the limited selection), and John McCain's driveway. Apparently "Sedona Cabin" sounds better than "Cornville Ranch," no matter if that ranch isn't within a Navy plane crash of Sedona.

We had vague plans to visit a couple other wineries but Page Springs was far more compelling than we anticipated so, well, the rest of Arizona's wines will have to be saved for another trip.

I've learned two things in AZ:
1. Eric Glomski is a talented winemaker.
2. Arizona is uniquely suited to aromatic white varietals.

As regards point one--it's hard to quantify, but I tasted through a large array of Glomski's wines from many different vineyard sites and they were all well-made, nicely structured, and compelling. Transcendent? Only some. Good? All.

As regards point two--holy fucking shit, Page Springs can make the fuck out of Malvasia Bianca, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, and blends therefrom. And, actually, some tasty Chardonnay as well.

A few (two) reasons for this:

1. Heavily volcanic soils. Northern Arizona is covered in volcanic soil. Serious, it's like a Peter North volcano went to town on the earth and the earth liked it.
2. Although it's hot as hell in much of Arizona during the day, it gets really cold at night. Lots of wine regions get to 100 degrees during the day (Napa Valley, Paso Robles, Lodi), but not as many get to close to freezing at night. In fact, frost is the biggest problem Arizona fruit faces, with UV exposure probably a distant second.

It's an odd coming together of terroir that echoes both cool-climate wine regions like Alsace and hothothot regions like Bierzo and the Alentejo. Godello and Arinto, anyone?

But I think that raises the most interesting question in this whole discussion: why do we insist on describing Arizona in terms of other wine regions? There's a sort of projection of the other aspect to that, no? I suppose that will go away with time: I'm sure in the 1970's the Napa Valley was described in Francophilic terms and Keenan himself talks about his decision to grow grapes in Northern AZ because it "looked like Spain and Portugal."

I'd like to just think of the subregions of AZ--there's actually officially only one AVA--as simply another grape growing region of the USA slowly (quickly?) figuring out what grapes grow well. Sure we can infer some successes based on similar climates--I'm not shocked that Petite Sirah grows so well here or that Pinot Noir doesn't--but we should be open to some surprises. Who would've thought Riesling, that stalwart of cool Alpine climes, would take so well to Arizona?

After tasting through most of the current Page Springs wines in the tasting room, we were given a tour of the creekside estate vineyards. Hermitage-clone Syrah makes up much of the vineyard: its widely spaced clusters resist rot. But Glomski's also planted Chateauneuf clones of Grenache and Mourvedre, California-clone Petite Sirah, and some Cabernet Pfeffer daringly waving about on its own rootstocks. I'm excited to see what Grenache on this site can do, given its similarity to sites in the Rhone and Spain (there I go being all comparative like a shmuck), but the vines are still too young to harvest. Of the Page Springs Estate reds, the Petite Sirah stands out. Full-bodied but not nearly as jammy as some of its California competitors, with a palate-enticing acidity and lots of dusty earth and leather on the nose. This is what French Durif tastes like...in my mind.

After the vineyard tour we headed into the cellar and met the man himself Eric Glomski. He generously popped open a freshly-bottled 2008 PSC Petite Sirah (the first 08 red I've had the pleasure of trying). Tight and shocked to be sure, it quickly lubed up with a few swirls (if only it were that easy), and definitely showed its promise. There seems to be a general excitement about the 08 vintage in AZ.

I plied Eric with a bottle of 06 Domaine Gauby Calcinaires Blanc (have you had a French Muscat-Macabeu blend? I didn't think so) so he shared a couple tank samples of freshly crushed Marsanne and Viognier. You haven't actually tasted grapes until you've had freshly crushed Marsanne--sweeter than Jesus with diabetes, it tastes like a ripe white peach dipped in honey; it'll stick in your memory as vividly as the first time you went south on a girl.

(And it [probably] tastes a helluvalot better.)

And that's not to belittle PSC's Viognier which was also rich and vibrant with some pronounced floral aromatics--they're flirting with Condrieu country here. I'll be curious to see how the finished product compares with the offerings from Demetria in Paso, so far the best non-French Viognier I've had.

And fuck Pride Viognier. If I wanted my wine to taste like shampoo I'd shower with Carlo Rossi. It'd cost me less.

There's still very much a sense of play at Page Springs, from the children's toys in the tasting room to the broad array of varietals on hand. Arizona is the Wild West (east?) of winemaking and there's lots of experimenting to be done. A mix of careful study, educated guesses, gut calls, and whimsy over the coming years will help determine the shape of AZ's flagship grapes.

We wrapped up our visit at Page Springs by picking up a mixed case of whites. Did I mention I liked them? I'm currently sleeping with a bottle of PSC La Serrana Viognier/Roussanne blend, it's stern but still likes to cuddle. Paula dropped us off at our divey motel in Cottonwood (the Connor in Jerome was alas fully booked by a gay New Zealand motorcycle club--I'm only lying about one of those descriptors). We cruised out to Sedona with a plan for dinner and a visit to Slide Rock State Park. Slide Rock was very cool--it's basically a natural waterslide formed by erosion in the slippery bed of Oak Creek. The whole park is pretty fun and (unfortunately) kid friendly.

After surveying our options in Sedona--mostly expensive touristy places--we opted instead to go back into Jerome, having still not gotten enough of the town. Dinner was at Quince, a Cal-Mexican diner offering big portions and good prices, as well as the compelling option of "pulled pork" in one's burrito. Nothing to write home about, but a more than solid bet for dining in Jerome when The Asylum's out of your price range.

We walked around Jerome some more and checked out the twilight views before calling it an early night and coasting back to Cottonwood.

In terms of getting Page Springs wines, your best option is to visit the winery on a long weekend from LA. They currently have limited distribution in Arizona and have no intention of expanding outside the state. You can also buy the wine online and some Page Springs wines are available at the Caduceus tasting room in Jerome.

I'm not intennding to sound like an AZ wine geek fanboy, and to be honest I'm no more excited about Northern AZ as I am the Anderson Valley or the Alentejo. It's just exceedingly rare that you can be one of the first outside voices touting the virtues of an emerging region so you better believe I'm going to pimp that for all its worth.

www.pagespringscellars.com

The Asylum - Jerome, Arizona

It's exceedingly rare to find a decent restaurant in an out-of-the-way tourist town. Selections are often limited to the kitschy tourist-themed (Uncle Petey's Wacky Mountain Chuck Wagon) to the expensive faux-fancy (Chez Petey's House of Steak and Beans). But befitting an organically atypical town like Jerome, I wasn't surprised that there was at least one top-notch restaurant in town.

They Asylum's located in the Jerome Grand Hotel, a concrete beast that looms above Jerome like Willard Scott's cliffside El Centro sex den. The hotel was originally built in 1927 as the town's hospital and then lay dormant (like much of the town) for most of the second half of the 20th century. In 1994 the hospital was rehabbed into a luxury hotel.

Being a few hundred feet above a town that's already a thousand feet above the valley below affords some of the best views of any restaurant I've been to.

We had a couple local beers at the dark wood-appointed bar and then moved to the patio overlooking the Verde Valley. Appetizer was the fried squid--medium sized squid rings and tentacles lightly dusted and quickly fried and perfectly tender. Well seasoned, not greasy, nice heat from the accompanying spicy aioli. Good stuff.

Our server recommended a really nice inexpensive Pinot Noir (Barra of Mendocino) served at a perfect temperature for out-of-doors dining on an 85 degree night.

Entrees. Grandmaster A had the New Zealand rack of lamb special which was excellent, albeit pricey (unlisted and a good 25% more than the most expensive item on the menu--a practice I'm not too keen on). I had the vegetarian entree--roasted butternut squash with sesame-crusted tofu, brown rice, vegetables, and pickled ginger. Great flavor combinations but an odd preparation: the squash was one big chunk of roasted squash instead of pieces, so it was a bit bland with an inconsistent texture. Mild hiccup.

We also had dessert, it was good--chocolate--don't remember what it was. We were drunk at this point.

Great space, gorgeous views, great wine list, solid food, and fair prices. It's nice to have an opportunity to end a day of exploring that isn't either McDonald's or diarrhea-inducing Mexican food. Worth a stop if you're in the area--near as we could tell it was nicest spot for dinner in the greater Jerome-Cottonwood-Sedona area.

The Asylum
200 Hill St
Jerome, AZ 86331
(928) 639-3197
www.theasylum.biz

HFF On The Road: Jerome, AZ - Day 1

I fucking hate Phoenix. It's admittedly an irrational hatred stemming from one extended visit several years ago where I ended up in the middle of a monsoon and stuck 10 miles of asphalt from anywhere. Still, Phoenix reminds me of the worst parts of the San Fernando Valley without any of the charm of being within 30 miles of the ocean. It's unfair, but it is what it is Phoenix has my title for "Worst Big City in America." And I've been to Philadelphia.

As this was my only exposure to Arizona, my disdain for Phoenix had sort of extended to the entire state. But my relocation to Los Angeles and its relative proximity to the Copper State--along with my general love for deserts--put Arizona back on my radar.

But it was a little tasting at Silverlake Wine that made reconsider what 'Zona had to offer besides binge drinking, blond Republican coeds, and the good half of Lake Havasu (the topless half).

I've always said two things (and I mean ALWAYS):
1. California Wine that's any good is too expensive.
2. California became the wine production capital of the country by accident--a product of Prohibition, a lack of phylloxera, and a lucky break in 1976. New Mexico had more land under vine prior to Prohibition than California did.

Caduceus Cellars turned me on to Arizona wines (though most of the wines aren't 100% Arizona fruit) but AZ Stronghold (partnership between MJ Keenan and Eric Glomski) sold me on what can be had out there. Really nice, food-friendly wines at an attractive price. So I made a few calls, packed up my suitcase, and rode through the desert on a horse with no name. Or rather it's a Kia Soul with a name that I won't disclose (let's just say it rhymes with paint yockey).

My travel partner on this journey was Grandmaster A--friend since elementary school and frequent co-adventurer to places as far afield as Denver, Japan, and Anaheim. We got an early start and hit the state line by lunch time. As we debated our fast food preferences (both having jobs that keep us on the road a lot, we've redeveloped an appreciation for quick cheap eats that belie our organic mindsets). We agreed El Pollo Loco to be our favorite but hunger and an empty gas tank found us at a Burger King in Blythe.

We both grabbed the "Angry Tendercrisp Sandwich." Crispy chicken breast on a roll with lettuce, tomatoes, fried onion strips, jalapenos, cheese, bacon, and a spicy mayo. To our shock and awe the sandwich looked surprisingly like the picture on the wall and I'm not embarrassed to say that it was fucking good. Juicy, drippy, spicy--and not cheap. Since when did a fast food sandwich and some onion rings cost eight dollars? A couple bucks more and I'm getting Oinkster. Meh.

The next exit had an El Pollo Loco.

There are two ways to get to Jerome, AZ (where you'l find the Caduceus tasting room). You can take a straight shot on I-10 through Phoenix and cut north on I-17 to SR-89A or you can cut northeast at Blythe and take a series of mountain highways through a series of high desert trailer park oases. Unfamiliar with the terrain, we stayed on the interstate this time (our return trip would be different). The low desert country gives way quickly as you make your way up the Colorado Plateau out of the Lynchian hellscape of Phoenix into the Coen Brothersian heckscape of rural Arizona. Scrub desert gives way to saguaro forest, then rocklands, until you get to the fringes of good old-fashioned Ponderosa pine forests.

We sped through the local metropolis of Cottonwood (pop. 11,000), wound our way through no less than three roundabouts with central berms so high you couldn't see oncoming traffic, negating the purpose of roundabouts, and made a hard left (still miraculously on SR 89A) up a winding mountain road to imposing, haunted Jerome, AZ.

In the less than six miles from Cottonwood to Jerome you gain 2,000 feet in elevation and you do it quickly, like huffing glue while riding an escalator. A copper boom town in the late eighteen hundreds through the 1930's, Jerome was all but abandoned by the early 1950's, when the mine closed after yielding over a billion unadjusted dollars in copper, gold, and silver. Jerome stayed virtually empty and decaying until the the late 1960's when hippies, bikers, and outcasts began calling the quasi-ghost town home. At present, Jerome is a town that looks largely like it did at the turn of the 20th century with most residents restoring the town's beautiful Victorian homes. But the town still has its ruins.

The town reminds me a lot of the mining towns of the Sierra Foothills, like Murphys or Columbia, but without the history theme park veneer. With the exception of a couple tacky t-shirt and jewelry shops, Jerome isn't flaunting its mining heritage. The town is very much Jerome 2009, everybody there just happens to live in buildings out of Jerome 1909. It's also not as family-friendly as some tourist destinations: in its roughly four blocks, Jerome sports three wine tasting rooms, two full-service saloons (along with several restaurants with full bars, one of which is a local gay bar), a tattoo parlor, a sex shop, a Thunderdome-esque basketball court, and Keenan's Puscifer Store which, despite the cute cartoon devil, is neither for kids nor for for the dull and obtuse.

Basically, it's heaven for the off-beat, progressively libertarian, Mr. Show-worshiping, 25-60 year-old music-loving wine geek.

Done.

We arrived at the Connor Hotel, est. 1898, were greeted by the extraordinarily friendly staff, and tossed our stuff in our room. Nice hotel. It maintained all its historicity while having most modern amenities: in-room fridge and coffee maker, (superfluous) TV, in-suite bathroom, good AC, etc. And reasonable too. With a AAA discount we got a nice big room for right around $100 on a Friday night.

Since the Caduceus tasting room was open until 8PM we spent the remaining daylight hours bouncing around the town, looking at the mining exhibits, stumbling into the aforementioned Puscifer shop, hiking up the gravel roads on the perimeter of the city, admiring the views, exploring the town flume, and getting hit on by camera-toting art students from Phoenix. But there was business to be done, and that business was wine.

Here's a basic rundown of the northern Arizona wine scene. It revolves, at least in the wider national consciousness, around Maynard James Keenan--lead singer of Puscifer/A Perfect Circle/Tool and accomplished vigneron. He makes his home in Jerome and has about a half-acre of Cabernet Sauvignon growing on his property. Keenan's winemaking partner and co-celestial orbiting grape body is Eric Glomski, formerly of David Bruce winery, and owner/winemaker of Page Springs Vineyards in nearby Cornville. Together, they've formed Arizona Stronghold Vineyards, whose winemaking facility is in Cornville but whose vineyards are in southeastern Arizona. This is where the bulk of Arizona's grape-growing takes place; it's a fairly fertile valley and the soil retains water well. But with Keenan's personal estate fruit, Glomski's fruit at Page Springs, and the grapes at Keenan's Merkin Vineyards project in Cornville, there is a lot of wine to be made from grapes in the Jerome area.

Which is a long way of saying that the Arizona Stronghold Vineyards wines are made mostly from Keenan & Glomski's estate vineyards all over AZ as well as some purchased fruit from selected sites in California. The Caduceus Wines are still largely California-based since it took 3-5 years for the new AZ vines to be ready for their first harvest, though Caduceus' new "Dos Ladrones" white wine is 100% Arizona fruit as is the "Nagual del Judith" (a tiny production premium Cab Sauv from Keenan's personal estate vineyard, dedicated to his late mother). Eventually the Caduceus wines will transition to more AZ fruit.

I'd had most of the Caduceus wines before at Silverlake Wine and they impressed me, in particular the powerful aromatic Dos Ladrones (half Malvasia Bianca and half Chardonnay) and the funky Cote-Rotie inspired Primer Paso (88% Syrah and a hefty 12% Malvasia taking on the role of ersatz-Viognier). In a domestic wine market that is producing more and more ripe, extracted, high-alcohol wines that taste more like brandy than wine, Caduceus Cellars is producing red wines that are, to use a horribly over-used douchey wine term, a revelation. Musuclar to be sure, but structured as hell with nice tannins, dusty earth, modest alcohol, and rocking acidity.

I tasted some of the Page Springs wines too, but I'll get into that in more detail with my Day 2 post. I'll also get into detail about or dinner at "John McCain's favorite restaurant," The Asylum, on a different post. You've all read enough for one sitting.

HFF out, with love.

www.caduceuswine.com
www.connorhotel.com
www.azjerome.com

Wherein the protagonist becomes self-righteous in defense of tradition and old-fashioned intuition

It was a quiet night, quiet even for a Tuesday in downtown. I stumbled out of King Eddy's Saloon into a balmy Los Angeles evening. Fitting for an evening in Los Angeles, I was on Los Angeles Street, walking south and not quickly enough--my shoes are worth more than a month's rent at a local SRO. I lit a cigarette. I threw it on the ground. I forgot. I don't smoke.

Lucky for me the City's coming back to mama, back to where it was born, and it's filling up mama's womb with million dollar lofts. Where there's a million dollar loft there's a bar serving pretentious cocktails, 'cause when someone's paying a million to live adjacent to a cardboard-box tenement he's willing to spend $14 on a glass of vodka shaken con brio. I'd say he or she, but women have more sense. More sense but no dick, that's what mama always said.

I made a quick right onto Sixth right before three tough-looking hoods in skinny jeans and white belts wearing eyeliner made a grab for my iPod. And who could blame them? I was listening to the Faint. But Quick's my middle name and I made sure my birth certificate didn't lie as I left the toughs grabbing only at air, like when I tried to feel up Molly Archer in the tenth grade. Her middle name was Quick too.

When you make that turn onto Sixth and walk toward Main, you leave Skid Row squalor for a new kind of squalor--the kind that wears Rock & Republic jeans. I hurred across the street and down a small set of stairs. I was walking into Cole's, but I wasn't looking for a French Dip I was looking for booze cold and straight. The bouncer nodded at me and I nodded back. I pretend his name is Marquise.

Cole's after feeding time is an eerie place. Barstools sit on top of the bar, booths are empty, there's no au jus. The mise en scene is unsettling--it looks like if Charles Bukowski shit on a Picasso after eating an Edward Hopper. If you ever make that movie, give me a "story by" credit.

In the back of Cole's there's a door. Behind that door is a bar. That bar is Varnish and it pretends to be a speakeasy. I walked in and sat at a booth in the dim light. I picked up the cocktail menu but I couldn't read it--it's been hard for me ever since my cousin was killed by a cocktail menu. That and the light was too damn dim to read by--crucial oversight or deliberate hip douchebag maneuver? Dollars to donuts on the latter.

I picked up the candle at my table to shed more light on the menu. The menu caught fire. I watched it briefly burn--fire licking at the corners of the paper as vigorously as Mayor Villaraigosa on a Hollywood Blvd. tranny--before extinguishing it beneath my palm. Ouch.

A cocktail waitress slinked up to my table but unlike a slinky she wouldn't be falling down my stairs tonight. She leaned forward and smiled, her low-slung neckline slinging lower from her not insubstantial chest.

"What'll it be," she would've said if this was a movie from the 1940's. Instead she said:
"What do you want?"

You have to love a town that'll spend a few million on a new bar but won't spend five minutes trying to hire friendly staff.

"Well manhattan, up."
"We don't really have a well."
"Excuse me?"
"We don't have a well."
"The fuck you don't have a well."
"We don't have a--"
"Do you have a speed rack where your bartenders keep their primary liquors?"
"Yes."
"So you have a fucking well."
"It's not--"
"I'm ordering a fucking well manhattan because I don't want to have to fucking think, yeah?"
"So is Maker's okay?"
"Is that what's in your well?"

Pause. I stared at her. She stared back. She blinked.

"Yes."
"I'll have that."
"Are you sure you wouldn't like our Skid Row Flip? It's like a manhattan--"
"No I don't want your fucking Skid Row Flip. I want my fucking manhattan as I ordered it from you what feels like a fucking hour ago."

She walked away. I watched her. She was cute but I was sober and in the morning she'd still be dumb.

I watched the pair of bartenders behind the counter. They were surrounded by flasks and beakers. It was a scene more appropriate for a laboratory trying to figure out a way to artifically inseminate a cantaloupe with Burt Bacharach's sperm--and not in the fun way.

The mixologists each didn't look a day over sixteen and unlike in pornography in the drinks business that isn't a good thing. I watched as they carefully measured everything in jiggers and teaspoons. Everything. Every drop of booze, liqueur, bitters, fruit juices, ball sweat, and orphan tears that goes into a Skid Row Flip or Old Bank District Sour or Bunker Hill Rickey is rationed like a Soviet whore apportioning handjobs. I got up and walked to the bar.

"Excuse me, but would you hand me that bottle of vodka?"
"What?"

I grabbed the bottle of vodka.

"Hey!"
"Shh, easy there chief. It's okay. You see this top?" I asked, pointing at the resin pour spout on the tip of the vodka bottle."
"What about it?"
"That's a fine piece of technology my friend. It measures your pours. You invert the bottle and about a quarter ounce comes with each second it pours. Are you following me?"
"Sure."
"How much vodka does that bullshit cocktail you're making require?"
"Two ounces."
"How many times does a quarter go into one?"
"Four times."
"So how many times does a quarter go into two?"
"Eight times."
"So?"
"So what?"
"So just pour your fucking vodka straight into the shaker. Put down the spoons and shot glasses and mix your drinks like a man, not a pretentious little prick who thinks he's a freakin' scientist because he pours homemade bitters from a graduated cylinder. And maybe that way you won't take so goddamn long to make a FUCKING MANHATTAN!"

I felt a large strong hand on my shoulder. It was the bouncer whose name I pretended was Marquise.

"Is there a problem?"
"No my friend, I was just heading back to my seat."
"Good."

I sat back down. My iPhone buzzed--someone was Tweeting and that someone was a director of dirty movies. He was throwing a DVD release party in a warehouse off Alameda. Decisions decisions.

The cocktail waitress came back with my drink.

"Your manhattan."

I stared at the drink. I stared at her. I stared at Tom Sizemore making out with a model in the next booth over.

"That'll be $14."

I handed her a twenty.

"Keep the change--and the drink."

Out through Varnish, out through Cole's, a quick nod at Marquise and into a taxi. I was out the door before my drink started to sweat.

"Where to?" said the cabbie. At least he played his part perfectly.
"Just start driving," I replied. "East."

C for Effort

As a Bay Area transplant it's something of a novelty to see the LA County Health Dept. letter grades posted in the window of every diner, taqueria, Walgreens, and Office Depot. Los Angeles diners seem to love those letters, especially when it's because the House of Pies has a B, or so says every fucking person in line for a fucking table at Fred62.

Well, get ready to have your minds blown Los Angeles:

The letter grades don't fucking matter!

Are you startled? Did I shake you up? Good.

Here's why not:

If a restaurant passes its health inspection, what does the score matter? Is there a sliding scale of "possibly-make-you-sick-itude" for restaurants? Am I more likely to die of salmonella at a "C" than I am from an "A"? If I'm at all likely to die of salmonella, shouldn't that be an "F"? Seems to me that a health inspection is a pass/fail proposition. We're determining a business' fitness for serving food to the public, not the quality of its analysis of the theme of the "phallic female" in Hemingway's later works.

So what's the point in the grading system? In what is pure rampant speculation, here's my theory:

1. A restaurant that had an "A" receives a "B."
2. Angelenos with the ingrained belief that these letter grades mean something slow down/stop their patronage of that restaurant.
3. The economic impact forces the restaurant to make rapid adjustments, bringing the Health Dept. back before their next scheduled visit. (Perhaps for a fee?)
4. Health Dept. is able to show that they're relevant, get more funding, hire more inspectors, go on gambling junkets to Macau.

Health Inspector letter grades should go. A restaurant passes and stays open or fails and is shut down. Keep the inspections on file and make them available online to the consumer, but the posting requirement gives the grades more weight than they deserve (I mean, what is the difference between an 88 and a 92 anyway?). Letter grade distinctions are arbitrary and the economic impact of dropping down a letter is too great.

This creates yet another hurdle for restaurants operating in LA and disadvantages new or immigrant-owned restaurants whose operators are not familiar with the byzantine requirements of Los Angeles bureaucracy. It's not that they don't keep a safe restaurant.

Two Boots Pizza - Echo Park, Ca

For reasons that are entirely arbitrary I grant fancy-pants pizza much more leniency than fancy-pants hamburgers. I suppose the one un-arbitrary reason is that even the fanciest of pantsed 1-2 person pizzas top out in price at around $14, as opposed to burgers that can top $20 for what is, at best, a hearty appetizer. Plus, pizza has always existed in the whambamthankyoumaam variety and the classier forkandknife variety, as opposed to the hamburger which had been a filling fast food and diner standard up until, oh, about 1999 (to pick a wholly arbitrary date).

I judge pizza against two standards. The Lanesplitter Standard and the Pizzeria Delfina standard.

The Lanesplitter Standard: Inexpensive, generously topped thin-crust pizza in a dive-y environment with plentiful modestly-priced booze available.

The Pizzeria Delfina Standard: Moderate-to-expensive, thoughtfully topped with premium ingredients on a thin, lightly scorched crust baked at high-temperatures.

Two Boots, the recent NYC transplant to Echo Park, compares favorably against the Lanesplitter Standard but it's a bit more ambitious than Lanesplitter and a bit more expensive (and served no beer), so overall my impression was mixed.

I had two slices. I opted for the more unusual selections. First was a "Bird" slice--buffalo chicken, blue cheese, scallions, jalapenos, on a white pizza. This was a pretty good slice, though not very spicy. I would've liked more scallion and jalapeno and less blue cheese which hid itself in stinky pockets throughout the pizza. The second slice, Bayou Beast, with crawfish, andouille, and jalapenos, was a disappointment. Sparsely topped, it just tasted kinda salty.

And that was my general complaint: the pizzas were salty as hell. And not because the components were particularly salty--the crust, sauce, cheese, everything was loaded with cheap-tasting salt. Fine for a pepperoni slice from some dive, but when I'm eating crawfish and andouille on a pizza I want to taste crawfish and andouille.

My secondary complaint: the pizza was soggy. This is my frequent complaint with Lanesplitter too, but whenever I get a slice from Lanesplitter it's usually pretty crisp (as opposed to a pie which is always soggy in the middle). At Two Boots, even the slices were soggy at the ends. Lame.

My tertiary complaint: the pizza is too lightly topped. With inexpensive pizza, you can forgive the shortcomings in sauce and crust because there's a heap of tasty toppings. Not so at Two Boots. If you're not going to load up on toppings, your sauce and cheese had better shine, but Two Boots' sauce and cheese is serviceable at best.

Still, it's the most interesting pizza I've had in LA and the prices are still pretty good, even if they're a few cents more expensive then some of my old favorites. I'll give it a go on a regular basis--and they deliver to my neighborhood. Bonus.

The All-Time Greatest Thing of All Time

So Chowhound, the grande dame of foodie message boards, is home to the closest approximation of reasoned dialogue in the internet food world. Part of that is because Chowhound aggressively moderates its message boards to keep discussion on topic, cordial, and as objective as possible. Food professionals are not allowed to comment on their own establishments or directly about a rival, flamers and fucktards are kept at bay, and purely malicious comments are deleted.

But if you're a regular Chowhound reader, you'll often catch choice gems in the brief window before they're deleted that will make your day. Sort of like when you find a Wikipedia article that reads "Bob Dole likes golden showers" before it refreshes with the truth that Bob Dole merely tolerates golden showers when Liddy insists.

A chef friend of mine sent me this screenshot from Chowhound (click for full size):

As a bit of background, Mark Malicki, the angry respondent, is the chef-owner of the St. Rose Cafe in Santa Rosa, the target of the poster's vitriol. And you know what? Good for him. The guy who wrote this post is clearly a high-functioning moron who won't ever be coming back and anybody who would be upset with Chef Malicki for his comment shouldn't be going to his restaurant anyway.

And now a guy like me who'd never heard of this place before will make a point to visit the St. Rose Cafe the next time I'm in Santa Rosa. You gotta support the cause, you know?

Plus I'm intrigued by this "bag of dicks" he has on his menu. Never heard of that before. I think it's Greek.

Had the chicken fajita pita at Jack in the Box today, desperate for food but with very little time. That's one of the best fast food items for the urban hobo. Spicy, whole grains, and a decent amount of veggies.

Well, at least he doesn't have hands any more....

Molecular Gastronomy gone horribly awry....

http://www.thelocal.de/society/20090713-20575.html

But at least this happened in Germany. They have the technology. They can rebuild him.

The Future of Wine?

I'm tired of wine. Let me explain. I'm tired of the wine regions that people care about. Napa, Sonoma, all of France, most of Spain, northern Italy, and lets throw in Paso Robles just for kicks.

So where then do we look for the next great wine region that we can plunder and and force into over-price-itude?

Old World: The re-emergent Eastern European wine scene is of interest.... Slovenia was quickly ravished by nearby Italian winemakers, but further down the Adriatic coast in Croatia, Bosnia, and Macedonia have some great white wines at great prices. Red wine is still tricky for this region, but we'll see how that develops.

A good spot for red wine is Portugal. Just like Spain fifteen years ago, Portugal is seeing a new generation of winemakers taking over and modernizing the process, creating wines with a little less funk, a bit more stability, and a bit more approachability from a new world palate. Check out wines from Alentejo for an easy point of entry.

New World: I'm still not sold on Australia. I think they make some decent wine but it's all ripe, straightforward stuff until you get into the ultra-premium range. New Zealand is worth a watch, but their varietal selections are limited. South Africa makes some very cool wines and price points seem to be coming down in recent years. Some of my favorite Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon comes out of South Africa.

In South America, there is some quality coming out of Argentina but you have to sift through the acres of cheap swill that represents the bulk of Argentine imports. Uruguayan Tannat is stellar, but it's a tough sell. I like Chile for its price point.

Which brings me to the United States. In California, I encourage you to stock up on Mendocino County wines before the prices get prohibitive. Lake County is producing some nice inexpensive stuff and the Sierra Foothills is underappreciated for its quality. We'll see some more emerging AVAs from the Central Valley producing wines of quality, akin to what we've seen from Lodi AVA and Clarksburg AVA. I dislike Washington and Oregon's nice but expensive. I'm very intrigued about what's coming out of Arizona and think that's a region to watch. I'm underfamiliar with New York wine, but I like Caberner Franc. I also like wines from Western Virginia and North Carolina, but it's expensive to get the wine out here and production is still too small for real value.

In conclusion? Mendocino, Sierra Foothills, Croatia, Portugal, and Arizona.

Cookbooks About Actually Cooking

So I'm reading Mark Kurlansky's new book, The Food of a Younger Land. It's not actually his book, he's more of the annotator/editor. Sort of like how Flavor Flav doesn't really write Public Enemy songs, he just adds his two cents here and there and wears a clock.

The book is a printing of the scrapped Depression-era WPA project called America Eats. Like the immensely successful WPA guidebooks that were published in the 1930s, America Eats would offer insights into regional cuisine and, just as much, regional food culture. State projects submitted notes and essays to one of six regional headquarters who then compiled the information into guides like "The South Eats" and "The Northwest Eats." Unfortunately, flagging interest in the WPA during the waning days of the Depression combined with disparate regional funding slowed the project and World War II put a decisive end to the program entirely.

Kurlansky makes no attempt to recreate what the theoretical guide book would be. He simply presents the article he's selected with short introductions. He lets the vintage writing from the late 1930s speak for itself.

It's an engaging read because it reflects how recipes should be written. The recipes aren't quite as haphazard and whimsical as 19th century cook books (where a "good joint of mutton" was a common ingredient), but they do require an active engagement with the cooking process and the local culture behind the recipe.

Cookbooks now are about measuring ingredients, aseembling, setting timers, and walking away. Even as recently as the 1930s where clocks and timers were rather common, recipes required vigilance, advising you to "cook until done" or "cook until bright green." Sure there are some specific measurements, but there are also directives like "cover with water, add more if needed" and "if you want spicier, add more Tabasco."

Now we treat cooking as a sort of paint-by-numbers rote exercise instead of a fluid act of creation. This is why we can never make something "like Grandma used to make it." Sure Grandma followed recipes, but she wasn't a slave to them.

The best contemporary cookbooks for real cooking I've found are How To Cook Everything and The Best Recipes in the World by Mark Bittman who, despite his recent late-to-the-game Locavore transformation, still does a good job of integrating food, culture, and history into his recipes.

And if you haven't read Kurlansky's Salt or Cod, you really must. They're indispensable food history books.

HFF out.

Let's take this literally....

So this website is called Horny For Food. Sometimes I write about the interrelationship between food and sex. I like the blurry boundary that exists between the two. It's interesting.

So let's take food and sex literally. I am now about to do Google Image searches for several different food items. I'll let you know how many results (not pages, results) deep I need to go before a pornographic photo pops up. SafeSearch is definitely off.

1. Cucumber: 26 (16 if you count the picture of a very penis-shaped sea cucumber)
2. Banana: 57
3. Watermelon: 489
4. Sausage: 43
5. Cheese: 586 (actually a photo of a topless Mischa Barton highlighting her cellulite, but I'm counting it)
6. Donut: 110
7. Mayonnaise: 97
8. Pepper: 285
9. Melon: 12 (and not what you're expecting. Try the search yourself)
10. Pie: 55
11. Hamburger: 343
12. Manwich: 60
13. Tortilla: 736
14. Roast Beef: 62
15. Gravy: 675
16. Taco: 199 (I'm actually surprised how far I had to go for that)

Well that wasted some time.

Caduceus, Merkin, & Tool - Oh My!

There are lots of famous wealthy people who decide to diversify once they strike it rich. It's about brand building I suppose. Or maintaining a 360-degree media consciousness. Actors open restaurants, singers start clothing lines, strippers become porn stars and then become escorts. It's all about squeezing money out of every possible stream, channel, and orifice.

But in most of these instances, it's not a labor of love. It's just a bunch of big companies figuring out new ways to make money on the same crappy Chinese sunglasses. Jay-Z is no more a fashion designer than Sasha Grey is a legitimate actress.

But when the motivation to use your considerable financial resources to pursue non-autochthonous business ventures is pure--driven by an honest passion--you get some damn good salad dressings. Or, in the case of Caduceus Cellars, some really good wine.

The baby of Tool/A Perfect Circle/Puscifer frontman Maynard James Keenan, Caduceus Cellars represents an effort to bring world-class winemaking back to Arizona. Maynard was at Silverlake Wine last weekend presenting a few releases from Caduceus and its brother, Merkin Vineyards.

Only one of the wines poured was from the Arizona vineyards--they were planted in 2004 so wine from the first harvest was just bottled this past year--but there's nothing wrong with what they've been doing so far using fruit mostly sourced from Paso Robles. Eric Glomski takes the lead on the winemaking, but after a short conversation with Maynard (where we talked about yields, distribution, and temperature, amongst other things), it was eminently clear that he's more than just a money guy. He's out there in the dirt, in the cellars, and has a clear mission for his winery and a very active hand in the winemaking.

First up was a white wine (the Arizona one), Dos Ladrones, roughly equal parts Chardonnay and Malvasia Bianca. Girlfriend Charlie and I were both, at first pour, turned off to the wine. It was very tight and tasted underripe. We were thinking "Oh hell, some over-hyped celebrity wine here." But as the wine warmed (reaching about 57 degrees, Maynard said, the wine is at its best) it opened up beautifully. Really beautifully, actually. Very cool stuff and I think clearly expressive of what Arizona white wine can be.

Next up was the flagship "Primer Paso" wine, made up primarily of Syrah with a dose of Malvasia (from Arizona) in there. What would prove to be a trait of all the Caduceus wine was what made it eminently appealing: there was a lot of acid for a red. This was a food wine.

My favorite of the tasting was the Naga, a primarily Sangiovese blend made from Paso Robles fruit. Unlike most Sangioveses I've had from Paso Robles, this wasn't overly extracted and the acidity shown through nicely. Mostly Italian-styled, but with more bright fruit.

As much as I did like the Naga, I'm stoked on the Merkin Vineyards Chupacabra. The one thing about Caduceus Cellars and the cachet attached to its owner is that they can charge quite a bit for their wine. The wines are priced fairly given the quality, production size (tiny tiny) and the serious costs associated with starting up a vineyard from scratch, but I'm not going to lie: there are plenty of wines to be had of comparable quality for considerably less. But the Chupacabra, made from an annually changing blend of varietals (mostly Cab & Syrah), hits a nice ~$20 price point and serves as a solid introduction to the style of the more prohibitively priced Caduceus wines. Big fruit, good tannins, and that brisk acidity--a good barbecue wine for summer.

What was just so cool was to hear a guy who could easily use the novelty of his star power to make some horseshit crap but instead he's made wine a part of his life, all while campaigning hard for what could be a new major wine region in the United States.

So the only negative opinion I really have about the wines is that they're really expensive. But with the Chupacabra and a growing estate vineyard, hopefully Caduceus/Merkin will have more wines across the price spectrum.

Caduceus Cellars Wines are available throughout Los Angeles, including at Silverlake Wine, The Cheese Store of Silverlake, Liquid Wine & Spirits, and select Whole Foods.

www.caduceus.org

Big news! Michelin Man dumps LA, Vegas, citing irreconcilable differences, general malaise

So this is something. Apparently the Michelin Guides won't be publishing either a Los Angeles or a Las Vegas guide for 2010.

I think this is a good thing. In the short time that Michelin's been active in these markets, very little has happened. The fine dining market in these two money-above-all-centric cities has been absolutely stagnant. The list of Michelin-starred LA-restaurants reads like a who's-who of bland and dull. When your biggest openings are fifth or twelfth efforts from non-indigenous chefs like Michael Mina and Gordon Ramsey, you know your city's shit just isn't straight. And from watching the Lowell Ganz & Babaloo Mandel penned classic "Multiplicity," we know what happens by the third or fourth iteration--you end up with a retard who still gets to fuck Andie McDowell.

LA's neighborhood dining has flourished, don't get me wrong--Animal, Street, Palate, Barbrix, Father's Office, all pretty exciting stuff. But LA's $100 a plate restaurants are a list of dreary Cal-Med retreads and fusion endeavors that reak of the late 1980's. Why isn't Los Angeles nurturing its local chef-owners to produce stand-alone restaurants of a destination calibre? Where are the restaurants like SPQR, Range, Redd, and Cyrus in the SF Bay Area? (Meaning restaurants that have opened in the last five years or so that are innovative and appealing and not backed by giant restaurant groups).

Money can't buy honesty and it definitely can't buy class. Thanks Michelin for taking a temporary hike.

Kogi - Los Angeles, Ca

There're trends. There're innovations. There's novelty. There's quality. Often, a restaurant achieving two of those four benchmarks will enjoy fabulous success. A novel concept will retain its clientele if the quality is good. A trendy restaurant can endure if it continues to innovate. A restaurant with a quality product can persevere without any of the other three criteria but it can't hurt to throw in a bit of novelty and innovation here and there, at least to please a prick like me (c.f. Chez Panisse Cafe).

So it's kinda surprising that a weird little quirky taco truck mastered all of those benchmarks, did it quickly, and capitalized on it vigorously.

I'm no fan of trends or bandwagons. I'm a skeptic to the very core. You really have to prove to me why you're so freakin' awesome, I'm not just going to accept it. Point is, I never sought out Kogi. It sounded kinda cool but it also sounded like relatively simple street food, albeit kinda unconventional: Korean meat and accompaniments presented in the charming aesthetics of an East LA taco truck.

What we see with Kogi is the perfect confluence of events. It launched in Los Angeles, a city unequaled in the nation in terms of its street food (fuck you New York). It launched during a recession when value dining was at peak demand. And it shrewdly utilized social networking (especially Twitter) to (artifically?) generate a cult demand for its product. The result? What was a quirky experiment in fusion cuisine became a regional sensation with national coverage. A phenomenon that tore up the food blogs for almost a year. Motherfucking Kogi.

I give Kogi massive credit for taking up residence at the Alibi Room in Culver City. Most of us who aren't total trendy douche bags find something weird about waiting two hours for a taco truck, so knowing that we can go to a fixed location and get most of the offerings on a regular basis is a very good thing.

So it was that I met up with Hollywood Legend Kenny at Costco in Venice (he was getting his tires rotated) and we had two hours to kill, so I proposed hitting up the Alibi Room for some Korean BBQ Taco Action which, coincidentally, is the title of my current adult film project.

We showed up early--5:30 when the bar opens--so we knew we'd have to wait for our food. But, showing up as early as possible is key as the Alibi Room quickly filled up and 99% of the patrons were eating Kogi. A good number were eating Kogi and drinking nothing but water, so I wonder how much the Alibi Room is really making in this relationship.

The Alibi Room is a nice space. Lots of room, big bar, comfy lounge areas. Not a bad way to kill a half-hour before our food arrived. Good beer selection and friendly staff too. Kenny and I both ordered taco combos (chicken, pork, short rib) and we shared an order of sliders (short rib) and a kimchi quesadilla.

Did I mention I was a skeptic? I am. I really freaking am. It's easy to get my respect but pretty damn hard to earn my admiration.

So knowing that, I say without qualification: Kogi was fucking good. Really fucking good. Really really fucking good.

I mean, it's the perfect fusion of cuisine. What is Korean bbq? Meat and pickled shit. What's a good street taco? Meat and pickled shit. Throw in some cilantro and they're basically the same cuisine except for skin color and math aptitiude.

I'm sorry I'm a racist.

Tacos: really nice. I actually kinda like how they griddle the tortillas so that they're vaguelyslightlykindacrisp. Short ribs were, as most have reported, the best. Tender, meaty, and vibrantly flavorful. Spicy pork was also very good, though not particularly spicy. Chicken was excellent but, compared to the other two meats, it just didn't shine. It's like being Scarlett Johansson in the same room as Anne Hathaway and Zooey Deschanel: excellent doesn't hold up against spectacular (unless you're showing off your ass at the beginning of Lost in Translation--that's spectacular with a capital T--but Kogi's chicken isn't Scarlett Johansson's ass, it's Megan Fox's ass, nice but not splooge-worthy).

Kimchi quesadilla: Also very very delicious. Good cheese, well made, excellent non-gas-inducing kimchi, and nicely griddled tortilla. A surprising highlight of the meal.

The sliders: the only dud. Mediocre roll. Great meat. Too much cheap cheese. I wouldn't kick it out of bed, but why get the middling sliders when you can get superb tacos for the same price?

Which brings me to the matter of price. Even here, in residence, Kogi tacos were eminently reasonable. Three tacos were $7 and in a town where it's hard to find a delicious diarrhea-inducing street taco for less than $1.75, that ain't bad. $2.333333333 for a taco that you're able to enjoy in a cushy chair? That's an extra $0.5833333333333 well spent.

So I guess that every now and then something comes around that is both worthwhile and trendy. Unlike Goa or Pet Rocks, Kogi provides a real quantitative value and it appears to have launched imitators (Chinese fusion tacos, fine-dining food trucks) which will ensure that Kogi's legacy lives on.

Kogi Korean BBQ
@Alibi Room
12236 Washington Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90066
www.alibiroomla.com
www.kogibbq.com

The Yelp!ification of Opinion

So I recently wrote about sandwiches. I think I was pretty clear that I was just talking about sandwiches I liked from places I've been. I didn't pretend that I was an expert on sandwiches. I didn't pretend that I'd been to every sandwich place in town or that I was making an unequivocal list of the best and anything not on my list was bad.

Apparently, however, every positive mention of a business means you are, by definition, damning every other similar business you aren't mentioning. My sandwich post garnered the most comments of any post I've done in a while and all were ostensibly from new readers, most of whom were soiling their panties over my failure to mention their favorite sandwich shop.

Come on fuckers, I didn't title my post "the best sandwich in LA" or any other crap like that. I was just writing about good sandwiches. And so sorry I didn't go to your little sandwich shop in Santa Monica, but have any of you been to all the sandwich shops that I listed in my post? I mean, if you have then I'll think a bit more about caring for your opinion. I still won't care for it, but I'll at least consider it.

Now I will respond to each comment:

"56295629 said...

Does Bay City Deli not fit some equation here?"

And what equation would that be? Borderline illiteracy + opinion = dipshit? Because in that case, it does fit into the equation.

What equation it does not fit, however, is the subject of my post which is PLACES I'VE BEEN. I haven't been to Bay City Deli. Sorry.

"tin said...

Artisan Cheese Gallery in Studio City has superb sandwiches!"

I've heard this. I haven't been, hence not writing about it. But that's the Valley, and the only things in the Valley are porn stars and pumpkins.

"Francisco said...

Seriously, the exclusion of Bay Cities completely invalidates this list."

Now I don't want to go to Bay Cities because apparently its fans are militant retards. Sort of like NOW on a short bus. Nothing invalidates anything. Please check the subject. It's a list of places I've been that I've liked. It makes no pretense to comprehensiveness or objectivity.

"SR said...

I'll second Artisan and third Bay City. And throw in Langer's for good measure."

Cool. Good for you. But I don't recall asking "Give me your recommendations for some other good sandwiches."

Does the internets really have most of us convinced that every little musing is an objective unequivocal assertion of truth and value? Or do we really just love our little parochial sandwich shop that much? Or do most of us not read?

Just to check: "I really like Bacaro."

Now I hope to get a flurry of comments declaring my statement invalid because I don't also like some place I've never been.

Save it for Yelp!

And tell your mom I said whaddup.

Short Cuts

In a perfect world I'd chop all my veggies and slow-cook all my sauces. But last time I checked North Korea had the bomb and Ray Romano's still alive, so it's clearly not a perfect world. Here are a few of my favorite culinary shortcuts:

1. Frozen garlic cubes. You get these little frozen bits of chopped up garlic--like all great things a product of Israel--at Trader Joe's. They're quick, convenient, and actually contain pretty much just garlic (unlike a lot of the other garlic pastes or jars of chopped garlic). A little tricky to use at first--make sure you keep your stove top temperature pretty low and keep stirring the cubes around until they melt into your oil--but when you figure it out you get a flavor and aroma that's pretty damn close to freshly chopped garlic.

2. Pasta sauce. Yes, I know. I use jarred sauce. I'm sorry. But I mean, really, unless I'm making from-scratch sauce from fresh tomatoes, what's the REAL difference between making a sauce from canned tomatoes and from a nice simple ready-made marinara? You can still add your sausage, veggies, and herbs--it's just that initial heavy lifting that's been done for you.

3. Salad dressing. Yeah, I'll even buy vinaigrettes. It's just easier and usually tastes better.

4. Salsa. Actually, this isn't so much a short cut, but I just really like cheap, cooked, room-temperature jarred salsa. It actually tastes like something, as opposed to salsa crudas or salsa fresca which just taste like cold and cilantro.

This wasn't a very interesting post. Sorry.

A Really Good Sandwich

I like sandwiches. I also know how to make sandwiches and inevitably my homemade sandwich that costs me 95 cents is 10 times better than the $5 fast food/deli sandwiches out there and at least as good as the $9-$12 "gourmet" sandwiches that white people like.

But as someone who spends his days on the road and frequently finds himself inside businesses that deal in said expensive sandwiches, here's my quick take on a few of LA's standouts. Note that I'm sticking to take-out "gourmet market" sandwiches and panini and not deli sandwiches (kosher or otherwise).

Larchmont Village Wine, Spirits, & Cheese is perhaps the flagship sandwich counter, located on weird Larchmont Ave which is equal parts quaint and Beverly Center--one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Los Angeles, yet the sandwiches at this neighborhood wine shop are your best bet for gourmet dining. The simple set menu (all around $9) of nicely thought-out sandwiches leaves Larchmont with a line out the door most every lunch hour.

Pros? Top quality meats. Well composed sandwiches. Delicious bread. Lots of produce. Half-size sandwiches are a perfect inexpensive light lunch.
Cons? Menu rarely changes. Sandwiches are tough to eat on the road.

Cheese Store of Silverlake has stellar panini and, believe it or not, friendly helpful staff. The selection changes daily and showcases newly arrived cheeses, charcuterie, and condiments. Virtually every ingredient in a panini is available for sale in the store. Go for any sandwich that has muffaleta or a chutney. While the panini are the draw, their un-paninified baguette sandwiches also rock. A recent baguette with brie, arugula, and fresh strawberries basically made me jizz my pants.

Pros? Hot, tasty, portable sandwiches. Fresh ingredients. Great cheeses and chutneys.
Cons? Often light on the fresh veggies. They run out of sandwiches quickly.

Goudas and Vines, a relatively new addition to Santa Monica, has great simple sandwiches. The designs aren't any different from what you'd get at your local Safeway, but the ingredient quality is several steps up.

Pros? Fairly inexpensive. Quick. Friendly.
Cons? Uninspiring combinations.

Venice Beach Wines, fresh from a recent remodel, has added a great selection of cheese, charcuterie, and the inevitable pressed sandwiches that come with that territory. The lamb and manchego sandwich rocks.

Pros? Inspired combinations. Nice indoor/outdoor space to enjoy your sandwich in.
Cons? Limited selection. The small space can get easily overwhelmed.

So yeah, get your sandwich on. The Earl will appreciate it.

Bar Hop - Downtown LA

So I live in Downtown LA now, which I absolutely love. And I'm aware of the humor that it was only after moving to the most suburban of big cities that I actually moved into a city center to live in a converted warehouse on a rutty street with close-up views of LA's idiosyncratic downtown skyline.

A friend informed me that our lack of towers and spires is due to the arbitrary decision to require all skyscrapers in LA to have a helipad on top. True.

I'd been out a few times in downtown prior to my move but not recently. And since I moved to the "Arts District" I've only really been out in my 'hood and adjacent Little Tokyo, since the rest of downtown is blocked off by a moat of warehouses and poop-on-your-car hobos. That all changed last week.

After our below-mentioned dinner at Barbrix, the restaurateur colleague of mine headed back to my place and called a cab to truck our asses into the Old Bank District/Historic Core/Whatever the fuck marketing name realtors come up.

But first we needed to make a stop.

"Kind Eddy's" my colleague told the cab driver, who looked at us with a mix of awe, shock, and disdain.
"What's that?" I asked.
"A dive bar in Skid Row."
"Oh."

Damn. I wore my good wristwatch.

"Here." My colleague requested to the cabby. The cabby seemed concerned that he was stopping three storefronts away from the bar.
"You sure you don't want closer?"
"Nah man, it's cool."

And out we went. We strolled past a few Skid Row denizens, including a gentleman being arrested by a pair of LA's finest, with no harassment and popped into King Eddy's at the corner of 5th & San Pedro.

(It should be noted that, thanks to a rather vigorous ramp up of law enforcement coupled with an increase in social services, Skid Row is actually a pretty decent 'hood. It's dirtier than SF's SoMa, but seems safer overall. The drug problem has been more or less addressed and reduced to small-time pot dealers hocking "cabbie" and prostitution in this most sex-focused of cities is unenforceable at best, so what you're left with is, well, people who live on the streets and/or in the many [many] SRO hotels in the area.)

On to King Eddy's. Just like the trailer for an internet porn site that tricks you into getting a trial membership, the idea that was presented on paper of King Eddy's was so much more appealing than what the bar actually was. Because "cheap ass dive bar in Skid Row" sounds as immediately intriguing as "Big Tits Round Asses," by the fourth or so video it gets pretty tedious and now you're on the phone trying to cancel before the monthly rebill kicks in.

Point being, once you get inside, King Eddy's is your pretty prototypical dive. Cheap drinks. Cheaper food (reheated stuff from Costco). And a clientele drawn from the neighborhood: the homeless/underhomed, legitimately employed SRO occupants, the aforementioned small-time dealers, a handful of ladies/transwomen of the night, and a cluster of the young and adventurous. The bar boasts an "A" Health Department grade and is "Zagat Rated." It also has great flat screen TVs, friendly bartenders, and a dude in latex gloves whose sole job is to walk around with a rag and disinfectant spray and clean off every surface regularly. Cool.

After our beers we left and walked the not-even-two-blocks to Main St., which begins the "real" gentrified downtown LA. It'd be like if you your first girlfriend was a chubby transwoman you picked up at King Eddy's and your second girlfriend was Scarlett Johansson AND you picked up the latter while still copulating with the former; that's how proximal $$$ downtown LA is from !!! downtown LA.

First stop, some queer speakeasy-ish bar (Varnish) in the back of Cole's. It was nice, but that whole "mixology" thing is so 2005. And I wouldn't even have minded except that I ordered a "well Manhattan, up" and I was immediately informed that they "don't have a well." The fuck you don't have a well. Every place has a well. Well just means whatever the fucking default spirit is you serve you pretentious douche. I understand that this might mean that my drink still costs whatever the going rate is for a premium cocktail. I get that. All I was indicating by my request was that I want something simple, classic, and quick. And I would've forgiven even that except the waitress THEN asked if I'd like to try some fucking rye and bullshit drink on their "cocktail list" as if I should be fucking honored to try some fucked concoction that a couple of high on their horse 22 year-olds came up with while stoned. I cut her off mid-sentence. The drinks took for fucking ever, too.

But my Manhattan was, actually, excellent.

Next stop was The Association. Now this was a bar I could support. Good vibe, friendly bartenders, appropriately lit, and a cocktail list made up of nothing but standards from the golden age of American drinkin'. They proudly proclaim that their "newest" drink recipe is the James Bond-inspired Vesper dating from the 1950's. We can never hope to match the drinking prowess of our grandparents, but if we hope to even come close we need to master the drinks they drank: boozy and strong and not the queer shit made up of syrups and homemade bitters and fresh squeezed juices that pass for "cocktails" in places like Varnish. My French 75 was fabulous.

Following the Association, we went to the Crocker Club. Located in an old bank vault, complete with thick swing-open vault door and booths set off in money cages, the Crocker Club was pretty cool. At this point I was drunk as hell so I really don't remember much, but my overall feeling was quite positive.

And then our evening took a turn for the awesome, because we hopped into a cab and headed back across town to Sam's Hofbrau.

Sam's Hofbrau is a strip club straight out of From Dusk 'Till Dawn, minus the vampires but with a lot of guys who look like Harvey Keitel. It's a topless/bikini place so there's plenty of booze to be had and a good mixed up crowd of equal parts men and women, hipsters and gangbangers. No cover. Cheapish drinks. Delightfully authentic dancers. Five thumbs up.

Last stop before a cab dragged our asses back to my apartment was a taco truck parked just outside. It was the best fucking taco I've ever had.

Because every drunk 3AM taco is the best fucking taco you've ever had.

Where we went:
King Eddy's - 131 E. Fifth St.
Varnish - 118 E. Sixth St.
The Association - 610 S. Main St.
The Crocker Club - 453 S. Spring St.
Sam's Hofbrau - 1751 E. Olympic Blvd.

Barbrix - Silver Lake, Los Angeles

In what is the earliest initial visit HFF has ever made to a new restaurant, I headed to Barbrix with a restaurateur colleague on their third day open. It was rockstar fabulous across the board, even at this early stage.

We showed up early to kick off our evening that ended up wending through some of the seamier parts of Downtown Los Angeles (King Eddie's anyone?)--but that's a different post. Our early arrival was inadvertently shrewd as the place was packed with a line out the door by 7PM.

The space is well designed and pleasantly simply--a welcome relief from the oft overexecuted ripped-from-the-Hanging-Gardens-of-Babylon LA dining rooms that would be more appropriate as VIP lounges in Vegas strip clubs. There's a front patio with a cluster of tables, a big square wine bar in front, a bunch of tables (actual tables), and a back dining counter at the open kitchen.

The wine list is stellar (no surprise given co-owner Claudio Blotta's track CV) and dirt dirt cheap. No glasses over $10. No bottles over $55. A handful of very good bottles for under $20. A global selection of small-production labels, the most quotidian of the bunch is the Qupe Syrah. Wines on the list are priced only nominally over retail and well under the 3x wholesale bench mark that even the most casual LA restaurants seem to use as a starting point.

We went with one of the priciest bottles, the Sean Thackrey Sirius Petite Sirah at the absurdly low price of $55 on the freakin' list. Delicious, subtle complexity, pleasurable without tasting a damn thing like stewed prunes and grape jelly. Paso Robles this isn't.

We had a lot of food (it's all small plates), so I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff. Roasted cauliflower salad was great, very well done. Wild boar sausage with white bean ragout was fabulous. Porchetta-style pork belly was really nicely cooked, though the skin was absurdly (bordering on inedibly) crisp. Shrimp and chickpea "tortillas" (actually soccas): very good. Crostini misti (crescenza/fig/prosciutto, favetta & pecorino, jidori chicken liver pate) rocked, particularly the pate. Crispy grilled polenta with mushrooms: simple, tasty. The kitchen proved adept at the eclectic menu, showing themselves just as at home with pasta (an excellent beet arancini). The only so-so dish was the pork rillettes. It was fine, but I wanted stronger seasoning and a little more fat.

Now here's where it gets really weird. Service was excellent. When I walk into an LA restaurant staffed mostly by cute girls in their twenties (which is every restaurant that isn't staffed by ripped men) I'm immediately skeptical. The emphasis on looks above all else in a service staff has rendered LA service either mediocre and neglectful or eerily over-trained but under-engaged, vacantly rattling off info about the menu like a Hungarian speaking English phonetically. But at Barbrix the staff was very well-trained (you can tell they've had the opportunity to taste everything on the menu) while remaining honest and personable. I like idiosyncratic service. I like individual service. I like personality. The fact that everyone's hipster pretty (it is Silver Lake, after all) is merely a bonus.

And, seriously, I'm not trying to blog-fellate Barbrix but it's just so easy: even our fucking espressos were perfectly pulled, nice temperature, thick crema.

Our tab was like $150 including a generous tip, but that was with a pricey wine and way too much food. You could easily eat there for $30-$35 a head with wine. That's the sweet spot for a neighborhood place, which is what Barbrix is (and doesn't pretend to be anything else). It's the price that'll get locals in on a weekly basis. A lot of affluent and adventurous people live in the neighborhood and they need a place to eat. Keep the prices down, the menu evolving, and the atmosphere friendly.

It's a simple formula but incredibly easy to fuck up (cf. most every restaurant in Los Angeles).

Barbrix
2442 Hyperion Ave.
Los Angeles, Ca 90027
323-662-2442
www.barbrix.com

HFF Reexamines: The Tax Question

EaterLA linked to this article in Bon Apetit regarding tipping on takeout and delivery. I agree wholeheartedly on takeout: tip a couple bucks, regardless of price. The author's opinion on delivery is also good, 15%-20%. Though I'd bump that down toward 15% on the scale actually as a delivery driver is, generally, tipping out much less than a server at a sit down restaurant. A server is going to tip out 20%-40% of his gross tips in a given night, a driver very little if any.

But here again that canard of tax comes into play: "at least 15 to 20 percent of the check before tax," he writes.

You should tip AFTER tax. Always. Here's why: a server has to pay taxes based on GROSS sales. Because of years of service staff underdeclaring tips and restaurants turning a blind eye, the IRS set a benchmark a several years ago of a minimum assumed tip income of 8% of gross sales, information which the restaurant has to provide as part of its payroll accounting. Not net sales, gross sales. Gross sales include tax.

So if a server grosses $200,000 in a year, the IRS will assume a minimum tipped income of $16,000 on top of his or her wage income for the year. When you factor in tip-outs and (in some cases) credit card service charge deductions, you get a situation where if you tip less than 10% the server is at best breaking even, at worst losing a bit of money.

That distracts from the main point, though: why does a small fraction of a small fraction matter? I know sales tax went up, but not by much. The difference between tipping before and after tax is the difference of 9.25ish% of whatever percentage you were planning to tip. A 20% tip? It's a difference of 1.85% of the total bill. Assume you have a $200 (before tax) tab. A 20% tip would be $40 before tax or $43.70 after.

You're really going to squabble over $3.70? And that's on a sizeable tab. More importantly, are you really going to squabble over $0.37 on a $20 tab? It's not a procedural issue, it's a generosity issue. When I go out (restaurants, bars, hotels, cabs) I smile, say thank you, and tip generously. I don't make a lot of money, but I'm probably making a bit more than whoever's serving me (or maybe not). And those few extra bucks I spend in gratuity come back to me in the form of better service, room upgrades, neighborhood discounts, and free drinks. It takes time to build those relationships, but they pay off.

So here's HFF's ironclad rule for tipping: for competent, attentive service tip at least 20% after tax. Only for egregiously rude service should you tip less than 15%. Period. When in doubt, round up. Those extra pennies will come back to you, as the no doubt racist idiom goes, "in spades."

Bizarre Foods: LA

So I'm watching Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre Foods trip to LA (I know it aired last fall, but I missed it then so bear with me).

Cool stuff. A lot of things I didn't know about. For instance: Typhoon, the Pan-Asian restaurant at the Santa Monica Airport of all places. It's time to put my krugerrands where my mouth is and head to Typhoon to try crickets, scorpions, Thai white sea worms, and ants. Who else is in?

I'm also embarrassingly underfamiliar with LA's taco trucks, having have eaten at all of, well, one I think. Maybe two. I was really drunk.

And his visit with Nobu Matsuhisa is a reminder of what happens when true, honest innovation takes hold: you have a bunch of plastic surgeried housewives eating octopus tiradito and uni shooters. When culinary risk-taking comes from a lifetime of experience coupled with blind (perhaps even foolhardly) commitment to the correctness of your culinary decisions you get great authentic food that is approachable.

Take note.

HFF Quickie: Street - Los Angeles, Ca

Had lunch at Street, the love-it-or-hate-it new restaurant from Susan Feniger located in Hollywood on Highland just off of Melrose.

Pretty good stuff. Their lunch combos featuring your choice of a small salad and small dumpling plate for about $14 is a good deal. My radish cake with sweet Chinese sausage and egg was more than awesome and my "New Jerusalem" bread salad with jerusalem artichokes and feta was also nice, though I prefer softer bread than the garlicky croutons served here. They're tough to stab with a fork.

Sweet and spicy millet puffs served in lieu of bread are delicious.

The table also shared the puri appetizer which was simple and tasty and a dessert of Turkish doughnuts glazed in rosewater. Retarded good.

Service was friendly and knowledgeable. Food took a little bit longer to come out of the kitchen than it probably should, especially the doughnut dessert which took quite a while.

Street's interesting, fresh, and reasonably priced given the quality of the ingredients and the space. Check it out.

Street
742 N. Highland Ave.
Los Angeles, Ca 90038
323-203-0500
www.eatatstreet.com

Budwesier American Ale

Let's go back in time, shall we?

It's 1919 and everyone's sittin' pretty. America has had two centuries of quality small-production local brewing, wine making, and distilling. We're kickin' it, enjoying a brew or three--and a lot of whiskey and gin--and well on our way to becoming the biggest swingingest dicks on the planet. And then.... WHAM-O! Prohibition and the Vosltead Act come right out of the blue and end boozing as we know it in America.

(It should be noted at this point that Prohibition as a movement had existed in America since its founding and many states had already enacted alcohol restrictions and outright exclusions at the time the Eighteenth Amendment had passed. And the passing of the Volstead Act did in no way end the production, sale, and consumption of alcoholic beverages in America. -ed.)

The greatest casualties of Prohibition weren't American Law & Order or the scores of deaths from organized crime bootlegging or Joseph Kennedy's acquisition of massive wealth. Hardly. The greatest casualty was America's boutique winemaking and, especially, its tradition of (for the lack of a better term) microbrewing.

Brewing is an intimate endeavor. Unlike winemaking, which can be done essentially spontaneously, even the crudest, crappiest beer requires a significant level of human involvement. Brewing requires cooking. Beer is nowhere near as shelf-stable as wine or spirits. Brewing requires fires and cauldrons. Brewing is best done where it had always been done until the late 1800's: small, local breweries. Every tavern brewed its own beer, kept in casks in the cellar for the consumption of guests and villagers. Monasteries brewed beer. And even when beer production began to be industrialized, the cost of transport kept beer an, at best, regional endeavor.

Finally, a few American entrepreneurs, perhaps Adolph Coors most notably, took advantage of a few technological innovations (primarily refrigerated rail) to begin distributing beer super-regionally, just in time for the banishment of alcohol production in America.

Prohibition killed every small brewery in America. Big breweries which were backed by larger holding companies could stay in business producing near-beer or malted milk, putting a handful of well-heeled giants in prime position to expand once the Eighteenth Amendment was repealed.

(Wine was spared such a fate because many wineries could stay afloat making sacramental wine and by selling grapes to home winemakers. Smaller production winemaking was able to recover more quickly than brewing, though it did take several decades.)

When Prohibition was repealed it wasn't a magic switch that Roosevelt flipped to send all the booze flowing again: individual states, counties, and cities reallowed booze at their respective pace (Kansas didn't allow on-premise liquor sales until 1987), creating a situation that only large brewers could exploit. Advanced refrigeration and transportation techniques created a national distribution network and, in the grand Cold War American tradition, beer became as homogenous as the nation we pretended to be.

But pretend homogeneity is just that. As the long tail of America grew and grew, shrewd innovators began to capture the lucrative market of the disaffected and craft brewing came back strong. In 1977 Jimmy Carter formally legalized homebrewing and American beer lovers began reproducing the beers they had drunk and loved in Britain, Germany, Belgium, and beyond. Some of these homebrewers had enough success to make the foolish decision to go commercial and, even more foolishly, succeed at that as well.

So full and complete was the craft brew revolution that the big American brewers belatedly tried to jump back into the game, like Chrysler attempting a hybrid a half-decade into the post-Prius world. First, macrobreweries half-heartedly made some of their own niche beers (remember Red Dog? No? Good). When that failed, macrobreweries began partnering in distribution deals with successful smaller brewers. Have you ever noticed that Widmer Brothers Hefeweizen is almost ineveitably lined up next to Anheuser-Busch beers at bigger bars? That's why.

Instead of opening the doors for smaller brewers, these partnerships succeeded in macro-izing formerly niche producers like Sierra Nevada, Pyramid, Sam Adams, and Red Hook--to the detriment of all (based on my purely empirical evaluation).

Eventually the American macro-breweries gave-up, quit, and let themselves be bought-out by bigger, more diversified European beverage companies.

So where are we now?

Budweiser has released a malty, dry-hopped "American Ale." And it's not bad at all. It tastes significantly like Newcastle, but with a bit more hoppy bite on the finish. Good structure, but a bit lean on the mid-palate. Actually, I'd call it a dead-ringer for Newcastle, if not a slight improvement thanks to the added edge of hops on the finish.

Couple this with Michelob's pleasant Amber Bock and maybe we're seeing macrobreweries returning to their roots. Because if you can't beat them (or buy them out) you might as well join them.

Maybe Budweiser can capitalize on the hipster anti-elaborate backlash and chisel themselves a Pabst-like niche with craft brew-lovers who've become disenchanted with the douche-y developments in the last decade or so of American microbrewing (how many neo-Belgian beers do we need? Seriously!); a mainstream punk rock volley against the eighteenth note nonuplets of late 70's prog.

What More Do You Want?

The level of assumed entitlement in this post-Yelp! world is amazing.

There was a time where a consumer and a business-owner obliged each other with this simple, basic ground rule:

If something purchased did not meet the consumer's satisfaction and that item could be reasonably returned (or was faulty, or was only partially consumed in the case of food) then the business-owner would accept the return and refund their money. That's good business.

Now it seems that only "kinda" liking something is grounds for demanding refund and sending a dish back is grounds for an entire check to be comped.

Two cases in point:

Consumerist Blog writes about purchasing a chimichurri salmon dish at Trader Joe's and finding a dead, cooked worm on the fish as he's consuming it. That's gross, sure. Fine. So he returns the uneaten fish and the worm to his local Trader Joe's and gets a refund and several complimentary items. Well done Trader Joe's. However, on the blog, Consumerist is annoyed that he hasn't received any response from Trader Joe's corporate. What possible response would they have that wasn't already addressed by his local store? What does he want? Free TJs for life over a stupid worm? Come on! Organic matter exists with other organic matter and every so often you'll find unintended organic matter packaged with intended organic matter. That's life. I'd be more concerned about finding inorganic matter like broken glass or "bleach-like" substances. But a worm on a fish? Especially a dead one? Who cares? Pick it off and keep eating.

A recent Yelp! review of Street in Hollywood had this to say:

"I ate their on Saturday night. The food ranged from good to forgettable. The left side of the menu (small plates) is MUCH better than the right side. In a city like LA, with amazing and authentic Korean and Thai restaurants, there is little reason to eat korean BBQ short ribs or mediocre Bibimbop here. My biggest complaint is that we were not seated until 9:30pm when we had a 9pm reservation. To make matters worse, they did not offer to buy us a round of drinks and only took a few appetizers off the menu when we asked them to "do something" at the end of the meal. On a $250 bill (before tip) they took of $17 worth of apps. Many of the cocktails cost above $10, so this really was not much. (BTW, the $16 cocktail is SO over in LA; just ask Bar 1912).

Overall, they need to shore up the way they run the restaurant. Relying on Ms. Feniger's hard earned reputation alone does not make a great restaurant. Unless they shore up the front of the house and focus the food on being unique, STREET will fail...and there will go Ms. Feniger's rep. It will be a long time before I spend my $$$ here again."

Oh, so you weren't blown away by the food and you had to wait 30 minutes to be seated for a reservation? Okay, so that sucks. Oh, but they comped some appetizers? Cool, so what's the problem? You could've left if you didn't want to eat there. Should they have maybe comped a little bit more? Sure. But you were the entitled prick who asked that they "do something." When I was a waiter that was a cue for not caring if you ever did come back.

So what should you reasonably expect when a restaurant fails to meet your expectations?

For egregious wait times for a reservation: comped drink or appetizer.

For unacceptable food: either comped or replaced, if replacement causes a significant delay then perhaps the entree or a drink should be comped.

For an incorrect order: replacement and, if it causes a significant delay, a comped drink or dessert.

For unacceptable service: a lot of discretion here, ranging from free drinks to gift certificates to a total refund.

Basically buddy, for having to wait 30 minutes for your table (and knowing your type it was probably more like 15) you should MAYBE get a free drink while you waited.

You're lucky you didn't get a cockslap across your face.

Kickin' It Old School: Castlewood Country Club, Pleasanton, Ca

There was a time when America was truly great. When marital rape was legal and the only Negroes on a golf course were caddies, greenskeepers, and W.E.B. DuBois. I got to experience a whiff of that era on a recent trip to the venerable Castlewood Country Club in the foothills of Pleasanton. And let me tell you, that whiff smelled strongly of Burma Shave.

My parents, for reasons still vague, were recently invited to join the club (they let Jews in now!) and they accepted as social members, providing access to all the facilities and two tee times a year on the admittedly beautiful golf course.

I was up seeing my parents for the recent pan-religious holidays and we went to the club on a Friday night, wearing the requisite sport coat. We were greeted by the friendly young hostess and ushered into the bar for a cocktail, which we enjoyed with an appetizer of fried calamari which was surprisingly tender and tasty. I didn't actually enjoy my cocktail which was probably the worst Rob Roy I'd ever had, tasting strongly of scotch for the first half of the drink and strongly of vermouth for the second.

We moved into the dining room which was really really nice in a very old school way. Sort of a hybrid of a vintage downtown SF steakhouse and a vintage North Beach strip club, all overlooking a shady golf course.

I was charmed by the menu which offered a "complete" option for every entree. For $4 extra you got soup or a house salad and a scoop of ice cream for dessert. My mom informed me that this used to be standard.

You know what? The food was actually pretty damn good. I mean, the ingredients were of middling quality and questionable seasonality, but the preparation was impeccable and there were flashes of innovation in the flavor combinations.

I went with a lettuce salad with Fuji apples and candied pecans to start--pretty nice, though the supersweet apples and the supersweet candied pecans made for a supersweet salad.

For my entree I steered clear of the who's who of circa 1963 menu items and opted for the "appetizer" of mac and cheese with lobster meat and vegetables. Pretty tasty and more than enough for an entree.

The wine list, although small and offering all of ONE non-sparkling wine that wasn't Californian, was well thought out and not as predictable (or slavishly devoted to Livermore Valley wines) as one might've thought. We had a Paraiso pinot noir from Monterey County. Good stuff.

And a quick note on the service. Did they know a shit ton about food? Not really. Was the service attentive, friendly, professional, and deferential? Absolutely. It was really great service. They replaced flatware and napkins, cleared dishes promptly, and were generally convivial.

Why can't we have such service at places that don't feel like a time warp? Why?

So yeah, I do recommend Castlewood Country Club to y'all. Of course you have to be a member so, well, nuts to you.

Seventh busiest restaurant in California?

Restaurant Industry magazine released its list of the nation's Top 100 Independent Restaurants (by estimated gross sales).

Most of the list isn't surprising; many of the restaurants are in either New York City or Las Vegas, including the mind-boggling Tao Las Vegas which grossed $68MM in 2008 (almost twice the number two on the list, Tavern on the Green). The California entries are mostly recognizable: SF downtown expense-account/tourist mainstays Slanted Door, Scoma's, Boulevard, and Cliff House along with Los Angeles meal machines Gladstone's Malibu and Lawry's The Prime Rib.

Can I just ask what's up with definite articles and Beverly Hills steakhouses? Lawry's The Prime Rib? Morton's The Steakhouse? Wolfgang Puck's The Cut? (Yes he is).

Actually he's probably not. He's Austrian after all.

But in all this list of LAs and New Yorks and Chicagos and Miamis is a very very odd and eye-catching outlier: Coalinga.

That's right, Harris Ranch Steakhouse is one of the 100 highest grossing restaurants in the country, and the seventh highest in California (between NYC's Ruby Foos and Asia de Cuba). Adding to my bafflement is the fact that not only are they higher grossing than a lot of serious Vegas restaurants (Aureole, Eiffel Tower, Spago Las Vegas), but Harris Ranch Steakhouse also has one of the lowest per person averages on the list at an estimated $33 a head.

Holy fucking crap, 474,323 people dined at Harris Ranch Steakhouse in 2008. That's more people than dined at half of the restaurants in the top 10.

So a half a million people hopped off I-5 while going to/from somewhere and had a leisurely steak dinner in a hot, stinking, hellhole.

I lived in the Bay Area. I live in Los Angeles. I drive up and down I-5 a lot. I've never considered eating there. Hell, I can only remember stopping for gas there once. I tend to avoid it because the town smells like cow shit and the gas is usually a bit more expensive than elsewhere.

Plus I don't consider driving on I-5 to be a leisurely endeavor. I'd rather not spend a couple hours eating at a restaurant, I just want to get wherever the fuck it is I'm going. I stop for gas and a piss once, maybe grab a drive-thru bean burrito, and keep on my way.

So who are these people? I mean, the LA-SF drive is only about five and a half hours, so that can easily be done between meals (bring a Clif Bar), so it's probably OC/San Diego folks making the longer drive. Or maybe truckers? Indulging in one good meal on the road? Steak and a blowjob under the methane-shrouded moon?

Point is, if I were a high-class truckstop hooker, I'd hang out at Harris Ranch.

Second point? I'm eating at Harris Ranch next time I make the drive up I-5 (if I'm not in a rush).