I stutter. It's a speech impediment I've had for as long as I can remember speaking. The nature of the stutter has shifted over time. Originally it was mostly the letter "L" but now it's more often the letter "V" and "N." "D" has always been a tricky one which, given my name, has posed unique problems.
Since stuttering is both physiological and psychological, the severity of my impediment fluctuates and, while never fully absent, it has been in a manageable state since I was a teenager. It's least prevalent when I'm drinking and around friends, most prevalent when I'm in stressful environments. The great joke about stuttering is that it is almost always more pronounced when one is stressed out and nothing stresses the stutterer out more than a fear of stuttering and the fear of the reactions of others to the stutter. I will also say that I have known severe stutterers and fully acknowledge that mine has never been more than moderate and has never inhibited my ability to communicate significantly nor did it impede my academic success. It did, however, greatly inhibit my willingness to communicate greatly during my childhood and adolescence.
I hated to speak. I was terrified to speak. I knew that if I opened my mouth in any institutional situation, I would stutter and as a child I wasn't able to rationally comprehend the relative meaningless of a blocked consonant or prolonged vowel here and there. You stutter, everyone laughs at you. What's more terrifying to a nine year old than everyone laughing at you? At restaurants, I remember, I would slip away to the restroom and I would tell my mom or dad what I wanted to order "just in case the waitress came," neither wanting to suffer the embarrassment of asking outright for them to order for me nor the embarrassment of stuttering out "crab cake sandwich." I never introduced myself to people. I never struck up conversations with strangers. I did somehow manage to get through a summer theatre camp and be my middle school's spelling bee champion, however.
As a result of my fear of speaking, I learned to listen. I learned to listen very closely. Speech was my most precious commodity, when I did have to speak I wanted it to be as quick and effective as possible. I didn't have the luxury of being a recreational talker, bullshitting and gossipping and yammering on. I also cultivated a massive vocabulary and learned how to use it. If my tongue's getting caught on the "c" in "comprehend," let's try "understand" instead. "Requirements" tricky today? Let's go with "exigencies." English and its massive, flexible vocabulary drawing from several different linguistic traditions might be the most friendly to the stutterer.
Because of the preciousness I have for speech, I'm left sometimes with a feeling of contempt for those who waste it. Talking without meaning, words signifying nothing. Boilerplate nonsense and non-answers to questions. Conversations that are words into the ether, not true intercourse. Or my least favorite, answers that serve not to further the conversation but to push the respondent's own agenda. Dialogue is the only way to truth and dialogue doesn't exist without thoughtful question being met with thoughtful answer.
Because of my early life as 90% listener, 10% talker I'm left with a contempt (sometimes seething) for those who don't listen; for those people who latch on to three or four words and formulate a non-relevant response in their head before the speaker is even done asking his question. The art of conversation, the crucial give and take, doesn't work if people are in a hurry to speak and have an interest in only speaking their agenda, relevance be damned.
I ended up managing my stutter because I matured and realized it wasn't that big of a deal. The willingness to (mostly) not worry about it and plow ahead greatly reduced my stress over my stutter and therefore greatly reduced its prevalence. I had reversed the stuttering feedback loop and used it to my benefit.
While reviewing some recent videos of myself I realized that my stutter is still very much there and I'm sure at times it is distracting to others, but in the end there's little I can do about it. There's no cure for stuttering and of all the various (sometimes lengthy and expensive) treatments, acceptance has been shown to increase fluency the best. And it's totally free. So I'm happy and content in my current world of mild stuttering that I've been living in for about thirteen or fourteen years now. I'm told some girls think it's cute.
But I've maintained my respect for speech as well as the value I ascribe to it. Articulate speech communication is what sets us apart from the animals: utilize it with attention and care. Also, speech is meaningless in a vacuum so unless you're engaging another you're not actually speaking. I would encourage everyone to think about what they're saying and why: Are you talking for yourself or for others? Are you advancing discourse or just repeating known facts? Discourse in America has devolved largely to non-existence and it's time to take it back. As someone who has spent his entire life listening, there's a lot to be learned and it's the most powerful weapon you have.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Luis Pato, Leitao and Six Foot Baga Vines: Fear & Loathing in Bairrada
“It’s leitao.”
I stared at the plate in front of me. Crispy red skin. Gooey oozing fat. Moist, dripping meat. Was that a snout? No. Wait? No. At least, I don’t think so. Maybe?
So this was the legendary leitao of Bairrada, a balmy region of red clay and sand landscapes twenty kilometers inland from the Atlantic, an hour and a half south of Porto and four hours north of the Algarve, where pasty pudgy British tourists disembark every July to quickly turn a seared bright red, a modern sort of invading Lobsters replacing the Redcoats of colonial America. But what is it? It’s more than food. It’s a lifestyle. It’s regional pride. Every restaurant we sped past on the winding unnamed roads advertised “LEITAO” in massive letters. Or minimal letters. Or letters in between, but mostly massive letters. The dish is consumed with a religious devotion reserved for only the finest of the world’s regional dishes: okonomiyaki in the Kansai, poutine in Quebec, vodka and Red Bull in West Hollywood.
But what is leitao?
It’s a baby pig. A suckling pig. A piglet, sans striped singlet. It’s a six-week old pig, slaughtered and dressed fresh: the larger purveyors have pens of piglets on the property where the squeal and scurry contentedly before being zapped unconscious and disemboweled. Its body cavity is rubbed with a proprietary mix of lard and spices which vary from purveyor to purveyor but all involve some combination of salt, garlic and lots of pepper (both black and white). Some assaderos (as Leitao specialists are known, basically Portuguese for “grillmaster”) also inject that spice mixture between the skin and flesh. The piglet is unceremoniously skewered on a spit and suspended in a hot clay oven. The best leitao is fired in an oven made from the local red clay, whose temperature is judged by the color of its heated glow. Village gates in Bairrada are adorned with statues of young pigs. Should an uninitiated traveler barrel down the highway and notice such glorious homage to such pre-pubescent swine he might be concerned that there was some odd Wicker Man-esque shit going on here and virginal policemen best stay away, or at least avoid the bees.
The roast pig is then cut into numerous small pieces and served on a plate with boiled or fried potatoes, an obligatory side of green salad, and slices of orange to cut the fat after you’ve consumed a few pieces. Every piece is cut to preserve meat, bone, skin and fat. The skin, puffed from meat by the layer of fat, crackles like, well, like the best pork skin on the planet. Underneath the mostly liquid pork fat oozes around the flesh which was always moister than a nun on Easter; that’s no small feat considering the tiny-ness of the pigs and the heat of the oven. My favorite bits were the meaty squares cut from the flanks, though the pieces from around the rib cage were tender and flavorful.
Our host for this particular porcine excursion was Luis Pato, one of the “three popes” of Portuguese wine making. Not my term. Luis has been producing wine since 1980 when, then working as a chemist, he made wine from his father’s old Baga vines, aged them for four years in concrete vats because he couldn’t get a bottling line together, and then entered it into a Bairrada wine competition in London where it was promptly declared the best red wine in the region--not bad for a first effort. So Luis quite the chemistry game and entered the family business full time. He’s built a reputation not only as the pre-eminent vigneron but as one of Portugal’s most ardent ambassadors, embracing nearly forgotten varietals like Baga and Maria Gomes and turning them into some of the world’s best wines.
And if there’s a wine to drink with the delicious, crackling ripping obscenity of Leitao it’s Baga, either as a vinho tinto lightly chilled or the traditional accompaniment of cold espumante tinto, Portuguese red sparkling wine. The shining acidity and sturdy tannins cut through the fat and the wine’s cooked cherry fruit flavors compliment the peppery meat in the same way a good cherry compote rounds out a nice tenderloin. We visited Luis’ local where the massive piles of meat were neverending and the rotund diners left smiling back out to the vineyards to ensure there’d be grapes to replace what they’d drunk.
Luis was such a staunch proponent of Bairrada at a time when the grape was about to go extinct that he earned the sobriquet “Mr. Baga” which he wears with great pride. His vineyards are scattered throughout the region, including his Quinta do Ribeirinho grapes from vines planted by his father almost 50 years ago and a small plot of Baga vines he acquired that are well over 100 years old. This vineyard is located off the main thoroughfare down a rutty dirt road where, while en route, we passed a pair of policemen on horseback who had just scared away a prostitute. She had driven her car off the road with a john in tow to presumably get down to business, a common practice we were told for roadside “car prostitutes” in rural Portugal. After being forced to get out of the Suzuki 4x4 so it could clear a particularly nasty bump in the road, we found ourselves surrounded by the gnarled, ancient vines, some of which were well over six feet high.
In one sandy corner of mostly clay soil Bairrada, Luis has planted some Baga and Touriga Nacional on original European rootstock: because it is difficult for the phylloxera aphid to maneuver in sandy soil the vines are able to resist the pest. The very low-yielding grapes produce concentrated wine with more brambly fruit notes than the grafted vines.
Despite being Bairrada’s shining star, Mr. Baga didn’t use the DOC on most of his wines for a number of years, fighting the region’s administrators over its overly legislative attitude, which he believed was restricting many producer’s abilities to bring Bairrada wine making into the 21st century. Because of Luis’ efforts, the DOC made extensive revisions to its regulations and beginning with the 2008 vintage all of Luis Pato’s wines again bear the Bairrada DOC label.
Whether the regular “Casta Baga” Tinto 2007 or Baga Vinhas Velhas 2005, give the grape a try and uncork what is as much one iconoclast’s story as it is the history and culture of his region. And if you can, enjoy it with delicious, fatty, crispy, spicy leitao.
I stared at the plate in front of me. Crispy red skin. Gooey oozing fat. Moist, dripping meat. Was that a snout? No. Wait? No. At least, I don’t think so. Maybe?
So this was the legendary leitao of Bairrada, a balmy region of red clay and sand landscapes twenty kilometers inland from the Atlantic, an hour and a half south of Porto and four hours north of the Algarve, where pasty pudgy British tourists disembark every July to quickly turn a seared bright red, a modern sort of invading Lobsters replacing the Redcoats of colonial America. But what is it? It’s more than food. It’s a lifestyle. It’s regional pride. Every restaurant we sped past on the winding unnamed roads advertised “LEITAO” in massive letters. Or minimal letters. Or letters in between, but mostly massive letters. The dish is consumed with a religious devotion reserved for only the finest of the world’s regional dishes: okonomiyaki in the Kansai, poutine in Quebec, vodka and Red Bull in West Hollywood.
But what is leitao?
It’s a baby pig. A suckling pig. A piglet, sans striped singlet. It’s a six-week old pig, slaughtered and dressed fresh: the larger purveyors have pens of piglets on the property where the squeal and scurry contentedly before being zapped unconscious and disemboweled. Its body cavity is rubbed with a proprietary mix of lard and spices which vary from purveyor to purveyor but all involve some combination of salt, garlic and lots of pepper (both black and white). Some assaderos (as Leitao specialists are known, basically Portuguese for “grillmaster”) also inject that spice mixture between the skin and flesh. The piglet is unceremoniously skewered on a spit and suspended in a hot clay oven. The best leitao is fired in an oven made from the local red clay, whose temperature is judged by the color of its heated glow. Village gates in Bairrada are adorned with statues of young pigs. Should an uninitiated traveler barrel down the highway and notice such glorious homage to such pre-pubescent swine he might be concerned that there was some odd Wicker Man-esque shit going on here and virginal policemen best stay away, or at least avoid the bees.
The roast pig is then cut into numerous small pieces and served on a plate with boiled or fried potatoes, an obligatory side of green salad, and slices of orange to cut the fat after you’ve consumed a few pieces. Every piece is cut to preserve meat, bone, skin and fat. The skin, puffed from meat by the layer of fat, crackles like, well, like the best pork skin on the planet. Underneath the mostly liquid pork fat oozes around the flesh which was always moister than a nun on Easter; that’s no small feat considering the tiny-ness of the pigs and the heat of the oven. My favorite bits were the meaty squares cut from the flanks, though the pieces from around the rib cage were tender and flavorful.
Our host for this particular porcine excursion was Luis Pato, one of the “three popes” of Portuguese wine making. Not my term. Luis has been producing wine since 1980 when, then working as a chemist, he made wine from his father’s old Baga vines, aged them for four years in concrete vats because he couldn’t get a bottling line together, and then entered it into a Bairrada wine competition in London where it was promptly declared the best red wine in the region--not bad for a first effort. So Luis quite the chemistry game and entered the family business full time. He’s built a reputation not only as the pre-eminent vigneron but as one of Portugal’s most ardent ambassadors, embracing nearly forgotten varietals like Baga and Maria Gomes and turning them into some of the world’s best wines.
And if there’s a wine to drink with the delicious, crackling ripping obscenity of Leitao it’s Baga, either as a vinho tinto lightly chilled or the traditional accompaniment of cold espumante tinto, Portuguese red sparkling wine. The shining acidity and sturdy tannins cut through the fat and the wine’s cooked cherry fruit flavors compliment the peppery meat in the same way a good cherry compote rounds out a nice tenderloin. We visited Luis’ local where the massive piles of meat were neverending and the rotund diners left smiling back out to the vineyards to ensure there’d be grapes to replace what they’d drunk.
Luis was such a staunch proponent of Bairrada at a time when the grape was about to go extinct that he earned the sobriquet “Mr. Baga” which he wears with great pride. His vineyards are scattered throughout the region, including his Quinta do Ribeirinho grapes from vines planted by his father almost 50 years ago and a small plot of Baga vines he acquired that are well over 100 years old. This vineyard is located off the main thoroughfare down a rutty dirt road where, while en route, we passed a pair of policemen on horseback who had just scared away a prostitute. She had driven her car off the road with a john in tow to presumably get down to business, a common practice we were told for roadside “car prostitutes” in rural Portugal. After being forced to get out of the Suzuki 4x4 so it could clear a particularly nasty bump in the road, we found ourselves surrounded by the gnarled, ancient vines, some of which were well over six feet high.
In one sandy corner of mostly clay soil Bairrada, Luis has planted some Baga and Touriga Nacional on original European rootstock: because it is difficult for the phylloxera aphid to maneuver in sandy soil the vines are able to resist the pest. The very low-yielding grapes produce concentrated wine with more brambly fruit notes than the grafted vines.
Despite being Bairrada’s shining star, Mr. Baga didn’t use the DOC on most of his wines for a number of years, fighting the region’s administrators over its overly legislative attitude, which he believed was restricting many producer’s abilities to bring Bairrada wine making into the 21st century. Because of Luis’ efforts, the DOC made extensive revisions to its regulations and beginning with the 2008 vintage all of Luis Pato’s wines again bear the Bairrada DOC label.
Whether the regular “Casta Baga” Tinto 2007 or Baga Vinhas Velhas 2005, give the grape a try and uncork what is as much one iconoclast’s story as it is the history and culture of his region. And if you can, enjoy it with delicious, fatty, crispy, spicy leitao.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
The Lovely Leitao
In the center of Portugal, both in the granite towers of the Dao and more famously amidst the clay soils of Bairrada, is a signature regional dish. A signature regional dish among all the signature regional dishes of the world. A dish that is more ubiquitous in Bairrada than fat people in Mississippi and technical virgins at a Twilight screening. That dish? That dish is Leitao. Leitao is so ubiquitous that (honestly) every single restaurant in certain villages had "leitao" in the name.
So what is Leitao?
Leitao is a young suckling pig, no more than two months old. The skin and internal cavity is rubbed with a proprietary blend of salt, garlic and white & black pepper. A lot of white & black pepper. The pig is skewered on a spit and roasted in a hot clay oven, traditionally made from the local red clay of Bairrada (its name comes from barro, Portuguese for clay). The leitao is then chopped up and served on a platter with potatoes (traditionally boiled, more commonly now fried) and fresh oranges. The sweetness and acid of the oranges cuts the peppery fat of the pig.
The piglet's skin is crisp and puffed off of the flesh, which is rich, moist and tender with a serious black pepper spiciness. My favorite incarnation was served with peeled, thin sliced potatoes fried into a status somewhere between french fry and potato chip. The lesser versions of leitao did suffer from rubbery skin syndrome, but most of the time the skin was crunchy buttery crisp and the perfect vehicle for deliciousness.
In the end, despite the deliciousness of leitao, I was more inspired by the regional devotion to a classic dish that nearly every restaurant did expertly. It's something we miss out on. California is bigger than Portugal yet, other than a carne asada, nacho cheese and french fry burrito from San Diego, we have no significant ubiquitous regional cuisines. We should fix this problem and do it with great haste.
So what is Leitao?
Leitao is a young suckling pig, no more than two months old. The skin and internal cavity is rubbed with a proprietary blend of salt, garlic and white & black pepper. A lot of white & black pepper. The pig is skewered on a spit and roasted in a hot clay oven, traditionally made from the local red clay of Bairrada (its name comes from barro, Portuguese for clay). The leitao is then chopped up and served on a platter with potatoes (traditionally boiled, more commonly now fried) and fresh oranges. The sweetness and acid of the oranges cuts the peppery fat of the pig.
The piglet's skin is crisp and puffed off of the flesh, which is rich, moist and tender with a serious black pepper spiciness. My favorite incarnation was served with peeled, thin sliced potatoes fried into a status somewhere between french fry and potato chip. The lesser versions of leitao did suffer from rubbery skin syndrome, but most of the time the skin was crunchy buttery crisp and the perfect vehicle for deliciousness.
In the end, despite the deliciousness of leitao, I was more inspired by the regional devotion to a classic dish that nearly every restaurant did expertly. It's something we miss out on. California is bigger than Portugal yet, other than a carne asada, nacho cheese and french fry burrito from San Diego, we have no significant ubiquitous regional cuisines. We should fix this problem and do it with great haste.
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
HFF Quickie: Highlights from Portugal
I'll write a more extensive essay about my travels, but in the mean time here are some culinary highlights from Portugal, an absolutely fantastic country.
Leitao: The signature dish of central Portugal, Leitao is a young (6-8 week) suckling pig rubbed heavily with a proprietary blend of black pepper, white pepper, and salt and then roasted in a special oven. Its crispy skin, tender meat, and copious fat paired with roast potatoes and sliced oranges is simply fantastic. Traditionally paired with tinto espumante, a red/pink sparkling wine made from indigenous Touriga Nacional or Baga, it's a delicious colon-clogging adventure.
Migas: Not a damn thing like the Spanish version, Portuguese Migas is peasant food cum laude. Stale bread crumbs sauteed in olive oil and/or pork fat and then mashed with cauliflower, garlic, and any of a number of vegetables, the texture takes some getting used to but the flavor is rich, dense and transcendent.
Perceves: The fabled gooseneck barnacles of Galicia, perceves are a distinctive regional treat. The barnacles themselves bear more than a cursory resemblance to iguana feet. You pinch the rubbery sheath, twist and pull it off to reveal the sweet white flesh underneath. Its texture is similar to lobster with a simply salty freshness.
Bacalhau: Fuck the Spanish, the Portuguese have salt cod fucking pwned. I had bacalhau only three different ways (they say there are over 300), but all three were delicious. First, we had a pretty simple bacalhau roasted with tomatoes and garlic--very tasty. The next preparation was pretty esoteric but really fucking good: the cod was topped with ham and pineapple and then baked in a rich cheese sauce. That might've been a particularly unique dish as no other Portuguese person we talked to seemed to know what that preparation was. Last, there was a bacalhau side dish consisting of shredded bacalhau baked in a cazuela with fried potatoes and cheese. Pretty much the best mac and cheese ever.
Black Pig: The same Iberian pig as the Spanish jamon iberico, when made into the Portuguese presunto it is the bomb. Tender and fatty, it's some of the best ham in the world. The black pig can also be roasted (impossibly tender)or fried with clams for the southern Portuguese dish porco a alentejana.
So yeah, some highlights. More detailed analysis to come.
Leitao: The signature dish of central Portugal, Leitao is a young (6-8 week) suckling pig rubbed heavily with a proprietary blend of black pepper, white pepper, and salt and then roasted in a special oven. Its crispy skin, tender meat, and copious fat paired with roast potatoes and sliced oranges is simply fantastic. Traditionally paired with tinto espumante, a red/pink sparkling wine made from indigenous Touriga Nacional or Baga, it's a delicious colon-clogging adventure.
Migas: Not a damn thing like the Spanish version, Portuguese Migas is peasant food cum laude. Stale bread crumbs sauteed in olive oil and/or pork fat and then mashed with cauliflower, garlic, and any of a number of vegetables, the texture takes some getting used to but the flavor is rich, dense and transcendent.
Perceves: The fabled gooseneck barnacles of Galicia, perceves are a distinctive regional treat. The barnacles themselves bear more than a cursory resemblance to iguana feet. You pinch the rubbery sheath, twist and pull it off to reveal the sweet white flesh underneath. Its texture is similar to lobster with a simply salty freshness.
Bacalhau: Fuck the Spanish, the Portuguese have salt cod fucking pwned. I had bacalhau only three different ways (they say there are over 300), but all three were delicious. First, we had a pretty simple bacalhau roasted with tomatoes and garlic--very tasty. The next preparation was pretty esoteric but really fucking good: the cod was topped with ham and pineapple and then baked in a rich cheese sauce. That might've been a particularly unique dish as no other Portuguese person we talked to seemed to know what that preparation was. Last, there was a bacalhau side dish consisting of shredded bacalhau baked in a cazuela with fried potatoes and cheese. Pretty much the best mac and cheese ever.
Black Pig: The same Iberian pig as the Spanish jamon iberico, when made into the Portuguese presunto it is the bomb. Tender and fatty, it's some of the best ham in the world. The black pig can also be roasted (impossibly tender)or fried with clams for the southern Portuguese dish porco a alentejana.
So yeah, some highlights. More detailed analysis to come.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Biodynamics & Nazism, Two Peas in Different Pods
Biodynamics, as I've mentioned, is a trendy topic in wine making. It's also a term whose specifics are pretty much unknown by the unwashed masses. Even wine purveyors belie their lack of knowledge when they say something to the effect of Biodynamic being "organic on steroids" or "extra organic."
That's patently false. Biodynamically farmed wine means that the vineyard's farming practices have been certified by the Demeter Association. In turn, the Demeter Association draws its criteria from a series of lectures and writings by Austrian Rudolf Steiner in the 1920's. In a broad sense, Biodynamics involves treating your vineyard (or any crop field) holistically as a self-sustaining entity with interdependent organisms. You farm so as to maintain that balance, through crop rotation, cover crops and natural pest abatement. Where Biodynamics starts to become questionable is in its use of geomantic soil preparations whose science is dubious at best. You can read about Biodynamic soil preparations here.
What Biodynamics do is require the farmer to pay closer attention to his crops and that, regardless of motivation, is a good thing. But Biodynamics is not organic, even if all Biodynamically grown grapes are effectively organic, since organic farming is based at least in part on legitimate scientific research, not the pseudo-scientific ramblings of a traumatized mad man.
Speaking of traumatized mad men, it's no wonder that Biodynamics came about in the 1920's, hand-in-hand with the emergence of Fascism, Futurism, Psychoanalytics and an increased attention to Communism and free-market Capitalism. These are all frameworks for understanding a confusing, dangerous world and all propose convenient but impossible solutions. Europe was devastated after World War I. Empires were destroyed, power dynamics shifted, and cities were devastated, entire villages razed. This left a strong psychological impact on the survivors that forced them to question the belief structures that they had so firmly believed in yet had led to such destruction. In these philosophies are one of two broad solutions: the world is flawed, let's go back to a better time or; the world is flawed, let's work toward a flawless future. Either way, existence and practice as we know it was irretrievably broken.
The common thread that these philosophies share is their purported foundation in legitimate science which is actually little more than unsupported conjuncture and steadfast faith. In the right balance in the right hands, most of these philosophies can be progressive and productive and in the wrong balance in the wrong hands they can be utterly destructive. Germany's bankrupt, let's blame the Jews. Modern farming is broken, let's bury some cow horns filled with manure in our field on a full moon.
They're all examples of the self-destructive and inauthentic adherence to "Bad Faith." They're philosophies that purport to understand the incomprehensible through comforting ritual and in most cases a hoped for Deus Ex Machina revelation.
As an entertaining academic and intellectual engagement, Biodynamics is a fun and interesting exercise. As the key to better grapes and better wines, however, it's substantively meaningless.
That's patently false. Biodynamically farmed wine means that the vineyard's farming practices have been certified by the Demeter Association. In turn, the Demeter Association draws its criteria from a series of lectures and writings by Austrian Rudolf Steiner in the 1920's. In a broad sense, Biodynamics involves treating your vineyard (or any crop field) holistically as a self-sustaining entity with interdependent organisms. You farm so as to maintain that balance, through crop rotation, cover crops and natural pest abatement. Where Biodynamics starts to become questionable is in its use of geomantic soil preparations whose science is dubious at best. You can read about Biodynamic soil preparations here.
What Biodynamics do is require the farmer to pay closer attention to his crops and that, regardless of motivation, is a good thing. But Biodynamics is not organic, even if all Biodynamically grown grapes are effectively organic, since organic farming is based at least in part on legitimate scientific research, not the pseudo-scientific ramblings of a traumatized mad man.
Speaking of traumatized mad men, it's no wonder that Biodynamics came about in the 1920's, hand-in-hand with the emergence of Fascism, Futurism, Psychoanalytics and an increased attention to Communism and free-market Capitalism. These are all frameworks for understanding a confusing, dangerous world and all propose convenient but impossible solutions. Europe was devastated after World War I. Empires were destroyed, power dynamics shifted, and cities were devastated, entire villages razed. This left a strong psychological impact on the survivors that forced them to question the belief structures that they had so firmly believed in yet had led to such destruction. In these philosophies are one of two broad solutions: the world is flawed, let's go back to a better time or; the world is flawed, let's work toward a flawless future. Either way, existence and practice as we know it was irretrievably broken.
The common thread that these philosophies share is their purported foundation in legitimate science which is actually little more than unsupported conjuncture and steadfast faith. In the right balance in the right hands, most of these philosophies can be progressive and productive and in the wrong balance in the wrong hands they can be utterly destructive. Germany's bankrupt, let's blame the Jews. Modern farming is broken, let's bury some cow horns filled with manure in our field on a full moon.
They're all examples of the self-destructive and inauthentic adherence to "Bad Faith." They're philosophies that purport to understand the incomprehensible through comforting ritual and in most cases a hoped for Deus Ex Machina revelation.
As an entertaining academic and intellectual engagement, Biodynamics is a fun and interesting exercise. As the key to better grapes and better wines, however, it's substantively meaningless.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
HFF Returns: Vino Volo - Philadelphia, Pa
I'm traveling again and I was pleased to find another Vino Volo location at Philadelphia International Airport, where I was waiting before my connecting flight overseas. As I wrote about a while ago, Vino Volo is a growing chain of high-end wine bars located in airports throughout the country. They've expanded quite a bit since I visited the location in Dulles, with new locations in Oakland and Philadelphia, among others.
There's nothing exceptional about Vino Volo, but it is quite solid. The wine lists are well put together given the limitations and prices are reasonable, not just by airport standards. And the food menu, served in two different portion sizes, is some of the best and fairly priced airport food I've ever had. Everything has been solid-to-good which, by airport standards, is commendable.
Plus, every location has ample outlets and very cushy chairs, so the opportunity to sit, have some good food and wine, and plug in and get some work done is quite welcome. Beats sitting on a filthy carpet and jockeying for outlet space with a pouting tween and her MacBook.
www.vinovolo.com
There's nothing exceptional about Vino Volo, but it is quite solid. The wine lists are well put together given the limitations and prices are reasonable, not just by airport standards. And the food menu, served in two different portion sizes, is some of the best and fairly priced airport food I've ever had. Everything has been solid-to-good which, by airport standards, is commendable.
Plus, every location has ample outlets and very cushy chairs, so the opportunity to sit, have some good food and wine, and plug in and get some work done is quite welcome. Beats sitting on a filthy carpet and jockeying for outlet space with a pouting tween and her MacBook.
www.vinovolo.com
Saturday, June 19, 2010
HFF On The Road: New York, NY
I went to New York City with girlfriend Charlie last week for the first time and we ate and drank our way through the city. It rocked. Despite my skepticism, New York really is a city apart from the rest of the country in terms of culinary excess and diversity. The food is not necessarily any better than the best that the rest of the country has to offer, but the concentration of quality is unsurpassed.
We had the pleasure of staying at the Ace Hotel in midtown (a beautiful, quirky and reasonably priced hotel) and our first night we hit up the Breslin restaurant located in the hotel. Named after the historic hotel on the same site, the Breslin is an upscale gastropub from the same folks who brought NYC the Spotted Pig. The food was pretty damn good, though a few dishes were bordering on oppressively salty. The speck tart was very good, layered on puff pastry with crescenza cheese. The brandade with bread salad was one of those oppressively salty dishes I mentioned. The appetizer highlight was the "Scrumpets," essentially lamb fish sticks, served with mint vinegar. On the entree front, the lamb burger with feta was delicious.
This proved to be our only fancy pants dinner we did in New York, the rest of our trip being spent at street vendors and neighborhood joints.
We made a point of trying some New York classics. Pizza was tasty: the crust had a great texture though it lacked salt. Bagels were particularly amazing, with their moist chewy interior and light crisp exterior. The legendary Seinfeldian classic, the Black & White Cookie, was something of a revelation, more like a flattened cupcake than a cookie. It was very moist and not overly sweet, most of the sugar coming from the frosting. Good bagels were found at Izzy & Nat's in Battery Park and great pizza was found at Bleecker Street Pizza in the West Village.
Another highlight was arepas, a South American dish popular in Venezuela and Colombia, consisting of something like a fried corn pita stuffed with spicy seasoned meats and vegetables.
One of the best wine bars in the country, Terroir, has two locations in Manhattan: its original storefront location in the East Village and its new, expansive digs in TriBeCa. Great global wine list that doesn't pander to the world's major players. A well-publicized recent feud with the Village Voice food critic recently raised its profile amongst food and wine hipsterati.
In the end there was far too much to eat and drink in the city for just one long weekend, but it's definitely a food wonderland with unique, quality ingredients and fresh takes on regional standards.
As an aside, the binge drinking culture of New York is pretty epic too. I don't know if its the lack of cars, the ubiquity of subways, or the general miserableness of the weather year round, but New Yorkers drink until they pass out, wake up, and drink some more. It's kinda crazy.
New York's decidedly not a city you can experience food-wise in a week and will reward regular visits. Go New York.
www.thebreslin.com
www.wineisterroir.com
www.caracasarepabar.com
www.bleeckerstreetpizza.com
www.izzyandnats.com
www.acehotel.com
We had the pleasure of staying at the Ace Hotel in midtown (a beautiful, quirky and reasonably priced hotel) and our first night we hit up the Breslin restaurant located in the hotel. Named after the historic hotel on the same site, the Breslin is an upscale gastropub from the same folks who brought NYC the Spotted Pig. The food was pretty damn good, though a few dishes were bordering on oppressively salty. The speck tart was very good, layered on puff pastry with crescenza cheese. The brandade with bread salad was one of those oppressively salty dishes I mentioned. The appetizer highlight was the "Scrumpets," essentially lamb fish sticks, served with mint vinegar. On the entree front, the lamb burger with feta was delicious.
This proved to be our only fancy pants dinner we did in New York, the rest of our trip being spent at street vendors and neighborhood joints.
We made a point of trying some New York classics. Pizza was tasty: the crust had a great texture though it lacked salt. Bagels were particularly amazing, with their moist chewy interior and light crisp exterior. The legendary Seinfeldian classic, the Black & White Cookie, was something of a revelation, more like a flattened cupcake than a cookie. It was very moist and not overly sweet, most of the sugar coming from the frosting. Good bagels were found at Izzy & Nat's in Battery Park and great pizza was found at Bleecker Street Pizza in the West Village.
Another highlight was arepas, a South American dish popular in Venezuela and Colombia, consisting of something like a fried corn pita stuffed with spicy seasoned meats and vegetables.
One of the best wine bars in the country, Terroir, has two locations in Manhattan: its original storefront location in the East Village and its new, expansive digs in TriBeCa. Great global wine list that doesn't pander to the world's major players. A well-publicized recent feud with the Village Voice food critic recently raised its profile amongst food and wine hipsterati.
In the end there was far too much to eat and drink in the city for just one long weekend, but it's definitely a food wonderland with unique, quality ingredients and fresh takes on regional standards.
As an aside, the binge drinking culture of New York is pretty epic too. I don't know if its the lack of cars, the ubiquity of subways, or the general miserableness of the weather year round, but New Yorkers drink until they pass out, wake up, and drink some more. It's kinda crazy.
New York's decidedly not a city you can experience food-wise in a week and will reward regular visits. Go New York.
www.thebreslin.com
www.wineisterroir.com
www.caracasarepabar.com
www.bleeckerstreetpizza.com
www.izzyandnats.com
www.acehotel.com
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Rethinking Terroir
There’s this fancy pants word in the wine world and no, it’s not “spats.” It’s terroir. Anyone who uses the word terroir is quick to mention that it is A: French, B: Untranslatable, and C: Has no specific meaning. Near as I can tell terroir is defined as “a sense of place” which is about as specific as referring to a woman as a “living thing with a vagina.”
But the blowback from the descriptor “a sense of place” is that many wine-reviewing douche bags have come to decide that this means the sense of a specific place in the world and therefore any wine that is not 100% from a specific place lacks any “sense of place.” I’ve even read reviews from wine writers who decried a wine for lacking even 10% fruit from one particular location. Asinine.
What, after all, is a place? Sure it can be a place in geography but it can also be a place in time, a place in thought, a place in emotion. It can be a place in an individual’s mental index that is irrespective of any geographic grape growing location. I’ve had Sauvignon Blancs from many different geographic places in the world that all smell like very specific cat pee. That’s evocative. That’s terroir.
Terroir is a tasty wine with friends in a dive in Tuscany. Terroir is a juicy red blend you had with dinner after a marathon day of Sonoma wine tasting. Terroir is a cheap Champagne toast to a friend after she completed her Ph. D. Terroir, despite its French pretension, I would argue is not specifically about geography. Terroir is about all that a wine stimulates in the senses in any specific place and time.
In this way, wines made from a blend of fruit from disparate regions can be a terroir-driven wine, while at the same time some shitty over-oaked 100% Napa Chardonnay can be a shit box stored in a feces locker. Terroir is a mental space–it is that sip of Rheingau Riesling or it’s that gulp of Vin de Pays. Chances are if you had sex in the Rheingau or you had sex all over France, your association with either wine would be similar.
I won’t argue and say that different wine-growing regions don’t have specific grape characteristics, but I will argue that the quality of a wine is uniquely defined by that in all cases. The wine world is too full of multi-region blends that kick the latex ass-less pants off of 100% regional varietal wines.
So what are your terroirs? What are the “senses of place” that drive your taste buds? Hot dogs at a high school picnic? The perfumed lotion of an early girlfriend? The smell of your dad’s pickup truck on a summer day? If the structures of a wine give you evocative pleasure, that wine is expressive of terroir, regardless of its literal make-up.
It’s no fluke that terroir-driven wines are most evocative for the consumer who has traveled in the mentioned wine’s terroir. Because it’s not merely taste that defines the term, it’s taste synthesized with experience.
If I wanted to taste a specific place, I’ll go there and lick the dirt myself. I want to taste good wines.
(Originally published at TheSatelliteShow.com.)
Monday, June 07, 2010
HFF On The Road: San Francisco, Ca
I love LA. I really do. It's a weird, sprawling, schizophrenic ex-girlfriend of a city. It's a blank page, a blank canvas. It's smog and implants swaddled in a warm Art Deco blanket. It's stupidity of the second-highest order but charming in its own shambling ineptitude. And it just might be the largest city in the developed world utterly devoid of true geniuses. It's not LA's fault, it's just that LA doesn't reward genius. It rewards beauty, sycophancy, and (in rare instances) legitimate talent.
By all of which I mean to say, LA is not San Francisco. San Francisco is proud, brash, arrogant and intellectual. It's frustratingly closed-minded at times and even more frustratingly almost-never-actually-warm. But its citizenry knows how to dress and knows how to eat. San Francisco's culinary world runs circles around that of Los Angeles all the while generally charging a lot less money (even with mandatory health care).
I was back up in my old pretend stomping grounds (I never actually lived in Baghdad by the Bay, preferring to stay instead on the western shore of Alameda County) a few times last month and revisited some of my favorites and also hit up some new spots.
Maverick: Perhaps one of my all time favorite restaurants of all time, Maverick is nothing fancy but does everything right. Doing New American right as the movement was being defined, Maverick does great modern takes on American classics. I visited them twice and they're still going strong. The fried chicken was delicious: crisp, moist and a little spicy, paired with greens and mashed potatoes and the vegetarian pasta dish also rocked. The chicken liver toasts are a must-get appetizer.
Sea Salt: The Berkeley organic/sustainable seafood restaurant hasn't lost its touch either. A whole grip (hyphy) of new brunch items in particular were great: Hangtown Fry (oysters, bacon, eggs), steak and eggs, and some other stuff I can't remember because the website is down and I can't look at the menu. Curses.
Limon Rotisserie: Located in what used to be a grungy part of the Mission but is now spectacularly clean, the Limon Rotisserie is the casual family-dining spin-off of famed Peruvian/Nuevo Latino hot spot Limon. Specializing in killer roast chicken, the Rotisserie also has some of the signature ceviches and sides. Delicious and inexpensive with a great wine list.
Tacolicious: Terrible name, great restaurant even if they do inexplicably sell their tacos by the one or the four. Why by the four? Everyone knows tacos are sold by the three! All the tacos were good, the beer-and-a-shot braised chicken and the potato and chorizo tacos were particular standouts. The other killer dish was the tuna tostada: seared albacore on a crispy tortilla with avocado and chipotle mayo. Fun, busy place for a reasonably priced meal. Sucks that it's in the Marina though.
Elixir: One of SF's OG "mixology" bastions. The cocktails were pretty good (if a bit steep--approaching LA prices) but I was more intrigued by the diverse beer selection and the general dive-y vibe of the place.
Som Bar: This place sucked. If I wanted a shitty club I'd go to SoMa. Is this what happens when Google moves into your neighborhood? A bunch of over-paid under-experienced nerds go out on Saturday nights in douche-y clothes and turn your Chicano tranny bars into sorry excuses for Berkeley sorority invitationals? Fuck that.
Which does bring me to this one "back in my day" moment. Back in my day the Mission was still a little bit scary. And there definitely weren't bars where fucking ass clowns in Banana Republic wearing too much cologne spit game at a bunch of sixes-who-think-they're-tens who need to stay in the fucking Marina District. Or Walnut Creek. Where were the homeless addicts? Where were the true dive bars? Where was my fear of being jumped if I went below Mission St? Gone in a tea bag of Forever 21. Blergh.
Still, great city though. Highly recommended.
By all of which I mean to say, LA is not San Francisco. San Francisco is proud, brash, arrogant and intellectual. It's frustratingly closed-minded at times and even more frustratingly almost-never-actually-warm. But its citizenry knows how to dress and knows how to eat. San Francisco's culinary world runs circles around that of Los Angeles all the while generally charging a lot less money (even with mandatory health care).
I was back up in my old pretend stomping grounds (I never actually lived in Baghdad by the Bay, preferring to stay instead on the western shore of Alameda County) a few times last month and revisited some of my favorites and also hit up some new spots.
Maverick: Perhaps one of my all time favorite restaurants of all time, Maverick is nothing fancy but does everything right. Doing New American right as the movement was being defined, Maverick does great modern takes on American classics. I visited them twice and they're still going strong. The fried chicken was delicious: crisp, moist and a little spicy, paired with greens and mashed potatoes and the vegetarian pasta dish also rocked. The chicken liver toasts are a must-get appetizer.
Sea Salt: The Berkeley organic/sustainable seafood restaurant hasn't lost its touch either. A whole grip (hyphy) of new brunch items in particular were great: Hangtown Fry (oysters, bacon, eggs), steak and eggs, and some other stuff I can't remember because the website is down and I can't look at the menu. Curses.
Limon Rotisserie: Located in what used to be a grungy part of the Mission but is now spectacularly clean, the Limon Rotisserie is the casual family-dining spin-off of famed Peruvian/Nuevo Latino hot spot Limon. Specializing in killer roast chicken, the Rotisserie also has some of the signature ceviches and sides. Delicious and inexpensive with a great wine list.
Tacolicious: Terrible name, great restaurant even if they do inexplicably sell their tacos by the one or the four. Why by the four? Everyone knows tacos are sold by the three! All the tacos were good, the beer-and-a-shot braised chicken and the potato and chorizo tacos were particular standouts. The other killer dish was the tuna tostada: seared albacore on a crispy tortilla with avocado and chipotle mayo. Fun, busy place for a reasonably priced meal. Sucks that it's in the Marina though.
Elixir: One of SF's OG "mixology" bastions. The cocktails were pretty good (if a bit steep--approaching LA prices) but I was more intrigued by the diverse beer selection and the general dive-y vibe of the place.
Som Bar: This place sucked. If I wanted a shitty club I'd go to SoMa. Is this what happens when Google moves into your neighborhood? A bunch of over-paid under-experienced nerds go out on Saturday nights in douche-y clothes and turn your Chicano tranny bars into sorry excuses for Berkeley sorority invitationals? Fuck that.
Which does bring me to this one "back in my day" moment. Back in my day the Mission was still a little bit scary. And there definitely weren't bars where fucking ass clowns in Banana Republic wearing too much cologne spit game at a bunch of sixes-who-think-they're-tens who need to stay in the fucking Marina District. Or Walnut Creek. Where were the homeless addicts? Where were the true dive bars? Where was my fear of being jumped if I went below Mission St? Gone in a tea bag of Forever 21. Blergh.
Still, great city though. Highly recommended.
Wednesday, June 02, 2010
HFF On The Scene: Silver Lake Jubilee
Editor's note: Okay, so apparently I have the memory of a gold fish. I also don't read my own blog very closely, so.... Wow.... This post's better anyway.
I know this is two weeks belated, but the damn festival would've been over regardless so it's not like you missed out on anything you would'n't've had to wait another year for anyway.
First, some serious props to the Silver Lake Jubilee folks for putting on a great festival. Fun, relaxed and very mellow. A few blocks of Myra Avenue below the Sunset Bridge were blocked off and stages were put at both ends, each with a Firestone Walker beer garden. In between the stages were two rows of local vendors and roughly thirty food trucks. Inoccuous-to-good live music, good more-or-less reasonably priced beer, food trucks. A nice combination. Plus it wasn't crazy crowded, just crowded.
Even now, 2+ years post-Kogi, the food trucks were still the main draw and I'll confess, despite seeing a newly-unemployed and re-bearded Jeremy Sisto in the beer garden while a pretty cool band was playing, the food trucks were the main draw for me too. As someone who is ambivalent to the whole food truck scene, it was nice to have an opportunity to taste multiple vendors without having to exert too much effort. My report follows.
Calbi: I'd been curious about this Kogi rip-off, especially since Kogi apparently doesn't want to come Downtown anymore. I don't count the weekly residency at Market Lofts in South Park. That's not Downtown. I had a spicy pork taco and it was a reasonably good facsimile, though lacking the full richness and depth of Kogi's marinades and sauces. But Calbi parks a few blocks from my house and Kogi's definitely not drive-across-town better.
India Jones: My personal favorite of the day. A really good paneer "frankie," basically paneer cheese, egg, onions, and a cilantro/tamarind chutney rolled up in a fresh roti. It was nice to find a modern food truck actually serving real street food. Warm and fresh and perfectly snack-sized.
Coolhaus: Okay, so this was pretty good, don't get me wrong. I had the bacon brown butter ice cream in a snickerdoodle sandwich. But, the line was ridiculous. It's just ice cream folks. And even though LA isn't the Bay Area (there you can't swing a dead cat with your dick without hitting a crazy gourmet ice cream shop with weird flavors), but it's still LA and shmancy iced cream is still somewhat readily available. And, to be honest, standing in line for (literally) 45 minutes for the privilege of paying four bucks for an ice cream sandwich was embarrassing for me. The eleven-year-old me being thrown naked into the girls' locker room at my middle school would've been less embarrassing (and I didn't grow pubes until my second year of grad school!). Plus, if I had to listen to another hipster douche ask to taste every fucking ice cream flavor before committing to something I was going to beat him with his own Vans and strangle him with his own moustache. Christ. No wonder your girlfriend dumped you for an ugly lesbian. Next time Coolhaus, at an event like this why don't you pick like three pre-made ice cream sandwich combos instead of doing the choose your-own-thing. Also, don't have only ONE FUCKING GUY TALKING ON HIS CELL PHONE making the ice cream sandwiches. But the ice cream was good. Still, doubtful I'll be back.
World Fare: As LA's only "bustaurant" (as far as I know), World Fare is pretty cool. Kitchen is on the first floor and there's seating on the top of the double-decker bus. Though it has many global rotating specials, World Fare is known best for its "Bunnies," which are a South African street food dish consisting of chili or slow-braised meats served in bowls made from scooped out bread rolls. Smaller than what you're imagining, the Bunnies are perfectly sized to be able to enjoy a couple different flavors for your meal. I didn't have one though, instead I had the smoked cheddar mac and cheese balls. The verdict on those was "meh." They lacked enough cheese and salt to be interesting and tasted mostly like breaded and fried macaroni.
My basic impressions of food trucks were generally reinforced: the vast majority are slightly poorer quality versions of your basic neighborhood go-tos for slightly less money. I'd rather pay the slight premium to sit in a nice space and support my neighborhood businesses. And the cult of the food truck has reached the point where some have a miniature Grateful Dead-type followings, defeating the point of the food truck: fast cheap and convenient. The trucks that stand out, the Kogis and the India Jones' of the world, work because they remain true to their roots, offering upscale and/or innovative takes on what is, at its core, your basic global street cuisine.
But do go to the Silver Lake Jubilee next year. It was a grand time.
I know this is two weeks belated, but the damn festival would've been over regardless so it's not like you missed out on anything you would'n't've had to wait another year for anyway.
First, some serious props to the Silver Lake Jubilee folks for putting on a great festival. Fun, relaxed and very mellow. A few blocks of Myra Avenue below the Sunset Bridge were blocked off and stages were put at both ends, each with a Firestone Walker beer garden. In between the stages were two rows of local vendors and roughly thirty food trucks. Inoccuous-to-good live music, good more-or-less reasonably priced beer, food trucks. A nice combination. Plus it wasn't crazy crowded, just crowded.
Even now, 2+ years post-Kogi, the food trucks were still the main draw and I'll confess, despite seeing a newly-unemployed and re-bearded Jeremy Sisto in the beer garden while a pretty cool band was playing, the food trucks were the main draw for me too. As someone who is ambivalent to the whole food truck scene, it was nice to have an opportunity to taste multiple vendors without having to exert too much effort. My report follows.
Calbi: I'd been curious about this Kogi rip-off, especially since Kogi apparently doesn't want to come Downtown anymore. I don't count the weekly residency at Market Lofts in South Park. That's not Downtown. I had a spicy pork taco and it was a reasonably good facsimile, though lacking the full richness and depth of Kogi's marinades and sauces. But Calbi parks a few blocks from my house and Kogi's definitely not drive-across-town better.
India Jones: My personal favorite of the day. A really good paneer "frankie," basically paneer cheese, egg, onions, and a cilantro/tamarind chutney rolled up in a fresh roti. It was nice to find a modern food truck actually serving real street food. Warm and fresh and perfectly snack-sized.
Coolhaus: Okay, so this was pretty good, don't get me wrong. I had the bacon brown butter ice cream in a snickerdoodle sandwich. But, the line was ridiculous. It's just ice cream folks. And even though LA isn't the Bay Area (there you can't swing a dead cat with your dick without hitting a crazy gourmet ice cream shop with weird flavors), but it's still LA and shmancy iced cream is still somewhat readily available. And, to be honest, standing in line for (literally) 45 minutes for the privilege of paying four bucks for an ice cream sandwich was embarrassing for me. The eleven-year-old me being thrown naked into the girls' locker room at my middle school would've been less embarrassing (and I didn't grow pubes until my second year of grad school!). Plus, if I had to listen to another hipster douche ask to taste every fucking ice cream flavor before committing to something I was going to beat him with his own Vans and strangle him with his own moustache. Christ. No wonder your girlfriend dumped you for an ugly lesbian. Next time Coolhaus, at an event like this why don't you pick like three pre-made ice cream sandwich combos instead of doing the choose your-own-thing. Also, don't have only ONE FUCKING GUY TALKING ON HIS CELL PHONE making the ice cream sandwiches. But the ice cream was good. Still, doubtful I'll be back.
World Fare: As LA's only "bustaurant" (as far as I know), World Fare is pretty cool. Kitchen is on the first floor and there's seating on the top of the double-decker bus. Though it has many global rotating specials, World Fare is known best for its "Bunnies," which are a South African street food dish consisting of chili or slow-braised meats served in bowls made from scooped out bread rolls. Smaller than what you're imagining, the Bunnies are perfectly sized to be able to enjoy a couple different flavors for your meal. I didn't have one though, instead I had the smoked cheddar mac and cheese balls. The verdict on those was "meh." They lacked enough cheese and salt to be interesting and tasted mostly like breaded and fried macaroni.
My basic impressions of food trucks were generally reinforced: the vast majority are slightly poorer quality versions of your basic neighborhood go-tos for slightly less money. I'd rather pay the slight premium to sit in a nice space and support my neighborhood businesses. And the cult of the food truck has reached the point where some have a miniature Grateful Dead-type followings, defeating the point of the food truck: fast cheap and convenient. The trucks that stand out, the Kogis and the India Jones' of the world, work because they remain true to their roots, offering upscale and/or innovative takes on what is, at its core, your basic global street cuisine.
But do go to the Silver Lake Jubilee next year. It was a grand time.
Monday, May 24, 2010
HFF Quickie: Food Trucks at the Silver Lake Jubilee
I spent last Sunday at perhaps the best street fair ever, the Silver Lake Jubilee. Besides enjoying some relatively reasonably priced Firestone Walker beer and a beard-y (and newly unemployed) Jeremy Sisto, there were a shitload of food trucks. I ate at some of them. This is my story.
Calbi. I've been wanting to try this dubious Kogi knock-off for a while, since there's always a truck parked in my neighborhood. The first attempt at a true corporate food truck (a team led by an ex-Baja Fresh exec is spearheading the franchising), Calbi is pretty much a textbook cynical ripoff, which I admire. Overall it was okay. The spicy pork was solid and similar to Kogi, though the accompaniments were not as good and the tortilla kinda sucked.
Maui Wowi. So I'm not 100% sure that this is where I ate, but I'll go with it. I had a crispy tofu bun (bao) and it was delicious. Crispy, nicely spicy tofu on a very fresh, moist and soft bun. The pork belly bun also looked good.
India Jones. Perhaps the highlight of the day. I had a paneer "Frankie," which is onions, tamarind, egg, and (in this case) paneer cheese, wrapped in a roti. Densely flavorful and very inexpensive. And it's one of the few food truck snacks that was really built to easily eat on the go.
Cool Haus. So, look, the ice cream was really good (I had the bacon and brown butter) and the cookies were good too. But.... over a half an hour in line for ice cream haphazardly slapped between two cookies? For $4? The crowd got to Cool Haus and they were sloppy with the service. And despite the hectic crowd, the one (that's right, one) guy making sandwiches was talking on his cell phone. Each sandwich took close to five minutes to serve because of a weird insistence on allowing the teeming mobs of hipster douches to taste and customize every sandwich. Next time at an event like this? Pick like three or four combos and pre-make the sandwiches. Everyone will be happier.
World Fare. The coolest food truck in town because it's in a double-decker bus with seating on the roof. Had the macaroni and cheese balls (smoked cheddar, because truffles are for mumblegrums). The balls were alright, needed more salt.
And that was the extent of the compelling trucks. I suppose I should've hit up Frysmith and I would've hit up the Dim Sum Truck except it wasn't there. But there's time.
So, some pretty good food truck opportunities presented themselves--this was what the Food Truck Food Fare wanted to be but failed at in its ill-conceived Icarus-like aspirations. Good stuff.
Calbi. I've been wanting to try this dubious Kogi knock-off for a while, since there's always a truck parked in my neighborhood. The first attempt at a true corporate food truck (a team led by an ex-Baja Fresh exec is spearheading the franchising), Calbi is pretty much a textbook cynical ripoff, which I admire. Overall it was okay. The spicy pork was solid and similar to Kogi, though the accompaniments were not as good and the tortilla kinda sucked.
Maui Wowi. So I'm not 100% sure that this is where I ate, but I'll go with it. I had a crispy tofu bun (bao) and it was delicious. Crispy, nicely spicy tofu on a very fresh, moist and soft bun. The pork belly bun also looked good.
India Jones. Perhaps the highlight of the day. I had a paneer "Frankie," which is onions, tamarind, egg, and (in this case) paneer cheese, wrapped in a roti. Densely flavorful and very inexpensive. And it's one of the few food truck snacks that was really built to easily eat on the go.
Cool Haus. So, look, the ice cream was really good (I had the bacon and brown butter) and the cookies were good too. But.... over a half an hour in line for ice cream haphazardly slapped between two cookies? For $4? The crowd got to Cool Haus and they were sloppy with the service. And despite the hectic crowd, the one (that's right, one) guy making sandwiches was talking on his cell phone. Each sandwich took close to five minutes to serve because of a weird insistence on allowing the teeming mobs of hipster douches to taste and customize every sandwich. Next time at an event like this? Pick like three or four combos and pre-make the sandwiches. Everyone will be happier.
World Fare. The coolest food truck in town because it's in a double-decker bus with seating on the roof. Had the macaroni and cheese balls (smoked cheddar, because truffles are for mumblegrums). The balls were alright, needed more salt.
And that was the extent of the compelling trucks. I suppose I should've hit up Frysmith and I would've hit up the Dim Sum Truck except it wasn't there. But there's time.
So, some pretty good food truck opportunities presented themselves--this was what the Food Truck Food Fare wanted to be but failed at in its ill-conceived Icarus-like aspirations. Good stuff.
Monday, May 17, 2010
HFF Rant: Arbitrary Hours
So it's 9:30 on a Sunday night. I have a friend in town who just drove down from Northern California. We're hungry. We want to show him the town. First stop? A restaurant favorite of mine that's billed as open until 10PM. We get there? Locked up shut. Closed with a capital Q. Okay, fine. Understandable. Pretty close to their closing time and it was a Sunday night so they closed early. Fair enough.
Next stop? A wine bar in Downtown LA. Their hours are advertised as "daily from 11:30AM to late." That's the business equivalent of the high school party invitation: "9PM-???" Holy shit! Our party's so crazy we don't know when it's going to end! Except you're a business. You should know when your party's going to end. And when you advertise a post-11PM Happy Hour with drink AND food specials, perhaps your kitchen shouldn't be closed before 10PM. That kinda makes as much sense as a platypus and have you seen a fucking platypus?
Restaurants are not businesses to be run on whimsy. Unless I can see a restaurant's open sign from my window, I'm not going to drag my ass out to a restaurant that may or may not be open. Pick your hours, advertise them, and stick to them. That's how you'll build a loyal clientele. In a business full of flakes, reliability and consistency can go a long way to establishing your reputation.
And come on, a restaurant that's known for being open late--that makes a name for being open late--that advertises being open until late--and is shut down by ten o'clock? That's lame. If I'm hungry at say 11PM on a Tuesday, where am I going to go? The place that I know is open or the place that might be open? Even if I might prefer the second restaurant, I'm going to go for the first restaurant so I don't end up wasting part of my night.
Restaurants are not that different from any business. Success isn't rocket science. It's producing a quality product for a good value that people will enjoy. Google can't just decide to stop working because not enough people are googling and a hospital can't stop administering aid because not enough people are getting shot in their neighborhood. Restaurants can't just decide to close an hour early because, well, they just fucking want to.
It's bad business and will equal a failed restaurant.
Next stop? A wine bar in Downtown LA. Their hours are advertised as "daily from 11:30AM to late." That's the business equivalent of the high school party invitation: "9PM-???" Holy shit! Our party's so crazy we don't know when it's going to end! Except you're a business. You should know when your party's going to end. And when you advertise a post-11PM Happy Hour with drink AND food specials, perhaps your kitchen shouldn't be closed before 10PM. That kinda makes as much sense as a platypus and have you seen a fucking platypus?
Restaurants are not businesses to be run on whimsy. Unless I can see a restaurant's open sign from my window, I'm not going to drag my ass out to a restaurant that may or may not be open. Pick your hours, advertise them, and stick to them. That's how you'll build a loyal clientele. In a business full of flakes, reliability and consistency can go a long way to establishing your reputation.
And come on, a restaurant that's known for being open late--that makes a name for being open late--that advertises being open until late--and is shut down by ten o'clock? That's lame. If I'm hungry at say 11PM on a Tuesday, where am I going to go? The place that I know is open or the place that might be open? Even if I might prefer the second restaurant, I'm going to go for the first restaurant so I don't end up wasting part of my night.
Restaurants are not that different from any business. Success isn't rocket science. It's producing a quality product for a good value that people will enjoy. Google can't just decide to stop working because not enough people are googling and a hospital can't stop administering aid because not enough people are getting shot in their neighborhood. Restaurants can't just decide to close an hour early because, well, they just fucking want to.
It's bad business and will equal a failed restaurant.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Arts & Crafts
I’m a skeptic. Pretty much everything for me has, in legal parlance, a “rebut-able premise.” I’m not going to take as a given that anything is inherently worthy of worship, deference, or even just my being impressed.
Despite my passion for all things culinary, I regard very little of it as an art form–it’s a craft. Unfortunately we’ve de-emphasized the importance of craft in favor of the illusion of art. We want to perceive our memorable gastronomic experiences as moments of ephemeral genius rather than what they actually are: the culmination of years of training coupled with a bit of ingenuity and intuition. The fact is, anyone can cook. Anyone can cook competently with a bit of practice. But it takes years of chopping, slicing and sauteeing before you can work effectively in a commercial kitchen. Coming up with the menu is, in many ways, the easiest part of being a chef. Effectively training your staff to serve that menu consistently to a restaurant full of hungry, demanding diners at 7:30 on a Friday night is the tricky part.
Cooking in a restaurant isn’t cooking in a vacuum. You could come up with the greatest dish on the planet, but if it takes an hour to prepare and can only be cooked correctly one out of three times, it’s utterly impractical to serve in a restaurant. If there’s no way to effectively make a viable margin without charging $80 for your entree, it’s utterly impractical to serve at (most) restaurants.
I worked for a number of years as a bartender in the SF Bay Areaduring the nascent stages of the “mixologist” boom. We came up with a number of interesting, artisan-spirit driven cocktails with fresh herbs and fresh squeezed juices. Of course we just called them cocktails and charged $8 for them because we weren’t retarded. I’m not saying I was the best bartender on the staff, but I was effective and fast. I churned out consistent cocktails quickly, got my customers’ buzz going, and moved (in the words of Jay-Z) it was on to the next one. Perhaps I could’ve spent longer to ensure an exact ratio of bitters to grapefruit juice, but taste is relative and I’d rather be quick and effective than unnecessarily meticulously slow.
And that’s what makes for good craftsmanship, producing a quality product reliably and efficiently. We’re not painting the next Guernica: we’re mixing a fucking cocktail; we’re grilling a steak; we’re making an Albarino. I don’t want to wait twenty minutes for a cocktail, no matter how good it is. At that point, the bartender has failed in his craft. There’s no “worth the wait” when it comes spending $16 on a cocktail.
We should take pride in our craft. Craft is a noble thing and good craftsmanship is exceedingly rare. Good craftsmanship is being replaced by pretense to artistic glory fairly rapidly. Instead of the Wolfgang Pucks and Thomas Kellers who toiled in obscurity and honed their craft for years before achieving well-earned success, we have flash-in-the-pan “celebrity chefs” whose genius is extolled by publicists while their restaurants fail. Or worse, we have failed actors who consider themselves revolutionary because they decided to actually pay attention to what kind of booze they use in their Manhattans.
You’re not a revolutionary, you’re a douche with a Boston shaker.
Despite my passion for all things culinary, I regard very little of it as an art form–it’s a craft. Unfortunately we’ve de-emphasized the importance of craft in favor of the illusion of art. We want to perceive our memorable gastronomic experiences as moments of ephemeral genius rather than what they actually are: the culmination of years of training coupled with a bit of ingenuity and intuition. The fact is, anyone can cook. Anyone can cook competently with a bit of practice. But it takes years of chopping, slicing and sauteeing before you can work effectively in a commercial kitchen. Coming up with the menu is, in many ways, the easiest part of being a chef. Effectively training your staff to serve that menu consistently to a restaurant full of hungry, demanding diners at 7:30 on a Friday night is the tricky part.
Cooking in a restaurant isn’t cooking in a vacuum. You could come up with the greatest dish on the planet, but if it takes an hour to prepare and can only be cooked correctly one out of three times, it’s utterly impractical to serve in a restaurant. If there’s no way to effectively make a viable margin without charging $80 for your entree, it’s utterly impractical to serve at (most) restaurants.
I worked for a number of years as a bartender in the SF Bay Areaduring the nascent stages of the “mixologist” boom. We came up with a number of interesting, artisan-spirit driven cocktails with fresh herbs and fresh squeezed juices. Of course we just called them cocktails and charged $8 for them because we weren’t retarded. I’m not saying I was the best bartender on the staff, but I was effective and fast. I churned out consistent cocktails quickly, got my customers’ buzz going, and moved (in the words of Jay-Z) it was on to the next one. Perhaps I could’ve spent longer to ensure an exact ratio of bitters to grapefruit juice, but taste is relative and I’d rather be quick and effective than unnecessarily meticulously slow.
And that’s what makes for good craftsmanship, producing a quality product reliably and efficiently. We’re not painting the next Guernica: we’re mixing a fucking cocktail; we’re grilling a steak; we’re making an Albarino. I don’t want to wait twenty minutes for a cocktail, no matter how good it is. At that point, the bartender has failed in his craft. There’s no “worth the wait” when it comes spending $16 on a cocktail.
We should take pride in our craft. Craft is a noble thing and good craftsmanship is exceedingly rare. Good craftsmanship is being replaced by pretense to artistic glory fairly rapidly. Instead of the Wolfgang Pucks and Thomas Kellers who toiled in obscurity and honed their craft for years before achieving well-earned success, we have flash-in-the-pan “celebrity chefs” whose genius is extolled by publicists while their restaurants fail. Or worse, we have failed actors who consider themselves revolutionary because they decided to actually pay attention to what kind of booze they use in their Manhattans.
You’re not a revolutionary, you’re a douche with a Boston shaker.
Thursday, May 06, 2010
HFF Quickie: Senor Fish
Senor Fish is a name that doesn't inspire confidence. And its logo, a mustachioed and be-sombreroed fish that looks something like a Mario Bros. mermaid, inspires even less confidence. But finally, despite driving past nearly every location dozens of time, I've now dined there a couple times and I'll say that it's pretty good. Great? No. But good quality and reasonably priced.
First stop I had, what else, the fish tacos. Good fresh fish, fried crisp, and served on soft tortillas. Nice crema, mild salsa. A perfectly tasty white boy fish taco.
On my second trip I had the fabled scallop burrito. Delicious. Fresh-tasting (though no doubt frozen) scallops, whole pinto beans, crema, salsa. The usual. A nice combination of flavors and at seven bucks and change (and enormous) it's a freaking steal.
My only complaints are that the large flour tortilla for the burrito (not the ones for the tacos) is a bit too chewy and none of the salsas were particularly compelling in terms of default spiciness. I'll make it back to the Downtown LA/Little Tokyo location for their late night happy hour with $1 tacos, $4 margaritas, and $3 beers. It's a very cool space with an open bar area, indoor cantina dining, and a big outdoor patio.
It's simple, fresh honest food at a fair price.
Senor Fish Cocina & Cantina
(several other locations in the San Gabriel Valley)
422 E. First St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012
213-625-0566
www.senorfishonline.com
First stop I had, what else, the fish tacos. Good fresh fish, fried crisp, and served on soft tortillas. Nice crema, mild salsa. A perfectly tasty white boy fish taco.
On my second trip I had the fabled scallop burrito. Delicious. Fresh-tasting (though no doubt frozen) scallops, whole pinto beans, crema, salsa. The usual. A nice combination of flavors and at seven bucks and change (and enormous) it's a freaking steal.
My only complaints are that the large flour tortilla for the burrito (not the ones for the tacos) is a bit too chewy and none of the salsas were particularly compelling in terms of default spiciness. I'll make it back to the Downtown LA/Little Tokyo location for their late night happy hour with $1 tacos, $4 margaritas, and $3 beers. It's a very cool space with an open bar area, indoor cantina dining, and a big outdoor patio.
It's simple, fresh honest food at a fair price.
Senor Fish Cocina & Cantina
(several other locations in the San Gabriel Valley)
422 E. First St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012
213-625-0566
www.senorfishonline.com
Friday, April 30, 2010
WP24 - Los Angeles, Ca
I had the rather fortuitous opportunity to go dine at WP24, the ass-slappingly new Wolfgang Puck restaurant on the 24th floor of the ass-slappingly new Ritz-Carlton at LA Live. I had the even more fortuitous opportunity of having someone else pay. Bonus. Despite being in LA for a couple years now, I don't believe I'd ever experienced a Wolfgang Puck-branded enterprise, other than his delightful canned soups, frozen pizzas and that one hooker in Salzburg.
It was pretty fucking good. The restaurant. The hooker was meh.
I'm a skeptic, especially when it comes to restaurants and especially when it comes to celebrity chef restaurants taking up an entire floor at a brand new swank hotel in a city known for beautiful, expensive restaurants with terrible food and shittier service. Despite only being in its third week of operation, WP24 is rocking out pretty hard.
Make sure when you enter the hotel you ask for directions, even if you know how to get to the restaurant. Since it's the Ritz-Carlton you'll be escorted by an impeccably groomed and friendly employee all the way from wherever you shambled in off the street all the way to the host station at the restaurant. The restaurant takes up the entire 24th floor, starting with a relaxed and spacious lounge--I believe the lounge serves the full dining room menu as well as its own menu of bar bites. An army of thin, beautiful hostesses escort you through the lounge to the dining room itself, past a bamboo forest of wine racks, each of which carries exactly 36 bottles of wine which, as far as I learned, have no intention of being opened any time soon. Then you are delivered to the army of thin, beautiful hostesses who handle the dining room proper.
The dining room is sumptuous, modern, and only ever-so-slightly overwrought. That's a compliment in LA. We were sat in a very cool booth/table hybrid with snooze-inducingly comfortable chairs. Three separate staff members simultaneously placed the napkins in each of our laps. It was a beautifully clear day so were able to enjoy a 270-degree view of LA at sundown. Gorgeous.
Already my experience was worth the (hypothetical) money. The space is beautiful, the atmosphere is welcoming, and the staff is very well trained--Klaus Puck (Wolfgang's brother and his front-of-house admiral) left the now-defunct Vert Brasserie to oversee the team at WP24 as well as the Bar & Grille on the ground floor of LA Live. Some of the younger staff members were visibly nervous, which is to be expected in a new restaurant with such grand expectations, but the waiters and managers were placid yet affable. I didn't really care how the food was, as long as it didn't shit the bed, as my sainted grandmother used to say.
But in the end the food was pretty damn good. The menu shares the Asian-Continental fusion style of many of the Puck restaurants--this skewed more heavily to the Asian (primarily Chinese, but also Indian and Thai) side. We had the kitchen send out a few of their signature appetizers. The prawn toasts (from the lounge menu) were warm, buttery and perfectly seasoned. Ditto the lobster and prawn spring rolls--fried crisp without a drop of excess oil. WP24 makes liberal use of pork belly--the pork belly bao was fatty and meaty without being overly sweet. That was followed by the sauteed duck liver and ume bao which was my favorite of the first course: sweet, tart and rich without being unctuous.
The wine list is excellent--originally assembled by Spago sommelier Chris Miller and now overseen by Klaus--with a beautiful selection of aromatic whites, ranging from the bone-dry to the semi-sweet, and a great selection of medium-bodied reds; perfectly selected for the cuisine. Mark-ups were not unreasonable, hovering right around 4-4.5 times wholesale, which is on the lower end for a fine-dining restaurant of this caliber. WP24 wine prices are in line with a slew of much more casual and poorly programmed restaurants in LA. We had an excellent Alsace Riesling before drinking our own wine with the main courses.
I had the Assam Prawns--five or six good sized shrimp simmered in a garlic-cardamom curry and served over rice. The curry was amazing--deep, concentrated slow-cooked flavors with a healthy but not overpowering spiciness; well-balanced and not overly salty. The prawns were plump and meaty though there was a barely perceivable "old" flavor on the finish of the meat that made me think that they had either been thawed and refrozen or had been ever-so-slightly freezer-burned.
I tasted my two companions' entrees as well. The Kobe steak, seared rare, was meaty and tender with an excellent sweet peppery sauce. The Angry Lobster was delicious. A whole two-pound Maine lobster, quartered live and rubbed with cayenne, salt and flour and then pan-seared before being finished in the oven. The spicy heat permeated the flesh and is complimented perfectly by the garlic-lime sauce. We shared a side of fried rice with Lap Cheung sausage and the best fresh peas I've had in a while. We also had a side of sauteed Chinese greens (a personal favorite of mine from my Daimo days) which were tasty.
Despite our better judgment we shared two desserts--I can't remember exactly what they were since we didn't order them and the dessert menu's not on the website. They were chocolate-oriented and well-executed. The stand out was the "Thai Ovaltine" which was a malted milk chocolate mousse on a chocolate crust with a chili-lime dusting. I think. It was a long night.
The restaurant is expensive to be sure but it's not overpriced. It might even be on the lower-end of restaurants of its type in Los Angeles. Appetizers are mostly in the mid to upper teens and the main courses start in the low 30s. Sides and desserts are in the $10-$15 range. Couple those prices with a wine list that features some excellent selections for under $50, and you can have an honestly elegant night in Downtown LA that isn't obscenely expensive.
My only significant complaint with the whole experience was that the menu was very safe. It was the same Asian Fusion cuisine that California's been churning out pretty reliably since Wolfgang Puck helped introduce the style three decades ago. It was probably the best-executed example of that style I've ever had, sure, but I always appreciate when even established successful chefs continue to challenge their diners.
But that's a minor complaint overall. Check out WP24. Great restaurant.
WP24
900 W. Olympic Blvd.
Los Angeles, Ca 90015
213-743-8824
http://www.wolfgangpuck.com/restaurants/fine-dining/57129
It was pretty fucking good. The restaurant. The hooker was meh.
I'm a skeptic, especially when it comes to restaurants and especially when it comes to celebrity chef restaurants taking up an entire floor at a brand new swank hotel in a city known for beautiful, expensive restaurants with terrible food and shittier service. Despite only being in its third week of operation, WP24 is rocking out pretty hard.
Make sure when you enter the hotel you ask for directions, even if you know how to get to the restaurant. Since it's the Ritz-Carlton you'll be escorted by an impeccably groomed and friendly employee all the way from wherever you shambled in off the street all the way to the host station at the restaurant. The restaurant takes up the entire 24th floor, starting with a relaxed and spacious lounge--I believe the lounge serves the full dining room menu as well as its own menu of bar bites. An army of thin, beautiful hostesses escort you through the lounge to the dining room itself, past a bamboo forest of wine racks, each of which carries exactly 36 bottles of wine which, as far as I learned, have no intention of being opened any time soon. Then you are delivered to the army of thin, beautiful hostesses who handle the dining room proper.
The dining room is sumptuous, modern, and only ever-so-slightly overwrought. That's a compliment in LA. We were sat in a very cool booth/table hybrid with snooze-inducingly comfortable chairs. Three separate staff members simultaneously placed the napkins in each of our laps. It was a beautifully clear day so were able to enjoy a 270-degree view of LA at sundown. Gorgeous.
Already my experience was worth the (hypothetical) money. The space is beautiful, the atmosphere is welcoming, and the staff is very well trained--Klaus Puck (Wolfgang's brother and his front-of-house admiral) left the now-defunct Vert Brasserie to oversee the team at WP24 as well as the Bar & Grille on the ground floor of LA Live. Some of the younger staff members were visibly nervous, which is to be expected in a new restaurant with such grand expectations, but the waiters and managers were placid yet affable. I didn't really care how the food was, as long as it didn't shit the bed, as my sainted grandmother used to say.
But in the end the food was pretty damn good. The menu shares the Asian-Continental fusion style of many of the Puck restaurants--this skewed more heavily to the Asian (primarily Chinese, but also Indian and Thai) side. We had the kitchen send out a few of their signature appetizers. The prawn toasts (from the lounge menu) were warm, buttery and perfectly seasoned. Ditto the lobster and prawn spring rolls--fried crisp without a drop of excess oil. WP24 makes liberal use of pork belly--the pork belly bao was fatty and meaty without being overly sweet. That was followed by the sauteed duck liver and ume bao which was my favorite of the first course: sweet, tart and rich without being unctuous.
The wine list is excellent--originally assembled by Spago sommelier Chris Miller and now overseen by Klaus--with a beautiful selection of aromatic whites, ranging from the bone-dry to the semi-sweet, and a great selection of medium-bodied reds; perfectly selected for the cuisine. Mark-ups were not unreasonable, hovering right around 4-4.5 times wholesale, which is on the lower end for a fine-dining restaurant of this caliber. WP24 wine prices are in line with a slew of much more casual and poorly programmed restaurants in LA. We had an excellent Alsace Riesling before drinking our own wine with the main courses.
I had the Assam Prawns--five or six good sized shrimp simmered in a garlic-cardamom curry and served over rice. The curry was amazing--deep, concentrated slow-cooked flavors with a healthy but not overpowering spiciness; well-balanced and not overly salty. The prawns were plump and meaty though there was a barely perceivable "old" flavor on the finish of the meat that made me think that they had either been thawed and refrozen or had been ever-so-slightly freezer-burned.
I tasted my two companions' entrees as well. The Kobe steak, seared rare, was meaty and tender with an excellent sweet peppery sauce. The Angry Lobster was delicious. A whole two-pound Maine lobster, quartered live and rubbed with cayenne, salt and flour and then pan-seared before being finished in the oven. The spicy heat permeated the flesh and is complimented perfectly by the garlic-lime sauce. We shared a side of fried rice with Lap Cheung sausage and the best fresh peas I've had in a while. We also had a side of sauteed Chinese greens (a personal favorite of mine from my Daimo days) which were tasty.
Despite our better judgment we shared two desserts--I can't remember exactly what they were since we didn't order them and the dessert menu's not on the website. They were chocolate-oriented and well-executed. The stand out was the "Thai Ovaltine" which was a malted milk chocolate mousse on a chocolate crust with a chili-lime dusting. I think. It was a long night.
The restaurant is expensive to be sure but it's not overpriced. It might even be on the lower-end of restaurants of its type in Los Angeles. Appetizers are mostly in the mid to upper teens and the main courses start in the low 30s. Sides and desserts are in the $10-$15 range. Couple those prices with a wine list that features some excellent selections for under $50, and you can have an honestly elegant night in Downtown LA that isn't obscenely expensive.
My only significant complaint with the whole experience was that the menu was very safe. It was the same Asian Fusion cuisine that California's been churning out pretty reliably since Wolfgang Puck helped introduce the style three decades ago. It was probably the best-executed example of that style I've ever had, sure, but I always appreciate when even established successful chefs continue to challenge their diners.
But that's a minor complaint overall. Check out WP24. Great restaurant.
WP24
900 W. Olympic Blvd.
Los Angeles, Ca 90015
213-743-8824
http://www.wolfgangpuck.com/restaurants/fine-dining/57129
Friday, April 23, 2010
The Double Down
Despite what many think, I”m really not too pretentious about food. I sneak a Del Taco burrito when I need a quick bite that’s easy to eat while driving. I’ve eaten at least one Lunchable in the last year. I eagerly and excitedly ate a McRib.
So as a naturally curious person who has a deep sense of irony, I was pretty damn excited about the Double Down.
For those uninitiated, the Double Down is Kentucky Fried Chicken’s new “sandwich.” It consists of bacon, cheese and special sauce sandwiched between two signature fried chicken breasts. No bread. Fried chicken replaces the bread.
(I will note that you can get the Double Down with “grilled” chicken, but that would be moronic. The calorie and fat difference is negligible and the KFC grilled chicken contains powdered beef. That’s as unnecessary as condoms at an open-carry rally.)
Unlike with the McRib, which I consider to be the spiritual cousin of the Double Down in its culinary fuck you absurdity, I found absolutely no pleasure whatsoever in the Double Down. The chicken breasts were dry and not crispy. The bacon and cheese were impossible to taste. The spicy sauce was pretty nice, I’ll admit. The McRib was meaty and pleasant, albeit fairly flavorless and too sweet. The Double Down is a fuck you salt fest that tea bags your taste buds and leaves your esophagus slightly mummified.
And can we talk about MSG? Now I am by no means averse to MSG. It’s a seasoning that’s been used for centuries. But KFC both seasons the chicken itself with MSG and adds copious MSG to the chicken breading. I think that the Colonel’s secret 11 herbs and spices are just 11 different varieties of MSG.
The sandwich has a lot of salt. It has something like 1400mg of sodium. For those of you keeping score at home, that’s almost 75% of your RDA on a 2000 calorie diet. It’s highly unnecessary. The Double Down could’ve had half the salt and still been too salty.
But I appreciate KFC’s take-no-prisoners approach, I just wish the sandwich was better. I mean, fuck it, I don’t get the uproar. There are a whole fuck tonne of sandwiches that are one chicken breast with bacon, cheese and sauce between a bun. I think that the subtraction of the bun and the addition of another chicken patty is a net nutritional gain.
Unlike the McRib, which I will recommend as a one-time indulgence, I see nothing redeeming in the Double Down, especially given its $5.49 price tag. Several thumbs down.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Alcohol in Wine
So here's a really fucking stupid article in the Wall Street Journal:
Wines That Pack A Little Extra Kick
First of all, the Wall Street Journal is about as progressive on wine matters as Michelle Bachman on a backwards running train into the Spanish Inquisition. Anybody looking at the Wall Street Journal, Wine Spectator, Robert M. Parker Jr., or, well, I could go on, for any kind of taste-making wine journalism could be more productive by hand trimming their front lawn with rubber scissors. Seriously, these guys wouldn't know what's actually going on in the cutting edge wine world if the cutting edge wine world sodomized them with a broken beer bottle. Second of all, the article conflates several points.
1. It conflates the belief that Chardonnay and Pinot Noir shouldn't be over 14% alcohol with the contention that no wine should be over 14% alcohol. I know the author really wants to defend the wines that he loves but one should not induce a journalistic article based on an opinion that is contrary to the facts presented. Objecting to a 14.5% pinot noir is not the same as objecting to a 14.5% zinfandel. 14.5% zinfandel is standard, 14.5% pinot noir is an abomination unto god and your children.
2. It suggests that such dogmatic opposition to wines based upon a specific alcohol percentage is widespread. It's not. Like all blanket disqualifications it's the rhetorical tool of the desperate poseurs, faded authorities attempting to reclaim lost glory, or an arbitrary distinguishing marker for those chronically desperate for attention. Most sane wine folks have tastes and preferences but fully acknowledge that there are blurred borders, not hard and fast thresholds. And it neglects the fact that there is a grey area in terms of the TTB that can be as much as 0.5% each way so really a 14% (reported) alcohol wine could be 13.5% to 14.5%. And so if you set a specific alcohol threshold, well, the arbitrary closed mindedness of that is self-evident.
3. And the selling point of the article, that "alcohol delivers flavor," is asinine. Alcohol is a by-product of ripeness. Ripeness produces immediately pleasurable sweet, full-fruited flavors. Alcohol has nothing to do with it. If anything, alcohol deadens or interferes with the other flavors of wine--alcohol's a necessary byproduct of quality wine production and all wines have plenty of alcohol, but it has nothing to do with actual quality of the wine.
4. It references this dubious idea that wine over 14% is classified as "dessert wine." It's not. It might sound good, but so do the Rolling Stones and the Rolling Stones suck buffalo cock. I know it's fun to think that we have these magical outdated alcohol rules that classify things in comically outdated ways, but the real world is actually (usually) more logical than we hope. Wine is taxed the same way from 0.5%-14% and then it's taxed 50 cents/gallon higher from 14.1%-21%. It's not called "dessert wine" it's just a higher percentage wine and taxed accordingly. Plus, lest we get too excited about such a HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE increase in taxes, that equals all of an additional 10 cents a bottle in taxes. It's really not particularly significant to wine pricing on any wine more than, well, two bucks.
Wine grapes are different. Some get riper than others, some ripen earlier than others. There's a huge range of styles of wine. Some wines can be 12% alcohol and suck, but some wines at 16% can be really good (you heard me!). What it comes down to is appropriateness for the varietal and quality of the wine-making. That's it. I've had 16% wines that taste like 13% wines and I've had shitty 13% wines that taste like equal parts Concord grape juice and rubbing alcohol.
Like the wine that you like and don't make apologies for it. But also don't attack the haters of your wine style with dubious statistics and misinformation. While that has become the American way, it shouldn't be. It's not adversarial, it's a matter of taste. Have enough balls to like what you like and not feel assaulted by provincial douche bags who need to add significance to their lives by ensconcing them in arbitrary rules. What they don't know is that it won't fix their impotency, but it will let them pretend they aren't impotent for another year or so.
But, in the end, please don't overly manipulate wine in pursuit of scores or the bullshit mainstream wine zeitgeist. Good honest wine will prevail over all pretenders. If we just drink the wine that is appropriate--i.e. the wine that produces naturally from a region's grapes, soil, climate, and tradition--then we'll have a world of unique, distinctive wine and not a world of dark, inky, high-alcohol bullshit that all tastes the fucking same: like butter and candied Grenache.
Wines That Pack A Little Extra Kick
First of all, the Wall Street Journal is about as progressive on wine matters as Michelle Bachman on a backwards running train into the Spanish Inquisition. Anybody looking at the Wall Street Journal, Wine Spectator, Robert M. Parker Jr., or, well, I could go on, for any kind of taste-making wine journalism could be more productive by hand trimming their front lawn with rubber scissors. Seriously, these guys wouldn't know what's actually going on in the cutting edge wine world if the cutting edge wine world sodomized them with a broken beer bottle. Second of all, the article conflates several points.
1. It conflates the belief that Chardonnay and Pinot Noir shouldn't be over 14% alcohol with the contention that no wine should be over 14% alcohol. I know the author really wants to defend the wines that he loves but one should not induce a journalistic article based on an opinion that is contrary to the facts presented. Objecting to a 14.5% pinot noir is not the same as objecting to a 14.5% zinfandel. 14.5% zinfandel is standard, 14.5% pinot noir is an abomination unto god and your children.
2. It suggests that such dogmatic opposition to wines based upon a specific alcohol percentage is widespread. It's not. Like all blanket disqualifications it's the rhetorical tool of the desperate poseurs, faded authorities attempting to reclaim lost glory, or an arbitrary distinguishing marker for those chronically desperate for attention. Most sane wine folks have tastes and preferences but fully acknowledge that there are blurred borders, not hard and fast thresholds. And it neglects the fact that there is a grey area in terms of the TTB that can be as much as 0.5% each way so really a 14% (reported) alcohol wine could be 13.5% to 14.5%. And so if you set a specific alcohol threshold, well, the arbitrary closed mindedness of that is self-evident.
3. And the selling point of the article, that "alcohol delivers flavor," is asinine. Alcohol is a by-product of ripeness. Ripeness produces immediately pleasurable sweet, full-fruited flavors. Alcohol has nothing to do with it. If anything, alcohol deadens or interferes with the other flavors of wine--alcohol's a necessary byproduct of quality wine production and all wines have plenty of alcohol, but it has nothing to do with actual quality of the wine.
4. It references this dubious idea that wine over 14% is classified as "dessert wine." It's not. It might sound good, but so do the Rolling Stones and the Rolling Stones suck buffalo cock. I know it's fun to think that we have these magical outdated alcohol rules that classify things in comically outdated ways, but the real world is actually (usually) more logical than we hope. Wine is taxed the same way from 0.5%-14% and then it's taxed 50 cents/gallon higher from 14.1%-21%. It's not called "dessert wine" it's just a higher percentage wine and taxed accordingly. Plus, lest we get too excited about such a HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE increase in taxes, that equals all of an additional 10 cents a bottle in taxes. It's really not particularly significant to wine pricing on any wine more than, well, two bucks.
Wine grapes are different. Some get riper than others, some ripen earlier than others. There's a huge range of styles of wine. Some wines can be 12% alcohol and suck, but some wines at 16% can be really good (you heard me!). What it comes down to is appropriateness for the varietal and quality of the wine-making. That's it. I've had 16% wines that taste like 13% wines and I've had shitty 13% wines that taste like equal parts Concord grape juice and rubbing alcohol.
Like the wine that you like and don't make apologies for it. But also don't attack the haters of your wine style with dubious statistics and misinformation. While that has become the American way, it shouldn't be. It's not adversarial, it's a matter of taste. Have enough balls to like what you like and not feel assaulted by provincial douche bags who need to add significance to their lives by ensconcing them in arbitrary rules. What they don't know is that it won't fix their impotency, but it will let them pretend they aren't impotent for another year or so.
But, in the end, please don't overly manipulate wine in pursuit of scores or the bullshit mainstream wine zeitgeist. Good honest wine will prevail over all pretenders. If we just drink the wine that is appropriate--i.e. the wine that produces naturally from a region's grapes, soil, climate, and tradition--then we'll have a world of unique, distinctive wine and not a world of dark, inky, high-alcohol bullshit that all tastes the fucking same: like butter and candied Grenache.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
The Double Down
Just as I did with the McRib, I will make a full report on the bun-less fried chicken & bacon sandwich that is KFC's Double Down ASAP.
It debuts on Monday.
Stay tuned.
It debuts on Monday.
Stay tuned.
Monday, April 05, 2010
More Pulled Pork in the Mix
I've already written about my love of pulled pork sandwiches here, but I figured I should throw out a couple new ones I've tried recently.
The York: I finally got out to this fabled gastropub tucked away in a secluded corner of Highland Park. Really damn good Carolina-ish sandwich. I say Carolina-ish because, although the meat was moist and vinegar-y, it also had a healthy dose of a sweet barbecue sauce--something very un-Carolinian. But the meat quality was excellent and the fresh slaw was a nice complement.
Spring Street Smokehouse: Meaty pulled pork with nice chunks of pork and good residual fat. The smokiest of all the pulled pork I've tried, but the smoke was that intense but cheap quality. Really sweet sauce--Kansas City in style. Decent slaw and well priced at $9.95 (including a side).
Do these affect my conclusions from the previous post? Not really. My favorite for the price is still probably the Oinkster (plus those fries!) and both Lou and T-Rex use the best damn pork you can get. But the York is pretty good and their beer selection rocks. Spring Street won't win any awards, but its earnest sluttiness is appreciated and the traditional bbq-house style sides is another plus.
Still to try? Sketch in Culver City and Zeke's Smokehouse in WeHo.
The York
www.theyorkonyork.com
Spring Street Smokehouse
www.sssmokehouse.com
The York: I finally got out to this fabled gastropub tucked away in a secluded corner of Highland Park. Really damn good Carolina-ish sandwich. I say Carolina-ish because, although the meat was moist and vinegar-y, it also had a healthy dose of a sweet barbecue sauce--something very un-Carolinian. But the meat quality was excellent and the fresh slaw was a nice complement.
Spring Street Smokehouse: Meaty pulled pork with nice chunks of pork and good residual fat. The smokiest of all the pulled pork I've tried, but the smoke was that intense but cheap quality. Really sweet sauce--Kansas City in style. Decent slaw and well priced at $9.95 (including a side).
Do these affect my conclusions from the previous post? Not really. My favorite for the price is still probably the Oinkster (plus those fries!) and both Lou and T-Rex use the best damn pork you can get. But the York is pretty good and their beer selection rocks. Spring Street won't win any awards, but its earnest sluttiness is appreciated and the traditional bbq-house style sides is another plus.
Still to try? Sketch in Culver City and Zeke's Smokehouse in WeHo.
The York
www.theyorkonyork.com
Spring Street Smokehouse
www.sssmokehouse.com
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Craftsman Brewery
There's an odd micro-brew black hole in California centered right on Los Angeles and Orange County. There are dozens of small commercial breweries from Santa Barbara up to the Oregon border and more than a handful south of the Orange Curtain. But in LA? I know of three--Angel City Brewery and Eagle Rock Brewery in Los Angeles and Craftsman Brewing Company in Pasadena. There are no doubt others but none have achieved the market penetration (however modest) of the aforementioned.
I wonder why that is? Is it not a beer town? The rise of beer-loaded gastropubs would suggest otherwise. Maybe it's too expensive? Too much bureaucracy in the county? I would think that there's a ready market for unique local beers and there are empty warehouses waiting to be filled with malt and hops by ambitious entrepreneurs.
Despite Angel City's eye-catching billboard and seeming attempts to position itself as the Anchor Steam of Los Angeles, it's Pasadena's Craftsman Brewing Company that seems to have found its way into the most restaurants and reached the most esteem among the beer cognoscenti.
Some friends were in town from Chicago and had heard of Craftsman. They called ahead for a tour and we met up with owner Mark at the brewery--a couple of roll-up garages in an industrial business park in northern Pasadena. The brewery is not open to the public per se but call ahead and if the schedule's not too packed they're happy to chat about their beers for a bit.
The brewery is small, but it's packed with fermenters and mash tuns which are constantly going to keep up with ever-increasing demand. Craftsman just recently picked up a distributor, prior to that Mark made deliveries himself in his vintage pickup. We had a good chat with the brewery staff: owner Mark, head brewer Todd and his assistant whose name escapes me, alas. All very friendly.
Craftsman makes three beers regularly, all excellent. The 1903 Pre-Prohibition style lager is fantastic, and their top seller. They also make a light, aromatic "Hevenly Hefe" in the Bavarian style and a nice golden English Pale Ale--one of the best of its kind. At any given time they have another six or so seasonal brews or one-offs. We tried two of those, the winter seasonal Cabernale, a lager mixed with juice from Texas Cabernet Sauvignon grapes and a sour Saison-tyle ale that was delicious.
Check out their beers when you have the chance. Nothing in bottles yet but these spots all have several Craftsman beers on draft:
Mission Wines
www.missionwines.com
Lucky Baldwin's
www.luckybaldwins.com
The York
www.theyorkonyork.com
Lucques
www.lucques.com
Craftsman Brewing Company
1260 Lincoln Ave, Unit 100
Pasadena, Ca 91103
www.craftsmanbrewing.com
I wonder why that is? Is it not a beer town? The rise of beer-loaded gastropubs would suggest otherwise. Maybe it's too expensive? Too much bureaucracy in the county? I would think that there's a ready market for unique local beers and there are empty warehouses waiting to be filled with malt and hops by ambitious entrepreneurs.
Despite Angel City's eye-catching billboard and seeming attempts to position itself as the Anchor Steam of Los Angeles, it's Pasadena's Craftsman Brewing Company that seems to have found its way into the most restaurants and reached the most esteem among the beer cognoscenti.
Some friends were in town from Chicago and had heard of Craftsman. They called ahead for a tour and we met up with owner Mark at the brewery--a couple of roll-up garages in an industrial business park in northern Pasadena. The brewery is not open to the public per se but call ahead and if the schedule's not too packed they're happy to chat about their beers for a bit.
The brewery is small, but it's packed with fermenters and mash tuns which are constantly going to keep up with ever-increasing demand. Craftsman just recently picked up a distributor, prior to that Mark made deliveries himself in his vintage pickup. We had a good chat with the brewery staff: owner Mark, head brewer Todd and his assistant whose name escapes me, alas. All very friendly.
Craftsman makes three beers regularly, all excellent. The 1903 Pre-Prohibition style lager is fantastic, and their top seller. They also make a light, aromatic "Hevenly Hefe" in the Bavarian style and a nice golden English Pale Ale--one of the best of its kind. At any given time they have another six or so seasonal brews or one-offs. We tried two of those, the winter seasonal Cabernale, a lager mixed with juice from Texas Cabernet Sauvignon grapes and a sour Saison-tyle ale that was delicious.
Check out their beers when you have the chance. Nothing in bottles yet but these spots all have several Craftsman beers on draft:
Mission Wines
www.missionwines.com
Lucky Baldwin's
www.luckybaldwins.com
The York
www.theyorkonyork.com
Lucques
www.lucques.com
Craftsman Brewing Company
1260 Lincoln Ave, Unit 100
Pasadena, Ca 91103
www.craftsmanbrewing.com
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