Great Tastes Around Town

Sometimes a dish simply leaps out at you. Not that the rest of what you are eating doesn’t measure up. It’s just that you respond to a particular combination of flavors and textures.

This happened to me a couple of times recently. The first was during lunch at Spago. Avocado ravioli? What could that be, pasta dough stuffed with avocado? Not on your life. The cute green ball on my plate was avocado, cut into thin slices and overlapped to enclose delicious sweet Maryland crab. A dab of orange sea urchin on top gave a briny finish.

There was more—pickled ginger and a yuzu-Cavaillon melon broth, but these were icing on the ravioli, so to speak.

The other night at Tinto, the tapas restaurant in West Hollywood, I could have eaten nothing but one dish. It was bacon-wrapped medjool dates stuffed with Cabrales cheese, a complex, assertive cheese from Asturias in northern Spain. Crisp yet soft, sweet and salty, the dates had everything.

My favorite place to get away from it all at lunchtime is the San Antonio Winery in downtown Los Angeles. Usually, I just have a sandwich, either grilled steak with fries or tarragon chicken, although there are plenty of interesting pasta dishes.

Service is cafeteria style, and you help yourself to a glass of wine that’s already been poured. Because lunch was a celebration, I reached for the most expensive wine in the nicest glass.

Elegant, with lovely restrained fruit, it was worth every penny of the still-modest price, $9 a glass.  The wine was Riboli Family Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, Rutherford, Napa 2003.

This wine is selling out fast. Only about 20 cases are left. But the 2005 is in stock, and I hear that it is even better.

The 2003, which is 100 % Cabernet Sauvignon, is $39.95. The 2005, which contains 2 % Petit Verdot, is $44.95. You can buy them both at the winery tasting room.

Spago. 176 N. Canon Dr., Beverly Hills, CA 90210. Tel: (310) 385-0880.

Tinto, 7511 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90046. Tel (323) 512-3095.

San Antonio Winery & Maddalena Restaurant, 737 Lamar Street, Los Angeles, CA 90031. Tel: (323) 223-1401.

Comments

[Barbara]

If you're in town Aug. 17, San Antonio is going to have an interesting event--food and wines of South America.

[g]

I've always wanted to check out San Antonio winery. Now I will!

Haven't been to Tinto, but I've had a date/blue-cheese/bacon nibble at another tapas place, Primitivo in Venice.

It is a delicious combo!

We're going out of town soon - our travels will be mixed in terms of cuisine, but one destination is New Orleans! I can't wait.

[Barbara]

Dan, which place do you love?

Spago, Tinto or the San Antonio Winery?

[Dan]

I love this place~!