TableConversation.com

A Cafe for Music Lovers

Could that be Gustavo Dudamel, L.A. Phil’s new  leading man, shaking his dark curls as he makes a point over coffee with a friend? Probably not, just a look alike, but that young guy lugging a cello may be a future star. Same for that girl with the violin case.

The scene is the Colburn School Plaza Café, located behind the prestigious Colburn music school in downtown Los Angeles.

It’s entirely possible that Dudamel might show up there one day, taking a break from Disney Hall across the street.

And why not? It’s a pleasant place to sit, a beautiful, glassed-in space that soars like the music so close by. 

The coffee (Peet’s) is good. The service is cordial. And the food fits a music student’s budget. The wide ranging menu changes every week. There is lots of Italian food, panini, pesto and so forth, as well as ethnic dishes such as Thai chicken salad and Baja fish tacos.

The day I went in, the special was chicken curry Madras. To be sure, the curry wasn’t anything you’d find in Chennai (Madras). That doesn’t mean it wasn’t pleasant.  Sides included lentils--not Indian dal, but regular, plainly seasoned supermarket lentils. And cauliflower, more gently flavored than Indians like it, but all the better to soothe a budding soprano’s throat.

Another day, Italian wedding soup was loaded with marble-sized meatballs, tomatoes, spinach, red bell pepper and other vegetables, basil and couscous in garlic-scented chicken broth. All this for only $2.69 for a small bowl, $3.69 for a larger serving.  And croutons and crackers for the taking.

Just around the corner from MOCA, the cafeteria-style café is slightly hidden but worth seeking out. It's a nice place to relax, even if you'rd rather play one of the games the cafe provides than a piano or flute.

Colburn School Plaza Café, 200 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90012. Tel: (213) 621-4515. Hours are 7 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Saturday.

Green Curry from India

Thailand has green curry so popular that it’s on the menu at just about every Thai restaurant.

Not so well known is green curry from India, a fresh and interesting change from the usual heavily spiced,  tomato-red restaurant curries.

The place to find it is Flavor of India in West Hollywood and Burbank, where each day there’s a different chicken curry.

Lots of cilantro makes this one green. If you don’t like cilantro, don’t worry. The flavor softens as it blends with large amounts of garlic and ginger, onions, jalapeno chiles and--another unusual aspect of this curry--coconut milk.

Owner/chef Darshan Singh gave me the recipe when I dropped by for lunch recently. It’s not difficult, because it calls for few ingredients compared to the multitude of spices that go into some Indian dishes.

Long slow cooking in various stages is responsible for the smooth, mellow flavor. So be patient, and the results will be wonderful.

GREEN COCONUT CHICKEN CURRY
From Flavor of India

3 pounds medium-sized chicken thighs
2 cups cilantro leaves (1 bunch)
2 jalapeno chiles, seeded and coarsely chopped
¼ cup peeled ginger root, cut into chunks
¼ cup garlic cloves (about 8)
Water
1½ teaspoons Indian brown mustard seeds
¾ teaspoon ground coriander
¼ to 1½ teaspoons red chili powder, according to taste
½ teaspoon turmeric
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons oil
3/4 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 medium onions, finely chopped
1 cup coconut milk

Remove the skin and excess fat from the chicken thighs and set aside.

Combine the cilantro leaves, jalapenos, ginger, garlic and 1/3 cup water in a small food processor and process until pureed. Scoop this paste into a bowl and set aside.

Using a spice grinder, grind the mustard seeds to a powder and set aside. Combine the coriander, chili powder, turmeric and salt in a small cup.

Heat the oil in a Dutch oven or other large heavy pan. Add the cumin seeds and ground mustard seeds and cook until they crackle. Add the onions and cook until golden brown, stirring often to keep them from burning.

Add the cilantro paste and sauté for 5 minutes on medium heat. Add the ground coriander mixture, then the coconut milk and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes.

Add the chicken and ½ cup water. Cover and simmer until the chicken is cooked, about 45 minutes.  Serve with rice.

Makes 4 servings.

Sunday School for Wine Lovers

Going to school on Sunday is a real drag--unless the class you are attending is a wine appreciation seminar at San Antonio Winery in downtown Los Angeles.

It took a large room to hold the enthusiastic students taking Wine 103, the class that I attended. This was the third in a series that started with Wine 101, “An Introduction to Wine,” in January, and Wine 102, “How to Get the Wine You Want,” in  March.

Wine 103’s topic was “A Match Made in Heaven,” or how to pair wine and cheese. The assignment was to taste eight wines and match these with samples of Boucheron, Parmigiano Reggiano, Brie, Gorgonzola Dolce, Pecorino Toscano and Emmental cheeses.

Our guidelines were to pair red wines with harder cheeses and white wines with softer cheeses, taking into account that semi-dry and sweet wines are more versatile with cheeses than dry wines.

Still more pointers:

Soft and/or mild cheeses such as fresh goat cheese marry well with light crisp wines such as Pouilly-Fume or Sancerre.

Assertive, strong flavored cheeses such as Provolone call for young robust red wines such as Chianti Classico or Shiraz.

Aged mellow cheeses such as Parmigiano Reggiano and Gouda go well with an older robust wine such as a Bordeaux or California Cabernet Sauvignon.

But the class assignment was to eat as well as taste. So while we nibbled the cheeses and sipped Giesen Sauvignon Blanc 2007 from New Zealand and Comte Lafond Sancerre 2005, we ate a jumbo-sized blue lump crab cake with spicy remoulade.

Then we matched Claiborne & Churchill Dry Riesling 2006 and Domaines Schlumberger Gewurtraminer “Fleur” 2005 with a smoked chicken breast and fruit salad with a mint yogurt vinaigrette.

Moving on to red wines, we drank Antinori Chianti Classico Riserva 2003, San Simeon Cabernet Sauvignon 2003 and Penfolds 389 Cabernet/Shiraz 2004 with roasted pork loin stuffed with Spanish chorizo accompanied by nappa cabbage, coriander mashed potatoes and fresh fava beans in shiitake au jus.

The lesson ended with Grans-Fassian Riesling Eiswein 2001 and a pear and mascarpone charlotte with sour cherry jubilee.

San Antonio Winery's next series of three seminars and lunches will focus on wines of the world. They are “A Day in Tuscany” April 26; “The Wines of Germany and Alsace” May 18, and “Wines from Down Under,” June 21.

The seminars are $75 each or $200 for a package of three.  To enroll, call (323) 223-1401. Ask for Michael Papalia at ext. 8771. Or email to [email protected].  The winery is located at 737 Lamar Street, Los Angeles, CA 90031.

Happy Hour Tapas at Tinto

Garfield the cat may hate Monday, but it’s a great day at Tinto in West Hollywood.

That night, happy hour runs from 5 p.m., when the restaurant opens, to 10:30 p.m., when it closes.  During that time, tapas are just $5 each. Normally, they’re $8 and up.

Tapas at Tinto aren’t ordinary bar food. They’re genuine Spanish tapas, because Tinto is a serious Spanish restaurant, run by the Sola family from Barcelona. The chef is Luis Perdon from Bilbao in the Basque country.

This means you’ll have to roll your tongue around such Basque names as txipirones (squid), definitely worth the effort because txipirones en su tinta  is a delectable dish of tender squid stuffed with seafood and coated with squid ink sauce.

Tinto has a full menu, but the tapas are so intriguing, I would make a meal of those. For the main course, I would choose the txipirones and gambas al ajillo, large shrimp in a white wine and garlic sauce, accompanied by patatas bravas, which are delicious, tender, spicy fried potato cubes with aioli drizzled over the top.

The salad would be escalivada, cold roasted eggplant, bell pepper, tomatoes, onion and garlic--like ratatouille, seasoned with oil and sherry vinegar.

If I wanted dessert, I would order arroz con leche or flan from the main menu. The flan is light and very good. Perfumed with lemon and cinnamon, the arroz con leche (rice pudding) rises above most versions of this dessert.

Tinto, which replaces a gay bar, is totally Spanish, from the red kerchiefs around the necks of the servers to the tapas written on the mirror behind the bar, the way it is done in Spain.

Flamenco chill and flamenco pop play in the back ground. There’s bullfight paraphernalia on display. And an arched brick wall like you might see in an old town in Spain separates the bar and dining area.

That wall and the handsome floor to ceiling wine cage were designed by Juan Sola Sr., whose recipes are used for the red and white sangrias.

The long wine list amounts to a course in Spanish wines, divided according to place of origin and described as if a sommelier were talking. The list suggests food pairings too—Rueda white wines with patatas bravas, for example.

If you should miss Monday’s bargain happy hour, don’t worry. There are shorter happy hours (5 to 7 p.m.)  Tuesday through Saturday. And Tuesday is paella night when, for $45, you can have paella for two (all seafood or seafood and chicken) and a big pitcher of one of Sola’s sangrias.

Tinto, 7511 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, CA  90046. Tel: (323) 512- 3095. The bar opens at 5 p.m. Dinner is 6 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, to midnight or later Thursday through Saturday. Closed Sunday.

Ice Cream Fit for a Maharajah

Imagine ice cream that evokes the very soul of India. This rare delicacy is rajbhog ice cream, which you can taste at Saffron Spot in Artesia’s Little India. (It's the yellow ice cream on the right at the back of the photo.)

Rajbhog means royal food, and this ice cream is royal indeed, with such luxurious components as saffron, cardamom, pistachios, almonds and cashews. It’s so elegant, you can fantasize spooning it up from a gem-encrusted golden bowl in a maharajah’s palace.

Smita Salgaonkar of  Neemo’s Exotic Ice Creams and owner of Saffron Spot, said she based the flavor on an Indian mithai (sweet) typical of Gujarat and Bengal.

That style of rajbhog is exported canned from India. Rani brand, which I found at a shop in Los Angeles, consists of small milky dumplings in fragrant syrup, flavored with saffron and rose water. It makes a lovely dessert, but Neemo’s rajbhog ice cream is pure magic.

Neemo's rajbhog ice cream is $2.85 a scoop or $8.50 a quart at Saffron Spot ice cream parlor and snack shop, 18744 Pioneer Blvd., Artesia, CA  90701 Tel: (562) 809-6226.