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A Penguin to the Rescue

The empanadas are good at La Americana. They ought to be, because this big, bustling restaurant in Buenos Aires claims to be "La Reina de las Empanadas " (The Queen of Empanadas).

What I go there for isn't the empanadas, though. but the penguins.

No, not penguins to eat, but to provide more wine than I should probably drink at one sitting.

For some reason that I don't know, ceramic penguins are prized as wine decanters in Buenos Aires. Not just at restaurants but in homes too, because housewares stores sell them.

They come in various sizes, either white or brown. White is the usual color for wine. Brown might do for beer.

Not knowing about the penguins, I  went to La Americana because  Jose, a guy I met at a pizza place, sent me.  He thought I would like the empanadas. "They might be too spicy for you," he warned. They were not. 

"Spicy" in Buenos Aires means an extra shot of "spices" such as green onions, not chiles. So an empanada saltena con picante, a Salta style beef empanada at La Americana, contained nothing very picante.

Hojaldra de atun--tuna inside puff pastry--was sweet and caramelized  at the edges. And pascualina wasn't an empanada at all, but a wedge of spinach and egg torte.

This was hearty food, and I needed liquid refreshment. A penguin of house wine to the rescue.

A few days later I went back for an empanada criolla (hand-cut beef)  and a pizzeta calabresa, a little pizza topped with tomato, mozzarella, sausage  and a sprinkle of oregano .

This time, I chose Crotta Bonarda Malbec from the wine list. It too came in a penguin.

A few months later, I was back. This time I  consumed an entire pizza Brasilena (tomato sauce, mozzarella, ham, pineapple, red bell pepper and green olives).

It was late, and the restaurant was jammed.  But the line for tables moved quickly, and I was soon wedged in a corner seat by a window where I could observe penguins as they arrived at nearby tables.

Prices have risen in Buenos Aires. Nevertheless, this May, my pizza cost less than $7, and would easily have fed two, maybe even three. And the medium penguin of house red wine that you see in the photograph cost just one peso more than the year before--a birdful of wine for only $2. 

La Americana, 83 Callao, corner Bartolome Mitre, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Tel: 4371-0202.

Genwa: New Wave Korean

"I like the restaurant, but 2% is missing." This, in my opinion, is substantial praise for  the new Korean restaurant Genwa, because it comes from a Korean who knows the cuisine thoroughly and eats out constantly.

Another good point. The waiter asked what we thought of the food in order to tell the kitchen, which is fine-tuning the menu. One dish had been dropped the night before we were there. And who know what else will transpire.

Genwa is another in a wave of Korean restaurants that are opening away from the heart of Koreatown, in areas not necessarily attuned to Korean food. Four months old, it is located at one corner of Avalon Wilshire, a new apartment building on Wilshire Boulevard two blocks east of La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles.

The room is dark, sleek and stylish, almost entirely black except for sparkling white table accents and brass barbecue rings.

The wall at the entrance is set with panels composed of pebbles and what looks like moss, a vertical garden. Straight ahead is the bar. The main dining area is to the right.

What impressed me right off was the assortment of banchan--10 little dishes, doubled to 20 for a group of four.  Some examples: salted, firmented squid, chewy, sweet dried squid, kimchi made with young nappa cabbage leaves, Korean style "dill" pickles, egg cake, potato salad, and a wedge of Korean pancake.  Also, hot, savory steamed eggs in black stone bowls. The taste was Korean, rather than the fusion experiments that I have seen elsewhere.

The only "fusion"  dish on the menu is nuh biani.  The classic version is the original bulgogi, a large piece of beef pounded to make it tender, marinated and grilled, then cut into pieces.

The update is to cut the meat into short lengths, skewer it with vegetables and serve it with fat white mushroom slices slathered with "house sauce." The kitchen did the cooking. It would have been more fun to grill the skewers at the table.

Although the flavor was good, the beef was too chewy. That happened also with joo mul-luk, beef seasoned with garlic, pepper and salt. Perhaps prime galbi (short ribs) or U.S. Kobe beef would have been more palatable.

Servers dished up spicy sizzling bibim bap as soon as it arrived, so the rice did not sit in a hot stone pot and develop a crisp crust, which is one of the attractions of this dish.

Our Korean expert thought a seaweed salad with baby greens and sesame vinaigrette needed more sweet and sour punch, but others liked it the way it was.

The dish that surprised me was dwenjang jigae--soybean paste stew with tofu, seafood and vegetables. This stew is usually too murky and intense for me, but in this case, the seafood broth was fresh, light and delicious.

At the end came square shot glasses of cold cinnamon-ginger tea with a single pine nut floating on top. If you want to top that off with another cool dessert, Genwa has ice cream, and Red Mango yogurt  is next door.

Genwa Korean BBQ restaurant, 5115 Wilshire Blvd., #A, Los Angeles, CA 90036. Tel: (323) 549-0760.  Go to www.genwarestaurant.com  for more information.

What Dinner Guests Never See

Giving a dinner party in my home is a real challenge.

My only helpers are two messy, incompetent busybodies who interfere at every step and never help with the dishes.

You guessed it. They are cats, Mr. Lucky and Miss Lily.

I can't set the table in advance, or I risk what you see at the right. Interesting table linens are a magnet for cats who want to nap. Mr. Lucky was especially taken with these bright placemats from Santo Tomas Jalieza, a weaving town in the state of Oaxaca.

Food prepared in advance has to be kept covered and placed out of the way. The dishes on which we will eat are stored in the oven, where they will eventually be heated.

The dining room chair covers are kept on until the last minute. They are pillowcases that I bought in India, ostensibly as a gift for Mr. Lucky but really to keep cat hair off the chair seats.

During the party the cats will be shut in a back room that is known as  the cats' room. This is not punishment. It is a large room, lined with windows and furnished with a scratching post, fuzzy window perch, carpet-lined cat furniture, pillows, rugs and a basket of toys. This is where they nap during the day, except when I am cooking. Then they want to be in the kitchen.

The dinner that Mr. Lucky is previewing is a Mexican Independence Day celebration composed of carne con chile colorado (meat in red chile sauce), black beans with epazote, rice cooked with corn, green chiles and guaje seeds, and nopales rancheros, or cactus strips in tomato sauce with chiles and squash blossoms. Noxious stuff compared to Friskies, they would say.

First, we will have chips, jalapeno salsa and string cheese from Oaxaca. The chip bag can't be opened until the cats are put away. It is hidden inside a plastic grocery bag, which created a tempting bundle that Miss Lily tried to use as a pillow.

From their point of view, the dessert, a cake topped with plums, cinnamon and sugar, is as disgusting as the rest of the menu.  But the ice cream that I am serving might interest them, because they love dairy products. It is Mexican helado de guayaba (guava ice cream). However, such a flavor might be too exotic for their tastes.

Hardcore drinkers, my cats like their shots straight. So perhaps a small pour of milk will be their nightcap when the guests depart, unaware of how hard I worked to work to safeguard their dinners.

The Ferari of Indian Snacks

Ferari chevdo has nothing to do with fancy cars. It's a tempting Indian snack that you can buy at Surati Farsan Mart, a vegetarian restaurant and snack shop in Artesia's Little India.

Sweet, salty and spicy, this crunchy mixture is composed of fine golden shreds, peanuts, raisins, sesame seeds and dried chiles. The fried shreds in such snacks are usually made of besan (lentil flour). But in this case the shreds are potato.

According to an Indian friend, ferari chevdo is intended for Indians who are fasting, avoiding dal (lentils) but able to eat peanuts and potatoes.  It is so delicious that you would want to eat it anytime, whether fasting or not.

Ferari chevdo is $8 a pound at Surati Farsan Mart, 11814 E. 186 St., Artesia, CA 90701. Tel: (562) 860-2310. Also at 9494 Black Mountain Rd., San Diego, CA 92126. Tel: (858) 549-7280.

Koreatown in Buenos Aires

The spicy Korean stew kimchi jjigae is as simple as it is wonderful.  My Korean friend Sejung can whip it up in seconds, using cabbage kimchi, pork, onion, garlic, tofu and  rice cakes.

Aside from hers, the best kimchi jjigae that I have eaten recently was at a restaurant, not  in Koreatown, Los Angeles, where there are scores of eating places, but in Buenos Aires.

No tourist would ever find Kil Chong.  It is hidden away in Flores, a section of the city where the first Korean immigrants settled in the 1960s.  There is no sign that says restaurant, no indication of cooking, no dining room that can be seen from the outside, just the name in the Korean script Hangul on a small lantern high above the doorway.

I found it thanks to two friends, Korea-born Monica Lee and Carolina Mera, a professor at the University of Buenos Aires who lectures and writes about Korean migration.

Driving around the barrio with them, I saw Korean-owned textile businesses, a Korean school, churches, a Buddhist temple, a panaderia (bakery) with a sign in Hangul, small markets and other enterprises.

The Korean population of Argentina once numbered 45,000, Carolina said. Now it is down to 20,000, almost all of them in Buenos Aires.

Long ago, Flores was a wealthy area and a separate town. The rich moved elsewhere and Flores was amalgamated into the city. During Argentina’s economic crisis from 1991 to 2002, many of its Korean inhabitants left the country, and the barrio became impoverished. On Saturday, when businesses close in the afternoon, it was especially quiet.

Fortunately, Kil Chong was open. We entered through a bare hallway, then climbed upstairs to a plain room with formica-topped tables and ceiling fans.

The restaurant caters to Koreans, not outsiders, and so the menu is in Hangul, with no Spanish translation and, certainly, no English.

There are just 16 dishes, including bulgogi (grilled beef), galbi  tang (short rib soup), mandu (dumpling) soup, bibim bap (a rice bowl with meat, vegetables and egg), sun dubu (soft tofu), naengmyeon (cold noodles with or without broth), and kimchi jjigae.

Our lunch was impressive. We feasted on 10 side dishes (banchan) in addition to the dishes we ordered, a far more generous display than that offered at a couple of ambitious new Korean restaurants in Los Angeles.

Along with sweet and sour radish, cucumber strips, soy bean sprouts and other vegetables, the little dishes held dried radish leaves, squares of Korean pancake, dried fish with potato, tiny spicy dried fish and fatty pork slices with hot red sauce.

Fiery red, richly flavored kimchi jjigae came in a black stone bowl. The marinade for bulgogi (grilled beef, cooked in the kitchen), was topnotch. Carolina asked for yukgae jang, a spicy meat soup, and Monica wanted naengmyon drenched with sweet and spicy red sauce.

Kil Chong makes its own kochujang, the red pepper paste that is used in many Korean dishes, and this indicates the effort that goes into the food.

Tourists are more likely to go to Bi Won, which is closer to the heart of town and well publicized.

Although owned by Koreans, Bi Won cooks for Argentinian tastes, and the food lacks true Korean flavor. The night I was there, the restaurant had no kimchi, which would never happen in a genuine Korean restaurant.   

Bi Won offers the sort of Asian decor that tourists like, and the service is good. But for food, Kil Chong is worth the long ride to Flores, a barrio way off tourist routes.

Ordering from a menu in Hangul needn’t be a problem. Just point to numbers 5, 7, 8 and 11, and you will have a delicious, inexpensive meal of dumpling soup, grilled beef, bibim bap, kimchi jjigae, beef broth, rice and all the banchan you can eat.

Kil Chong, Campana 714, Flores, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Tel: 4674-5900.

Bi Won, Junin 548, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Tel: 4372-1146.

Really, Really Spicy Food

A lot of people apparently like really spicy food. Enough that Kabob Corner is planning to expand into the space next door.

This small (for the time being) restaurant in Artesia’s little India specializes in the notoriously fiery cuisine of Andhra Pradesh, one of four south Indian states.

It is the first U.S. outpost of a restaurant that is headquartered in Tirupathi, a temple town and important pilgrimage site in Andhra.

No coincidence that the restaurant upstairs is Tirupathi Bhimas. The owners are the same. Tirupathi Bhimas is vegetarian, and Kabob Corner balances that with meaty cuisine, although it has vegetarian food too.

Kabobs are the specialty, but a friend and I ordered curries instead—mutton, chicken and eggplant. My goodness they were hot. The restaurant places a pitcher of cold water on each table for good reason.

The curries looked alike, various shades of brown in a bowl, but each flavor was distinctive. Chettinad chicken curry was faintly sweet, perhaps from onions. It’s from another south Indian state, Tamil Nadu.

Karikudi bengan (eggplant) was lightly sweet too, while gongura mutton curry, the most intriguing of the three, had interesting sour and smoky tones.

The sourness came from a south Indian leaf called gongura. I wanted to buy some to cook with, but  learned that Kabob Corner and Tirupathi Bhimas bring such special ingredients from India.

However, a friend has sighted gongura leaves at Rasa, a south Indian grocery nearby (18707 Pioneer Blvd., Artesia. Tel: (562) 402-9622).

It didn’t seem right to leave without trying the kabobs, so I took home an order of Andhra chicken kabobs. Marinated in hot Andhra seasonings and cooked in the tandoor, the meat was succulent and not outrageously spicy.

The order came with a choice of rice or naan bread, creamy, pale green mint chutney and vegetable garnishes. Enough food to feed two, for only $7.99.

Kabob Corner, Little India Village, 18742 Pioneer Blvd., Artesia, CA  90701. Tel: (562) 809-4433. Go to www.kabobcorner.us to see the menu.

Wines: The High and the Low

“It’s so good,” said the man sampling the 2007 Alamos Chardonnay. And I heard that time after time from other tasters.

Alamos is a second label of Bodega Catena Zapata, which is located in Mendoza, Argentina. But that doesn’t mean the wines can’t be first rate. This golden Chardonnay, with hints of apple and lemon, a slight sweet edge and pleasant acidity, is indeed a winner, a double gold medal winner in the 2008 San Francisco International Wine Competition.   

What really sets it apart is its price, an amazing $10, which drops to even less on the Internet.

Double gold winners from that contest as well as from the San Francisco World Spirits Competition are now on a nationwide tour sponsored by The Tasting Panel magazine. The Los Angeles tasting took place at Citrus at Social.

At the other extreme of price was Cielo Malibu Estate Syrah 2006, which sells for $90 on the winery website, www.cielowines.com. Only 125 cases of this wine were made, and very few are left, according to William Hirsh of Cielo Malibu Estate Wineyard (yes, the W is correct).

Established in 2002, the vineyard is located at an altitude of 1,500 to 2,000 feet in a hot climate that benefits red wine grapes. The 2006 Syrah spent six months in new French oak. The 2007 Syrah is said to be even better.

Cielo also won two bronze medals in the San Francisco competition. These went to the 2006 Malibu Rouge, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah and Cabernet Franc, and to the 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Lot 3 Reserve.

Here is a sampling of other double gold medal winners:

Cambiata Winery 2005 Tannat, from Monterey County, a deeply colored wine with rich berry flavor. ($22). The Cambiata 2007 Albarino also won gold ($25).

Epiphany Cellars 2005 Revelation from Santa Barbara County. Voted best Rhone blend, this fruity, rich, full wine blends 62% Syrah with 30% Grenache and 8% Petite Sirah ($35). Epiphany Cellars Grenache Blanc was voted best in show white ($23).

Filus 2006 Malbec Reserve from Mendoza, Argentina. named best Malbec in the competition. Deeply colored with violet tones, this wine combines fruitiness with good acid and has more character than the average Malbec ($15). Filus also makes the low-priced La Boca wines.

Portalupi Wine Company 2006 Barbera from Nevada County, voted best Barbera in the competition. Lots of character, a wonderful red for $30.

Turning to spirits, the best tequila award went to AsomBroso El Platino silver tequila from Jalisco, Mexico  Appropriately, asombroso is Spanish for astonishing, which applies to the bottle as well as the tequila.   

This 100 % blue agave tequila has lovely soft flavor components—I had a momentary impression of  pandanus, coconut and caramel. These would be overwhelmed in a Margarita, so drink this one straight. ($45).

Note: The prices given  are suggested retail prices  listed at the tasting.

Giving Thanks for Soup

I’ve found the perfect soup for Thanksgiving dinner. Why write about Thanksgiving now? Because I recently returned from Virginia, where I came across the recipe. And I’m thankful to have it, because this soup is really, really good.

It’s a creamy peanut soup  from “Virginia Hospitality,” a cookbook compiled by the Junior League of Hampton Roads.

Rich with  peanut butter, cream and milk, it’s perfect for cool fall weather.  But that hasn’t stopped me from serving it now. Adding a dash of sherry (my idea) makes the flavor much more elegant.

The book credits the recipe to the Evans Farm Inn, a decades-old colonial style eatery in McLean, Virginia.  That got my attention because I was staying in McLean, where I saw the book at the luxury shopping mall, Tysons Galleria.

It’s no longer possible to eat at Evans Farm Inn, because the restaurant has been closed to make way for housing. However, the book,is still available. The easy way to get a copy is through www.amazon.com 

CREAM OF PEANUT SOUP
From ”Virginia Hospitality” by the Junior League of Hampton Roads, with a few alterations.

¼ cup butter
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
2 tablespoons flour
2 cups chicken stock, more if needed
1 cup milk
1 cup half and half
1 cup creamy peanut butter
Salt, white pepper
½ cup sherry, or to taste, optional
Paprika
Italian parsley leaves

Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Add the celery and onion and cook until browned, about 5 minutes. Add the flour and cook, stirring, 1 minute. Add the chicken stock, milk and half and half and bring slowly to a boil. Strain through a sieve, pressing the vegetables with the back of a spoon to extract as much liquid as possible.

Return the soup to the pan and add the peanut butter. Bring just to a boil, then simmer gently for 5 minutes, stirring to blend the peanut butter evenly. If the soup should become too thick, thin with additional chicken stock. Add the sherry during the last minute of cooking.

Season to taste with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with paprika or garnish with  parsley leaves.

Makes 8 servings.

Going Bananas at Jitlada

It’s easy to decide what to order at Jitlada Thai restaurant in Hollywood.  Reviews and lists of dishes that reviewers liked are posted under the glass on the tables. In front of me at dinner the other night was a page extolling just one dish, steamed mussels.

Yes, the mussels are good. And so are salty, sourish spareribs; mango salad with coconut; rice salad; fish cakes stuffed with salted egg yolk in green curry broth;  southern Thai style fish seasoned with fresh turmeric and caramelized garlic, and ragingly spicy dry chicken curry.

I liked all of these, but what really struck me was dessert, fried banana with coconut ice cream. Perhaps because I needed something cold and gentle after so much spicy food.

The bananas are golden brown, velvety soft and crisp at the edges. The ice cream is icy and light, with bits of fresh coconut mixed in.

A nice touch that might go unnoticed because it is so subtle is the thin layer of  clear syrup drizzled over the ice cream and around the bananas.

If you don’t spoon the ice cream up right away, it quickly melts into a sauce for the bananas. And that is not a bad thing.

Fried banana with ice cream is $5 at Jitlada, 5233 ½ Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90027. Tel: (323) 667-9809

The Wines of Lazio

by Mira Advani Honeycutt

Sometimes a road block is a good sign.

On our recent trip to Italy’s Lazio wine region, 30 miles southeast of Rome, my husband and I were headed toward Colle Picchioni, a small winery owned by the di Mauro family and located in the Marino region. It was a smooth trip until we ran into a road closure.

The slight detour we were forced to make took us along a narrow, winding country road lined with modest houses, some with gardens and others with minuscule vineyards.

No wonder that Lazio, with its attractive rural vistas, scenic lakes and hillsides, is a vacation spot not only for Romans but also for the Pope. The charming village of Castel Gandolfo is the site of the summer Papal Palace.

In earlier days, Lazio was known as Latium. Today, the region is known for everyday refreshing white wines produced from such varietals as Malvasia and Trebbiano.

It covers more than 160,600 acres and boasts of 19 appellations, of which three are standouts. Frascati and Marino are known for whites. Velletri is noted for reds.

Paola di Mauro was one of only a handful of women winemakers when she started Colle Picchioni in 1976. (The name means Pigeon Hill and is pronounced Ko-lay Pi-ki-oni.) It is now run by her son, Armando.

Paola is also a superb chef and has cooked for such notables as the late Luciano Pavarotti. She has compiled many of her best loved dishes in a book called “le mei ricette’ (My Recipes).

We tasted wines while seated at a long dining table in the family’s country house, which is adjacent to the modest winery building. From this vantage point, we could look into a large kitchen filled with Paola’s pots and pans.

The winery produces some 100,000 bottles annually. The focus is on Bordeaux varietals, such as the 2006 Vigna del Vassalo, a typical Bordeaux blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc.

This brilliant ruby red wine with an elegant bouquet of violets and berries was aged for 15 months in the barrel and one month in the bottle. It sells for 22 euros ($33).

For an excellent everyday pasta and pizza wine, I would choose the 2006 Perlaia, a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Sangiovese, priced at 10 euros ($15).

Among the whites, the 2007 Donna Paola is mostly Malvasia (some vintages include a bit of Semillon or Trebbiano). This straw-hued wine, aged in steel tanks, is austere yet aromatic. The price is 25 euros ($37). 

The golden 2006 Le Vignole (11 euros or $16) is a blend of Semillon and Malvasia that is crisp and clean on the palate. It was barrel-aged for just two to three months. We brought home a bottle of this wine and opened it to go with a black bean tostada topped with spicy salsa, a surprisingly good match, considering that such an appetizer is quite foreign to Lazio.

After our delightful visit to Colle Picchioni, it was gratifying to enjoy the refreshing taste of Lazio once again--this time on the backyard deck of our Los Angeles home.

Mira Advani Honeycutt is the author of "California's Central Coast: The Ultimate Winery Guide" (Chronicle Books; 2007). For more information on the wines, go to www.collepicchioni.eu