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Top 10 Tastes of 2008

Choosing the top 10 tastes is too arbitrary. There could have been 100 top tastes during the year, and probably more.

Nevertheless, here are a few that come to mind. The list is limited to Los Angeles and nearby communities, so it does not acknowledge the great food that I tasted in Paso Robles, San Miguel and Pismo Beach on the Central Coast; Desert Hot Springs, Palm Springs and Palm Desert, and the wonderful dishes that I encountered in Fairfax County, Virginia; Southern Oregon, Buenos Aires and Santiago and Valparaiso in Chile.

Happy New Year, and may you have many great tastes in 2009.

1. Steamed Mussels at Jitlada Thai restaurant. The mussels are plump and juicy, but the broth is what stands out.  It's seasoned with sweet, rich spices, not the hot chiles, kaffir lime leaves and cilantro that are so typical of Thai food. The mango salad is pretty good too, and I wrote earlier about the fried bananas with ice cream.

Jitlada Thai restaurant, 5233 ½ Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90027. Tel: (323) 667-9809

2. Carne Asada Sandwich at the San Antonio Winery. This sandwich is new on the menu at the winery. The bun is simple, nothing special, the French fries on the side are commercial. But the meat is fabulous--thin strips of beef with great grilled flavor and appetizing charred spots.

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

3. Eggplant Salad at Chai Thung Thai restaurant. 

A smoky flavor from wok-cooking made this shrimp-garnished eggplant salad one of my favorites. Alas, the chef who brought knowledgeable Thai food lovers to Chai Thung, including Pulitzer-Prize-winning critic Jonathan Gold of LA Weekly, has left.

I don't know the fate of the salad, but I'm keeping tabs on that chef and will report when he finds a new spot. 

Chai Thung (sometimes  spelled Toong)  Thai restaurant, 1001 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027. Tel: (323) 667-3432. 

4. Middle Eastern Food from Carousel restaurant in Hollywood. I went to a party that featured a buffet of Middle Eastern food ordered from this restaurant. Kebabs, salads, a delicious sweet red pepper dish, hummus and much more. It was all very, very good.

I've not eaten at Carousel in Hollywood, but I remember a recipe for a yogurt-smothered fried eggplant appetizer from Carousel in Glendale that I secured for the Los Angeles Times food section. It was very very good too.

Carousel restaurant, 5112 Hollywood Blvd., #107, Los Angeles, CA 90027. (323) 660-8060. The Glendale location is 304 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale, CA 91203. Tel: (818) 246-7775. 818-246-7775

5.Multi- Nut and Fruit Pastry from Cathy's Bakery. Located in a mall with an Asian grocery store and several Chinese restaurants, Cathy's sets out typical Chinese baked goods such as ham and cheese bread, coconut bread and red bean buns. I picked out a wedge-shaped pastry stuffed with peanuts and pecans, raisins and candied fruit and sprinkled thickly with sesame seeds. It was divine.

Cathy's Bakery, 651 W, Duarte Road, #A, Arcadia, CA 91007. Tel: (626) 821-8655. Also at 708 E. Las Tunas Drive, San Gabriel, CA 91776.

6. Thai New Year Festival Panang Curry.

Chef Jet Tila filled the biggest wok I have ever seen with this luscious creamy chicken curry. Tila has moved to Las Vegas, where he just opened the Asian restaurant Wazuzu  in the Encore Las Vegas, so he may not be back to prepare this curry for the 2009 festival. Fortunately, I obtained the recipe and posted it on www.tableconversation.com. 

The festival that celebrates Songkran, the Thai New Year, takes place in the spring. The date is not fixed, so start looking for it around April. Part of Hollywood Boulevard is closed off for a parade and booths selling food and Thai crafts.

7. Nan Kkatai at Surati Farsan Mart.  Everytime I go to Little India in Artesia, I pick up a pound of these cookies. They're pale, plain sugar cookies, lightly flavored with cardamom. Then I walk down Pioneer Boulevard to Saffron Spot ice cream parlor to have my favorite ice cream, rajbhog, and to see what other enticing flavors are in the case.

Surati Farsan Mart, 11814  E. 186th  Street, Artesia, CA 90701. Tel: (562) 860- 2310. 

Saffron Spot ice cream parlor and snack shop, 18744 Pioneer Blvd., Artesia, CA  90701 Tel: (562) 809-6226.

8. Cheese-stuffed dates at Tinto. Medjool dates stuffed with Cabrales cheese from Spain and wrapped with bacon combine sweet, salty and savory in an irresistible way. It's one of many interesting tastes at this tapas restaurant.

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

9. Pan Dulce at Chapinlandia. This small bakery on the corner of Witmer and Third Street, just west of downtown Los Angeles, is my current headquarters for pan dulce (Mexican and Central American sweet breads). Every time I go, I spot a bread that I haven't seen before. The variety is amazing.

Chapinlandia Bakery, 1455 Third Street, Los Angeles. CA 90017. Tel: (213) 481-2239.       

10. Seafood at Take Sushi Restaurant.  I loved the abalone porridge and eundaegu jorim (cod in spicy sweet sauce) at this Koreatown hotel restaurant. A Korean friend told me later that this restaurant is considered to have the best and freshest seafood in that area. So I'm going back to try the sushi menu.

Take Sushi Restaurant, Oxford Palace Hotel & Galleria, 745 S. Oxford Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90005. Tel: (213) 389-8000.

Christmas Lost and Found

Riding the Wilshire Boulevard  bus from Beverly Hills to the Miracle Mile was a real bah humbug experience.

Where was Christmas? Not in the stores I passed. The big office buildings had the requisite lobby Christmas trees, And the hotels no doubt had trees inside, where I couldn't see them. 

But the small shops had nothing, not a ribbon, not a wreath. An upper crust menswear store displayed smart outfits in deep tones of black and gray. What these oh-so-stylish outfits lacked was the tip of a red handkerchief in a breast pocket, a jaunty sprig of holly, or, at the least, a cheerful red tie.

Except for the chilly weather and the date on the calendar, it could have been summer.

The next night, I drove deep into East Los Angeles. And there was Christmas, all over the place. Rainbows of lights. Elaborate decorations in the front yards of modest houses. A nativity scene on top of one dwelling. A lighted nativity scene blanketing the yard of another.

After a delicious dinner--nopales salad, mole, handmade tortillas--in a restaurant with a tiny Christmas tree on each table, I joined other holiday shoppers at a market stocked with the Mexican ingredients that I needed for a Christmas celebration.

Then I turned into the gas station across the street. As I struggled with the pump, the attendant rushed out to help, despite the line at his window. "That is what I am here for," he said with a smile, then dashed back to his post.

Heading west, I turned north off Cesar E. Chavez onto Ditman Avenue. It was late. The street was empty, except for a barking dog and a cat crawling over a fence. But the lights were glorious.

I got out of my car and walked up and down to look at them.  Snowmen, Mickey Mouse, reindeer, Santa Claus, the Holy Family. All were present, glowing with the joy of the season. 

It was clear and very cold, like the snowy scenes on Christmas cards, but instead of snow there were palm trees. And the  radiant lights expressed such joy and devotion that I felt as warm as if it were, indeed, summer.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL

Barbara

A Legacy of Apple Crisp

A well-worn, yellowed  recipe has been posted on my refrigerator door for years. It is the only recipe there, because it is my favorite dessert, my mother's apple crisp. 

I keep the recipe handy so that I can refer to it at any time. Not that I need to check the ingredients. I know them by heart. Still, it is a nice memento of other times.

The best apples for crisp are Jonathans, because they are tart as well as sweet, but you can use  any tart apple that is in season. Jonathans have almost disappeared from markets where I shop.  They appear only briefly in the fall.

Sometimes I add raisins, or dried cranberries to the apples. The other night I put in fresh cranberries.  But this apple crisp needs no  touching up. It's a perfect compination--juicy apples, a buttery sweet topping and a dash of cinnamon, best served still warm from the oven. 

OLD FASHIONED APPLE CRISP

¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon butter
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
¼ cup light brown sugar, packed
¼ cup flour
1½ pounds tart apples, preferably Jonathans
½ cup fresh cranberries, optional
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Place 1/4 cup butter, 1/4 cup granulated sugar and the brown sugar in a bowl and let stand until the butter is softened. Then mix until smoothly blended. Add the flour and mix until blended. It is easiest to do this with your hands, not a spoon.

Quarter the apples, remove the cores and peel, then slice.  Place the slices in a 1½-quart baking dish. Add the cranberries if wanted and mix.

Top evenly with the butter mixture. Dot with the remaining 1 tablespoon butter. Sprinkle with the remaining 2 tablespoons sugar and the cinnamon.

Bake 45 minutes, or until browned and crisp on top. Serve warm. Add cream if you like

Makes 4 servings. 

 

Color My Margaritas Pink

I love to make Margaritas, so tequila bars and their flashy, fancy drinks are wasted on me.

The way to make a really good Margarita, in my opinion,  is to combine  the basics--tequila, orange liqueur and lime juice, preferably from Mexican limes--in a cocktail shaker, then stir and taste to see if the balance is right.

Once the flavor is adjusted, I add ice, shake like crazy and strain the Margarita into a stemmed glass rimmed with salt. I mix only one at a time. That way, it's always perfect. 

Right now, I'm making pomegranate Margaritas. The basics stay the same. But I put in a spoonful of pomegranate seeds, then shake really hard to break up the seeds and extract the juice. What comes out is a pretty pink drink. As you sip it, you can almost hear the mariachis playing.

POMEGRANATE MARGARITA

2 ounces tequila
1/2 ounce triple sec or other orange-flavored liqueur
1/4 ounce (1 1/2 teaspoons) freshly squeezed lime juice
1 tablespoon pomegranate seeds

Combine the tequila, triple sec and lime juice in a coctail shaker. Stir, taste and adjust the flavor as you like.

Add the pomegranate seeds and 3 or 4 ice cubes. Cover and shake briskly, 45 to 50 times. Strain into a salt-rimmed glass. Add fresh ice if wanted

Makes 1 serving.

5 for 10 at Frida Taqueria

Tacos at Frida Taqueria are cheaper than those in the Grand Central Market in downtown Los Angeles, where I often eat.  That's surprising, because  Frida is located on the plushy Westside. It's inside the Brentwood Country Mart, a collection of pricey shops in Santa Monica.

Frida offers five tacos for $10, or $2 each, which beats Central Market tacos by 50 cents.  

There are differences, of course. Downtown tacos have the sort of taste you would expect in the heart of a Latino shopping district.

Westside tacos are more, well, Westside. Downtown, carne al pastor (marinated park) has that fresh off the spit taste, even if it never spent time on a vertical  spit. Frida's pork is saucier. seasoned with tomatoes and achiote, slow-cooked and then grilled.    

Frida has more elaborate fillings than the usual taco stand, including cochinita pibil and chicken mole.

Cochinita pibil is the Yucatecan dish of pork slowly steamed in a pibil, or undergorund pit. Frida seasons it with achiote and vinegar. The mole sauce takes hours to make from chiles, plantains, bread, nuts, seeds and chocolate.

Frida offers basic taco stand fillings such as carnitas (shredded roast pork), grilled chicken and carne asada (grilled beef). But you won't find the sort of meats that real taco fiends go for, such as cabeza (head), buche (hog maw) and lengua (tongue).

The presentation is classic: two soft corn tortillas underneath the meat and chopped onion and cilantro on top. Frida aupplies the traditional red and green salsas. The spicy red salsa is made with arbol chiles, the green salsa with tomatillos. 

What is definitely Westside is the option to have the filling in a lettuce wrap rather in tortillas, a nod to the lo-carb crowd.

Not a restaurant but a stand, Frida opens onto a communal patio where you get to watch pretty people eating fast food.

To please their tastes, Frida goes way beyond tacos to a resplandor de mango salad with greens, mangoes, grapes, caramelized walnuts, goat cheese and passion fruit dessing.

No downtown taqueria and certainly no taco truck has ever soared so high.

Frida Taqueria at the Brentwood Country Mart, 225 26th Street, No. 14,  Santa Monica, CA 90402. Tel: (310) 395-9666.

 

Putting Pears in a Bottle

It takes only 1 1/2 to 2 pounds of pears to make a Julia Child pear tart, as in "Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. 1."

But it takes 10 to 12 pounds to make a single, slim. 375-milliliter bottle of Brandy Peak Distillery's pear brandy.

And it takes 10,000 pounds of luscious fruit to make enough brandy fill a 100-gallon barrel.

Sipping this fragrant elixir, therefore, is like savoring pure pear essence. It's not sweet but clean, clear and dry, with the warming effect you get from a fine Cognac.

Pears are plentiful in Oregon, where Brandy Peak is located. That's lucky for David Nowlin, who started this micro-distillery in 1993 with his father, R.L. Nowlin, who has spent many years in the distilling business.  It's located on a forested site outside of Brookings in the southern part of the state.

Because Oregon allows tasting rooms for spirits, I could sample the line. And I was so enchanted with the brandies that I bought three. They're in the photo above, along with a blackberry liqueur. 

Nowlin says it's hard to make good pear brandy. The challenge is to get the correct balance between flavor and smoothness.

The pears, yellow Bartletts, are taken from cold storage to ripen outside.  Then they are pureed, fermented with yeast and distilled.

Most commercial spirits are made with continuous stills, but Brandy Peak uses wood-fired copper pot stills which, says Newlin, are "basically a coffee pot with a pipe coming out the top."  Rustic as they may seem, they yield a finer product than continuous stills. 

The distilling equipment, which his father designed, looks like some venerable antique contraption. The temperature gauge is 90 years old.  But the marcs, grappas and brandies that emerge are elegant.

The aged pear brandy spends four to five years in a solera system of barrels crafted from Oregon white oak and French and Hungarian oaks. A natural pear brandy spends no time in oak.

Brandy Peak  also produces marc brandies from varietals such as Pinot Noir, Muscat, Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc. A marc brandy is distilled from grape pomace. 

An aged Pinot Noir marc spent eight years in Oregon white oak.  Oregon is famous for Pinot Noir, and the grapes for this brandy came from Cave Junction in the Illinois Valley, about 75 miles from the distillery.

Grappa, which is the Italian word for marc, is based on a proprietary blend of varietals. In response to customer feedback, the Nowlins added a blackberry liqueur made from wild berries, some of them grown on the property. They also produce a traditional grape brandy that is aged in Limousin oak.  

In the tasting room, you can pick up brandy recipes, including Mrs. Nowlin's Frozen Brandy Pie and a cocktail that represents Oregon's natural attractions.

Called the Oregon Rain Drop, it's composed of a crushed mint leaf (representing the minty aromas of the Oregon rain forest), a pinch of sugar and 1 1/2 ounces  ofpear brandy shaken with ice cubes made of Oregon rainwater.

This mixture is poured into a glass lightly rimmed with salt and topped with a dash of whipped cream, which stands in for sea foam (the distillery is not far from the coast) and a cherry.  

The brandies are sold at the distillery, at liquor stores in Oregon and at a few places in northern California. For locations, check the website, www.brandypeak.com, The aged pear brandy can be ordered through BevMo, http://www.bevmo.com.

Brandy Peak Distillery is located at 18526 Tetley Road, Brookings, OR 97415. Tel: (541) 469-0194. The tasting room is open Tuesday through Saturday from 1 to 5 p.m. from March 1 through the first weekend of January.

   

Post-Turkey Cornbread

Tis the season for turkey chili, which is a good way to use up the remnants of the bird when you are tired of sandwiches.

The other night, a  friend made delicious turkey chili. To go with it, I brought cornbread, spiked with chiles and cheese. Others contributed salads and pumpkin cake, a post-Thanksgiving menu to keep in mind  for Christmas too. 

Here is the cornbread recipe, from a friend in Texas.  It's best served still hot from the oven before the cheese has had a chance to cool and congeal.

CORNBREAD WITH CHILES AND CHEESE

4 fresh Anaheim chiles, roasted and peeled, or 1 (4-ounce) can whole green chiles
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
1 cup shredded Jack cheese
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
1/4 cup butter
1 cup milk
1 egg, beaten

Heat the oven to 425 degrees.

Cut 4 long thin strips from one chile and set aside. Chop the rest of the chiles. 

Mix the Cheddar and Jack cheeses evenly and divide in half.

Combine the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and garlic salt and sift into a mixing bowl. Stir in half of the cheeses.

Place the butter in a 9-inch iron skillet and set in the oven until the butter has melted. Swirl the butter around the pan to coat it, then pour the remainder into the cornmeal mixture and stir to blend.

Stir in the milk and egg. Add the chopped chiles and mix evenly.

Turn the mixture into the buttered skillet. Cover evenly with the remaining cheeses. Arrange the reserved chile strips on top in spoke fashion to make 8 sections.

Bake 20 to 25 minutes, until a knife comes out clean. Do not overbake.  Cool for about 15 minutes, then cut into wedges and serve.

Makes 8 servings.

  
   

Breaking a Hamburger Fast

It's embarrassing to admit that I didn't eat a hamburger for years.

I've been oblivious to the show-offy, high-priced  burgers around town. I haven't even eaten the famous burger at Father's Office in Santa Monica (or at  its new branch at Culver City), although I know  Sang Yoon, who started that business.

Sang is a great chef, and not just of burgers. He cooked a marvelous Korean lunch for me when I was writing about such food for the Los Angeles Times. 

The closest I've gotten to his burger, though, was hearing classmates rave about it when I was studying Spanish in Guanajuato. That's how far its reputation has spread.

But now, at last, I have eaten a hamburger. And a very good one, designed by a chef. This happened in Oakland in Southern Oregon.

Oakland is a quaint town with old brick storefronts and a very good restaurant, Tolly's, behind one of them. (It's on the left, with striped awnings, in the photo above. The cozy dining area is in the photo at the right.)

After a winemaker dinner there, I met the chef, Jeffrey Parker. That night, Parker had put together an ambitious menu based on Oregon foods. A couple of examples:  cedar-planked wild Oregon river salmon with blueberry glaze and peppered bacon on zucchini tomato lentils. And a sesame tempura Anderson Ranch lamb chop accompanied by panko-coated lamb Salisbury, braised cranberry cabbage, polenta and a mint fig glaze.

But his heart apparently lies elsewhere. "A burger will be my signature," he told me, a burger made with grass-fed beef from the Willamette Valley in Oregon. Pure and splendidly natural, it is, he said, "the world's best burger, a half pound of ecstasy."   

And so I returned to Oakland to eat that burger. Tolly's has an old fashioned soda fountain and ice cream parlor that opens into  the restaurant, and the burger is on the fountain menu.

It comes in seven styles, ranging from the Natural to the Kona with shaved ham, pineapple, Cheddar and Hawaiian dressing.  You can have it on a bun or on a green salad, which is not my idea of a burger but probably appeals to dieters.

The Bacon Cheddar sounded pretty good, with crisp house-peppered bacon and melted Cheddar, but I wanted no distractions, and so I ordered the Natural.

It was a fine burger, half a pound of beef on a locally-baked potato bun, accompanied by a kosher dill pickle, sliced tomato and red onion, lettuce, a little cup of catsup and handcut seasoned cottage fries, made with Northwest-grown Russets.

When Parker is there, he makes roast pepper ketchup. Otherwise, the kitchen sends out classic bottled ketchup, which  is more in line with tradition. 

My Natural (with bottled ketchup)  was plain and totally satisfying, no fancy touches needed or wanted. There couldn't have been a better choice to break my burger fast.

The Natural burger is $9.99 at Tolly's Restaurant and Soda Fountain, 115 Locust Street, Oakland, OR 97462. Tel: (541) 459-3796. Other burgers are $10.99 (The Classic Cheese Burger)  to $14.99 for the New Yorker, with corned beef, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese and spicy Russian dressing.

 

 

A Party for the Down-Sized

This was no ordinary potluck.  It was a get-together of food people--those whose careers at the LA Times ended in the past couple of years. There were writers, editors, kitchen experts, friends, family members, supporters and a few still employed.

Some had been out long enough to find new jobs or develop new, entrepreneurial careers. Others were so freshly cut that they were in pain, wondering why years of diligent work, talent and expertise had earned them only an exit visa.

What sort of dish do you take to such an event? It hardly mattered. To make sure everyone was fed, the hostess had ordered enough food to cover a sizable table. Wine, Champagne, soft drinks and beer covered another table.

Contributions around the fringe included a big red pot of beans, homemade sourdough bread, cakes baked from scratch, cookies and a pie. They were all delicious, because experts had made them.  I brought a casserole of ratatouille flavored with pesto that a chef friend had made for me.

We talked, even laughed, ate a lot and voted to hold another gathering next year, because only jobs had been cut, not friendships. 

RATATOUILLE WITH PESTO

1 eggplant, about ¾ pound
Salt
1 ½ pounds roma tomatoes, peeled, seeded and diced
1 pound zucchini
1 large green bell pepper
1 large red bell pepper
1 onion, quartered and sliced
2 sprigs oregano
2 sprigs thyme
1 sprig Italian parsley
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, quartered and sliced
1 clove garlic, minced
Freshly ground pepper
¼ cup homemade or store-bought pesto

Cut off the top and bottom of the eggplant. Peel, then cut into ¾-inch cubes. Place in a colander. Sprinkle with 1 ½ teaspoons salt and mix.  Let stand until the liquid emerges, about 30 minutes. Working with one handful at a time, wrap in paper towels and squeeze gently to extract the moisture.  Set aside.

Prepare the tomatoes and set aside.

Quarter the zucchini lengthwise, then cut crosswise into ½-inch pieces

Cut the green and red bell peppers into ¾-inch dice.

Tie the oregano, thyme and parsley together to make an herb bouquet.

Heat the olive oil in a Dutch oven. Add the onion and garlic and cook until tender but not browned, about 12 minutes. Season with a dash salt and several grinds of pepper.

Add the zucchini and cook 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the green and red bell peppers and cook 3 minutes. 

Add the eggplant, tomatoes and the pesto and stir. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Place the herb bouquet in the mixture. Cover and simmer gently 45 minutes. Stir 2 or 3 times.

Uncover and cook until thickened and the liquid is reduced, about 15 minutes. Remove the herb bouquet.

Serve hot or at room temperature.

Makes 6 to 8 servings.