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Fresh Fare at a Paso Bistro

Sept. 2, 2015 - Just in, an email request from Leslie Thomas to update this article, written in 2010, because of changes that have transpired.

As you read it, keep in mind the following: 

"Thomas Hill Farms has absolutely no affiliation with Thomas Hill Organics Restaurant in Paso Robles California.

It is not known at this time whether or not the restaurant follows the original business model.

Please update the article on your website that mentions this. Joe is since divorced."

The original article follows:

Hot (in one sense), cold and for sure the best creme brulee that I have tasted in a long time turned up at Thomas Hill Organics Market Bistro & Wine Bar in Paso Robles.

It was a jalapeno creme brulee, not as spicy as it sounds, but aromatic, creamy and so delicious that it almost outshone everything I ate.

Almost, because all the dishes were very good as well as interesting, not the same old trendy combinations. 

Located in the center of town, Thomas Hill Organics has its own farm, which ensures a constant supply of fruits and vegetables. There's no distributor involved, so everything that comes into the restaurant is really fresh.

That's why a thin crusted margherita pizza (above) was better than most. The tomatoes, fresh tomato sauce and basil on top were at their peak.  

Owners Debbie and Joe Thomas get whatever they don't grow themselves from local purveyors. That includes meats, seafood, bread and a good selection of local wines.

The menu changes to keep pace with what the farm produces. Another stand-out the night I was there was a salad (right) of fingerling potatoes and smoked trout with haricots verts, corn and watercress, a hazelnut vinaigrette and a drizzle of creme fraiche.

A deep red puree of beets, tahini and orange juice--odd but intriguing--came with a stack of pita. Debbie Thomas (at top) brought out an extra that was not on the menu, fried green tomatoes with chunky remoulade sauce.

The restaurant has seating inside, but the place everyone wants to be is the courtyard, where there is live music at night. 

I went there with Mira Advani Honeycutt, who owns Cabernet Cottage in Paso Robles, a place where winemakers stay and often the scene of parties involving the local wine crowd.

She brought the wine, a  Minassian-Young 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon from dry-farmed vineyards in Peachy Canyon, Paso Robles. 

The next day, we drove through hilly vineyard and farming country to the Thomas Hill Organics farm.

Joe Thomas is a serious artist, at raising fruits and vegetables as well as painting them on canvas and on the logos for tee shirts sold at the restaurant.

That day, he was working out an arrangement of pears that he would photograph and later paint.

Anyone who grows nine kinds of pomegranates has to take an unusual interest in farming, and Thomas seems to revel in it, even to discussing the heartbreaks philosophically. Rabbits ate his entire crop of green beans this year, and they also go for his chile pepper vines. 

Thanks to his generosity, we came away with freshly picked apples, tiny Asian pears, plums, melons, cucumbers, chiles and tomatoes.  The heavily laden trees were dropping fruit on the ground, none of which could be used. Surprising that the farm supplies only the restaurant, when such a large crop cries out to be sold at farmers markets. 

The restaurant does put out some produce for sale, and Thomas said that some goes to a Community Supported Agriculture project headquartered at a nearby winery.

What's coming into season next includes quince. Thomas, photographed with a quince tree and wearing a shirt with one of his logos, told how he cooks the fruit with red wine and spices down to a soft paste in a slow-cooker. That's something to try when quince appears in markets this fall. 

Thomas Hill Organics Market Bistro & Wine Bar, 1305 Park St., Paso Robles, CA 93446. Tel: (805) 226-5888.

Eating Great Pizza in Templeton

The best pizza I've eaten recently was perfect from top to bottom. Scattered over a layer of fresh tomato sauce were vegetables so recently harvested that I could sense the warmth of the sun where they grew.

There were thin slices of grilled green and yellow zucchini, red and green bell pepper strips and both regular whole milk mozzarella and fresh mozzarella. Just-picked basil had been sliced and placed on top. The ultra thin, crisp crust was what Griff's Pizzeria calls a cracker crust.

No wonder everything was so fresh. Griff's is in Templeton, a town surrounded by farms and vineyards. This is the Central Coast wine region, and Templeton is only a short drive from Paso Robles, a center for wine touring. 

On Saturday's there's a farmer's market (above) that's worth attending if you're in the area.

As a matter of fact, what I had was a Farmer's Market pizza, one of six cracker crust pizzas on Griff's menu.

Others include the San Simeon, with a creamy garlic white sauce, shrimp, artichoke hearts and tomatoes, and Main Street, composed of  mozzarella, Italian sausage, mushrooms, onions and roasted garlic.

The Chanteclair amounts to breakfast on a pizza. It's topped with Black Forest ham, baked eggs and aged Swiss under a crisp layer of shaved Parmesan. All the cracker crust pizzas come with either a semolina or whole wheat crust.

Griff's has regular pizzas too, if you're addicted to red sauce, pepperoni, salami and meatballs. Even some of these sound creative, like the Tuscan Special, with a blend of garlic butter sauce and cheese, roasted chicken breast, roasted red-skinned potatoes, balsamic caramelized onions and fresh tomatoes, topped with Parmesan and fresh herbs.

Or the Flower Child, which has roasted vegetables, toasted cashews, crumbled feta, fresh herbs and pesto sauce made, I presume, with Templeton-grown basil.  

Griff's Pizzeria & Bistro, 105 S. Main St., Templeton, CA 93465. Tel: (805) 434-1760.

A Tale of Two California Soups

Turn off Highway101 at Los Alamos and you're headed toward a very good place to eat, Cafe Quackenbush.

Open for breakfast and lunch, the cafe is an art gallery, so you sit surrounded by paintings and craft items.

The counter where you order and a few tables are in one room. The main part of the gallery is in another room that is also equpped with tables for dining. Or you can eat outdoors and enjoy the quiet, pleasant ambience of the town.

To show how informal the cafe is, you may see chef/owner Jesper Johansson rush by as he waits on tables, then rush back to the kitchen.

He'd made a wonderful soup the day I stopped in, jalapeno sweet corn with lime and cilantro.

Half of the corn had been roasted to deepen the flavor. Johansson had put in leeks and other aromatic vegetables along with a touch of jalapeno. Made without meat stock, the soup was pleasantly limey. Cilantro leaves floated on top.

I ordered only a cup. That was a mistake. A bowl would have been a wiser choice. 

Cafe Quackenbush, 458 Bell St., Los Alamos, CA 93440. Tel: (805) 344-5181.

The next stop was Paso Robles, where the heat was intense. Hot soup on a hot day? Of course. It's considered an antidote.

The place I had it was Panolivo Family Bistro, which is run by a French couple, Beatrice and Didier Cop. Beatrice is the chef, and the food is prepared with French attention to detail. 

The soup of the day was tomato-fennel, made with locally-grown tomatoes. Like the soup at Cafe Quackenbush, it was vegetarian, relying only on the fresh full flavor of the vegetables, which included carrots, celery and garlic.

A house-baked French roll came on the side, and I asked for a glass of a local wine, Clayhouse Adobe White, a fruity, off dry blend of seven varietals.

In the hot weather, that was enough for lunch. But I am still thinking about the dessert I left behind, a two-chocolate (white and dark) bread pudding, which demands a return trip.

Or should I have the Super Decadent Chocolate Trio, which includes a double chocolate brownie, chocolate truffle ice cream and dark chocolate sauce? Or maybe both?

Panolivo Family Bistro, 1344 Park St., Paso Robles, CA 93446. Tel: (805) 239-3366.

Ikal Wine: New from Argentina

It's been a double-barreled Argentine week--a wine tasting one day and an Argentine lunch the next.

The tasting introduced the first wines of Bodega Ikal, a new, higher elevation winery in Mendoza.

Ikal is owned by a team that includes Sandra Beltran and Jerry Ward, Houston residents who came to Los Angeles for an introductory tasting at Lou wine bar.

Ikal released its first wines in 2009. Production is tiny, just 2,000 cases. Of these, 700 are Malbec, the remainder divided among Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Torrontes.

The 125 acres of newly planted vines aren't ready for wine-making, but the property includes 18 acres of older vines. Grapes for Pinot Noir and Torrontes are purchased from neighboring vineyards.

The high, dry location near the Andes eliminates the need for pesticides and fungicides, Jerry Ward says. The number 1150 on the labels indicates the altitude in meters (almost 3800 feet). Each vine is drip-irrigated, necessary because average annual rainfall is only 4 inches.

The ambitious project will one day include a 12-room boutique hotel and residences where buyers can raise their own grapes.

How are the wines? Selling for $16 to $19, they match the price with higher quality than bargain-priced South American wines in markets here.

The 2009 Chardonnay is crisp and tropical, with a touch of minerality from the rocky Andean soil. It is fermented in 50% neutral French oak and 50% stainless steel to preserve the fresh flavors.

The 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon is deeply colored (as far as I could tell in Lou, which is too dark to observe wine colors and clarity, as you can see in the photo at right).

Big, soft and round, it is very good if you're looking for pleasant drinkability right now.  "A lot of people who don't like Cabs like the high altitude Cabs from Argentina," Ward says.

The 2007 Pinot Noir sat 1 1/2 years in lined concrete tanks for natural settling. It's light and elegant, with cola and cherry tones, made, as Ward says, with "one foot in the New World and one in the old."

Winemaker Luis Martinez grew up in the cellars of Mendoza and has studied in California and the Haut Medoc in France.   "We strive for old world wines with a gravelly, minerally, river stone character," Ward says.

The 2008 Torrontes, fermented  in stainless steel, is lightly floral, balancing slight sweetness with strong minerality.  

Ikal will make Malbec its signature wine. The 2007 is clean, lean and balanced, not dripping with fruit. A sommelier attending the tasting chose it as a personal favorite. 

The name Ikal is Mayan for poetry. Mendoza is obviously not a Mayan community. The name was taken from a previous enterprise of Ikal's owners, a hotel in Playa del Carmen on the Riviera Maya. 

At Lou, the wines were accompanied by the wine bar's famous pig candy (bacon caramelized with brown sugar), olives and cheeses, but nothing Argentinian.

For that I went the next day to Malbec in Pasadena. Ikal wines aren't on the list there, because they haven't arrived in Los Angeles yet. However, Bodega Ikal's Ward had said that Argentinians drink chilled Bonarda with barbecue. And so I chose a Bonarda (unchilled) to go with that quintessential Argentine dish--grilled steak.

Malbec's entraña (skirt steak) was juicy and delicious, accompanied by what Ward says is rare in Argentina, a salad.

In restaurants there, chimichurri sauce is usually served on the side, but Malbec spoons it right onto the meat, and also serves it with bread. 

Lou might do well to copy this garlicky herb and olive oil mixture for the next time an Argentinian winemaker comes to town.

Lou Wine Bar, 724 Vine S., Los Angeles, CA 90038. Tel: (323) 962-6369.

Malbec, 1001 E. Green St., Pasadena, CA 91106. Tel: (626) 683-0550.

Meeting Up with James Dean

There I was, having ice cream with James Dean at his last stop before the head-on collision that killed him.

That accident happened September 30, 1955, and Dean's final moments have been turned into a tourist attraction.

His photo greets you as you drive into the gas station at Blackwells Corner on State Highway 46 in Lost Hills.

Dean may have stopped there to fill the tank of his Porsche 550 Spyder and then gone inside the cavernous Blackwells shop, which some call the nut house, because it sells the pistachios and almonds that grow in this part of the San Joaquin Valley. 

At the back is an oldtime soda fountain, where Dean sits at the counter, dressed for the road in a leather jacket.

The huge shop was eerily empty when I came in.  Sitting next to Dean made it even eerier (you can see us in the photo above, which was taken by Mira Advani Honeycutt). 

The figure is only a dummy, but it feels as if Dean is actually there, perhaps trying to recreate that day and change its fateful outcome.   

I don't know what he ordered--someone else in the shop set the drink cup in front of him-- but I asked for a cone packed with butter pecan and dulce de leche ice creams, then left for a smooth drive back to Los Angeles.

Dean went in the opposite direction, to the end of his short life--he was only 24--near the meeting of  State Highways 46 and 41, now known as the James Dean Memorial Junction.

It's a barren place, notable only for that tragic crash. The sign there keeps Dean's memory alive. No matter how hot it is outside, you can't help but shiver as you drive by and ease up a little on the gas pedal.  

Blackwells Corner, 17191 Highway 46, Lost Hills, CA 93249. Tel: (661) 797-2905.

The Best Drink of the Week

The winner is Nectar of the Gods, a tequila cocktail at Seta restaurant in Whittier.

It's as divine as its name. To make it, you muddle strawberries in a heavy, squat glass, then add a lime, cut in half, and muddle it too. 

The tequila is Gran Centenario Roseangel, which is lightly colored and flavored with Mexican jamaica flowers. Pour in a good jigger of that, squeeze in some more lime juice and then add agave syrup to taste. 

Turn the drink into a cocktail shaker, add ice and shake well. Pour back into the glass and top with a squirt of soda.

The last step is to perch a plump strawberry on the rim.

Congratulations, Seta.

Seta, 13033 Philadelphia St., Whittier, CA 90601-4202. Tel: (562) 698-3355.

Mexican Food--The Real Thing

Mexican cooking is so awfully misunderstood.

Chiles, cheese, nachos, tacos, hot salsas, guacamole. Nothing wrong with those, but there's another side of Mexican food that is mostly ignored on this side of the border.

And that is subtle, fine, elegant cooking.

A case in point is this beautiful fish dish, pescado en hoja santa, from La Casita Mexicana in Bell. The flavor is delicate, and there's not a chile in sight, except for a couple put on for decoration, but they're not part of the dish.  Instead, the fish is seasoned with something  much more rare in these parts--hoja santa (holy leaf), a large leaf with a faint anise taste.

This is just one example of the inventive, thoughtful cooking of chefs Jaime Martin del Campo and Ramiro Arvizu. The fish--pollock--is topped with  tomato and onion slices, drizzled with olive oil, then wrapped in hoja santa from Del Campo's garden, wrapped again in foil and grilled.

You eat it leaf and all, enjoying the lightness and delicacy. Not on the regular menu, pescado en hoja santa is a Friday special.  Call ahead to find out when it's available.

La Casita Mexicana, 4030 E. Gage Ave., Bell, CA 90201. Tel: (323) 773-1898.

10 Top Tastes of 2009

Choosing 10 top tastes from a year filled with good food would be ridiculous. These are just a few dishes that come to mind when I think of what I ate in 2009. They're all from the Los Angeles area. 

1. Chicken Mangalorean at Surya Indian Restaurant.

It's sad that Surya is getting ready to close. This means there's only a short time left to taste its signature dish, chicken Mangalorean, on the premises.

Owner Sheel Joshi modified a recipe that he obtained from Mangalore on India's southwestern coast, and it quickly became Surya's most popular dish.   

Spicy, creamy with coconut milk and studded with fried curry leaves, chicken Mangalorean is something you won't find anywhere else.

Surya Indian restaurant, 8048 W. 3rd Street, Los Angeles, CA. 90048. Tel: (323) 653-5151. The restaurant will close by mid January.

2. Garlic eggplant at 9021Pho.

Chef Kimmy Tang grills long, slim eggplants, coats them with Vietnamese vinaigrette and piles alongside golden brown fried garlic, shallots and peanuts for a vegan entree.

Tang says that this is a simple home style Vietnamese dish, and my New Year's goal is to learn how to make it.

9021Pho, 490 N. Beverly Dr., Beverly Hills, CA 90210. Tel: (310) 275-5277.

3. Oaxacan tejate.

This foamy drink of ground nuts, seeds and exotic components such as cacao flowers turned up at a Oaxacan fiesta in south Los Angeles.

Tejate is easy to find at markets in Oaxaca, but the water used there might not be safe to drink. At the fiesta, there was no risk, and the drink was so popular that its maker, Soledad Lopez of Guelaguetza Palms Restaurant, is thinking about  offering it when her restaurant reopens in 2010.

Guelaguetza Palms Restaurant, 11127 Palms Blvd., Los Angeles, Ca 90034. Tel: (310) 837-1153.  The restaurant is temporarily closed for reconstruction.

4. Tempura som tam at Thailand Plaza Restaurant. 

 Like a beautiful dream, this unusual version of northern Thai green papaya salad appeared only to vanish. Composed of crisp fried green papaya, carrot and shrimp with a som tam dipping sauce, it was prepared by chefs from Thailand who cooked for a few weeks at Thailand Plaza Restaurant in Hollywood. Their tenure has ended, but the tantalizing memory lingers. 

Thailand Plaza Restaurant, 5321 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90027. Tel: (323) 466-9009.

5. House special som tam at Sri Siam Cafe.

The tempura somtam may be gone, but Sri Siam fills in the gap with its own unusual som tam.

In addition to green papaya and carrots, the salad is packed with such surprising ingredients as fine noodles, bits of Thai eggplant and fresh lime, long beans, pink Thai pork sausage, peanuts and, on the side, pork cracklings.

Sri Siam Cafe, 12843-45 Vanowen St., North Hollywood, CA 91605. Tel: (818) 982-6161.

6. Kibbeh labanieh at Skaf's in Glendale.

These oval dumplings composed of ground meat and fine bulgur wheat swim in creamy yogurt sauce flavored with garlic. This is Lebanese comfort food at its best, just what you need to sooth away holiday fatigue.

Skaf's Lebanese Cuisine, 367 N. Chevy Chase, Glendale, CA 91206. Tel: (818) 551-5540.

7. Rizogalo at the Astroburger.

Containers of this rich, cinnamon-topped Greek rice pudding are always on display at the Astroburger's order counter. That is fortunate, because I go back repeatedly to buy them.

Owner Cosmas Kapantzos, who is from Athens, worked diligently to perfect the formula, and he has done a masterful job.

Astroburger, 5601 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038. Tel: (323) 469-1924.

8. Tarta de ricota at Carlitos Gardel.

If you're lucky, you'll eat at this Argentinian restaurant when the tarta is on the menu. It's an occasional special, a cheesecake that is wonderfully light and delicately sweetened. The swirls of dulce de leche around it and the powdered sugar over the top provide all the sugar that you need.

Carlitos Gardel Restaurant, 7963 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90046. Tel: (323) 655-0891.  

9. Cecconi's panna cotta, chocolate and toffee coppa. 

In March I tasted this devastating layered composition of caramel sauce, chocolate panna cotta and whipped cream, accompanied by a pitcher of chocolate sauce and crunchy candy crumbs to sprinkle over it all.  It was the richest dessert I had all year.

Cecconi's, 8764 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90069. Tel: (310) 432-2000.

10. Algarrobina mousse at Mo-Chica. 

I could only find algarrobina desserts in Peru until Ricardo Zarate opened his  Peruvian restaurant in the Mercado La Paloma in downtown Los Angeles. 

Algarrobina is carob, and my kitchen is packed with bottles of algarrobina syrup that I brought home from Lima. But if I want a really good algarrobina mousse, I just go to Mo-Chica.

Mo-Chica, 3655 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90007 (inside the Mercado La Paloma). Tel: (213) 747-2141.

Santa Lands at Thai Town

Traffic outside obscured the sound of Santa's sleigh landing on the Thailand Plaza Restaurant Sunday afternoon. But all of a sudden in he popped with a sack of gifts for the little kids who were waiting.

Parents brought them up to sit in his lap while dads and friends took photos. It wasn't an entirely happy occasion. The littlest ones screamed with rage and fear. Who was this devil in a red suit who didn't speak Thai?

Not in the least disturbed, Santa did his job and with a ho ho ho sleighed off to some other engagement while families stayed behind to eat.

Throughout the holidays, Thailand Plaza is featuring the green papaya salad som tam as prepared by visiting chefs from Thailand.

Winners of a national som tam contest, they have devised such creative versions as a som tam hamburger (actually, a chicken burger with Thal seasonings accompanied by som tam sauce) and tempura som tam. In this one, shrimp and strands of papaya and carrot are batter-coated, fried crisp and arranged around a bowl of som tam dipping sauce. 

Too bad Santa didn't have time to try either one, but the rest of us can still get a taste.

He'll be gone by Christmas Day, but the guest chefs will stay on until  New Year, when their big jet-powered sleigh takes off for Thailand.

Thailand Plaza Restaurant, 5321 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90027. Tel: (323) 466-1804.

The Party was Freezing but Fun

The night was bitter cold--bitter for Los Angeles, at least. And the party was outside, but no one suffered.

It helped that the guests were ringed by food trucks, as if pioneer covered wagons had formed a circle, and that red hot cooking was happening at booths set up by popular L.A. street food vendors.

It helped too that many people came, crowding together in the tented parking lot behind Travelers Bookcase on West 3rd Street.

They were there for the launch of "Eat: Los Angeles 2010" (Prospect Park Books, $19.95), a guide to restaurants, wine shops, markets, caterers, roving trucks and neighborhoods.

Those that bought it got their money's worth. The new edition incorporates about 240 more restaurants than last year's, drops those that closed or weren't worth recommending again and adds more neighborhoods.

It was so chilly that Sue Moore, co-founder of Let's be Frank, said she wished she could invite guests to warm up inside the cozy truck. But they were happy outside, eating dogs plain and spicy. 

Nina's Catering Service, a Breed Street fixture, assembled Mexico City style huitlacoche quesadillas on the spot, starting with pressing out the wrappers on a wooden tortilla press. Deep-fried, they were almost too hot to touch, which was a good thing.

The Grilled Cheese Truck passed out welcome cups of tomato soup, sacks of Tater Tots and trays of melted cheese sandwiches, ranging from plain cheese melts to a harvest melt with Gruyere, toasted butternut squash, fresh thyme and agave and balsamic syrups.

Mac and cheese sandwiches pushed the envelope a little, but so what. The night called for carbing up.  

Next to Nina, "Heidy" from Jakarta served skewers of succulent sate babi manis (sweet pork), fresh from a sizzling hot grill.

D'Amore's, the pizza spot on the block, acted like a good neighbor by bringing in a couple of thin-crusted pizzas that disappeared in a flash. 

For dessert, those who didn't mind getting colder could have an ice cream sandwich from the Coolhaus truck, choosing from assorted flavors to put between cookies or brioche. 

There were artisanal beers and Portuguese wines. And one of the book's co-authors warmed up with coffee she brought from Joan's on Third across the street. Not a bad idea, because the temperature was in the 40s, and as the party ended, it was heading steadily downward.