Posted by Anita on 01.19.07 7:53 AM
In our house, we’re New England Patriots fans (Cameron’s an East Coast transplant), and Sam Adams is the usual “football juice” on game day. But with the AFC championship at stake this weekend, a more pointed beverage is in order.
This variation on the Moscow Mule seems a fitting tribute to the Pats. After all, the story of Ichabod Crane is a formidable legend, just like our boys on the gridiron. And when you’re playing a team called the Colts, the mere thought of headless horse-men is enough to make you giddy.
Headless Horseman
2 oz. vodka
3 dashes aromatic bitters
ginger ale
orange slice, for garnish
In a highball glass, combine the vodka and the bitters. Fill the glass with ice, and top with ginger ale. Garnish with the orange slice, and serve with a haunting laugh.
Boston, Drink of the Week, drinks, recipes
Comments Off on DOTW: Headless Horseman
Posted by Anita on 01.05.07 10:00 AM
Cookiecrumb over at I’m Mad and I Eat and Kev at Seriously Good have challenged one another to a mac-n-cheese-off, an ooey-gooey duel, a fight to the death on the field of fromage. Their chosen weapons? Bechamel, pasta… and cheese.
What is it about humble ol’ Mac & Cheese that brings out the competitive spirit in otherwise mild-mannered foodies? Last year, our old Seattle crew hosted a mac & cheese showdown, where no fewer than half a dozen recipes vied for the crown. And about a month ago, Union — one of Jet City’s top restaurants — hosted a citywide smackdown (mac-down?) that got promoted on local radio.
I’ve got a few favorite recipes in the files, including a 5-minute version that I make sometimes for breakfast, but no single concoction owns my allegiance… certainly not enough for me to want to enter it into public competition. But the eye-rollingly good version I serve to company — as a side dish, mind you — comes courtesy of our friend Wendy, the hostess with the mostest, who’s tweaked Martha Stewart’s recipe to the point of decadence.
Fondue Mac and Cheese
4T (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, plus more for dish
2 slices good white bread, grated coarsely
2 cups whole milk
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 to 1/2 cup white wine
1 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. each freshly grated nutmeg, freshly ground black pepper, and cayenne pepper
1/2 pound sharp white Cheddar cheese, grated
6 ounces Gruyère cheese, grated
1/2 pound penne
Heat oven to 375°F. Butter a 9×9 baking dish, and set aside. Place bread in a medium bowl. In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt 1T butter. Pour butter into bowl with breadcrumbs, and toss. Set breadcrumbs aside.
Fill a large saucepan with water, and bring to a boil. Add penne, and undercook by 2 to 3 minutes, until the outside of the pasta is just cooked. Transfer macaroni to a colander and drain well, shaking the colander to remove as much water as possible from inside the penne. Set penne aside.
Heat milk in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Melt remaining butter in a high-sided skillet over medium heat. When butter bubbles, add the flour and whisk for 1 minute. While continuing to whisk, slowly pour in hot milk. Continue cooking, whisking constantly, until the mixture bubbles and becomes thick. Turn off heat, and whisk in the wine, salt, nutmeg, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and both cheeses, reserving 1 cup of cheese for topping.
Stir macaroni into the cheese sauce, then pour mixture into prepared dish. Sprinkle remaining cheese over top, followed by the buttered breadcrumbs. Bake until browned on top, about 30 minutes. Transfer casserole to a wire rack, and cool 5 minutes; serve hot.
food boards, other blogs, recipes, Seattle
18 Comments »
Posted by Anita on 01.02.07 2:27 PM
Flashback to Thanksgiving, 2005: We were sitting around my parents’ living room, visiting with some of their friends who had come over for coffee and dessert. Talk turned to our upcoming trip to Thailand, and our brief stopover in Tokyo on the way to Bangkok. Mom’s friend M, who is Japanese, asked us what we were planning to do there.
We chatted about our plan to tour the Tsukiji fish market the first morning, and then mentioned, sheepishly, how we’d heard about a museum in Yokohama devoted to the history of ramen noodles. M told us, very excitedly, that she’d grown up in Yokohama and would be visiting her family there for the New Year holidays — right at the same time we’d be passing through. She’d heard of the museum but had never been — could she come along with us? (How fast do you think we said “yes”?)
A few weeks later, we arrived in Tokyo late Christmas night, and headed straight to bed. We had a date the next morning at 3:45am with our Tsukiji guides. And then, on the very same day, we boarded the shinkansen (bullet train) down to Yokohama to meet M. Despite massive jet lag and a complete language barrier, we only made one minor misstep — we picked a queue that led to a smoking car.
By the time we realized our mistake, all the nonsmoking seats were taken. Fortunately, sitting in the smoking car had one advantage: We got to spy on Japanese salarymen as they smoked and snacked on food they’d brought onboard from track-side kiosks. One man’s lunch in particular piqued my curiosity — could it really be a fried-pork sandwich?
M was the best Yokohama guide you can imagine, creating a food-filled tour of her hometown just for us. We started out the day, as planned, at the Shin-yokohama Raumen Museum, which features outposts of famous ramen shops from all over Japan in a setting that replicates a 1950s-era Japanese neighborhood. We sampled four different kinds of ramen, amazed at their variety and depth.
We followed our ramen-fest with a boat ride across Yokohama’s harbor. The ferry dropped us near one of Japan’s most famous department stores, where the basement food halls were filled to the ceilings with traditional new year foods, osechi ryori, which M explained would be enjoyed as a room-temperature feast on the first days of January.
After touring the food halls, we strolled through the city’s bustling Chinatown. We browsed through cookware shops, pressed our noses to the windows where cooks flipped stir-fries in enormous woks.
Knowing we were on our way to Thailand, M wanted us to try Japanese curry. She knew just the place to take us — another food museum! (You have to love a country where there are no fewer than seven food-related attractions in a single area.) Although much less of an actual learning experience than the Raumen Museum, the Yokohama Curry Museum offered a few exhibits, centered around a food court. We feasted on beef curry, curry udon and other curry dishes, and amused ourselves in the impressive gift shop full of ingredients and mixes from all across Asia.
As we walked around Yokohama, M pointed out a number of traditional holiday decorations called kadomatsu: bamboo, pine, and straw in simple, elegant arrangements on either side of the doors of nearly every establishment and home.
At some point that afternoon, M asked how we’d enjoyed our shinkansen journey. We told her that we loved the gliding from Tokyo’s center to its suburbs, and out into the countryside. Talking about the train ride reminded me of that curious sandwich I’d seen. Sure enough, M explained, it was a katsu sando: Tonkatsu on white bread, garnished with a spicy-sweet sauce. Wow!
It turned out we were just blocks from Katsuretsu-An, Yokohama’s most venerable tonkatsu restaurant. Even though we were stuffed from our museum grazing, M insisted on taking us there for dinner. We feasted on a meal that started with steaming bowls of miso soup garnished with pebble-sized clams, followed by juicy-crisp tonkatsu.
As night fell, M walked us back to the train station, and even rode part of the way back to Tokyo with us, to make sure we knew which way we were headed. As she bade us farewell at her transfer point, she handed us a tidy white box that held a thoughtful gift: A katsu sando of our very own. We stashed it in our hotel minibar and shared it on the shuttle to Narita the next day, reminiscing about our wonderful day, and the heartfelt generosity of our new friend.
restaurants, shopping, travel
3 Comments »
Posted by Cameron on 12.23.06 4:53 PM
San Francisco, hang your head in shame. Much as I love my City by the Bay, it’s never been a good place for pizza. The situation has improved in recent years, thanks to the likes of Pizzeria Delfina (If you can get in. if you want to pay $70 for pizza.), but only barely.
I’ve always found the situation mystifying–but after today’s lunch it’s escalated to infuriating. Why, in the foodiest city in the country (hush you homers, I’m pontificating), is it practically impossible to get a decent pizza, when I can sit down to a magnificent Neapolitan pie at a strip mall in Henderson, Nevada?
Settebello has modern Vegas charm, which is to say that it’s cavernous, painfully clean, clangingly empty, and so new that you can practically smell the fresh concrete. The sheer size of even the smallest of these commercial spaces dwarfs any attempt at coziness, but Settebello manages to inject some warmth–perhaps it was the overwrought Italian pop music wafting through the sound system. Could have been the Real Madrid game on the widescreen TV. Perhaps it was the friendly staff. Might have been the giant mural of the Bay of Napoli on the wall, or the Italian travel posters. Could it have been the enormous pizza oven?!
The menu is simple, built around Neapolitan pizza. Settebello has been certified by Vera Pizza Napoletana, a distinction that it shares with Seattle’s Via Tribunali, among others. We’ll pass lightly over the absurdity of creating a committee to preserve taste, but only because the pizza at Settobello is very, very, good. I defiled the purity of my margherita with finocchiona from Salumi, secure in the knowledge that “Variations of pizzas are recognized if they are informed by the Neapolitan tradition of pizzas and are not in contrast with the rules of gastronomy.” The pie and its precious cargo were worthy of each other’s company. The sauce and cheese were light, fresh, and applied with a gentle hand. The crust wasn’t quite as perfect, but according to the folks at Valley Wine and Cheese across the parking lot, there have been some oven issues that needed sorting out. Anita’s calzone wasn’t as spectacular as my “margherita con…”, but was still very good.
Nitpicking. Pure nitpicking. This is seriously good pizza. I can’t wait to try the bianca. It will be a sad trip to Henderson that doesn’t include a visit to Settebello, and a sad flight back to pizza wasteland that is San Francisco. I shall console myself with carnitas and birria.
Settebello Pizzeria Napoletana
1776 W. Horizon Ridge Parkway
Henderson, NV 89052
702.222.3556
Italian, restaurants, Vegas
6 Comments »
Posted by Anita on 12.19.06 10:32 PM
I’m back here in Vegas, and… oh, who am I kidding? I’m back here in Henderson, home of tract houses, chain restaurants, and megamarts. Very nice ones, all of them, but still… a bit prefab. On my last visit, I drove almost 10 miles to the nearest Whole Foods, on the other side of town, in a fit of homesickness. Imagine my disappointment to find rock-hard avocados, bin after bin of out-of-season produce, and sickly looking everything. I guess it was better than Vons, but only just.
So when a friend suggested that I check out a place called Valley Cheese, I was a little skeptical. If even Whole Foods can’t deliver the goods in this culinary wasteland, I didn’t have much hope that a small shop would do any better. When I found their rather sad website, I was even more suspicious. But — what the hell — I was bored and hungry, and needed an excuse to get out of the house.
Valley Cheese & Wine is the kind of place you could drive right by for months and not even know it’s there, set back off the street in what can only be described as an upscale industrial park, adjacent to a construction site. Inside, it’s another world: The spacious shop is anchored by a wall of gourmet dry goods — pasta, oils, vinegar, pickles, and such — on one side, and a pair of cold-cases on the other: one with a well-kept assortment of cheese, and another displaying surprisingly robust charcuterie options. The entire center of the store is given over to rack upon rack of wines.
Both of the owners, Bob and Kristin, welcomed me within minutes. When Kristin found out I was a first-time customer, she offered the “nickel tour”, a full circuit of their various wares, complete with an explanation of the cheese case schematic ( “East Coast artisans on the left, West Coast on the right, Europe on the lower shelf…”) — an obsessive after my own heart, to be sure.
Bob talked about their groceries and salumi offerings, including a half-dozen varieties of Fra’Mani sausage… but nothing from Armandino, alas, due to problems getting their orders filled correctly. He also went to great pains to tell me that everything in the store was hand-selected. They were both adorably proud of their shop, and rightly so.
My only gripe — and it’s a very small one — is that they keep all of their cheeses and meats under plastic, both in the display cases, and when wrapped for you to take home. I’m guessing it’s difficult to keep artisanal products properly hydrated in the desert climate otherwise, and everything looked and tasted just fine, so perhaps I’m just being irrationally persnickety.
This corner of Henderson’s awfully far from The Strip to make Valley Cheese & Wine a side trip for most visitors, but if you happen to be making your escape at Green Valley Ranch or any of the Lake Las Vegas resorts, it’s definitely worth a long browse. Just be sure to bring a map.
Valley Cheese & Wine
1770 Horizon Ridge Parkway
Henderson, NV 89012
702.341.8191
shopping, Vegas, wine & bubbly
2 Comments »
Posted by Anita on 11.28.06 6:49 PM
Every time I sit down to write this post, I sigh deeply and then find something more pleasant to do… like empty the dishwasher. It’s not as though our meal at Bouchon Las Vegas was bad, per se (ha ha), but the experience was so far below even our modest expectations that I’m still disappointed, days later.
As I browse through the photos, I realize that most everything we ate was reasonably good, some things were even great. But there were so many service missteps, awkward moments, and food fumbles that added up to a whole lot less than the kind of memorable meal I expect from a Thomas Keller establishment, even a baby bistro in Sin City. Especially one with $35 entrees.
I suppose the biggest issue with our meal was the sevice. Our waiter was undeniably sweet, but simply not ready for prime time. As Cameron said: “He has the raw skills to be a great waiter, but he’s definitely not there yet.” His numerous gaffes included awkward check-ins, stammering recitations of specials, and a rather graceless handling of a bar mistake. Oh, and an outright “WHA?” moment, when he described “soubise” to the couple next to us as “kind of like a risotto.” Um, ah-no. On the flip side, the host staff and managers were right on top of things, both as we arrived and as we departed.
The other clunker of the evening was the atmosphere: Bouchon’s space at the Venetian suffers from a severe lack of coziness. I know, I know… it’s Vegas, but the high ceilings make the place feel less like the Grand Canal and more like the Grand Canyon. On the positive side, the decor hits a gently Gallic tone, whispering “bistro” — a Parisian-style hat rack over banquettes and pastel still-life murals — without dipping too far into cliche.
The food, alas, was similarly hit and miss. After we placed our order, a runner brought shatteringly good bread and a welcome bowl of pistachios to accompany our drinks: a signature Bouchon cocktail for me (a touch too much peach liqueur for my taste — but hey, it’s their recipe) and a glass of sancerre for Cameron.
Moving into the appetizers, Cam’s onion soup came out of the kitchen terribly undersalted; With no salt on the table, he had to ask our gawky waiter to bring some. My salade lyonnaise was top notch — perfect egg (sous vide, perhaps?) and lovely lardons — but slightly overdressed.
We both opted for nightly specials for the main course. Cameron’s dayboat scallops were perfectly seared, served in a delicate, creamy sauce gilded with tender pieces of crab, and accompanied by a light-as-air potato gratin. (Sounds impossible, I know… but Keller’s crew knows their spuds, even here.) My pavé de veau featured meltingly tender veal breast, assembled into a tall cube and crisped up with panko. Underneath: Lovely roasted brussels sprouts, a too-sweet soubise (that’s an onion-infused Bechamel sauce… not at all like a risotto, thanks), and odd but definitely tasty chestnut “pain perdu” sticks on top of the stack.
For dessert, we chose after-dinner drinks and an order of beignets to share. The pastries themselves were cold and leaden, like they’d been made hours ahead of service, and their cream filling tasted pasty and heavy. An unbilled scoop of chocolate ice cream was the plate’s saving grace.
Our waiter stopped back after our dessert arrived to let us know it would be a few minutes before the bar could serve my requested glass of poire william; they needed to get a bottle from storage. I truly didn’t mind the delay, but the waiter’s fumbling and stumbling left me more annoyed than the actual missing drink. When the digestif did finally arrive, the glass contained a gargantuan pour, easily three times as much as any sane person would drink at a sitting — a generous gesture, perhaps, but one that came off feeling amateurish.
All in all, it seemed more like a meal that should have cost closer to $130 than the $230 we spent, even adjusting for the Vegas Factor. Would I return? Possibly — I suppose we could have dropped in on an off night…although it’s hard to believe that Keller wouldn’t have the A-team in the kitchen (and working the tables) on a Saturday night, even on a holiday weekend. With so many other restaurants left on our Vegas list, it’s hard to imagine we’ll be back anytime soon.
Bouchon
3355 Las Vegas Blvd.
(inside the Venetian Hotel)
Las Vegas, NV 89109
702.414.6200
restaurants, Vegas
2 Comments »
Posted by Cameron on 11.21.06 9:50 PM
BACON BURRITO DOG
Big flour tortilla wrapped around 2 hot dogs, 2 slices of cheese, 3 slices of bacon, chili & onions.
Those words, announcing one of the many fat-tastic specials at Pink’s Hot Dogs on La Brea at Melrose, are among the many reasons why a trip to L.A. doesn’t feel complete without a stop at Pink’s.
On our last visit to El Pueblo, I ended up flying solo for a day while Anita was at the UCLA campus attending a blog writing “workshop.” My plan for the day: go play in Hollywood.
I’m not a fan of the typical Hollywood Boulevard shtick. My Hollywood starts at the corner of Sunset and Gardner, where there are about seven guitar shops in a two-block span, including a huge Guitar Center. But once again, Fate intervened. While walking from the car to my first guitar shop destination, I found the amazingly cool Orphaned CDs used CD store…which also happens to rent tuxedos, so you can get your outfit and ceremony music in one convenient stop.
I say that Fate intervened, because had I not found Orphaned CDs, I probably would have spent the morning as a much-hated “twiddler,” playing horrifically expensive guitars through exquisitely costly amplifiers that I had no intention of buying. But as I sat down with my first axe of the day, my newly-purchased CDs began to sing to me through their plastic bag. “Go,” they crooned, “Drive.”
And I did. I put down the guitar, walked out, climbed in the car, slotted “Welcome Interstate Managers,” by Fountains of Wayne, cranked the volume, slid down all the windows, and rolled out to cruise Paradise City. Did I mention that the sun was shining? Do I need to?
Yes, yes. We’re coming to the part with bacon.
I love banging around West Hollywood on general principles, but Pink’s was the touchstone of my day. Technically, it’s just a hot dog stand, the way that the New York City Marathon is technically just a footrace. Pink’s has been around for 65 years; a local legend visited by the unknown, the up-and-coming, the about-to-be, the recently-were, the has-been, the never-was, and occasionally, the OH-MY-GOD-IT’S.
There ain’t nothing fancy at Pink’s. Anything that don’t come from a can comes out of a package. You stand in a line that folds three times across the length of the front counter. When I queued up after finding a spot in the tiny parking lot, mirabile dictu, it was at about the two-and-a-half fold mark. It’s not uncommon for the line to stretch back another half block, which in L.A. works out to about two miles. As I waited behind six Japanese teenagers dressed in matching designer hobo rags and biker wallets (I swear on my life that two of them had identical leather shirts), the man behind me regaled his companion with the story of the time that he and a friend, criminally late for a gig and having already eaten dinner, stopped at Pink’s to chow down for no other reason than because there was no line. It’s that kind of place.
Meanwhile, behind sweeps of cafeteria glass a troupe of very serious Latinas (never seen anyone back there who couldn’t plausibly answer to the name Maria, and every one of them could and would kick your ass) hustles out onion rings, fries, and some seriously unreal hot-dog-based food. Hot dogs, polish dogs, turkey dogs even. Don’t like bacon on your burrito dog? How about pastrami? Yeah? Polish or Brooklyn pastrami? Nacho cheese, tomatoes, coleslaw, sauerkraut, pickles, sour cream. The list goes on.
You order. Fast. The crew member who takes your order sees it all the way through to completion while you pay the cashier. They have an odd array of bottled soda, including grape Crush. Out back, a batch of tables is mostly shaded from the eternal sun by umbrellas, and a small sheltered dining room is lined with signed headshots. Nicole Kidman appears twice, for reasons that are undoubtedly best left unexplored.
The Bacon Burrito Dog is my Usual, but we’ve got dinner at AOC lined up for that night, so I opt for the less gut-busting Bacon Chili Dog with my grape Crush. With cheese, natch. The dog colors my plate with greasy orange love. I finish and head out to the car, tool up Melrose and do some window shopping and people watching. I love L.A.
restaurants, shopping, SoCal, travel
5 Comments »
Posted by Anita on 11.06.06 6:03 PM
I hadn’t planned it this way, but we ended up eating at small-plates restaurants both Friday and Saturday nights of our L.A. trip. I’d made reservations at the wildly popular AOC a couple of months ago, and — without thinking — added Violet to the mix as I searched for a restaurant that would serve good food relatively late, and wouldn’t take us too far off the path between LAX and our Brentwood hotel.
When I realized what I’d done, we toyed with canceling our reservation, but we’d also pulled the ripcord on AOC on our last trip. So, we decided to stick with the plan, as it’s a relatively difficult place to get into on weekends and we didn’t know when we’d be back in El Lay.
We arrived in the neighborhood 20 minutes or so ahead of time, so we circled the area in search of street parking. Coming up empty, we turned our (very un-upscale) rental car over to the valet, and made our way inside. Or, at least as far inside as we could manage. At least three other couples were wedged into the foyer, and another pair perched on barstools around the corner. After a 10-minute wait for an audience with the hostess, we announced our name and reservation time. Searching, searching… no luck.
“When did you make the reservation?” she asked.
“Oh, probably five or six weeks ago,” I replied, consulting my Treo’s calendar. Yep, there it was: 8pm, Saturday, November 4. Just to be sure, I dialed up Open Table on the browser, as the hostess looked through her phone logs and people stacked up out the door.
“Here it is,” I said, turning the screen to show her, “8pm, November 4 on Open Table.”
“But we don’t have Open Table.”
…Silence…
“Um, this is AOC?” Yes.
“Is there another AOC?” No.
“Well,” she finally admits, “We did have Open Table for about a week, but we hated them and took it out.”
“OK, but here I have a confirmed reservation that neither you nor Open Table has canceled. How was I to know this?” I wondered aloud.
She asked us to wait a few more minutes, and assured me she would work something out. And, in fairness, she did: Ten minutes later, we were escorted through the dining room, past the charcuterie cooler, and upstairs to the enclosed rooftop patio, a spot that easily could have felt like being banished to Siberia, but actually resonated with cozy and intimate warmth, the white tent-like walls glowing with diffused light and the sky peeking through shades.
Our waitress appeared, offered us bottled water, and instructed us that two or three dishes per person would be “a good amount.” The menu’s a slightly longer list of dishes than at Violet — half a dozen salumi platters, salad-y choices, fish, meat, and a section of items from the wood oven — supplemented by a full page of artisan cheeses (AOC is, technically, a wine bar).
After nibbling on delicious marinated black olives and a tapenade spiced with smoked paprika and a hint of citrus, we started with a plate of Fra’mani salumi. I was particularly taken with the Nostrano and Cameron loved the Gentile, but all of them were quite tasty and well presented. Next up was a lovely and deceptively simple salad of crisp apples, walnuts, bitter greens, aged goat cheese and little slivers of red onion that you hardly noticed, but kept all the flavors dancing together.
Cameron pounced on the three fried oysters that followed the salad, but pronounced them a good news/bad news story: crispy, juicy and fresh, but blobbed with a dollop of cayenne aioli that flirted with greasiness. On the side, a lovely remoulade paired julienned celery root with a mustardy mayonnaise. The fourth dish, an open-faced riff on a croque monsieur, put the frisee that’s usually found on the side in between a slice of brioche and the top layers of egg, gruyere, and prosciutto. Again, delicious… but a bit overdressed, making the bread soggy and sour.
I paired the initial courses with a deeply-colored but otherwise unremarkable French rosé, while Cameron enjoyed a three-glass flight of sauvignon blanc from the Loire valley. For the last two plates — braised beef cheeks and fingerling potatoes crushed with gallons of butter and gilded with crème fraîche — we shifted gears to sterner stuff. I chose a glass of Flowers pinot noir/syrah (which was as good as I remembered), and Cameron opted for a cabernet from Napa’s 75 Wine Co. The beef cheeks were tender and very good, but the potatoes were positively orgasmic, brimming with fresh, potato-y flavor and skins that went snap.
Would that the service had been anywhere near as good as anything that we ate. Our waitress (one could hardly call her anything else) could have taught finishing school at a truck stop. Loud and ungraceful, she paired inattentive service with inappropriate comments — including “Wow, you guys wolfed that down!” screeched loud enough that other diners turned to gawk, at one point.
We also suspect that she botched the table numbers on our orders, as well as those of others near us, as we spent the night fending off dishes that we hadn’t ordered, waving at our plates as they headed for other nonplussed diners, and twiddling our thumbs between courses. By the end of the meal we were so fed up that we didn’t even glance at dessert, which is completely out of character for us. No matter how stuffed we are, we’ll always at least look at the menu.
But while we were done with AOC, AOC was not done with us. Cameron handed the ticket to the valet, who brought the car around, handed us the key, and bundled us in. But as we were about to take off, the valet rapped on the window, which Cameron rolled down, only to be asked if he had paid the as-yet-unmentioned $4.50 parking charge. Thoroughly exasperated, we pushed a five-dollar bill at the man (who we’d already tipped generously), punched the rental into “D”, and putt-putted into the night.
AOC
8022 W. Third Street (near Fairfax)
Los Angeles, CA 90048
323.653.6359
restaurants, SoCal
3 Comments »
Posted by Anita on 11.06.06 7:54 AM
Thanks to Cameron’s luck getting onto an earlier flight, we walked in to Violet a good 20 minutes before our reservation time. Greeted by a casually dressed but stylishly coiffed (and inked) host, we were seated almost immediately, and began perusing a list of seasonally inspired dishes, and a pleasantly extensive list of wines by the glass.
Our busboy appeared — bottles in hand — to ask if we preferred sparkling or still water. (I’m still of two minds about whether I found this annoyingly presumptuous or thoughtfully clever… I’m on the side of the latter, but I can’t put my finger on why.) Our waiter followed close on his heels, asking if we’d been to Violet before, and suggesting 5 to 6 dishes would be a good amount for the two of us.
We didn’t need to spend much time debating our choices — we easily found six dishes that appealed to both of us… a lucky thing, since the noise level (even at 9pm) precluded involved negotiations. Still, we enjoyed taking in our surroundings, a cozily-lit space with a modern palette.
Our first wine choices from the eclectic list turned out to be clear winners: A steely French rosé from Bieler, and an Alois Lageder pinot grigio with a flavor profile that seemed much more Gallic than Italian. A salad of grill-kissed Little Gem romaine combined bacony avocado and shreds of an unbilled Parmesan-like cheese to create a subtle Caesar-like effect, with an autumnal richness. Next up, a dish of ahi tuna tartare lacked flavor despite being overdressed with a ponzu dressing, and some of the fish was far too fishy to be enjoyed in the raw.
Our second set of dishes included a gorgeously indulgent take on macaroni and cheese, liberally dosed with gruyere and a smattering of Serrano ham bits. A pair of lightly breaded pork scaloppini served in a rich pan sauce rounded out the savory tastes. We enjoyed another couple of obscure, delightful wines with these dishes: A hearty and funky Gran Feudo crianza, and a hotly alcoholic but rather drinkable Velonosi rosso piceno.
None of the desserts screamed out for attention — will someone please tell chefs that crème brulee and molten chocolate cliché need to be left alone to die? — but we settled on a Key lime tartlet, which came with a dollop of unsweetened whipped cream to set of its lime-curd-like filling. Cameron chose an unremarkable (but always pleasant) Taylor tawny port; I enjoyed a stem of the Nivole — a floral-nosed bubbly that reminded us both of a lightly sparkling Muscat de Rivesault — suggested by our waiter.
Throughout the meal, our server Trevor kept a close eye on us, pacing the meal perfectly, and always appearing just when we’d thought of something we needed. After tax but before tip, the cost for this little pearl of a meal: $109 (more than half of which was the bar tab).
Violet
3221 Pico Blvd. (near 32nd Street)
Santa Monica, CA 90405
310.453.9113
restaurants, SoCal, travel
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Posted by Anita on 11.06.06 7:26 AM
Thais revere the lotus as a symbol of Buddhism: It’s a beautiful, symmetrical flower that thrives in the dankest, most polluted cesspools. So perhaps it’s apt to find Lotus of Siam — one of the most celebrated Thai restaurants outside of Thailand — in a sketchy area on the edge of downtown Las Vegas. Specifically, it’s smack in the middle of a dimly lit, semi-derelict shopping center with the Stratosphere tower looming in the distance. This outdoor mall full of businesses with an illegitimate air features a parking lot that looks quite like a great place to get mugged. That said, it also looks like a great place for ethnic food finds, with a Jalisco-style diner that serves only birria — try saying “birriraria” right on the first try — sporting a goat-head logo, plus a Korean bar-cafe and a plenty of other places lacking any sort of English signage.
Once inside the door, it’s hard to miss the wall covered with accolades, but the parking-lot experience prepares you for the rest of what you see: A slightly run-down but brightly lit space without a smidgen of pretense. A large buffet steam table takes up the center of the room (it’s used at lunchtime, weekdays only) and Formica-topped tables are set with paper placemats and restaurant-supply cutlery. This isn’t a bad thing, in my opinion… in fact, it probably served to raise my expectations. If so many foodies think this place is amazing, I figured, they’re obviously not being misled by any fancy-pants décor.
If you’ve come looking for pad thai or green chicken curry, you won’t be disappointed — all the familiar favorites are present and accounted for. There’s also a selection of what could charitably be called oddball dishes, things like shrimp tempura, fried wontons and chop suey that left me a bit worried that I’d mistakenly stumbled into one of those terrible Seattle “Thai” restaurants — the ones where they bring you chopsticks and ask “how many stars?” to gauge your chile tolerance. My nervousness was put to rest by the middle section of the menu — a collection of specialties from Isaan province, and another page of Thai dishes that I have rarely, if ever, seen on American Thai menus… things like sour sausage, crispy catfish salad, and choo-chee freshwater prawns.
Mom’s not as much of a fire-eater as I am, so I picked through the likely suspects, looking for dishes that would give us a good sample of styles without blowing our heads off. We started with a pair of stuffed chicken wings, a classic appetizer where deboned wings are restuffed with pork, mushroom shreds, and plenty of spices, then rolled in panko and deep-fried. Ours turned out to be mysteriously dry despite plenty of stuffing, but the accompanying sweet-sour sauce helped a bit.
Next up, a generous portion of chicken larb, served with a few slices of cucumber and a wedge of white cabbage. The sparseness of the presentation belied the execution: A perfect balance of sour-salty-hot.
Last, we split a bowl of kao soi, a northern curry-noodle dish I’d first enjoyed — and fallen in love with — during our January Thailand trip with Kasma. Although I’ve made kao soi at home a couple of times since then, I haven’t managed to salve my cravings. Luckily, Vegas is closer than Chiang Mai… and Lotus of Siam’s drier version of kao soi — garnished with fried noodles, pickled vegetable, red shallots, and lime wedges — may be the favorite of any I’ve tried. The noodles were firm but supple, the sauce perfectly balanced between sweet and hot, the tender beef pieces adding a salty-meaty contrast every few bites.
If you’ve spent any time at all reading online food boards, you’ve almost certainly stumbled across someone (or some-twenty) raving about Lotus of Siam in Las Vegas. They throw out phrases like “the best Thai restaurant in the country” and “there’s simply nothing else like it anywhere”, and wax rhapsodic about the stunning flavors.
But this collection of over-the-top raves is really doing the place a disservice. It’s a creditable Thai restaurant, and they certainly serve some of the best Thai food I’ve had since San Francisco’s Thep Phanom took its nosedive into mediocrity. Every dish we tried was tasty and properly balanced, the service was attentive and welcoming, and the menu’s impressive in its diversity. And, of course, there’s an undeniable pleasure of finding such a gem amid the underbelly of Old Vegas seediness.
But unless you’ve spent your life eating ketchup-y pad thai, Lotus of Siam is not going to change the way you think about Thai food. But that’s not the point, nor should it be. If you go expecting a palate-altering experience at a trek-worthy temple of gastronomy, you’ll certainly come away disappointed. Go, instead, hungry for a well-made, casual dinner in an atmosphere that couldn’t be less “Vegas” if it tried.
Lotus of Siam
953 E. Sahara Avenue
Las Vegas, NV 89104
702.735.3033
restaurants, Thai, travel, Vegas
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