Worst...Food...Ever

Well, it's time to get on a negative tip, y'all.

Avoid Home at all cost. Not your home, but Home on Hillhurst in Los Feliz. I'm not going to dignify Home that much time because the place is such a rank disappointment. Also because my lengthy, scathing, well thought out humerous post just got erased, making this Home experience even more irritating.

As a space it is cozy and inviting. Home inhabits a courtyard nestled in a row of stores. It boasts a nice brick exterior and cobblestone floor, adorned with fairly lush vegetation, statuary and vines clinging to the walls. That's where the charm ends. The food is a total disaster.

We've eaten there twice, which is one more try than I usually give when I don't like the food. The second time it was raining, I was starving, we ordered delivery, and I was hoping to chalk up the first experience to a possible fluke.

I'm not phased when a conglomorate restaurant like Cheezkaak Faktory offers an intercontinental choice of pan-gastronomic offerings. The Executive Chef/Biogenetic Engineer spends weeks in the kitchen lab at the Englewood Falls assembly plant near the Trojan Condom facility formulating foodstuffs that will look good and taste even better. But, I get a bit leery when a neighborhood cafe offers the same wide range of food. Why? Well, if the chef is that well versed that they can offer a panoply of diverse tastes, why aren't they the executive chef of Patina? The answer is obvious to me now. They aren't that good.

It's been over a year since my first experience, I only have vague impressions of a soggy, lifeless, greasy, turkey rueben. And turkey is not known for being oily. But I am going to skip ahead and avoid an obvious Rosie O'Donnell playing Rizzo joke and move right onto my latest sad interaction with Home's food.

The menu deceptively makes the food seem so eclectic and inviting. I ordered the rack of baby back ribs, smothered in southwestern BBQ sauce, and my son got the sloppy joe. I honestly forgot what Nayan ordered. The ribs were from a pig's back, but not a piglet. They were straight up spare ribs, rubbery, full of gristle, tough to yank off the bone. I had trouble even cutting through them. Thing about certain meat is, you either cook it for a very short time or a very long time or the meat gets tough becuase the connective tissue doesn't break down fully. The sauce might as well been ketsup, because that's about how simple it tasted. Mmmm, ketsup on pork ribs. I could have saved $13 and bought a McRib.

Chris' sloppy joe wasn't much better, but exponentially ahead of the ribs. Chopped meat of some sort was swimming in a semi-sweet sauce and soggy fries. Yeah, save yourself the hassle and avoid this place, although I'd be interested in comments of those who found the food palletable, even enjoyable. I want to get the name of the doctor who removed your tastebuds.

Rouge

On the outside perimeter of Newport Fashion Island is Rouge, occupying the space that used to be home to a southwest cafe. I wrote in LA Foodblogging that I've been on a pseudo-tour of French bistros lately, and I reviewed Figaro for them. Most people disagreed with my assessment. As you might imagine, rouge is dark wood accented with a lot of red. I like the color scheme, and those two compliment each other well, and make for an inviting and warm space to dine. The walls are adorned with the requisite 1920's Art Deco French posters opining the merits of champaigne, olive oil and fromage artesian. Instead of establishing a well-worn cliche, the framed posters really compliment the decor. The bar has a nice european feel to it, accented by streetlight-style lamps.

...and the food ain't bad, at least the single dish I've always gotten. Chicken and mushroom crepes with cognac cream sauce. Very rich, with a pleasing sheen on the tongue from the cream sauce. It is served with a compliment of steamed vegetables. Now, I know many restaurant reviews talk about the entire experience of arrival, interaction, quirky conversaion, the food quality, paying the bill and walking out. This was a short visit, because we spend most of our time outside, so a quick, nice quality lunch is always a good break. Newport Fashion Island lends itself to being in the fresh air, so we don't relax and take our time. We eat and run. Of the bistros I have been writing about, Rouge probably comes in #2. For my number one, stay tuned.

We're Gonna Be On The TV

No, I didn't get my own Food TV show.

Fact is, our house isn't selling. It has unfettered charm in a great location. So...something else must be wrong. In steps Sell This House, and their professional design team! Well, it's one guy, but he figures out what sucks about your house and plans to fix it up. So, this weekend we will be overrun with cables, hot lights, fake emotion and a lot of staged dialog. Hopefully they will allow me to document the circus, it will be fun for anyone reading Gastrologica, even though it has nothing to do with food. Possibly, we will upgrade the kitchen...

As soon as I find out the run date, I will post it here. Sell This House is seen on A&E Sunday evenings.

Thanksgiving Retrospective

Surprisingly, amid a birthday and Thanksgiving, we only ate out once this extended weekend, and that is the subject of another post. This year, we eubilliently avoided having to entertain any friends or irritating relatives. Super fantastic. So, only cooking for three, it was easy to scale down what is normally a monstrosity of conflicting tastes and variable quality. The thing I detest about huge family gatherings is that everybody feels compelled to bring their favorite dish, to which everyone else hates, but with all the false joyous enthusiasm they can muster, grind a few complimentary choice words...thereby setting up next year's misfired side dish.

"Oh, but you loved my Oilcan Gizzards last year!"

No so fast.What is good (for me) about being an accepted gourmand is the ability to lightly criticize each dish without causing exaggerated offense. For instance, a distant relative will make the slightest offhand comment:

"Well, it could use a tiny bit of cream, it is tirimisu, after all."

And it will elicit a howling defense:

"I substituted soy milk because my husband is lactose intolerant, you insensitive bastard!"

Honestly, dietary modifications for health should be kept at home, or not served to the general family (keep it in the fridge). The general rule is that you want to bring something you believe everyone will enjoy, and these are usually safe staples:

Candied yams
Mashed sweet potatoes
Glazed carrots
Corn, of some sort
Peas, for chrissake
Cheesecake
Green beans and almonds
Pumpkin pie
Etc.

Weird family favorites, or cultural delicacies should be deftly avoided. Re: lutfisk.

I have to confess, for Thanksgiving I -yes I- cheated and bought the meat this year. Last weekend was a hodgepodge of celebrating various milestones, and I thought my family would be better served just paying for the meat, allowing me to concentrate on side dishes...which are really the creative outlet...not a flippin' turkey. With that, here is what we had:

As I admitted, I bought smoked turkey and roast duck from Whole Foods. I reconstituted a demi-glas instead of a gravy. The turkey was pretty dry but had a lot of infused smoke flavor. Because it wasn't salted, the smoke tasted somewhat thin, but intense. The demi helped pull out that flavor, and when it commingled with the smoke it produced a thoughtful, complex flavor of hickory dancing with hyperconcentrated veal stock.

Nobody would touch the duck but me, and thank god for that. I love food that only I enjoy, so there's no competition. The duck had already been roasted to crispy perfection, I just needed to make a glaze, which was maple syrup, ginger and a touch of soy. Nothing truly complex. I reheated all the meat in a Toast-R-Oven, because the heating elements bring back the crispy texture and heat, something a microwave could never accomplish, and a large gas oven would dry out everything before the skin re-crisped.

I saved my efforts for the noodle kugel, standard Jewish fare for Yom Kippur. As I finish the sentence I realize only Jews will get that joke. My great-grandmother's secret recipe, which I got off the internet, follows:

1 bag egg noodles - Streits, Maneschewitz, something that sounds like your dentist's last name
3 eggs
1 cup cottage cheese
1/2 stick cream cheese
1 cup sour cream
sugar to taste (1 1/2 cups, but taste it)
pinch of salt
raisins optional, pineapple optional...I use neither
dash of vanilla extract - people, use real vanilla extract, you're already skipping real vanilla bean
crushed corn flakes
1 teaspoon butter
cinnamon

Boil the noodles until al-dente, they'll cook the rest of the way in the oven. In a separate bowl, combine the cheeses, eggs, sour cream and sugar. Mix in the fruits, if you so desire. Mix the noodles in and pour everything into a corningware casserole dish. Separately, melt the butter and toss the corn flakes in, coating all of them. Spread over top of the casserole, finally sprinkling cinnamon to you taste. Bake at 350 for an hour, or until a knife comes out clean after stabbing. Cool and serve with either sugar and/or sour cream dalloped on top. It can be served as a side dish or dessert.

Nayan made a stuffing, which has now become a side dish in many homes, not even having been stuffed into anything. Although I don't have the exact recipe in front of me, she does something different in that the mixture is buzzed in a food processor to make it almost like dense quiche consistency, rather than chunks falling in a big mound. I like it that way.

I fried up some sweet potatoes in shoestring form, a nice middle ground between mashed sweet potatoes with the sickly sweet glaze of brown sugar and melted marshmallows, and french fries.

Finally, I rounded off the meal with a homemade pumpkin pie. If you want the recipe, read the can, it's right there. Baking and desserts are something I haven't heartily dove into, and who better to know pumpkin pie than Libby's, the producer of pumpkin filler. I did add some extra maple syrup to the mix to give it a rich, New England flavor.

Finally, I made a saffron cream sauce with nutmeg for the pumpkin ravioli. I didn't like it, honestly, the ravioli was purchased frozen and was sweet instead of savory. Had I known, I would have made a sauce that countered the sweetness a bit, instead, it was just too sweet.

Overall, not an overwhelming amount of food, and plenty of leftovers for the long weekend. But wait, we also had to celebrate Nayan's birthday, so that is to be discussed soon.

Progenitor of Civilization

The importance of salt cannot be understated. It is as critical to human evolution as it is for culinary evolution. Although it seemingly occupies the periphery of our lives, our choice in salt for cooking, brining, seasoning and tasting food, is not only integral for our enjoyment of food, but is a vital component of metabolism. Salt, like its counterpart sugar, is often derided for contributions to health problems, but usually when eaten in excessive quantities. While all this may seem obvious, we really put little thought into what it contributes.

Salt is a chemical term given to a substance left over from the reaction of an acid and a base. When sodium, an unstable metal that explodes when it comes in contact with water, combines with the poisonous gas chloride, the resulting substance is ordinary table salt, sodium chloride. It is the only rock eaten by man. For thousands of years, control of the salt trade was necessary for many governments to fund their infrastructure, and wage effective war. Salt was so valuable, it was often used as currency such as payment to soldiers. Roman soldiers were paid salarium argentum, or salt money. We use a derivative of that phrase to refer our wages, salary.

Salt can be extracted from inland deposits in the form of halite (rock salt), or it can be produced in shallow ponds next to salt water sources by a process of evaporation.

It is also required to live. The human body consists of a quarter percent of salt. Our blood is salinated, comprised of almost one percent salt. Like everything we put in our bodies, too much salt can be problematic. Salt is a key component in homeostatis. It helps transport nutrients and allows the body to regulate fluids. Too much salt contributes to high blood pressure and if excessive salt is eaten, the body can actually dehydrate itself extracting water out of cells to dilute blood salt levels.

Perhaps the most important trait of salt is its ability to enhance flavor. In food as it is in life, too much or too little salt can have disastrous results. Salt comes in many varieties, each with an appropriate application that makes it more suitable over other forms. These include granulated and iodized table salt, Kosher salt, fleur de sel, regular sea salt, and rock salt. We are probably most familiar with the blue tin with the girl holding the umbrella, Morton's iodized table salt.

Table salt is a good all-purpose flavoring when used in cooking, but for table applications is lacking complexity, and has a slight metallic aftertaste contributed by the iodine. If a person chooses not to use iodized salt, they must get their iodine from other sources. In modern America this is not difficult, but in less developed nations, iodine deficiency would be a public health concern but for iodized salt.

I use sea salt for cooking and table use, but not fleur de sel. Fleur de sel is a specific type of sea salt harvested in Brittany, France. It is unadulterated or refined, so the flakes resemble pedals of a flower, hence it's name 'flower of salt' (roughly translated, I'm sure there is a more eloquent phrase that describes it). Sea salts are produced by evaporating salt water in shallow pools that are nearby the source. It is more expensive than granulated sea salt, so therefore you wouldn't want to necessarily cook with it. Sea salt is an efficient ingredient because it carries a less salty taste than regular table salt, so it is a bit more forgiving in its application. Unfortunately to the uninitiated, the tendency to oversalt has to be mitigated, as something that is still cooking will concentrate the flavor to an unappealing, oversalinated mess. Sea salt can be tricky that way.

The reigning monarch of salt, Kosher, is bold, rocky, has a good crunch and great taste. It has many great applications, yet anything that requires the salt to dissolve would not be the best use of Kosher because of its construction. It's large rocky crystals do not readily dissolve, and could make salting uneven if added during cooking. It is best as an exterior ingredient, most notably shaken onto meat before grilling. I don't think anything extracts the flavor from a grilled cut of meat than Kosher salt. What might seem to be oversalted on the surface, will dramatically mellow during the cooking process when the juices drip into the fire.

There are also a bevy of new rock table salts on the market, previously found only in their native countries and haute restaurants. These include: Dead Sea Salt, Himilayan Pink Salt, Organic Grey Sea Salt, Smoked Fleur De Sel, Alaea Hawaiian Salt, I can't really espouse the superiority of one brand over another, I think it comes down to personal taste and texture. I do like the idea of smoked salts, seems to kill two birds with one stone if the smoke flavor is intense enough to be detected in the food. All of the 'gourmet salts' can be procured online, and I've seen them at Whole Foods. I wouldn't cook with any of them, I would definitely use these directly on the table because the cost is fairly expensive. For example, the Himilayan Salt is about a dollar an ounce, cheap for other things, quite expensive for salt.

So, if you want a simple way to enhance you and your guest's dining experience, think about alternative salts. It seems so academic, but it can make a distinct difference.

Bouchon Almost Gone Wrong

Bouchon
The Venetian

It was headed for disaster, and I’m not exaggerating. This place almost garnered a bona fide “Eh,” with the hand-yaw gesture to punctuate that sentiment. However, Bouchon took a full shot at redemption and mostly pulled it off. Seriously though, for a restaurant that can only be accessed by a dedicated elevator, I expected more at the end of the ride than what we got.

The management of the Venetian has marketed Bouchon ambiguously. It is listed on the website under fine dining, but in Zagats, Fodors and Open Table present it as an upscale casual French Bistro. To be fair, it presents itself as a French bistro, not haute cuisine, so to analyze from the perspective of a Michelin five star writeup would be overkill.

But, and I say this with all deliberate criticism, even the most cut-rate, back alley bistro should be able to produce a competant onion soup. Bouchon's sucked, I can’t express it more delicately without losing the sense draining disappointment I felt bring me down. I'm going to get this over with so I can focus on the positive, because overall, the food was good.

The onion soup was served in a delicate ceramic bowl, not a hearty crock. The second failed element was the cheese and soup were tepid. So, two things comspired to create a dissappointing and dangerous method for eating soup. Serving French onion soup in a delicate bowl became problematic when trying to eat the cheese, because it takes a certain measure of force to cut cheese with a spoon when it has cooled. Pushing a spoon against the side of a crock won’t damage the bowl, and I feel reasonably safe doing it. Trying that same method on something thinner and more delicate unnerves me, because at any minute I expect the thing to shatter, spraying me with lukewarm cheese, onions and soggy baguette.

Safety issues aside, when cheese re-cools, it becomes tough, rubbery and flavorless, like chewing on a ball of caulk. That was a nice touch, being tasteless, because then the cheese did not compete with the soup, which had less flavor than an ice cube. It was so weak my roll got up from its side dish and beat the crap out of it. This faint mirage tasted like they boiled onion powder in brown water for about 20 minutes and indifferently threw fried onions from a can as an afterthought.

You’re probably thinking to yourself, “Why not just flag down the waiter and explain the problem. Delicately. Without acrimony, to avoid spitting in the new one.” I would have done that, and in the reserved manner you suggested, but we didn't see our waiter for about 15 minutes, so it would have sounded like this:

"How is your soup?"

"I don’t want to make a huge deal out of this, but, frankly, mine's cold, and I had to gnaw on the cheese for a while because it was rubbery like stale Hubba Bubba."

"Well, of course, it's been sitting in front of you for 15 minutes, you need to eat soup as soon as it arrives."

"No it was cold when I got it."

"Would you like me to bring you another bowl?"

And if I say yes, it will arrive at the same time as the entree, or they will have already made my entree and it will sit under a heat lamp until I choke down the next bowl they give me because it takes 10 minutes to make and 10 minutes to eat. And it's scalding hot this time because they want to make sure they get it right. No, no, there's no point in complaining about the soup.

Now, for the positive.

First, the bread is good.

It comes hard and crispy, with a nice springy texture in the center. It looks braided as they put it on the table, but it is actually individual rolls bound together. Each bun was tapered at the end, resulting in a slightly browned tip that had a nutty, pretzel-like aftertaste. I also have to give them credit on their butter, it was properly salted and spreadable. European butter is basically sweet cream, unsalted. Eurpopean butter is tasteless and waxy, like Anne Heche. I respect any French restaurant that serves salted butter. Accompanying the bread was a small ramakin of heated pistachios that were probably the best tasting pistachios I ever had. I will post at length about this anohter time, but nobody can ever underestimate the importance of salt, it is cruicial above all else to binding and extracting the flavor of food, without which taste could not exist. The pistachios were perfected because they were perfectly salted!


I ordered the trout amandine and Nayan had an endive salad. Not much to say about the salad, it was tossed carefully with the right amount of vinigarette. A bit light on the blue cheese, however, and the walnuts weren't as crispy or sweet as I am used to. Nayan liked it, so that's what is important.

My trout was pretty good. It was doused with a good amount of brown butter, the almonds were nice and salty, and the haricots verts didn't compete with the overall flavor. I scooped most of those over to Nayan. I like haricots verts, but there were a lot of them.

I'd have to say the highlight of the entree was a side of macaroni gratin. It came in a cast iron mini-casserole dish, nicely burned on top, with a creamy texture of cheese and cream that made a fluffy yet hearty bite.

All in all it was a nice experience, but it was almost marred beyond reproach with the onion soup. Sorry to seem so unforgivable, but as the old saying says “You can judge a civiliazation on how it treats its prisoners.” And you can judge a French restaurant by how good its onion soup is. Bouchon is competant, mostly attentive, inviting, but not spectacular.

Tale of Two Restaurants

We ate at Emeril's New Orleans Fish House for lunch today, and I have to say it was not bad, but remarkably different from the dinner menu. I guess I shouldn't complain, they didn't have a lunch menu the first few years we started going there. If you didn't secure a reservation two weeks in advance, you had less chance of getting a table as Robert Blake would be trying to get a seat at Rao's.

I had the littleneck clams and gumbo for an appetizer, crabcakes for entree. I know, why buy crabcakes when I derided them in an earlier post. I was curious. Nayan had the lobster bisque and a shimp remuloude salad. The clams were fresh and briny, but a bit hard to scrape out of the shell. The bisque was sweet and creamy with a solid weight that coated my tongue, allowing absorption of a great amount of flavor. It was spectacular, and I'm comparing it to the crab bisque at the Tommy Bahama Cafe in Maui, which was the best bowl I've had ever. More on that in another post. My gumbo was...dark and tasteless. For a celebrity chef known for bold flavors and not being afraid of overdosing his dishes with one particular ingredient or another, they were certainly frightened of salting it too much. It also had the color of black beans, which is almost purplish, which is not what a gumbo should look like. Well, that's my own conceit, everyone is free to make it anyway the please. Since I'm paying, however, I'll call the shots on this one. I needed Lot's wife to salt this stuff. The shrimp were the meak salad shrimp you thaw out that are nearly microscopic and waterlogged. They certainly didn't add any flavor to the gumbo.

My crabcakes weren't all that bad. Not huge by any measure, but the waitress told me they wouldn't be. They also didn't try to pass them off with euphamisms like "East Coast" or "Maryland" crab cakes. They were a different recipe, 100% crab, with a bread crumb crust. They were perfectly browned on the outside, and flavorful through and through. My only criticism was there wasn't enough remoulade on the plate. So, the artistic swirls were nice to look at, but ran out on my first crabcake. Not a huge deal, the cakes had enough flavor to carry the dish.

Nayan's salad was hearty and different. Can't say it was my favorite salad - I'm not a big salad eater to begin with - but the greens/dressing mixed well with the remoulade coated shrimp. Sometimes restaurants miss the mark by throwing two completely incompatible foods together (some kind of protein haphazardly spiked onto a plate of mesculin). This was thoughtful and complimentary and was quite enjoyable.

We didn't stay long, since this was more of a snack for us, but the crowd was loose and friendly. Hey, it's Vegas, so you are going to have a lively bunch having a good time, and sometimes, that makes the experience more than the food.

Lemongrass Chicken

This marinade is fattening, but you aren’t really eating the marinade. Make the night before an emulsion:

I will warn you this is a great, sweet exotic dish that requires the use of fish sauce (nuoc cham). Fish sauce is the most vile smell in the visible universe so I duly instruct people cooking or eating with it to not put your nose in the bottle. It is made from fermented anchovies, but is a vital ingredient in Vietnamese and some Thai food. When properly mixed and cooked, it imparts a great flavor so don’t be scared! I’m giving you this recipe because it is hands-down one of my faves, even if the ingredients are a bit difficult to find (unless you live near an Asian market).

‘Golden Boy’ or ‘Three Crab’ fish sauce (it comes in bottles)
Two stalks of lemongrass
Sugar
Soy
Thai chili peppers (optional)
Sesame oil

Again, eyeball this. Pour ¼ cut of fish sauce in the blender. ½ cup of soy. ½ cup of sugar. Chopped finely the white part of the lemongrass (finely!) and peppers. Buzz once or twice to mix. Taste. It should be balanced between sweet and salty, if not, add more sugar. Keep the blender on and slowly drizzle in the sesame oil, it should emulsify. You’ll put in a total of ½ cup to a cup depending. Taste. It should almost have a peanut buttery taste, good and sweet and NO DETECTION of fish sauce…but it’s on the back of your tongue…Cut your chicken into skewer sized pieces and marinade everything until the next day. Skewer and grill. The chicken should have a sweet, lemongrass exotic taste. If not, you screwed something up along the way and are an abject failure. Hang your head in shame.

Orange Simmered Pork Ribs

This is something I came up with a week ago. I've been crock-potting things lately, not because of the ease and convenience of doing so, but because of the infusion of flavor you achieve my simmering something for six to eight hours. This is a very simple preparation with rewarding payoff. You will need a crock pot.

2 lbs country pork ribs
1 carton of orange juice, no pulp
1 hand of ginger
6-8 cloves of garlic
1/2 cup soy
1 tablespoon coriander

Put everything in the crock pot and fill with orange juice until the meat is covered. Cover and set six hours on high or eight hours on low. The ribs will fall apart as you pull them out, if prepared properly. The taste is not overpowering, so I made an accompanying sauce.

Orange Vanilla sauce

The rest of the Orange Juice
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Keep an eye on the pot, as the orange juice reduces, the sugars will make it thicker and prone to overflowing. Keep simmering on low until you nappe the spoon. Nappe is when you dip the spoon and get a nice coat on the back. Keep in mind the more you reduce, the sweeter it will become, almost to the point of making an orange syrup more suitable for ice cream than ribs. Serve ribs and cover with a moderate amount of orange sauce, but not so much as to overpower it.

No Alex

I know I said I would be doing a review of the premier restaurant in the new Wynn resort in Las Vegas: Alex. Unfortunately, our refrigerator is on the fritz, so we have cancelled in lieu of a meal that doesn't require a small business loan. Expect a review of the all you can eat steak and shrimp buffet at Binions Horseshoe instead.

Ahh, Sweet, Smoky, Knob Creek

I am pensively sipping Knob Creek in that annoyingly pretentious way where one sips, holds the highball up to the light, watches the amber legs streak down from the rim, swirl, repeat. I’m particularly interested in concentrating on the complex banquet of flavors, caramel sweetness, background of earthy fragrance, hint of wood. It also fights for control of my central nervous system, which says "Stop! Stop! For the love of Christ, any more and I'll shut down and leave you staggering in an East LA drainage ditch.” I don't want to stumble into the infected, raging torrent of the Los Angeles River no matter how invincible Knob Creek makes me feel, so I put my glass down to write this.

Knob Creek is a small batch bourbon produced by the makers of Jim Beam. This is not the white-trash Jim Beam ripoff of the white-trash standard, Jack Daniels. The small batch collection is a truly distinctive line which includes Knob Creek, Booker’s, Baker’s and Basil Hayden. At $26-$33 a bottle, Knob Creek is the cheapest of the line, but does not at all detract from its rich, distinctive flavor.

Knob Creek is packaged differently than other burbons, utilizing a softened rectangular bottle, wax sealed, with a modern label, using bold fonts and earthtones to compliment the dark, gold tinged tan of the burbon. The nose is hearty, nutty and sweet, with overtones of burnt...well, I can't tell you. They don't specifically specify what type of wood barrels they age Knob Creek in, just that it is aged in bona fide wood. The site likens the taste to sweet fragrances infused with deep oak, so I'll assume oak barrels are used in the process.

Clocking in at a ham-fisted 100 proof, this is the second weakest burbon of the line. Bookers boasts a DUI inspiring 121-127 proof, being the only burbon drawn straight from the barrel to the bottle with no dillution or filtration. Knob Creek is aged nine years, which draws extra sugars from the barrels. Indeed, I have tasted each in the line, and Knob Creek is the smoothest and sweetest, despite its proof. It will make you draw a breath if you drink it straight, and you will feel a raw tingle, but it is much less pronounced than any poorly produced 80 proof liquor.

I drink it neat, but many prefer a splash of water or ice. Philosophically, I have never cut my liquor because I like the full impact of the flavor, which means I’m willing to put up with the full impact of the alcohol…but it is well worth it. If you’re not driving. Knob Creek pairs well with a smooth, Dominican Republic cigar, and is sweet enough to hold its own as an after dinner drink.

Birthday Extraveganza II

The other half of my birthday was celebrated Sunday with the food I didn't have time to cook Saturday, the highlight of which was a quarter pound slice of foie gras I got from Monsieur Marcel. I can't tell you if there are any other places in LA to buy this stuff besides the Bristol Farms on Beverly just west of the Bev Center. Previously, I ordered all my foie gras from D'artagnan, featuring foie gras from the Hudson Valley and other regions. It's sad, really, I have no addictions that I am aware of, except for foie gras.

Many will argue that foie gras is cultivated in a cruel and oppressive process, and I agree. Ducks and geese are force fed a mixture of corn-mash and milk until their livers expand to a sensual, buttery, two-thirds increase than that of a normal sized mallard. The resulting product is a silky, creamy delight that pairs well with fruit flavors on toast points.

Leave it to the French to abdicate any soverign pride to defend their country against totalitarian agressors, but still have enough time and collective focus as to figure out the inhumane production of this wonderful delicacy.

The foie gras was one component of a simple, yet rich, apres-anniversarie celebration. The entree was a buffalo New York strip steak.

Buying buffalo can be tricky to cook and buy, as is any range-raised bison. No matter what the cut, it will be devoid of marbling. Oh, eventually they will figure out a way to immobilize it like a veal, but for now, bison run free over the verdant fields of Ted Turner's infinite ranchland. He controls almost all of the bison raised in America.

Most game dishes suffer from this same limitation, if you could call it that. The very nature of a wild animal is it can roam and exercize, thereby staying fit and fat free. This has the effect of producting a meat with little or no fat running through the muscle. When dealing with a lean cut of meat, you are relegated to cooking it no more than medium or it will become a stiff puck of leathery rubber. Filet mignon is a perfect example. Prized for its tenderness, it has almost no flavor or fat. It is typically served with a sauce or compound butter, and cooked rare to medium-rare.

This is why I cherish buffalo and other game meats. They are tender, lean and overflowing with flavor. The strip cut of beef is one of the best textured, tastiest cuts of the steer, and likewise with buffalo.

Begin with a reputable market. I purchase almost all my premium meat from the Whole Foods in Glendale...it is the best Whole Foods in the LA area, and I will discuss that in further detail in another post. When cooking a game dish, you will need to take every measure to trap in the juices, so I recommend searing then grilling.


Start your grill to get the grates good and hot, but first you will sear it on a stovetop pan. Bring the pan up to a smoking, searing hot temperature. When you drizzle olive oil it should dance a bit and produce some smoke. Heavily salt your cut with kosher salt and fresh ground pepper. Drop in the pan, and don't shake or move it for a good minute. Flip. All we are accomplishing is searing the outside, we do not want to substantially cook it. If it is thick enough, sear the edges.

Pull off the fire and let rest a minute, then put on the grill. Grilling makes for pleasing lines, infusion of smoke and even cooking. Remember, cook it at maximum to medium, and even that is crossing the line. I would never go over medium-rare. Never poke your steak with a thermometer, it will let the juices run out. Instead, use the fist method. Make a fist like Senior Wenses. If you hold your thumb very loosely against the forefinger, with your other hand, poke the ball at the base of the forefinger and thumb. This is rare. If you poke the steak it should feel like that. Tighten your fist slightly. Feel the springy tension? That is medium. If you make a fist even harder, that is what well done will feel like. Eventually you will just know by poking (your finger) on the steak how done it is without resorting to a thermometer.

I cheated. There is no way I would ever have the time to make my own demi glas, so I had some prepackaged base, mixed with water which made a damn good demi. I mean, it is real demi, I'm just adding some water and heating it up. Demi glas is what you get when you make a veal stock and keep reducing it to about 10-20 percent of its original water content. It becomes a thick, brown, extremely delicious sauce that compliments any read meat.

That's it, simple and delicious. Medium-rare grilled buffalo strip steak with demi glas.

El Rincon, Culver City

Fairly or not, no discussion of Cuban food in Los Angeles can commence without the imperative comparison to The Versailles Juggernaut. El Rincon sets itself up right at the gaping maw of its formidible presence. Primarily serving Cuban favorites like chicken or pork in mojo, pressed Cuban sandwiches or several variations of Mariscos (seafoodz), they slyly offer a couple of non-Cuban dishes tucked away among the standards. One example is Saltado, which is traditionally a Peruvian preparation and has the fabulous juxtaposition of sauteed meat and vegetables in a flavorful brown sauce with the french fries mixed in the sautee. Leave it to the industrious South Americans to take separate components and combine them into one dish.

But, since this is about Cuban food, let's do what everyone else does. Ignore the restaurant being reviewed and draw imminent parallels to Versailles, and go on about Versailles food and pay very little attention to the fact that this is a review of El Rincon. El Rincon is very flavorful and a nice departure from Versailles, but the mojo comes in a distant second. It just isn't shocking enough. I know some of you might be put off with the over-the-top preparation of Versailles' mojo, with it's stinging citrus pucker and head-clearing garlic punch -but- like a dirty syringe of Mexican heroin that leaves you collapsed in a tooth gnashing fetal ball on the floor of a Tijuana bathhouse...over time you kind of get used to it. And want more. Each time it seems weaker and weaker, so you order extra mojo on the side, mojo on your fries, mojo on your plantains, mojo in your mojito. You find yourself hiding bottles of mojo surrepticiously around the house: in the toilet tank, behind the gas can in the garage, in the liquor cabinet, under your pillow. You say "I'll quit tomorrow, just one more bowl of fruit loops in mojo, and I'll be fine. Yeah, just something to get me through tonight, and I'll clean up my act tomorrow." How sad vices die hard.

Well, you won't have to worry about that at El Rincon because it is much lighter. Actually, if you are not familiar with Cuban food, it is a pretty nice introduction, since it won't knock your teeth out the first time you try it. The first bite I ever had at Versailles I didn't know what to think, but the second time I was hooked. I can't see that happening at El Rincon, so those of you who have extra sensitive tastebuds might find this a pleasant trial. The portion of chicken is slightly smaller, and it doesn't have that dark crisp or al dente crunch of skin that Versailles has, but it holds up well against the mojo and slices of onion that curl around it and add to the sharpness of the flavor. The chicken is fork-tender and moist, not just from the mojo, but the juices are nicely sealed in the meat.

The oxtail is a pleasant diversion, simmering for hours in a tomato based braise, augmented with flavors of pepper, onion and herbs, it is strongly flavorful like brisket without being overpowered by the sauce. Although its not good date food, the best way to eat these oxtails is to pick one up and eat it like corn on the cob...it falls off the bone, but would require a bit of utenislary prestidigitation to eat with a knife and fork, as each cut potentially launches the circular bone precipitously close to the person sitting across from you. It's the same challenge as spearing a grape tomato with a fork, only to have it pop out from under and arc gleefully in a random direction, onto a random table...and land right in a new bride's cleavage.

On its own, El Rincon is a competant restaurant that has an expansive menu, segregating its choices into pollo, bistec y mariscos. There are a few salads for vegetarians. Definitely a place worth checking out: affordable, friendly, plaintains cooked to sweet perfection, several beers to choose from...but it is Linux to Versailles' Windows. And like Microsoft, you may hate that Versailles is so pervasive and overwhelming the Cuban culinary landscape, but there is a reason for it.

Birthday Weekend Extraveganza Pt. I

It was a long, arduous weekend. Birthdays, for most people, revolve around doing nothing for yourself, recruiting friends and relatives into indentured servitude for a period of 24 hours, and relentlessly consuming food and drink on the one day even the most disapproving, finger-wagging shrew will let you off the hook for your otherwise unacceptable over-indulgences.

Not my birthday, however. Since my wife's birthday is the 27th, and mine is the 12th, it makes [financial] sense to consolidate the birthdays into one event. That can only mean one thing: Vegas, and one hell of an expensive meal. Link Gastrologica, because next week I will review Alex, the premier French restaurant in the Wynn, and one of the Top Five rated restaurants in Vegas.

This weekend I took care of all the catering. Let's start with Saturday night.

Um, what did I make? Oh yes, very simple, very classic...something that the west coast has not been truly exposed to in its proper incarnation. As much as Culinariati repping the Westside have tried to throw down some East Coast style, they horrifically and with unapologetic exuberance...miss the mark, tragically.

Call me a snob, but if I want a crabcake done right, I will make it myself. Now there are a fair variety of legitimate variations, but they all center on the absolute necessity of Blue Crab lump meat. Not Dungeness, nor Alaskan King or the pesky stone crab with it's one claw, or even the pervastive Alaskan King substitute, snow crab. Only a blue crab can be used for a Chesapeake style crabcake.

Blue crab is ubiquitous on the East coast, its habitat stretching along the entirety of the Atlantic coastline and Gulf of Mexico. Males are preferred if you’re sitting down to a stretch picnic table with the requisite mallet, Old Bay and vinegar. Chesapeake crabs are NOT served with butter. My old joke about why we eat crabs with Old Bay and vinegar is so you can feel where you cut your hands open after fustigating and shelling three hours worth of crabs. Vinegar will pinpoint your injuries with a painfully precise burn.

But I digress, I am talking about crabcakes, not the Maryland crab feast. Here is my recipe for crabcake, yours may vary:

1 lb lump blue crab meat
1 teaspoon mayo
2-3 dashes Worchestershire sauce
1 egg
½ cup bread crumbs
1 tablespoon Old Bay

Keep in mind –I will remind you for many of the initial recipes- I measure NOTHING, so these are all estimations. You should mix until the consistency and taste are correct (you’ll know when you hit it).

Mix all the ingredients except the egg. This way you can taste it as you’re mixing. I fear no raw egg, so I taste after the egg has impregnated the mixture (my dissertation on Caeser dressing later). When you slap into patties, it should hold together loosely, not rigid from bread crumbs. Do yourself a favor and put only enough bread crumbs in so as not to desiccate or overpower the crab. It makes me want to kill a man when I get a crabcake that is 70% filler and 30% crab. It’s called a crabcake, Shecky, not a breadcrumb cake.

So anyway, put the mix in the fridge for about 20 minutes to set up. As the time approaches, start melting ½ butter on medium high heat in an 8”-10” skillet…it doesn’t have to be non-stick, there will be plenty of butter. Remove the crabcake mix from the fridge, form into semi-thin patties (1/2 thick) and sautee. You want to brown them, not burn them, so keep an eye out.
It’s like a roux. One second it’s peanut butter color, the next minute its burnt flour flecks awash in a pool of brown butter. Good for skate, bad for crabcakes. Keep the heat medium-high, please.

Sautee for about 7 minutes, or until the right shade of brown. Flip. Cook the other side for about 3.5 minutes. The only component that has too cook is the egg, everything else is already cooked (including the crab, which is cooked and pasteurized).

What should I serve with it?

Plain, or with cocktail sauce (equal parts ketsup and prepared horseradish). That is traditional. If you want to throw a wrench in the cogs, make a chipotle aioli, which is garlic mayonnaise and chipotle sauce. Serve with a lemon wedge, although the only use for the wedge is to throw at the other members of your party, since no self respecting Chesapeake consumer would put lemon juice on a crabcake.

Yeah, I’m a snob, but I have a right to be. I was born and raised in Maryland, the regional definitive and last word on blue crab and crabcake.

I will certainly devote another article on west coast crabs, since Alaskan King and Dungeness are superlative… just not in a crabcake.

My Tiny Kitchen

I have a small kitchen and it doubles up as the laundry room. I live in Los Feliz, a suburb of Los Angeles that is a uniquely west coast mix of affluence and gang influence. It clings to the last spectral attitude typical in aging punk rockers, tattooed with the slogans of their disaffection. Because of this -or in spite of this- space is at a premium, so severe tradeoffs had to be negotiated by the developers. Built in 1924, my home wasn’t prepared for the ripple of development that endowed creativity into the design and personal interest in building techniques. Eighty one years of innovation have passed, nothing applied to my kitchen except a poorly conceived upgrade in 1976. Glazed maple trim compliments white plastic adorned particleboard cabinet doors. It looks like a cheap set from a John Waters movie.

Yet, I make the best of it. I bought a chopping block island from Ikea, engineered and designed during the Sterile but Functional era. Like, I’ve just described 95% of Ikea’s catalogue. Swedish ingenuity, designed and blended with a perfectly unremarkable landscape and architecture in mind. I put it smack in the middle of the kitchen to serve as a wood island and extra work surface. And mail collector. And car keys. By the weekend it has so much junk accumulated, it looks like a garbage barge headed to Islip.

It serves me well. Spartan, almost Soviet Bloc, my kitchen is as unsophisticated as a Rwandan mobile home. You see, you don’t need a Viking professional stove, or a fondue pot to cook and serve food properly. Fire is all you need, and the skill to control it. Or not. You can swirl a quick ceviche on a bowl for later consumption. Cure gravlax in the fridge. Make jerkey from a rattlesnake on the Smoky Joe.

My point is, you could be stuck with an acetylene torch and a slab of granite and still cook up a four star omlette. It all depends on how you use the tools at your disposal.

A Brand New Era

Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Steve Wasser. I'm actually an old-school blogger who wrote for a now failed and defunct blog called xDissent, which lampooned modern society and made up phony satirical news items. Just like the Onion.

But I have another hobby to supplement my pervasive derision. Cooking and eating. This blog, among with the millions of other food-oriented blogs, will focus on cooking, recipes, food history, restaurant reviews. I will provide this with a judicious injection of wit, smarm, warm humor and hopefully a truly beneficial focus on information you can use and enjoy.

Be assured, (this blog is only two hours old and certainly embryonic), that I will be making major changes, tweaks, biographies, repositories, RSS and ultimately launch my PodCast...which can wallow in anonymity and mediocrity with all the other low-valence, poorly recorded, contentless, vapid, babbling, triple-entendre sputtering shows recorded in a dorm bathroom on a ghetto blaster. However, I will strive to rise above that and give you something truly entertaining and informative. And rife with my brand of poorly received humor.

Seriously, I admire many of the bloggers and podcasters in the pod-o-blog-o'sphere who take the time and consideration to bring their hobbies and professions to readers like me and you. I have my standard list of must reads and must listens, and it really changes all the time. Some fall off, some become indespensible sources of entertainment and information.

Some background. I have no formal culinary training, I am a hobbyist who started cooking while in college, and have continued that tradition since. I am a tireless gourmand who has chosen between paying the gas bill and eating at a nice restaurant, and forwent heat for the remainder of the month with no regrets. My style embraces Asian, Southest Asian, Indian, Moroccan, Persian, North American, European and Jamaican. There is no food I won't eat at least once, nothing I won't try to make. Luckily, I've had more success than failure when I try new recipes, so in that I believe I have derived a real talent. Too bad I don't make my living doing it. I am friends with a few chefs, and will try to recruit at least one good friend to contribute to this site, he is executive chef at a country club.


Having said that, welcome to Gastrologica, and thank you for reading. With your help, I hope to be the universal juggernaut of culinary information, the Google of Food.