Pimm's Cup

I didn't take that picture. In fact, it was the best representation in Google Images I could find. You may never have heard of this British drink, a holdover from Carribbean and Indian colonization developed to be a refreshing, low alchohol drink to be enjoyed in the sweltering heat.

That is a common theme running through the pages and behind the mic of PWF. It has been unseasonably hot in LA, which usually enjoys moderate temperatures year round. Pimm's Cup is more often seen on the refined iron patio tables of New Orleans, a courtyard seat at Wimbledon, or a late summer cricket match. It is a refined, gentleman's drink.

Pimm's is an interesting liqueur. Invented by James Pimm in 1840, its base is gin, and it is enhanced by a myriad of aromatics and herbs that are a closely guarded secret. You do not normally drink Pimm's straight, as it has been compared to a cross between Robotussin and aromatic bitters, but when mixed with a light soda or lemonade, it makes for a great sipping or gulping cocktail.

A traditional Pimm's Cup is served in a tall, thin highball.
2 oz Pimm's No. 1,
3 oz of lemonade, 7-Up, or my favorite, ginger ale.
Garnish with a slice of cucumber (a must), mint and a fruit slice of some kind (optional). Yes, cucumber.

We discuss the Pimm's Cup briefly in the upcoming Spicy Food podcast, and I liken it to a mild curry flavor. I know it sounds odd, but the whole drink and tradition is an anomoly. No other drink I know of is garnished with a cucumber. So, for a unique and refreshing hot summer day drink, try a Pimm's Cup and see if the British are on to something.

Tom Yum! Kai

The beauty of living near Hollywood is the abundance of Thai food and Thai grocery stores. Thailand Plaza is home to Silom Supermarket, perhaps the most opulent facade that draws the eye immediately to the spires of Thai influenced architecture. Here can be found all the authentic ingredients to make the national soup of Thailand, Tom Yum. There are many variations of Tom Yum, but the two most popular are Tom Yum Kung and Tom Yum Kai.

Tonight I made Tom Yum Kai. Sure, I could order it from half a million Thai restaurants, but where would challenge be in that?

Here is my recipe, approximated:

2 cups chicken stock
3 cups water
6 kafir lime leaves
4 limes' worth of juice
4 chopped up thai chiles
5 strips of chopped ginger
1 pound shrimp
1 stalk of lemongrass
1 can of straw mushrooms
bunch of cilantro

If you can't find kafir lime leaves, the soup will never achieve the flavor of authentic Tom Yum, so they are very important.

Boil all the ingredients together except he shrimp. Chop the last third of the lemongrass into thin rounds before adding to the soup. I boiled everything for about 12 minutes to allow the flavors to develop. Salt to taste. Finally, put in the shrimp and turn off the heat. Let stand for 5 more minutes, the shrimp will cook. Serve everything, warning people not to eat the lemongrass or lime leaves. Shred a handfull of cilantro just before serving and throw it in the soup. Eat!

Great Restaurant Resource Sites

There's two particularly useful websites I've discovered. One is Open Table, which I have used for a long time, and the other is one I discovered last night called Menu Pix. Menu Pix looks to be new, I'm not sure how long they've been in existence, but they finally got one element of a geschtalt restaurant resource site right: they scanned in the menus.

How often did I lose a menu for a delivery place, or wanted to place a take out order ahead of time, but the restaurant either didn't offer take-away menus or I lost mine out of sheer negligence and stupidity. Of course, not every restaurant on the list will provide take out service, since almost all the restaurants in LA are reflected. Try to get foie gras three ways and grapefruit lobster take-out from Spago and I think you'll get laughed at and hung up on. However, you'll probably find a suprisingly large number of restaurants will accomodate a take out.

Menupix.com is still in its infancy, so there is a dearth of restaurant reviews. It is essentially structured like CitySearch, so it is not in direct competition to LA Food Writers, as our sites tend to offer pictures and more comprehensive reviews and experiences. Still, not a bad concept. I know I'll be using it.

The veteran OpenTable.com is a great concept in online reservation booking. It is directly tied into the reservation systems of the restaurants it serves, so you don't have to wonder if the reservation you made was fake, or if they'll honor it. It isn't, and they do. I like the convenience of use, plus, if there isn't a reservation for the time you want, it will show you a short schedule of other free times. There are also links to a restaurant description and, if the restaurant has it, a link to their website.

OpenTable offers a reader's-digest summary of all the fine points of the restaurant, plus links to external resources like gayot.com for reviews. They do not have user reviews, so you aren't bombarded with radically varying opinions. That is one of the infuriating aspects of CitySearch, although no fault of their own. Invariably, someone will have a rotten time, and throw a bomb in the form of a bad review that skews the opinions of the majority. This is unreliable because you're more motivated to run home and write a terrible review of a restaurant while you're on fire about the experience than you are likely to write a good review about a stellar performance.

Opentable also has a point system, so you can earn credits towards discount cheques the more you make reservations through them. One word of warning, if you can't make it, cancel your reservation. Opentable will ban you after so many no-shows. In fact, do this always. Restaurants would much rather you call and cancel, even if it is five minutes before you're supposed to be there, than to not call at all.

So, check them out and take advantage of them, menupix.com and opentable.com. Just two of the valuable restaurant oriented websites serving the nation and LA.

This post was sponsored by menupix.com and opentable.com...I'm kidding.

Contratulations Chili Cookoff Winner!

Congratulations to Jeff Fortin for submitting a decisively original chili recipe. This earned him the distinction as the Winner of the Gastro/PWF Chili Cookoff. I would also like to thank other worthy submissions from Shawn, Monica, Tim, Kathy and Barbara, all of whom made the final cut, and therefore, the decision quite difficult.

As we joked about in the 'cast, with all the F-You Jeff's we throw around, you might think we were biased but, in fact, this had such a bold flavor and the addition of optional items, that it really had a hearty presence coupled with a nice heat. As with everything, it's all subjective (we hate beans, for instance, but didn't count that against anyone).

Let me quickly talk about heat, since our name is Playing With Fire. I have never had a bowl of insanely hot chili. I think it would detract from the flavor and enjoyment. As with everything, heat can be adjusted for the pleasure of the consumer. I prefer a nice, moderate heat that is not overpowering. This allows the consumer to add more pepper if they really want to blow their heads off.

With that introduction, here is Jeff's Chili Recipe. Hopefully you'll like it as much as we did.

--------------------------

2lbs ground chuck or round (or turkey if you must)
1 onion, chopped (I use Vidalia)
6 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 yellow/orange bell pepper, chopped
1 can of Kidney Beans
1 can Great Northern or Canelinni Beans
1 can of black beans
1 can of Hominy (white or yellow)
3 -4 tbs Ancho chili powder
2 teaspoons Penzey's Adobo seasoning (cumin would work here)[ed note, we used cumin]
1 tsp Mexican Oregano, crushed between your fingers.
3 cans of diced tomatos
1-2 Jalapenos, finely chopped
1 tbs or so of Chopped Chipotles in Adobo
1 small can of those chopped mild green chili peppers (if I have time I will char some poblanos on the grill, let cool in a plastic bag, then remove the skin and seeds, and chop and use them)
1 bottle of dark beer. I use a local micro brew like Leinienkugels Creamy Dark, Sprecher Black Bavarian, or Lakefront Eastside Dark but you could sub Newcastle or a microbrew like Deschutes Obsidian or Black Butte. [ed note, I have a ket of Sam Adams, that's what we used]

I tend to use Goya brand beans as I think they taste better than most others, though with all of the other shit in here the taste isn't really going to be noticed.
Kosher salt and pepper to taste. Also, you will likley need to add more chili powder, cumin, or other spices as you cook.

-Cook the meat in a large pot, seasoning with some chili powder, cumin, salt, and pepper. When browned dump into a bowl and set aside for now.
-Sautee onions and bell peppers in some oil in the pot when they start to become translucent, add the chopped Jalapeno and the garlic and sautee for another minute or so.
-Dump in Ancho powder and Cumin or Adobo to coat everything. Cook for a minute or so making sure the stuff doesn't burn.
-Dump in the rest of the ingredients and return the meat to the pot.
-Cover and let simmer for about 45 min to an hour. Remove cover and let some of the liquid cook off until the chili is at your desired consistency. Adjust seasoning if needed.

Provide chopped cilantro, onions, sour cream or Mexican Crema, queso fresco (Mexican Crumbling Cheese) and limes as a garnish. I serve a bunch of hot sauces on the side. A friend of mine makes his own ( www.mbfsauces.com) and I have a collection of others. I prefer to let others choose the heat level because most people I associate with are pussies when it comes to heat. If I was making this for myself, that Jalapeno would be replaced with a nice Habanero.

-------------------------------

Yeah, pussies. It's true, though. What I think is hot and what others can tolerate is vastly different. Still, our thinking is alike, make it moderately hot and let the eater notch it up.

Tender Greens

Culver City is rapidly becoming the new restaurant row of Los Angeles. Sony Pictures creates a huge gravity well with which to lure restauranteurs hoping to find a trendy location, that has both a strong lunch and dinner crowd. So enters Tender Greens into the mix.

Tender Greens has been around since, well, Friday. We were literally the first few customers they served, having opened two hours previous. So, opening day jitters, inefficiency, and mistakes are a given. It is miraculous how many people don't realize that, as I listened to numerous crochety old women wheezing about the wait, long line, and how they would never step foot inside the restaurant again. This was even after someone told them they had only been open two hours.

Like its neighbor next door, Ford's Filling Station it has a light, woody and breezy atmosphere. Lighter cast in the palette than Ford's, it also strikes some more modern notes.

The food and marketing philosophy are not my favorite. Tender Greens philosophy is based on large, satisfying salads sourced from hand-picked, organic farms. So, right away you have the words "salad" and "organic" flapping a big red flag in my face.

The line was excrutiating, but it was presided over by a hot chick, so that made the wait pleasant for a time. I was also with some co-workers, so we were able to BS for the twenty minutes we stood there. Yes, inefficiency marked the afternoon, mostly because of the unexpectedly huge turnout. I had received no less than two emails about the opening, so there was already a buzz about the place.



Everything is prepared in an open environment, so the kitchen staff has to be fast, efficient and on their best behavior. That's a serious detraction to a kitchen. It's much easier to handle a lunch rush behind closed doors when you can have the freedom of telling the stupid customers off because they want to make changes or additions (re: What Chef Dan Says about 'On The Side'). I commend them for doing the best they could in a difficult situation. It also made me question the logic of opening a restaurant on a Friday, but it might be to get the kinks out over the weekend for the first full work-week.

Nonetheless, they do offer four sanwiches, and I went for the flatiron Angus steak sandwich with a side of caeser. They also offer free range chicken and line caught Ahi sandwiches. More feely-good keywords, but whatever, as long as its good. All others ordered salads.



The salads are substantial, you can get them with any of the meat components. The biggest gripe was that they didn't give enough leafy material, and they kept it mostly uncut. Most of the people I went with wish they had chopped it a bit finer, and gave more roughage. Fair enough.



There must be Orcs nearby, because the silverware is glowing blue.

My sandwich was very good, and it sidestepped the problem often found in thick-cut steak sandwiches that make it impossible to chew all the way through the meat before pulling out the entire chunk. The steak was medium-rare and tender enough that I cut through it with my teeth effortlessly. Nice job! That is the first steak sandwich I had that I didn't ultimately have to deconstruct to eat with my knife and fork.



For a place that specializes in salads, the caeser was a bit weak. Again, I can only evaluate Tender Greens on the merit of having only been open for a couple of hours, I am sure they will assimilate all the feedback and improve the product and kitchen chreography.

As I said, the biggest gripe with the food was the need for more greens in the warm salads. In fact, we had waited in line so long, that by the time we got to pay, one of the people's ahi salads had been sitting there for the whole time (probably someone earlier changed their mind). She had them make a fresh one, which added even more time.

Overall, this place is pretty good. They will be popular among the Whole Foods Hippy Crowd, that's for sure. They also offer enough Man-Food to entice me to come back and try some new stuff. Oh, of course, they are pricy. Organic food (remember what I said about organic being latin for 40% markup) dictates that a simple sandwich, lemonade and 20 grams of side-salad equalled $13.

One more thing that Los Angelenos may be put off by, is Mr. Bada Bing. He's clearly an old-school showman, probably from Jersey or Philly. He was working the room, making sure everyone was ok. Very exhuberant and outgoing, and that will scare the LA crowd. Back East, friendly and gregarious staff is the norm, out here, it is decisevly frightening to the uninitiated. I could see the old hags cringing when he'd try to get the whole room to say "Bada Bing." But that's their fault, not his.

Low Brow Vegas

You think every time I go to Vegas I'm tossing down for expensive Robuchon and Fleur de Lys, but that ain't the case.



This behemoth comes courtesy of Nathan's, the hot dog stand. I really had no idea Nathan's offered anything but large dogs, but they had a wide variety of food -boardwalk food- that turned out to be awesome. At first, I thought the $7.95 was the Vegas jacked up price, but I barely made it through a half of this sandwich, easily benchmarking its deleterious effects on heath on the same level of a Bennigan's Monte Cristo.



The chili cheese fries had a great taste. Cheese as a condiment can be tasteless and neon orange, but the taste lived up to the intense color. They even give you a little devil pitchfork to stab and retrieve the fries.

Luxor. Like a big, inverted case of vertigo. They placed us up where air is thin and air conditioning was weaker than I paid for. It was a cool room, and even though the last third was sheared off on the bias, I'm short, so the room actually appeared larger.



This is a dizzying angle you would see if you were actually there, and had what I had to drink. Which is some.

Now, over to Rio. Buffets are the cultural landmark of Vegas. There is admittedly two strata of dining: buffets and restaurants. Depending on where you are and what you are doing, either one is appropriate and enjoyable.



The only thing that attracts me to Rio is the seafood buffet. Not the Pan-World Buffet of gluttonous consumption, but the Fisherman's Village seafood buffet.

I've always been a bit ambivalent about the quality of the food here, but this time it was very good. The sushi was edible (think, Todai, which can be completely inedible). Poor quality salmon has the tendency to morph the buttery fat into tough tendrils, but this almost melted in my mouth. I'm not going overboard, it's not the best sushi in the world, but for a seafood buffet specializing in crab legs and fried everything, it's not a bad effort.



Your eyes are not deciving you. These are lobster tails. Sure, they're slipper tails which don't have the sweet quality of a Maine lobster, and they're a bit smaller, but I haven't ever been to another seafood buffet that even offered them.



Of course, they had the standard non-seafood offerings (filler material). Unexciting and pedestrian, most were deep fried, bread stuffed, oversauced, boiled or lackadaisically steamed. The ribs were an exception. Falling off the bone and perfectly coated and colored, they reminded me of the most competent Korean short ribs I've had.

So, lowbrow Vegas has some merit. Can't always blow a ton of money on dinner, since I have that earmarked for table games.

2nd Annual Podcast Awards Open July 1

If you want our undying gratitude and eternal apprciation, please stop by The Podcast Awards July 1st or after, and throw us a vote, or a million votes.

Help bring Gastrologica and Playing With Fire to a wider audience, so we can inform them about food and corrupt them with our questionable taste!

New Gastrologica and Playing With Fire Show

This week, I recap with Dan my Jamaica trip, which coincides with the article below. Don't forget, if you have a last minute Chili recipe you'd like to send in, get it in now, although technically the contest is closed because we're going to be making the entries this week. But if you get us one in the next day or so, we'll include it in consideration.

I hate to break the news to you but we're going light in next week's episode. We'll be going over salads, soups and drupes. Drupes are stone fruits like peaches and cherries. Sorry guys, but this man has to go on a diet, and its been so hot lately, that I'm not really in the mood for heavy food. You could probably drop a couple of pounds yourself.

Pride and Poverty

The Arrival

It's a cliche, but Jamaica is a land of vibrant contrast. I wasn't sure what to expect other than tropical breezes and clear water, and whatever pictures I saw on the website. The CIA Factbook breaks down political and economic conditions, but doesn't paint a vivid picture. That's not what the CIA is known for anymore.

So, I was ambivalent when we made our final descent into Sangster International. I got my first glimpse of the distressed municipal infrastructure and housing that peered over the hillside. The people who lived there endured the full cacophanic and visual assault of an endless flotilla of international flights carrying the sina qua non of their economy.

I was shocked at how uninformed I was about the general economic distress of this beautiful island. It is a poor economy was reflected by the state of the airport itself. Outside porters, taxi drivers, and 'guides' squeeze tourists for a quick hustle, in the hopes of wrangling a few Jamaican dollars for the day.

I was finishing my third or fourth Red Stripe at a makeshift Margaritaville stand when the rest of our party showed up. Flight delays, customs, and just the general inefficiency of airlines pushed them back an hour or so.

Alex and Olga, with new baby and a warehouse full of baby accessories, converged with Brian and Oksana, the other couple we'd be staying with. So there we all were, ready to go, with 36,000 pounds of luggage between us.

Ricardo, our driver, helped stave off the wave of taxi drivers and porters as we wrestled our gear to the curb. Ricardo threw luggage like he was a professional shot-putter and master Jenga player. He managed to twist, place, rearrange, fold and shift all the luggage into the van, leaving enough room for seven grown adults and a baby.

Traffic laws, if there are any, are mostly suggestion and innuendo. It has been supplanted by an unwritten code by which people pass on blind curves with a quick honk to alert the passee they are about to take their life in their hands. Quick cuts right or left to avoid potholes while avoiding an oncoming truck are typical and routine. I wasn't even fazed by driving on the left side, I was just amazed I didn't see more fatal accidents during my stay.

Our trip took about an hour, bobbing and weaving down angry serpentine mountain roads, pockmarked by neglect and underfunding. I like roller coaster rides so it was an adventure for me, and the hope is the scenery will distract any passenger that their van almost went off the side of the road, or careened head on into another van.

I could have easily just written about food, threw up some close-up pictures of jerk chicken, but I would have been robbing the readers of the context the food was prepared and eaten. It would have ignored completely the stark and sometimes shocking contrast between the lifestyle a tourist leads and the existence Jamaicans lead.

A quick history reveals the same hardship that many ex-colonial islands endure. An industrialized nation [Britain] claims it for themselves, they annex the land, import slaves to run the plantations, slaves fight for their freedom, the colonials negotiate independence and leave, and the now free people need to pick up the pieces of an abandonded government and create a new economy. It is from this poverty and relative scant education for the early free slaves from which the culture, traditions and cuisine evolve.

What a lovely, isolated nook of Jamaica. Water lapping on our own private beach. Casually overcast skies to keep the direct nuclear blast furnace from searing my forehead and broasting my flaccid pecs. What a great combination of illuminating people, environment, tropical heat, sunlight. Makes a guy thirsty, and you know what that means: dysentery. Emerging economies' greatest natural export to the industrialized world.

In my introductory piece, you were acquainted with Harry, the house chef. He was one of many attentive staffers that made our stay relaxing and fulfilling. In fact, it was getting to know these guys, and the people around this part of the island, that I started to feel a bit ashamed of my perception of the economic divide between the tourists and Jamaicans.

I was initially uneasy having everything done for me. Even though we paid for an all inclusive villa, I felt embarassed about the luxury I was indulging. True, the staff are comforably paid, and work in a great environment, but directly outside our gate was the oppressive poverty, and that made it hard to ignore.

But that didn't stop us from having a good time. Indeed, to understand Jamaicans is to embrace their unrepressed pride and cheerfullness. As the week wore on, I felt embarrassed again, not because I was the 'wealthy' American tourist who flaunted his money. It was because I was stuipidly applying the socio-economic bullshit of my own country, to a people that didn't even care about the same things.

Sure, people are poor. Many live in shacks with no running water or electricity. Ask any one of them, they'd all like more money to feed their family, or fix the car. But none of them were ready to pick up and move to America. The people I talked to loved the simplicity of life, the lack of a rat-race. They are content to live the way they live, and are not eager to change that. In Jamaica, there's no keeping up with the Jonses...the Jonses' shack has a busted tin roof also. So they help them out.

I also didn't detect any resentment against tourists. I'm sure there is, but in Hawaii it was blatant. When we drove through Hino on the Big Island, we were openly cursed and threatened. They did NOT want mainlanders, they did NOT want to be part of America. In Jamaica, none of that mattered. People live their lives, and they live them fully, and they are happy to share that with tourists.

The Stay



The grounds boasted a Colonial style Mansion with wide-open, breezy rooms. Elegently decorated with British influnced furniture and artwork, it was truly a retreat to another time and another place.

Each day had in store for us three solid meals, and occassional snacks and drinks. I did my fair share of resting and sleeping in, mostly from fatigue, so I missed every breakfast but one.



Right. The first picture you see of my trip of Jamaica is an omlette. Nothing spectacular there. Well, it was a damn good omlette. The salient piece of information missing from the picture is that I could have ordered anything I wanted within reason. No fried alligator, but any fruit, eggs, meat, cheese done any way I wanted. So, if I wanted bacon wrapped mango, stuffed with cheese and deep fried....Damnit, I could have ordered that.



Even breakfast was as ornate as the dinner table.

We spent most of our time hanging on 'the island,' a little cement patio perched about thirty feet offshore, accessed by a concrete bridge with no side rails. Kind of like the one Gandalf fell down battling Balron at Barad Dur.



One of our party would not cross unaided, and I can see why. The water rushing underneath does create an effect of movement, and it could be disconcerting to someone who is prone to vertigo. I just had a hard enough time crossing after an evening of heavy drinking.



For that is what you do on the island. Drink, lay out, or swing in the hammock. I swung in the hammock mostly.



Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking. Drinking.



Then you end up like I do here. And I felt that way, too.



The picures of food are why you come here, right?

Due to the dim lighting most nights, there were only a few dinner pictures I captured, every picture oversaturated with an orangish hue.



The dinner table looked exquisite every night, crowned with bougainvillea flowers.



We did a few excursions because I was getting a bit sir-crazy about halfway through. The combination of resting and doing damn near next to nothing except drink myself to death, motivated us to ask Ricardo if he knew of any hikes. 'No Problem' and we were on a hike.



It was a very cool ecological tour, where we were led up the mountain not too far from our villa, and learned about local uses for various plants (not weed, I know what you're thinking), and a history of Jamaica. Our guide was very knowledgable and friendly. We hiked about 2 hours or so, and got some spectacular views.



Dinner tonight?

We were pretty far up in the hills, and the houses were built perched on just about anything. Sacks of sand, mounds of dirt.



The story about this shack was the lady left a week ago, and hadn't been around. Sometimes people just abandon their houses and move somewhere else. I can't understand why, it had a spectacular view.



Here, our guide was telling us about one of the local residents, and how he produces the pimenta for sale. There are outdoor slabs of concrete that are heated by a wood fire, the pimenta are spread all over the flat surface and left to dry and brown for a few days. This is his indoor grill house.



Jerk Chicken Interlude!

Over at The Treehouse, a common eating house for all the Villas, is perched on a hillside overlooking the ocean with a tiny private beach. We used the facility twice, once for a get together and one for James' Jerk Chicken Lunch. Even though I was nearly doubled over in pain, I didn't want to miss this one. Since I hadn't eaten the day before (talk about squandered opportunity...), I was determined not to miss this. It was fantastic



Spiced well with pimenta, and smoked with pimenta wood, it had the most intense smoky flavor perfumed with the scents of allspice. Allspice is the English word for pimenta, of which they use the entire tree. The berries become allspice, the leaves are used to perfume water for cooking and marinading, and the wood is used to cook jerk anything. That's why it will never be as intense if I make it, we don't have the wood here.



I had jerk a few times on the island, James' was definitely the best. He shared some cooking techniques with me, and I already took a shot at making some chicken this week.



As good as that was, Harry's cooking kept us more than sated the whole week. Every dinner was preceded with a rather hearty soup. All were accompanied by a thick slice of garlic toast. Can you see the garlic chunks on there?



Here is an example of a lunch: Sesame Chicken.



This is a fish pot pie, very hearty.



Here are two appetizers they served us:





As you can see, it was a week of indugences. I wish I could have indulged more, but it was actually a good idea to cut down on my eating if I was doing this much relaxing. We did to a very interesting Tree Canopy tour, which is not for the faint hearted. You wear a harness that attaches to two pulleys. They hitch your pulleys to long cables traversing ravenes, rivers, hills, from one treetop to another. You are zipping down these lines, floating hundreds of feet over the ground, with just a two-inch teather between you and your carcass strewn across the jungle floor. Real exhilirating.

Even the dogs ate well. Starfish was the special de la dia.

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New Show: Who's Dissing LA?

How could it be possible, you ask yourself, that LA is nearly completely overlooked as a culinary destination? We believe LA isn't just overlooked, it is actively pissed upon. Say you live in Los Angeles, the first and only restaurant that enters conversation from an outsider is Spago. Usually mispronounced Spago's as if his name were Wolfgang Spago. Everything else evokes a snobbish eye-roll, snide muttering, or offhand dismissal.

We don't really go into the background or reasoning for the dismissive attitude from non-Angelenos. In fact, we pin the blame squarely on East coasters while erroneously ignoring the greater diatribes sneezed down from San Franciscans. Eyes roll out of their sockets and float away from Northern Californians.

Nevertheless, Dan and I staunchly prostheletyze the merits of LA, as I always have in my writing here. We are continental, but LA-centric.

Like Las Vegas, Los Angeles was once home to itinerant chefs and flash-in-the-pan restaurants. Hollywood shrines like the Brown Derby and Chasen's have long since turned to piles of twisted metal and dust. The only Derby left, one mile from my house, is scheduled to be demolished, ending the last gasps of a faded dynasty.

LA has a funny reputation, by way of Old Hollywood, as being a phony glitzed-out facade while simultaneously creating some of the worlds strongest food trends. California Cuisine, created by Michael McCarty of Michael's, changed dining in the 80's. The 20's gave us the Cobb Salad (from the aforementioned Derby). Celebs travelling back from Tijuana, back when there was something worthwhile to see besides a donkey show, introduced the caeser salad. Adding avocado to anything is deemed uniquely LA. The french dip was invented here. Asian fusion began in Southern California.

The list goes on, but you get the picture. Los Angeles is the future of food. It is happening right now, right here.

Culinary Tour of Jamaica

Dateline Bluefield Bay.

It is just as you would imagine: palms wafing serenely in the breeze, reggae playing on the speakers by the gazebo, me fretting for an internet connection. I lasted about two days before I felt too cut off from the world, but fortuitously, they had been planning on wiring up the house with DSL, and luckily enough, I just happen to know what I'm doing. So I got them set up, and I'm now by the pool writing this.

Everything here is catered and available. Upon our arrival from 14 hours of flying, our journey was punctuated with a harrowing bus ride to the south side of the island.

In the capable hands of Ricardo we felt perfectly safe, or maybe it was the politeness that accompanied the harried and random traffic patterns. I would have shot someone in LA for doing some of the maneuvers, but here, they just dodge and weave around each other with no measure of tension or malice, so it's cool.

Traffic laws, if there are any, are more of a suggestion than a law, per se. Therefore, what would normally take 45 minutes around narrow, deteriorating mountain roads, took about an hour in the avoidance of people, broken down cars, goats and other livestock.

We were greeted with coolers on every flat surface filled with Red Stripe and ginger ale. Booze and mixers were in every corner. It is my kind of paradise. Except the Jimmy Buffet, I hate Jimmy Buffet.



Two platters were promptly delivered to us, one hosting deep fried kettle chips and the other smoked marlin on toast.





The smoked marlin was marinated in a raw garlic sauce, which gave it a nice barb on the tongue. Garlic has a natural heat that cooks off fairly quickly when heated, but this seemed like a good pressing of it.







Meet Harry, our chef for the week. He is an enormously talented chef pulling on years of working with local produce and close kept recipes. Actually, he is very accomodating, and has really filled me in with a lot of serious information.



This is just a quick introductory piece, I'll summarize our menus in the next article, but I wanted to give you a flavor of what's going on as it's happening.

Maybe, Maybe Not.

Going on vacation for to sunny Jamaica. I'm not sure what connectivity might be like, so you may or may not see posts this next week. Bummer for you.

The new Playing With Fire/Gastrologica dropped last night, devoted to temperance. The next show will probably drop next Sunday or Monday, and is devoted to LA being an underrated culinary destination.

Have a great time everybody, I know I will!!

peruvian paradise

i am fed up.

i lost this very article three times because blogger, chump programming that it is, doesn't save a backup every so often. after the third time my computer rebooted i gave up and decided to wait until today

these words have now been repeated for the fourth time

this was a forgotten promised land, a refreshing oasis in the middle of noe valley which i found out rhymes with joey. it is one valley south of rainbow beflagged castro valley.

san francisco has lots of pockets and even more good food. you can land in a gutter and find a four star michelin restaurant lying around in the muck. here is a great place called fresca peruvian.

ive eaten tons of peruvian and i assure you it is not healthy which makes it great, which is why i eat tons of it. the best part about peruvian food is their unabashed love for including french fries right into the stir fry aka saltado. saltado is almost a national dish next to cocaine. peruvian food generally adheres to the same guidelines as other native/peasant food in that you find the same sort of dishes in every restaurant of that respective culture. fresca was a departure, and not a bad one

i was worried that being san fran and having the name fresca, it would be dainty. so i committed myself to a variety of tapas, assuming tapas portions

boy was i wrong

i over ordered, and was greeted with a procession of delicious food i couldn't finish toward the end



not a bad start, rich and hearty these rolls got things started off right.

the space is light and airy by the way, and why not? in a city that is wracked with the blanketed pall of fog, all the light you can get is envigorating.



so i commence to ordering a few fresh seafood nibbles. littleneck clam. kumamoto oyster. giant prawn.



briney and sharp, this little guy packs a lot of flavor in its tiny bivalve.



larger than most, but not too large, a healthy dash of tobasco and mignonette will help the heat on that

then i dumbly ordered ceviche...



but not before the prawns came to roost. spicy rocoto pepper aioli on the side

remember the peruvians do nothing small, think machu picchu

i should have remembered the huge bowls of parihuela or the heaping mound of rice that accompanies an ample field of saltato /which already has french fries mixed into it remember\ two starches. TWO starches. they live on the edge.

one thing that was missing is the ubiquitous aji sauce, which is americanized of course. who cares. there should be no stigma | this is america sort of



yah peruvian ceviche is hulking and intimidating. not a pile of delicate fish like mexico or spain but thick cuts of halibut and chunks of vegetables. but i didn't see this when i ordered it so i have yet another dish coming

POST APOCALYPTIC MUSIC BREAK



sinatra.anne murray. neil diamond. no pan flutes. no andean music. no incan influence.

now im full but a whole tower of food is approaching. meanwhile, she ordered tequenos which is a peruvian version of crab rangoon only better and more substantial.



and here is my whatever it is.



straight from the menu %Causa, aka the WTF?!? peruvian pepper infused mashed potato filled iwth ahi tuna, smoked trout tartar, avocado and rocoto aioli

wow

that is a stack of starch with fish tucked into it

oh for the love of jesus, i ordered another thing and dont forget this is a day after the french laundry so i am already sort of full



Mmmmmussels known locally as choros al vapor. and boy did i get the vapors.

it was all good, tasty, fresh and filling. i was wrong to think that a nimble joint in noe would only offer dainty flecks of food. if its peruvian it is filling. we had a few more hours of scrambling around hillsides before making the arduous journey back to la, so it was a perfect respite before trekking out