Akbar Cuisine of India

Akbar takes Indian food to a slightly different level. While they offer favorite standards like chicken tikka masala and lamb vindaloo, they also offer invigorating twists like pepper lamb and a dish I can't remember, but it was lamb simmered in a lemon sauce.

If you're image of an Indian restaurant is smudged tablecloths, stark surroundings, cracked pictures of the Taj Majal and devoid of any other human life, you'll like the lively atmosphere of Akbar. I think they were the first to catch on that Indian food shouldn't be relegated to semi-fast food and pitiful surroundings. While the space isn't luxurious, it makes a good effort at pulling Indian into a decent, modern style.

I'd like to tell you about the pepper lamb, since I seem to be the only person to enjoy it, or perhaps, ever eaten it. It is so hot, the waiter will profoundly disapprove, and employing the Rabbinical tradition of conversion to Judism, will try to talk you out of it at least three times.

Let him. The dish is not for you. It is for me. Eating the pepper lamb is like eating a live dragon dredged through the surface of the sun. It is hotter than Christina Aguilera's ass. It is sadism manifested on a plate, masochism for the consumer who enjoys it. As I say, Taste The Pain. It is a sucker punch of fresh simmered lamb, generously coated in a sauce prepared with five different types of peppers. Most people just taste the pain, but I can pick off the subtle differences in the peppers, some thai chilies, a bit of jalapeno, some green peppercorns. It is a spiked boot kick to the groin and a searing hot rite of passage. I've eaten a lot of hot, and I've never eaten anything hotter. I don't usually like hot for hot's sake, but I really find the sauce refreshing and flavorful. You will not. Heed the waiter's advice if you're stupid enough to try to impress your date by ordering it.

I commend them for offering it, though, it takes a lot of guts to put something on the menu you have no intention of anyone realistically ordering.

The naan bread is generous and flavorful. Their chutneys are spiked with exotic flavors. The samosas are dense and qualify as their own meal.

The flavors here are mature and complex, yet this is an Indian restaurant, so they don't hold back on the curry, and they don't Americanize it. They merely accentuate an already good thing. So far, Akbar is the best Indian food I've had in the city.

New Show Dropped

Three guesses what the topic of this show is. Let's see...I had the aforementioned tasting with Anheuser Busch. I love beer. Dan loves beer. Beer has contributed to every Gastrologica since its inception.

You got it: Beer. While I do focus on recaping the event, we throw out all kinds of ideas and thought about different beers and different flavors. As you might imagine, this is one of our longest shows ever. Enjoy!

Yes, a little free beer and cheese and I'm shilling for a beer company, go figure.

An Evening With Anheuser Busch

* WARNING * WARNING * WARNING*
****THIS MEAL WAS COMPED****

Why on earth Anheuser Bush doesn't market some of its experimental, gift pack, and microbrew beers is beyond me. Well, I do know the answer to that, The King of Beers is exactly that, the largest brewer of beer in the world. No doubt Budweiser and Busch has a huge stadium and NASCAR following. Regular Budweiser isn't my favorite, although their Light is OK. Obviously, their standard beer has widespread appeal, so why mess with that? You sell more Volkswagons than Ferraris.



Nevertheless Budweiser does, admittedly, have a 'standard American beer taste' which is a polite way of saying its light on flavor. In fact, I'm a big Tecate fan for everyday drinking, so that's not too far off the mark when you want to grab a quick, cold brew on a hot day. Whereas I roll with a beer snob crowd, the fact is the average guy just wants to get loaded on something drinkable and refreshing.

So, when a rep from Anheuser Busch contacted me about a beer and cheese pairing, I was a tad skeptical, but all over it like white on rice...which is an ingredient in Budweiser.

The event was held at the sleek Mondrian on Sunset Strip, so they knew how to throw a party in style. Let's face it, AB has plenty of money to throw around, and lucky for us! We were the first ones to arrive in a penthouse room that was set up with a banquet table full of beer and cheese.

So, while we were waiting for other food writers to arrive, we chatted with George Reisch , Jaques Haeringer, and Javier I Don't Know His Last Name. George and Javier are brewmasters, and Jaques turned out to be chef-owner of a restaurant we've eaten at many times, Washington DC-renowned L'Auberge Chez Francois, so it was a real cool coincidence to meet him.



George is what I would call a Beer Evangelist, so I can respect this guy. The tasting centered around five beers and five cheeses, with several accompaniments to make sure we didn't get too tanked. George led the evening with his passionate talk about beer and tasting beer, and while he represents AB, he clearly showed a passion for all beer.



Jaques positioned himself a the head of the table, which is his rightful place because he makes a great master of ceremonies. Quite a character, and very interesting to talk to.

So, that sets up the scene. There were about five couples who showed up, connecting to LA foodwriting in some fashion or another. I'll impart to you what I learned about tasting beer, because there is a technique brewmasters use.

Each beer came with a different style glass to reflects its particular flavor characteristic. You pour the beer into the middle of the glass to produce a head, he explained, because bottled beer has a higher carbon dioxide concentration than keg beer. This allows for the release of some of the gas, so you don't feel bloated while drinking. The prefered temperature to serve is between 40 and 50 degrees.

Fill the glass halfway, then tilt the glass at a 90 degree angle and roll. This helps dissipate the head a bit. Of course I got rambunctious and filled my glass all the way, cause I likes drinkin'. You sniff the glass, then take a drink, allowing it to roll over the tongue before swallowing. This allows you to enjoy the sweet notes on the tip of the tongue, then the bitter toward the end. Made sense to me!

Our first pairing was a Mt. Tam Triple Creme from Cowgirl Creamery and a Michelob Light. Yeah, I know, I was less than enthusiastic about this beer, but it actually was a good contrast to the mushroomy-creaminess of the Mt. Tam. Still. Michelob is not my usual preference, but in context it went well with the cheese. Well, the cheese enhanced the flavor of the Michelob.

Ok, onto round two. Now, I'm encapsulating this since there was much discussion, banter and nibbling between tastes. Jaques would regale us with some recipes and his energetic philosophy, and we'd hit them with questions. My first, pointed question to Javier has been dogging me since I started drinking.

Why rice?

Succinctly, Javier said during WWII there was a shortage of grain, so AB decided to use rice in its brewing process, and they’ve continued with it. I’m not a Budweiser enthusiast, so I’m not sure if the rice contributes to that or not, but he did say it has a very neutral flavor. That’s cool, they sell plenty of it, so it must work for some. As I said, my favorite everyday beer is Tecate.



Now for some craft beers. The next one was Harbin paired with Camembert, and this was a great combination. Harbin is a beer they market in China, and I have to say it holds it own against Tsing Tao. Harbin was an independent Chinese brewery that was purchased in 2004 by Anheuser Busch. I never had Harbin before, so I don’t know if there is a difference in flavor, but I imagine AB doesn’t mess with a good thing.

It was light, drinkable, and had the good Asian bite you find in many beers from that part of the world. The flavor of the Harbin cut the rich saltiness of the Camembert, which, by itself, would be a very rich flavor.

Next up, Stone Mill Pale Ale paired with Old Sport Cheddar. This is my new favorite cheese, I can tell you that. The pale ale had a hearty richness and mild sweetness. It is also certified organic, which is a good selling point for many people. I personally don’t care, I just like flavor. It had a nice hoppy flavor with overtones of caramel. Nothing too strong, certainly not as bold as Red Hook.

Now, the cheddar was a sharp kick in the teeth with nice grain and distributed salt crystals. It could almost be described as a premature parmesan. Not hard like parmesan, but it had a nice acrid bite that I love. By not being an overpowering beer, the pale ale was a nice contrast and good mellowing agent.



For the fourth tasting, we had a Jack’s Pumpkin Spice paired with a Wensleydale Cranberry. While I wasn’t a fan of the cheese, they did go well together. The beer was sweet without being overpowering, and the spices were mildly complex. I don’t think you could drink more than one or two, however, since it is a flavored beer and tends to get heavy after a few. Still, it was milder than many other seasonal or celebratory beers I’ve had, like Sierra Nevada Christmas Ale, which tastes like they threw a pine tree into the vat.

The last beer was my favorite, Michelob Porter. I notice the last year or so they’ve used the Michelob label to release some special brews, and this was a good one. It was paired with Oregonzola, which is a gorgonzola blue. This combination was a winner. The beer was chocolaty and smoky -very smoky- with a nice creamy head. It played off the bleu well, with the sharpness of the gorgonzola picking up the wave of smokiness.

So, you might have thought we got tanked by the end of the evening. Not really, we didn’t polish off all the beer (I know, that’s a foul in most households), and there was plenty of other food to absorb what we drank. It also lasted a little over three hours.

There was plenty of chatter and lots of information. One interesting note is that AB has refrigerators full of other beers from around the world, so that brewmasters can not only enjoy them, but come up with some new flavors. Clearly, most of these don’t reach market, AB is not known for its microbrew or craft beers, they stick with their core competency. I have to say, I was impressed with their array of flavors, but as George said, they have all the resources and expertise in the world, so naturally they could produce any beer they want to. Yeah, I hadn’t thought about that, you assume a company makes one particular kind of beer, they might be myopic, but the decision to only market drinkable lagers is based on money. Craft brews simply wouldn’t be as large of a profit center, which makes sense.

This wasn’t only selling Anheuser Busch products to food writers, although I just wrote a lengthy article about it, Jaques really did a good job throwing out recipes and pairing the flavors. Most of the brews I talked about will only be released as part of a gift pack, so its not like they’re preparing the public for a slew of new flavors.

Well, there you go. As I said, this was a free meal and free booze, so interpret that any way you want to. I’m not a fan of their regular beers except Bud Light, frankly the American default I go with is Miller because of its flavor characteristics, but AB does a fine job with producing alternate flavors. As I said, I really don’t drink American beers, except for some microbrews, so I go with Mexican for my everyday beer.



One last thing, they had a pile of hops on the table for us to check out. Hops, if you didn’t know, are in the same family Cannabacae, which includes marijuana. Yeah, I’ve smoked pot before, so there’s no need to freak out, but splitting open a hop smells exactly like marijuana. No, you can’t smoke them, but it was an interesting similarity I wasn’t prepared for. Ok, I tried to smoke one, but I just got drunk off it.

New Show Dropped

We finally recorded and dropped our latest show in the new format: explicit and dumb! We go over some show notes, read listener Email and discuss our new contributors and new direction we're taking Gastrologica Mark II, Freeform Jazz in Front of a Festival Crowd (Spinal Tap fans will get that). I'm kidding of course.

We also discuss Dan's recent trip to Hawaii and the food, culture and cooking he did there. I chime in with my personal experiences on three of the islands, and having been banned from only one so far.

Here are some links to Hawaii stuff we talk about:

Sam Choy's
Tommy Bahama Cafe
Sushi and Blues

The Rainbow Bar

I'm not gay, and the Rainbow Bar isn't a gay bar, even though it's located in West Hollywood. The Rainbow Bar is the most important and identifiable bar, post-concert hang out, and Rock 'n' Roll demolition derby in the history of hard rock. Every major rock band from the 70's and 80's who hit Los Angeles has stumbled and groped their way through the Rainbow, from Led Zeppelin's infamous drunken orgies to Lemmy playing a tabletop Ms. Pacman in the corner of the bar.

What Hard Rock Cafe lacks in authenticity, The Rainbow exudes in gravitas. Even so, it has lost much of its lustre since opening in 1973, now attracting aging rockers who are still clinging onto a faint dream of hitting it big as a Hair Band, even though most of it is gone toward the back of the skull. It's a place where old groupies go to relive their hazy dazys of debauchery, and maybe give an aging rocker a blowjob in the upstairs hallway. To put it short, it looks like a Spinal Tap convention.

It's a place like an aging headbanger like me can remember what it was like back in high school, with dreams of my own. One day, being the next Dimebag Darrell, not realizing I didn't have a shred of talent. And now poor Dimebag's dead.



Don't skip over that so quickly to get to the food review. Abbott Darrell was one of the greatest metal -or any genre- guitar players ever to pick up an instrument. He just had the honor of shoving it up your ass and lighting it on fire. He was gunned down onstage at a Damageplan concert, with his brother and drummer, Vinnie Abbott, witnessing the horrible tragedy.

As a great aside: Some months before his murder, Darrell had found out from one of his industry contacts that Eddie Van Halen and Charvel guitars were going to produce a limited-edition series of guitars bearing Van Halen's trademark tape-striping. Van Halen himself would be individually taping each guitar and they would also come with a picture of him doing so and a certificate of authenticity. According to Eddie, Darrell called him on the phone and asked if he could purchase one before they became available. Eddie replied that the next time he saw Darrell, he would have one of the guitars with him and would stripe it in Darrell's presence as a gift. Before they could meet again, Darrell was murdered. Eddie recounted this story when he spoke at Darrell's funeral, then, to the surprise of those in attendance, he brought out the black and yellow tape-striped guitar seen on the back cover of Van Halen II (which Darrell had said was his favorite guitar of Eddie's) and laid it in Darrell's casket to be buried with him. [this paragraph plagurized from wikipedia.org]



Yes, I was a metalhead, so the Rainbow Bar means a lot to me, and its history.

But, admittedly, nowadays, it's kind of a laughable scene. People who used to exemplify cool on the Sunset Strip -getting tanked before a Van Halen concert or getting laid in the bathroom after a Motley Crue show- now look way out of place in our Hip Hop dominated time and city.

My interest in Metal waned once I got into college, as this white guitar player started listening to a band his black hallmate turned me on to called Niggaz With Attitudes. Not only were all my metal friends baffled at this noise I was listening to, but I predicted they would eventually merge. Thank you Anthrax.



This isn't Anthrax



But this is NWA, when Cube went through 9 bottles of activator a day. In this picture, it looks like Ren stole his supply.

So the Rainbow only serves to relive a time before that, when I really didn't have a care in the world, and thought music and video games were all life was about. Funny enough, 80 million kids have now adopted that same philosophy. It's nice to be a trendsetter.

So why go there? Well, first of all, its fun. It's a blast, even if you're not posing. Especially when you spill out of the Roxy, which is an icon all its own, the place where Sargeant Stedenko got stoned while Cheech and Chong won the battle of the bands inside. Good times.



Secondly, since they also cater to a moderate tourist crowd, they charge you $10 cover, but you get two tickets, each good for a drink or $5 towards food. Not a bad deal. Of course, they hope you get drunk and forget to use them, but I've gone back at later dates and they only use two colors, so you can easily use them in the future.

Last, and most obvious, since this is a food site, is the food. Bet you were wondering when I'd get to that. The food is better than you'd expect from an institution on the verge of selling franchise licenses, because they've already opened up a new branch in Las Vegas. The scene is entirely different.


See, that's the Rainbow Bar in Vegas. Quite a difference.

The food is straight up American food, well executed and in large portions. Let's face it, you don't go to the Rainbow Bar, you end up at the Rainbow, so chances are you're gonna have big-time munchies. Nevertheless, I've been there drunk and sober, and the food is good. Couple that with the atmosphere, its a great place to either wind down the evening, or get into some serious trouble fueling a two-fisted bender as you're about to drive that SUV down Sunset Strip. The good news is, there's a high probability you'll get to share the drunk tank with Paris Hilton.



Even though I don't have the pictures to prove it, their escargot (yeah, escargot) is well made, with garlic butter spiked heavily with garlic. Sop it up with a side of bread and you've bought yourself a one way ticket to Palpatationsville on the Drunk Express.


Again, Vegas.

The pizzas are amazing. No, they're not as good as Grotto or Ledo on the East coast, but they are strong contendors. Seriously heavy, laden with cheese and sauce, and a crust to support a heap of toppings. A party of four still has to try to give away the last piece, because everyone is stuffed at the end of the night.

While you're eating, take a look around you. Ok, so it looks like a Hard Rock with all the rock pictures, autographed headshots, gold albums and iconic posters hanging on the wall. But, at least here you know a guitar god or inveterate drunken lead singer puked on a table somewhere. The crowd compliments the surroundings, not looking nearly as incongruous as a family of hawaiian shirt wearing tourists eating baby back ribs next to Kerry King's autographed BC Rich axe at Hard Rock, Key West.



The burgers will make you sweat. Huge and lovingly piled with bacon, cheese, tomato, lettuce, onion, tuning pegs, sweaty bra and patch cable, the burger is satisfying and hard to finish. The food is hard to finish because you'll usually load up on appetizers. My favorite, besides the escargot, are the fried cheese balls (next stop, The Village of Defribulation) with a side of marinara for dumping.



Beers, beers and more beers. Decent well drinks. Loose, drunk women with big, partially sagging racks. What more could a guy want? Well, he would want a bathroom on the first floor, but that's not going to happen. Inevitably, when you have to stagger to the bathroom, you'll be doing it up a flight of stairs, which can make for some exciting incidental contact with a girl's spandex. A girl, as far as you can tell from behind.

So, sure, the Rainbow is a little worn like a groupie with 25 years of wear and tear between her thighs, and a methadone habit she's been trying to kick for the 19th time, but it still remains an icon. No longer the hub of Sunset Strip's vibrant 70's scene or 80's metal resurgence, it still appeals to rock fans old and new, even those of us who now think our faded idols like Iron Maiden or Richie Blackmore sound a little silly, look a little funny, and actually came up with those lyrics as grown adults.



It also revives respect for them as musicians, no longer shrouded in swirling controversy of whatever album they happened to desecrate an icon, or slander an ideal. They were just talented people like you and me, who struck the right combination of aggression, rebellion, virtuosity, immaturity, alcoholism and drug addiction. There were gods in those days.

Yes, We'll Be Recording

I know, I know. Lots of re-arrangement, lots of diversions. Dan is moving this week, so we'll carve out a time to record the latest Gastrologica. We'll be reviewing his sojurn to Hawaii and focus a bit on the upcoming fall season: Soups, gourds, squashes, those kind of things.

I know you're getting sick of hearing this, but Gastrologica is independent now, so you'll need to download us directly from iTunes. We also sport a nifty 'explicit' tag now, so you'll never hear another beep or overdub again. Have no fear, neither of us are into contrived controversy, so we're not going to purposefully hike up the vulgarity for vulgarity's sake. Maybe the first show, but it'll all settle down from there.

We're also looking at a couple of video projects, maybe some 'live' cooking segments for alla y'alls.



As for food talk here, Rohit and I made the mistake of eating BBQ at Malibu Inn, which should not have been a surprise, since they are better known for live music than food. World famous, yes, but not for their food, even though they claim their BBQ is known throughout the visible universe.

First gotcha is ordering pork, but getting beef. Second gotcha is them insisting it's pork. Come on. Pork shreds, beef gets cut into strips, and this was cut into strips. There was also no intrinsic flavor in the meat. It's like they boiled the meat and slathered on the BBQ sauce as an afterthought. In fact, that's exactly what they did.

Rohits chicken was tasteless in and of itself, but the BBQ sauce was definitely pronounced. And my beef tasted like chicken. Watery and flavorless, it had no taste of its own. What a shame, to have such a great location and let the food slide like that.

On the flip side, they do have hot waitresses and the pool is free during the day (Unless that was some overzealous biker who kicked out the plastic panel holding in the balls. Nevertheless, a good place to kick back and have a few beers. Just eat before going.

Show Note: Check Your Feed

We recategorized Gastrologica on iTunes, so you may need to re-subscribe to the feed. You can, of course, get it here by the links on the right, but if you subscribe through iTunes, it's now found under Comedy...with an explicit tag. Hooray for explitives! And good sophomoric, crude fude information.