No. 191: A "Square Meal" Bloody Mary @ The Californian (Huntington Beach)

Bloody Mary may be a quintessential daytime cocktail but it's pretty rare for me to order this hair of the dog to go with my brunch. Unlike the simpler-to-make mimosas and bellinis, there are so many components and variations to this drink, which means so much can go wrong. And I've had my share of bloodies that are too alcoholic / tart / salty / spicy / astringent or some combination thereof.

But can I build a better one myself? That's exactly what I'm about to find out @ The Californian at Hyatt Regency Resort at Huntington Beach, where I was invited to partake in a Bloody Mary mixoff against blogger Marian the Foodie & Teri from Great Taste Magazine, using the vast spread of components from their DIY Bloody Mary spread and with the hotel's management & the Californian's chef judging. Yikes!

Despite my wariness about ordering Bloody Marys, I'm rather inspired by drink's many variations, and the many ways you can switch up the recipe. One version I'm particularly enamored with is Alberta Straub of Cocktails on the Fly, whose bloody mary involves her own custom veggie juice-based mix, pepper-infused vodka and even spiced rimming salt to make a complete 'liquid meal'

Taking a page from that concept, I decided to create a 'Square Meal' Bloody Mary covering all the food categories, using approximately

2 ounces of vodka
8 ounces of their house spicy bloody mary mix
salt (half-rimmed)
juice of half a lemon, plus an extra wedge
a stalk of celery
4 fresh basil leaves
2-3 blue cheese-stuffed olives
4-5 dashes of Tabasco Habanero sauce
1/2 teaspoon of fresh horseradish
and, to cover the meat category, a slice of bacon!

And while it didn't take home the prize tonight (Marian got that honor with her "Asian Spice Bloody Mary",) I was pretty pleased with my creation, which has a nice kick balanced with citrusy & vegetal notes and a slight tinge of smokiness, and it's nice to nibble on the skewer of bacon or cheesy olive as I sipped along.

But the best part is that when you brunch here @ The Californian, you can get endless DIY Bloody Marys (or Champagne... or Mimosas) with your buffet for $38/person and for the designated driver in your group, the delectable buffet itself is $23. And considering the dozens of ingredients you can throw in there, plus over 20 hot sauces for you to experiment with, you'll be mighty thankful to have that DD along...

... not to mention a fantastic view of Huntington Beach to mellow the rest of your day away (incidentally, Hyatt is the only hotel in Huntington Beach with a pedestrian bridge going over & across the PCH, so you can easily get to the beach for a lovely stroll, skate, bike ride, dip or surf!)

The Californian @ The Hyatt Regency
21500 Pacific Coast Highway
Huntington Beach, CA
(714) 845-4776

Have It My Way . . .

My vegetarian "Balsamic Egg" @ Melisse, with balsamic caramelized onions instead of the usual caviar

Why am I not surprised that a little twitter debate about foodservice turn into something like this?
Might as well take this straight into Godwin territory since I've been pondering on the idea of "(food) Nazis" for awhile and their "my way or the highway" idea of serving dishes, sooner giving potential patrons the boot rather than swap or omit an ingredient. And the diners who love them . . . are they devout believers in the chef's unwavering culinary vision? Or masochist flocks of sheep idly following whereever the sheperd leads them?

Like my views on most other things, I'm in shades of gray for this matter. Even when I was working in the foodservice biz, I don't subscribe to the "customer is always right" mindset (esp. when I was @ a coffee bar and people kept expecting me to make drinks just like S***bucks... a standard macchiato is not a mostly-milk and caramel-ladened beverage! RAWR! But I digress...) But on the other end of the spectrum, the notion of unilaterally refusing all spec requests just feels wrong--especially for an industry based on the idea of hospitality (rather than hostility.)

I'm not one who typically make special requests when I dine out (the vegetarian egg on top was a standard @ Melisse's meatless tasting menu,) but it just irks me to have that option taken away (something akin to how pro-choicers aren't actively seeking abortions.) And people who love (food) Nazis typically reply "if you can't deal with having it the chef's way, then don't go" and honestly, I'm disinclined to head to those places. But I just feel sad for all the first-time patrons who, not having done a little homework beforehand, get bluntly rebuked and then are saddled with ordering something less-than-ideal for them or having to find another place to eat at.

I get it took considerable R&D for the chef to create their dishes to be enjoyed as is and that spec. requests at the very least throws an annoying wrench into the cadence of things. I also get the "trust me" concept and have a certain admiration for a chef's ballsiness in doing that, but I also see trust as a two way street. Just like how diners are trusting the restaurant staff to prepare something delicious, why can't the staff occasionally trust a customer's deviant personal taste and honor their request to have something subsituted/taken out? Especially when it's something as simple as holding the pickle on the burger or for the dressing come on the side--and not as absurd as ordering a BLT but swap the bacon out for --- (yes, another WTF? order I'd gotten while working @ a sandwich/salad joint.)

There are varying degrees of appropriateness for switches and scraps, I'm not for catering to a picky eater's every whim, but not universally denying all requests either.

Despite pulling out racist card, Midtown Lunch does make an interesting analogy between chefs and artists . . .
. . . to which I rebut
because operating a restaurant is more akin to a live performance - with different & everchanging audience, vibe, etc. - and not just a one-off recording of a song or molding of a sculpture.

But at the end of the day, it is what it is -- given the great diversity of food scene here in LA, there's something to cater to every whim (or lack thereof.) Truly finicky diners who can't stop customizing everything they order can go to the likes of the have-it-your-way establishments, and (food) Nazis will still have their fanbases who are willing take it however it's dished out. And while I don't often dine @ places falling in either extreme of that spectrum, I'm definitely a lot more cautious before checking out places falling in the latter.

AND--having said all that, curious to see how everyone feels about the (food) Nazi phenomenon . . .

No. 190: Tasting a "Mai Tai" @ Library Bar (Hollywood)

While more than half the country is bundling in layers, keeping their furnace on full blast and generally freezing their butts off, here in LA we get to complain about the occasional drizzles, temperature dipping below 50F, and how all those award shows are disrupting our usual commutes.

Oh, and we get to hold Mai Tai making contests too!

For the past 3 weeks, Los Angeles magazine has held a mixoff amongst 9 of the top bartenders in town, with 3 finalists mixing off in a showdown next week @ the Supperclub.

As much as I would love to visit all 9 bars; alas, I only managed to squeeze in a checkout of Library Bar @ the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel (and that's only because I had dinner plans in that hotel's restaurant that night.)

And as expected, bar master Matt Biancaniello - known for his farmer's market bar setup with plenty of fresh herbs, fruits and veggies next to housemade bitters and syrups - took the ubiquitous tropical drink to a whole new level, with a nine-ingredient concoction aptly named Lost in Laos . . .

. . . which he described as "a Mai Tai and a Pina Colada making love on the islands of Thailand." However geographically challenged, it was a delightful cocktail that definitely pushes the standard boundaries of a Mai Tai. Using ginger & pistachio syrups and lime juice in lieu of the orgeat, it was also given an aromatic boost with green Chartreuse, kaffir lime zest plus basil and curry leaves, rounded out with coconut milk for some richness.

And upon sipping, I can smell and taste Matt's colorful description -- with the fragrance of a Thai green curry and the creamy-tangy flavor profile of the pina colada, finishing off with a pleasant linger of nutty & spicy aftertastes, provoking me to take another sip. Mmmm...

Of course, don't take my word for it, give it a try yourself @ The Library Bar. And while you're at it, check out the versions whipped up by Joe Brooke @ the Edison and Naomi Schimek @ First & Hope, the two other contenders this week, with the winner facing off against Spare Room's Aidan Demarest & La Descarga's Adrian Biggs. And your vote also gets you a chance to win a Hawaii vacation! Mai tai included, of course.

Cook-Off @ Panda Express . . .

... or how I turned into a nervous wreck, sabotaged my team and possibly poisoned their head honcho.

But first things first, yes, I readily admit to occasionally eating at Panda Expresses. As far as fast & mall foods go, I find it pretty decent -- they have a slew of freshly chopped & cooked vegetables (a whole fridge's worth!) that gets incorporated into almost all their items, they let you sample up the wazoo before you have to commit to an order (try doing that @ a burger joint,) and of course the infamous Orange Chicken, a sinful dish that capitalizes on primal tastebud desires: something sweet, something meaty & something fried.

So when I was invited to participate in their Wok Star Challenge @ the Panda Restaurant Group HQ in Rosemead (as well as an opportunity to meet with their exec. chef Andy Kao,) I enthusiastically replied yes -- even if my own wokking skills are on the rudimentary side.

And when I saw the other bloggers I'll be competing with (Cathy of Gastronomy, her hubby Vernon of Stellar Recipes, Hong & Kim of Ravenous Couple, Patti of Worth the Whisk, Quyen of Kitchen Runway and Jenna of LA Canvas/Eater LA,) I was SO ready to raise my white flag, only to feel majorly relieved and thankful to discover the everyone's going to be randomly paired up, and that I'll be Hong's sous-chef for the night.

After our team's decided, we were escorted to their cafeteria and test kitchen (structured as a typical Panda Express restaurant) where we were given a brief history of the company, met Chef Kao, and watched as he demo-cooked their latest entree dish, the Firecracker Chicken Breast to coincide with the recent Lunar New Year.

After a quick lesson in cleaver chopping (again, thankful that I got to chop bell peppers and not the onions, or I'd be BAWLING w tears!) and a demo on wok handling & cleaning, we were shown the table of ingredients . . .

. . . given a quick rundown of each item, and then "you have 20 minutes to prepare and plate a dish to judge, starting NOW!"

Commence eight bloggers freaking out, trying to conceptualize a dish while grabbing ingredients like we're on Supermarket Sweep.

Photo courtesy of Panda Express, since we were all going mad prepping, cooking & plating

After a minute of discussion, Hong & I decided to go for some originality points and utilize kumquats in our chicken dish by infusing the cooking oil with thin slices of it. As Hong stir-fried away, I took on the role of expediter, shuttling back and forth between the ingredients table and the cooking station with extra components needed. Simple enough, right?

And yet, I still fail-whaled when Hong's request for rice wine turned into me dumping an ounce or two of LEMON JUICE into the wok. After sampling the puckery piece 'o poultry, I tried to compensate by squeezing a generous dose of honey into the stir-fry. Can't go wrong with sweet & sour, right?

Nonetheless, I am just glad we finished & plated in the 20 minute time frame. We named our dish "Fortune Chicken" as a play on ubiquitous - though not exactly Chinese - fortune cookies, to reflect the lucky yellow-red colors of the entreé and as an homage to the numerous good luck blessings that come around Lunar New Year (which I could use a LOT of for this cookoff.)

Let Chef Kao's tasting and judging begin. And I agree with Cathy the man's got quite a poker face . . .

. . . not to mention the diplomatic charm of UN ambassador when he ever-so-politely told us that the Chinese sausage in our dish was undercooked! Eeek! But I did love how he tried to assuage our fears of almost food poisoning him by saying, "I bit, but I didn't swallow!"

The winners of the night were Cathy & Quyen with their Spicy Jackfruit Chicken, which is was totally delicious (and I even packed some of it to-go!) And as winners, Panda Restaurant Group donated $250 to each of their chosen charities: Southern California Golden Retriever Rescue & Cooking Matters Los Angeles (formerly Operation Frontline, the benefactor of last year's BloggerProm.) Congrats!

And after all that excitement and tension, we relaxed over a Panda Express meal cooked by Chef Kao; which of course included plenty of their Orange Chicken. Woohoo!

Despite not winning (I knew my chances were slim anyways,) it was a wicked fun time to hang out and cook with other bloggers (without worrying about the clean-up too!) and get a little inside look about company. So thanks to Panda for hosting the event and the swanky parting gifts (including a wok, which worked out well for me since I was already shopping around for something to replace my skillet.)

Now that I got the cook-off out of the way, will I fare better at a Bloody Mary mix-off? Stay tuned...

More photos from the cookoff on my flickr here

No. 189: Lou [on Vine] (Hollywood)

Lou on Vine has been languishing in my list of places to try for a while. A casual-chic wine bar in the most unexpected setting (the less glitzy parts of Hollywood, in a strip mall and next to a laundromat,) it sets the benchmark for a wine bar that's unpretentious, casual and adventurous with a smallish menu of comforting yet mildly eccentric bites. And soon approaching its fifth year anniversary, surely a good sign.

So when Conbon proposed checking Lou out for their $55/person wine-paired Monday supper w our mutual friend Mr Grumpy, I immediately agreed.

To start off, we shared a plate of the Pig Candy that they are so famous for: pieces of thick-sliced bacon coated in brown sugar and cayenne for a curious combo of sweet, savory and spicy. But like many sweet-savory dishes, it was a fun little trick on my tastebuds but got boring quickly, so I was glad I splitted this already smallish dish--the equivalent of one and a half strips. Nonetheless, glad to finally taste what all the hoopla's about.

Our first official course of the Monday supper was oyster stew, inspired by the Oyster Bar @ NYC's Grand Central Station and definitely a foreigner of a soup in Los Angeles, a city still obsessed over pureéd soups w a monotonous consistency resembling warmed baby food. The stew here was a delightful coupling of contradictions . . . lusciously milky yet still dainty & delicate, with the ever-so-subtle flavors of the sweet, succulent oysters, the occasional tangy pop of the cherry tomato half and the aromatic sprinkling of chives & coarse black pepper -- co-existing in a sensual harmony. It was also a beautiful pairing with Domaine Rolet Cotes du Jura Oak-aged Chardonnay, which on its own was a bit too puckery and funky for my tastes (especially as a first wine) but was a wonderful complement against the mildly rich and slightly savory soup.

Still basking in the comfort of the soup, we were presented with the main dish - Niman Ranch hanger steak seared medium-rare with wild mushrooms, romanesco broccoli, Tepary beans and what I think is a basic pan gravy. I do believe this is my first steak since my vegetarian days, and boy do I remember what I missed--this piece of beef was simply divine. Juicy, just tender enough and bursting with meaty flavor--so impeccably seasoned and seared it hardly needs the sauce, which was practically liquid umami. The vegetables were tasty too but I wished there were more of it (my plate had only four romanesco cones and only a smattering of shrooms,) and the beans remind me of Indian lentils but were a great conduit for that tasty gravy.

With something a dish like this, the pairing of the Rhoney Domaine Viret Solstice VII wasn't a surprise. Bold with muskiness & leathery tannins, it stood up well against the beefy steak and savory gravy, which in turn opened up the berry and flowery characteristics of this wine. Talk about putting the dynamic in biodynamic (which this wine is -- and according to Lou's blogpost, the farming practices for this vineyard "makes [other] biodynamics look like a Monsanto sponsored experiment.")

After the big n bold course and wine, we were taken back to a lighter side with an undressed salad of frisee, apple, walnut and Big Woods blue cheese. The cheese itself felt like a cross between a gorgonzola and an aged cheddar, having that ripened nutty tang, a fairly firm texture and the occasional streak of assertive blue spunk, nicely complemented by the delicate, faintly bitter greens, crisp and sweet apple wedge and crunchy nuts. The wine, a Auslese Riesling from Bert Simon, was rich, full-bodied and sweet, with peachy-apple and gasoliney notes that weirdly played very well with the salad.

Finishing off our meal was a simple stacked dessert of sponge cake, whipped cream, slivered almonds and chocolate ganache. The ganache itself is definitely infused with orange, and the cream had a tinge of almond. The dessert was just 'not bad' mainly because it had "straight out of the fridge" feel -- unusually cool, bordering on stale. I can totally see why this place, with a presumably small kitchen, would pre-prep its desserts especially for a prix-fixe night, but wish they'd work with something that would be easier to make ahead, store and serve instantly (say... a pot de creme, panna cotta or a tiramisu?)

The other off part of the night came when we paid our bill (w separate cards & cash) where the server interpreted "the rest in cash" as "*keep* the rest in cash." While we really wanted only $5 in change and still leaving about $30 in tip, it was a unexpected service faux pas. But we didn't press for the money back.

Despite the two final mishaps (guess they haven't read up much on the peak-end rule,) I still found my supper at Lou a relaxing, pleasant and overall delicious experience that's a worthwhile bang for the buck. Now that I've tried the pig candy, I don't feel compelled to have to order it again next time around, but I do look forward to checking out more of their eclectic wines and maybe give them a second chance with the sweets.

Lou (on Vine)
724 Vine Street
Los Angeles, CA 90038
323.962.6369
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